While evangelism, apologetics, and Christian evidences are important, the ultimate power for salvation lies in the proclamation of the gospel through God's Word, not in miracles or philosophical arguments alone. Using the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, it illustrates that even direct appeals from the dead or evidence of miracles are insufficient if individuals do not heed the established Scriptures. The message emphasizes that true faith comes from hearing and internalizing God's Word, empowered by the Holy Spirit, which is the only means to bring about a new heart and salvation. Therefore, Christians should focus on faithfully preaching the gospel, trusting God's Word to accomplish its purpose.
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He's a turn tonight to Luke's Gospel, chapter sixteen. Luke chapter sixteen. While you're turning, let me just give a brief report on Brother Sutton. He had surgery this morning and really this afternoon. And as far as I know, I spoke with his doctor. He's doing well and he should be home in a few days from the hospital. He's in room four hundred three. in Condi Hospital. And we miss Brother Sutton on prayer meeting night. And we miss everyone who doesn't come to pray.
We're in Luke sixteen. And tonight and next week I want to deal with this passage in relation to two big subjects, that of apologetics and Christian evidences. and we'll develop this as we move along. And we begin our reading at verse nineteen. There was a certain rich man who 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 a crumb 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 lifted up his eyes, being in torments, 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 art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you, there is a great gulf, fixed, so that they which would pass from thence to you cannot, neither can they pass to us that would come from them. Then he said, I pray thee, therefore, Father, that I would send him to my father's house. For I have five brethren, that they may testify, that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They are 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. Now be the Lord. Take this portion and use it to speak to our hearts. Let's pray together. Our Father, we thank you that we can enter into thy holy presence. and we can rejoice in the message of thy precious word. Thy word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Thy word gives instructions as to our walk, for our walk is exceedingly important before thee.
Therefore the light to our path and the lamp for our feet. We bless thee, our Father, tonight. that we can open thy precious word and expect thee to speak to us from the Holy Scriptures. We praise you for the emphasis that is laid upon thy word. And we pray that we may lay hold of this emphasis and that this emphasis may grip our own hearts in order that in our witness to others we will have that confidence in thy precious word which is so important and necessary.
And our Father, we thank you that we can ask on behalf of others. We pray tonight for Brother Sutton. We pray that thou wilt so work through the surgery that he had today that you'll give him a new start. We pray concerning this pain that he has. We don't know the source of it. And whether this prostate surgery will give him any relief for his knees and hip, we know not. What we ask on his behalf, we ask you to draw him close to yourself and to bring him back with us very soon. And for all the others, those who can't be with us tonight, we commend him to thee.
We thank you that none of thy people are away from thyself, for you have promised never to leave nor to forsake. We pray for Sarah as she moves on tomorrow toward the mission field, as she finishes her packing, and as she boards the plane, watch over, and give her special protection and guidance. For her mother, who had surgery and came through real well on Monday, we just ask your continued blessing upon her, yea, upon the whole family. May it please thee to graciously work in each life. And now we commend ourselves to thee, thanking thee for the activities of the day, the Bible class this morning, the class at noon time, and tonight to be gathered with thy people to study your word together and to pray together.
O that we may recognize thee for who thou art. and direct our prayers unto thee, for we give thee thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our Lord has commanded us to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Now we are living in an age when many who seek the witness for Christ feel it's necessary to know philosophy in order that we can speak on the level of the intellectual today. This is the day of the philosopher. This is what they say. Therefore, if we're going to speak, we have to speak about apologetics, and we're going to have to know Christian evidences in order that we are able to define our terms in a way that the intellectual can lay hold of them.
So, as I begin tonight, I want to define three terms. I want to define the term evangelism, what it really is. I want to define the term apologetics. What we mean by that. And I want to define the term Christian evidences. So we begin. First of all, evangelism. Evangelism is the announcing of the evangel. That's what it is. It is preaching the gospel with power in witnessing to the lost concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. It is to proclaim the message of man's complete ruin by sin and God's perfect remedy in Christ.
That is evangelism. If we miss any of those parts, man's complete ruin in sin, and second, God's perfect remedy in Christ, we have not announced or we have not evangelized no matter how well educated we are to talk to the philosopher. Evangelism is the announcing of the evangel. And it is the message concerning Christ. Apologetics. Now, in that word apologetics, you have the word apology. This has to do with the defense and proofs of Christianity.
When we talk of apologetics, we're talking about the rationale of the Christian faith. And usually when you talk about apologetics, proof text that is usually quoted, especially in the subject of apologetics, is in First Peter chapter three in verse fifteen. And you find the word or you find the idea of apologetics in the word reason in this verse. Notice what it says. First Peter three fifteen. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.
Now, in order that you can give a reasonable account of what you believe, that's apologetic. To be able to give a reasonable account, we should be able to tell people the reason why we believe what we believe. knowing what we believe and knowing why we believe it. And therefore, apologetics is a great study. To be able to give a defense of the faith as to why you believe what you believe. Now, coupled with apologetics is a subject of Christian evidences. Now, this is closely related to apologetics, but it includes the miracles.
