Let's begin reading in Luke chapter
16, verse 19. There was a certain rich man
which was clothed in purple and fine linen and purred sumptuously
every day. There was a certain beggar named
Lazarus which was laid at his gate full of sowers, desiring
to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table.
And moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came
to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by angels into
Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was
buried. And in hell he lifted up his
eyes, being in torments, and saith Abraham aforeoff, and Lazarus
in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father
Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip
the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am
tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember
that thou in thy lifetime received thy good things, and likewise
Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted, and thou art
tormented. And beside all of this, between
us and you, there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which
would pass from hence to you cannot. Neither can they pass
to us that would come from hence. Then he said, I pray thee, therefore,
father, that thou wouldst send him to my father's house. For
I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, unless
they come into this place of torment. Abraham said unto him,
They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. And he said,
Nay, father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead,
they will repent. And he said unto him, If they
hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded,
though one rose from the dead. The rich lost, and the beggars
saved. That's amazing, ain't it? There
was a rich man, and yet he was lost. And there was a beggar,
and yet he was saved. I want to look at this passage
because I think it reminds us this morning what a dreadful
and fearful situation the world finds itself in since the fall
of Adam. Clarence taught us this morning
about the great white throne judgment, and it is appointed
unto men once to die, then after this. And it shows us the seriousness,
I think, of us as individual human beings. When we come into
this world, what we face at last, that we don't face annihilation,
that when death comes, it doesn't end it all. There is indeed an
eternity, and there's no escaping it. Once God gives breath to
the body, once he gives life to the soul and brings it into
this world, then there's a world to come for that individual person. Passage here is not meant to
teach us the way of salvation, and by that I simply mean you
won't find any blood here. It's not meant to teach us the
way of redemption. You'll find nothing here of justification
by faith. You won't find regeneration of
the new birth. This is not meant to teach us
the way of salvation. But we are to learn that there
is a life to come for those who are saved and for those who are
lost. We can learn some things from
this, and I want us to begin this morning by considering this,
that we learn from this rich man and this beggar that it is not evident whether grace
is in your heart. by the things which you possess. Here was a rich man that fared
sumptuously every day. He had an easy life, but he had
no grace in his heart. It is not evident that God loves
a man in Christ because of what he possesses in this world. And
here is a man that we are told was a beggar, that he was dressed
in filthy rags, that he was sick, he was full of sores, he was
tormented, and yet God loved this man. This man was a redeemed
man, was a man who was saved by the grace of God. A rich man
without grace and a beggar full of grace. The second thing we
learn is this, that in regard to suffering, there is a distinction
to be made between the saved and the lost. If not physically,
if not financially, and if not socially, then surely there is
a difference in the saved and the lost in regard to the suffering
within. The children of God may not be
full of sores physically. They may not have to beg for
what they eat. But I tell you, they suffer.
The children of God, if there's anybody that knows anything about
joy, they know it. They have the peace of God in
their hearts, but they suffer, too. They suffer in their spirits. They suffer in their hearts. They are afflicted. David said
many are the affliction of the righteous. There is more than
one way to suffer. The children of God, the poor
lazers in the kingdom of Jesus Christ, they suffer in a way
that the lost know nothing of. They suffer in a manner that
the lost can never suffer with. And one of the ways they suffer
is by poverty of spirit. They are poor in their spirit. They may not be poor financially,
but they are in poverty of spirit. Blessed are the poor in spirit. David was a rich man. He was
a king, but he said this poor man cried unto the Lord. This rich man knew nothing about
being poor in spirit, but Lazarus knew something of it. The Lord
said, to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and
of a contract spirit. I tell you, we suffer, don't
we? We suffer in poverty in spirit. A poor man can't supply himself,
can he? He can't support himself. He's
utterly dependent upon someone else to supply his need. Just
as sure as Lazarus laid at the gate of this rich man and begged
for his food, you and I are utterly dependent upon our Lord, and
everything we get, we get it from Him. We ask for it. We seek Him. And we beg Him for
everything. Do you have any problems this
morning with being a beggar before the Lord? And you know, just
like this Lazarus as he lay there, he was unable to supply any of
his needs. He couldn't lift a finger. He
couldn't go to work. Somebody brought him and carried
him, and he laid there, and everything he got, he was dependent upon
somebody else to supply it for him. He was a welfare case. And
that's what a Christian is. That's what a believer is. He's
a welfare case. He gets everything he has, and
it's supplied to him through the Lord and Savior. He's dependent
upon another. Listen to what the prophet said,
the Lord said through the prophet. He said, Thus saith the high
and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, I dwell in the high
and holy place with him also that is of a contract and humble
spirit. That's what a believer is. He's
of a broken spirit. He's a poor man. And God in heaven
says, I dwell with that man. Why does God dwell with him?
