Dead Bodies

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, "...but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you."

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. It is a wonderful, beautiful, ice -cold, freezing day.

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We're just waiting for the trailer music to end. It's not a trailer, it's the prelude music, is that right?

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Precursor? Preamble. Yes, yes. Yes, that's it, right. Preamble. We need Steve to be here. Although Steve is gone.

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I don't know where Steve has gone. Where oh where has Steve gone? I heard that he is close.

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I think this week, or next week, he will be taping his first Tuesday show guy for Saturday's publication.

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How about that? I know you're waiting. I know you're emailing me. I think I know who his first guest is going to be, but that's all top secret.

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If I told you, then you would not have the secret anymore.

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Well, I have been studying the resurrection a lot lately, and that is because I'm in 1

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Corinthians 15, the largest chapter on the resurrection, I think maybe in all the

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Bible. Of course, we learn a lot about the resurrected Jesus in the gospels. You know how my pet peeve is manifest by people saying the gospel according to Matthew, the gospel of Matthew, which one's the right one?

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The gospel of Jesus Christ according to Matthew, isn't that much better? Matthew's gospel, how

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Matthew records the gospel, all right, just back to my pet peeves. Well, resurrection of the body.

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In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, there were some people saying that there's no resurrection of the dead.

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That's verse 12 of verse of chapter 15. And so, there's an influence there.

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Remember Sadducees, sad you see that they don't believe in the resurrection. They don't think there's going to be a final accounting.

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The body will not be raised and stand before any god or goddess because there's no resurrection.

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Dead bodies aren't raised. Throw in a little bit of ingredients from the

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Greek and Platonism, and the body is just incarcerating the soul, and we need to get rid of the body so the soul can be free.

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How can there be a resurrection of the dead? You've got people today, they buy into evolution.

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You wouldn't see people back in the Old Testament buy into evolution because they'd realize gods do things, or the god,

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Yahweh. And so, you know, who could really think that there's a resurrection of the body because evolution made us all, and soon we'll be just passing along.

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Maybe there's a reincarnation somehow, but typically people don't want to believe in that because they like to sin.

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It's hard to be having a physical relationship with your girlfriend or your boyfriend or somebody that's not your spouse friend, and realize you're going to stand before God one day, and He, as Creator, has set up the parameters for holy living, whether it's sexual, financial, etc.

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Oh, I'm so glad I caught myself. Aren't you so happy? I forgot who the writer was, but anyway.

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These people at Corinth, we don't know who, there were some who just couldn't believe in the resurrection.

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And so Paul says in chapter 15, early on, the first four verses, I've got a great gospel that I preached to you, and I preached to you this great gospel when

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I was here for 18 months, see Acts 18. And I preached this gospel to you, and that part of that gospel was the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins, right, it's prophesied in the

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Old Testament, and that He was buried, it's a true death, and that He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and then

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He appeared, of course, right? So Jesus was raised from the dead. You've got to believe in some resurrection of the dead and from the dead.

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And if you believe that, then it shouldn't be a big stretch with the supernatural, all -creative, all -powerful

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God for the resurrection of the body. Our souls and bodies are together now. Our bodies die, soul goes to be with God, today you'll be with me in paradise, absent from the body, present with the

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Lord, live as Christ, die as Cain. And then our bodies are in the ground, and we see bodies as we bury them in the ground, or we put them in the crematorium.

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I'll never forget the first day I went to the crematorium, they wanted to make sure the pacemakers were not in the body of the person, so it didn't cause a little explosion, a little grenade kind of explosion at,

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I'm trying to remember the temperature, 2700 degrees C, maybe that's it, pretty much takes care of all the flesh, well it does take care of all the flesh, and it even takes the bones, even the largest bones, and burns most of those, although there's a couple pieces of hip bone that are larger, femur bone, that remain, and then you get the packet of ashes, if it's a child, it's just a small little envelope, and there'll be no larger bones there.

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And it's pretty amazing. And it is sterile, and you can, it's sterile because it's 2700 degrees

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C after all. And so how can we think that a person who died in a fire, or who got cremated, who got eaten by sharks, there's a man who just got killed by a shark in California just outside of Vandenberg Air Force Base, how can those molecules all be resurrected and then eventually have the body reunited with the soul?

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People's souls are in heaven now who've died, and then how are they going to get their body? When are they going to get their body?

