Ask a silly question... (Mk 12:18-27)
5 Principles for "Bible Debates"
- Be READY. (Mk 12:19-23)
- Be CLEAR. (Mk 12:24, 47)
- Be a Bible STUDENT. (Mk 12:24-26)
- Be looking for common GROUND. (Mk 12:26)
- Be focused on big ISSUES. (Mk 12:26-27)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above with your cursor for answers!
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Okay, open up in your Bibles to the Gospel according to Mark.
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We're in Mark chapter 12.
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We're in Mark chapter 12 and today we're going to look at a passage where Jesus is going to face a group of religious leaders who get in his face and challenge him on some things.
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And you're like, "Hang on a second.
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You talked about that last week." And somebody else is like, "No, no, no.
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Hang on a second.
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We've been talking about that for several weeks.
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Well, that's what we see in the Gospel of Mark, isn't it?
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Over and over and over, these people keep coming up to Jesus.
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This is Wednesday of Passion Week.
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All of these religious groups come up to Jesus because, quite frankly, they're sick of Him.
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He came into Jerusalem riding on a donkey.
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That was His public proclamation that He is the Messiah.
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And then when He overturned the tables in the temple, like we have got to get rid of this guy.
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It was a big money making thing for them.
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They wanted rid of him.
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So we see wave after wave after wave of challenges to Jesus.
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And we're going to see another one today.
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And I'd like to remind you church, when you deal with ignorant people, you are going to get ignorant questions.
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It's going to happen.
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Now please hear me because I don't want anybody to walk out of here and misunderstand me.
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I'm not talking about when people have honest questions.
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You see that in the life of Jesus.
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You should see that in your own life.
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There is a big difference between somebody asking you an honest Bible question versus the person that wants to challenge you to make you look stupid.
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Right?
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The honest question is like, you know, I know science talks about millions of years, but the Bible seems to talk about creation, six 24-hour days in the young earth.
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How does all that work together?
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There's a difference in the way that question is asked versus, "Oh, come on, you believe that the earth was created in 624 days, really?
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I mean, come on, haven't you heard what science has said about that?
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Now, do you see the difference?" So when we look at this passage, we're not talking about somebody that has an honest question.
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Did Jesus handle honest questions?
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Of course he did.
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The disciples came to him, "Would you explain the parable to us?
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Teach us how to pray." Jesus dealt with them appropriately, but we see in this passage, we're not dealing with an honest question.
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We're dealing with people that are like, look everybody, I'm going to make Jesus look stupid.
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Everybody watch this, because we're going to make Him look like a fool, and we'll get everybody around here realizing that maybe Jesus isn't so great after all.
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That's what's going on in this passage.
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So you get the difference, right?
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You know the questions, right?
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Questions like, "Who made God?" I've been challenged.
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"Who made God?" We've dealt with that in the prison, right, Mark?
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Mark Warren, he could get up here and preach this message a thousand times better than I could.
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In prison ministry, you get a lot of this stuff, don't you, Mark?
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People come in, especially at the old jail.
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The only way you could get out of lockdown was to go to Bible study.
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In the new jail, there's pods and all this stuff.
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But the old jail, that was like a dungeon, if you were in lockdown, the only way you out of your cell was to go to Bible study. So we would get all these people come to Bible study to play what I like to call "stump the preacher." They had no interest in learning the Bible. They'd come in, and right, Mark, you could see it in their face. They're like, "Well, let me ask you a question. Who made God?" And I would say, "Well, if I gave you an answer to that question, you know what you would ask me?
03:46-04:09
Who made that guy?" So that there has to be somebody that's an uncreated creator, right? And the Bible says that God is that uncreated creator, right? Or these ones, "Can God create a rock that he can't lift?" Have you heard that one? "Can God create a rock that he can't lift?" Drop it on your head. I don't say that.
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Mark, right, I don't say that. "Can God make a square with three lines?" God is a God of order, And He created order and logic.
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And you're asking Him to do something because you know how to make an illogical sentence out of the English language?
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Silly.
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Or this one.
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You're talking to people about their sin and their need for a Savior, their need for eternal life.
