Bodies In Heaven (Part 1)

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Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Avendroff.

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Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures verse by verse with No Compromise.

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Let's turn our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 15 this morning to answer this question. Can a body of a

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Christian laying there in the grave after you die be changed and go to heaven?

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You mean to tell me that the body that's in the tomb, rotting, corrupting, decaying, that's going to be the body that's raised on the resurrection day that you'll get?

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It's fascinating. Paul's going to deal with that very issue. I read in Newsweek magazine in 2010, when it was still a magazine, no more print as of this week

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I think, Lisa Miller wrote an article called Heaven, Our Enduring Fascination with the

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Afterlife. And here's what she said, everyone who thinks about heaven today, believer or unbeliever, thinks that there's going to be a body in heaven.

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Unbelievers, if you ask them about heaven, they'll say, if I believe in heaven there's going to be a body.

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For instance, she says, some people say, I want to lay my head on Grandma Lucy's lap. That's what

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I want to do in heaven. And when they say that, they realize there has to be a body in heaven.

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Someone else said, I want to shell field peas with Fanny Bell and listen to Schubert with Earl.

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Embodiment in heaven, people seem to understand that. Although recently, 26 % of people polled believe that there's bodies in heaven.

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Seventy -four percent of people don't think there's a body in heaven. And as people's view of there's no body in heaven increases, so too does cremation.

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Did you know cremation's up? And one Boston University professor believes that the rise in cremation is linked to a growing disregard of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body.

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What about you? Will there be a resurrection? What will the resurrection body look like?

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Will I recognize my loved ones in heaven? We need a resurrected body.

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Christians get sick too. Christians get older. Christians' bodies decay. Christians die.

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Will there be a resurrected body? Paul's going to answer that. I could ask it this way, how relevant is a resurrection?

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Come on, I need news that I could use. I need practical stuff. I need to know exactly what to do.

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And Paul for 58 verses in 1 Corinthians 15 says this is going to get very practical. It's practical because we were raised,

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Christ was raised for our justification, Romans 4. It's going to be practical when you have to bury a loved one.

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And it's going to be practical right now. What about the bodies? Now, if you look at verse 12 of 1

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Corinthians chapter 15, this was what was going on at Corinth, and this is why

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Paul was addressing not just Jesus' resurrection from the dead after his substitutionary sin bearing, but people are saying there's no resurrection of the dead for our bodies.

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They're like Sadducees. Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there's no resurrection of the dead?

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And what they were doing is saying this. They look in the grave and when you see a dead body, how can you say to yourself that body is going to be now in heaven?

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That body's gross, that body's defiled, that body's ugly, that body's cold, that body's hard. You mean to tell me that's the body you're getting in heaven?

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This is a foolish thing according to these people. What's going on with the body? People ask these questions all the time.

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I even read in rabbinic literature this week, Queen Cleopatra wrote to Rabbi Meir and said, are we going to rise naked or are we going to rise in our clothes?

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What's going to go on with the body? I did find his answer interesting. He said, if you are put into the ground with your clothes, then you'll be raised in your clothes.

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Now it doesn't take very long for you to say to yourself if you've ever been to a funeral in light of what happens to a decomposing body, how could that be fit for heaven?

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I'm sure it's my job, but I go to more funerals than the average person and to walk in with a young widowed lady and walk up to the casket expecting to see the dead body that's, you know, at least with a little makeup and looking okay as far as dead bodies go to walk up and then see some large man scrunched inside of a cardboard casket jammed in because he's too big and the funeral home's too cheap and then to look at the wife and then what am

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I to say? Oh, it's okay. He looks better now.

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He's in a better place. I need something to say to that person, not made up, but what happens to that body?

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And when you go to grandma's funeral and she's a Christian and you stand there with all the kids and they're looking at you, what do you say to those kids?

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Friends, I think that's fairly relevant for this world. I think it's very important for us to know.

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Now Paul's writing this passage and the whole context is the people that he's writing to, they've got this bad thought and here's the bad thought that the body is bad and the soul's good.

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So with that thinking, how can that bad body that's dead now make it to heaven? Rotted body goes to heaven.

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Well, if it does go to heaven, what kind of body will it be? Can God really make life out of death?

