If you would now turn with me into the Scriptures we have been making our way through. Luke. We are at the end of Luke chapter 20.
I'll be reading verses 27 through 44 so Luke, chapter 20 beginning in verse 27 let's go to the Lord again in prayer, asking for his blessing upon His Word as we turn to it. Let's pray, Father, we thank you that you are not silent, but that you speak, Lord. I pray that you would unstop our deaf ears, that we might hear of Jesus, Christ, crucified for sinners, open up our blind eyes that we might see and behold His glory and His power, that he is the Lord of the living, not of the dead, and Lord that is our hope, that we too will rise with Christ.
Lord, I pray that you will comfort those this morning that need to be comforted, those Lord whose hearts are hardened, that you would strike it, that you might give them hearts of flesh. Give us hearts of flesh. Help us to have hearts to receive your word now. Help us to be as the prophets of old, to be looking out to see what you will say to us this morning.
Be merciful. We pray in Jesus's name. Amen, people of God hear God's word this morning from the Gospel of Luke chapter 20, beginning in verse 27 they came to him some Sadducees, those who deny there is a resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, Teacher Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife and died without children, and the second and the third took her, and likewise, all seven left no children and died afterwards the woman also died in the resurrection. Therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven all had her as wife, and Jesus said to them, the sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection, but that the dead are raised.
Even Moses showed in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live in him. Then some of the scribes answered, teacher, you have spoken well, for they no longer dared to ask him any question. But he said to them, how can they say that the Christ is David's son? For David himself says, in the book of Psalms, the Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. David thus calls him Lord. So how is he? His son? He who has ears, let him hear the Word of God. Please be seated.
There was a minister named Richard Baxter, lived in the 17th century, and he has this quote, and he says, I preached as never sure to preach again, and as dying man, as a dying man to dying men.
I'll say it again. I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.
And the point of his statement was, we do not know when we will die, but death is sure, and today could be the day for me or for you. Our lives are short, and we might not even make it through this day.
Death is a sure thing, you know, the sure things taxes and death, I will die, you will die.
The only thing that would prevent that is from is Jesus Christ returning?
But if Jesus Christ doesn't return, you will die. And it's important for you to think about that. It's important for you to reflect on that fact, death has a 100% batting average.
It isn't.
It. You can't escape it. You will die.
And my job as a minister, really, my main job, is to prepare you to die, and that is what I hope to do today. And the best way I can prepare you to die is to remind you and to call you to put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life.
Jesus is the life. Jesus will spare you from eternal death and give you eternal life. And that's what I'm going to hope to do in our whole text. So if, for some reason, you're distracted and you have little kids, and I know what that's like, or you fall asleep for whatever reason, remember that Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life.
Remember that no man will come to the Father apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is how you can be prepared for death. That can be your comfort in life and in death, remember that you are not your own, but that you belong, both body and soul to your faithful Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now last spring, many of our men will remember we did a series on death for this very purpose and in that series, some of you men might recall we, we had a lot of questions about death and and maybe you do too, when you think about what happens after I die, or as I'm in heaven, what's heaven going to be like, or even what's hell like? I remember some of the questions we we found ourselves asking, and maybe you've asked yourselves these questions too, is well, will our pets be with us?
You know, will will they be there?
How old will I look? You know, if I die, if God gives me a long life, will I look like an old man, or our children that have died young, well, they look little. Will we be able to recognize each other? You know, in the gospels, we see at times, people recognize Jesus, but then other times they don't recognize it. Will we be able to recognize each other? And I say, oh, there's there's there. There they are. I recognize them. What language will we speak?
Well, there's a lot of good questions, and one of the questions here in our text is posed by the Sadducees about the afterlife and about marriage.
Now it's helpful to keep in mind there are some important distinctions between the Sadducees and the Pharisees. And Luke helps us here by letting us know and reminding us, if you didn't recall, that the Sadducees, they don't actually believe in the afterlife. They don't believe in a resurrection.
They believe that the soul perishes with the body, and it's very sad. There's no hope.
There's really no peace in life.
And you see, that is why they are sad, you see, and that's how you can remember that they're Sadducees, no resurrection sad, you see.
