Immanuel Sermon Audio
Luke 16:14-31
When I read this passage at the beginning of the week, at first glance, it sounds like a bunch of sort of disconnected, disjointed comments from Jesus with a somewhat interesting parable attached to it, but one that really doesn't seem to have a lot to do with what he was just talking about. And when I read it this week, my first thought was, I'm not sure how this all fits together, and I'll be honest with you, I outlined this whole series well over a year ago, went through the Gospel of Luke and said, "Okay, I'm going to preach this passage, and I'm going to break it here, and we're going to look at this passage." And I looked at this passage, and I thought to myself, "What in the world were you thinking?" When you put all these verses together, Jesus is talking about sort of the Bible, and then He starts to talk about divorce in the middle of it, and then He starts to tell a story about heaven and hell, and I just sort of sat back for a while in my office and thought, "How does this all come together?" But I prayed about it, and I studied it, and I started looking deeper into the text, and I think it does all fit together, and we're going to talk about that this morning. The first thing I want you to see so that you can wrap your mind around these verses is the setting or the context of this story, I want you to know the audience that Jesus is talking to. So look at Luke 16, and look at verse 14, it says that the Pharisees who were lovers of money, now we've met the Pharisees before, but this is the first time Luke has made the point to tell us specifically that they were lovers of money. You remember last week we talked about money. The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things. All these things is Jesus talking to His disciples, right? You can go back to Luke 15, Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, but in Luke 16 he's talking to the disciples, he's talking about money, and the Pharisees are still there listening, and Luke reminds us, remember the Pharisees, they love money. And they're listening to all of these things, they're listening to Jesus talk to His followers about money, how they should think about money, how they should handle money, and their response is they ridiculed Him, that is Jesus. What Luke literally says is they raised their noses at Him, which in our culture really doesn't mean a whole lot other than maybe you're a stuck up snob, maybe in our vernacular we would say they were rolling their eyes at Him. They just thought the whole thing was silly and foolish. Now parents you can agree with me or disagree with me, but in my world an eye roll is much worse than an argument, amen. An argument says I'm smarter than you and I'm going to tell you why. An eye roll says you're stupid, there's a big difference. And these guys listen to Jesus, they're listening to all these things, listen to Jesus talk to His disciples about money, and their response is just sort of like condescending laughter, rolling their eyes, looking at each other saying, can you believe how stupid that is? They ridiculed Jesus, and so Jesus said to them, verse 15, all of the things that follow in this passage. And Jesus starts off and He's going to be talking generally about the Bible, and then He's going to move on and He's going to say some things about divorce that don't really seem to fit in the passage, but I promise you they do fit in the passage. And then He's going to end up telling a story about two men, one who went to heaven when He died and one who went to hell when He died. And they all fit together, they all fit together like this. Jesus talking to Pharisees who love money. Luke makes a point to tell us that here for a reason, they love money. And the parable that we end with is going to bring it back around, and the parable has to do with money, and how you think about money. We read here that Jesus warns the Pharisees, and He's warning them about the authority of God's Word. And when we get to the end of the parable, guess what they're talking about, the authority of God's Word, right? It's here at the beginning, and we're going to come around to it at the end, it all ties together. And here's the key to understanding the passage, I think. He really isn't still talking about money. Money is being brought up, money is being discussed, but He's really talking about a deeper issue. He's talking about something much more foundational, He's talking about your heart. Last week He's talked to the disciples specifically about money. But now He's talking to the Pharisees, and He's talking to you and me, He's talking to people who love money, and now He's talking about our hearts. Here's the big idea of the passage, it's really simple. If you want to be spared from the horror of hell, Jesus says your heart, the focus is your heart, your heart must be transformed by the power of God's Word. If you want to be spared from the horror of hell, Jesus says your heart must be transformed by the power of God's Word. Now look with me at Luke 16, beginning in verse 14. You're going to read all the way to verse 32. The Pharisees who were lovers of money heard all these things, and they ridiculed Him. And He said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. What is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. The law and the prophets were until John, since then the good news of the kingdom of God has preached, and everyone forces His way into it. But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the law to become void. Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and who feasted sumptuously every day, and that his gate 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 he 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 sin 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 in your lifetime you 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 to this place of torment." But Abraham said, "They have Moses in the prophets, let him hear them." And he said, "No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent." And he said to him, "If they do not hear Moses in the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead." Let's pray. Father, we want to submit ourselves to the authority and to the power of your word this morning. We have heard a testimony about how your word can change lives. Father, we are blessed to have your word in our hands this morning. We look at this passage and Jesus says some things that are difficult to understand and fit together, and so we pray that you would give us wisdom, and we pray that you would apply your word to our hearts with power and that we would be changed. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. I want to start with the first part of this passage where Jesus warns the Pharisees about a couple of different things, and we're just going to talk about these warnings. They're pretty straightforward. The first warning is this, self-justification is a spiritual dead end. Trying to justify yourself before God is a bad road to go down. It's a spiritual dead end. Verse 15, Jesus is saying something really basic to these guys. He says, look, you're those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. You're really good at putting lipstick on the pig. It's still a pig. Elsewhere Jesus says you guys are like whitewashed tombs. On the outside, you've been cleaned, you're sparkling, you look beautiful. On the inside what, you're full of dead men's bones. You are trying to earn your way with God. You're trying to justify yourself before God and to make yourself look good in front of all these people, and you've got all of them fooled, but this is a scary phrase. Are you ready for it? God knows your heart. God knows your heart. You have a choice. You can come before God and you can bring your long list of spiritual accomplishments and things that you have done and things that you haven't done and you can try to impress other people and you can try to impress God. There's only one problem with that plan, you and your heart. Most of us tend to think that God is going to send people to hell because of the bad things that they've done, and when you stand before God, you're going to have to answer for some bad things that you've done, but you've got a much more basic problem than the bad things you've done, it's you. It's your heart, and Jesus says you're trying to justify yourself spiritually. God knows your heart. You're going down a spiritual dead end. Second warning is this, transform tarts have a desire for the kingdom. When your heart is transformed by the power of God's word, you have a desire for the kingdom. Look at verse 16. The law and the prophets were until John, that is, John the Baptist. Since then, the good news of the kingdom of God has preached, and look at this phrase. Everyone forces his way into it. Everyone forces his way into it. Jesus says, look, there's a guy named John. Everything changed with John. The law and the prophets all the way up to John, then something shifted, something changed, and what changed is not necessarily John, but the one John was pointing to, who is Jesus. The king showed up, and his kingdom came in all its fullness. The kingdom of God Jesus said, has come upon you. And when your heart is changed by God's word, your greatest desire is not going to be for the things of the world, not for the things that Tyler just prayed about, but it's going to be for the king and his kingdom. Everything changes inside of you, your desires are different. Think about the people following Jesus. Going back to Luke 15, we know that it's tax collectors and sinners, the scum of the earth, people who have spent their entire life chasing money, pleasure, power. But then they meet Jesus and they quit chasing all that junk and they start chasing the king. Their hearts changed, their desires changed. Those people would never have said to you, I'm making a great sacrifice to follow Jesus. Those people would have said, I'm giving up things that are worthless to gain something that is priceless. Think about Black Friday, it's coming up. Anybody know how many days it is till Christmas? 95, the countdowns on, under 100. That means by my count, you got about 67 days until Black Friday. Do not lie in church. How many of you go shop on Black Friday, raise your hand. Do not lie in church. Look around at the hands that are up, okay? These are the church members who are mentally unstable. Their hand is in the air. Don't trust them. Be careful. What happens on Black Friday? Chaos. And it starts early in the morning before the sun comes up. People wake up, they camp out. I guess Black Friday is almost not a thing because Thursday is now the day. You can go Thursday afternoon, but people go, they get in line, they camp out, and they lose all civility when they go shopping on Black Friday. It's a doggy dog world on Black Friday, and if you're trying to get the same toy, I'm trying to get, you're a dog, and I'm going to eat you, I'm going to destroy you. I'm going to push you, I'm going to cut you in line if you're not paying attention. I'm going to do whatever it takes to get the thing that I'm after. When those doors open, I love the videos of these people. They're nuts. It's just like a stampede. The doors open at Walmart. Boom. There they go. Just a massive people. When they're fighting, and they're flinging, and they're pushing, and elbow, and their way