Main Thing Podcast
This podcast encourages others to love God and people by leading them to know and follow Jesus’ truth.
Main Thing Podcast
When Beggars Tell Beggars Where to Find Bread
In this eye-opening exploration of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, we discover profound truths about wealth, eternity, and our urgent responsibility to share the gospel with others.
• The rich man's blindness continued even in torment, showing how deeply ingrained our worldly mindsets can be
• Less than 2% of Christians ever share their faith with another human being
• You don't need theological training to share your faith - simply tell your story of transformation
• Start by sharing with those closest to you - your family and friends - for the most effective impact
Remember, a divine intervention happens when a willing witness crosses paths with a seeking soul. Are you a willing witness today?
Covenant Church Houma
Thank you for us to recall, in today's divisive and dark culture, from foundational truths and scripture to the hot topics of today's culture. Allow this podcast to inspire and motivate you on your faith journey. Well, good morning, pastor. Steve, good morning, glad to have you again. Great to be here. I think we're in the mid-20s now, so we're moving right along, yes, and it's a blessing to be here. So we're going to be in Luke, chapter 16, verses 19 through 31, talking about the rich man and Lazarus. I'm going to go ahead and read the scripture and then we'll dive right in All right.
Speaker 1:So Luke 16, 19 through 31. Now there was a rich man and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day, and a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man's table. Besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom, and the rich man also died and was buried In Hades. He lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom, and he cried out and said Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame. But Abraham said Child, remember that during your life you received your good things and likewise Lazarus, bad things. But now he is being comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able and that none may cross over from there to us. And he said Then I beg you, father, that you send him to my father's house for I have five brothers in order that he may warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment.
Speaker 1:But Abraham said they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. But he said no, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. But he said to him, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will repent. But he said to him, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded, even if someone rises from the dead. So, pastor Steve, just glossing over this and we'll dig in a little deeper, but how can we relate to both the rich man and the poor man in this parable, in this story that Jesus told?
Speaker 2:Well, the parable is, I think, intended to motivate us to share the gospel. Gospel, literally from the Greek word, euangelion means good news. What is the good news? That there is deliverance from the bad news Right, that there's deliverance from the bad news Right. And so the good news is one can have a relationship with holy God, with all of the benefits that come with that. Or if they reject that relationship, there are consequences that come with that.
Speaker 2:And so we relate to the rich man in that in America we live in a very materialistic society. We're blessed, and I believe I understand this teaching in that it wasn't because he was rich he had a problem. It was because rich had him, he lived the life that was his world, he trusted his money, it was his everything, if you will. And then we identify with Lazarus, I think, because it has been said well that evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread, were to find bread.
Speaker 2:And the really cool thing about this parable was in the first century, whenever they would have banquets, they didn't have fine linens like we do now. That wasn't a thing. So when they got through eating, oftentimes they would take a piece of bread and clean their hands and throw it to the dogs, and so that's the picture you get with Lazarus. He's dependent on these rich people, the table of the rich man, just to barely survive. He's destitute, he's homeless. Beggars were people, normally, who had no other means, and beggars were people normally who had no other means, no family, no help, so they were reduced to begging, and so the imagery there is that we are all, in our simplest form, beggars before holy God. Yes, and so I think that's how we can identify with both of them.
Speaker 1:Right and you hit the nail on the head. I mean, this is definitely about urgent evangelism and I think one of the things that I've experienced in ministry is that you know we've done different initiatives where we go to different neighborhoods and try to reach the neighborhood, where we go to different neighborhoods and try to reach the neighborhood. And the way you reach an affluent neighborhood is a much different method than the way you reach, say, someone on the street or at a hotel or whatever.
Speaker 1:And I think the reason that is is because, exactly what you said you become so comfortable in your wealth and what you have that it becomes who you are, and so you almost have to fit that mold in order to reach those people.
Speaker 2:That's right. Well, and here's what happens, and it still happens today. In our culture, money is a tool to provide whatever your heart's desire. If you have enough money, you can do anything you want. Right Right, but in its simplest form it provides for us the basic needs to live. But the more money we have, the more it becomes the most important thing to us. We tend to trust in it rather than holy God. We tend to think our money can solve every problem, that it'll be there to take care of us in every way, and that's the flaw in the thinking. We should see it as a tool, not as our protector.
Speaker 1:Right, you know I've met just a very few. I'm sure you've met more than me, but I've met a few people who have a lot of money but they're able to disconnect themselves to its pool and I find that fascinating, because that is a hard thing to do.
