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Strong words from Jesus today. Jesus tells you the Parable today, and today, right now, the Spirit is teaching this Parable so that we would remember and rightly understand it. In fact, He’s doing that each time the Parable is read or heard or preached. The Parable is, of course, a warning about faith and salvation. That faith is in Christ alone, and that through faith in Him alone you are saved. 

Lazarus from Jesus’ parable has faith in the LORD. The words of Psalm 120 rang true for him: **“I will lift up my eyes to the hills—From whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth.”** These words were not true for the rich man. He probably maintained an outward confession of “I believe in one God,” something even demons do. But we see that he rather trusted in his wealth, stuff, and status, and based on the house he lived in, the clothes he wore, and the food he ate daily, he was in god’s good graces.

All that is true, but there’s another aspect of Jesus’ parable. It comes at the end. It’s about the certainty faith. What’s such faith in the Lord founded upon?

‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’

᛭ INI ᛭

“Moses and the Prophets” testify to a great many things. They saw the Lord with their own two eyes, or they literally heard the Lord (His Voice and Words) with their own two ears, or both! They testified to it all. Same with the Apostles and the New Testament. They wrote down what they heard and saw, what they “received from the Lord.” (1 Cor 15) It isn’t just their own hands that wrote. No, the Holy Spirit used Moses and the Prophets and the Apostles, their gifts, their words, their hands to write His Word.

God uses His Word to testify to a great many things. He testifies to many events. He testifies in many ways: through stories recorded in books like Genesis or Luke, through sermons, which we also call prophecies, through wisdom sayings that read like headlines or tweets (like Proverbs), through songs (like the Psalms), and through letters. In these many ways God speaks to reveal all sorts of teachings (or doctrines) that He wants you to know and to believe.

Every doctrine, big or little, simple or profound, comes from God through “Moses and the Prophets” (Genesis through Malachi) or through the Apostles (Matthew through Revelation). But the Prophetic and Apostolic Scriptures testify in many and various ways to one chief doctrine. All other doctrines that we believe as Christians flow out from it or are tied to it, like spokes on a wagon wheel or facets on diamond.

THE SCRIPTURES TESTIFY THAT SOMEONE HAS RISEN FROM THE DEAD FOR YOU.

(I. They testify for repentance’s sake.)

Now, when THE SCRIPTURES TESTIFY THAT ONE HAS RISEN FROM THE DEAD FOR YOU, they do so for repentance’s sake. The Lord is drawing us to repentance, for what we believe and how we behave do not line up with what God reveals in His Word. Since we are by nature sinful and unclean, we not only behave sinfully but we also believe sinfully by believing things not from God’s Word, we also sinfully listen to others besides Him. And, left to our own human strength, we forget God’s Word twist it, change it, ignore it.

God’s Word calls us out on our behavior and our beliefs. We should show charity to everyone, “especially to those of the household of faith,” (Gal 6) as Paul says. The rich man from Jesus’ parable obviously did NOT do that for Lazarus. But the more dangerous thing is that we’ll believe all sorts of wrong things about God and Jesus our Savior. Because no matter how much good you do for your neighbor it won’t get you into heaven. As Paul says, “All Scripture … is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” (2 Tim 3)

For the Lord’s Word does not change and cannot be changed. ”We do not change the Scripture.” Anyone who wants to or ignores it is either no Christian or one with a very weak faith. In truth, “The Scripture changes us.” (Lawson) It changes us because through it the Spirit changes us for the better. “The Word of God is living and powerful.” (Heb 1) In fact, it’s “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim 3), “that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.” (Eph 4)

Those ignorant of the Word of truth, who despise the Lord’s Word by misusing it or by not using it at all, will be “tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine,” but worse yet, they may eventually “not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” (2 Tim 4)

The Bible is God’s Word. It testifies to many teachings and a God-pleasing way of life to draw us to repentance. “[Unrepentance] (backsliding) begins with dusty Bibles.” (Spurgeon) This is unrepentance not only in what you do but in what you believe. Unrepentance affects behavior because it affects belief. The rich man’s trust in his treasures affected his treatment of Lazarus.

