Hey, you know, last week I began with a quote from John MacArthur, pastor out at Grace Community Church in California. And John said this, he said, I bristle when I hear pastors say, we don't get into doctrine in our church, it's too divisive. Or they say, I'd rather emphasize practical truth than be a doctrinal preacher. John went on and concluded, he said, no element of the preacher's task is more important than articulating sound doctrine, because there is no basis for right behavior apart from right doctrine.
And we said last week, we totally agree with John MacArthur. Now, you know, in our study of the life of Moses, we've come to the point where God speaks to Moses from the burning bush. And he says to Moses, Exodus chapter three, verse six, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And last week, we saw in the New Testament, actually in Matthew chapter 22, that Jesus uses this statement by God, spoken at the burning bush, to teach us two doctrinal truths of monumental importance. The first of these, which we covered last week, we said was the single most important doctrine in the Christian faith, and that is the inerrancy and the inspiration of the Bible.
And if you missed last week, I want to encourage you to go out and get a CD, they're in the lobby. And we have information about the inerrancy of the Bible and how you can trust the Bible to be true. You go out and pick this up in the lobby right after we're done. This week, we want to go on and cover the second of those two doctrinal truths that Jesus used Exodus three, six to teach, and that is the immortality of the soul. And so if you brought a Bible today, I'd like you to open with me to Matthew chapter 22 in the New Testament.
And if you did not bring a Bible, reach under the armrest next to your seat there. And in the Bible that we have for you there, we're going to be on page 699. So page 699 in our copy of the Bible, Matthew chapter 22 in your copy.
And here we go. Verse 23. That same day, let's look and see now how Jesus uses Exodus three, six to teach the immortality of the soul. That same day, the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. Now remember, the doctrinal position of this religious party within Israel, the Sadducees, is that there is no afterlife. There's no other world after this one, no heaven, no hell, no eternal settling up of accounts. When you die, it's fade to black.
That's it. And they come to Jesus and they say, verse 24, teacher, Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him. This is an Old Testament practice that God set up. Verse 25. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to brother number two.
He married this woman, he died, no children. And to brother number three, all the way down to brother number seven, and finally the woman died. Now then, they say, in the afterlife, whose wife will she be since all seven were married to her? Now the first thing Jesus does here is he answers the question that they actually asked him. Look at verse 29.
Jesus replied, you are in error because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection, in the afterlife, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Rather, they will be like the angels in heaven. So Jesus said, fellas, here's the answer to your question. Whose wife will she be in the afterlife?
The answer is, she won't be anybody's wife. There's no marriage in the afterlife. But wait, wait, Jesus hadn't finished yet. He's answered the question they did ask, but now he goes on to answer the question they didn't ask, but that they should have asked, namely, is there really an afterlife? Is there really a resurrection?
Is there really a heaven and a hell? Look what he says, verse 31. But concerning the resurrection of the dead, the afterlife, have you not read what God said, and what did he say? He said, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Now you might say, Lon, so remind me again, would you, how does this quote by Jesus prove anything about the afterlife? How does it prove anything about heaven? Well, friends, remember where God said this. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God said this to Moses, right, at the burning bush.
We just read it, right? And the burning bush happened in 1450 B.C. At that point in time, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had all been dead for more than 400 years. And yet, notice, God did not say to Moses, I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, past tense. He didn't say, I have been the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, past tense. What did God say? God used the present tense and said to Moses, 400 years after these men died here on earth, I am still their God.
Why? Because they are still alive. They're alive with me in the afterlife. They're alive with me in heaven. They're still alive and that's why I use the present tense. And friends, by using this verse the way he did, Jesus confirms to us without equivocation that there is an afterlife, there is a heaven. People do live on after they leave this earth because that's why Jesus said, I'm not the God of the dead, I'm the God of the living. These people, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are still living.
They're with me in the afterlife. Now that's as far as we want to go today in our passage because we want to stop and ask our most important question. And you know what our question is, so is everybody ready? You ready? Okay, here we go, nice and loud.
One, two, three. So what? Yeah, you say, so what?
Say all right. So Jesus confirms to us there's an afterlife. But you know, here in Matthew 22, he doesn't tell us anything about what this afterlife is like. He doesn't tell us what it looks like. He doesn't tell us how it operates. He doesn't tell us how people go where and on what basis God sends them where.
We don't get any of that information here. True, but not to worry because we're going to flip over to a passage where Jesus gives us all that information. I want you to turn over to Luke's Gospel, Luke chapter 16. If you're using our copy of the Bible, it's page 741, page 741. And here in Luke chapter 16, let's get all that information to add to what Jesus says here in Matthew 22.