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And so people were questioning this whole thing. Well, as I studied the resurrection, I came across an article in Newsweek magazine, when it was still a magazine, before its print demise, and it was called

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Far From Heaven, 2010, March 24th, Lisa Miller. And so here's

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Newsweek magazine, not a bastion of evangelical Christianity, this is not World Magazine, it says,

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My book, Heaven, Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife, argues that while 80 % of Americans say they believe in heaven, few of us have the slightest clue about what we mean.

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Heaven, everyone agrees, is the good place you go after death, a reward for struggle and faithfulness on earth.

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Well, if she means that's what most people think, she's probably right, because you get there by works, struggle, toil, faithfulness, good deeds outweighing bad deeds, and that is the popular, that is our nature.

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That isn't the nature that Adam had, but that's fallen nature. Work to get to heaven.

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Do good deeds. We do good things. We don't understand grace. She goes on to say,

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Does Lisa? In most of our popular conceptions, we have bodies in heaven, selves, consciousness, identity.

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We do things. People yearn for reunions in heaven with friends and relatives, and even with their pets.

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I want to lay my head on Grandma Lucy's lap, the Christian memoirist

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Barbara Brown Taylor wrote in an essay. I want to shell peas with Fanny Bell and listen to Schubert with Earl.

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Some people imagine heaven as the place where their most material yearnings are fulfilled.

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She writes, I don't know if this is true, but she writes that the evangelist Billy Graham once spoke of driving a yellow Cadillac in heaven.

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The heroine of Alice Siebel's novel, The Lovely Bones, eats peppermint ice cream.

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Suicide bombers in the Middle East fantasize about the sexual ministrations of 72 dark -eyed virgins.

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Now, here's what Lisa Miller says, which leads me into the topic today.

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In these visions, in all these visions, embodiment, embodiment is the crux of the matter.

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If you don't have a body in heaven, then what kind of heaven are you hoping for?

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So you need a body to drive a Cadillac. You need a body to shell peas. You need a body to touch the pet that you have.

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What's the pet's name? I don't know what the pet's name was there. She goes on to say, the number of Americans who say they believe in the resurrection of Jesus has dropped 10 points since 2003 to 70 % according to the most recent

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Harris poll. Only 26 % of Americans think that they'll have bodies in heaven, according to a 1997

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Time CNN poll. Cremation once viewed as the ultimate desecration of the human body, an insult to God who makes the resurrection happen, will soon surpass burial as America's preferred way to dispose of a corpse.

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Already a third of Americans are cremated, not buried, and that trend line is headed straight up.

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So just to stop there for a minute of what Lisa is saying is a lot of people think that there's a resurrected

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Jesus. A lot of people believe there's a heaven. Not many people think there's actually a body there, although when they talk about heaven, embodiment is implied.

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Cremation was never done by the Jews. They believe that God made mankind in his likeness and image, and because of that it was a sin to murder.

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It was also wrong to cremate even a dead body, the care taken in Genesis chapter 23 for Sarah's burial.

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How God buried Moses, I believe it's Deuteronomy chapter 34. Jesus, of course, was buried.

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The Jews would bury, and the pagans would always cremate. Now this isn't a show on cremation.

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I should probably redo that sometime. I prefer getting buried in a box.

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What would Jesus do? That's why I decided to do that. Jesus would get buried in a tomb. Just kidding.

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But I mainly want to be buried in a box because I'm an image bearer and I'm not a pagan.

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And so, well, even pagans are image bearers, but I don't want to act like a pagan. I don't want my family to act like a pagan. I don't want them to have a lot of cost for their funeral.

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But this is what the Jews did. This is what the early Christians did. And these days people don't really do anything besides cremation.

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Their number one reason for that is, I think, pretty much cost. And we want to make sure we have good stewards, but I'm digressing.

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Don't we do that at No Compromise Radio? Aren't I allowed to do that at No Compromise Radio? If I, in fact, am

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No Compromise Radio, well, I think, Steve, what would you say about that? I actually got an email today,

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Pastor Mike and Tuesday Guy. So see? So with cremation, she quotes

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Stephen Prothero, religion professor of Boston University. See, right down the street.

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And author of the forthcoming, it must already be out, God is Not One, believes that the rise in cremation is linked to a growing disregard for the resurrection doctrine, the doctrine of the resurrection.

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He says, it seems fantastic and irrational that we're going to have a body in heaven. Well, that's probably what was going on at Corinth in 1

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Corinthians 15, verse 12. How can this be? How can these dead bodies be raised?

