Hell

1:11And Dante's work is helpful in some ways as it pertains to truths about heaven and hell. But human literature, even a classic work like The Divine Comedy, can't be the place where we get our theology of hell. It can't be what we think about hell. It can't be what others tell us about hell. It can't be what we want to be true about hell. We have to base what we believe about hell from what God reveals in his Holy Scripture.

1:55This fall semester, we've been getting back to the basics with respect to Christian doctrine and Christian life. And certainly, we need to get back to the basics with respect to hell and to heaven, which we'll talk about next week. Because if the surveys are to be believed, most professing Christians in America do not have a biblical view of hell. So, my hope today is that as we consider Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus, we will be helped to understand these critical truths about hell, and most of all, that we will see our need to live a life of repentance and faith, not merely a life of religion based on a dubious assumption that we're all going to get to heaven eventually.

2:50So, let's pick up here in Luke 16, verse 19. These first two verses, we meet the main characters in the story: a rich man and a poor man. Man. Now, it's important to note that throughout history, people in almost every culture have assumed that if you're wealthy, it's a sign of God's blessing, that you're doing something right. And you see those assumptions on display in Mark chapter 10. In Mark chapter 10, Jesus has this encounter with a rich young ruler who comes to him and wants to know what he has to do to inherit eternal life. So Jesus simply quotes the Old Testament law to him and he says, Well, if you want to inherit eternal life, you know what the law says. You have to do it perfectly. Keep it all, and you'll have eternal life. But the rich man thinks that he's already done all of that. And so Jesus says, Okay, well, one thing you lack: sell all that you have, give it to the poor, and come and follow me. The rich man goes away sad because he doesn't know it, but he's broken the first commandment. He loves his money, his stuff, more than he loves God. And he's unwilling to give it up.

4:08And so, what happens then is Jesus turns around and he looks at his disciples and he says, It's so hard for wealthy people to enter the kingdom of heaven. And the disciples are shocked. So, Jesus actually doubles down and he says, It is easier. For a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. And I want you to look at the disciples' response in Mark 10, 26 on the screen.

4:45And they were exceedingly astonished and said to him, Then who can be saved? They are just absolutely dumbfounded. If most of the rich aren't getting in, who in the world is going to go to heaven? So Jesus replies that it's impossible with man, but it's not with God. With God, all things are possible, including people turning from their trust in their money and their stuff to trust in him and him alone. So when the story begins with a rich man and a poor man, every ancient reader and every modern reader is thinking the same thing. The hero of the story is going to be the rich man, and the poor man is going to be some kind of object lesson. My kids, don't live your life this way, or you'll end up like him.

5:48But right off the bat, Jesus indicates that this story is going to fly in the face of conventional wisdom because he doesn't even give the rich man a name. He's just called. The rich man. And friends, I think that's on purpose because Jesus doesn't want us to do what we so often do, and that is assume that he is talking to someone else, that he's talking to the wealthy person in your family, that he's talking to the wealthy person in the neighborhood over, that he's talking to those wealthy people that live in palaces. He doesn't want us to assume any of that. Jesus is speaking to us.

6:34We often don't consider ourselves wealthy because we compare ourselves to the super rich. But we must understand that compared to most people in the world today, nearly everyone in this room and nearly everyone in America is super wealthy. Compared to people throughout world history, we live like kings and queens. And so we don't want to assume that Jesus is talking to the super wealthy person that we've never met and that we never will meet. He's talking to us.

7:08So back to the characters. The rich man leads what we think of as the good life. He's dressed in the finest clothes that money can buy. Three times a day, he eats like he lives on a cruise ship. He feasts sumptuously, luxuriously, every meal, every day. This is his life. The second character is a poor man named Lazarus. And Lazarus' life is rough. Every day he is laid at the gate of a rich man. You notice that? It's a passive verb. He's laid. It doesn't say he goes and lays down.

7:50That leads us to believe that he's crippled, he's paralyzed, something is wrong, that he has to be picked up and carried to the gate of this rich man. And that probably also tells us that his family is either unwilling or unable to take care of him. This guy is covered with sores from head to toe. And if you've ever had a sore, if you've ever had a rash, if you've ever had poison ivy on your arm or your leg or something like that, just imagine your entire body being covered. But there's no medicine for you. And so those things are just open wounds, just open sores, blood and pus coming out of them, and the wild dogs come up while you're sleeping and they lick that off of you. That is this man's situation.

