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I mentioned the title of this sermon where it says,

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What is your party?

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When Jesus walked this earth, there were political parties.

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Were you aware of that? It's nothing new.

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They didn't call them Republicans or Democrats.

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They didn't call them liberals or conservatives.

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They called them, well, Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians.

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There were Essenes, although the Bible doesn't mention them.

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They weren't so much involved politically as they were kind of off in the desert.

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We probably wouldn't know much about them if it weren't for the Dead Sea Scrolls.

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But Jesus had to deal with the political parties when he was here in doing his ministry

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because the political parties dealt with him and later on with his followers.

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They weren't just political parties. They were religious parties.

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And you've heard of them. They all have a bad name today amongst Christian circles

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because they didn't get along with Jesus real well.

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You understand what I'm saying, right?

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We especially read about Pharisees and Sadducees.

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Sadducees, let me give you just a little history.

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After the Persian period, during the Greek period, the Israelites,

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well, basically the Jews and the tribe of Benjamin,

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and a few remnants of the other ten tribes that were left,

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had their go-around with the Greek king, with Antiochus and the various,

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well, especially Antiochus IV.

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And it was a priest, man of the priestly family, who led the revolt against the Greeks.

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And so the priests became, and this was in accordance with the prophecy of Zechariah,

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the priests became kings as well as priests.

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And out of this were two parties.

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We don't know the exact history, for instance, of the Pharisees.

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We know that the name Pharisee is related to the name of Persia.

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And if you were to go to Persia today, especially northeast Persia,

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or to northwest Pakistan, you would find that people there speak a language

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that is basically old Persian, and it's called Farsi.

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It doesn't sound that very much different from Farsi.

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And it comes from the same root.

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They were very extremely, well, how should I say it?

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The apostle Paul said they were the strictest of the sects,

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because they were also a sect.

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They were religious as well as political.

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And as I said, they tended to be conservative,

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and I think many of us would not have too much trouble relating to them,

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at least along the line somewhere, because they took the Bible very seriously.

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We'll say more about them later.

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The Sadducees were the priestly party, or they became the priestly party,

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and they were very much into political power.

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Don't get me wrong, the Pharisees weren't against political power either.

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But they did believe in the Bible, or so they said.

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They were looking forward to the Messiah.

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It is no accident on the night when Jesus was arrested,

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when he and the other disciples left the upper room,

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they sang a hymn and went out.

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It's thought that hymn was Psalm 117,

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which was known amongst the Jewish people as the Great Hillel.

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It was basically a chorus,

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and they sang it at the Passover time every year,

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and it was praising God, and I believe Hillel was a Pharisee.

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So many of the Pharisees were into Scripture,

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and they took it very, very seriously.

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Unfortunately, as time went on, they got into casuistry.

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Now, that's a big word, but it's fairly short meaning.

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You take a rule, a law, and by the way,

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this is very popular amongst some Christians as well,

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especially in Catholic legal circles.

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They will take a law and say, well, with the Jews,

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they would ask a question, what is it lawful to do on the Sabbath,

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because they wanted to keep the Sabbath properly.

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Is that a good idea or not?

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Do you want to keep the Sabbath?

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Well, when I was growing up, there was a lot of casuistry amongst Adventists.

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What is it proper to do on the Sabbath?

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Is it okay to go swimming? No.

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Is it okay to wade? Yes.

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Some of you remember those times, yes.

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And if we kids were wading, we'd usually manage to fall,

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and well, you know how it is.

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The Pharisees were into that, and you've heard it.

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Mainly, we're acquainted with some of their Sabbath rules,

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and they were honest, I believe, in this.

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They would ask questions like, is it,

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what is it lawful to do on the Sabbath?

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Is it lawful to spit?

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Well, yes, if you do it on the pavement,

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but if you do it on the ground, you may water a plant,

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irrigate a plant, that would be work,

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and that's forbidden in the commandment.

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Casuistry gets you into things like that.

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Is it okay to walk any distance on the Sabbath?

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Yes, of course it is.

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You can go a Sabbath day's journey,

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and so if they knew they had to make a journey longer than that on the Sabbath,

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they would place a lunch the day before at the stopping point.

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So if you stopped and ate lunch,

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then you could take another Sabbath day's journey,

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and you follow what this would lead to?

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Some of you are smiling and shaking your heads,

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and I understand, my wife and I were in, during Celebration 88,

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we were in Minneapolis, and my Jewish friend that I'd gone to school with

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came over to visit us.