Now there's other important things that are differences between the Sadducees and the Pharisees that are significant for our texts. And another one of those is Sadducees actually only held to the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, the Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and they don't hold to the rest of the Old Testament, where the Pharisees did now, as our text begins, they come to Jesus with a question in verse 28 Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies having a wife but no children, the man must take The widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife and died without children, and the second and the third took her, and likewise, all seven left no children and died afterward the woman also died in the resurrection. Therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife. Now this was called the Levirate marriage. You can find this in Deuteronomy, chapter 25 and I'll just read a couple of verses of it so you can know what they are referencing. In Deuteronomy, chapter 25 if a brothers, if brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband's brother shall go into her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her, and the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his dead brother.
That his name may not be blotted out of Israel. So the brother in law, he takes his deceased brother or the Yeah, the brother takes the deceased brother's wife and has a child, and the child then carries the deceased brother's name on that's what's happening here. There are examples of this happening in in the Old Testament, another, a great example. This is what happens with Ruth. Remember, Ruth and her husband dies, Eli Melek and Boaz does this as the kinsman redeemer, and actually raises a child, not of his own, but for the sake of Eli Melek and Ruth, that's what happens there in that book.
Now it's important to mention here that the Sadducees question is, it's not a genuine question.
It's an absurd situation. It's a question of absurdity.
And you can just imagine the brother dies, and it's like, okay, well, I'm next. Well, then he dies, and then the third brother dies, and then you get to the Fourth Brother, and you can just imagine the fourth brother's like, I'm not gonna do that. I don't wanna die, but okay, I got to. And then he dies, and then the seven brothers, they all die. And it's absurd. It's kind of hilarious.
It's funny because it's not really a genuine question. It's meant to be absurd, and they're asking it to show Jesus, and even those who believe in the resurrection, the absurdity of the resurrection and the problems that it creates.
In the resurrection, if you believe it, it just creates this real mess, doesn't it? You have this real problem. If you follow the Mosaic law and in the resurrection, how could there be such a ridiculous situation?
Just imagine Jesus. You have to be people just wandering around like, Oh, are you my Are you my wife? Are you my husband? Oh, maybe it's not. How do we know Jesus? Isn't it absurd? Of course, there's no resurrection.
That's the idea behind their question. You know, this whole resurrection thing, it just makes this whole mess. It's absurd that it can't be real, and so now they smugly wait for Jesus to answer it. Also just want to note too, that this is a false teaching, right? The resurrection gets at the heart of the gospel. If there's no resurrection, there's no gospel, there's no life, there's no heaven, there's no hell, and so but I want to point out that the Sadducees are leaders in the church, and that this false teaching is not coming from the outside pressures into the church and the culture and is being transformed. This is from the church. These are church leaders. The Sadducees were held the most seats in the Sanhedrin.
That is the highest court of the church in Jerusalem. This is coming from them. They don't believe the resurrection.
I also think it's interesting that here, Jesus actually answers them, because even in questions past that are clearly not genuine, Jesus often poses a question back. You know, they ask Jesus, well, who's the authority? Do you do this to cleanse the temple well? And Jesus says, well, was John's baptism from man or from God? Or they say, Well, should we pay taxes to Caesar or not, and Jesus asks them a question, well, whose picture's on this coin here? But yet Jesus actually gives them an answer. Well, I think that's interesting. And the answer begins there in verse 34 and Jesus said to them, the sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. You get that now.
There's a lot there, and there's some difficulties in this, and even some real challenges, the Sadducees, their question presumes that the post resurrection life is very much like the life now that is the afterlife is most likely like this life just a lot longer, and that's their presumption. But in Jesus's answer, he's teaching them no the life to come, the age then to come, is actually a lot different than maybe you and I even realize the age now is different than the age to come, and we see that here in Jesus's answer, and there are a lot of things that the Scripture tells us, even in the New Testament, about the age to come, but even we, I bet, will be pleasantly surprised, that there will be things unexpected. Heaven will not be like we.
Are thinking about it will be a million times better and more beautiful than we can ever comprehend.
One of the challenges, and I think one of the differences here that Jesus mentions from this age and the age to come, is that the age to come, he says, it doesn't have marriage.
Now, if you have a happy marriage, if you love your spouse, this is a difficult passage, and it might strike you as a kind of a disappointment.
You know, even reading this in my mind is like, well, you know what? I'm gonna get to heaven, and I'm gonna scour heaven till I find Stacy, and I'm gonna go to God and say, God, at least let us share a mansion together.
