Jesus Responds to Sadducees, Matthew 22,23-33, Don't Be a Smart Aleck

Here we are Matthew chapter 22 starting in verse 23 to verse 33. Here are the word of the

Lord The same day Sadducees came to him who who say there is no resurrection

And they asked him a question saying teacher moses said if a man dies having no children his brother

Must marry the widow and raise up children for his brother Now there were seven brothers among us the first married and died and having no children left his wife to his brother

So to the second and the third and down to the seventh After them all the woman died in the resurrection therefore

Of the seven whose wife will she be for they all had her But jesus answered them you are wrong because you do not know because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of god

For in the resurrection, they will neither marry nor be given nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven and as for the

The resurrection of the dead have you not read what was said to you by god I am the god of abraham and the god of isaac and the god of jacob

He is not the god of the dead but of the living And when the crowd heard it they were astonished at his teaching

May the lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word Now one of the things that many parents end up saying

Probably at some time to their kids Uh, especially the teenagers is can you guess

Don't be a smart alec, you know, they've the kids probably said something that May be true.

Maybe even something you didn't know maybe even corrected you but just with that that irritating tone you know that just kind of So you can tell he or she is thinking you're so stupid.

I know so much more than you Maybe you say something like when I was in school, we had to call the teacher ma 'am or sir

And the little smart alec says yeah, but those were the dark ages Or uh, you could say something like the u .s

has one of the highest life expectancies in the world Get the reply actually the top seven countries for life expectancy are japan hong kong israel italy iceland australia and singapore smart alec

Or you say something like, you know, tom brady is the best quarterback ever And maybe the hopefully the kid won't answer back actually aaron rogers has a higher career passer rating smart alec

Or this sounds like something someone might say here ford makes the best cars Actually subaru is rated best by consumer reports subaru.

What kind of smart alec are you? Now you might not expect it here in church

But being right Can be overrated You can be right

But still be wrong Take it from a guy me who is often right, but still often wrong at the same time.

Nobody likes a smart alec Now in my opinion the greatest hindrance to the growth of what called reform theology

And reform churches much like ours is that they are right That sounds odd doesn't it

It's the fact they're right is what's holding the back their theology is wonderfully true and awe inspiring

And furthermore They know it They love the fact That they are right.

They love it so much that they put their focus on Celebrating and remembering maybe even exalting how true

They are they still have their old creeds and their confessions and you know Their great history from leaders in the past in the time when centuries ago when they were founded in europe and Focus on that so much now if in many revivalistic kind of baptist churches in the bible belt the ideal the pinnacle of spirituality of what you might want to be if you're really spiritual is to be a evangelist like billy graham or a mega church pastor

Like the maybe like the late adrian rogers or if that's their ideal In reform so -called reform circles the ideal of what every truly spiritual person wants to be

Is the professor of theology? giving lectures writing books

You know you want to be right? Precisely right and to make that rightness the most important thing about us

That's what you concentrate on you exalt And so many and I think probably even most

Quote reform leaders are are so wrapped up in their rightness and in their theology

That they've forgotten even to be biblical And so they are incapable often of persuading people who don't already agree with their confessions

Because they simply can't open up the bible and show from scripture that their doctrine is true

They can make a great rational argument, but they can't convince people from the bible Then they will just simply look down their nose at anyone who doesn't already agree with them

Maybe they'll even be smart alecky Like the kind of like the guy I think he was probably a reformed guy who who once told me that baptists never think

Theologically about baptism. That's why they don't believe in infant baptism. It's because they never thought about it

And well, I just responded. Uh, well there is uh, Paul k. Jewett who happened to be who's a baptist and happened to be my professor of theology

Who wrote a book entitled infant baptism and the covenant of grace? and he kind of paused for a

Bit this is quiet and then finally admitted and said, yeah, I guess you're right see

I can be a smart aleck Reformed people are handicapped by their rightness because they've they've let that make them

Quite frankly put it bluntly arrogant knowledge Puffs up They have a reputation of scorning those, you know, there's those poor

Uneducated untaught people out there who maybe they waste their time with contrived revivals so we feel superior to the the churches that are out there trying to manipulate people and by responding to these dragged out invitations as they play the 18th verses of Just as I am and maybe we scoff at the new churches

That can't write a doctrinal statement with any precision because they're so muddled in their thinking and and so they end up telling people

That they're quote. They're definitely saved even before they've sought baptism or church membership They're they're, you know, we go on and on like that's denigrating making ourselves feel so much better for our superiority

There's just there's just so much these those other churches are doing wrong and then we have right

You know, they have their they talk about campuses and they they don't do the psalm singing They play their music too loud or maybe too quiet They go from one topical sermon to another and they have props on stage and they do dramas and stagecraft

And the reform knows so much better than all of that And even if there's only a handful of us, you know the frozen chosen

Well the warmth of our being right Well, that just gives us the glow of triumph, doesn't it?

