The Rich Man and Lazarus

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Luke 16:19–31 Justin Peters January 28, 2024

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There is some discussion and debate as to exactly what this is.
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Some people hold that this is a real account that the rich man and Lazarus, these are real men, real events in history, and as we speak right now,
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Lazarus is in Abraham's bosom, a euphemism for heaven, and the rich man is languishing in the lake of fire.
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There are others who believe that this is a parable that Jesus told, and there is some evidence for both positions on this.
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I do believe that it is a parable for a couple of different reasons. One, it is situated in the context of other parables that Jesus was teaching, and so I do think this is a parable, but if it is a parable, it is unique.
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It is unlike any of Jesus' other parables, because here in this story,
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Jesus gives us specific names. He does not do that in any of his other parables, but here he does.
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He names Lazarus. He names Abraham. He names Moses. He doesn't do that in any of his other parables.
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So I believe by the inclusion of these specific names, Jesus is driving home to us the very stark reality of what happens to someone when he or she dies in his or her sins apart from Christ.
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On many levels, this is a very graphic account. This is disturbing, jarring, but as we see, and I think we'll see as we go through this text, that for the
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Christian, this is a very encouraging passage of Scripture to us. Now, I want to set the scene here a little bit just for context.
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Notice, look back probably just a page or so in your Bible, so Luke chapter 15. Look at verse 1 in chapter 15, 1 and 2.
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It says, now all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near him to listen to him, and both the
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Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling, saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them. So as chapter 15 opens, a large crowd of people had gathered around Christ.
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Tax collectors, scribes, Pharisees, sinners of every stripe, a large group of crowd of people had gathered around Christ as chapter 15 opens.
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But look at chapter 16, verse 1. It says, now he was also saying to the disciples.
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So as chapter 15 opens, he's addressing this large crowd.
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But as chapter 16 opens, Jesus turns his attention away from the crowd, and now he's addressing only his disciples.
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He's no longer talking to the scribes, and the Pharisees, and the tax collectors, and the sinners. Now he's addressing only his disciples as chapter 16 opens.
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But look at verse 14. It says, now the Pharisees who were lovers of money were listening to all these things and were scoffing at him.
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So even though Jesus had turned his attention away from the crowd and was now addressing only the disciples, notice who never left the scene.
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The Pharisees were still there, hanging around in the background, eavesdropping, if you will, on what
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Jesus was saying. They never left the scene. And notice that the Bible says that the
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Pharisees were lovers of what? Money. And so what Jesus is about to teach here would have absolutely scandalized the
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Pharisees. So let's go to our text. Verse 19, now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day.
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The picture here is one of extreme opulence. This rich man had everything that the world could offer.
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It says that he habitually dressed in purple. Purple was a very difficult color to manufacture 2 ,000 years ago.
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No big deal today, of course, but back then, purple was actually derived from the oil of snails.
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It was a very labor -intensive color to manufacture. And so if you had a purple garment 2 ,000 years ago, you had arrived, okay?
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This was a man of great means. In fact, notice in the text that it says that he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen.
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So apparently, this guy didn't have just a single garment made out of purple. Oh, no, he had a whole wardrobe full of purple garments and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day.
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This is extreme opulence. This man had everything that the world could offer.
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This was the Elon Musk of the ancient world, okay? This guy had it all. Undoubtedly, a nice palatial home, the best food, the best living conditions, servants at his beck and call.
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I mean, this guy had everything. The world was his oyster. But notice the other man.
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A poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man's table besides even the dogs were licking his sores.
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The picture here is the exact opposite. The rich man had everything that the world could offer.
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Lazarus has absolutely nothing. Notice that the text says that Lazarus was laid at the rich man's gate.
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Lazarus didn't get there on his own. Lazarus was picked up, carried, and laid at the rich man's gate.
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And wherever Lazarus was laid, that's where Lazarus stayed. Lazarus was crippled.
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He couldn't even move about on his own. Covered with sores, open, oozing, infected, diseased sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man's table.
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Lazarus was poor. He was crippled. He was covered with diseased skin, open sores, and he was starving.
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Undoubtedly, Lazarus looked like a skeleton with skin draped over it. Diseased skin at that.
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And then notice, as if it couldn't get any worse, it says, besides even the dogs were coming and licking his sores.
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Now, friends, when we read dogs in the New Testament, we shouldn't think of some happy little cocker spaniel.
