A drunk man got on the bus late one night, staggered up the aisle, and sat next to a woman who was clutching a Bible.
She looked the wayward drunk up and down and said, “I've got news for you, mister. You're going straight to hell!”
The man jumped up out of his seat and shouted, “Oh, man, I'm on the wrong bus again!” (Keith Todd, www.sermonfodder.com)
We chuckle at that a little, but it raises a couple of very important questions: Where are you headed with your life? And how can you be sure you’re on the right “bus” (so-to-speak) to get there? If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Luke 16, Luke 16, where Jesus gives some surprising answers to these questions as to who is going to heaven and who is going to hell.
Luke 16:19 There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day (ESV).
The rich man lived in ostentatious luxury. He feasted on rich food and dressed himself in rich clothes. The purple came from a purple fish in the mussel family. It was very costly, so only very wealthy people (and kings) wore purple robes. Then underneath, they wore “fine linen” undergarments made of Egyptian flax. Scholars say, “Some of the Egyptian linen was so fine that it was called ‘woven air’” (A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, Broadman Press, 1933).
This rich man lived in ostentatious luxury. On the other hand, there is Lazarus, who lived abject poverty.
Luke 16:20-21 And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores (ESV).
Lazarus was in a sorry state. He was lame with people laying him at the rich man’s gate. He was diseased, covered with sores. He was starved, longing for the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table, and he was unclean with wild, mangy dogs licking his sores.
People respected the rich man, but despised Lazarus. They assumed the rich man was going to heaven and Lazarus was going to hell. But Jesus tells us what really happened.
Luke 16:22-23 The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side (ESV).
God, who knows the heart of every man, completely reverses their fortunes. Lazarus reclines in luxury right next to Abraham at the heavenly banquet table, while the rich man is far outside heaven’s gates in severe pain. And like Lazarus longed for crumbs from the rich man’s table, now, the rich man longs for just a drop of water from Lazarus’ finger.
Luke 16:24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame’ (ESV).
The rich man was in anguish forever. Lazarus was at ease in affluence forever, as well.
Luke 16:25-26 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us’ (ESV).
There is a great chasm between heaven and hell, so great that no one can ever pass from one to the other. One experiences eternal conscious torment. The other experiences eternal conscious pleasure.
So what made the difference? Their wealth or lack of it? No! It was the condition of their hearts.
In the context, Luke 16:14 says, “The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him.” To whom Jesus said (verse 15), “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.”
The unnamed rich man is the Pharisee, well respected in society, who depends on himself and views his earthly wealth as a sign of God’s blessing for his righteous deeds. He looks good on the outside—like that woman on the bus clutching a Bible—but God views his heart with disgust.
As a result, immediately at death, his soul ends up in Hades, which in the Bible is like a holding cell for indicted criminals. Then, at the Great White Throne Judgment, the final judgment for all unbelievers, his body (along with the bodies of all unbelievers) will be resurrected with “Death and Hades [being] thrown into Lake of Fire,” according to Revelation 20 (Revelation 20:14). Now, while Hades is the holding cell for unbelievers who die, the lake of fire is the permanent prison that awaits all who refuse to depend on Christ in this life. So, if you want to avoid Hades (and later the Lake of Fire)…
STOP DEPENDING ON YOURSELF.
Stop trusting in your own self-righteous deeds. Stop trying to justify yourself in front of your friends and neighbors, because no amount of self-righteous activity can save your soul from Hades and Hell.
In 1925, Floyd Collins was exploring near Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and got stuck. He was fifty-five feet from the surface and he got stuck. Icy water was dripping in his face. The rescuers came in and diverted the water, and they talked with him, they calmed him down, but they couldn't get him out.
He began to come unglued there, stuck in that cave. He was able to see the light, able to see where he wanted to be, hearing voices, getting food, but he was stuck and he couldn't get out. So he slowly began to have raving lunacies about everything from chicken sandwiches to angels in white chariots.
The newspapers got in on it, and ten thousand people came to see him. They sold hot dogs and sandwiches. It was a side show. Seventeen days later Floyd Collins died in that hole, able to see where he wanted to be and not able to get there (Roger Thompson, "The Good News Is: The Bad News Is Wrong," Preaching Today, Tape No. 55; www.PreachingToday.com).
Like the rich man in Hades, he could see where he wanted to be, but was never able to get there. Such is the plight after death of all who depend on themselves until their bodies and souls are permanently cast into the Lake of Fire.
Hannah Beswick had a morbid fear of being buried alive, and this dread was not entirely irrational. Her young brother John almost had his coffin lid closed over him when a mourner attending John’s funeral noticed the eyelids of the “dead body” flickering. On examination, the family physician confirmed that John was still alive. John regained consciousness a few days later and lived for many more years.
Such incidents were not uncommon during the period in which Hannah Beswick lived—late 17th to mid-18th century. In fact, cases of premature burial have been documented well into the late 19th century. These are gruesome tales—urban legend or otherwise—about victims falling into the state of coma, and then waking up days … later to find themselves entombed.
