Dr. Roger W. Thomas, Preaching Minister
First Christian Church, Vandalia, MO
What Happens When A Person Dies?
Four Certainties About the Future
Luke 16:19-31
I’ve conducted lots of funerals through years. Most have been quite normal. A few have been a little different. But I never had anything happen quite like the true story I recently read of a young preacher and one of his first funerals. A very elderly man who had formerly lived in the town had died in another state. The funeral was held where he now lived but the burial was to be back home. The funeral home called the young preacher and asked him to have the graveside service. The burial was to be at an old country church cemetery several miles out of town. The funeral director explained that since he hadn’t lived in town for years and years, he had no family in the area and likely very few remaining friends. He told the preacher a few words of Scripture and a short prayer would do. He didn’t expect anyone else to show up except the funeral home people and the cemetery workers.
On the way to the unfamiliar cemetery, the young preacher got lost. He drove around and around the area. He grew more and more nervous as the scheduled time for the service came and went. Finally, he saw a little church with a cemetery. Sure enough, he could see three men with shovels standing beside a pile of dirt at the edge of a little cemetery behind the church. The hearse was nowhere in sight. He figured the funeral director had given up on him and left. He quickly got out of his car and walked up to the grave. He said to the workmen, “I see you’ve already buried the vault, let’s pause and let me say a few words and pray before you finish filling in the grave.” The workmen silently removed their hats, and he began the service. Afterwards, one of the workmen smiled and said, “Preacher, I don’t know who you are, but that’s the best funeral service for a septic tank I’ve ever heard!”
We are in a series of messages for the next few weeks on the theme, “What happens to a person when he dies?” That’s an important question. All of us in our more serious moments want to know the answer. In a book called Children’s Letters to God, a little boy named Mike wrote, “Dear God. What happens when you die? Nobody will talk to me about it. I don’t want to do it. I just want to know.”
Where do you go for answers to a question like that? I am convinced that there is only one reliable place: God’s Word. That’s why we are exploring the Bible for information about the future that faces us all—unless Jesus Christ returns first.
You get to decide lots of things in life. But there are three choices you don’t get to make. You didn’t get to choose to be born. You won’t get to choose when you will die or not. And you won’t get to choose whether you will exist beyond the grave or not. But you do get to make the choice about where you will spend eternity. Our text provides some of the information we need to make an informed choice.
Before we dig into Jesus’ story, we need to note some things not taught in this parable. First, it doesn’t teach that riches are bad and poverty is good. Certainly, Jesus taught that riches carry risks. But poverty is no virtue. Neither riches or the lack of them saves a person—only trust in Jesus Christ alone. Second, the parable does not teach that charity extended to the needy saves us. Followers of Jesus ought to be generous and compassionate in every way. That’s the result of relationship to Jesus, not the cause. Third, this parable is not a detailed roadmap to the afterlife. Some have tried to use it this way. Many Bible believe that Jesus’ story follows the outline of many that were familiar to the people of his day. He uses a common story but adds a new twist to it.
The parable is not a roadmap of the hereafter, but it does reveal some broad principles about the future. These are certainties you can bank on.
First, eternity is real. Every one of us will someday do business with death—unless Christ returns first. We can pretend it isn’t true. We can try to defy the aging process, but it will catch up with us one way or another. When it does, we will step into eternity. Four things happen after death.
First, the spirit leaves the body. We are more than just a physical body. Death is not the end. Secondly, for the followers of Christ, death means entering the presence of the Lord. Paul could say confidently, “to be away from the body is to be at home with the Lord” (2 Cor 5:8). Jesus told the thief on the cross, “Today, you will be with me in paradise” (Lk 23:43). Those who die in the Lord with wait with the Lord for the grand finale of history.
Note in the parable, the dead are very much alive. Both Lazarus and the rich man survived their own funerals. The dead retain their personalities and their essential character. Lazarus is still Lazarus and the rich man is still the rich man. We think this is the land of the living but it’s really not. This is the land of the dying.
Third, when Christ returns we will receive our new resurrection bodies. The mortal will put on immortality. Disease, infirmity, and all the aches and pains of this life will be gone forever. We become as Jesus’ body became.
Finally, judgment will take place. Sin will be exposed for what it is. The godless will be sentenced to a godless eternity. Those who knew God through Christ will join the heavenly kingdom through what Christ did for them on the cross. Faithful servants will receive the faithful servant’s reward.
This brings us to the second certainty you can bank on: the judgment is final. Note how the great gulf is fixed. Once in eternity, destinies are sealed. The rich man regretted his decisions in life. But nothing could change that once he had crossed from life to death. Life determines destiny. This is not a test. Life is for real. Life matters.
The first certainty—eternity is real. Secondly, judgment is final. Third—hell is horrible and heaven is marvelous beyond description. We will explore the wonders of heaven in a couple of weeks. Today we will concentrate on the alternative.
Did you hear the one about the Pope, Billy Graham, and Oral Roberts all passing away on the same day and arriving at the Pearly Gates together. St. Peter greets them as he always does in make-believe stories like this. He says to the three religious leaders, “I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that we are full right now and I am going to have to send the three of you down to the devil. The good news is it should be temporary and I’ll have you back here in six weeks or less.”