(Transition.)

God, through the Scriptures, testifies that we are sinners, whose sin affects our belief and behaviors. He does so that we’d confess like Isaiah did last week, “I’m a man of unclean lips from a people of unclean lips.” (Is 6) That we’d confess we don’t believe and behave as we ought, that our love for self and stuff stifles charity toward others, that other words or stories or teachings or traditions carry more weight than dusty Bibles.

By that testimony the Lord would drive you not to despair. It is to serve the chief testimony of the Scriptures.

THE SCRIPTURES TESTIFY THAT SOMEONE HAS RISEN FROM THE DEAD FOR YOU.

So, the Scriptures testify also for faith’s sake.

(II. They testify for faith’s sake.)

So, “Nobody ever outgrows Scripture. The book widens and deepens with our years” (Spurgeon) and with each time you read it! This doesn’t have anything to do with anything we do, but with what God Himself is doing. For the Holy Spirit is active in the Word. He never ceases to work in it. So, the desire to grow in God’s Word is a holy desire, and everyone who calls themselves Christians should desire it. But your reading, your thinking about, your study of God’s Word is absolutely pointless apart from faith and the Holy Spirit.

“The Holy Scriptures … are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” (2 Tim 3) They testify that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” (1 Cor 15) He was raised for your justification, your innocent verdict before His Father! (Rom 4:25) “Whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that through the patience and comfort [that come from] the Scriptures we might have hope. (Rom 15)

“You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.” (Jn 5)

THE SCRIPTURES TESTIFY THAT SOMEONE HAS RISEN FROM THE DEAD FOR YOU.

That’s why “Nobody ever outgrows Scripture. The book widens and deepens with our years” (Spurgeon) The Stories, Sermon, Songs, and wise sayings are NOT just good morals, for good behavior, that never saves anyone. (But true believers do behave a certain way.) More importantly Moses, the Prophets, and Apostles tell you stories and sermons and songs that tell you about Jesus, that He’s risen from the dead for you! If you won’t listen to the Bible, even one verse, even the resurrection won’t bring you to repentance in belief or behavior!

But the Scriptures testify that Christ has been raised from the dead, and your in on that promise, no matter what hardship you face in life. You’re in on that Promise because of how else the Lord delivers His Word. It’s not just the Bible. It’s not just sermons that echo the testimony of the Scriptures. It’s the promise of Baptism, that it unites you to Christ’s death and resurrection (Rom 6) and makes you an heir of eternal life (Tit 3), like Lazarus in the Parable. It’s the Word of Communion. Not only HAS SOMEONE RISEN FROM THE DEAD FOR YOU, but His forgiveness and eternal life is promised through forgiveness from His sacrificial body and redeeming blood. “I will raise you,” (Jn 6) Christ says.

(Conclusion.)

The old saying goes “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” Not so with the Lord. The way to your heart, to my heart, to anyone’s heart is through God’s Word. Which is why even at the Sacrament the main thing are the Words along with eating and drinking. For through our ears the Lord plants His Word into our hearts where it will blossom and grow. It will be renewed and given life the same way it was planted, through your ears.

“Moses and the Prophets,” as well as the Apostles’ writings, are God’s Word and testify to one main point, one main teaching, one main Doctrine, as well as many other doctrines that relate to it.

THE SCRIPTURES TESTIFY THAT SOMEONE HAS RISEN FROM THE DEAD FOR YOU.

And He will never leave you nor forsake you, no matter what, till you’re with Him forever, “reclining at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” with Moses, the Prophets, and Apostles, partying with “angels, archangels, and the whole company of heaven” “in Kingdom of Heaven.” (Mt 8) God in Scripture testifies that’s started, well, right now. (Heb 12; Mt 26)

᛭ INI ᛭