The Rich Man And Lazarus

Well, please turn in your Bible to Luke 16 beginning in verse 19,

Luke 16 beginning in verse 19. When you have that, you can stand for the reading of God's Word.

There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and who feasted sumptuously every day.

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. 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. 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 and like man are 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 might not be able, and none may cross from there to us.

And he said, Then I beg you, Father, to send him up 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. And he said to him,

They do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.

Amen. These are the words of the Lord. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we ask that you would assist us as we consider this very sobering passage, that you would grant our heart full understanding of the warnings that are present here for us, a full appreciation for your disclosure to us of the life that is to come.

In Jesus' name, Amen. So, Jesus has recently, before this, spoken to people about the permanence, excuse me, about the permanence of the law.

And now he speaks to them about the permanence of the penalty of the law.

This is a very difficult passage in that it is the clearest passage that we get that speaks of hell, that speaks of the afterlife.

It is a very, very sobering passage that is worth our consideration. And as you are hearing this, you may wonder, you know, whether or not it's good to dwell on these things.

Well, God's word has been given to us in order that we might seriously consider it. Moreover, you may wonder whether or not it's good for your children to hear these things.

Let me tell you that I, as a child, heard very clear teaching about hell, and it was very helpful for me.

I appreciated, as a child, being able to know what the Bible said about these things and be able to consider the importance of having a long -term view and not being stuck in a myopic view of the world where I'm only thinking about the next day, but rather considering the life that God has in store for both his people and those that are not found to be his people on that final day.

And so, as we consider this, let us consider the sobering warning that it is, as well as what it says to these people about righteousness.

These are people who Jesus has been interacting with for some chapters who think that their righteousness is demonstrated by their own standing in society, by their own outward wealth, and he makes it very clear, and he's made it very clear several times, that it is not.

And now he hammers that in with this story of Lazarus and the rich man to show just how serious it is of a mistake to think that your righteousness is demonstrated outwardly by something like wealth.

So just looking at this first and considering the characters that are involved, we have the rich man.

It says, there was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.

This rich man, he's clothed in purple. Purple is a rare material or a rare dye that would be used to dye material.

It's very expensive. And then he feasts sumptuously every day. You know, in ancient times, it might be difficult to always know if your next meal is even provided, but this man not only has food for every meal, but he's feasting sumptuously.

He's feasting every day. Now, Lazarus, on the other hand, is a poor man.

He's not only poor, but he is unclean. He is covered in sores, and then his proximity to dogs make it very clear that this is not a man who is welcome in society.

It says, 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. So you have the rich man, and you have

Lazarus. And who do these represent? Well, naturally, as Jesus has been speaking and has, in chapter 15, verse 1, spoken of the tax collectors and the sinners that the

Pharisees have rejected, it is those people who are outcasts from society who are represented by Lazarus.

And then it is those Pharisees that are represented by this rich man.

Now, outwardly, it looks as though the rich man has his life together, and outwardly, it looks as though Lazarus does not.

But inwardly, the opposite is true. Now, you might be wondering, what exactly is the poor man's righteousness here, and what exactly is the rich man's sin?

It does not say explicitly. We can tell that there's a lack of generosity of the rich man, and we can tell that there's some righteousness of this poor man, but it's never said so explicitly.

It's left primarily implicitly, as we've been following Jesus's words and seeing the things that he has held up as true righteousness, and seeing the things that he has pointed to as being a wickedness, one that does not welcome people into the kingdom of God, because it sees one's own righteousness as being a sufficient righteousness.

And if you see your own righteousness as being a sufficient righteousness, you are eager to keep out those who are less righteous than you.

But if you recognize that your own righteousness is not good enough, only the righteousness of Christ is sufficient, then that will turn you to welcome all others in, because those others have the same standing you do, which is none, none apart from Jesus Christ.

And so it is very tempting, and it's very, very tempting in many societies to see wealth as an outward symbol of righteousness.