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We were staying on the 14th floor.

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He walked up all 14 flights of steps to knock on our door.

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Now, I asked him, I said, there's an elevator.

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He says, oh, we don't do that on the Sabbath.

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That would be completing a circuit,

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and that's akin to lighting a fire,

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and we don't do those things on the Sabbath.

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So we got down to the bottom, and he remembered that he had left his,

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was it his Bible or his Old Testament scriptures in the room,

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and he's thinking 14 flights of stairs to go up and get it.

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I said, you can't take the elevator, right?

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He says, well, I can't operate an elevator.

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I said, can I? Yeah, you can do it.

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So we did.

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But this sort of approach to keeping the law is called casuistry,

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and it came from the Pharisees.

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They were certainly following the law or trying to,

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and you have to admit they were probably very honest in doing it.

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Many of them were very godly people.

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The Sadducees believed, according to Matthew and according to Paul,

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they only believed in the five books of Moses.

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Now, why they didn't believe in Job, which was also written by Moses,

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I don't know, but they didn't.

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They believed in only the five books,

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and so they didn't believe in a resurrection,

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because that's not spelled out in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, or Deuteronomy, right?

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You can find the resurrection very strongly in Job, Chapter 14, Chapter 19.

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Job was very clear about the resurrection, but see, they didn't accept that,

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so they didn't believe in a resurrection.

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They didn't believe in angels or spirits.

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And you know, you've heard the old saying that came from HMS Richard Sr.

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They didn't believe in a resurrection, so they were sad, you see.

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And that's been around in Adventism, and I think there's a lot of truth in it.

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But they were definitely into power,

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because the high priesthood had become a high political position.

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You could be appointed to that.

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And we know that, oh, in 78 A.D., the king who was priest and king,

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Alexander Geneas was, well, he was high priest, he was also king,

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and he had a lot of, he was very unpopular with the Jewish people.

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He had offered sacrifices at one point.

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I don't remember if it was Passover or not,

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but he was wearing his armor from battle, offering sacrifices.

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That didn't go over well, and the crowd that was there pelted him with citrons,

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sort of like grapefruit or something they were throwing at him.

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I don't remember how that all turned out.

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But when he died in 78 A.D., his last words to his wife,

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who was going to be taking charge of the throne, was,

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make peace with the Pharisees.

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She hated the Pharisees, but she made peace with them and followed their advice.

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During that period, Judah went through a time of prosperity

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such as they had never seen before.

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So the Pharisees did do some good things.

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The Sadducees were often arrayed against the Pharisees,

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and of course, they were educated men.

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They knew those five books of Moses well, and they liked to bring up,

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they loved to get into arguments, theological arguments with the Pharisees.

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It's kind of fun to get into Matthew,

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where they actually bring up against Jesus,

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because he talked about things like the resurrection.

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So you know the story.

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In Matthew, they come, and by the way, Mark and Luke also tell the story,

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where they come to Jesus, and they say,

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please tell us, I think that's in Matthew 22,

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well before the resurrection, there's a man who had a wife,

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and he died childless, and so his brother took her,

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that's according to the Levitical law,

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and the brother took her, and he died childless.

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And so the next brother in line took her, and he died childless.

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And so on, through all seven brothers,

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and the last one died, and they were still childless,

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and last of all, the woman died.

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Whose wife shall she be in the resurrection?

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Boy, had they put Pharisees over the barrel on that one,

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and they thought they had him.

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Just try putting Jesus over the barrel.

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You can't do it.

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And they sure found out.

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He said, well, you do greatly err not knowing the scriptures

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or the power of God.

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And then he said very simply, in the resurrection,

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there is no marrying or giving in marriage.

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They shall be like the angels, those who attain to the resurrection.

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And of course, many of us today, we say, well, what's that going to be like?

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We don't know.

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But he did.

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And suddenly, the Sadducees were over a barrel.

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And it's kind of interesting, he went on to tell them about,

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he told them about the scriptures and the power of God,

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and they were kind of standing there with their lips flapping in the breeze.

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They didn't know what to do.

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He had beaten them.

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You can't put God over a barrel.

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You just can't do that.

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Actually, both parties, we could say,

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we could easily label the Sadducees the liberals of their day,

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because they thought it was okay to try to get along with the Romans and the Greeks

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and whoever else, as long as they were in power.

