Resurrection of the Dead

[0:00] Please open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 22. If you don't have a Bible, please raise your hand.! We'd love to give you a copy that you can have. My name is Sean, one of the pastors of Trinity Cambridge Church.

[0:14] My great joy and privilege to preach God's word to you this morning. We've been going through a series through the Gospel of Matthew. We're nearing the end of it now, chapter 22.

[0:30] Let me pray for the reading and preaching of God's word. Heavenly Father, we've gathered not to hear the words of men, but to incline our hearts and ears toward the words of God.

[1:04] So we open up your word together. We ask that you speak to us as you always do. Your word is living and active and thereby demonstrate that you are the living God.

[1:20] Lord, do that for everyone here who do not yet know you, all those who doubt your power. Reveal yourself.

[1:37] Glorify your name. Make those who are spiritually dead here this morning awake and live as they hear the voice of the risen Lord calling them.

[1:55] In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. If you are able to stand, please stand and join me as I read Matthew 22, 23 to 33 to honor God as we read from his word.

[2:07] Amen. The same day, Sadducees came to him who say that there is no resurrection.

[2:21] And they asked him a question saying, Teacher, Moses said, if a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.

[2:33] Now, there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. So two, the second and third, down to the seventh.

[2:46] After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her. But Jesus answered them, you are wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.

[3:04] For in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God?

[3:17] 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. And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

[3:31] This is God's holy and authoritative word. Please be seated. Every major religion in the world seeks to answer three overarching questions, at least three overarching questions regarding humanity.

[3:45] One is, where did we come from? Another is, how should we live? And another is, where are we going after we die? What happens to us after we die?

[3:57] Our origin, our morality, and our destiny. This passage hones in on the third question. What happens after we die? A famous atheist, Christopher Hitchens, was asked this question whether he fears death or not.

[4:17] And he answered, I am not afraid of being dead because there's nothing to be afraid of. I won't know it. I fear dying. It's something to be terrified of. He believed that there's nothing after death.

[4:31] He would simply cease to exist. So then, what is there to be afraid? He won't be aware of anything. He won't be alive to know it. But he was afraid of how he might die, what the dying process might entail.

[4:44] But, even if a quick, painless death could be guaranteed, it would not completely dispel the fear of mortality and existential angst that plague everyone who doesn't know God.

[5:02] There's only one true solution to the fear of death, and that is knowledge of the God of the living. And the main point I want to drive home to you this morning is this, our God is the God of the living who raises the dead.

[5:18] First, I'll talk about life. Secondly, I'll talk about the afterlife. And thirdly, I'll talk about resurrection life. I'm going to spend probably most of the time in the first point.

[5:30] Let's talk about life, how our future death affects the way we live in the present moment. In the preceding passage, we saw how the Herodians and the Pharisees tried to team up to trip Jesus up and to get him into trouble with the authorities.

[5:45] They failed. And in our passage today, the Sadducees take a stab at it themselves. The Sadducees were a rival Jewish religious faction to the Pharisees.

[5:56] According to first century Jewish Roman historian Josephus, the Pharisees were more popular among the common people, but the Sadducees dominated the ruling classes, the elites. They made up the majority of the Sanhedrin, which was the highest Jewish religious, political, and legal council.

[6:14] And Matthew explains in verse 23 that the Sadducees say there is no resurrection. This is an abbreviated summary of the Sadducees' theological position.

[6:26] Luke tells us in Acts 23, 8 that in fact, the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledged them all.

[6:39] The idea of souls or spirits or angels are intimately connected to belief in the resurrection. These beliefs go hand in hand. They form an interrelated constellation of beliefs.

[6:53] Let me explain to you what I mean. Take Buddhism and Hinduism, for example. They believe that human life consists of an endless cycle called samsara.

[7:05] Every creature that dies is reincarnated into another life form and continues that endless cycle. And because they believe in that, they believe in dharma and karma.

[7:17] If every creature is reincarnated, then what determines the new form that they take in the new life, in the next life? If they follow the dharma, which they believe is the universal duty and order of nature, and then karma, which is the universal law of cause and effect or retribution, will dictate a higher form of life if you follow the dharma.

[7:39] But if you did not follow the dharma, then karma will dictate that you take on a lower form of life in your reincarnation. And this belief in reincarnation requires that the most consistent and logical form of Buddhism and Hinduism become vegetarian.