And indeed, there's a sense in which those that are correlated, the one who follows the law of God, God is faithful to ensure that he's created a world where if you do those things that are right, it generally works out well.

If you do those things that are wrong, it'll generally work out poorly. And so there's a reason that people would identify some correlation with that, but that correlation is not so absolute that you can simply look at outward righteousness, or outward wealth, and say that this is a sure sign of righteousness.

Now in the church, you often see the same thing. Perhaps it's not about outward wealth, but a lot of times it'll be about some kind of outward happiness.

You know, the person that's smiling all the time, it is just fun to be around and seems to have their life together, that's usually seen as a sign of righteousness.

And indeed, there is a correlation between joy, which is for the Spirit, and righteousness. But is that outward facade really the sign of righteousness, to let you know that someone is righteous?

And you may also observe that, well, in our society, there are a lot of people who actually hate rich people, and think that wealth is a sign of wickedness.

What about them? Well, they have their own outward way of identifying righteousness, either by associations with others, or by associations with organizations, where they would identify people as righteous.

But all these things are poor, poor proxies for true righteousness, because righteousness is not had from oneself, because we are insufficient, we are imperfect, and rather, we need a perfect righteousness that can only come from Jesus Christ.

These are all very poor proxies for righteousness. To consider how this might work in another arena, a lot of people try to convey themselves as successful businessmen.

They want to show, I know business well, I know finance well, by driving a nice car.

You know, I've seen a lot of realtors do that. A lot of realtors will, you know, drive a Porsche to do a house showing, because they want to communicate to other people,

I know what I'm doing, I'm very successful at being a realtor. This is the sign to you that I am a good realtor,

I'm a good businessman. And other people do this often, and some people will look at that and say, ah, there's the sign.

He really is a good realtor. A lot of people do this with marriage as well. How many men will look at a beautiful woman without knowing her true quality and say, now that would make a good wife, that would make an excellent wife.

Beauty is a good thing, but it's not a great proxy for determining excellent character, what an excellent wife would be.

In the same way, wealth or any kind of outward sign is not a good proxy for true righteousness.

Now you will know them by their fruits, but their fruits are more than these simple outward things that others can imitate and replicate.

So do not be deceived by these things, and do not be self -deceived either.

Many people think, just like the Pharisees, that they are righteous because they have their life together in some way.

Maybe it's wealth, maybe it's their household, maybe something else, and they think that because of that, that they are righteous before God.

Let this be a moment for you to sit back and really examine yourself. Whether or not you've been in the church a long time, even if you have, even if you think you've thought about it all thoroughly, take a moment and step back and ask yourself where your righteousness comes from.

Do you identify it as coming from yourself, or do you identify it as coming from Jesus Christ? There have been some who have suggested that the reason that the rich man is not named, you know, many for a long period of time because of the way the

Latin translate this, call him divis or diverus, if you ever hear that name, that's talking about the rich man here because of the way it's translated in the

Latin, but he's not named here for us. A lot of people have suggested that that is an opportunity for you to place your own name there.

Okay, you ever read one of these young adult novels where the main character is a really bland, vague character who you can kind of insert yourself into in order to, you know, live out the experience?

Take this opportunity to place yourself in the story and ask yourself where is my righteousness coming from?

And so we see the result of each man's life. The poor man died and was carried away by 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. Now at this point, it might be worthwhile taking a step back and asking us how much we should be able to learn from this story about the afterlife.

There are several reasons why people have stopped and said maybe it can't tell us anything at all. After all, what does a parable say about reality so directly?

I would like to suggest to you that there are several reasons to not consider this a parable, but actually to consider this a true event that really happened.

First of all, it's not introduced as a parable, as many of the parables are. Secondly, there's no other parable where anyone has a proper name like we have here,

Lazarus, right? When you have the Good Samaritan, you've got, you know, someone who falls by the way, you have the

Samaritan, but no one ever receives any names. And here we have an actual name suggesting these may be actual details of something that truly transpired.

