Eschatology 02 - Resurrection

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It's interesting that this week in our study of Genesis on Sunday we're going to be looking at that line of the promised seed which is seen from Adam to Noah and then of course through Christ.
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Would you pass these for me? There should be enough for everyone to have one.
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We have handouts on Wednesday night that we use for our theology class and so these will help you.
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If you've been here for the last two years going through this class and you have all the handouts when the class is all done and you show me that you have all the handouts I will give you a cookie.
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I would be really impressed though as we've been doing this class for a long time.
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We've been for two years going now into our final section which is the study of eschatology that is the study of last things sometimes referred to as the study of the end times but it's not just the study of end times.
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That's the point I made last week is that when we talk about eschatology we're talking first about last things and one of the last things that we have to consider are the end times but the first thing that we have to consider in regard to eschatology is that all of us have a last day that is coming and therefore all of us live in our own personal end times all the time.
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Within a hundred years none of us will still be alive.
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I mean unless some miracle happens and there's some new longevity elixir that comes out and allows us to live past 150 years old but I don't think that's going to happen.
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It hasn't happened yet.
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I don't think it's going to happen.
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The only time when there was lifetimes that expansive was prior to the flood.
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We're going to talk about that this Sunday as well.
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So last week we looked at what is typically referred to as the intermediate state and I want to just really quickly remind you what that is.
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There is a point at which you will die.
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You will go into the ground.
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So this is your death, your own personal eschaton or your own personal end times, your own personal last day and then there is the time of the resurrection and in between your death and resurrection is what we refer to as the intermediate state.
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We discussed last week that we believe that the Bible teaches that you are conscious in that intermediate state, that you are present with the Lord therefore when you die here you don't go into the ground and simply sleep until the resurrection but that you are conscious.
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Your spirit leaves your body.
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You are with the Lord in an immaterial sense until the resurrection and tonight we are going to deal with the resurrection.
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We are going to deal with what happens at the last day when the intermediate state is concluded and we enter into our eternal state, our final state if you will.
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Thus we are going to look at the resurrection of the body.
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Turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 15 and we are going to read verses 35 to 44.
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This is probably the most expansive, certainly one of the most detailed explanations of the eternal state in all of the Bible or rather the eternal state, the final resurrection of the body.
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If you will remember the Apostle Paul begins chapter 15 by giving an explanation of the gospel which he explains is the death, burial and resurrection of Christ and it goes on to say without the resurrection then there would be no good news for if Jesus is still dead, if he is still in the ground, if he has not raised then we above all men are most to be pitied.
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Paul tells us that.
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There is really no reason to have faith in Jesus if he is still dead.
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Paul says that, that is not me, that is Paul saying that about Christ.
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There would be no reason to trust in him if he were still in the ground but he is not.
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He says he has been raised.
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Now beginning at verse 35 he expands that out to our resurrection.
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But someone will ask how are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? You foolish person, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies and what you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare kernel perhaps of wheat or of some other grain but God gives it a body as he has chosen and to each kind of seed its own body for not all flesh is the same but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds and another for fish.
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There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind and the glory of the earthly is of another.
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There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars for star differs from star in glory.
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So it is with the resurrection of the dead.
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What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable.
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It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory, it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power, it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
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If there is a natural body there is also a spiritual body.
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We're going to end there at verse 44 and may God add his blessing to the reading of his holy word.
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Now let's talk about this.
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Paul is describing here not what happens at death but what happens at the final resurrection.
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We have certain scriptures which describe the resurrection to us.
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First Thessalonians 4 tells us that the Lord will descend from heaven with a shout and with the trumpet of God and the archangel, cry of the archangel and the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will do what? Will rise first.
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And those who are alive will be caught up together with him in the clouds so to forever be with the Lord.
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There was once a painting of a cemetery and all the cemeteries had overturned headstones and opened graves and the title of the painting was The Great Gettin' Up Morning.
