WEBVTT 00:00:02.600 --> 00:00:03.439 Hello everyone. 00:00:03.440 --> 00:00:04.919 My name is Nathan Ebbs. 00:00:04.921 --> 00:00:06.440 I am a student at Central Church. 00:00:08.410 --> 00:00:13.339 I am also a sophomore at Collierville High School, and I will be doing the scripture reading for today. 00:00:13.609 --> 00:00:16.730 Please open your Bibles to Mark 12:18 through 27. 00:00:18.969 --> 00:00:24.039 "Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him for a question. 00:00:23.530 --> 00:00:33.640 'Teacher,' they said,'Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife, but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up the offspring for his brother. 00:00:34.149 --> 00:00:35.320 Now there are seven brothers. 00:00:35.320 --> 00:00:38.079 The first one married and died without leaving any children. 00:00:38.320 --> 00:00:42.369 The second one married the widow, but he died leaving no child. 00:00:42.399 --> 00:00:43.719 It was the same with the third. 00:00:43.960 --> 00:00:46.060 In fact, none of the seven left any children. 00:00:46.119 --> 00:00:47.770 Last of all, the woman died, too. 00:00:48.939 --> 00:00:59.200 At the resurrection, whose wife will she be since the seven were married to her?' Jesus replied,'Are you not in error because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God? 00:00:59.469 --> 00:01:02.350 When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. 00:01:01.841 --> 00:01:04.239 They will be like the angels in heaven. 00:01:04.870 --> 00:01:16.810 Now about the dead rising: have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him,"I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:18.250 You are badly mistaken.'" 00:01:23.790 --> 00:01:24.120 Thank you, Nate. 00:01:25.430 --> 00:01:34.079 With your Bibles open to that passage that Nate just read there, you can see that the topic today is resurrection. 00:01:33.090 --> 00:01:42.390 And yet, I believe that that's a word that is kind of losing its meaning in our increasingly secular culture today. 00:01:42.609 --> 00:01:47.909 What is Jesus referring to when he speaks of the resurrection? 00:01:48.569 --> 00:01:58.469 And maybe even if you've spent years in the church, or you're still not absolutely clear on what is being talked about when we speak of the resurrection. 00:01:58.471 --> 00:02:04.680 By the way, as we'll see, it is something different than Jesus speaking of his own resurrection here. 00:02:05.189 --> 00:02:07.260 Well, here's a good starting place this morning. 00:02:07.260 --> 00:02:15.719 When we speak of the resurrection, that is under the broader topic of belief in life after death. 00:02:16.319 --> 00:02:29.819 And again, thinking about how we're being influenced in our thinking, I wanted to know a little bit more about what does our culture think about what happens after you die, whether there's any form of life or consciousness after death? 00:02:29.849 --> 00:02:32.759 I went looking for the latest polls. 00:02:32.760 --> 00:02:38.580 I tried to find something that's fairly scientific in its polling, not just a popular poll. 00:02:38.939 --> 00:02:43.349 The most recent one that was a credible poll is five years old. 00:02:43.350 --> 00:02:50.159 It's from 2014, so I assume this has only increased, the trends that we're seeing here. 00:02:50.161 --> 00:03:13.610 But in 2014, a nationwide poll was conducted, and here is one of the main questions, the one that we're focusing on today:"Do you believe there is a life after death?" And interestingly enough, five years ago, again, about 70% of people, this is all people, this is people in church, people who have nothing to do with church. 00:03:13.939 --> 00:03:34.969 About 70% said,"Yes, I believe there's some form of life, some form of consciousness after you die." What I found real interesting were the next two: almost 18% said,"No, I don't believe there's any life,"there's any consciousness, after death," and about 11% said,"You know, I don't know. 00:03:34.971 --> 00:04:00.349 I really don't know whether there's any life or consciousness after death." So roughly 30% of people, if this poll is representative of our population and our culture, roughly 30% either believe that when you die, that's it, that's the end, there's no more consciousness, or they're very uncertain about whether there is any existence, any life, after death. 00:04:00.830 --> 00:04:05.210 And again, I think over the last five years, that has probably only increased. 00:04:05.330 --> 00:04:08.300 It's probably greater than 30% now. 00:04:08.780 --> 00:04:26.750 Some of you may be wrestling with that this morning, or, if you're not personally wrestling with the question of whether there's life or consciousness after death, you probably have family members or friends or coworkers that you know fall into one of these categories. 00:04:26.750 --> 00:04:31.069 So I think this is a very relevant topic for us. 00:04:31.639 --> 00:04:34.639 And again, let's drill down to what's really being talked about here. 00:04:34.641 --> 00:04:36.410 What is the resurrection? 00:04:35.540 --> 00:04:41.930 When we speak of that term,"the resurrection", what are we specifically talking about? 00:04:42.620 --> 00:04:47.540 We see it referenced three times in our text today that Nate just read. 00:04:47.750 --> 00:04:57.740 In Verse 23, it's in the Sadducees' scenario that they're spinning out there:"in the resurrection, when they rise". 00:04:58.250 --> 00:05:10.399 The Sadducees are speaking in a hypothetical scenario about some brothers and a woman, and it's after their death, and they're speaking of them rising from the dead. 00:05:10.550 --> 00:05:11.839 Jesus picks up on this. 00:05:11.841 --> 00:05:21.350 Verse 25:"For when they rise from the dead," and again in Verse 26:"now concerning the dead being raised". 00:05:22.279 --> 00:05:27.170 So what we see is in this text: Jesus isn't talking about his own resurrection. 00:05:27.170 --> 00:05:29.240 That is crucial to our faith. 00:05:29.300 --> 00:05:33.110 That's another sermon, because that's not what this text is about. 