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[0:00] This is the First Mustang Pulpit Podcast, a podcast of the weekly preaching and teaching at First Mustang. Thank you for joining us.!

[0:11] First Baptist Mustang, and I greet you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and Dr. Context. And you recall that he says things like, I had wanted to get to you earlier, but was hindered.

[0:38] And I was. And I don't know about you, but all of that seems like yesterday and 110 years ago. And I'm just so thankful. It reminds us of the imperative of Christ's people meeting together.

[0:54] How much we need this every single Lord's Day and how we long to be together. So I was hindered from getting to you, but I am thrilled to be here with you now.

[1:05] I had the privilege yesterday of speaking at Oklahoma Baptist University at a conference that was also sponsored by your Oklahoma Baptist State Convention about the call to ministry.

[1:19] And there were several hundred young people in that room. That's just a very encouraging thing, including some of your own. And I was thrilled to see them. Several young men from your church who were there. So I'm thrilled to be here today for the exposition of God's Word.

[1:35] I want to invite you to turn with me to the Gospel of Luke chapter 16. Luke chapter 16. And as you're turning to this passage, I want to remind you that our confession concerning the Holy Scripture is that this is the inerrant, infallible, verbally inspired Word of God.

[2:00] Every single word is inspired. Every single word is fully inspired. This is a living Word. It is the very Word of God given to us by the Holy Spirit through men of old who were, I love the old confessional language, carried along by the Holy Spirit in giving us the Scripture.

[2:24] The forms of Scripture given to us include massive dogmatic passages, such as we find in the Pentateuch, in the Torah, prophetic works, poetic works, historical works.

[2:46] In the New Testament in particular, the four Gospels and then the Book of Acts, and then of course all the letters, so many of them from the Apostle Paul, and then concluding after pastoral letters with the Apocalypse, the Closing Book, the Revelation.

[3:04] God knew that His people would need many different texts. He sent many and various prophets. And then in these later days, He has spoken to us through His own Son.

[3:17] It's in the name of His Son that we turn to Holy Scripture. It's in the name of Jesus Christ that we turn to, in this case, the Gospel of Luke, chapter 16. And we're going to begin reading at verse 19, so follow along with me in the text.

[3:32] 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.

[3:47] 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.

[3:59] 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 send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.

[4:15] But Abraham said, 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.

[4:28] 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 pass from there to us. And he said, Then I beg you, Father, to send into my father's house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them lest they also come to this place of torment.

[4:48] 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 him, If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.

[5:09] Let's pray together. Father, we are so thankful for every word of Holy Scripture. Father, we know that without this word, we would be lost.

[5:22] Father, we pray that you will bring glory to your name through the preaching of your word and through the Holy Spirit applying it to our hearts, conforming us to the image of Christ. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

[5:35] Amen. Amen. Amen. Well, when you confront a passage of Scripture, you need to ask, What particular form of Scripture is this?

[5:50] We honor God's Word by recognizing that the Spirit-inspired poetry is poetry. That prophets issued prophecy.

[6:01] That the chroniclers and historians gave us chronicles and histories. Through Moses, God gave us the first five books of the Bible, which include, most importantly, what we call the law.

[6:18] In the New Testament, we also have historical works. And these, of course, are most importantly the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The book of Acts is also a book of history.

[6:33] Now, it's more than just history, as the Gospels are more than just history, because what we have revealed in the Gospels is not just what Jesus did and what he said, but what it means.

[6:51] There are four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We refer to Matthew and Mark and Luke as the synoptic Gospels, because just in terms of the order and the flow and the way the Gospels are organized, they're very similar.

[7:09] The Holy Spirit knew we needed all three, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The Gospel of John is different and the same. It's a Gospel, but it begins, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and was God.

[7:31] There's a theological argument persuasively and pervasively made in the Gospel of John in a different way. We need Matthew. We need Mark.

[7:41] We need Luke. We need John. In the Gospels, the synoptic Gospels, just to take the Gospel of Luke, in Luke, we have what is the most historical of the historical Gospels in the sense of intending it to be understood as history.

