There was a movie in recent months about a man who was talking on a short wave radio and ended up talking to his father who had died many years before. Now, that is what I call imagination. But, for the sake of tonight’s message, I want you to imagine something, too. I want you to imagine that you are sitting in front of a short wave radio and you hear the faint crackling of a distant voice.
You immediately know it is a distress call from a ship. Through the static and skips, you barely make out that they have taken on water and in the storm tossed seas, two have fallen overboard. You grab the microphone and try to reply, but all of a sudden, there is nothing but silence.
Now, in a message such as this, you notice two things. The first thing you notice is that the person sending the message was terrified. The second thing you notice is that when the message ends abruptly, you are terrified. But what would you do next? You would call the Coast Guard and give them all the information you have on that call, including the frequency of the broadcast and the time you picked up the call.
After you gave them all the information you had, they would thank you and tell you that they would take it from there. And you would probably be thinking that you wished there was more you could do for those people trapped at sea.
A very brief call of terror from an unknown person somewhere far away. During that call, his terror became your terror.
Now that you have imagined all this, I want to bring to your attention today to other words of terror that are recorded in the Bible. But these terror-filled words did not come from someone in distress on the high seas. These words came from someone in distress from the depths of hell itself.
This morning, I preached on a passage found in LUKE 16:19-31. This passage is about the rich man and Lazarus. They both died. It tells how the rich man lived his life focused on those things of this world that his money could afford, and because of this he had no time or focus on God. Lazarus, on the other hand, was a poor beggar and had nothing. Nothing, that is, but his mighty faith in God.
When the rich man died, he went to hell and was in torment. He could see Lazarus in Paradise, standing with Abraham. And tonight, we are going to be talking about what the rich man felt as he finally realized the reality of the truth.
As this man speaks, I want you to listen to every word he uses to describe where he is and how he feels about it. The first 30 words in his distress call begin in LUKE 16:24.
‘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.’
This man realizes where he is, and he is frightened. He is calling out for help. But, he is still trying to be the rich man, isn’t he? He wants the poor man to be his servant and bring him water.
Abraham replies by reminding him that during his life of plenty, he had all the good things. And then Abraham reminds him that the chasm between the two keeps anyone from crossing over to the other side.
The next 32 words the man says begins in verse 27.
‘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.’
He is still trying to get Lazarus to do run errands for him, isn’t he? This man never had time to ponder eternity while he was enjoying his fame and fortune, but now he is terrified and going through agony! And, all of a sudden, he is faced with eternal reality and he is starting to worry about his brothers. But, like I said this morning – once we go through the Judgment, it is just too late to have any “do-overs”. What is done is done.
In response to this man’s latest plea to have somebody go warn his brothers, Abraham tells him that the living have the prophets and they can listen to them, if they choose to.
The next 15 words the man cries out are found in verse 30 –
‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
And the last response by Abraham is telling the man that if his brothers won’t listen to the words spoken by all the prophets, they won’t listen to anyone from the dead either.
You have just heard a distress call from hell. A short 77 words, but full of fear, regret, and torment. Like the distress call from the ship, this distress call from hell should become our distress call, too. I hope I can help you understand this evening that this is your distress call, too.
Let’s talk about …
1. HOW WE LIVE OUR DAILY LIVES
We try to remove unpleasant circumstances from our lives, don’t we? We don’t like looking at anything that gives us the heebie-jeebies, do we? For instance, many people refuse to set up a will or a trust simply because they don’t want to talk about their deaths.
But, if we are to make sure our eternity is set, we must think about death and what comes after. I am going to ask you to imagine something else. Imagine going to a funeral. You know the deceased very well, and you know he was a church goer, but he was not very passionate at all about his faith in Jesus.
Now, as you sit at that funeral, what do you see? You see beautiful flowers and you hear soft background music. You see everyone trying to make the setting comfortable for those who are there. Other than the normal, “Well, at least he’s in a better place now” comment, nobody is even thinking about life after death.
Now, imagine for a moment that amid all these soothing pleasantries, the terrified voice of the deceased suddenly yelled over the loud speakers. “Please help me! Help me! I am in such agony and filled with terror. I am burning and it hurts so much!”
Wouldn’t that change the mood of the day? Some would come face to face with the truth of eternity, and sadly, some would sit there with the ‘deer in the headlights’ look and not understand at all. Now, we know this will not happen, but if it did, it would be a very accurate picture of what it would be like for that person who did not live for Jesus while they had the chance.
And if that did happen, you can bet that person would be like the rich man in our passage. He would desperately want somebody to go tell his loved ones the truth so they could get their act together before it was too late.
