3452. Belief in the Resurrection

A Sermon Published On Thursday, April 1, 1915.

He is risen. {Mr 16:6}

1. Our Lord always told his disciples that he would rise. They were astonished to hear that he would die at all: they could not think it possible that he could die by the terrible death which he often hinted at. Had they understood and really believed that he would rise again, they might not have been so surprised by his death, but often as he spoke of it, their minds seemed to have been like their eyes on some occasions, blinded so that they could not see, and if they perceived his meaning, it ran so contrary to all their ideas of a kingdom for a Messiah, that they could not somehow grasp it as a reality.

2. I. Now one of the first things that strikes the reader of the chapter before us shall furnish us with our first point of contemplation tonight:—THE ALMOST UNIVERSAL POWER OF UNBELIEF IN THE CHURCH.

3. This is a good example to illustrate a general fact, for our Saviour said in their hearing in plain terms told them that he would rise again. Yet on the third day not one whom we know of, expected him to rise. When they were informed that he had risen, by eye-witnesses, by people whom they had been accustomed to treat as deserving of all credence, people with whom they had been long acquainted, every one of them was incredulous: they could not believe it, though it was testified to them again and again. As you read this chapter through, you find first one example and then another of this general incredulity about a thing on which all ought to have been sound believers. You find, first, the women—very tender, very loving, always accustomed to minister to Christ’s needs in the days of his flesh: now their very love leads them to an unbelieving act. If he is risen, and he said he would rise, what need of grave-clothes, what need of precious ointments, and spikenard, and spice, in which to embalm him? It was love that said “Embalm him,” but it was unbelieving love that made them think the thing was necessary to be done. All through those tender hearts, in which so much of heavenly ardour for Christ was found, there was also found this leaven of mischief.

4. But the men—the strong sex, will they not also, their hearts being full of love, and having walked with Christ, many of them having strong judgments, having noticed and weighed what he said, will they not believe? No! Peter and John, though they come to the sepulchre come there with heavy hearts, evidently with no expectation such as would have been aroused by the belief that Christ had risen. The whole brotherhood of the disciples appear to have gone altogether over to an unbelief of the thought that Jesus Christ would rise.

5. But there were some favoured ones—there were the eleven. These were the elect out of the elect, the spiritual life-guard, the very body-guard of the Saviour. Surely, if faith is extinct everywhere else, we shall find it in them. They were in the garden at his passion, some of them were on Tabor at his transfiguration, three of them, at any rate, were in the room where he raised the dead. They had seen his miracles, they themselves had distributed the bread which by a miraculous power he had multiplied for the feeding of the multitude. They had seen him walk the sea—one of them had himself trodden on the liquid waves, and found it marble beneath his feet when Christ had invited him to come. They had seen the tempest hushed, they had seen demons expelled, all of them had beheld many marvellous displays of divine power. These choice ones, especially those three mighty, those chosen three, would believe! Yet they also were tinctured with this same evil; they did not have such a faith in their Master as they should have had.

6. And now this was only, I think, a portrait of what has been ever since the great mischief in the Church of God. This sin of sins—unbelief—is still at this very hour too common among the people of God. Suppose I talk to the majority of God’s people, the quiet, humble people, who go about their business and serve God in their households. Shall I find them all full of faith, giving glory to God? No, I am not long with some of them before I hear their doubts as to whether they are his or not. I hear some of them singing:—

   “Do I love the Lord or no;

      Am I his, or am I not?”

7. Truly, I see many of them happy and joyful, contented and trustful, but not always so, even they. Sometimes even these seem to give way to fears and suspicions, and they half think that he has forgotten to be gracious—will be mindful of them no more. Truly it is written, “If the Son of man comes, shall he find faith on the earth?” He may look for it, and look for it long, for among his own believing people, yet faith is all too rare a thing—hard to be found. It is true it is in its essence always in the Church, but yet so feeble that often the fire is rather what trembles in the smoking flax, and almost expires, than the spark that seeks the sun, the Father, the flame from which at first it came.

