Luke chapter 16. We're going to be looking at verses 19 through 31. This is the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Luke 16, 19 through 31. Follow along. I'll read the whole section and then we'll go back through it. There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, Where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in agony in this flame. But Abraham replied, son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things while Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you, a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us." And he answered again, "'Then I beg you, Father, send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment.' And Abraham replied, "'They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them.'" No, Father Abraham, he said, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent. And he said to them, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for your word this morning. We thank you for those who are in attendance and those online listening, we pray for their hearts to be receptive soil to the Word of God, that your Word, like a seed, can grow in our hearts and produce fruit 60, 30, and 100-fold. Just give us ears to hear what your Word says this morning. Let my mouth speak as you would direct it. And we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen. I heard a story about a rich man. He was very wealthy, had piles of cash. He hoarded his money. He didn't spend it on anything. He worked hard. He stacked up his money. And his wife never worked. She lived kind of a modest life. And he just drew these piles and piles of cash. And on his deathbed, he actually requested that all his money be buried with him. And he got together all the lawyers and family members, and they signed the will. And she was to bury her husband with all of his money. A few weeks later, he died. And at the funeral, the casket's lowered into the ground. And family members came up to her after and said, you didn't actually bury him with that money, did you? She said, well. I promised him I would and I signed the paperwork saying I would and the lawyers were there, but he had too much cash to fit in the casket. So I deposited all in the bank and I wrote him a check. Not sure if he'll be able to cash that check. Let's look at our text this morning. We're in Luke 16, 19, as we read the story of rich man and Lazarus. Let's get a little background information, though. If you flip back to chapter 15, verse 1, it says, Now tax collectors and sinners were gathered all around him, and the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. And they were muttering, this man welcomes sinners. And so Jesus begins teaching to these multitudes, these tax collectors and sinners. They're all gathered around, and he's teaching. And chapter 15 goes forward with a bunch of parables and stories that Jesus was teaching. If you flip ahead to chapter 16, verse 1, it begins in verse 1, it says, now Jesus told the disciples, So then he kind of transitions from talking to the multitudes to talking to just his disciples. Look at verse 14 of chapter 16. Imagine the scene here. There's all these crowds. He's teaching to them. The Pharisees are watching. Then he turns and begins to speak just to his disciples. The Pharisees are still watching. Read verse 14. It says, the Pharisees who loved money heard all this And we're sneering at Jesus. So, um, well, we can read verse 15 there too. And he says, and he said to them, you are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight. So this sets the stage for the parable, or this story, in verse 19. So the Pharisees, they're listening in on what he's telling the disciples, and they're sneering at him, and they don't like what he's teaching. And so Jesus turns and talks directly to them, these lovers of money. He points out The Pharisees were lovers of money, and they're staring at him. And he says right to him, you know what? The things you value are detestable to God. So that sets the stage for this story in verse 19. That's the background of why we have this story of the rich man and Lazarus. It's not just a random story. It was directed at these people who loved money. And Jesus is setting them straight on the things that are esteemed by you in this world are often detestable to God. Now there is some debate on whether or not this is a parable or an actual historical account. These are the things we used to argue about in Bible school. Hunter, did you have this debate with other students at school? Yeah. So you go to Frontier School of the Bible and you'll get to argue whether this was a story, a factual account, or a parable. A lot of people say it's a parable because it's mixed in with all these parables, it kind of flows like a parable. Other people say, no, it has to be an actual historical account, a real story because a real person is named Lazarus. I'm not sure it matters too much whether it's an actual factual account or a parable. I think I tend to believe it's a parable because some of the things that happen in it don't seem to quite be theologically correct, but obviously the teaching is what we're trying to gain from this passage. And there are a few teachings. In this, so whether I call it a story or a parable, I suppose, don't get offended, I'm not sure which one I think it is, but I probably lean towards parable. But in this parable, we're gonna see two men, we're gonna see two destinies, two requests, and