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"What about that guy sitting in Africa that ain't never seen the Bible in their life before?
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Have you ever heard that question?
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What about that guy?" The best answer I ever heard to that question was a guy that went in with us, remember Frank, the one time the guy asked Frank, "Frank, let me ask you a question.
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In the past week, how often have you thought about that guy sitting in Africa?" Like, "Well, I haven't thought about him at all." He goes, "Wasn't it interesting that I'm talking to you about your sin, and all of a sudden you're interested in some guy sitting in Africa somewhere?" And then here's, I've gotten this one so many times, "What about all the contradictions in the Bible?
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What about all the contradictions in the Bible?
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That is the easiest question to answer.
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All you have to do is say, "Show me one and we'll talk about it." And I'm telling you, I am batting a thousand.
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Because everyone who has ever challenged me and gotten in my face and asked me that question, "Well, show me one and we'll talk about it." They don't have one.
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They heard on some program or some other guy said that there's contradictions in the Bible and they kind of strut in like, "Yeah, it's full of contradictions." Like what?
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And then the answer is, "Well, I don't know off the top of my head what they are, but I know they're in there." Well, you know that they're in there.
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So I guess the burden is on you to show me one so we can talk about it.
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They never have one.
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They never have one.
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Never have one.
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Those are the kind of challenges that we're talking about because Jesus faced such silliness too.
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chapter 12, verse 18, it says, "And Sadducees came to Him who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked Him a question saying..." Let's stop here.
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The Sadducees entered the next wave of challenges.
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And you're like, well, who are the Sadducees?
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Well, the Sadducees were this Jewish religious sect that actually ran the temple.
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"Well, why haven't we seen the Sadducees so far in Mark?" Because they did their work at the temple.
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Okay, like the Pharisees, they were scattered throughout, but the Sadducees did all their work at the temple.
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That's why we haven't seen them before.
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Through our study in Mark.
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And who are they?
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Well, Mark gives one word of clarification.
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Did you see that?
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Mark says, "The Sadducees are a group that say there is no resurrection." And more clarification, I'll jot this reference down. Acts chapter 23 in verse 8 talks about the Sadducees.
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It says that they also don't believe in angels and they don't believe in spirits.
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They don't believe in anything supernatural. That's who the Sadducees were. Like we live in this physical earth, but there's nothing supernatural. No angels, no spirit, none of That stuff isn't real.
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So the concept of resurrection was foolishness to them.
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Like, wait a minute, you said that they were a Jewish religious sect.
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Doesn't the Old Testament talk about resurrection?
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In fact, it does.
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Psalm 16, Psalm 49, Psalm 73, Daniel 12.
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Those are just a few.
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I had a whole hunken list of them.
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Those are just a few.
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The Old Testament is full references of resurrection, life after death, being raised again.
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You're like, "Well, then how did the Sadducees get off track?" Well, the Sadducees only believed in the Pentateuch.
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That was the only part of Scripture they believed.
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What's the Pentateuch?
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Those are the first five books of the Bible, right?
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Genesis, say it with me, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
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Those were the only five books they believed in.
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Those are also called the books of Moses.
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So the Sadducees were kind of like this.
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If it ain't in a book of Moses, it doesn't matter.
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Right?
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Right, Derek?
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If it's not in the Pentateuch, we ain't talking about it.
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It doesn't matter.
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It's irrelevant.
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That's who the Sadducees were.
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And you're like, well, surely in the first five books of the Bible, resurrection is somewhere mentioned.
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Well, they wrongly claimed that there was no resurrection mentioned in the Pentateuch.
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Instead, they believed in annihilation.
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They believed that when you die, it is over.
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When you die, you cease to exist.
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They put your body in a box.
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You are no longer a thing.
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It's annihilation.
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You're done.
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There was, stay with me now, there was no hope in what they believed because they didn't believe in life after death.
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And that's why they were sad, you see.
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I tried that on Erin earlier this week.
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She goes, "You are not going to say that on Sunday." And I said, "That's good." "No, it's not good." You were right. You were right. I'm saying this publicly. My wife was right.