Well, he says, I dwell with him to revive the spirit of the contrite
ones and to revive the heart of the poor ones. If he doesn't
do it, nobody else can. So there is a sense, brothers
and sisters, in which the child of God suffers in a way. that the lost know absolutely
nothing about. He's in poverty, he's poor in
his spirit. He hungers, he paints after God
for the living God and the rich man knows nothing about this. Hunger pains. You think Lazarus
suffered hunger pains? A Christian suffers hunger pains. He hungers And he thirsts after
righteousness. I tell you, it's a painful thing
to be thirsty, ain't it? I mean, if you get so thirsty,
you can't think about anything else but getting something to
quench your thirst. And David said, I thirst as a
heart, as a deer paints after the water broke. I've seen dogs
down in Tennessee running deers. The poor deer gets so thirsty
and so worn out that his tongue hangs out of his mouth. And sometimes
he gets so thirsty he can't go on and the dogs catch him. That's
thirst. And where do we fill and where
do we quench our thirst? It has to be filled from the
water of life, a source outside of ourselves. And what do we
do? We lay there. We lay there until our thirst
is quenched. The unsaved know nothing about
the sores of God's poor ladders. They know nothing about their
own sinfulness. They know nothing about the rags
of self-righteousness. They don't weep over self-merit
and self-love and unbelief. David said, sometimes my sore
runs in the night. Sometimes he says, my wounds
stink and are sore corrupt. God's Lazarus is full of sores. They're not healthy. They feel
their own sickness. I tell you, this rich man would
have been repulsed just to think about being in the condition
that Lazarus was in. If you walked up to his door
and knocked and said, look at that beggar laying out there,
Look at the rags that he's dressed in. Look at his running sores
all over his body. Utterly dependent upon anybody
else. Would you like to be like that? Wouldn't he be repulsed
just to think of it? You know this world disdains
a poverty. They disdain the poverty that
I'm talking about this morning. They don't disdain so much. It's
bad enough to think about coming into financial ruin. But I tell
you a ruin this world disdains, and that's spiritual ruin. Spiritual poverty. That they're
poor. That they're no good. That their
righteousness is steak and filthy rags. The world disdains that. One of the things that scares
people to death, and we labor to bring them to that bondage,
that in a spiritual sense, you and I are as bankrupt as Lazarus. And as far as righteousness is
concerned, and our spiritual health is concerned, we're full
of sores and wounds and bruises. And I tell you, that's what scares
the world to death. A man can take financial bankruptcy,
and he can take loss of health physically better than he can
find himself spiritually for Lazarus' loss. A lady said about me one time,
she doesn't go here anymore, but she used to come here, and
she said, Bruce believes you've got to have this great experience. Bruce believes you've got to
have this great experience. Well, I believe this. You've
got to know yourself sick. You've got to find yourself somewhere
where old Lazarus was. They that behold don't need a
physician, but they that are sick, sick, sin sick, righteousness
that is filthy, stinking, running like Lazarus's sword. And you
lay there with no ability to do anything about it. Isn't that
where we are, brothers and sisters? We can no more heal ourselves
of this depravity, our awful state and condition, than Lazarus
could get up and go get him a job and get out of his poverty and
heal his running sores. That's the condition we're in. Oh, the Apostle Paul, this is
the lesson that he had to learn. He said, I was perfect. Didn't
he say that? Oh, he said, when I was born,
My mommy and daddy were so careful that I would be right, that they
circumcised me. And they raised me up in the
synagogue. They taught me. Boy, I kept all the traditions. And
I was blameless. Is that what he said? I was blameless. I was whole. I've never been
sick spiritually a day in my life. until the Lord showed him
his souls, until the Lord showed him his wickedness, his lost
state. And then what did he say? I carried
all that down. That was all lost. I lost every
bit of that, that I may win Christ and be found in Him. You are in Luke chapter 16. In
verse 13, look at this. This was some things concerning
the Pharisees. This rich man must have been
a Pharisee, I guess. The Lord here was speaking to
these Pharisees about the rich man and Lazarus. And there were
three things about these fellows. Look at them in verse 13. The
first one was this. 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
and mammon. You can't serve God in something
else, anything else. You can't serve God in your wife.