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The Pharisees were not necessarily, well,

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they were very much into what was right and wrong, as we've already discussed.

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And they had a problem, both parties had a problem with Jesus.

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They managed to get together to crucify Jesus.

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Wasn't that something?

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It actually started back in the beginning of his ministry.

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You can read about it in Matthew, I think it's chapter, oh, let's see.

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Matthew, chapter, I keep wanting to say two, that doesn't sound right, probably three.

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Malachi, Matthew.

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Jesus appeared in the temple.

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And there were some things going on in the temple that were not right.

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You know about this.

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Jesus appears in the temple, and he appears as the Son of God in human flesh.

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His eyes are drawn to him, and they see the divinity flashing through humanity.

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Those who are there on improper missions, such as selling cattle, doves, sheep,

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those who are there changing the money to the temple coinage.

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By the way, these were very lucrative businesses, you know?

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I mean, after all, why would you allow them in the temple?

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And guess who's getting their cut?

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The Sadducees.

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And maybe some of the Pharisees, I don't know.

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But what I do know is that Jesus appears with, actually this is in John, chapter two.

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He appears, and these men who are doing these things can't wait to get out of his sight.

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We're told that Jesus was knotting a little whip of cords.

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I don't know that he doesn't say he used it, but boy, they were on the run, those guys.

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And afterwards, I'm sure these same men sat down, I mean, we're talking Sadducees,

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people who are wealthy and powerful, and they said, why did we run from him?

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We don't know.

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We won't ever let that happen again.

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And then Matthew tells us how at the end of his ministry, he shows up and does the same thing,

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and the same guys run.

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They can't wait to get out of his sight.

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And according to Matthew, then they all got together, the priests and the Pharisees,

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the Sadducees and the Pharisees, and they decide they need to get rid of this guy.

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Yeah, they start deciding how are we going to kill him, and they start laying their plans.

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Now, I've got so many texts here about Pharisees and Sadducees, John 2, 14 to 17,

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and then you have Matthew and Mark and Luke that tell about the cleansing of the temple

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at the last week of his life there.

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There are so many things about these people, how the Pharisees, although they claim to be

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looking forward to the Messiah when he showed up, he and they were not on the same page.

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They just weren't.

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I know people today who are just like the Sadducees, and I know some who are like the Pharisees.

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I remember early in my ministry, we had a doctor coming to our church who pulled me aside one day

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and told me, he said, you should be a Democrat, because Democrats care about people.

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Oh, I thought that was interesting.

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Then I remember another person back, I was an academy student.

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This guy had graduated from our academy three or four years before I had,

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but he was there maybe for alumni, I don't remember, and he was talking with some other guys

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about a militia group down in Kansas City, Missouri, and he was telling them,

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these people are right about politics just like Adventists are about religion.

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I thought, hmm, that's kind of a sour note.

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I don't, in fact, later on, we had a church where one of our church members was actually

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the head of the Republican party in that county, and she would tell me,

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you better hope the Republicans get back in charge.

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I always, my dad wasn't a Christian, but I remember him telling me, son,

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you don't have to belong to a political party to vote for the right person.

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And check him out carefully, okay, that was good advice, dad, thank you.

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And just like in Jesus' day, there are people who think that somehow we can end the church,

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by the way, who think we can solve the world's problems politically.

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I don't know, maybe you're one of them.

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But I have noticed, well, I remember, was it in the 80s or the 90s when the Republicans took control

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of the House, and I remember thinking, well, maybe we won't have so many scandals, but we did.

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It didn't seem to make any difference which party was in power.

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And I have thought about it, in Jesus' day, of course, there were other parties, there were the Herodians.

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In fact, one of the few political statements Jesus made in his ministry, I believe, was to the Herodians,

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and Luke, no, John, Acts, June, John.

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They came to him, they came to Jesus, and they said, you need to get out of here, Herod wants to kill you.

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Anybody remember how he replied?

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He said, go tell that fox.

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And he went on to make a prophecy about his death and resurrection after three days.

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Now, that's just a powerful little response, but it's about as political as he ever got.

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And then, of course, according to Luke, the night before his, well, the night that he was arrested,

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he was talking to his disciples in the upper room, and he told them, do you remember when I sent you out

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without purse or bag, extra clothes, did you lack anything?

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No, we didn't.

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He said, now the time has come to buy your extra sandals and take your money with you,

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and if you don't have a sword to buy one.