00:05:33.949 --> 00:05:37.759 They are talking about our resurrection. 00:05:38.449 --> 00:05:44.149 They are talking about what happens to you and me after we die. 00:05:44.839 --> 00:05:54.500 So if you're taking notes, here's just a very succinct definition of"resurrection", and then I'm going to expand this out as we look at it in this passage. 00:05:54.829 --> 00:06:02.819 Resurrection very simply is this: it is the reuniting of the body and the soul after death. 00:06:03.209 --> 00:06:13.410 Resurrection is God reuniting your body, which has died, with your soul, bringing them together after your earthly death. 00:06:13.620 --> 00:06:23.189 Jesus taught us about resurrection, not just in this passage, but in other passages, including probably John 5 is the one that stands out to me the most. 00:06:23.759 --> 00:06:25.709 The first verse reference is wrong. 00:06:25.711 --> 00:06:27.120 It should be verse 28. 00:06:27.360 --> 00:06:37.410 Jesus says this:"A time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice." He's speaking about his voice, the Son of Man. 00:06:37.800 --> 00:06:48.029 A time is coming when everybody who's in the grave will hear the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, and come out, come out of the grave. 00:06:48.480 --> 00:06:52.889 Those who have done good will rise out of the grave to live. 00:06:53.430 --> 00:06:58.439 Those who have done evil will rise out of the grave to be condemned. 00:06:59.850 --> 00:07:04.980 You know, we have a confession of faith here at Central Church, and you may have not seen it. 00:07:04.651 --> 00:07:08.250 You may have seen the little two-page summary that we have. 00:07:08.250 --> 00:07:13.529 That's what we generally use, because our confession of faith is over 120 articles long. 00:07:14.100 --> 00:07:27.689 But there are two articles that, you know, even though we don't read from the confession of faith very often, there are two confessions of Central's-- or, there's two articles of Central's confession of faith that speak directly to this. 00:07:27.690 --> 00:07:33.540 Let me read, first of all, section 118, The Bodies of Men. 00:07:33.730 --> 00:07:44.970 And by the way, the confession of faith was written at an earlier time, when"men" was used generically for men and women, so read that"The Bodies of Men and Women" or"The Bodies of People". 00:07:45.449 --> 00:07:50.490 "The bodies of men and women after death return to dust, they go into the grave. 00:07:50.939 --> 00:07:55.350 But their spirits, being immortal, return to God who gave them. 00:07:56.399 --> 00:07:59.430 The spirits of the righteous--" and let me stop there. 00:07:59.430 --> 00:08:00.899 Who are the righteous? 00:08:01.230 --> 00:08:02.970 The righteous are not good people. 00:08:03.449 --> 00:08:09.149 The righteous are not people who've, you know, gone to church all their life and done good things to look good in front of God. 00:08:09.300 --> 00:08:16.680 No, the righteous are those who put their faith in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, who are covered with his righteousness. 00:08:16.680 --> 00:08:18.329 They are righteous only in him. 00:08:18.331 --> 00:08:19.470 I hope that's you. 00:08:19.829 --> 00:08:21.120 I know that's me. 00:08:21.990 --> 00:08:42.720 "The spirits of the righteous are received into Heaven, where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies." And by the way, that article goes on to speak about what happens to the unrighteous, those who have not put their faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ. 00:08:42.721 --> 00:08:45.929 Again, another sermon for another day, so I won't go there. 00:08:46.620 --> 00:08:50.820 That sets us up for the next article, which is about resurrection. 00:08:51.120 --> 00:08:54.899 Article 119: At the Resurrection. 00:08:55.509 --> 00:09:10.779 "Those who are alive shall not die but will be changed," and here's the resurrection:"and all the dead shall be raised up spiritual and immortal, and spirits and bodies be reunited forever." There it is. 00:09:10.780 --> 00:09:12.850 There's the definition of"resurrection". 00:09:13.360 --> 00:09:19.389 The bodies of the righteous shall be fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body. 00:09:20.529 --> 00:09:26.200 I know the language is from another time period, but you hear enough there to be encouraged. 00:09:26.620 --> 00:09:34.509 Maybe you're here this morning, and you're struggling with a breaking down of your body, maybe through disability, maybe through illness, maybe through cancer. 00:09:35.129 --> 00:09:47.470 Do you hear the promise here, that one day, if you have faith in Jesus Christ, your body will be raised and glorified and be made like Christ's glorified body? 00:09:48.519 --> 00:09:58.960 Maybe you're here this morning, and you're thinking of a loved one who has died, but you know that that loved one died going within faith in Christ. 00:09:59.320 --> 00:10:03.250 And do you hear the promise here, that you will see that loved one again? 00:10:03.539 --> 00:10:12.100 You will see them not in the final state in which they died, ravaged by cancer or whatever it is; you will see them glorified? 00:10:12.340 --> 00:10:19.659 You will see them in their perfect state, with their glorified body joined with their glorified spirit? 00:10:20.090 --> 00:10:21.399 Do you hear the hope in that? 00:10:20.980 --> 00:10:23.440 Do you hear the promise in that? 00:10:25.539 --> 00:10:26.710 I've tried to think this through. 00:10:26.711 --> 00:10:30.820 I'm a visual person, and helps me to try and draw something out. 00:10:30.850 --> 00:10:41.710 You know, and that's a lot of words in those two articles, so here's my simple attempt that's coming up on the screen here to draw out, in a diagram, what we just heard there. 00:10:41.711 --> 00:10:44.649 And you see this illustration on the screen. 