You can't serve God in your children. You can't serve God in your job.
You can't serve God in anything else. And it made these fellows
mad. Why? Because look in verse 14,
"...the Pharisees also, who were covetous, they heard all these
things." They loved their selves, didn't
they? They loved their things. And look here what else about
them. They got mad at the Lord Jesus because He told them these
things. He exposed them. He said, you cannot serve God
in mammon. When they heard these things,
they derided him in the last verse, verse 14. They were mad
at him. He exposed their idolatry, their
self-love. And notice what else he said
about him here in verse 15, these Pharisees. Ye are they who justify
yourselves before God, before men. You justify yourselves before
men, but God knows your heart." They were more concerned about
what men thought about them than what God thought about them.
They were more concerned with impressive men. They were more
concerned in being accepted of men than accepted of God. Poor Lazarus. He had nothing,
did he? He had nothing. His covetousness
was dead. He had nothing. Couldn't justify
himself before men. How would he do it? How would
he do it? He had nothing. He had nowhere
better than himself. Oh, are we sick this morning.
Here's what I'm saying. Do we have a disease that we'll
never recover from as long as we're in this world? Do you feel
yourself to be living in a body of death? Are you suffering this
morning? Are you suffering because of
your sin? You're in this battle, you're
in this warfare, struggling, you're afflicted, your soul runs
in the night, and you've got no way to help
yourself. You just lay and you cry, You lay and you cry, O wretched
man that I am. Do you suffer? Are you one of
God's Lazaruses? And you just wait for God to
send one of His dogs of one farm to another to lick your wounds
and cockroach you. Oh, I know the children of God
have joy. I know they have peace in their
hearts. But I know this, they suffer too. They suffer. They suffer without They suffer
within. They suffer at the hands of man
sometimes, and they suffer because of this body of death that they
dwell into. They have these sores. They're
in poverty. Are you sick? Are you sick of
sin? Are you sick of self? Are you sick of this world? This
rich man wasn't. Boy, he wasn't. He fared sumptuously
every day, he would have been repulsed to think he could have
stooped down and been just like Lazarus. That was his greatest
fear. Oh, you'll be just like him.
No, I hate that. Don't tell me that. Are you sick? A lot of people aren't sick. A lot of people are not beggars. A lot of people aren't laying
waiting and hoping. The early church had a saying,
and their saying was this. Jesus Christ came into this world
to save sinners. That's the saying that they had.
There are some law keepers who went down from Jerusalem to the
Galatian church and said, we've come down here to heal you folks.
We've come down here to make you whole. We've come down here
to protect you. We're tired of this saying that
you fellows keep repeating, Jesus Christ came to save sinners,
of whom I am chief. We've come to put a stop to that.
We're going to get you circumcised. We're going to get you to keep
holy days. We want you to adapt to stricter,
more riguous lifestyle. The old Westlands, you don't
hear it much anymore, but the old Westlands and Mazarines,
You used to have the second work of grace. Some of you young people
probably never heard of that. It means that the Lord does another
work of grace in your heart, and it blows all of this old
root of sin out. And it's all gone. It's all taken
away. And you never sin again. You're whole. You're perfect. Oh, you know something about
that condition? They that are whole need not a physician. You mean to tell me you don't
need Christ any longer? Is that what they're telling
us? But you remember how the Apostle Paul dealt with that
false doctrine and those false apostles? He said in Galatians
5 and 5, we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness
by faith. We're poor sinners. And we can't
better ourselves. We lay like poor Lazarus, dependent
upon someone else to feed us. Charity. Charity. We're living off of charity.
And we're waiting. We're waiting. Paul said we're
waiting for His Son from heaven. And there's nothing we can do
to finish this work that He started until He comes. We are waiting
for the hope of righteousness. We are waiting to be perfected.
We are waiting. That brings me here to this verse
22 and verse 23. Look at it. Look at chapter 16
and verse 22 and verse 23. Where do you fit in this morning? Are you a beggar? Are you a poor beggar full of
sores in your own eyes? Are you rich? and increase with
goods and have need of nothing. You've woven your own garments
and worked out for your own marriage everything you need and you're
so happy. Where do you fit in? Are you the beggar or are you
the rich man? Look at what happened in verse
22. And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried
by angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was
buried and inhaled, lift up his eyes, being in torment. And he saw Abraham before all,
and Lazarus was in his bosom." They died. They died. Well, you'd expect the poor man
to die, but the rich man died. Clerks
told us this morning, everybody dies. It's not maybe, it's not perhaps,
it's not if, it's just when. Everybody dies. And where do they go when they
die? The beggar goes to heaven, the rich go to torment. Brother
Jack Shanks, most of you know that he died a few months ago,
and he was in the nursing home for a number of years. Blessed
heart, I still hear his voice sometimes preaching. David Pleasure
often went to see him, and he said he left crying. Both of
them, when he left, both of them were crying. He suffered so.
