Turn in your Bibles, please, to the Gospel of Luke 16. The Gospel of Luke, the 16th chapter. We will read together verses 19-31. Luke 16, verses 19-31. Jesus is speaking here. And Jesus says in Luke 16 and verse 19, there was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus which was laid at his gate full of sores and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torment, and seeth Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame." But Abraham said, Son, remember that Thou in Thy lifetime receivest Thy good things, and likewise Lazarus, evil things. But now he is comforted, and Thou are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you, there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot. Neither can they pass to us that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee, therefore, Father, that thou would send him to my father's house. For I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. And Abraham said unto him, They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. We are told in Hebrews 10 and verse 31 that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. To be the object of God's saving grace is the most blessed of all possible conditions. But to be the object of God's eternal wrath is the most dreadful of all possible outcomes. To fall into the hands of the living God who is determined to exercise His just vengeance upon us for our sins is worse than any nightmare that we could possibly ever have dreamed. As it says in Revelation 6 and verse 17, for the great day of His wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand? It is evident that none will be able to stand up to the wrath of God or be able to stand before the wrath of God. All who are objects of that wrath will cry out to the mountains and the rocks to fall on them, to hide them from the wrath of God, but all to no avail. They had rather face annihilation rather than to endure the judgment of God, but it shall not be. as it says in Revelation 9 and verse 6, that in those days shall men seek death and shall not find it, and shall desire to die, but death shall flee from them. It is clear that there is no escape from hell once one is condemned to its torments. And no end to those torments once they have begun. That being the case, There is nothing more important than to take whatever steps are necessary to escape from such a dreadful destiny. The good news of the gospel is that there is a means of escape provided through a person, Jesus Christ. But we will never be moved to seek that remedy with the seriousness that we ought if we are not convinced of the pressing reality of the awfulness and of the eternality of hell and all that it will be to unrepentant sinners. Now, the passage before us today is particularly suited to set before us the miseries of the damned. and the importance of preparing now that we might avoid those miseries throughout eternity. Now, clearly, it will be too late to do anything to remedy our condition once we are there. We can only do something about it now in this life. And in order to urge us to do so, let us consider together this passage. and the hopelessness, misery and horror that those in hell do experience in the first place. Then let us consider together the occupants of hell, the occupants of hell. Now, this story that I have just read to you opens with a description of two men in two very different conditions. One of them is very well off. in this life, and the other is very poor off in this life. One lives in a mansion. The other lives in the streets. One fares sumptuously. The other fares on scraps. One has royal clothing. The other has rags. One is tended to by servants. The other is tended to by dogs. But whatever their inequality in this life, they became equal at its end. Our passage tells us that they both died. For death is no respecter of persons. Death happens to the rich as well as to the poor. It happens to the young as well as to the old. It happens to the healthy as well as to the sick. Death happens to everyone. and death will happen to you. It is only a matter of time. How often have you said regarding a person, well, he's dead now. Or, she died a certain number of years ago. It is only a matter of time before people are making that statement about you and about me. It is only a matter of time then before we die. And what will happen after death? Well, the Bible tells us in Hebrews 9.27, it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the judgment. And so, these two men were judged at their death. And as a result, one was sent to heaven and the other was sent to hell. These are the only two possible outcomes at the end of life. Either heaven or hell. There is no third possibility. There is no purgatory mentioned or listed here. You are either in heaven or you are in hell. There is no purgatory. Everyone will experience one of these two outcomes. No other outcomes are possible. But the question then arises, why did one go to heaven and why did the other go to hell? Was it because the one was poor? And the other one was rich. Is hell the place for the rich? And heaven the place for the poor? Well, not at all. Economic conditions in this life have no determining effect upon our destiny in the next life. After all, in precisely whose bosom Is poor Lazarus sitting? Is it not in the bosom of rich Abram? It says of Abram in Genesis 13 and verse 2, Now Abram was very rich in cattle and silver and gold. And yet Abram was in heaven. Heaven is a place for both poor and rich. in this life. And so is hell. Not only is the rich man in hell, but so is Judas, who for thirty pitiful pieces of silver, because he had no more than that, sold his Savior and his soul into partition. And so the difference in destiny between heaven and hell is not to be found in economic status. It is to be found in their object of faith and in their source of satisfaction. The beggar was satisfied with nothing but God. And the rich man was satisfied with everything but God. But the main principle