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This wasn't a little frou -frou dog with a little bow in his hair. These weren't pets. These were wild dogs.
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And they were licking Lazarus's sores, not to comfort him, but they were tormenting him.
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He couldn't get away from them. This is a graphic, jarring picture.
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We have no idea the name of the rich man, but we do know the name of the poor man,
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Lazarus. Lazarus is derived from the name Eleazar, which means literally
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God helps. God helps. Now, a lot of people today think that God helps those who help themselves as in the
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Bible. It's not. I was watching Bill O 'Reilly one time a number of years ago, and he was interviewing some
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Catholic priest. And Bill O 'Reilly said, well, my favorite verse is, God helps those who help themselves.
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Not only is that verse not a verse, it's not in the Bible, it's not even a biblical concept.
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Friends, God does not help those who help themselves. God helps those who understand that they cannot help themselves.
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Lazarus could do nothing for himself physically. He was completely dependent upon the mercies of others to live.
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And just as Lazarus could do nothing for himself physically, you and I can do nothing for ourselves spiritually.
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There is nothing that we can do to earn our favor with God. There is nothing that we can do to ingratiate ourselves to a thrice holy
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God. And yet so many people today, the vast majority of people, they have this nebulous concept, well, as long as my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds,
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God will accept me. Yeah, I've done a few things wrong. You know, we all do things that are wrong. But, hey, overall, my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds.
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And, you know, I'm a good person. Almost everybody today considers themselves to be a good person.
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If you were to walk out on the streets of Laurel or Park City or Billings or whatever and ask 100 people at random, do you consider yourself to be a good person?
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I guarantee you 99, if not 100 of them would say, yeah, I'm a good person. But, dear friends,
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God does not evaluate our goodness by comparing us to other people.
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We like to do that. You know, well, I've never murdered anyone. You know,
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I'm not like Saddam Hussein. I'm not like Osama bin Laden. You know, I've never done any of those things.
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Yeah, so, you know, I'm a pretty good person. But God does not evaluate our goodness by comparing us to other people.
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He evaluates our goodness by comparing us to himself. And none of us compared to God are good, not one of us.
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All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, Romans 3 .23. All of us are sinners.
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We are all rebels against God. We have broken God's laws. Go through the
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Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not lie. Have you ever told a lie?
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Of course you have. So have I. Let God be true and most men liars?
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No, every man, every single one of us has told lies. If you've ever told a lie, you're a liar.
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Thou shalt not steal. If you've ever taken something that does not belong to you, you're a thief.
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It doesn't matter if you steal a car or if you steal a paperclip. Thou shalt not take the name of the
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Lord thy God in vain. If you have ever used God's name in an irreverent way or if you have ever put words in God's mouth that he did not say, you've taken his name in vain.
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Thou shalt not commit adultery. And don't let yourself off the hook too quickly. Jesus says, if you look at a woman with lust, you've committed adultery already in your heart.
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If you have ever looked at another person with lust, you're an adulterer. Go through the
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Ten Commandments. We have all broken God's laws thousands of times. We have sinned against him in word, in deed, and in thought.
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And just like when we break laws on earth, there's a penalty to be paid, how much more so when we break the laws of God.
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But because we have sinned against God who is eternal, the punishment of that sin is also eternal.
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Because we have sinned against God who is of infinite value, the punishment of that sin is also infinite.
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And if we die in our sins, we will very rightly and very justly go to a very real place that the
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Bible calls hell, where the worm will not die, the fire will not be quenched.
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There will be wailing, weeping, gnashing of teeth. Our sins have incurred an eternal debt to an eternal
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God. And we cannot earn his favor simply by trying to be a nice person and doing some good things.
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You're not going to earn your place in heaven by helping little old ladies across the street or cutting somebody's grass or something like that.
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Our works, the Bible says, are as filthy rags before a thrice holy
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God. What an insult to the God of the universe when we think we can overcome the debt that we owe to him just by doing some nice stuff.
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We've lost sight of who God is. Lazarus could do nothing for himself physically.
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We can do nothing for ourselves spiritually. Verse 22, now it happened that the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom.
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The rich man also died and was buried. Death is the great equalizer.
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Dear friends, none of us is getting out of this thing alive. Death will come to us all.
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It does not matter how much you have or how little you have. It does not matter who you know or who knows you.