[7:58] And we know this because Luke tells us in the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, as he writes to Theophilus, he says, this is what I am seeking to do. I am seeking to give you an orderly and accurate account of what Jesus said and did.

[8:14] Now, aren't you thankful that Theophilus needed that? The Holy Spirit knew that the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ would need that. And that's why Luke writes as he writes.

[8:28] So why we have such an orderly and such an even-flowing Gospel in the Gospel of Luke. And, of course, that will be continued in what we know as the second volume of the Gospel of Luke, which is the book of Acts, which was also written by Luke and also addressed to Theophilus.

[8:43] This is the volume two, first volume Christ, second volume church. One of the most important aspects of the teaching ministry of Jesus is that Luke helps us to understand the parables of Jesus.

[9:03] Of all three of the synoptic Gospels, Luke gives us the most comprehensive coverage of the parables. You put the three Gospels together and we are told that Jesus hardly ever taught without telling them a parable.

[9:20] The master text to understand the parables is not in the Gospel of Luke. It's in the Gospel of Matthew, in Matthew chapter 13. And it's in that passage, in its most comprehensive form, that the disciples come to Jesus and they're perplexed and they ask him the question, why do you teach them in parables?

[9:36] Why do you talk to them in parables? Okay? Now, why would the disciples have asked that question? It's not a trick question I'm asking. They asked the question because they didn't know the answer to it.

[9:51] Why do you speak to them in parables? Because to us, let's admit, this is an odd way of teaching. It is. This is, for those of us especially, who are absolutely committed to exegetical, textual, expository preaching.

[10:11] Sometimes stories are the hardest thing to handle because they don't always line out the way other passages do. The Book of Romans, very easy to outline.

[10:26] Some of these parables, drive you insane to try to outline it. Jesus didn't mean for them to be outlined.

[10:38] The disciples came up to Jesus and said, why do you speak to them in parables? And then if that's a question we understand, Jesus' answer is just plain odd or troubling.

[10:50] He says, I speak to them in parables because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear, it is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah who says you will see and not see, you will hear and not hear for your heart is dull.

[11:06] Okay, so let's just be honest. Taking it at face value, Jesus is saying, okay, you want to ask me why I speak to them in parables? I speak to them in parables because they don't get them. Now, by the time you get to the end of Matthew chapter 13 and by the time you understand the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit and the way the Spirit works in the heart, drawing sinners to Christ, you come to understand that to be a Christian, to be drawn to Christ is to be made to see and to hear, to have a heart that's receptive.

[11:44] Jesus says to the disciples, blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear. For I tell you, truly, truly, many prophets and righteous men long to see what you see and didn't see it and to hear what you hear and did not hear it.

[12:00] Well, all that's kind of irrelevant if Matthew chapter 16, excuse me, here, Luke chapter 16. If Luke chapter 16 is not a parable, then that was interesting but irrelevant. Luke chapter 16 is a parable.

[12:15] Now, it's more than a parable. You look at most of the parables of Jesus, there are no names. There are characters. There was a rich man. There was a man who had two sons.

[12:26] There was a woman who had lost a coin. There are no names. There are names here. Now, the rich man simply named the rich man, but Lazarus is named Lazarus and then a character you recognize shows up in this parable and that's Abraham.

[12:43] So, that's unusual. It's unusual for a parable and another reason and that is that there is direct, incontrovertible, doctrinal material in this passage about hell.

[12:59] Now, just to be very clear about the final judgment. Abraham will say to the rich man, speaking of the final judgment, not only that it is just but that it is irreversible and that it is eternal.

[13:14] That's very important for us to know. Jesus said more about hell than he did about heaven. That doesn't mean heaven's any less real than hell. It means in our hard-heartedness, he knew we needed to be confronted with absolute honest warnings about hell.

[13:35] But it does almost exactly follow the pattern of a parable and the most important indication that this is a parable is that it works just like a parable.

[13:50] Seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear nor do they perceive. There's no passage of Scripture that makes that point more clearly than this.

[14:02] It also begins just like the parables begin. There was a rich man. Look at verse 19. There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.