8. Now suppose I turn away from the majority of Christians, and select for myself those who take office in Christ’s Church, appointed by him, gifted, and given, as the result of the ascension, to the Church as the Church’s treasure. My brethren, what shall I say about deacons, elders, and such-like in the Church of God? Where do I find you? Do I not find often in church officers a slackness of enterprise, a fear lest this should be too great a thing or that too venturesome? Have I not heard—though certainly I may say I have not experienced—have I not heard that sometimes those who should lead the Church have held her back, and those who should be first and foremost to sustain the Christian ministry in every holy effort, have they not been sometimes a very drag on the wheels to hinder it? And if it is so in their official acting, I fear it is not much better in their own private capacity before God. Alas! Oh Israel, your captains are weak; your mighty men tremble. But suppose I select those God has especially favoured and made the winners of souls. Do I find these at all times confident in the God whose gospel they proclaim? Are they always calmly reliant on that eternal power which has ordained them to their work?

9. Each man of us must speak for himself; but I fear most of us might take up a wailing for ourselves, and confess that we also too often must say, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” The prayer of the apostles is a suitable prayer for ministers, “Lord increase our faith” For, if our faith is not increased, we cannot expect that the faith of the multitude will be. Christ’s ministers ought to be to Christ’s army a kind of spiritual scouts, who ride on ahead to investigate the country, to take hold of it before the main body comes up. They should be the men to lead the forlorn hope; they should be first in the trench whenever a citadel is to be taken by storm. Their hearts should never fail them; they should be men of large conceptions and bold designs: men to fall back on the Infinite, and rely on the unseen. Are we always to such a degree as we ought to be? No, I fear that the chapter of church history which is being now written is, in the sight of God, much blotted by the unbelief of all his people. There is faith—I bless God for it—and in some cases very eminent faith; but taking us altogether, alas! we must make up a sorrowful confession of our shortcomings in the matter of our faith in the living God.

10. II. Now, turning to the chapter again, we shall get our second point of consideration:—THE GREAT CURE WHICH OUR Lord PRESCRIBED FOR THE MATTER OF UNBELIEF.

11. As far as this chapter goes, it lies in the fact that he is risen. He is risen from the dead. You will observe everywhere here, where we encounter the unbelief of man, we find the fact of the resurrection of Christ brought in like light to subdue the darkness. Here are the women in difficulties: it is the resurrection of Christ that removes the difficulty. Who shall roll away the stone for us? The stone is rolled away because Christ is risen. The angel has taken away the stone door of the prison-house because it was time that the captive should go free.

12. Now here the Lord seems to tell us that the best and grandest cure for all our fear about difficulty lies in this, “The Lord is risen.” You serve a living Saviour. What is the difficulty? Is it a providential one? He is the Master of providence, for “the government shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God.” That difficulty, then, which would obstruct you in your pathway to heaven, if you trust in him, must vanish because Jesus lives. If the Captain of the host were dead, it would be a bad thing for us to be serving a dead Captain, but since he lives, girt with omnipotence, difficulties must vanish before him. Does it happen that the difficulty which troubles us is one concerning our service to our Lord? Do we have a hard heart to deal with in the child whose conversion we seek, in our class, in the Sunday School, or do we have prejudices that hinder our way in the congregation that we address week by week, and that we hope to convert to Jesus by his Spirit? Are we called to plough an unthankful soil that breaks the ploughshare? Is there something just now before us that looks like a gate of bronze and a wall of iron? Here is the one comfort concerning it all. The Lord lives. “He is not here; he is risen.” He is not dead; his power does not lie paralysed in the tomb; he lives and goes before you, leading the vanguard of all the noble of those who died for his crown and glory. On with you, then, in the name of God! May this be your might that Jesus lives. From now on, let difficulties be only rejoiced in as things to be overcome, as opportunities for glorifying him by the exercise of your faith in him, which will be followed by the revelation of his power. So then that vanishes.