Speaker 2:Incredibly hard. I mean, we're human, right, we all like nice things, we all want to take nice trips, we all want great experiences, we all want to take nice trips, we all want great experiences. And so the test there are a lot of critics of Rick Warren. Okay, rick Warren made over $20 million on one of his books, purpose Driven Life. Okay, he donated every dime of that $20 million to AIDS ministries in Africa. So one of the tests of success is where you reach a point where you're happy and you now want to make a difference with what you have. So you know, people can be as critical of Rick Warren as they want, but he stood the test Right you know, yeah, yeah, amen.
Speaker 1:So how does this parable challenge prosperity theology?
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness. You know it's hard for me to understand how you can get prosperity theology and have this parable in the same Bible. You got to understand. The Jews practice prosperity theology. It's not just the health and wealth guys. In 2025 in America. They believed that wealth was a direct blessing from God, and so it is a direct challenge to Jewish theology. You know, and Jesus is taught several times throughout the New Testament you can have your reward here or in heaven. And the rich man, because he embraced his wealth, because he was greedy with his wealth, he had his reward on planet Earth. That's all he was going to get. And so I think and I try to tell our people from time to time here in our church Christians ought to be generous. Nothing wrong with having wealth. Right.
Speaker 2:There's nothing sinful about having wealth. It's when the wealth has you that you're in trouble. And this man, truly, the wealth had him.
Speaker 1:Right. And like you always say, you don't have to be rich to be generous, you have to be generous to be generous. That's right, no matter with what you have, you know and people get mad when I say this.
Speaker 2:Some of the most economically humble people I know are some of the most selfish, because their battle cry is I can't afford that, I don't make that much money, I can't possibly give to that. And it becomes their default answer to everything and they never once consider, you know, to that person giving $10 may be a sacrifice, but God calls us to give sacrificially Right, and so they're not exempt from that because in their mind, they're more poor than someone else.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I find it interesting how many people today, in 2025, still get swooped up in that theology, even though the crux of that theology is simple it's if you have enough faith and if you trust God enough, he will provide an abundant blessing, and what you seed in you'll fruit out. Whereas, hey, if you pay the church or pay me as a ministry $50, god will give you $100. And it just amazes me how many people still believe this to be true 100% of the time.
Speaker 2:Here's the danger of that. You know the old thing the best jokes have a little bit of truth in them. Well, the best heresies have a little bit of truth in them. We are taught in Scripture that we reap what we sow right. So, God, I believe Scripture teaches, honors our obedience, and he may very well bless you in financial ways. But I firmly believe, if you're planting a seed, so to speak, just with your heart's intent, that I'm going to get more back, I think you totally misunderstand the teaching that's right.
Speaker 2:Scripture, as I understand it, teaches that we are not obedient in order to please God or to get good results. Obedience is produced because of our salvation and you are obedient because that's who you are, as a child of God, and whatever comes out of that obedience is irrelevant, that's God's business. You don't plant the seed looking to get something in return. You plant the seed because that's what God put you here to do, right See? And I think this is where we get off track with that thing. I often tell people same thing. I've seen it all my life in church talking to somebody and they tithe, but they're not happy about it, they feel obligated, and I tell them you might as well keep it. Right.
Speaker 2:Because Scripture's clear If you're not giving with a cheerful heart, god's not going to bless that. But they have this guilt religious rules guilt that if they don't do it, god's going to get them. I've had them say things like well, if I don't tithe, god will get it one way or the other, my car will break down, my water heater will go out. Well, that's the exact opposite of saying if I plant this money, I'm going to get a financial reward.
Speaker 2:Right, see exact opposite of saying if I plant this money, I'm going to get a financial reward, right See. So we have to be obedient with our finances out of the natural desire of our heart and not worry about what the return is. That's the biblical teaching.
Speaker 1:Right, right, I was reminded speaking about the prosperity. I want to hear your thoughts on this, this prosperity theology. I had to read a book a couple semesters ago for school and it was all about the start of this theology and there was a very prominent prosperity ministry. I want to say it was in the 60s or the 50s, early 50s, and this lady brought her child, who had severe diabetes, to the church and she was on the verge of going to the doctor, getting medication and all this and the pastor in the church was like, no, you just have to have faith. Well, long story short, they prayed over the child, she prayed over the child. Child ended up dying and could have been prevented from death had she gone to the doctor and got the medication. That's an extreme example, but it's an example nonetheless of the dangers of believing this way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a strong believer in the power of God and His power to heal. But I also am a strong believer that when we say he provides for us, that includes science and medicine and anything else that's available to us. It's not a lack of faith to go to the doctor. You can absolutely still trust and believe that God would heal, and he may very well do that, but that is in his purview. Yeah. You know, and this idea and here's our problem Scripture actually says that you got to believe. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I think you're probably not going to receive a healing if you don't believe. But this idea gets, I think, complicated when people want to ignore the obvious blessings God has given us in science and medical doctors. I believe God can do anything he wants to do and he doesn't need my permission to do it. Right, I still go to the doctor. I believe God has gifted us with these disciplines of knowledge to help us. And so, even though I'm going to the doctor, that doesn't prevent me from praying that God would change the situation. And I've seen it where he has and I've seen it where he didn't. That's all in God's wisdom and we'll never understand that this side of heaven, that's his business. We'll never understand that this side of heaven.
