Luke chapter 16. This is a story that's a pretty
popular story from the New Testament. It's a
story about a rich man and a man named Lazarus.
Some of you may have heard it before. And if
you haven't ever heard it, then listen carefully
today. You might want to mark it down in your
Bible and go back and study it in a little more
detail this week. We'll just look at it for a
few minutes this morning. But we're going to
read through the story, and then we'll pray.
And after we pray, we'll continue on. Luke chapter
16, verse 19. There was a rich man who would
dress in purple and fine linen, feasting lavishly
every day. But a poor man named Lazarus, covered
with sores, was left at his gate. He longed to
be filled with what fell from the rich man's
table, but instead the dogs would come and lick
his sores. One day the poor man died and was
carried away by the angels to Abraham's side.
The rich man also died and was buried. And being
in torment in Hades, he looked up and saw Abraham
a long way off with Lazarus at his side. Father
Abraham, he called out, have mercy on me and
send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in
water and cool my tongue because I am in agony
in this flame. Son, Abraham said, remember that
during your life you received your good things
just as Lazarus received bad things. But now
he is comforted here while you are in agony.
Besides all this, a great chasm has been fixed
between us and you, so that those who want to
pass over from here to you cannot, neither can
those from there cross over to us. Father, he
said, then I beg you to send him to my father's
house, because I have five brothers, to warn
them, so they won't also come to this place of
torment. But Abraham said, They have Moses and
the prophets. They should listen to them. No,
Father Abraham, he said, but if someone from
the dead goes to them, they will repent. But
he told him, if they don't listen to Moses and
the prophets, they will not be persuaded if someone
rises from the dead. Let's pray. God, we come
to you. We thank you for your good word. I pray,
God, that you just would... Bless the reading
of your word today. I pray that you just would
help us to be focused on you and not distracted
by the things and the worries of this world,
dear Lord. There's a lot of stuff in this passage
for us to consider and think about today, but
I pray that your Holy Spirit would guide us to
help us get the things from this passage that
we need to get. I pray, God, that you would take
away any fear or pride that's within me and let
every word that's spoken today be for your glory.
I pray that you'd help us to pay attention to
you, that we'd hear from you today. And I ask
these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, this
story is a lot for us to unpack, a lot for us
to think about and to try to figure out. Now,
there are a couple things that we'll talk about
before we really start breaking it down to kind
of get these things out of the way so we don't
get too caught up in the weeds and miss the point.
Now, it's hard to know if this story is a parable.
or if it's a true story. That's been debated
for a long time. It's really no way to know.
There could have possibly been a real rich man
and a real person named Lazarus, and Jesus is
repeating these real events that occurred. It
could be that this is a parable, that this is
not real events with real people, but just simply
a story that Jesus is using to make a... spiritual
point. We really don't know which one of those
it is. If it's a true story, then of course that
leads to more questions. Questions that we will
not even attempt to talk about today just for
time's sake. We see things that are interesting
here. Where Lazarus goes when he dies. He goes
to Abraham's side. Is that heaven? Is that somewhere
that's not heaven? A place people go before Jesus
died on the cross? Well, we don't know the answer
to that. We see that It appears as though people
can see one another from these two places. If
one is heaven and the other is hell, in the story
we see a conversation going on that one can see
the other. Abraham mentions that there's a chasm
between so that neither can go from one place
to another. Now these are questions that are
not easy to answer. We don't know the answer
to that. We should be careful before we try to
draw too many conclusions about... what heaven
may be like or what hell may be like and those
things that go on. Especially if this is indeed
a parable, then Jesus is simply giving a story
to make a bigger point. Now whether it's a parable
or whether it's true, I don't know. We're not
going to ponder that too much today. But I think
that there is a main point to the story, a couple
of points really, and they may not... instantly
be easy for us to see what those points are.