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But they believe that when you die, it's it. It's over. It's done. There's no afterlife. Okay?
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Thank you for humoring me. So the Sanhedrin got shot down. Where did you get that authority? And Jesus said, "Let's talk about something else.
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Let's talk about John's baptism." The Pharisees and the Herodians got shot down. Should we pay taxes? Give the Caesar what is Caesar's and give the God what So it's like step right up. Who is next to stump this one who calls himself the Christ? So the Sadducees step up on your outline. Ask a silly question. What's the rest of that phrase? Well, not today. Usually you're right. Usually it's ask a silly question, get a silly answer. Today it's ask a silly question, look silly.
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Because when you're challenging Jesus Christ, it's not going to take you anywhere good.
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Let's look at the text.
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It says, "And Sadducees came to Him, who say that there is no resurrection.
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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 offering for his brother." Do you understand what's going on here?
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I'm going to explain that in a second.
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Okay, so a guy has a wife.
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The guy dies.
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Biblically, if that guy has a single brother, he should marry that woman and have children to keep the family lineage going.
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We'll talk about that in a second where that comes from.
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There were seven brothers.
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The first took a wife.
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he died left no offspring. And the second took her and died, leaving no offspring.
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And the third likewise. And the seven left no offspring.
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Last of all, the woman also died. In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be?
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For the seven had her as wife.
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Let's stop there for a second.
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They didn't believe in the resurrection, right?
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What they were trying to do here was to make having belief in the resurrection look implausible.
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Are you with me?
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That's why they mentioned resurrection.
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They didn't believe it.
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They were saying, "Oh, you believe in the resurrection?
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Well, let me throw a scenario at you then." Like, where in the world did they get this scenario?
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jot this down, Deuteronomy 25 in verse five and following.
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This was part of Mosaic law.
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Like I said, the purpose of the law was to provide for the family to make sure that the family name and lineage gets carried on.
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So you understand what's going on.
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If you read the passage in Deuteronomy 25, so Moses commanded, you know, the guy's married, has no kids, but the guy dies, But the guy has a brother who's single.
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The single brother should take this woman as his wife so they have kids to carry on the name for the brother.
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And in their little scenario here, they said, "Jesus, let's talk about resurrection.
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You know the Levitical law.
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What happens if seven guys all marry the same woman after each of them die?
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And then she dies.
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Oh, and then you have the resurrection.
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Whose wife is she going to be?
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I have a question.
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What is going on in that house?
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She went through seven brothers?
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I mean, she must be the world's worst cook.
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What is going on in that house?
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And you can look this up, truth.
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If a guy doesn't want to marry his brother's widow, he's like, "You know what?
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Not interested." What they had to do, they took them before the elders at the gate of the city, and he had to say, "I do not wish to take this woman as my wife." And what they would do is they would bring the woman up, He would take his shoe off of his foot and spit in his face.
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And that guy would be known as he who had a sandal removed.
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It was sort of a public disgracing.
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Like, shame on you for not carrying on your brother's family.
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That's what they would do.
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And I'm just going to be honest with you at the risk of sounding like I would be a bad Jew, if seven of my brothers married a woman killed over dead, I would be going before the elders like, "Here, here, here, here, here, spit.
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Just start spitting." "I am not marrying that woman because I'd like to live to see another birthday." So that was their silly little scenario.
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Look at Jesus' response.
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Okay, so the question is, "Whose wife will she be?" Jesus said to them, "Is this not the reason you are wrong?
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Because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?" Jesus was like, "Listen, you don't know the Bible." Jesus was saying, in essence, "You don't even know God.
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Because if you knew God, you would know the God who created, the God of power, The God whom nothing is too hard for, you would know Him.
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He says you don't know your Bibles and you don't know God.
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Jesus said, "For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven." And church, understand, marriage, sex, reproduction, That is for here and now.
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Okay?
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When we get to heaven, notice it says we're going to be like angels.
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It doesn't say we turn into angels.
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When I was a kid, I thought when we died, we turn into angels.
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Why?
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Because that's what happened on Tom and Jerry, right?
