Matthew
22:28-33 “Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of
the seven will she be? For they all had her.” Jesus answered and said to
them, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor
the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in
marriage, but are like angels of God in Heaven. But concerning the resurrection
of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob’ ? God is not the God of the dead, but of the
living.” And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished
at His teaching. NKJV
Death is the absolute certainty for every human
being. However, we only have to look around us every day to see men, women,
boys, and girls living each moment as if death will never come to them. The
recent rape case of the two teenagers in Ohio is but a snap shot of the
activities of many youth in this country in this present generation and past
generations and sadly will be so for future generations to come. I recall my
youth and how I lived in such a manner of sex, drugs, alcohol, and partying
believing I was invincible and that nothing could harm me. Despite witnessing
people of my own age die in car accidents, or being shot to death, or
overdosing on some drug or alcohol it did not stop my false belief of it won’t
happen to me. I continually put myself in harm’s way testing and tempting God
for many decades because I loved my rebellion and my iniquity. I wanted to
continue to fill up the cup of my iniquity to the brim each and every day
despite the reality of my death and my standing before God.
The short film I today enjoy watching and have seen
many times entitled “The Book and the Rose” is based on a book or short story
written by Max Lucado. There is a quote from this short film that says, “Tell
me who you love, and I will tell you who you are.” The quote from this short
film is so very true and it is what shapes the way men, women, boys, and girls
live out their daily lives until their certain death manifest. Our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ was always confronted by people with questions that were
meant to stump Him (mainly from people who did not recognize Him to be God) and
cause Him to be entangled in His speech or response. The Sadducees as we
learned earlier in this gospel record of the Apostle Matthew were the religious
Jewish sect that our Lord warned His followers to beware of their leaven or
teaching of liberalism.
Because they said and believed that when people die
that is it and there will be no resurrection, they endeavored to live and teach
others to do so with the mind set of eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you
die. Because they thought that this life was all there was they ordained and
permitted any type of sinful indulgences men’s heart were drawn to. They did
however, teach and endeavor to adhere to the Law of Moses especially when it
came to the biggest of sins like the killing of another for no reason, but the
passions of the flesh in sex and drink were left up to the discretion of the
individual so long as he did not hurt others in what he practiced. These men
came to our Lord with the insincere question of who will a women be married to
when she had been married on earth to seven different men who were brothers.
Their problem like the problem that still persists today is the ignorance of
man to God’s Word and his misguided view of God’s true power.
Acts
26:8 Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead? NKJV
Like the Sadducees of old in Jerusalem, we have
modern day Sadducees who do not believe there is anything after death and therefore
their daily life is but a continuous array of sinful indulgence after sinful
indulgence with the thought of no payday approaching. The Sadducees were of the
school of Epicurus and because of their high status in society they looked at
themselves as being blessed of God because of the material things they had in
their earthly life. Listen to this excerpt from the Book my Lord Jesus wrote
through me entitled “Silent Assassins of the Soul” about the Epicureans and
their founder Epicurus and you will see that these people are still alive and
well today:
““Epicureanism flourished as both a school of
philosophy and a way of life from the end of the 4th century B.C. until at
least the 3rd century A.D. and was rooted in a philosophical conception of the
Universe that appealed more to intellectuals than to the general populace.
Epicurus (342 B.C.-270 B.C.), the founder of this philosophy placed great
emphasis on the necessity of freeing humanity from its two greatest fears: the fear of the
gods and the fear of death. Without denying the existence of the
gods or the value of religion, Epicurus maintained that the gods had no
interest in nor relation to human affairs and that death is simply the end of
life. There is no next life. Starting in common sense and the infallibility of
sensation, Epicurus identified good with pleasure and evil with pain. It
follows from this premise that the greatest good is the maximum amount of
pleasure. If pleasure is good, more pleasure is better (i.e., more good).
Epicureanism is a philosophy of sensual pleasure.” In his perpetual quest to
study, analyze, and figure himself out without God, man has come to some rather
bizarre conclusions.””
You see many people also back then as well as today
claimed or thought they could communicate with the dead. We recall the episode
with king Saul’s visitation to the witch of Endor hoping she could conjure or
call up the then dead Prophet Samuel that he might receive some guidance from
him in his upcoming battle. However, the true God (YAHWEH) allowed this man to
be deceived by satan by allowing the witch to speak with a familiar demon
impersonating Samuel and pronounce to Saul his own death the next day. Many
today as then are deceived like Saul by listening to those who think that they
can communicate with those who have died and learn something from them about
life on the other side of death.