Now, it's important for us when we read through
the scripture is to try to read through the scripture
in context. Now, it's easy for us to pick out
a story like this, but to really understand,
I think, what Jesus is saying, we need to look
at the rest of the story. We need to look at
the verses that come before this. Now, what you
see a few verses before this in Luke chapter
16, is that Jesus is talking a lot about money,
or the misuse of money, or people who love their
money and their possessions, but they're not
using it in a godly way. Now we see that in another
parable that Jesus gives just a few verses up.
Now we're not going to cover all of it, but if
you go back and you look at the beginning of
the chapter of Luke 16, you're going to see a
parable of a dishonest manager. Now you can read
that this week and you can kind of see what goes
on. But down toward the end of the story, we
kind of see the main point of what Jesus was
saying. And this is what he says in verse 10.
He says, in very little is also faithful in much.
And whoever is unrighteous in very little is
also unrighteous in much. So if you have not
been faithful with the unrighteous money, who
will trust you with what is genuine? And if you
have not been faithful with what belongs to someone
else, who will give you what is your own? No
household Slave can be a slave of two masters,
since he will either hate one and love the other,
or he will be devoted to one and despise the
other. You can't be slaves to both God and money.
Okay, so we see at the end of the parable, kind
of skip to the point, that Jesus says we need
to be faithful with what God gives us. It's not
ours. We need to be faithful with it. Now this
money we have in this world, he refers to as
unrighteous money. That is, it's just money.
Like it doesn't need to become our God. It doesn't
need to become what we worship, what we seek,
what we desire, what we live for. And yeah, we've
got money. We've got a little money. What are
we going to do with it? It's just money. You
can use it to do a lot of evil, or you could
use it to do a lot of good. You can use it to
eat and to pay your bills and to help other people.
Or you can just use it all on yourself for all
of what you want. You can pad your bank account
with it. You can have big numbers in that bank
account and go in there every time you go to
the bank and say, what's my balance? And just
rejoice that you've got hundreds of thousands
or millions of dollars in the bank. And you can
feel so good about yourself. But what are you
doing with what the Lord has given you? And sometimes
we may be tempted to say, well, I don't have
much, and if I had more, I'd give more. Well,
maybe you would. But then again, maybe you wouldn't.
Because those who are faithful with a little
will be faithful with a lot. So maybe if we're
not faithful with what little God gives us, if
you had $10 million tomorrow, maybe you wouldn't
be any more faithful with that. But what God
desires is for us not to be lovers of money,
but to be people who realize what God gives us
is to be used for his kingdom. It is his. And
so that kind of begins to shape this chapter
and what Jesus is going to talk about. And we
see that as we continue on in the next verse.
Listen to what he says in verse 14. The Pharisees,
who were lovers of money, were listening to all
these things and scoffing at him. All right?
We kind of see the key, right? He's talking about
money. He's talking about those who've been unfaithful.
So we can kind of see from this story here who
are the unfaithful ones that he's pointing this
at. The ones in the crowd that are listening
are the Pharisees. These would have been Jewish
people. They would have thought they were pretty
holy. They would have really probably held themselves
up to a pretty high standard. They would have
thought that they were holier than a lot of the
rest of the folks. But what does it say about
these people? lovers of money. They loved their
money. Now is that any of us? Do we love our
money? You may say, well I'm not rich. Well maybe
you're not rich but you can still love your money.
You might have two pennies to rub together and
that might be all you have and you may keep them
in a jar buried in your backyard and go out there
and rub them together every couple weeks and
just have a good old time. You don't have to
have a lot of money to love your money. And these
Pharisees They love their money, and they miss
what Jesus was saying. He's saying, look, you
need to be faithful with what you got. And instead
of them saying, yeah, am I faithful with what
I got? That's what we need to do when we read
this, see this parable that's on its manager.
We need to say, okay, am I being faithful with
what I got? But they didn't do that. Instead,
when they heard Jesus say this, they scoffed
at him. How dare you say such things? Who are
you talking about? They were really trusting
in their money, it appears. You can't be a slave
to two masters. You can't be a slave to God and
to money. It's right there in black and white.