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It does not matter on which side of the tracks you were raised. Death is an appointment we will all one day meet.
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Hebrews 9 .27, it is appointed man wants to die and then the judgment. Death is coming for all of us.
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Now, no surprise when Lazarus died, right? I mean, he was at death's door anyway. He was crippled.
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He was starving. He was diseased, tormented by wild dogs. No surprise when
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Lazarus died. But apparently, reading between the lines just a little bit, apparently the rich man died at about the same time
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Lazarus did. Undoubtedly, death came as quite the surprise to the rich man because life was good.
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I mean, he was living it up, habitually living in splendor every day, the text says.
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Life was good and yet death came for him too. Death is an appointment we will all one day meet and we must be ready for that appointment because sometimes death comes at the most unexpected of times.
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It's coming for you. It's coming for me. Now, undoubtedly, when the rich man died, he had a very nice, fancy funeral.
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There were probably a lot of important people there. They were, his body was well cared for, wrapped in some nice linens and anointed with oils and spices, some who's who of the community there and they probably made some fancy speeches over the body of the rich man and the rich man's body was placed in a very nice, ornate tomb.
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You know, very nice, very fancy funeral for the rich man. Lazarus, no fancy funeral for Lazarus.
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Undoubtedly, what happened to Lazarus' body is his body was just picked up, carried outside of the city gates and dumped to be consumed by wild animals or fire or some combination of all that.
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No fancy funeral for Lazarus, no fancy speeches given about Lazarus.
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But notice in the text, notice who his pallbearers were.
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It says that he was carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom. Carried away by the angels.
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Dear friends, one of these days when I die and they have a funeral for me,
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I suppose, you know, I don't really care what people say about me when I die. I really don't.
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I don't care what they do with my body. The only thing that I would request at my funeral, the only request
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I have is that the gospel be preached. Beyond that, I don't care. I won't be here.
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Do whatever you want to do. I just want the gospel preached. But you know what? I want these pallbearers.
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I want to be carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom. And I want to hear those words, well done, good and faithful, doolahs, slave, well done.
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Enter into the joy of your master's kingdom. I want these pallbearers.
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I want to be carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom. And dear friends, when death comes for you, when your
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Hebrews 927 appointment comes for you, you want these pallbearers.
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And the only way to be carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom is to be in a saving relationship with the
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Lord Jesus Christ. None of us can work our way into heaven. We have no righteousness on our own.
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There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. Paul says in Romans chapter 3, none righteous.
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You have no righteousness, but you must have righteousness to enter into the kingdom of heaven. You must have righteousness to be carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom, but you have no righteousness.
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So where do we get this righteousness? We get this righteousness from someone else, and his name is
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Jesus Christ. God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to this earth, and he lived a perfect life.
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Truly God, truly man, one person, two natures. And as the
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God -man, Jesus lived a perfect life to the perfect satisfaction of God the
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Father. He never broke any of God's laws. He was perfect. And then Jesus willingly laid down his life on the cross.
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His life was not taken. He gave it. And on the cross, this perfect person offered his perfect life as a perfect sacrifice to perfectly satisfy the perfect wrath of God.
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Three days later, bodily raised from the dead, proving himself to be who he said he was,
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God in human flesh. And the only way to have the righteousness of Christ is to have it counted to our account.
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How does that happen? When we repent of our sin, turn from sin, and we place our trust in what
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Jesus accomplished for us on the cross, our sins imputed to him on the cross, and his perfect life and perfect sacrifice satisfied
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God's perfect wrath perfectly. Died on the cross three days later, bodily raised from the dead.
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When we repent of sin and trust in him, our sins imputed to him on the cross, his righteousness imputed to us, counted towards us.
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That is the only way that one day when your appointment with death comes, that is the only way that you too will hear, well done and good and faithful servant.
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That is the only way that you too will have these pallbearers and be carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom.
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Turn from sin, place your trust in Christ, lay your works down, they will profit you nothing.
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We must have his righteousness. Verse 23, And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw
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Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said,
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Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.
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The great reversal. This is a disturbing passage of scripture.
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This is a disturbing scenario in which we see the rich man. Notice that in Hades, in the lake of fire, which will become hell with a capital
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H when Revelation 21 transpires, but it's basically the same thing.