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Remember that?

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And somebody said, here's two swords.

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That'd be today like somebody said, oh, we got a couple of pistols here, we're in good shape.

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Jesus said, that's enough.

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Do you remember in the garden how he handled the mob they came,

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and the disciples were saying, shall we strike with the sword, shall we strike with the sword?

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And Peter, without waiting for an answer, was off sides, and he comes out with his sword,

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and off goes the high priest's servant's ear.

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Remember that little story?

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And Jesus says, put your sword up.

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Don't you know I could call on my father, and he would send 12 legions of angels in Sabbath school.

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We saw how many were in a legion, 6,038 people or something like that.

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And he could call 12 times that, and God would have sent them.

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And yes, there are people who think there is salvation in politics,

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there is salvation in carrying guns, in doing all kinds of things,

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and I want to make it very, very clear, my friends, there are other political parties.

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Yes, there's Democrats, there's Republicans.

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We don't have Herodians today, there's Libertarians, Constitutional Party,

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and we could go on, and some of them even think they're going to bring about some sort of nirvana

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or utopia or something else, but I want to make it very, very clear.

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As followers of Jesus Christ, there is a party to which, by God's grace, I belong.

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Jesus, in talking with Pilate, talked about his followers as if they were a political party.

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He said, my kingdom is not of this world, or else my servants would what? Fight.

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We, with Abraham, look for a city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

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And I'm not saying don't vote, but I would say be very careful who you vote for.

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Check out their policies and that sort of thing.

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But I would like to point to you that both the liberals and the conservatives stood in Pilate's court and cried,

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crucify him, crucify him.

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And we are in a time when the conservatives are looking for a return to, not of Christ,

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although some of them may be, I'm not going to judge other people,

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but they're making a lot of political noise about establishing a Christian democracy,

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some kind of a Christian government, which would lead sooner or later to the enforcement of Arrest Day,

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and not likely to be the Sabbath.

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And did you know the liberals today are pushing for a Earthrest Day as part of the climate control issues?

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Did you know that? It's part of the Paris Accords.

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And it's very interesting to see how both sides are pushing towards the same goal by different means and in different words,

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but they're all going the same direction. Isn't that interesting?

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And for those who think that we are in a time when politics can save the nation and save us,

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I would suggest there is another party, and Jesus called them his followers.

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He prayed that they might be one, as he and his father are one, and that they might be one with him and his father.

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Now, that's a concept that in many churches is very foreign.

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It's a political party, but it's a godly political party.

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And believe me, dictators of foreign countries are well aware of the politics involved in people following a king that they cannot touch.

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Did you know that if you live in North Korea and you are a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, or any kind of Christian for that matter,

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there is no issue as to whether you will be martyred or not. The issue is when. When will it happen in your life?

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Because dictators see Jesus as competition.

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It was true under Mao as it is in North Korea. It's true in other places in the world.

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And yet for all of their violence towards the followers of Jesus, in the words of Tertullian,

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the great Christian lawyer in North Africa, back around 250 AD, the blood of the martyrs is seed.

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Because we have a head of the Christian party who not only knows how to handle life, but he knows how to handle death.

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He's been there when the mob shouted, crucify him.

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He was also there when the Roman soldiers were making sure that his body wasn't stolen.

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And one angel struck them all down as dead men.

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The only human witnesses to Jesus' resurrection, Roman soldiers. Isn't that amazing?

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And so we are still in a time when Pharisees, you don't hear them talked about anymore.

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There are traditions of the elders in Judaism. Sadducees have gone the way of the dinosaur.

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But there is still Jesus. His party still reigns. It isn't just a national party.

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It's an international party. And it's backed up with the armies of heaven, more than 12 legions of angels.

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And God can still handle life, and he can still handle death. And he can bring death and make it into life.

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What party do you belong to? Where is your hope?

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I would like to suggest that as Americans, we are very fortunate, we can belong to Jesus' party without persecution at this point.

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There are lots of places in the world where you can't. So what party do you belong to?

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In one of these days, Jesus is coming back. He promised he would.

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And we are told in Daniel 11 that a man of sin will try to cut off God's people from the rest of the earth.

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We are told that in Revelation 13. And we are also told in Revelation 14 that Jesus is going to come for his people.

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We are told that actually all through the New Testament.

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And the real question at that point is not who are you voting for, but who votes for you.

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How about it?