Gospel chapter 16, and we'll commence to read at verse 19, and we will read to the end of the chapter. Luke chapter 16 and verse 19, hear the word of God. There was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fed 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 Abram's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abram, 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. And 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 beside 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 wouldst 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. Abram said unto him, they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. He said, nay, father Abram, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto them, if they hear not Moses, and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." May God bless the reading of his holy and infallible word. Lord Jesus tells us the story of two men, a rich man who rejected God and a beggar whose trust was in the Lord. Both of them died And the beggar went to heaven, and the rich man went to hell. And one of the reasons that Jesus told this story was that we may know something of what lies after death. Many will enjoy the pleasures of heaven, but others will suffer the torments of hell. That is the conscious experience of all who die We all live in a room out of which there are two exits only. On the one, heaven is written, and on the other, hell. There is no other door. There is no purgatory. There is no second chance after death. There is no soul sleep. There is no limbo. There is no such thing as the annihilation of the soul any more than the annihilation of God. But there is, after death, the judgment and then there is the great separation. There is heaven and there is hell. The Son of God is emphasizing in this history that souls do not die as bodies do. But after death, the souls of men and women live on until the great return of Jesus Christ and the resurrection. And they are either consciously, intelligently, immediately aware of the love of God or of His wrath against sin and all ungodliness. This rich man, who was suffering the torments of hell, holds a conversation with Abraham. It is with this patriarch in particular, because Abram is the father of all who believe. God once had spoken to Abraham and had made great promises to him. He pointed this man to the sky above in the Middle East, just dense with the glory of the star-filled heavens. And he said, your progeny will be as numerous as the lights of heaven. He would give Abraham a child in his old age and through this child then one day all the nations of the earth would be blessed because one day through the line of Abraham's own child Isaac a child would be born who would be the Savior of the world. And Abram responded by believing all that God had said. He left his house in Ur immediately and set out with his family to an unknown place which God said He was preparing for him. In such trust, Abram then became a real model for all who similarly hear. the Word of God and go off then on a pilgrimage to a better land. They believe and they are justified. All men have sinned and deserve the judgment of God forever. But the Lord has provided redemption through the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and through him believers of all nations throughout the last millennia are blessed with the gospel of salvation when they entrust themselves into the safekeeping of a Good Shepherd forevermore. And all of these believers then come into the blessing of glory after death. Jesus says, in my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." He's talking about the cross work that he would do in the darkness of Golgotha. He said to the dying thief who believed in him today, thou shalt be with me in paradise. And one day he will say to many on the right hand, Cur me, blessed of my father, and take your inheritance. And this beggar, of whom Jesus is speaking to us in these familiar words, was one of those whose trust was set in the Son of God. The same Saviour who spoke of heaven also spoke in quite unambiguous language, warning the world of the awful truth of the place of woe, of the worm that doesn't die, of the flames that are not quenched, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. where there is outer darkness and everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. It wasn't John Bunyan who spoke of these things. It wasn't John Calvin who spoke of them. It wasn't Charles Haddon Spurgeon. It was gentle Jesus, meek and mild. who wept over Jerusalem and spoke these words of warning to men and women. He taught that hell is real, that it is ruled by God, that it involves rejection and pain. He said more about it than anyone else in all the Bible. And if we are serious about this man who preached the Sermon on the Mount, who when He dressed the winds and the waves they obeyed Him, who healed the elderly incurables who in the last stages of their illness cast themselves at the feet of Jesus and had life and healing Even he raised the dead and he was himself resurrected. Well, let's pay heed to such a unique individual, such a glorious and loving and beautiful man. Let's take whatever he says. with the utmost gravity because for us he can say nothing wrong. We must reckon with this fact that this man of