two teachings that we can take from it. Let's begin in verse 19. There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. So this rich man, the first thing they talk about, or the first thing the story points out is that he's dressed in purple. Purple, in this day, was an extremely expensive color, which sounds funny to us because you can buy any color clothes you want. But back in this day, to get purple dye was extremely difficult, and anyone who had purple would have been very wealthy, very rich. It's the equivalent of driving a Lamborghini. The purple dye actually came from a snail. I did a little research on this snail called the Murex. It's a predatory snail. Thing is creepy. They're really beautiful shells. They're like the nicest seashells you find on the beach. But these snails, they crawl along on the ocean floor and different subspecies do it differently, but they trick fish or they lull fish to sleep or they They give off some sort of toxin that paralyzes fish, and they grab them and eat them. They're snails. They have teeth. I never knew, but you could take these snails and, I don't know, you'd squish them like a grape or something, and out comes a little drop of purple dye, and that's how they would make purple clothes. And one website I looked at said it took around 12,000 snails to make enough cloth for a suit or a robe or whatever. 12,000 snails, so it was extremely difficult to come by. So wearing purple was a sign of being extremely wealthy. Now keep in mind what Jesus, who he's addressing and what he was talking about. These are the Pharisees and the things you find important, God finds detestable. So he says, this guy is extremely rich. He's dressed in purple and fine linen. This phrase for the fine linen is actually probably talking about his underwear, his undergarments, the stuff you couldn't even see was the finest you could get. So he wasn't just showy rich, he was really rich, clear to the stuff you couldn't even see. And he feasted in luxury every day. So he's throwing these parties and having a great feast. So this is the picture we have of the rich man. And of course, in this day, the Pharisees, we saw a little hint of that earlier in the chapter, but the common wisdom was if you're rich, you're blessed by God. The more rich you are, the more blessed of God you are, especially as a Jew, obviously. But if you're poor, you're downcast by God. There's religions today that still operate that way. My sister was in India for about 10 years and that's what they believe. The beggars on the street are punished by God because of their sin or their past lives sin. And the people that are very wealthy are obviously doing well with God and they're being blessed. And it's a pretty messed up cycle. It just traps people. She told me stories, you know, in India where they would actually spit on the beggars or kick them because if you help them, you're not doing them any good, you know, in this belief of reincarnation. If you actually make it worse for them, then maybe they'll be reincarnated as something better. What a trap, what a terrible system. Obviously the Jews didn't believe in reincarnation, but they believed in something similar to this, this idea that wealth equaled blessing from God. And of course, let's look at the opposite, the next verse. At his gate was laid a beggar. His name was Lazarus. He's covered with sores. We talked about how because he uses the name, some people believe it's a real story. It could be he used the name because of what the name means. The name Lazarus means helped by God. So in this story, you have the rich man who the Pharisees would have seen as being someone who's helped by God. And then you have this poor beggar and he names him helped by God. That might be an insight to why this guy has a name. Perhaps he has an insight, or his name is named because Jesus actually raises a man named Lazarus from the dead later. That could be another insight as to why he's named. It's a foreshadowing. But notice, he's laid at the gate, this beggar. He's laid at the gate and he's covered with swords. This is a pretty disgusting picture. Most translations use the word laid. The Greek word is balo. And I looked it up and the first definition in the Greek dictionary is when you throw something out, drop it or cast it aside with no care where it falls. He was just thrown at the gate. Nobody cared where he fell, where he laid. Uh, this, this verb to be thrown, cast, ballow is actually in the pluperfect in the Greek, which is very rare. So I thought I would talk about it a little bit. It describes an action that took place in the past, but means nothing for us now. As opposed to the perfect tense, which is an action that took place in the past, but still has results for us now. We, we reap the benefits of this action, or we suffer the consequences of this action. But this pluperfect tense, it's kind of rare. And it means it happened, but it doesn't really mean anything for us now. It doesn't change our lives. And that was Lazarus. He was just thrown at the gate and left. It happened, and it affects no one. It didn't change anybody. It has no consequences for anyone else. They didn't care at all. He's just thrown at the gate. with no consequence for anyone. It says he's covered with sores, verse 21, and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. So the man's probably paralyzed. He's got some sort of disease. Perhaps the sores were bed sores from being paralyzed. They're