13. If unbelief raises difficulties, “The Lord is risen” is the cure for them all. Suppose our unbelief takes the form of fright. It does sometimes. It did in the case of these good women—they were frightened, we are told in the fifth verse. We are told again in the eighth verse that they fled from the sepulchre, for they trembled. Now we may be frightened by a great many things. Some people are so timid that they are frightened by nothing: their own shadow will frighten them. But there may be real matters that should cause us to tremble if we did not have something better to fall back on other than ourselves. Now a frightened Christian is like a man out of his wits. He is pretty sure to do something that will make his danger greater. Self-possession, calm composure, a quiet mind, these have often saved lives, have frequently prevented the destruction of a cause that was just then in peril. If you can be calm amid bewildering circumstances, confident of victory in the end, that will half win the battle itself. If you can rest in the Lord, or, to use the words of Moses, “stand still and see the salvation of God,” you will surely come out unscathed from the evil. Now the best cure for fright is the fact that Jesus is risen. Why, how am I to be afraid when he who is King of kings and Lord of lords is my shepherd, and will surely intervene for my protection? If my Lord were dead, then I would be unsafe, but while Jesus lives I am secure. “Because I live, you shall live also.” Oh! what a grand sentence that is! “I give to my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any snatch them out of my hand.” Who are you, then, that you should be afraid of a man who shall die, and of the son of man who is only as the moth? Rest in your living Saviour “Do not fear; I am with you—I am with you—do not be dismayed, for I am your God.” “I will strengthen you; yes, I will help you; I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness. When you pass through the rivers, I will be with you; the floods shall not overflow you. When you go through the fire, you shall not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle on you.” “I am God, I do not change; therefore, you sons of Jacob are not consumed.” Come back, then, if you are tempest-tossed, terrified, trembling, and frightened, and, because Jesus lives, be quiet, and in patience possess your souls.

14. I notice in the chapter that the next form of unbelief is amazement. These good women, in addition to being afraid, were amazed—could not figure it out. It was too great a mystery. How could it be? It troubled them—it troubled them. Now in all times of our amazement about great gospel truths, we shall always find the best way to get out of the amazement is to hold firmly by faith to the veracity and truthfulness of God, and to hold firmly to what we can understand—to a fact that has been proved better than other facts of history have been proved, the fact that the Lord Jesus is risen from the dead. It is generally when you are in trouble about some great doctrine; a bad thing to argue about that doctrine while you are troubled about it. Think more of what you do believe, of what you are sure of, than just now of that matter which staggers you. You will find that, if you receive the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and rest in that as being a guarantee of your resurrection, you have the key to many other precious truths; and as one doctrine draws on another as the links of a chain, you will find your amazement at some of the most stupendous mysteries of the faith will be cured by your grasping the first simplicity and fundamental doctrine of the faith of the gospel, that the Lord Jesus, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, and dead, and buried, and the third day rose again in very flesh and blood, and lives for ever, sitting on the right hand of God, reigning in very great power. You will not be amazed nor frightened; you will not be made to tremble, or be bewildered, if you keep close to this—“He lives! He lives! This I know, and on this I rest.”

15. Further, it seems that these good women were much prevented in doing their duty by their unbelief. They were told to go and speak to the disciples, but, at any rate for a time, they did not do so, for it is written, “Neither did they say anything to any man, for they were afraid.” Those tongues that eventually in calmer moments would bear such a sure testimony were, through their fears which sprang from their unbelief, quite dumb. They could not speak. Oh! and this is a complaint that is very common in the Church. I know some who could preach, but do not, and it is unbelief that silences them. And you today, perhaps, were in company where you ought to have spoken a loving and an earnest word, and you did not, and it was a wrong timidity that kept you quiet. And you have been many times in your life cast into positions where usefulness would have been very easy, but at the same time you found it hard, because you forgot that Jesus lives—you forgot that he lives to watch his people, lives to render them assistance when they are in the path of service. Oh! if we knew he lived—indeed! knew that he was here—knew that he was close to us, and that his heart never forgot us, and his eye was never closed on us—we should be swift in the ways of duty, and a stammering tongue would begin to speak; and the now unhallowed silence which spoils the Church, and robs her of many a triumph, would be broken by our willing testimony, and by our cheerful song. The best cure for the dumb devil that sometimes possesses us is a belief in the living and pleading Saviour.