The Scottish philosopher John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) was buried alive after one of his occasional fits of coma was mistaken to be the loss of life. After his tomb was reopened, years later, his body was found outside his coffin. His hands were torn and bloody from the attempted escape.
On February 21, 1885, The New York Times gave a disturbing account of a man identified as “Jenkins,” whose body was found turned over onto its front inside the coffin, with much of his hair pulled out. There were also scratch marks visible on all sides of the coffin's interior.
Another story reported in The Times on January 18, 1886, tells about a Canadian girl named "Collins," whose body was described as being found with the knees tucked up under the body, and her burial shroud “torn into shreds.”
After the incident with her brother, Hannah was left with a pathological fear of the same thing happening to her. She asked her doctor to ensure that there was no risk of premature burial when her time came. She demanded her body be kept above ground and regularly examined for signs of life until it was certain she was dead (Kaushik Patowary, “The Manchester Mummy,” Amusing Planet, 8-26-22; www.PreachingToday.com).
Imagine being buried alive and trying to escape. Hell is a hundred times worse!
So, please, stop trying to save yourself with your own efforts at self-improvement. In other words, stop depending on yourself, and…
START DEPENDING ON JESUS.
Trust Christ with your life. Rely on Him to save you from your sorry state and make you fit for heaven.
That’s what Lazarus did. On earth, he was totally dependent on God. He had to rely on God for everything.
As a result, God knew him by name. Do you know? This is the only parable Jesus told where He identifies one of the characters by his name. That name is Lazarus, which means “God helps.” Lazarus depended on God to help him in this life and carry him into the next.
Though despised by the world, God knew him by name, as He knows all who depend on Him (Luke 10:20; John 10:3). John 10:3 says, “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” To be sure, God knows your pain, but through it all God knows your name! When you trust Christ with your life, God knows you personally.
In 2018 Rosalind Picard, an MIT professor and follower of Jesus, helped invent a simple life-saving device that can be used by persons with epilepsy. It looks like a smart watch, and it is sold under the name Embrace.
Epileptic seizures take 3,000 lives per year in the United States. Most epileptic seizures pose a risk of asphyxiation. This can be prevented if somebody nearby ensures that the person’s airway remain open and the person is resting safely. But some seizures are so deep that the person’s body can completely shut down for lack of signals from the brain.
However, there is one noninvasive intervention that works far better than any other. It can interrupt the misfiring neurons and establish normal brain function within a few minutes. Another person needs to speak to you and gently touch you, ideally calling you by name.
Now, this must happen within a matter of minutes for the person to survive such a seizure. This means that the only person who can come to the rescue is someone nearby. The Embrace device is designed to alert the nearest person on a list of people the user trusts, ideally a close friend or neighbor. People often cling to their cell phones in case a loved one should call with an emergency, but for this kind of emergency, a cell phone is of no use. Only the nearest person can do anything about it.
That person must speak to you, touch you, and call you by name as you depend on him or her at the moment of profound vulnerability (Andy Crouch, The Life We’re Looking For, Convergent, 2022, pp. 80-81; www.PreachingToday.com).
Well, long before Rosalind Picard invented the Embrace, God has been and remains near at all your moments of profound vulnerability. He speaks to you, touches you, and calls you by name.
When you depend on Christ, God knows your name, and God knows your aim. He knows your final destiny, assigning His angels to carry you there when you die.
No doubt, the rich man had some fine dignitaries carry his coffin to his final resting place. But Lazarus had heaven’s angels carry him into heaven (vs.22). And such is the destiny of all who depend on Christ.
Peter Marshal, once chaplain of the United States Senate, used to tell the story of a little boy, an only son, who had an incurable disease. Month after month, his mother had tenderly nursed him, read to him, and played with him, hoping to keep him from the dreadful finality of the doctor’s prognosis—the little boy was sure to die.
However, as the weeks went on, he gradually began to understand that he would never be like the other boys he saw playing outside his window. Small as he was, he began to understand the meaning of the word “death,” and he too know he would die.
One day, his mother was reading to him the tale of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. She read of Lancelot and the other knights. She read of fair maidens, and she read about the last glorious battle where so many of Arthur’s knights met their death.
She closed the book as her little son sat silent for an instant, deeply stirred. Then he asked the question weighing on his childish heart, “Mama, what is it like to die? Mama, does it hurt?”
Quick tears sprang to her eyes and she ran to the kitchen, supposedly to tend to something on the stove. She knew it was a question with deep significance. She knew it must be answered satisfactorily, so she leaned for an instant against the smooth surface and breathed a hurried prayer that the Lord would keep her from breaking down before the boy and that she would be able to give him an answer. The Lord answered her prayer, and immediately she knew how to explain it to him.
