Life of Christ Lessons 126b, c: Loaded Questions Silenced - Part II {Doctrinally-Loaded Question from Sadducees to Mock Resurrection}

We're on, as Terry said, we're on lesson number 126, and this is part B. Loaded question silenced.

If you want to open up your Bibles, please to Matthew 22.

As we come to today's study, it was still Tuesday of the Passion Week, and how do we know that?

We'll look at Matthew 22 verse 23. It says the same day, so we know without a shadow of a doubt

that this is still Tuesday of the Lord's last earthly pre-resurrection week.

So far, on this day, there had been two challenges to his authority by Israel's leadership,

and although the motives behind those challenges were evil in order to ensnare Jesus with his own

words so that they might either stone him to death or turn him over to Pilate, yet we know,

and we talked about this last time, God Almighty was using these religious rulers and their

challenge questions to fulfill the necessary examination process of the Passover lamb to make

sure that he was spotless and that he could be the sacrificial lamb for the sins of the world on Thursday.

Well, after enraging the, and I did say Thursday, on purpose, those of you that caught that,

and you'll understand that as we get further into our study this year.

Well, after enraging the first group, enraging them of the first group of ill-motivated

examiners, you know, a delegation of chief priests and scribes and elders was sent by the

Sanhedrin Council, and Jesus enraged them by his extended answer to them, which involved three

questions that he gave back to them and then three parables, and he did, he answered their question

in such a way that it made it impossible for them to use his words as direct evidence against him.

Although we were excited to see that he did manage to answer their question, he did tell them

that his authority came from God, his father, and that John the Baptist authority came from God,

and that those challenging him were nothing but murderous, self-righteous hypocrites,

who one day would stand speechless before the eternal King with nothing to say in defense

of their willful disobedience in trying to come to him their way instead of God's way.

He managed to say all that, but he did so in a way that they couldn't directly, you know,

stone him to death because he used parables, and he didn't use any proper nouns or any names.

Well, after all of that, that was the first challenge.

Then a second group of men tried to ensnare him by his words.

And this group consisted of two sex of Jews who normally were at great odds with one another,

Pharisees who deceptively didn't come themselves, but they sent in their place,

there are some of their young disciples, and who was the other group?

You just talked about this in your groups, the Herodians.

And together, these two unlikely bedfellows, Pharisees and Herodians tried to pit Jesus

either against the ruling Roman government or against the people by asking him a politically

loaded question about paying the poll tax denarius to Caesar. But once again, you know,

in his brilliant response to them, that answer found even his enemies marveling at his great wisdom.

The stunned challengers had only succeeded in elevating Jesus even more in the eyes of all who

heard him, including them. He was even elevated in their own estimation of him. Of course,

they would never admit that. And they themselves were left shamed by his exposure

of their feigning, flattering, wicked, and crafty hypocrisy.

Well, now in today's study, we find yet a third group of men who stepped forward

to confront and challenge the Lord Jesus. And this group consists of what group have we missed?

Right. Fagicies. Now, the Pharisees, as we discussed last time, the Pharisees were a religious sect.

They were the conservative religionists of Israel. They were really the fundamentalists of

that day. And the Herodians, we talked about them as well, they were a political sect. But the

sagessees, they tried to be both a religious and a political sect, religiously, however, as I

studied them all this past week, two weeks. They were so liberal in their religion that I really

see them as nothing more than pretentiously pious hedonists. You know what a hedonist is?

It's like eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. They didn't believe in an afterlife.

I mean, they just live for the here and now and the pleasures of this life. Their theology was

completely empty. And of course, we all say, that's why they were sad, you see. Their theology

was empty because it offered absolutely nothing for those who looked for hope beyond this life.

Can you imagine being a sad you see and having no other hope beyond this life? Talk about depression.

I would definitely have to be on depression medicine. If I knew there was no afterlife and this

was it, especially the way things are going. But they denied belief in the spirit that man had a

spirit. They didn't deny that. They denied belief in a spiritual world period consisting of

anything other than God. They did believe in God, but they didn't believe in a spiritual world

consisting of angels and fallen angels demons. And we're told that in Acts 238, by the way,

that the Sadducees did not believe in a spiritual world. They scoffed at the idea of an afterlife

and the resurrection of the dead, which, of course, go hand in hand. But they did say that they

believed in God and that he had inspired Moses to write the first five books of the Old Testament.

And those five books are called Books of Moses or who knows the other word, the Pentateuch,

because Penn Day in Greek is the word for five, the first five books of the Old Testament.

But they did not believe that the other books of the Old Testament were necessarily reliable.

In other words, none of the other books of the Old Testament were God inspired in their eyes.

They insisted that there was no evidence in the writings of Moses, the first five books.

There's no evidence to prove that there is a life beyond death. So they concluded that there

is no resurrection. I asked my husband this the other day. I asked him, I said, how would you prove

the resurrection from the first five books of the Bible, the Books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus,

Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy? And he said, oh, that's easy. And then he started thinking of

some things. But none of them were concrete. I mean, there was a passage. And the Pharisees

tried to do this often. They tried to prove resurrection from the Books of Moses to the Sadducees.

They always came up empty handed because there's nothing really concrete. Or so they thought,

we'll see that Jesus came up with something right of way, of course, because he's really the one

who did inspire Moses, isn't he? But if you just look at Moses' writings, there is one passage that

says Moses slept with his fathers. And the Pharisees tried to use that by saying, look, it says

slept. That means he's going to wake up. But the Sadducees would say, well, that's not convincing

evidence that there is a resurrection. He just slept. He just said slept and it just means he died.

So it's really, you go home and think about it and start looking through those books. And you'll

see it's really pretty difficult to prove resurrection just from the Books of Moses. Well, anyway,

as we're going to hear in today's lesson, Jesus proves to them that their disbelief in an afterlife

and in resurrection was founded upon error. And the result of their erroneous theology about

resurrection is that they lived exactly as they pleased. Wouldn't you do the same thing? If you

didn't believe that there was a resurrection of the dead and there was no reward or punishment in

an afterlife, yes, we might as well eat, drink, and be married, right? And so that's exactly what

they did. Having convinced themselves that there is no reward or punishment in an afterlife even in

heaven or hell, these apostates, and that's exactly what they were, apostates, they made up their

own version of Judaism, a version that said that the only rewards and punishments from God are

meet it out in this life and this life only. And they said, God rewards. Here's how he gives a reward

if you're good and you obey his commandments is given in the Books of Moses. He will reward you with

riches and with wealth and with possessions in the here and now. The Sadducees were therefore

by far the wealthiest sect in Israel. They belonged to the high priestly and the wealthy lay elders

families mostly in and around Jerusalem. You don't find many Sadducees up in Galilee or over in

Peria or in Decapolis, they're usually huddled together in and around Jerusalem. The two

co-raining high priests, Aniston Caiaphas, they were both what? Sadducees, they were both Sadducees.