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In Hades, the lake of fire, being in torment, saw Abraham far away, Lazarus in his bosom, and he cried out, the rich man cried out and said,
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Father Abraham, have mercy on me, send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I'm in agony in this flame.
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I sometimes wonder whether or not we really believe what we say we believe about what happens to people when they die in their sin.
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Last Sunday, Pastor Rob preached on John the Baptist and his mission of evangelism.
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Evangelism. Sometimes I wonder, do we really believe what we say we believe about what happens to people when they die in their sin?
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Do we really believe that they go to this place where the worm will not die, the fire will not be quenched?
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There will be wailing, weeping, gnashing of teeth, and people will beg for even a single drop of water to cool off their tongue in the flames of hell.
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We should not soft -pedal hell. I hear so many preachers say, well, if you die in your sins, you'll be eternally separated from God.
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That's not entirely true. That's not entirely true. Do you know what the most terrifying thing about hell is?
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God, because he's there. He's there in his wrath.
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People in hell are separated from God relationally. There is no relationship there. There is no love exchange there.
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There is no comfort there. They are separated from him relationally. But judicially, judicially, people in hell are in the presence of God.
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Read Revelation 14 verses 9, 10, and 11. It says that those in the lake of fire will be tormented day and night in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the
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Lamb, Christ. He is there in his wrath.
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The full undiluted fury of God's wrath will be poured out day and night.
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And people in hell will hate God even more than they did on earth.
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They will be continually blaspheming God. And so God's wrath is continually poured out.
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We should not solve pedal hell. And if we do believe what we say we believe, if we really believe that people who die in their sins go to this place, why are we not out there more in the highways, in the hedges, telling people how to escape this place?
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Do we really believe it? How much do you have to hate someone to know that they are in spiritual danger?
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How much do you have to hate someone to know that they are apart from Christ, dead in trespasses and sins, have the answer, and never tell them about it?
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Now, friends, I'm an evangelist. That's my title. That's what I do. I preach and teach in churches.
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And by God's grace, I try to share the gospel with people as I'm out and about. But you know what?
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Even though I'm an evangelist, it's what I do. I miss opportunities to share the gospel. We all do.
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We all miss opportunities to share the gospel. But my concern is those people who claim to be
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Christians, and yet there is never any unction inside of them to share the good news of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. There never seems to be any concern about what happens to people when they die in their sin.
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People like that who claim to be Christians and yet have no compassion, no concern, no unction at all within them to share the gospel of Christ, at least sometimes.
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You need to examine yourself to see if you're in the faith. Do we really believe what we say we believe?
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We have the answer. We have the gospel. Now, it would be a mistake at this point to assume that the rich man went to the
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Lake of Fire because he was rich and Lazarus went to Abraham's bosom because he was poor. That's not the point of the text.
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There's nothing inherently wrong with being wealthy, nor is there anything inherently honorable in being poor.
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Each man went where he was spiritually prepared to go. But remember as I began and I pointed out in verse 14 that the
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Pharisees were lovers of money, and I said that this would have scandalized the
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Pharisees because the Pharisees would have just assumed because this man was as wealthy as he was, that was a sure sign that God was smiling on that man.
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That man pleased God because look at everything that he has. Surely, God is smiling on him.
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This man is in good with God. Look at what he has. Lazarus, clearly,
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Lazarus doesn't know the Lord. No, because if he did, he wouldn't be in that pitiful state.
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That is a worldly way of thinking. This would have scandalized the
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Pharisees. Look at verse 25. Abraham said, child, remember that during your life you received your good things and likewise
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Lazarus bad things, but now he is being comforted here and you are in agony.
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Your wealth did you no good. This is a condemning...verse
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24 and verse 25 is a condemning admission for the rich man because notice in verse 24, notice who he recognized.
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He cried out and said, Father Abraham. Father Abraham. This man had the ability to see across this great chasm, saw
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Abraham, recognized him, called him by name, and even gave him a title of respect,
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Father Abraham. What does that tell us? This was not some atheist.
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This was not some guy working for People for the American Way and some atheist out there, the ACLU or something.
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No, this was a religious man. This was a man who had been taught the scriptures. This was a man who knew the word of God.
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He had a head full of knowledge. What's he doing in the lake of fire?
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What's he doing in hell? He had a head full of knowledge, but that knowledge had not penetrated his heart because notice, who else did he recognize?
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He not only recognized Abraham, who else did he recognize? Recognized Lazarus. You see, it wasn't that the rich man didn't know that Lazarus had been laid at his gate.