16. Further on, as your eye glances down the chapter, you will see unbelief connecting itself with wounded affection. When Mary Magdalene came to the disciples, she found them weeping, weeping for sorrow, men and women of God, a very mournful company, all weeping, weeping for a dead Saviour—the dearest friend they had ever had, who first had given them spiritual conceptions and lifted them out of their former grovelling state. He was gone: he was dead, and they could only weep. But they stopped weeping, or would have done so if they had known or believed that he was risen. It was the last thing they should have done, to be weeping. He rising, and they weeping! All the harps of heaven ringing out melodious praise, and those most concerned in the glorious fact still weeping! Every angel in heaven bending from the sacred battlements to look down on a risen Saviour with admiring gaze, and yet his own dear people who had known and loved him, sitting down and weeping amid the universal festival! It was very strange.

17. Now often the same mischief happens to us. We lose a friend. Who among us has not? We lose a husband, a wife, a child. These associations are very dear; and when the ties are snapped our heart bleeds, and sometimes we weep, and weep, and weep again until there is a lack of submission to the Saviour’s will, there is a lack of resignation to his divine purpose and decree. Now if we remembered that he lives, we should also remember that they also who sleep in Jesus, God shall bring with him: for if Jesus rose from the dead, so must all his people. We do not sorrow as those without hope; we commit our precious dust to the earth, but it is only for a while. We lay it low, but we thank God it can go no lower. Corruption shall not consume, but refine this flesh until, when the trumpet sounds, the very body that we wept over shall rise again in sacred lustre, formed in the image of Christ’s own glorious body. Death is robbed of all its sting when we remember this—the soul in the company of the living Saviour; the body, like Esther, bathing itself in spices to make it ready for the embrace of the all-glorious Lord; the old, worn-out vesture laid aside for a while, until God refits it, and makes it fit to be worn in the high festivals of heaven. Oh! if Jesus lives, we wipe away the tears, and we do not carry our dead to their graves with sound of weeping and with the noise of lamentation, but with the sound of holy psalm and shoutings of victory; we lower the conquering champion into his rest in sure and certain hope that he shall rise to participate in his great Captain’s everlasting victory. “Christ is risen” is the cure for wounded affection, when the wound rankles through unbelief.

18. Further, notice that this blessed doctrine, that Christ is risen, cures us of the difficulties we have concerning communion with heavenly things. It is earlier in the chapter, though I mention it last. The angel appeared to the women—two angels appeared to certain other women, according to Luke, and instead of speaking to the angels, they ran away. They were afraid and amazed. “Do not fear,” said the angels, “for we know that you seek Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, for he is risen.” Now I think if you and I were in a state of full faith in the risen Saviour, if we met an angel, we should not be amazed. If we saw an angel—if once again the spirits could put on the semblance of bodies and could appear before our eyes—I think if we were full of faith, we should avail ourselves of the opportunity to learn something about them, and about the heaven they live in, and, most of all, about their Lord. Oh! I think I would like an hour with some bright spirit to question him about some of those mysteries that, as yet, eye has not seen. If it were lawful for him to utter what, perhaps, he might not tell—if it were lawful for him to tell of some of the glories within the veil, and some of the mysteries of those streets of gold, and those walls of twelve foundations of precious stones, our inquisitiveness might take a holy turn. At any rate, if we might not ask questions, we would hold fellowship; we would be glad to see these spirits that are so near akin to us, for even now—even now—we are not strangers to them. They bear us up in their hands lest we dash our foot against a stone, and we are come to the general assembly and Church of the firstborn—we are come to the host of angels, and to those whose names are written in heaven: we are come to that innumerable company, even now, by faith, and if we could get a glimpse of them, we should not be afraid.

19. Now it is a fact that Christ is risen that makes an open door between us and the spiritual world. A man in flesh and blood is gone into the skies: a man who ate a piece of a broiled fish, and of a honeycomb—a man who said, “Handle me and see that it is I myself”: a man of whom it is written, “He showed them his hands and his side”: a man who said to one of his acquaintance, “Reach here your finger and behold my hand, and reach here your hand and thrust it into my side”—such a man is gone into the excellent glory, and he has opened a living way by which our communion with angels, and with the angels’ Master, is complete. Oh! in this there is a subject for spiritual minds greatly to rejoice in, and the difficulties which unbelief would put in our way are swept away by the full conviction that the Lord is risen—is risen indeed.