8:40He's got nothing to eat, and he's so hungry that he's not even dreaming big. Just look at his hopes. He's not hoping that he could sit down at the rich man's table and eat with him. He's not hoping that one of the servants will take pity on him and bring out a plate of leftovers. He's just hoping that some of the scraps that fall off of his table onto the dirty floor, this is the ancient world, there's no swiffering, that he can just have a few of those scraps. He's that hungry, he's that desperate, that's all he wants.

9:20You see, Jesus is painting a picture for us of a man whose life is truly miserable. A man for whom this world is not a comfortable place that he is sad about leaving one day. That's very different from the rich man who had every reason to love his life and love this world and never ever want to die. Randy Alcorn made this insightful comment in his book, Heaven. For Christians, this present life is the closest they will come to hell. For unbelievers, it's the closest they will come to heaven.

10:13Take a look at verse 22. 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. Friends, death comes to everyone. Rich and poor, powerful and powerless, successful and unsuccessful, famous and unknown. Death comes to everyone. But you notice that there's a contrast between these men even at their death.

11:06Because what Jesus says is the rich man died and was buried. But Lazarus, he dies and there's no mention of his burial. Just left there in the street like a dog. Lazarus wasn't buried, but he was carried straight to Abraham's side. Now, if you have one of the older translations, that says Abraham's bosom, which I love. And when I'm having a bad day, you know, sometimes I just think, I just want to go to Abraham's bosom. That's all I really want. I'm not even really sure what that means or entails. It just sounds comfortable.

11:53And he is comforted there. He's at peace. He's at rest. Unlike his earthly life where he's laid. All alone at the gate every day. He is now in community. But the rich man goes straight to Hades. That's the underworld, the place of the dead. It's named after the Greek god of the underworld. And that's why Luke uses that word because he's speaking to a primarily Greek-speaking audience, mainly Gentile audience. But the Hebrews, the Jewish people, they would have called it Sheol.

12:29So he goes to the place of the dead, and his experience is nothing like hell is usually depicted in modern cartoons. So Alcorn notes in that same book that when people picture hell in cartoons, it's kind of like a giant lounge. And in between drinks, people are talking about their escapades here on the earth. But you see here, the situation is nothing like that. From the moment the rich man arrives, he is in torment. And that word conveys both a mental and a physical anguish. He is tormented from the moment he arrives. And to make matters worse, he can look up and he can see Abraham far off with Lazarus at his side.

13:23Bad enough to have to be down there and to imagine what paradise is like, what happens. Heaven is like, but how much worse when you can open your eyes and you can see it. You can see what you're missing out on. Friends, I want you to see here that Jesus does not teach annihilation. Nowhere in the Bible is annihilation taught, the idea that once we die, we just cease to exist. The Bible doesn't teach that about the righteous, and the Bible doesn't teach that about the unrighteous. The Bible doesn't teach that about Christians, and the Bible doesn't teach that about non-Christians. The Bible does not teach annihilation anywhere.

14:07In Matthew chapter 25, Jesus is teaching about the final judgment, where he discusses the righteous and the wicked as sheep and goats that are separated for punishment and reward. And take a look at what he says in verse 46. And these, that is the goats or the unrighteous, will go away into eternal punishment. But the righteous, the sheep, into eternal life. So Jesus describes both punishment and reward as eternal. They never end. The book of Revelation depicts the righteous and the unrighteous alive and conscious for eternity, living in either heaven or hell.

14:53Now, if unrepentant sinners simply missed out on the joy of heaven, that would be sad, but that's not what. Scripture teaches. God's word says they won't be annihilated, but rather they will experience eternal conscious torment for their sin against a holy, eternal God. And that idea rubs a lot of people the wrong way. It has throughout human history. It certainly does for modern people. Because we sometimes feel like, you know, that's not fair. That's not fair that we sin against God and then spend eternity in hell. But, friends, who are we to answer back to God? We don't get to make the rules. He is eternal and perfectly holy. And it's just because we're not eternal and we're not perfectly holy that sin really doesn't seem like that big of a deal to us, that that punishment seems so outrageous. But it doesn't seem that way to God. And so he warns us very clearly about what is coming. So that should move all of us who are Christians to share the good news with those who are not yet believers, to pray for their salvation, to work hard to ensure that at least no one in our life can get to their deathbed and say, I wasn't told, I wasn't warned, I wasn't prayed for.

16:11Verse 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. 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 had passed from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.

