R.C. Sproul

If you use your imagination and try to conjure up the greatest possible experience that you would have in heaven, once you reach the pinnacle of that imagination, multiply it by a million times, and you still won't have reached what God is preparing for His people.

We're going to turn our attention now once again to the gospel according to Saint Mark.

I will be reading from chapter 12 beginning at verse 18 and reading through verse 27.

And then some Sadducees who say there is no resurrection came to him

And they asked Him, saying, "'Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man's brother dies and leaves his wife behind and leaves no children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.'

Now there were seven brothers."

The first took a wife, and dying he left no offspring, and the second took her, and he died, nor did he leave any offspring, and the third likewise, so that the seven had her and left no offspring.

And last of all, the woman died also.

Therefore in the resurrection when they rise, whose wife will she be?

For all seven had her as wife."

Jesus answered and said to them, Are you not therefore mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures, nor the power of God?

For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

But concerning the dead…

that they rise.

Have you not read in the book of Moses in the burning bush passage how God spoke to him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?

He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.

You are therefore greatly mistaken."

When we looked the last time at the confrontation that Jesus had with the Pharisees and Herodians, I mentioned that chapter 12 gives to us three episodes of encounters that Jesus had with various groups that were present in that day.

each of which had their own agenda, and each of which came to Jesus trying to trap Him and impale Him on the horns of a dilemma.

The Pharisees raised the issue of paying taxes to Caesar, hoping that Jesus would either get Himself in trouble with the government or with the people.