Amen. There is joy in knowing the resurrection. And let us read about the resurrection defended is really what we see in Mark chapter 12, verse 18 to 27. There is a denial, there is a defense of this doctrine of this truth that God has resurrection power. And so we read Mark chapter 12 verses 18 through 27. Notice that means we're skipping over verses 13 to 17. Lord willing, we will come back to those verses next week. chapter 12 beginning at verse 18. And Sadducees came to him who say that there is no resurrection. And they asked him a question saying, Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but leaves no child, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. There were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and when he died, left no offspring. And the second took her and died, leaving no offspring. And the third likewise. And the seven left no offspring. Last of all, the woman also died. In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife. Jesus said to them, Is this not the reason you are wrong? Because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised, Have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him saying, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong. So far the reading of God's holy word. Dear congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, to know God, to know that God is living, that God has power for life, that there is resurrection life through Jesus Christ. These are reasons for great joy. To deny this, to be wrong about this, is to be sad now and to be sad forever. Indeed, that's how Perhaps you've heard this little memory aid before. When I was little, I was taught, even when I was little, how do you keep one of the main distinctions between the Sadducees and the Pharisees? How do you remember one of the main differences? They're both parts of the council of the religious leaders. They're both members of the Sanhedrin, so there's The Sadducees and Pharisees go together in that sense, but there are some major differences in one in particular. And this is a little memory aid to remember what it is. The Sadducees are sad, you see, because they deny the resurrection. They are sad. They are wrong. And so they come. in this series of attempts to trap Jesus, to make him look foolish. That's explicitly stated in verse 13, as Lord willing, we'll see next week. Why did they come? Why did they come to question him? To trap him in his talk, it says in verse 13. And that's clearly what's going on here because they're asking a question about something which they deny entirely. They're asking a detail about the resurrection when they do not believe in the resurrection at all. And so there is a resurrection denial and an attempt to trap Jesus, to make him look foolish by asking a question which is supposedly clever and supposedly shows the foolishness of the resurrection. And so they're now going to put this to Jesus to make him look foolish. And that's our first point, the resurrection denial and the question of the Sadducees in verses 18 to 23. But we see that this is easily and quickly answered by Jesus. The resurrection is defended and that takes two parts. Our second point and our third point. First, Jesus covering resurrection details in verses 24 and 25 and then showing where resurrection dominion is. And surely it is in the hands of the living God. The living God who lives. And God who lives is the God of the living. This is our sermon this morning. So first, this resurrection denial and these Sadducees. Again, they're part of the Jewish Religious Council. They're part of the Sanhedrin. Almost certainly, though, the minority party, there's indications that they were not popular with the people, that they were not a large party. Jewish history only records one high priest ever that was a Sadducee, and that was only for a few months. So they're this minority party, and they're those who deny these are the important theological differences. We see this in verse 18. Clearly, they deny the resurrection. Acts chapter 23 also tells us they deny angels and spirits. And we know also that they believed only in the books of Moses. They discarded the rest of the Old Testament. They would only supposedly accept the first five books, although clearly Jesus shows them they do not even accept that. And so from those first five books, which they accept, they ask this question. And again, they're thinking that they're clever, right? They're gonna ask this question, which shows how silly the resurrection is. And so they take this detail from the laws of Moses from Deuteronomy chapter 25, and they quote almost exactly from Deuteronomy 25, at least they summarize it. Deuteronomy 25, it's verses five through 10, which speak about this Leverite Law this marriage of the brother-in-law law verse 7 really summarizes that up as well Deuteronomy 25 verse 7 if the man does not wish to take his brother's wife Then his brother's wife shall go up to the gate of the elders and say my husband's brother Refuses to perpetuate his brother's name in Israel. He will not perform the duty of a husband's brother to me and then there are details about what to do with one who would deny his duty. And so this is the law which the Sadducees are referring to. Again, a law which was confusing to me for a long time, because Leverite, that sounds like we're talking about Levi's. It has nothing to do with that. It comes from a Latin word, levir, which just means husband's brother. So the only reason why we still use that term is because to say, brother-in-law marriage law that sounds kind of clumsy and strange, and so we just say it in the Latin instead. But this is the law they're referring to, this Leverite law, which let us simply note, it does sound very strange to our ears, but it had real practical and theological purposes. It had a practical purpose seen in that verse which we read, the wife who is now widowed needs someone to care for her. And then we see a real example of that, although she doesn't marry her brother-in-law, in the book of Ruth, do we not? And so there was a real practical value to this, that a woman would be cared for and protected. And then there's also a theological purpose, also seen in that verse, that it was the inheritance of a single line could not be lost. And so there were reasons for this, there were reasons for this law, which made sense on multiple levels. But the Sadducees, they're going to use this law and they're going to make this hypothetical. They're going to take the strangest situation that they can possibly imagine. and essentially ask a straw man question, a question which builds up kind of a false idea, this character of what it is to believe in the resurrection. They're saying, look, look how silly this is. That's what they're doing. This is no honest question. They say the word teacher, but they do