In this sermon, Pastor Logan Hagoort addresses the Pharisees' love of money and idolatry. He emphasizes that the idolatry of money will lead to hell, where there is no mercy. Jesus urges the Pharisees to repent before it's too late. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus serves as a warning and highlights the grace of God in salvation.

Well children, I've got a challenge for you. I'm going to read a verse and I want you to tell me if it's easy to understand okay you guys ready for that okay here we go I'm not gonna tell you where it's from because you'll never guess okay here we go for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life you guys never heard that one before right oh yeah you always know that one oh man you're just cheating All from school of course that's right now is that an easy pet first to understand Yeah, it's pretty simple right like God loved the world so he gave his son. Okay. Let's try another one Mmm. Where shall we go?

Oh, Oh, yeah, this will be a good one. Yeah. Yeah I saw a beast rising out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads with ten diadems on its hens and head horns and blasphemous names on its heads Easy one or hard one? Yeah, oh your dad knows the meaning of this one? Yeah, I'm sure he does.

That's right. You know, there's some things in the Bible that are really quite easy to understand, right? Like when Genesis tells us that God made the heavens and the earth in six days, it's pretty easy, right? God made the heavens and the earth in six days pretty simple But then there's other stuff in the Bible which can be really hard to understand as well You see we believe something That means that everything in the Bible is clear which means we can understand everything in it. But that doesn't always mean everything's really easy to understand.

There's some parts that will take lots of work and sometimes we have to do heaps of work to try and figure out what's it talking about and then we get like these big fancy books called commentaries that are like this, no about this big, and they've got lots and lots of words and you've got to read them all and try and figure out what's going on because they're hard but they're true and we're just about to start a series looking at some hard passages in the Bible and Tonight we're going to be listening into a conversation in hell That sounds a bit weird, doesn't it? Mmm. It's a hard passage to get our head around But the huge thing we always have to keep in our minds when we wrestle with hard passages is that we remember one very simple truth. The Bible is always true. And the Bible's always right.

And the Bible's always right. And if anyone's wrong, it's me, not the Bible. Right? And so we trust what God has to say in his word. So let's pray and we'll ask God to help us trust him.

Father in heaven we thank you that we can read your word, we thank you that it is filled with really easy things that are sufficient for everything we need. We pray that Lord you would really give us ears to hear but we also acknowledge Lord that for all of us there are things that are just really hard to get our minds around and so we pray that you would give us hearts to believe what your word has to say in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. We're going to be turning through to God's Word this evening through to the Gospel of Luke. Luke chapter 16. Luke chapter 16.

We're going to be looking at the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Just to put it in its place we'll read through the whole chapter this evening so it was Luke chapter 16 and we'll pick up at verse 1. He also said to the disciples there was a rich man who had a main manager and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And he called him and said to him, what is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be a manager.

And the manager said to himself, what shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, So that when I am removed from management people may receive me into their houses So summoning his masters debtors one by one. He said to the first how much do you owe my master? He said a hundred measures of oil he said to him take your bill and Sit down quickly and write 50 Then he said to another how much do you owe?

He said, a hundred measures of wheat. He said to him, take your bill and write 80. The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness, for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings. One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.

If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if You have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth who will entrust to you the true riches. And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other you cannot serve God and money 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 for 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 is 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 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 sent 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 and like had 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 rise from the dead amen May God bless the reading of his word and as we come to consider it, let's bow our heads in prayer.

Lord we know that not All things are plain and clear alike in the word of God. And we also know that even the clear texts will bear no fruit in our heart unless your Holy Spirit causes them to. And so Lord, whether this feels like a clear passage or a hard passage to any of us Makes very little difference at the end of the day We just want your spirit to illuminate the Word of God for us We desire to hear from Christ and so Lord we we pray that you would speak to us and that we might have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches Help me Lord to speak with clarity That we might hear the accent of Jesus Christ in whose name we pray Amen. Well as I said earlier we're just beginning a series on difficult passages there's a bit of an interim between Samuel and picking up in Titus and if any of you are sitting here tonight thinking to yourself oh how do I get myself on that list there's a piece of paper just on the counter over there and straight after church you can go over there and write down as many passages as you want I don't guarantee we'll get to them all you can email me them as a few other people have done and We'll see how many we tackle with and maybe I just get the Jeff's to deal with them all instead so I don't have to But no, we'll slowly work our way through a few of them.

