The Lord's Essential Truths About Everlasting Life Series

The Lord's Essential Truths about Everlasting Life

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 22:23-33

Sermon by Rick Crandall

(Prepared January 14, 2023)

BACKGROUND:

*Please open your Bibles to Matthew 22:23. Jesus was in Jerusalem to die on the cross for our sins. The city and surrounding villages were crowded with over 2 million Jewish pilgrims there for the annual Passover Feast. (1)

*Early that week, Jesus went into the Temple to drive out the moneychangers and dove merchants, because they had turned the Court of the Gentiles into a den of thieves by cheating the pilgrims. Then in Matthew 21:14-16, "The blind and the lame came to (Jesus) in the temple, and He healed them. But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, 'Hosanna to the Son of David!' they were indignant and said to Him, 'Do You hear what these are saying?' And Jesus said to them, 'Yes. Have you never read, "Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have perfected praise"?'''

*The next day, Jesus went back to the Temple. Luke 20:1 tells us that Jesus was there teaching the people and preaching the gospel to them. That's when the chief priests, scribes, and elders confronted the Lord again. This time, those Temple rulers questioned the Lord about the source of His authority.

*Jesus refused to answer their question directly, because it wasn't quite time for His death on the cross. Instead, the Lord used a question and three parables that pictured the horrible ways these wicked rulers had disobeyed God and rejected His Son Jesus Christ. They were filled with raging hatred toward Jesus, and had been plotting His murder for months.

*Those evil Pharisees and Sadducees understood that the parables were about them, and they should have repented from their wicked plans. But instead, the Pharisees decided to attack the Lord from a different angle. Matthew 22:15 tells us that they "went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His talk." They decided to trap Jesus into taking a public stand against the Roman government. But you can't trick God, so the Lord knew exactly what to say. And when the Pharisees and Herodians heard Christ's answer, they marveled and retreated in defeat.

*Later that same day, the Sadducees tried to trap the Lord with a question about eternal life and marriage in Heaven. Of course their efforts were also futile. Nobody can outsmart God! And Jesus easily answered their question. But in His answer, the Lord gives us three essential truths about His everlasting life. That's our focus today as we read Matthew 22:23-33.

MESSAGE:

*There is much more to life than living in this physical body! D. L. Moody was one of the greatest evangelists of the 1800s. Listen to what he said about eternal life: "Some day you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody, of East Northfield, is dead. Don't you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now. I shall have gone up higher, that is all-out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal, a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint, a body fashioned like unto His glorious body.

*I was born of the flesh in 1837. I was born of the Spirit in 1856. That which is born of the flesh may die. That which is born of the Spirit will live forever."

*Mr. Moody passed away in 1899. Having grown weaker during the night, he began to slowly speak these words: "Earth recedes, heaven opens before me!" His son Will hurried across the room to his father's side. "Father, you are dreaming," he said. "No -- This is no dream, Will. It is beautiful. It is like a trance. If this is death, it is sweet. God is calling me, and I must go. Don't call me back." (2)

*Church: There is much more to life than living in this physical body. As Jesus said in vs. 32, "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living!"

1. AND THE FIRST ESSENTIAL TRUTH OF EVERLASTING LIFE IS THAT WE MUST BELIEVE IN GOD'S WORD.

*We must accept the authority of God's Word. The problem with the Sadducees in vs. 23 is that they didn't believe God's Word. These religious rulers were wealthy aristocrats, who were happy to cooperate with their Roman conquerors, if that allowed them to keep their wealth and privilege. They were normally bitter enemies of the Pharisees, because they rejected their man-made religious rules. But the Sadducees were worse in a different way, because they also rejected essential truth in God's Word.

*They were skeptics who denied God’s involvement in everyday life. Verse 23 tells us that they denied the resurrection of the dead. They denied the spiritual dimension of life, holding that life ended at death, and there was no afterlife, no heaven or hell, no resurrection of the dead. Acts 23:8 tells us that they also denied the existence of angels. (3)