And obviously these Pharisees, these Jewish folks,
they were really putting a lot of focus on their
money. And that had become an important thing
to them. In verse 15 it says, And he told them,
You are the ones who justify yourselves in the
sight of others. But God knows your heart, for
what is highly admired by people is revolting
in God's sight. Okay? So in their eyes, in their
own eyes, the Pharisees said, hey, we're pretty
good. We're pretty godly people. We're pretty
religious people. We are pretty awesome, and
we've got money, and we love that too. And Jesus
says, hold up. Now, you may say to yourself that
you're awesome, and you may tell everybody else
how awesome you are, and you may even fool a
few people. But don't forget this, God knows
the heart. That's pretty important for us to
think about that, not just in terms of money,
but just in everything that we do and everything
that we've thought this week, all of our actions.
Like God knows your heart behind it. We've got
to be careful. We've really got to check our
heart because sometimes our heart can deceive
us. Sometimes we have to check our own motives.
Sometimes we can't really be sure of what our
motives are. Maybe they're pure or maybe they're
not pure. God knows the heart, so we need to
seek God and help Him to work on our heart, help
us to be able to examine our heart and see what's
there. Maybe there are some things there that
shouldn't be there. Obviously, that was the case
in the Pharisees, and even though Jesus was trying
to teach them something, they just scoffed at
what He had to say. What about us today? Are
we just going to scoff at what the Word of God
tries to say to us? Is Jesus speaking to us?
Are we lovers of money? Are we using... what
God has given us, to help others. Well, that
kind of sets the stage for this story of Lazarus
and the rich man. And so we see the story unfold
for us. The rich man had lots of money. He wore
purple. I mean, you had to be pretty wealthy
to have purple. That was a valuable garment back
then. Certain colors were really hard to make
and really expensive, and purple would have been
one of them. And this rich man had purple, and
he had everything you could possibly want. He
was well taken care of and lived a good life,
it appears. But there was also a man named Lazarus,
and he was a poor man. It said he'd be placed
at the gate of the rich man, just hoping. he
could get some scraps from the king's, excuse
me, not the king, the rich man's table, hoping
he could get a few scraps from his table. But
he didn't even get that. It says instead he got
dogs that came to lick his sores. Now you have
a contrast between two totally different people.
One that is rich and that is living lavishly,
it says. just feasting, eating plenty of good
food, the best of the best. One is as high up
as you can be, at least in the terms of what
the world says is good, right? I mean, how do
we define success in this world? I mean, we defined
it with how big a house you get, how much money
you got, how famous you are. I mean, there's
lots of ways that we define success in the world.
And by the worldly standards, this rich man would
have been successful. In every way. And how would
we define somebody who's unsuccessful? Somebody
who's a loser. Somebody who don't have anything.
Somebody who can't afford a place to live. Somebody
who wears rags for clothes. Somebody that's stinky
and nasty and dirty. Like they're just the lower
part of society. And so there's this temptation
as humans. There's this temptation we see. We
see all the good things that the world says are
good. The wealth and the fame and the clothes
and the money and all that. And we're drawn to
that and we seek that. And maybe we kind of scoff
at the poor man or the poor woman. So Jesus is
setting up a big contrast here. One person is
as high as you can be in the world and one person
is as low as you can be in the world. All right,
what does Jesus say? He says, one day, verse
22, one day the poor man died and was carried
away by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich
man also died and was buried and being in torment
in Hades. All right, so again, we see a big difference.
