Let's turn to the book of Matthew, chapter number 12, verse 38 to 42. And we'll continue in our sermon series in the book of Jonah as we look at the sign of Jonah together from this passage. Matthew 12 verse 38. Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered Him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from You.” But He answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.” Let us pray. We come to You, O Christ, the risen King, the one who is greater than Jonah and Solomon. And we bow before You, asking that You, ascended Lord, would send forth Your spirit to open our eyes that we might behold You. As we have in the breaking of bread, may we also now in the unfolding of Your word, give us eyes to see, give us ears to hear what the spirit will say to the church today. And I pray that You would empower me by Your spirit, that Your name will be glorified. In Jesus' name. Amen. We have considered through the book of Jonah up until this point, chapters one and chapter two, many important moral, ethical, theological truths that we have applied to our lives. We've seen God's sovereignty in salvation, that salvation belongs to the Lord, declaring that great theological truth about God, that He is sovereign in the salvation of sinners. We have also seen how God deals with his wayward servants. You know, He sends His word, and then they have this willfulness against the word of the Lord, and then God has a tailor-made wind to deal with his unfaithful. But also, we've seen God's gracious intervention, that although we are on a ship to Tarshish, fleeing from the presence of the Lord, God pursues us in loving kindness and grace via that wind, but also, being thrown overboard in repentance, we are saved by His grace through the great fish that God appoints for our salvation. And also, lastly, we looked at Jonah's psalm of praise, a fitting response to the grace of God. The God who saves is a God worthy of praise, and Jonah speaks forth his praise in chapter two of the book of Jonah. However, as we have been, have heard already from the passage in Luke chapter 24 about the passage on the road to Emmaus and the disciples there, we are compelled to go further than just these moral, ethical, practical applications that we have in the book of Jonah. We are compelled to go further because the Bible teaches us, as Jesus said to them, that beginning at Moses and the prophets, He interpreted to them concerning Himself in all the scriptures. What that tells us is that Jonah is not just about wayward prophets being brought back to God, neither is it about just the sovereignty of God in salvation. It is more than that. It speaks to us of Christ. This passage in Luke chapter 24 tells us that Christ is the interpretive key of the Old Testament scriptures. Christ could go through Moses and the prophets and all the scriptures and point to Himself to these disciples, the disciples that could not see Him. He was seeking to make Himself known to them through the word and through the breaking of bread. And so, in this passage of scripture that we'll be looking at today, we will see the sign of Jonah, which is a direct statement in the New Testament that tells us that if we want to know more about Jesus, we need to look back to Jonah, because Jonah points us to Jesus. And so Christ is in all the scripture, in shadow, in type, in pattern. There are things in the book of Jonah that point us to the person and work of Jesus Christ, and it is my prayer that we would have eyes open to behold Jesus our Savior this morning. I want to give two examples of indirect references. These are passages in the book of Jonah that do not have any direct New Testament fulfillment, like the one that we've read today, where Jesus says, you know, Jonah was in the belly of the great fish three days and three nights, so the Son of Man should be in the in the earth. No direct link to the New Testament passage that has someone saying, "Oh, look to Jonah." But there are places in the book of Jonah that nonetheless point us to Jesus, and we are to be looking at Jesus as we read the book of Jonah. We've looked at some of those briefly, but one of those that we have looked at is the temple. Remember when Jonah is sinking down and he looks to God's temple and he cries to the temple? We learned last time we looked at the book of Jonah, that the temple is the Lord Jesus Christ, God's temple. And that salvation and redemption is only to be found in Him. We might see Jesus Christ in that great fish that swallowed up Jonah as his salvation. Jonah was sinking into death and destruction, but he was saved by God's grace through the great fish, and we could draw a parallel there to Christ as a great savior of sinners who repent and are sinking down to the depths of their sin and destruction. But I want to give two examples and help us see from the book of Jonah more clearly how Christ and Jonah—or Jonah points us to Christ. One way in which we see this is that we see Jonah unlike Jesus. So, we call