[8:00] Most idealistic forms of Buddhism and Hinduism. because the chicken that you eat can be a reincarnation of your dead uncle. You see, one belief depends on another.

[8:14] And they form this interrelated constellation of beliefs. It's the same for the Sadducees. So, Pharisees, if you can call them dualists, they believe that the soul and the body exist.

[8:29] They are one in a living person, but they can be separated. They're distinct. Sadducees were monists, meaning that they believed that a person was made up of just only the body and the soul that's within the body, they cannot ever be separated.

[8:42] They're not distinct. And so, when a person dies, they simply cease to exist. Like Christopher Hitchens. There can be no disembodied soul separate from the body in the afterlife, according to their belief.

[8:58] And if there is no soul that continues to live after physical death, then that makes resurrection all but impossible in their worldview. You can think of it like a seed.

[9:10] Even if, like a dead body, the seed is buried deep into the ground, as long as there's still life in it, when the rain falls on it and the warmth of the sun shines on it, this seed will sprout new life again and grow a new body.

[9:27] However, if the seed itself is dead, not dormant, but dead, it will never sprout. Similarly, if there is no living soul after physical death, then there is no prospect of resurrection life in the Sadducees' belief.

[9:45] This is why they say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit. Their disbelief, their materialistic belief, lack of belief in the spiritual realm and spirits leads to their disbelief in the resurrection.

[10:01] And so, in this passage, when they speak of the resurrection, they are actually speaking of the afterlife in general and not specifically about the bodily resurrection at the end of the age. But wait a minute, don't the Sadducees, aren't they Jews?

[10:15] Don't they believe in the Old Testament? What about Daniel chapter 12, verse 2? It says explicitly, and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

[10:28] Clearly, there is life after death according to the Bible. What about Genesis 35, 18? It says that while Rachel was giving birth to Benjamin, her soul was departing.

[10:41] They would just dismiss that as metaphor. Or 1 Kings 17, 22, when Elijah raises the dead son of the widow of Zarephath, it says literally that the soul of the child came into him again and he revived.

[10:55] Right? In all of these instances, the Old Testament teaches clearly that there is a post-mortem existence of the soul. The soul exists apart from the body after physical death. Or what about 1 Samuel 28, the famous passage where the witch of Endor calls up the soul of Samuel from the dead.

[11:15] The Bible speaks repeatedly and clearly about the immortality of the soul in this sense and resurrection from the dead. However, the Sadducees were fundamentalists.

[11:26] They believe that only the first five books of the Old Testament were inspired by God. The books written by Moses, the Pentateuch, that Jews call the Torah.

[11:38] Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. And because of this, they were able to dismiss all of the main Old Testament passages that address the resurrection. And the Sadducees were quite convinced and snobby in their beliefs.

[11:52] They rejected and ridiculed the Pharisaic belief in spirits and the resurrection as syncretistic and as superstitious. So it's no surprise that when they come to test Jesus, they go to their pet topic, their favorite subject.

[12:08] And I'm sure they've asked this question many times to other Jews and to the Pharisees in debate and they did not answer this question satisfactorily to their liking.

[12:19] And so they go back to their, to the tools that they know. Ha, we know what question to ask Jesus. The Pharisees could never answer this question so let's pose to him the same question.

[12:31] Expose just how silly is this belief in spirits and the angels and resurrection. They say in verse 24, Teacher, Moses said, because they only believe in the Moses books, five books, if a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.

[12:51] They're alluding here to a passage like Deuteronomy 25 which stipulate levirate marriage. If a man dies without leaving children, then it was his brother's duty to continue his name and line by producing children for him by taking his brother's surviving wife, the widow, as his own wife.

[13:09] This was important because the children would, not having children would mean that you would be blotted out permanently from the nation of Israel. How so? Because normally inherent is passed down through the male heir and if there's no heir to receive, Numbers 27 specified, God said, if you don't have a male heir, you can pass it on to your daughters but if you have neither sons nor daughters, then you have no one to pass your land to, it goes to your brother and then you don't have anyone to carry on your name and you don't have any land within the promised land of God in your name and that means you are excluded from the covenant of God.

[13:49] So this is why Le'Veeret marriage was, it existed and it was important for the Jews to be cut off from that generation, the generations of Israel would have been a catastrophic outcome.

[14:02] So taking this practice of Le'Veeret marriage, the Sadducees framed their question this way in verses 25 to 28, there were seven brothers among us, the first married and died and having no offspring left his wife to his brother.