Speaker 2:That's his business, and so I think you can get on dangerous ground you got to be careful Right In this parable.
Speaker 1:I mean, the rich man is blind, even in torment, and still doesn't realize. Do you think that's what people who go to hell will still be blind? Or will they see the truth and agonize over the fact that they did reject the truth?
Speaker 2:I think that's part of hell, just my opinion. I think part of hell is that you realize what you chose not to accept, because he starts praying to Father Abraham hey, send somebody to my family. I don't want them to have to come down here where I'm at. And, as we all know, once you take your last breath on planet Earth, the gospel is clear that opportunity for that door is closed. Right.
Speaker 2:And so it is an urging for us to share the gospel. I don't know how many times I've seen it. Somebody comes to me. Would you come tell my daddy about Jesus? Would you come tell my brother about Jesus? Why don't you tell them? About.
Speaker 2:Jesus the average Christian. We know they've done studies on it. Less than 2% of the Christian community ever share their faith with another human being 2% right, and so I think there's going to be a whole lot of people that'll end up in hell, and the cry may very well be why didn't my brother tell me? Why didn't my kids tell me? So again, I can't prove that one way or the other, but I believe part of being in hell is the realization of what you rejected.
Speaker 1:That's a weighty thing to think about. It is, it seems we have so many people and just being in ministry, there are people that come to church that don't really walk out their faith. That's normal everywhere. But there are also many people who are serious about their faith and still don't share the gospel because I think they fall captive to the lie of Satan that they can't and they don't know how, when really it's very simple Just share what Jesus has done for you and invite them to have the same experience.
Speaker 2:A gospel presentation is simple. This is who I was before Jesus. This is what happened when I came to Jesus and committed my life to him. This is who I am now. The first person I ever shared the gospel with accepted Christ, committed his life to him and we were baptized together. That's awesome. I got saved on a Sunday and I shared the gospel with him on Monday afternoon and the next Sunday we were baptized together. I didn't even know John 3.16. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it is a huge lie of Satan. People feel like they got to have a Bible degree or they have to be some kind of scholar. Right, you cannot argue with a changed life, you just can't. Right? I mean you can, but I don't think it gets any traction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. I didn't know that about you. That's kind of similar to my story. Whenever I started going to the old church, I accepted Christ, got baptized in March, shared the gospel with my coworker Again, I didn't know any of the scripture, but I just shared what Jesus did and he got baptized in June at the church. Yeah, but Jesus did and he got baptized in.
Speaker 2:June at the church.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I just yeah. I mean, whenever you're changed, you want to share it. You want to share?
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about at the end of the parable it's clear to a person who won't believe, if they don't believe the prophets or Moses, they're definitely not going to believe resurrection, this idea of no matter what miracle you see and still not believe in the truth. At what point do we come to a conclusion as believers that we know the Scripture says God has to draw the heart, but we also know we have free agency, we have free will. So talk about the tension of that a little bit, because it's clear here that it's like, hey, if they don't believe Moses or the prophets, they're not going to believe the resurrection, even if they see someone rise from the dead.
Speaker 2:My take on this particular parable is it really creates a problem for the five-point Calvinist. Why would we have this parable where the man was given the opportunity to make a decision for Christ and chose not to? He could have chose to accept Christ, commit his life to Christ, but he didn't right. And so the reality of this thing is, I believe firmly as you say every human being is presented with the opportunity. We call it the conviction of the Holy Spirit. God's nudging is I think that's what we call being drawn Right the nudging of the Holy Spirit to respond to a holy God.
Speaker 2:And what keeps many people from that, in my humble opinion, is the desire to be their own God, the desire to be totally in charge of their own life. They cannot fathom the idea of committing themselves to this God who's then going to dictate who they are and how they should live. They're just not quite able to do that. So this guy you know, you have the rich young ruler who comes to Jesus At night and Jesus says he wants to know how to be saved. And Jesus says go, sell everything you got and give it to the poor. And he can't do it. He was given an opportunity, a choice Can't do it, you know. And the Scripture says he went away sad and I think the reason he goes away sad is he would make a great modern-day Christian. We all want the best of this world and we don't want to have to give it up to have the best of the world after this, that's good yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good word. I think about that when you said he would make a good modern-day Christian. Whenever I'm counseling someone or talking to someone trying to explain the gospel to them, at all times the root of the barrier has to do with a grip on something here. Yes, so that's a good realization there. I never actually saw that perspective before.