Archaeology. where they have certain diggings and they find things which tell us that the word of God that was written is accurate and true. And definitely the evidence, the fact of the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, we want to notice how these three things Evangelism, number one. Christian evidences, number two. And apologetics, number three, are related to the portion of Scripture that we read.
And we want to look at the parlousness tonight of Christian evidences when it comes to the winning of the lost for Christ. I didn't talk about the powerlessness of genuine evangelism. I am talking about the powerlessness of Christian evidences. The story of the rich man in Lazarus is one of the most solemn in all of Holy Scripture. And the reason that it's so solemn is that here are two men and their condition for eternity is fixed.
There is no way of changing it. Sometimes these things have to be brought home to our hearts, and we need to examine this. Lazarus and the rich man, I believe, were two people that our Lord used as an illustration that were known to the people to whom he spoke. That was over two thousand years ago. When our Lord spoke of this activity, the rich man wanted just the tip of the finger of Lazarus dipped in water to cool his tongue. And he's still there.
This passage presents the awfulness of the fixed condition of eternity for the lost. There are a lot of other blessed truths here. I believe there is a blessed truth concerning the departure of the child of God. I believe that when the child of God is taken home to glory, when his life ceases on this earth, I believe the angels carry the believer into the very presence of God. For to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. of Lazarus is one of eternal blessedness.
The condition of the rich man is one of eternal woe. And I believe there are definite lessons for us. For everyone to whom we witness is either going to spend eternity in heaven, in eternal blessedness, or they're going to spend eternity in hell, in eternal woe. And this is serious. And the seriousness of it we see in the life of the Apostle Paul, when in Second Corinthians chapter five and verse fourteen he says, the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead, so that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died and rose again.
That's why it is so important. Now I want to talk tonight about the limitations of Christian evidences. There are limitations. You may know everything there is to know about miracles. You may know everything there is to know about the historical fact that Christ died and that He arose again. And you can still go to hell. Just knowing that Christ died and rose again saves nobody. Now this is important. This is important. To know that Christ died and rose again doesn't save anybody.
It's the interpretation you put on that death. The gospel is that Christ died. Why? For my sins, according to the scriptures. And that he was buried. And that he arose again the third day, according to the scriptures. Now the ultimate empirical evidence. is the biblical sign, what we call a miracle, and they're not occurring today. In spite of all that the signs and wonders people say today, they are not occurring. When they did occur at rare occasions in human history, they did not, in and of themselves, change the hearts of men from sin to God.
We need to keep that before us today. They did not change the hearts of men from sin to God. I want you to turn over to the Gospel of John chapter two. John chapter two. Verse twenty three. The second chapter of John is the record of our Lord's first miracle. It's turning of the water to wine at Cana of Galilee. Verse twenty three says, Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover in the feast day, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did.
But Jesus did not commit himself unto them because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify a man, for he knew what was in man. In other words, beholding the miracles. and believing in him on that basis of miracles falls far short of what the New Testament calls saving faith. This is confirmed by what our Lord says in the third chapter to Nicodemus. You see, Nicodemus came to the Lord after, you must remember, there are no chapter and verse divisions.
and we could follow through there. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do the miracles that you're doing, except God be with him. He said, I know this, but he was still lost. So just believing in Christ because you've seen a miracle, falls far short of what the New Testament speaks of as saving faith. Now this was true of the multitude in John six.
I want you to turn to John chapter six. The Gospel of John chapter six and we'll read verse twenty-six, verse thirty-six and verse sixty-six. In John six, by the way, there are two miracles. The first one is the feeding of the five thousand men beside women and children the second is our Lord with his disciples when he stilled the storm as on the lake of Gennesaret so in verse twenty six we read these words Jesus answered them and said verily verily I say unto you see these are the people went all the way around the lake to where he was on the other side And this is the next day after the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand.
He says, Verily, verily, I say unto you ye seek me. Not because you saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled. They enjoyed the free lunch. Now notice verse thirty-six. But I said unto you that ye also have seen me. and believe not. The Lord said, in spite of all that you've seen, you don't believe. They had the empirical evidence before them, but they did not believe. Now look at verse sixty-six. Verse sixty-six.
From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. They went back. And it's at that time that our Lord said to his own, will you also go away? And Peter then made that memorable statement, to whom can we go? Thou alone hath the word of eternal life. But you see, they had all these things. Now that brings us to Luke sixteen again, the story of the rich man and Lazarus. You see, the rich man, his response to Abraham... It reveals why the gates of heaven are forever closed to him.
This is what is so important about the story. It reveals why the gates of heaven are forever closed to him. I want you to notice something. They are not closed because he had no concern for his brothers. He had concern for his brothers. Furthermore, the gates are closed because he had no respect for the word of God. Not for miracles, but for the word of God. You see, Abraham said they have those scriptures, Moses and the prophets.