But we see a reversal of roles. The man who had
everything in this world was now as low as he
could be. He was in Hades. He was in hell, if
we can call it that. But the poor man who was
so low in this world, now he's in heaven. He's
in Abraham's presence. Their roles have been
reversed. One of them had everything in this
world and had nothing in the life to come. And
one of them had nothing in this world and had
gained everything in the life to come. Now the
rest of the story is pretty intense. It's pretty
intense. We see the rich man. He's just begging
for some relief. He's begging for it. Could you
send Lazarus to me? Just a drop of water. Just
a drop of water. I'm in intense pain and torment
here where I am in these flames, he says. Could
you send Lazarus to me? And Abraham says to him,
look, when you were alive in the world, you had
everything. You had everything. And Lazarus had
nothing. And where did it get this man that he
had everything? It got him in extreme torment.
Now I believe maybe the point that Jesus is trying
to make is that this rich man having everything
was not one who was faithful with what God had
given him. There was an opportunity at his door
every day. At his gate every day said a man who
was in need. Every day a man had and there was
a man who didn't and he could have helped meet
that need and every day he failed to do so. He
loved his money. He loved his money. But he wasn't
faithful with what he had. So this man's in torment
and agony. He says, look, if you cannot help
me, If you cannot help me, would you at least
send Lazarus back to tell my brothers, hey, y
'all better straighten up. Would you at least
send them back to that? And Abraham said, look,
they got Moses, they got the law, they got the
prophets, they can listen to them. And the rich
man says, but if a man would come back from the
dead, they would listen to that. They'd pay attention
to that. And Abraham says, no, they've got what
they've got. They'll believe what they've been
told or they won't. Now it's interesting in this
story, when you read this story and you read
of the rich man, you'll notice, you may have
noticed when we were reading through it, that
every time that he talks about Abraham, he always
calls him father. Father Abraham. Father Abraham.
Father this. He always calls Abraham father and
Abraham calls him son. Now that's significant.
Maybe not as much to us, but it's certainly significant
to the story. It appears as though this was a
Jewish man. This was a Jewish man who thought
that he had it all figured out. Remember, he
had just a few verses before talked about these
Pharisees who loved money. They were Jewish people
who loved their money. And in this story, we
see this main character, this rich man. And he's
a Jewish man who keeps calling on his father
Abraham, father Abraham, father Abraham, father
Abraham. And that was a big problem for a lot
of the Jewish people we see in Scripture. And
some today. That was a big problem. They said,
but we're descendants of Abraham. By our blood,
we are descendants of Abraham. But we know through
the Scripture that that's not enough to save
you. Having Jewish blood running through your
veins is not going to save you. It's the blood
of Jesus Christ that's going to save you. And
this man, though he was a Jew and though he continued
to call on Abraham, and even though Abraham acknowledged
him as son, that is, I get that you're one of
my descendants, but you missed what God was calling
you to. You missed the law and the prophets.
You may have knew them, you may have heard them,
but you didn't live by them. Because what matters
to God is to love him and to help other people.
And here you were in your riches for all of your
life, living a lavish life and feasting every
day, wearing the finest of clothes. And there
were people with a need and you failed to meet
that need. And here's the result of that. You
don't really know God. And you're suffering the
consequences of that. And here this man is. In
great torment. He says, if you just send Lazarus
back. If you just send Lazarus back to my brothers.
But Abraham said they got the law and the prophets.
Now there were certainly plenty of people in
Jesus' day that knew about the law and the prophets.
They knew about Moses. They knew about these
prophets in the Old Testament. And they'd still
miss the word of God. He said, but if you'd just
send somebody back from the dead, they would
believe. And God did just that. He sent his only
begotten son. Jesus was nailed to a cross. He
was crucified. He was buried. And he was resurrected.
He was brought back from the dead. And guess
what? There were still plenty of people who refused
Jesus Christ. And there are still plenty of people
who refuse Jesus Christ today. So what about
us? What about us? Are we rich? Well, maybe compared
to some we're not. Compared to others, we are.
There are so many people in this world. The vast
majority of people in this world are very poor.
Very poor. Compared to us, they would look at
us like we're rich, and we'd say, well, we're
just poor country folks from Liberty, Mississippi.
And I guarantee you that there is a majority
of people in this world that would look at you
if they saw what you had, and they would think
that you were rich. So we don't want to read
a story like this and say, oh, this is talking
about rich people. This ain't talking about me.