16:57The rich man showed no mercy in his life, not to Lazarus at least, but now he begs for mercy. In other words, the rich man wants for himself what he was unwilling to extend to others. And we've all been tempted in that way. We have all been tempted to judge other people by standards that we don't use on ourselves. Because when it comes to our own sin, our own failures, our own flaws, what we want is the opportunity to explain why our circumstances, why our upbringing, why the exact things that went down in that situation, why that gives us some kind of an excuse. We want them to listen to our yeah, but.

17:50But when it comes to other people and their sins, we apply a rigorous standard. And we think that they only are getting what they are. They deserve. We don't want to hear their excuses. We don't want to hear about their circumstances. We don't want to hear about their upbringing. We don't want to extend mercy and grace. And I think, particularly because this parable has to do with a rich man and a poor man, we have to think very carefully about how this applies to the poor and our view of the poor.

18:26I shudder to think what this rich man thought about Lazarus, what he may have said to his friends about Lazarus, what he may have said to Lazarus' face. It's not like he didn't know who he was. You can see right here in Hades, he knows his name. He says, Send Lazarus. I know that guy. He laid at my gate every day. Send him. Chances are, this rich man thought and said a lot of the same things that modern people do about poor people.

18:59Well, they're just lazy. They won't work. They won't get a job. They probably spend it all on drugs and alcohol. I'm not going to help them. They won't even help themselves. This past weekend, I watched as Michigan finally broke through and beat Ohio State for the second time in the past 20 years. So just, if you're an Aggie fan, just always remember, you're not Michigan. A reporter asked me. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh after the game, if he wanted to make a comment about all the trash that Ohio State players have been talking over the past year, and he just said, you know, some people who are standing on third base think they hit a triple, but they didn't.

19:51And his point was: all of the players, all of the coaches in that Ohio State organization, they walked into a championship caliber team. That's like somebody playing for Alabama and bragging. What did you do? You got here four seconds ago. Now we beat them, lest we forget. But I say this because when it comes to our perspective on the poor, for a lot of us, we were born in America. We were born in South Korea. We were born in wealthy nations that are able to send us over here for study, for jobs. We were born on third base.

20:34But a lot of the time, we think and we act like we hit a triple and that the poor are just striking out at home. When in reality, so much of our situation simply has to do with the fact that we were born to the parents that we were born to in the place where we were born. And so we shouldn't be prideful and we shouldn't look down on the poor. So, this rich man begs for mercy, and I want you to notice that when he begs for mercy, look at what he calls Abraham. He calls him Father Abraham.

21:13And when Abraham speaks to him, what does he call him? Child. So, what Jesus wants us to see is, in addition to this guy being wealthy, he's an Israelite. He's not a Gentile. He's an Israelite. But this guy just shared Abraham's bloodline. He didn't share his faith. And that was true of so many Israelites in that day. And in our day as well. Take a look at what Paul writes in Romans 9. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

22:10But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring. But through Isaac, your offspring shall be named. Paul's Point is that true Israelites share Abraham's faith, not necessarily his bloodline. And so Abraham denies the rich man's request for mercy. He tells them that he already enjoyed blessings in his former life. You got good things, and Lazarus got bad things.

22:52But now the tables are turned. Lazarus is comforted, and you're in anguish. God's kingdom is upside down. And that's exactly what Jesus tells his disciples in that Mark 10 passage that we talked about earlier. After the rich man walks away, the disciples note that they've left everything to follow Jesus. Not like that rich young ruler. But look at what Jesus says in Mark chapter 10. Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now and this time houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life.

23:51But many who are first will be last and the last first. Many who are first Will be last. That's the rich man's situation. He was first in this life. The finest clothes, the best food, a life that he didn't want to end. But Lazarus was last. He didn't have anything. And now he's first in eternity. Church, I know almost all of us would say that we believe what Jesus is teaching: that the last are going to be first.

24:29But this is an excellent time of the year for us to evaluate how we're living our lives, how we're spending our time, how we're spending our money. Are we actually living? Like if we're last here, we're going to be first there. Or are we doing everything we can to be first here and kind of hang on to Jesus on the side? But Abraham's not done responding to the rich man. He tells him that what he's asking isn't even possible.

25:06Lazarus can't go to him, and he can't go to Lazarus because there's this great chasm fixed between the righteous and the unrighteous. Salvation cannot be lost or gained in eternity. This is where Dante gets it wrong. This is where so many people get it wrong. Purgatory is not a thing, there is no such thing as purgatory. There is no such thing as purgatory because the Bible says there's no such thing as purgatory and because the entire concept makes no sense whatsoever.