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Like Jerry would do something to Tom and he'd get hit by a truck or something, and then he would turn into an angel.
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And I've learned since that Tom and Jerry is a bad place to get theology.
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It says you'll be like angels.
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They're like, "Like angels, how?" Angels are glorious and eternal beings.
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Church, understand in heaven, no one dies.
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No one dies in heaven.
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Death is gone.
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Thrown into the lake of fire, ultimately.
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No one dies.
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But also, in heaven, no one is born.
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And I don't understand it.
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I believe it, but somehow in heaven, our person to person relationships are going to be absolutely perfect in every way.
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We're not going to feel some kind of a lack of fulfillment.
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Oh, just heaven would be better if I could just marry.
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You're not gonna feel that.
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Your relationships with everyone are going to be perfect, unmarred by sin, and so like marriage and reproduction, I said, "Yeah, that's for here and now." But in heaven, Jesus said, "It's not like that.
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Everything's perfect, and our relationships are all going to be perfect, whatever that looks like, I believe it." But then look what Jesus says.
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Let's take a quick turn here.
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Jesus said, "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, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
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You are quite wrong." Jesus was saying, "By the way, resurrection deniers, you believe That was all they believed in.
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Jesus was like, "You believe in the Pentateuch?
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"You know the passage with the bush?
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"The call of Moses?
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"Now answer me this, if these people so revered Moses, "do you think they were familiar with the passage "where Moses was called into ministry?
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"Do you think they knew that passage?
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"I guarantee they had it memorized." Like, that's my favorite passage, where God speaks to Moses through the bush.
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Oh, I love that passage.
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He like sees this bush aflame, that's not being burned up and take your shoes off.
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They knew that passage.
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Jesus took them right to their favorite passage and said, "How did you miss this?" God said, "I am the God of Abraham "and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." Notice he says, "I am," not, "I was." Big difference, right?
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"Hey Moses, I was Abraham's God back when he was around, R.I .P." Jesus said, "No, I am." Jesus was saying that God spoke of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as still what?
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They're still existing.
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They're still alive.
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He says, "I am their God.
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And even though they're gone from the earth, I am still their God." He's not the God of the dead, he's the God of the living.
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So you were quite wrong.
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And so Jesus handily shoots down another challenge.
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But I wanna ask you, church, what do you do?
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What do you do when the skeptic is trying to make you look stupid?
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Has that happened to you?
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If it hasn't, it will.
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I know it's happened to you.
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I get emails, calls all the time like, "Hey, this guy asked me this question at work and I'm not sure how to answer him." Or, "Do you have any information about this?" You're going to be challenged about your faith.
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You're going to be challenged about what you believe.
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How do you handle that?
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Whether it's that snotty co-worker that finds out you're a Christian.
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"Oh, you go to church.
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Oh, you're one of the leaders in your church.
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They're just looking for a way to make you look bad." How do you handle that?
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What about that family member?
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You're the religious nut in your family.
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And you have this family member that's like, "You really believe that book of fairy tales?
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What about this?
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What about that?
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How do you handle them?" You know, what about you're signed up for prison ministry and you go in and the guy, we've been blessed with such a good season right now, haven't we Mark?
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We haven't had people challenging us.
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We've had people coming wanting to learn, but what do you do when you get that guy that's bored and wants to make you look stupid in front of all the other people that are there to learn?
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What do you do about that?
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What do you do when the Mormons knock on your door?
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What do you do when the Jehovah's Witnesses knock on your door?
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How can you handle it?
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How can you handle it?
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Listen, two things.
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Confidently, but not arrogantly.
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I want you to be confident.
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I do not want you to be arrogant.
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I do not want you to be a Bible fathead, that you pull out your Thompson, chain MacArthur study Bible hardback, of course, reinforce plates and start bashing them in the head.
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And then you're so proud of yourself that you put that idiot in their place.
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That is not a Christlike attitude at all.
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Christlike attitude is confident, but not arrogant.
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And as people who still dwell in the flesh, We have a tendency sometimes to gravitate towards pride if we're not careful.
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So how do we handle these things confidently, but not arrogantly?
