Matthew 28:9-15


Matthew 28:9-15
9 And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and take word to My brethren to leave for Galilee, and there they will see Me.” 11 Now while they were on their way, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that had happened. 12 And when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, 13 and said, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’ 14 “And if this should come to the governor’s ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble.” 15 And they took the money and did as they had been instructed; and this story was widely spread among the Jews, and is to this day.

What we choose to believe will make a huge difference in our lives.  We need to realize that there is an enemy at work all around this world that is planting lies in our minds and in the cultures of this world.  These lies erode man’s trust in God and fill our hearts with doubt.  God is truth and has revealed the truth to us in His Word.  We must be careful to trust that truth even when surrounded by the lies that are planted in the culture around us.  We continue to live in a battle about truth.  May the Lord grant us wisdom and discernment and may His truth permeate our hearts and minds.

A TRUTH THAT WAS NOT BELIEVED: When Jesus appeared to the women and they worshiped Him, they were instructed to go tell the disciples that they had seen Jesus and to go meet Him in Galilee.  They followed the instructions and went to the disciples, but they still doubted.  As we have seen so often, these were the men God had told all about His death and resurrection.  The women were telling the truth, yet they were not believed.  One thing that is important to understand about truth, is that it does not matter whether or not you believe it, it is still truth.  Today there are many who continue to doubt the resurrection or even the existence of God, for that matter.  This unbelief does not change the fact that God created the universe, sent His Son to die to pay the price for our sin and then resurrected Him from the dead because the Father’s justice had been satisfied.  Make sure that you are believing and resting in the truth.

A LIE THAT WAS BELIEVED: When the guards the Pharisees were paying to watch the tomb reported the miraculous events surrounding the resurrection of Jesus, their worst dreams came true.  They were faced with a choice.  They could admit the implications of the resurrection, that Jesus was the Messiah, they had crucified Messiah and that God had raised Him from the dead.  They could have repented of their sin, fallen before the Lord and begged for His forgiveness.  The result of this would have been eternal salvation and a spiritual revival in Israel the likes of which we have yet to see.  Instead, they chose to double down on their lies, try to save face and ignore the truth.  They paid the guards to lie.  The interesting thing about lies is that they are very hard to keep straight.  The first lie was that the disciples came and took the body away.  This would obviously raise a lot of questions as to how some fishermen overpowered a bunch of Roman soldiers.  So, another lie had to be fabricated; that they were asleep when this happened.  There are only two problems with that plan.  The first was that they could lose their jobs for sleeping on duty.  The Pharisees promised to protect them and take care of them if there was a problem.  The second is how in the world would they know that His disciples were the one who came to take His body away if they were sleeping?  Despite the obvious flaws in their reasoning, the poorly formed lie was believed and continues to be believed to this day.

APPLICATION: Know that Satan is the father of lies.  It is easy for us to fall into the trap of believing those lies because the usually align with the desires of our hearts and what seems to be an easy or advantageous position.  When confronted with the truth about our false beliefs or sinful practices, repent instead of doubling down on our sin.  Trust the truth of God’s Word even when is seems impractical or impossible.  He is the God of the impossible. 

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