being set forth here is the fact that our circumstances may change dramatically when we pass from this life to the next. We must not be fooled into thinking that just because God has not dealt harshly with us in this life, that He will therefore not do so in the next. Nor must we think that because God has not greatly blessed us in this life, that He will not greatly bless us. in the next. In other words, we cannot project our present condition into the future. And the fact is clear. There can be a dramatic difference between our condition in this life and our condition in the next. And we must not presume that our condition will always be the same. If for us to live in this life with Christ, then for us to die will be gain. But if for us to live in this life with sin and its pleasures, then for us to die will be loss, no matter our status in the present. Our poverty and suffering is not the meritorious cause of our obtaining heaven, nor is our riches and ease the meritorious cause of our condemnation to hell. No, it is the result of that great statement contained in John 3, verse 36, when it says, He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. And he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth upon him. And so when one believes in Christ, one goes to heaven, regardless of his economic status here. And when one believes not in the Son, he goes to hell, irrespective of his economic status here. So nothing but Christ can take a man to heaven. Because Jesus said in John 14 and verse 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by Me. Poverty and hardship will never take a man to heaven. The only thing that will take a person to heaven is Christ. So one need not renounce all of his wealth and go live in a monastery somewhere with vows of poverty to enter heaven. It will be utterly useless. if one is putting one's trust in one's self-sacrifice for God to arise there. Nor may one think that because God has greatly blessed him in this life with wealth and riches and comfort and ease, that God will deal with him similarly on the day of judgment. Nothing but Christ can take a man to heaven, but Christ is all a man needs in order to get to heaven. He doesn't need riches. He doesn't need rank. Indeed, those things often get in the way of seeing his need, as they apparently did for this man in hell. All one needs is faith in Christ to save him from his sins. He needs neither poverty nor riches to obtain that outcome or to avoid the negative. In John 6 and verse 47, Jesus said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me hath everlasting life. What does it take to get into heaven? Faith in Jesus Christ plus nothing. And what does it take to enter into hell? Having everything, but not having Christ. In 1 John 5, verses 11-13, it says, and this is the record that God has given to us eternal life. And this life is in His Son. He that has the Son has life. He that has not the Son of God has not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God. You see, the problem is that the rich man had everything but God. And the beggar had nothing but God. And I ask you, who was the truly wealthy man? For you see, this is the story of two beggars. One who begged in this life, and the other who begged in the next. And will you spend so much time accumulating wealth which will do nothing for your soul on the day of judgment? as it did nothing for this rich man? And will you spend so little time seeking Christ who can do everything for you on the day of judgment? You see, we spend a great deal of time preparing to fare sumptuously every day and be clothed in purple and linen in this life, and we think nothing of providing for robes of righteousness or the bread of life for all of eternity. Who then are the occupants of hell? They are those who love darkness rather than light. They are those who love sin more than Christ. They are those who prefer riches to righteousness. They are those who are content to be without God in this life and therefore will never know contentment in the next. And so I must ask you the question today, where will you spend eternity? Will you go to hell because you are contented to live without Christ? Because the things of this world are satisfaction enough for you? Do you think only of the present and not of the future? You will die one day. What then? Where will you go? I will tell you where you will go. You will go to the judgment. Because it is appointed unto a man once to die and then the judgment. And at the judgment, what will God say to you? What will you say to God? On what grounds will you appeal for mercy? Will you speak to the fact that God has dealt well with you in this life and so He ought to deal well with you in the next? Such arguments obviously do not prevail. Will you argue the fact that you laid up a great number of riches? Or that you even distributed those riches to the poor? Such an argument will not prevail. Will you say how much time you spent taking care of your family? and how well you provided for your heirs. Such arguments mean nothing to God. The rich man had all of those arguments, and none of them prevailed on the Day of Judgment. And when placed before the living God, he was cast into hell. The only argument that will prevail on the Day of Judgment is that in this life you have repented of your sins and you have put your trust in Christ alone as your only hope of salvation, and that you have determined to live for Him and love Him and follow Him all the days of your life, and that by your works you demonstrated that that determination was not mere talk, but that it was the true expression of the very depths of your heart and soul. The occupants of hell are those who were content to live without God in this life. They were those who were content to ignore Christ and His Word and His worship and His people. They were those who thought material riches were sufficient to meet all of the needs both now and for eternity. Who spent no time thinking about death because they were