It is my distinct honor to welcome to our pulpit here again, Reverend Dr. Henry Kravonon, who is kind of a last minute thing. Dr. K has been coming to New Jersey to help us out in recruiting for the Boardwalk Chapel and him and Chris Burr to be going around. He was actually scheduled to be preaching up in our church in Fairlawn. but COVID hit our church in Fairlawn, and they were not able to worship today. And Dr. K graciously, he was coming this evening anyway, and he graciously offered to proclaim the gospel. And when you have somebody who knows more than you, and is more pious and more gracious, and they say they can fill the pulpit, you hand it over to them. And that's that. So Dr. K, thank you for your willingness to come and share God's word with us. The Lord laid something on my heart overnight, and it pertains to a passage where the Lord Jesus gives us a parable, a story, and that is one of the most misunderstood stories in the ones that the Lord Jesus gives us. People don't quite understand what it's all about, but it has an amazing message. And so let me read it first. I'll tell you what the message is, and then I go into details, the Lord willing. Now in the 16th chapter of the book of Luke, we read in the first 13 verses the following. Now he was also saying to the disciples, There was a rich man who had a manager, and his manager was reported to him as squandering his possessions. And he called him and said to him, what is this I hear about you? Give an accounting of your management, for you can no longer be a manager. And the manager said to himself, what shall I do? since my master is taking the management away from me. I'm not strong enough to dig. I'm ashamed to beg. I know what I shall do, so that when I am removed from the management, people will welcome me into their homes." And he summoned each one of his master's debtors. and began saying to the first, how much do you owe my master? And he said, a hundred measures of oil. And he said to him, take your bill and sit down quickly and write 50. Then he said to another, and how much do you owe? And he said, a hundred measures of wheat. And he said to him, take your bill and write 80. And now it comes, and his master praised the unrighteous manager, because he had acted shrewdly, for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light. And now the Lord Jesus, commenting on all this, and I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness. Some translations tell us the unrighteous mammon. So when it fails, it runs out, they will receive you into the eternal dwellings. He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much. And he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much. Therefore, if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you? And if you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for he will hate the one and love the other. or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth or as translations tell us, Memon. Now you understand, this is not an easy passage. And so let us pray before I share what it means. Father God, in the name of the Lord Jesus, this passage has been on my heart for some time. And I know it is a glorious passage, but it's not easy to understand because we don't understand some of the reactions to some of the actions that we read in this passage. But Lord God Almighty, I plead with you that the Holy Spirit will make it clear to us and we will act upon it in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, ladies and gentlemen, The purpose of the passage is very, very simple. The purpose of the passage is, the Lord Jesus asks us a question. When you enter into eternal life, will there be people who are welcome you in the eternal dwellings? In other words, when I walk through the gates of death, will there be somebody that says, thank you for coming, thank you for coming, because I remember you shared the word of God with me, and as a result of it, I am now here. This shapes our hearts, our minds, our wills, our emotions, and all of our lives. And ladies and gentlemen, if you have children, I would urge you strongly to ask your children, when you die, will somebody waiting for you to thank you for what you have been doing? And the children say, mom, dad, that is quite a question. And you say to them, yes, what is going to shape your life? You may not be able to say it now, But I trust and pray that by the time you're old and die, you are able to tell me and tell God and tell everybody else. There are going to be people who are going to welcome us. As you know, I am very much involved in the Boardwalk Chapel. I love it. I was the first one to take students in the 1960s to it. And so I would love to support brother Jim and brother Chris so that even also next summer, it's gonna be powerful, it's gonna be glorious. But I asked one of the participants just a few months ago, would anybody be waiting for you? And the young lady said, well, I think at least four. I said, praise the Lord, but tell me a little bit about the four. Well, two of them, she was no longer aware of what happened to the person, but she was definitely certain that two of them came to know the Lord Jesus through her ministry. And brothers and sisters, I'm gonna ask you to pray because if you get a convert, it is a gift from God. I would like to ask you to start praying, Lord, give us a convert. And then that is what the Lord Jesus says in the grand command, make disciples of all the nations. And then when you have baptized them, teach them to observe. In other words, Lord, regenerate them, give them a new heart, turn them into converts, and then make them holy. And so if through your ministry, people come to know Jesus and people become a little bit more holy, then that is a gift from God. And so ask, my