this an antitype. This is the idea that that Jesus is unlike Jonah. As I've said, Jesus is a greater Jonah. Jesus is the better Jonah, and therefore, there are, when we compare Jonah with Jesus, we see in Jonah things that Jesus is not and things that Jesus is far greater and better than Jonah. And how do we see this? Well, we see Christ as God's obedient prophet, submissive to God's word and will, and one who delights in God's mercy. You see, we have Jonah who doesn't want to see God's mercy displayed upon Gentiles and upon the wicked, who's commissioned by God, who rebels against God and flees from the presence of God. But we have in Jesus something greater than Jonah, one who hears the word of God, submits to the word of God, goes and demonstrates obedience to the word of God in the things that in his life and in his death, so that he might redeem Gentile sinners. And see Jesus as greater than Jonah. But there's a parallel passage in the New Testament that gives us a little bit more insight to this. Jonah, in the book of Jonah, is on a ship, sleeping, moving away from the will of God and the salvation of Gentiles, sleeping outside of the will of God in rebellion against God, and he's caught in the middle of a storm while he is on a ship with sailors. Does that sound familiar to you? Jesus on a ship with fellow sailors, sleeping in a storm, heading where? In Mark chapter number 4 verse 35 and chapter 5 verse 1, Jesus says to them, "Let's go on to the other side." Who is on the other side? In the land of the Gerasenes, in the Decapolis. It is the Gentile sinner possessed by a demon that Jesus comes to set free and rescue. And here we have in this parallel between Jonah sleeping in a ship outside of the will of God, moving away from his commission to reach and save the Gentiles, we have in Jesus Christ one greater than Jonah, who moves toward the Gentile region of the Decapolis, who in loving mercy seeks to save this Gentile sinner, to redeem this demon possessed man. And Jesus is asleep, but not sleeping the sleep of ignorance, or not sleeping the sleep of evasion from duty that God has called him to, but he's sleeping the sleep, the sweet sleep of sleeping in the will of God. And as the storm represented the chastening rod of God that would, would meant to bring Jonah back on the right path, this storm serves a different purpose in the life of Jesus Christ and His disciples. It serves an opportunity where Jesus displays His glorious power as the king of the universe, the one who rules the waves and the sea. And the disciples say, "Who is this man that even the wind and the seas obey Him?" Jesus is greater than Jonah. In His power, in His mercy, in His obedience to the Father's will, He moves towards sinners, He saves sinners, and the storms present an opportunity for the demonstration of His power. A second example that we can briefly look at and see Jesus, how Jonah points us to Jesus, is Jonah's descent into the sea and the sailors' redemption. You see, Jonah in rebellion against God is as one who is, is has the wrath of God against him that falls upon as it were the whole ship. The sailors are in danger, they are fearful for their life, and the storm of God wrath, God's wrath threatens their destruction. But God is appeased, if we could say, by Jonah's sacrifice of himself into the sea for the salvation of the sailors. Now, obviously, with all typology, there's no perfect connection. Jonah was in his own sin and in his own trouble, going into the sea not as a sinless savior. Not at all. And there we see Jesus greater than Jonah. But don't we see the gospel in these nonetheless? That here we have a savior greater than Jonah, who sinless, who appeases the wrath of God, the great storm of God that is against sinners, by giving Himself to the sea of death, sinking down as it were into Hades, sinking down into the tomb and into the grave, that He might save us from our sin. And so we see in these indirect ways a type even of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ, that He gave Himself for our redemption. It's amazing. As soon as, as soon as Jonah gets into the sea, the sea is calm. Isn't it true? As soon as God sees the sacrifice of His Son, His soul is satisfied. But the direct reference which I want to draw your attention to this morning is the sign of Jonah found in Matthew chapter 12 verse 39 to 41. As I read to you just before, the scribes and the Pharisees have come to Jesus and they're saying to Him, "Jesus, we want to see a sign from you." Now, what is a sign? Well, as one man wisely put it, a sign is a miraculous act. A sign is a miracle, but it's a miraculous act with a purpose, a purpose to point, a purpose to demonstrate something. It's a miraculous act, as one man said, produced to authenticate its agent and induce faith in God on the part of the observer. Right? So a sign is performed, they see a miracle, and it's designed to point to the authenticity of the person performing the sign, and also meant to help induce faith in