Luke 16:19-31
Intro: In London, many years ago, there lived a man named Solomon Peas. Upon his death, by his request, his tombstone was inscribed with this rhyme:
Beneath these clods and beneath these trees,
Lies the body of Solomon Peas
This is not Peas; it is only his pod;
Peas has shelled out and gone home to God.
I appreciate Peas’ sense of humor, and the fact that he understood what it meant to “shell out and go home to God.” But, what exactly does that mean? One source of infinite wisdom is 9 yr old children:
Some 9 yr old children were asked what they thought of death and dying.
• Jim, “When you die, they bury you in the ground and your souls goes to heaven, but your body can’t go to heaven because it’s too crowded up there already.”
• Judy, “Only the good people go to heaven. The other people go where it’s hot all the time like in Florida.”
• John, “Maybe I’ll die someday, but I hope I don’t die on my birthday because it’s no fun to celebrate your birthday if you’re dead.”
• Marsha, “When you die, you don’t have to do homework in heaven, unless your teacher is there too.”
One thing is for sure – this whole death scene is different for someone who has faith in Jesus Christ. If we die in Jesus, we regard death differently than others. Paul told the Thessalonians we do not grieve as the rest who have no hope. That’s why, when the Lord speaks about death, we find Him using the word “sleep.”
John 11:11, 14
After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up."…So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead,
Luke 8:52
Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. "Stop wailing," Jesus said. "She is not dead but asleep."
Acts 7:60
Then he fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." When he had said this, he fell asleep.
Acts 13:36
"For when David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed.
Matthew 27:52
The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. (literally – “the bodies of many holy people who had fallen asleep were raised to life.”)
You see, when someone dies it’s not the end. Sure, this body “sleeps.” It ceases to function and even decomposes. But just like sleep isn’t a permanent condition, neither is our physical death.
So, when Peter talks about his own death II Pt 1:15, he calls it his “departure.” Paul talks about the time of his “departure” in II Tim 4. He uses a word that means “to weigh anchor.” Those are words that describe going on a trip, not going into permanent retirement.
Ill - A friend once asked former President John Quincy Adams, when he was 80, “Good morning. And how is John Quincy Adams today?” Adams said, “Thank you, John Quincy Adams himself is well, quite well, thank you. But the house in which he lives at present is becoming dilapidated. It is tottering on its foundations. Time and the seasons have nearly destroyed it. Its roof is pretty well worn out. Its walls are much shattered and it trembles with every wind. The old tenement is becoming almost uninhabitable and I think John Quincy Adams will have to move out of it soon. But he himself is quite well, quite well.”
What is the state of that “real self” after a person leaves this old tenement?
1. We remain conscious, able to reason, and able to communicate
When we die, we don’t go into some kind of mindless, unconscious, speechless state.
Matthew 22:31-32
But about the resurrection of the dead--have you not read what God said to you, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."
When God spoke these words, Abraham had been dead 332 years, Isaac about 265, and Jacob 199. But God didn’t say “I was their God…” He uses the present tense to speak of the patriarchs, “I am the God…” and that was Jesus’ whole point. God regards these “dead” men as living. Their bodies were quite dead, but their spirits were not. We read about the fact that our bodies are going to be resurrected. But there is no resurrection of our spirits. That’s because they don’t die when our bodies die.
One passage of Scripture that gives us a glimpse of what happens after we die is in Luke 16, a story of 2 men and the scene after they are both dead. One is a rich man whose name isn’t given. The other is a poor man named Lazarus. Some read this story and say it’s a parable, just like the many other parables that Jesus told; that none of the specifics are meant to be taken literally. I’m not convinced that Jesus meant for none of it to be taken literally. For one thing, it’s the only story where He specifically names one of the characters. It also includes details of the heavenly realm. The most important thing is for us to get the most important thing – the main reason Jesus told the story.
With that all in mind, I want us to read that passage now and let it help us understand some of what happens when we die…
Luke 16:19-31
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.' 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. 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.' He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.' Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.' 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.' He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'”
2. Angels carry us to Heaven
Joke - A politician had an extensive surgery. As he was waking up in his hospital room, he noticed the curtains were closed. He asked why – was it night time? “No,” the nurse said, “There’s a fire across the street and we didn’t want you to wake up and think the operation was unsuccessful.”
The idea that angels come to transport the soul of a person who dies in Christ isn’t from cartoons or fairy tales. It’s from Lk 16:22. All throughout the Bible, angels are helping God’s people in a variety of ways.
Hebrews 1:14
Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?
The idea that there’s an angelic presence to somehow help godly people at the time of death – and angels present to take that person to Heaven, has a biblical foundation. If we could just have our eyes opened to see the spiritual realm, like Elisha’s servant did in 2 Kings 6, we’d likely be amazed at the number of angels involved in this world.
Let’s allow this to take away some of our fear of dying, even though there may be some features of it that we just don’t understand. If we’re in Christ, at the time of death, we can anticipate we’re not going to be left alone or unsure of what to do.
3. We enter into Jesus’ presence
Story - A troop of Boy Scouts was being used to help test local emergency responses. This staging involved a mock earthquake, and the scouts were all impersonating different wounded people who were supposed to be picked up and care for by the emergency response units. One scout was assigned to lie on the ground and wait for his rescuers, but the first-aid people got behind schedule and the “wounded” scout was lying there for several hours. When the 1st-aid squad finally did arrive where he was supposed to be, they found nothing but a brief note. It said, “Have bled to death and gone home…” Wouldn’t it be great if dying could be just as easy as leaving a note that you’re going home?