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That's exactly what happens. Let's take a look at verse 35 and then we'll see the outline. First there'll be the setup, then it'll be the outline.

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How can a resurrection occur? Verse 35, but someone will ask, probably the same someone of verse 12.

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Someone will ask, how are the dead raised? And what kind of body do they come?

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Some people who are not, I just would like to know, I think there's a website called gotanswers .com

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or something close. It's a Christian website and do you like answers to questions like this? If you'd like to know what about the body, it's fine because I know you sitting here are saying to yourself, whatever scripture teaches,

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I believe. This is not a mocking question. This is not a, you know what, I'm going to try to trick

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Jesus question. You know this lady, she's married a bunch of times. She gets to heaven, who's her husband? Trying to trick

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Jesus. What about this tax? Trying to trick Jesus. We're not trying to do that, but these people were.

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They're trying to trick Jesus. And so what does Paul, I'm trying to trick Paul. What does Paul say in verse 36?

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Well, that's a nice question. I'll use that for Bible trivia in years to come. These people believe like the philosophers that the hope of the resurrection is the hope of swine.

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This can't be. These questions that they're asking have answers built into them.

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This can't be. And so what does Paul say? You foolish person. Now, for us, if we'd like to ask the question, how can you go over to the compost pile and then life can come out of that?

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Well, that's a fair question for us if we're asking in faith, if we're not trying to make some conundrum to God and mock him.

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Remember Paul's words at Athens? The times of ignorance God overlooked.

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But now he commands all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.

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And of this, he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some, what, mocked.

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But others said, we'll hear you again. And some men joined him and believed.

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They believed. How can there be immortality of the body, the soul we get?

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Now, I've talked to somebody this week about this, and they said, this is easy. God's all -powerful, God's almighty,

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God creates with a word. Of course, God can take all the atoms, and the molecules, and the dust, and the ashes of someone who was cremated and put them all back together again.

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That's no problem for God. And the answer is, that's true. That's no problem for God. What's the song?

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I sing the mighty power of God that made the, what, mountains rise.

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I think we're going to sing that song at the end of the service, and we're going to change the word. I sing the mighty power of God that make the bodies rise.

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How can you take the dead body and say, get up, change it, make it fit for heaven?

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Well, if you believe that there's an all -powerful God, then you realize what is vile, what is corrupt, what is ceremoniously unclean,

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God can make alive. Now, I promised myself that I wouldn't try to do a gross out this morning, so I won't really try to do that.

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But just to say, if you study what happens to a corpse, you'll easily become grossed out.

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If you seal up the course in a hermetically sealed casket, airtight, nothing can get in.

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There are still enough bacteria that are in our intestines that will stay alive after we die to eat us from the inside out.

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Enzymes from broken down cells do their job. I will read this because it's not that gross, at least to me.

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But within a year, all that is usually left is the skeleton, the teeth, and traces of tissues on them.

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It takes 40 to 50 years for the bones to become dry and brittle in a coffin. How can you take this body that's corrupt and then make it fit for heaven?

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Now, Roger Williams, we know Roger Williams, forget the zoo part. Roger Williams, Baptist, evangelist, the

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Indians, founder of Rhode Island. He was a wonderful saint of God, used by God through the glory of God and the grace of God.

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He was a wonderful preacher, a hero of the faith, if you will. They didn't really give him a good burial.

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So they thought, you know what? Let's dig him up and give him a good burial. Now, some people like to dig up old reformers to burn them because they weren't burned alive at their homegoing.

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

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You all look awake right now. That is going to be changed and then fit to glorify the

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Lord worthy as the lamb that was slain. To get a body to be in heaven, there's Jesus in the glorified body, and then now that, and then this, how can that be?

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Well, for us who believe in the power of God, it's not that amazing, but Paul's trying to answer the questions. And so let me give you, for our outline today,

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Paul has four glorious resurrection facts. We'll get through three of them. But in Paul's account, verses 35 through 49, four glorious resurrection facts designed to answer your questions about the body so that you'll praise the

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Lord who rose from the dead. So you'll sing the mighty power of God that makes bodies rise.