“Kenneth,” she said to her son, “do you remember when you were a tiny boy how you used to play so hard all day that when night came you were too tired even to undress and you’d tumble into your mother’s bed and fall asleep. That was not your bed; it was not where you belonged. You would only stay there a little while. Then, much to your surprise, you would wake up and find yourself in your own bed in your own room. You were there because someone had loved you and taken care of you. Your father had come with big, strong arms and carried you away.
“Kenneth, darling, death is just like that. We just wake up some morning to find ourselves in the other room, our room where we belong, because the Lord Jesus loved us and died for us.”
The boy’s shining face looking up into hers told her that he understood and there would be no more fear, only love and trust in his little heart as he went to meet his Father in heaven. He never questioned her about death again. Several weeks later, he fell asleep just as she had said and woke up in his own room in heaven (Peter Marshall in James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited, p.139-140).
My dear friends, God knows your pain, God knows your name, and God knows your aim, but only if you depend on Christ, who died for your sins and rose again. So please, if you haven’t done it already, reach out to Christ and trust Him to save you from your sins. “Call on the name of the Lord,” as the Bible says (Romans 10:14), and He will carry you to heaven when you die.
Depend on Christ and gain the assurance of eternal life, starting today. When Abraham refused to allow Lazarus to give the rich man a drop of water, the rich man begged for another favor.
Luke 16:27-31 And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead’ (ESV).
Abraham makes it very clear. Another miracle will not convince those who refuse to believe. If someone will not believe God’s Word with the evidence they already have, then someone coming back from the grave will not convince them either.
When Jesus raised another Lazarus from the grave (John 11), the Pharisees refused to believe. In fact, Jesus’ own resurrection failed to convince the Pharisees. They rejected the clear evidence of the empty tomb and the eyewitness testimonies of those who saw Jesus after He rose from the grave. They refused to believe not for lack of clear evidence, but for lack of a desire to believe.
Like I’ve said before. People don’t believe because they cannot believe. They don’t believe because they WILL not believe.
When Galileo introduced the telescope as a tool to peer into the galaxies, his contemporaries did not believe him. Scoffing, they refused to even look through the device. Galileo sat alone with his telescope. He was the sole observer of the vastness of the cosmos. A single witness of galaxies beyond anything anyone had seen or imagined. Galileo had the stars to himself.
Undermining Aristotle’s previous explanations of the universe, Galileo published his own findings based on what he’d seen through the telescope. He painted a picture for the entire world through words, a display of the heavens scratched across bound pages. He wrote about mountains and craters on the moon, spots upon the sun, satellites orbiting Jupiter, and multitudes of stars never known to exist.
These were monumental discoveries that would shape future space explorations, but they fell on ears refusing to hear and eyes refusing to see. Galileo’s peers mocked him and his toy. Strictly adhering to Aristotle’s descriptions of the universe, they refused to believe anything contrary to what they had held to for so long (Eryn Lynum, Rooted in Wonder: Nurturing Your Family’s Faith Through God’s Creation, Kregel Publications, 2023 pp. 40-41).
Please, don’t do the same. Give up your preconceived notions about life and decide now to look through the telescope of God’s Word. Don’t wait until you have more evidence to trust Christ with your life. Trust Him now before it is eternally too late. As an act of the will, decide now to put your life and your eternal destiny in His hands.
For more than six hundred years the Hapsburgs exercised political power in Europe. When Emperor Franz-Josef I of Austria died in 1916, his was the last of the extravagant imperial funerals. A processional of dignitaries and elegantly dressed court personages escorted the coffin, draped in the black and gold imperial colors.
To the accompaniment of a military band's somber dirges and by the light of torches, the cortege descended the stairs of the Capuchin Monastery in Vienna. At the bottom was a great iron door leading to the Hapsburg family crypt. Behind the door was the Cardinal-Archbishop of Vienna. The officer in charge followed the prescribed ceremony, established centuries before.
"Open!" he cried. "Who goes there?" responded the Cardinal. "We bear the remains of his Imperial and Apostolic Majesty, Franz-Josef I, by the grace of God Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Defender of the Faith, Prince of Bohemia-Moravia, Grand Duke of Lombardy, Venezia, Styrgia..." The officer continued to list the Emperor's thirty-seven titles.
"We know him not," replied the Cardinal. "Who goes there?" The officer spoke again, this time using a much abbreviated and less ostentatious title reserved for times of expediency. "We know him not," the Cardinal said again. "Who goes there?" The officer tried a third time, stripping the emperor of all but the humblest of titles: "We bear the body of Franz-Josef, our brother, a sinner like us all!" At that, the doors swung open, and Franz-Josef was admitted. (David Seamands, Healing Grace; www.PreachingToday.com).
Neither wealth nor fame can open the way to heaven. It is only by the grace of God that any of us get in. So, please, before it is eternally too late, humbly acknowledge your need of that grace. Stop depending on yourself and start depending on Jesus and so be sure of your entrance in heaven.
