HOW DO YOU LIVE; HOW WILL YOU DIE?
--LUKE 16:19-31; PSALM 49:16-20; PSALM 52:5-7
To be a disciple of Jesus Christ, He must be number one in our lives. We’ve seen that emphasized so clearly these past several weeks in the teachings of Jesus found in this section of the Book of Luke. We first of all discovered that Jesus must be our first love; we cannot love anyone else more than we love Him and be His disciple. Last week saw that He is the owner of everything, we are only stewards or managers of His which resources He has entrusted to us including the money and material possessions He bestows on us for the meeting of our needs. Everything belongs to Him as the Creator; we are only caretakers of His property for the short time we are on this earth.
Our text builds on this previous teaching of Jesus. The One for whom you live your life today determines where you will spend eternity. How you live now determines what will happen to you when you die. This is clearly seen in the persons of Lazarus and the Rich Man.
Lazarus goes to heaven for eternity. Oftentimes in Church History the Rich Man has been called by the name of Dives, but neither Jesus nor Luke gave him that name. Dives is the Latin word for “Rich Man” which was the term used in the Latin Vulgate translation of the Greek text. The Medieval Church began to call him by that name. The Old African-American Spiritual “Poor Man Lazarus” sums up his live so appropriately:
“Rich Man Dives, he lives so well,
And when he died he went straight to hell.”
What do these two individuals teach us about heaven and hell?
In today’s society Lazarus would be a homeless person. The Scriptures call him a beggar, a word which describes someone who is absolutely poor and helpless. He was completely destitute. Having no food or shelter, he was totally impoverished. He had a “longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table.” He “was covered with sores,” so he was in poor health. In the New Testament blind people and paralytics usually became beggars. Our text says that Lazarus “was laid at the Rich Man’s Gate” implying other people had to lay him at the gate of the rich man’s house each day; so there is a probability that he suffered from paralysis or was crippled in some way. Like Job in the Old Testament his body “was covered with sores,” and the only medical attention and sympathy he received was through the dogs which “came and licked his sores.”
The Rich Man provides a stark contrast to Lazarus. Verse 19 tells us he was “dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day.” His home was The White House or Buckingham Palace. He lacked nothing. He had everything one could of “this world’s goods.” He was abundantly wealthy. He wore designer clothes from Claiborne, Cole Haan, Perry Ellis, Polo, and Calvin Klein. “Purple and fine linen” were the top lines of that day. In fact, purple was so expensive that only royalty could usually afford it.
This rich man had a serious problem. He had chosen the wrong priorities in life, and the only honest obituary that could be written for him in the end was just one sentence: “The rich man also died and was buried.” Maybe this is the same rich man Jesus earlier mentions in Luke 12:19-21:
“And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
20“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21“This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”
This man was not prepared to die; he had stored up things for himself but was not rich toward God. He had lived for himself, for earthly wealth, fame, and fortune. As our lessons from the Psalms remind us: he had grown rich; the splendor of his house had increased; but he took nothing with him when he died. He “had riches without understanding.” He was
“the man
who did not make God his stronghold
but trusted in his great wealth
and grew strong by destroying other!” [--Psalm 52:7]
Lazarus was one he destroyed.
The name Lazarus is very significant. Remember it; it means, “God has helped,” and God helped him for all eternity. God was Lazarus’ stronghold; the rich man had trusted in his great riches; and that made the eternal difference. What happens when we die? The Bible is clear in both the Old and New Testaments. Ecclesiastes 12:7 affirms that when each of us dies:
“. . . the dust returns to the
ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to
God who gave it.”
The spirits of both the rich man and Lazarus returned to God, but they found different eternal destinies.
Paul testifies what happens to the spirit of the Christian at death in II Corinthians 5:6-8. Here is how the New American Standard Version reads: “Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— 7for we walk by faith, not by sight— 8we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.”
When the Christian dies, his or her spirit is absent from the body but
present for eternity with Jesus. Such was the case with Lazarus.
The “Bosom of Abraham” and “Paradise” in Luke 23:43 are Jewish
terms explaining how the spirit of a believer enters into eternity.
