Several days ago, a few of us
attended a funeral. I was not the speaker, and I had not met the preacher.
And he preached, and he chose as his text this portion that
I just read to you. And I was most, most disappointed. And as I left the building, we
followed by the casket, and I went up to this young pastor, and
I said, you missed, you missed an opportunity to preach the
bloody sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's a horrible
thing to do. There were all of these people
who were gathered who needed to hear about the grace of God
to sinners through Christ crucified, buried, risen again. They needed
to hear that Christ died for sinners. He shed his very precious
blood to redeem the one whose funeral we were attending. And he missed it, and I said,
you missed it. You missed it. And I said, that's
a shameful thing to do. And I walked out. conceive of a preacher of the
gospel preaching a funeral of a man
who professed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and then that preacher
missed the substitutionary sacrifice of the Son of God by which that
man went to glory. By God's grace, I pray that I'll
never miss that message, that I'll never make that tragic mistake. From this passage of scripture,
I want to talk to you on the subject, lessons that were learned
too late. Now whenever you look at a passage
of scripture, we know there are kind of two rules that we need
to keep in mind. Who is the speaker? And to whom
is he addressing his remarks? The speaker is the Lord Jesus
Christ. Let us take heed to every word
that came forth from him. And the audience, that is the
specific audience that he is addressing, are the Pharisees. He began to address them especially
back in chapter 15. These were the people who had
nothing to do with the Savior and who said there at the beginning
of chapter 15, they said in a way of derision, this man is the
friend of publicans and sinners. And to those of us who have been
shown that we are sinners, we're thankful that he's the friend
of publicans and sinners. And then our Lord began that
great threefold parable in chapter 15 And in that parable, and keep
in mind he was speaking to the Pharisees, he spoke to them about the lost
sheep. And he really identified the
Pharisees in that because they were the 99 who thought they
did not need any repentance. And then he talked about another
part of the parable was the parable of the woman who had 10 coins. And nine of those coins, they
pictured the Pharisees. And then he had the third part
of the parable was two sons. One we know was the prodigal
son. The other one was the oldest
son, the eldest son, and he was a picture of the Pharisees. He
said, I've always been with you. It's like the Pharisees who profess
to know God and believe the things of God. So that's in chapter
15. When he gets to chapter 16, he
begins to speak about the parable of the unjust steward. And in
my Bible, I have to turn a page, but look at chapter 16 and verse
1. And he said also unto his disciples,
there was a certain rich man which had a steward. The same
was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And that's
what the Pharisees did. They wasted the goods that God
gave them. God gave them Old Testament pictures
of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord gave them the Word of
God. The Lord gave them the offerings. The Lord gave them the morning
sacrifice and the evening sacrifice. But they wasted their goods.
They wasted the good things that God gave them. And we know that
in addition to the disciples, which were identified in chapter
one, he turns his attention specifically to the Pharisees because he says
this in verse 14, and the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard
all these things and they derided him, they mocked him. Now keep
in mind, he's the only savior of sinners. He is the Redeemer. He is the only one who can present
us to God upon the basis of His life laid down. But they made
fun of Him. Literally, they turned up their
noses at the Lord Jesus Christ. They derided Him. Now look at
verse 15, And He said unto them, That's important. This is who
He's speaking to and He's speaking about. He's speaking to and speaking
about the Pharisees who considered themselves to be righteous before
God, but God knew their hearts because it says in the next verse,
verse 15, and He said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves
before men, but God knoweth your hearts." And those of you who
are familiar with the Scriptures, you know that the people considered
the Pharisees to be the holiest people on earth. These were the
men who were like walking Bibles. They prayed on the street corners.
They tithed of all that they possessed. They fasted twice
in the week. And to most of the people, they
were the epitome of holy men. But the Savior says, but God
knoweth the heart. He knows your heart and He knows
my heart. And He knew the hearts of these
Pharisees. And He says, for that which is
highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God,
is foul, stinking and detestable unto God. These were the Pharisees
who mocked the Savior. In fact, the Holy Spirit says
back in verse 14, they were covetous. They were covetous. And if we
back up to verse 13, it says, No servant can serve two masters,
for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he
will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God
in mammon. They were wrapped up in their
possessions, in their property, in their money, in their financial
standing. These things were what they considered
the most important things. And he says, you're covetous,
you're covetous. And then he begins to speak about
this story of the rich man and Lazarus. Understand this, the
rich man in this story, he pictures a Pharisee. He pictures a Pharisee. And the beggar, he pictures a
sinner who has nothing to bring to God. It's like top lady's
song, nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. One man is filled with good thoughts
about himself. The other man is a beggar. And
our Lord kind of keeps up this theme in chapter 18 in that parable
of the Pharisee and the publican. And what you need to understand
is, here in several chapters in a row, he is denouncing Phariseeism,
thinking yourself to be righteous before God based upon your works,
based upon something you do. And then in addition to exposing
the Pharisees, he presents a humbled beggar of a sinner. He presents
this man, Lazarus, as a mercy beggar, and he has nothing of
this world's goods, while the rich man has everything the flesh
could desire. But he didn't have God. He didn't have Christ. There was no blood to wash him. There was no righteousness of
the Son of God to clothe Him. He just tugged on His purple
and fine linen garment. Now what do you think that is?
