Experience TRUTH - #24

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast. Our show, Stories of Hopelessness, Turned into Hope. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. Will there be marriage in heaven? Will you recognize your wife?

What if you're divorced? Who are you going to be married to? Boy, the Sadducees were after Jesus, and they laid on him some tough questions, and Jesus Christ rose to the occasion, just like he rose from the dead, and he answers those questions today on Experience Truth. I'm Stu Everson, and with me, I'm just honored to have him back this week, is Robbie Dilmore, aka The Christian Car Guy.

He's here. Robbie, this is some heavy stuff, because there's an ultimate marriage that you talked about last time that we didn't even touch on. But that's really why there's not a bunch of marriage in heaven, because we are the bride of who? Yeah, Christ.

We are the bride of Christ, yeah, and so that's what a brilliant picture that is. But Jesus takes these Sadducees who are trying to knit and pick and really like cults. They've twisted this resurrection doctrine. The elite of elite of Israel, they deny the resurrection, and they are trying to trip Jesus up with this complicated scenario that you're about to read about. Just take us through, read the passage again, Robbie, and we'll deal with the latter half of these questions as we dealt with the first part of this last week.

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 as a wife, and he died childless. Then the third took her in 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 wife. And 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, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to 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, and for all to live to Him. Then some of the scribes answered and said, Teacher, you've spoken well, but after they dared not ask him any more questions. So this is really, what's fascinating is the Sadducees, a great passage.

Robert, thanks for reading that. The Sadducees were the elite, they were the erudite. They made up the Sanhedrin, which would have been the Jewish equivalent of our Supreme Court. They would have run the whole temple, they would run a whole judiciary system, that branch, critical branch.

They would have been the most hit hard in the pocketbook by Christ turning over the tables of the money changers and the sacrificial, you know, when He came and stormed the temple in Luke 19, which we studied not too long ago. So the Sadducees were there, so they're really laying it on, and they think, we've got them. We're going to create this scenario of a man, all these brothers that remarried his wife, to stay true to Deuteronomy chapter 25, the Levarite law, which required the next of kin to marry the widow, to take care of the widow, and so on and so forth.

And so they created this crazy scenario. But this is really a good question here, Robbie. Let's just try to tackle these last three, but start with that one, and this will get us into kind of how Jesus answers and puts some meat on the bones here. How does their question demonstrate a perversion of the Scriptures, just like cults and false beliefs? Yeah, so here they demonstrate, but look at this question here and how it directs us right back to the essence. Why does Jesus, in answer, go back to Moses?

What's significant about being the God of the living? Yeah, and you know, a lot of times, Robbie, I will go to, when I'm talking to someone who's a member of a cult or a false religion or a particular denomination that doesn't believe in grace, I will open the Bible and I will go to a clear passage on grace. I will go to a, you know, my Jehovah's Witness friends, I go to Hebrews 1. They're Scriptures which perverts the New Testament. It's called the New World Translation. None of the scholars are listed because none of them are scholars, and they take out every, they tried to take out every passage that would, you know, sound Trinitarian. Like in John 1, they twist it to say, at the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was a God. Well, they put a little participle in there that's not in the original Greek, see, because they don't believe Jesus is God. They believe he's a God, one of many gods.

They believe he's created that sort of thing, which is not true. So, but they forgot to change Hebrews chapter 1, so I'll go to Hebrews 1 with them and I'll say, look, how do you explain this? You know, that he is the image of God.

He is the very God of God. The Lord said to my Lord, said to my right, how do you explain? They can't, see, and so you'll, so Jesus says, well, what are these Pharisees, what are these Sadducees, not Pharisees, what do these Sadducees believe?

Well, they do believe in the Pentateuch. So what does Jesus do? He goes right to the books of Moses, right there, and he appeals to Exodus 3-6. In Exodus 3, chapter 3, verse 6, the books of Moses, the burning bush encounter is what he references. And effectively, Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God stood before Moses. Moses said, who do I tell them sent me?

He didn't say, tell them the I was, right? He said, I am the great, I am. Right, he's the God of the living. Jesus uses a simple verb, the I am God, to demonstrate, to make his point, and this is the very nature of God. In fact, the Jews wouldn't even say that out loud, because it's a name of God.

It's a proper name of God. They'd never say that out loud. They would, when the scribes would write it, they would stop in the verbal part, and they would just write, and they'd get hushed, because this is the name of God. The patriarchs, guess where they are? They're still alive, because God's the God of the living. All souls who have physically died are still living. So God's not the God of the dead, he's the God of the living, and all live to him. So what Jesus does, he silences these guys with his brilliant appeal to Moses and to the very nature of God. And this idea of all live to him is a beautiful statement, Robbie, because it speaks to God's cohesive power flowing from creation to salvation and into resurrection and into eternity.

His power to save, his power to raise, his power in creation, his power in new creation. It says in 2 Corinthians 5-17, if you're in Christ, you are a new creation. And that really tees up this last question here. How will life in heaven be different from life on this earth? Yeah, what a great question, man.

