"Some Sadducees (who say that there is no resurrection) *came to Jesus, and began questioning Him, saying, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves behind a wife and leaves no child, his brother should marry the wife and raise up children to his brother. There were seven brothers; and the first took a wife, and died leaving no children. The second one married her, and died leaving behind no children; and the third likewise; and so all seven left no children. Last of all the woman died also. In the resurrection, when they rise again, which one’s wife will she be? For all seven had married her." Jesus said to them, "Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken."
Good Morning my beloved,
Jesus had a lot to say but He also had a knack for asking questions, thought provoking questions, that were aimed like an arrow with pinpoint precision, not to settle men’s souls that they might stay the same, but designed to be convicting, to get right to the heart of a person’s problem, leaving no room for superficial answers. Even though most Christians claim to believe in the resurrection and eternal life, it is amazing to me that many of them seem to spend way too much time focusing on life in this present world, which even at its best, is temporary, it is limited, and it is fallen.
I believe the reason for this is that preaching has reached the point where it no longer hinges on the Word of God, being in His presence in the everlasting Kingdom but on political and social issues, self-satisfaction and self-reliance of man that people want to hear rather than on a humble response to God that Scripture commands. When men speak their theology to be popular, entertaining, psychological ego-building and tolerant, their non-preaching eliminates the authentic authority of God's divine Truth.
In fact, authoritative preaching has become so rare, that if it's profoundly insightful, provocative, judgmental and convicting, and if it’s not going to help them feel better, to build up their self-esteem, it's said to be abusive, insensitive, irrelevant and they don’t even know what to do with it, even if they understand it. The church today as a whole, has never heard real Gospel preaching, that comes from the Bible, our sinful culture does not want to be confronted, it's just unacceptable, that's why they want nothing authoritative, nothing commanding and nothing divisive. They have no appetite for the Truth.
The church has slipped into the rebellious secular standard of
immorality, the everybody is free to do what is right in his own eyes mentality,
because all you have is opinion of men. Because the Word of God has been set aside, humanism has taken over and personal freedoms are worshipped rather than God. Preaching has to start with the holiness of God against the sinfulness of man. How can any faithful pastor not preach what Scripture teaches and say nothing about the eternal consequences of sin? This is not the time where you can just preach anything that you want, people need to understand what God says about sin. If we who preach mess with God's truth, then we have effectively cut
people off from what God is able and willing to do in their life and the promised hope of heaven!
In 1 Corinthians 9:16, Paul wrote, "For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel." When a preacher puts himself under the authority of the God, for which he must one day give account, preaching has substance and authority that effectively communicates the divine message as a means to salvation that is obvious to it's hearers, so that they may believe, it doesn't allow people's hearts to circumvent feeling convicted.
Psalms 116:5-6, "Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; Yes, our God is compassionate. The Lord preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me." That’s why I am committed to teaching the Word of God as God wrote it, that must reprove and rebuke, so that people might believe and be saved. And that’s the glorious work of God, the Author and Finisher of our salvation, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Teaching sound doctrine is not an easy challenge in a world where people are deceived, whose lives does not manifest God’s will, because all kinds of things that are not true are being propagated to be the Truth, by those who profess to know God, but clearly do not. We need to brought low with the bad news before we can properly respond to the Good News of the Gospel. That is the position the one who preaches the Word of God with authority, Who commands people to repent and be obedient.
Let us pray
Heavenly Father,
Father, thank You for Your Word that powerfully and profoundly speaks to our hearts. Lord, as we look around the world our hearts are deeply grieved for those who consumed by their own sin, plunging further and further into darkness. We pray for those who are leading Your people astray by teaching Satan's damning lies, may they hear Your voice convicting their hearts and calling them unto genuine repentance and obedience to faithfully teaching Your Word. What an undeserved honor and privilege it is for me to proclaim Your precious Word. Father, I pray that You would grant me the courage to preach Your Word boldly, to unleash its power by which the Holy Spirit saves, that others might respond in repentance leading to salvation. We ask and pray this in Christ's name for Your glory.
Father, thank You for Your Word that powerfully and profoundly speaks to our hearts. Lord, as we look around the world our hearts are deeply grieved for those who consumed by their own sin, plunging further and further into darkness. We pray for those who are leading Your people astray by teaching Satan's damning lies, may they hear Your voice convicting their hearts and calling them unto genuine repentance and obedience to faithfully teaching Your Word. What an undeserved honor and privilege it is for me to proclaim Your precious Word. Father, I pray that You would grant me the courage to preach Your Word boldly, to unleash its power by which the Holy Spirit saves, that others might respond in repentance leading to salvation. We ask and pray this in Christ's name for Your glory.