dear brothers and sisters, that's what Jesus really says. Ask every day, Lord, give me a convert and Lord, give me holiness so that my ministry and my life is gonna be productive. Now let's go back to the text because it's quite clear that the details must be opened up so that we arrive at the theme that I shared with you. There was a rich man, he had a manager. And the manager was accused of squandering, wasting the money and the possessions of his master. And apparently that was the case, all right? Very interesting that in this particular passage, If you go right back to chapter 15, we notice that the prodigal also wasted the money. So the prodigal wasted the money, and now this manager is wasting the money. And the master calls him in and says, okay, that's what I heard. You better give me an accounting of what is going on, because I'm going to replace you. And he goes back home. And he says to himself, well, I'm out of a job, and I don't have any money, and I don't have anything in my retirement fund, so I am in trouble, big, big trouble. He said, how am I going to handle it? I cannot dig, I'm too old for that, I don't have any strength left. And to beg, I'm ashamed, ah, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to have two debtors and why don't you have 100 measures, write 50. If you have 100 measures, write 80." And somebody said, well, he does not treat them in the same way. Wrong, because people who figure out what the cost was and what the price was for what And those men owed the master. It was approximately the same amount that he just wrote off, all right? So both of those men got the same deal, all right? And then you and I say, well, the fellow ought to be in jail. And now the strange thing is that the master comes and says, I have to congratulate you. You are very shrewd. Now some people say, well, the Lord's English, when he quotes that and agrees with that, it's kind of unethical. No, no, no, no, no. Later on in the text says, if you are not faithful, but something belongs to somebody else, you have a problem. So the man was an unjust judge, a manager, no doubt about it. But there's a shrewdness in that man. And the Lord Jesus says, the people in the world are often more shrewd than the people in the church. And that is true. When you think of people who build up their businesses and all of a sudden, they're multi-billionaires. Facebook, Google, that big outfit in China, oil companies, they're very shrewd and they have a lot of money that they accumulate. And the Lord Jesus says, I want you to be shrewd as this man is. And you say to the Lord, well, Lord, how do we have to be shrewd? He says, well, this man had money And he used those two debtors to have a dwelling after he was fired. Now, do you know that everybody is gonna go to eternal dwellings? So how do you use your wealth? Are you using your wealth for yourself? Or are you using your wealth in order to be welcomed in the eternal dwellings? the wealth of money, the wealth of, that is physical wealth, and of course that also applies to spiritual wealth. How do you use it? Are you gonna use it in ministry? Awesome. Awesome, awesome. And I think of the day of Pentecost, that the Holy Spirit takes over 3,000 people. They did not call anything their own. And that's what the text says. When everything is gone, when everything is failing, when you die, it doesn't belong to you. Nothing belongs to you. And then in the Acts, the second chapter, they even sell their properties in order to assist the progress in the kingdom. And Barnabas, the son of comfort, consolation, he sold his property. And I asked somebody the other day if I would start a church, and I will tell people, if you want to become a member of this church, you must agree that nothing belongs to you. I said, how many people do you think would sign up? And the answer was, zilch. Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is the difference between the Pharisees, who are being discussed later on, and the rich men in Lazarus in the rest of the chapter. It all hangs together. When the Pharisees hear that about money and about wealth to be used in the service of the kingdom, they scoff at him because they love their riches and they don't want to give it away. They don't want to use it for the sake of the kingdom. And then the Lord Jesus says, let me hammer it home. There's a man, a rich man, and he had a beggar on the outside and his name was Lazarus. and he never used any of his money ever to take care of Lazarus. And when Lazarus dies, and the rich man dies, the rich man is in eternal pain, and Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham. And the pain is so terrible, ladies and gentlemen, so terrible, that he says, take the tip of your finger and dip it in water, Lazarus, and put it at the tip of my tongue, and that will be a world of joy and of relief. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if I put my finger in water and put it against the tip of my tongue, I don't even know the difference. And you know what it shows you, young people? That if you go to hell, it's terrible. Now we know that on Jeopardy, there was a man by the name of Alec Trebek, and he's still doing his thing, although he's dead, and somebody said to me, You know, I always think of him, yeah, he is no longer alive, he is dead, that's sad, is it not? Now, I didn't say anything, but I don't look at it in that way, ladies and gentlemen. If Alex Rebeck did not know the Lord Jesus, he's an everlasting damnation. And that is why the Apostle Paul says, when I look at people, I no longer look at them as tall or small, as sick or healthy, as male or female, a boy or a girl, old or young, present or peasant. I don't look at people like that any longer. Because when the Holy Spirit gave