Welcome back.
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We're exploring
Matthew Chapter 22.
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We've just looked at the--
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the parable of
the marriage feast.
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Now those parables had pointed
messages and the Pharisees,
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Ranko, we're not
very receptive to them.
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Let me read for you verse 15,
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what's the response,
"Then the Pharisees took,
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counsel how to
entangle him in his talk."
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-So they set a
trap for Jesus. -Yeah.
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"And they sent their disciples
to Jesus with the question,
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'Oh, teacher, we
know that you are true,
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oh what flattery.'
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Beware when people
come with flattery, huh?
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"And you teach the
way of God truthfully
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and care for no man.
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For you do not
think of the position men.
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Tell us what do you think,
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is that lawful to
pay taxes to Caesar?
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What a tough question.
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You know, I have sometimes,
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students come to my office
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and you know,
stray there at the door.
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Professor Stefanovic, boy,
you are the best teacher here.
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-I said, "What
do you need?" -Yes.
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And it's kind of such--
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you know, when
people try to flatter
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and how really
to tempt to Jesus,
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to test Jesus.
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It's with taxes,
very dangerous things.
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Now why would that
have been an issue?
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We all pay taxes today.
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What was different back then?
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If he said, "Yes
and pay the taxes."
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What does that sound like?
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Actually, you know,
we know that Palestine
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at that time was
under Roman occupation.
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And the taxes
were very important.
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So not to pay taxes,
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it meant rejection
of the Roman authority,
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which was very dangerous things.
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Actually there was
not one, two, three months
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or one year in a
prison, it means death penalty.
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But those taxes were oppressive.
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I mean we don't
enjoy paying taxes today
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but at least it's
to our government.
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Imagine taxes to
another government--
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so there was nationalism
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as well as this
struggle that's going on here.
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How does he respond to that?
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One forth of the
income went to the Romans.
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-Yeah. -Then of
course, Herod's--
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Took his cut.
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He took his part and
then we have tax collectors
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were plundering people.
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Then when you travel
from one province to another,
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you know,
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Matthew was a tax
collector in Jericho there.
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It's the gateway to
Galilee, to Jerusalem.
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They're waiting for
you and paying taxes.
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Actually pay taxes so much
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that we don't know how
people survived at that time.
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So it was very sensitive issue.
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Should we pay taxes?
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It means if Jesus said,
"Yes, we have to pay taxes."
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What will it mean?
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Oh you see, you don't recognize
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-God as our king. -Yes.
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You approve what
the Romans are doing.
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That was not God's plan to be.
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If Jesus said, "No,
you should not pay taxes."
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You know, what the
consequences would be?
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So what does he say?
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"Render therefore to Caesar
the things that are Caesar's
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and to God the
things that are God's."
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"It's an inspired and
practical solution, isn't it?
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That's always the best answer.
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Actually, our
greatest of all teachers,
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this is what He made.
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Should I do something
for people or for God?
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Jesus says, "What you
need to do for people,
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do for people,
but what you need,
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what's due to God do to
God." Boy, what an answer.
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Don't sacrifice
one for the other.
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And there is another
thing that I learned here
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is that Christians are
always balanced people.
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When we go so many times
among the religious people,
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the people
everything is about God.
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When you see the way
how they treat people,
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how they relate to the people,
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there is nothing
of that godliness.
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You know,that they
practice in their lives.
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There are some people really
everything is of humanity.
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Love for people, love for people
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but when they see the
way how they relate to God,
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there is nothing that in God.
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Christian life is a balance.
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That's what actually
the Bible is all about.
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We will see in our next study
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is it's a vertical relationship,
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slow vertical
relationship with God.
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At the same time it's
that the righter relationship,
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horizontal relationship
with our fellow human beings.
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This is how, what a
Christian life is all about.
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The Pharisees didn't
succeed with their trap.
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The next day the Sadducees come.
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Now the next one.
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All right, verse
23 of Matthew 22,
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"That the same day
Sadducees came to him,
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who say that there
is no resurrection,
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and they ask him
a question saying,
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'Teacher, Moses said if a
man dies having no children,
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his brother must marry the widow
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and hence raise up
children for his brother.
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Now there were
seven brothers among us.
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The first married and
died, and having no children,
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left his wife to his brother.
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So to the second and
third down to the seventh.