This is talking about the billionaires and the
trillionaires. Well, hold on. Maybe we don't
have as much as a billionaire or a trillionaire.
Maybe there's something we got that we can use
to help somebody. Maybe we're guilty of becoming
lovers of our wealth and lovers of what we have.
What good does that do us if we don't use it
for the Lord's work? Are you faithful with the
little that God gives you? I don't know the answer
to that. You know the answer to that. This is
not just a question. This is not just how you
need to put more money on the offering plate
type thing. Not at all. There are people in the
world that we encounter that have a need, and
can we meet those needs? The rich man didn't
do that. The rich man looked down upon Lazarus
day after day after day because he cared more
about his money than he cared about. Somebody
else. What about us today? It's a good opportunity
for us to kind of take a second and think about
our own life and what we're doing. Maybe there's
people in our life that we've been passing by.
Maybe there's a Lazarus in our life that's just
hoping, that just needs something. We just pass
them by day after day. Ask God to show you who
those people are. Maybe you just haven't recognized
them yet. Sometimes we get busy, we get caught
up in ourselves and get selfish, and that's not
good either. But sometimes we encounter these
people and we just don't realize it. Ask God
to help us to see. Help us to see those people
that we may have already been encountering, that
we may encounter this week or in the weeks to
come. Help us to see those people and not turn
a blind eye to them. To say, I may not have much.
But I want to use some of what I've got to help
somebody else. Because if we don't do that, if
our heart's not on helping other people, now
look, I'm not telling you that you're going to
make it to heaven from helping other people.
I'm not saying that you're going to earn your
way to heaven. I'm not telling you that if you
just give, give, give enough to enough people
on the street, enough of your neighbors, that
God's going to see that and He's just going to
give you instant access. I'm not saying that
is the case. What I'm saying is, that if we've
trusted Jesus Christ, then there should be some
desire within us to try to help people when we
can. Maybe there are times that we can help,
or maybe there aren't. Do you know what the Holy
Spirit's convictions are? You know what you can
do and what you can't do. This is not a feel
guilty about not doing or needing to do more.
This is about we need to seek God and say, God,
all right, I need you to help my heart and help
me to see if there's areas where I'm lacking.
And this rich man was lacking. He had the opportunity
to serve, and he failed to serve. Let us not
be guilty of the same thing. Let us not be guilty
of so many who came after this rich man, who
had the word of God before him, who had Moses,
who had the law, who had the prophets, and most
importantly, who had Jesus Christ. A man who
was raised from the dead, the Son of God, who
died for your sins so that you could be forgiven.
There are a lot of people that have read the
Word of God that have heard of Jesus Christ and
they didn't believe it. That's all that God can
give us. That's all that God will give us is
Jesus Christ. He is enough. Have you trusted
Him today and are you living for Him? And if
you have trusted Him and you are living for Him,
And ask him to help your heart to change so that
you'll have a heart that's willing and able to
help others. Let's pray. God, we come to you.
We thank you for your good words. And there's
a lot to think about and consider about this
passage, dear Lord. But help us not to miss the
point, dear Lord. I pray that you would help
us to examine our own lives, to see what our
heart's like, to see what's going on. Dear Lord,
maybe we are richer than we realize. Dear Lord,
maybe we have the opportunity to... Help somebody
else. Dear Lord, maybe there are some in here,
dear Lord, and they're the Lazarus today. Maybe
they're struggling. And maybe there are some
in here that have the ability to help them, God.
But I pray, God, that you would help us to examine
our hearts and not be lovers of money. We've
got to have money to survive, dear Lord, but
we don't ever want it to become our God. So I
pray, dear Lord, that we just would see the truth
of your word, the truth of Jesus Christ. That
we would put our faith and trust in Him and let
that change our heart to have a love for others
like He does for us. And I ask these things in
Jesus' name. Amen.