The rich man described himself as being in agony and being tormented. You would never hear these words at a funeral, would you? At a funeral, when we should be facing life’s most serious situation, we hide and make believe all is soothing and nice.
There is the story of man who died. He was a scoundrel and was very mean. But his brother was even worse. When the man died, his brother asked the preacher to say a few words at the funeral. The preacher wasn’t going to lie and say the man was a saint, but he felt compelled to try and say something nice about him, so he spent the entire night trying to figure out what to say.
The next day, he stood beside the casket and said, “This man was a dirty, low-down scoundrel, but compared to his brother, he was a saint!” Sometimes, we just don’t want to speak or face the truth, do we? But face it we must if we desire to go to Heaven.
In MATTHEW 24:42, Jesus gives us a stern command.
‘Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.’
Let’s go back to that passage for a moment and see …
2. A MAN IN THE THROES OF DESPERATION
In VERSE 24, the man asked Abraham to have pity on him.
Look at how this man lived while he was alive. He was rich. He was used to having others ask how high when he said “jump.” We even saw how he wanted Lazarus to bring him a drop of water and how he wanted Lazarus to go tell his brothers. This man was used to being waited on hand and foot. And people like that are not used to asking others for help. Yet, this man is pleading with Abraham to have pity on him.
According to Jesus, this man wore purple linens and lived in splendor. We would say he lived in the lap of luxury, and even though desperation lived just outside his gate, he was too self-centered to even be aware of it. And now, the man is in hell, begging for pity. Just as Lazarus longed to be fed with even a crumb, this man now longs to have even one drop of water to quench his agonizing thirst.
How does the Bible describe what this man is going through?
In REVELATION 14:11, it says,
‘And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name.’
Never ending fire. Never ending torment. Never a break, day or night. And who is the one who worships the beast? The people who worship the beast are those who live their lives denying God His rightful place in their lives. Most of these people are nice people and they are not aware of what they are doing, but when it comes to God, we are either with Him or we are against Him. If they do not worship Him, they are worshiping the enemy. And every one of these people will be spending eternity in the same place as this rich man in our text. That is why it is so urgent for each of us to reach out and talk to these people.
Think of your next door neighbor who you wave to every day as the person on board that ship that is sinking and he is only about 15 minutes from dying. Think of that person spending time next to the rich man, begging for pity and being tormented. Can you see the urgency in your talking to that person without further delay?
No matter what we say, there will always be some people who either do not believe in hell, or view it as a concept, but not a reality. A Gallup survey shows that a great majority of Americans believe that the old ‘hellfire & brimstone’ idea was a mistake and religions should have been preaching all this time on the love and peace of God.
I believe that we should preach on the love and peace of God, but that we should also be preaching on the hellfire & brimstone that awaits every person who denies Jesus a place in their lives.
Now, let’s talk about …
3. HOW WE FIT INTO ETERNITY
I know there are people who say that a loving God could not send anyone to that kind of punishment in hell, and I agree. God would never send anyone to hell. He doesn’t have to, because we send ourselves to hell.
See, God wrote the rules to get into Heaven. Those rules have never changed. God also gave us freedom to go along with those rules, or to reject them. Let me see if I can make it clearer.
I will tell you right now that I want you to come over to my home for dinner. Now, the one rule I set is that you MUST call me the day before and talk to me. If you do not call me, I will not let you come into my home. Since it is my home, I retain the right to make such a rule. If you refuse to call me, whose fault is it that you can’t come over?
God wants you to come to His home for eternity. The one rule He sets down is that you must first believe in His Son. If you refuse to believe in His Son, you will not be able to go to Heaven. In that case, whose fault is it that you don’t go to Heaven? It would be yours, right? So don’t blame God if you abuse your freedom and make a wrong choice.
Will the Victory Singers please come back on stage?
In our passage, we find two men who are first separated by a gate. By the end of the story, they are separated by a chasm. The reason was that they both had the same options, but they made different choices. And now, one is reaping the rewards of his choice and the other is paying the price for his choice.
Your place in eternity will depend on only one thing; the decision you make today to either walk with Jesus or walk away from Him. That is the only rule. As we go into our invitation, think about the rich man and where he is today.
Know that God is a loving God and He would prefer that all choose His Son, but He is also a just God. He breaks no rules, nor does He bend them. The rules have been set for every person on the face of this earth. You and I are not exceptions. We will abide by those rules, no matter what decision we make.
But know that God loves you so much, He let His Son die for you. That is love.
INVITATION
