All right, now Luke chapter 16. There are some who think that
this isn't a parable, that it's a literal story. And they cite
the fact that the story doesn't begin with words like, and Jesus
told them this parable. However, if you look at the very
first verse of this particular chapter, there's a parable told
and it's not introduced with the words Jesus told them this
parable. And John Calvin, even as I was
studying this, John Calvin thinks it's to be taken literally because
someone in there has a name. That is, it's not just a description
like a rich man and a poor man. It says a rich man and Lazarus.
And he thinks that by the name Lazarus being used, he must be
referring to some specific person. But the name Lazarus, is simply
the Hebrew name Eliezer coming to us through a lot of transformations
going from language to language. Just like the name Joshua and
Jesus are the same name, so the name Eliezer and Lazarus are
the same name. And the name Eliezer means my
help is in God. The E-L at the beginning is the
word, general word from God, and the E-zer is the word for
help. So God is my help. And therefore,
I do not believe that the Lord was speaking here of any individual
person, but was using this naturally poor man, a beggar as he's called
here, as an illustration of all those whose help comes from God. Now, I know that sounds strange.
You would think that if someone's help came from God that he would
be illustrated by someone of strength and vigor and having
everything. But we'll find out why this beggar
going by the name of God is my help, why he is the picture of
every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, whenever we come
to a parable, And this is why I made an issue out of this being
a parable, not a literal story. We've got to make sure that we
understand how to interpret it. Parables, their meaning is not
right on the surface. Look over at Matthew chapter
13. I want to show you something about parables. I've showed it
to you before, but it's always good to see these things again
and be reminded of them. We often think that the Lord
used parables to make his truth understandable, but it's exactly
the opposite. The disciples came to our Lord.
Now this is Matthew chapter 13, and we begin reading in verse
10. It says, the disciples came to him and asked, why do you
speak to the people in parables? In other words, why don't you
just tell them the truth directly? Why do you do it by these stories
that you tell? And he replied, the knowledge
of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you,
but not to them. Whoever has will be given more
and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have even what
he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in
parables. Though seeing, they do not see. Though hearing, they
do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy
of Isaiah, you will be ever hearing, but never understanding. You
will be ever seeing, but never perceiving. For this people's
heart has become calloused. They hardly hear with their ears
and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with
their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts
and turn and I should heal them. Why did the Lord speak in parables?
So that only his people would understand what he was talking
about. And in truth, not even the disciples
understood what the parables meant until he took them aside
and explained them. So these parables, when we look
at them, what seems to be the obvious interpretation that anybody
can see, you can be sure that's not what it's about. The interpretation
that a natural man could gain from a parable, that's not what
it's about. I'm not saying we can't gain something from that
lesson. But if a natural man could pick up, just say someone
picked up this story somewhere, didn't know that it came from
the Bible or anything. He just read that story. And
whatever he thought it meant, that's not what it's about. Our
Lord's parables were designed to teach spiritual things, and
the Bible tells us the natural man does not receive the things
of the Spirit of God, neither can he understand them because
they're spiritually understood. Now you and I, and this is all
by the Lord's grace, but you and I have been taught that whenever
we open this Bible, we are to look for Christ, because that's
who the Bible's about. We don't go to this Bible to
try to prove what is the best form of government for people.
Even though this Bible gives us some information about marriage
and raising children, that's not what the book is really about.
The book is a book of Christ and we haven't found out what
it means. We haven't found out what any particular portion of
it means until we have understood it as it reveals Christ and the
grace that comes by him. See, that was a problem the Pharisees
had. Our Lord says, you search the scriptures for in them you
think you have eternal life. These are the scriptures that
testify of me, but you won't come to me. They read the Old Testament,
which was like a long historical parable, types and pictures and
illustrations of the gospel. They read it and all they saw
was rules and regulations by which they could establish their
own righteousness before God. It should have testified to them
that even though they were God's chosen national people, yet they
were rebels by nature and unworthy of God's goodness. Instead, it
filled them with pride. It should have caused them to
look to God, to look to their God. Instead, they say, our father's
Abraham. And there are many in the broadly
described Christian church that look at our Lord's parables and
they get moral stories out of them. They're not moral stories. Let me give you an example. We're
all familiar with the parable of the good Samaritan. Now you
could read that and you could say, there's a good lesson that
we ought to help those in trouble. And that's true. We should help
those in trouble, but that's not what that parable is about.