Never go to or listen to any Medium/Witch they
cannot communicate with a dead human being they only hear from demons,
therefore they need to repent and turn from their sins or if not they will
perish. I don’t know if in the time of the Sadducees there were people who
wrote or spoke of some near death experiences or not, but I do know that today
the Book Stores are filled with stories from adults and even children with
claims of after their death going to Heaven or Hell and what they saw and heard
in one of those locations. I do not believe any of their accounts because it
contradicts with the Word of God. However, the Scriptures tell us of two men
(Enoch and Elijah) who did not die but were taken up or translated into
Paradise by God and neither one of them were allowed to come back and tell of
Heaven. The Apostle Paul was stoned to death and he spoke of that experience in
the following text of Scripture and in so doing he did not even want to openly
acknowledge that he was the man taken into the throne room of Heaven.
2
Corinthians 12:1-4 It is doubtless not profitable for
me to boast. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord: I know a man
in Christ who fourteen years ago --- whether in the body I do not know, or
whether out of the body I do not know, God knows --- such a one was caught up
to the third Heaven. And I know such a man --- whether in the body or out of
the body I do not know, God knows ---how he was caught up into Paradise and
heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. NKJV
Our Lord resurrected Paul and lifted him up into the
throne room and yet when Paul wrote of it he said what he saw and heard was not
lawful to speak about and it was beyond the power of man to put into words. Our
Lord reveals the truth to the Sadducees about the death of the human body by
first looking beyond the insincerity of their question (because they did not
believe in the human body being resurrected) and revealing to them that to be
in the presence of Holy God brings infinite more pleasure than all human
pleasures we have been allowed to enjoy on earth such as marriage and sexual
relations in marriage. The Sadducees were using their finite mind and trying to
relate it to an Infinite God who is so powerful that He is able and capable of
holding His entire Universe together and surely He will be able to relocate
every unique individual human bodies dust particles and bring them all back
together to raise from the dead to be judged by Him. Our Lord destroys the
error that still today exist and that is the falsehood of the soul sleeping at
death.
Jeremiah
32:17 Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the Heavens and the earth by Your
great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You. NKJV
John
5:21 “For as the Father raises the dead and gives life
to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.” NKJV
John
5:28-29 “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming
in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth --- those
who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil,
to the resurrection of condemnation.” NKJV
Colossians
1:17 And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. KJV
Revelation
20:12-13 And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books
were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And
the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written
in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades
delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one
according to his works. NKJV
Our Lord revealed to them the reality of angels and
that they do not reproduce because they do not have forms of a lower earthly
human nature and therefore, everyone that becomes a son of God will be equal to
the angels by having a spiritual body able to live in the presence of God. All
will be raised from the dead to stand before God. Abraham’s body had been in
the grave over 300 years prior to this revelation given to Moses of God being the
God of Abraham. This is because Abraham’s soul was alive and in the very
presence of YAHWEH for every day of those 300 plus years. Our Lord also showed
that every person that has ever lived lives to God whether in His presence (in Heaven)
or away from His presence (in Hell) no one ever dies and goes out of existence.
The Lord Jesus wanted these men and all reading this today 2,000 years later to
be sure that at the moment of your birth you became an eternal soul that will
never die but live forever, you choose your address.
Luke
20:38 “For He is not the God of the dead but of the
living, for all live to Him.” NKJV
“It is hard to have patience with people who say
"There is no death" or "Death doesn’t matter." There is
death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it
and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth
doesn’t matter.” C. S. Lewis
“Where sin has been removed death can only interrupt
the earthly life and usher in the Heavenly.” John MacArthur
“Every man must do two things alone; he must do his
own believing and his own dying.” Martin Luther
“He whose head is in Heaven need not fear to put his
feet into the grave.” Matthew Henry
“There is an essential difference between the
decease of the godly and the death of the ungodly. Death comes to the ungodly
man as a penal infliction, but to the righteous as a summons to his Father’s
palace. To the sinner it is an execution, to the saint an undressing from his
sins and infirmities. Death to the wicked is the King of terrors. Death to the
saint is the end of terrors, the commencement of glory.” Charles Spurgeon
“There is nothing more tragic than to come to the
end of life and know we have been on the wrong course.” Watchman Nee
“If you live wrong you can’t die right.” Billy
Sunday
If
you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ and His amazing healing power, pray this
from your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ (you speaking directly to Him), Dear
Lord Jesus, I confess to You that I am a sinner and I need Your forgiveness. I
believe You shed Your Blood and died for my sins. I believe that You rose from
the dead proving that You alone are God. I repent of my sins. I want to turn
from my sins. I ask You Dear Lord Jesus to come into my heart and take control
of my life. I want You to be my Lord, Savior, and my God. Amen...
Sincerely in Christ,
Clifford D. Tate, Sr.
Author of “Silent Assassins of the Soul - Are you
Broken by Pornography and Masturbation? You can be Restored by the Lord Jesus
Christ and brought into Deliverance, Freedom, and Victory! A Guide for Men and
Women in the Enemy’s Crosshairs” e-book available now @ Amazon Kindle, @ Apple
I Bookstore for IPod, Barnes and Noble for Nook, Reader Store for Sony Reader,
Kobo, Copia, Gardners, Baker and Taylor, and eBookPie…
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