It'll save some space. Maybe you can let someone else in, and we'll just, we'll, we'll go together. And certainly, God, you'll allow us to have our kids near our mansion too, and their kids and our family will all be together. You know, I'm going to search heaven for you, my love.
We have these kind of romantic gestures and thoughts, and we will be a we will be a family in heaven, but we will not be the family that we are now. Will be a different family then than we are now will be actually a perfect family, a family that is not just our family, but a family of every tribe, of every tongue, of every nation. And Sunday is, in fact, a reminder of that even as we look around, this is the family your family is. This is to be a picture of that heavenly family and son we were reminded of that, that Sundays are different than, than than the other days.
It's a reminder that the we are we are not people of this age.
We're actually people of of the age to come, and today is to be a reminder of that fact.
But you know, isn't marriage good, and isn't it heaven just filled with all good things? So if marriage is good, why wouldn't Mary, why wouldn't heaven have marriage still, especially again, if you have a good marriage, why wouldn't why wouldn't heaven have that?
Well, there's something better.
There's something better. And we can even go to the Old Testament and think, Well, weren't the weren't the sacrifices good?
Wasn't the temple good? Where the they the people could gather into God's presence at the temple and and they could sacrifice the animals and have their sins wash washed away?
Wasn't that good. It was good, but there's something better, isn't there something better?
It's better now that the curtain was torn, it's better now that we don't do the sacrifices, because Christ was the sacrifice, and it's the same thing with marriage, as much as we can enjoy it and be so thankful for the gift that it is, it's a picture of something that is better, that is our union with Christ. Marriage was given to us as a good gift to to help us in our to be a mutual help to one another, to increase mankind, to increase the church, to prevent impurity.
But marriage is not meant to be the source of our happiness.
Marriage is not meant to be the source of our identity. Jesus is, Jesus is and that's a comfort for those of you who are single and divorced or even in bad marriages, that marriage is not the end all be all.
It's ultimately to point us to Jesus that is the end all be all, that he is our hope, he is our joy, he is our satisfaction.
He is our life and peace.
Well, who are considered worthy to attain to this age to come? I think that's an interesting statement that Jesus says, Those who are considered worthy to come to to the age in verse 35 Well, if I think, if we can just consider some of the context that has just happened, and some of the Psalms, I think, answered this question very clearly for us, who is worthy to attain the age to come? Are you worthy?
Well, Psalm 24 we remember, Jesus has just the triumphal entry. He's just come into Jerusalem, and now all of these things are happening. And remember, Psalm 24 is actually a picture of the triumphal entry, which is actually a picture of the ascension of Jesus Christ into the city of God in heaven, not just Jerusalem, but Psalm 24 talks about all this. And you remember Psalm 24 it asks this question.
Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in his holy place, who is going to go to the gates of heaven, who's going to go to the age to come?
Well, here's the answer, he who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully, he will receive blessing from the Lord.
Now, does Psalm 24 describe you is that you do you have clean hands? Do you have a pure heart?
Do you not lift up your soul to anything that is false if you never swore deceitfully?
Are you righteous?
Well, hopefully, if you've been coming to behave and you will know this is not you. We are not righteous, even in our reading of the law, we have failed. We don't we don't even honor our parents like we ought to honor them. We don't care for them as we ought to care for them. We don't pray for our leaders. We fail with our thoughts and our words and our deeds every day.
This is not us, but you know, Psalm 24 tells us who it is, and it says, lift up your heads. O gates. So it's telling the gates of heaven. Get ready. Get ready heaven, because the gates that have never been opened to man before they're about to be opened. How? How are the gates of heaven going to be open to a man? Because man is deceitful.
There's death in his throat.
Constant vileness and disease reflects man. But there is a man that approaches the gates of heaven, and the psalmist says, lift up your lift up your heads. Oh gates and lift them up. Oh ancient doors that the King of glory may come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord of Hosts? He is the King of glory, and Jesus Christ, the God man enters heaven.
He is the worthy one. And remember the parable The wicked tenants that we just had. And you you had. The tenants said they were, they were leasing this beautiful vineyard. They didn't do anything for it. They didn't work for it.
And then they killed the king's son.
And Psalm 118, which is quoted in that parable, it says, Open to me the gates of righteousness that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord.