Luke chapter 16, look at verse 19. Jesus said, there was a rich man who dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. And at his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table.
Even the dogs came and licked his sores. Now, you talk about a stark contrast. Folks, if these two guys had been alive today, one of them would be sleeping on heating grates down in Washington, D.C. and the other one would be a star on lifestyles of the rich and the famous.
What a contrast. Now, Jesus goes on, verse 22. And the time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side.
This was a Jewish expression for heaven. The rich man also died and was buried. But friends, he didn't go to Abraham's side. He didn't go to heaven. The Bible says in hell, where he was in torment, the rich man looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.
And what follows is one of the most amazing conversations in all of human history. Verse 24, so the rich man called out and said, Father Abraham, please have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in agony in this fire. But Abraham replied, verse 26, I'm sorry, son, but between us and you, there is a great chasm, a great canyon that has been fixed so that those who want to go from here in heaven to help you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from where you are to us.
Well, the rich man answered, then I beg you, Father Abraham, to please send Lazarus back to my father's house on earth, for I have five brothers, please let him warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment where I am. And Abraham replied, your brothers have Moses and the prophets. That is the Bible.
Let them listen to the Bible. Oh, no, no, no, no, Father Abraham, the man says, they're never going to listen to the Bible. But if somebody from the dead goes to them, they will repent. Abraham said, verse 31, to the rich man, he said, if your brothers do not listen to Moses and the prophets, that is the Bible, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead. And may I remind you, someone did rise from the dead, and still there were a whole bunch of people who weren't interested in listening. Now, what does Jesus tell us here in Luke 16 about the afterlife?
Well, he tells us four truths, four facts. Number one, truth number one is that in the afterlife, people keep their same identity. Would you notice here that Lazarus was still Lazarus, that the rich man was still the rich man.
They recognized each other, no problem. Would you notice that 2,000 years after his death on earth, Abraham was still Abraham. Friends, after we die, this is truth number one about the afterlife. For all eternity, you are going to be you, and I am going to be me.
You know, about a number of years ago, I lost 30 pounds, and I started going to the gym three times a week to keep it off. And when I go into the afterlife and I keep my same identity, I've often wondered, will I look like my old flabby self, or will I get the buff and tough body that I have today? I've often wondered about that. Well, I don't know the answer. Men, will you get your pre-bald body or your post-bald body? I don't know.
Ladies, will you get your pre-children body or your post-children body? I don't know, but what I do know is that whatever you and I look like, every one of us will be clearly recognizable as us for all of eternity. The second thing we learn about the afterlife, truth number two, is that in the afterlife, people are fully awake and they are fully aware. Would you notice that the rich man, Lazarus, Abraham, these people could all speak, they could all see and hear, they could all desire things, they could all feel pain, they could all remember the past, they could all think logically.
The rich man remembered that he had five brothers back on earth and he even tried to negotiate for them. These people were conscious, they were awake, and they were aware in the afterlife. Now, I don't know if any of you here are old enough to remember the very beginnings of Monday Night Football. Any of you guys old enough to remember the early years of Monday Night Football?
Well, I do. And you know, back then, the game itself was inconsequential. The best part about Monday Night Football were the announcers.
There was Howard Coast South, who knew everything about everything. Then, of course, there was Frank Gifford, Mr. Cool and Calm, and finally there was Dandy Don Meredith, former quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. And the best moment of the entire night for me would come when the game neared its end and one team finally put the game out of reach, Dandy Don would start singing, Turn out the lights, the party's over. They say that all good things must end. Do you remember that?
Anybody remember that? Other than me? Well, anyway, you say, What are you talking about up there? What has this got to do with anything? Well, it does.
It does. Because Don Meredith's song, Turn out the lights, the party's over, brought up the official scientific theory of the afterlife. Friends, as far as scientists are concerned, there is no afterlife. You just turn out the lights, the party's over. Annihilation, Nirvana, fade to black. Carl Sagan, who died in 1996, you remember him, billions and billions of stars.
You remember him? Well, anyway, his wife said, and I quote, There was no deathbed conversion, no appeals to God, no hope for an afterlife, no pretending that he and I were not saying goodbye forever. Dr. Dorothy Whipple of Johns Hopkins University said, When we die, we don't land anywhere. You'd simply blow out the candle. Well, you see, the problem with this is, however, that the only person who really knows what's on the other side of the grave, the Lord Jesus Christ, he says it isn't this way at all. He says rather that every one of us will be fully conscious, fully awake, and fully aware for all of eternity in the afterlife.