20. But I must not dwell longer on that. The great power of unbelief receives its antidote in the blessed and well ascertained fact that Jesus is risen.

21. III. Now let us see even further:—SOME OTHER CONSEQUENCES OF OUR Lord‘S RISING.

22. We observe in the chapter that one of the first consequences of his rising was a more general, a more intense, a more universal activity in the Church. He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” We see again, “He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God, and they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them.” From which I gather that, if we more fully perceived that Christ is risen, all of us should be more active. It is very hard to get up enthusiasm for an idea—certainly in England it is—it may not be in some more mercurial clime among a more sensitive and responsive people—but here we do not generally get into a state of enthusiasm for an idea. But what men are there who are not moved to enthusiasm for a person? A man, a person, will always command more fully the activity of human hearts than will a mere doctrine or dogma. Bring before me in history the leading principles, and you will generally find that the principles did little or nothing until they were embodied in a man, and when some bold man represented the principles, then the principles opened the man’s way to human hearts. It is so in the Church.

23. I suppose some people are enthusiastic about creeds and about dogmas. I do not know, but I know this: that the most enthusiastic people in all the Church are those who know him, and love him, and live with him, and serve him. The enthusiasm of heaven seems to be about him. They cast their crowns at his feet, and they sing “Hallelujah” when they behold God and the Lamb. There is an adoration of persons, and their souls are moved by the presence of blessed and divine persons, and it should be so in the Church. We have a living Saviour, a living Captain. He is not out of the fight: he still looks down on us: he is still fighting with us in the grand old cause. Oh! who of us will be a laggard when the Captain’s eye is on him? Jesus is looking on—Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, is looking on the course. Let us run with patience, because we look at, and are looked on by him. May this principle of Christian patience move every person here to do something, and continue to do something for the honour and glory of his Master.

24. But, in addition to this cause, we find that the presence of Christ gave miracles to the church at that time. The risen Saviour endowed them with unknown languages, and they spoke, though they were uninstructed men, so that men understand them from every clime: they began to work wonders. Our faith does not lead us to those, nor will it. This is wisely denied us. At the same time, though we do not work miracles in the outer world, all true preaching is miracle working. Commonly to declare a doctrine, commonly to speak a thing well—all this may be no preaching as God would call it—eloquence, oratory, refinement, the putting of words well together—this is common to all mankind. After their measure, all may speak—in some way. This is not God’s work; but true preaching, soul-saving preaching, the Spirit’s voice speaking through man—this is miracle working.

25. You know, my brethren, there are some who cannot preach—they say they cannot preach the gospel. I mean this: they will preach sermons to God’s living people, to God’s quickened ones, and then they say, “As for you who are dead in sin, I have nothing to say to you.” That is their notion. They are very candid. God never sent them to preach the gospel, and they admit they cannot do it. Well, a pity that they should try; but another man whom God sends knows, as the other did, that the hearer who is unconverted is dead in trespasses and sins. He knows that ordinarily to speak to such people would be a very idle thing. He knows he dare not attempt it in his own strength, and that to say to the dead, to the spiritually dead, “Live,” is in itself the extreme of folly. But he feels that God is with him, that God has sent him, and looking, like Ezekiel of old, at the congregation of sinners, as in the valley full of dry bones, he does not say, “I have nothing to say to you; you are dead”; but bursting out in his Master’s name, he says, “You dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord, you dry bones, ‘Live.’” God sent the man, and while he prophesies like this on the bones, they come together, bone to his bone, and live.

26. The two apostles at the gate Beautiful of the temple did not say to the lame man. “You are lame; we trust in God’s time you will get cured of your lameness—we have nothing to say to you”; but they said, “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” They told the man to do what he could not do, but as they told him to do it, the strength came to him to do it. And while we say to the sinner, “Believe and live,” God sends the power of the gospel command, and they do repent, do believe, do live, do flee for refuge to the hope set before them in the gospel; and to this day each Christian is a miracle worker in his own sphere, in the sphere of spiritual things. He opens blind eyes by God’s power, and unplugs deaf ears by Jesus’ might. He, too, raises the dead; he, too, casts out demons, still in the higher realm, the realm of mind, the realm of spirit; and our ascended Lord has given us this—this power—we receive it entirely from him because all power is given to him in heaven and on earth. Therefore, we go and teach all nations, and that teaching works results.