Whenever you see the word chief priests, they were Sadducees. They were the aristocracy of the nation

and they used their wealth and their riches as their proof, their proof badge of to the people

of their spirituality. They would go around, you know, and find clothing and with all their whatever

to show that they were rich and that was their proof to the people of how spiritual they were. Look how

God has rewarded us in this life for being so pious. Despite the fact that the Book of Moses has

a lot to say about righteous and godly living, the Sadducees love their lives of selfish,

worldliness, although they did parade around as pious men. Do you have people like that today?

Absolutely, a lot of Sadducees within Christendom today, those who profess to believe in God

and yet they're really living for themselves. Well, politically, the Sadducees did not really

mind Roman rule over them because the Romans had been very helpful in keeping the Jewish people

under control. Also, the Sadducees were given some limited authority to rule by Rome. I mean,

Caius, Caius and Anna said it pretty well, living under Roman authority. Most of the members

of the ruling Sanhedrin Council belonged to the sect of the Sadducees, as I said, the chief

priest. And in the book of John, they're referred to as the Jews, whenever you read the Jews,

a mixture of Sadducees and Pharisees. The most fiercely contested argument between the two

top level sects, SCCTS of Israel, which was the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Their most contested

argument was over the matter of the resurrection, you know, of the dead and life beyond the grave.

That was the one thing they were constantly debating back and forth about. And this continual debate

was even more inflamed by the Pharisees claim that any man who denied the resurrection of the dead

was automatically excommunicated from God and would have no part whatsoever in his divine plan.

And so, naturally, the Sadducees resented that teaching. But was it right, if you think about it?

Really, the Pharisees were kind of right on that. If you deny the resurrection in an afterlife,

yeah, you're going to be excommunicated from God because you really don't believe in God.

And we'll get to that later on. But that didn't help their relationship that they'd say,

you know, you guys don't even, you're not even part of God's plan. So, the Sadducees resented that.

And the hostility between these two leading parties of Israel didn't really do a lot to help the

spiritual growth of the nation, do you think? Do you think that would help the spiritual growth of

Israel that they're two, you know, highest religious sects were always arguing with one another,

the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Now, as they said, the Pharisees, they were the conservatives.

They were the fundamental, they were right. They were right in their doctrine about resurrection.

They did believe in resurrection. They did believe in an afterlife. They did believe in angels.

And they did believe in fallen angels called demons. And they did believe that the whole entire

Old Testament was God inspired. So, you know, we'd be on their side, wouldn't we? I think that's why

Jesus spoke more against them because they were closer to the truth. And he really, you know,

was always denouncing them as they were hypocrites, but he was really trying to get through to them

much more than the Sadducees. He really didn't waste too much time with the Sadducees. This is

one of the only debates he has with the Sadducees is right here what we're going to look at this morning.

But some of the Pharisees' specific ideas, their specific ideas and their specific debates about

the details regarding resurrection, made the whole concept seem absolutely ludicrous, ridiculous,

to the liberally, liberally-minded Sadducees. And here's what the Pharisees spent hours. These

guys just spent hours behind closed doors debating subjects that to us seem really kind of silly,

but they would spend hours debating among themselves about, now they did believe in resurrection,

but they would wonder, you know, if people, when people resurrect, would they resurrect naked or would

they resurrect with clothes on? Have you ever thought about that before? Actually, I have in the

rapture, you know, do we resurrect our clothes left behind? And then they would, they would go further

and they said, well, if they were, if people are resurrected from the dead with clothes on,

will they be wearing their old garments that they were buried in like when Lazarus came out

of the tomb, you know? Or would they be resurrected with new clothing? And then they had this

problem. They said, well, if the clothing is new, where and how did they get the clothing,

those garments? And I think it's funny because actually, didn't Jesus just answer this very question

in the parable of the great wedding banquet? You remember that guy, the intruder? He didn't have the

right clothing on. Who supplied all the other guests with the proper clothing? The eternal king.

So I think he really, the hosting king provided his guests with, with their garments. So don't waste

any time debating about, you know, whether we're going to be naked and, oh, I hope nobody sees

me as I'm, you know, because the Lord will automatically clothes us with his right garment.

Well, the Pharisees also claimed that all Jews would be resurrected in the land of Israel,

and I actually looked up some of the Old Testament passages that sound like that, you know,

true. You know, I'll resurrect you in the land, God says. So they thought that all Jews would be

resurrected there in the land of Israel, but they got very concerned about the Jews who died

outside of the land of Israel. And so again, they debated back and forth among themselves about,

about those who had their graves outside of Israel. And some of the rabbis actually taught that

there were tunnels beneath the nation. So if you died, let's say in Syria, but you were Jewish and

you need to be resurrected in the land of Israel, that there was a tunnel from Syria under the ground

to Israel so that when you were raised, your body could go through the tunnel and come back up

but this is what they took this all very seriously. So it kind of, you know, we're getting close

to Halloween. Can you see all the dead bodies going through these tunnels and then coming up in

the Promised Land? And again, you know, imagine your assagency, you know, you're an arrogant aristocrat

and you listen to these arguments and these speculations and you just write them off as totally

silly as we're laughing at them and unreasonable. They not only laughed at them, but they used them as

part of their reason for demonstrating how chaotic and how complicated the doctrine of resurrection

made things. So they'd say there can't be a resurrection. Look how silly it would be.

And as you can imagine, when the Sadducees heard that Jesus had just silenced the Pharisees with

his answer regarding their politically loaded question about the poll tax, they consider Sadducees

now thought, oh, this is our time. This is our opportune time. He's just silenced the Pharisees and

now we can step to the plate and we will exhibit our superior intellect. They had in mind a doctrinally

loaded question, which they likely had used previously in similar form to stump the Pharisees.

In fact, no one had ever satisfactorily given them an answer to this question and I'm sure they've

used it as I said before. So they felt very confident that they were about to be the ones who would

find a blemish spot in the self-proclaimed Messiah. You know, I got to thinking about they're also

eager to find a spot. You know, they're examining the Passover Lamb, even though they don't realize

that they're doing that and they're fulfilling prophecy. But if you had been a Jewish person,

especially if you had been a child or maybe a woman, we can identify with this and you get that

cute little lamb on the 10th of Nissan and he lives in your home for the next three and a half

days and you know you're going to have to slaughter him on the 14th of Nissan. When should you do

everything you could because you get close to him? I know I've got dogs and you get close to them.

When should you do everything you could to find a blemish on him so he wouldn't have to be killed?