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Have I told you about that before? The Great Gettin' Up Morning? Anyway you get what it's talking about though.
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Basically the day that everybody gets up out of the grave and ascends into heaven.
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Now the one issue I would take with the painting is I don't think that God's got to dig a hole.
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I don't think that necessarily there has to be overturned dirt or I think we will like Enoch, which I'm studying of course this week to prepare to preach for Sunday, Enoch was translated to heaven without the need of any form of physical, you know, God didn't have to, it wasn't like Star Trek, you know, he simply was, he simply assumed him into heaven and I think God's not going to have to do anything special to open up our graves.
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It was just going to go.
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How it's going to work, where and how it's going to happen, I don't know.
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But we do know that someone is here.
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I think I just saw somebody walk by the window.
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Hey brother, come on in.
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It's alright.
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No, it's alright.
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Have a seat.
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So anyhow, the Great Gettin' Up Morning, that's the day of the resurrection, that's the day we all look forward to, right? None of us looks forward to the day of our death probably, we're a little apprehensive about that, but we do look forward to the day that we'll be with the Lord.
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Now we know that our spirits will be with the Lord in the intermediate state, but there's a final day coming where we will forever be with the Lord in our eternal state.
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And so what we have, beginning at verse 35 here, is Paul dealing with some questions and the outline of tonight is simple.
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We have the questions, the illustrations, and then the principle.
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And that's what I'm going to explain to you, the questions, the illustrations, and the principle.
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I think there's one more on your outline, isn't there? The response.
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Yeah, the question, the response, the illustrations, and continuity and discontinuity.
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That's right.
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Sorry, your handout looks different than mine.
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Mine has my notes on it.
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So let's look first at the questions.
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Verse 35.
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It says, Someone will ask, How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? Alright, so that's verse 35.
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Let me ask the question.
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Who's asking that question? Paul doesn't tell us.
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He says, Somebody will ask, How are the dead raised? Paul has been dealing with an imaginary opponent throughout this chapter.
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The imaginary opponent is the person who denies the resurrection.
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And so Paul has said, We have to believe in the resurrection because Jesus was raised.
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And if we don't believe in the resurrection, then we can't believe in the resurrection of Jesus.
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Therefore, the Christian faith would be a farce.
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We must believe in the resurrection.
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But someone will ask, and this is verse 35, How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come? So Paul is asking, like a good rhetorical speaker, he's asking the question that he's about to answer.
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He's assuming what the audience is thinking and preparing to answer a question that he assumes they are asking.
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And the question is, How are the dead raised? And I want to mention something about that.
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It is not necessarily ungodly to have questions, especially about death.
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It's one thing to have questions.
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It's another thing to question God.
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There is a difference, and I think we all understand the difference.
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But in regard to this, I do think that there are questions, and I've been asked tons of questions over the years about death and about the afterlife, and I don't always know all the answers.
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Questions about death and resurrection are common.
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People say, Well, what if somebody dies when they're very old? Are they still going to be old at the resurrection? What if somebody dies missing a limb or having some other deformity? Will they still have that deformity in the resurrection? I think our answer is probably no, but I'm saying these are questions people have.
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What about the scars? I have certain scars on my body.
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I fell into a lake when I was about eight years old, and I have a scar about eight inches up the side of my leg that I've kept since I was a little boy.
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And that, I don't know, because I know this.
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Jesus carried some scars into eternity.
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He told Thomas, He said, See the scars in my hands.
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That's how we knew it was him, you know, the scar on my side.
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Now I don't think necessarily that we can compare ourselves to Christ in that, but again, these are questions people have.
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This is how questions come and how questions are asked and how they're answered.
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What if I'm disintegrated in an accident? What if I'm exploded or burned up? Does that matter? Does that keep God from being able to raise me? That's a big question in regard to cremation, right? Because what is cremation? It's the burning up of the remains, which I want to give just a personal thought on that.
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A lot of people are being cremated now.