The rich man says, no, if you send Lazarus, My brother will believe if he sees a miracle. Moses and the prophets are the Old Testament scriptures. Abraham says, if they have Moses and the prophets, that's all that is necessary for faith. There is nothing more needed than the word of God. What the rich man really said was this. Moses and the prophets are utterly irrelevant to my brothers. You must understand, Father Abraham. Our family has always insisted on logical, objective, empirical demonstrations before making important decisions.
That's how the philosopher of our day would approach the subject. You see? Religious documents from a distant past have never really impressed us. You see, but a man being raised from the dead. Now that's another matter entirely. You get the rich man's argument? The idea today that you have to be able, if you're going to win a person, if you're going to win them, you have to be able to present these various arguments. We need to be very careful.
The evidence of Scripture doesn't say so. The evidence of Scripture lays hold upon the fact. Paul said to the Corinthians, I determined to know nothing among you, save Christ and him crucified. There's a tendency today to cater to that which the world is asking for rather than giving them what they need. What the world needs is the gospel. The world needs a gospel. The rich man says if Lazarus returned from the dead, it would make a difference. Now in the light of heaven's reality, Abraham answered the rich man.
They have Moses and the prophets. Miracles, beloved, were never intended to be a substitute for genuine faith in Jesus Christ. presented through the Word of God. Miracles only confirmed the claims of the divine messengers. They were the claims of the divine messengers. Now let us notice the message of the Word of God. In contrast to the intricate philosophizing that is so much in vogue in Christian apologetics today, or even the sign miracles that were available in Christ's day, our Lord emphasized the primary use of the Word of God.
To the power of the Spirit, to do the exclusive work of spiritual illumination of the sinner. God commands the light to shine out of darkness, that spiritual illumination, and it has shown in our hearts Paul writes in II Corinthians chapter four. Now, this explains the continued unbelief of Judas Iscariot in the face of overwhelming evidence. He was with the Lord every day, saw miracles. How many miracles our Lord performed? John tells us at the close of his book, why if all the works of Jesus were written, the world itself couldn't contain them.
the books that could be written over what he had performed. How many thousands of miracles you and I have no idea? Judas was a witness to them. Yet he remained in unbelief. But there's a paradox in Scripture concerning this, and we want to deal with it real quickly, and I'll close. There's a paradox in John twelve, nine through nineteen. In John's Gospel chapter twelve, you have the raising of Lazarus. Here is a genuine empirical miracle that is astounding. Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, had been in the grave for four days.
Decay had set in. Our Lord raised him from the dead and restored him to his family. And he did it immediately. There were no stages. of activity it was done period it was done that quickly notice verse nine much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there and they came not for Jesus sake only but that they might see Lazarus also whom he raised from the dead but the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also today to death on the one hand many of the Jews were believing on Jesus on account of Lazarus who was raised from the dead verse eleven says because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away and believed on Jesus but notice on the other hand the Pharisees were as a result oh they were ready and they were determined not only to kill Jesus but to kill Lazarus too Let's get rid of the evidence.
The Word of God declares that man needs a new heart. It is the only answer. Man needs a new heart. And that new heart only comes through the Word of God and the power of the Spirit, through the preaching of the gospel. Now, while it's a great thing to know that the truth of Christian evidences and to believe it. For that's part of Scripture. It is good to be able to give a reason for the hope that lies in you. That's apologetics. But let us remember, unless the gospel is proclaimed and the Spirit of God takes hold of the message and does a work in the heart just merely believing the fact that there were miracles and that they really happened, he's not saving faith.
And we must lay hold of this. There are limitations. On the other hand, friends, when it comes to the preaching of the gospel, God honors his word. It is the word of God that is so important. Now, There's a value to Christian evidences. Nowhere does the Scripture indicate that the Spirit uses any instrument other than His Word to bring true conviction and conversion. I'm going to have you turn to one passage, and then I'll quote two others, and we'll be through. Isaiah fifty-five, verse eleven.
In Isaiah fifty-five, there are things stated concerning the Word of God that are exceedingly precious. Isaiah fifty five eleven so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth it shall not return unto me boys but it shall accomplish that which I please and it shall prosper in the thing where unto I sent it in other words God here's a verse that tells us that God uses his word in his own divine way to accomplish His divine will. It will accomplish what I've sent it.
It will do the work that I want it to do. And God has placed the telling of it in our hands. Now coupled with this we take Romans ten, seventeen. All the way from verse eight all the way to verse seventeen in Romans ten. But in Romans ten, seventeen it says, Now faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And with that we have Hebrews four, verses twelve and thirteen, the word of God is living in powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, of the joints and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
May God speak to us and give us a fresh desire for the simple truths that make up the gospel and enable us to tell them through knowing the power of the Word of God that is resident in the gospel.