Well, if you'd open your Bibles,
please, to Luke chapter 20, and we're continuing our Bible study
in Luke the 20th chapter. Last couple of weeks we've spent
on rendering unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and
the things unto God which be God's. And the point being there
in that those group of people that came together according
to the determinate counsel and purpose of God, to try and entrap
the Lord into saying something incriminating or something that
would either alienate Him with the people or with the Romans. And their question had no legitimate
purpose. It was just a deceitful tactic. That brings us to verse 27 here
of Luke chapter 20, when the Sadducees come to Him. And if
you've been familiar with the Jewish religion, there were all
these different sects. There were Sadducees, there were
Pharisees, there were Essenes, and all these different ones
had... the Essenes were kind of like... seclusionists almost. And the
Sadducees were a group that didn't believe in the resurrection,
and the Pharisees believed both the scriptures tell us, but they
didn't really. So, in verse 27, then came to him, to Jesus, certain
of the Sadducees, which deny that there's any resurrection."
I thought that was a really interesting point there, that they don't
even believe in a resurrection, and then they come with this
question. And they asked him, saying, Master,
Moses wrote unto us. Okay, we have it from Moses.
If any man's brother die, having a wife, and he die without children,
that his brother should take his wife and raise up seed unto
his brother. Well, that's what it says in
the Law of Moses. And it made sense back then,
and there was a purpose to it. So now they just exaggerate it
beyond belief to try and do another deceitful questioning here. So,
in our imaginary scene, he says, therefore there were seven brothers. And the first took a wife, and
died without children. And the second took her to wife,
and he died childless. And the third took her, and in
like manner the seven also. And they left no children, and
died. And last of all, the woman died
also. Therefore, in the resurrection,
whose wife of them is she? For seven had her to wife." What
point was that? It's just like a lot of religious
questions that we have nowadays. And Jesus answering said unto
them, the children of this world marry and are given in marriage.
in this world, not in the world to come. They which shall be
accounted worthy to obtain that world and in the resurrection
from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage." So there's
two different time frames and two different zones, two different entities here that are described.
neither can they die anymore for they're equaled unto the
angels and they're the children of god being children of the
resurrection now that the dead are raised even moses showed
at the bush when he called the lord the god of abraham and the
god of isaac and the god of jacob for he is not a god of the dead
but of the living for all live unto him Then certain of the
scribes, answering, said, Master, thou hast well said. And after
that, they durst not ask him any question at all." So all
these different bickering entities, you know, the scribes say, hey,
that was a good answer. Dumb old Sadducees don't believe
in the resurrection. So that's the block of Scripture
that we're looking at today, and I thought it would be good
for us to look at this question of the resurrection, because
through time it's been something that's been of interest to the
church, and everybody has questions about it. And there's quite a lot of speculation
and error about it. So we're just going to look at
what the Bible has to say about that. The title of our lesson today
is What We Shall Be, What We Will Be. And it's ironic that
the ones who even deny there is a resurrection ask a question
about what will occur in the resurrection. That's kind of
oxymoronical or something, I guess you might say. So they ask him this question
of the law of marriage applying in the resurrection. And he said,
no, it doesn't. And as old as religion is, this
question about the resurrection, who, what, how, and when is asked. And you know, not only were the
Sadducees unbelievers, but they had the unbelievers' non-understanding
of spiritual things. You know, we turn over to Matthew's
account, and this same questioning and answer is in Matthew, Mark,
and Luke. It doesn't occur in John, but
it's in the other ones. In Matthew's account, Jesus,
He directly points out the root cause of this problem and all
problems. He said, you do err not knowing
the Scriptures nor the power of God. You don't know. You don't know what you're talking
about. You don't know the Scriptures. You don't see Jesus in them.