00:10:45.100 --> 00:10:47.860 We're in the left side of that diagram right now. 00:10:47.561 --> 00:10:50.980 We're living our earthly life. 00:10:50.980 --> 00:10:53.049 And what do we know about our earthly life? 00:10:53.051 --> 00:11:05.529 Well, we know that we have our bodies, but what we learn as we read the Bible, what we learn as we grow in our faith, is we also have a soul or spirit. 00:11:06.039 --> 00:11:10.000 And so, that is our existence in this earthly life. 00:11:10.210 --> 00:11:13.419 We are part soul, and we are part body. 00:11:13.509 --> 00:11:19.750 That's how God made us, with those two basic aspects of who we are. 00:11:20.019 --> 00:11:21.340 But what happens at death? 00:11:21.370 --> 00:11:23.049 You see the line at"death" there. 00:11:23.051 --> 00:11:26.139 What happens at earthly death? 00:11:26.779 --> 00:11:29.409 Well, do you see how our body goes down into the grave? 00:11:29.291 --> 00:11:41.830 Whether our bodies are buried or whether they are cremated, our body, for a time, goes into a state where it, you know, very bluntly, it begins to rot. 00:11:42.360 --> 00:11:49.779 It begins to disintegrate, either in the grave or in the urn, if it is cremated. 00:11:50.409 --> 00:11:53.960 But our soul goes on, our soul goes on in consciousness. 00:11:53.961 --> 00:11:55.879 Our soul is in paradise. 00:11:55.909 --> 00:12:02.450 You remember Jesus' promise to the thief on the cross who put his faith in Christ even just before he died? 00:12:02.629 --> 00:12:12.529 "Today, you will be with me in paradise." So following our death, our body may be in the grave for a time. 00:12:12.530 --> 00:12:18.379 We may no longer-- they are separated, very honestly, our body and our soul. 00:12:18.380 --> 00:12:20.899 But our soul does not become extinguished. 00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:23.570 We don't lose consciousness. 00:12:23.750 --> 00:12:31.159 If we know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, if we put our faith in him, we enjoy him in paradise. 00:12:32.269 --> 00:12:34.759 But here's the thing: many people think that's it. 00:12:34.820 --> 00:12:38.149 Many people think that's the state of heaven. 00:12:38.419 --> 00:12:43.220 You know, many people have kind of the old Greek dualism, that the body is evil. 00:12:43.220 --> 00:12:45.769 And so at death, you're done with the body. 00:12:45.770 --> 00:12:52.549 You know, you shuck it off like a snake sheds its skin, and your soul lives on forever. 00:12:52.580 --> 00:12:57.590 But in God's complete saving work, it is not finished even at that state. 00:12:58.159 --> 00:13:04.309 See the next line: there comes the resurrection, and what happens at the resurrection? 00:13:04.311 --> 00:13:13.759 God completes his saving work that he has begun in this life, and he resurrects your body. 00:13:14.059 --> 00:13:16.190 He reconstitutes your body. 00:13:16.191 --> 00:13:23.240 He glorifies your body so that your body becomes like Jesus' glorified body after the resurrection. 00:13:23.450 --> 00:13:34.309 He joins your glorified body with your now-- your soul made perfect, your fully glorified soul, and that's what you spend eternity together in. 00:13:35.269 --> 00:13:39.710 That's what he's doing in his grand scheme of salvation. 00:13:40.309 --> 00:13:46.549 He made you body and soul; he intends to save you body and soul. 00:13:47.299 --> 00:13:48.320 That's the picture. 00:13:48.440 --> 00:13:50.990 Now, when does that second line come? 00:13:51.080 --> 00:13:58.730 When is the resurrection, when our salvation is completed and we spend eternity glorified body and glorified soul? 00:13:58.730 --> 00:14:00.620 We have hints of this in the New Testament. 00:14:00.950 --> 00:14:08.210 First Corinthians 15:23, Paul says that the resurrection happens"when he comes". 00:14:08.330 --> 00:14:09.500 Who is he speaking about? 00:14:09.500 --> 00:14:10.669 The Lord Jesus Christ. 00:14:10.671 --> 00:14:18.200 When the Lord Jesus Christ returns, that's when the resurrection of believers' bodies occurs. 00:14:18.500 --> 00:14:37.190 He gives more detail of this in 1Thessalonians 4:16:"For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout and the voice of the Archangel and the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise." We live for that day. 00:14:37.460 --> 00:14:38.570 We live for that day. 00:14:38.571 --> 00:14:43.490 If you know Christ as Savior and Lord, your salvation isn't complete in this life. 00:14:43.909 --> 00:15:03.690 We live for the day when we'll hear the trumpet call, when the Lord Jesus Christ will return, and we will be resurrected, whether we're still alive or we're in the grave, and we will be made into that state of glorified body, reunited with glorified soul, to spend eternity with him in Heaven. 00:15:05.909 --> 00:15:07.710 Well, what did they have at this time? 00:15:07.711 --> 00:15:14.759 They didn't have the New Testament at the time that the Sadducees are challenging Jesus here in our account, in Mark 12. 00:15:14.760 --> 00:15:16.649 All they had was the Old Testament. 00:15:17.039 --> 00:15:20.039 They didn't know what God now has fully revealed to all of us. 00:15:20.041 --> 00:15:21.990 Did they know even about the resurrection? 00:15:21.990 --> 00:15:27.809 Does the Old Testament speak of the resurrection of a believer's body? 00:15:28.110 --> 00:15:33.210 It does many places, but let me give you two that really stand out and speak to me. 00:15:33.570 --> 00:15:41.879 The first one, Isaiah 26:19, listen to God speaking prophetically through Isaiah:"Your dead will live. 00:15:42.389 --> 00:15:45.690 Their bodies will rise from the dead. 00:15:45.990 --> 00:15:58.529 Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust,--" you who have been buried, you who have been cremated,"--for you will be covered with the morning dew." There's that image of a glorified, new existence. 00:15:58.679 --> 00:16:27.480 "And the earth will bring forth the departed spirits." Or Daniel Chapter 12, Verse Two: Daniel, again, writing under the prophetic inspiration of God,"Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth--" who are buried, who are cremated--"will awake, some to eternal life and some to shame and eternal contempt." But what if there is no resurrection? 