There are hard things in the Bible, right? There are some things we look at and scratch our head and go, what? Not quite sure what to do with that. Well, maybe I'll work it out next time I read through. Then you come around the next time and you go, yep, still don't know what to do with that.

Maybe the next time through. Not sure if you have any of those passages, but tonight we're looking at Luke 16 verse 19 through to 31. I wonder if I was to take a poll and ask you what you think this section of passage is all about. I wonder what I'd come back with. Maybe some of you, You know, maybe there's a few tick options, but then there's that mysterious other box that lets you write whatever you want Maybe some of you would put down The importance of caring for the poor feeding the poor, you know There's poor old Lazarus who just wants some food and He doesn't even get the scraps from the table Maybe you thought to yourself.

What's clearly all about hell You might be interested to know that I didn't even reference this passage in my book on hell Which probably shows you that I don't think it's all about hell Maybe you thought it was all about all about the importance of letting your dog lick your wounds you know I wonder what you would have put down that this is the purpose this is why this is here that was really the question what's the purpose of this passage why do we have this It's interesting because this passage is actually in a sense a one-of-a-kind passage out of all of the parables of Jesus. Because you see a parable is a story where you take something earthly that you understand and use it to help you understand the spiritual. This is, to my knowledge, the only parable where Jesus takes the spiritual and uses it to address the earthly. In a lot of senses it's actually not a parable, though we call it a parable. It's like a reversed parable.

Jesus is addressing a specific condition and he does that by pointing towards a spiritual reality And you might think to yourself and it's tempting to think to yourself that this kind of just sits here by itself Of course, the ESV is not particularly helpful. Is it because it puts that lovely little paragraph break there gives its its its little title and so it looks like it just kind of sits on its own looks like its own passage But it's actually part of the entirety of this chapter, which is all intimately connected together. From verse one of chapter 16, all the way through, this flows together as one whole. In chapter 16, from verse one through to verse 13, Jesus is talking with his disciples. From verse 14 to the end of the chapter he's dealing with the Pharisees and so this section here is Jesus explaining a truth to the Pharisees we have to understand that.

That's the context of this passage. This is not towards the crowds. It's not towards the disciples. It's towards the Pharisees. And he's addressing an issue in the Pharisees and so then you have to ask yourself what is the issue he's addressing and it's twofold okay we're gonna walk through the passage We're gonna look at a few different points, but just before we do that Recognize the two faults in the Pharisees highlighted in this passage.

Jesus tells this parable of the dishonest manager Which we could have put on the list as a bit of an odd one as well But no one put that there you can put that on there afterwards And he talks about the right use of money doesn't he talks positively to his disciples about how they ought to use Heavenly riches and so he sees in verse 9 I tell you make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings in other words use your earthly stuff to store up riches in heaven that's the principle he's unpacking for his believing disciples. The Pharisees do what? They ridicule him. So verse 14, the Pharisees who were lovers of money heard all these things and they ridiculed him. Now what were they hearing?

Have a look at verse 13. No servant can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. And so Jesus points to problem number one here. The Pharisees were lovers of money.

They were doing the opposite of what Jesus just said, right? Jesus just finished saying to his disciples use your money to gain eternal riches and The Pharisees ridiculed him because they're doing the opposite actually I just love money and I'm gonna Love money more who cares about eternal riches when I can just have more filthy money That's the logic of the Pharisees Then we see the second one in verse 15 onwards You justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts for what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God and then he drives this home by pointing to what the law and the prophets see the Pharisees were justifying their love of money by man-made doctrines, by man-made opinions and not by the Word of God, not by the law and the prophets. And this is why in verse 18 after saying the law won't become void Jesus says this seemingly random verse out of the middle of nowhere Hey, by the way Pharisees everyone who divorces his wife marries another, commits adultery. And he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. It's not that Jesus, halfway through his conversation, all of a sudden forgot that he needed to address divorce with the Pharisees.

Why does he raise this? He raises this to point at the heart of the Pharisees who were very happy committing divorce and adultery. And so he says, the law will not be void. And let me illustrate that. How many divorces have you had lately?