It's kind of like the marines You know the few the proud We've stormed the beaches of ignorance.

We've climbed the mountains of orthodoxy and now we can sit on top and shout only

Shout silently to ourselves in our smug self -assurance We are right

Well, there's a problem with being right You can get puffed up Smart aleks are usually called smart

Because they're they're usually right and even if they aren't right They they think they are and that thought makes them that arrogant and arrogance is pride, which is self -reliance

Self -glorying We can know our theology and church history So well that we know that one of the rallying cries of the reformation is solidea gloria

And we probably even know what those latin words mean. We're so smart And we feel so and we and we're so aware that we're so smart, you know glory to god alone

But even as we say it We feel so proud of ourselves For belonging to a movement committed to glorifying god alone that even those latin phrases

So proud of ourselves for for knowing that we should do everything for the glory of god

Not like those other simpletons out there so proud of ourselves That that that we know so proud that we know that we should be glorifying god alone that we glorify ourselves

For saying it All the irony of being a smart aleck because it's a pretty dumb thing to be

Here in this passage the lord jesus encounters some smart alecks Right.

It's a group of men who are very proud of what they believed Of their theology of their superior education that they weren't like those other simpletons

Who were superstitious who believed in old wives tales about people rising from the dead? They had likely learned the best of the philosophy from greece they practiced the law of israel

They knew their stuff and they were sure they were right. They were called sadducees

Now we don't hear nearly as much about them as we do about the pharisees because the pharisees were the popular leaders

They were out there among the people they were strict and they were simple They were forceful and there were many of them out there and the pharisees appealed to those common people

And so jesus was running into them Constantly wherever he was teaching but now the lord jesus here in this passage

He is in the temple itself and most of the priests at the temple belong to that rare elite group the sadducees

These were the educated men Some of them been even trained in greek philosophy and open to roman culture

They were like the herodians we talked about last week. They were Collaborationist that is they collaborated with rome they believed in working with them and as as um as And as well, they should why not work with them because the the romans let them have their privileges as priests

They let them keep that high status and their high income so they you know, you scratch my back i'll scratch yours

So they were working Hand in hand with the romans. These were the elite if the pharisees were simple fundamentalists, you know thumping their bibles

The sadducees were the were the college professors, you know progressive sophisticated

Cosmopolitan open to new ideas and ways foreign things realistic and this worldly And they were very proud of themselves

And now after the pharisees have been kind of shot down Uh by by jesus and their attempt to question him now

Now come the sadducees wanting to have their turn Trying to take jesus down a peg or two

Uh, they're not so much It doesn't seem to from their question to me that they're not so much trying to have him Make him say something that has him arrested and killed like the pharisees were

But they're simply I think trying to demonstrate their superior Superiority over this simple what to them was this simple country preacher from galilee, you know

They their attitude was we're going to put this bumpkin down in his place And so the pharisees have struck out now it's the sadducees time at bat verse 23 they approached jesus

Next you notice the most it's the same day So the same thing that right after what happened we read last week with the pharisees and and apparently they're actually saying, you know

Their doctrine was they don't believe in the resurrection. Apparently. They actually were saying it there is no resurrection We're going to prove it to you.

Jesus. They were sure of that and they were sure of it Because the only part of the old testament they believed in Was the first five books of moses what's called the torah and they insisted that that torah the first five books

Did not teach the resurrection the other parts of the old testament You know that we have from after joshua on to the end of the old testament

Now they believe those books. Maybe they were devout and they believed that they were inspiring But they didn't believe that they were inspired

Uh, and so they just wouldn't accept what they said It's kind of to them those books were just history

National history they weren't doctrine word from god And so when king david says at the death of his baby in second samuel chapter 12

King david says I will go to him in the afterlife Obviously david is teaching that his son is alive somewhere even though dead in the body

Well, you know a pharisee would look at that and say see it says It's alive The sadducees just would say no, we don't they don't accept it.

