[0:00] I'm going to look at verses 19 through to the end of the chapter, but giving a particular notice to the words you find in verse 25.
[0:11] But Abraham said, Child, or son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner the bad things.
[0:24] But now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. Amen. Every generation of the world has had its haves and have-nots.
[0:41] If we use that phrase to describe those that have many of the world's resources and those who are very few, it's quite common to hear that used, that we know the haves and the have-nots in our own society, and in every society indeed throughout the world in our day as well.
[0:58] That has always been a feature of every human society ever since the fall of man. And you'll find the Bible quite frequently talking about or speaking about wealth, the use of wealth, the misuse of wealth, the benefits of wealth, and also the curse of wealth when it's abused, and how it can bring misery as well as benefits to the lives of people.
[1:27] And Jesus is no exception in regard to teaching about wealth. Not only in this passage, you'll find other passages in the Gospel, as I'm sure you know yourselves very well, where Jesus actually deals with the matter of wealth and indeed the problem of wealth.
[1:45] For example, when he says how difficult it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. In other words, the trappings of wealth are themselves a danger to human life, simply because of our fallenness and how the wealth that God sometimes gives us, leads us astray from other much more important necessary things, especially in relation to eternity.
[2:13] And that's what you find here as well, where Jesus speaks apparently to the Pharisees especially, because we read there that the Pharisees themselves really were people who loved money, as verse 14 there says.
[2:30] The Pharisees were lovers of money. And then in verse 13 says, you cannot serve God and money. And then we read the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard these things and they ridiculed Jesus.
[2:43] So it looks like everything that follows on from that is directed mainly at the Pharisees, but then it brings to light certain things, especially in this passage from verse 19 to the end of the chapter, that really for all the solemnity of it and the difficulties of dealing with it are yet nevertheless such important truths for us to take note of because they really refer to things regarding our eternal state and the relation of our eternal state to what we find advantageous to us in this life.
[3:19] He deals with it in a way of contrasting these two individuals. And all the way through the passage you'll find contrasts as one of the ways by which Jesus brings out the teaching of the passage.
[3:32] And on this topic, he deals with it in terms of contrast. The contrast between these two men who, in this world, we could say, in this life, they were worlds apart. And then secondly, in eternity, they were worlds apart.
[3:47] There's a huge contrast between them in this life and that contrast is also there in eternity, although conditions are reversed. Now that means tonight we're going to look at the topic of hell.
[4:02] We're going to see how this is mainly about this rich man and how he found himself after death in a lost eternity in torments and anguish.
[4:15] We find sometimes a caricature of what we believe or the church we belong to or the kind of preaching that we engage in as just Bible bassers or people who just really pretty much every day of the week or every Sunday at least bring things out to do with death and damnation and hell and fire and brimstone.
[4:36] You know it's not like that. We don't shirk speaking about these things, preaching about things, when the need arises. But we have to do that in a very balanced way.
[4:48] And what I mean by that is we don't preach on hell every single Lord's Day. That would be taking the thing quite disproportionately to the way the Bible mentions it.
[4:58] And in any case, the Bible has a lot more to say about eternal life and the positive elements of heaven and of life in Jesus Christ than it has to say about death and hell and a lost eternity, though these are made very clear.
[5:15] So tonight we're not choosing this just because it happens to deal with the topic of a lost eternity and of hell and as if we're just taking that because that's really one of the things that we're expected as a church to preach about.
[5:31] We're taking it because it fits into the series, the short series we've been carrying out on the word remember. We've looked at other contexts where the word remember is used, where God remembers certain things, where we are called upon to remember certain things ourselves.
[5:47] There are other many passages in the Bible that we could go into and probably won't have time to go into them all, which calls on us to remember, remember the Lord's Day, remember the Sabbath day, remember the Lord's death, all of these things.
[6:01] But here, in a lost eternity, this rich man who was rich in his life is told, remember that in your lifetime you received the good things.
[6:15] So it's the very solemn topic of remembering in hell. Robert Murray McChain, one of the loveliest, most godly men who ever lived in preaching the gospel, always reminded himself and always reminded fellow ministers and students of the gospel when they came to preach hell, to preach it lovingly, to preach it with compassion, to preach it with the fear of God in our own souls.
[6:54] And I hope tonight I can capture something of that, because it's not my desire just to preach on hell for the sake of it, to include this topic in our study this evening and in our series of studies on remember, just because somehow or other we want to fit something about hell into that series.