probably stinking and oozing. And this is just gross. And this is in contrast, obviously, to the rich man. He just wants to eat the crumbs that fell from his table. The rich man has so much, he has nothing. And then it adds at the end, even the dogs came and licked his sores. Now when I get home from work, we have this little fluffy Cavapoo. She's half Cavalier, Spaniel, half Poodle. And she jumps up all over you and she wiggles and wags and wants to lick your face. And she's tiny and cute and happy. And she greets me when I come home that way. But I don't think this is what these dogs were doing. I'm guessing in this time in Israel, dogs were not well received. They were nasty and filthy and dirty. These are wild, feral dogs. These are the dogs chewing on the garbage outside the city and tearing apart you know, people who were crucified and thrown out there. These dogs are sniffing around Lazarus, hoping he might be dead soon. That's the picture I get. It's a pretty stark contrast to the rich man. So these are the two men. Now look, let's look at the two destinies. The time came when the beggar died, and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. And the rich man also died, and he was buried. So they both die, but there's a difference in their death. When Lazarus dies, it says, the angels carry him to Abraham's side. Some translations might say Abraham's bosom. This was, to the Jews, this was considered paradise. This was the place where believers went when they died. In the Old Testament, we have the word Sheol, and it just means the grave or the place of the dead. In the New Testament, it's often translated Hades or hell in the English, Hades in the Greek. And it usually just simply means the place where dead people go. But the Jews believed there was kind of the place of torment, the bad part, and the the place called Abraham's bosom, the good part, if you will. It's where believing Israel went when they died, also called paradise. We would obviously relate that to heaven and hell in our thinking today. It was not technically heaven or hell, though, as we'll see in a minute. So they have different deaths. The angels carry Lazarus to Abraham's side to paradise. The rich man, he died also. Apparently this would have been some sort of a surprise because he's partying every day and living it up. But he dies and no doubt they had a big funeral. We find out later he has a big family. So there was probably quite a lot going around with his funeral and all the preparations and whatever all went into it and he was buried. Lazarus, maybe the dogs finally got him, who knows what happened to his body. But to Lazarus, the real Lazarus, the angels carry him to Abraham's side. Verse 23, it says, in hell, that's that Greek word Hades, where he was in torment, He looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. So now the picture shifts from earth, from physical earth, to the afterlife, to Hades. He dies, he's buried, Lazarus is carried by the angels, and the rich man essentially wakes up in hell, wakes up in Hades. Heard a story about a guy who Late at night, fell asleep at the wheel and he crashed his car into the Shell gas station and the car burst into flames and the power was flickering on the gas station light and the pain of the accident and the heat from the flames wakes him up and he comes to in his car and he looks up and in the accident, the car had shorted out the S on the gas station sign. So it reads hell. and flames are rising up around the car. He freaks out for a minute. I don't know if that story is true or not, but that would be a rough way to wake up from a car accident. They're probably open 24-7, I imagine. Anyway, he wakes up in hell, for real, in Hades. And he was buried. He wakes up in hell. Lazarus is carried to Abraham's side. He looks, it says he's in torment, it's actually a plural there, he's in torment, and he looks up and he sees Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. So Lazarus is by Abraham's side, in Abraham's bosom, if you will. These are the two destinies, two different destinies of these two men. The first thing we need to, I guess, stop and realize is there was no intermediate, there was no second chance, there was no interview, there was no nothing. They just died and they go where they go. Hebrews 9.27 says it's appointed once unto man to die and then the judgment. Once you die, it's too late. You're gonna wake up in one of two places, and that's it. That's what the Bible teaches. That's what Jesus teaches here. He's in torment, and he looks up, he sees Abraham and Lazarus. Notice he recognizes Abraham. I'm not exactly sure what that means. Some people believe in the spirit realm. You recognize everyone somehow. Some people think it means, well, he's a Jew, he's familiar with the scriptures in some way, and he knew who this was. He realized what was going on. He knew where he was. I'm not sure. But he sees Lazarus by his side, so he also knows who Lazarus was. He knew this guy was laying at his gate. So he calls out verse 24, Father Abraham, have pity on me. And send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in agony in this fire. Have pity on me. He doesn't ask forgiveness. He doesn't repent. He doesn't... He does none of the things you would expect. surface level, you would think, oh, you know, he feels bad. He feels bad because he's being tormented, right? We've all met people like that. They get caught doing something wrong