[14:14] So there was a rich man. And how rich is this man? He is a very rich man. This is ostentatious, exaggerated, ridiculous wealth. And, you know, we have some pictures of that in our own society.

[14:28] I mean, they're not just rich. They're not just rich, rich, rich. They're unbelievably rich. He sumptuously feasts every day. That's just ridiculous.

[14:38] I mean, face it. How many of us could survive that? I mean, well, he was eating himself to death. He died. You know, it's just what he did.

[14:51] That's what feasting sumptuously every day will do. You know, you're one banana pudding souffle away from eternity. And that's where this guy was.

[15:02] Every day was a feast day. And he dressed in purple. Okay, now that doesn't mean a whole lot to you. Purple, you may remember, is the most expensive color in the ancient world. They didn't have any artificial colors. Everything they had was organic.

[15:14] Purple required very rare materials. Purple was a color sold at a very expensive price. But it's not just that it was expensive. It's that it was limited to royalty.

[15:25] So this guy's dressing up every day as if he is a king, which he is not. All right, but he is rich. But as the parable unfolds, as the passage unfolds, we're told about another man.

[15:43] Verse 20, And at his gate, the gate of his house, was laid a poor man named Lazarus covered with sores who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table.

[15:54] Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. Okay, so the picture of the rich man here is as audaciously rich as is imaginable.

[16:06] He's having a feast every single day. He's dressing in purple as if he's a king. He has a house. He has a gate. But then the other man is just as poor as he is rich.

[16:17] And the biblical text is so rich here in detail because we're told he had to be carried. Lazarus is here. He's in such a horrible state that he has to be carried. And he's just laid at the rich man's gate because they thought his presence, it might be that the rich man would just give him a little something to get rid of him, get him off his gate, get him off his porch.

[16:39] He was covered with sores. That's indignity. Just remember the Old Testament. He covered with sores. It was understood by some to be a sign of God's judgment. Lazarus looks like God hates him.

[16:51] According to the conventional theology that day, it was a bad theology, but it was a very, very common assumption. Over here's a rich man, God must love him. Over here's a poor man covered with sores, God must hate him.

[17:04] But then there is the ultimate sign of indignity for the Jewish mind, and that is that the dogs came and licked his sores. Okay.

[17:17] Just the other day, I was looking at a major newspaper and there was a bulletin from London.

[17:27] It was a British newspaper. It was a bulletin from London, the National Health Service, saying that despite all the cute YouTube videos, videos, it was not a good idea to let the puppy lick your baby's face.

[17:42] And in typical public health service types of warnings, it went into detail about what is in the mouth of a dog. And it's not pretty.

[17:53] I can just tell you, the dog's cute, he's friendly, that tongue is wet, that tongue's a weapon. You just don't know it. By the time you read this, you think, okay, at least for as long as I'm thinking about this article, the dog's not going to lick me.

[18:12] In the ancient world, dogs were unclean. They were unclean, most importantly, because they ate unclean things, which dogs will do. But you look at the Old Testament law and you look at all the things that are unclean and all the things Israel was not even to touch, they were abominations to the dog, their dinner.

[18:33] Okay, so I just want you to get the picture. It's gross. It's not nice, but Jesus gave it to us.

[18:43] We need to understand it. So this is a man who's really sick. He's so sick, he has sores. And the dogs lick his sores. Okay, so what do the dogs do licking his sores?

[18:58] I know, some of you are looking uncomfortable. You're saying, this is church. I know, this is the Bible. What does it mean that the dogs licked his sores? What does that mean? Well, it means, first of all, Lazarus is completely unclean, but that's not the main point.

[19:14] The main point is they are tasting him for a future meal. He's dying. And for the dogs, it's just a matter of time.

[19:25] All right, Jesus has our attention. The scene all of a sudden shifts. You have this very rich man, richer than we can imagine, very poor man, poorer than we can imagine.

[19:37] But then in verse 22, the poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. That's heaven.

[19:49] This is Abraham, whom God chose, called out of Ur of the Chaldees, and made as the head of the nation. This is Abraham in his bosom, his place of hospitality and his heart.