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I want you to jot these down.
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These are five principles for Bible debates, for lack of a better term.
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Bible debate sounds so formal, doesn't it?
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We each get a podium, we each get five minutes.
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You know what I'm talking about.
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Five principles, this all comes from the text.
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Number one, be ready.
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Be ready.
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Obviously, Jesus was never caught uninformed.
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You're like, yeah, but we are not Jesus.
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I'd just like to encourage you, there are only really a handful of skeptic questions.
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I've been in pastoral ministry for a long time, doing prison ministry a long time, And the truth is, there is actually a very small handful of skeptic questions.
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They fall into a dozen or two buckets, maybe worded slightly different.
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But there are not a lot of skeptical questions.
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Things like, millions of years, like I mentioned, where did dinosaurs fit in the Bible?
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What about Old Testament law?
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What about hell?
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Is hell a real place?
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I don't think it's real.
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I don't think a loving God would send people to hell.
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The Bible's been copied so many times, how do we know that it says what it originally said?
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If Christianity's the truth, why are there so many denominations?
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I would encourage you to take some time and study up.
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I could go through all of these things with you.
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I'm not going to do that today.
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We would be here for a month trying to tackle all the possible answers and replies to all of these things.
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There are so many good websites out there that have resources.
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You can watch these things on YouTube, you can get on Answers in Genesis, and so many great apologetics ministries.
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Just do a Google search.
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But I'd encourage you to be a student.
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I have mountains of information to this, different ways to share the gospel with people and to handle these things.
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I can give you different lessons and studies if you're interested.
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But my point here for our purposes today is just simply this-- be ready.
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You can be ready.
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You can be ready.
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Just take some time to study up.
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And there's no shame-- if somebody asks you a question, even kind of a jerky skeptic question, there's no shame in saying, you know what, that's a really good question.
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Can I do a little study on that and get back to you?
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No shame in that at all.
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But I encourage you to be ready.
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Secondly, be clear.
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Be clear.
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I love it. Twice in the same passage, you know what Jesus said?
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"You are wrong." Jesus was clear.
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He goes, "You are wrong." And then He caps it off by saying what?
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"You are quite wrong." You're not only wrong, you're quite wrong.
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That's like "wronger." It's like truth, and then false, somewhere over here is like, "Wronger than wrong, that's what you are. Quite wrong." Done with ambiguity. This does an example of talking about hell. People say this all the time, "I don't think hell's a real place." And we could reply, "Well, there are different views about that one. Yeah, wow. I don't know. You know what? I guess I've just always kind I've kind of grown up to believe it.
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It was something that the church taught.
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I'm done with the ambiguity.
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If God said it, stand on it.
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And don't apologize for it.
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Again, not arrogantly, but confidently.
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When people challenge me about hell, do you know what I do?
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In Matthew 5, the very last verse, Jesus talks about heaven being eternal, and then He talks about hell being eternal.
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He uses the same word for eternal in both cases.
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And I say, now let me ask you, do you believe or do you know anyone that believes that heaven is a temporary place?
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No.
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Do you believe heaven is a non-existent place?
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Well, no, I believe in heaven.
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Jesus used the same word to describe hell he used to describe heaven.
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So I can confidently say I believe in hell.
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Because Jesus did.
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I'm in good company there, right?
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The point is if the Bible says it, what's the first pillar of the Harvest Bible Chapel?
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We proclaim the authority of God's word without apology.
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Again, that's not arrogance, but that's confidence.
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You can very humbly but confidently say, "You know what, I understand why you feel that way." But you know, God's Word says, God's Word says, that at the end of the day, at the end of the life, isn't that all that's going to matter?
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Is that you stood on the Word of God?
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Be clear.
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God says that you stand on it.
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Number three, be a Bible student.
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Be a Bible student.
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Notice the very thing Jesus rebuked them for right out of the gate.
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Like yeah, you don't know the Bible.
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Like well, whose wife is she going to be?
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Yeah, you don't even know the Bible, do you?
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And may that not be said about us.
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There's no substitute for knowing your Bibles.
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You should read the Bible with a mind to understanding.