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Oh, he knew it. Not only did he know it, he even knew the man's name, Lazarus. Oh, he had a head full of Bible knowledge, but that knowledge had not penetrated his heart.
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Dear friends, I am the first one in my ministry, in my preaching, in my teaching, I encourage people,
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I champion the study of doctrine. Study doctrine. Study theology. Study the word of God.
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Fill your mind with the word of God. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, as Paul wrote to the
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Colossians. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you. Fill your head with the word of God, but make sure in your studying that your head knowledge has penetrated your heart.
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There will be a lot of theologians in hell. There will be pastors in hell.
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There will be people in hell with a head full of knowledge. There will be people in hell with more head knowledge than I've got, and then you've got.
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But just because you have it up here doesn't mean it's here. It had not penetrated his heart because he knew
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Lazarus was there, knew his name, and did nothing for him. The rich man would not lift his finger to help
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Lazarus on earth, but now you see the rich man wants Lazarus to lift his finger, dip it in water, and put it on his tongue.
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Even now, Lazarus is nothing more than his errand boy. Notice there's no apology from the rich man.
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The rich man never says, Lazarus, I'm so sorry. Lazarus, I'm so sorry.
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I would not help you on earth. Please forgive me, Lazarus. No, even now, he won't even address
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Lazarus. Abraham, send Lazarus to help me.
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The fires of hell do not work repentance. They do not work repentance.
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People in hell are more hardened in their sin even than they were on earth. The Bible speaks, dear friends, all of us,
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I believe all of us at one point or another in our Christian lives, we go through a time when we doubt our salvation, whether or not we are truly saved.
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Do I truly know the Lord? Am I truly his? One of the surest ways you can know that you have a new relationship with the
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Lord is if you have a new relationship with sin. The Bible speaks of two different kinds of sorrow over sin.
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That is a worldly sorrow and a godly sorrow found in 2 Corinthians 7. Paul writes in 2
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Corinthians 7 that a worldly sorrow leads to death, but a godly sorrow leads to repentance unto salvation.
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What is a worldly sorrow? A worldly sorrow is nothing more than a guilty conscience.
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A worldly sorrow over sin is the kind of sorrow that says this, what would happen to me if my sin were exposed?
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What would be the consequences to me? And so we try to cover up our sin, not because we grieve over it, but because we don't want the consequences of it.
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But if we could get away with it, if nobody would know about it, if nobody would know what we're doing on the side, if my spouse wouldn't know who
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I'm texting or whatever on social media, if people didn't know what
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I was looking at on the computer when no one's around, if I could get away with it,
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I'd go right back to it. That is a worldly sorrow, and a worldly sorrow leads to death, eternal death.
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But then there's this other kind of sorrow over sin, and that is a godly sorrow. What is a godly sorrow?
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A godly sorrow over sin that leads to repentance and to salvation is that sorrow that is vertically oriented.
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A godly sorrow over sin comes when we grieve over our sin because we understand that our sin grieves
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God, and we do not want to grieve Him, His person. He has been so good, so kind, so gracious, so faithful, so merciful, so patient with us, that when we sin against Him, it grieves us.
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It is not that as Christians, you and I don't sin, we do. As Christians, you and I do commit sin, but when we do sin, it grieves us.
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One of the differences between a true Christian and a false professor of Christ is that as Christians, you and I stumble into sin, we don't swim in it.
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We don't relish sin. We don't look for opportunities to sin. We don't plan out our sin.
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When we do sin, it grieves us. Does your sin grieve you? A godly sorrow over sin is the kind of sorrow that David had in Psalm 51.
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Remember, David had committed egregious sin. He committed adultery with Bathsheba, and then he committed murder to cover up the adultery.
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And then God sent Nathan to David, and Nathan did what a true friend should do.
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Nathan came up to David, and he confronted him, and he said, you are the man. You are the man.
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And God used that to break David. And David cried out in Psalm chapter 51, against you and you alone,
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O Yahweh, have I sinned? My sin is ever before me.
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You are righteous when you speak. You are blameless when you judge. In other words,
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David was saying, I have no excuse. I'm undone. He grieved over his sin.
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Does your sin grieve you? It is good and it is right to warn people to flee from the wrath to come.
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It is good and it is right that we warn people to flee from hell.
