Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Decision Making By the Book, Part 23 of 28

Text: Luke 16: 19-25

If you’ve been listening to our conversations on Discover the Word, then you know that we have been spending some time in the parables of Jesus. And we have been focusing primarily on the parables that are found in the gospel according to Luke. And we’ve taken them as they’ve come, one after another. We’ve touched the parable of the prodigal son and the lost sheep, and of the lost coin. And we’ve looked at the parable of the Good Samaritan. Now we come to a parable that is found in Luke chapter 16. It is, I think, one of the most difficult parables that Jesus spoke. It’s a parable that deals with life after death. It deals with hell and heaven. Other parables are a delight to look at, they’re convicting, they make you a bit uneasy, but they’re just good stories that teach great lessons.

And this parable in Luke 16, verses 19 to 25, also is a great story that teaches a great lesson. In some ways it’s not the kind of lesson that we’d like to learn. It’s a story about hell, and quite frankly, in our day hell is a difficult subject to talk about. When was the last time you heard a sermon on hell? But in order for us to be faithful to the task to which God has called us, then we’ve got to deal with what Jesus said. So I’d like you to listen to this parable of the rich man and Lazarus as it is read to us by Max McLean, a brilliant reader of the Word of God.

Max: "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried in hell where he was in torment. He looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, '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.' But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things while Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you 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.’ He answered, ‘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.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets, let them listen to them.’ 'No father Abraham,' he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’"

Haddon: That parable does lift the veil between time now and time to come, and it does give us a glimpse as to what eternity would be like. On the one hand for Lazarus, this beggar whose name means “God is my helper,” heaven is pictured as a great banquet, a marvelous feast where he sits in the presence of Abraham who was the father of the faithful. And, on the other hand there is a rich man who finds himself in hell. Now I think that these descriptions that you have in the story about hell are descriptions. They’re a way of trying to convey to us now what we can’t fully understand.

Just as in the book of the Revelation we’re told about heaven, we’re told that it has a street of gold, that it has gates of marvelous beauty, adorned with pearls. I don’t think that that’s what heaven looks like but it’s a way of helping us to get a sense of the majestic beauty of that realm into which those who have trusted Jesus Christ go into. I’m not sure that this story of the rich man and his experience in hell is a literal discussion of what hell is like. This passage talks about flame, other passages talk about hell as outer darkness. The images are simply trying to get at a deeper truth.

But, all that being as it is, what can we learn about heaven and hell from this parable? I mean what light does Jesus throw upon the realms unseen? Well first, and I think it’s obvious, He warns us that heaven and hell exist. While we may not be able to understand the glories of heaven, nor the horrors of hell, they do exist. And Jesus is also teaching that death doesn’t end our lives. Life is serious business and the grave is not the goal. After death, Jesus is teaching in this story our personalities survive in a conscious state.

And Jesus also warns us that there will be a division at death. While God will sustain our personalities after death, people are going to exist in two very different states. Some will be in the state of joy and delight, it’s something like celebrating a banquet, we’ll enjoy the company of men and women of the faith represented by Abraham the father of the people of faith. You can think of the grandest dinner you’ve ever attended, the most marvelous part you’ve ever enjoyed. Get the essence of that and you have some hint as to what heaven’s like.

On the other hand Jesus says, “There will be people who will exist in a state of isolation and torment depicted by that lonely rich man in hell.” It seems to me that if those things aren’t true in outline, then the whole point of Jesus’ parable is lost. It’s clear as you look at that rich man in torment, that hell is loneliness. He is separated from Lazarus, separated from Abraham, he is alone. Sometime ago Ted Turner who is the founder of the CNN addressed the National Press Club. He said he wasn’t interested in going to heaven, "who wants to go to a place that’s perfectly boring." He said he’d rather go to hell, and when he and his journalist friends get to hell, he said, “we’ll get a chance to make things better because hell is supposed to be a mess.”

Well Ted Turner may be a good businessman but he’s not much of a theologian. When he gets to hell he won’t have anything to do with his journalist friends. There’s no community in hell, no sense of fellowship. Hell will be filled with men and women filled with self-reproach but no repentance. Everyone will live in solitary suffering. Like the rich man who lived only for himself on earth, men and women will live by themselves in hell. Oh, there’ll be company in hell, but they won’t enjoy it.

The question that you have to face when you read what Jesus says about hell is “why do people end up in conscious torment separated from God and from others?” Well, they have all committed an ultimate crime and that’s to reject Jesus Christ and what He has done to keep us from hell. Robert G. Lee put the matter clearly. “If there is no hell,” he said, “then almighty God made the greatest mistake in the history of humanity. He allowed His only begotten Son to be crucified on a cruel cross, but for what? For nothing? Not on your life! If there were no hell from which to save you and me, then God made His own Son the biggest fool of the ages as He hung upon that cross. To know what Jesus Christ has done to bring you to God and to change you, and to reject it, is cosmic treason.” You bump into a sermon, you hear a Christian radio program, you listen to a missionary, you sit in a class of a Sunday School teacher, a piece of literature comes and tells you that God loves you, that Christ died for you, that you can be re-routed to eternal life in heaven.

But something in you has said, “No, not me, not now, I don’t need this. I am not going to bow, I don’t need Christ.” That is cosmic rebellion. But when you do the right thing, when you cast yourself upon Jesus Christ and ask His forgiveness for committing cosmic treason, you’ll be assured heaven as though you were already there. Jesus Christ will redirect your life and He will redirect your eternity as well. You and I make our choices in life and they turn around and make us. If you choose to live separate from God in this life, then you’ll be separate from God in the life to come.

You can be flip about it, but you have no real idea how awful it is. I beg you to choose to trust Jesus Christ, allow Him to forgive you for your rebellion, and allow Him to join you to the timeless life of God. Hell is real, so is heaven, and trusting in Jesus Christ is a crucial decision you must make in your life.