[20:05] This is where Lazarus is. Lazarus, the guy who's just being licked by dogs as they were preparing to devour him, a man so poor that he died of starvation, he's now feasting with father Abraham.

[20:27] Okay, and you can pretty much know where this goes. Then 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.

[20:44] Coincidence. they die on the same day. When I was 16, long before cell phones, I got the call that my mother's father had died.

[21:02] And it was about four hours away. It was obviously immediately important to get my mom and all of us to the family where my grandparents were.

[21:16] My dad was delayed just to get some business affairs in order. And I was 16 and he said to me, his eldest son, he said, look, you're going to drive your mom. You're going to be there and take care of things until I get there.

[21:31] Yes, sir. So we got to the facility and I walked in with my mom and I said something like, my mom's father's just died.

[21:45] No, I didn't say that. Excuse me. I said something like, this is my mom and introduced and they said, we're so sorry about your mother. And I said, it's her father who died.

[21:57] And the person said, well, he's very near death but your mother just died. My grandparents died on the same day of natural causes. It's a weird thing.

[22:10] It was totally weird when you're 16 and in charge trying to help my mom with all of that. So now I had two dead grandparents and one very, very strong but grieving mom.

[22:24] I had a lot of puzzlement in my mind but to die on the same day of natural causes in separate rooms? Well, these two men died on the same day and it's not a coincidence.

[22:37] They died on the same day because they were both called home and we understand exactly what happened. The rich man is now in hell in torment. You know, in one sense, even in the Old Testament, there would have been a passage like this.

[22:54] This is similar to some of the kinds of messages that came through the prophets and so this is something that at this point, we might have, we might have confronted in the Old Testament but the story continues, the passage continues and it's decidedly not Old Testament.

[23:17] We're told that the rich man who is in Hades and he's in torment, so this just reminds us of the fact that hell is a literal place of eternal torment. Being in Hades in torment, he lifted his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side and so he called out, 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 or in agony in this flame.

[23:41] So, this tells us something. He is able to see Abraham and Lazarus who he all of a sudden recognizes. Interesting. He let the guy die on his front porch.

[23:55] He could have survived just eating the crumbs from his table. Further indictment of the rich man but nonetheless, the point is, he says to Father Abraham, look, I'm in torment, send Lazarus to dip his finger in water and cool my tongue for I'm in agony in this flame.

[24:08] So, in this very interesting twist, the rich man now in hell has a plan that Abraham could just send Lazarus and at least alleviate his pain, his torment, his agony somewhat by dipping his finger in water and cooling his tongue.

[24:27] And then Abraham responds to him, look at verse 25, but Abraham said, 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.

[24:40] And then Abraham continued, this is very important, not just in terms of understanding the narrative flow of this passage but understanding heaven and hell 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 be able to pass from there, to cross from there.

[24:59] To us. Can't astound you, this is important for us to know. You know, we're talking about heaven and hell here should have our attention. We're talking about eternal destiny, we're talking about the judgment of God, we're talking about the eternal verdict of the divine judge.

[25:13] We are told that there is being comforted in Abraham's bosom, that is heaven, and there is being in agony and in torment and in anguish in the fires of hell.

[25:25] We are told that that is an eternal verdict that is irreversible and we are told that there's a chasm that is not transversible. You can't go from one place to the other.

[25:37] This tells us that the state of our soul when we die is the state of our soul for eternity. That is very important to know.

[25:49] You may have some, you may know someone who holds out some kind of hope that if there are persons who do not come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ in this life, they may have an opportunity in the next. Abraham says, no.

[26:02] He tells the rich man, too late. It's really important just doctrinally that here Abraham says to the rich man, no one can go from here to there.

[26:15] No one can go from there to here. No transfers. No passes. All right?

[26:26] So, now we're definitely in New Testament territory in the sense that even as they say economic sin issues of the first part of this passage, we could imagine that in the Old Testament.

[26:42] We can't imagine this conversation in the Old Testament. This takes the revelation of Jesus concerning heaven and hell. This takes the gospel as the background. But then again, it doesn't stop here either.

[26:54] In the most amazing way, Jesus continues the parable by having the rich man come up with plan B.

