In the sermon titled 'Parable of Rich Man and Lazarus,' Robert Bosley discusses the parable from Luke 16, emphasizing its connection to a series of parables focused on the state of one's soul and the dangers of idolatry, particularly the love of money. The parable contrasts the fates of a rich man, who lives a life of luxury but ends up in torment after death, and Lazarus, a poor beggar who suffers in life but is comforted in the afterlife. Bosley highlights key themes such as the authority of scripture, the danger of self-justification, and the need for true repentance, noting that wealth should not be idolized and that the scriptures, rather than miracles, should guide one's faith. He explains the intermediate state after death, where the soul experiences either comfort or torment, and underscores that there is no second chance after death, urging listeners to repent and prioritize God in their lives.

Good afternoon, church. If you would take out your copy of the scriptures and open up to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 16. Gospel of Luke, Chapter 16, continuing the series on the parables. And This parable follows on the heels of the one that we did last time, I believe just two weeks ago, the parable of the dishonest servant. We'll read verses 19 through the end of the chapter.

So, Luke chapter 16 beginning in verse 19. There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus full of sores who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. So it was that the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom.

The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. Then he cried and said, Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus' evil things. But now he is comforted, and you are tormented.

And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us." Then he said, I beg you therefore father that you would send him to my father's house for I have five brothers that he may testify to them lest they also come to this place of torment Abraham said to him they have Moses and the prophets let them hear them and he said no father Abraham but if one goes to them from the dead they will repent but he said to him if they do not hear Moses and the prophets neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead let's pray father we come before you this afternoon and we thank you for your word and I pray Lord that you would help us to understand it that you would open up our eyes and open up our ears to see and hear and receive a good instruction from your word. Help me Lord to speak as I ought to speak and may you be glorified in our time this afternoon in Jesus name.

Amen. So this passage I've had to fight the temptation to do two or maybe even three messages on this because there is so much here and I'm going to do my best to hit it in the 30 minutes allotted to me because now that Scott's had his surgery, I'm not sure I could outrun him. So if I go too long, I'm going to suffer for it. But there is so much in this passage, and it is so full of good instruction for us. This is the fifth and last of a string of parables that began in the last chapter with the parable of the lost sheep.

You have the sheep, the coin, the prodigal son, the dishonest steward, and now the rich man in Lazarus. And it seems that all these were taught in one setting. This is probably in the context of a larger sermon, and Jesus is using these parables along with his direct teaching. And so they're ordered in this cohesive fashion. And they're all tied together by one major consistent theme, what is the state of your soul?

That is the question each one of these parables is driving toward. What is the state of your heart before God? And each parable has contained an element that gets right to the heart of salvation and what it means to know God. In the first three parables the question is are you lost or have you been found? In the fourth parable, the one we just recently did, the Parable of the Unjust Steward, the question is, who is your master, God or money?

And the one before us today really follows on the heels of that. It is, has a similar message. What is really your God? Who are you really living for? And this theme of Is God your God or is your wealth your God?

Was clear in the last parable, but it really even began in the third parable, the parable of the prodigal son. Consider that in that parable, in that story, the son wasted his father's money in pursuit of sinful living. And then the parable of the unjust steward, the man wasted his master's money through poor and dishonest stewardship. And now here this rich man wastes his own money, though granted in a slightly different sense, but he wastes it in such a fashion that when he dies, it is his wealth that condemns him. And this should be a strong reminder to us, along with what we heard this morning, that God is absolutely concerned about what you do with your time, your body, and the gifts he has given you.

In between the this parable and the previous one, Jesus has explained, no servant can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon and this is a great temptation. Wealth can have such a hold on the hearts of men that it can become to us a god. This is why the Apostle Paul said that covetousness or greed, the love of money, is idolatry in Colossians chapter 3 verse 5. And why he said elsewhere that it is the love of money that is the root of all kinds of evils but wealth can become to us an idol and God will not tolerate any rivals The Pharisees who are present when Jesus is giving this teaching, they respond to the Lord's doctrine and to his teaching, his parables, with mockery.

I know we didn't read it but go back and look at verse 14. Now the Pharisees who were lovers of money also heard these things and they derided or they ridiculed him. They mocked him. They mocked him because they loved money. They were wanting to feel better about their idolatry by making fun of the Lord Jesus and his doctrine, His teaching.

And Jesus calls them out on it. He says, you are those who justify yourselves before men. But God knows your hearts. They wanted to justify themselves. And the way they wanted to do that was by mocking the Lord's teaching.