That's not the pentateuch. That's not the first five books In the passage in daniel that clearly teaches the resurrection daniel chapter 12 verse 2

And many of those who asleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt

And and there are other passages in the prophets and writings in the old testament that suggest it if you showed them that they would

Say, well, they just didn't believe it. They were from their point of view. They did not regard these books as what we would call canonical

That is authoritative giving a rule to live by and are in doctrine to believe in an easy way of remembering who the sadducees are is

Maybe you heard this before in sunday school sometime. They didn't believe in the resurrection Or the afterlife and so they were sad you see

Right Now, of course the reality at least for now in this life is probably that they weren't very sad

Because you know, they were living high on the hog I guess not really on the hog because they didn't believe in eating pork, but never mind that but uh,

They just didn't believe all that other poor stuff You know the the poor desperate cobbin folk live for because they didn't feel they had to They get to live a comfortable life now.

They're running the temple. They're in places of authority. They're living Well, they're getting the ties they get to eat some of the parts of the sacrifices

So they were the high class and like a lot of people then and now

You know when life gets pretty good here Who cares about the promise?

of another life So they approach jesus in this imperious manner in verse 24

Dress him as teacher It's respectful, but you notice they lack all that Flattery that the pharisees just poured on him and for them

This is probably just the formal manners of the of the elite of the civilized people

Moses said Okay, that's all they regarded as authoritative Moses said what moses wrote first five books and then they recite a law called the leverite marriage from deuteronomy chapter 25

And how if a married man dies before having children his his brother Must marry his widow

With the firstborn child being treated as that of the deceased brother Okay, get it. It was a way of keeping the name of the dead man alive

So his brother bothers the child but is regarded as the child of the of the first man Uh, the first husband of the woman and so they they state the law

And they believe that that they believe the sadducees they would believe that law. Okay, they're not questioning that law

They believed it they upheld it This is and they say this is god's teaching and what they're going to try to show with that law

Is that it makes? the idea of the resurrection impossible Okay, that's their setup.

And so they give a case study to show how ludicrous Is the idea of the resurrection?

So they go into this a husband a woman Has seven husbands not at the same time one after another right all from the same family seven brothers

They all died before she could have any children Now the police probably need to check what she's putting in their dinner.

Okay, there's something fishy going on here But anyway besides that so when the debt and so their question is when the dead are raised they got to go.

Yeah, right And we have this so -called resurrection life

Whose wife will she be? If it's a perfect life She's got to have a husband all right

You got to have that and I guess the husband wants a wife the husbands do all seven of them so which of the brothers

Gets to be married in the resurrected world Which are the seven? Now you can't say well, it's the one from the best family because they all come from the same family

You can't say it's uh, the one who gave her the most children because none of them gave her any And so they are all equal

How do you choose which one gets her? And then they probably snickering Got it

Now matthew here records notice how he records their full question Although it's really very easy to abbreviate this question put it more concisely

He could have just said if a woman has more than one husband with no children Which one is married to her in the resurrection, right?

I couldn't say it in one sentence But instead matthew fills verses 25 to 28

With the full details of that elaborate question, you know, all seven brothers that wouldn't two have been sufficient

Uh enough enough to make the point now he does that not because he didn't know how to Condense things he does he condenses a lot of things.

Uh, he does that to give us a taste of their Imperiousness, you know their their arrogant self -assured

Superiority, I mean can't you just reading those verses 25 20? Can't you just feel? Kind of the smart elegy attitude kind of seeping through the pages still 2 000 years later

Is that man these guys are so arrogant they go on so long about this question Now at this point the sad you see it's probably, you know snickering guffawing to themselves trying to suppress a self -satisfied grin

I like the pharisees question before and this is What what happened? This is not a serious question. It was a uh, it was a gotcha question

And uh, and they are just about to probably just about to give each other high fives for trumping yet another hick preacher when the lord jesus replies

Jesus reply comes in three parts Okay, first there's the rebuke

Then the reality and then the resurrection Now just as with the pharisees he exposes them right out of the gate

Right first thing he comments last week to the pharisees. It was hypocrites Here in verse 29

It's kind of it's a blunt shock To everything they assumed about themselves you are wrong

The one thing that these smart alecks were sure of Was that they were right. I mean he just bluntly says you

Are wrong. It was a frontal assault on exactly what they were most proud of their rightness