in, there's something that they want, and they think it's valuable. They feel like I'm not going to have to give up very much to get this very, very valuable thing that I need. I need this thing, and they will do whatever it takes to get the thing that they want. Jesus is saying when your heart is changed by the Word of God, that's how you become, in a spiritual sense, in your relationship with Him in His Kingdom. No one's going to have to twist your arm to follow Him. Your Sunday school teacher is not going to have to beat you over the head to be a part of the Kingdom. Your pastor is not going to stand up and have to tell you, "Come on, come on, come on." When your heart is changed, your desires will be changed, and you will, as Jesus said, force your way in. You will want it more than anything else in this world. And if you sit here today and you say, "You know what? I want the world. I like Jesus, but I want the world." I would say to you, you're in the position the Pharisees were in. It's a very dangerous position to be in. Where you know there's something good out there, you know there's some truth out there, but you're pretty comfortable just justifying yourself. And Jesus is saying, "Look, that's not how it works. And your desires are changed now with the coming of John and the coming of the King. People are forcing their way into the Kingdom. They desire it. They want it more than anything else. No one has to talk it up. No one has to make it sound good. No one has to put a big cell job on them. No one has to have a big evangelistic rally and preach the gospel in just the perfect way so that if your heart is changed, you force your way in. That's a warning, you understand. It's a warning to people who sit back and, if they're honest, say, "I'm not forcing my way in. I'm not chasing that as if it's the most valuable thing in my life. Jesus is warning you. Transformed hearts have a desire for the Kingdom." Third warning is this, the Word of God has lasting authority. And this is one of the trickier parts in the passage. This is verse 17 and 18. Jesus talks about, "It's easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the law to become void." He goes into a comment about divorce and in my Bible, it's confusing a little bit because it sort of gives you a paragraph break. You understand Luke didn't put that paragraph break in. He just sort of wrote and the editors put this in and say, "Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery." You say, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What does that have to do with anything that we've been talking about? Jesus is talking about the Word and he says, "It's not going to pass away. It has lasting authority." And then he turns and he brings up an issue to the Pharisees. Remember, he's talking to these guys. He brings up an issue in their life where they have taken the authority of God's Word and lowered the bar so low that it's a joke. And it's on this issue of divorce and remarriage. You can jot down in your notes Deuteronomy 24.1. The Bible says lots of different things about marriage. Deuteronomy 24.1 is a provision in the Old Testament where God says to his people, "Because your hearts are hard, because you're wicked, because I know you just mess everything up that you touch, here is how you handle the matter of divorce." And he gives them some instructions. And in that passage, it says that a husband might find indecency, quote, indecency with his wife. And the Pharisees love this verse. They love to debate this verse. And the debate for the Pharisees was, "Okay, what's indecency?" This is how they think, right? You're taking something that's really pretty clear on the whole. God does not like divorce. He wants you to stay married. Here's a provision for how you handle it. And then they say, "Well, let's dig deeper into this one little provision." And let's think about this. What would indecency be? A very small minority of the Pharisees, a very small minority, said indecency refers to adultery, breaking the seventh commandment. The vast majority of the Pharisees, the big group, the group think, the consensus was, indecency in your spouse, in your wife, is anything unpleasing to you, including burning dinner? You think I'm making that up? That's the honest truth. That's what the majority of these guys said. "Okay, God wants us to stay married unless you find indecency with your wife." And my wife burned the meatloaf last night, and it was really bad, indecency. I'm done with her. You know, some of the Pharisees even said that if you happen to be walking down the street, not a lot, but some of these guys said, "If you're walking down the street and you see a woman that you think is prettier than your wife, you just found indecency in your wife. You have grounds to divorce her. You saw a prettier woman." These are the people Jesus is talking to. You understand that when Jesus brings up the issue of divorce, this is not like a Donald Trump speech. If you listen to Donald Trump, give a speech, "Okay, we're not talking politics. I'm not saying do you like him or do you not like him." You got to admit, the man cannot talk about anything for more than about 10 seconds. He's talking about one thing, and then he's talking about this, and then he's talking about the third thing, and then the question was about the first thing, but he's already moved on to the fourth thing, and he's just running circles, talking sort of stream of consciousness, and you read this and you say, "Jesus, did he just lose his train of thought? Did Luke lose his train of thought?" No, no, no, no. Jesus is warning the Pharisees about things in their life that are very dangerous on a spiritual level. One of the