[14:15] So to the second and third down to the seventh and after them all the woman died in the resurrection therefore of the seven whose wife will she be for they all had her. Their question takes the logical form of reductio ad absurdum, it takes a philosophical premise to its logical extreme in order to show that doing so results in an absurdity and therefore proving the premise to be false.

[14:40] If it is true that the soul lives on after death then what happens to a woman who was widowed six times and therefore seven men had been her legal husband during her lifetime through Le'Veeret marriage?

[14:54] In the afterlife which one of the seven men is the woman married to or is she married to all seven? That's absurd. This would have been unthinkable for the Jews and that's their argument.

[15:09] You see your belief in the resurrection your belief in spirits and afterlife make no sense but our position if you die and you cease to exist well that's simple and that's neat and it makes perfect logical sense.

[15:23] We don't have to deal with messy afterlife philosophical conundrums. For people who don't know much about the afterlife this could be a serious question.

[15:33] Over 20% of US adults have been married at least twice. What happens after they die if they have more than one spouse in the afterlife? Ed brought it to my attention that there's actually a romantic comedy that came out last year.

[15:50] It's called Eternity. Have you guys seen it? I haven't seen it but the premise of the movie is shamelessly ripped off of this Bible passage. In the movie a couple that has been married for 65 years Larry and Joanne die and end up in the afterlife where they must each choose where they want to spend eternity and complicating this decision is the fact that Joanne's first husband to whom she was married for two years before he died in war as a soldier in war is also there and he had been waiting for her for 67 years so they can choose the same place to spend eternity with.

[16:29] Now Joanne how romantic must choose which of the two husbands to spend eternity with or how unromantic rather I don't know how you look at that. I know it's crazy they should list Matthew 22 in their credits.

[16:41] The Sadducees are surely smug at this point they're thinking that they've asked Jesus an airtight unanswerable question but Jesus unexpectedly challenges one of their presuppositions in verses 29 to 30 you are wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven.

[17:08] There is no marriage in the afterlife. We become like angels in heaven who do not marry. By saying this Jesus is also challenging the Sadducees denial of angels.

[17:21] He's saying angels do exist. This verse has often been misunderstood to mean that when Christians die they become angels. Have you guys heard of that? Or maybe some of you guys think that that's not okay.

[17:32] You may have heard that some people say that after passing of a loved one they say oh heaven gained another angel. Or if you've ever seen a 1940 Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life it's my favorite Christmas movie.

[17:48] The dead human Clarence has become an angel and now he must earn his wings by saving George Bailey. This is it's a good movie but it's bad theology.

[18:03] Hebrews 1.13 says angels are all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation. In other words God created angels to serve and minister to humans.

[18:17] Humans do not become angels. Angels do not become humans. But when humans die we become like angels in the sense that we do not marry. But why is there no marriage in heaven?

[18:31] In the parallel passage in Luke 20.34-36 Jesus is fielding this exact same question it's a parallel passage and we get one extra detail from Luke.

[18:42] Jesus says the sons of this age marry and are given in marriage but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage for they cannot die anymore because they are equal to angels and are sons of God being sons of the resurrection.

[19:02] In the afterlife in heaven there is no more marriage because Jesus says we cannot die anymore. let's try to follow Jesus' train of thought why does no more death mean no more marriage marriage uninterrupted by death isn't that a dream come true why can't we just be married forever live happily ever after no Jesus says marriage is an institution that God intended only for a world where people die why think of what one of the main purposes of marriage is God creates Eve to be a help meat for Adam so that they can fulfill the cultural mandate to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it in Malachi 2.15 the prophet says that God brings together one man and one woman in holy matrimony so that they might produce godly offspring procreation is not the only purpose of marriage but it is one of marriage's main purposes death claims people's lives every single day and the only way to sustain humanity on earth is by giving birth to new people every single day ten years ago when I first started doing premarital counseling it was common for people in Cambridge to worry about overpopulation and minimizing your carbon footprint and they thought it was virtuous to choose not to have kids this was only ten years ago but that has been shown to be short sighted it's a short sighted view that forgets how fragile human life is in countries like South

[20:40] Korea Taiwan China and Japan the total fertility rates are perilously low around one or below one and that means an average woman will have one kid or less which means there are twice as many deaths as there are births and the total population is halved every generation it's crazy in Japan where the population has been declining since 2011 economists at Tohoku University established a countdown toward national extinction estimating that Japan will only have one remaining child in 4,205 many of the European nations are at 1.1 or 1.2 which is not much better and even here in the US we are below replacement level and we're flirting with the first ever population decline in our history in many cases falling fertility rates are directly related to low marriage rates because that's the context in which most people have children more and more people are getting married late and many are not getting married at all these realities demonstrate the truth of what