St. Peter makes a quick call to Satan to arrange the necessary accommodations. Off the three go for a brief stay in hell. A week later St. Peter receives an urgent call from Demon HQ. It’s the Devil himself. “You have to get these guys out of here and now! I mean now!” “What’s the problem? “ his saintliness queries.
“It’s like this,” the Infernal One explains, “The Pope is going around blessing everyone. Billy Graham is trying to save everyone. And Oral Roberts—he almost has enough money raised to put in air conditioning!”
We joke about hell. But there is nothing funny about it. Perhaps our jokes are like whistling in the cemetery. As long as we laugh, we don’t have to think about the reality. In our text, the word translated “hell” in the NIV is “hades.” That was a term used to refer to the unseen world of the dead. It could mean anything from “grave” to “death” to “hell” depending on the context. Here it clearly means the place of punishment reserved for the wicked or hell.
In the Bible the Jews used the name of an actual geographic place (Gehenna) to refer to hell. Gehenna was the valley that ran along the southern city limits of Jerusalem. Hundreds of years before Jesus, idolatrous pagan temples stood there. Some involved human/child sacrifice. When such practices were finally overthrown, the valley was considered so desecrated and vile that no one ever lived there again. It became the garbage pit and sewage lagoon of the city. Jerusalem dumped its raw sewage, burning trash, and rotting animal carcasses in the valley. In fact, when an especially vile crime was punished, the body of the executed would be thrown into Hinnom rather than given a decent burial. When Jews talked of hell, the eternal torment of the wicked, they named it Gehenna—the worst possible thing they could think of!
The Bible uses many other images to describe this reality: lake of fire, burning furnace, outer darkness, bottomless pit—all intended to describe unimaginable torment and punishment! Some of these terms are mutually exclusive—outer darkness and lake of fire. The picture is symbolic. It is an attempt to picture in human language the worst possible experience and destination you can imagine. The language may be symbolic but the picture is real!
This brings us to our final certainty about the future. Believing these first three should make all the difference in the world. Jesus said, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28).
One of the preachers I looked up to when I was younger was L. H. Appel. He preached at the church I attended in college before I started preaching myself. He later became the president of Lincoln Christian College and Seminary for a short time until his untimely death from a heart attack at a relatively young age.
Appel was a popular revival preacher years ago. He often used one favorite sermon wherever he went. He would announce that toward the end of the revival he would be preaching on “Three people in this church I would like to see go to hell.” He would promote the sermon and joke about the title all week long. A crowd would usually show up just out of curiosity.
When the night came for the sermon, he would say something like this. “There are three people in this church I would like to see go to hell! In fact, there are a lot more than that. I would like to see the elders go to hell. And the deacons. And the Sunday School teachers. And many of the parents. I would like to see them all go to hell. I would like to see them stay there for about five minutes and then come back. I know one thing for sure. When they come back, they will never be the same again. They will have a new zeal for sharing the gospel. They will have a new determination to live for Christ. If folk in this church just visited hell or really believed in it, they would never be same again!”
Did you see the transformation of the rich man in the parable? The reality of hell created a desire to spare his brothers his fate. What might happen to us and our church if we had that same kind of a zeal to pray for the lost and make sure our friends and family knew how to avoid eternal judgment?
What should be our attitude when we think of hell? We should be consumed with humble gratitude. We should be so touched with the unmerited grace that God has shown toward us that we have absolutely no room left for self-righteous arrogance. From that should flow a deep, deep sadness. We must never speak of hell, but with great remorse for the souls who will spend eternity there.
Conclusion: Note the real punch line of the parable. Jesus follows the basic outline of the common story told by many rabbis but suddenly takes a new twist toward the end. That twist is the real punch line of the parable. The rich man wants a heavenly messenger to warn his brothers of what’s ahead. Abraham turns down the request. Note the words Jesus has him say. “If they do not believe Moses and the prophets they will not believe even if someone returns from the dead.”
God’s Word supplies all we need to know to avoid eternal damnation. A person who doesn’t believe God’s written revelation will not believe a special revelation. If you are waiting for a miracle or some supernatural sign from heaven before you believe, you are wasting your time. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing from the word of God” (Rom 10:17).
Little Mike spoke for all of us when he said, ‘What happens when a person dies? I don’t want to do it. I just want to know.” We will do it ready or not. It is much better to be ready.
Remember those three choices you don’t get to make in life. You didn’t get to choose to be born, to die, or whether you exist after death or not. But there is one choice you do get to make. You get to choose where you will spend eternity. You make that choice when you choose to follow Jesus Christ. That’s a choice you all ought to make today!
***Dr. Roger W. Thomas is the preaching minister at First Christian Church, 205 W. Park St., Vandalia, MO 63382 and an adjunct professor of Bible and Preaching at Central Christian College of the Bible, 911 E. Urbandale, Moberly, MO. He is a graduate of Lincoln Christian College (BA) and Lincoln Christian Seminary (MA, MDiv), and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary (DMin).
