Will We Be Married in Heaven?, Part 1

The afterlife is a mystery. Yes, the Bible gives us a sneak preview that reveals glimpses of Heaven.

But since none of us have ever experienced what it's like to step into eternity, our curiosity has generated a long list of questions that linger unanswered. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll is teaching from Matthew chapter 22. In this passage, Jesus fielded a trick question from religious leaders, and in his response, we find an answer to the question at hand today. Chuck titled this message, Will We Be Married in Heaven? We're in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 22, and I'll be reading verses 23 through 33. From the New Living Translation.

That same day, Jesus was approached by some Sadducees, religious leaders who say there is no resurrection from the dead. They posed this question. Who will carry on the brother's name? Well, suppose there were seven brothers. The oldest one married and then died without children. So his brother married the widow. But the second brother also died. And the third brother married her.

This continued with all seven of them. Last of all, the woman also died. So tell us, whose wife will she be in the resurrection?

For all seven were married to her. Jesus replied, Your mistake is that you don't know the Scriptures and you don't know the power of God. For when the dead rise, we will neither marry nor be given in marriage.

In this respect, they will be like the angels in heaven. But now, as to whether there will be a resurrection of the dead, haven't you ever read about this in the Scriptures? Long after Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had died, God said, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.

So he is the God of the living, not the dead. When the crowds heard him, they were astounded at his teaching. You're listening to Insight for Living.

To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scripture studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now the message from Chuck that he titled with a question. Will we be married in heaven? Most people I know are fascinated over the life after death issue. First of all, we're intrigued by death itself. When we are with one that we love, and it has been a long life, and those eyes are closed for the last time, we're there trying to imagine what it is that that person is now going through. As his own soul and spirit is removed from him, invisibly and instantly, and taken to be with the Lord, and the body remains for us to deal with this body with dignity and gratitude. Death is intriguing. It's a huge mystery. Since we've never been there, we've never talked to someone who has gone there and has returned from it, we can only imagine.

And the imagination of people mixed with superstition is all over the page. I read this past week about one who truly believed that angels give guided tours of heaven to all people who enter the portals of heaven. There are people who visit cemeteries to talk to gravestones. My mother led the lady across the street from us to Christ. Mrs. Roberts had married later in life and she dearly loved her husband.

The two of them, Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, were delightful people. He suddenly was taken by a heart attack and she buried him and her heart was broken. My mother's heart went out to this lady across the street and she said to me one day, I'm going to take some lemonade and cookies and I'm going to talk to Mrs. Roberts, because I understand she's been regularly going to the cemetery and trying to connect with her husband, and I want to help her know what death is all about and what life is about beyond this life, as the Bible teaches.

So pray for me. And I remember as a little boy praying for my mother, she walked across the street, she came back all smiles. The cookies were gone.

I also noticed that. And the lemonade had been enjoyed. She had led Mrs. Roberts to Christ. And Mrs. Roberts had from that moment on made her last visit to the cemetery.

Well, maybe I shouldn't put it like that. She did return, but she returned to talk to people, other people at the cemetery who were trying to connect with the dead. And she regularly and faithfully, as far as I remember, almost to the last of her own life, she faithfully told others about Christ. As I say to folks, she's the only cemetery evangelist I'd ever met.

She regularly talked about Jesus with those who had gone with their hearts broken. Superstition has a field day with the whole subject of life after death. Did you know that the ancient Greeks often placed a coin in the mouth of the corpse to pay his fare across the mystic river of death into the land of immortal life? Norsemen of old were often buried with their horse so that they might ride proudly through the gates of heaven and along the streets of gold on their horses. Eskimos in Greenland for years, when their children died, would often bury the child with the dog that the child had loved so that the dog would help guide them through what they called death's cold wasteland.

All of it superstitious, none of it referred to in the scriptures, but all of it a matter of tradition that was believed by a number of people over the years, and I've hardly scratched the surface. The whole idea of being raised from the dead and changed so that our bodies live forever is intriguing to us because we are so riveted to this earth. Everything around us is based on life on this earth, of course, and we can hardly even imagine life beyond this earth. Eternity will not be like this earth at all. Life beyond the grave will not be like life before the grave. And when you attempt to study that subject, you're left to all kinds of human opinions and ideas, and as I stated earlier, superstition. One of the larger books in my in my library is a book titled simply Heaven by Randy Alcorn.