It's not blow out the candle at all. Number three, truth number three about the afterlife is that there are only two options in the afterlife where people can go. There are only two landing pads out there, friends. The first one is a wonderful place called heaven, a place that the Bible describes as a place of comfort, a place of peace where there's no pain, no tears, no heartache, no sickness, no taxes, no HMOs, no blackberries, no beltway politics, no beltway.
I think that's in the other place, no beltway. A wonderful place. And then the Bible says there's one other landing pad out there. It's an awful place that the Bible calls hell. Now, I'm sure you've run into people like this and so have I, people who've said, well, at least if I go to hell, I'll have a lot of friends there.
At least I'll know a lot of people so I'll be able to hang out with my buddies there. Well, you know, these people talk like they're expecting hell to be some kind of cosmic wanes world where they just party on for all of eternity. Friends, this isn't at all how Jesus and the Bible describe hell. Four times in this chapter, Jesus describes this place called hell using the words torment and agony. In verse 24, He refers to it as a place of fire. This is the consistent unbroken picture of hell that the Bible gives us, that it is a place of torment, agony, punishment, and pain. And hey, the rich man, he doesn't seem to be having a ball in hell, does he? In fact, the only thing he wants to do is get out of there. And that brings us to our final and most tragic truth about the afterlife, and that is number four, that in the afterlife, a person's eternal destiny is fixed.
It is set in concrete. The people in heaven are in heaven forever, and that's good. But the people who are in hell are in hell forever, and that's bad because for people in hell, there is absolutely no way out.
I don't know if you've been keeping up with Charles Cullen. He was a former nurse in New Jersey who killed at least 29 patients, maybe as many as 40, by injecting them in the hospital with insulin and other medications. This past week, the unrepentant man was sentenced to 18 consecutive life terms. And immediately after being sentenced, the granddaughter of one of his victims screamed at him in the courtroom, and I quote, I want you to die tomorrow so that you can meet God tomorrow, because guess what, there ain't no door out of hell, baby, end of quote. Now, discounting this young lady's vengeance, what she actually said about hell aligns perfectly with what Jesus said about hell. According to Jesus, here in Luke chapter 16, there is a great chasm, a great gulf, a great canyon that is fixed between heaven and hell, and no one is ever allowed to cross that canyon. In fact, according to Jesus, here in Luke chapter 16, things are so bad in hell that the people in heaven actually want to go help the people in hell, but they're not allowed to because that canyon is uncrossable. And neither is it crossable the other way for people to come from hell towards heaven. The point, my friend, is this, that if anybody here today lands in hell after we leave this earth, we are there for good, period, period, exclamation point.
And all of this leads us finally this morning to ask a very important question, and it's not so what. The very important question is this, and that is how can you and I avoid landing in hell for all of eternity? That's a really important question, and Jesus answered that question for us right here in Luke 16. Verse 29, what did Abraham say to the rich man? He said, hey, if you want your brothers to stay out of hell where you are, here's the solution. Jesus said, Abraham said, let them listen to the Bible.
Let them listen to the Bible. Friends, one of the key reasons that God gave us the Bible was to tell us how to escape hell, was to tell us how to get eternal life and get heaven instead, and what does the Bible say about this? Well, it says John chapter 3 verse 36, whoever believes in the Son, the Lord Jesus, has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see eternal life, for God's wrath remains on that person.
And if a person dies in this spiritual condition with God's wrath remaining on him, his destination, her destination in the afterlife is hell. Acts chapter 4 verse 12, Peter said salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven by which we can be delivered. Delivered from what? Well, delivered from ending up in hell for all of eternity. Acts chapter 16 verse 30, the Philippian jailer said to Paul, sir, he said, what must I do to be delivered?
And what did Paul say? He said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be delivered. And this is why Jesus said, John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody gets to heaven. Nobody comes to the Father unless they come by way of me.
Now, one more important point of clarification before we close today, and that is I don't want you to leave here. Please don't leave here thinking that the reason the rich man ended up in hell was because he was rich. I've actually read commentators commenting on Luke 16 and saying that the point of the parable is that riches are evil and rich people go to hell. That is not at all the point of the parable. Friends, Abraham was one of the richest men on the face of the earth in his day, and he went to heaven.
That's not the point. Listen, the reason the rich man ended up in hell was because his money made him arrogant, was because his money made him self-sufficient, was because his money made him so arrogant that he was unwilling to humble himself. He was unwilling to admit his spiritual need. He was unwilling to embrace Jesus Christ as his personal savior, and he was unwilling to throw himself on God and ask for mercy here in this life.