[7:14] We want to preach it and to listen because it is such a critically important issue when a world, the world in which we live, dismisses the idea of hell so readily, except that the word is used in all kinds of description, in newspaper headings, in comments in the press and on the media, and in people's everyday language, hell is a very common word.
[7:40] But hell is a terrible word and should never be used lightly. It should never be used in ordinary conversation in the way it is.
[7:53] It should never be used anything other than the way God intends we use it for that terrible eternity where lost souls will be forever without hope and will find anguish and sorrow unendingly to be their portion.
[8:16] So here are two men worlds apart, worlds apart firstly in life. Notice what it says in verses 19 here to 21. There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.
[8:31] 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.
[8:43] They were worlds apart in life in their contrasting lives. And although we're going to focus on this rich man's eternity and a lost eternity, there's so much from this that we can actually learn from application to life as it is in this world as well.
[8:58] And to the kind of principles and practices that as Christians we are required to show and to be engaged in for the Lord and in the Lord's service. Here was a man who really dismissed people beneath him as he saw them.
[9:12] A man who clothed in purple, the finest of clothes, the finest of garments. He had everything he could need in financial terms and monetary terms and in material ways.
[9:24] Fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every single day. He had all of these expensive clothes. He had the best food every single day of life. This is how life went on for him.
[9:34] Every single day he didn't notice anything other than his own particular gratification and those of his pals, those of that sort of elite.
[9:46] You can just imagine what it was like. It's just the same as it is in the present day and as it has been in every generation. And as we said, this seems to be aimed particularly at the Pharisees.
[9:57] So perhaps the Lord indeed was intending that the Pharisees who were still listening to him should actually see this rich man as one of himself. Maybe indeed it was a historical figure. It doesn't say that this was a parable, although it has many aspects that appear to be like the parables of Jesus.
[10:16] But all the parables of Jesus are very important truths to convey to us and this passage, even if you take it as a parable, is no different. Here was this rich man, a world apart from the next man described.
[10:31] 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 and the dogs came and licked his sores.
[10:42] He was dumped at the gate or he was placed there strategically just so that perhaps somebody of those rich friends of this rich man who's not even named, and that's important, God doesn't bother to name him in the passage, but he gives his name to the poor man, to Lazarus.
[10:59] And he was there just hoping that somebody somehow would give him something and he was even prepared to take the scraps that fell from the rich man's table. He was desiring to be fed with these scraps, with these leftovers.
[11:13] That would have done him. He wouldn't have complained even if that had been his daily portion of food. And what a contrast to the rich man's sumptuous clothes.
[11:29] He was covered with sores and the dogs came and licked his sores. All the time that this rich man felt the nice soft feel of his sumptuous garments as he went about his house and as he went about his business, this man that he didn't even look to, this man that was laid at his gate every single day, you see it says, every single day he was laid there, he was placed there, a poor man and he didn't even give him any attention.
[12:03] A world apart or worlds apart in their daily life. Now just in passing I'm going to mention this because I don't want to lose the run of the thought of the passage but poverty is a massive global problem and poverty as it is ignored by some is a massive problem.
[12:28] If you look at the statistics that charities such as Compassion who sponsor children in places of poverty throughout the world, the statistics that they give you are staggering.
[12:38] If you take $1.90 to be the poverty line if you like below which you are classed as poor, if you take that as where you draw the line $1.90 which is about £1.55 in our money, then nearly 10% of the world's population live in poverty.
[13:02] 40% of the world's population live below $1.25 a day.
[13:14] That's a pound. 40% of the world's population have to make do on a pound a day or less. That's the world we live in.
[13:25] That's the problem. That's the scale of it. And there are millions and millions and millions of people and children and adults involved in that. And you wrote yourselves the related problems that you have with poverty.
[13:38] Whatever causes the poverty there are many causes of it. But the related problems are massive as well. Malnutrition, disease, lack of sanitation, child exploitation, child prostitution, many other things you could mention all tied up with poverty and the blight of poverty on human lives.
[14:05] Here was a man who was one of the have-nots. And just like in our day many people passed by without giving him much regard.
[14:16] And this rich man hardly noticed him. They were world apart in their daily life but they were world apart at the end of life too when it came to their funeral.
[14:28] And there's an interesting thing. You see you can just imagine when it came to the funeral of this rich man how it would contrast with the funeral of Lazarus because here this rich man undoubtedly would have a very significant funeral.