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Financial reasons and lack of real estate and all kinds, there's all kinds of reasons people are being cremated now.
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That has never been the tradition of the Christian faith.
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The Christian faith has always been burial, not cremation.
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But that doesn't mean it's wrong, because all cremation necessarily does is speed up the process that's going to happen naturally if you go on the ground anyway, the speeding up of the decay process.
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However, I don't want to be cremated personally, but that's just my wife and I want to be buried next to one another.
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That's our wishes.
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In this case, anybody wonders what my particular desire is.
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But in regard to...
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Do you need to face the east? No, I don't need to face the east, but I do want a Jewish burial, just in case anybody ever asks.
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If you're still here and I go first, you know what that means? You know what the Jewish burial is? You want bagels? There's no...
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No, I don't want bagels and lox.
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But there's no embalming.
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It's straight into the ground, wooden casket, no embalming, no...
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Even the casket is tongue and groove.
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It's not made with metal so that everything goes back into the ground.
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I think that's more in line with historical...
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That's how everybody was buried 100 years ago.
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It's only with modern technology that we've kind of gotten into a very cryptic way of trying to preserve the body in somewhat of an unnatural way, I think.
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And now I've gone way off the subject, forgive me.
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The point is, no matter what happens to your body, that doesn't keep God from being able to raise it, doesn't keep God from being able to reconstitute it, and we're going to get to that in a moment, how and when does that happen.
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But the point is, people have questions.
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People have a ton of questions.
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What about babies? Are babies still going to be babies in heaven? That's a question people have, right? My wife and I, we lost a child to miscarriage, actually lost two, and it was sad that we did.
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And so my wife often thinks about that, and will those babies be babies? And so these are all questions, right? It's not wrong to have questions.
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It's not wrong to ponder these things, but Paul is responding to two.
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How are the dead raised, and with what kind of bodies do they come? So he's dealing with two questions, and he responds to the questions.
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Beginning at verse 36, you foolish person.
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Now that may not seem like the nicest response.
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Paul is, some people think Paul's being overly harsh here.
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I don't think he's necessarily being overly harsh, especially if this is a legitimate inquiry.
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I don't think his point is to insult.
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I think it is to instruct.
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And the reason for this statement is the questions, though they are legitimate, are not wise because they are missing the point.
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And the point is, the world is filled with examples of resurrection.
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Why would you ask this question? Just look around.
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That's the reason why he says, you foolish persons.
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He's not calling them stupid, necessarily.
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He's just saying, you foolish persons, and look what he says.
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He says, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
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So he immediately goes to the example or the illustration of agriculture.
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He uses an agricultural example.
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He says, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies, and what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps, of wheat or of some other grain.
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But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed, its own body.
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And basically, his point is this.
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A seed doesn't function properly unless it's planted in the ground, and once it's planted, it begins to break down.
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It draws in nutrients, and it produces a new plant, but for that to happen, the seed essentially has to first die before it will begin to grow again.
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A seed undergoes a radical change.
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When it goes into the ground, an acorn produces an oak.
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Think about the radical nature of the change that happens.
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Recently, we moved, as you all know.
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Many of you came out to the house and saw our land, and we're excited to have a couple of acres now, and one of the things we want to do is plant a garden.
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So we invited a couple of folks that we know over to help us learn what it's going to take to plant a garden, and it looks like it's going to be a lot of work.
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So I'm a little nervous about all the work that's going to go into it.
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But one of the things that was immediately brought to my attention, Jordan Hill, one of our church members, came out and was looking.
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He says, you've got to do this.
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You've got to till the ground.
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You've got to get all the weeds out.
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You've got to get all the bad grass out of the way.
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You've got to till down and break up the dirt, and then you've got to put the seed in, and then you've got to water it, and you've got to do this.
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You've got to fertilize it, and all these different things.
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And I got to thinking, you know, this is something that happens naturally in the world, but we do it a certain way because we want a certain result.
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We don't want the weeds, and we don't want these things.