The law still stands and So he's Poking to these two problems and then to deal with this he takes them to this parable To illustrate an earthly problem an earthly way of living using a spiritual truth and the first thing he highlights in this passage is that the idolatry of money will send you to hell. The idolatry of money will send you to hell or just to say it differently idolatry will send you to hell. There's this fine rich man He's clothed in very expensive purple garments Beautiful fine linen He feasts Sumptuously, I mean Jesus couldn't find more graphic imagery. To liken it into modern terms, He drives a Ferrari if you're a car person. Gucci is present in the household.

Even though I don't like it, Olives are in the house all the time. Caviar is for breakfast. Champagne is for dessert. Crystal slippers upon the feet. The fancy, lazy boys, everything.

He has it all. He's he has it all. He's living the dream. If he wants it, he has it. He loves his life and he loves his money.

And we know he loves his money by the contrast between him and Lazarus right because there's a poor guy there's a poor man named Lazarus who's covered with sores and where is he? He's in the gate. He's in the gate. He desires to be fed from that which falls from the table. He's not even close enough to be under the table to eat the stuff that falls off the table.

I mean that the imagery here is of such that the rich man would have to walk past him every single day to go about his daily chores and harden his heart to him every day because keeping the $10 in my pocket is far more important than giving it to the than giving it to the fellow on the ground. Right? Because his love of the ten dollars is greater than his love for an image-bearer of God. You see, he had idolized money in such a way that it was his God. And so the fact that this poor, twisted, broken Lazarus was made in the image of another God doesn't matter because I worship this God.

I worship the God of money. He is the one that satisfies my heart. He is the one that provides for me. He is the one who answers and gives me the longings of my hearts well how would I want why would I want Yahweh why would I want the Lord why would I want to help this bigger he can go get his own money from somewhere else It doesn't even have the pity to shoot the mangy dogs that are licking the poor Lazarus at the game. I mean we think golden retriever, right?

We're like, aww, a sweet dog. You've got to think third world country dogs. Mangy mongrels. Rabies, flea-infested, that you don't want to go anywhere near and the only sympathy this poor man gets is that because this rich man loves money more than he loves God And where does it take him? The poor man died, the rich man died, the rich man was buried, the poor man was not buried, and the rich man woke up in Hades, we're told in verse 23, hell, being in torment.

His idolatry led him all the way to hell, didn't it? Why? Because, as we're told in the New Testament there is no place in the kingdom of God for idolaters. If you are an idolater you will not be welcomed into glory. That's what Jesus is saying here.

Why? Because idolaters don't turn to God for life. Idolaters turn to stuff, things. They never turn to God. They will put their hope in everything in the world but they will never put it in Jesus Christ.

So firstly we see here that Jesus is showing the Pharisees that their love of money will lead them to hell. Secondly he shows them that hell hath no mercy. Hell hath no mercy. It's striking isn't it this this conversation that takes place. He's being in torment We're told in verse 23 and he lifts up his eyes and he and he saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side Now just point just just pause quick note Dealing with difficult passages quick note Parables are not to be interpreted as A equals B.

You know, the temptation is to be like, oh, well, because the rich man sees Abraham, obviously people in hell are going to see me in heaven, right? You don't want to do that. It's tempting with parables to try and find exact match-ups for everything. That's not what we do with parables because they're stories illustrating large points. We don't want to allegorize them and pick every part into pieces.

It's a story, right? It's an illustration. And so Jesus uses this language in order to tell a point to us. What does he say? The rich man being in torment Lifts up his eyes looks across sees them and what does he cry out?

Father Abraham have mercy on me Have mercy on me why I am an anguish in this flame." He just wants a drop of water on the edge of his tongue. And you might not like the answer, but what's the answer? No. I mean, Abraham explains why, but the answer is no, right? Idolatry leads to hell, and hell hath no mercy.

Those who wake up in torment and hell will never ever receive mercy. Today is the day of mercy brothers and sisters. It is freely offered but that day will offer no mercy. The rich man gets none. Why does Jesus paint this just super grim picture?

