As I said on Wednesday, there were at least four sects, or groups, among the Jews in Paul’s day.
There were the Zealots, who molded their theology into ideas about national revolution.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are attributed to the Essenes.
In Matthew 23 and elsewhere the Lord Jesus spent considerable time condemning the faith and practices of the Pharisees.
“Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.”
They either rejected or allegorized the scriptures – except for the ceremonial laws of Moses.
Unfortunately, many, if not most, of the priests in Jesus’ day were of the sect of the Sadducees.
The political and spiritual leadership of Israel, the High Priests for several generations had been Sadducees.
“In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea,
Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.
But when he saw many of the PHARISEES and SADDUCEES come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance.”
Didn’t he mean that they were filled with venom.
To be infected with the doctrines of either the Pharisees or the Sadducees, was to bring about sure spiritual death.
It isn’t just because Christ and His Apostles didn’t run into the Essenes or Zealots very often.
And it is certainly not because they didn’t possess false doctrine and didn’t need to be rebuked.
I think that the primary reason that the New Testament spends more time
these were on-going heresies which people in every generation and every culture have to face.
And they are still as dangerous and venomous.
Why is it that there is more money being spent on finding a cure for cancer than on looking for a solution to the common cold or even polio?
It’s not that polio is not a terrible disease, and it’s not because the cold is so common.
It’s because polio is no longer the threat that it once was, and colds are not as deadly as cancers.
Pharisaism and Sadduceeism are alive and well and living in the continental United States.
In fact there are parts of every human heart which yearn for both of these Satanic philosophies.
And there are parts of every Christian heart which still lean towards Pharisaism and Sadduceeism.
But it is a rare thing to find someone wants to shed every shred of the world and become a hermit for God.
It’s not godliness which tends to make Christians run away and hide.
It could be cowardice, or selfishness, or laziness, or any of a number of other sins.
Before moving on in our study of Acts, I would like us to return one more time to these Sadducees.
I’d like you to notice again WHAT IT WAS that they believed, WHAT IT DID and WHAT IT MEANS.
This is important enough for us to think about, because our world is still filled with Sadduceeism.
You not only need to BE AWARE of it, but you need to BEWARE of it.
If not for your sakes, then for the sake of your children and grandchildren.
There is no Christian, or Christian church, which is not susceptible to Sadduceeism.
I believe that it is important to believe in God.
I believe that only a fool can be an atheist.
But the man who says he knows that God doesn’t exist is claiming divine omniscience.
But at the same time, for most people who claim to believe in God, their faith is pointless.
The Romans and the Greeks believed in god – lots and lots of them.
Their gods were unholy, sensual, wicked, mean, diabolical, deified humanoids.
The faith of the Romans and Greeks in their imaginary gods was a total waste of religious energy.
The question is not whether or not someone believes in God.
and what has that faith accomplished in your soul?
“What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”
and they certainly failed to tremble.
We are specifically told about a couple of things that the Sadducees did NOT believe.
“For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both.”
Do you believe in Biblical inspiration – that the Bible is God-breathed?
It says, “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
That means that Luke’s editorial comment here in Acts 23:8 was directed by the Holy Spirit.
and then He said that the Pharisees believed in both – two things.
The Sadducees did not believe in resurrections.
A resurrection is the act of raising someone who was dead back to life.
A resurrection involves the physical body of a dead person.
For example there is the account of the resurrection of Lazarus in John 11.
He had been in the grave for three days when the Lord Jesus and His disciples arrived.
Lazarus’ sister Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.
Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.
Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Martha was not a Sadducee.
Do you know of anyone who believes this sort of thing today?
People don’t have to be atheists to believe that physical death concludes all human existence.
But they are wrong.
If there was only one example – the abundantly proven death, burial and resurrection of Lazarus of Bethany – that mistaken idea should have been washed away in the tides of time.
But Lazarus is just one bit of evidence that the statement of the Martha was correct: “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
We have testimonies and examples of resurrections throughout both the Old and New Testaments.
