Our scripture reading this morning is from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 16, Luke 16, verses 19 through 31, Luke 16, verses 19 through 31. These are God's very words. There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. And in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame. But Abraham said, Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things and Lazarus in like manner bad things. But now he is comforted here and you are in anguish. And besides all this between us and you, a great chasm has been fixed in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able and none may cross from there to us. And he said, Then I beg you, Father, to send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment. But Abraham said, They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. And he said, No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. He said to them, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should raise from the dead. And there ends the reading of God's word this morning. So this morning I thought, let's continue with the parables. Pastor Gordon's been going through them and the parables, I love them. I thought, what about this one, the rich man and Lazarus? Some in the past don't even think this is a parable. If you look, it doesn't start off. Jesus told them a parable and it goes on. It just starts with a story. They think Jesus is recounting an event that he knows of and nobody else does. But as we go through the text this morning, we will see Jesus putting a little extra detail into this parable to drive his point home. if we think about the parables that Jesus told to the crowds and to the Pharisees, two things seem to always come up. Two things seem to always be there. There's realism and there's symbolism. These parables have to be real enough for the crowds to go, okay, I understand what Jesus is saying. I can follow him. They can't be too outlandish, or they would just shut off right away. Think of the things that we hear. A man went out to plant a field. Yeah, I can believe that. I can see that. The kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown in the sea. Yeah, real. Jesus didn't start a parable off like, there was a man that once walked on the moon. They would have been like, Jesus, what? Maybe he is crazy. He didn't do that. Jesus draws them in with realism, but underneath the realism, there's symbolism. These parables are there to make them think of heavenly things, spiritual things. Jesus wants them to understand something that they're missing. And some in the crowd see this. They see what Jesus is driving at. While there's others in the crowd that just can't seem to get it, no matter how hard they try. Who am I talking about? Those that don't see what Jesus is talking about. The Pharisees. The teachers of the law. Those who are supposed to be in charge of God's people. Hear the parables and walk away. If we remember early in Jesus' ministry, the disciples asked Jesus, why do you speak to them in parables? And he answered them, to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, Even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables. Because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. The reason Jesus is telling them these parables to those that will not understand is so that they will be without excuse. Think about it. Even what he has will be taken away. These Pharisees and teachers of the law. So our sermon this morning has three points. Point number one, we'll see there's two men, or two seeds. Point number two, two destinations. And point number three, two prayers. So two men, two destinations, two prayers. Well, let's get into the context of this parable. The more we know about what's happening around the parable, the more it will help us understand why Jesus is telling it. If you quickly look back at the beginning of chapter 16, we'll see Jesus telling a parable to His disciples about money, about not serving two masters. If you jump down to verse 14, you'll see the Pharisees where they're listening as well. Verse 14 reads, The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard these things, and they ridiculed them. And they said to them, and Jesus said to them, You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. That's the problem that we're facing, the Pharisees are facing. God knows their hearts. Lovers of money. So when we hit verse 19, it's the Pharisees that Jesus is still talking to. The parable is for them so they can hear it. The Pharisees, it's all about money. It's all about the prestige. Remember, they want to be the ones that they walk in the crowds and people want to talk to them. They want the greatest seats at the banquet. Their hearts were far from God. We all have issues of the heart. But the truth of the matter is, if these issues get in the way of loving God's people, of doing good to one another, loving our neighbor as ourselves, it will only lead us to hell. So when we start the parable, verse 19, there was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate there was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Jesus begins his parable with two men. One rich, one poor. The rich man wasn't just a little rich. He wasn't upper middle class. No, this man was filthy rich. Think about it. This man had the nicest clothes, purple and fine linens. That's to make us think of royalty. Kings wore that kind of thing. He feasts every day. You know, we feast on Thanksgiving, right? We have this nice gigantic meal. We eat so much, you know, way too much probably. This guy does it every day, it says. One thing that we can't see in the English about how rich this guy is, is in verse 20 when it says, at his gate. There are many words for gate in the original language, but the word that Jesus uses for gate here, it's not the gate that you have leading into your yard. It's not even the gate you have into your backyard. This gate is the gate used for mansions. This is the gate that's used for gigantic cities that guards the people. Impressive gateways. That's how big this gate is. And the original hearers would have heard that word and thought, well, that's a gigantic gate. We kind of missed that in the English. This gate was huge. The Pharisees hear this and their ears perk up. These lovers of money hear about this man who's abundantly rich. They're like, oh, we like this guy. We want to hang out with this guy more often. But now Jesus tells us about a second man. Verse 20. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. We see a few things about this man as well, don't we? He needed to be laid down by the gate. Think of the paralytic whose friends had to bring this man to Jesus. We can think of the same thing with this man. This man was so poor, so sick, that he had to be laid in front of this gate by his friends, hoping that this rich man would notice him. he's covered with sores. Meaning he's probably just, from head to toe, he probably stinks from the infection that's on his body. He's starving. He desires for crumbs that fall from the rich man's table. He just wants crumbs. That's it. And Jesus will add one little detail about how this man is suffering. How much more? You're thinking, man, he's sick. He can't walk. He's got sores. Jesus says, the dogs even come and lick his sores. Why would Jesus add just misery and misery to this guy? Remember who he's talking to. He's talking to the Pharisees. Jesus wants the Pharisees to be completely repulsed by this man. If this man wasn't unclean enough for the Pharisees, Jesus was going to go one more and say, even the dogs licked this guy's sword. They don't want nothing to do with this poor man. So in the Pharisees' mind, when they're hearing Jesus tell this parable, and maybe some of ours, is that the Bible always shows us two men, two seeds. What do I mean? We can think all the way back to Genesis 3, the very beginning after the fall. And it reads, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. All the way back, God was telling us, there'd be two seeds. This theme will go through the whole Bible, all through Scripture, all the way to the end. Two seeds. And it doesn't take long, right, to see how this plays out. If you just turn the page over to chapter 4, you see Cain and Abel, the righteous seed, the seed of Satan. Think of Jacob and Esau, Jacob who I've loved, Esau who I've hated. Think of Moses and Pharaoh, David and Goliath. It goes on and on, these two seeds battling all throughout Scripture. The Psalms even start out this way, the two men. Psalm 1, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law he meditates day and night. Now here comes the second man. Not so the wicked, but they are like shafts that are driven away by the wind. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. The whole Psalter starts off that way, reminding us that there's two men. There's the man that God blesses, and then there's the seed of the serpent. Now, in our parable this morning, there's two men again. One poor, one rich, one the Pharisees can relate with. One in their mind who is the blessed one. But Jesus will say something in this parable that will make them think, wait a second, Jesus, you're telling the story wrong. Who does Jesus give the name to? Whose name do we get? It's not the rich man, is it? That's how the Pharisees would have wanted to hear this story. Even today, think about today. Whose names do we remember? Do we remember the poor man, the worker at Walmart? Do we remember just the guy on the street? No. Do we remember the guy who had seven touchdowns in one game? Or do we remember the guy who was starring in all the movies? But that's not how Jesus wanted us to hear the story. It's not how he wants us to look at the world. The name Lazarus, it was a common name in Jesus' day. We might just read right over it. Oh, his name's Lazarus. We've heard other Lazaruses. No, you've got to remember who he's talking to in the story. There's meaning in the name the Pharisees would have picked up. Lazarus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Eliezer, which means God has helped. So in this parable unfolds, we'll see why Jesus gave the poor man the name Lazarus and not the rich man. The Pharisees would have picked up on that right away. God has helped. What do you mean? This guy's poor. He's sick. Jesus wants them to follow along. So verse 22, The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. And in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus sat his side. Beloved, death stops for no man. Poor and rich alike, even the rich die. You could have all the money in the world. You could have the best doctors, yet one day your mortal body will die. When I was going through this, I was thinking of Steve Jobs popped into my head right away. A man who had it all, all the money, but he had a problem with his liver. And he tried liver transplants, he tried going all over the world, yet he died, young. They try so hard to stay alive. But it is for man once to die, and then the judgment. We all die. And the Pharisees hearing this story would have placed these two men in the opposite destinations, and that's where point two comes in. Both die, but they go to two different places. Two different sides of eternity. In John Calvin's commentary, he writes this at this text. Christ here points out the vast change with death affected in the condition of these two men. Death was no doubt common to both, but to be after death carried by angels into Abraham's bosom was a happiness more desirable than all the kingdoms of the world. On the other hand, to be sentenced to everlasting torments is a dreadful thing for avoiding which a hundred lives, if it were possible, ought to