So they're really, it's funny because they're really trying to find a blemish on him,

but they're not going to be successful. So they're going to, they think that they're going to make

Jesus either look ignorant in the realm of theological matters, such as the resurrection,

which is their doctrinally loaded question, or they're going to get him to contradict Moses,

you see. They're going to ask him this question about resurrection. They already are

proof positive convinced that he's not going to be able to give them an answer. And so he's either

going to have to look ignorant or he'll have to say, well Moses didn't ever write about resurrection

and Moses didn't really believe in resurrection, but I say unto you and then he would say whatever

they thought he would say and then they'd have him because the people would never follow

Messiah who contradicted Moses, you see. You follow it? All right, so the Sadducees approach Jesus

with their question and because their entire approach to religion and to politics and to life

was based on their denial of the resurrection of the dead, their question has to do with this very

subject. So let's read now the text for this account and to do this we're going to use the gospel

of Matthew, but this same account is also found over in Mark and in Luke. And we're going to get more

into more details as we expound three parts of our outline, the attack of the Sadducees, the

answer of Jesus and then the astonishment of the multitudes with regard to his answer, which is

incredible. Again, all his answers are incredible. All right, let's look first of all at the attack

of the Sadducees and for this I'll read verses 23 to 28. It says the same day, which would be

Tuesday, came to him the Sadducees and let me just take a minute, sorry to interrupt myself,

but the word came there and also it's over in Mark, the same word came in the Greek. That is a

coming, we don't see it, but they were coming in haughty arrogance. So they're coming to Jesus

like they're just so convinced that they're going to be right and they're going to prove him wrong.

And so it's an arrogant coming. All right, so the same day came to him the Sadducees, which say

that there is no resurrection and asked him saying, master, Moses said, if a man die having no

children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up seed unto his brother. Now here's their

hypothetical situation. Now there were with us seven brethren and the first when he had married a

wife deceased and having no issue or no children left his wife unto his brother. Likewise,

the second, that would be the second brother also died without any children is what's implied

there. And the third died without any children being born from that wife, same wife being passed

along onto the seventh. So the same woman married seven brothers and never had any children with

any of the brothers. If I was the seventh guy, wouldn't you be a little leery to eat her food?

Anyway, therefore, and now here's, in last of all, the woman died. Therefore in the resurrection,

here's their question, whose wife shall she be of the seven? You can almost hear their sarcasm

there, for they all had her. All right, we're going to stop right there. The attack of the Sadducees.

The Sadducees' liberal position with regard to the scriptures themselves only believing like the

Samaritans in the first five books of the Bible and their liberal position with regard to the

spiritual world of angels and demons, which was widely accepted by the Jewish people. The Jewish

people, the common people, believed in angels and they believed in demons because they knew many

people who were possessed by demons. They didn't laugh at that and say they were psychotic or something.

And the Sadducees' position with regard to resurrection and an afterlife either in heaven or

hell, which was also widely believed by the Jewish people. They did believe in an afterlife,

they did believe in heaven and hell literally. Well, all their positions made them very, very

unpopular with the vast Jewish multitudes. As also did the Sadducees' strong leanings toward

the Romans make them unpopular with the people. And then their greedy accumulation of wealth,

much of it obtained by robbing their own people, such as was done in the temple through the money

changing and the animal sacrificial cellars bizarre, they called that anus's bizarre. All of that,

plus their haughty and arrogant attitudes, all of that stuff made them very unpopular. And especially

there, they went about with their aristocratic, that's the word I'm looking for, noses up in the

air like they were superior intellectually and in every other regard to the rest of the people,

including the Pharisees. And the Pharisees were pretty haughty themselves, weren't they? But the

Sadducees were the haughtiest of all. All of this did not make them very popular. And there was

with the people. And there was further animosity between the Sadducees and the Pharisees because

the Sadducees rejected all of the oral traditions of the Pharisees. Oh, now they're really getting

into dangerous ground aren't they? Because you know what the Pharisees think of their traditions,

but the Sadducees rejected all of their traditions. And as I said, because they could not see that

there is, was any teaching at all about resurrection and an afterlife in the books of Moses that

they said that this was just a Phariseic innovation, that like all the oral traditions,

the Pharisees were the ones who invented the idea of a resurrection and an afterlife.

Now the Sadducees were small in number. There were not very many of them.

Mark, it's interesting. Mark and Luke only mentioned Sadducees one time in their gospel accounts,

and it's with regard to this incident. It's the only time they ever mentioned Sadducees.

Matthew has mentioned them on two other occasions. This is only the third time he's talked about

Sadducees, and he doesn't speak about them again. This is it. After this little episode,

we don't really hear them. Well, we hear from I guess Anus and Caiaphas, but we don't hear the

word or we don't read the word Sadducees again in the book of Matthew. And in the book of Acts,

they are only mentioned twice as being the aggressive opponents of the early church. And that's it.

That's it. Now they are included when you read about chief priests, and in John's gospel he

refers to them as the Jews, but the word Sadducees is only found something like ten times

in the New Testament. Whereas in contrast, the Pharisees are mentioned almost a hundred times.

And this is because the Sadducees, they just weren't very many of them, but they did hold the

power because they held the wealth. Now the Sadducees did not like Jesus, mostly because he had

twice on two occasions called attention to the corruption that was going on in the temple.

And that corruption was doing a really good job of lining their own pockets, wasn't it?

Because they were the ones in charge of all that. That's why they called it Anus' bizarre.

Nor did they like how the people, the common people, were flocking to Jesus and soaking up all of his

teachings. Teachings, by the way, that clearly showed that Jesus did believe in the resurrection.

He did believe in the entire Old Testament as being God-inspired. He did believe in both heaven and hell.

Didn't he? He spoke much about heaven and hell, actually more about hell than heaven.

And obviously, he believed in a spirit world because he was constantly casting out demons from

people. He'd even spoken about angels in the mystery kingdom parables. He talked quite a bit

about angels. And he had talked about angels before this. So they didn't like his teaching and

they didn't like the way the people were listening to him and following him. If the people did accept

him as their Messiah, and by the way, the Sadducees were not looking for a Messiah. They had given up,

I don't know if they ever did really look for a Messiah, but if they did at one time,

they'd given up all hope of a Messiah ever coming. So they weren't looking for a Messiah to come.

They liked the status quo. They liked being the ones in charge. But if the people accepted him as

their Messiah, they thought, surely the first thing he would do would be topple them from their

positions of power and wealth in the Sanhedrin. And if Jesus led Israel in a revolt against the

Romans, which of course is what the people wanted him to do, it would also not be to the Sadducees

benefit because the current governing powers pretty much left them alone to run things. And the

Sadducees liked it that way. So the Pharisees, like the Pharisees and the Herodians, the Sadducees

were determined to get rid of this man who had invaded their territory and was hurting their

reputations and also their bank accounts. So they wanted to get rid of him. Actually, I think

the Sadducees can pretty well be summed up in what Caiaphas had said. Remember Caiaphas had said

it is expedient to us, he's a Sadducee, the leader of the Sadducees, is expedient for us

if one man died for the nation. Everything they did was so that it would be expedient for them.