Randy is a reliable author. He's written a 516 page book on that one subject and admitting all the way through, it is not an exhaustive work. Much more could have been written because there is much to be learned from the scriptures and the whole subject of reincarnation is adding to our confusion. Some believe that you don't really pass from this life, you return in another body, adding to the chaos of the subject. Scripture does not teach reincarnation. It teaches that we die once and after death we face the future. Judgment, time before the Lord where we give account of our deeds, eternity in heaven with our heavenly father and his son Jesus and with one another. Amazingly, in spite of all that's been written in the Bible, many people, I would even add, most people have real serious questions about the resurrection.

Many do not believe we will be raised at all. We live, we die, and that's it. But that's not what scripture says.

Listen to these words. The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. And then that added word at 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 18, comfort one another with these words. Be comforted to know that those who have died will be raised. Those who have known and loved the Lord in life will not be forgotten. They will in fact be rewarded and will have an eternal kind of life that they will live face to face with Jesus and with one another in a conscious, glorified state. Not only are there people today who do not believe that, there were people in Jesus' day who did not believe in a resurrection. In fact, there was a whole religious group who didn't believe in life after death. We meet up with them in verse 23 of Matthew chapter 22.

I invite you to turn there with me. As I mentioned earlier in this series, Jesus is in his final week on earth before he is taken under arrest, declared guilty, not proven guilty, for he wasn't guilty. He goes through the mockery of six illegal trials. He is then tortured, nailed to a cross, and left to die. And he too would be resurrected three days later.

But before I go there, let's go back to this final week. The Pharisees have tried again and again to stump him to prove that he's not qualified to be who he claims to be, the Messiah. Each time they have been knocked back on their heels, each time they have simply gone away realizing that they were not able to make their point. Well, the Sadducees decide to give it a try. We meet them here in verse 23, the same day Jesus was approached by some Sadducees. And the writer adds, they are religious leaders who say there is no resurrection from the dead.

There you have it. The Sadducees are smaller in number than the Pharisees. They were wealthy, sophisticated liberals of that day.

Let me summarize. They rejected all things supernatural, did not believe in angels, the existence of angels, or any supernatural spirits. They denied it all. They did not believe there was life beyond death. Therefore there was no such thing as future judgment, future rewards, penalties, or punishment.

No heaven, no hell. One man writes, they were mean-spirited, rude, arrogant, self-righteous bigots. That's why they were sad, you see. Therefore, they come with a cry. I couldn't pass it up.

It's just laying right out there and anybody with half a sense of humor would have seen it. So there it is. Now they come with a question that's like a word problem. Remember word problems when you were in school and you studied math and didn't you hate them?

They always had, they're like a conundrum. A boy has a sack of five apples and he gets on the bus and he sits down by his friend who has 18 apples. He gives him four of his 18 and the boy gives him three of his five apples.

What color is the bus? That's the part of the word problem I could never figure out. It never asked the question you expected to ask. Now these sad you see's think they are so smart. They're gonna, they're gonna stump the brightest mind of the centuries.

How stupid of them to think they could do it. But of course when you're arrogant, self-serving, rude and mean-spirited, and you have no place in your theology for the supernatural, you come at Jesus with this kind of question. Look at it. They say to Jesus, Moses said if a man dies without children, his brothers should marry her, the widow, and have a child who will carry on the brother's name. But that's too simple.

Let's, let's make it complicated. Suppose there were seven brothers, the oldest one married and then died without children, so the next brother married her and died, there were no children, and the next brother married her and died without children, and it goes all the way down to the seven of them. Last of all, the woman also died. Which one will be her husband in heaven? Now the, the thing that makes this so weird is that they, they don't believe in heaven. They don't believe in a resurrection. But they're asking him about this so-called life after death with their eyes rolling, thinking they could probably stump him if they add the number of brothers and they've got this woman who is finally the widow of all of these men and ultimately she goes to heaven, who's going to be her husband there. For them to think they could stump Jesus, it just is enough to make you smile. It's kind of like my stepping in the ring with Mike Tyson or maybe playing a little hoop with LeBron James. Who am I kidding?

I, I couldn't hold a candle to either one of them. They, they come arrogantly, but they look stupid. Jesus listened to the question, by the way, he knew where they were going. He was already with an answer, but he let them finish their question.