[14:39] He was a man of importance, a man of status in his community. You can just imagine in the equivalent of that in our modern day you'd find for this man's funeral all the posh limos, all the people of celebrity status coming out of their posh limos, those who really were super rich coming out and having their bodyguards and everything else convey them to where the service was going to be and all of these important people in the eyes of human beings gathered together because this important man had died and they had to pay their respects.
[15:15] But actually God's description of it is so different because all that's said is the rich man died and was buried.
[15:28] How very like God, how typical of God to break in upon human pride and human achievement and just speak of it as completely insignificant.
[15:40] This man wasn't even given a name in this record of God's word that God has given us. He's not significant to God in the sense in which he saw himself as significant in society.
[15:52] And when it came to his funeral, however much there was pomp and ceremony and celebrity and everything else that would have been associated with it, all God says about it is, he died and he was buried.
[16:05] And that's what God is like. And you find consistently in the Bible that God actually brings right down to earth the thinking of human beings that see themselves as of great size.
[16:20] God says actually you're not worth even giving a name to besides me and besides this Lazarus as one of my people.
[16:37] The splendid funeral was actually that of Lazarus. The rich man died and was buried. But Lazarus when he died, he was carried by the angels to Abraham's side.
[16:56] That's some funeral procession, isn't it? It's hidden from the view of all the people that were associated with the rich man and those that really mattered in that society. They didn't see this happening.
[17:07] But God is telling us, this is the kind of funeral that I arranged for Lazarus. he was nothing in the eyes of men. He wasn't even taken note of by this rich man who had plenty, if he only thought, just to give it to Lazarus as he was sat there at his gate every day covered with sores.
[17:28] He died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. He had that magnificent procession all the way to heaven, carried by the angels of God and all it said about the rich man was he was buried.
[17:51] Let's be careful about outward appearances. Let's be careful how we reach conclusions about people. The person that's lying on the street in Edinburgh or wherever or even in Stornoway begging for food, falling on hard times, may not be a drug addict and may be much closer to God than many of us who walk by and may have a funeral carried by the angels of God when many important people in human eyes are simply forgotten by God.
[18:35] there's the contrast. Contrast in their daily life and a contrast in their funerals. And it tells you how God sets about reversing and overturning human thoughts and human plans and human ideas of what greatness is, what greatness consists of.
[18:53] Because secondly, they were worlds apart in eternity. They were worlds apart in eternity with regard to two things. First of all, as to where each of them is in eternity as described there.
[19:05] He was carried, first of all, to Abraham's bosom, the poor man, Lazarus, as it's described there. Now, what does that mean, that he was taken to Abraham's side, or the older version of it is Abraham's bosom?
[19:21] Well, Abraham, of course, was looked upon by the Pharisees as their spiritual father. In John's Gospel, you'll find Jesus talking to the Jews there in chapter 8, for example, Abraham, your father Abraham, rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad.
[19:38] So the Jews paid a great deal of notice to Abraham historically as their spiritual father, the one from whom they took their line of descent as a people, and from whom they took the promises of God to be yet fulfilled for them.
[19:56] And here this poor man is carried to Abraham's side. In other words, to be at somebody's side in this biblical language means to be a special guest at a meal or at a dinner or a supper.
[20:09] And you know yourselves very well that, I think we mentioned this last week actually, recently anyway, how the Bible talks about being in heaven as being at a great banquet that God has provided the richest of spiritual fare and food for us to partake of with God forevermore.
[20:24] And that's the picture that you get here. He's with Abraham, he's at Abraham's side, he's a special guest at that heavenly banquet. And just imagine the face of the Pharisees as they heard this actually being spoken out by Jesus, knowing that he was getting at them.
[20:39] They were no fools, they knew when Jesus was getting at them, and they knew that this was actually addressed to them, who saw themselves as so righteous and so much above other people, and especially people like this poor Lazarus.
[20:53] He was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. Just imagine the reaction, the increased hatred, that this Jesus would suggest such a thing, especially when the rich man who really represented them, ended up in hades in torments.
[21:21] Now, hades is a word that the more modern translations use, instead of it being consistently translated by the word hell. hell. There are two words for hell in the New Testament, this word hades and the word gehenna.
[21:36] And the word hades, just like the Hebrew term sheol, which you find in the ESV in the Old Testament, is actually a reference to the state between when we leave this world and the final resurrection and then the judgment finally at the return of Christ.
[21:55] When we think of that in between state, what's called very often the intermediate state, when your body is left behind in this world and is buried and then spiritually in your soul you proceed into eternity and into this intermediate state.