But so he begins with that right out of the gate and then he digs even deeper you are wrong

Because you do not know Superior knowledge was what they prided themselves on Right at the spot that they feel most proud of And if we just want to Manipulate people that's our goal

Getting from them. Whatever thing we want. Maybe we want to Get them to sell something or buy something

We're selling get our buy our product or maybe we just want to get them to believe that we're not a real threat to them

So they don't Threaten us But jesus isn't here trying to sell furniture from his carpenter shop

He's exposing Their spiritual problem and the problem with smart alecks people are so full of their sense of rightness

Is that they look down their noses at everyone else in their pride and that's the cancerous tumor

That is eating away at them and there's there's no way to heal them spiritually

But to identify that pride You have to go right

At it if you don't Okay, you you you just try to go around it.

You try to leave it be you you just try to manipulate them into to buying your product even if your product is

Is baptism or church membership or just religious respectability?

You might close the deal You might make the sale you might win them over without dealing with their pride

And they might agree to come down an aisle and get baptized or even join the church and or maybe even go into the ministry

And so they can be called doctor or reverend But if you don't deal with their pride once they do

Now they are our Sadducees And we'll be sad you see

Just as jesus exposed the fraudulence of the piety of the fundamentalist preacher boys last week Now he exposes the emptiness of the elite's knowledge

They think they are so smart with their degrees on their walls and their polished articles in the leading sadducee journals

But jesus rebukes them for being wrong and wrong Because they do not know.

Oh, they may have been able to quote the leading greek philosophers And find the find the law of leverite marriage in the old testament without having to do a computer search like I did but they didn't know what they

Really need to know the scriptures and the power of god Now just as jesus, you know, he blasted the pharisees right from the start.

Why do you test me hypocrites? He strikes the sadducees Right at the heart the many were so proud of their superiority, especially their superior knowledge come to jesus with this this smug

Ridiculous question, you know, and the first thing they get is rebuke You are wrong because you you know, neither the scriptures nor the power of god

Jesus will show them that they don't know the scriptures Right from that part of the scriptures That they said they believed

But his rebuke that they didn't know the power of god Now that had to sting that had to just bewilder them

Sure, they would have professed To believe that the lord is the creator of heavens and earth

They would have said they believe that that he is el shaddai that comes from the penitent that he is god almighty

That god is omnipotent that god could do Anything they would have professed to believe it

And so the lack of knowledge that he is talking that jesus is talking about here their lack of knowledge about the power of god

Isn't that they don't have an intellectual agreement an assent to the idea?

It's not that they disagree with the doctrine of god being all powerful They would not have rejected the resurrection because They they thought that theoretically god was not capable of raising the dead now

They had to believe that god almighty Could do it What they lacked was the relational knowledge with god

That he would do it They didn't know god personally powerfully

Oh, they believed in some ideas about him now Why wouldn't they believe in those ideas? You know, it was in their best interest to believe in those ideas if they stopped believing in those ideas

Then they couldn't be a priest anymore and they would have to find a real job out there and that's just too tough So they had every reason to profess to believe but they really didn't in their hearts

Know god that he was powerful and could easily raise the dead jesus rebukes them for not knowing their bible and essentially for not knowing the powerful god

Now if the pharisees are the preacher boys Who grow up to be respectable hypocrites, you know false fearful failures flatterers and frauds

The saddishes are the elite or are the people who think they are if their pride isn't dealt with they end up being

Today kind of the ex -evangelical Who says he he used to believe but now he knows so much better That simple religion of those poor bible believing people that he was raised with somebody like Bart ehrman

Who's a professor of the university of north carolina who came from an evangelical church? But is now basically he's basically a missionary for agnosticism goes around trying to tell people

Don't believe in god Scoffing at simplistic belief in the bible. He's he's written books like one book entitled misquoting

Jesus about how supposedly the new testament just made stuff up Generations after jesus and and then they just said jesus said it

He appears to be a respectable elite scholar kind of cloaked in academia

Someone, you know, you would think knows what he's talking about But when he debated james white he's a very reliable evangelical apologist white simply ask him a simple question

I saw the video of it that you know name one scripture one scripture in the new testament that we know

Was just made up afterwards, you know, they didn't the original author didn't write it the

You know, some scribe just wrote it in He couldn't do it And when he came to danville ermine did in 2007,

I was appalled that averitt university would ask up basically a missionary for agnosticism to its campus

Unanswered you can understand if it's part of a debate, you know, somebody's answering him. So, you know both sides, but they just ask him Unanswered and went so I decided to write a letter to the danville register and be about it

And the one thing I wanted to communicate was sort of what jesus is doing here. I I think Um to the sadducees that my objection is not that you know, he has knowledge and we don't

Care about knowledge, you know kind of this attitude that we don't care about learning I we don't want to I don't want to give that that impression at all but that He doesn't know

You know, they think and ermine would think that they're superior stuff that they're the elite and so I just said

I know or know some personally and I know of Lots of scholars who are as good or better Than ermine who actually believe the bible.