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After them all, the woman died.
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In the resurrection
therefore to which of the seven
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will she be a wife
for they all had her?"
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Ranko, this is such
a preposterous story,
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this is outrageous, but
they're trying to trap Him.
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You know,
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I cannot, you know,
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but think about something
from the Old Testament.
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I remember when
I was a little boy
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and people are
always talking you know,
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when we resurrect to
the second coming of Christ,
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when we find ourselves
there before the throne of God.
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You know that question,
who is the first person
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you would like to see
there in kingdom of God?
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You know, I would
like to see my angel.
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I would like to see Jesus.
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As a young boy I
always had strange idea.
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I said, "I would run all around
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because I would like
to witness one scenery.
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I would like to
see David, Beersheba,
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Uriah Hittite, and Solomon."
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You know what I mean?
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That was always,
always something--
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actually I
couldn't escape you know,
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thinking about these
as you read this text.
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This is our human
way of thinking is--
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Of course they did it
for malicious purposes.
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They try to trap
Jesus, to test Him here.
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Let's remember that
just like some people today,
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they're asking
question about something
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they don't even believe.
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Didn't believe, yeah,
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actually, we
already talk about that,
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that there are four
parties of Jewish sects
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in Palestine at
the time of the Jesus.
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Two of which were
the most prominent,
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the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
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Pharisees, they
really believed in everything
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what the Torah,
what the law said.
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They believed in angels,
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And they believed
in life after death.
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They believed in resurrection.
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They believed in
the Judgment Day.
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Sadducees, contrary to that,
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they deny any future life.
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They don't
believe in resurrection.
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But can you imagine,
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now they're coming
and tempting Jesus.
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They don't believe
in the resurrection,
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they said, "You said that
there will be a resurrection."
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But now let us ask
you about this case.
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They of course
invented the story was said.
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She was wife of seven husbands.
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Now Jesus'
response is very clear.
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So what was the Jesus' response?
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Verse 29, "But
Jesus answered them,
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'You are wrong
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because you
neither know the scriptures
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nor the power of God.
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-Can you stop here for a
while? -Wow, what a statement.
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You know as Christians,
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so many times, we are struggling
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with many, many questions.
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And when I travel all around,
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I find so many neat
and nice Christians,
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but they are coming to me.
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How is this possible?
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And so many
times we find something
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that we do not understand
and we're bothered with that.
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We're going asking
people around and of course,
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people can explain to us,
telling us about something
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but add little
something from this text.
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There're two things,
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number one, I have
to study the scripture.
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Yes. Second one--
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the Bible so
many times it's silent
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with reference to
some of my questions
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to give me the answer,
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I have to know the power of God.
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You know, the power of God,
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it means that so
many times I think
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something is impossible,
something cannot happen.
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I have to trust
God because God will do
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what is always the best for us.
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And it was also
here in this case
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with the
reference to the question
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of the Sadducees.
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So they don't
know the scriptures,
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they don't know
the power of God.
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And so Jesus
begins to talk with them
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about what the
resurrection will be like.
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Verse 30, "For
in the resurrection,
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they neither marry
nor given in marriage,
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but are like angels in heaven."
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Ranko, does that mean
that they're gonna be,
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you know, when we get to heaven,
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we just kinda sit on a harp
or have some boring existence,
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you know, as a young person
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that doesn't
sound very attractive
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and as an older
person it doesn't either.
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Yeah, we have to
mention first one thing
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is Christians are
talking so much about heaven.
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According to the Bible,
our future is not in heaven.
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Our future is here on the
earth that God will transform
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and to bring it
into the original state
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that was before
the appearance of sin.
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Yes, according to the Bible,
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we will go there
to heaven for a trip.
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-Right. -For a
certain period of time,
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but our future isn't there.
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You see, the Sadducees,
they're talking about heaven
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and Christians
talking about heaven.
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They cannot
reconcile our human body
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with heavenly realities.
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But our future is
here on the earth,
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restored earth that God will do.
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And this text has been taken
so many times by Christians.
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I hear so many people
are asking about these.
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You know, I love my
wife, I love my children.
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So one day when we
get there to heaven,
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I will see one
person and I will ask,
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"Do we know each other?
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Oh yes, we lived 20,
30, 40, 50 years ago,
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you were wife or
you were my husband."