utterly consumed with this life. and never considered that this life is short. Eternity is long. And I must pursue and seek the provision God has made for a safe outcome on the Day of Judgment. Better to have dogs licking your sores and be safe in Jesus than to be a billionaire and wind up having your riches eat your flesh as fire on the Day of Judgment. These, then, are the occupants of hell. They are those who took no time for Christ in this life, and thus had no salvation for Him in the next. Having seen the occupants of hell, in the second place, let us consider together the condition of hell. The condition of hell. 1 Peter 4 and verse 17 ask the question, What shall be the end of them that obey not the Gospel of God?" That's a very sobering question. What will be the end of those who obey not the Gospel of God? Well, the answer to that question is clearly supplied in our passage. It is set forth here in graphic terms. This is no metaphor. This is no allegory. It is a literal description of the torments of hell. What will hell be like? Well, our text makes it clear that hell is a place of eternal torment. In verse 23, it says that he was in torment. In verse 24, he says, I am tormented. In verse 25, It says, Thou art tormented. In verse 28, he talks about this place of torment. Clearly, hell is a place not of complacency, not of quietness, but a place of active torment. Now, the source of this torment is said to be the flames that he is in. He says, I am tormented in this flame. Now you have all, from time to time, been burned. Perhaps you burned your tongue on some extraordinarily hot coffee. Perhaps you burned your hand on a stove. And you know from personal experience that burns are the most painful of all injuries. That they cause even a small burn, a great deal of pain, And now multiply that small burn on the tip of your tongue or on the tip of your finger. Multiply that all over your whole body. How long would you be able to stand it? Would you be able to stand it for 10 seconds? Would you be able to stand it for 30 seconds? Could you stand it for a day? Could you possibly endure for a week? Those in hell will experience it not for a decade, Not for a mere century. Not for a millennia. No, it will go on forever and ever without end. And after millions of years, they will have no less time to suffer in the torment of the flames of hell. For these flames shall forever burn, but they shall not consume. And the pain shall be unremitting. And the deliverance shall not arrive. If one is burned badly enough in this life, the nerve ends are killed. And the pain ceases, for there are no more nerve receptors to send pain signals to the brain. But in hell, it shall not be so. In Mark 9 and verses 43 through 44, it says that the fire in hell shall never be quenched, because its work will never be done. In Matthew 25 and verse 46, it says of the lost that they shall go away into everlasting punishment. In Revelation 14 and verse 11, it says, the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night. There will be no sweet comas into which to pass for a time of relief. No relief. No rest. No remission. Mere, unremitting, constant, eternal, conscious torment. And so this man, as a result of this torment he is in, starts to pray. As a result of it, And for the first time, he sees and acknowledges the spiritual realities he had denied all his life. Notice v. 23. It says, "...and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth." All his life he had been blinded to sin and by sin. But now, his eyes are opened. Before, he was willfully blind. He shut off thoughts of God and of His Word, but now he cannot deny the realities of heaven and hell. And so now he starts to pray. He should have been praying during his lifetime. He would not have had to have offered this prayer after his death. But notice several characteristics about his prayer. First of all, notice he prayed too late. Isaiah 55 and verse 6 says, Seek ye the Lord while He may be found. And the clear implication is there's coming a day when you're not going to be able to find God, no matter how much you pray to Him. Because the day of mercy and of salvation will terminate. And those who have not found Christ prior to that day shall never find Him. When is the end of the day of salvation? Well, for you personally, it is at the day of your death. Seek ye the Lord while He may be found. Call ye upon Him while He is near. There is coming a day when He will not be near, and there will be a great gulf fixed between you and Him over which your prayers can never pass. In hell, God cannot be found. God will never be near again. And so, as 2nd Corinthians 6 and verse 2 says, Behold, now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. But the day of salvation you see ends and it ends when the day of death comes. And this man had died and now it was too late. There will be no salvation in hell. And you see, millions of years in prayer in hell will not substitute for one prayer in this life that could have saved this man. For the Scripture says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. For the Scripture saith, whosoever believeth in Him shall not be in this shameful condition. Romans 10 and verse 11. And so this man prayed too late. Beloved, if you ever hope to escape the torments of hell, the time to do so is while you still draw breath now. Because you shall never escape it if you wait until after you die. Now is the day of salvation. And there is no other time to be saved than right now. You cannot be saved yesterday. It's past. And you cannot be saved in the future. It is not here. The only time you can be saved is now. And you may be saved now. And you will be saved now if you will call upon the name of the Lord to save you. If you will repent of your sins and embrace Christ as your Lord and Savior, he stands ready, willing and able to save. It says that the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him turn unto the Lord and he will have mercy and let him turn unto