Your Final Destination Series

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)…