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Fact one, your resurrection body will have some relationship to your current body, verses 36 through 38.

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Your resurrection body will have some relation to your current body. And now Paul does what he does in such a wonderful way.

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He uses an analogy of seeds. It says in verse 36, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

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Now, think about this for a second. We grow up in our culture now never amazed, at least

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I was never amazed as a kid, you put a dry, dead seed in the ground in a little glass full of dirt on your window sill, and you add a little water and a little warmth, and out comes what?

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Out of the dead, dry seed, out comes life. Now, we just take that for granted now, that God uses something that's dead, and dull, and dry, and gray, and lifeless, and you put it in there, and all of a sudden, germination.

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That's pretty amazing, germination. Who comes up with that? I mean, now we just say, let's get a little chia pet, slap on some little seed, put some water on, and it's like a joke, little chia animals growing by your sink.

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Everyone who's laughing has had one of those. Cheer. Paul says, let's just think about this.

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Dead seed goes in the ground, live plant comes out. Dead body goes into the ground.

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It shouldn't surprise us that out of the dead body, God can make a live body. There's a continuation principle here.

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God is at work. Resurrection is not without parallels, in other word. Body disintegrates, life comes forth out of death.

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And take a look at the passage, if you will, please. Verse 36, what you sow does not come to life.

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Come to life. Passive, it doesn't do it itself, something is acting upon it. Who here has

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King James Version? Well, I know you do at home, probably, or on your computer, but in front of you, it's quickened.

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It's quickened, it's made alive. God quickens us when it comes to salvation, Colossians chapter 2.

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God makes us alive, Ephesians chapter 2. God makes alive monergistically, God alone working for our salvation.

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And he does the same thing, and he's built it into the principle of nature, where dead seeds germinate, acted upon by outside source.

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Seeds got to die before it's alive. God affects this transition between seed and plant.

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Wonderfully, creatively, it can happen. All the details, we don't know.

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Seeds got to go into the ground dead, and then who would ever think, I'm going to bury a dead seed and out will come life.

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That's amazing. I sow the seed, I bury the body, and God makes alive the plant,

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God makes alive the body. Who would ever guess? Verse 37, 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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When you want to plant watermelon in the spring, you go buy 60 watermelons, and you bury the big watermelons.

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You want to plant pumpkins, you plant whole pumpkins. You want to plant corn, you have to plant full ears of corn.

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No, you're all going like this, and you go, I shouldn't be doing that. No, you get a little seed, and then out comes an ear of corn.

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Plant a kernel, get an ear. It's pretty good. Finley said, the grain of wheat gives to the eye no more promise of the body to spring from it than a grain of sand.

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What's the difference? I put a piece of a rock in the dirt, thinks a life's going to come out of that?

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There's no difference between a rock and a seed except for what God has done. And the neat thing about it is, there's continuity between seed and plant.

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There's continuity between kernel of corn and cob of corn. There's continuity between watermelon seed.

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I know kids don't know what those are anymore. There's no seeds in watermelon, practically. And the watermelon itself, there's continuity.

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Difference, greatness, vitality, aliveness, but continuity. Dead planted, live out.

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Say, well, you know what? Decomposing bodies, that's a hindrance to resurrection.

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No. Verse 38, look at the sovereignty of God.

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You can't run from it. God's sovereign in salvation. He's sovereign over everything else. And as soon as you bend your knee to the ultimate sovereignty of God, the better it is, including even for the topic like this.

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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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God wills divine agency, sovereignty of God, not in salvation only, but also in this.

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Transformation, glorification, divine oversight over the whole thing. Plants don't rise on their own.

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Bodies don't rise on their own. God raises them. Evolution can't explain this.

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God does it. Not identical, but related. So I ask you the question. Can you recognize your loved ones in heaven one day?

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Well, you know who they will be? Well, they saw Moses and Elijah on the

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Mount of Transfiguration. They recognized them. But better than that, listen to Matthew 26.

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And listen for the words, I and you, for continuity of person. Jesus on earth said in Matthew 26,

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I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when

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I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. I with you, continuity of person.

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You're going to recognize your loved ones when they get a new body. They'll be different because they'll be glorified, but there'll be a relationship there, a continuity.