our God. He will abundantly pardon. And no matter how great your sin, the abundance of God's pardon is greater and you may have it and you may have it now, but you shall not have it after you die if you do not have it now. This man prayed too late. He prayed to the wrong person. He prays to Father Abraham, verse 24. Father Abraham, have mercy on me. Now mark it down. Here is the only scriptural record of a prayer to a saint. And that prayer came straight from the pit of hell. Even the Friend of God. Even the Father of the faithful is no suitable object for prayer. God alone can answer prayer. And to God alone should prayer be addressed. And those who pray to Mary or those who pray to the saints are praying hellish prayers, not heavenly ones. Let no one think that intercession with the saints will accomplish a thing. Because if there was any saint who could ever accomplish anything, it would have been Abraham, the friend of God and the father of all those who believe. But not only did he pray to light, not only did he pray to the wrong person, he asked for the wrong deliverer. He says, send Lazarus. To ask for a human deliverer From a hellish condition is the height of folly. Only Christ can deliver you from the torments of hell. No mere man, be he pastor or priest or pope, can ever deliver you from the flames of hell. Ask not for Lazarus. Ask not for the pope. Ask not for the priest. Ask not for the pastor. Ask for Christ. Christ alone can save. Christ will save. But Christ only can save. He asked, fourthly, for the wrong solution. What did he ask for? That Lazarus would put the tip of his finger in water and take that one single drop and put it on his tongue. He wanted a material solution to a spiritual problem. He asked for physical water, when what he needed was the water of life. The living water that only Jesus Christ can give. You will recall in John 4, when Jesus was speaking to the woman at the well. In verses 13 and 14, it says, Jesus answered and said unto her, whoever drinks of this water from this well shall thirst again. It is no remedy, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. And so, like so many in this world, they want a solution that does not involve a spiritual interaction with the living Christ, but rather they want an external religious ritual and formality that they can see and taste and touch and somehow hope that that will deliver them. I want to tell you, putting the wine of the Lord's Supper and the bread of the Lord's Supper on your tongue will do nothing to deliver you from hell. It is only as you partake of the bread of life, the Lord Jesus, and the water of life, the Lord Jesus, by faith reaching out and resting in Him alone for the forgiveness of your sins, that you shall have the thirst of your soul quenched. and your deliverance from the day of wrath. There is no salvation in any physical element. There is only salvation in Christ. And you will never reach Him by walking an aisle. You will never reach Him by engaging in a ritual. You will engage Him and reach Him through the reaching out of the hand of faith, or you will never reach Him at all. This man prayed this prayer in hell and it didn't work. And I want you to mark it down that had he prayed the same prayer while he was alive, it wouldn't have worked either. And the reason why is because he prayed to the wrong person. He asked for the wrong deliverer and he sought the wrong solution. And so, if we hope in this life to escape hell, not only must we pray, but we must pray to the right person. We must pray to God to deliver us through His Son from our sins. We must ask for His Son to be our deliverer. And the solution we want is not a mere quenching of some of the material defects and deficiencies we have in this life. It is not health and wealth that we need. What we need is Christ to transform our hearts and to turn us into His children and to bring us into the family of God. We must pray to the right person. We must ask for the right deliverer. We must seek the proper solution. We must pray to God and we must ask His Son Jesus to save us from our sins. You don't need salvation from your economic problems. You don't need salvation from your health problems. You don't need salvation from your marital problems. You need salvation from your sins, because that is the root of every problem. And if you have that, You have solutions to the problems for both time and eternity. What will hell be like? What is the condition of hell? It is a place of eternal torment. Secondly, it will be a place of eternal remembrance. Verse 25, But Abram said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivest thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things. But now he is comforted and thou art tormented. And what we see in this passage is Abraham not answering this man's prayer, but mocking it. God has warned of this outcome in the book of Proverbs. In Proverbs 1 and verse 24 and following, God says, Because I have called and you have refused, I have stretched out My hand and no man regarded. You said it not My counsel and would none of My reproof. I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh. When your fear cometh as desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you, then shall they call upon Me, but I will not answer. They will seek Me early, but shall not find Me, for that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would none of My counsel. They despised all My reproof. Therefore, shall they eat of the fruit of their own ways and be filled with their own devices." For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them." There comes a point in time when God has no more receptivity to prayers. And there comes a time when He that sits in the heaven begins to laugh. In mockery and derision, the Lord has them. In derision, it says in Psalms 2. Because they would none of His reproof. They would not hear His offers of mercy. Now they shall have none. And so, what is hell is a place of eternal remembrance. Remembrance