And they went to see him, and they said, Jack, we've got two
pieces of information. One is your brother's dead. Your
brother's died." Well, Jack knew his brother died without any
hope. And they told me Jack sat there with his head bowed and
tears in his eyes, full of sorrow his brother had died. And they
said, Pastor Scott Richardson died this morning. And they said
Jack struggled to his feet and stood up and said, Praise God. Praise God. Your blood brother died, and
it's so sad. But Scott the old beggar died.
Praise God. That's what I'm talking about.
That's what the Lord is telling us here. Brothers and sisters,
I'd rather know myself to be in poverty. I'd rather to know
my spiritual sickness now and confess my utter helplessness
and live in hope upon the Savior to come and deliver me at last
than I would to labor to enrich my own self and to weave out me garments
of my own righteousness and merit and lose all. and lose myself
at last. The beggars go to heaven. The rich go to hell. We learn something here in verses
23 through 25, and it says that death will change everything. There's coming a day when everything
will be changed, and that's the day of death. The saints suffer
in a way now that the lost can never suffer. But after death,
the lost will suffer in a way in which the saved will never
suffer. Whatever comforts or enjoyments
the lost have, it is limited to this present life. Death will
change that. At death there is torment. And
whatever suffering the saint has, it's limited to this present
life. At death, he'll experience altogether
something different. The Lord says here in the last
portion of verse 25, He tells this rich man, in your lifetime,
you had your good things. and likewise Lazarus' evil veins,
but now he is comforted, and now you are tormented." Death
changes everything. Now he is comforted. What was his comfort? It sure
wasn't in this lifetime, was it? What was the comfort of this
baby? It consisted in two things. One,
his comfort consisted in what he lost and what he lost. What did he lose? Evil things. He lost all his evil things. Brothers and sisters, I realize
that the Bible teaches that all things work together for good
to them that love God. That's God doing that. He brings
that to pass. But sufferings in and of themselves,
afflictions that the saint goes through in and of themselves
are said to be evil things. Your temptations in and of themselves
are evil things. Your persecutions that other
people do to you, those are evil things in and of themselves.
The sores that he has. that caused him so much grief
and pain. These were evil things. His poverty,
his hunger, his filthy rags, his stinking body, all of these
things were evil, but he lost them. He lost them. Whatever he suffered in this
lifetime was limited to this lifetime. It followed him no
farther than his last breath. They died when his body died,
never to be revived again. I don't know what you may suffer,
dear Saint. I don't know what persecution.
It may be afflictions within. It may be your awful struggle
with sin and doubts and fears. It may be a neighbor that persecutes
you. It may be a family member that
persecutes you. It even may be your children.
that persecute you. But I tell you what, they'll
go no farther than death with you, because you'll lose every
evil thing when you die. The things that he lost was a
comfort to him. Do you think he took any of these
things to heaven with him? Not a one of them. Not a sore,
not a rag, not a pain, not a sorrow, not a tear. Now it's changed. Now he is comforted. And by the things, no doubt,
that he gained was his comfort. The Lord Jesus told us something
here that's a marvelous thing, an amazing thing. Angels came
to this man's soul and bound him up in their arms and carried
him up the hill. and tuck him in the gates of
that celestial city. My, my, my. If we saw an angel now, it would
probably scare us to death. It usually did when those people
in the Bible time saw an angel. But won't they be a welcome in
sight when this breath leaves the body? When the Lord commissions
His holy angels to go down and bear that soul into my presence? They're camping around about
the deathbed of the saint, waiting for that soul to leave the body.
They wrap him up for his protection. Nobody, nothing can lay a hand
upon that soul. And they bury him up into that
heavenly city. Oh, what comfort that will be,
brothers and sisters. Aren't you glad that you won't
be left to yourself to find a way? If the Lord just said, come on
up, we say, Lord, we don't know how to get there. He sends His
angels. Oh, what a comfort it must be
that now He's at rest. Blessed are the dead who die
in the Lord, saith the Spirit, that they may rest. Oh, how many
nights He laid, and because of the pain in His body, He couldn't
rest. He was as tired in the morning
when he woke as when he went to sleep because of the pain. But now he rests. And to be with Christ, Sue, to
be with Christ. Paul said that's not just better.