things he warns him about is trying to justify yourself spiritually is a dead end. One of the things he warns the Pharisees about is that if your heart is truly changed, you're going to have a desire for the kingdom, and the third thing he warns him about is this, don't mess with the authority of God's Word. You have taken something that is so plain and so clear, and you have made a mockery of it with this big debate about what does this mean, and what does that mean, and you've taken this one provision because your hearts were hard, and you've turned it into the big governing truth of what God expects in marriage. You've missed it. You don't believe in the authority of God's Word. You believe in your own authority to interpret God's Word. You're twisting it. You're playing games with it, and so he warns them, "The Word of God has lasting authority." Then he tells them a story, and it's such a change of pace. The story goes like this. There's two men. One of them is very rich, very rich. The other is very poor, and his name is Lazarus. This is the only character in a parable who receives a name in any of the parables that Jesus tells, the only one, not the rich man, the poor man. So there's the rich man, and there's a poor man named Lazarus. They both die. We read about the rich man that he is taken, he's buried, and he goes to a place that Jesus calls Hades, meaning the place of the dead, the place of holding for those who will eventually end up in hell in the lake of fire. There he is in torment, and we read about Lazarus, this poor man who was taken to Abraham's side. You ever read through the Old Testament, it talks about somebody being gathered to his fathers? This is what Jesus is talking about, right? You are in heaven. You are with the faithful. You are with your ancestors who died trusting in the Lord, the God of Israel, and their Lazarus is, and there's a separation between the two, and then the story ends kind of weird. With the rich man begging Abraham to send Lazarus on a few errands. Send him to give me some water. Please send him to send a message to my family. Send the story ends with Abraham reminding rich man about the authority of God's Word. We're going to sum it up and apply it to our lives, but don't miss the important things that Jesus is teaching us about hell. We're going to move through these quickly. What does the parable of the rich man and Lazarus teach us about hell? Number one, hell is a real place. It's a real place. You can poll Americans, not very many believe in hell anymore, but what we do believe is that we're not going there. Jesus says it's a real place. Number two, hell cannot be avoided through learning. Remember who Jesus is telling this story to? Pharisees. Men who knew the law, although they twisted it and manipulated it, they knew it front to back. They were very educated in spiritual things. You can know lots of Bible facts. That seems to be one thing that folks like to tell pastors. I bet Cory and Hunter would agree. People like to say to us, "You know, I know a decent bit about the Bible." Well, great. I'm proud for you. Do you love Jesus? Because the Pharisees knew a decent bit about the Bible. They didn't love the King or his kingdom. Learning is not enough. You can be the Bible jeopardy champion of the world in spend eternity in hell. Number three, hell is not a place of repentance. It's not a place of repentance. You see this in the rich man when he ends up there. He's every bit as prideful and arrogant and egotistical as he was on the earth. On earth, he thought Lazarus was beneath him. So far beneath him, he didn't even mock him or be mean to him or cruel to him. He just ignored him. And now in the afterlife, he still thinks he's above Lazarus. Because what does he do? Lazarus, bring me some water. Who is he to tell Lazarus what to do? Lazarus, could you bring me just a drip of water, please? Would you send Lazarus the poor beggar, the nobody? Would you send him, please? There's no repentance in his heart. Abraham, would you please send Lazarus? I don't have time to go warn my brothers. Would you just send Lazarus to warn them? Please send Lazarus to do it. He's just a little peon. He just does whatever I can. Just send Lazarus to do it. He's still arrogant. He's still self-centered. There's no repentance in his heart. It's because hell is not a place of repentance. Number four, hell is a place of eternal separation. Verse 26, there's a chasm fixed between the two. No one's going back or forth. Number five, this is a big one. Number five, you cannot have hell scared out of you. And I tried to be careful with my language there, but I hope you understand what I'm saying. You cannot have hell scared out of you. The rich man, Abraham, would you send Lazarus to tell my brothers that they need to repent? Abraham says, well, they have the Bible, they have the law and the prophets. And the arrogant rich man says, no, no, no, no, foolish Abraham, let me educate you on something. They haven't listened to the Bible. They will listen if someone comes back from the dead. Send Lazarus back from the dead to warn them, and they will listen. And what does Abraham say? If they won't listen to the Bible, they will not listen even if somebody comes back from the dead. Listen to me. There's a lot of people who want you to believe that they have died and gone somewhere and come back. I am not telling you that that's impossible. I am not telling you that that doesn't happen and that they're all liars. Here's what I am telling you, and it's really not me, it's Jesus. God doesn't need people to come back from the dead to deliver messages because He's given us His message. And Jesus' opinion is, if they won't listen to God's