Matthew 22, verse 23, we'll start
there. The same day, the same day that
our Lord had just dealt with the Herodians who were sent by
the Pharisees, when the Lord was through with them, they were
astonished and they left Him and went their way. And here
come the same day these Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection. And they asked him a question.
These were a sect of Jewish religious leaders. They were very political
and powerful members of the Jewish Sanhedrin. They had a lot of
power politically. But we learn the most important
thing about them right here in this verse. You want to know
who the Sanhedrin were? Who the Sadducees were? He tells
us who they were. They were those who said there's
no resurrection. That's what we need to know about them right
now. And the simple truth is this, they didn't believe God.
That was what was important to know about them. They didn't
believe God. They were highly respected among the Jews as religious
authorities, but they just simply did not believe God. And that
helps, doesn't it, to see that? Because we'll see that in the
Conte. That's what the Lord said to them. He said, you don't know
what the scriptures say, and you don't know who God is. And
the problem with religion today is the same. It's very simple.
It's not complicated. If you believe that God loves
everybody, you just don't believe God. It's just that simple, isn't
it? You just don't believe God. If
you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died in an attempt to
save every man, Your problem is not that you were born in
the wrong family. It's not that you belong to a
church that has different beliefs than we do. Your problem is you
don't know God and you don't believe God. It's that simple. It doesn't matter what church
you grew up in. Can you read? It doesn't matter who you were
raised by or where or how. Can you read? If you can read,
then you know that Christ didn't die for anyone but His sheep.
And that God does not love everybody, that His love is in Christ Jesus,
our Lord. We don't need a complicated and
detailed articles of faith hanging on the wall in order to distinguish
ourselves from the religious organizations of our day. We
just believe God. You see that? And how important
that is. We just believe God. Well, Chris, everybody says that.
Yeah, but how hard is it for you to determine if someone's
telling the truth when they say that or not? It don't take long,
does it? It takes less time than it would
take you to read in articles of faith if we had one, to find
out whether we believe God or not. If they say God loves everybody
and God said, I hate Esau, then they don't believe God. It wasn't
difficult to determine whether these Sadducees believed God
or not. They didn't believe God. They
believed that there was no resurrection. Thousands of years before there
was such a thing as a Sadducee, Job said, I know that my Redeemer
liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon this earth,
and that though after my skin worms destroy this body, And
it doesn't matter if he's saying, calling them skin worms, or if
he's saying, after my skin is gone, worms destroy this body.
People will argue about anything, won't they? What difference does
that make? He's saying, my body's going to be destroyed by worms,
and yet, in my flesh, after that, I'm going to see God. So what's
the Sadducees' problem? They don't believe God. David said in Psalm 16, 9, Therefore
my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth. My flesh also shall
rest in hope. I'm not going to die. Really,
I'm going to fall asleep. My flesh is going to rest. Isn't
that what our Lord said? Lazarus is asleep. That's what
He said to them before He had to accommodate our puny minds. They didn't understand that.
He said, Lazarus is asleep. And they didn't understand. They
said, well, if he's asleep, he'll be all right. Well, they didn't
understand that. So he had to say, Lazarus is dead. Which really,
the more true saying was what he said to begin with. Lazarus
is asleep. Well, when he said that he's
dead, they understood that then. So he had to accommodate their
understanding. But David said, I'm going to rest. My soul is
going to rest. And it's going to rest in hope.
What hope, David? You're not going to leave my
soul in hell. Neither will you suffer your Holy One. to see corruption. Now David's
saying that, trusting that the Lord who made him holy, in whom
he is holy, was not going to leave his soul in the grave.
That's that word there. Sheol. It's hell or the grave. And what he's saying there is
the grave. But also that's the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what
Paul preached in, where was it? In Acts chapter two? Peter did. Peter preached from this very
passage of scripture. What did he preach? The resurrection
of Jesus Christ. He said, David is still in the
grave. He's still resting in hope. But
the Lord Jesus Christ is not in the grave. He spoke of his
Lord, his son and Lord, Jesus Christ, whom you crucified. What's
the difference between Peter and these Sadducees? Well, by
grace, Peter just believed God. And so he preached the truth.