integrity and patience and love said plainly that there would be people who would spend eternity in hell. He said this life was very very important and that whatever we did we were to do to his glory and that we were to do his will and he urged us to pray that we would do his will as the angels do his will in heaven now. This present life being so important but not all important. So the Lord Jesus told this parable. And New Testament scholars can help us then from distorting the meaning. For example, Dr. Craig Bloomberg argues that we should derive one point from each of the main characters in this parable. He shows that this rule helps us to understand the main points that our Lord is making. And it keeps us on track, three main characters. in the parable before us. Abram, the rich man, and Lazarus. Abram is the spokesman for his God. And the rich man, he represents every careless and unrepentant person in the world. The name Lazarus means God helps. And so the poor beggar signifies those who have received saving help from Almighty God. So the parable has this great theme of being too late. The rich man pays attention to Lazarus, too late. He sees the unbridgeable chasm between heaven and hell, too late. He worries about his brothers, too late. He heeds the law and the prophets, too late. Let's see the first conversation from verse 24. Now the first conversation of the man concerned the request that he might be relieved of his torment, which was unbearable. But Abram told him that this was impossible, telling him, in effect, all your lifetime. You received your good things. You were reminded of the certainty of death and judgment. You were warned to flee from the wrath to come. You had a conscience, the great monitor of God inside you that warned you when you were filled with presumption and pride and selfishness. and commended you when you showed some action of kindness and love. You were warned to flee. You were told of the mercy and the long-suffering of the grace of God. You were told to seek that mercy and find peace through the gospel. The heavens declared God's glory to you day and night. But after death, it's too late. Mercy is unattainable. Death fixes the destinies of men and women forever, and in hell you are just experiencing the fair judgment of God. All the considerations God can take, all his knowledge and mercy and tenderness is brought to bear on his righteous judgment. And you then, through your own sin and hardness of heart, are under God's condemnation forever. And now some of you might think that that is unfair, but God alone is the adequate judge of what our sinfulness merits. The rich man's condition then cannot change. There is no hope. There's a great gulf fixed between them. And those who are in the presence of Abraham, because they've entrusted themselves to their faithful savior, their lives and every detail of their lives are there, cared for and loved. In God's presence is fullness of joy at his right hand are pleasures for evermore. And those who are in hell, they cannot cross over that impossible gulf. There is no possibility of a change, of after some time then, an elevation from one estate to another. None whatsoever. And Abram tells the rich man this awful fact. And then there is a second conversation. and that begins in verse 27. And the second request of the man in hell deals with his five brethren. And those brothers were still there bouncing around the world. And so the man in the pit then devised a scheme so that they would not join him there, because their presence with him there, no doubt, would make his hell five times worse. So he devised a plan of evangelism, which many human beings do. He imagines a way of delivering his siblings from the place of woe. The five brothers all knew the beggar who lived his life on the sidewalk, at the gate that was the entrance to the sumptuously living older brother. He was always there. That was his patch and they passed him and he stretched out his hands to them as they came and went for help. So the rich man says to Abram, send that man, that very man, Lazarus, send him back from your side to my brothers to show himself to them as someone raised from the dead. And the result of that sight, the shock to their system, when he sees them and speaks to them, was that every man jack of them will become a believer, especially when he warns them about hell. If a man should be raised from the dead and tell them what's happening, what has happened to him, They'll change. They will no longer curl their lips and say, oh, that's religion. And nobody's ever come back. But they'll believe in God and they will then escape hell. That is the wisdom of a man in hell. That is his proposal. And from that request arises a discussion. between Abraham and the man in hell. And Abraham argues one side and the man in hell argues the other side. And Abraham is defending the position of those who believe in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And the man in hell is defending the position of those who use human rationality. and never put their trust in the Savior in this world or in the next world. And this argument is going on still in Europe and North America and Australia and Asia and Africa and it is important for us to see what this argument consists of and the difference between the two approaches. On the one side there is Abraham and all who believe as he did. And one thing is true of every single one of them, and that is that they are satisfied with the Bible. Theologically, we would say they hold to the sufficiency of the scriptures to save any person from hell. In verse 29, Abraham answers the request of the rich man by saying to him about his brothers, They have Abram, they have Moses, and the prophets. Let them hear them. Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, there is Genesis that tells us that God is a personal God, who refers to himself as we, an almighty Lord, who by fear, by his word, he spake, it was done, he commanded all things, held fast, he said, let there be light, and there was light. And it tells us why the world is as it is, why men treat men as they do, why they treat women as they do, why they treat children as they do, why they treat animals as they do. It tells us of a historic fall. And it speaks in Genesis of the great answer. to man's rebellion, the seed of the woman, the Messiah, the Christ, will one day come and bruise the serpent's head. Then in Exodus we're told of the Passover, of those for whom a lamb had died substitutionally and how the angel of death passed over where he saw the blood he passed over that family and the firstborn lived because the lamb had shed its blood And they had mercy. And the book of Leviticus, it tells us that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. And it points to the sacrifices that God pastorally and lovingly has set up that will help the people then to find reconciliation with a holy God. And the book of Numbers tells us of a brazen serpent lifted up in the wilderness. And if men look, not if they walk on their knees to the post on which it stands and licks the dust and walks seven times around it chanting. No, let them look and they will live, live brethren, by looking at The serpent, the bronze serpent, and the book of Deuteronomy tells us of the covenant relationship that exists between God and his people. Jehovah great I am, pledging himself to be their God, to be their Savior forever and ever. They have Moses. Abraham says, and the rich man's brothers also had the rest of the Old Testament. Holy men of old spake as they were borne along by their spirit of God, and they spoke of him who was to come. He's there on every page of Scripture. Oh, fools and slow of heart not to believe all that God has said in the Scriptures. So, Abraham says to them, let them listen to them. How much more today, then, should we listen to those who are eyewitnesses of the majesty of God? who were with him from his baptism, who heard him preach the sermon on the mount, who saw the great miracles that he did, who saw him speak to the winds and the waves and they obeyed him and helped and loose Lazarus from his grave clothes, who heard the seven words from the cross. Shouldn't we listen to him? Shouldn't you listen to Jesus who has spoken to us, inspired his plenipotentiaries, these apostles, and gave them the Holy Spirit. And he led them into all truth. Shouldn't we believe what they wrote? Here is a book that's different from any other book in the world. It's discontinuous from anything else. It's a book that knows me. It's a book that searches me. It's a book that saves me and sanctifies me. Do you see Abram's argument? The scriptures are enough to bring a man to faith in Jesus Christ. The scriptures themselves are sufficient to deliver men and women from hell. And then Abram adds in words to this effect in verse 31, if they don't listen to the Bible, Nothing else is going to convince them. Nothing else will do them any good. Not even the specter of a resurrection is going to do that, they'll say. Strange things happen in the world, that's what they'll say. You know, the death certificate was written and he was pronounced dead. He was in his coffin and then he came to life. Isn't it a strange world we live in? That's it. Now, the question then that's facing all of us this morning is, do you agree with Abraham? On the one side of the debate, the man in hell is saying, it seems a great idea to me that a man goes back from the grave to the world of the living. That sounds to me a wonderful plan to warn the people that are alive in the world. But Abraham says, They've got the Word of God. They've got the Scripture. And all of Scripture is given by inspiration of God. And if you ask the Lord Jesus, to what extent, to what degree is Scripture inspired by God? He will tell you, to the jots and to the tittles. Let them hear that. No, the rich man says, the Bible's not enough. He has no confidence in the word of God. He's saying they need something more than the Bible if they're going to be saved from hell. This man thinks that the Bible is an ineffective book. that you can't expect anyone to get serious about eternal life and flee from the wrath to come simply by reading the Bible or by hearing sermons from the Bible. Now, it's very interesting to see how respectful this man is in hell as he addresses Abraham. He calls him Father Abraham and that the patriarch acknowledges that and he responds to him with a word, son. In other words, this man was a fellow Jew. He was a member of the Old Covenant people. He'd been circumcised, ethnically, outwardly. He's the son of Abraham. And