[22:12] Now, sometimes the Bible doesn't say, using the word hades or sheol, as to the distinction between those who are lost and those who are saved. It just simply says they've gone to eternity, they've gone to the abode of the dead.
[22:24] They're no longer in this world. But the New Testament never uses the word Hades in regard to the saved. So every time it's used in the New Testament, even though it means the intermediate state, still before the resurrection but no longer in this world, this man in Hades is really effectively in hell.
[22:49] He's in a lost eternity. He's in a place of torment. He's no longer able to benefit from the things he had in this life.
[23:03] And that dispels for us two things that very often you hear in the day in which we live. First of all, that death is really the end of all things. That your life is just simply like any other form of life, any form of animal life, where you actually come to the end of your course in this world, and that's it.
[23:23] There's nothing else beyond this life. That's what the secularist will tell you. That's what the humanist will tell you. That's why a humanist celebration of life is such a desperately sad thing.
[23:37] There's a dark and dreary thing, really. However much it says about life as lived in this world, there is no afterlife. There is no resurrection. There is no hope beyond what you can achieve in this life, by your own efforts, and without God.
[23:57] The Bible gives you the real situation. When your body is left behind and buried in the grave, you and I go on.
[24:11] Our personality goes on. Our conscious life goes on. We're still aware of things, as we'll see in a moment, in our minds, in our memories, in our reflections, in our thoughts.
[24:24] We continue as human beings, no longer in a bodily state, but nevertheless in a very real living state, all the same. It dispels the idea that death is the end of human life, absolutely full stop.
[24:41] it also dispels the idea that actually, after all, everyone's going to end up saved, because that's an idea that's been around for a very, very long time.
[24:51] Sometimes it's called universalism, where ultimately every human being is going to be saved, and sometimes you find along with that the idea that for the lost in eternity, you don't turn to God and come into the state of salvation in eternity, they're going to be just annihilated, they'll cease to exist.
[25:13] Here's the Bible's teaching for us, death is not the end of human existence or a human life, neither is it the case that every human being is saved. Now here's a man who has so many advantages, but he's not saved, he ends up in eternity, in hell, in Hades, in this place of torment and of anguish.
[25:35] You know, it's ridiculous to hear people saying, well, yes, but God is kind, you know, and God is merciful, and God is compassionate, and you can't imagine that God will actually not bring people, even if they die unsaved, you can't imagine he's going to leave them like that in eternity, and God will actually see to it, isn't it God's business, isn't that what he's in the business of doing, forgiving people their sins and receiving them back to himself?
[26:01] Yes, but God is not going to actually deal with them by way of giving away his righteousness, is he? let's not be fools about this. There is no salvation offered in eternity.
[26:19] There is no change to our eternal state. If we've entered into a lost eternity, that's where we stay. Solemn, sad, terrible, oh, that is.
[26:33] It's no unkindness to people to say that. It's no unkindness in preaching the gospel to actually bring out those issues that are plain and simple from the pages of scripture, including its teaching on hell.
[26:48] It's an unkindness to people to say it doesn't really exist. It's an unkindness to people to say it doesn't matter how you leave this world, it'll be all right in the end, God will see to it.
[26:58] No, it won't. It will not happen. Why do I know it will not happen? How can I preach in confidence that this is in fact not going to happen to people who leave this world without Christ?
[27:12] Because that is what God is saying. And it doesn't matter what human philosophy or atheism or humanism might come up with.
[27:24] We have to prefer God's own version of the truth. truth. And his version of the truth says the rich man lifted up his eyes in torment in Hades.
[27:39] And he saw, he saw Lazarus at Abraham's side. Now, I'm not sure that we should say that there's an actual seeing involved from the state of the lost into the state of the saved or vice versa.
[27:58] But what we can say with confidence is that this rich man, rich as he was in this life, this anonymous man is perfectly aware and certainly aware of how different his case is to the one who's in heaven.
[28:14] He's aware of the great gulf, he's aware of the difference, he's aware that they're worlds apart, and he's going to remember that they were worlds apart in this life as well, but now he knows, and he knows full well that he is worlds apart in his experience and his place from where Lazarus is.
[28:35] And you see, the emphasis on torment is so difficult to deal with, talking about human beings and their eternal state and their relationship to God.
[28:50] But look at the number of times you find the word torment or the word anguish, used down through the passage, verse 22, 24, 25, 28, is really throwing at us for emphasis that this is the eternity of the lost.
[29:06] There's not a shred of comfort. There's no hope of comfort. There's no announcement of comfort available. There isn't a single iota of a gap in the experience of torment.