27. I must not detain you longer, except to notice that, as a result of our Lord’s resurrection, there is divine power, the highest degree of power concentrated in the person of Jesus Christ. He was always God, and now as God-man, Mediator, all power is concentrated in him. And this power is not laid up there to be idle—not as so much stored up ammunition never to be expended, for if you notice the last verse, “The Lord working with them.” Is it not a delightful thought that Jesus is not a sufferer, but he is still a worker? “The Lord working with them.” Redeeming work is done; saving work is going on. “The Lord is working with them.” We do not see it, but he is working. Often that power which is least seen is most mighty, and certainly in the Church what is not perceptible by the senses is the strongest power.

28. Believer, if the conversion of the world rested with the Church, if the gathering out of the elect depended on us, it never would be done; but God makes us work for this purpose, and so he works first in us, and then he works with us. How this ought to encourage us to work! This little arm, what can it do? But that eternal arm, what can it not do? This tongue, how feebly can it speak; but the voice of him who spoke as never a man spoke, how persuasively can it speak? Our spirits, narrow and limited, what can they accomplish? But his unbounded Spirit, what can he not perform? Oh! let everyone here who has been serving his Master bid farewell to everything like a discouraging or desponding thought. The great army of God is not defeated; it never can be; in the long run it must conquer. And even those parts of the divine strategy of our great Commander, which looked like retreat, are only portions of his perpetual victory. He is fighting on, and will win the battle, even to the end. It is a great consolation to the believer to know that Jesus lives, and lives in triumph.

29. I remember, and I cannot help repeating what I have told you before—I do remember, when in an hour of the most overwhelming sorrow through which a mind could pass, this one thing restored and comforted me. After that dreadful catastrophe in the Surrey Gardens, {a} when my mind gave way, and my sorrow was extreme—when I had almost lost my reason for almost three weeks, and was desponding and broken-hearted, I was alone, walking in solitude, mourning, and weeping as I did day and night and suddenly there came into my mind, as though it dropped from heaven, this text, “God has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow”; you know the rest. The thought that crossed my mind was this, “I am one of his soldiers, and I am lying in a ditch to die. It does not matter: the King has won the victory—Christ has won the victory—Christ is prominent. If I die like a dog, I do not care. The crown is on his head. He is safely exalted.” In a moment I was happy; my trouble was gone; I found myself perfectly restored; I fell on my knees in a solitary place, praising God who, in infinite mercy, had made that text to be a balm to my spirit.

30. Now there may be someone here who feels much as I did—disconsolate, cast down. If you really love Jesus, there is not a nobler balm for your care than this: he reigns, he is glorious; the government is not taken from his shoulders. Our King is no captive; our Emperor has not yielded up his sword: our Prince Imperial is not banished: our Empire never fails, the city of Jerusalem is not besieged: there shall be no shortage of food in her streets. “God is in the midst of her: she shall not be moved; God shall help her, and that very early.” Let the heathen rage: let the people and nations be moved: let the whole earth rock and reel, and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, God is our refuge and strength, our very present help in time of trouble. God reigns, and the kingdom of Jesus is settled by an unchangeable decree. Therefore, lift up your heads, you saints, for your redemption draws near, and even now clap your joyful hands, and go back again to the conflict of life until your Master calls you home like true heroes, who from now on shall know no fear, and shall never turn your backs in the day of battle. May God grant it may be so for his name’s sake. Amen.