That's His self-righteousness. He's like the people of Laodicea. The Lord said, you think you're
rich and increased with goods, but you're poor and miserable
and you're blind and you're naked. You've got nothing. And I don't
know your financial standing or your property standing. It's
nothing wrong with having things, nothing wrong with having money. But here's what is wrong when
you make money you're God. When you make material possessions,
you're idol. And you ignore, you lightly esteem,
you even turn up your nose at Jesus Christ and His precious
blood sacrifice. That's the only way that God
can be just and justify the ungodly. You wouldn't turn up your nose
at Christ and His sacrifice, would you? You wouldn't bring
to God what you think are good things and merits. You wouldn't
do that, would you? Oh, how I pray that when you come
to God, you'll come as a beggar. Lord, I've got nothing to give
you, and you've got everything to give me. I pray that, Lord,
I'll be truly a beggar. Because we know this, the Lord
knoweth the heart. I just read that, the Lord knoweth
the heart. If you come to Him in prayer,
He knows upon what basis you would draw near to Him. If you
draw near to God, come upon the basis of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the wounded smitten lamb of God. For only in Him will you be accepted Which one of these men do you
identify with? You see, the Pharisees, they
didn't need mercy. They had their merits. They didn't need mercy, they
had their merits. But that which they perceived
as righteousness was in reality just filthy rags. It was unrighteousness. They pretended to worship God,
but get this. You got to get this. The secret
ingredient of worship is to draw near to God through the Lord
Jesus Christ and His cross death. That's the secret ingredient
of worship. There's no other way to worship
God. There's no other way to enter into his presence. The Pharisees stood on the street
corner and they prayed and people said, oh, he's such a holy man. And the Lord said, you pray,
get in your closet. That is, get alone with God.
It's not to be a show before people, just you and God come
clean, come honest with God. You see, God finds Christless,
bloodless religion to be a thing that's filthy and detestable. Religion without Christ crucified
is just hypocrisy. That's all it is. The Pharisees sought earthly
riches, but they were poor toward God. Whereas the beggar in our
text was poor with regard to the things of the world, but
he was rich toward God. Now understand this, the rich
man did not go to hell because of his riches. He went to hell
because he didn't know Christ. He had not been washed in the
blood of the Lamb. He had not been robed in the
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And things of this world, this
world that is cursed, things were much greater and much more
important to him than the things of God. And the beggar, he did not go
to heaven because he was poor and diseased. He went to heaven
because the Spirit of God, and you have to compare scripture
with scripture now. He went to heaven because the
Spirit of God had done a work of grace in his heart and brought
him by effectual mercy to the Lord Jesus Christ as the sinner
who needs the Savior. That's the difference between
them. Let me tell you some of the lessons
that the rich man learned, but he learned them too late. Oh, he learned some lessons all
right, but he learned them too late. Number one, the certainty
of death. He learned that all must be brought
to the grave, rich people and poor people. Saved people and
lost people. His riches did not keep death
away. And even the salvation of the
soul of the beggar, that didn't keep death away. He learned that everybody's got
to give up the ghost someday. When? I don't know. How? I don't know. But sooner or later,
the soul will vacate the body and immediately appear before
the majesty of God. Those who died in Christ are
welcomed, welcomed into the presence of the King. Those who die without
Christ will be cast into hell. The trials of Lazarus came to
an end. And the sumptuous life and hypocrisy
of the rich man also came to an end. Death is the common end
of all men. So learn that earthly honors
are not marks of God's approval, and poverty and disease are not
marks of God's disapproval. Second thing, so he learned that
the certainty of death, and you all know the certainty
of death, because you've been, any of you of any age whatsoever,
you've been in a funeral home. So he learned that all must die.
Secondly, he learned that all must face God. He learned that a great change
had taken place which was only evident after death. A certain
rich man, it says, a notable, a distinguished, and a well-known
rich man, a Pharisee. But he found out the righteousness
which he professed to have. was no good when he faced God. He didn't have the righteousness
of Christ. He was not right toward God.