and they feel bad. They feel bad because they were caught. They don't feel bad about their sin. And look what he says. Hey, send, send Lazarus. Have Lazarus dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. It's like he's bossing him around like a servant. Just have him run errands for me. He doesn't feel bad for the way he treated Lazarus. He doesn't feel bad for his sin. He's just still kind of a proud guy, it seems like. But Abraham replied, Son, remember that in your life you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here, and you are in agony." So this seems to teach if you get good things in life, you go to hell, and if you get bad things in life, you go to heaven. And that it's some sort of great reckoning, balancing. It does kind of sound like it says that, but it obviously doesn't. We know from elsewhere in scripture that the amount of money you have or the illnesses you have has no bearing on whether you go to heaven or hell. What he's saying here is if you're an unbeliever, now hear this, if you're an unbeliever, the good things in this life are as good as it gets. it's only going to get worse in the afterlife. If you're an unbeliever, the good things in this life are as good as it will ever get. And it's about to get worse. But if you're a believer, the bad things in this life are about to end. The good things in this life haven't even scratched the surface. That's the difference. We'll see that the rich man understands this too in a minute. It's not a punishment for being rich. It's the choices he made. It's where he wanted to go. He lived for self, which is evidenced by the way he treated Lazarus, by the way he lived, and he never gave a thought of God. That's why he's in hell. And Abraham's just reminded him. You live for all the good things instead of for God, and you got all your good things. You got everything you asked for, including this. That's what Abraham is saying to him. He says, besides all this, between you and us, there's a great chasm that has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, and anyone who wants to cross over from there to us cannot. to give you a contrast in the pluperfect and the perfect. This word fixed right here is in the perfect. This chasm's fixed. It was done in the past, but it affects us right now. It's what we're living with now. We're living with the results of this chasm being fixed. It can't be changed. This is how things are. It's fixed. There's a gulf between the two compartments. This is what the Jews believed. Whether or not this is actually how it was, I'm not sure. We know the Jews believed that it was something like this, and we see a picture of it something like this in the parable here. Was Jesus playing to what they just perceived hell to be, or is he actually teaching us this is what it was? I don't know. What I do know is some people believe there's the good compartment and the bad compartment, if you will, fixed by this gulf. And that before believers were taken to heaven, before Christ's death and resurrection, this is how it was. Believing saints went to Abraham's bosom and unbelieving worldly people went to a place of torment and that they could see each other and maybe even talk to each other in some way and see what's going on. that does not seem to be what's happening now. Post-resurrection we believe to be absent from the body is present with the Lord. We go immediately to heaven. Some people believe during the three days that Christ was crucified, his body is of course in the tomb, but that Jesus himself went down to I want to be careful and not say he went to hell. There would have been no point to go to the bad part of hell and preach to unbelievers, because as we saw, you get to die once and then the judgment. They didn't get a second chance. But some people believe that he went to this good compartment, Abraham's bosom, and led captivities, says he took captivity captive. That before he ascended, he descended, it says in Ephesians 4. So some people believe that speaking to Jesus went down to this good place, Abraham's bosom, and essentially preached the gospel to these Old Testament believing saints and took them to heaven because now their redemption was complete at the cross. It's been said that the Old Testament saints were saved on credit and the balance was paid at the cross. If that's what happened, I'm not exactly sure. There's kind of people that good Bible teachers that believe both ways. But it does seem that something different happened to people who died pre-cross versus post-cross. And of course we know through Daryl's study of Revelation that at the end time there will be a resurrection and death in Hades, this place, will be cast into the lake of fire. And that's our vision of hell, right? The lake of fire. You know who else is cast into the lake of fire? It's Satan and the demons. People have misconceptions about hell that it's where Satan rules. It's where demons play. And it would be a cool place to go if you're a bad guy and hang out with your buddies. Satan doesn't rule hell. He doesn't live there. He doesn't hang out there. It's not a cool place for the bad boys. One day, Satan and the demons will be thrown into the Lake of Fire because it was designed to be their punishment. People can go there if they choose, like this rich man, but it will be nothing but torment. The word here is in the plural, it's torments. I've never felt a thirst or a torment that a single drop of water would