“If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”
Let the Words of my Mouth…
This morning, I want to review what we read in our Gospel lesson, the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Remember when examining any passage in scripture, context is key.
Our Gospel lesson comes from Luke 16, where we are told that the Pharisees had come to listen and to argue, with Jesus. Now, as you probably can guess, when they come, they are not there to learn. They listen so they can mock, heckle, insult, and as much as possible, get the people who are flocking to Jesus to stop listening to Him.
Time after time they have embarrassed themselves by trying to trick Jesus, trip him up in his teaching, and simply insult Him and anyone who will listen to him.
This morning, Jesus tells a story, specifically as a warning to the Pharisees, but to all of us as well.
The Pharisees, were lovers of money first,
and acclaim second
says Luke, right before this parable, setting the stage, so that those of us who never met them, could have an idea of them.
The story begins with a rich man, and a poor man. The rich man is intended to represent the Pharisees.
They were rich in a number of ways. First, they were big on raising taxes. They would seek high taxes from the people to support their way of life, which was living in the temple and arguing theology all day.
They were rich also in the sense of having at least a superficial knowledge of the Bible. They memorized large portions of the scriptures, used them in their daily prayers, and in a sense feasted on the Bible, but instead of it changing their hearts, they used it as an end in itself, to compete, to argue, but not to repent, nor to share God’s Message with those who did not have that kind of life, the poor in spirit.
Then there was Lazarus. He is described as a beggar covered with sores, who sat at the rich man’s gate. He fed on the crumbs that fell from the Rich Man’s Table. I would see that spiritually too.
They are people who don’t have the opportunity to hear much of God’s Word but when they could, they consume every crumb they can. Kind of like the story of Mary and Martha a few chapters earlier where Mary refused to do anything but sit and listen to Jesus. They were supposed to be fed by the rich, but the rich kept it to themselves.
So both of these men died, the Rich man going to the place of torment, and Lazarus going to sit in the bosom of Abraham.
For the purposes of the story, the Rich Man is able to talk to Abraham, and so he calls out to him, “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.
Two things to pick up here. First, he knows Abraham as “Father". In fact, Abraham refers to him back as “Son” or “child” depending on the translation. One thing this teaches is another concept Christ kept trying to teach the Pharisees, that being a Child of Abraham was supposed to be more than a genetic trait.
Our relationship with God is more than simply following the footsteps of our parents. And being a descendant of Abraham meant pretty much nothing for the Rich Man as far as his eternal destination was concerned.
The Second interesting note is that the Rich Man referred to Lazarus by name. All that time he spent outside his gate, eating scraps, the rich man, who had more than enough to live on, knew who he was, how he lived, and couldn’t care enough to care for his wounds, or even feed him a meal every once in a while.
Abraham responded, saying
‘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. 26 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,
After Abraham refuses his request, the Rich Man suddenly, considering his situation, turns evangelist on us.
He begs Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers, to the other Pharisees who should have known better, having feasted their life on God’s word, but missing its message and point, to warn them so they would not end up in torment with him. “Certainly,” he tells Father Abraham, “If someone were to raise up from the dead, they would repent.”
And here, Abraham responds where I began our sermon, saying:
“If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, (meaning the Bible, God’s Word) neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”
I think, at first hearing this, this comment sounds wrong. Obviously, since Jesus said it, it must be true, but we kind of want to argue this point.
And that is partly our frustration from trying to convince others, and ourselves, of our faith.
Which do you think would carry more weight?
1. An incredible experience where we see someone rise from the dead, attest to God, his goodness, and his wonderful future for us versus a future of torment based on our rejection of Him? A first hand narrative of the afterlife based on the miraculous?
2. or hearing the word of God read and preached?
I think everyone here would prefer the first to the second.
We want the dramatic, the “unbelievable”, the miraculous. Signs from Heaven. That would get people to believe! Imagine that I’m not a Christian and somebody knocks on my door some evening.
When I open the door, I’m shocked to see a man whose funeral I attended a few weeks earlier there. He says, “I’ve come to talk to you about Jesus, can I come in?” After my initial shock I say, “Of course you can come in.”
The man begins to say, “I’ve just come back from heaven to especially warn you that there is a hell because your older brother is there now. He asked me to come warn you not to come to that place. So if you will admit you are a sinner, turn from your sins and trust Jesus, you can be forgiven today. Would you like to bow your head right now and receive Christ?”
On the flip side of this, another preacher on this passage said his wish was to let his church members spend 30 seconds in Hell. Since those of us who know the Lord are going to Heaven anyway, 30 seconds would make us keenly aware of the peril which lays before those around us who do not know the Lord. If we could, miraculously, see their agony, and hear their voices, we would return and be the most effective evangelists on earth for the sake of the lost.
With that said, Jesus point here is that neither of those miracles really matters, but rather the openness or closedness of our hearts to what God has to say through His Word.
Abraham sadly replies to the rich man, and to what we would think would be common sense, that “if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
To show this, all we have to do is look at the poor man in the parable.
Especially in parables, I encourage people to pay careful attention to every word Jesus uses.
Since it is not necessarily a historical event, it might be good to notice little things Jesus does, such as take the name Lazarus. He could pick any name he wanted, he could have picked Jack, or Judy, but he picked Lazarus.
To add to that, in no parable does he actually name anyone in the parable, except here, he wants us to know that the man who goes to the Bosom of Abraham is named Lazarus. We don’t know the Good Samaritan’s name, but we know Lazarus! So it is probably important.
And my point here is a point that a lot of people miss. Right before Jesus’ death, not long after teaching this parable, He performed a miracle involving Lazarus; not a beggar, but the brother of Mary & Martha.
Lazarus was dead, and Jesus wept—not only because his friend had died, but because Jesus knew that His miracle wouldn’t change a thing. The people would still cry out “Crucify him”, rejecting their Messiah.
Lazarus was raised from the dead, in front of a great many people, people who smelled and reported his decay from death, and yet the teachers of the law, the men who were “Rich” in God’s Word, would not believe.
In fact, some of them planed out that they needed to kill Lazarus, to put to death this obvious, divine miracle. When they got proof, Lazarus rising from the dead, they chose instead to look the other way.
The rich man of the parable urges Abraham, “If someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.” A real-life Lazarus rose from the dead—and was rejected, just as Jesus was rejected. Miracles can attest to the authority of the prophet but they don’t produce conversions. It takes faith to accept Christ.
Josh McDowell, who writes books defending the Bible asked a question to a college student who admitted, “I wouldn’t accept Christ because I don’t want to have to change my lifestyle.” Some people don’t care if Jesus walked on water or changed water into wine—they don’t want to have to repent, to turn their lives over to God.
Human depravity can look upon the truth and not see it—we call that “spiritual blindness.” When we share God’s word with others, we need to pray that the Holy Spirit will open people’s eyes so they can see the truth and be rescued from their darkness. The point of this parable is that people can see the truth and still dismiss it.
When we realize that it is God’s persuasiveness and not ours that brings people to their senses, we can breathe a sigh of relief and go about telling the Good News. God opens eyes and hearts; God raises the spiritually dead to life, drawing sinners to the Cross. God does the saving. We’re simply His messengers, telling others where we found forgiveness.
On hearing Jesus commission today, let us pray that we may be faithful in sharing His Good News, trusting Him to let his Word do the work He sends it to do.