That's far better. Who will be able? How could I
possibly this morning even comment on what it would be to be with
the Lord Jesus Christ? I mean to truly be in His presence,
to bow at His feet, to see Him as He is, to have Him to speak
to you, the voice of the shepherd, to see His love that you never
could see in this life, to see His kindness and His goodness.
What would it mean to be with Christ? Oh, wouldn't that be
comforting? Isn't that our goal? Isn't that our aim? He was comforted because finally
he was made perfect. He was made perfect. He not only
was in the presence of those just spirits made perfect, he
was made perfect himself. This is what he was waiting for,
brothers and sisters. He didn't profess perfection
here. He professed imperfection. He
professed his sickness. He waited on the Lord to make
him perfect. And now there He is in His presence,
and His Spirit is perfect. No sense of sin in Him at all. The Lord Jesus said, Blessed
are you that hunger now, for you shall be filled. God has goodness laid up. Brad
read to us this morning. He has His goodness laid up for
those who fear Him, for those who trust Him. What will it be
to be filled with all the goodness of God? What will it be to be
filled with the knowledge of God? What will that be? The Lord
said they shall be filled with the knowledge of His love, with
the glory and splendor of His person. Eyes filled. with the King in His beauty. Blessed are you that weep now,
for you shall laugh. You know what Lazarus is doing
right now? He's laughing. He's been laughing,
I know, for 2,000 years. Laughing. The Lord said, You shall weep.
The world shall rejoice. You shall be sorrowful, but your
sorrow shall be turned into joy, and your joy no man takes from
you." Oh, the comfort that he must be experiencing. The Lord
said this, "'Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute
you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding Glad. Why, Lord? That's an awful thing. It hurts me when people accuse
me of things that I'm not guilty of. It hurts me when people don't
like me. I don't like to be a radical
man. Lord, it hurts. Oh, he said, Rejoice and be exceedingly
glad. Lord, how can I do that? Great
is your reward in heaven. I've got your reward laid up
for you. And you'll be comforted when you'll get here. For so
persecuted they, the prophets. And here Lazarus was there with
the prophets, leaping, shouting, and laughing. The rich man also died, and in
hell he lift up his eye, being in torment. What was his torment? What he lost. what he lost. Lazarus lost his evil things. The rich man lost his good things. He lost his good things. You
know there's nothing wrong with what the rich man had. He had
riches. There's nothing wrong with riches,
is there? There's nothing wrong with having a nice house. There's
nothing wrong with having a good automobile. How did we get here
this morning? I'm going to ride with Clarence
and Gail over to the Indianapolis this afternoon because they've
got one of the best automobiles here. They've got a good one. That's one of the reasons I'm
riding with them. I want to get there. Nothing wrong with that,
is there? Nothing wrong with having nice
clothes. Look what a nice suit somebody bought me. Nothing wrong
with this. Then what was the matter? What
was the matter? It was his heart. He worshipped these riches. He
lived for these riches. They were an end unto themselves. He served them and worshipped
them instead of God. That was his problem. It wasn't what he possessed.
It was his whole attitude toward jungle. I know what I'll do. I'll tear
down my barns, I'll build greater barns, and I'll do this, and
I'll do that, and I'll say to my soul, oh man, you're not rich
towards God. That's your problem. What he
lost. What he lost. We brought nothing into this
world, and it's evident, we ain't going to take nothing out. We're
going to leave every good thing here. But he lost some real good
things. He lost some real valuable things. What did he lose? He lost the
hope of ever being saved. Listen to that. He lost the hope
of ever being saved. Can you get a hold of that? We
often say as long as a man's breathing, there's hope. But
he quit breathing. He lost his breath, his last
breath. And when he lost his last breath,
he lost any hope of ever being saved. That's a good thing, isn't it?