be employed. Think about it. This poor man's body, when he died by the gate, was probably just picked up and thrown in a mass grave. Nobody knew who this guy was. Nobody cared. They threw him in a mass grave. They threw no one to remember him. But on the other hand, think of this rich man. It says he was buried. He probably had a family tomb. There's probably hundreds of people at his funeral. They probably had paid mourners there to mourn as loud as they could for this man. You see, none of that mattered, did it? The moment we close our eyes, for the last time, everything changes. There are two destinations for us. You go to either one or the other. Now, the rich man finds out firsthand that all the money he had, all the food, all the clothes, the good life, people would say, didn't get him into heaven, did it? But I don't want you to have the impression that the poor man gets to heaven because he's poor. No. We know better than that. The only way to get to heaven is by grace alone, through faith alone and Christ alone. The Old Testament saints, they got there the same way. The only difference is that they put their faith in the one who was to come. And we put our faith in the one who has come and redeemed us. Jesus in this story, which we kind of read over, we don't get, is that both these men in this story are Jews. They're both covenant members. They're covenant people. One thought he would get to heaven by his ethnicity, his closeness to Abraham. But the other had faith. Remember who Jesus is talking to. I can't say that enough. This story makes so much more sense when you know He's talking to the Pharisees. You know He's pointing His finger at them. When we continue to read, verse 24, the rich man called out. He called out, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip his finger, end of his finger into water to cool my tongue. for I am in anguish in this flame. But Abraham said, Child, remember that you in your life received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. Besides all this, between us and you is this great chasm that has been fixed in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able and more and none, excuse me, may cross from there to us. A few things I want to point out here. First we need to remember that this is a parable. It's a story Jesus is telling them. There are things here that are real to make it believable. There's also things here that aren't so real. There's symbolism. And one of the things that's most real in this parable? It's hell. You might not think so, but it is. This is the most real thing in this parable. The rich man is in torment. He's in anguish in the flames. Jesus has used this language all throughout his ministry. All throughout his ministry he talks about hell. He spends more time talking about hell than he ever does about the glories of the kingdom. He wants us to know that this is the place you don't want to go. Jesus is giving the Pharisees a glimpse here of their future that they don't repent. And us today, think about it. If we read the Gospels, we see how much Jesus is saying you don't want to go there. Why would we not take that? And go tell the world the gospel, the good news, that you don't have to go there. You don't have to have the torment and anguish. Why? Because it was placed on Christ at the cross. He already did it for us. We don't have to worry about it. Christ took all that torment and all that anguish upon himself for his people. Second, I also said there was symbolism in parables. And a lot of people look at this part of the story and think, oh, Jesus is talking about purgatory here. This is this place we're all going to be and we can see each other and the bad are over there and the good are over there and we have to earn our way out. And you're like, no, that's the symbolism in this story. He's just trying to show that once you go to these different places, you can't cross over. You're there, you're stuck. You've done it, you're there. And finally, point three, our last point this morning. We see two prayers. We see two requests from the rich man to Abraham. The first one really gets us to know this man's character. Again, we're reminded, Pharisees. Jesus is talking to the Pharisees here. Look how this rich man addresses Abraham. Father Abraham. How many times in the Gospels do we hear the Pharisees saying things about Father Abraham? Even in the Gospel of John, chapter 8, they ask Jesus, are you greater than our father Abraham? At this moment, I think the Pharisees know that Jesus is talking to them. He does that on purpose to show them, wait a second, we call Abraham our father. They know now that the rich man, It's them. And the rich man sees Abraham and Lazarus enjoying the blessings of glory. And this man, this rich man, has the gall, has the audacity to ask Abraham if Lazarus can dip his finger into the water. You're like, really? Really? You're going to ask Lazarus to help you? After all that time you saw him? Outside your gate? Lazarus was in anguish every day. You saw it. And you're going to ask Abraham, Oh Abraham, let Lazarus do it. Beloved, when it comes to helping out others, no matter who they are, we should. No matter what. But when it comes to someone in the covenant community, a fellow Christian, and we do nothing, How dare we ask for anything from God? How dare we? That's what Jesus is telling these Pharisees. How dare you ask anything from God? You're supposed to be taking care of these people. They're poor. They don't have Scripture being read to them. And you're asking for stuff? Get out of here. And we see Abraham gently tell the rich man why he's in this situation. You received your good things in life. And Lazarus, bad things. You know, in Luke's Gospel, all the way to the beginning in chapter 1, Mary sings a song. And there's a portion of that song that so reminded me of