me eyes to see Jesus, I also got eyes to see you. He says to the Corinthians, and I look at you as saved, or has lost. Now, ladies and gentlemen, when we do that, Lazarus did not, the rich man didn't understand that. And he said, well, at least send somebody, but the gap is so great, it's impossible. I said, at least send an angel or something to talk to my brothers and sisters, my brothers, because I don't want them to come here. And Abraham said, sorry, even if an angel comes or somebody rises from the dead, it will not make any difference. No, of course not. Because when Jesus rose from the dead, it didn't make any difference to many people either. Moses and the prophets, that is the word of God. That is the wealth that can change you. And of course, the end of the chapter. And go back to our passage. The Lord Jesus says, are there going to be people waiting for you and are going to thank you on their bare knees because of your money, your physical money and your spiritual wealth? I am here. I am here. I have a convert and God gave me more and more holiness through your ministry, starting with your physical wealth. and then continuing with your spiritual wealth. And the Lord Jesus says, are there gonna be people waiting for you? So if you're gonna use your physical wealth for yourself in an unrighteous fashion, and let me tell you, your physical wealth is already unrighteous from the very beginning because it belongs to this world. And secondly, it doesn't belong to you. It belongs to me. Now at one time I said in a church service that it was very easy for me to give something away that doesn't belong to me, right? So I was picked up from the airport by a young man with a beautiful car. And I said, that young man has a beautiful car. Look at, look at, you know it, it's awesome. I said, well, it's very easy for me to give it away. Who wants to have his car? And people started, I said, okay, I give that car of that young man and I give it to you. It's very, very simple and easy to give something that belongs to somebody else, right? Now, of course, the young man was smiling because he knew I was kind of kidding, but not totally. And you know why not? Nothing belongs to you. It all belongs to God. So it must be very easy to give away, right? No, no, wait a minute. Lord, wait a minute. Do I have to give it away? Lord, it belongs to me. And God said, there you start from the wrong starting point. It's unrighteous because it belongs to the world. So why would you not want to give it away? And it doesn't belong to you. So why would you not want to give it away? Why not? You know, I love this passage, but I really feel convicted when I read that. Will there be anybody waiting for me when I entered through the gate of heaven, the gate of death into heaven? Hopefully. Will there be anybody who will say to me what you have contributed to the kingdom physically and spiritually that made a difference to me? And that's why we're on the boardwalk. And that's why we talk to people. I remember somebody many years ago who was off the deep end And I said, I'm gonna take you for breakfast once a week. Well, that was unrighteous money, and the money belonged to the Lord. And so I spent that money, but not a lot of that in those days. But after six weeks, finally, his eyes opened up. Physical wealth, spiritual wealth, I can't go into details, in order for people to enter into the eternal tabernacles. And when they enter into the eternal tabernacles, and you die, and they are waiting there for you, and they see you, and they say, thank you, thank you, thank you, because I escaped the horror of the rich man. and I am in the bosom of Abraham. Tell your young people, and it doesn't happen often enough and anymore, when I was a youngster, my pastor told me, Henry, there is going to be a hell. And it became so clear to me that prompted me to ask forgiveness for a sin. I wanted to escape hell. I did not at that time yet wanted to go to God. You know, I wanted to escape the punishment. And so eventually I was really converted. But today, ladies and gentlemen, we must have a recognition that the Lord Jesus speaks more about hell than he speaks about heaven. Because there's a hell to shun and it is a horrible place. There's no fellowship with God. There are no gifts of God. There is physical pain. It is so terrible. And there is spiritual misery. There will be an utter darkness. And then somebody once said to a pastor who finally talked to him, I've seen you, you have passed me by, passed me by, passed me by in this restaurant where we both come and now finally you talk to us. If I had believed, if you had believed that eternal hell was waiting for me, I would have talked to myself the very first time I saw me. And the pastor said, ouch, ouch, ouch. And Jesus says, you are going to have physical means and spiritual means, physical wealth and spiritual wealth. Now be as shrewd as the unbelievers who want to get somewhere. And the unbelievers are so shrewd that they do everything in order to get to their destination. If I may give you an example. The lesbians and the homosexuals, why do you think they're making such progress? Why? It's only two or 3% of the population. I tell you, they are shrewd. They are shrewd. The abortionists are shrewd, folks. Marxists. are shrewd, folks. They make mincemeat out of us. Our nation is going down in all those areas. They were shrewd in the Middle East. Islam was shrewd. They were shrewd in Europe, secularists. They're shrewd in the United States, humanists. And you know why they are shrewd? Because their master is shrewd. There's Satan, and he tries to destroy those little kids, to cast them into eternal damnation. And Jesus says, be shrewd. Use all your physical, material blessings, which are unrighteous, because