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But just as much as we should want a savior from hell, we should want a savior from our sin.
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There are people out there who want a savior from hell because they know they deserve it, and their conscience accuses them.
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But very few people truly want a savior from sin. If you want a savior from hell but not a savior from sin, then you have a savior from neither.
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Does your sin grieve you? You know, I can honestly say, when I think of heaven, going to heaven one of these days,
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I hardly ever, if ever, think about how wonderful it'll be to be free from my crutches.
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That thought hardly ever passes my mind. But what does capture my heart, what does grab my heart and impact my affections, is how wonderful it will be to one day be free of my sin, to be free of myself.
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That captures my heart. One of the surest ways that you know you have a new relationship with the savior is if you have a new relationship with sin.
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Do we sin? Yes. But as Christians, we don't relish it. It grieves us because it is to be foreign to our natures now.
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Verse 26, besides all this between us and you, there is a great chasm fixed so that those who wish to come over from here to you are not able and none may cross over from there to us.
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Dear friends, when we die, we will each go to one of two places and we will be there for all of eternity.
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There are no second chances. There is no such thing as purgatory. That is an invention, a fabrication of the
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Roman Catholic Church. That place does not exist. There is not a shred of biblical evidence that that place exists.
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It's a figment. It's as real as candy land. When we die, we will go to one of two places and we will be there for all of eternity.
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No second chances. Be ready for that appointment now. Make sure you're ready for that appointment now.
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Verse 27, and he said, then I am asking you, Father, begging you that you send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers so that he may warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment.
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Finally, the rich man is thinking about somebody besides himself. He says, Father Abraham, send
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Lazarus to my father's house because I've got five brothers still on earth, so that he can warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment.
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And notice even now, yet again, Lazarus is just his errand boy. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and tell, send
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Lazarus to my father's house to warn my five brothers. No repentance, no apology. Reading between the lines here a little bit, if Lazarus had come back from the dead and gone to his father's house to warn his five brothers, apparently, the five brothers would have also recognized
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Lazarus. Apparently, they knew who he was too, so it's not looking real good for the five brothers either.
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Abraham said, they have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them.
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Moses and the prophets. Moses and the prophets had been dead for centuries. How could his five brothers possibly hear
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Moses and the prophets? This is how. The Word of God.
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They have Moses. They have the prophets. They have the scriptures, in other words. Let them hear them.
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Let them hear the scriptures. Let them read the scriptures. No, Father Abraham, that's not enough.
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But if they could just see someone come back from the dead, then they'll believe, then they'll repent.
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That'll get their attention. And he said, if they will not hear Moses, if they will not hear the prophets, neither will they believe even if someone were to come back from the dead.
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Dear friends, there is an inherent power in this book that is found nowhere else.
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Not in miracles, not in signs and wonders. And yet, we have an entire swath of professing
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Christianity. And please do note my use of the term professing Christianity. A whole swath of professing
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Christianity that has this emphasis on signs and wonders. And they say, well, we have the power of God in our church.
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The Holy Spirit moves in our church because look at our signs and wonders. We have angel feathers falling out of the sky, gold dust.
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I get gold dust on my Bible, on my clothes. It's the presence of God, gold dust.
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It's not the presence of God. It's a parlor trick. There for a while, and it's actually making a comeback, believe it or not.
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There's this thing going around. God is apparently turning people's tooth fillings into gold.
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Ooh, you can turn my tooth fillings into gold. You know how dumb that is?
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Why wouldn't God do that? If he's going to do that, just heal my tooth, you know, forget about the filling, just heal my stupid tooth.
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They've got all these fake signs and wonders, parlor tricks. Todd White going around lengthening people's legs by about a half an inch.
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That's not the power of God. It's a parlor trick. Charlatans have been doing that for decades.
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The signs and wonders that we see in the charismatic movement today, they bear absolutely no resemblance to the true signs and wonders that we see recorded in the
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Bible. No resemblance at all. But they think that's the power of God.
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If they will not hear Moses, if they will not hear the prophets, neither will they believe, even if someone were to come back from the dead.
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And then there's this entire other swath of professing Christianity. And they're not in so much to the signs and wonders stuff, but they're more into the seeker -sensitive approach to doing church.
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We're going to make church fun. We're going to make church entertaining. And we're going to make our church look like the world so we can attract the world.