00:16:29.049 --> 00:16:33.429 What if our consciousness ends when our body dies? 00:16:33.970 --> 00:16:35.259 What if this is it? 00:16:36.539 --> 00:16:41.279 What if our soul perishes when our body parishes? 00:16:42.039 --> 00:16:46.539 I mean, you hear many people there today, embracing that. 00:16:47.169 --> 00:16:50.259 Again, roughly 30%, and that is probably growing. 00:16:50.260 --> 00:16:54.309 And maybe you're here this morning and you wrestle with this. 00:16:54.429 --> 00:17:01.450 Maybe it is hard for you to conceive that after your body dies, there will be any more consciousness. 00:17:02.360 --> 00:17:03.259 That was the Pharisees. 00:17:03.260 --> 00:17:05.660 That was the belief of the Pharisees. 00:17:05.661 --> 00:17:07.160 We see that in Verse 18. 00:17:07.161 --> 00:17:08.509 I'm sorry, not the Pharisees. 00:17:08.510 --> 00:17:10.339 The Pharisees believed in the resurrection. 00:17:10.519 --> 00:17:11.779 The Sadducees. 00:17:11.960 --> 00:17:19.859 Verse 18:"Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection." Who are the Saducees? 00:17:20.539 --> 00:17:24.529 The Sadducees are one of the priestly sects of Judaism. 00:17:25.250 --> 00:17:27.589 But they were the aristocrats. 00:17:27.590 --> 00:17:30.109 They were the wealthy sect. 00:17:30.619 --> 00:17:32.599 They were the ones who were politically powerful. 00:17:32.601 --> 00:17:34.250 They were the ones who controlled the high priesthood. 00:17:34.509 --> 00:17:38.089 All the high priests were four Sadducees. 00:17:38.420 --> 00:17:43.400 They were the ones who always had a majority control of the Sanhedrin. 00:17:43.401 --> 00:17:45.829 So they ran things. 00:17:46.049 --> 00:17:47.900 They had great wealth. 00:17:47.901 --> 00:17:48.500 They had great political influence. 00:17:48.500 --> 00:17:51.400 They ran things. 00:17:51.819 --> 00:18:03.700 And here's what's unique about the Sadducees as compared to the Pharisees: if the Pharisees were the religious conservatives, the Saducees were the religious liberals of their day. 00:18:03.910 --> 00:18:07.900 Specifically, the Saducees, as we see, didn't believe in the resurrection. 00:18:08.410 --> 00:18:08.410 Why? 00:18:09.009 --> 00:18:25.690 The Saducees believe that the only authoritative part of the Old Testament, the only part that you absolutely had to live by, is what we call the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. 00:18:26.079 --> 00:18:29.529 And so, if it wasn't in one of those books, they didn't accept it. 00:18:30.279 --> 00:18:43.690 And because the word, the term"resurrection" does not appear in those five books, they said, you know,"That's the Pharisees going off into fantasy land." They rejected the doctrine, the truth, of the resurrection. 00:18:43.900 --> 00:18:47.950 They rejected even the whole idea of the immortality of the soul. 00:18:47.951 --> 00:18:52.059 They would be among those who would say,"When you die, that's it. 00:18:52.269 --> 00:19:02.559 This life is all there is." And the Sadducees think that now, they can accomplish what the Pharisees and the Herodians failed to do. 00:19:02.560 --> 00:19:10.329 If you were here last week, we heard about how the Pharisees and the Herodians tried to trap Jesus with a political question. 00:19:10.480 --> 00:19:21.579 Now the Sadducees think they can trap Jesus with a theological question, and they lay out their trap in the form of a hypothetical question. 00:19:21.580 --> 00:19:38.319 Verse 19:"Teacher," they said,"Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother." Now, they are quoting from the Pentateuch. 00:19:38.380 --> 00:19:40.990 They are quoting specifically from Deuteronomy. 00:19:40.990 --> 00:19:51.220 If you want to look this up later, it's Deuteronomy 25 starting with Verse Three, and it's the section that deals with what was called in Israel a Levirate marriage. 00:19:51.490 --> 00:20:09.009 And just a bit of background on that: if you are a woman living at that time in Israel, and your husband died, you could be left destitute, because land, the land even that you are living on, passed with the husband, passed from the husband to his son, if there was a son. 00:20:09.010 --> 00:20:14.380 It did not pass to the wife like happens in inheritance rights today. 00:20:14.381 --> 00:20:16.240 That's just the way it was. 00:20:16.809 --> 00:20:29.710 And so, you were all right if you had a son, because the land that your husband had deed to and had rights to would pass to the son, and as long as you were living with the son or cared for the son, you could live on the land. 00:20:29.710 --> 00:20:35.410 But what happened if you and your husband had not had any sons by the time your husband died? 00:20:35.980 --> 00:20:36.910 You had no land. 00:20:37.240 --> 00:20:38.619 The land passed. 00:20:39.279 --> 00:20:55.150 But Moses recognized that this left women in a very vulnerable position, and so, God working through Moses out of compassion for women in that situation created the section of law in Deuteronomy 25, the Levirate marriage law. 00:20:55.151 --> 00:21:21.160 And basically, what it said is if that happens, if a man dies and he has no son at the time of his death, if the man has a brother, the brother marries the man's widow, and then that brother and the man's widow try and have children, and if they can have a son, then the inheritance rights of the man who is deceased pass to the son,and the woman continues to be provided for. 00:21:21.161 --> 00:21:24.130 It was done out of compassion and mercy. 00:21:24.910 --> 00:21:35.109 The Sadducees take this very compassionate, merciful section of law, and they spin it into this hypothetical that, in one sense, is ridiculous. 00:21:35.111 --> 00:21:41.529 In the other sense, you know, I guess this could hypothetically happen, but they spin it out to trap Jesus. 00:21:41.950 --> 00:21:50.710 And they think that if Jesus embraces what they have spun out in their hypothesis here, if he upholds, he'll be trapped. 