the Lord Jesus here in Luke 16 is speaking to fellow countrymen. He's addressing the Pharisees. The Pharisees are here, we are told, sneering at him. Verse 14, the Pharisees also who were covetous heard all these things and they derided him. They couldn't imagine that they were in any danger of a lost eternity. Even when they saw Lazarus rise from the dead, you know, they got together afterwards and they plotted to kill him. This rich man then, he'd grown up in amongst the covenant people, hadn't he? In the synagogue, memorizing scripture, hearing it read week by week. He never obeyed it, didn't love it, found it boring. He never dreamed for a moment that he was going to end up in hell. He never thought that one day there would be a great chasm fixed between himself and Abram and the blessed and happy people of God. And there are many like him in the churches all around this notable city who hear the word of God and There are those who hear it preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Just like Judas heard it thus. Just like Ananias heard it thus. Just like Sapphira heard it thus. And Demas heard it thus. And the Judaizers heard it thus. And all were left. Now you see what this rich man is saying from hell. He is saying, well, if the scriptures are the only thing that you're going to give my brothers, well, I heard them, but good did they do me, didn't change me. In fact, he is saying, in hell, deep within his heart, it's perfectly understandable that I don't believe and that they don't believe. All we had was the Bible. I know my brothers. I am aware how they live. I know where they're going. The Bible is not going to touch them. Those kind of men, you know they need something more. And in fact, he is saying, it's excusable. If only I'd seen a miracle that had thrilled me. I would have believed. If a man had been raised from the dead and came and spoke to me, then I would have paid attention. If I'd gone to a meeting where amazing things happened, it would have been so different. But all I had was the Bible. And that's what many people say still. You don't expect the world to be attracted by the Bible? By preaching the scriptures? by texts outside chapels and verses on hoardings and tracts with scripture on them and memorizing them and lessons from the Bible to children in Sunday school and camps where people are taught the Bible and conferences which are all about the Bible. You don't expect people to be attracted by that, do you? We need concerts. We need drama. We need costumes. We need bands. We need choreography. Bring in the drums. Bring in the synthesizers. Send for the clowns. Then the people. Oh, they'll come then. We need superstars. We need celebrities to give us their testimonies. Not just the Bible alone. We need grottos and visions of a woman dressed in blue speaking to children. That's what we need. Abram was utterly unyielding. The Bible's sufficient, he said. Now, there are many religious people who argue like that man from hell. Roman Catholic Church says, Bible's not enough. You must have sacred tradition too. You must have manifestations of Mary too. The Quakers say, Bible's not enough. There must be the inner voice in the congregation. Modernists say scripture itself is not enough. It must be interpreted by the assured results of modern criticism. They say you must go back to sources behind the present gospel narratives to find the authentic sayings of the real Jesus. Cults say Bible's not enough. Men must obey a book, the Book of Mormon, or Science and Health with a Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, or the Watchtower Productions, or the JWs. And many charismatics say that the Bible's not enough, that it needs to be authenticated by miracles and signs. And all such people say that the Bible's not good enough. They say it's a good start, but we need to help it along a bit. There's a preacher who has written that when the Apostle Paul was preaching in Athens, he slipped up. And as a result, few were converted. He used wrong methods. All he did was to intelligently and courageously face the Areopagus and the two dozen men, the watch committee, listening to peripatetic preachers who came and stood up in the marketplace and gave their new ideas. And they judged whether it was inflammatory or whether they were allowed to share these things. And Paul seized the opportunity. The brave young Paul, how he spoke to them on that occasion. And well, only a few were converted. So, Paul went to Corinth, they say, and he drastically changed his methods and he performed miracles. Many were converted then. They say, I think you'll find that hard to prove from scripture, but you see, you read there Acts 17 and you come to the end of it, the conclusion that Luke gives us. He says, one of the members of the Areopagus itself, Mars Hill itself, through that speech Dionysus was converted. A woman named Damaris, a notable woman, and a number of other people were converted. Well, my friends, if that happened today, Wouldn't we say, best conference we've had so far? Dionysius, Demaris, look at them. They're known, their families are touched, their people are astonished at the change that's come over other men. The news is, do you know who's been converted? We would be so, so impressed. Especially, this was the first time