You don't see the resurrection in them. You don't see anything
in them because you can't. And the answer that He gave them
here from the book of Moses, which they purported to believe,
and they mention that at the beginning of this question. Moses
said that if a man died doesn't have any children, what happens
to his wife? So he gives them an answer from
the book of Moses, which they purported to believe to the exclusion
of the rest of the Old Testament. They only believed in the first
five books of the Bible. They didn't subscribe to the
prophets or the Psalms, only the Pentateuch. So he quotes them. Moses and
God speaking at the bush. And I'm sure they still didn't
quite understand it. In Exodus 3, verse 6, moreover,
he said, I am, what a powerful statement God makes, I am the
God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the
God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face for he
was afraid to look upon God. And so you do err not knowing
the scriptures nor the power of God. They didn't believe the scriptures,
and they didn't believe that he could resurrect anything or
anyone. So here lies the main effect
of sin and the fall in every age. You err in two main areas
because of the fallen nature of man, which cannot receive
the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them because
they're spiritually discerned. A minute ago, we were celebrating
your birthday and somebody piped up in a foreign language and
said, happy birthday to you. But the rest of us said, we didn't get that. That was a lucky guess. But anyway, that's kind of the
way the Bible is to these unbelievers and Sadducees. They read the
words on the page, but they really don't understand it. They have
no understanding, no ability. The first thing that comes to
mind here is, he receiveth not. The natural man cannot receive
the things of the Spirit of God. That word cannot, that means
the most absolute sense of negativity. There can't be a higher degree
of not. It's the absolute degree of not. You cannot... Can speaks to ability
and not speaks to none. You cannot receive the things
of the Spirit of God. Neither can He know them. There's no ability. It's all
lost in the fall. The things of God are foolishness
unto them. They cannot accept it or get
a hold of it. It's foolishness, it's silly
or absurd, which comes from a wrong position of assuming that a man
is actually wiser than God and able to judge things correctly.
And they think they do that from their standpoint. The Sadducees
says, well, we think we're right. And there's a whole group of
us together that think we're right. And all the other groups,
the Pharisees said, well, we believe in spirits and angels
and resurrection. You guys are a little bit wacky,
because you don't. And it turns out most of the
time they were both wrong. He can't receive them, neither
can he know them, and that again speaks to the absolute negative
ability, absolutely no power to know, absolutely no power
to allow, perceive, be aware, understand, or be sure of spiritual
things. It's just not there. No understanding
or even real belief in God. He says, you do error not knowing
the Scriptures nor the power of God. Two things that they
were incorrect on, and it's the main point of error in religion
of all ages. Those two things. You don't have
any real belief in God. No real trust that He's sovereign.
No trust that He's almighty in power and ability. No trust that
He will and can do what He has said. And you know, we have that
segment of society today that says, well, we're more sovereign
than God because we can overrule Him or we can accept or reject. It's all up to us. And He died
in rather a random way. universally for everyone, and
it's up to each person to either accept or reject that. But the
Scriptures say an entirely different thing, but you can't see that
in a natural condition. And Jesus said, all power is
given to me. You don't know the power of God. Well, he says,
well, all power is given to me, especially in the resurrection. He says, I have power to lay
it down. I have power to take it again. John chapter 10 verse
18. So the Sadducees, they erred
in several areas. They miss Christ in all the scriptures.
Moses wrote of me, Jesus said. And here they quote Moses and
Moses said, well, if you believe Moses, you believe me. They clearly
misunderstood the marriage typology and representation as presented
in the scriptures. A type and a shadow of the eternal
marriage between the lamb and his bride. It's what that's a
picture of and what it was supposed to be. And that's why we find
that adultery was so heinous in the Old Testament. They went
after other gods. And a picture of breaking that
bond of marriage between the lamb and his bride. And today is really no different.
Many speak about things that they really don't understand.
They insert their ideas about how things will be in the resurrection
and when, or even as these Sadducees who had no belief at all, that
after death you just sort of fade away into nothingness. And
another sect says, well, if you're good, you come back as a better
person or a higher being. If you're bad, you come back
as a carrot. a lizard, some lower form, you know. It's all a little
bit crazy. So, today we just want to look
at what the Scriptures say. And much of what we can know
and understand about the resurrection is based on what we know about
God. Because He's the source of all
things. God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. We
find that in the Scripture, and we find that He was the creator
of light, and that Jesus is that light that represents that. In
Psalm 104, verse 1, it says, Bless the Lord, O my soul, O
Lord my God, Thou art very great. Thou art clothed with honor and
majesty, who covers thyself with light as a garment, who stretches
out the heavens like a curtain. Isn't that an interesting thing
about God? He covers himself with light
as a garment, and he is light. God is the creator. When God
creates, it's good. And we learn that in Genesis.