That's the difference. He believed God. Paul said in First Corinthians
1520, but now is Christ risen from the dead and become the
first fruits of them that slept. Because he rose, we're going
to rise. For since by man came death,
by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all
die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. That's what
Paul preached there in 1 Corinthians 15. What's the difference between
Paul and these Sadducees? Paul believed God. By his own testimony. You remember
in Acts 27 when that ship was sinking? And everybody was panicking? And Paul said, don't worry. He
said, you shouldn't have left land like I told you. It was
going to be bad. And it is bad. But don't be afraid. Because God told me nobody's
going to die. The ship's going to be broken up. The ship's going
to be lost. But none of you are going to die. And I believe God
that it shall be even as it was told me. That's the difference
between Paul and these Sadducees concerning the resurrection.
He just believed God. Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God. The Sadducees
were just living on bread. That's not life. That's not life. Do you believe God? That's the
question this morning. Do you believe God? In verse
24, it says that here's the question they 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 there were
with us seven brethren, and the first, when he had married a
wife, deceased, and having no issue, left his wife unto his
brother. Likewise, the second also, and
the third unto the seventh. Now they're saying this like
it's a true story. They didn't say suppose a man.
They said there was one that we knew that this happened. They're
lying. That's not true. You know that's
a bunch of bull, don't you? Everything else they said was
a lie. So why would you think this cockamamie story was true? They made it up. And if it was true, it wouldn't
have mattered really to the tech, but they're liars. That's what
they are. There is one lesson from the fact that they would
make up a cockamamie story like this in order to try to do what
the Pharisees and the Herodians had already tried and failed
to do. Because it shows us what we know in our own experience.
It confirms our own experience that religion will stop at nothing.
They'll make up anything and everything, however ridiculous,
to try to justify their foolishness. He said, this woman had seven
husbands because of Moses' commandment. And last of all, she died, verse
27, therefore in the resurrection, whose wife shall she be of the
seven? for they all had her. They're trying to make it look
the doctrine of the resurrection look foolish and what they accomplished
was looking foolish themselves making up a fairy tale like little
children and the Lord revealed them for what they are. There's
no need to comment a whole lot on their foolish story except
to say again that religious people now like then will invent the
most ridiculous fairy tales in their efforts to compromise the
truth of Christ. That's their goal. That's what
they came to do, was to deny the truth. Isn't it amazing what
otherwise intelligent men and women will swallow in the name
of religion? Otherwise not gullible in any
way, responsible, intelligent people will sit there And listen
to the very word of God openly and blatantly and clearly denied. And listen to the most foolish
nonsense. Listen to somebody sweat on a
rag, and if you'll buy that, the Lord will bless you. Or you
know what I'm talking about. Buy a piece of the ark. If you
put all those pieces of the ark together, You could build 18
of Noah's arks that have been sold. All the pieces of the cross
that have been sold. Back in the centuries ago, they
used to sell pieces of supposedly the cross. And reasonable men
who wrote about it said you could have built a house for everybody
on the planet if you put all those pieces of the cross together.
But everybody wanted to buy one of them. It seemed just incredible. what people will swallow. Your
loved ones are between heaven and hell. And if you just pay
enough money, you can get them out. They're in purgatory. Where's that? I don't see that
in the Bible. Well, you don't want them to be in purgatory,
so just give us some money. And no less ridiculous is the
notion that if you come down to the front, God's blessing,
you know, God will bless you if you come down to the front
and boo-hoo a little while. And most ridiculous of all, It's
a teaching that God's waiting on you to do something in order
for His purpose of salvation to be effectual. Have you ever
heard anything more ridiculous than that? That Almighty God
needs you? He said, I don't need you in His Word. He said, if
I needed anything, would I ask you? He said, my hand is not
shortened that it cannot save. And Jesus answered and said unto
them, let's focus our attention on His answer this morning. He said, ye do err. You do err. They came there erring,
not believing in the resurrection. What they said was in error,
and they left in error. As far as we know, every one
of them. And he said, there's two reasons why you're idiots. You're in error. You're ignorant
of the truth. The simple now, and I say idiots
because There's nothing ambiguous about the word of God. If you
don't believe God, you're an idiot. Did you know that? Me
too. We're idiots if we don't simply just believe God. You
do err for two reasons. Number one, you don't know the
word of God. You don't know the scriptures.
This is profoundly true of our generation. It's obvious when they open their
mouths they do not know the scriptures. And we ain't bragging on ourselves.
We don't know anything either without his grace. And we don't
know anything as we ought to know even with his grace. And
we don't ever boast in our flesh about anything. We got no grounds
upon which to boast. It's not about that. But those
who don't know God don't know his word and it's obvious that
they don't. Let's just call it like it is.
It's obvious. If they speak not according to
the words of this prophecy, it's because there's no light in them?