00:21:50.920 --> 00:22:07.390 If he affirms that, yes, what Deuteronomy says is the word of God, but he also affirms the result that they're positing, they will trap him in a contradiction, and they will make them look foolish and discredit his ministry, which is exactly what they were trying to do. 00:22:07.990 --> 00:22:19.990 And here they spring the trap now in Verse 26 with this question:"Hey, if all that's true, Jesus, and the seven brothers have all been married to this wife. 00:22:20.470 --> 00:22:35.589 In the resurrection--" Remember, this is asked by Sadducees who don't believe in the resurrection--"In what you say is the resurrection, when they rise, all these seven brothers and this one wife, which one's wife will she be? 00:22:35.980 --> 00:22:46.630 For all seven had her as wife." You know, you can tell they worked on this scenario long before they came and asked him, because the details are important here. 00:22:46.631 --> 00:22:51.880 They create this scenario in which none of the brothers had any children with the woman. 00:22:52.750 --> 00:23:01.210 So none of the brothers, although all seven were married to her, none of them have any unique or special claim over the other on her. 00:23:01.211 --> 00:23:04.359 They all simply were just married to her. 00:23:04.960 --> 00:23:18.789 And so, they create this scenario: if marriage exists in heaven like it exists on earth, they create this scenario where these brothers and this woman go to heaven and they're all married, and that is polygamy. 00:23:19.240 --> 00:23:21.970 That is seven men married to one woman. 00:23:22.450 --> 00:23:24.250 They think they've caught Jesus in a trap. 00:23:24.279 --> 00:23:28.359 "How can you affirm the resurrection and this all happening? 00:23:28.809 --> 00:23:31.450 Doesn't that uphold polygamy? 00:23:31.451 --> 00:23:38.710 Isn't that against what the first five books of the Old Testament have to say?" They think they've caught him in a trap. 00:23:38.740 --> 00:23:44.650 They think this shows how ridiculous the whole conception of resurrection is. 00:23:45.859 --> 00:23:47.420 You know, this happens to us today. 00:23:47.421 --> 00:23:53.029 The Saducees are like people today who come to you, and they know you're a believer. 00:23:53.030 --> 00:24:01.009 They know you're a Christian, they know you believe in the Bible, and they're not really open, they're not really interested, but they want to trap you. 00:24:01.010 --> 00:24:18.079 They want to trick you, and so they ask you questions designed to try and put you in a trap like the Sadducees, like probably the most commonly known question is,"Can God make a rock so heavy that he can't lift it?" Have you ever been asked a question like that? 00:24:18.589 --> 00:24:38.039 You know, they think that if you answer,"Well, no, God can't make a rock so heavy that he can't lift it," well,"Isn't God all-powerful like you say?" But if they catch you, if you say yes to that,"Yes, God can make a rock so heavy that he can't lift it,""He can't lift it?" They think they catch you in an inconsistency. 00:24:38.390 --> 00:24:39.890 They're not really open. 00:24:40.279 --> 00:24:42.470 They're not really seeking to know God. 00:24:42.920 --> 00:24:45.380 That's the posture of the Sadducees. 00:24:46.039 --> 00:24:56.720 You know, when we encounter people like that, and we detect, the Spirit really helps us to discern that this is not a person who is open in really hearing truth; this is a person who's trying to trap me. 00:24:56.721 --> 00:25:01.670 I often think of the wisdom of Proverbs 26 Four and Five. 00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:05.839 "Don't answer a fool according to his folly." Don't answer. 00:25:05.840 --> 00:25:07.849 Don't let a fool put you in his trap. 00:25:07.851 --> 00:25:13.250 Don't answer it within the confines of his folly, his foolish trap. 00:25:13.640 --> 00:25:21.589 But the very next verse:"Answer a fool as his folly deserves." Oh, he needs an answer, she needs an answer. 00:25:21.829 --> 00:25:27.230 But you don't have to answer within the limits of that little trick question, the limits of that trap. 00:25:28.039 --> 00:25:30.529 And that's exactly what we see Jesus do here. 00:25:30.530 --> 00:25:35.660 Before I get to that, what is the relevance of all of this to you and me today? 00:25:36.289 --> 00:25:42.710 This goes to, kind of, even my working sermon title,"Modern-Day Sadducees". 00:25:43.190 --> 00:25:46.490 I think we live in the midst of many modern-day Sadducees. 00:25:46.490 --> 00:26:07.190 I think we live in a culture where there's an increasing amount of people who are functional Sadducees, who, when they think of the afterlife, and they think of concepts like the Christian doctrine of resurrection, they think that is ridiculous, and they want to put that in your face, and they want to make you look ridiculous. 00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:27.289 I think even within the church, I think there are many people, maybe some of you here today, who struggle to believe this conception that not only was Jesus raised from the dead, but that those who believe in Jesus will one day be resurrected, one day raised from the dead. 00:26:27.890 --> 00:26:34.279 And so, even to you this morning, I need to give the challenge: do you think like a Pharisee? 00:26:34.710 --> 00:26:37.009 Do you think like a Pharisee? 00:26:37.160 --> 00:26:53.700 Paul wrote to Christians in Corinth, in a church there, in the Corinthian church, in 1 Corinthians 15, he wrote to Christians who are struggling to believe that believers will be raised, their bodies will be raised after they die. 00:26:54.059 --> 00:26:57.269 So he wrote to people like you and me, and here's what he had to say. 00:26:57.270 --> 00:27:24.329 Verse 32:"If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." He is describing, really, the kind of the modern thinking that there's no consciousness, there's no life, after death, that if there is no resurrection, if there is no life after death, then really, the only operating philosophy that really is worth living by is,"Eat, drink, and party. 