We see everything God created. And then it's written when God
saw that it was good in Genesis 4, 1, 4, and 10, and 12, and
18, and 21, 25 of chapter 1. Every time he created something,
he said, and it was good. And finally, we get down to Verse 31 takes it a little further,
that God looked at all He had created through His Word, through
His Son, and He said this, Genesis 1-31, and God saw everything
that He had made, and behold, It was very good. And the evening
and the morning were the sixth day. It was very good. So when
God has a creation, and when we're born again, we're a new
creation, and that is very good. And so when we observe our present
condition and speculate about what is to come, we can base
our trust in God that He doeth all things well. So let's kind of reverse engineer
this a little bit and look at what we don't know. I'm going to list everything
we don't know. It's a lot. what's not revealed to us at
the present. 1 John 3, verse 2. Let's look at there. 1 John 3,
verse 2. Our beloved John writes, beloved,
he writes from a position of people, his brothers in the Lord
that he loves. He says, now are we the sons
of God. He says, at this very time, We
are the sons of God. And it doth not yet appear what
we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall
be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And we're going
to look at some Scriptures about what that appearance may be. We like to sing that hymn, praise
the Savior, ye who know Him. And it goes on to say that things
that are not now nor could be soon shall be our own. What we
would be, we shall be. What we should be. It makes that
distinction between how we are now and what we expect. based
on God. Our physical circumstances, our appearance
and being in this world are all impacted and affected by sin.
And how we will be in the world to come will be quite different
with sin taken out of the equation, although elements of identity
seem to remain the same. You know, it's just impossible
for us to comprehend an existence without sin. My pastor said this
just last week. I can't fathom that. I can't
fathom waking up every day and not having to contemplate sin
or not be affected by it. It's too high for me. That's
what David said. I think about these things in
the night watching. My mind is just too small. It's
just too high for me. I cannot attain to it. Anyway, we seem to have some
elements of identity that remain the same, and there's some interesting
things about that. In the three of the Gospel records
in Matthew 17, Mark 9, and Luke 9, there's an account of the
Mount of Transfiguration. And there's a couple things that
we want to call attention to. We're not going to go into that
too deep because we're scooting by our time here. Two things that we would like
to note for our study today. So we're going to read from Matthew
17, verse 1 through 3. Matthew 17, verse 1, And after
six days Jesus takes Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth
them up to a high mountain apart. And he was transfigured before
them, I think in the Greek that's metamorphos. That's where we
get the word metamorphos. He was changed. He was transfigured before them,
and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was as white
as the light. Boy, doesn't that bring back
those Scriptures that we read earlier? God is light and He
has no darkness at all, and He clothes Himself with light as
a garment. And behold, there appeared unto
them Moses and Elias talking with him. And they said, hey,
this is cool. Let's build three tabernacles,
one for you and one for Moses and one for Elias. So those guys
have been dead a long time. But they seem to know who they
were. Isn't that interesting? They seem to have that recognition
of, oh, that's Moses. And it doesn't say a lot about
that, but I think I find that very interesting that there's
a And all the Gospels say pretty
much the same phraseology. They recognize Moses and Elias
along with Christ. But it doesn't elaborate about
what they talked about, what Moses and Jesus and Elias talked
about. But I think it's interesting
that there was some recognition there. In our relationships,
will be based in Christ and as a spiritual family, and not by
earthly marriage, but by eternal blood. In our text today in Luke chapter
20 verse 34, Jesus answering and said unto them, the children
of this world, kind of this foreign world that
we're in, They marry and are given in marriage. You know,
in the Eastern culture, it says they're given in marriage. In
the Eastern culture, marriages were arranged most of the time.