Can we determine whether they're speaking according to the Word
of God or not? It ain't hard, is it? And so,
we're told what to conclude when we see that they're not. It's
because the light of God is not in them. They have no revelation
from God. And so that's what's happening here. You don't know
the scriptures. And I say that's profoundly true
of religion of our generation and our whole generation for
that matter. This is the problem with so-called
preachers today. In order for there to be faith,
there's got to be something to believe. There's got to be a
truth. There's got to be the script.
What's the basis of our faith? The Word of God. But this is
the problem with so-called preachers today. When they open their mouth,
it's obvious they've never opened this book. And so those that
are listening to them are hearing fables, as Paul called them,
cunningly devised fables, instead of the simple, clear, plain truth
of God. This is why the gospel, Paul
said, is the power of God unto salvation. Because it's by these
Scriptures, the Holy Scriptures, preached faithfully by God's
prophets and preachers and teachers, that God is pleased to save sinners. It pleased Him by the foolishness
of preaching this Gospel to save them that believe. John said,
these are written that you might believe. We've referred to that
Scripture many times, but consider this in the context of our text. And understand this. These are
written. These are written, you Sadducees,
that you might believe the truth instead of what you believe now.
These are written that you might believe in Christ and the power
of His resurrection, you Sadducees. And notice how that the Lord
Jesus Christ made this an issue not of some peripheral doctrine
that's categorized in some six-inch book of theology somewhere. This
Bible is not a book of doctrinal statements. Do you know that?
Do you understand that? It is a revelation of a person.
And our Lord revealed here. He said, you don't know the scriptures
and you don't know who God is or you wouldn't believe what
you believe. It's the matter of you don't know somebody. That's
your problem. There's somebody you don't know.
You don't know Him, you don't know His Word. He said you wouldn't
balk at this truth if you knew who God was, if you knew the
power of God, if you knew the Almighty God. He said to the Pharisees in John
8, if you believe not that I am, you'll die in your sins. You
see what He's saying here? It's about a person. You don't
know God. John made a fascinating statement
in 1 John 4, 2. Let me read it, just a very brief
one verse. Think about it with me. He said,
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. And immediately,
our inner theologian is thinking, boy, you need to know more than
that to be a true believer, don't you? Don't you need to know more
than that? Most theologians will say, you
need to know a whole lot more than that. And did you know everybody
is a theologian? Pretty much, by the way. They
say you have to know a lot more than that. They would say that
because they don't understand what John is saying here. They
don't know what John is saying. John is not saying if you believe
in the incarnation of Christ, that you are of God. That's not
what he is saying here. That's of course part of it. We are
going to believe Christ is God in human play. We're going to
believe that if we know him at all. But that's not what he's
saying here. There are many who believe that who are not true
believers, true prophets, true in their preaching of the gospel. John here is highlighting the
fact that heresy is not about the complicated and intricate
so-called theological issues that men are prone to debate
about. Heresy is about the denial of a person. It concerns the
denial of a person and what he did. That's what he's saying. Paul
said in Romans 834 that no one for whom Christ died can be condemned
by man or God simply because of who it is that died. Isn't
that what he said there? Just because of who it is. And
that's what John's saying. Do you believe that he, that
Jesus Christ, that God's Christ, God's anointed, God's holy one
came down in the flesh? Do you know why he came? Do you
know what he did when he came? Do you believe that he came?
God's Christ came down here in the flesh. If you believe now
that God's Christ came down here in the flesh, then you know that
whatever he came to do is done. It's about who he is, isn't it?
It's about who he is. If you believe he came down here
and tried to do something and didn't do it, then you don't
believe that Jesus Christ came down in the flesh. You're talking about a Jesus
of your imagination now. If you believe in universal atonement,
atonement, that Christ died for everybody, you know what your
problem is? Your problem is that you have fabricated a Jesus in
your mind and you are denying that Jesus Christ, God's Christ,
the one revealed in this book, is coming to flesh to save his
people. You deny that. That's just the truth. That's
what our Lord said to Martha. That's what he said to her in
John 11, 23. He said to Martha, your brother will rise again. And Martha saith unto him, I
know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last
day. I believe in the resurrection. And Jesus said unto her, I am
the resurrection. Our hope is not in the event.
It's not in a doctrine. It's in a person. I am the resurrection. Now think about what he's saying.