an evangelist had entered into Athens and was speaking in the name of Jesus Christ to the people. The people are taught what Paul did there is not power evangelism. Unless we can do miracles, then there will be No converts. No Father Abraham, says the man in hell. Not the Bible alone. The Bible plus. The Bible plus informal entertainment. The Bible plus background music. The Bible plus a woman that comes in a vision and speaks and makes prophecies. You choose the plus. you enthuse about the plus. You give lectures about the plus. You charge $100 for attendance at those lectures, and you write books about it, and you grow rich, and you have a house in Malibu as a consequence. How I found the plus that helps this rather inadequate Bible. and you hold summer schools and conferences and go on world tours and you tell the world the method that you discovered of compensating for the failure of the scriptures. Just like the man in hell who had no love for God, he thought he could make up for the inadequacies that for him were so evident in the Bible. Now, you remember that Abram was in heaven before Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. He had a unique perspective, the spirit of truth coming from the Father and the Son in heaven there to help Moses and to say, don't write that, write this and say these things. He was listening to the Lord. on those occasions when God commanded the spirit of illumination, go to Moses, go to Samuel, go to David, go to Solomon, go to Isaiah, go to Jeremiah, go to Ezekiel and assist them all to understand my word and then to proclaim it and write the scriptures to its jots and tittles. Abram heard God speak. He knew the source, he knew the power from the throne of the universe that he's found there in the Bible? from the lips of the living God. These words have come and Abram knew and Abram loved them. They were spirit and they were life. They were powerful words as effectual as when at the beginning he said, let there be light and there was light. The almighty has broken the silence of the heavens and God has spoken to sinners. He's opened his God is and is not silent. And we have this word, God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past and to our fathers by the prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us. by his son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds." He's a speaking God. And now he's spoken, spoken to us by his own blessed son. It wasn't that Jesus came so that we would have something to speak. But Jesus came speaking himself. Repent and be baptized. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. And when he was set, his disciples came unto him. And he opened his mouth, and he taught them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the peacemakers. but they shall be called the children of God." Shakespeare never said anything as wonderful as that. Charles Dickens never said anything as wonderful as those words. The Lord Jesus has said that no one knows the Father, say the Son. He alone has an infinite, intimate acquaintance. He goes in and in to the Father, and in and in, and in to the Father, and in and in, and in and in and in to the Father. There are no cubby holes. There's no little dark cupboards under the stairs, which God the Father hides from God the Son. He knows him through and through and through. He knows everything that there is. The Son of God knows God the Father. intimately and exhaustively, comprehensively. And when at the end of his life he's praying, he says, thank you, Lord, for helping me to discharge that commission you gave me. When we covenanted together, that I would come and I would reveal to them all that you want me to tell them. And now he sends the Holy Spirit. And he, through his apostles, leads them into all truth. And they omit nothing. I know he calls men to be preachers of the word, and he tells us all, you be ready to give a reason to every man who asks you, well, why are you so optimistic in these dark days? And you've set aside Jesus Christ in your heart, and you can tell how God has dealt with you. You can tell them, I've got good news for you. I've got a savior for you. I've got a prophet who will teach you. I've got a lamb and he'll wash away your sins. I've got a shepherd king who'll protect you and keep you. He'll work all things together for your good. We have Moses, we have the prophets, we have the gospels, we have the epistles, we've got it in our own language. We can hold it, can't we? We can hold this book. We can hold this book and sometimes... The Word of God. When John Jewell, one of the great English reformers, became the Bishop of Salisbury, he just nailed his colours up in this first sermon. Are you a father? Have you children? Read the scriptures. Are you a king? Read the scriptures. Are you a minister? Read the scriptures. Has God blessed you with wealth? Read the scriptures. Are you a usurer? Read the scriptures. Are you a fornicator? Read the scriptures. Are you in adversity? Read the scriptures. Are you a sinner? Have you offended God? Read the scriptures. Do you despair of the mercy of God? Read the scriptures. Are you going out of this life? Read the scriptures. That was preaching. Abram was saying words to this effect. to see a miracle? Your brothers have got a miracle. They have it in their