[21:51] Jesus is saying here there is marriage on earth because people die! procreation is necessary for humanity survival and marriage exists in part to ensure that people created in the image of God continue to populate the earth and bring glory to him but in the absence of death there is no more need for children and parents instead there is one father in heaven God the father and all of his children I received a fundraising letter from Plant Parenthood this week not because I've ever given to them but because I live in Cambridge they sent to everybody assuming that it's a favorable audience in the letter they boasted that they have guided more than 171 thousand people who live in the states where abortion is limited to out of state abortion services since the landmark Dobbs decision Supreme court decision 2022 they've given people 3.7 million dollars to help them travel to get an abortion they boasted that they completed 434 450 abortions over this past year that's a half a million babies dead and we live in a culture that celebrates that what is this but a culture of death we live in a country where the department of defense posts hype videos on social media sharing real world combat footage of

[23:28] US missile strikes in Iran overlaid with visuals and music from video games like Call of Duty our doctors talk less and less about the sanctity of life and they speak more and more about quality of life not valuing life for its own sake but commodifying life and seeing it as disposable and dispensable when it's too costly or burdensome or meaningless this is the mentality that leads to assisted suicides the devil has so deceived us that people celebrate death sometimes in our culture but God is on the side of life what about you do you see children primarily as expenses and burdens!

[24:13] Or do you see them as blessings as the Bible does? I'm so grateful that we have a growing number of children in our church with several more expectant mothers some of you guys are very do there is no marriage in the afterlife because there is no need for children because there is no more death there is another important reason it says in Ephesians 531 that a man and a woman being joined together in marriage through self-giving love points to this eternal spiritual union that we have between Christ and the church as the book of Hosea reveals God's intention from before the foundation of the world has been to marry off his son to his people the people of God to envelop us by doing so in that eternal self-giving trinitarian love and to make his marriage proposal the marriage proposal of his son so obvious to us he created marriage on earth to be a picture of the gospel of

[25:22] Christ redeeming love for his people for his bride the church and because marriage is a picture and a foreshadowing of that greater ultimate reality that we have in our union with God in our marriage to Christ in the afterlife there is no marriage in the afterlife when the substance arrives the shadow fades there is no need for shadows there will no longer be any need for grooms and brides in the afterlife because Christ will be our sole bride groom and all his people the church will be his bride perhaps the idea that there is no marriage between man and woman in heaven is a great disappointment to some of you!

[26:06] If so then you need to ask yourself whether you have made the temporary provision of marriage an ultimate desire in your heart does a dream of being married to a certain kind of man or a certain kind of woman preoccupy your mind more than the thought of being married to Christ your bride groom then speak the truth of God to yourself and teach your heart to sing the praises of Christ there's a dear sister in the church who struggles time to time with her singleness who fights for faith valiantly by reciting to herself Psalm 45 verse 2 which says of our messianic king you are the most handsome of the sons of men grace is poured upon your lips therefore God has blessed you forever there is no husband more handsome!

[27:05] more powerful more generous more gracious than our Lord Jesus Christ Jesus continues his response to the Sadducees in verses 31 to 32 and as for the resurrection of the dead have you not read what was said to you by God I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob he's not God of the dead but of the living Jesus said early in verse 29 that they are wrong the Sadducees because they do not know the scriptures and as a case in point Jesus takes the Sadducees straight to scripture have you not read what was said to you by God and knowing that the Sadducees only believed in the Torah he takes them straight to the Torah Exodus 3 verse 6 the passage where Moses encounters God in the burning bush the Sadducees when God revealed himself to Moses he said I am the

[28:06] God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob but this is hundreds of years after Abraham Isaac and Jacob have passed away and note that this relationship this covenant relationship is still ongoing Jesus quotes God speaking in the present tense I am the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob the original Hebrew in Exodus 3 6 doesn't have an explicit verb but the point still holds if Abraham Isaac and Jacob cease to exist like the Sadducees believe just cease to exist centuries ago if they have no consciousness no living soul why would God who specifically reveals himself as the living God dozens of times throughout the Bible identify himself by those who are long dead that makes God passe outdated irrelevant that's the best you can do you helped some dead guy 400 years ago have you done anything to show for yourself for the last 400 years moreover

[29:22] Hebrews 11 tells us that Abraham Isaac and Jacob lived in the land of promise as in a foreign land living in tents because they were looking forward to the city that has foundations whose designer and builder is God and continuing he says that these Abraham Isaac and Jacob they all died in faith not having received the things promised but having seen them and greeted them from afar having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth for people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a!