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We're going to have the rock music, and the strobe lights, and the fog machines. And, you know, our preachers are going to get up, dress in their skinny jeans and tight clothes, and, you know, be real hip and spiked hair.
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And we're going to make our church look like the world so we can attract the world. And we're not going to talk about sin much because, you know, people don't like to hear about sin.
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That's kind of a Debbie Downer. So we won't talk about sin. You know, we won't talk about repentance. People don't like to be told they need to repent and change.
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We're just going to say, you know, come to Jesus because he'll make your life better. He'll give you a purpose -driven life.
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You know, he'll help your relationships. He'll help you, you know, give you a better job and a better car.
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And, you know, he's going to make your life, life enhancement. That's what we'll do. And we're going to make church fun.
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And some of these same pastors, if you were to ask them, if you were to press them directly, do you believe that the
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Bible is the word of God, they would say, oh, sure, sure, yes. We believe the Bible is the word of God. No, you don't.
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No, you don't. Because I can tell by how you preach and how you do church that you don't really believe the
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Bible is the word of God. You say you do, but you don't. Because if you did believe the Bible was the word of God, then you wouldn't have to resort to these tricks and gimmicks in making church, your church look like the world.
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Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation, for the
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Jew first and also to the Greek. What is the power of God? Not signs and wonders, not in gimmicks and watering down the gospel.
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You can't...the power of God is the gospel. How do you expect to have the power of God, which is the gospel, when you water down the gospel?
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Well, people don't want to hear about sin and repentance. No, they don't. But here's the thing, dear friends.
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The true gospel is definitely not what people want to hear.
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It's not what the lost world wants to hear. It will keep away the goats, but you know what it...who
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it'll draw? It's going to draw the sheep. Because the only people that will respond to a message like this, you are a rotten, vile sinner.
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You deserve nothing but the fires of hell. You cannot save yourself. You are condemned by your sin.
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There is nothing you can do. You must turn from your sin, place your trust in Jesus, give up ownership to your life, trust
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Christ as Savior and Lord, follow Him, be willing to be persecuted for Him, and suffer for the glory of God.
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The only people that will respond to that kind of message are the sheep.
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It will repel the goats, but it'll draw the sheep because the gospel is the power of God.
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You want to see the power of God unleashed? Take the word of God out into the highways and the hedges.
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Preach the gospel. That's the power of God. And every few years, you know, there's some new fad that comes along down the evangelical pike.
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And, oh, 20 years ago, it was the passion of the Christ. People were all excited about the passion of the
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Christ. I think a few years before that, it was the prayer of Jabez. Remember the prayer of Jabez? We were all supposed to pray the prayer of Jabez, Lord, enlarge my territory.
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Some obscure verse, and everybody's excited about that. Anybody still praying the prayer of Jabez? Of course not.
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Why? Because it was a fad. Now, it's the chosen. Everybody's all excited about the chosen.
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This wonderful movie portraying Christ, I could preach a whole sermon on that.
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The Jesus of the chosen is not the Jesus of the Bible. It's not the Jesus of the Bible. People are all excited about it.
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So powerful. There's no power in that. There is power here.
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We hold in our hands the most powerful evangelistic tool of all time, and that's the word of God.
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I suppose every preacher has an airplane story. And I've been on a lot of airplanes, and I've had a lot of interesting conversations with a lot of interesting people.
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But there is one story that kind of stands out in my mind, just illustrates the power of the gospel.
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But when I fly, because of my handicap, they usually let me pre -board. I get on first, and so I can get to my seat and kind of, you know, not be in other people's way as they board the plane.
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So this particular flight, this was nine or 10 years ago now, but this particular flight, my seat was the last seat in the very back row in the tail, and it was a aisle seat.
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So I sat down, and the stewardess helped me get my crutches up on the overhead, and sat down and got settled.
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And then right after that, the other passengers start coming on the plane. And I just happened to look up the aisle, watching people board, and I see this old, old man walking down the aisle.
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He had a cane, and he was kind of hunched over in his back. And I noticed as he got a little closer that he was wearing a baseball cap, a navy blue baseball cap, and in big gold letters on the front, was
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WWII veteran, World War II veteran. And I've always had a little bit of an interest in history, and I saw that man, and I just said a quick prayer.
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I said, Lord, please let him sit next to me. And wouldn't you know it, he came all the way down the aisle.
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His seat was right next to mine. And it was just two seats, the window and the aisle.