of sins committed. Of opportunities squandered. Of foolish choices made. Remembrance of resisting God's voice and God's Spirit. Of resenting the preached Word. of neglect of opportunities to pray. Avoidance of the means of grace. There will be a remembrance of all of these things. All of the purple and fine linen. All of the sumptuous meals. All of the pomp and circumstance. All of the personal enjoyable recreations. Far from being a source of pleasant reflection in hell. Will be a bitter remembrance and a despairing regret. There will be no good memories in hell for all that seems so pleasant here will be seen there. as that which was only an idol to keep us from God and will therefore be hateful to us as that which kept us from God and from salvation. And when we remember all that we had and all that we did and all that we enjoyed in this life, we will look at it all and in hell we will remember it all and we will bitterly cry, I traded my soul for that. This man will rue the day he ever had purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. And there will be many who will rue the days that they were off doing something else instead of being in church seeking Christ and His salvation. Not only will hell be a place of eternal torment and a place of eternal remembrance, it will be a place of eternal separation. Verse 26, And besides all this, Abram says, between us and you, there is a great gulf fixed. If you've ever stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon, you have some idea of a great gulf. And if you ever thought, could I just jump across? The impossibility of it immediately plunged you into despair. And you realized in your own person, there's no way you're getting across that great gulf. This great gulf is fixed. It shall not ever narrow, nor shall it ever be removed. There will never be a person in hell that will ever cross over to heaven for all of eternity. And that is a source of despair. But praise God, He goes on to say there will never be a person in heaven who will ever cross over into hell. And what a source of delight and security that is for those who are in Christ. This gulf, our text says, is not only great, that is beyond the capacity of any man to span, it is fixed. The separation is permanent. Those in hell are forever separated from God. And that condition is fixed. They are forever separated from their saved loved ones. And that condition is fixed. They are forever separated from the smallest act of mercy. Not so much as a drop of water on the tip of a finger will be given to them. And that complete cutting off from mercy forever in its tiniest expressions in the face of the greatest of miseries is fixed. They are forever separated by a great gulf from any possible happiness or comfort of any kind. And that condition is fixed. People say, well, I'll be with my friends in hell. I won't be separated from them. Listen, there will be no looking forward to reunions in hell. Notice verse 27 and verse 28. Then the rich man said, I pray therefore, Father, that thou would send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they come into this place of torment." You see, this man was not looking forward to the reunion with his family in hell. No one there wants their friends or family to arrive. And no one will be happy when they do or when they run into them. You see, it is very hard to have happy fellowship when you are weeping and wailing and gnashing your teeth in outer darkness and while you are being tormented in the flames of hell. It is very hard to have happy fellowship. when those in hell with you are screaming and cursing at you for your evil example on earth that led them to follow in your steps. You see, this was the elder brother, and he had five brethren who followed in his footsteps. And he knew that when they got there, they would say to him, oh, you evil older brother, you set the example. You led me to hell. You will have no friends in hell. Your friends on earth will be your worst enemies there as you hurl accusations and blame at each other. That's why the rich man didn't want his brothers in hell. It wasn't because he loved them. There is no love in hell. It's because he was terrified that when they showed up, his torment would even increase further. This then is the condition of hell. It is a place of eternal torment. It is a place of eternal remembrance. It is a place of eternal separation. And that brings us to our third and final point. Having seen the occupants of hell and the condition of hell, notice in the third place the remedy for hell. The remedy for hell. This is contained in verses 29 through 31, and Abram said unto him, They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. Where is the remedy for winding up in hell to be found? The answer is, it is to be found in the Scriptures. Moses and the prophets tell us very well and very clearly how to avoid coming into this place of torment. And those Scriptures of Moses and the prophets are more authoritative, and they are more persuasive, and they are more powerful in their witness than even a resurrected dead man would be. For the rich man goes on to say, Oh, Father Abraham, if one went to them from the dead, they will repent. He knew his brothers didn't ever read the Bible. Knew they had no respect for it. knew that they despised it as He had. But Abraham says there is only one place where the remedy for deliverance into hell will be found, and it's in Moses and the prophets. In John 5 and verse 39, Jesus said to the Jews, search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life. They... Are they which testify of Me?" Those of you who are saved here today, I want to say to you, believe in the converting power of the Scriptures. Abram was fully content to leave the outcome of all of God's elect in the hands of the living Word of the living God. The Scriptures are a better, the Scriptures are a more perfect, the Scriptures are a more persuasive witness than even a resurrected dead man. In verse 31, Moses, pardon