the person that sees the sign to have faith in God. What is this authenticating sign of Jonah that Jesus is referring to that is designed to induce faith in God and to demonstrate to the Pharisees and the scribes that Jesus is the authentic Messiah, the Lord, the Christ? Well, what we know from this passage, if you want to look at verse number 39, is that this is future and that is miraculous, meaning that it is future from the time in which Jesus spoke it. Look what it says, “But He answered them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it.” That's future. Okay? “…except the sign of the prophet Jonah.’” And then he goes on and talks about, for just as Jonah was in three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And so we know that this is first and foremost something that is, not only a sign, a miracle, but it is also something that will happen. Something that the Pharisees and the scribes will be confronted with, which will demonstrate to them that the person standing before them is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, and he is not someone performing miracles in the power of Satan as they've just accused him of doing. So it's miraculous and it is future. And verse number 40 tells us exactly what it is. He goes, "Just as Jonah, so will the son of man be." Verse 40. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. This is a reference to the death, burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. More specifically, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus. What Jesus is saying to these scribes and Pharisees and to us this morning is that the belly of the great fish seen in the book of Jonah corresponds to the heart of the earth, which is the grave. And as Jonah was there in the belly of the great fish, i.e., in the heart of the earth, so the Son of Man will be in the grave for three days and three nights. Now, when you read the book of Jonah, you're not really thinking about this, are you? But now when you read the book of Jonah, you are thinking about this. Jonah chapter 2 verse 1, "Out of the depths of Sheol, the grave, I cried unto You." See? It's the heart of the earth. It's the place of the departed dead as it were. Buried in the heart of the earth. Jonah is buried in the heart of the earth. Jonah is as good as dead. He is sealed in the tomb of the belly of the great fish, kilometers down under the earth. Jonah chapter 2 says also, "He went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever." Yet God did not abandon Jonah, did He? In the depths of the sea, in the belly of the great fish, in the tomb, in the grave, in the place of the dead, God preserved Jonah. His life was preserved in the sea and in the grave through this great fish. And so, Jesus goes on to say that the holding of Jonah was not forever. Jonah did not forever remain in the depths of the sea, in the belly of the great fish, in the place that represented death and the departed dead. What happened to Jonah? In Jonah chapter 2 verse 10, and the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out on the dry land. Jonah's feet is now once again on dry land, in the land of the living. The holding of Jonah was a temporary arrangement of God designed to fulfill God's purpose for Jonah so that he might submit to the will of God in the salvation of sinners and go out to the Ninevites and reach them. What if Jonah descended down to the depths of the sea and never returned to the shore? How would we read the story? We would question whether he was ever a true prophet of God to begin with, wouldn't we? He's just an apostate, rebelling against God, dying in his sin. We would think perhaps God abandoned him and destroyed him. God never really had purposes for Jonah. They may have just been dreamed up and thought about himself, made up himself. But the fact that Jonah's feet is once again in the land of the living tells us that God had purposes for Jonah, and God had purposes for the salvation of sinners through Jonah, and that God was going to accomplish His purposes in Jonah. And so Jonah's temporary holding in the sea and in the belly of the great fish is a demonstration of God's preserving of Jonah to fulfill God's purposes in salvation. Now let me ask you this question. What if Jesus went to the grave for three days, three nights, but those three days and three nights became four days and four nights? And he stayed dead and buried to the present time. You can hear it in the voice of the people on the road to Emmaus, can't you? We had hoped that He was the one who would redeem Israel. But death spells the end of that redemption, doesn't it? Where is He? Where is this Jesus? He spoke so much of what He's going to do and for His Father and that He's coming again and that He's going to be a savior for sinners and that He is going to redeem Israel, and they prophesied and spoken of Him. But now he's dead and the people on the road to Emmaus, their hearts are overwhelmed and confused and confounded. In fact, he even said