00:10:10.27\00:10:12.77
What kind of God is that?
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Some kind of strange amnesia
that we forget everything.
00:10:14.48\00:10:16.81
See, how people can take
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one Biblical text
out of the context.
00:10:18.21\00:10:20.28
Jesus made this
statement to the reference
00:10:20.32\00:10:22.88
to the question
of the Sadducees,
00:10:22.92\00:10:24.82
not to tell us that the
second coming of Christ,
00:10:24.85\00:10:27.32
we'll be divorced
from our families.
00:10:27.36\00:10:29.92
To tell us there is no marriage,
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after the second
coming, does it make difference?
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There're no weddings
there in the heavenly place.
00:10:35.90\00:10:38.03
Let's focus on the
point, it would be like angels.
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He's not just telling
about their marital status.
00:10:40.77\00:10:43.10
He's talking what are angels?
00:10:43.14\00:10:45.71
They're beings in
the presence of God
00:10:45.74\00:10:47.88
who are spending
their lives praising Him
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and celebrating living
in this wonderful world.
00:10:49.78\00:10:53.01
-It's not about--
-What is the mission?
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What is intension of angels?
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Not to think about the marriage.
00:10:56.69\00:10:58.65
It's about to give glory of God
00:10:58.69\00:11:01.02
and to enjoy that
beauty of the universal heaven
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that God will give it to us.
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You see, the Sadducees were
focusing on the nonessentials.
00:11:05.99\00:11:10.50
But Jesus tried to
direct their attention
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on something that is
eternal and that is essential.
00:11:13.37\00:11:16.81
Yes, we will be
there with our families.
00:11:16.84\00:11:19.14
But there is no wedding
00:11:19.17\00:11:20.51
because those
human relationships
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based on marriage will
not occupy our attention
00:11:22.71\00:11:26.11
in eternity after the
second coming of Christ.
00:11:26.15\00:11:28.55
This is the main point
that actually Jesus wanted--
00:11:28.58\00:11:31.22
And we have to admit that
we just don't know some things.
00:11:31.25\00:11:34.02
And that's hard for us to do.
00:11:34.06\00:11:35.39
Sometimes it's
hard for us to say,
00:11:35.42\00:11:37.26
"I don't know, The
Bible hasn't told us."
00:11:37.29\00:11:39.49
We need to be silent on
something on scriptures.
00:11:39.53\00:11:42.46
But we do have the indication
from the resurrected Jesus
00:11:42.50\00:11:46.07
that He knew His
disciples and they knew Him.
00:11:46.10\00:11:48.57
He was different but
He was the same person.
00:11:48.60\00:11:50.51
So we do know that
00:11:50.54\00:11:51.87
there will be
relationships in heaven.
00:11:51.91\00:11:54.08
Glenn, is it interesting
is when Christians are reading
00:11:54.11\00:12:00.05
these
conclusion, that Jesus made
00:12:00.08\00:12:03.39
the conversation
with the Sadducees.
00:12:03.42\00:12:07.99
So many times I'm perplexed.
00:12:08.02\00:12:10.13
Some even are upset.
00:12:10.16\00:12:12.59
Yes.
00:12:12.63\00:12:13.96
Thinking that Jesus stated
00:12:14.00\00:12:15.30
that families will
be separated one day.
00:12:15.33\00:12:18.00
We will not be together.
00:12:18.03\00:12:19.60
But when you read in verse 33,
00:12:19.63\00:12:22.17
it says, "When the crowds
heard this what Jesus said
00:12:22.20\00:12:25.87
they were
astonished at his teaching."
00:12:25.91\00:12:27.81
They understood clearly
00:12:27.84\00:12:29.48
the message
that Jesus made here.
00:12:29.51\00:12:32.58
Because His last
point is so powerful.
00:12:32.61\00:12:34.52
He says, "He is not
the God of the dead.
00:12:34.55\00:12:37.52
He is the God of the living."
00:12:37.55\00:12:39.32
Glenn, I would like to address
our viewers is to tell them
00:12:39.35\00:12:43.19
heaven will be
a beautiful place.
00:12:43.22\00:12:45.99
There's nothing in that heaven
that will make us uncomfortable
00:12:46.03\00:12:50.67
it's the place that
suppose to be to make us happy.
00:12:50.70\00:12:53.67