They didn't care if it was right or wrong, but just as long as it would benefit them.

So they presented to Jesus a hypothetical situation here that would present an unanswerable,

or at least what they thought would be unanswerable dilemma, one that if he did try to answer it would

make him look like a fool. Now, as I said, they had a lot of experience in debating on this issue

of the resurrection with the Pharisees, and they had challenged them many times, I'm sure,

to come up with something from the Pentateuch that would prove the two companion teachings of

resurrection and afterlife. And apparently, the Pharisees had failed to come up with anything

from the writings of Moses to convince their opponents. And of course, the challenge of the

Sadducees, their challenge not only to the Pharisees about this issue, but also their challenge to

Jesus, was really unfair because they took away from the Pharisees arsenal all the other books

of the Old Testament. You see? They say, prove to us the resurrection, prove to us an afterlife,

but you can only use the first five books, you can't use the rest of the Old Testament. So they're

not playing the game fair. Are they? Because the Pharisees could have used many passages from the

rest of the Old Testament books. I'm going to give you just a few of them. Okay? For example,

they could have used Job 19, 25 and 26, where it says, for I know that my Redeemer liveth and he

and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, and though after my skin worms destroy

this body, yet in my flesh, that's a bodily resurrection, shall I see God, whom I shall see for

myself? That's from Job, which was actually written before Moses. Or they could have used Isaiah 25

8, where it says God will swallow up death in victory, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from

off all faces, or they could have used Isaiah 26 19. Thy dead men shall live together with my dead body,

shall they arise, awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust, for thy dew is as the dew of herbs,

and the earth shall cast out her dead. That's resurrection, isn't it? That's Isaiah. Or Daniel, Daniel 12,

2 says, and many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life,

and some to shame and everlasting contempt. There's a resurrection of the saved and a resurrection of

the unsafe. Ezekiel, Ezekiel 37, 12 said, says this, thus say at the Lord God, behold, O my people,

I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your grave. Pretty clear, Hosea 13, 14,

I will ransom them from the power of the grave, I will redeem them from death. Psalm 22, 29,

all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him. Psalm 23, 6, you all know this one,

surely goodness and mercy shall follow me, what all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the

house of the Lord forever. That's not only resurrection, that's afterlife. Psalm 49, 15, but God will

redeem my soul from the power of the grave, for he shall receive me. And then it says,

you know what it means when it says, see law in the Psalms, it's a Hebrew word, which means

think about this meditate on this. Oh, and I love to meditate on that, don't you? Think of all your

loved ones that have gone on before you, those in the Lord, you're going to see them again. It's not

just pie in this guy, it's back, it's truth. There is a resurrection of the dead. As what keeps me

going, I know it is for you too. I just cannot imagine living without believing that.

Well, and I don't know, that's just that's just some of them, but the Sadducees had not played

fair and they left the Pharisees only to try to convince them of resurrection and afterlife from

the Pentateuch. And they hadn't been successful. Pharisees hadn't been successful in proving that.

And I don't know, I got to thinking, I don't know what the what the Sadducees did with Genesis 3, 15.

If you don't know Genesis 3, 15, you need to circle it in your Bible. It's the first time the

evangelical message is called the proto-evangelium is given, is right after Adam and Eve fell.

And God promised them that the seed from the seed of the woman would come, well, the seed of the

woman speaks of a miraculous birth, a virgin birth, because women don't have seed, would come the

Savior who would crush Satan's head. Well, I don't know what the Sadducees thought about that,

because what good would it be for one to come and crush Satan just so that man would never die

in the physical sense, because they don't believe in an afterlife. So if the Savior, the seed of the

woman was just going to crush Satan so that man could live forever physically, that means that he

would live forever in a sinful condition and never know true redemption. And if the Savior redeemed

man from sin, which is what it's really saying, then what good would it do for us to be redeemed from

sin by believing in the Savior if there is no afterlife and no resurrection and afterlife.

Big deal. So we're redeemed from sin so we can just die and go return to the dust of the earth.

So I don't know what they did with Genesis 3, 15. And who was Satan? How about that one? Who was

Satan? They said they believed in the books of Moses. Okay, well, who was Satan? He was originally

an angel who fell and became a demon, but they denied angels and they denied the belief in demons.

So what do you think they did with Satan? What does the liberals do today? They spiritualized and

well, it's not really talking about a literal Satan, literal angel, literal demons. It's just

allegory, dismiss, you know. And what did they do with the cherubims with the flaming sword

that God stationed at the east of the Garden of Eden so that Adam and Eve couldn't get back

into the garden once they were expelled and eat from the tree of life and live forever in a

sinful condition. And then I got to thinking, what did they do with the angel of death who passed

over the houses of those who at the time of the Passover had put the blood of the lamb on their

doorposts? What did they do with those angels? Well, they spiritualized them too. And what did they

do with the angels that came, the two angels that came to lot when he was living in Sodom?

And the perverted people tried to Sodomize those angels. And what did they do with the angels on

Jacob's ladder that were descending and ascending? And what did they do with the angels who met with

Jacob in Genesis 321? What do you think they did with all those angels? Those are from the books

of Moses and that's just in Genesis. They spiritualized them away.

Well, the Sadducees based their doctrinally loaded question on a hypothetical situation of a

woman who outlived seven husbands. And those husbands were all brothers. Boy, I'd hate to have been

their mommy and daddy. Wouldn't you have been mad at that woman? That daughter-in-law would have

been history if she was my daughter-in-law. But anyway, she didn't have any children by any of

those brothers. Now, the Sadducees determined that this situation made the whole idea of

resurrection and an afterlife look absolutely foolish, you know, from their logical,

humanistic perspective. What they could have done here, if they weren't really being sarcastic,

they could have just given this woman two husbands and still have stressed the supposed absurdity

of taking an afterlife seriously because they couldn't still ask the question,

whose wife will she be in the resurrection if she just had two. But they wanted to show how ludicrous

the whole idea of an afterlife was by giving her seven husbands. And their example of seven

husbands that were all brothers was based on the Jewish law, and you can actually find this in

Deuteronomy 25 verses 5 to 10, the Jewish law of the leveraged marriage, it's called. And the Hebrew

word leveraged has nothing to do with the tribe of Levi, even though if you look at that word,

it looks like Levi has nothing to do with the tribe of Levi. It's a lat, comes from a Latin word

Levere, which means a husband's brother. When a Jewish husband died without a son, the leveraged

law said that his brother was to marry his widowed wife and bear a son. And by law, that son was

then considered the first born son of the deceased brother. You get it? So we saw an example of this

in Boaz and Ruth, I'll get to that in a minute, but this was the law, a commandment of God through Moses,

and what this did is it assured the continuance of a man's name if he should die without an heir.