they belong to this world in the first place. Because they have come up out of terrible situations. Even if you get a fine salary out of a company, if the company is unrighteous, and most companies are, and you get a good salary out of it, it's also unrighteous money, so use it for the kingdom. And spiritual wealth, use it for the kingdom. That's what Jesus said. Be shrewd. Give it all you've got and move. Be as shrewd as the world. And all of a sudden, this is an awesome passage, isn't it? It's an awesome passage. And that's why I like the Boardwalk Chapel. And that's why we are here visiting every church. Are you willing to give us $2,000 in your budget? Because every other organization, when they get young people, they pay them and we have our young people pay us. So we are behind the eight ball. So we need unrighteous mammon in your budget in order to get it done. And secondly, Send your young people to the Boardwalk so that they can be trained and learn how to be shrewd. And if you know somebody who can work together with Chris and send together and learn together, together, together to be shrewd, so that we walk out of the Boardwalk Chapel, there's enough funds and people come to the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. And that's what happened to Brother Jared. That was not us who were doing that, it was God who took hold of it. And we pray and we plead with God, there's hell to be shunned, Lord, use us in your service. Let us be shrewd, shrewd, shrewd, knowledgeable and shrewd, using our money and using our spiritual giftedness in order to tell people, come to Jesus. If you don't come to Jesus, there's hell to pay. And somebody once said, as a Baptist evangelist, he said, I don't believe that more than 40% of the people in our churches are really saved. I walk into Pentecostal church in Uganda, and they said, In the 1980s, when there was pressure from Idi Amin and from his successor, and they came to know Jesus, they were real. But now in 2010, I believe that 30% just come because they like to come without really being touched and convicted by their sins by the Holy Spirit. And a Presbyterian Evangelist said exactly the same thing. Now, I'm not saying whether they are right or wrong, but let me tell you something, wherever I preach, whether it's in Africa or somewhere else, especially Africa, and you have 1,000 or 2,000 people in front of you, there are always 30 or 40 who say at the end, we don't know Jesus. We want to know him. And they call on the name of the Lord. Now, we don't have a lot of conversions on the boardwalk, comparatively speaking, but at least, ladies and gentlemen, when I think of Tim Ferguson, who came in, and Tom Church was preaching, he came to know Jesus. And that's where we have to put our wealth, physical and spiritual wealth. Shroud, move. R and R, that does not mean rest and recovery. It is a ready to roll, right? So it's your name, R and R, ready to roll. Move in the service of our Lord Jesus. Recognizing that when we see these untold numbers of people passing by, are they hell bound? or are they heaven bound? Do they belong to God or do they belong to Satan? Now, I have not spelled out the spiritual wealth here in this morning service because it's not in the text, but you understand. I told people, we have told people in the Boardwalk again and again, you have three problems. Your heart is like a cobra, your past is like dung, and your life is like poison. And if you see you stand there in the day of judgment, and God puts you on the screen of the universe, and it's in his x-ray machine, and he sees a cobra, he sees dung, and he sees poison, he'll ask you, would you like to have a cobra in your house? No. Dung in your house? No. Poison in your house? No. He says, now you understand why I don't want you in my kingdom? You don't want it, I don't want it, but I give you an answer. I give you a Savior. Go to the crucified and the risen Savior. And you're going to make it. Now that, of course, is the spiritual wealth. It's not mentioned here in as many words, but I want to bring it in nevertheless. Your physical wealth, your spiritual wealth. The spiritual wealth, the physical wealth doesn't belong to you. It's unrighteous. Use it for the kingdom. Your spiritual wealth, Blessed are the feet of those who share the gospel of our Lord Jesus. And pray for the Boardwalk ministry and for many other ministries, of course, but recognize that only a hundred years will determine an eternity. You're a fool. If you do not, if you put all your eggs in the basket of a hundred years, I'll tell you, then you end up on the wrong side. You wished you had listened. And when you were on the right side, you wished that you had done more for the sake of the king and for the sake of people. Lord Jesus, thank you for asking the question, will there be people who will welcome you in the eternal tabernacles? Your message, Lord Jesus, is not lost on me. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for this passage of your word. It looks a little strange at first. How can you congratulate people who are clearly unjust? Now they are not congratulated because of their lack of justice. No. They were congratulated because of their shrewdness and the Lord Jesus says, aha, I want you to be equally shrewd. all your physical memon and all your spiritual wealth, make sure that you use it properly, correctly, with a purpose, so that when you enter into eternal life, there will be people who are going to welcome you, because through your ministry they were converted and through your ministry, physical and spiritual ministry, they became holy in the sight of the Almighty. So Lord God Almighty, let this message of Jesus and this question of Jesus not be lost to any one of us. In Jesus' name, amen.