not come to learn, they come to test. It's a question with the intention of ridiculing the resurrection and making Jesus look foolish. Now, let us say at this point, if someone honestly believes in the resurrection, then it's legitimate to ask some of these difficult questions, right? There are things in scripture which are hard to understand, and so we can ask these difficult questions. But that should be done honestly, right? By a Christian who believes in these things, who trusts God and says, but here's this strange thing. You know, let's talk about it and ask it honestly, right? Ask really seeking to get the answer. That's not what's going on here. That's a good thing to do. But this is a ridiculing, dishonest thing to do. They don't believe in the resurrection at all. And so they come with this attempt to make it look silly. They are the rationalists of their time. They don't wanna believe in something they can't see. They're not exactly parallel to most rationalism materialists of this age, because they did still believe in God, a God of their own invention, a God of a chopped up scripture, But they were rationalists. They were Jews, but no resurrection. We can't see that. No angels or spirits. We can't see that. The Pharisees were the ritualists. That's the party which, of course, Christ clashes with so often. Again, Lord willing, next week we'll go back to verses 13 and 17, and there we see the Herodians again. political opportunists, the Sadducees are the rationalists. So they ask this question, again, attempting to show how enlightened they are, right? Like, look, here's this question about the resurrection, you see how silly that is? We don't believe in that silly stuff that you can't see and you can't explain. We're the rationalists. That's how it's asked, clearly. What? They are those who say that there is no resurrection, they come asking this resurrection question. People of God, this is often how Christianity is attacked. This is often how Christianity is attacked. Let us give one example of this. Someone says, God is love, the Bible says. But how can that be true? And then what do they do? They don't say, Wow, how can that be true? I've read that God gave up his only son for sinners to die on a cross for others. No, that's not what they ask. There's no honest question there. There's no honest belief in the love of God there. They jump to the Old Testament and they say, oh, God is love, but he killed all these Canaanites in the Old Testament. How can those two things go together? What is that? Is that an honest question? No, it's a question of ridicule. It's completely dishonest. It is jumping over that which is clear and obvious and at the very center of scripture that Jesus Christ gave his only beloved son to die for sinners. They jump over to that and jump to that which they think they can ridicule. Now again, a Christian can honestly ask the question, right? And say, I know that God is love. And I know that he sent his son for me. Some of these Old Testament passages are not easy to read. They're not. Although when we read all of the Old Testament together, we see that even with the Canaanites, God was patient. They were cursed from the first generation after the flood, and they were not judged until what? Until the iniquity of the Canaanites had been filled. That's why the Israelites were in Egypt for hundreds of years because the time for the Canaanites' judgment was not yet ripe. There's all kinds of things which do answer this, but not easily. You have to read all of the Old Testament really to make sense of it. But the point is this, this is how Christianity is attacked. It's not an honest question. It's not sincere. It's jumping over that which is obvious, there at the center of all of God's word, that which is the good news, that which so clearly shows the love of God, and it's jumping to some supposedly difficult thing. Supposedly something that can be used to ridicule God. But when we understand all these things, we know that it's not true. This is often how Christianity is attacked. And people of God sometimes will get an obscure question and we won't be able to answer it. That's okay, we focus on the basics, we seek to answer that which we can. And we also take comfort that God always knows the answer. And Jesus certainly puts this question to rest quickly and surely. What does he do? He summarizes. He begins with words that say, you are wrong. You are wrong. Is this not the reason why you are wrong? Because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. And so now he's going to talk about resurrection details. He's going to show that this silly question isn't really silly at all, that this silly difficulty isn't really silly at all. They just don't understand the resurrection at all. What's the answer? Well, there is no marriage. You think this whole convoluted situation is complicated? Forget about it. There's no marriage or giving in marriage. That's it. I just need to give some details and I can quickly answer this silly question. Sadducees, you are wrong. You're asking about things that do not matter in eternity. Humans will be like angels in this sense. Now, human beings will still be human beings. There will still be real differences between humans and angels, but there will also be ways in which we are similar. Human beings will now be at a point where they are without sin, serving God before him, face to face, as the faithful hosts of heaven do. There is, of course, the fallen legion. There will be no more need to be fruitful and multiply. Human beings will no longer reproduce. Well, that's how angels have always been. The host of heaven has been a consistent number The only difference being with the fall of the angels, a legion now became a legion of rebellion. But the total number of angels has always been the same. The total number of spirits has always been the same. This has been true since the day when they sang at the creation of the stars, as Job tells us. So we're like angels in that we'll no longer be fruitful and multiplying. There will be no more marriage, no more giving in marriage. a forward answer in that Jesus isn't cutting any corners. Remember the Sadducees deny the resurrection, they also deny angels. So what does Jesus do? He brings up angels. He uses that in the example of his answer. He's basically digging in his answer and saying, well look Sadducees, the resurrection is real and I'm going to use angels in my answer too as just a reminder to you that they're real too. There are many applications to this, people of God. There's no marriage or giving in marriage in eternity. Now, we don't have many details about eternity. It's been said that that's all right. If we were given much more details, we probably wouldn't understand them anyway. But we are given these details and we can understand them. What's a first