Grace Bible Church
Pastor Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
Sunday, November 23, 2014
You really can’t understand it unless you believe in what many call the afterlife or what JOB 5:24 calls your abode or your home in heaven.
Webster’s new world dictionary describes heaven as “the dwelling place of God and His angels, variously conceived of as the place where the blessed will live after death.”
It also describes heaven as a “place of great beauty and pleasure.”
Recent polls indicate that approximately seventy-five percent of the American people believe in heaven.
Heaven is said to be a glorious place in ISA 63:15 which calls it “God’s holy and glorious habitation”
There seems to be some way that the fallen angels can prohibit space travel or travel from Heaven to the earth, this is taught in DAN 10:1-13.
Luck 16:22 “Now it came about that the poor man died and he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom [a reference to Paradise];
The narrative in Luck 16:19-31 is a true story, which can be entitled “dead men tell tales.”
This true story describes the first and second compartments of Shell or Hades during the dispensation of the hypostatic union.
(1) The perspective of life, verses 19-21. (2) The perspective of death, verse 22. (3) The perspective of Shell or Hades after death, verses 23-31.
Gaily living is the word euphrainomenos which means to party, to enjoy life, to eat and drink and be merry.
Prin-When a nation has rich people, it means that nation follows the principles of free enterprise, which are a part of the laws of divine establishment.
The idea of redistribution of wealth is an evil that enslaves the masses, as illustrated by those under the domination of the Russian experiment since 1917.
MAR 8:36-37, “What shall it profit a person if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what shall a person give in exchange for his soul?”
ECC 7:12 For wisdom is protection just as money is protection. but the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the lives of its possessors.
ECC 10:19, When Solomon said, “Men prepare a meal for enjoyment, and wine makes life merry, and money is the answer to everything……he was speaking in a cynical way!
The tendency of the wealthy person is to ignore the fact that only through personal faith in Jesus Christ can an individual have eternal life, “what shall a person give in exchange for his soul?”
Tobit 4:11 For giving money delivers from all sin, and from death and will not permit the soul to go to darkness.
Priority number 1 should be Bible doctrine.
1TI 6:10 for the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith, and pierced themselves with many a pang.
MAR 8:36-37 “What shall it profit a person if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? or what shall a person give in exchange for his soul?”
Rich people and poor people are saved exactly the same way, by faith in Jesus Christ.
Because the rich man tends to be preoccupied with himself and his life on this earth to the extent that he has forgotten about eternity.
The rich man is simply identified as a certain man and the poor man, Lazarus is called by name!
There are some problems with wrong emphasis on status symbols of life, money, power, success, approbation, pleasure, material things, luxury, social life, sex, health; i.e., anything that takes precedence over bible doctrine.
HEB 9:27 “It is destined for mankind to die once, but after this the judgment.”
The rich man is covered with purple and fine line; Lazarus is covered only with boils and sores.
The rich man eats expensive and magnificent food; Lazarus desires to be fed with crumbs.
The rich man has numerous servants to attend his every need, Lazarus has only dogs to lick his sores.
When our Lord gave this message, Lazarus was already dead.
If Lazarus were still alive at the gate of the rich man, the perfect tense of ballot would have used.
In this narrative, we see the great cruelty of man toward helpless man.
JOB 30:21 “Thou hast become cruel to me; with the might of thy hand thou dost persecute me.
PRO 12:10 A righteous man has regard for the life of his beast, but the compassion of the wicked is cruel.
Evil men do not discriminate; they despise the rich, the poor and the helpless.
(a) Job lost and regained in time; Lazarus lost and regained in eternity.
(b) Both were covered with sores and ulcers.| Job emphasizes living grace in evidence testing.
Lazarus never recovered his health and eventually died.