We need to ask that question a lot. Why don't we talk about heaven a whole lot, Robbie? When was the last time you heard a whole sermon on heaven?

Well, in my case, I hear it quite often, because John Eldridge speaks on it all the time. He's really frustrated that, you know, the people are losing hope because they don't have a real picture of how cool, I mean, this is really going to be, and when all things are made new. You know, we get this picture of heaven like it's someplace, you know, that really is almost untouchable, but it's a new heaven and a new earth, and, you know, all things are going to be made new.

It's really a beautiful, beautiful picture. I mean, the real question, Robbie, is why do you get more excited about going to Myrtle Beach and going to heaven? I mean, can you explain that to me? Yeah, there you go. That is the real question. Because a lot of us, when we see our vacation, we get more, you know, think about stuff you look forward to, you get excited about.

Fishing. Yeah, well, that's right. And see, it's not bad to look forward to things and get excited about things, but fundamentally, God built us for His kingdom to be His bridegroom, right? To be His bride.

He's the groom. And yet, we settle for this earth and we just live as though, even as believers, we live that this is all here. We would never agree with a statement.

He who dies the most marbles, wins, and go get it all you can, eat, drink, and be merry. But we act like that. When our day's not going well, or when we lose something, we act, oh my, or someone, how dare they, or heaven forbid, encroaches on our rights or takes our stuff. We get all defensive and angry when, in fact, when did it become our stuff? And when did we, when are, how did we become so earthly-minded that we're no heavenly good?

Yeah. And so here, this brings this up, and the resurrection sticks right up in the middle of it, this brilliant doctrine of life with Christ. Let's ask these final questions as we wrap up, Robbie.

All right. How does the resurrection of Jesus change everything? In what ways is His resurrection power working in and through me? And how does the resurrection give me hope?

Yeah. And going back to this earlier question, because the Sadducees were hung up on the marriage, they were hung up on these earthly contracts and things like that. Fundamentally, Jesus Christ, basically, when He says there's no marriage in heaven, it doesn't mean you won't recognize your spouse in heaven.

And we don't know how that all looks, right? But heaven will only enhance and perfect all human relationships, without envy, without anger, without frustration, without fighting. There's no death in heaven. Well, that's why there's no need for marriage, because there's no need for procreation. And when He says that resurrected believers are equal to the angels, He's saying that we're not angels, but we're equal to them in that all believers are physically perfected and wholly set on serving and enjoying God. God will, just like the angels will fully worship God, will fully worship Him, will fully be complete.

We always wanted to be we always wanted to be completed, right? By the way, your spouse, if you haven't figured this out yet, let's give you a really quick wake-up call. For all of you pre-marries out there, you're engaged, your wife cannot complete you.

The greatest lie in history is when in that couple, in that movie, at the drive-in, they're looking in each other's eyes, overlooking the cane, the stars are out, and the wife looks at the husband and says, oh, you complete me. Hogwash. Why?

Because he's not God, and he can't satisfy your soul. Sure, you're compatible, right? Sure, you love him. It was in Jerry Maguire, too. That's exactly right. Only Jesus Christ can complete you, and the ultimate consummation of that happens at the resurrection, when we see Him. At the other marriage. In the other marriage. Marriage suffered the Lamb, right? Right, that's when we actually get completed. And the excitement of that, I mean, the actual, like, oh my gosh, you know, God created an adventurous, wonderful, exciting, you know, this is not going to be boring.

This is going to be beyond adventurous. Think about what God's heart is, like your heart. Well, this is why these saints, Robbie, that are persecuted in China, all over the world, you know, in these countries, Malaysia, where they literally will kill Christians in the Middle East, they'll cut their heads off.

And they have the same spirit that Saint Thomas and, you know, Paul and these early saints, they long for that. They're like, you mean you're going to kill me? Then I'm going to be consummated. I'm going to be resurrected. I'm going to be face-to-face with my Savior. You know, my faith is going to become sight.

There is a joy there, a deep-down joy, that longed for being reunited with Christ. And I just pray that we'll have that. I pray that we'll infect others with that. I pray that our funerals will be celebrations.

And not so daggone morbid. Read the final question. We've got to go. I thought I did.

You did. How does the resurrection give me hope? That's it, man. And we'll leave it with that.

We'll leave it with that, man. Do you have hope in the resurrection? Do you know the resurrected Lord Jesus? Do you know why He came out of that grave? He didn't come out of that grave so you could live a loser the rest of your life and go be religious. He came out of that grave to conquer death, to break the curse, so you could live. He died so you could live. He took your hell and death and your place on that cross so you could live the abundant life and you could walk with Him. And you could walk right with Him through the death on this earth into life eternal. Do you know Him? This is Experience Truth.

I'm Stu Epperson. Read the Word. Study the Word. Share the Word. Meditate on the Word. And be in a church where they teach the Word of God.

Not about the Word, but the Word of God. Follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. I'm out there on social media. I even have a new TikTok page, but don't tell anybody. But just as ways to share the Word of God, I'm on social media. I'd love to meet you there and praying that you will live and let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. This is the Truth Network.