hearing every time they go to the synagogue and someone says, hear the word of God. They have Moses and the prophets. They can purchase a scroll for themselves. An Ethiopian did that. They can read the scriptures. They can memorize Moses and the prophets. And we live 20 centuries later. We have Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. We have Acts. We have Letters. We have the Book of Revelation. We have New Covenant writings. And they are the miracle which leads the church on and on. take this Bible into my hands. I'm holding a mighty work of God. I'm holding something that is absolutely unique. Here is something that is miraculous in its independence of thought, in the comprehensiveness of its theme, its utter and invincible confidence that it is the most relevant object to me, all my life long, in every condition, in sickness, in health, in poverty, in wealth, and sometimes in moments of doubt, then our minds must rest in this. I've got the Bible. I've got this great intrusion from another world. in which men can hear the unique utterances of the Son of God. Now, I've been a reader. When I was a little boy, I read the local library, the Carnegie Library, dry. I've read and read and read. I don't seem to read as much now as I used to read. I've read much of human literature at its best, but oh, I find it in this book. There is something discontinuous, I don't put it alongside then Dickens and Thackeray and Shakespeare. The Bible is a word from the God who knows me. He describes me. He searches me. He finds me. The scriptures speak to our deepest needs. We're living on the end of eternity. We're thinking of a widow and a daughter this morning who just has gone through this week. But all of us must face one day the loss of our other half, our precious one. And we want something, man, that will tell us, that will give us hope, that will give us anticipation, that one day again we'll hold hands. and again we'll stand before the face of him who brought us there. We'll see him who died for our sins. As Dr. Van Til would often say, we'll soon meet at Jesus' feet. Here are words that contain thoughts of unsurpassable grandeur. Words that are invincible in their sheer originality. Every Sunday, When churches meet, they meet in the presence of a miracle. Every single service has this at its heart, this miracle. Not just those red-letter days, those better-than-average days when there was a sense of blessing, there was an awakening power in the preaching. Oh, great days, may God give us all many more such days. Oh, stay, you swine. We open the book and we find the place and we bring that word to the congregation. We're meeting in the presence of a miracle. You say you want a miracle and you believe, well, here is a miracle. And Abraham says, to signs and wonders as a means of saving sinners today, because here is the Bible, and here is its message. So then, faith comes by hearing, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. And Abraham knew this was the divine method as long as he'd been in heaven, and welcomed those that had been saved. Every one of them had been saved by the Word of God. So then you must go to a church, you must go to a church where there is a man who's been sent to preach the Word of Christ. Because that has been and it always will be the means of saving anyone. Not since the apostolic times has a single person come to faith in Christ through seeing someone rise from the dead. But millions and millions and millions, like the suns on the seashore, have become believers through hearing the word. Abraham knew that all the children that surrounded him there, that looked to him and smiled at him as their father, they were there in the presence of God because they'd been saved through the Bible. and that Merlin Smore would join him. As the gospel went out and out into the world, Zambia was affected by it and Korea was affected by it. South America was transformed increasingly by it. It was the scriptures that are able to make us wise to salvation through faith that is in Jesus Christ. And God in mercy said, I've got many people and they're coming into the kingdom and they are as many as the sands on the seashore and they're going to They're going to be in heaven with me and I'm going to change every one of them. All the divine aesthetic and all the divine omnipotence is going to be concentrated in changing and transforming every one of them so that they are like His Son. Everyone like His Son, Jesus Christ. They corrupted themselves terribly. They provoked Him dreadfully. But He forgives the sins of all who come, just as they are to Him, just as He is. Come unto Me, and I will give you rest. And they came, and they cast themselves on those outstretched arms. so willing to save them. And it will be by the word that came to them. I will send them a Christian neighbor. I will put them in university and they will meet their fellow students and they will say, come to the meeting. I will work through a member of their family. There will be a girl in the office on Monday morning and she will say, did you have a nice weekend? And you'll say, yes. In fact, I went to Grand Rapids. Oh, what did you do there then? Well, we had a meeting. Huh? Meeting? Yes, it was about the Bible. And she didn't say, the Bible? Oh, yes. So who was