The righteous shall enter through it. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
And again, the point of Psalm, 118 is Jesus. Christ is the stone that was rejected, but he is now the gates into heaven. He is the worthy one, and we only are. We only come to heaven in a worthy way as we come to the supper when we recognize that we are not worthy, but that Jesus Christ is, He is the heir of the vineyard, and we are welcome only to it through Him by faith, as Philippians, three tells us not having a righteousness of our own, that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, that depends on faith that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. And that is your hope.
That is your hope.
The resurrection is tied to the age to come, where there's no marriage. It continues on in verse 36 for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.
Now what this passage is, isn't saying is you become like angels, and that you you become an angel, that you're going to sprout wings that then you're going to fly around, and you're going to be people's guardian angels, that kind of thing. So it's a wonderful life. Great movie. Not right? Theology, you're not going to become an angel when a bell rings and things like that. So how are we going to be like the angels?
Well, it's clear that we become like the angels in our immortality. Angels don't die.
Angels don't produce, actually, little baby angels either. There aren't baby angels. There are angels. There are fallen angels that are demons and and heavenly angels with God in heaven. So we become like angels in our immortality. And that's what Paul says in First Corinthians, chapter 15, For this perishable body must put on the imperishable and this mortal body must put on immortality.
And this also helps us explain why there is no marriage in heaven, because if one of the purposes of marriage is for procreation to be fruitful and multiply.
And fill the earth. Well, there's there's no more need to fill the earth. There's no more death there. God already has all the children that that he wants and has in heaven also. Another purpose for marriages is mutual help. Well, we don't need help anymore. We have Jesus Christ, and we're perfected. Another purpose for marriage is the Preventing of uncleanliness or impurity. Well, we don't need that anymore too, because we will be pure. We will be washed as white as snow, with Christ wearing his righteous robes in heaven.
Now, Jesus says you should believe in the resurrection, because the Torah talks about the dead being raised. He's talking to the Sadducees. You should believe that you will be raised from the dead, because Moses talked about it in Matthew's account. Jesus says you are wrong because you neither, because you know neither Scriptures nor the power of God. You say you follow Moses and you believe Moses's writings? Well, Moses believe and he taught about the resurrection. Do you remember the passage about the bush?
Remember that one? Now he mentions the passage about the bush. This was before we had chapter breaks and divisions as we have them. In fact, we didn't really get chapter divisions and verses like we have now until the 13th century. So it's not like they could say in Exodus chapter three, which is where it was. You just remember the passage about the bush, and you know that you know the passage about the bush where Moses, God calls to Moses that he is going to lead his people out of the Promised Land, and then Moses writes how God spoke to him at that time from the bush that says, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.
And just notice here how God says I am not. I was the god of these people that no longer exist anymore. There they've just been, you know, disintegrated. I am. They still exist. I am still their God, as I am your God, the God who made promises to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob a promise to save but if they just if there's nothing after death, what good was that promise? It doesn't make any sense of God's promises to to his people. If there's just nothing after death, it's nullified. But we also know Abraham believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead if Isaac was killed. Hebrews 11 says Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all died. All died not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on Earth.
They desire a better country that is a heavenly one. And so the author of Hebrews is even letting us know that the the fathers of old, of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and and Moses, they all believe that this world was not it, that there was something else, a heavenly kingdom.
And as the text tells us, he's not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live in Him.
Jesus said in John chapter 11, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet he shall live. And you remember John chapter 11 is in context of the death of Lazarus. And he's not really dead. Jesus brings him back to life. But you know, there's no Lazarus around here now, because Lazarus is alive now in heaven with Moses and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
He's, he's the God of the living, and we will reach that promised land to by faith in Jesus. We will worship, and we will know our groom, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then some of the scribes answered, teacher, you have spoken well, for they no longer dared to ask him any questions. Now, it says the scribes, you notice how it's changed. It doesn't say the Sadducees said, Teacher, you have spoken well. It says the scribes, because the scribes believe in the resurrection, so they're like, yeah, get them Jesus, you have spoken. Well, put those prideful Sadducees in their place. You've spoken so Well, Jesus, you're one of the best teachers ever. Jesus, you've spoken so so well. That's what they say, and they no longer dared to ask him any questions.
But now Jesus does ask them a question, and the answer to the question that Jesus you.
He gives a riddle, if you will.
And let me read it. He said to them, how can they say that Christ is David's son? For David himself says, in the book of Psalms, the Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. David thus calls him Lord. So how is he his son? Now he gives a riddle to them. It's a riddle, and the answer to this riddle is the answer to the resurrection, which is, I think, why they're tied together. If you remember Luke's Gospel, it begins, and it's written to help us know that salvation is found in Christ. Because Jesus, Christ is the Christ. He is the Messiah. He is the Anointed One.