The father would arrange for his son to get a bride somewhere. They just did that. And that
was how they most of the time worked that. And earthly marriage
was and is a type of the Lamb's marriage of the church, His chosen
bride. Think about that. And you know,
does the groom choose his bride or does he just say, well, I'm
going to get married tomorrow. Anybody won't come. Come on down. It's usually an arranged situation,
and He selects or elects whom He wishes to be His bride. You know, we find an example
of that in Isaac and Rebekah in the Old Testament. We don't
have time to do that today. We're getting down on our time.
But if you go back to Genesis 24, verse 4, his dad says, Hey, a head servant, come in
here. I want you to go back to my old stomping grounds and pick
out a wife for my son. I don't want him marrying one
of these heathen people over here. So you go back there and
you find him a wife and here's what you were to look for. And
you've all gone through that scripture and know that probably
pretty well about the, he was to look for certain signs. And
when he saw them, he says, oh, you're the one. So, anyway, we're
moving on in Luke chapter 20 verse 35. They which shall be
accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from
the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. So in that
future state, in that realm, this marriage is gone. It's no longer needed as a type
because we are the bride of Christ. Revelation 21 verse 9 says, And
there came unto me one of the seven angels, which had the seven
vials full of the last seven plagues, and talked with me,
saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. And there's just lots of interesting
Scripture in Revelation if you have time to go through that
and read chapter 2, I think, and this chapter 21 that talks
about the bride and how she's adorned and the care for her
and all those things. And her raiment. All clad in
white raiment. He calls us brethren. We're not
related by this external marriage in this realm, but He views us
as brethren. In Revelation chapter 2, it goes on to the next subject
of, what name shall we be known by?
We're not given in marriage. By what name shall we be known?
In Revelation 2.17, He that hath an ear, let him hear what the
Spirit saith to the churches. To him that overcometh, and we
overcome by the blood of the Lamb, it tells us in Revelation
12.11. Him that overcometh will I give
to eat of the hidden manna. manna that's hidden to the world
at large, to the unbelievers, to the lost, to these Sadducees
and many others. I'll give to ye the hidden manna,
and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written,
which no man knoweth, saveth he that receiveth." You know,
it's interesting. the multitude of blessings is
contained in that one verse there. Him that overcometh, we mentioned
that we overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and that's what
it tells us in the Scripture. We're fed with manna that's hidden
to the world at large. We're given a white stone. You
know, in the Greek legal system, that's an interesting thing there.
When you were on trial in a Greek court, And the jurors made their
decision. If they gave you a white stone,
you were pronounced innocent. If they gave you a black stone,
it was bad. So this white stone is pictorial
of our being pronounced innocent. The name on the white stone in
Revelation is based on the reason why they received the white stone.
In Jeremiah 33, 16 it says, So we get a white stone because
we have that righteousness of Christ imputed to us based on
His sacrificial work on our behalf. and the name that's written on
them. You know, He says in Luke 10, verse 20, remember when we
were back in Luke 10, and He sent those guys out, those disciples
out, and they were to go all over the place preaching the
gospel, and He said, don't take any sandals or money or anything. Just go out and they came back
and they said, oh man, even the devils were subject to us. We
were mighty powerful. We were mighty good. And he says,
well, notwithstanding in this, rejoice not that spirits are
subject unto you, but rather rejoice because your names are
written in heaven. That's what you should be thankful
for. That's what you should rejoice
in, that you have a name It's written in heaven. So what information does the
Scripture give us regarding our future existence? Well, we read
there, John says, well, it doth not yet appear what we shall
be. So, mystery. But we have a few hints. 1 Corinthians
chapter 15. Let's turn there to 1 Corinthians
15. It's quite a lengthy block of
Scripture dealing with this particular issue here. Just got through saying, moreover,
brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel. We come down to verse 35 because
this is the question that we brought up at the beginning of
the class. Who, what, when, why or how? Everybody's curious about
the resurrection. And he says, but some man will
say, how are the dead raised up? And with what body do they
come? Verse 35. And then he says, thou fool. This is a crazy question. Thou fool, that which thou sowest
is not quick, and except it die." And that which thou sowest, he's
giving them an agricultural allegory here, like you're going to plant
a seed, and we all like to plant stuff, and we plant a seed, the
seed kind of goes to pot in the ground, but out of it springs
a green shoot of life. That which thou sowest is not
quick, and except it die. And that which thou sowest, thou
sowest not the body that shall be." When we plant that seed,
we don't want just a seed to come up. We want a green shoot
to come up, and at the top of it, a shock of many seeds. And so, thou sowest not that
body that shall be, but bare grain. It may chance a weed or
some other grain, but God giveth a body as it is pleased him,
and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh,
but there is one kind of flesh of man, another flesh of beast,
another of fishes, another of birds. There are also celestial
bodies, and bodies terrestrial. But the glory of the celestial
is one and the glory of the terrestrial is another. They both have their
place. One is different than the other.
