Sermon Tone Analysis

This morning I want us to look at the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

You find it in Luke chapter 16.

It is a parable that has a lot of information in it, but one that has one central truth.

It is that truth that I want us to focus on as we consider what Jesus had to say…what He was confronting.

Really, to get the temper or the tempo of the parable we would back up to Luke 16 in verse 14.

So I want to invite you there just to look at that one verse because it introduces really the whole series of what Jesus was focusing on here.

In verse 14 is says, /"Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things and they derided Him."/

In other words, we're introduced with the reminder that the Pharisees were lovers of money.

Therefore, they viewed everything that Jesus was teaching…the difficult things that He was having to say…through the eyes of their own selfish lust for money.

So when they would hear Jesus give a parable that really attacked their selfishness and their covetousness, then they derided Him.

The Greek word for deride means to turn your nose up.

They basically were saying, "Jesus, you're nothing.

We're higher class.

You're a lower class of person than we are."

Now that's hard for us to imagine, isn't it?

But it shouldn't be because there are always in the Pharisees' mind a clear distinction between those who are like them and those who are lower class.

It's common for people to look at those who don't have as of nice clothes or who don't have the same accent to their voice as being of a lower class.

This was Jesus in the eyes of the Pharisees.

So Jesus begins to speak to them and when we come to verse 19 of Luke 14, we come to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

Just so you'll know right up front, the rich man here is the Pharisee.

He stands in the place of the Pharisee.

Jesus is trying to show what the love of money does to you…what covetousness does to your heart as we look at this seemingly extreme example (but really not so extreme) in the story of the rich man and Lazarus.

Verse 19 tells us, /"There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day."/

Now here's a man who dresses in royal garments, in purple, in fine linens.

The linens mentioned here are the undergarments that he wore.

And he fared sumptuously.

Literally he ate a feast every day.

So this man is not only very successful and wealthy, but he's just enjoying life to the hilt.

He's contrasted then in verse 20, /"But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate…"/ It seems that every day people would come and they would put Lazarus at the gate of this rich man.

Now 'laid at the gate,' again in the language means 'to dump.'

He was sort of dumped at the gate every day.

Lazarus is also an interesting name.

We're not going to do a big Greek study here, but it's the Greek version of the Hebrew name Eleazar.

Eleazar means 'God is my helper.'

Names are always very important in Scripture.

It would almost seem like they tagged the wrong name on this guy, because he's a beggar.

He's full of ulcerous, running sores, and he's thrown every day at the gate.

Verse 21 says, /"…desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table.

Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores."/

His request, his begging, was just for the leftovers, just for the crumbs of the leftovers.

And the only ones at the rich man's house that cared anything for him were the dogs.

They came and they licked his sores.

They came and they applied the only medicine that he was to receive.

It doesn't sound like 'God is my helper', but that's often because we view the external circumstances just like the Jews of that day.

You remember, there was a time when a rich man came to Jesus and he wanted to know, "Which of these laws do I have to keep in order to obtain eternal life?"

And Jesus talks to him and then Jesus tells him, "There is one more thing you need to do.

You need to sell everything you have and come and follow Me."

It says the man went away sorrowful.

Well the disciples turned to Jesus.

And Jesus responds and He says, "It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven."

Then the disciples said, "Well, then who can be saved?"

Because, you see, the disciples had been raised in that culture that wealth was a sign of blessing…that it was a sign that God had His hands on your life.

No different than today.

But that if you were suffering, if you were poor, if you were of a lower class, then God had nothing to do with you.

You were just suffering your just rewards.

Now that's how people view things.

That's how they view society.

They want to divide it into the ones that God must be blessing because they "got stuff" and the ones that God must be punishing because they don't "got stuff".

Yet God…listen…He doesn't mess around with these names in the Bible.

Eleazar or Lazarus in the Greek means what it says.

We come to find out a little bit about that when we see that life is more than food, the body more than clothing.

That life does not consist in the abundance of the things which one possesses.

That there's more to this life than the few short decades that we so selfishly apply ourselves.

Verse 22, /"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."/

Now Abraham's bosom…when I hear that, I'm thinking, "Okay, here's Lazarus and he's being cradled with Abraham, kind of like you would a baby."

But that's not what that phrase means.

We see this elsewhere.

We see where the Apostle John said that he leans into Jesus' bosom.

That he's the one who is right there by Jesus.

To be in someone's bosom in this context means, first of all, that there's a feast going on…that you are at a table.

The head of the table here is going to be Abraham because he's the most notable figure in the story.

To be in his bosom means that you're the special guest.

So what we see in heaven…and that takes a little bit of putting together…but what the Jews heard when they heard this story was that this beggar, this bleeding sore, crumb beggar is the guest of honor at a feast that is taking place in the present time of the story where Abraham is hosting.

Now, no matter what this world has to offer you, and no matter what depravation that life has left you with, don't think that God somehow is uninvolved in your life.

Lazarus lived a life in order to show us the decadence of covetousness, and his reward was to be the guest of honor in heaven.

When you die, when you die, it may be that the world has passed you by, but if you've asked Jesus into your heart, if you've asked Him to save you, you'll be a guest of honor at a great feast hosted by some notable Old Testament guy, okay?

It's not going to be slipping off to some cloud, grabbing a harp, and floating around.

It looks like a party.

It looks like joy.

It looks like a feast.

Then He sort of says, "And oh, by the way, the rich man died and was buried."

Which is interesting…a word of a funeral.

We would expect that.

The rich man had the paid mourners that they had in that day and time, people that they would take some of the inheritance money and they would pay people to cry for you, to wail for you.

The more wailing, the more crying, the louder it was, the better the funeral was.

So he probably had a first class funeral and deposition right into his grave.

But from the grave a different destination.

Verse 23, /"And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom."/

So here's this man who has been rich all of his life.

He sees this beggar that's at the gate.

He's in torments in Hades.

Torments in Hades.

Hades is simply the word for the old Hebrew word 'Sheol,' the grave.

It's not the word for hell.

It's not the nice version of that word.

You see, my friends, none of you are bad people.

The people that you are just convinced went there…the people that you think split it wide open…none of them are in hell today.

They are in Hades.

Hell is reserved.