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It's about knowing Christ and growing in Christ.
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And the only way that you're going to spot and rebuke falsehood is if you are familiar with the truth.
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You should be a student of the Bible.
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Like, "Well, how should I study the Bible?" There's a million formulas.
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Can I just share mine with you?
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What I do?
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This is so simple.
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Here's what I do.
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My devotion, I have a Bible.
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There's no commentary or any of that fancy stuff.
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It's just a Bible that I read for my personal study.
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Do you know what I do?
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Just these four things, jot them down.
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It could not get any simpler than this.
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Four things.
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First of all, when you study your Bible, underline the subject.
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That's the first thing I do.
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The subject meaning, who is in this passage?
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Is it talking about Jesus?
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Is it talking about one of the disciples?
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Is it talking about one of the kings of Israel?
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Oh, in this passage he's talking about faith.
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What faith looks like.
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Oh, in this passage he's talking about prayer.
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How should we pray?
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It sounds so simple, but sometimes we can get bogged down in the Bible that we're like, "Wait, wait, wait.
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What's he talking about again?
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Who is where?" So I go right after the subject.
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What is being referred to here?
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What is being talked about here?
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Person, place, topic.
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I go right after that.
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I underline that green in my Bible.
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So if I get bogged down, "Wait, what's he talking about?
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Oh, okay, he's talking about this guy.
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Okay." Go after the subject.
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Second thing, what is it saying about the subject?
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What's it saying about, what is God saying about the subject?
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Meaning this, is God giving a command?
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Is God giving a warning?
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Is God saying you shouldn't do this?
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Is God saying this guy is a good example?
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Is God saying this guy is a bad example?
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What is he saying about the subject?
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You can use different colors.
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I use different colored pens and highlighters and stuff.
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Whatever system you have, you should have a system.
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Make it your own, right?
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What's he talking about and what is he saying about what he's talking about?
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Super simple.
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Thirdly, what does God want to teach me?
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What does God want to teach me?
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Okay, so prayer is the subject, and this is what he is saying about prayer.
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Therefore, what is God communicating to me in this passage about prayer?
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Right?
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And the last thing, is I ask myself, how can I incorporate this truth into my life?
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You know, James says, "Don't just be a hearer of the word, but be a doer of the word." So if this is what - okay, the passage is about prayer.
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And he says, "This is what happens in prayer, what prayer is to be like.
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So what does that mean for me, and how can I immediately start praying like this?" That is how you should study the Bible.
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So be ready. Be clear.
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Be a Bible student.
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Fourthly, be looking for common ground.
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Notice that Jesus used one of their favorite texts to discuss the resurrection with them.
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Jesus quoted from - let's pretend it didn't happen, but let's pretend.
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They're like, well, we don't believe in the resurrection.
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And Jesus says, well, Psalm 16 very clearly says, "You will not let your Holy One see decay." What would they have said?
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We don't really believe in Psalm 16.
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And Jesus is like, I do.
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And they're like, we don't.
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Well then, okay bye.
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Like where do you go from there?
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You're at a standstill.
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Instead what did Jesus do?
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He went right to the heart of what they believed in because Jesus found common ground with them.
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Oh you guys are about Moses.
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Let's talk about the call of Moses because you're going to see resurrection very clearly in that passage.
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life after death. Let me show you. On common ground, I had a guy at the gym for years hound me. Like you just need like I want to go in and work out and like this guy's coming and he's gonna help fuel my rage. But he would just always come to challenge, attack, debate, always, always, always. And he would say, he goes, "You believe that Bible was written by God?" Like, "Yeah, I do believe that. I do believe God wrote the Bible." "Oh, I can't believe that you believe that." And I would say, "Well, tell me what you believe." He says, "I believe in the Ten Commandments." And I would say, "And where do you read these Ten Commandments?" Well, they're in the Bible.
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Like the Bible in which you don't believe?
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Why believe in the Ten Commandments?
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Well, at what point, or what criteria I guess I should say, what criteria do you use on which passage you should believe and which passage you shouldn't believe?
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Let's talk about the Ten Commandments.