Amen
Today's Message: The Arrogance of Ignorance
Jesus often pierced through the facade of the self-righteous religious leaders by pointing to what was clearly written in the Word of God, which they had misinterpreted and misunderstood, revealing their arrogance, proving their ignorance of true biblical knowledge, in spite of their repeated attempts to discredit Him, He has been found to be without fault. As return Word of God, working our way through the twelfth chapter in Gospel of Mark which I’m going to read in a moment, Jesus is questioned yet again by another sect of Judaism, the Sadducees, who were sort of the religious liberal group of their day, that did not believe in the reality of the resurrection, the existence of angels or the reality of heaven as we know it. Though all they needed to discredit Jesus and show the absurdity of the concept of resurrection, was test Him with difficult questions, as you can imagine, the stakes were high, since most of their beliefs on the first five books of the Old Testament, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy; also known as the Torah, to be the authoritative Word of God.
The Jews had always believed in the resurrection, they were convinced of that by the vision of the valley of dry bones found in Ezekiel chapter 37, which says "‘Thus says the Lord God, "Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, My people. I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it," declares the Lord.’"
Isaiah 26:19, "Your dead will live; Their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, for your dew is as the dew of the dawn, and the earth will give birth to the departed spirits."
Daniel 12:2, "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt."
They were also confident in the promises of Psalm 16:9-11, "Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely. For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever." The issue with both those examples, is the Sadducees disregard them as being authoritative.
As we explore this passage, it becomes more than evident that the Sadducees are even worse than the scribes and Pharisees at trying to trap Jesus. Open your Bibles with me, if you will, to Mark chapter 12, verses 18-27. Mark 12:18-27. I trust you will follow along with me as I read to set the text in our minds, as we listen to hear what the Spirit of God has to say to us today.
"Some Sadducees (who say that there is no resurrection) *came to Jesus, and began questioning Him, saying, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves behind a wife and leaves no child, his brother should marry the wife and raise up children to his brother. There were seven brothers; and the first took a wife, and died leaving no children. The second one married her, and died leaving behind no children; and the third likewise; and so all seven left no children. Last of all the woman died also. In the resurrection, when they rise again, which one’s wife will she be? For all seven had married her." Jesus said to them, "Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken."
Let's look at verse 18, "Some Sadducees (who say that there is no resurrection) *came to Jesus, and began questioning Him," Matthew tells us on that day, so it's still Wednesday and Jesus has been teaching in the temple, when some the Sadducees decide to get in on the action of trying to trap Jesus by forcing Him to answer a question that would make Him appear foolish, so that people will turn away from Him. They think that they can accomplish what the Pharisees couldn't. So their goal is to make Jesus look foolish because everybody knows He affirms resurrection, in fact, He raised Lazarus from the dead just a few weeks before. They had to have known about that. It's interesting, that every time they are defined, it's in those same terms, "who say that there is no resurrection." I believe they wanted to make it clear that the Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection.
The resurrection was a big deal to the Sadducees, that's why when Peter and John were proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus from the dead to the people in Acts 4, being greatly disturbed by the threat to their theology, they had them arrested. And, in Acts 23, Paul got the Pharisees and Sadducees into an argument about
the resurrection. Josephus tells us that it was the Sadducees who murdered James, the brother of our Lord.
False
religions deny the resurrection of Jesus, they try to poke holes in the
virgin birth, that Jesus is God incarnate. False religion is a damning
deception, whether it's Roman Catholicism, Muslims, Hinduism, Buddhism and all other cults operating by the power of Satan, deceived by false teaching, people are being held
captive by relentless gatekeepers of influence used to keep them loyal to Satan. It's extremely important to pray, seek wisdom from the True Living God, without having already deciding what He 's going to say. Josephus tells us the Sadducees were not only narrow-minded in their application of the law, they constantly mocked the Pharisees over believing in the resurrection. They prided themselves on being guardians of what they believed to be the true faith, everything was subordinate to the Pentateuch. In other words, if Moses didn't write, then it wasn't true. What the Pharisees and the Sadducees had in common, is they both wanted wanted Jesus out of the way, for different reasons. Jesus didn't really get their attention of the Sadducees until He went into temple and destroyed their whole corrupt enterprise the day before, when He over turned the money changers tables, and threw out all of the buyers and sellers. By the way, when the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., there was no more priesthood, so they were completely erased from power. But during this time, the Sadducees had tremendous power and influence, since they held the majority of the members of the Sanhedrin.