he's going to raise after three days, but we haven't seen Him. Oh, in fact, some people have saying they've seen Him, but we don't know if that's really Him. But Jesus is standing right next to them. What if Jesus never rose from the dead? Their doubts would be confirmed. And Jesus would not be the true son of God, the king that God would put upon the throne of His servant David to reign over the nations and to reign as king forever. What if his body just rot in the ground? He would be regarded as one who had been abandoned by God. But the scripture says to us in Acts chapter 2 verse 27, "For You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your Holy One see corruption." So what did God do? He did a great sign. The great sign that God the Father and God the Spirit, and you could even include God the Son there who raised Himself from the dead, but let's just say God the Father and God the Spirit, they raised the Lord Jesus from the dead and vindicated Christ, declaring Him to be the Son of God. That He's not just a mere old prophet that lives and dies, but that He is risen from the dead and He is one who reigns forever more. He is God's true Son. He is God's true savior. As it says in 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16 that Christ was vindicated by the Spirit. What does that mean? He was justified by the Spirit. That doesn't mean that he was saved. It means that he was declared righteous by the Spirit. The spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead. And by the Spirit raising Jesus from the dead, he declares Jesus to be the righteous Son of God, king forever, whom the grave could not hold. Romans chapter 1 verse 4 says the same thing, that Jesus was declared, he wasn't made to be the Son of God, he was declared to be the Son of God. How was he declared to be the Son of God? In power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord. The miraculous sign that would confront the scribes and the Pharisees and would confront an adulterous and rebellious generation was the fact that Jesus Christ would rise from the dead. And they would have to reckon with that, and they would have to grapple with that, and they would have to confront the facts that the tomb that they laid Him in is now empty. And so when they come to Him thinking that they have triumphed over Him, when they have crucified Him and they think we've put this prophet to death, we've delivered Him to destruction, they didn't realize that God preserved His soul in death. Yes, he truly died, but his body saw no corruption. There in the ground his body lay, Light of the world by darkness slain, Then bursting forth in glorious day, up from the grave he rose again. This is what happened to our Lord Jesus Christ. The grave could not hold him. God the Father, God the Spirit, delivered the Son from the destruction of death, and he was raised by the power of God as an indisputable sign that God has declared Him to be Lord and declared Him to be Christ. so that the Ninevites might have life, so that we might be saved. The only hope of the scribes and Pharisees, the only hope of that evil and adulterous generation, lay in the sign of Jonah. And God delivered His Son to death, but God preserved Him from death's final and ultimate destruction, and He raised victorious over death and of the grave, and God exalted Him. And God basically says through that empty tomb, we ought to hear Him. We ought to listen to Him. You see, this is the sign that God has performed that should grab the attention of us, should grab the attention of this evil and adulterous generation and say there is one that God has exalted. An evil and adulterous generation must heed this sign. You may crucify Me, Jesus says, you may shame me, you may declare that you have triumphed over me through the grave, but you will see an empty tomb. And that empty tomb will be a sign to you, a miracle, a power from God that would demonstrate that I am sent from God, God's prophet, God's savior, God's Lord, and king. Go to Acts chapter number 2 verse 22 to 36 as we think about how this what this says to us today. Acts chapter number 2, this truth of the sign of Jonah, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the implications of such a powerful, and it it forms the preaching of the Apostle Peter and all the apostles, but the Apostle Peter particularly on the day of Pentecost when he's preaching there and 3,000 souls are saved. Look with me in Acts chapter 2 verse 22 to 36. I'm going to read this passage and I just want you to think of the sign of Jonah, the resurrection of Jesus, and what that empty tomb says to us today as it said to these people here. “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves know— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised Him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it. For David says concerning Him, ‘I saw the Lord always before me, for He is at my right hand that I may not be shaken; therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; my flesh also will dwell in hope. For You will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let Your holy one to see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life; You will make me full of gladness with Your presence.’ Listen to Peter, what he says now. “Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of Christ, that He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus, God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses. Being exalted, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He, that is Christ, the risen Lord, the ascended one, has poured out this, the Holy Spirit, that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, ‘The Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.’ Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” That's the preaching of the apostles concerning the sign of Jonah. That the prophecy that Christ, that David would have a son who would sit upon his throne and reign as king forever was fulfilled in the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, whom God has exalted, loosing the pangs of death and raising Him up, declaring Him to be the Son of God with power, putting Him and installing Him upon His throne of heaven, saying to him, "This is my son, hear Him. This is my son, bow to Him. This is my son, serve Him. Kiss the son lest he be angry with you and you perish in the way." What does the sign of Jonah say to us? What does the resurrection of Jesus say to us? It says to us that God made him whom you crucified Lord and Christ. It was our evil, it was your sin, it was your spiritual adultery and your wandering away from the commandments and covenant and mercy of God that crucified the Lord of glory. He went to a cross for our sin. He died in our place. He was an atonement for us. He goes to the cross because of us. But Peter says, understand this, that your sin and the death that he experienced because of your sin will not keep him in the grave for the death, death will not conquer him, but rather he was raised from the grave as king over sin and over death, Lord and Christ. Therefore, as Lord and Christ, you should see what your sin has done to this savior and that your only hope lies in this savior. That's what he's saying. You see, they hear this message on the day of Pentecost and they say, "Men and brethren, what must we do?" They're not saying, "Oh, this is a nice story about Easter. Someone dying in the place of another." No, no, no, they are cut to the heart because it's for their sin that the savior is dying. It's because of your sin that the savior is dying. It's because of our sin that he is suffering. Because of our rebellion, because of our spiritual adultery, because of our lusts and our greed and our pride and our anger. It's because of our violence, because of our degradation and the perversity of heart that this sinless savior died. And the empty tomb says to you, your sin put him on the cross, but God redeemed him, God saved him, God declared him as the righteous one, come to him and bow to him and serve him. What must we do, men and brethren? Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you will receive the Holy Spirit. Repent. The empty tomb cries out and continues to cry out for generation to generation, to every adulterous and sinful generation that we ought to turn to sin and turn to God. The empty tomb speaks to us that there is a king who reigns forever who calls us to repentance, who dealt with our sin, who is Lord and who is Christ. Therefore, the answer to our evil and adulterous generation lies in an empty tomb. It doesn't lie in psychology. It doesn't lie in technological advancement. It doesn't lie in our politicians making great peace pacts and plans for this world. Our evil and adulterous generation, the hope of this evil and adulterous generation does not lie in education. And neither does it lie in moral reform, thinking that if we just introduce more laws, things will change. The problem with an evil and adulterous generation is that their heart is sinful against God. They must be healed by the savior who left an empty tomb. His resurrection life must descend to them in power and save them, that Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus going to kill Christians will be turned by the risen Christ and will behold this savior with resurrection life from the dead. The hope of this generation is regeneration. God's life, the life of His Son in the heart of a sinner, turning him to God. Do you believe that? Do you know that? How important is the sign of Jonah to you this morning? Do you know the risen Lord? Have you seen Him in the breaking of bread as it were? Have you seen Him in the scripture? Has Jesus been made known to you as you've read the word and come under the sound of the gospel? Do you behold Him and see Him? Has He given you life? Has He given you new eyes? Are you trusting in Him? Are you leaning upon Him? Is He your Lord and is He your Christ? Have you embraced yourself as a sinner