Experience TRUTH - #23

This is Hans Schile from the Finishing Well Podcast.

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This week on Experience Truth, we're jumping in. Head first, Luke chapter 20, verses 27 through 40. Robbie Dillmore, aka The Christian Car Guys, here. Robbie, read the Scripture to us, will you please, in your best radio voice, and we're going to jump in to the resurrection of Christ and another attack, another group of detractors going after Jesus in Holy Week in Luke chapter 20. All right, Luke 20, 27 through 40. Then some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, came to him and asked him, saying, Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man's brother dies having a wife and he dies without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers, and the first took a wife and died without children, and the second took her wife and he died childless. Then the third took her in a like manner, the seven also, and they left no children and died. Last of all, the woman died also. Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become?

For all seven had her as a wife. Jesus answered and said to them, The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are counted worthy to attain that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry or are given in marriage, nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living for all who live to Him. Then some of the scribes answered and said, Teacher, you have spoken well, but after that they dared not question Him anymore.

Well, shut my mouth! I tell you, Robbie, jump right in here with these first couple questions, because this really gets going. Why so many questions by the religious leaders at this stage in Jesus's ministry? Yeah, Jesus is still on trial by them, and really what ends up happening is they end up on trial, right?

You start asking Jesus questions, you realize that, wow, my soul is completely exposed here. We met the Herodians last week, last time, and of course they're asking about whose image is on, you know, why is the image of Caesar, and who do we pay taxes to, and this and that, trying to trip them up there, and he absolutely exposes them. Renard of Caesar, that was a Caesar's.

Renard of God, that was his God's. He blew them away. Mic drop, they're gone. And now we have the Sadducees.

Now it's their turn to take their shot. And the Sadducees, now this is fascinating. Many of you may know this, but they were the elite liberals of the religious leaders.

They were your higher criticism guys. They were the guys that basically only believed the first five books of the Old Testament. They didn't buy into any of the other books of the Old Testament. They didn't believe in the supernatural. They denied the resurrection.

Angels, demons, spirits, heaven, hell, and miraculous. Many of you remember in Acts 23, when Paul's on trial and you got all the Jews trying to tear him apart before he can appeal to Rome, Paul makes a statement to turn the Sadducees against the Pharisees. He says, hey, I'm a Pharisee, I believe in the resurrection of the dead, and all of a sudden it gets even more chaotic, because now those groups are trying to tear each other apart, as Paul cleverly pitted them against each other. They were a minority in Israel, but they held the majority in power. Did you know the high priesthood, which is known as the Sanhedrin, was made up of Sadducees? That would have been like the supreme court of Israel. They controlled the rule of the temple as well. They set the rules in the temple. Their pocketbooks were hit hardest when Jesus just in earlier in chapter 19, when he turned the tables over after coming in on Palm Sunday into the holy city, weeping over Jerusalem, coming in the city, finding his father's house, a bunch of a brigand of thieves, a den of thieves. Jesus turns the tables over and he hit the Sadducees harder than anyone, because they were making the money on the exchange rate, ripping people off with a hyper-inflated exchange rate, Jews from all over the world that were coming in for Passover, making money on charging way, way too much money for people just to buy a little lamb or a goat or a little turtledove for their sacrifice. So the Sadducees were over all that, but ironically they're united.

They are in harmony, maybe for the first time ever, with the Pharisees, with the Herodians, with the other scribes, and the religious leaders, because of their common theme, their common hatred for the Lord Jesus Christ. So they create this absolutely absurd argument. It's called ad absurdum in the Latin. Robbie, read this next question. This will get us into that. If the Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection, why would they ask such a question? Which, you know, you can't help but wonder if Jesus came back today and he could walk into so many different situations like this, and the question would be, you know, where do you stand on predestination, trying to get a rise out of the Calvinist or whatever, you know, that same kind of thing. But it'd be, it's kind of interesting to me, it kind of tells you that Jesus' answer to that question that you've been in a million fights and a million Bible studies in probably would be different than either side of the argument.

That's exactly right. And this is really a fascinating thing. I want you to jump to this question right here, Robbie, because this ties in with the spirit of what we're saying. How does their question demonstrate a perversion of the Scriptures, just like cults and false beliefs? Yeah, my Jehovah's witness friends, what do they do? They say, well, how could Jesus be God? If he's on the cross, who's he talking to? Because, of course, they're trying to attack through the old ancient Arian, nothing's new on his son, Arian doctrine that denies the Trinity. They're trying to attack the deity of Christ, and how in the world could this be? You know, so they go into these things, so they take a truth, which Jesus did talk to his Father from the cross, but they take it, they pervert it, and they twist it so they can say he's the Son of God, but he's not God the Son, when we know, in fact, he is God the Son.