And this isn't just limited to the issue of wealth alone. Jesus then goes on to say that whatever is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God. Now when he says this, I don't think he means that anything that we like or enjoy God hates. When he says highly esteemed, I think what he means is whatever we put in the most preeminent position in our hearts, What is our greatest affection? If we elevate anything to that position other than God, God hates it.

It is not just whatever bad things you highly esteem, it's whatever you highly esteem. Anything that is not God, that is first in your heart, is an idol, and all idols are an abomination to God. He's simply reaffirming what we heard this morning in the Catechism. He's reaffirming the first commandment. God will not allow any other gods in his sight.

And so before we even get to the parable, the question for us to consider is, what is first in our affections? What do we dwell on? What do we think on? What do we love supremely? Is it money, like the Pharisees?

Is it our status, our job, cars, our entertainments, even our family, our country. Or is the true and living God first in your affections? Before we even get to the parable, we have to hear this. God will not tolerate arrival. Do not let good things that God has given you become an idol.

And Christ then goes on to teach about the abiding authority of the law of God. Look at verse 16, the law and the prophets were until John, since that time the kingdom has been preached and everyone is pressing into it. And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail. And he goes on and teaches about divorce and the Pharisees had completely mishandled divorce from a biblical perspective. And so he's in these verses, it can kind of seem like it's coming out of left field But ultimately what he's getting at is you've abandoned the sufficiency of Scripture And so I want us to see these these three themes the the love of money Self-justification the the Pharisees are trying to justify themselves, and a rejection of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.

In these few verses between these parables that is what Jesus nails the Pharisees for and this parable of the rich man and Lazarus I think addresses all three of these things and I think it should be helpful for us. So with all that as the very long introduction, we turn to the parable. Now some will argue that this isn't actually a parable, rather that Jesus is recounting a true event that actually happened in history. I personally have a hard time believing that for a few reasons. First, it begins exactly the same way as the last parable.

There was a certain rich man. And this formula is actually used consistently, especially in Luke's gospel, to begin parables. Jesus almost always begins parables with a certain man or a certain woman, something like that. Luke 10, 30, 13, six, 14, 16, 15, 11, 29, even in Mark's gospel, Mark 12, one, Matthew's gospel, Matthew 21, 33, just to name a few. Many, if not most parables begin with the phrase, a certain man.

And so Jesus, I believe, in telling this story, he sets out from the gate with this almost formulaic beginning that indicates that this is a parable. Second, the elements of the story don't seem to really fit with what the rest of Scripture teaches about reality, particularly the reality of the spiritual world, the intermediate state after death. There's nothing in the rest of scripture that hints that those in torment will be able to communicate with those in paradise or vice versa. The argument that it is not a parable, it usually boils down to parables don't have proper names in them. Lazarus is a proper name, therefore this isn't a parable.

And I would say, yes, parables don't have names in them, usually. This would be the one exception. Argue amongst yourselves if you find that unsatisfying. But I do think the fact that he is given a proper name is actually important to the parable. His name is part of the parable.

What does Lazarus mean? Lazarus is the Hellenized or the Greek version of the Hebrew, Eliezer, which means helped by God. And I believe we're intended to see that in this parable he is the one that has been helped by God to the point where he's even named helped by God. And it should strike us as a great irony this poor man covered in sores His only medicine is the dogs coming to lick the sores on his body, and he wishes that he himself were like a dog eating the scraps from the rich man's table. This one is the one who is helped by God.

How can that be? How can a man going through this kind of suffering be the man that is helped by God? Because your life is not only about how well off you are right now. Or as Jesus said earlier in Luke's Gospel before another parable, take heed and beware of covetousness for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses." This man has nothing. He is the lowest of the low and yet God is his helper.

And we see this most vividly and ironically that he has this abundance of life in God when he dies. Look at verse 22, so it was that the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. He died. There's no mention of a burial. He probably wasn't buried.

At best, he might have been thrown into a large communal pit or maybe they just left his body for the animals. He's dismissed and utterly forgotten by men but he's not forgotten by God. His earthly suffering ends and in a moment he is carried not by human helpers to the rich man's gate But he is carried by the angels of God To be with the patriarch Abraham to be at his side to enjoy the blessings of Abraham in full And it's this imagery of being brought to Abraham's side or Abraham's bosom. This is a picture of the great feast that we see over in Scripture of at the end of the age all the saints of God being gathered together for this great feast to enjoy the blessings of God. So what does this mean that he's brought to Abraham's bosom or he's brought to Abraham's side?