He is the one that the Old Testament talked about. He is the snake Crusher whose heel would be bruised, but he would crush the head of the serpent.
He is everything that the Old Testament was pointing to, who would save His people. Now everyone knew that the Christ would be David's son. He would come from David's lineage.
Second Samuel, seven says, When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up for your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish His kingdom. He would belong the Christ, the Messiah, would be part of David's bloodline. Would be part of David's lineage. And Joseph is that? And Luke, chapter one, verse 27 he's part of the house of David. So how could the Christ though be David's Lord? That's this is the question. Psalm 110 is quoted here. It's a Messianic Psalm, and it makes it explicit prophecies about the coming of Christ. And in the Psalm here, there's, there's a two person conversation. It says, The Lord says to my Lord, this is David talking the Lord that says to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.
Who are the two Lords who's talking here? If you look at your English translations, you'll see that one of the Lords is in all caps and the other isn't, because there's actually two different words there. The all caps word is the word that is sometimes referred to as Yahweh or or Jehovah, and that's God's divine name. This is by who God reveals Himself by. So who is Yahweh speaking to that is also Lord, and the other Lord is Adonai, which is the general term for Lord, which is used for the Messiah, the Anointed One.
So Phil reichen says, just summarize this. The Lord God says to the Lord the Messiah, sit on my throne to rule the universe.
So here's the riddle. Why does David call the Messiah his Lord and superior? Because David does have a son that takes a throne after him, Solomon. And never a time does David call Solomon Lord. The sons, in fact, were to honor their fathers, not the other way around. Right the the sons honor their fathers. In fact, that we kind of read that in the commandment the fathers were weren't to honor their sons by calling them Lord. So shouldn't the messiah be honoring David and Jacob and Abraham, not the other way around? So how can David's son be David's Lord? Are you following the riddle?
Okay, the answer to the riddle is that the Messiah is not just a man, but he is God. In fact, he is Yahweh Himself. The Messiah is God.
He is David's Lord, but he is also David's God.
And this is Jesus, who is both human and divine, that Jesus is the eternal Son of God who became man, and so was and continues to be, God and man and two distinct natures in one person, forever and Jesus, because not only is he man, he is God, has the ability to not only take your life, but to but To give life, and that's the answer to the resurrection too. Is that Jesus will come, and as the text tells us, He will crush his enemies, the God man, the Lord Jesus Christ, He will come, and He will put all of his enemies under his feet.
He will dash them into pieces, like Psalm two says he will come to judge the living and the dead, as we said in the Apostles Creed.
But if you want life in the age to come, because you will all experience an age to come, and that age to come.
One will either be eternal death or eternal life.
And how you get eternal life is by submission to the Lord Jesus Christ, the God man who died on the cross to take away all of your sins, to wash you clean, to wash away all of your rebellion, and then he gives you His perfect record of righteousness that you might have life.
The Warning as Revelation 20 says in anyone's name was not written in the book of life. He was thrown into the lake of fire.
But here's the gospel. But God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
As RC Sproul said, you will be somewhere 500 years from now, you will be somewhere, and you will be conscience of where you are. Where will you be in the age to come? Will you be a part of the land of the living or the Land of the Dead, I'm preparing you to die.
Are you prepared? Are you prepared to die this day?
Do not be foolish. Your very soul might be demanded of you this day, and you will meet God.
Are you prepared?
Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Believe in Him. Let's pray Our Father. We thank You that You have given us your word and you've given us Jesus, Lord, we confess we don't know really what the age to come looks like fully. We have hints of it that that you tell us, But Lord, we don't know what it's like. And for some of us, that's that's scary. Even to think of being anywhere for eternity is is scary. But Lord, help us to put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to trust in your character, to trust in your goodness. We thank you that that the second person of the Trinity took on flesh. He became man, and he died for our sins. He didn't die for angels. He died for us. And so, Lord help us to repent of our sins, to cast them upon Jesus Christ to be prepared to die, Lord, we are we are vapors. We are here for a little while, and then we are gone, and we are reminded, as appointed on the man wants to die, and then the judgment, there are no second chances, and today is the day of salvation. So help us to put our faith in you. And it's in Jesus's name we pray. Amen.
Amen.