And in a nation where family inheritance was a very critical issue, this was important. And it

was considered a disgrace for a man to refuse to raise up a family for his deceased brother.

Okay, and this is why Boaz took Ruth as his wife because her first husband died and she didn't have any,

he didn't have any sons with her. And Boaz was the next male relative. He was the kinsman redeemer

after the one man who was actually closer to Ruth as a relative refused to take her. He already

had a wife, so he refused to take her. But even if they had a wife, they were supposed to take him,

you know, raise up a son for their deceased brother. But anyway, that's, it's interesting that the

leverate law was seldom practiced by the Jewish people after they came back from the Babylonian

captivity. They did practice it before the Babylonian captivity, but afterward they did not. So by

the time of Christ, it was not a common practice any longer. But it is interesting to realize that

it would be something that was important to men like the Sadducees. It would be more important

to them than to others because those who deny the immortality of the soul, if you don't believe

in the resurrection, you don't believe in an afterlife, you find kind of a substitute for that

in the continuation of your family name. So for the Sadducees, the leverate law thing would be

important that their name continue, even though they would go to the dust and never live again,

at least their name would continue on. So referring to this command given by God through Moses,

the Sadducees proceeded to explain the difficulty. And not, notices, they don't resort to flattery,

and they don't make any pretense that they had come to learn. They're not hypocrite. And he

doesn't denounce them as being hypocrites as he had done with the Pharisees. They just come in their

superior attitude, thinking that they're superior to Jesus in every way conceivable. He's just a

Galilean carpenter and there aristocrats and there rich, and he's not that intelligent, you know,

sure he stumped the Pharisees, but they're always able to stump the Pharisees. And so they don't

come flatteringly. They just come to expose his inadequacy as a teacher in theological matters.

And they were going to kill two birds with one stone. They would discredit him and also demonstrate

the superiority of their theological doctrine to that of the Pharisees. So they're not interested

in stoning Jesus. They know that if he answers this question, they're not going to be able to pick

up stones and stone them to death, or even have him arrested by Pilate. But they are doing this

because they will be the ones to have found a blemish in this supposed Messiah. And this blemish

would discredit him before the masses of people. And what would it do for them? Well, it would put

them on an even higher ego trip than they were on. And also think about this. This would be great

revenge for what he had just done to them the day before. What had he done on Monday? Remember,

I know there's a long time where we're concerned, but we're on Tuesday, probably Tuesday morning still.

What had he just done Monday afternoon? Cleanse the temple and upset all the prophet making that

was going on. So this is also for revenge what he had done to them the day before.

Now, in the previous challenge question regarding the poll tax, the Pharisees had attempted,

we saw that, to use feigning and flattery to wager their battle against Jesus. But the Sadducees,

their method of attack is to use the scriptures and sarcasm, two S's instead of two F's,

not flattering and feigning, but scripture and sarcasm. And I think we can hear the sarcasm

in their voices by the time they get to the end of their question. So here's what they say. Master,

now that's used strictly as a formal address. You know, they would come their aristocrats so they

would be pretentiously polite and just call him master. As a master, Moses said, if a man die having

no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up seed unto his brother. Now, there were

with us seven brothers. Now, some people think this was from a true account since they say there

were with us seven brothers. I don't know. Maybe it was something they really knew about, but I think

they're just making this up as a hypothetical situation. And then they go on, they say, in the first

one, he had married a wife deceased and having no issue, no children left his wife and his brother,

likewise the second, also in the third and the seventh. And last of all, the woman died also.

She finally ate some of her own cooking. Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife shall she be

of the seven, for they all had her. And in saying, for they all had her, they were indicating

that all seven of the marriages had been consummated. And yet, so legally, she was all of their wives.

However, since none of them had any issue, none of them had any children, none of the men had the

extra advantage to be her husband in the resurrection. Let's say she had had a son with husband

number four. He would, you know, he would probably get the advantage to be her husband in the

resurrection. But so they're making this situation, all the brothers are equal. So whose wife is she

going to be? Now, for the sake of their argument, just for the sake of their argument, they're willing

to grant, okay, let's pretend that there is a resurrection. But it's, again, it's easy to sense

their superior cynical tone, especially as they state that question. So they're making light

of life and death issues here. They were talking about the afterlife as though the whole concept

was absolutely ludicrous. Because although such a seven-husband-did woman, I don't know if that's

a word, but it is now, seven-husband-did woman was rather extreme, although it's getting more

and more common today, but it was extreme back then. Yet there were many other such multiple marriage

situations and other relationship situations that would make the prospect of heaven one of great chaos

and all kinds of bizarre situations. You can just stretch your imagination to think of relationships.

And, you know, well, who's going to be, if you have a stepfather, step mother, and step children,

and all this kind of stuff, who's going to be related to who in heaven, and it can get rather

confusing. JC Ryle State Sissy says, quote, the object of the question was plain and transparent.

They meant, in reality, to bring the whole doctrine of a resurrection into contempt.

They meant to insinuate that there must needs be confusion and strife and unseemly disorder

if after death men and women were to live again. End of quote. So they were going to discredit the

resurrection and those like Jesus and the Pharisees who taught in resurrection. Every generation,

as I said earlier, every generation has its Sadducees. I think today we're loaded with Sadducees,

those who are liberal-minded materialists and rationalists who scorn the idea of the

resurrection and a spiritual world. On my way here this morning, I was listening to BVN radio

and Adrian Rogers was preaching. Did any of you hear that? Oh, I was crying by the end of it,

Kathy. It was, that was a powerful message. But he was talking about pastors, if you even can

call him that, liberals. One was in Virginia who openly denies the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Why even bother being a pastor if you and another one denying the virgin birth? I mean, you know,

but the Christendom is loaded with people like that today, loaded. I hope that you're not in a

church where they teach, oh, the virgin birth is an important. Of course it's important. It's

absolutely vital. If Jesus wasn't virgin born, he's not God. He's just another man who inherited

the Adamic sin nature like the rest of us. And if he didn't resurrect from the dead,

we might as well go home and be a come heatiness. But because he lives, we shall live also. It's

vital. He's our vital fundamental teach doctrines of the faith. And yet we have Sadducees out there

standing behind pulpits, teaching this. We wonder why our country is in the shape it's in today.

It's the result of the pulpits of this country and nothing else. They've watered down the truth.

Anyways, God knew that there would be those who'd come along, Sadducees, and all generations

who would scorn the idea of resurrection in a spiritual world in the afterlife. And that's

why it says the natural man receive it's not the things of the Spirit of God for they are. What?

Foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.

1 Corinthians 2, 14. Unbelief in the spiritual world arises from a worldview, a worldly

position. Men simply have gotten so attached to this world. They love this world and the things

of this world so much. I don't know how they can because I don't love the things of this world.

I love the people of this world but I don't like the direction and the evil and the crime and the

deaths and all. The sin cursed world we live in. I love the beauty of God's creation but I long

for the beauty of what heaven is going to be much more. I mean, can you imagine? I was thinking

about just how we're so blessed to have four seasons and every season has its own beauty. I mean,

the trees and our changing colors is so awesome. How can you look at that and not believe in God?

But can you imagine what it will look like in heaven? Maybe all four seasons will be going on

at the same time. I always think of, you know, how spring comes in and we have the Bradford

pears, they bloom and then you have, you know, all the different, the daffodils and things that

bloom at different times, the azaleas. But what if everything bloomed at the same time, it would

just take your breath away. And that's what's going to be in heaven. I mean, well, beyond our imagination.

But people get so attached to this world and the idea that they just want to reject all the

restraints that a spiritual world puts on them. Think about it. By way of its very nature of

permanence, the spiritual world supersedes and becomes far more important than the physical and

dying world. I mean, which one lasts forever? The spiritual world or physical world?

The spiritual world. So because of its permanence, it supersedes the physical world. This is just

temporary. The spiritual world is eternal. Therefore, the spiritual world demands that man

give pre-eminence to it. But how many do that? They put this world above the permanent world.

They put the temporary above the permanent. It's just so illogical. So therefore, the spiritual

world demands that man gives pre-eminence to it. Is this demand that man rebels against? A

scientific society questions what it cannot prove in this physical world, don't they? Well,

if you can't prove it in this world, then it just doesn't exist. A materialistic society questions

what it cannot use to satisfy its own lust. And in moral society, questions what it fears will

correct its behavior. A worldly society questions what it fears will restrain its pleasure.

And a power society questions what it fears will loosen its grip and lesson its own authority.

But that's the world we live in. Well, let's consider now the incredible answer from Jesus to

the Sadducees. And for this, I want to look at verses 29 to 32, 29 to 32. Jesus answered and said

into them, ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection,

they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels. Oh, isn't it interesting

that they didn't believe in resurrection and they didn't believe in angels. They didn't ask

about angels, but he threw that in for good measure. But in the resurrection, see, are as the

angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which

was spoken unto you by God, saying, and here he quotes from which book, a book of Moses, Exodus.

Haven't you read what was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham and the God of

Isaac and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. That is such a phenomenal

answer. And I hope you understand it by the time we leave this morning. For all of, for all the

intellectual superiority that they thought they had, the Sadducees proved to be very unwise

antagonists because when they put their puny little intellects up against the mind of Christ,

guess what? They were advertising their stupidity. In a few words, just a few words, like he's done on

all these other challenges, the Lord Jesus put them in their place because, no, well, I said this

already. He didn't announce them as hypocrites because they were candid, they were very candid in

their arrogant approach, but he did rebuke them immediately for two things. Number one, they were

defective in their conclusion about resurrection because their whole theology was based on error.

He said ye do err. And secondly, they were deficient in their knowledge, their knowledge of what?

Both the scripture and the power of God. They had really known the God of Genesis,

chapters one and two, the God who created everything by the power of his word. If they had really

understood the power of God, is it a big deal for God to raise the dead if he created everything

that exists? No, they didn't know the scriptures. They thought they did. They didn't, and they didn't

know the power of God. The Lord Jesus clearly and plainly told the Sadducees that they were wrong.

And if you say, well, you know what? This is the first time he didn't ask it as a question.

You know how he always gives a question back to their question? Well, if you read Mark's account,

he did phrase it as a question, which I thought was interesting. Oh, Jesus, you didn't ask

them a question. But over in Mark, he says, do ye not err or err? Or is the right way to say that?

By the way, my husband always corrects me when I say err. He says not err, it's err. That sounds

funny to me, but that's the right way to say it. But he did ask a question. Anyhow, they were wrong

because they based their entire theology on a creed of wrong thinking. And this is so common.

It's tragic. How many people based their whole life on wrong theology, wrong thinking, wrong

philosophy, wrong whatever, whatever ism it might be? And generally, it is the case that those

who are intent on criticizing believers are those who use small portions of the Bible

to prove their point. They don't even know the Bible, but they'll use a verse here or verse

there to try to develop their own brand of teaching. And that's exactly what the, you know,

the Sadducees eliminated most of the Old Testament. They just took up a small part of it.

And so just like critics today, like I mean like the Sadducees, the critics today will

eliminate those portions of the scripture that they don't like. They didn't like the rest of the

Old Testament because it did talk about resurrection. And they will only accept those parts of

scripture that seem to express their view. All err, all error is based on a lack of knowledge of

the scripture. Everybody out there who is engaged in an err, an err of some kind is because they

don't know the scripture. Which in turn, if you don't know the scripture, it in turn leads to a

lack of knowledge of the power of God. The Sadducees did not really believe that God had the power

to raise the dead. Or if he did have the power to raise the dead, they did not believe that he could

raise them to a different type of existence than what they knew here on earth. In fact, if we come

right down to it, the bottom line fact is that the Sadducees didn't even really know God. They

didn't know God. They had no personal relationship with God. They had a God of their own imaginations.

They didn't believe in the true God. If they had, who would they have recognized? Jesus Christ,

they would have recognized the Father in the Son. They didn't know God. And you see here again,

we learn of the importance of knowing the Word of God, don't we? What we're doing here this morning.

If you don't know the scriptures, you will be easily led into error. I mean, it's very critical to

know the scriptures, especially in our day and age. And there's a lot of false teaching and a lot

of false prophets out there. We need to know the Word of God and we need to teach the Word of God

to this next generation because if you think we need it, if the Lord doesn't come, they're going to

really, really, really need it. Oh, young ladies, teach your children, start this small. You've got

to start teaching them apologetics. How to defend the scripture. Need to start with Genesis and the

true creation account. Anyway, I could get off onto that, but I've never finished my lesson.