[29:56] land they desire a better country that is a heavenly one Hebrews tells us that Abraham Isaac and Jacob did not get what was promised to them they did not get the promised land they instead lived as sojourners and exiles living in tents in the promised land looking forward to the promise that God will fulfill!

[30:19] So if Abraham Isaac and Jacob ceased to exist after they died never received their promises what does that make God? An impotent promise breaker but that's blasphemy!

[30:39] No Abraham Isaac and Jacob received their promises in heaven the land they were ultimately referring to looking forward to was a heavenly one they received a better country that is a heavenly one and how because their souls are still living as a parallel verse in Luke 20 38 says now he is not God of the dead but of the living for all live to him those who are in covenant relationship with the living God cannot but live forever this is what the!

[31:16] God the intermediate state when our souls leave our diseased bodies and live with God in heaven Paul makes that very clear in 2nd Corinthians 5 6 to 8 when he talks about how if he dies he'll be home with the Lord but away from the body when Christians die our souls are with God in heaven not on earth and we have consciousness we're not in soul sleep in some kind of comatose state in 1882 Friedrich Nietzsche wrote this book called The Gay Science or The Happy Science and he wrote this where has God gone we have killed him you and I we are his murderers God is dead God remains dead and we have killed him what are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God his blasphemy was a declaration that belief in the

[32:16] Christian God and absolute morality and moral truths is no longer tenable in the wake of the enlightenment and the scientific revolution they thought to themselves well kids believe in Santa and tooth fairies until they Christ Nietzsche believed that humanity had grown up and therefore they can no longer believe in God but Nietzsche spoke too soon in 1900 the year Nietzsche died there were 558 million Christians in the world today there are 2.5 billion meaning the Christians have since quadrupled in number and if you are here this morning and you are not yet a follower of Christ and are you a materialist do you subscribe to naturalism do you believe that everything in the world can be explained by natural causes and laws do you reject the divine and the supernatural as superstitions of age old traditions don't be like the

[33:18] Sadducees who suffered from an impoverished imagination because they did not know the power of God the only kind of afterlife the Sadducees could imagine was one that was exactly like the present life where people marry and are given in marriage they rejected the intermediate state where souls can live apart from their bodies because they could not imagine a disembodied soul but don't presume that what you cannot observe by your senses do not exist that's like a little girl playing hide and seek with her dad and as he gets close by covering her eyes because she can't see anything she assumes that means dad can't see me if I can't see something that no one else can see the fact that you can't see God doesn't mean he doesn't exist the fact that you can't see souls doesn't mean that they do not exist there's time to get into this but my burden this morning is not only for the people who don't believe in

[34:49] God but also for people who do believe in God but functionally live as though God is dead do you live with the reality of the afterlife in you or do you live as if you're 70 or 80 years on earth is all there is the Sadducees did not prepare for the afterlife because they did not believe in it because they lived to leave a legacy here on earth to be remembered by people on earth after their death because they believe that that's the only way to continue to live are you also living like that if you think that this life is all that matters then you will cheat take shortcuts step over others and or wear yourself out and burn yourself out trying to accomplish your goals and you will lose yourself in the process trying to get earth to produce for you what only heaven can produce and then you will die and whether you are successful or not your memory will be forgotten as

[35:59] Ecclesiastes 1.11 says instead cultivate a longer term perspective keep the afterlife in view it's okay that you don't have a house it's okay that you never got to travel and see the world it's okay that you never landed your dream job it's okay that you never made a lot of money it's okay that you are discounted and overlooked by the world if your legacy is in the things of God and you trust God then you have eternal life to look forward to beloved are you living as if God were relevant only for people of the past who are now long dead do you live as if God is only real and relevant for your parents but not for you yes

