Receiving Our Reward Series

This morning’s sermon is entitled “Receiving Our Reward,” and it’s taken from what is commonly called “The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.” All of us are going to be rewarded according to our deeds when this life is over. Some will enter into heaven and others will enter into hell. In his book The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis said of those whose reward is hell, “The lost enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded.”(1) What he meant was that many people choose to live entirely for themselves, when Christ calls us to live for Him. If we choose to live for Christ then we will enter into heaven, but if we choose to live for ourselves, demanding freedom from the rule and reign of the kingdom, then we will enter into hell.

This message stresses the reality of the afterlife, but it also emphasizes the place where those who don’t know Jesus will go when they die – and that place is called hell. J. C. Ryle said, “The watchman who keeps silent when he sees a fire is guilty of gross neglect. The doctor who tells us we are getting well when we are dying is a false friend, and the minister who keeps back hell from his people in his sermons is neither a faithful nor charitable man.”(2) It is my hope, this morning, that we will gain a better understanding of the reality called hell, and that we will realize that if we fail to surrender our life to Jesus Christ then hell is where we’re headed.

Now, before we get started, I want to point out that I’m going to be preaching from the King James Version, rather than the New King James. I have studied this passage extensively, and in the original language – some of which is portrayed in the New King James Version – there are some terms that can take us down a rabbit hole of what some would call fringe theology; and so, we’re not going to go there today. Alice needs to stay above ground. If we were to follow that path and go down that hole, it would be a distraction from grasping the reality and horrors of hell.

True Riches Are of the Heart (vv. 19-21)

19 There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. 20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, 21 and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores.

Jesus directed this parable at the Pharisees, to whom He was speaking just prior to sharing these words. Verse 19 mentions a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen. “This purple dye was obtained from the purple fish, a species of mussel or murex [and] it was very costly,”(3) and the clothing was made from “Egyptian linen.”(4) These words describe the clothing that the Pharisees wore. Their “robes cost anything from $40 to $50; an immense sum in days when a working man’s wage was about 12 cents a day.”(5) In describing the luxurious robes of the Pharisees, Jesus was attacking their way of life.(6) The Pharisees lived “high on the hog,” so to speak, and criticized the poor. They thought of themselves as being more righteous, as they saw their wealth as a blessing from God and they saw poverty as a curse.

In verses 20-21, we read that a beggar, named Lazarus, was laid at the gate of a rich man and had sores upon him. “Since he lay at the gate, we [can] gather that he was crippled or made helpless by his illness. One symptom of his illness was a body covered with sores, a condition not unusual in people who subsist on an extremely deficient diet and live in unsanitary conditions.”(7) Similar to how they viewed poverty, the Pharisees saw illness as a curse; and they looked down on the sick. They also failed to consider that his poverty might have been due to his sickness, as he would have been unable to work. Jesus was illustrating that neither wealth nor poverty, health nor illness, are a blessing or curse from God. He said in Matthew 5:45, “For [God] maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

Neither a person’s financial status or health condition determines his or her righteousness. Righteousness is a matter of the heart. There are rich people who are going to hell, but there are also rich people who are going to heaven. The same applies to poor people and those who are sick. Status and health don’t mean anything in the eyes of God. The Pharisees wanted to look good in the eyes of the people around them. They wanted others to think of them as holy and blessed by God; but to the Lord, they were nothing. They fooled the people around them, but they didn’t fool God. They couldn’t earn their way into heaven through status, health or good deeds. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”