Verse 19, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves behind a wife and leaves no child, his brother should marry the wife and raise up children to his brother." It's important to understand that they called Him teacher they are being condescending, convinced that when they showed Him up, they can demonstrate that He is incapable, they wanted to attack His credibility, it was not out of respect for His teaching, they rejected His teaching, in case you’re confused. Now, let's look at the bases of their question, which comes from Deuteronomy 25, called levirate marriage which says "When brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family
to a strange man. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her
to himself as wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. It shall be that the firstborn whom she bears shall assume the name of his dead brother, so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel." This was customary, to preserve the family name and so that the family inheritance would go to that child. The widow of the dead husband can’t raise up a family heir if she’s alone. That’s the reason God gave that law to Moses, which required the nearest kinsman to the widow to marry her and raise up children, which was originally given back in Genesis 38. Scripture doesn't tell us if it was being practiced or not at time of Christ, so we can't be dogmatic.The nearest example in the Bible would be that of Ruth and Boaz. Boaz is a relative but not the brother of her husband. It was always all about preserving the Messianic line.
Verses 20-23, "There were seven brothers; and the first took a wife, and died leaving no children. The second one married her, and died leaving behind no children; and the third likewise; and so all seven left no children. Last of all the woman died also. In the resurrection, when they rise again, which one’s wife will she be? For all seven had married her."
They're really putting their ignorance of Scripture on display here. It sounds a lot like a hypothetical story based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. You kind of have to imagine that when the woman died, all the males in that family were celebrating, marrying her would have been like a death sentence.The problem is the absurdity of their question, that ridiculous scenario would never happen, besides the fact they're asking about something
that they don’t even believe in, the resurrection of the dead. It's like when people who don't believe in God, ask "Can God create something that's too heavy for Him to carry?"
The
Sadducees didn't believe in the spiritual realm, they think when you die, it’s all over, the soul and the body just go out of existence. We can assume they’re just making this story up, drawing their question from the theology of the Pharisees, who affirm that the next life is going to be exactly like this life. So, if you were married on earth, you would also be married in heaven. Marriage is necessary for procreation to fill the earth, we need to replace those who die. Allow me just say, that eternal life, life in the Kingdom, is not going to be the same as this life, our relationships will not only be different, they will be better! Scripture is very clear, there will be no
more sin, no more selfishness, no more pride, no more envy, no more jealousy, that we would now live in such a glorious way that we will
love one another uninhibited and praise the God for that reality! They probably expected their ridiculous question to stump Jesus, hoping He'd say "Well, I'm not sure who she's going to be with." In fact, I imagine they had their next question would be, "So, will she not be committing adultery in heaven?" Just to be clear, is God not capable of sorting these things out in their ridiculous story?
I love Jesus' response to their question in verse 24, He isn't debating the Law, but He even seems a little sarcastic, completely turning the tables on them, and gives them a devastating blow to their egos, "Jesus said to them, "Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God?" In other words, "You pride yourselves on knowing the Scriptures? You're way off base! You're the ones who don't know the Scriptures nor the power of God. Your ignorance is leading you astray from the Truth." Jesus emphasizes His point using the verb "planáō," which means to cause to wander, to deviate from the correct path. Talk about an indictment! The teaching of the resurrection can only be embraced when you know the Scriptures and the power of God.
Verse 25, "For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven." Human beings living in this world have earthly relationships, only meant for this life. When we are in heaven, we will not be in earthy relationships, we'll be in heavenly relationships, they will be eternal, everlasting with no need for marriage or to reproduce.
Then in verse 26, Jesus shows them right from the first five books of Moses that teach about the resurrection since they were stuck on Moses teaching. Jesus always knows precisely the right passage for the right situation with those whom He was dealing with, because He knows the Scripture better than anyone and He knows their hearts. Only God has the power to do that. "But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?" In other words, Jesus is building His case for the resurrection around the Word of God, as been taught by God, bringing clarity and correction to their disbelief in the resurrection. God doesn’t say I was the God of Abraham, I was the God of Isaac, and I was the God of Jacob. He's saying this in the present tense, I AM not the God of those who died, indicating that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still living in some for, He's emphasizing I AM the God of the living. Greek present tense is "egō eimi," meaning "He who always was, is, and will be," indicating His eternal existence without limits.
That brings us to verse 27, "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken." All those years of studying the Scriptures, how could they have possibly missed that? They
were trusting in their own rationalization, rather than God's
revelation, that's why they could not understand the power of God. What kind of fool thinks he can prove Jesus wrong in a discussion about God's Word? The irony of the situation is, that the One who is standing before them is the One who can actually give them eternal life. For those of us who are in Christ, death is not the end. It's the glorious beginning, perfect in every way; perfect worship, perfect knowledge, perfect joy forever, all by grace! And on that day, we will be co-heirs with Christ, made like Him, the glory of God manifested in us, and through us.
Matthew adds "When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at His teaching." You would think this would finally put an end to all their questions, that their lives would be changed. We know that like the Pharisee's before them, that didn't happen, that they just went away even more determined to get rid of Him. Because of the power of the resurrection, we should live differently, speak differently,and love differently, so that others cannot help but recognize Christ in us.
May it be so..
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
Copyright © 2019-2024 All Rights Reserved
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
Copyright © 2019-2024 All Rights Reserved