saying, "Lord, have mercy on me. I put you on the cross." You know those people in Israel that Peter was preaching to? They could have said, "I was the Romans that really did it." And you know, really it was the scribes and Pharisees that stirred up the people. And one of them could have said there, "Hey, there's 3,000 of us here, like, I didn't give my word to him. Maybe the other 2,900 did, I, but I was okay." No, no, no, no. It's our sin. We all put him on the cross. We're removed thousands of years, but it's our sin that he died for nonetheless. But God has made him Lord and Christ and has exalted him and left us an empty tomb to tell us to turn to God right now, to repent, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, embrace him as Lord and Christ, and trust your soul into his care. The answer to your friend's salvation and your family's salvation and to the people that you love most is the empty tomb. Preach a gospel of an empty tomb, because the empty tomb tells us and gives us even consolation and confidence that this Jesus is not like any old prophet that came and spoke a couple of words and died. The empty tomb tells us that He's different. Muhammad came, lived and died. Buddha came, lived and died. Confucius came, lived and died. Jesus is alive. Big difference. Christian, where's your confidence this morning? Christ is not an old relic of the past that we just look back to to think about these wonderful things that happened 2,000 years ago. And we should. This points us back to that. But understand this, without an empty tomb, what are those things? He's not an old relic of the past like an old saint that we remember his life and, you know, great, derived some encouragement from. No, no, it's more than this. He is risen. And because He is risen, He speaks today and can make demands and does make demands of our lives. Because He is risen, He is Lord and Christ. He's installed upon a kingly throne. And what does that mean? Hear His word. It's not nice suggestions of an old prophet in the past or an old teacher. This is the word of a living king. He is risen and He's speaking and He's saying to us, live my servants, live my children, live in my power, live according to my might. Don't fear, I am with you. He is saying to us in our suffering, look at my suffering. Let me walk with you in suffering. Listen, he is saying to us in the table, I am here with you among you. He is the one who walks among the candlesticks, amongst His churches. He is alive. Understand that. As the old hymn writer says, you ask me how I know he lives, he lives within my heart. Jesus is alive. And because He is risen, we are not a dead old religion that tries to redeem something from the past. We have a living savior who is actively working and moving and saving and encouraging and sanctifying and building up and teaching and shepherding His church. Do you believe that? Because if the truth be known, most of us live as if Jesus's still in the grave. We go to His word trying to derive some comfort from it, but it's just all so stuck in those pages. Break Thou the bread of life, dear Lord to me, as Thou did break the loaves by Galilee. Listen to these words. Beyond the sacred page, we seek you, Lord. Beyond the sacred page, we seek you, Lord. Why? Because Jesus is alive. You can seek him as a person who may come to you now and speak peace to your soul. Yep. The one who stood on that ship in the midst of a raging storm that said peace be still, he still says peace be still in your storm. The one who is like Jonah descending into the sea to redeem us as a substitutionary atonement for our sin says to you, I have taken your place. The wrath of God has passed from you. Let no longer guilt rule you and shame you because of your past sin. I am alive. It's amazing. Jesus has resurrection. God still left as it were those those nail prints in his hand and in his feet to remind us of his continual intercession and his mercy for us all of our days. Jesus wasn't just praying for Peter that his faith fail not. He's praying for you that you don't give up and lose heart. Feel like denying Christ and leaving? It's not just you hanging on to some old words. Call upon his name and he'll come near you. Through the word, by the Spirit, he will open your eyes and give you a fresh resolve to love and to serve Him. Christian, our courage and perseverance is all rooted in the sign of Jonah. We serve a risen savior who governs, pours out his spirit, sustains us, gives us life, who shepherds and he guides us. The grave that could not hold him will not hold us either because we're united to him, and we will be raised with him, and all this decaying body will put on the likeness of his glorious body, and we will be with him forever more. Why? Because the tomb is empty. Therefore, brothers and sisters, go on. Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Why? Because He's risen. And God's king is watching everything, and he is with us and will reward every man according to his works. Let us pray.