He's God in essence, he's God in power, he's co-equal with the Father, the second member of the Trinity, and so on and so forth. And so that's what these guys have done. They've taken that same line of thinking. They're taking a truth, the resurrection, which they don't believe in, of course, and they're taking an instance, and it's called... I want to see if you can ask this question and properly pronounce that question, because this gets into the essence of our question. What was the Leveret marriage?

Very good, Robbie. So there is a really fascinating truth, and God's law accounts for all kinds of things, including what happens to your wife when you die. The widow was highly regarded by God.

There's all kinds of scriptures, from the Psalms to the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy. There's a Levitical law for how to care for widows in the land, how they could glean. Remember the story of Esther and Ruth and Naomi?

The law of the gleaning. We want to take care of the widows, the poor, the fatherless, right? So God has a heart for these dear souls, and so provision was made in Deuteronomy chapter 25. If you look at verse 5, there is a scenario whereby there is a Leveret marriage, or it's also known as the Kinsman Redeemer, which Boaz in fact became the Kinsman Redeemer. Oh, you think about it. Really, it's before Deuteronomy, because Tamar, right? There you go.

Exactly. Judah, you know, started giving his sons to her to have children by their... And so interestingly, you know, the whole Perez deal, we wouldn't have the same Jesus lineup if it weren't for this particular law. Christ Jesus, our Kinsman Redeemer, to jump to the end of the story, because of this beautiful Kinsman Redeemer law, which basically was put in place fundamentally by God to extend the bloodline, the land, and the property of the deceased. Who, by the way, in a lot of cases, was childless. So they didn't have a kid, they didn't have an heir, a son, or a daughter to carry on. So the Kinsman Redeemer rule, this Leveret law, would compel an unmarried brother to take his brother's wife, the brother-in-law to take his brother's wife, or the nearest kin in the case of Boaz, which we know David, the offspring of Jesse, who's the son of those guys.

So the Scriptures place a value on preserving progeny, birthrights, and ancient landmarks for God's people, the tribes of Israel. And this is how the widow was cared for. Now, the Sadducees, by creating this absurd, you know, this is the scenario they created. So the brother takes his, okay, so the man's brother dies having a wife. He dies without children. So his brother takes his wife to raise his offspring.

But there were seven brothers. The first took a wife and died without children. The second took a wife. So they're creating this ridiculous scenario, much like the cults do when they attack the faith, to say, well, they all die. So if you believe in the resurrection, Jesus, because you've said earlier, John 11, just before this, when you raise Lazarus, that I am the resurrection of life, if you believe in that, then whose wife is this woman? Who is her betrothed?

Who is her beloved husband in the resurrection? Which is what false teachers do. They take a bedrock truth, but they weaponize it to create a lie. So what does Jesus do? Man, a lie.

This is really fascinating. Read this question here, Robbie. Why does Jesus, in His answer, go back to Moses? What's significant about God being the God of the living? So Jesus' answer, really, just again, the way of the Master. Jesus answered and said, the sons of this age marry and are given a marriage. So he says, you're living in time and space.

You're confining God, me, to this world, to the dirt, the space, the time. But those who are counted worthy to attain that age and the resurrection of the dead, He's taken to a higher plateau. Something we should be excited about, by the way, with all the death and dying in our culture, in our country. We should be so excited about the resurrection of the dead.

We don't talk about it hardly any. I've been to funerals. I don't even talk about the resurrection. What's the point of a funeral if you don't talk about the resurrection? Dear friend, if you die, write down somewhere right now. I, Mr. Smith, command and demand that as part of my last one testament, that you talk about the resurrection of Christ at my funeral.

You better do it or someone's going to give some nice accolades and platitudes, but not talk about the resurrection of Christ. That's the whole point of being buried in the ground. You're planted because you're going to be raised. Your body's going to be raised. Of course, your soul is with the Lord.

Okay, off that rabbit chase there, but boy, it frustrates me. But Jesus elevates them up. Those who are counted worthy to change that age, the resurrection of the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage. Verse 36, nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and our sons of God. Now, that's not to convolute or to...the equality of the angels is not... angels are not redeemable like we are, okay? So they are completely different from us in that sense, but we are like the angels in that angels don't marry. They're not given a marriage. So when our elevated, perfect state, resurrection body, there's not marriage. There's not any marriage performed in heaven.

Yes, there is. You're going to it. There's one wedding. Right, and that's the... The angels don't...well, maybe they do, but I don't know.

But I knew one of my most favorite things to look forward to is that wedding, and that's the wedding. There you go. Bingo.

Right. But we know the angels don't get married, because the angels are not given a marriage per Jesus, and, you know, everyone asks these...they call the...they ask the pastor, let's stump the pastor, let's ask him, do angels get married? Well, Luke chapter 20, verse 36, Jesus says angels aren't getting married in heaven.

They never have, they never will, and we're similar to them in that, in our supernatural, immoral state. But... Verse 37. We'll get more into that next time on Experience Truth. Share the word, read the word, study the word, meditate on the word, get a friend like I got Robbie here. We got to go. This is the Truth Network.