That parable is not to teach us to be a good Samaritan. That
parable was designed to teach us that we need a good Samaritan. You know where we are in that
parable? We're in the ditch. We're the guy that got beat up
and everything taken from him. And the good Samaritan is the
Lord Jesus Christ. The one naturally despised, the
Samaritans were despised people. He was despised, but he was good. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord,
for he is good, and he alone is good. And so we look at this particular
story, and we realize that it's not trying to tell us that rich
people go to hell and poor people go to heaven. The story's not
about that at all. It's not even about, you know,
sent to us to make sure that we don't set our mind on earthly
wealth. Now, we shouldn't, but that's
not what the story's trying to teach us. Because you know something? There's a lot of poor people
that have their minds set on earthly wealth. They're just
never able to get it. No, there are wealthy people
who are the people of God. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were
all wealthy. Jacob's son, Joseph, was second
only to Pharaoh in the land of Egypt. I suspect he had a lot
of money. What about Solomon? The richest man there was in
his day. Being rich doesn't mean, that is being naturally rich
doesn't mean that you are not part of the kingdom of God. Now,
the Lord did say how hard it is for the rich to enter the
kingdom of God. But even in that, he was not
talking just about the riches that you can count in coins and
dollar bills. He was talking about, well, the
rich tend to trust in their riches, whatever form their riches take.
Even if their riches, what they perceive to be their riches,
is their own morality, their own righteousness, their own
religious zeal or whatever. They perceive themselves rich
in those things. And it's so hard for someone
like that to enter the kingdom of God. And if you think not,
ask Saul of Tarsus, who was later the Apostle Paul. He was rich.
I don't know how much money he had. But boy, did he have a rich
religious heritage. which he boasted in. He said,
if any of you have something to boast in, I have more. You
can read this in Philippians chapter three. He said, if anybody
says they can boast in the flesh, I can meet you and go past any
boast you can make. And he talked about all those
things in which he once trusted, in which he found his riches.
And he ended all of it with, and concerning that righteousness
which is in the law, I was blameless. Now, there are a lot of people
that make a whole lot out of the requirement of obeying God's
law. And I'm not going to argue that point, I'm just going to
say this. Nobody that I have ever met has ever said to me,
as touching that righteousness which is in the law, I was blameless. Paul said it, and he said it
under the inspiration of the Spirit. And yet he entered the kingdom
of God, but look how difficult a process it was. Therefore,
the riches of his own righteousness, he's on his way to Damascus,
and the Lord Jesus Christ confronts him, knocks him off of his horse,
blinds him, and sends this proud, self-rich man led away as a blind
man, and you find him on his knees. begging for mercy for
three days. Now, Paul would not have ever
said, I wish that hadn't happened to me. But I'll tell you, it
was a soul-wringing experience. No, we're not talking here in
this story about natural riches. Natural riches do not affect
A man's eternal destiny. Look here back at chapter 11
and we'll get the idea of what's being spoken of. Not chapter
11, verse 11 of chapter 16. So if you have not been trustworthy
in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? True riches. We call this parable
the rich man and Lazarus. And I suppose that's okay because
the Lord referred to him as a rich man, but he was talking about
worldly riches. But worldly riches are not true
riches. He who has worldly riches and
nothing else is poor, destitute, and bankrupt. We should seek those true riches,
which we'll see what they are here shortly. Now, the primary practical lesson
that we can learn here right on the surface is that one's
condition in this life is no certain indicator of what it
will be like for him in eternity. Boy, we love to judge people. We look at someone's life and
if things aren't going well for him, it's our tendency to say,
wonder what he did wrong, that God is doing that to him. And
if someone is prospering in these things, we have this natural
tendency to think he must have pleased God and God is blessing
him. And is it not true that so often
when we speak of the blessings of God, we're talking about natural
things? We say things like, well, I made
75% more this year than I did last year. God has so blessed
me. Really? Riches are not always a blessing.
They can be, but they're not necessarily.
And you know something? Poverty is not always a curse. Poverty is sometimes the hand
of God restraining us from trusting in riches. Well, I think it was the psalmist
that said, give me neither poverty nor riches. Don't give me poverty
lest I curse you. Don't give me riches lest I forget
you. Our Lord taught us to pray, give
us today the food we need for today. That is the best position
to be in, to have what you need and be confident that God will
provide for tomorrow, tomorrow. We'll always have what we need.