[27:07] Verse 27, then he said, then I beg you, Father, to send him to my father's house. If you can't send him here because no one can go from where we are to where you are, no one can go from where you are to where we are, there's an uncrossable chasm of eternal significance.

[27:22] So, Father, if you can't send Abraham here, then send Abraham 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. So, Abraham all of a sudden has concern for somebody else, in this case, as far as five brothers who evidently are wearing his purple clothes, eating his food at his table.

[27:42] But the rich man's concerned about him and he's got a plan. He's got a plan. He says, you know what, if you can't send Lazarus here, send Lazarus there. And the rich man's got a, he's got a missional plan here.

[27:58] He's got a plan. He's got a plan. This is what he thinks. He thinks that if, you know, there's a knock at the door, you know, one of the brothers pushes back from the table, wipes the grease from his face, walks over to the door, opens the door and there's Lazarus.

[28:14] He's going to say, wow, what have you come to tell us? Repent. And they're all going to repent.

[28:25] That's the rich man's plan. Abraham says, no can do. Look what Abraham says. Verse 29, but Abraham said, they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.

[28:38] And he said, no, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. He said to them, if they will not hear, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.

[28:56] This is a passage of scripture in which we need to note that what you think it's about until the very end is not what it's primarily about. this is not primarily about economic justice.

[29:13] It's not primarily about warnings about selfishness. It's not primarily a passage about the warnings of the deceitfulness of riches. It's not primarily a message of hope to the downtrodden, although the scripture includes so many of those passages.

[29:28] It's not primarily a passage about heaven and hell, but that's certainly in the background and made very clear and doctrinal detail. It's primarily about something else. Well, if it's primarily about something else, what's that something else?

[29:42] That something else is the Bible. It's astounding. This passage turns out to be one of the most emphatic passages in scripture about the authority of the Bible, the word of God.

[29:58] And it's easy to miss it, which is an indictment of us all. Notice what Abraham says. When the rich man says, then send Lazarus to my brothers that he may also warn them.

[30:12] Then Abraham says to him, they have Moses and the prophets. That means the Bible. That's reference to the Old Testament. Moses and the prophets, the law and the prophets. They have the Bible.

[30:22] Let them hear the Bible. And the rich man says, no, Father Abraham, they have the Bible. What good is that? But if a dead man were to appear to them, then they would repent.

[30:35] And then there's this astounding statement which should be on the forefront of the minds of every gospel evangelical congregation. And that is this. If they will not hear Moses and the prophets, then they will not believe even if one should rise from the dead.

[30:55] There is always a crisis in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And by that, I do not mean contemporary controversies. Those always exist too. The permanent crisis in the Christian church is the crisis of confidence in the Bible.

[31:11] That's the permanent crisis. And the reason it's a permanent crisis is because of our sinfulness and also because in every single generation of Christians from the ascension of Jesus until when he comes, there is the necessity of coming to the absolutely clear and honest and straightforward affirmation that the only authority by which we know anything, preach anything, teach anything, share the gospel with anyone is the singular sovereign authority of the Word of God.

[31:46] You look across church land today and you see an awful lot of churches trying to do something other than the teaching and preaching of the Word of God.

[32:01] To be honest, you look out at church land these days and you see an awful lot of churches that just assume that if you're going to reach people, you've got to come up with a way to reach them.

[32:11] like a dead man coming back from the grave knocking on the door. Just in case you needed any empirical verification of all of this, just don't.

[32:32] Take me at my word, but you could find it by going to Twitter, now called X. People put up proudly what their church is doing and I'm appalled.

[32:49] I'm astounded and I'm astounded two ways, okay? So in other words, there's a double issue here. Issue number one is why would you do that stupid thing? Why would you dress up like Hollywood characters at church and think that's what this is supposed to be about?

[33:05] It's just stupid. It's inane. It's just embarrassing. The second reason is why don't you just do what in the New Testament we're told to do?

[33:25] I mean, wouldn't that be like a good place to start? Preach the word in season and out of season. Contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

[33:35] Feed the flock of God. How about that? How about that? If you wear yourself out doing that, call me.