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Do you know what the Ten Commandments says about you?
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And I would walk him through the Ten Commandments.
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You're a sinner.
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And you need grace.
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I would always get our arguments, whatever curveball he would try to throw to me, I'd get him back to the 10 Commandments.
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Why?
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Because that was something that we both believed.
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Let's talk about the commandments.
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You know what they say?
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Same goes Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses.
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You know, if you have some Catholic family members.
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You see, you already have a big advantage Because you and that other side would both say that you believe in the Bible.
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So look at what the Bible says, right?
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Right, Mormons, you believe that the Bible's a true book.
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Well, let's talk about what the Bible says.
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And as they try to get you directed to the Book of Mormon or the Pearl of Great Price or Doctrine and Covenants or there's other writings, now let's look at what the Bible says.
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But that should be the focus of your conversation, that common ground.
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You're not gonna argue the Book of Mormon with a Mormon.
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You've got to find that common ground.
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And finally, be focused on big issues.
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You notice what Jesus did here?
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So they asked this question that He shot down immediately.
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Did you notice in verse 26, Jesus immediately steered the conversation.
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Like, let's talk about the bigger issue.
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Because they're like, you know, wife and she had all these guys that keeled over and like whose wife is she going to be and Jesus is like, "Eh, you're wrong, you don't know the Bible, here's the truth concerning that." By the way, let's talk about resurrection. See how he steered that conversation? Why did he do that? Because the wife and the dead brother's thing could have gone round and round and round and round, right?
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And so what?
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All of a sudden, the dead brother's wife Honestly, so what?
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Hypothetically, if there was an answer to that ridiculous scenario, which there's not, but if there, according to how they were asking, I mean, they would have just gone round and round and round and round and round.
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And Jesus gave them a short answer to that, but then he immediately turned to the big issue.
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And I would encourage you, church, don't get caught up in the silliness.
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Don't get caught up in the silliness.
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"Can God create a rock that He can't lift?" Don't spend a lot of time on that.
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That deserves maybe, maybe a sentence.
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To acknowledge how silly it is.
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But then, you steer the conversation to the important things.
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You're like, "What are the important things?" There's two main things That's what you want to direct people to.
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And that is the Person of Jesus Christ and the work of Jesus Christ.
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That's what you want to direct people to.
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Who is Jesus?
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Let me ask you a question.
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Who is Jesus?
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You know what the Bible says about Him?
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The Bible says He's God in the flesh.
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John 1.1, John 1.14, Revelation 1, Colossians 1.
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The Bible says He's God in the flesh.
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Let me show you.
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He's God in the flesh.
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Do you believe that?
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Focus on the Person of Christ Do you know why Jesus died on the cross?
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He took the sin of the world on Himself, and God punished my sin on Jesus.
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And if you believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, He took your sin upon Himself.
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He took the sin of the world on Himself.
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That's what the cross was about.
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Do you know that's not the end of the story?
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He rose from the dead to give us eternal life.
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We forfeited life in the Garden of Eden when we sinned, but the purpose of Christ is to restore life to us.
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This is the message of the Gospel, and I'd just like to turn that back to people and say what have you done with that?
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This is who Jesus is and this is what He's done.
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What have you done with that?
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You steer the conversation.
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As our worship team makes their way back up, I just want to encourage you church, you know, the cults are coming.
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here at our house just a month or two ago.
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Skeptics who know that you follow Jesus are going to be testing you.
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But if you would commit yourself to be ready, be clear, be a Bible student, be looking for common ground, and be focused on big issues, You will handle these challenges in the same way that Jesus handled the challenges.
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Let's pray.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Mark 12:18-27
Why did the Sadducees ask Jesus a question about "life after death" if they didn't believe in it? What were the two problems they had that Jesus pointed out ? (Mk 12:24)
How did Jesus describe life in heaven? Is that different from beliefs that you have held?
Why did Jesus ask them a question after answering theirs? Why did Jesus take them to Exodus 3?
Breakout Questions:
How do YOU study the Bible? What techniques do you use to help you in growing in the knowledge of God’s Word? How can you be a better student of the Bible?