But we live in a day where it seems that many who profess to
believe the gospel and preach some kind of message they claim
is the gospel, they're actually preaching a message that says
God's blessings Always provide for health, wealth, and happiness
in this life. And it's no wonder they have
huge churches when they do that. Who doesn't want to hear that?
Do what God says and everything's going to go good for you. Well,
isn't it interesting that the one man in all of history who
actually did perfectly what God said to do, this was his nickname,
the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Do not expect, if you trust God,
that your life on earth will be easy. There have always been
people, though, that preach that. Paul spoke of them as those who
taught that gain is godliness. We see it going to seed in our
culture. We become so wealthy in our nation and so drunk on
our wealth, we think that our continued wealth is an indication
of God's continued pleasure with us. It is not. Preachers preach a message saying
that faith, properly exercised, can get you anything you want. Isn't that kind of some statement
for them to make? You know, they'll tell you, if
you pray with faith, God will make you rich. If you have faith,
God will give you whatever you ask for. I would like to meet
one of those guys face to face, and I'd say, well, do you have
faith? And he would no doubt say he had that kind of faith.
I'd say, well, then would you pray to God to make me rich?
Because I don't have enough faith. If you have enough, so much faith
that you can get whatever God asks for, would you pray that
God would make me rich? They said, never seem to be doing
that. But let us turn our attention
now to the spiritual lessons we are taught in this parable.
And to do this, we must identify the people in the story. There
are three people. First of all, there's the rich
man who represents the self-righteous religious man. He is rich in
his own estimation. He is like that Pharisee who
prayed in the street saying, I thank you God, I'm not like
other men. Look what I do, I give my tithe
and I go to the synagogue all the time and look here, I'm praying
in front of everybody. I'm not ashamed of you and I'm
certainly not like this publican over here. And so this Pharisee
was a man rich in his own estimation. He thought he had coin, so to
speak, that he could show to God and thereby buy God's blessings. That's what this rich man was
like. He's like Saul of Tarsus who boasted his heritage, his
faithfulness, his zeal and success. This rich man is like those of
the church of Laodicea in the book of Revelation who said to
themselves, we are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. Now, there are a lot of poor
people in this world who are rich in the way that God means
this. Do you realize there are people
who actually try to build up a righteousness out of their
poverty? I come from West Virginia, and
particularly in my childhood, the folks down in southern West
Virginia coalfields, there was a lot of poor people down there.
And they would actually boast in their poverty as though that
somehow made them more attractive to God. So even though they had
monetary poverty, they were like this rich man in their estimation
of themselves and how, whatever it was they are, made them acceptable
in the sight of God. Such people fare well in this
religious world. They are highly esteemed by other
men. They are bragged on. They are
satisfied in their religion, convinced that by one means or
another, they are good enough for God. They live happy and
carefree lives, living sumptuously off of their self-reputation. Even the world thinks there's
something special about them. But Lazarus, that one whose name
means God is my help, Lazarus represents the believers. Those
whose hope is in God alone, through Christ alone, by his grace alone. Who have nothing, profess nothing,
themselves who say as the scriptures describe
us as David described himself in one of the Psalms he gets
to the very end of it he says yet I am poor and needy may the
Lord think on me here's David king of Israel He was a pretty rich man for
his day, and yet he says, I am poor and needy. That's Lazarus. The things which we need for
eternal life, we're utterly bankrupt when it comes to those things.
We are nothing but beggars in the sight of God. Now nearly
every translation calls him a beggar, and indeed he was, but it's the
same word that in most other places is translated poor, a
poor person. And our Lord used this same word
in Matthew chapter 5 when he said, Blessed are the poor in
spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Now here we have a
man who's rich in spirit, who thinks highly of himself, who
is full of confidence about things to come, and he's living sumptuously
off of his delusion that he stands in good favor before God. Well,
curse should be such a man. But here's Lazarus, a nothing, a nobody, poor. It says that he had wounds and
I looked up that word in Greek and it just doesn't mean any
old kind of wound, it's talking about festering sores. And he was hungry. But what did
our Lord say? Blessed are they who hunger and
thirst after righteousness. The life of faith in this world
is not the life of satisfaction. I'm not saying we can't be content
in this world. We can be content with a lot
that God gives us in this world. And we can be content with whatever
spiritual state or progress or whatever word you want to put
on it that God has given to us up to this point. But David said,
I will be satisfied when I awake and see you. There is no satisfaction. for
the deepest longings of a believer, so long as he is on this side
of the grass. That's just the way it is. He
is not satisfied with his love for God. He's not satisfied with
his righteousness. He's not satisfied with his zeal
for the things of God. He is like Paul who said in Romans
7, O wretched man that I am. Now what a different confession
that was from the Apostle Paul compared to the boast he would
make in the days of his Phariseeism when he was a rich man in his
own eyes. Now he said, I'm a wretched man. I'm nothing. And the third person in this
story is Abraham. Now, it is said that Lazarus
was carried to Abraham's side. Now, why would they say that?