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Something's not quite right. And what body will they be raised? What kind of body will they be raised?

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How will they be raised? Who will do the raising? Well, as you know, if you're a

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Christian, Christians get sick just like unbelievers. Christians have illnesses just like unbelievers.

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Christians' bodies are breaking down just like unbelievers. And so Paul writes to the church of Corinth, and he gives them news that they can use.

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Now see, people don't, people, people, people, people don't tend to think that doctrine is very practical.

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Now if you just explain doctrine is something that's true about God or true about His Word, then immediately that takes the edge off of their argument.

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But in general, don't give me any doctrine. Jesus didn't die for doctrine, you know, a doctrine that wasn't crucified on the cross.

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And they'll come up with a lot of these statements. Well, this doctrine of the resurrection is very, very practical.

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It will help you go to funeral homes properly. It'll help you teach your children about death.

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And when grandma was a Christian and then she died, what happens to her body? After all, there's a dead, cold, hard body in front of you in a casket.

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This will help you. It is important. The doctrine of the resurrection is news that is very, very practical and relevant.

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It's relevant for your thinking now. It'll be relevant when you're in heaven. It'll be relevant for the reunion of your soul and body.

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People want to know about bodies. You bury dead bodies. And what happens to those bodies?

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How can they get changed and be reunited and be fit for heaven?

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I did find it interesting in rabbinic literature. There's a section there where Queen Cleopatra wrote to Rabbi Meir, and she wanted to know about our bodies being raised from the dead.

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And she specifically asked him the question, are we going to rise naked or are we going to rise in our clothes?

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You know, people have the question today, if pre -tribulational rapture is true, do people get raptured with their clothes on or will it be like Thief in the

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Night where there's just clothes there? What's the song in Thief in the Night, by the way? What is that song?

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Oh, I need Steve Cooley here so bad today.

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It's not They'll Know We're Christians by Our Love either. Are we going to rise naked or are we going to rise in our clothes,

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Cleopatra asked. And so, shall we be naked when we come from the grave or shall we have clothes?

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She knew there was going to be a resurrection of the body. By the way, his answer, if you're curious, you'll have to tune in next week or give a lot of money.

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No, his answer was, if you're put into the ground with clothes on, he was convinced that you would be raised with clothes.

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So I guess that's why we go find a suit or a dress for our loved ones.

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All right, back to the topic. My name, by the way, is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. Super glad you're listening.

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To this day, I'm very, very encouraged that we have a nationwide international audience.

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But I just am pleased when someone writes to me and they say that they're from Australia and they listen, or they're from Indiana and they listen, or they're

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Christie up in Maine and she listens, or somebody out in Idaho, they listen. Somebody wrote to me this week and they're a student, they are a teacher rather, a missionary in China.

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She listens. This is just exciting. So Paul wants to answer the question, how can these dead bodies be raised from the dead?

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Now, the people Paul is talking to in 1 Corinthians 15 are mockers. They're questioning

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Paul. If you have a real theological question, seem like Queen Cleopatra's question was honest, then that's one thing.

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These people didn't have that. These are the kind of people that are trying to get Jesus stuck, pay taxes.

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Should we pay taxes? This man, this woman's had all these different husbands.

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Who's going to be the husband of hers in heaven? Just silly questions, trying to trap

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Jesus. And so 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 35, talks about these very people, and their background is pretty much, you've got a corpse rotting in the ground.

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If you're Jewish, dead corpses are unclean, and so how can you have something, the epitome, the apex of corruption and uncleanness, ceremonially and physically, literally, and then that's going to go to heaven, the clean place, the holy place, the pure place, the set -apart place?

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You mean to tell me that dead body is going to inherit the kingdom of God?

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1 Corinthians 15, verse 35, but someone will ask. By the way, if you're that someone, then

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Paul's going to address it. How were the dead raised? That corrupted piece of flesh there, how is that going to be raised?

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With what kind of body do they come? Now again, if you just want to ask the question, you know, if I'm raptured, do

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I have clothes on, what do I do, all these kind of things, and you just want to know, what does the Bible teach?

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Fair. But once you start putting God on the dock, and He is there in the courtroom, and He is the witness, and you're cross -examining

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God because you know better than God, and you're questioning God, that's the wrong way to go about it.

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And Paul would say, verse 36, you're a fool, you foolish person, you're a fool.