speaking? Oh, a man from Zambia was speaking, a man from Wales. Have you heard of Wales? And he was speaking, too. Yeah, I just, I found it so helpful. From then on, she liked to come to you, and she said, were you in church yesterday then, and was it a good meeting? And there comes a time when you say to her, would you like to come with me on Sunday? And she comes. And when she comes, it is for her like coming home. Because God's hand has been upon her. And it was you by the word, you said, we deserve eternal death because we're sinners. But Jesus Christ, because he loved us, died for us. And God didn't let a syllable fall to the ground when she heard that. God opened her understanding to know the way of salvation. The testimonies of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple. Ordinary people can read, can hear the message of the gospel. The scriptures are sufficient to make a man of God perfect. How far do they take you? They thoroughly equip you for every good work for the time when you have to be the carer. When he or she loses her memory, you have to be there, you have to learn new skills, cooking, and ironing, and washing, and caring. You are equipped for every good work, by the word of God. What lies before us all, what challenges, what duties? A widow, she has new tasks now, he always did it. He always did the banking. He always looked after the money, you know, I've got to learn. But God teaches us through the scriptures. He makes me wise through the Bible. Through the Bible, that's how it comes. Every mountain, God asks you to climb. Every river, God asks you to ford. Every trial, God asks you to face. Every temptation, that you meet, every pressure God asks you to endure, every sacrifice God asks you to make. The scriptures, oh, the scriptures are an enabling divine source of sustenance, of creativity, of service for you. You face the future with the scriptures. They tell you how to do things. They tell you, they give you the strength for the task. They warn you what not to do. The Bible, it helps us to put away childish things. The Bible saves us men from being wimps. It delivers us from being nerds. It transforms us. The Bible does. to being men of God, thoroughly equipped for every good work. So on the mount ends with our Lord Jesus speaking to us about a wise man. And he took his time. He went down to the rock and he built a house on the foundation. And the storms come and the floods come and the house stands. And that man was building his house on the Bible. And Jesus was looking forward to the future, to 2,000 years. He was looking forward to the hideous 20th century that we've gone through, and world wars, and the last decade of new horrors that have emerged everywhere. And the Lord knew about the storms that would be hurled at this little Christian boy and this little Christian girl, the gales of scientific pretension, of statism, of philosophy and humanism, of materialism and fleshness. Every little Christian who stood on the teaching of the Bible would survive any storm. The Savior was absolutely confident about it. Today, the professing church is in a hopelessly demoralized state. And it's been taught from its pulpits that the Bible is insufficient for the task that we are given to bring the gospel to every creature and that the church be light and the church be salt, saving us from rottenness and decay. The Roman Catholic Church and the Quakers and the modernists and the cults and the charismatics are looking desperately and the church growth people are looking desperately for additional signs and voices and methods and none of them is in a healthy state. And none of them is convinced about the sufficiency of divine truth. And the issue that confronts every one of you is, are you content with scripture? Are you content with the word of God? And one man was being presented with what the Bible was saying. And he said, well, look at this. He was talking to my friend, Baruch Maus. Look at this. And Barak was saying, but the Bible says this. The Bible says this. Listen, this is what the Bible says. And the man finally exasperated said to Barak, let's close the Bible and listen to the spirit. And that is a subjective pit of despair. Because the word is spirit. And the word is, is life. Sometimes when people say they're listening to the Spirit, they're listening to their own hormones. They have Moses, we have Moses and the prophets. We have Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John. We have blessed Paul, and blessed Peter, and James, and Jude, and the writer too. The Hebrews, we have it. Holy Bible, book divine, precious treasure. Thou art mine. May it be the possession of all of us. May we love it more and live by it more and preach it more. May America hear of the living word of God. Amen. Lord, do bless your word now to us, we pray. Make us love it more and know it more. Help us not to be preachers and teachers of it, but doers of it. Help us to meditate in it, day by day. Oh, give it saving power in these days. We pray for some on our hearts, and they're not with us. must have prayed for them 10,000 times 10,000. Oh, save them. Bring to their remembrance truth from the Bible that they know. And oh, give it conviction and life and power. May salvation come to their homes. here is for them. We ask in Jesus' name, Amen.