But if you don't know the scripture, you're going to be easily led into error. Not knowing the

Word of God, you will not know God properly. And if you don't know God properly, you don't understand

his power. And the Lord's answer to the Sadducees regarding this seven husband did woman and whose

wife was she being the resurrection, he told them that the next life, the life of the resurrection

exceeds earthly relationships. Don't think of heaven humanistically or materialistically as an

extension of this life, okay? Because they didn't know the scriptures, nor the power of God,

when the Sadducees thought about being resurrected into another world, they simply saw life continuing

on as it does now. They pictured heaven, or they didn't really believe, I don't know what they

believed about heaven. I guess they believe God lived in heaven, but nobody else did, right? Because

they don't believe in angels, and they didn't believe that people would be resurrected to heaven,

so heaven was just a place where God sat on the throne or something. And God singular, not even

God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, because they didn't believe in a triumphant God, they just believed

in God. Wouldn't he be a lonely God? No one to praise him? No one to glorify all of his wonderful

attributes, but anyway, they believed in heaven as a continuation of this world. They thought in

terms of present earthly conditions. The Lord's answer to them told them that the future life in

the resurrection will exceed earthly relationships, even the bond of marital relationships.

The strong union and the bond of marriage will not be less in heaven. It will be greater and

stronger. Everything, all relationships in heaven will be greater and stronger than they are here.

For future life and relationships will be equal to that experienced by the angels and God. That's

what he compares it to as the angels of heaven. This means two things. This means two things. Heavenly

life and relationships, heavenly life and heavenly relationships will be perfect. The relationship

between the holy angels and God is perfect. So heavenly life and relationships in heaven that we

will have with one another will be perfect. If your marriage down here wasn't too great,

well you won't have a marriage in heaven, but your relationship with your husband if he saved in

heaven will be perfect. Our relationships with one another will not cease to be. They will merely

be changed. In that selfishness and sin will not affect our lives nor our love.

Our love for one another will be perfected because we will love everyone perfectly.

But our focus won't be on our husband that we have down here. Our focus will not be on our

children that we had down up here or our parents or our grandchildren. Our focus will be on who?

Jesus Christ. Our focus will be on Christ. He will be the one true love of our hearts.

We will love everyone. Will you know your husband? Yes, but he won't be your husband,

but you'll have a perfect relationship with him that will be stronger and better and perfected

and eternal compared to the one here, but you'll love everyone that way. It's beyond

really what we can comprehend, but it's marvelous. Marriage won't be a factor. Jesus says that. He

says for in the resurrection they neither marry. Do you ever think about this when he says they

won't marry, they neither marry or are given in marriage. The neither marry speaks about the

husbands. The marriage was contracted by the husbands. So they neither marry. There won't be

husbands nor are given in marriage. Who were the ones given in marriage? The wives were given

by their parents. So there won't be husbands and there won't be wives. Marriage was instituted by God

in this world so that there could be reproduction and so that births could compensate for deaths,

cradles to replace coffins in this world. But in the eternal state there will be no death

so there will be no need for reproduction. Just as the number of holy angels in heaven has never

changed. When God created the angels he created a certain amount, tens of thousands and thousands,

and that number has never changed. Now some of them fell, but the number has never changed.

So too, just as with the angels, so too will the number of redeemed saints in heaven.

Once heaven is closed and there are no more being saved, that number will remain the same forever.

Always there will be no deaths and there will be no reproductions. It's never a waste when a

baby is born because that is a soul that is even if that baby dies still birth or miscarriage or

abortion, that is a soul that immediately goes to heaven and lives eternally. That's the right

way to look at everything, isn't it? When a child dies, the good thing is that if that child maybe

had lived, maybe he would have rejected Christ, but as a child he immediately goes into the presence

of the Lord and will live forever. So anyway, as we will be as the angels, we will not be married

and we won't ever have to be pregnant. The Muslims, you know, they believe that there is

marriage, I guess, and that they can all have how many wives do they get if they commit,

they kill themselves? How many? I've heard different numbers, but they're wrong.

Their whole idea of an afterlife is based on wrong theology and the Mormons believe that the men,

the men, they have it great, they can repopulate their own planet and the wives,

the women will be perpetually pregnant. I got good news for you. We will never be pregnant

in heaven, but whatever God has prepared to take the place of marriage remains to be discovered.

We don't know what it is, but I guarantee you, it will be more wonderful than whatever marriage you

have down here and some of us have wonderful marriage, some of us are saying, so glad, but it will

be just wonderful beyond our imagination. What does it say in 1 Corinthians 2.9? I have not seen

nor ear heard neither of entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them,

that love him. God will change all relationships into perfection even as the relationship between

angels and God is perfect. Also, heavenly life and relationships will be eternal as the

relationship between the angels and God is enjoyed eternally. There will be no end to

relationships. Some of you have lost your husbands. You will never be parted from your husband

again throughout all of eternity. Some of you have lost children. Some of you have, well,

a lot of us have lost mothers and fathers, but never again, if they're in the Lord, will you

be parted? God will change the brief time that we have with each other now into eternal relationships.

And all God's people said, amen, isn't that wonderful? I can't imagine living without that hope.

Well, I'm almost through it. We have to get to the Lord's answer now. How he answers this.

In verse 31, he addressed the issue of resurrection and an afterlife by way of a question.

And we notice how he referred to the Scriptures unconditionally as the word of God. He said,

but as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken to you by God?

He's talking about the fact that the Scriptures were written by who? God, have you not read that which

was spoken by God? And then he goes on to quote God's words in Exodus 36. Well, what's interesting is

if you go over and read Mark and Luke's parallel account in this, we are told that Jesus referred to

that passage in Exodus 36 as the book of Moses in the bush. Here's what it says in Mark 1226,

have ye not read in the book of Moses? How in the bush? What bush is he talking about?

The burning bush. And see, I thought that was interesting because that's the way they used to

cite Scripture before the books of the Bible were given names and chapters and verses. You know,

those aren't inspired, but if we were living in Old Testament times before they did all that,

you would say, well, you know, in the book of Moses at the burning bush and then you'd all have to

flip back in your Bibles and find that little passage. Now it's easy to say Exodus 36.

But what also is interesting is that if you put all three synoptic gospel accounts together, Matthew,

Mark and Luke, we find that Jesus referred to the same passage at the burning bush as both God's word

and the book of Moses, Moses's word. So he's saying that the Scripture is divinely inspired

through the pens of men. And the Bible itself teaches this and so did Jesus. And isn't that what we

believe that this book is divinely inspired by God? It's God's word, but he used the pens of people

like Moses, men's pens. And notice too that Jesus believed that who was the author of the Pentateuch?

Moses. How many of you say, well, what's a big deal about that? You think that's a big deal?

To say Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible? That's a big deal because there are churches

out there in the droves and ministers in the droves who say that Moses did not write the first five

books of the Bible. They're contradicting Jesus. He said Moses wrote it, but they come up with all

these crazy, I've been in a church that taught this. I know what I'm talking about and I have

commentaries that say that it was written by four different men, J-E-D and P, they call them.