25:38Even within eternity, how could you ever work off the sins that you've committed against God? That's not how it works. There is no purgatory. Hebrews 9:27 is clear. It is appointed once for a man to die, and then the judgment. We die once and then we're judged. That's why putting off repentance and faith is so dangerous. Because we do not know when our last day is going to be. We don't know when our life is going to end.

26:14It was too late for this rich man. It was too late for family and friends of ours who have already died. But it's not too late for you, friends. It is not too late for you. And listen, I know that talking about hell, talking about death, makes us uncomfortable, but that is because we are 21st-century modern people. People in generations before us, they thought about death, they thought about eternity, they talked about these things all of the time because death was a part of their everyday life.

26:47If we had been born and grown up just 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 300 years ago, it would not at all be uncommon for us to have buried at least one husband or one wife. It would not at all be common, uncommon, for us to have buried half of our children to see few of them make it past childbirth. Death was just a part of everyday life. Thank God for medical advances. But, friends, the medical advances in our society have lulled us to sleep because now we assume that all of us are going to live 70, 80, 90 years without question.

27:30If we get sick, if we get an incurable disease from just 50 or 100 years ago, if we get shot, if anything happens to us, the expectation is somebody will take us to a hospital where they will fix us and we will have 50, 60, 70 more years of life. That's just the assumption. And my hope and my prayer, at least if the pandemic did anything good, hopefully, at least it reminded us that life is not certain, that any one of us could die today.

28:04And so we have to be ready. We have to be ready. Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready? Do you know where you're going to spend eternity? Or, like this rich man, are you just assuming that, of course, you're going to go to heaven? Of course, you're going to be there. Don't make that assumption. Today is the day of salvation. Turn from your sin, receive Christ by faith. You cannot make it to heaven on your own good works.

28:43Verse 27. 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. So the rich man finally comes to this place where he realizes the truth, and that is that there's no hope for him.

29:26But there still is hope for his brothers. And so he asks Abraham to raise Lazarus from the dead, to go to his brothers and warn them about eternity. Abraham's answer is direct. He tells him, They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. He's like, warnings? There are warnings on every page of Scripture. About the fact that we are all going to die. We're all going to spend eternity somewhere. God is going to perfectly and justly judge every person. Every page of Scripture says that.

30:12How arrogant is the rich man's response? He actually says, no. No, Father Abraham. But if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. Oh, really? Arrogant in life? Arrogant in death. All that is is arrogance. The rich man says the exact same thing that modern people say. What do people say? If God would just give me a sign, if he would just speak to me audibly, if he would just perform a miracle, if he would just do something supernatural, then I would believe. That is exactly what the rich man said. If Lazarus came back from the grave, then his brothers would listen. But they wouldn't. Because their problem is not a lack of evidence. Their problem is hard hearts that are dead in sin.

31:18They refuse to believe in spite of all that God has already said and done recorded for them in the scriptures. In 2 Timothy chapter 3, look at what Paul writes. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. What's Paul talking about?

31:55Is he talking about Romans? Is he talking about Hebrews? Talking about Acts? Is he talking about the Gospel of John? No. When he says the sacred writings are able to make you wise for salvation, he's talking about the Old Testament. He's talking about Moses and the prophets. He's saying, your brothers have everything that they need. The rich man's brothers have everything that they need in Moses and the prophets to make them wise for salvation to turn in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ.

32:33Nobody's coming back from the dead. He tells them, have them read the Bible. 31, last verse. 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. The crazy thing is, Jesus actually had a friend named Lazarus who really did get sick and who really did die. And four days after he was dead and buried, Jesus showed up and he raised him from the dead.

33:20And John records that many of the Jews who saw Lazarus raised from the dead, they believed in Jesus. And so some of the religious leaders go to the Pharisees and complain about the fact that Jesus was, you know, healing people and raising them from the dead. And I want you to look at what John records in chapter 12. When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. Wouldn't you want to see that?

33:58So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well. Because on account of him, many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus. Now, there's a rational response for you. People are believing in Jesus because he raised this guy from the dead. And so the religious leader's plan is to kill the guy that Jesus raised from the dead so that they won't believe in the guy who raised him from the dead.

34:26But it just goes to show you, friends. If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, they will not believe, even if someone is raised from the dead. Jesus' own life confirmed that truth. He predicted many, many times that he would be killed, and on the third day, he would rise from the dead. He said, This is what's going to happen to me. And on the third day, the tomb was empty. Many witnesses saw him. Many witnesses talked to him. Many witnesses touched him. And they testified that he did, in fact, rise from the dead.