It's a grim picture, right? Like the dude's tongue is Burning in such a fashion that he just wants a drop of water on it. Why does Jesus do this? Remember who's he dealing with He's dealing with a bunch of idolatrous, money-loving Pharisees, and he's trying to awaken them, right? He's trying to shake them out of their slumber before it's too late.

So you've got to say, Pharisees, wake up. Do you not understand where your love of money will take you? Do you not see the horror of the day that is coming to those who refuse to come and worship God alone. And so we see this horrendous reality taking place as the rich man suffers under the wrath of God and no mercy is to be obtained at all. But then we see, We see also not only that there's no mercy, but there's a reason.

There's a reason that they're there which requires a response. You see, not so much the man in hell but the Pharisees. You see, what Jesus says is effectively point one of his sermon, Idolatry will lead you to hell. Point two, hell hath no mercy. Point three, repent before it's too late.

Repent before it's too late. You've got to remember he's not telling the story for the sake of the rich man, right? He's make-believe character. I Know we can sometimes get so engrossed in the parables that we forget that they make-believe characters Good it you gotta hear this from the perspective of the Pharisaical idolatrous money lovers Okay, so just picture yourself sitting with the Pharisees who have just been ridiculing Jesus because he tells them not to love money. And Jesus says in this parable, verse 27, He said, I beg you father, send them 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.

Do you see what Jesus is doing here? Jesus is using the rich man in hell to speak directly to his brothers being the Pharisees. See the rich man saying, if only the Pharisees, for lack of a better word, if only the Pharisees knew of this place, then they would change their ways. They would repent. So send someone back from the dead to warn them.

What's Jesus begging these Pharisees to do in this story? To change their way, right? To repent. Not to say sorry, but to turn, to change, to give up their love of money. Remember he gave their, he said to his disciples that there's those two options.

Verse 13, a servant cannot serve two masters for he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Saints of the Pharisees, repent from your serving of money and serve God and you won't have to go to where the rich man is because you will come to God. That's an encouraging message isn't it? Because what Jesus is doing is summoning all of us to repent Because the kingdom of God is at hand, right?

Jesus came preaching, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. One of Martin Luther's 95 theses was, when Jesus said repent this was a lifelong activity. This is something we do every day. Tell me I'm not the only one who struggles with the temptation to idolatry. I mean surely you guys have hearts that just love to turn to other things right?

What is Jesus saying to us tonight? Repent and return to your first love." He lists this parable here because The heart of Christ is such that he would implore his enemies to turn and be saved. Isn't that just what our Savior is like? Remember, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. But I want you to observe one more thing in this passage briefly.

This passage is a stunning passage. But I want to point out one more thing and that's the grace of God in this passage. Let me ask you a question. Have a look at the text. How does Lazarus get to Abraham's side?

Or to ask it differently, what did Lazarus do to get to Abraham's side? Well, in verse 20 he was poor, he was covered with sores, so he had nothing. He couldn't carry himself there, he couldn't be buried, He doesn't speak at all in the entirety of the narrative. Why? Because Lazarus is at Abraham's side because of the grace of God.

You see, what Jesus is highlighting in this whole thing for the Pharisees is the most important principle that they always failed to understand. There's only one way into the kingdom of God, by God's grace alone. And so Lazarus, who is the picture of a man who gets saved, is the perfect man for the job because he comes with nothing, right? He comes with nothing. What does he bring?

What does he give? What does he do? Nothing! He is saved by the sovereign mercy and grace of God alone. And so too you.

You see, He offers you free grace tonight. He offers you repentance tonight. He offers to take you to the side of Abraham. Where there is comfort and good things. That's what our God does for us.

You see this parable is a parable of contrasts. It's a parable of those who would labor to obtain their joy and salvation by their way today and a picture of those who would repent and come by God's grace and receive it freely in Christ and so that means at the end of the day there's just two types of people and the question is which one am I? Am I the rich man who loves idolatry man who loves idolatry or am I a poor man who simply comes by grace? Well may God grant you to be a Lazarus. Let's pray.

Father in heaven we thank you for your word, we thank you that by your grace we come. We need not be rich, we need not be powerful, we need but have Christ. And we recognize Lord that all we have is Christ that we once lived in darkness but we have seen the light and so we ask Lord give us eyes to see In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.