[29:20] There's nothing even to give any indication that somehow, someday, throughout eternity, things will get better. They will not. It's torment.
[29:32] It's ongoing torment. It's never-ending anguish. And that's what this man is now in. And so he says, Father Abraham, have mercy on me.
[29:49] mercy. He had no word of mercy while he was in this life. Didn't much come into his head that he needed mercy. He had everything he needed in his riches, in his daily life.
[30:04] But now he appeals out of his terrible condition. He appeals for mercy. mercy. And there's none available.
[30:17] There's no positive response to that cry. There's no relief. Despite the fact that he's so concerned to have it.
[30:30] Instead, Abraham says, son, you remember that in your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner, the bad things. But now he is comforted here and you are in anguish.
[30:42] And that word, remember, pierced right through even more to this man's soul and this man's experience. His world's a part in where he is. His world's a part in what he is experiencing.
[30:54] Because as Lazarus is experiencing comfort at Abraham's side in this messianic banquet that he's partaking of, now this rich man knows in his anguish, despite the fact that his plea for mercy, actually things are getting worse for him.
[31:12] Because he's called upon to remember things from his past life. And our memory will function in hell in a way that adds to our anguish.
[31:29] That's effectively what it's saying. You don't lose memory in eternity. You don't go to a lost eternity where you're glad that you don't remember the fact that you rejected Christ in this life and that you had all the advantages that you didn't actually make anything of.
[31:46] In fact, it's the other way around. Here is this man being told by Abraham, child, remember that in your life you had these good things and Lazarus the bad things. And now things are reversed.
[31:58] In other words, he's really saying to this rich man, this rich man is being told in his mind and his consciousness. And indeed, in terms of his conscience as well, you didn't take advantage of what you had when you were in this life.
[32:15] Friends, let me say to myself first, let me say to you too, have you made every advantage of the gospel?
[32:28] will your eternity be an awful remembering of the advantages God gave you?
[32:41] Surely not for anyone here. Surely not when you know these things plainly from scripture. Surely tonight, if you haven't realized it before, that you realize it now, that facing eternity without Christ is facing the prospect of remembering things that will be to your anguish forever and ever without end.
[33:03] Please, don't risk not having Christ. Don't risk it when you have so many advantages in the gospel that others don't have in the world.
[33:20] Here you are tonight. Here I am tonight. we have God's gospel, God's teaching. All of that has reached us. And woe to us and woe to me if we go to face God and we're told, son, remember that you had the good things in your lifetime and you didn't use them and that's the result of it now.
[33:48] Oh, nothing is more important for us, friends, than that we consider that in our lifetime we are receiving the good things from God and if we don't take advantage of them we will receive all the bad things that a lost eternity contains.
[34:09] Don't risk it. Don't linger over it. Don't think somehow it's going to turn out all right. The only way it will turn out all right is if you turn to Christ and if you trust in him, if you give your life to him, if you accept what God offers in the gospel, an eternal life in Christ.
[34:30] And then it goes on, I've got time to deal with all the details, but besides it says there's a great gulf fixed, a chasm has been fixed in order that those who would pass from here to you may not do so and none may cross from there to us.
[34:44] There may be certain questions in our mind as to how that could possibly be. Would anybody want ever to go from where Lazarus is across to with Richmond? Obviously not. But this is language designed to just emphasize for us that there is no bridge, that there is no way of going from one to the other, that there is nothing at all from those in a lost eternity that give them any hope that somehow or other God will make a provision yet sometime in eternity so that they can come across.
[35:08] There's no purgatory, there's no offer of the gospel, there's no mercy, there's no means at all by which the situation can be changed. It's too late for that.
[35:21] It's gone past him. He can't go back to the advantages he had. He's missed it. The train is gone. And this is where he is.
[35:34] And then he says something else. Well, I beg you, send Lazarus. I said that earlier on in the passage 2, send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I'm in anguish in this flame.
[35:50] And then even after he's been told to remember how he had received the good things, and he says, no, but I beg you, father, send Lazarus 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.
[36:04] Now you can see from that something very plainly, and that's this. Hell doesn't change anyone. This man is still selfish.
[36:16] He still regards Lazarus as his messenger boy, that he's going to send him back to his brothers, and if he can't go and get some water to cool his tongue, something to relieve him of this anguish, then at least send him back to my brothers in this world.
[36:31] Why is he saying such a thing? Is it really out of a regard for his brothers? Well, perhaps to an extent, but it's more out of regard for himself, because if his brothers come to join him in that lost eternity, it's going to feel a lot worse for him, isn't it?