00:27:24.750 --> 00:27:29.700 Enjoy life to the hilt while you can, because there's nothing after this life. 00:27:30.059 --> 00:27:33.359 You might as well go for the gusto." You know all the themes. 00:27:33.361 --> 00:27:35.130 You see it in advertising. 00:27:35.549 --> 00:27:40.829 You hear it from people all around you, and maybe it leaks into your thinking. 00:27:41.519 --> 00:28:07.890 Maybe you, struggling to believe that there's any existence after you die, you fully embrace, even if you claim to be a follower of Jesus, you fully embrace a subtle form of hedonism, where your goal in life is to enjoy as much as you can now, to eliminate as much suffering as you can now, because you're living functionally as if this is all there is. 00:28:07.891 --> 00:28:14.190 And if that describes you, you are living like a Sadducee. 00:28:15.779 --> 00:28:21.509 Jesus answers the foolishness of the Sadducees, not according to their folly. 00:28:21.539 --> 00:28:23.880 He answers them as their folly deserves. 00:28:23.881 --> 00:28:32.970 Look at verse 24:"Are you not deceived?" By the way, if you have a version that says,"Are you not mistaken?", that's not strong enough. 00:28:32.971 --> 00:28:36.960 The Greek word there really means"these are self-deceived men". 00:28:37.500 --> 00:28:43.559 These are men who are-- in some sense, they are hardened to God really revealing his truth to them. 00:28:43.829 --> 00:29:09.269 "Are you not deceived because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God?" He challenges these men:"First of all, you don't know the scriptures." He challenges them, in other words, these men who studied the scripture, supposedly, he's challenging them:"You may have read the scriptures over and over again, but you don't grasp what they're teaching." And I wonder how many of us that describes. 00:29:09.270 --> 00:29:15.660 We may read the Bible, but we don't grasp, in this area, what it is really teaching. 00:29:16.359 --> 00:29:31.950 The Sadducees think they've trapped Jesus, because they know that the term"resurrection" doesn't appear in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, but Jesus shows them as many times as they've read through those first five books, they keep missing it. 00:29:31.951 --> 00:29:32.460 It's there. 00:29:32.461 --> 00:29:33.690 They just keep missing it. 00:29:33.691 --> 00:29:46.150 They don't grasp that the Bible teaches it, and he speaks specifically of how it is taught in Exodus Chapter Three, in the account of Moses and the burning bush. 00:29:46.690 --> 00:29:55.480 Look at what he says in Verse 26:"Haven't you read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him? 00:29:55.480 --> 00:30:03.400 'I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.'" That's Exodus 3:6. 00:30:03.851 --> 00:30:08.680 And then Jesus goes on in Verse 27 to show them what they failed to grasp. 00:30:09.069 --> 00:30:12.700 "He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. 00:30:13.210 --> 00:30:16.450 "You are badly deceived." How does he get that? 00:30:17.109 --> 00:30:22.210 Do you notice the precise words that God speaks to Moses? 00:30:22.420 --> 00:30:31.809 And just to set that scene in Exodus Chapter Three, when God is speaking to Moses, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob have been dead for many years. 00:30:31.810 --> 00:30:34.059 They've been buried for many years. 00:30:34.450 --> 00:30:37.839 Do you notice what God does not say to Moses? 00:30:37.900 --> 00:30:42.400 He doesn't say,"I was the God of Abraham. 00:30:42.430 --> 00:30:44.470 I was the God of Isaac. 00:30:44.471 --> 00:31:05.680 I was the God of Jacob." Don't you think that Jesus, in other words, is saying,"Don't you think that if God viewed Abraham and Isaac and Jacob as when they died and their bodies went into the grave," that that was the end, there was no more consciousness, there was no more existence of the soul, don't you think that's what he would have said? 00:31:05.799 --> 00:31:09.190 "I was the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob"? 00:31:09.240 --> 00:31:14.140 Do you see how even the tense of the verb is so critical here? 00:31:14.470 --> 00:31:16.119 What does he say instead? 00:31:16.509 --> 00:31:21.579 "I am the God of Abraham." Abraham who is in the grave. 00:31:21.759 --> 00:31:29.049 "I am the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." Isaac and Jacob who are in the grave. 00:31:29.619 --> 00:31:45.730 For Jesus, this statement proves that God's relationship with the righteous, it's not broken by death, that God continues to have communion, to have relationship with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in paradise. 00:31:45.759 --> 00:31:47.500 He is still their God. 00:31:47.680 --> 00:31:49.569 He is still in relationship with them. 00:31:49.570 --> 00:31:50.019 Why? 00:31:50.140 --> 00:31:52.599 Because their spirits are in paradise. 00:31:52.601 --> 00:31:58.329 Their souls are in paradise with him, even though their body is in the grave. 00:32:00.009 --> 00:32:00.759 How about you? 00:32:01.599 --> 00:32:05.500 Do you grasp the Bible's teaching about the resurrection? 00:32:06.190 --> 00:32:07.869 Yes, the resurrection of Jesus. 00:32:07.871 --> 00:32:09.339 You have to grasp that. 00:32:09.340 --> 00:32:16.210 If you don't believe in the resurrection of Jesus, you have no basis to believe that you are saved, but what about what's being talked about here? 00:32:16.210 --> 00:32:19.750 Do you believe in the resurrection of a believer? 00:32:19.750 --> 00:32:25.869 Do you believe that if you know Christ as Savior and Lord, that your body will one day be resurrected? 00:32:26.859 --> 00:32:31.390 I would go so far as to say this is an essential of the faith. 00:32:31.720 --> 00:32:36.190 Your view of salvation, of your salvation, is limited. 