Well, our Lord was using the language of the beliefs of that
day without necessarily saying that those beliefs were right.
You see, the Jews were so enamored of Abraham that they thought
going to paradise meant going to be with Abraham. They said, well, what did the
rich man call him? Father Abraham. that he would
learn to call on a different father than Abraham. But they looked to Abraham and
therefore they thought that the realization of all their hopes
as the promised people would be to be with Abraham. And so our Lord used their terminology.
He wasn't going to argue that point with him. So he's taken
to Abraham's side, taken to the place the Jews thought would
be a paradise. So Abraham is here, and what
does he actually represent? Even though we know that heaven
is not a matter of being united to Abraham, How did Paul put
it? I desire to depart and be with
Christ. Now that's where I want to be.
But there is something to be learned about being identified
with Abraham because the scriptures do sometimes identify us with
Abraham. If you'll turn in your Bibles
over to Galatians chapter three. Like I said, the Jews, they, They like to boast of their attachment
to Abraham. They said, Abraham is our father.
In fact, one time those people were rebuked. They said, and
don't say to me now that we have Abraham as our father. I tell
you that God can raise up children to Abraham from the very rocks. So Paul, in setting forth the
gospel and what that means and how that changed things, He says
in verse 7 of Galatians chapter 3, understand then that those
who believe are children of Abraham. Now again our Lord used a phrase
that the Jews used to describe paradise, but he didn't use it
in the way they did. Now he didn't explain that to
them. They thought the blessings were in Abraham. No, the blessings
weren't in Abraham. But still, there is a blessing
to all those who, like Abraham, believe. Believe. And you know what, brethren?
Now, there's lots of blessings in heaven. But one of the greatest
of them must be this, that we will be united with all those
who believed as we did. And we will be united, no longer
as believers, but seers. Remember, once you see, it's
no longer a matter of faith. Isn't it good to be with those
who have the same view you do about things? I mean, we tend
to hang around with people that think pretty much like we think.
Well, it's going to be wonderful then, brethren, in glory, for
everybody in glory is going to think exactly the same about
God, about Christ, about His grace, about His gospel, and
about one another. In heaven, there is no arguing.
In heaven, there is no difference of opinion, even on minor details.
In heaven, there is absolute unity. and therefore it is a paradise
to be among these children of Abraham who believe. Now comparing
these two men as they appear on earth it may seem undesirable
to be a believer and that's why the Lord said, and we preached
on this a week or two ago, count the cost. Now you can go on in religion,
in my religion You know, I'm talking about just natural fleshly
religion, no matter what names on the outside of the building.
But you can go along in that and you can feel rich, you can
feel as though you have everything you need, you can be confident
of acceptance with God, but you will end up like those whom the
Lord says, He says, they shall come to Him and say, did we not
preach in your name and cast out demons in your name and do
many wonderful works in your name. They came to the Lord rich and went away poor. Went away
poor. We can do that. That doesn't
cost much in this world. Doesn't cost much to be that
kind of person. Or we can take the path of salvation by grace
alone, through Christ alone, and our lives in this world will
be more like that of Lazarus, spiritually speaking. Now the
first lesson we can learn from this story then in spiritual
things, taking it out of just natural understanding of this
parable, the first thing is, we learn this. All men, believing
and unbelieving, Rich and poor, all men die. There is not a condition on earth
which renders a person exempt from natural death. Now so far
as I know, there's only two people in all of human history who didn't
die, and that was Enoch and Elijah. And it is true that a day will
come when the Lord will return and there will be some believers
on the earth in that day and they shall not pass through death,
they shall be changed in a twinkling of an eye, but they'll not die
in the way everybody else will. But the general rule is this,
for every birth there's a death. And it doesn't matter what the
conditions were in between the birth and the death, every birth
ultimately leads to death. These two men, it seemed like
their lives were dramatically different, and they were to the
outward appearance, but their lives ended exactly the same
way. They died. It says here that the time came
when the beggar died, and then a few words later it says the
rich man also died. I like the plainness of that.
