We continue today on our 40 day journey through the season of Lent as we walk with Jesus to the cross and to resurrection. During our Lenten journey we have been focusing on Jesus’ teachings on the way to the cross from Luke’s gospel. This is the section from Luke 9:50 until his arrest and death in Luke 22. As we have discovered many of these teachings of Jesus are difficult for us. Jesus taught on repentance, that we need to turn away from our sin to a new way of life in him. Jesus taught that following him was necessary but difficult, we must be willing to place him as our top priority, above all else including family, work, and possessions. We have looked at the father-like love God has for his children. God loves both his children who remain in the family as much as he loves the lost sons and daughters who have left him to follow their own path. His hearts desire is for all children to come home, receive forgiveness, and accept their inheritance as his children. Jesus came to seek and save all that are lost. I want you to remember this point as we move into Jesus’ next teaching.
Today’s teaching is a difficult one, because Jesus point blank indicates those who refuse to care for the poor and are concerned more with their own wealth are destined for hell. Jesus portrays hell as a very real place, of eternal torment.
1. Caring for the Poor
First of all this passage is not about heaven and hell. It is about how God’s people are expected to care for the poor and the lost, because God loves the poor and the lost, and we are God’s hands and feet in this world. God expects his children to love those whom God loves and use our God given resources to help these people. In the parable preceding this one Jesus made the point that we are to use our money to help those in need and to make friends with the lost so we can lead them to Jesus. He concluded by saying “you cannot serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Jesus was trying to get us to think seriously about how we use our resources, including our money, for his kingdom purposes. And two of God’s top kingdom priorities, according to Jesus, is caring for the poor and winning the lost.
In this story of the rich man and Lazarus Jesus continued his teaching on money and got more direct of what the result is of greed and the misuse of God’s resources. An unnamed rich man had everything and lived in luxury, while a poor beggar named Lazarus with sores all over his body lay at his gate longing for scraps from his table, meanwhile the dogs would come and lick his sores. In other words the rich man didn’t even give Lazarus table scraps. He hoarded it all for himself. Day after day the rich man passed by Lazarus until the point where he probably didn’t even notice that he existed. Lazarus was invisible. He was someone else’s problem to deal with.
Imagine how many people can become invisible to us. We may see them everyday, people who are poor, or hurting, or lost. A coworker going through a tough time, the waitress at the restaurant, the check out lady at the grocery store, the teller at the bank, the attendant at the gas station, people we see every day, but we don’t notice them or their needs. They are invisible. Their needs may not be as dramatic and obvious as a homeless person on the street with medical needs, but they have real needs. How often do we pass by someone whom God has placed before us to minister to their needs, but we are too wrapped up in ourselves and our busy schedules to even notice?
Jesus continued the story by giving a glimpse of what happened after these two died to drive home the point to his listeners that there are eternal implications of what we do, or don’t do here on earth. A person cannot worship both God and something else. Worship points to where our heart really is. Is our heart on our possessions, our house, our church, our toys, or is it on God? What we do with our resources (time, talent, treasure) is important and it reflects what is truly in our heart, what our real priorities are.
The rich man ignoring Lazarus indicated what was truly on his heart. Money was the where his heart was and so Jesus pictured him in hell because he did love God or love those whom God loved. The rich man didn’t go to hell just because he didn’t help Lazarus. He went to hell because his lack of giving was a reflection of his heart. His heart was sold out for money and possessions, not for God. By your fruits you shall know them, Jesus said. Jesus was giving an eternal warning to those whose hearts are in the wrong place.
Which brings up a good point, is hell real, or is Jesus just trying to scare us?
2. The Reality of Hell
I remember going to a Bible study when I was in college led by a campus pastor. On one occasion the subject of hell came up and some of the other students in the Bible study promptly declared that they didn’t believe that hell existed. They argued a very good point, or so it seemed to me at the time, “If God is love, it wouldn’t make sense for him to create a place called hell to send any of his children to face eternally torment.” It seemed like a pretty good argument to me. Growing up in a conservative United Methodist church it was my first awakening to the fact that not all Christians believe in a literal place called hell. As it turns out this is consistent with our culture (Barna statistics). On the one hand I want to go along with these people because I don’t like to think anyone goes to a place called hell, but on the other hand the Bible, particularly Jesus words, was very specific on hell and eternal punishment.
While hell was not taught very frequently in the Bible (various words used only 23 times vs. heaven mentioned 273 times). Jesus did mention it occasionally and it was always in a negative sense. The most specific teaching is this story of the rich man and Lazarus which is consistent with other mention of hell. Since Jesus is the Son of God and all things were created by him (which would include hell), I am inclined to believe that while the rich man and Lazarus may be a story with fictional characters, the account of heaven and hell are accurate, and hell is a real place.
The first thing Jesus tells us is that Lazarus died and was carried by the angels to Abrahams’ side (in the NIV), although other translations have it more accurately as Abraham’s bosom, his chest. In other words while Lazarus suffered in isolation on earth, in heaven he was experiencing the comfort of father Abraham, who like a mother holding her child close to her, he holds Lazarus close to him. That is the brief visual we get of heaven, a place of comfort.