And then he, what I would call, comes to terms with the whole issue with his opening comment. It's in verse 29, look for yourself. You are deceived or your Bible may read, you err. This new living translation renders it, your mistake is that. Then he goes on to tell them the word is planao, P-L-A-M-A-O.

We got a word planet from it. It's the idea of wandering, going astray, getting off course. You've gotten way off course.

You're out to lunch. We would paraphrase it because you do not know the scriptures and you do not know the power of God. And I gave you a little tip here that might help you in your, your own walk. This is a verse worth memorizing. This in summary explains why most people are confused spiritually.

That's it, in a nutshell. It's not meant to be insulting, it's meant to be informing. The fact is Sadducees, you don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what the scriptures teach. Furthermore, you don't know anything about the power of God.

I'll add this little sidebar before I go further. If you want to trace areas of chaos in your own walk, you can trace the chaos back to one of these two reasons, maybe both. Either you got off course, away from what scripture teaches, which is easy to do if you don't know the scriptures, or you were not aware of the doctrines that relate to the power of God, a knowledge of the truths of God mixed with a knowledge of the Word of God.

Let's put it this way. They didn't know the Word of God and they didn't know the God of the Word. When you are in that no man's land, hear me, you are at the mercy of anyone who comes knocking at your door, or leaning across your desk at the office, or some neighbor, well-meaning neighbor who says, I've got a real insight regarding life as it ought to be considered, and they offer you some thoughts regarding new age, or the whole movement of whatever may be the latest fad.

If you do not know the scriptures and you're not plugged into the power of God, you are at the mercy of that individual. But I'll tell you, if you know both, you are calm and deliberate in your response. You are discerning and able to see through it all, and able to give an answer that makes sense, as Jesus does. Now, let's look at his careful explanation.

Look for yourself. By the way, he reverses the order for some reason when he answers the question. He first answers the power of God issue, and then he turns to the scripture issue. Regarding the power of God, look at what he says. Verse 30.

Let's take our time. When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. In this respect, they will be like the angels in heaven. Look at the verse. If you were sitting at your kitchen table, or in your study at your desk, you'd be able to take that verse apart and make three significant statements about it, because that's what Jesus does.

He's addressing the power of God. Please observe first how much he believes in the resurrection, not if the dead will be raised, but when the dead rise. You stop right here and assure you, when your loved one who has known the Lord Jesus through life, passes from this life to the next, you can be sure that that body will be raised from the dead. God will see to it, they will never, the body will never be lost, overlooked, or abandoned. Jesus says, when the dead rise. So he believes clearly in the resurrection.

They did not. Didn't hold him back, because he knew what the truth was theologically. When the dead rise, that's first. When the dead rise. Second, please notice what he says about marriage. They will neither marry nor be given in marriage. So in eternity future, there will not be wedding ceremonies. There will not be dads giving daughters away. There will not be the familiarity related to the marriage life on this earth.

Now, this is a good place for me to pause and extend this reminder. You must discipline yourself to think outside the terms of the familiar. What's familiar to all of us is life on this earth.

We, to the best of our ability, pretty well understand what life is about. We're familiar with weddings. We're familiar with people falling in love.

We're familiar with dads who go through giving away daughters and moms who are at the wedding. We're familiar with that scene. That's very earthly. It has nothing to do with eternity. Okay? When you're thinking about life after this life, you must remove from your mind and discipline yourself to think outside the realm of the familiar as you focus on the unfamiliar.

Okay? So let's let Jesus' words stand. They will neither marry nor be given in marriage.

Now, let's get very practical. You mean I won't know my wife in heaven? Doesn't say that. You mean you won't be close to your spouse? You're married on earth? You won't be close?

It doesn't say that. This is talking about the act of marriage and giving people into the commitment of marriage. And by the way, remember in the vows that you take when you're married till death do us part? At death, there's a parting. Obviously, a parting on this earth and there is a different kind of relationship when we step into eternity. We've only scratched the surface today and I'll urge you to keep listening when Chuck Swindoll digs deeper.

We're looking at Matthew chapter 22 and answering the question, will we be married in heaven? To learn more about Chuck and this ministry, please visit us online at insightworld.org. If you would like to continue tackling this subject right now rather than waiting for Tuesday's delivery of Insight for Living, I'll remind you that every sermon of Chuck's is complemented with Searching the Scriptures study notes. This resource is free and it's made available online.

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