The beggar died, the rich man died. No matter what you are,
no matter your station in life, no matter how good you appear
to others, no matter how much you may think you have advanced
in things that please God, here's the truth, someday you'll die. The conditions before these men
died were starkly different than the conditions of these men after
they died. were remarkably different. But
this was the same about both of them. They died. Now this isn't a very big congregation,
but we span a lot of years in between the youngest of us and
the oldest of us. And it may be that some of us
are nearer to our natural death than our others. But natural
death is no more certain for anyone here than for another. Someday, every one of us here
is going to take our turn being the guest of honor at a funeral.
We'll be the one they're talking about. We'll be the one that
hopefully a few of them are crying about. All men, without exception, die. Also, we learn this from this
story, the Bible speaks of only two conditions in eternity, blessedness
and torment. There is no limbo, there is no
purgatory. Men always try to devise some
means by which folks can escape hell, they get another chance.
I remember, of course, I was raised in a view of prophecy
called dispensationalism. It's not something I believe
anymore, but as a child, that's what I was taught. And they believe
that Jesus is going to come back, you know, halfway and take all
the believers out of the world. And then everybody else is going
into a seven-year period called the tribulation. And one of the
big questions is, well, will people have a second chance to
believe during the tribulation? Friends, people don't need a
chance, really. Opportunity's got nothing to
do with it. God can give men as many chances as can be and
they will still not repent so long as all that happens is God
gives them the opportunity. In verse 27, Lazarus is, not Lazarus, the rich man
says, then I beg you, Father, send Lazarus to my father's house
for I have five brothers. Let him warn them so that they
will not come to this place of torment. Give them another chance.
Send them a more convincing preacher. Send them someone raised from
the dead. Surely that will cause them to repent and they won't
come to this place. And what was Abraham's response?
They have Moses and the prophets. They have the word of God. And
if they're not convinced by that, They won't be convinced even
if someone rose from the dead. And you know what? Someone rose
from the dead and they're still not convinced. Jesus Christ raised
from the dead and told the gospel and men still don't turn. Second, third, fourth, millionth
chances are no good to those who are spiritually dead. Dead
people do not need more chances to come out of their tombs. They
need the voice of God to enter their tombs and raise them from
the dead. In John chapter five, let's turn
over there. I want to read this right. This
is powerful. John chapter five. Our Lord speaking, verse 25,
John chapter 5, verse 25. He says, I tell you the truth,
a time is coming, in fact it's now come, when the dead will
hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will
live. For as the Father has life in
himself, so he has granted the Son have life in himself. We all know the story of that
other Lazarus, the real and literal Lazarus who died. He was a friend
of the Lord, one whom the Lord loved, and he died and so the
Lord eventually got to his home there in Bethany. His sisters
were Martha and Mary. He knew he was going to raise
Lazarus from the dead. Let me ask you, what did he do? Well
he told people, roll the stone out. He did not say to Lazarus,
All right, Lazarus, I'm gonna give you another chance at life.
Come on out and you can have a do-over. What would have happened
if he'd have done that? Nothing. Lazarus, you weren't as faithful
as you should be, but I'm gonna give you another chance. Just
get up and come out of there. Nothing. What had to be said
Jesus spoke with a power that only he had of all the men who
have ever lived upon the earth He had life within himself And
he spoke into the deadness of that foul tomb and he said Lazarus
Come out And you know what? Lazarus could no more stay in
there after that then he could come out of there before that
Do you think on that? When God speaks, when the Lord
Jesus Christ speaks to a man's heart, he can no more not believe
than he could believe before the Lord called him. The power of the gospel is in
the voice of God. It does not rest in opportunities
given to men to repent and believe. There is no way to literally
describe the blessedness of heaven or the torment of hell, but the
symbols that are used here give us a little understanding. Hell
is likened to a fire and to a thirst and hunger that are never satisfied. Heaven is likened to being blessed
with Abraham. Now there is There is one that the Jews thought
to be more righteous and worthy, or there is no one they thought
was more righteous and worthy than Abraham. Their attitude
toward him was wrong, for they thought his righteousness came
from his own doing. But the Lord accommodates their
understanding and speaks in the language they understand. And
Abraham indeed was righteous, but why was he righteous? Romans
4 says, quoting the Old Testament, Abraham believed God and God
credited to him for righteousness. And heaven is being with all
those who believe and being with the one in whom we believed. And also as a man dies, so shall
he be forever. That's a sobering thought. It
says in verse 26 here, we're back in Luke 16, Abraham talking
about not being able to do anything for the rich man. And he says,
besides all this between us and you, a great chasm has been fixed
so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor
can anyone cross over from here to us. Let me appeal to you to at least
sober your minds on this issue. I know that all things have been
determined by God from eternity, but you and I don't live in eternity,
do we? We live in the flow of time. And that's the only way
we can perceive things. And here's how it works out in
the flow of time. When you die, however you die,
That's how you stay forever. In the book of Ecclesiastes,
I believe it is, they illustrate it this way. As a tree falls,
there it lays. In the book of Revelation, it
states it this way. Let them who are filthy be filthy
still. Let those who are pure be pure
still. And therefore, that should sober
our minds that we not give ourselves to the pursuit of whatever kind
of worldly riches we may think are best, whether they be the
just simple material wealth or we're trying to earn for ourselves
some kind of religious wealth. Let's not give ourselves to that,
but let us rather soberly, soberly consider what we are. sinners in the sight of a just,
righteous, and holy God. Let us consider who Christ is
and what He did. He is God in human flesh, the
Son of God come down, and He in His human flesh took the place
of sinners, and bore within Himself their sin, bore the punishment
due unto their sin. Such as that the beloved Son
of God had to cry out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken
me? Think upon that, that he poured out his soul unto death.