You see, the righteousness which God demands was established by
the faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ laying down His
life, and that righteousness is imputed to everybody who believes
Him. Did you hear me? To everybody
who believes Him. And in the righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ and through the blood of the Son of God,
we are washed, we're made every whit whole. We're clean before
God. Sin's forgiven. Our salvation made sure by the
sacrifice of the Son of God, who was obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. You see, the rich man, he learned
that though others were impressed with him and his position in
society, he was poor toward God. He was only clothed outwardly
in gorgeous apparel, whereas Lazarus, though dressed in rags,
he was clothed in the righteousness of the Son of God, white garment. And he learned that he was now
separated from God. Whereas the beggar, whom he had
despised and to whom he would not give a helping hand, the
beggar was now in the blessed presence of God. He was with
the Lord. Lazarus was rejoicing in God's
salvation. He was an heir of God and a joint
heir of Jesus Christ, washed in the blood of the Lamb. He was clothed in the garments
of salvation. Whereas this beggar, or this
rich man, he died and then he began to beg. He began to beg then. So let me say this, number three,
he learned the blessedness of salvation. He learned that salvation
is much more than an outward profession of religion. He learned that God is not pleased
with a Christless and a bloodless religion. Seeing Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, he saw the blessedness of God's
salvation. Seeing Lazarus in paradise and
himself in torment, he learned that while in life he was busy
seeking more money and more prestige and more honor, he should have
been seeking the Lord while he may be found. That's what he
should have been doing. While always crying out for money,
more money. Well, what will satisfy you,
Mr. Rich Man? More money, more money. While crying out for money and
recognition and prestige and fame He should have been crying
out for mercy, crying out for salvation in the
Son of God. He's a Jew. He knew about the
sacrifices of the Old Testament. He should have been crying out
for the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. He
learned he was a sinner. He finally learned that. But
it was too late. Because he found out he's a sinner,
but he's a sinner without salvation. He learned the agony of dying,
but dying without Christ. He learned in seeing Lazarus,
who entered into the joy of the Lord, He learned that to die
without Christ means torment that will never end. I'll tell you something else
he learned. He learned to be concerned about
somebody besides himself. He said, I have five brothers.
I don't want them to come to this place. You know, he had
said to Abraham, would you send Lazarus that he may dip the tip
of his finger in water and cool my tongue? I'm tormented in this
flame. You see, to be separated from
God will mean a thirst that you will have if you perish, a thirst
for God, a thirst for salvation, a thirst for mercy that will
never end. And I read about somebody else
who thirsted. Christ said, I thirst. What had
happened? God forsook him because our sins
were imputed to him. I thirst for the living God. Do you thirst for the Lord? You
know, David said, as the heart panteth after the water brook,
so panteth my soul after thee, O God. I pant for God. I pant
for salvation. I pant for forgiveness. I pant
for that righteousness that God demands. I'm thirsty. And I find
that the gospel soothes my thirst. This man found out that he should
have been thirsty all along. for the right thing. But his thirst went in another
direction. And now he's concerned about
his brothers. I don't want them to come to
this place. And he wanted Lazarus to go back
from the dead and talk to his brothers. Abraham said, well,
they have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. Which leads me to say this, and
here's the last thing. He learned the subject of the
Bible. Do you know what the subject
of the Bible is? It's a big Bible. Of course,
all they had, all they had was the Old Testament. but to condense
down the message of the Law and the Prophets, of Moses and the
Prophets, to kind of compress it down, condense it down to
one subject, the subject of the Old Testament is the Lord Jesus
Christ who is coming who will give his life, shed his blood
to save a sinful people. He finally learned that's what
the Bible's all about, but he learned it too late. I hope you'll learn that. And I hope you'll learn it having
been taught by the Holy Spirit. He learned that nobody can be
saved apart from hearing and believing the gospel, which is
the message of Moses and the prophets. But you know, this man, he lived
as a rebel. He died as a rebel. He's still
a rebel. Because in hell, verse 30, he
said, no, no. Having Moses and the prophets,
not enough. He's still a rebel. He said, if one went unto them
from the dead, they'll repent. Somebody did come back from the
dead, the Savior. And you know what? Pharisees
still hated him. Tell you what's necessary is
the work of grace in the heart. Oh God, make all of us to be
mercy beggars. Take nothing before God by way
of merits, by way of works, nothing like that. Just come before God
and say, Lord, I'm nothing. I'm just a poor beggar. Give me Christ. Give me Christ
crucified, buried, risen again, who reigns on high. Give me the
Son of God, and I will be saved. Well, may the Lord bless the
preaching of his word. Would you get your songbooks?