this section of the text. It says, And His mercy is for those who fear Him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with His arm. He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. Wait a second, James, I think you got that backwards. No, it's talking about after death. After death, all these mighty men on thrones, they're going to be scattered. But the humble will be exalted. They will be filled with good things. That's what happens, beloved, when you get to go to heaven. All the bad things in this world, though here in America we don't have much of these bad things, in heaven we're going to be blessed beyond our minds. The rich will be swept away. Those who love money, lovers of money. So now when the rich man realizes this, that he only did this to himself, He understands that now because he asks a second question. Second request to Abraham. He says, Then I beg you, Father, to send him to my house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment. But Abraham says, They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. And he said, No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes from the dead, they will repent. He said to him, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced that someone should raise from the dead. I think the first part of this text gets overlooked a lot. What's going on here? There's two things going on in this last section. One, the rich man wants to send Lazarus back from the dead to his family so he'll repent. But Abraham says no. Why? What's his answer? They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. Meaning, they have the scriptures. They have everything they need to repent. It's not saying that Moses and the prophets are just going to show up at their door and start talking to them. Hey, look, it's Moses. No. He's telling them to go to church and listen to the scriptures. For them, it'd be going to synagogue and listening to the scriptures. We have this problem today in the church. So many people want to hear God. Every week we hear God speak, beloved. Every week. He speaks to us through the scriptures, through the preaching of his word. If you want to hear God speak, go to church. Two times on Sunday if you want. The Holy Spirit produces faith in our hearts by the preaching of the holy gospel. They have Moses and the prophets. Remember on the road to Emmaus, when Jesus meets the two guys walking, what's he saying to them? Oh, foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted for them all the scriptures concerning himself. Beloved, the rich man and his brothers have all they need to repent. All they have to do is listen to God's word. But as you see, that isn't good enough for this rich man, is it? He proclaims again, Oh no, Father Abraham, but if someone goes from the dead, they will repent. He said to them, If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, Neither will they be convinced that someone should raise from the dead. What do you think he's talking about there? Himself. Jesus is telling these guys the future. Even if someone should raise from the dead. Guess what, Pharisees? They're going to put me on that cross, and in three days I'm going to rise again. And guess what? You're still not going to believe. You're still not going to believe. Beloved, we need to remember that there's two types of people that will reach two different destinations. Don't be the one that goes to hell. Don't be the one who thinks they can do everything because they have it all. Because guess what? You're not going to make it to the destination you want to go to. You do not want to go. Jesus tells him all the time, don't go to that place. He'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth. You do not want to go to the place where even your prayers are not received. Did you catch that? Even the rich man's prayers. No mercy for him on that side. Listen to the gospel now. Right? Every week we get to hear it, beloved. Jesus has taken the torment of hell on himself for you. For you. Come to him while he may be found. If you're sitting out there and this is all new to you, come to Jesus. This is the gospel. You do not have to have the torment of hell on you. Christ has already done it. He's already taken it all at the cross. For once you die, there are no second chances. You know, in Psalm 49, we hear about this path of the rich man. And it says, this is the path who the foolish have confidence. Yet after them, people approve of this, of their boast. Like sheep, they are appointed for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd. Just like there are two men in this world, beloved, there's two shepherds as well. The Pharisees were supposed to be the shepherds of God's people. But they were only leading people to death. Today we have the same thing. The culture. They're only leading people to death. We have a true shepherd. His name is Jesus Christ. The sheep hear His voice. And they follow Him. Not to death, but to glory. So I pray, first of all, that you come to church every Sunday and hear the gospel being preached because that's where salvation is found. But I also pray that you don't just leave it here inside this building, that you leave and you tell everybody that the torment was put on Christ and you don't have to have it. That's the good news. That's the gospel. It's yours freely. Let us pray. Father God, we hear these stories that Jesus told to open up our eyes to help us to know that those are two destinations. And if we think we could do it by ourselves, we're going to end up in the destination that we don't want. So we pray, Lord, to open our ears to your gospel. Open our ears to your good news. Let us absorb it. Let us understand it. that we could be saved and be one of your people. And give us the boldness to share this with the world. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.