application of this? That singleness is okay. Singleness is how all of God's people will exist for the vast majority of their existence. Because even if you're married on earth, this life is only a vapor. Your eternal existence is one of not being given in marriage. Singleness is okay. It's more than okay. It's how all of us will spend the majority of our existence. No wonder the apostle can speak concerning time on this earth about there even being a gift of singleness. Now to desire a marriage is not a bad thing, but singleness is not a bad thing. It is not. So of course this has application not only for those who have never been married, whether they would desire that marriage or not, and some do have that godly desire, not granted or not granted yet. This also has application for those who lose a spouse and become widows or widowers, who have known a marriage upon earth and then it is taken away. This also has application for those who would suffer through a divorce or in a time of ungodliness, be the root cause of a divorce, all of these kinds of things, all these situations where one would become single in any sense. What does God's word say? inherently bad to be single, not at all. We will all be single for the majority of our existence. J.C. Ryle said it this way, quote, death being no more, there shall be no need of births to supply the place of those who were removed, and enjoying the full presence of God and his Christ, men and women shall no more need the marriage union in order to help one another. The number of God's people will have been fulfilled. There will be no more need to be fruitful and multiply to fill the earth. And we will be in God's presence all of God's people together forming the bride of which he is the perfect and eternal groom. And so with these few details Christ shows that the question which is supposed to show the silliness of the resurrection is actually just a silly question. And then he gets down to matters of dominion and authority. And that is our third point. He makes reference to that part of scripture which the Sadducees do hold to. There are, we could say, even clearer passages in Job or in Daniel. He makes reference to this passage. Which passage? Well, there's no chapter numbers back then, so he says the passage about the bush. We know that as Exodus chapter three, passage which we read for our assurance of pardon this morning. Passage where God speaks about who he is and where the context is very much about his covenant faithfulness. He's talking about the patriarchs of the covenant and then speaks directly in the following verses about the covenant promise of coming into the land, being delivered out of Egypt for that to be accomplished. It's verses about who God is and what God does in his covenant faithfulness. And who is God? God is. And God is alive. And God's promises are sure, not only in this life, but forever for those who trust Him. That's what this passage is about. God is not God of the dead, but God of the living. God's covenant promises, they would not be. a great promise if they did not deliver from death if they did not deliver not only into the physical promised land but into the much greater promised land but they do and Hebrews 11 tells us that the patriarchs even knew this that Abraham was looking forward to a temple not built with hands that they knew this and that they were alive, that they were alive centuries later when Jesus was speaking to Moses at the burning bush. Those patriarchs had died centuries ago. What does God say? He says, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not just in the past, but now I am their God. And that was true centuries after they died. That is true now still today because they are living eternal life in that temple, not built with human hands. God has all authority. God is. When asked who he is, the only answer he has to give is, I am who I am. Because his existence is what sustains all things. He is the creator. He is the one who gives life. He is the one who has all power over life. God lives and he is God of the living. and he has power to not only bring back the dead, but certainly to conquer the grave himself and rise after three days. This is God. You see, Sadducees, you are wrong. You are wrong regarding these details, but more foundationally, you are wrong because you do not know the power and dominion and authority of God, God who will go to the cross and die the death of crucifixion, the most gruesome death this world has ever seen. He will go to the grave, but the grave will not hold him. Because though he was truly man and able to suffer and to suffer death, he is also truly God. And he will rise again on the third day. He has all dominion. He has all authority. The very life which you have, whether you believe him or deny him, is life which is held in his hands. And he conquers the grave. He does it all. This is who God is. You are wrong. Notice that's how Jesus begins and ends. God is and God does. And let us see this, people of God, that the authority and the reality that God is the living God and God of the living, that's seen already in Genesis 1, in Exodus 3. But the how of these things is made clear in Jesus Christ himself. The how of these things is made clear in Jesus Christ himself. Because how is it that sinners can live eternally with God. How is it that the Old Testament saints, even before Christ came, could be united with God in heaven? Now, no one's resurrection body will be given to them until the final resurrection, but there was already life in that their existence was never terminated, and that even the Old Testament saints are brought immediately into the presence of God. Even as the death of New Testament saints is the death of those who are brought immediately into the presence of God. Again, still awaiting the body. But all of these things, all of these things, the how of it is all answered in Christ. Because He is, as the Apostle has said, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. His resurrection, where his body never saw corruption, but he rose and came out of the grave with his resurrection powerful body there. He is the first fruits. And He is the reason why saints now are ushered into the presence of God. And He is the reason why on the final day, there will be a resurrection of the very body and all of God's people will be brought before Him, living forever with Him. The how of these things is answered in Jesus Christ. See this in 1 Corinthians 15, especially, but we see it from the beginning to the end of scripture because there was always need of a savior. There was always need of a savior who would die for sins and conquer the grave. That savior is Jesus Christ. Look to him, do not be both sad and wrong. but in looking to Jesus Christ. Know the truth, know that God is, and in Him, know the greatest joy. Amen. Let us pray.