Meanwhile the rich man died as well only he went to, depending on your translation, hell or Hades. Whichever term is used the first thing we discover several things in this passage about what hell is like.
A. Hell is a place of torment (v. 23b).
This first thing we discover is that hell is a place of torment.
NIV Luke 16:23 In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.
Hell is not a fun place. Jesus described it over and over a place of perpetual torment. Jesus called it a place of “darkness,” “weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 8:12),” and like an “eternal fire (Mt. 5:22; 18:8; 9:43),” where the worm does not die (Mk. 9:48).”
Several months ago our neighbor gave me a book to read, which I later discovered is actually on the Christian best seller lists, 23 Minutes in Hell. Does this sound like a book you would want to read? No, I admit I didn’t want to read it either, but our neighbor, who doesn’t attend church read it, and so I decided to read it to talk with him about it. This book was written by a Christian man who believes he was taken to hell one evening during his sleep. It sounds silly for us to hear, perhaps we wouldn’t even pick the book up out of skepticism (did I say I tend to be a skeptic) but as you read the book you can tell that his experience was very real to him and it has changed his life.
He explained his experience of hell as a place of such intense heat. In fact, he wrote, “Why am I still alive? My flesh should disintegrate from off my body at any moment.” However the reality was that it didn’t. It was worse than his worst nightmare. He described gigantic grotesque evil creatures which take great pleasure in causing intense pain and torture, which he himself experienced (and I’ll spare you the details, you can read it for yourself if you would like). Let’s just put it this way, it’s worse than any horror movie out there. He described the foul stench, worse than anything he had smelled on earth. All he could hear were the deafening screams of the untold numbers of people being tortured there. But he couldn’t see any of them because he was surrounded by darkness. He was completely isolated from others, no conversation, no fellowship, no human interaction of any sort. It was a perpetual nightmare. Fortunately for him, after what probably seemed to him an eternity, but was actually a short time he was taken up to heaven where Jesus told him to share what he saw with people, so none would end up there.
In another book I borrowed this week, called A Divine Revelation from Hell, the author shares a similar experience she had where Jesus ushered her down to Hell to see what it was like, and she likewise shared the horror of people being tortured by demons. Over and over again she wrote of how difficult it was for her to hear people crying out for help and she wasn’t able to do anything about it. She noticed Jesus himself had tears in his eyes as they journeyed through hell.
Whether you choose to believe these persons testimonies is up to you, however their observations are consistent with Scripture as a place of torment, intense heat, and isolation from God and other people.
B. The separation between heaven and Hades is fixed after death (v. 26).
The second thing we read about is that the separation between heaven and hell (Hades) is fixed after death. The rich man yelled over to Abraham to send Lazarus over to dip the tip of his finger in water to cool his tongue (because of the heat).
NIV Luke 16:25 "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. 26 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.’
There is an uncrossable chasm between heaven and hell. It is impossible to cross one way or the other. There is no Roman Catholic notion of purgatory where people go after they die and somehow work their way up to heaven through the prayers of the living, or through good works of their own. There is only hell and heaven. After death there is no time to repent later. Abraham indicated that our path is set while we are here on earth. Once you are dead it is too late. The rich man made his decision on earth, and once he died it was too late, his path was set, and there was no going back and forth. Neither Lazarus nor the rich man could go back, nor could Lazarus go to the rich man across the chasm. Heaven and hell are eternally separated.
C. The Bible (v. 29) and the resurrection of Jesus (v. 30-31) are testimonies to those of their need to turn from sin and turn to God.
The rich man realized his brothers back on earth were making the same choices he was and would end up in the same place he was so he wanted Lazarus to return from the dead to tell his brothers the truth so they could repent of their greed, selfishness, and turn to the Lord and generosity. But Abraham replied:
NIV Luke 16:29 "Abraham replied, ’They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
In other words they have the Bible to inform them, there are no excuses, they need nothing else but the testimony of God’s word to speak to them because the truth is revealed in God’s word. All they need to do is listen. While it is true that we have the responsibility of sharing the Good News about Jesus, we also have to remember that the only testimony necessary is God’s Word. No one is without excuse. Which is why groups like groups like Wycliffe, American Bible Society, and the Gideon’s work hard to get the Scriptures translated into every language and distributed to all people.
The rich man responded
NIV Luke 16:30 "’No, father Abraham,’ he said, ’but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.
But Abraham replied
NIV Luke 16:31 ’If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’"
In telling the story Jesus was referring to himself. If people did not believe in Moses and the OT prophets they wouldn’t accept Jesus’ resurrection. The resurrection was God’s proof that Jesus really was and is the Son of God. Those who worship God will accept Jesus’ resurrection because the OT prophets pointed to him.
We could point to exceptions, what about this group of people who do not have the Bible or know about Jesus? But that would distract us from Jesus’ point that we need to look at the eternal implications of what we are doing on earth because if we have not repented of our ways, turned to Jesus, cared for those whom God cares about, we will be without excuse after we die.
We need to remind ourselves that Jesus is Lord over all, including Hell (Matthew 16:18; Rev. 1:18), and he has given us, his followers the power over Hell itself.
NIV Revelation 1:18 I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.
There is no fear for those who are in Christ Jesus.
