Jesus points out something that should be obvious, but was not to the Sadducees: there is a difference between this life and the next.

In saying that "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage," Jesus reminds us that God does indeed give us good gifts in this life, but that it would be wrong to cling to them, to believe that those gifts are so important that they are all Jesus gives, that He has nothing greater prepared for us.

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The saints John sees are those who followed Jesus in this life and who bore the brunt of the world's refusal to acknowledge Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The saints that John sees are those who have passed through death from this life to the life that is to come. The saints John sees are all those who have clung fervently to Christ, trusting in Him and His grace to carry them through to eternity. The saints John sees, then, are you . . . me . . . everyone who will die in the faith . . . everyone who has died in the faith. What John sees is the ones—all of the ones—who by the time eternity comes will have died in Christ.

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For the pastor this means but one thing: he has but one thing to preach. The pastor speaks not from worldly wisdom, he speaks not from philosophy nor from psychology, but he speaks as the very voice of God speaking to the world. The pastor speaks the word, and he speaks it at all times. In season and out of season; a harsh word of rebuke when necessary, an encouraging word of exhortation when needed. The pastor speaks only the word of God, for he has been given nothing else to give.

But for the people this means two things. The first is a charge as solemn and serious as the pastor's: the charge to the people is to expect—and even demand—that their pastor speak nothing but God's word. Your task as the people of God is to expect nothing but the word of God from me, and to stop your ears should I—or any pastor—preach anything else.

But the second is even greater. The task of the people is to hear the word of God and believe upon it. To lean upon it as you lean upon nothing else, to hunger and thirst for God's word to the extent that nothing else satisfies, that nothing else is even desired.

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It is not your work by which the church stands or falls. It is not your faithfulness that gives the church her life. And it is not your efforts that keeps you firmly in Christ's kingdom. The glory belongs solely to Christ.

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These commandments forbid the sin of coveting. The Hebrew word means, at its most basic level, desire, to take pleasure in. Now to be sure, it is good and proper to take pleasure in those gifts God has given to us . . . but we must be careful to take pleasure only in those things which God has given us. When the line is crossed and we begin to desire and take pleasure those things that are not given to us—those things that God has given to our neighbor—then we enter into coveting.

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The consequences of defiling the marriage bed—of bringing anything outside of husband and wife experiencing intimacy together—are severe: they corrupt and rot us down to our very core. And the reason for that is simple: because God does not give us marriage merely for our own pleasure, but to teach us something about His relationship with us.

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This commandment demands that we—each of us—consider any factor that concerns people, that concerns their bodies. This commandment demands that we consider the physical well-being of our neighbor.

Which means that for us, this commandment speaks to us at levels never before seen in human history. Never before in human history has it been more difficult, more complex, to consider the question, "but who is my neighbor?"

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This is the first commandment in what we call the second table of the Law: that portion of the commandments that dictate not how we live before God, but how we live with one another. It is the commandment that dictates how society should function, how society itself will reflect a Godly attitude, or not.

It is this commandment that forms the foundation of the second table. All of the remaining commandments depend upon this commandment, just as all 10 commandments depend upon the first.

And all of this begins with "Honor your father and your mother."

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