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So we're going to go about it in this thing, but what's going to happen is that little seed I put in the ground, let's say my biggest, the thing I want to grow is watermelon.
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I love watermelon.
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But when I put that seed in the ground to grow the watermelon, it's not going to stay that little seed.
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It's going to change, and it's going to morph, and it's going to become something different.
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In fact, hopefully one seed will produce a vine that will produce several watermelon, and then over and over and over it will reproduce.
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So basically, Paul's point in this is he's saying, yes, the body is going to go into the ground, but it's going to, when the resurrection comes, something greater is going to come out of the ground, sort of like the seed.
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The seed goes into the ground, and it's simple.
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It's a small seed, but what comes out of that is something greater.
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And he says, this is why he says you foolish person.
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You see resurrection all the time.
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Dead seed, living tree.
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Dead seed, living plant.
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Dead seed, the seed goes in the ground to die, but then it grows into life.
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And he says, see, this is the illustration that we have.
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The body is like a seed, and it's going to give way to something greater.
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And then he uses another example, the example of the flesh.
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This is in verse 39.
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He says, for not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.
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And you say, well, what's that about? Well, Paul is basically saying there's all kinds of flesh in the world, and we know this.
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Now, somebody may argue and say, oh, it's just different arrangements of DNA.
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But yeah, think about how that arrangement of DNA changes.
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You ever put your hands on a snake? Yeah, me neither.
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It's crazy.
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But some people do.
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And the way a snake's skin feels is much different than the way my skin feels.
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And the way my skin feels is much different than the skin of an alligator or a fish.
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And Paul is saying, you look around, and you see all these different things.
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God has infused the world with a diversity.
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And if there's diversity in the world now, why should we wonder if there's going to not be a diverse change in our resurrected body? The body that is now is not the same that will rise.
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That's the point.
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There's a diversity of flesh, and there is a risen body that is to come that is going to be different.
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Just like the acorn becomes the oak, and that's different, the body that goes into the ground is going to be different.
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This is why I don't think I'm going to have this scar on my leg.
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This is why I don't necessarily think, if I live to an old age, I don't think I'm going to come out having sore knees and elbows.
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I've done karate for 25 years.
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I got sore knees and elbows from hitting and punching and kicking and all that stuff.
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I don't know what you have as far as your particular ailments, but wouldn't it be tough to know that you're going to go into eternity feeling and looking the way you do right now? I don't think that we will, and I think that that's the point of the passage, is that there's going to be a change, and there's mortal flesh, and then there's resurrected body.
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And the resurrected body is different than the mortal flesh.
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And then he goes on to continue his example of the diversity of bodies.
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He looks, in verse 40, at celestial bodies.
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He says, there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, the glory of the earthly is of another.
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There's one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars.
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For star, difference from star and glory.
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Again, he's expressing the creative genius of God.
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We might look up at the stars and say, boy, all those stars look basically the same, but that's only to the untrained eye.
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A astrologer, or rather, astrologer, excuse me, an astronomer, astrologer, the one to try to read the stars, the astronomer can look at the stars and see the differences.
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And there are different kinds of bodies in the heavens, and there will be different kinds of bodies in glory.
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We're not all going to be the same there any more than we're all the same here.
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Right now, we are in an earthly body fit for an earthly environment.
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When we are resurrected, we will have a glorified body fit for a glorified environment.
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Now for a moment, I want to stop there and just take a moment.
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I do not believe that our eternal state is ethereal.
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I believe it is physical.
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Now let me explain what I mean by that.
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The eternal state is where we're going to live forever.
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And a lot of people have a picture of the eternal state, people sitting on clouds, strumming harps, you know, that's sort of the picture that we have, the common picture of heaven is some kind of non-physical existence.
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But if the Bible says I'm going to be raised with a new body, and it says that God is going to reconstitute a new heaven and a new earth, what is the purpose of the new earth? To give my new body a new place to live.
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I mean, really, to make it as simple as possible.