[33:47] If you've done all that and there's no more to be done, then call me. No one's ever going to call me. This passage is astounding.

[33:58] It's astounding in so many different ways. First of all, just as a short passage of Scripture, we just read just a few verses together. We have been taken through the most interesting twists and turns. We have the rich man and we have Lazarus.

[34:10] We have Abraham. Then all of a sudden we have Moses and the prophets. And just let me affirm again, to someone hearing this parable, that is the way they would simply say the Bible, the Scriptures.

[34:24] The summary is either the law and the prophets or Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. But it's worse than that or at least I could say it's stronger than that because what Jesus says, well, no, hold on, hold on.

[34:44] What Abraham says is, if they will not hear Moses and the prophets then they will not believe even if one should rise from the dead. All right. But this is where we all of a sudden telescope out and we think, it's like a bomb has just gone off because this wasn't actually Abraham speaking, right?

[35:03] Falling? This is Jesus speaking this passage. Jesus is the one who said, Abraham says, if they do not believe Moses and the prophets then they will not believe even if one should rise from the dead.

[35:23] I mean, you're already there, right? You understand that Jesus is the one who rose from the dead. Remember what Jesus said?

[35:34] I mentioned this in Matthew chapter 13. I speak to them in parables because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear nor do they understand for their foolish hearts they've hardened lest they believe.

[35:50] The Gospels make very clear that even when Jesus was raised from the dead those who denied him continued to deny him.

[36:07] And those who believed continued to believe. I was so pleased to be here this morning for the baptism as Garen was baptized and you heard the testimony and you heard the necessary declaration I believe that the father resurrected the son and he lives.

[36:40] I believe in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe the father raised him from the dead. that is central and essential to Christianity without the empty tomb without the resurrected Christ without the bodily physical supernatural historical resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and the dead we are still the apostle Paul makes very clear dead in our sins and trespasses but because he is raised we are saved.

[37:09] you know I think we'd at least like to think or at least maybe just think of a possibility that there would be those who wouldn't believe the scripture and then when the truth of the resurrection is declared they would believe.

[37:29] Do you know that Jesus is the one who says that doesn't happen? It's just astounding I mean Jesus says stop thinking that way if they will not believe the Bible then they will not believe even if one should rise from the dead.

[37:49] So this morning we declare to you the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ the good news of salvation. Every single one of us is a sinner in our own way sinning directly against the law and command of God.

[38:10] We have sinned against God as made clear in the law and the prophets. None of us has any hope of earning or deserving our salvation but what we were helpless to do God did by sending his son Jesus Christ who lived a sinless life and who went to the cross in obedience to the father's plan and on the cross died as our substitute dying in our place paying the penalty for our sin on the third day the father raised him from the dead vindicating his atonement and declaring the forgiveness of sins due to the atonement accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ because he lives we are saved.

[39:02] salvation comes to all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and repent of their sins salvation comes to none who refuse to hear the word of scripture who do not believe that Jesus Christ died for their sins and was raised by the father one of the most humbling texts in all scripture has to be this if they do not hear Moses and the prophets neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead so in its essence this passage is a warning about misunderstanding the situation but on the other hand more gloriously it's an affirmation to the church that our task is to preach Moses and the prophets and now the gospels and the apostles we preach the whole text of scripture knowing that it is the scripture God uses to call sinners unto

[40:04] Christ and to convict of sin and to convince of truth it is the preaching of the word of God it is the authority of God's word it is the power of God's word alone that explains how any single one of us has come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and believed and then the scripture is the means whereby God through the Holy Spirit the Father through the Holy Spirit conforms us to the image of Christ by the preaching of God's word it's been a privilege to be with you to look to this text today it lands just like a bomb if they do not hear Moses and the prophets neither will they be convinced even if someone should rise from the dead but thanks be to God the one who spoke these words is the one who rose from the dead and thus we are saved and he gave us this passage so we also know what to preach let's pray

[41:11]  Father we're just so thankful for every jot and tittle of your word father may you use the preaching of your word today in such a way that your people will be encouraged sinners drawn to Christ we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord amen God bless you