Let's read the rest of it. Let me read it. I know that he
shall rise again in the resurrection. Jesus said unto her, I am the
resurrection and the life. Now why did he say that? Why
didn't he just say, you're right Martha, he will rise again in
the resurrection? Because she needed to learn something
here. We do too. Salvation is a person now. Life
is a person. I am the resurrection and the
life. The life. He that believeth in
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever
liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou of
this? Our Lord said to Martha that
day, your brother shall rise again, not because of a doctrine
or because of a day, but because of who I am, because of who it
is that's speaking with you. If you knew, he said to that
woman at the well, if you knew the power of God, the very thing
that he said to these Sadducees, you don't know the power of God.
He said to her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that's
talking with you, you would ask. and I would give. Have you asked? Have you asked? Have you come begging for mercy
at the feet of God's son? He said, if you knew you would
ask, and if you ask, I'll give it to you. Life, mercy, peace,
righteousness, redemption, Every blessing, every blessing. That's
what our Lord is saying here to these Sadducees is not that
they were unacquainted with the doctrinal issue. It wasn't that
they hadn't done their homework. They had a simple twofold problem.
They didn't know God and they didn't know what God said. That's
what he told them. You deny the power of God. If you knew the scriptures, you
wouldn't have this problem. You see how the problems go together. If you knew the scripture, if
you knew the scriptures, if your understanding had been open that
you might understand the scriptures, you would know the power of God.
The scriptures reveal the sovereign almighty Christ who does as he
pleases, when he pleases, with whom he pleases. Paul said of
his Jewish countrymen, they have a form of godliness, but they
deny the power thereof. That's what the Lord said to
these Sadducees too. Our Lord asked those blind men
in Matthew 9, do you believe that I'm able to do this? And
I like their answer. I like the question. I like their
answer too. Yay, Lord. Yay, Lord. If he's the Lord, then he's able. This word power in the original
Greek has two considerations. It means ability, but there are
two different kinds of ability that are spoken of in the scripture.
There is strength, as in, do you have the power to lift a
certain thing or to accomplish a certain thing? And then the
other ability that the scriptures talk about is authority. Authority. Two different kinds of ability
in both. are true in our text. They denied both. And we see
that in the scriptures. We also see in the scriptures
that our Lord has all of both all might and all authority. You may say, I believe I could
run this country better than the president of the United States
that we have right now. And you know what? You might
be able to do it. But there's a problem. You don't
have the authority to do it. That comes from the voters. So
with regard to our text here, these Sadducees, they denied
both. They were ignorant of God's power of His might and His authority. They were ignorant, as they are
now, of the God who said, My hand's not shortened, and I can't
say. God wants to save you, but He can't unless you let Him.
Really? Not the God of this book. You're ignorant of the scriptures,
and because you don't know the scriptures, you don't know the
power of God. The Almighty Savior, He said,
I give life to whom I will. You don't know Him because you
don't know His word. The only way to know Him is through His
word, through His revealed word, and by His revealing grace. When
our Lord Jesus Christ said to His disciples in Matthew 28,
18, it says, Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power
is given unto me. All power. What word is he using
there? That means power of choice or
authority. He has the power to choose. And
where? I have authority in my home from
God. It's given by God. But I don't
have any authority down at the courthouse. Where do you have
authority, Lord Jesus? All power is given unto me in
heaven and in earth. Everywhere that there is such
a thing as authority, it's mine, he said. Go ye, therefore, because
I have all authority, I'm sending you to do something, to teach
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I have commanded you, In other words, you tell
them what I told you. You preach what I've preached
to you. You teach them what I've taught you. Every bit of it.
All things. All things. Not the part you
like. And lo, I love this part. Lo, I'm with you always. Lord,
if you're going to send us, don't send us unless you're going with
us. Don't you feel that way? That's what Moses said, Lord.
I don't want to go unless you're going with us. I'm with you all
the way even unto the end of the world. He not gonna leave
us Amen And that word is Exusia Authority I have authority and
therefore I authorize you To go and preach in my name, but
in our text concerning his resurrection he uses the word I don't know
how to pronounce it, but I thought it was dynamis and But it looks
like in the way that they show you how to pronounce a word,
it looks like it's called dunamis. But anyway, it's the word from
which we get our words dynamic and dynamite. Power, might. It means strength and might. And so we take comfort in the
fact that the one who authorizes us, the one who has all authority,
is also the one who is almighty. Almighty. He is the invincible
Christ. The Lord Jesus said in John 10,
17, Therefore, doth my father love me, because I lay down my
life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but
I lay it down of myself. I have to lay it down. And I have power
to take it again. And this commandment have I received
of my father. And this is the good news to
us now who believe him because he is the firstborn from the
dead. This is the power that they didn't know. He said, you
don't know the power. You don't know that I have power
to lay down my life and I have power to take it up again. You
don't believe that there's a resurrection because you don't know me. You
don't know my power. You haven't understood my word
clearly teaches it. But thank God that he rose because
he's the firstborn from the dead. There's much to say about his
resurrection. the power of His resurrection.