This is what landed the rich man in hell, not his portfolio. You say, but Lon, the rich man's calling on God for mercy now. When he's in hell, how come he's not getting mercy now? I thought the Bible teaches that whenever anyone calls on God for mercy, that God never, ever says no. Well, the Bible does say that for people in this life, for people in this life. Friends, what the Bible is telling us is that here in this life, anyone who calls on God for mercy will get it, but that in the afterlife, the rules regarding God's mercy change. Folks, you've got to understand this, that whoever fails to humble themselves and call on God's mercy in this life, their calls for God's mercy in the afterlife will go unheeded. Above all other reasons, therefore, this is why Jesus Christ came and why he gave his life on the cross for you and me because he knew the awful reality of hell.
Think about it now. Do you really think Jesus would have gone to the cross for a myth? Do you really think that if the worst thing that was going to happen to you and me when we die is we get blown out like a candle, do you really think Jesus would have gone through the agony of the cross to save you and me from that?
Come on now, friends. The reason Jesus went to the cross was one reason and one reason only, and that's because he knew hell exists and because he knew that if you and I end up there, there's no hope of our ever getting out. And because he knew that we needed a way out of hell that we could not provide for ourselves and because Jesus loves us so much and because he cares about us so much, that's why he was willing to give his very life to provide that way out for you and for me. You know, as a college student, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, I often tried to talk myself into believing the blow out like a candle theory for the afterlife. I did. I tried to convince myself that that's really the truth. But, you know, friends, in my spirit, I knew that was a lie.
My spirit testified to me, that's not true. And as a result, I lived my years in college in total utter absolute terror of death. But, you know, all that changed in 1971 because you know what happened in 1971? In 1971, that's when I did what the rich man in Luke 16 would not do. In 1971, I humbled myself and admitted that I had a spiritual need.
I could not satisfy myself. In 1971, I stopped relying on my own human effort to try to earn my way into heaven. And in 1971, instead, I threw myself on the blood of Jesus, plus nothing, as my only hope for payment of sin, as my only hope of getting into heaven. I cried out for God's mercy in 1971. And God took the fear of dying completely away from me.
I know where I'm going now. There's not a sliver of doubt in my mind. Friends, this is the inheritance of every single true follower of Jesus. If you're here today and you're a follower of Jesus, this is your inheritance. The ability to face the grave with no fear. The ability to face the grave with no terror and no anxiety. Because you know where you're going, Jesus sealed it with His very blood. And you know I found a very interesting thing.
It was curious. Friends, once I stopped being afraid to die, you know what happened? I stopped being afraid to live.
It was wonderful. Now, this is why Jesus Christ came to earth above all other reasons. Maybe you're here today and you're like I was.
Maybe you're scared to death of dying. Well, I got great news for you. The Bible says, Hebrews 2.15, that Jesus came to free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. Jesus wants to set you free. He set me free.
He wants to set you free so that not only are you not afraid anymore to die, but friends, you're not afraid to live anymore. And He will set you free if you'll just do what I did in 1971. Humble yourself, cry out for mercy, and transfer your trust off of your human effort, your religious works, and transfer your trust instead onto the blood of Jesus shed on the cross. We're going to give you the opportunity to do that right here, right now. Let's bow our heads together. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed and nobody looking around, if you want to take this opportunity to ask Jesus Christ to become your personal Savior, if you want to take this chance to throw yourself on God for mercy, which in this life He never ever refuses to give, and you want to trust what He did for you on the cross to be your payment for sin, your ticket to heaven, then we're going to pray a little prayer. I'm going to pray silently. I mean, I'm going to pray out loud. I want you to pray silently, and we're going to ask Jesus Christ to do that very thing for you.
So here we go. You pray with me. You pray silently. I'm going to pray out loud. Lord Jesus, I come to you today for the simple reason that I don't want to go to hell when I die.
I want to go to heaven and have eternal life and be with you for all of eternity. And so today I humble myself and cry out to you for mercy. And I transfer my trust today off of my own religious activity and off of my own human effort and onto the blood of Jesus shed on the cross to be my full payment for sin and my ticket to heaven. Lord Jesus, come into my life today. Become my personal Lord and Savior.
Forgive my sin and transfer my eternal destiny to heaven for all eternity. I give my life to you in Jesus' name I pray. And, Father, I want to pray for the folks who prayed that prayer with me that you would confirm in their heart and life, even as they sit here, that a great transaction has taken place, that they have passed, as the Bible says, from death into eternal life. And, Lord Jesus, we thank you so much that you loved us enough that you came and made a way out for us, a way out that we could never have made for ourselves, a way for us to escape hell and spend eternity in the wonderful place called heaven.
Lord, we love you for doing that for us. And may we be faithful in telling everyone we meet that there is a way of deliverance that Jesus Christ himself came and purchased. And may many people heed our words and take advantage of that way of deliverance. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And God's people said? Amen. .