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We're going to have a new earth.
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Therefore, we talk about this body that's going to come out of the ground, this body that's going to be resurrected, this body that's going to be reconstituted, it is physical.
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How do I know that? Jesus.
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Jesus was raised from the dead.
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Jesus was raised physical.
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How do I know that? Because he said it, spirit hath not flesh and bone like I do.
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Remember, he said those very words.
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And he ate, and he had a physical presence, but it was a glorified presence.
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Remember the things that Jesus could do in his glorified body? He could appear behind closed doors, locked doors even.
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He could walk with the men on the road to Emmaus, or it could have been a man and his wife, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, he could walk with them and not be known.
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Now, we don't know how that worked, but it was something particular.
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Maybe he blinded their eyes or somehow to not see who he was.
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But we know there was something particularly new.
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And this is the thing, I want to go off the subject for a minute.
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Some people believe in something called the swoon theory.
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Do you all know what the swoon theory is? The swoon theory is that Jesus did not die on the cross.
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He simply fainted.
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And they took him off the cross too early, and they put him in the tomb.
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And when they put him in the tomb, the coldness of the tomb preserved and revived him.
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And therefore, three days later, he was able to walk out of the tomb and convince people that he had risen from the dead.
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I actually talked about this on the podcast today, because I talked about conspiracy theories.
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That's one of the oldest conspiracy theories about Christianity in the world.
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It's called the swoon theory.
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Jesus didn't die, he simply swooned or fainted on the cross, and he was put in the tomb, and he walked out.
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Here's the thing that is absolutely unconvincing about that story.
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Jesus was beaten almost to death before he was hung on the cross.
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I don't know if you've ever seen The Passion of the Christ.
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I tend to not recommend it, only because it has a lot of Catholic influence.
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A lot of people don't realize that.
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If you go back and watch it, there's a lot of Catholic things in The Passion of the Christ.
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But it does do a fairly decent job of expressing the torturous nature of scourging.
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The Bible says Jesus was scourged by the soldiers before he was hung on the cross.
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This is why he couldn't...
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The other guys carried their cross up the mountain, no problem, but Jesus fell under the weight of his cross.
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Why? Because he'd been beaten half to death.
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So they had to get Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross the rest of the way, and then hang Jesus then.
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And then he dies before the other guys.
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Now, we know why that happened, because the Bible says he gave up his spirit.
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He said, no man takes my life from me, I lay it down on my own accord.
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So there's that.
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But the reality is, Jesus' body, if he was just a man, and he weren't God in the flesh, if he were not particularly unique, and they put his beaten, bloody corpse in a tomb, three days later, ain't enough for him to look like a risen Savior.
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If all he did was wake up, because he's still going to look beaten, he's still going to look bloody, he's still going to be bruised, but he didn't look that way.
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He still kept the nail scars on his hand and the scar on his side, because that's where he told Thomas to put his hand, but he was glorified.
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He looked different.
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He looked like a risen Savior.
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And you know what the Bible tells us in 1 John? It says, when we see him as he is, we shall be like he is.
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That doesn't mean we get to be divine, but I do believe what that means is that we will have a glorified body, same as him.
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Jesus has a glorified, resurrected body, so too shall we.
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So when we get this, when Paul's talking about these different types of flesh and all this stuff, what he's basically saying is all this diversity, what you have now is not what you're going to have.
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It's going to be different.
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It's going to be different than what you have.
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And so that leads us to the fourth part of your notes.
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This is the principle of continuity and discontinuity.
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The continuity is this.
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This body will be raised.
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That's the continuity.
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It's this one.
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It's not another one.
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This body will be raised.
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But this body will also be changed.
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So even though it will be this body, it will be a renewed body.
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Does that make sense? So it's still this body, but it gets a makeover, a glorified makeover.
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So if somebody says, well, are you raised with this body or are you raised with a new body? The answer is yes.
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I mean, and not in a contradictory way.