help, but it must be bad. This is no joke, what Jesus is talking about. True story or a parable doesn't matter. This is a real place. And there's a great chasm between the two. Nothing can be done. Once you die, you face the judgment. Even if there was some possible way that somebody could come and offer you relief, it's not gonna happen because there's a chasm fixed. You know, another misconception about hell people have is that you're just left there alone. And we say it a lot, it's away from the presence of God. And in a sense it is. It's away from the saving presence of God. It's away from the loving presence of God. But in Revelation, Pastor Darrell went through it a while back. I'm going to say chapter 14, when the people take the mark of the beast and they are thrown into this everlasting torment. And it says, the smoke from their burning goes up forever. And they're tormented day and night in the presence of the lamb. That's Jesus. To me, that's one of the worst parts of hell is not that you're cast away from God for eternity and you never see him again. You're in his presence for eternity. You see your Lord, the Lamb, for eternity, knowing you rejected Him. It's unbelievably harsh and final, and we should take it very seriously. So it's fixed, it's final, you can't cross over. So the rich man says in verse 27, then I beg you father, send Lazarus to my father's house. For I have five brothers. Let him warn them so they will not come to this place of torment. Notice he calls Abraham father. I think he did earlier. And in the previous verse, Abraham called him son. So again, he's speaking to these Pharisees. Abraham's this man's father, and Abraham calls him son. Obviously, we're talking about the bloodline of Israel. He's a Jew. So for the Pharisees to see this Jewish man who believes in Abraham and calls him father in hell must have been quite a shock. He's rich, he's powerful, he's a Jew, he calls Abraham father, how is he in hell? So keep that in mind, how these Pharisees must have heard this story. But anyway, he's begging Abraham, send Lazarus to my father's house. He's still bossing around Abraham, still bossing around Lazarus. Just have him run and do stuff for me. But again, he's like somebody who gets caught and they're only sorry for the punishment, not for what they did. He says, I have five brothers. At least he's thinking of someone else now. But notice, he doesn't say, He wants them to avoid the torment. He doesn't want them to come to a saving faith in God, right? He says, let them warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment. I mean, yeah, it's good, he's thinking about others, but if your only concern is that they don't get tortured, that they don't come to this place of torment, then you're missing, he's still missing the real matter, isn't he? So Abraham responds, they have Moses and the prophets, let them listen to them. Moses and the prophets, that was a way to reference the scriptures. Sometimes you'll see it, the law and the prophets. Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament, also known as the law. And so it was a way to say the Old Testament, or in our vernacular, the Bible. They have the Bible. Let them read the Bible. That's how you hear Moses and the prophets, right? We're talking about the written word. Obviously, he's not talking about physically hearing the prophets and Moses speak. He's talking about the written word. And he's saying, they have the Bible. All they need to do, let them listen to the Bible. And notice what the rich man says, no, Father Abraham, he said. They don't believe in the Bible. They don't take that serious. Are you kidding? They're at the lake every Sunday. They're on the mountain every Sunday. They're not going to listen to the Bible. I've got a better idea. If someone from the dead, he says, verse 30, but if someone from the dead goes to them, then they will repent. Notice the word repent. He knows the real matter, doesn't he? He knows what needs done. He doesn't say, oh, maybe if they give away their money to the poor, right? It's because they're too rich. That's why I'm here. He knows why he's there. It's because he never repented of his sin. And now he finally wants that for his brothers. He's finally getting real enough to say they need to repent. But he's offering a solution that isn't the solution. It would seem wise, but the end leads to death. It's man's wisdom. Abraham says, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead. It's kind of foreshadowing, isn't it? Jesus telling the Pharisees, you won't be convinced even if someone rises from the dead. The same man that's about to rise from the dead. And we pointed out earlier, Lazarus, Maybe he gave the man in the story the name Lazarus because in another couple weeks here, he's gonna raise Lazarus from the dead. An actual man named Lazarus. And what does it say? The Pharisees sought to kill him for it and Lazarus. They wanted to kill Lazarus because he had come back from the dead. If that's not exactly what Jesus is saying here, I don't know what is. Even if you see a miracle, If you're not going to believe the Bible, you're not going to believe even if someone rises from the dead. I titled the sermon this morning, The Bible is Greater Than a Resurrection. That's what Jesus is saying. The written word is more powerful than the most amazing miracle, including the resurrection itself. Now we know the saving power of our souls is Christ's death and