I wanted people to see These scoffers like him Aren't you smart alecks?

Now, I believe that our younger generation here is going to is seeing and will see more and more

Unfortunately of such smart alecks. There's the the rise of the smart alecks going on basically right now and they'll loudly scoff and Warn at what they say is the simple -minded

Irrational belief in the bible. So beware It's coming And remember two things as they come

First there is something great About a simple not simplistic but simple trust in god's word

Because the bible tells me so So That's not being an uneducated bumpkin

It's knowing the scriptures and the power of god And I think we saw that on last wednesday night the wednesday night before last last time we met

I showed a short video some knucklehead thinking he was sophisticated teaching basically that christians don't have to pay taxes

And joe's answer to that was simple. He opened romans 13 read it and said we do

That's simple And it's profound It's great. It's right

So remember two things first have a simple trust and obedience to scripture

And know the power of god and second Don't be too impressed by the smart alecks

The rebuke is that they do not know the reality

Jesus says is that there is no marriage in the resurrection It's something they hadn't considered at all never entered into their imagination smart alecks assume things

They start out assuming that that they're so smart It's the first thing they assume but they take for granted some things they can't prove here

The sadducees just assumed that the kingdom of god the resurrection will be pretty much like this world with marriages and families

And that is the unexamined assumption of many people today You know the muslims and the mormons both believe it

There's marriage in heaven in the next life. According to them. There'll be marriages and families then if you make it

Now chinese familyism is does similarly. It's about honoring your ancestors now

Because you're going to join them later on And in the future in heaven Heaven for many people is basically just the best of this life kind of projected

On to the next life with all the bad things taken out And so if they're ideal what they think of as the best of this life

Is maybe being young and married with some nice sweet children in a comfortable home they assume that's what

Heaven is going to be like Which obviously leads you to the unusual question wait, but you want your children to stay children in heaven but maybe that's not your children's idea of heaven, so which is

You know But they don't think of that. It's all about them That's that's often and this attitude is often seeped even into the to the christian world with christians writing songs about how heaven is going to be a reuniting with deceased parents or or children and it may be true, but that's

Well go on. It's a powerful draw for many people that in heaven

You will finally have that perfect happy Family reunion

I know it's a powerful draw Oh to see him or her again but the reality is it's just not true or Be more precise.

It's not sufficient That's not what the resurrection is all about that may be part of it

But it's not even the most important thing of what it's about here Jesus tells us that the reality that marriage and so family isn't forever, there are no celestial marriages

As in mormonism heaven is not a reconstituted family marriage is

Until death do us part But death really does part us

And that should remind us Of the sort of the limits of the value Of marriage some churches today want to talk make everything about the church is all about family and all about marriage

Which is great to encourage family and marriage But there are more important things There are more eternal things

Now sure, it's an important and great thing for to have particularly for those who have a good marriage It's a training ground for how to love

To care about someone else other than ourselves all the time But once that training is done in this life

God has much greater things in store Now some people can't imagine anything greater than marriage or family

The idea so the idea of them of putting this of putting an eternal spiritual family

Which is the church over the natural family that ideal just strikes them as as bizarre

Even cultic they'll call it And that's because they made an idol out of their family

Jesus told us that his true disciples were to be willing to leave behind Father and mother and brothers and sisters and children and even wives and husbands now here he tells us why?