35:04But Matthew records that on the day of his resurrection, the soldiers who were guarding his tomb went to the religious leaders and explained that they no longer had the body in the tomb. And the religious leaders bribed them and said, We want you to say that his disciples came while we were asleep and stole his body. How would you know that if you were asleep? I don't know. But that's what they told him to say. But you see, losing a person that you are responsible to guard, that's a capital offense in the Roman Empire. They will put you to death for that. And so then they added, if this comes to Pilate's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.

35:52These people, these religious leaders, who knew the scriptures forward and backward. We're still not convinced by a resurrection. And that's because they wouldn't even listen to Moses and the prophets. So, of course, even a resurrection wouldn't convince them to repent and believe. Friends, this parable is a warning to every person who is hoping that religious affiliation is going to save you. I want you to just think about this rich man. He's an Israelite. And when he dies, he doesn't seem surprised that God exists.

36:44He doesn't seem surprised that there's an afterlife. He doesn't seem surprised by any of that. He only seems surprised that he is in hell and not in heaven. This parable is not really a warning to the rich. It is that in part, because all throughout Scripture, we have a warning that if we are wealthy, the temptation for us, and this is all of us, the temptation is to put our trust and our hope in our riches instead of in God.

37:22But this parable is primarily a warning to every person who believes that you can fail to love God and to love your neighbor. And still be saved in the end. God's word is clear. If we do not love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and we do not love our neighbor as we love ourselves, we have broken the law. We are sinners, and we deserve righteous punishment. This is where the good news of the gospel comes in.

37:56Because at Christmastime, what we celebrate is the fact that God sent His Son to take on flesh and to succeed where we failed. Unlike us, Jesus did love His Father perfectly, every day, in every way. He did love His neighbor as He loved Himself, perfectly, every day, in every way. And then He went to the cross in our place. He went as a substitute to take the punishment that we deserve. He died, was buried, and on the third day He rose from the grave, proving that God accepted His sacrifice on our behalf.

38:40And so, friends, through faith in Christ, His life, death, and resurrection, you don't have to hope that you're going to go to heaven one day. You don't have to wrongly assume that you're going to go to heaven one day because you think that everybody goes there anyway. You can know that you are going to heaven one day, not because you have trusted. Tried hard enough to be good enough, but because in spite of all of your sin and failure, the righteousness of Jesus Christ is credited to you through faith.

39:11That's what this parable is teaching us. So, if you are here today and you are a Christian, then let's pray together that the truth about hell would motivate us, not out of guilt, but out of the reality of the situation, that everyone is going to spend eternity somewhere. No one is going to be annihilated. And so, we must pray for and share the gospel with all of those in our life who don't believe in the hope that God would grant them saving faith and eternal life.

39:53And if you are here today and you are not sure where you are going when you die, or if you know for sure that you are not a Christian, today is the day of salvation. Do not walk out of this building without talking to someone, without humbling yourself and saying, I want to know what to do to be saved. How do I become a Christian? How do I have eternal life? There are cards on the back of the seat in front of you. Pull one of those out, fill it out, check that box that says, I want to know more about Jesus. We will meet with you immediately. Because nothing is more important than that.

40:34We want you to have the eternal life that we have been promised in Scripture. And so we pray that you will repent and believe the good news of Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, we want to begin by asking you to forgive us for the ways that we have not taken seriously the warnings about hell. We have perhaps done so for ourselves, but when it comes to other people in our life, we've distracted ourselves, we've amused ourselves, we've entertained ourselves to death.

42:00And we haven't been faithful and diligent to pray for those who do not yet know you. We haven't been faithful and diligent to share the good news of the gospel. We are sorry for that, God. And we pray that you would help us to change our ways because we understand the reality of hell. And we also understand the reality of the beautiful good news of Jesus Christ. And so help us. We pray that people in our life this week, this month, would come to saving faith in Jesus.

42:57We pray specifically for our friends, our family, the people we work with, the people we sit next to in class. We pray that some of them would come to faith in Christ this week, this month. And God, we pray for all who are here today, who are either convinced. That they are not going to heaven or who aren't sure. God, I pray that you would move in their hearts. I pray that they wouldn't believe the lies of Satan that tell them that you would not accept them, that they haven't done enough good things, that they haven't tried hard enough, that they're not religious enough, that the mistakes and sins they've committed in their past will keep them from you.

43:56I pray instead that they would hear the words of Christ. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. God, draw them to yourself this morning, we pray. In Christ's name, amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.