me, Abram said to him, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded. The one rose from the dead. And you see, he is creating a comparison between the power of these two witnesses. And you see, if they don't believe Moses and the prophets, the greater witness, when the lesser witness, someone showing up from the dead arrives, they'll not be persuaded. And what is the message of Moses and the prophets? Peter tells us very clearly what it is. In Acts 10 and verse 43, when he is preaching to Cornelius' household, and he says to them, to him, that is to Jesus, give all the prophets witness that through his name, whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. That's the message of Moses and the prophets. Peter tells us that in Moses and the prophets, we find the message that through his name, whoever believes in him shall receive the remission of sins. Paul says the same thing in Romans 3, verses 21-24 when he says, Now the righteousness of God apart from law-keeping is manifested, being witnessed to by the Old Testament Scriptures and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, For there is no difference. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But they are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. That is what the law and the prophets witness. And so, both Peter and Paul tell us that Moses and the prophets set forth a Messiah. And that Messiah is such that whoever believes in Him will receive the remission of sin and thus escape the judgment of hell. And what said the rich man? Verse 30, No, no, no, no. The Scriptures are not sufficient. Something needs to be added to them. We need a post to interpret them for us. We need a Book of Mormon to supplement them. We need the Quran to complete them. How shall men ever find their way to heaven with just a Bible? And so he denies the sufficiency of Scripture, as does every false religion. Beloved, what you need to escape the terrors of hell is the message contained in the Bible plus nothing. You don't need other books. You don't need other prophets. You don't need other potentates. And you don't need other pastors. You need the Word of the Living God. It and it alone will set before you the means for the deliverance from hell. How do you escape coming to this place of torment? Open your Bibles and start reading. If you care about not winding up in the place of torment, turn off your television. Turn off your computer. Put away your recreations. Open this book and read it as though your eternal destiny depended on it, because beloved, it does. And you don't have time. for linen, and purple, and sumptuous meals, and servants, and recreations, when the condition of your soul is in doubt? Because you do not know how much longer your life will exist. And we get all so wrapped up in the things of this world, in our cars, in our homes, in our possessions. What care do we take for our souls? And what shall it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lose it? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? This man, I'm sure, would have been glad to give everything he ever acquired in life. If he could have just had one minute to pray before he died and call on the Lord. But he didn't have it. And you have many minutes at your disposal. And what are you doing with them? The Bible tells you to redeem the time because time will not always be. And soon the day of judgment will arrive and heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people. And if you are not prepared now, you will never be there. And so, as we reflect on the outcomes of these two men and I have focused on the outcome of the rich man, recognize that there is a great deal to be said about the outcome of Lazarus and the blessedness of that condition. But flee from the wrath to come. I tell you, it's coming. And the remedy for it is to go to Jesus, the one who delivers us from the wrath to come. And find in Him salvation. from the wrath and the terrors of God. For, beloved, they are real, they are eternal, and they are very close. As close as your next breath and heartbeat. Make peace with God now. You need not wait. Do not sit and wait upon God to do something in you. Do what He commands you. He commands you to repent and to believe. Repent now. Believe now. Call upon the name of the Lord now. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be told to wait weeks and months on end for the Lord to come and save them." The passage says, nothing of the sort. Whosoever shall call upon the Lord shall be saved. And you may be saved now, because now is the day of salvation. Cry out to Jesus now. Find salvation before you walk out those doors. Because you may not make it out the doors. God alone knows the day of each of our deaths. There is no need to wait. Flee to Christ now. Before the day of His wrath comes. Let us pray. Father, thank You. that You have given us such stern warnings. But thank You also, Father, that You have given us such wonderful remedies. Thank You for the remedy that Christ provides. And oh, our Father, thank You that if we but come unto Him, we who labor and are heavy laden under our sin, He will give us rest. He will give us rest now. Thank you that those who come to Him, He will in no wise cast out. We do come to Christ now. We do believe in Him and embrace Him as our Savior, as we have been counseled to do over and over again in the scriptures. Oh, Lord Jesus, save us. Save us from our sins. We do confess them. We do repent of them. We are tired of them. We would turn from them. Oh, God, have mercy on us. Save us. Father, you promised. If we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved. And we confess that our belief is weak. We also know that the Savior is strong. And though our hearts will never be perfect. If Lord, they are sincere. And we do ask out of the sincerity of our hearts that you would save us from hell. Thank you for your promises. We trust you to keep them and believe that you shall. We pray these things in Jesus name.