00:32:36.220 --> 00:32:47.029 It is stunted if you do not see that your salvation is completed, is made full, when he finally resurrects your body. 00:32:47.630 --> 00:33:01.609 This is the fullness of the Gospel: that he intends to save you and me, not just in our soul, but in our body, that our redemption includes not just our soul; it includes also our body. 00:33:02.390 --> 00:33:16.970 1 Corinthians 15: again, Jesus-- excuse me again, Paul-- preaching or writing to people who thought they were Christians, thought they were followers of Jesus, people who were in a church but struggling with this conception of resurrection. 00:33:17.150 --> 00:33:27.200 He writes in verse 12:"If it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection from the dead? 00:33:27.710 --> 00:33:36.619 If there is no resurrection from the dead, then not even Christ has been raised." Do you see how Paul links those two truths together? 00:33:36.740 --> 00:33:53.269 You can't believe in the resurrection of Jesus without believing that Jesus will resurrect those that he saved, and you can't believe that God will resurrect those that Jesus has saved without believing in the resurrection of Jesus. 00:33:53.599 --> 00:33:56.240 This is an essential of the faith. 00:33:57.500 --> 00:34:04.759 Well, Jesus' second rebuke of the Sadducees' foolishness in denying the resurrection is the second part of the statement. 00:34:05.720 --> 00:34:08.869 "You don't know the power of God. 00:34:09.079 --> 00:34:31.190 It's not only that you don't know the scriptures; you don't know the power of God." In other words, Jesus is saying to them,"You limit the power of God." The Sadducees are like so many of us today in our faith: we limit what we believe that God can do to what we can humanly understand from our earthly experience. 00:34:31.909 --> 00:34:40.340 And we hear about something that scripture says that God can do, but it's not something we can conceive of from our human frame of reference. 00:34:40.340 --> 00:34:45.619 It doesn't fit what we know of the principles of science or human logic. 00:34:45.889 --> 00:34:47.389 We struggle to believe it. 00:34:47.780 --> 00:34:48.739 And what are we doing? 00:34:48.889 --> 00:34:52.909 We are limiting the power of God to what we can humanly understand. 00:34:52.911 --> 00:35:00.559 We are limiting the power of God, of what God can do, to what we can put in earthly categories. 00:35:01.099 --> 00:35:03.440 We do that with healing all the time. 00:35:04.190 --> 00:35:21.829 We say that we believe that God can heal, but then we come upon situations where we hear from the medical professionals,"You know, there's nothing more that can be done." And hearing that in our earthly frame of reference, we struggle to believe that God can heal. 00:35:22.519 --> 00:35:24.739 We struggle on the opposite end of the spectrum. 00:35:24.740 --> 00:35:26.539 What if God doesn't heal? 00:35:26.541 --> 00:35:28.789 What if we pray for healing and God doesn't heal? 00:35:28.791 --> 00:35:40.079 I mean, our human understanding is that what is good and what should happen is that God always heals physically, and this person is healed of their affliction, or this person is saved from death. 00:35:40.690 --> 00:35:55.590 Well, what if God, in his grand scope, has a bigger plan in mind that includes that that person is not physically healed, even though they are spiritually healed, that that person may even be called home to paradise with him? 00:35:56.190 --> 00:36:05.579 When we struggle with that because it doesn't fit within our earthly categories of what we want and what we desire, then we limit the power of God. 00:36:06.420 --> 00:36:14.909 We certainly see this in resurrection, and I'll just be very real: I think of a body dying in 9/11. 00:36:16.079 --> 00:36:31.800 I think of what happened to the bodies perishing in the two towers, the Twin Towers, those bodies being basically incinerated, reduced to ash, and that ash being spread all throughout New York City, maybe beyond. 00:36:32.250 --> 00:36:38.429 Or I think of bodies that perish at sea and are never recovered, and what happens to them? 00:36:38.699 --> 00:36:51.630 I mean, you can let your mind run, and you can think of all the ways that a body can die, where that body, all the elements of that body, are just spread to the degree that my mind cannot conceive. 00:36:51.809 --> 00:36:54.119 How could God bring all of that together? 00:36:54.539 --> 00:36:57.840 How could God reconstitute that person's body? 00:36:58.019 --> 00:37:00.030 And what is that? 00:37:00.030 --> 00:37:02.159 That is me limiting the power of God. 00:37:02.579 --> 00:37:10.320 That is me trying to view through my own human understanding, my scientific understanding, what God can do. 00:37:10.320 --> 00:37:21.750 And because I can't work out a way that God could do that, limiting, doubting that God can do that, that's exactly what the Sadducees are doing here. 00:37:22.260 --> 00:37:42.599 But Jesus says,"You limit the power of God when you only believe what you can humanly understand, what only makes sense from what you understand as a person living on this earth." And that's what the Sadducees are doing when they bring in this hypothetical that assumes that marriage in heaven will be like marriage on earth. 00:37:43.230 --> 00:37:52.079 The Saducees are bringing the earthly human assumption that relationships in heaven are like relationships on Earth. 00:37:52.469 --> 00:38:01.409 But Jesus says, Verse 25:"When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. 00:38:01.679 --> 00:38:08.880 They will be like the angels in heaven." Now, this is not Jesus' complete teaching on Heaven. 00:38:08.880 --> 00:38:16.889 This is not the Bible's complete teaching on Heaven, but this gives us a little glimpse of Heaven, and what is the glimpse that we see in Heaven? 00:38:17.070 --> 00:38:24.210 The righteous, those who know Christ as Savior and Lord, the righteous will be like the angels, and let me stop there. 00:38:24.329 --> 00:38:26.610 We do not become angels. 