The J-E-D-P hypothesis. You may be in a church that teaches that. Don't laugh. It's out there

or they call it the documentary hypotheses, but we have it straight from the lips of Jesus that

Moses, even the books themselves, say they were written by Moses. Well, anyway, his question,

have he not read hints that they were without excuse? He knew that they had read the account of

Moses at the burning bush. He knew they had read it, but had they read it with understanding?

They had not recognized the true deduction to be drawn from that episode at the burning

bush. And so Jesus goes right to the heart of the problem and taught the resurrection from the

scriptures and what scripture did he purposely use the ones that they wanted him to use?

He went to the books of Moses. He went to Exodus. And what did Jesus say from Moses and really

directly from God himself to prove the resurrection? He said this, but as touching the resurrection

of the dead, have he not read that which was spoken unto you by God saying, I am the God of Abraham

and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

This is so fantastic because it's so simple. And my husband, you know, we would probably all

have missed this if we were going through the Pentateuch trying to prove the resurrection,

but after all, who's going to know the Pentateuch better than God himself who wrote it?

Jesus. And I'm sure that the Pharisees who were there, if there were any Pharisees left after

they'd been embarrassed from the poll tax question, but if the Pharisees were there listening to this,

they must have, you know, done the V8 juice thing, you know, how could we have missed this? Here it is.

Such an obvious truth from such a very well-known passage. All the Jews knew about the burning

bush passage. And as we're going to see in a minute, that this irrefutable answer from the

Lord Jesus totally muzzled. We'll see this next time. Lord willing, but it's totally muzzled. That's

the Greek word muzzled the Sadducees. We never hear from them again. They went away muzzled,

which is what he did to the demons. He muzzled them. The Lord's point was that God said,

I am the God of Abraham. He didn't say what I was the God of Abraham. Do you see how important

every little word is in the Scripture? Did Jesus put the importance on every little jot and

tiddle of the Scripture? That's why sometimes you say, how why does it take us so long? Why do we

have to look at every little word? Because every little word is divinely inspired and is there

for a reason. Even little words like, am or was or of or they're important. God said, I am the God

of Abraham. God was making it clear that all three men, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were alive. I

am the God of Abraham, Isaac. Not I was. I am. And he said this at the burning bush. He's speaking

to Moses. What does that mean? That means Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have been dead for centuries.

And yet he is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And this is why we have to pay so close

attention to what Scripture says in every little detail. So Jesus told us that God is not the God

of the dead but of the living. If the patriarchs were just dead, decayed corpses, then God was not

their God. You see, if you're dead, it doesn't matter if you have a God. He wasn't their God if

they're just decayed corpses. But like a king, you can't be a king if you don't have any subjects.

You're just a lonely old man, right? So but but since God himself said that he was their God,

I am the God of Abraham. He said, and he said, he made a point of saying of Abraham, of Isaac and

of Jacob, meaning I am still the God of Abraham, not of a pile of bones, but of Abraham. I know

Abraham. He's my buddy. I know Isaac of Isaac. I hope you're following me. Do this. The word

am is important and the words of of three times are important. God was saying that they were alive.

Even though they'd been dead, Abraham had been dead for like 400 years at this point at the

burning bush. So Jesus was not only saying that he believed in the resurrection. Jesus was also

saying that God himself believed in the resurrection. And the multitudes were astonished. They weren't

just looking at me like you guys are looking. Okay, we knew that. But the multitudes were like,

why did we never see this before? And they were absolutely astonished to tell us in verse 33

that I read that it says, and when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine

and how wisely and how perfectly he had answered another loaded question.

He wasn't discredited at all in their eyes, but was highly magnified by a display of such

insightful wisdom that none of their esteemed religious leaders had ever seen before. And there

was, how many things in the Bible do you think we miss? I just can't even imagine how much we miss.

I guess an eternity will find out how much we've, we've missed. They read it over and over again

and yet they missed it. Now there's a lot more I could say about the resurrection from the scriptures,

but I want you to think about one passage that's found in Hebrews 116. What's it saying, Hebrews 116?

It says, for without faith, it is impossible to believe, to please him. For he that cometh to God

must believe that he is, that he exists. If you're going to please God, you have to believe that he is.

And that he is a rewarder, a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. You see, there has to be

a resurrection if our relationship with God is good and rewarding. This says, you know, if you

believe in that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him to die and just to be left in

the dirt of the earth forever is not good or rewarding, is it? What does it say in Philippians 116?

Being confident of this very thing, that he which have begun a good work in you will perform it,

will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. He's begun a good work in us. Would it be a good work

if he didn't complete the good work? And we just died in which of the dust of the earth? No. And

God had promised the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob rewards. It says in Hevers 11 again,

where he's talking, where it talks about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Sarah, it says, these all died in

faith not having received the promises. When they died, they had received the promises

yet, but having seen them fire off and were persuaded of them and embraced them. To not fulfill

his promises to Abraham and Isaac and Sarah and all the rest of them, and you and I too, because

he's promised us rewards, to not fulfill those promises would make God a liar, right? So if you

don't believe in the resurrection, you don't believe that God has started a good work that he's

going to finish, and you don't believe that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him,

because it is no reward to just die. And that's the end of it. Are you following me?

You're following me. Resurrection is very logical. You either have to throw God out with it.

You know, when God gives us eternal life, what is eternal life? Just that. It's eternal life. We live

eternally. And so there has to be a resurrection. Just close your eyes. And I want to read to you

some of the scriptures. I know I'm going over time. Just some of the scriptures, some from the

New Testament that talk about resurrection. Just close your eyes and listen to these.

Jesus said, Marvel not at this for the hour is coming in the witch. All that are in the graves

shall hear his voice and shall come forth. As John 528, John 640, and this is the will of him that

sent me that everyone which see at the sun and believe it on him may have ever lasting life. And

I will raise him up at the last day. John 1125, Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life.

He that believe it in me, though he were dead yet shall he live. Acts 2415 and have hope

toward God that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust.

Romans 811. But if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you,

he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that

dwelleth in you. 1 Corinthians 1522, for as in Adam all dies, even so in Christ shall all be made

alive. 2 Corinthians 414, knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us all

so. 1 Thessalonians 416, for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with the shout,

with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first.

Philippians 1 23, for I am in a straight the Twix 2, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ

which is far better. Revelation 2 10 and 11, be thou faithful unto death and I will give the

a crown of life. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the spirits sayeth unto the churches.

He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. John 5 24, verily, verily, I say

into you, he that heareth my word and believeeth on him that sent me half ever lasting life and

shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death unto life. Father God, we thank you for

the truth of the resurrection which Jesus proved when he himself rose from the dead. We love you

and we just pray that we can be witnesses to you with the rest of our lives and look forward to

the day when we will see with our own eyes and hear with our own ears and perceive in our own

hearts all the wonders that you have prepared for us. We love you, Lord Jesus and we pray in your

blessed name. Amen.