Speaker 2:Think about what we often say. Somebody say how are you doing today? And the response is I woke up this morning, I'm doing great. Now, as believers, shouldn't our response be more like well darn it, I'm still here. Jesus hasn't taken me home yet. If we really believe in heaven and all that it's supposed to be. But we are so connected to this world we're going to talk about this Sunday being aliens in this world. We should be a little uncomfortable here in our skin.
Speaker 2:And I'm not saying have a death wish, but what I'm saying is there should be a yearning, a desire for the promises that we have in Christ, but we tend not to do that. We tend not to do that. Another interesting thing many years ago there was a study done on the percentage of people in our society that believe in heaven, and the interesting thing was they found out that almost everyone who believes in heaven believes they're going to heaven. And I find that very interesting because just because you believe in heaven doesn't mean you're going to heaven. As we know, Scripture teaches you got to believe Jesus is the Messiah and commit your life to him. Just the belief there's a heaven won't get you there, but much of our society believes that and it's played out in this phrase. You often hear I'm a good person. I think another one of Satan's lies I'm a good person, so surely I'm going to heaven. Right, that's just not what scripture teaches us is the criteria for heaven.
Speaker 1:That's right. How do you say it? I don't slap my mama, I don't spit or chew.
Speaker 2:Oh, don't drink, cuss, chew or run with girls that do yeah, yeah. So I'm a good old boy, I'm a good old boy, don't kick my dog, don't cheat on my taxes. Surely I'm going to heaven, right, yeah, yeah. The problem is none of those things have anything to do with heaven.
Speaker 1:Correct. Yeah, yeah. So last point is urgent evangelism. We don't know the day, the time or the hour. Why is it, Steve, that?
Speaker 2:it's difficult for people to understand the importance of sharing their faith Well, in its simplest form, if there are people around you that you love and care about and you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, meaning that you really believe he's who he says he is and he's going to do what he says he's going to do. You know there's a reckoning day where he'll separate the wheat and the chaff, and you realize that's a reality. And not only do you want to be with the wheat in heaven, you want to take those you love the most with you, and so there should be a care and a concern for those you love that would make you want to share with them. My own mother I've told this story who had been turned off by the church, who had been turned off by the church and you know it's easy for that to happen, because the church is made up of humans. Humans do dumb things, and humans are oftentimes hypocrites and what they say and do doesn't line up. And so my mother was very critical of the church, and I had shared the gospel with her three or four times over the years. She always rejected it, but then she was in the hospital in intensive care, and I drove home to visit with her and I asked her how she was doing. She said fine, told the doctor, I'm ready to go. If this is it, don't worry about me. And my natural response was okay, who helped you do this? And her answer was a blessing and it was comical. She said nobody. You told me enough times how to do it. She said nobody, you told me enough times how to do it. And so you know, I had resolved in my heart, after I've been in ministry many years, that neither my mom or dad would ever come to Christ. Both of them came to Christ just a few years before they passed. It took that long, right? So you never give up on your loved ones. You always stay consistent, share the gospel because you care about them.
Speaker 2:The other thing is and we struggle with this as ministers you got to live with a purpose and I fight this all the time. We get caught up doing the mundane here in church life. You know we're meeting with people about something all the time. We're dealing with this, we're putting out a fire, we're. You know it's something to do all day long. You get to the end of the day and you've done stuff all day, but you don't feel like you've accomplished anything for the kingdom Right. And you've done stuff all day, but you don't feel like you've accomplished anything for the kingdom right. And so, in order to share the gospel, you've got to get up in the morning and determine that you're going to look for an opportunity. Right, you know we call it a divine intervention when a willing witness crosses paths with a seeking soul. Right, but if you're not a willing witness, those seeking souls will come around you all day long. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they'll never hear the gospel. Right. So I think our biggest challenge, even as ministers, is that we've got to do a better job of living our faith with purpose, looking to share it.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and I think some people think, and they tell me this, and God has called me to do a specific type of evangelism, but he has not called everyone to do that type Right? And I think what's important for people to realize is that just think about your family and your close friends and then think about the whole church, their family and their close friends. That's a lot of people. So if we would just reach the ones that are close to us which I believe is the most effective evangelism anyway, absolutely Then that multiplication effect is astronomical.
Speaker 2:It is, it is, it is. And if you look at the average church, you can see that Our church is larger, so it's a little harder to see, but it's here. You're talking to somebody, then you find out this is their aunt, this is their cousin, that's their nephew. It naturally works if we'll just be obedient, live out the obedience Christ is producing in us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, amen, amen. Well, thank you for being here, pastor Steve. My blessing and we'll see you guys on the next one.