And so, regardless of whether or not this is a true story, it is not a parable in the sense that other parables are parables, right?

This is not about seeds, and then you learn about seeds and ground and how they come up, and then you, and then that is an illustration of some other spiritual truth, right?

This is something that is directly about people in their senses of reality. It's not something that represents out of something else in creation, right?

Where you would look at agriculture, you look at, you know,

Jesus made some financial parables and other things, you know, the woman who lost her coin, the lost sheep, and then it gets applied to something else.

Rather, this is a narrative, whether or not it truly transpired or is just an illustration, it is a narrative that translates directly to people who have a sense of righteousness that is based on wealth.

So, consider that this is, Jesus is not drawing from pagan philosophies, not drawing from pagan conceptions of the afterlife.

As he gives this picture, he is giving us a real picture of the afterlife.

Now, there are some limits to it. Obviously, things are spoken of in a material way when we know that the body lies in the grave, and so when it talks about Lazarus's finger or Abraham's side or anything else about the rich man's tongue, these are not to be taken so literal because obviously they would not have a body if their body is in the grave, and yet Jesus is not drawing from pagan conceptions of the afterlife.

He is speaking of a true conception of the afterlife. So, with that, consider the various ways that these men's conditions are reversed.

The first is in their transport. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham's side.

Okay, so the poor man is carried away by angels to Abraham's side. Hebrews 1 .14

speaks of the fact that angels are tasked with assisting those who will inherit salvation.

There's a particular way that angels serve those who are of God's people, and so Lazarus is taken away by angels, whereas for the rich man, it merely says that he was buried, and then suddenly in Hades.

Beyond that transport, consider the identity of these places as well. The rich man dies and he is in Hades.

Hades is this place of torment, as it clearly says, and then Lazarus is at Abraham's side, in many translations referred to as Abraham's bosom.

Abraham's bosom is something that even in, even though Abraham is a character in this narrative,

Abraham's bosom is something that even older Jewish writing would speak of to speak of the afterlife for those who are, for those who are of God's people.

It's a place of comfort. Now, there are several difficult questions that I have not fully resolved for myself.

One of those is whether or not these are two compartments of the same place, or whether or not they are two completely different places.

A lot of people will point out that in the Old Testament, you have Sheol often spoken of as a common grave, it seems, because even righteous people talk about an anticipation of going there.

Even Jacob talks about him going down with gray hairs to Sheol. However, every time you hear

Sheol mentioned in the Old Testament, it's always in a context of judgment. It is always in a context of either being saved away from it or condemned to it.

It is never spoken of as a, in a neutral light where the righteous go to it.

And so, I don't think that it is wise to think that way, especially given that, yeah,

I'm not convinced of that, especially given that in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the

Old Testament, Sheol is always translated as Hades. And here you have

Hades distinguished from Abraham's bosom. So, though some would say that Abraham's bosom is a compartment of Sheol or a compartment of Hades, these are presented here as two distinct places, not simply a, not simply compartments of the same place, even though there is some capacity to observe and communicate across, across that chasm.

Now, in addition to the transport, in addition to the identity of place, there's also the dignity of each man.

You have one that is lifted up and above the other, right? The rich man lifts up his eyes and sees

Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. If he's lifting up his eyes, that means that Lazarus is higher than him, okay, and he is lower.

And also, you can tell that there's a difference in dignity because of the names. Lazarus has a name.

His name is forever remembered here in Scripture. The rich man has no name. He will not be remembered.

Doesn't matter how great he was in his earthly life. Doesn't matter how many monuments he made to himself.

He will be, he is simply forgotten who he was, just like Ozymandias.

If you are not familiar with who Ozymandias is, then my point is all the more clear.

Someone you don't know about. In addition to that, notice that they recognize each other.