Paul cried out, O that I may know Him in the power of His
resurrection. He said in that verse that I
quoted a while ago, Who shall lay anything to the charge of
God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who
is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea,
rather than is risen again. the importance of the resurrection.
If he died and did not rise again, then our sins are not forgiven. They're not paid for. The sacrifice
is not accepted. If the high priest doesn't come
back out, then that means God killed him and we're goners with
him. Our high priest came back out
and has ascended on high and led captivity captive and gave
gifts to us now. He's the almighty risen Christ
of the scripture. Paul speaks of the importance
of Christ's resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, 13. He said, if there be
no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen? Paul
got it. What we were just talking about,
Paul said, if Christ is not risen, we're goners. If Christ be not
risen, then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain. But after this terrible supposition,
Paul goes on to teach the truth in verse 20. But now is Christ
risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that
slept. For since by man came death,
by man came also the resurrection of the dead. Adam represented
us in his fall and his death before God, spiritual death.
Because God said, in the day you eat it, you'll die. Adam
didn't die physically that day, but he died spiritually. But
now is Christ risen. And by that man and his representation
of us came death to us. By man came also the resurrection
of the dead. And the same way, by representation. Because listen to the next verse.
As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
What does that mean, everybody that died in Adam is made alive
by Christ? No. We know that's not true. There'd
be no hell if that was true. But what we know is this, everybody
Adam represented died. And everyone who Christ represented
is made alive. That's the only sense in which
this verse can be understood. They both represented a people
who died and lived by virtue of that representation. Christ
did not make alive all who died in Adam, simply because he did
not represent all who died in Adam. If he had, then all of
them would have been made alive. He represented only those whom
the Father had given them. Thus, in his high priestly prayer,
he prayed, I pray not for the world, but for those whom thou
hast given me. So all whom he represents as
surety, as sin offering, as representative will be raised incorruptible
by his grace. We know his word concerning this.
And by his grace, we know who he is. And so we know his power. And still, like Paul, we desire
what to know him. And the power of his resurrection.
Paul said, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, but
we shall all be changed. He spoke of the resurrection.
Let's turn there and we'll close with a few thoughts. 1 Corinthians
15, verse 50. Our Lord said to those Sadducees,
God's not the God of the dead. He's the God of the living. Verse
50 of 1 Corinthians 15. Now this I say, brethren, that
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 in a moment,
in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet
shall sound. and the dead shall be raised. And they're going to 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,
death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and
the strength of sin is God's law. But thanks be to God, which
giveth us the victory. How did he do it? Through his
son. Through his son, the one that stood there and spoke to
these Sadducees and said, you don't know my word and you don't
know me. You don't know my power. You
don't know the sovereign power of God. Therefore, my beloved,
Paul said, brethren, be you steadfast and unmovable. Since by God's
grace we do Do you know the scriptures? Do you know it's not because
you're smarter than the Sadducees? It's not because you're better
than them? There's one reason why you do. Blessed are your eyes for they
see. Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom
of God. Unto them it's not given. And
do you know the power of God? Do you know the sovereign, almighty
Christ who speaks and it's done, who has power on earth to forgive
sins, who says, daughter, I say unto thee, arise, and the dead
live again. Oh, if so, then be steadfast, Paul
said. If you know these things, if
you know this one, the one through whom God has given us the victory
in life, Be steadfast and unmovable, always abounding in the work
of the Lord. For as much as you know, you
know how this ends, and you know it ends with a win. You know
that he's given us the victory. You know that your labor is not
in vain. Doesn't that make you want to
work harder? knowing that God works in you to do, to will and
to do of his good pleasure, and that our labor in him is not
in vain. We already have the victory.
And these Sadducees, when they heard what he said, they had
the same reaction that the Herodians did. They were astonished. God's
not the God of the dead, but of the living. Just the simplest
statement and truth is so powerful from the mouth of the Savior.
If we preach the same doctrine that He did, do you know what
reaction people will have now? The same one. People will be
astonished. And I pray for His grace. If our doctrine is His doctrine,
which is the person, a person revealed in a book, then folks
will be astonished at our doctrine too. And I pray that He'll give
us grace to preach the astonishing truth to the glory of His sovereign
grace. Let's bow in prayer.