Well remember in John's gospel, John 13 23 at the last supper, Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples whom Jesus loved. Now at this time when they would have a feast, they would have a meal, they wouldn't sit at tables like we have. They wouldn't have a table that's you know 30 inches off the ground and they'd sit in a chair. That's not how they did it. They would have a board or even just a cloth laid out on the floor as the table and all the dishes arranged on it and they would lay on cushions on the ground with their head toward where the food is on their side and their feet behind them.

This is also why the woman was able to come in and wash Jesus's feet while they ate in that other story. And being that almost everyone would certainly be right-handed, they would lay on their left, and so the one to the right in the Last Supper is John. He's in the place of honor and he's right next to the Lord, and so he's able to lean back on the Lord's chest and converse with him. And in the same way, this beggar dies, and he is carried to this great feast to enjoy all the blessings of God. And he is given a place of great prominence.

He is brought to Abraham's side so that he could lean on the breast of Father Abraham. This man neglected, ignored the lowest of the low, is exalted to the right hand of the Father of all the faithful. He's given tremendous honor in his death. So he was truly the one who was helped by God. He lived up to his name in the parable.

In contrast to Lazarus, in contrast to the beggar, The rich man, he also died, verse 22, and was buried. Now, it was probably a great show of his burial, probably a great fanfare and mourning at his death. Rich men rarely get buried without great ceremony. So totally unlike Lazarus. But the rich man finds himself not in paradise, but in torment.

It says that he is in Hades, in torment, and he lifts up his eyes. He's in Hades, the realm of the dead. Now this can be used to refer physically to an actual hole in the ground, the grave, or spiritually where the soul departs to after death. It's equivalent to the Hebrew sheol. Now older versions, King James and similar, rendered this word poorly in my opinion as hell.

It seems best to me that Sheol and Hades is what we would call the intermediate state, where the soul goes when it leaves the body at death. And there's part of Sheol, part of Hades that is a place of blessing and joy. It is paradise, it is where Lazarus was brought. This is where Jesus said that the repentant sinner, the repentant thief on the cross, you will be with me this day in paradise. But another part of Hades is a place of flame and torment, a place of suffering and punishment.

And that is where the rich man finds himself. He dies and he wakes up. He's had a life of nothing but ease and now he wakes up so to speak in immeasurable pain because he is suffering the punishment for his sins. So whether or not you call this hell or the lake of fire hell, it doesn't matter. The point is that from the moment he dies, he is in a place of torment.

And that is the reality. Understand this, listen you children. Death may seem like it's very far off and God willing it is, but if you die apart from Christ, you will next lift up your eyes in torment. This is true not just for this rich man. He wasn't especially bad and earned this in that sense.

This is the reality for all sinners, all those who die apart from Christ. At the moment of their death they will find themselves in torment, in flames. And this is some sort of torment of the soul. I don't know exactly how it works But then we also know that it doesn't get any better for them This is the the soul in torment the soul leaves the body and goes to torment in Hades, but then after the resurrection of the dead, as we read in Revelation months ago, after the resurrection of the dead, there's the final judgment, the soul and body are reunited, and that those wicked who have been suffering in the fires of Hades will then be cast body and soul into the lake of fire forever. Do not be unmoved by this reality.

Yes, I believe this is a parable, but it is teaching us what is real. That there is really torment. There is really fire and damnation for those who die in their sins. And this is not the only place Jesus talks about this. Jesus taught more about hell than anyone else.

This is the perfect man, the perfect preacher, the most loving preacher, and he talked more about hell than anyone else in scripture. Do not scoff at this reality. There is a real hell awaiting you if you continue in unbelief. And this man, he wakes up in torment and it is so great that he calls out to Abraham for mercy. The fire is so agonizing that he asks merely for a drop of water from the finger of Lazarus to ease his suffering.

And this is what awaits anyone who does not repent. Now I do not think that The rich man's appeal to Abraham is a sign of repentance after his death. Consider what he says. He asks Abraham for mercy. He does not ask God.

And what does he want? He only wants his pain to be relieved. He does not want his sins to be removed. I do not believe the rich man repented. He asks for mercy from Abraham rather than forgiveness from God.

He does not confess his sins. He only wants a short reprieve from his punishment. And note, he doesn't even ask Lazarus directly for help. He doesn't ask Lazarus for forgiveness for neglecting him. He asked Abraham to send Lazarus as if the beggar is still someone beneath him, merely fit to be an errand boy to fetch him a drink.