resurrection. I don't mean it that way, I mean convincingly. To convince someone of truth, to change a heart, to change a life, to transform someone, the power's in the Bible. The written word. That's what Jesus is saying. If you won't listen to the Bible, even if you saw a resurrection, And it happened, right? The Pharisees wanted to kill Lazarus when he was raised from the dead. They wanted to kill Jesus for raising him from the dead. There's people that I talk with and they say, if God would just reveal himself, to show me a miracle or a sign, if he's all powerful, if he's up there, if he can do anything, just show me some sort of miracle and then I'll believe. No, you won't. That's what Jesus is saying. And that's what played out with the Pharisees. If you see something unbelievable, you know what you're gonna say? I don't believe it. I'm not sure what that was. It was a trick. They fooled me, right? Or the people who weren't there, what do they say? I didn't get to see it. I need a miracle. Does every person get a miracle? And then you doubt in a week or a month or a year. You know, John the Baptist doubted, right? He sent his disciples to Jesus in prison, from prison, and he wasn't sure because he saw some signs and some wonders, but those things don't last. You start wondering, what really happened? Was there a way? I could have been tricked or fooled. People who didn't see it question your sanity. Oh, you say you saw this or that. Signs and wonders and miracles, they don't last. They don't work. And we see churches built on this exact philosophy. There's churches in our day who every Sunday need to regenerate a miracle or a sign, speaking in tongues, people getting raised from the dead. miracles, healings, because every week it's already drained. It already isn't enough from last week. We see the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. I mean, how much stuff did they see? Just, it's unbelievable their disbelief, but it just, it was never enough, was it? And Jesus is saying, if you're not gonna believe the Bible, you're not gonna believe the miracle. Because the issue is your heart. It's a lot like the parable of the soil. Your heart can be one of those soils, and if your heart's not a good soil to receive the word, the seed in that parable is the word, oh man, nothing's gonna work. Nothing's gonna get to you, nothing's gonna penetrate you except the word. And the word is greater, and here's why. When people question it, it's still here. When people forget what they saw at a miracle service, the Word is still here. When people aren't sure exactly how it played out, the Word is still here. The great miracles of the past are recorded for us here, the resurrection of Jesus. We only know of it because of the Word. The Word is greater than all. So we have these two teachings, hell is final, hell is real, hell is serious, But the Bible is the greatest source of power and truth the world has ever known. There's power in the Bible found nowhere else, not in miracles, not in resurrections or healings or tongues or whatever it is. And if your church isn't about teaching the word, they're about something that's less important. As long as I'm here and have any say, this church will be about teaching the word, bringing the Bible. It's the most powerful thing there is. Romans 1.16 says, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power, right? In fact, let's turn there. Romans 1.16. It says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. The Jew first, then for the Gentile. Verse 17 goes on, for the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness by faith from first to last. So the gospel, the good news, the written word. We have the four gospels here in our New Testament. We're teaching from the gospel this morning. This is the power for transformed lives. He doesn't say miracles are the power. The gospel's the power. Tim read this morning Romans 10, and the final verse there was 1017, for faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. Of course we know faith saves. Christ's work on the cross paid the penalty for sin. We know that. We access that benefit through faith. We know that. But faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God. It doesn't say faith is produced from seeing miracles. Faith comes by hearing. Hearing the Word of God. You want to see transformed lives? Teach this book. Read this book. Learn this book. Share this book with your children. Preach this book from the pulpit, because it is more powerful than a resurrection. Pastor Daryl's favorite verse, if he's watching online, forgive me if I got it wrong, but I believe Pastor Daryl's favorite verse is 2 Timothy 4.2. It says, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Preach the word. That's the most important thing. Next week we're gonna look at the Bible a little more in depth. I think I'll do kind of a bibliology lesson tied in with the importance of scripture that we looked at this morning. But if you want access to real power, it's found in this book and nowhere else. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the power in your word, and we thank you that for all time, for all people, and even us, we have access to that anytime we choose. It's here in our hand. We have it on our cell phones. We have it on our computers. Remind us of the power in this book, and just make us people of the book. And we just thank and praise you for all you've done. And it's in Jesus name.