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Yes, the answer is yes.
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We are raised.
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This body is raised, a new body.
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Just like the seed that goes in the ground is the same seed that becomes the plant.
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Still the same seed, but it changed.
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Continuity, discontinuity.
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We see that right here in the text.
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And again, when that seed becomes a plant, it's not just a bigger seed, but it's something new.
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And so this body becomes something new.
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Resurrection also is not just reconstruction.
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It's not like God just goes and finds all your pieces, puts them back together, and brings you to life like some form of the Frankenstein monster.
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You guys remember Mary Shelley's book, Frankenstein? Most of us are only familiar with the movie version of Frankenstein, but the book, that was one of the books I had to do a report on in school, so I remember a little bit of it.
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And essentially the idea was you put together the pieces of a man, you zap him with electricity, and he becomes a living being again.
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But the problem with the Frankenstein story was when he came to life, he didn't have a soul.
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So he was a creature with life, but without conscience.
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That's the whole idea of the danger of the Frankenstein monsters.
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You can bring something to life, but if it doesn't have a conscience, it's just a dangerous monster.
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So, we are not simply reconstructed, but God gives us a new body fit for a new earth.
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And this is what we see in verses 42 to 44.
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So it is with the resurrection of the dead.
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What is sown is perishable.
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What is raised is imperishable.
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It is sown in dishonor.
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It is raised in glory.
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It is sown in weakness.
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It is raised in power.
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So, Paul describes two bodies.
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He says you have your earthly body and you have your spiritual body.
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And the earthly body is sown, or buried, and the spiritual body is raised.
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And what is sown has an expiration date.
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It dies.
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It has a shelf life.
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But what is raised will not have a shelf life.
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What is sown will be subject to decay.
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But what is raised will not decay.
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When you go into your new body...
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When I was a kid, I had perfect vision.
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In fact, I had better than perfect vision.
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I went to the eye doctor.
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I wanted glasses.
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You know why I wanted glasses? Because Clark Kent wore glasses.
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I ain't lying.
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That is absolute.
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My daddy will tell you.
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Remember? I asked Dr.
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Ako for glasses because I was such a big fan of Superman.
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And I wanted to wear glasses.
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And he said, but you have...
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I had 2015 vision when I was a kid.
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Better than 2020.
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And now, if I close my left eye, you all look like a bunch of pink puddles.
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Because my right eye is no good no more.
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And I can't...
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My glasses, I keep forgetting to wear them.
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Because I do have glasses now.
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But all that is, is that is the product of the perishable.
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As good as my eyes were at 15 years old, they ain't that good no more.
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And they're only going to get worse.
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One day I won't forget my glasses at home.
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Because I won't be able to see to get out the door without them.
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So it's this perishable body will one day be imperishable.
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This decaying body will one day be glorified and beautiful.
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This weak body that keeps giving way to weakness and pain and bad knees and bad elbows and headaches.
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Will one day be given way to a powerful body.
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But notice in this text, the pronoun it.
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And again, don't want to get too much into the linguistics here.
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But notice it says, so is it with the resurrection of the dead.
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What is sown is perishable.
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What is raised is imperishable.
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It is sown in dishonor.
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It is raised in glory.
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It is sown in weakness.
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It is raised in power.
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Notice it's the same body, just renewed.
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So it's still me.
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It's still this body.
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It's just the glorified version of it.
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This is why there's an empty tomb.
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There's coming an empty tomb for me.
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And if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, there's coming an empty tomb for you.
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Even if you don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll have an empty tomb.
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Unfortunately, your body will be raised to destruction, not to life.
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But there's going to be a universal resurrection for all.
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Some raised to life unto life.
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And Revelation tells us some raised death unto death.
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Essentially, going from one experience of death to another.
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And we're going to talk about that in a few weeks when we discuss the concept of hell.
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But for now, look at verse 44.
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We'll end with this verse.
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It says, it, again, the same body, is sown a natural body.
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It is raised a spiritual body.