There's one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another
glory of the stars. For one star differeth from another
star in glory. So also is the resurrection of
the dead. It's sown in corruption. It's
raised in incorruption. It's sown in dishonor, it's raised
in glory. It's sown in weakness, it's raised
in power. It's sown a natural body, it's
raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there
is a spiritual body and so it is written, the first Adam was
made a living soul and the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit, that was not first,
which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and after,
that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth,
earthy. The second man is the Lord from heaven. So as the earth
So as is the earthy, such are they that also that are earthy. And as the heavenly, such are
they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image
of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
Now this I say, brethren, flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of God. Neither doth corruption inherit
incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery.
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. That's
that metamorphosis word again. That's that transfiguration word. In a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trump, for the trump shall sound and
the dead shall be raised incorruptible. And we shall be changed. For
this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal
must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall
have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on
immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written
in the Old Testament, death is swallowed up in victory. O death,
where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? From Isaiah. 25.8, that quote too. So we see that flesh and blood
can't inherit the kingdom of God, neither does corruption
inherit corruption, but we shall be changed. The form we're now
in, in this world, you know they always kind of couch those phrases
as We have this being and right
now we're enveloped in this world. And we'll see some scriptures
about that here in just a moment. But the form that we're now in
is a being that's constrained by time and human nature. After the new birth, we begin
to understand and to look at things from a spiritual perspective
that really is born out of the new birth and out of eternity.
Paul called this present body, he said, who will deliver me
from this body of death? That's what he thought about
it. Hebrews gives us an indication
that the eternal purpose of God, in His purposes, we were in a
different state, and we have some Scriptures in support of
that. In Hebrews 2, verse 14, and I think we mentioned this
in our previous lesson here, that for as much then as the
children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also likewise Himself
took part of the same, that through death He might destroy him that
had the power of death, that is, the devil. Death is overcome,
as we read from Isaiah 25.8, and that was quoted there in
Corinthians. Isaiah 8.18 says, this word from
the Lord says, Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath
given Me are for signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts
which dwell in Mount Zion. And we read from John 17 in our
previous lesson too, I have manifested Thy name to the men which Thou
gavest Me out of the world. Thine they were, Thou gavest
them Me, And they've kept thy word. I've given them thy word,
and the world hates them, because they are not of the world, even
as I am not of the world." Isaiah 8, 18 again. Behold I and the
children whom thou hast given me. 2 Corinthians 4, 7 says that
we have this treasure in earthen vessels. We're contained in these
earthen vessels that are fragile, that the excellency of the power
may be of God and not of us. We're created that way on purpose
because otherwise we'd say, oh, I did this myself. I'm powerful
enough. I'm good enough. I can do this
myself. You know, Job, going back to
the Old Testament, Job understood clearly that he was in a condition
according to God's purpose in this world, which was a temporary
condition. In chapter 10 of Job, in verse
11, he says, Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and fenced
me with bones and sinews. You encapsulated me in this fleshly
world, in this fleshly skin and bones, sinews. Thou has granted
me life and favor, and Thy visitation, that visitation that He comes
in the new birth, hath preserved my spirit." What a wonderful
verse we have from Job there. And then he goes on to say in
chapter 14, he said, if a man dies, shall he live again? The
same question that we have over and over in the Bible and in
the world. He says, all the days of my appointed
time, Will I wait till my change come? What a powerful word. Well, we're not finished yet,
but we're out of time, so we'll continue on to this in our next
segment. So, interesting scriptures. We have a few left to go. So,
till next time, be eternally free.