There are a several ideas about where we do when we die. In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, there’s a place of comfort at Abraham’s side. Most importantly, that’s now a place that’s in the Lord’s presence. When we die in Jesus, we go to be with Him.
Luke 23:43 Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."
Philippians 1:23-24 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.
2 Corinthians 5:8 - We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
Remember, last week, we talked about the way that Heaven, by definition, is the dwelling place of God. We can look count on being in the Lord’s presence once we die. What a great way to face the fear of death!
4. We are taken to comfort and peace or to torment and isolation
The rich man asked for help. Could Lazarus please come and dip his finger in water to cool his tongue? But Abraham tells him there has been a great gulf fixed between the place of comfort and the place of torment. Whether this is a literal or figurative view of the afterworld, one thing is for sure – there’s no moving from one place to the other.
There are some non-biblical views about the afterworld. One is the idea that no Hell exists at all, that God would never do such a thing. Another is the idea that there’s a kind of intermediate Hell – purgatory – where people go to be purged of their sin. So, you go there, depending on just how sinful you were, and you get the sin burned out of you. You stay there until it’s long enough to purge you, and then you get to go to Heaven. This story from Luke 16 just doesn’t leave room for either of those wrong ideas. There is, right now, a place of comfort and peace, and there is a place of fiery suffering. There’s no moving between those two places. That gulf, for every person, is fixed before we die. Once we die, there’s no changing it.
I don’t care what book you’ve read, or what movie you’ve seen about undeparted spirits, or what someone’s grandpa said,
Hebrews 9:27
…man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,
Once we die, it’s set. We have until then to choose where.
5. We remain conscious of those we knew before on earth
Some people have wondered who we’ll know after we die, and whether or not we’ll think about people we knew before we died. This story in Lk 16 indicates that we’ll not only remember and know one another after we die, but that we’ll be interested in what’s happening on earth. The rich man was interested in his brothers’ well-being. We have another glimpse of this in Revelation…
Revelation 6:9-11
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.
Not only can we expect to care about people still living on the earth after we die, but just think about what it means right now. Imagine godly people that you’ve loved, still interested in your life as they wait for the final day of judgment. Memories of everything we did before aren’t suddenly erased. And all concerns about what’s happening in the world don’t just go away. We’ll still be conscious of those we knew before.
6. People are surprised
In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus is addressing the wrong assumption of the Pharisees that people who are rich are automatically people worthy of Heaven.
The idea that rich people may not be in Heaven was a surprise! It was a surprise to Jesus’ close followers too:
Matthew 19:24-25
Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, "Who then can be saved?"
The prevailing attitude was that people who were materially blessed by God were obviously people He favored. In fact, when a man was born blind and grew up a beggar, the disciples asked, “Who sinned, so that this man was born blind?” So, it was just assumed that rich people were going to be first in line to enter Heaven.
It’s wrong to assume that a person is going to be in Heaven just because he has wealth now. It’s also wrong to assume that rich people won’t be in Heaven too. In the story Jesus tells of the rich man and Lazarus, the problem isn’t wealth or the lack of it. It’s about who your God is. But, for the Pharisees and others who heard it, this story was telling them that they were going to be surprised by who would make it and who wouldn’t. That was the main point of telling the story.
I’m sure that Heaven is going to be full of surprises. Among others, there are going to be at least 3 surprises in Heaven:
People you expected to see who you’re surprised are not there
People you didn’t expect to see who you’re surprised are there.
People who are surprised to see you there.
Robert Capon – “Heaven or heavenly in the New Testament bear little relation to the meanings we have so unscripturally attached to them. For us, heaven is an unearthly, humanly irrelevant condition in which bed-sheeted, paper-winged spirits sit on clouds and play tinkly music until their pipe-cleaner halos drop off from boredom. But in Scripture, it is a city with boys and girls playing in the streets; it is buildings put up by a Department of Public Works that uses amethysts for cinder blocks and pearls as big as the Ritz for gates; and indoors, it is a dinner party to end all dinner parties at the marriage supper of the Lamb. It is, in short, earth wedded, not earth jilted. It is the world as the irremovable apple of God's eyes.”
As much as we can talk about the experience of Heaven beforehand, there’s still going to be a lot of surprise involved.
Conclusions:
Here’s one last thing that happens when we die. We live
When Jesus speaks about those who believe in Him having eternal life, He speaks in present tense. In other words, He sees our transfer from this life to the next as an uninterrupted life.
John 11:25-26
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
That’s the vital question this morning. We can look at the words of Jesus, discuss what they mean, talk about how they should make us feel and act, but if we don’t believe and act on them, they have no value to us.
Abraham said to the rich man, that his brothers would not be convinced, even if someone rises from the dead. Well, more than one person was raised from the dead. And most important of all, Jesus rose from the dead to validate His message.
Jesus said whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?
If so, you have something to do about what we’ve heard today. If you’ve never given your life over to Jesus, never let Him be in charge, that’s what you need to do today.
Once when Vice President Calvin Coolidge was presiding over the Senate, there was a debate going on. One of the senators got angry and told another to “go straight to Hell.” The one he had told it to complained to Coolidge. Coolidge looked up from the book he had been leafing through as they were debating and said, “I’ve been looking through the rule book. You don’t have to go.”
Good News…You don’t either! You can make your future life secure today. You can have the promise of life with the Lord forever. It has already been paid for and prepared for you by Jesus Himself. That’s what we’re praying you’ll do now…