That's a good thing he lost, but he lost it. He'll never hear
the gospel again. It will never be preached to
him. Repentance, the welcoming of
the Savior, coming to me, will never be preached to that man
again. He lost the presence of God. What nobody knows, but those
are in hell. He lifted up his eyes and he
said, have mercy on me. God is not here. I shunned Him. I hated Him. I told Him to depart
from me, and now He has. And I realize what I've lost. I realize what I've lost. He
lost the light of this world. Oh, brothers and sisters, He
lost Himself. He lost Himself. These things are enough to make
you torment in your own soul. To lose this world and the things
of it is bad enough, but to lose yourself, to lose God, to lose
Christ, to lose any hope. Oh, that's torment. That's torment. Oh, but not only what he lost,
but what he gained. A flame. Some kind of flame. The flame that you and I know
nothing about and by God's grace we never shall. I'm tormented
in this flame. He was in a bottomless pit. He's
still falling today. God has moved all support and
he just falls and he falls and he falls. Did you ever have a
dream that you were falling? That's what he's doing. The presence of the damned, screaming,
that's his company. He's tormented. The presence
of tormented devils, that's his company. An awful sense of the
terror of God upon his conscience, a worm that will eat his conscience
for all eternity, a worm that will eat his memory, remember
you your lifetime, how you loved your things? Oh, what a worm! What a worm! And utter despair, he tells us
in verse 26, of never having one request granted
and being in a prison from which you will never escape. You cannot
get out. waiting for the resurrection
to be judged and cast into a lake of fire and brimstone. Torment. Torment. Somebody said, Bruce,
I just don't believe that. I had a friend of mine, used
to be a friend of mine, he called me one day and he said, I've
changed my mind. He said, I don't believe in eternal torment anymore. I said, well, that's not according
to my understanding. There is no eternal torment that
neither you nor me have anything to worry about. Just let us eat, drink, and be
merry. Tomorrow we die, and everything is going to be fine. But I said,
if God's Word is true, I still don't have anything to worry
about, but you do. You do. You don't believe this Bible.
You don't believe the Gospel. If you don't believe that God
will cast men into hell, you've got a sad awakening. Because
this is true. As amazing, as beautiful as it
is, how there could be a place prepared for those who die rich
in themselves, and who are not rich towards God, that they could
be punished, not for a million years, but for everlasting. be tormented for everlasting.
I can't grasp that. And I would deny that in a minute
if the Scriptures would allow me. But we can't. Now, he is tormented. Quickly, look at this. Verse
27, I pray thee therefore, Father, since all my other requests have
been denied, I pray thee, therefore, that you have sent Lazarus to
my father's house. I have five brothers, that he
may testify unto them, lest they also come to this place of torment."
I wonder why he made this request. You know, I doubt seriously if
it was out of love. I bet there's not even any natural
love in hell. I bet it wasn't out of love.
You know what? I've got just a sneaking hunch. except this are rejected. Since
he died already, he was probably the oldest of his siblings. And he knew, they know obviously
who's there in hell and who isn't. He knew his brethren hadn't come
there and he didn't want them there. He said, go testify to
them. I don't want them to come here.
Why? Could it be this? That him being the oldest brother,
he was such a bad example to them? That he led them off into
sin? You siblings, you older siblings,
you got younger siblings, be careful. Be careful how you act. Be careful of your attitude around
your little brothers or your little sisters. You may be the
instrument of leading them farther into sin. I think that was his problem.
If they come here, they're going to blame me. They're going to
scream at me. We look to you for an example.
We look to you for instruction. And here's where you led us.
There's times we would have went and heard the gospel. If you
would have went, But instead of you going, you tempted us
not to go. You talked us out of going, that
you may follow your sins and you took us with you. Now look
what you've done to us. You've damned yourself and you've
damned us all. He said, I don't want them here.
I don't want them here. Oh, I think on the Day of Judgment
that men will not only be accountable for themselves and their own
damnation, But I wonder how many will stand there with blood of
others dripping from their hands that they've let off into sin.
Men leading women into sin, and women leading men into sin, and
leading children into sin, but not warning them of this awful
day and place. Well, I guess hell is not a place
to convert people and make them better. Because Abraham said
there in verse 29, they've got Moses and the prophets. Let them hear him. Let them read
the Bible and believe the Bible. Faith comes by hearing. Oh, he
said no, Father Abraham. Still didn't have any confidence
in the Bible, did he? Still hated God's Word. Still
didn't want to hear it. He said if one rose from the
dead, They'll believe Him one rose from the dead. They didn't
believe Him, did they? Brothers and sisters, faith comes
one way, and that's by believing God's Word, by hearing it and
believing it. I don't want a miracle. I don't
want to present a miracle to somebody else. This is enough. Right here is enough. Believe
it and be saved. Believe Him and be saved. God bless His Word. Let's pray.