word, they will not listen even if someone comes back from the dead. Lots of books, lots of movies. Are they true or are they not true? I have no idea. Quite frankly, I don't care. I'm not going to read those books or I'm not going to see those movies because Jesus just kind of settles it right here. If you want a message or a warning, read the Bible. You don't need to go to a movie or listen to what somebody says happened to them. Maybe it happened. Maybe it didn't. But Jesus says if you won't listen to this, nothing else is going to convince you. Now maybe you're smarter than Jesus and you want to disagree, but that seems pretty plain in the text. You cannot have hell scared out of you. You have to have your heart changed. Three different things. Here's the application. Jesus is concerned about your heart. He's talking to Pharisees who are externally very obedient but internally they're black. And he's telling a story about a man who ended up in torment. And I want you to think just for a second about this rich man, what does it say in the text that he did that was particularly evil or wicked towards Lazarus? Nothing. He didn't kick him when he walked outside of his house every morning. He didn't spit on him. He didn't make fun of him. He just ignored him. Again, a lot of people feel like, "Well, if I end up in hell, it's going to be because I've done this, this, this, and this." And you can almost hear the rich man ending up in the place of torment saying, "What did I ever do to hurt Lazarus?" I didn't do anything to him. The problem is not what you did, the problem is you and your heart. Jesus cares about your heart. The Bible says in Jeremiah 17.9 that your heart and my heart are wicked and deceitful and beyond understanding. Here's hope. Number two, under application, the word of God can change your heart. That's what Jesus is saying to the Pharisees on the front end when he's warning them and that's what he's telling them on the back end. That's what he's telling them in the middle when he talks about divorce. You understand? Everything he's saying in this passage is about the power of God's word to change you. He's warning them at the beginning. The word of God, the law and the prophets, will not pass away. They have lasting authority. Look, on this issue of divorce, as one example, you've twisted it. You're manipulating the Scriptures instead of submitting to the Scriptures. Listen, let me tell you a story. Someone coming back from the dead is not going to change your heart, but the word of God has the power to change your heart. Jesus cares about your heart. The word of God can change your heart. And lastly, don't forget Luke 19, 10. Don't forget it. Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. I don't want you to leave saying, well, we talked at church today about this rich guy that went to hell and the poor guy went to heaven. So I guess the preacher believes rich people are going to hell and poor people are going to heaven. No. I don't even want you to take it one step further and say, well, maybe it's that greedy people go to hell and generous people go to heaven. Maybe that's the dividing line, no. You take this passage and you put it in the context of Luke 19 and you understand something very important, unless Jesus came to seek and save the lost, we all go to hell. Because the problem is not so much greed or lying or stealing or this sin or that sin. The problem is our heart. And Jesus is saying to the Pharisees and he's saying to the tax collectors and sinners who are listening and he's saying to me and he's saying to you, I want to change your heart. Through the power of my word, I can change it. Ezekiel 36 describes a transplant that takes place when the spirit of God applies the word of God and your heart of stone is removed and you're given a heart of flesh. And so you understand you're not leaving here today with a to-do list about, well, I guess I need to find the beggar Lazarus out there and make sure I give him some money so I don't go to hell someday. It's not the point of the passage. You probably should buy the God launch if God leads you to do that. The point of this passage is entirely different. You need a new heart. God can give it to you and give it to you through the power of His word. Let me pray for you. Father, we ask that you would change us this morning. Forgive us when we fall into the temptation of thinking that the problem is just the things that we do or the things that we say. Forgive us when we think that sin is a problem outside of this building somewhere. For other people, other families. Father, help us to understand that sin begins in our hearts and that what you are looking for is not just external obedience to rules, but you're looking for a change in our hearts. Father, we know that we are powerless to do that. We look to you, we plead for grace, we ask you to do a work in us as we think about your word as we submit to your word our prayers that you would change us, that you would remove our hearts of stone and give us hearts that love you. Father, I pray for people who are here, who have spent a lot of time trying to improve themselves morally. They've wasted a lot of breath trying to justify themselves spiritually in your sight. And I pray that today they would simply cry out for grace and ask that you would change their heart. That they would have a desire in their heart for Jesus that supersedes anything and everything else in their life and that they would force their way into the kingdom, that they would chase it and pursue it as if it's the most valuable thing in the world. Father, we love you, be honored as we lift our voices in worship. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.