And because of them – “I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.”
Sadducees are people who close their eyes to such Biblical testimonies and the indisputable evidence.
Along with denying life after physical death, we aren’t surprised that they also deny everything IMMATERIAL.
Those Sadducees did not believe in the existence of angels, whether good or evil.
The 58 references to “the angel of the Lord” they attributed to Jehovah Himself.
They probably considered the 2 angels who came to Lot in Sodom as God-sent prophets of some sort.
The had explanations for the cherubim at the gate of Eden.
They had scientific and pseudo-logical explanations for all the miraculous appearances of angelic creatures which weren’t the appearance of God Himself.
and they didn’t have to explain the conversations between Jehovah and Satan in the Book of Job.
First, this meant that they didn’t believe that God exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
To them God was not a spirit, but some sort of physical being.
And neither did they believe that man was three part being: body, soul and spirit.
They believed man to be only what they saw him to be – a body of limited size, strength and duration.
Or was it that their secularism corrupted their faith?
Let’s go back to the Biblical math problem:
“For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both.”
The word “both” is looking back to their two primary tenants: their denial of physical resurrection and their denial of anything which isn’t physical.
In other words, the Sadducees were out-and-out materialists.
It was their opinion that life existed between birth and death and nothing more.
They believed the best life was the one with the most wealth, most ease, the most joy & the most pleasure.
If they were looking for some sort of Millennial or Messianic Kingdom it was completely material and which would leave them up pretty close to the top of the food chain.
So in the mean time they kept the law,
and they did their best to make sure that everyone else practiced all the rites and ceremonies that the law proscribed.
They fasted and prayed; they maintained the feasts, and they offered the sacrifices as Moses taught.
and this would provoke Him to bless them with the best that life has to offer.
they sold them all the animals that they needed – at a reasonable profit.
In fact that was a part of their belief system.
They lived for the moment; they lived for the flesh; they had no thoughts or concerns for eternity.
Does this sound at all familiar?
Isn’t this the society in which we live?
I leave for church pretty early on Sunday mornings. I try to be out the door by around 9:00 am.
In the last 50 Sundays, I don’t believe that I have seen more than two families on my block getting in their vehicles wearing their good Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes.
But I can tell you that there have been many, many Sunday mornings when I have seen my neighbors hitching up the boat, loading up the van or the motor home, or jumping into their cars in their shorts, swimming suits, or sports uniforms.
For some people the purpose of life is to spend a fortune taking care of the body, keeping it strong, keeping it beautiful, keeping it going, because when that body goes there ain’t no more.
Sure they believe in god;
Sure they believe in god when there is a category 5 hurricane bearing down on them, but later their either curse him or ignore him, depending on what that storm actually does to them.
The kind of faith that the Sadducees had was basically worthless, just like the faith of most people today.
It means that the only judgment that they will have to face is civil and criminal, not omniscient and eternal.
And it ultimately boils down to convenient or circumstantial lawlessness.
If there is no final accountability, then they are responsible for whatever they do here today, and only if they get caught.
But the Sadducees were wrong; they were heretics.
What they believed about God, about the scriptures and about themselves were wrong.
We ARE eternal souls, and we DO have spiritual natures.
Our bodies are only the tenements in which our real persons reside.
And God has proven over and over again that there is a resurrection.
Furthermore He has told us that some day after our physical lives end on this earth, there will be a reunion of body and soul in preparation for eternity.
The Apostle John looking into the future and recording it for us in the Book of Revelation . . .
“Saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”
If you die in your sins, as most of the Sadducees did, you shall spend eternity in Hell.
But if you repent of your sins, and you humble yourself in love and faith before the Lord Jesus Christ, you will bear proof of having received a regenerated heart from the God of all grace.
Throw away your Sadduceeism, and follow Paul into faith in Christ.
And put your faith and hope for eternity, in the work of the Lord Jesus on the cross.