{a} Surrey Hall Disaster: On the Sabbath morning, October 19, 1856, Spurgeon was to preach for the first time at Surrey Gardens Music Hall. The building had seating for over ten thousand people and was one of the largest auditoriums in England at that time. The young preacher arrived early at the Hall and was amazed to see the streets and garden area thronged with people. When the doors were opened, the people entered quickly and soon the place was full. Wisely, Spurgeon started the service earlier than the time announced. He led in prayer and then announced a hymn, which the large congregation sang reverently. He then read Scripture and commented on it, and this was followed by a pastoral prayer. As he was praying, voices began to shout “Fire! Fire! The galleries are giving way! The place is falling!” Spurgeon stopped praying and did his best to calm the people, but the damage had been done. In the stampede that followed, seven people were killed and twenty-eight injured. Spurgeon tried to preach, hoping that that would arrest the crowd, but the tumult and the shouting were even too much for the prince of preachers. He then asked the people to sing a hymn as they exited in an orderly manner, and he himself left in a state of shock. He spent the next week in a broken condition, wondering if he would ever preach again.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Mr 16}

Though it is not without profit to sit beside the sepulchre of our buried Lord, we cannot leave him there, even in thought. So let us go and look at the empty tomb, and read of his resurrection.

1. And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, so that they might come and anoint him.

To finish the funeral which had been hurriedly undertaken just at the close of the day.

2. And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came to the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.

Came to do needless action—to embalm one who was no longer dead, but since their love suggested it, their Lord accepted it. I have no doubt there is many a thing done by gracious people, or thought to be done, that may be in itself quite superfluous; but yet our Lord often accepts what his own people ridicule. As long as the heart sincerely meant to pay a loving homage, even though it is mistaken in some respects, even though it should bring spice and aloes for one who is not dead, yet it is accepted. “They came to the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.” Another sun had risen; the Sun of suns had dawned on the earth.

3. And they said among themselves, “Who shall roll away the stone for us from the door of the sepulchre?”

We often trouble ourselves about difficulties that do not exist.

4, 5. And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very large. And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man

An angel in that form.

5-7. Sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment: and they were frightened. And he says to them, “Do not be frightened: You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he is risen: he is not here: behold the place where they laid him. But go your way,

After you have satisfied your own eyes, go your way.

7. Tell his disciples and Peter that he goes before you into Galilee: you shall see him there, as he said to you.”

There are some beautiful touches in that short speech. “Tell his disciples and Peter”—the one who denied that he was his disciple—tell him. If you omit anyone else, do not forget poor Peter. And then that other word, “As he said to you.” Christ’s words are always fulfilled, and if even an angel should come from heaven to tell God’s people of some choice blessing that was coming to them, it would only be a blessing that Christ had already promised. “As he said to you.”

8, 9. And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither did they say anything to any man; for they were afraid. Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven demons.

A wonder, therefore, of mercy. It is no surprise that she was first at the sepulchre, and no wonder that Christ should first appear to her. I believe that there are some who have risen up from the lowest state who feel so much the power of love in their hearts because of what the Lord has done for them, that they are among the first to see Jesus when he is to be seen, and he appears first to them.

10, 11. And she went and told them who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen by her, did not believe.

It was what he said would be. It was what she declared had been. But they will make Mary Magdalene mistaken. Their own sister, whom they knew to be truthful, they would not believe.

12, 13. After that he appeared in another form to two of them, as they walked, and went into the country. And they went and told it to the rest: neither did they believe them.

Well, it was a hard thing to believe that the crucified Christ had really risen from the dead, but surely with two more witnesses they ought to have been ready to believe.

14. Afterward he appeared to the eleven as they sat eating, and upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen him after he was risen.

When he had upbraided them for their unbelief, he spoke to them in many ways, which the other evangelists mention.

15, 16. And he said to them “Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he who does not believe shall be damned.

There stands the commission then—the grand summary of Christ’s message to a perishing world. We must never alter it. We must not leave out the baptism, or put it before the believing, or leave out the solemn sentence with which it closes, though there are some who burn and hate very dreadfully when they get there. May the Lord clear their throats, and help them to preach the gospel as he told them to preach it—“He who believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall be damned.”

17, 18. And these signs shall follow those who believe: In my name they shall cast out demons: they shall speak with new languages: they shall take up serpents: and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not harm them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

And so they did. So long as the age of miracles lasted, their faith was proved to the world by such miracles as this. That age lasted long enough to convince the world when it could be convinced by that. Now there is room for faith, and if we have less evidence day by day, yet we have all the evidence of all the ages to look back on.

19, 20. So then after the Lord had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went out, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.