Even in punishment he has not repented. And Abraham corrects him, This is his reward for his life of ease and having money as his God. The beggar, Lazarus, he has been helped by God and he had hoped in God and now he is receiving good things. This isn't something to be corrected. This isn't an oversight where Lazarus can go and aid the rich man.

This is not something that needs to be fixed. This is justice. On top of that Abraham says there's no path between the two places. There's a great gulf or a great chasm. Imagine a grand canyon too deep to climb and too far to bridge.

That separates them. No one can cross from one side to the other. Now we understand that why the rich man would want to cross over. He wants to escape the fire. But even if someone is with Abraham, out of perhaps some sort of misguided sense of compassion, they could not even cross over and ease their suffering if they wanted to.

There is a great gulf fixed. At your death, your fate is forever sealed. So completely abolish from your mind any thought that God's going to give you a second chance in when you die. It is not scriptural. It is not biblical.

You will search every page of your Bible and never find one hint at any such idea that God will give you another chance when this life is over. Today is the day of salvation because you do not know that you will have tomorrow. And then the rich man being unable to relieve his own pain he hopes to prevent his brothers from joining him. And again I do not believe this is a sign of any personal repentance. He has a familial love for his brothers.

The wicked often do care for their families. That's not a sign that he's been made right with God somehow. And this is one reason why we can say that we believe hell will be eternal. I've often heard the question, had people ask, how can God punish sinners for just a short lifetime of sin with an eternity in hell? Well, Even the way the question is phrased assumes that the wicked stop sinning when they die.

There is no repentance in hell. They may want comfort, they may want relief, they may want to escape their punishment and the flames, but they still don't want God. Hell will be eternal because the damned will eternally still rebel against God. The rich man, again, he's not repentant and again he wants to use Lazarus as an errand boy, send him to my brothers. And Abraham again rebukes him.

He says they have the law and the prophets Let them listen to them Well, how would they hear the law and the prophets? Moses is long dead. The prophets are long dead. He means the scriptures They have the scriptures. Let them hear what God has said in the scriptures.

And the rich man argues, well, the scriptures aren't enough. What does he say? Look in verse 30, no father Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent. The scriptures aren't enough. They need something better.

They need something more. They need something that will really grab their attention. If Lazarus comes back from the dead, that will wake them up, that will get their attention, then they'll repent. And Abraham responds with one of the most remarkable phrases in all of scripture. If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rise from the dead.

Jesus here put the authority of scripture above all other authorities. No miracles, no teachers, no councils, no invention of any man has more power to persuade than the Scriptures. If they will not hear the Scriptures, nothing will convince them. The Scriptures alone are our infallible and authoritative rule of faith. That is what we are to listen to, to what we must give heed, what must persuade us.

Are you waiting on something more before you will believe, no miracle will convince you if the scriptures will not convince you. And this is one of the great sins among many of the charismatic movement. We need miracles today to make people believe, they say. But Jesus, through Abraham in the parable, says no. If they reject the scriptures, they will reject everything.

Because it is the scriptures that attest to Christ. It is the scriptures that teach us who God is. It is the scriptures that teach us what our Responsibilities are and how far we fall short is the scriptures That teach us of God's covenant and his promises and his grace If they will not hear the scriptures they will not be persuaded in any other way. The written word of God being preached, being read, being studied, this is the instrument that God uses to bring sinners to saving faith. Now of course, think of what Luke must have thought when he was writing his gospel.

He must have thought, one has risen from the dead. But not a simple beggar and not simply someone to go and talk to five men in one village. No, the Son of God, incarnate in human flesh, He has been raised from the dead. Not just to warn a few, but to save the whole world. So do not be like the Pharisees.

Do not highly esteem something other than God. Do not justify yourself. Do not reject the authority of the scriptures. Understand that all the scriptures have been fulfilled in Christ. One has been raised from the dead, one who came to give his life as a ransom for sinners.

Trust in him, the one who died and has been raised for our justification. We cannot justify ourselves, but the Son of God, he freely justifies all who come to him through faith. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you have spoken authoritatively and infallibly and you've given us such a treasure.

We thank you Lord that you've clearly instructed us that there is nothing that can save us other than Christ without your son and we are hopeless and helpless. And we thank you, Lord, that you have given your son to be our Savior and our Redeemer. And God, I pray that you would be at work among those people here today. Do not let anyone here Go on thinking that they can justify themselves. That they can live a life devoted to other things and still be right with you.

God, may you grant us all hearts of true and sincere faith. And may we follow you every day of our lives. Be with us the rest of this week. Help us, Lord, to be faithful and zealous to do your will. And be with us until we gather again next week.

In Christ's name we pray, amen.