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So I just kind of slid over, and I took the window. I let him have the aisle so he wouldn't have to climb over me.
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But so he sat down, and after he kind of got his stuff settled, I introduced myself.
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And I said, hi, my name is Justin. And he said, hi, Justin, I'm Fred. And I said, well, hey,
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Mr. Fred, it's nice to meet you. So we shook hands and exchanged a few pleasantries. And I said,
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Mr. Fred, I see from your hat that you're a World War II veteran. And he said, yes, I am.
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And I said, well, were you in the Pacific or the European theater?
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And he said, I was in Europe. And I said, oh, OK, well, my grandfather was as well. My mom's dad was in Europe in World War II.
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And so we started talking about World War II. Turned out he was in the infantry, in the
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Army. He was in the Battle of the Bulge. And so we started talking, and he started telling me about things that he experienced as a soldier in World War II, being in battle, being in the trenches that they dug, bullets zinging over his head, explosions going off around him.
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And after a while of talking about that, I said, Mr. Fred, did you ever wonder what would have happened to you if one of those bullets had had your name on it, where you would have gone?
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And he said, yes, Justin, I did. And I said, well, Mr. Fred, one of these days we're all going to die.
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I said, when that time comes for you, do you know where you're going to go? And he said, no, I don't.
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And I said, well, Mr. Fred, may I share with you what the Bible has to say about that? And never as long as I live will
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I forget what he said to me. His exact words were, I wish you would.
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And so for the next few minutes, I just shared the gospel with Mr. Fred. I told him how we are all sinners.
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We have all broken God's laws. We have sinned against God, who is eternal. The punishment of that sin is also eternal.
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And if we die in our sins, we will go to hell, rightly and justly. But God has made a way of escape.
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God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to this earth. And Jesus lived as the God -man, truly
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God, truly man. Gave his life as a sacrifice on the cross. Paid the penalty that our sins have earned.
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Died on the cross. Three days later, bodily raised from the dead. And if we will repent of sin, turn from sin, and place our trust in him, he will save us.
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I told him, I said, Mr. Fred, our works will not save us. We have no righteousness on our own.
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We must have the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And just after I shared the gospel with him,
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I said, Mr. Fred, does that make sense? And he said, yes, it does. And I asked him,
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I said, do you have any questions? He had a couple of questions, and I answered those. And so I asked him again, does that make sense,
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Mr. Fred? He said, yes, it does. And then he said this, he said, I've never heard that before.
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This man was in his upper 80s at the time. I've never heard that before.
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Turns out, if we talk more, he was raised Catholic. And he had never heard the gospel.
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You don't hear the gospel in Catholic churches. I've never heard that before.
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And then he said, Justin, I want to thank you for sharing that with me.
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And then the lady in the seat in front of us, she kind of did her head back like this, and she said, and I want to thank you too.
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I was listening to every word you said. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation, for the
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Jew first, and also to the Greek, to the Gentile. What is the power of God?
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The gospel is the power of God. As we close,
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I just want to ask you, do you know where you're going when your appointment with death comes?
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Will you be with Lazarus or the rich man? If you're not certain of where you are in your relationship with the
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Lord Jesus Christ, I would encourage you to get real honest before God. Cry out to Him.
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Confess your sins to Him. And if you will turn from sin, repent of sin, and place all of your trust in Jesus and what
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He accomplished on the cross, not trusting in yourself, trusting in Him to save you.
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If you will come seeking not only a Savior from hell, but a Savior from your sin,
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He will save you. Jesus says, the one who comes to me, I will in no wise cast out.
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He will save you. You'll pass from death to life. All things passed away, all things made new.
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That's the good news of the gospel. And Jesus Himself is our reward. Let's close in a word of prayer.
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Father, we thank you for your word. And as your gospel has been preached, we trust that your word, your
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Holy Spirit would do the work that only He can do, that He would convict of sin, righteousness, and judgment, convict of the truth of the gospel.
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I pray, Lord, that if there be any lost sheep here who have not yet heard the voice of the shepherd, Lord, convict them of their lost state,
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Lord, convict them of the truth of the gospel. May they hear the voice of the shepherd, go to Him, and find pasture.
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Save them, Father. Pray for this church, pray for the unity of the body and our growth in Christ.
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May the word of Christ richly dwell within us for His glory and His namesake.