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Now, you're not considering that the Creator of the universe, who's all -powerful, can take life out of the compost pile, that God can take dust and form it into a human, that God can with a word speak things into existence, that God made the earth and all it contains in six days.

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This isn't a serious question. This is a mocking question. As Garland said, the commentator, that presents a grotesque conundrum.

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This is when Paul is at Athens, and he's on the Areopagus, and he says the times of ignorance

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God had overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent, because He has fixed a day on which

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He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed, and of this He has given assurance to all by raising

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Him from the dead. When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some, what, mocked.

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But others said, we'll hear about this again, hear you again about this. And some men believed

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Him. So, this is a mocking question.

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Paul doesn't tell us the answer right away, but he kind of builds up to this. How can anybody believe in the resurrection?

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Molecular reconstruction, fitting a grotesque, decaying body for heaven?

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Now, NIV says, how foolish, NAB, a senseless question. No, it's, you're foolish.

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You're a fool for asking that question. Some people are wise, and if you put an A in front of wise,

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A -wise, you're not wise. That's what he does here with the Greek word for wisdom. You're not wise.

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But think carefully about this. If you look at the decomposition of a body in a casket, or in the ground, or if you read that book

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Stiff, I can't remember the lady's name. I should know her name. It's a secular book.

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Marry somebody I wish I remember. Anyway, if you read that, how can that body that's decomposing and is perishing and is discolored now, six months later, it's in the ground in a casket, and it's starting to get mold on it.

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You've got bugs that are getting in. You've got microorganisms in the intestines of a person that don't die when the person dies.

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You have cells that are in the body that die and then release enzymes.

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The tissue decomposes. There's gas that comes forth. There is green substances.

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The skin turns a green blue. There's blistering on the skin that starts at the abdomen.

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There's swelling. If the mouth isn't sewn shut, the tongue protrudes.

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Fluid comes out of the mouth and nostrils from the lung and oozing.

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Now you say, I don't really want to know all that. Well, I don't really want to know it all either, but that's the kind of thing that you need to know so that you can say,

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I'm so glad I get a resurrected body and it's the power of God. I sing the mighty power of God that made the mountains rise.

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That's the line, right? I sing the mighty power of God that will make our bodies rise.

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How can God do that? But he does. He makes our bodies fit for heaven.

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There was a website that said, within a year, all that is usually left is the skeleton and teeth with traces of the tissue on them.

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It takes 40 to 50 years for the bones to become dry and brittle in a coffin. In soil of neutral acidity, bones may last for 100 years while acid peaty soil gradually dissolves the bones.

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How can a body that's decaying like that, like everybody that decays that's dead, go to heaven?

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That is the real question. Now S. Lewis Johnson talks about Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island and the

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Baptist missionary. Remember, he preached to the Indians, he preached to other people as well,

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Roger Williams. And he was buried, and they didn't give him a super -duper, high -profile burial, and so later on people said, you know, he didn't really have the greatest burial, so let's dig up his body and then bury him with style.

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You know, the old days of the Roman Catholic Church, they would dig up Protestant evangelists and preachers and then burn them because they weren't burned at the stake like the

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Roman people thought that they should be. Roman as in Roman Catholic. But here it's the opposite.

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And so the account says this. So they went to the place of his grave and they dug down where his body was, and they discovered that the roots of an apple tree, which was over the grave, had entered the skull of Roger Williams and followed along the line of his backbone, dividing the hips and turning up the feet so that the whole body had been absorbed by the apple tree.

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How's that body gonna go to heaven? Where's the flesh? All the bones, the tree going through it.

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What's gonna happen there? With what kind of body do they come? How are the dead raised?

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And then Paul, we're gonna learn next time, says, listen, let me help you, the

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Corinthians who really wanna know, and let me stop your mouth if you've got a foolish question.

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He's going to say, use some analogies. He says, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

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And what you sow is not the body to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps, of wheat or some other grain.

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So we're gonna learn next time that here a dead, dry, lifeless seed goes into the ground and then out comes life.

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God has so set up the world that seeds grow when they have a little moisture, when they have some water, when they have a little warmth.

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So too, when you put a dead body in the ground, God is the one that makes it alive. God supernaturally will do that.

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Just as he is in his creative power, ordained seeds and growth. So Mike Abendroth today on No Compromise Radio, we're talking about the body.

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And if you've got a broken down body, bad backs and balding hair and balding headline and glasses on, you get a new body if you're a

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Christian, perfectly prepared for heaven to worship Jesus Christ forever and ever. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.