We cannot begin to imagine the eternal bliss and peace that await us
in heaven with Jesus. The Bible says in I Corinthians 2:9 and Isaiah 64:4:
“No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
Lazarus is proof that heaven is a place of comfort. His
Spirit was carried there by the angels.
Abraham comforts Lazarus. His suffering is history in keeping with
Revelation21:3-4, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among His people, and He will dwell with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has past away.” Part of the comfort of heaven is the fact God will wipe away all tears from our eyes. Heaven’s comfort means the end of all suffering, death, mourning, crying, and pain. And best of all: “God will be our God, and we shall be His people.”
Charles L. Allen, long time pastor of First United Methodist Church
In Houston, Texas, tells this story. “A little girl was taking an evening walk with her father. Wonderingly, she looked up at the stars and exclaimed:
‘Oh, Daddy, if the wrong side of heaven is so beautiful, what must the
right side be” [--Charles L. Allen in “Home Fires.” Christianity Today,
Vol. 32, no. 6.]!
“No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
[--I Corinthians 2:9 and Isaiah 64:4]
What a difference, however, for the rich man and everyone else who
goes to hell. Hell is a place of agony and torment. As we cannot fathom the
joy of heaven, neither can we imagine the horrors of hell. It is a place of
severe physical and mental suffering for those who are eternally lost. It is a
place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth as Jesus in says in
Matthew 25:42, “They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there
will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Just as heaven is free from
suffering, death, mourning, crying, and pain, hell will be full of it. The
rich man suffered torment and agony, part of which included seeing the joys
he missed. He “saw Abraham far away with Lazarus at his side” [Luke 16:
23].
He might have summarized his eternal state in the words of
William Shakespeare from AS YOU LIKE IT, “Firm and irrevocable is my
doom” [--William Shakespeare, AS YOU LIKE IT, Act I, Scene iii, ll. 81].
the agony and torment of hell if irrevocable, unchangeable, unalterable.
as Abraham explains it, “And besides all this, between us (heaven) and you
(hell) 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” [Luke 16:26].
Inspired theologians and poets throughout the ages have urgently
warned us about the horrors of hell. Dante in his Divine Comedy places this
sign over the entrance to hell: “All hope abandon, ye who enter here”
[--Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, “Hell.” Canto iii. Line 9.]. John
Donne defines it as: “Damnation: continual dying,” and thirteenth century
theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas says: “Even as in heaven there will
be most perfect love, so in hell there will be the most perfect
hate” [--John Donne (1572-1631) and Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
in Edythe Draper, Draper’s Book of Quotations for the Christian World
Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1992). Entries 5684-5685.].
For all the horrors of hell, there is one good thing about it. God does
not want you to go there. He never intended for any of us to go to hell.
Jesus makes it absolutely clear that hell was not prepared for us when He
Says in Matthew 25:41, “Then He will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from
Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his
angels.” Those are the words of Jesus Himself, hell is not prepared for you
and me, “but for the devil and his angels.” Jesus has done everything
possible to make certain none of us go to hell.
However, you and I have an eternal decision to make. It is the
one Pilate faced on Good Friday, “What shall I do, then, with Jesus Who
is called Christ” [--Matthew 27:22]. The time to make that decision is
this very moment, for the Bible says in II Corinthians 6:2, “For He says,
‘In the time of My favor I
heard you,
and in the day of salvation I
helped you.’
I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.”
How you live determines how you die and where you will spend eternity.
“What will you do with Jesus Who is called Christ?” As Paul Says in Romans
10:13, “Whoever calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved.” The time to
call on the Name of the Lord and be saved is right now. If you do, you too can be a Lazarus, “One whom God has helped.”
“A drunken man staggered up to a New York policeman and asked
how to find a night club called ‘Hell’s Gate.’
“‘See that steeple over there?’ asked the policeman. ‘That’s the
steeple of Calvary Church. Just keep going past Calvary, and you’ll
come to Hell’s Gate.’” “What will you do with Jesus Who is called Christ?”
Don’t keep bypassing Calvary and end up in hell for eternity. What you do with Jesus determines where you will spend forever. How Do you live? How will you die?