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I think that's going to be exciting. I'd hate to get to heaven and after a billion years of worshiping

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Jesus, trying to figure out, well, which one of you is my mother? Are you my mother? That would be a bad heaven.

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How could God do this? Body dead in the ground, then new life?

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It's glorious. Fact number two found in verses 39 to 42. Not only will your body have some relationship to your old body, but your resurrection body, number two, follows creation differences.

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Verses 39 to 42, your resurrection body follows creation differences. This is just Paul's outline here.

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This isn't my outline. This is the second analogy, and we're moving from planting seeds to flesh, fish flesh, human flesh, bird flesh.

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Verse 39, there's all kinds of different kinds of flesh. Of course, there could be resurrected flesh because there's all kinds of flesh, for not all flesh is the same.

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There's one kind for humans, another kind for animals, another kind for birds, and another for fish.

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Differences in flesh. Wide variety of differences in the plant world, yes.

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Wide variety in the bird world, yes. Wide variety in the animal world, yes. Wide variety in the human realm, yes.

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Body now on earth, dead body in the ground, living body in heaven. There's differences.

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That's all Paul is trying to say. Can't God give resurrected bodies? Of course.

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There's a dissimilarity between men and animals, and there's a dissimilarity between our old bodies that are dead in the ground and our bodies in the heavenly.

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Speaking of which, look at verses 40 and 41. You're going to see several times, there's five in the original language, the word glory.

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See if you can spot them when I read verses 40 and 41, different kinds of glory. Glory, glory, glory.

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There are heavenly bodies, verse 40, and earthly bodies. The glory of the heavenly is of one kind. The glory of the other, excuse me, the glory of the earthly is of another.

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There's one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, for stars differ from star.

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Star differs from star in glory. Now, we have a complex body right now, an amazing body that is like God's image.

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We are image bearers, and our body is pretty amazing. You can even watch on PBS, can't you?

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Evolutionary kind of shows that just teach you about how complex the body is. Glorious. Cut yourself, if your blood is any thinner, you bleed out.

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If your blood is any thicker, your heart can't pump it. White blood cells, antibodies, all these kind of things, circulatory system.

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It's amazing. Can you imagine you eat some food and then your body absorbs the nourishment? It's a fascinating thing.

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That's pretty glorious to think, human bodies, glorious. I'm telling you, when you see a baby being born and then they hand you that baby, what do you say?

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Well, there's different kinds of flesh, Hannibal Fleshberg. No, you go like, that is amazing. That is amazing.

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I can't believe that. This is even making me forget that the nurses act like I'm just in trouble for getting my wife pregnant, like I'm not even supposed to be in the room.

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This baby makes up for all that. Talk about reverse sexism, you'll find it in labor and delivery, but that's another story.

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You go, this is glorious, the baby, my baby. Well, there's different levels of glory.

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We are gloriously made, fallen, I know, but there's more glory in heaven, a glorious heavenly body.

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Different degrees of glory, that's all Paul is saying. The sun's got more glory than the moon, and a glorified body will have more glory than an old body, especially the one that's in the tomb.

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Splendor, indescribable glorified body. Resurrection body is not just some dead corpse.

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It's made alive, perfectly fit for heaven. Fact three, in verses 42 through 44, third glorious resurrection fact, your resurrection body will be better than your current body.

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Verses 42 through 44, in my notes, I wrote W -O -O -H -O -O. Woo -hoo,

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Tom said amen, he made it more holy. Your resurrection body is going to be better.

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Now, all the young people, they don't really care too much because you're young. I tried 11 font, 12 font, 13 font, now they're reading glasses, reading glasses on, off, now they're just on.

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Bad backs, cancer in our church, recent deaths in our church, sickness in our church, we're gonna get a better body.

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Perfectly designed for heaven. Paul says first, though, to kind of introduce us, verse 42, so it is.

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See, there's the topic, all this glory stuff and relationship and continuity at different, so it is with the resurrection of the dead.

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We're talking about bodies, so it is with the resurrection of the dead.

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It's the same thing, it's gonna be a radical difference of glory. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 AM and Sunday evenings at 6

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PM. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org

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or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff, or management.