Because in the kingdom of god the only family there is Is the one in which god is the father and we are all brothers and sisters like the angels glorifying god

We're the bride of christ we're not married to one another we're not married to one person that is because we are attached to the lord forever

Now the kingdom of god is much more than the best of this life Now when we talk about heaven like the mormons and the muslims do and make it all about a perfect family

We vastly reduce How great it is as paul said in first corinthians chapter 2 verse 9

No eye has seen nor ear heard nor has the heart of man even imagined

What god has prepared for those who love him? and we might think

It's an ideal marriage and family because in our experience that's as close To heaven as we've ever come

But here jesus shows us that the kingdom of god is far beyond the happiest thing

That we can ever experience here Well, the sadducees just assumed that the kingdom of god was

Basically only the best of this life Had to had to offer the best this world had and it would be you know a little bit better in the next life

Uh, that was pretty much marriage. And so they assumed it would be there in the afterlife for them and like spartalex

They didn't know What they didn't know and the reality was

Was there was a lot They didn't know Well, finally there is the resurrection and in verse 31

After having basically disposed of this this gotcha question About the seven brothers jesus shows them that there is a resurrection

Because they are smart alexi, you know notice the way jesus responds. He basically rubs their nose in their ignorance

You notice that you're wrong because you do not know You know neither and then he says the way he puts it.

Have you not read? So proud of your reading. Are you you sadducees?

You're so proud that you've read so much. Have you not read? What was said to you by god?

It was originally said to moses at the burning bush But it was kind of by inheritance is now said to the priest who stand in moses's place

And it was said to you by god So, you know, you should have paid special attention to these words

It was said by god to you and he quotes from exodus chapter 3 verse 6 Not like an obscure passage out there that we don't normally read like the leverite marriage

Very important. This is moses at the burning bush, right charles at heston. You've seen the movie.

This is important passage and jesus quotes from it I am I am the god of abraham and the god of isaac and the god of jacob

They had probably they had probably read or heard those words A thousand or thousands of times

And they're so smart, right? There's nothing they can't know about that passage and jesus proves them wrong with one simple sentence

He's not the god of the dead but of the living Astonishing He's just left these these intellectual elite

Snickering at this what they think is a simpleton preacher from galilee When they went out they thought they could easily humiliate with their gotcha question

He's left them humiliated in one sentence of course when god describes himself as as being

I am Present tense the god of abraham isaac and jacob.

It wouldn't be true Unless he was at that moment speaking bush, you know 400 years after Those three men had lived

It wouldn't be true Unless they were still alive A man can't be a father without children a king

Can't be a king without subjects And so god could not describe himself presently now

As being the god of people who no longer exists If the what the sadducees believe is true so Since that's the way he talks.

I am Their god they must still be living If he's now their god

Since they are alive Well, they're not going to just be spirits Unclothed by a body forever.

They will be raised up and jesus here Who they thought was this country bumpkin who they were going to humiliate

In less than a week from this time He will be the first born from the dead he is

Raised up in the body Delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification

The sadducees did not know Who they were speaking to the resurrection and the life

Astonishing You know the bystanders Even probably most of whom would have believed in the resurrection.

They're probably stumped by the sadducees question thinking Okay, they got him. I don't know how he's going to get out of this and so they're astonished

How he how he humiliated the smart alecks, you know, i'm something of a smart aleck myself

Too proud of my abilities and knowledge and not knowledgeable enough about my limitations.

I'll probably make a great Sadducee In september of 1996 at about 2 a .m

Uh in in northern illinois, I sat behind The wheel of my park white hyundai accent while working as a security guard at this apartment complex watching the parking lot

Uh, and I wrote an essay pen and paper reflecting on the birth of Micah who had come about six months before and pre -joshua days

And I said I said earlier That I know that it's a powerful draw to project onto heaven all our hopes and ideals

For this life and I do know that I began that essay with first line

You should see your little brother micah He is without doubt the most beautiful creature alive

The essay is written as if a letter To the child that we had lost two and a half years earlier in ethiopia

As a midterm as a mid midterm second trimester miscarriage whom we later named anastasia

She was about 20 weeks along At about two in the morning. I wrote

Forgive me anastasia for not having the faith of king. David When his newborn child was cursed with sickness he prayed and fasted for god's mercy

When the child died david's servant Servants were too afraid the king would be overwhelmed with grief to tell him the news

But after david discovered his child was dead. He let go The child is in god's hands. He said

I will go to him He will not come to me I'm, sorry that i'm not shared that kind of faith.

Oh, yes, I believe in heaven. I believe when there cannot be a now There will be a later I believe that somehow when that later comes it will be sufficient

At about three in the morning. I ended that essay with This one thing you have taught us he's alive and he's with us

I will come to you anastasia Micah is our gift for now Later, you will get to see him and then

Then we will know how all can be sufficient Anastasia is a greek name.