[37:01] God came through for Abraham Isaac and Jacob long time ago but no he cannot come through for me yes God used Moses a man with a speech impediment to lead his people but no no he cannot use me yes God took Gideon a fearful and doubtful man to defeat the Midianite army of 135 thousand with 300 men but no no God can't help me overcome my anxiety yes Jesus turned life around of a broken Samaritan woman who has had five husbands but no God can't turn my life around or heal me from my sexual brokenness yes Jesus cast out seven demons from Mary Magdalene but no he can't cast out the demons that I struggle with in my life yes Jesus forgave and called Paul to be his servant even though he was a persecutor of the church blasphemer of God but no he can't ever forgive me of my sins you have faith in God yes but is he only the

[38:04] God of the past is your faith in God a mere monument to the dead don't forget brothers and sisters know the power of God he is not God of the dead but of the living finally let's talk about resurrection life as I said to you earlier it's interesting that Jesus and the Sadducees speak of the resurrection repeatedly in this passage when in reality they're speaking of the afterlife the intermediate state the disembodied souls in heaven we will not be resurrected immediately after death according to revelation 20 that doesn't happen until Christ returns and raises us in a bodily resurrection so why then do the Sadducees and Jesus here speak of the resurrection the first reason is what I said earlier that the Sadducees denial of spirits and angels was of one piece with their denial of the resurrection their interrelated interdependent doctrines so when

[39:12] Jesus proves from the scripture that the dead patriarchs are somehow still living after physical death the Sadducees materialist view of life and their terminal view of death crumble down and along with that their denial of the resurrection crumbles down so if there is a post mortem life of the soul then it logically anticipates a future bodily resurrection like that dormant but still living seed that's buried in the ground living souls will be raised to new resurrection bodies and that's why it's fitting for them to speak of resurrection here and secondly I think it's no coincidence that the resurrection is the theme of Jesus' debate with the Sadducees in the last few days of his life before he dies on the cross and is physically raised from the dead the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection but if they are right then

[40:12] Christ could not have been raised from the dead for if the dead are not raised not even Christ has been raised and if Christ has not been raised your faith is futile and you are still in your sins then those who also have fallen asleep in Christ have perished if in Christ we have hope in this life only we are of all people most to be pitied our very salvation depends on the reality of the resurrection I read a Wall Street Journal article this past week entitled Inside Putin's 26 billion quest for longevity the Russian president has turned anti-aging and longevity research into a major Russian state priority and he has discussed organ transplants as a way of achieving a form of immortality by continually replacing aging human body parts it's kind of sickening

[41:15] I wonder where he'll get the body parts but he is 73 years old now and I guarantee you guarantee you that even if he creates some kind of Frankenstein's monster out of his own body he's already in the twilight years of his life he's gonna die soon how do I know that because the ultimate cause of death is spiritual not physical the ultimate cause of death is not diseases and disasters but sin as Romans 6 23 says the wages of sin is death and until Christ returns to judge and eradicate sin death will be a stubborn reality of life on earth and this is why Christ Jesus came to die on the cross the sting of death is sin it says in 1 Corinthians 15 the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law but thanks be to

[42:21] God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ if you are if you are pierced with a poison sting it's not enough to treat the fever and the swelling around it you need to remove the poison sting or death will take its inevitable toll the sting of death is not disease it's sin and Jesus removes that sting by dying on the cross as the atoning sacrifice for sin and if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that Jesus did die in your place he died for your sins and that he was raised victoriously from the dead then you are forgiven of all your sins and you receive!

[43:09] life the sting of death is thus removed and life after death is eternal life of the soul in heaven with God and the life after life after death is bodily resurrection and new heavens and new earth to be enjoyed forever in the presence of God when Christ returns your perishable body if you are a believer and your perishable body of dishonor and weakness will be resurrected with an imperishable body of glory and power to us who have this resurrection hope our obituary is not the conclusion of our life it's the introduction of the rest of our life your struggles your weaknesses your disappointments in this life are not the story of your life but rather they become the preface of momentary affliction that gives way to the never ending story of the eternal way of glory because

[44:09] Jesus died and because Jesus was raised and because Jesus says in Revelation 1 17 to 18 fear not I am the first and the last and the living one I died and behold I am alive forever more and I have the keys of death and Hades so let us remember brothers and sisters our God is not God of the dead he is the God of the!

[44:35] let's pray oh Lord revive us so that we all have a living faith in the living word of the living God wherever there is doubt and unbelief Lord strengthen rejuvenate my brothers and sisters in their lives so so that they live more and more according to the power of

[45:35] God your power demonstrated in their lives revealed to them in the death and resurrection of Christ and father I pray for those who do not yet know you here by your word make them live in Jesus name we pray amen