00:38:27.030 --> 00:38:42.460 I have to bite my tongue when I'm at a funeral and I hear, particularly, unbelievers but sometimes even believers, trying to comfort the one who is lost, someone saying,"Oh, now they're one of God's angels." No, that is not true. 00:38:42.880 --> 00:38:45.159 We do not become angels. 00:38:45.489 --> 00:38:55.510 We become like the angels in this aspect that Jesus goes on to say here: that we are not married in Heaven, like angels are not married. 00:38:55.869 --> 00:39:01.269 We do not have children in Heaven, like angels do not have children in Heaven. 00:39:02.260 --> 00:39:13.150 Maybe at this point you're wondering, especially if you are happily married and if you've enjoyed the blessings of children,"Well, that sounds like a downgrade," but let's look at the purpose in marriage. 00:39:13.570 --> 00:39:15.340 What is marriage designed to do? 00:39:15.340 --> 00:39:17.590 What was God's design for marriage? 00:39:17.590 --> 00:39:25.690 He designed marriage one, to propagate children, to fill the earth with other human beings. 00:39:25.750 --> 00:39:27.579 But what do we know will happen in Heaven? 00:39:27.849 --> 00:39:29.320 There will be no more death. 00:39:29.750 --> 00:39:31.059 There will be no one dying. 00:39:31.061 --> 00:39:34.929 There will be no need to continue to propagate the species. 00:39:35.619 --> 00:39:39.369 What else do we know is one of God's purposes of marriage on Earth? 00:39:39.371 --> 00:39:40.750 It's for companionship. 00:39:41.349 --> 00:39:42.579 It is for relationship. 00:39:42.699 --> 00:39:50.260 It is to keep us from being lonely, from being disconnected, and why is that purpose no longer needed in Heaven? 00:39:50.260 --> 00:40:06.550 Because in Heaven, when all sin is removed, when we're there with glorified body and glorified spirit, there is none of the sin, there is none of the limitation that now comes between us, even in the closest of relationships, even in marriage. 00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:12.159 We will have absolutely perfect relationships in Heaven. 00:40:12.760 --> 00:40:14.079 Can you imagine that? 00:40:14.440 --> 00:40:33.610 No more misunderstanding, no more conflict, perfect communication, perfect fellowship, and not just with the person that we were married with on this earth, which I believe other scripture says we'll clearly know them and be in relationship with them, but with everyone in Heaven. 00:40:35.469 --> 00:40:43.059 In fact, marriage on Earth is just a dim picture of the fullness of relationships in Heaven. 00:40:43.061 --> 00:40:48.250 Marriage on Earth is even a picture of the marriage that we will have with Christ in Heaven. 00:40:48.251 --> 00:40:51.460 Christ the husband, we his bride. 00:40:54.489 --> 00:41:01.119 Are you a practical Sadducee, struggling to believe in the resurrected life? 00:41:02.349 --> 00:41:27.969 Paul says again in 1 Corinthians 15:"Now I say this, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood--" in other words, what we understand from our earthly life--"cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable." We can't limit our thinking about what God can do to our earthly flesh-and-blood understanding. 00:41:28.989 --> 00:41:30.400 Let me close with this. 00:41:31.539 --> 00:42:01.190 If you have been made righteous by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and by your faith, your confidence, in his perfect sacrifice on the cross for your sin, if you believe in all that God says in his word, if you believe in God's unlimited power to accomplish all that he says in his word, then you will experience, when you experience earthly death, you will experience paradise when you die. 00:42:01.190 --> 00:42:11.150 Yes, your body will be in the grave, or if it's cremated, in an urn, for a time, but your soul will be with Jesus in paradise. 00:42:11.780 --> 00:42:17.119 And that's not all: you will experience the resurrection of your body when Christ returns. 00:42:17.121 --> 00:42:29.960 Your body will be raised and made perfect like his body is perfect, and it will be joined to your soul, which is then made perfect, and that's what you will spend eternity in. 00:42:30.201 --> 00:42:34.789 You will experience the glorified state for all eternity. 00:42:36.679 --> 00:42:44.300 So I'll leave you with these words, again, from 1 Corinthians 15:"Listen, I tell you a mystery. 00:42:44.719 --> 00:42:47.539 We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed. 00:42:47.541 --> 00:43:02.570 In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 00:43:03.199 --> 00:43:07.969 Death will be swallowed up in victory." Amen. 00:43:08.329 --> 00:43:08.900 Let's pray. 00:43:14.849 --> 00:43:33.010 Lord Jesus, we have ups and downs in this life, and you bless us with some mountaintop experiences, but even those mountaintop experiences, when our life, when our relationships, are at their best, they pale in comparison to what we read of here. 00:43:34.030 --> 00:43:43.150 They pale in comparison to what paradise will be like, what Heaven, what eternity, will be like if we know you as Savior and Lord. 00:43:44.409 --> 00:43:47.440 So Lord, give us a yearning for Heaven. 00:43:47.679 --> 00:43:52.329 Give us a yearning for your return, when the resurrection will occur, Lord. 00:43:53.309 --> 00:44:02.679 We pray for anyone here this morning who is uncertain, who does not know these truths at a heart level. 00:44:02.681 --> 00:44:15.130 I pray that even this morning, this reality that there is life after death and the decisions they make even now in this earth, determine what that will be like for them. 00:44:15.219 --> 00:44:24.039 I pray that with that, working in their hearts and minds, you would draw them to true faith in you, Jesus, as their Savior, as their Lord. 00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:37.780 And Lord, for those of us who've already come to that point, and you have saved us, I pray that you'd grow in us a desire for Heaven, a desire for the resurrection, a desire for your glorious return. 00:44:37.809 --> 00:44:41.500 We pray this all, Jesus, in your precious name. 00:44:41.590 --> 00:44:42.130 Amen.