That's one way the scriptures put it. Another way is this,
he offered himself without spot to God. Now you and I are nothing
but one big spot. We're just sin from top to bottom.
But he had no sin, and he offered himself like that to God. And
the offering was accepted by God. And the word goes out, he that
sees the son and believes on him, he'll have everlasting life. Another couple of quick things.
For the unbeliever, death is the end of all he hoped for.
And for the believer, it's the full realization of everything
he hoped for. The very best day that an unbeliever
has in this world is the best day he'll ever have. And the worst day a believer
has in this world is the worst day he'll ever have. And I'll
tell you this, the worst day in this world is nothing compared
to the horror of hell. Like I said, I don't know exactly
what hell is, I just know this. It caused the Son of God to shriek,
to cry out. It caused Him, the thought of
it, enduring it for His people, caused Him to sweat blood. This life can get pretty bad,
but it cannot get nearly so bad as what hell is. And yet the
worst day of a believer's life is the worst day he'll ever have.
Well, what made the difference between the rich man and Lazarus? God's grace. It's the only thing. God's grace made one man poor,
poor in his own eyes. The grace of God made one man
Mourned. Made one man hunger and thirst
after righteousness. Made one man poor in spirit. It is written in the book of
First Corinthians chapter four, verse seven, Paul says, who makes
you to differ? That's one of those rhetorical
questions. Everybody knows the answer, God
did. Are believers different than unbelievers? Yes, they are,
but it's not the believers made the difference. It's God that
made that difference. God and God alone makes distinctions
among men. By nature, all of us are like
the rich man. It's only God's grace that makes
us into poor men. But the rich man was in reality,
not really the rich man, was he? He was rich in what the world
calls riches, but he was utterly bankrupt when it came to what
the Lord called true riches. Maybe we need to change the name
of this parable. The poor man and Lazarus. Are you rich in this world? And
I'm not talking about, again, I'm not talking about wealth
in the bank. That's an irrelevant point. I'm
talking about what you perceive about yourself and in your own
heart before God. You think you got something?
You think you have some righteousness that impresses God? You think
you go to church enough that God's really kind of attracted
to you? I feel sorry for you. You're
very, very poor. You're bankrupt. And all that
death will do is reveal your bankruptcy. But are you poor in spirit? Do you mourn? The poor in spirit,
it said of them, that they shall inherit the kingdom of God. Blessed
are those who mourn, they'll be comforted. Blessed are those
who hunger and thirst after righteousness. They hunger and thirst because
they don't feel they have it. All those that hunger and thirst
for it, they'll get it, they'll be filled. So, are you Lazarus? Or are you what the Lord called
a rich man, but we realize he was really the poor one? So what can I do about it? Well,
on the one hand, I want to tell you there's nothing you can do
about it. We can't change ourselves, but also let me say this. If
God has put it in your heart to consider this seriously and to want to know, Am I like
the rich man or am I Lazarus? That thought came from God. If
that's really the desire of your heart to know, that desire came
from God. And seek Him about it. Seek Him
about it. Ask Him to convince you of your
natural poverty, that you might receive miraculous riches. While the Lord add his blessing
to those words.