[36:44] So he's still being selfish, and still just looking at his own circumstances, and wanting something that will change it for the better for him, and it just cannot be.
[36:59] And then Jesus says something very, very important. It's all important, but this is very important. They have Moses and the prophets, Jesus says.
[37:10] Now that means the scriptures, as they were then of the Old Testament. And he said, no, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. And Father Abraham said to him, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.
[37:28] Now that really tells us so much. We have a Bible. We have God's word written out for us. We have ample testimony in the word itself and down through the generations of its use that this is the word of God, that it's God's reliable word, God's authoritative word, a word that you can depend upon absolutely, a word that you can build on for eternity.
[37:55] and it doesn't matter what else happens in terms of a spectacular event, if we don't believe the word, nothing else is going to convince us.
[38:13] Not even someone going back from the dead, that's what the passage says, isn't it? If someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.
[38:25] And he said, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead. Another Lazarus, not this one, in John's gospel, was brought back from the dead by Jesus.
[38:40] You would imagine that the Pharisees and the scribes, knowing that that had happened, actually seeing it happen right in front of their eyes, that they would immediately turn to God and say, well, now we're convinced that this man is indeed the savior of the world.
[38:53] Instead, in the next chapter, 12 of John, what do you find the Pharisees and the scribes doing? They're plotting and scheming how to put Lazarus to death.
[39:07] Why? Because through him, many were coming to believe in Jesus. That's the effect, what was effectively a resurrection, to use the word carefully, a bringing back to life bodily of that Lazarus from the grave, from the sepulcher by Jesus, and it actually only had the effect of filling the Pharisees with further hatred for Jesus.
[39:33] Somebody should come back from the dead tonight and walk through that door to the back. For anyone here who has not accepted the word of God and believed the word of God, that would not be convincing any more than what's in the word of God already.
[39:51] That sounds remarkable, but this is what the Lord himself says. So, friends, this is our advantage. We have the word.
[40:04] We have the gospel. We have the advantages. We have the liberty to use it. We have blessings connected with it.
[40:15] We are able to help each other in understanding these things. we have so much, so, so much of the good things in this life.
[40:30] There was another one who rose from the dead, Jesus himself. And it is he who said of himself, as he spoke to Martha, the sister of that other Lazarus, I am the resurrection and the life.
[40:46] Whoever believes in me, even though he dies, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Because that's what hell is, it's everlasting death.
[41:02] Shall never die. But he then left it with a question. Do you believe this? do you? Do you? Well, do you?
[41:14] Do you believe this? Do you believe this Bible teaching? Have you taken it to heart? Are you going home unsaved?
[41:27] And if you're unsaved, are you going home unconcerned? unconcerned? Will you risk it? As this rich man risked it and ended up in eternity, surely you're going to say, as Martha did, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ who is coming into the world, the Savior of sinners.
[41:58] Let's pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. O Lord, our God, we thank you for the positive emphasis your word brings to us on life, on hope, on heaven with the Lord.
[42:19] We thank you too for the clarity with which you reveal to us the issues of death, of spiritual death and eternal death, for the way that you have so clearly revealed the reality of hell to us.
[42:33] Help us, Lord, we pray, to give due heed to all that you tell us. Help us never to disregard it, hoping for the best, without faith and trust in you.
[42:45] Lay upon our hearts, O Lord, this evening the reality of eternity, the nearness of eternity, and help us to take note of the words we sang earlier, O Lord, from your own psalms.
[43:00] How short our time on earth is, how long unendingly is eternity. O Lord, make us wise, we pray, and to salvation, for Jesus' sake.
[43:14] Amen. Let's sing now in conclusion from St. Sam's version of Psalm 11, Psalm number 11, that's on page 13.
[43:31] We'll sing verses 4 to 7. And so on through to verse 7, the Lord is in his holy place.
[43:59] Amen. Amen. The Lord is in his holy place.
[44:14] The Lord is on his heavenly throne. His eyes will share the human race.
[44:32] and in his side each one on his own. The Lord examines all the just, the righteous one he proves and dead.
[44:59] but all those who love wickedness and violence his soul detests.
[45:16] Upon the wicked he will reign his highly hope have suffered a storming wind will beat all men such punishment will be their loss.
[45:52] God the Lord is righteous still in righteousness he takes delight and they alone will see his face who are in heart and life of Christ if you allowed me please to get to the main door after the benediction now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ the love of God the Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you now and ever more Amen for God Thank you.