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If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
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That is, that is a, that Paul is making a statement, what he considers to be a factual statement based on logic.
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If there is a physical body, then there must be a spiritual body.
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That's his argument.
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And you say, well, upon what basis is he making that argument? He's writing on behalf of the Holy Spirit of God.
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I mean, he is making that argument from the point that we have body and spirit.
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He says, and if there is a natural body, which has gone through all of the decay and process and problems of this world, there's certainly going to be a glorified or spiritual body that will live on.
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And some people think the phrase spiritual body means that our bodies in heaven will be immaterial.
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I've already said I don't believe that that's true.
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And I want to quote to you from Dr.
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R.C.
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Sproul on that.
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Dr.
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R.C.
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Sproul says this, he says, Paul does not have in mind a contrast between physical and non-physical, material or immaterial.
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The resurrection body is a physical body.
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Hear that again.
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The resurrection body is a physical body, not an intangible ghost.
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The apostle here has already used the words natural and spiritual to distinguish the individual who does not have the Holy Spirit from the one who does.
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The natural person belongs to this present age.
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The spiritual person is a citizen of heaven.
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As Philippians 3.20 says, our citizenship is in heaven.
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So the new body is a body fit for a new world.
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We are in a natural world run by the natural affections of natural men.
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But the new world will be a spiritual world run by the affections of men who are under the power of the Spirit of God.
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And our body ain't ready for that.
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If you went to heaven, or you went into the new heaven, and the body that you're in, you wouldn't make it.
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Because it ain't made for that.
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You gotta be resurrected.
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Your body's gotta go on the ground, it's gotta die.
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Or, if you're alive when Jesus comes, it's gotta be changed.
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We may not all die, but we will all be changed.
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In the moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the last trumpet.
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Right? That's the point.
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We have to be changed.
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It's like my kids on Sunday morning.
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Well, I can't say this because I'm not there.
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I always leave early.
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But you all have been in a situation where you got your kids, you're getting them ready to go somewhere, maybe out to dinner, or maybe to church or something, and they come out and they're wearing their pajama bottoms on backwards, and their shirts sideways, and then nothing matches, and they're wearing two different color shoes, and you look at them and you say, no, no, no, you can't wear that, go change.
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Right? Well, that's the point.
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What we're in right now is not fit for the new heaven.
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What we're in right now is not fit for the new earth.
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It's gotta be changed.
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And that's the whole point of this passage.
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One day we will be changed.
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Bless God we'll be changed.
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I'm thankful.
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Boy, I don't want to go on like this forever.
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One day this body will go into the ground, and my spirit will be with the Lord.
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But when the final day comes and all the tombs are opened, the dead, decayed seed will be raised to a faithful new body fit for heaven.
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The lost will be given a body fit for hell.
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And I don't quite understand how that works, but that's what they're going to have.
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One will enjoy glory, the other will endure agony, but both will last forever.
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So in these last two lessons, what we've talked about is personal eschatology.
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What's our personal eschatology as Christians? We're going to die unless the Lord comes.
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Either way, we're going to be changed.
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Whether it is that we go into the ground, and our spirit is with Him, and we wait through the intermediate state until the resurrection, and at the resurrection we receive a new body, and then it is changed, or maybe, just maybe, this generation will skip that part, and the Lord will return, and we just go right from life here to life there.
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What a wonderful blessing that would be.
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Well, are you ready for it? Are you ready for your last day? Are you ready for your eschaton? That's what the last two weeks have been about.
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Your personal last days.
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Next week we begin to look at the last days of the earth.
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Next week we're going to examine the book of Revelation, and particularly our views on how that's going to work itself out in history.
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So I pray that that will be something that encourages you to come back.
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Now, we're going to take a few moments to pray together.
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So if you have something for which you would like to pray, I'd like to give you the opportunity to share that.
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But I'm going to stop the stream, because this will be a personal moment between all of us.
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Let me just stop the...
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All right.