Lazarus knows who the rich man is. The rich man knows who Lazarus is. Their identities are still around, even in the afterlife.

When we reach that final place, we will know who each other are.

It will not be something where we're walking around, getting to know each other for the first time, but if we knew each other in this life, we would know who each other are there as well.

And what this means is that shame, that shame of punishment, it's not something where you can merely bear it alone and hide your head in the sand as an ostrich would do.

Rather, it is a shame that you would have to experience publicly for all eternity.

Now also, the distinction in comfort in addition to dignity. They have a distinct comfort.

Obviously, this rich man is facing much, much torment, and Lazarus is experiencing comfort.

In fact, the rich man is experiencing so much torment, he calls 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 and flame. A lot of people say, well, that's such a small request.

You know, how could this be a real representation of the afterlife? A lot of people who would deny, you know, the reality of the afterlife.

The point here is that he is so desperate that even that one little thing he would desire so greatly.

Now, many, many folks have looked at, have looked at this picture of the afterlife.

They've looked at several things scripture says, and they have imagined what the afterlife might entail.

You see things like Dante, you know, in his, his Inferno or his Paradise, and you read all these scenes from hell, these scenes from heaven.

The reality is that man's imagination does not capture the greatness of the comfort that you would experience in heaven, and it does not, it captured the greatness of the torment that you could possibly experience in hell.

Likewise, likewise, you see in religions like Islam, Islam, unlike Christianity, talks extensively about the afterlife and what it will be like.

The pleasures that await those who go to heaven, the horrors that await those who go to hell, and as horrible as some of those horrors are, they are not as terrible as that which awaits those who think their righteousness is found in themselves.

So it's worth considering that no, no matter how, how wild your imagination is, you cannot imagine, just as God is unfathomable, so what he has in store is unfathomable.

That is both an encouragement to those who are in Christ and is a warning to all to avoid, to avoid finding your righteousness anywhere but, but in Jesus Christ.

Now there are a couple of, yeah, and do not, another warning here would be not to mock the afterlife.

Many people mock it. They say, well, I know where I want to be. I want to be with my friends, and all my friends are going to hell, and so I'll be there too.

The glibness and apathy that's involved in making a statement like that about which someone has no knowledge is, is about the most foolish statement you can make.

Do not, do not mock these things. Now there's a couple of things that I'd like to point out about the nature of this, of this afterlife.

The first is that it is immediate. You know, it comes about immediately. Many people teach a doctrine called soul sleep.

That is where men, when they die, immediately, rather than going to this conscious afterlife, simply become unconscious, and it's not until judgment day that they would become conscious again.

Now there's various versions of this, ones where God is preserving the soul in an unconscious state, one where the soul really has no meaning or God is recreating later, and you see groups like Seventh -day

Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, they teach this sort of thing that man is just unconscious, but here you have quite the opposite displayed, and also we have plenty of passages that show that this is not, that soul sleep is not a correct doctrine.

You have the, Moses and Elijah being with Jesus on the

Mount of Transfiguration. There are all kinds of indications that a conscious existence continues, even as your body may be lowered into the grave.

So it is immediate. The term for soul sleep, there's a technical term for it.

It's called psychopanacheia. I'll say that again, psychopanacheia, and you can, if you want to look more into it, there's a really excellent track by John Calvin on this called

Psychopanacheia, about him arguing that souls don't sleep but are actually conscious and immediately go to their eternal state, even though obviously there's something else that comes once you're reunited to your body.

And so it is immediate. This is like a glass face on a countertop, you know, it sits there precariously, it's just fine, and then the next moment you've knocked it over, there's no way to get it back again.

It is crashed, it's over. It's like getting hit in a car accident, if that's ever happened, you know, and suddenly you've got this injury and you realize, yeah, man, just a minute ago if I'd taken a different turn, if anything had changed, there would have been some way out of this.

But no way out. Just like that, everything changes. Once again, this is a great warning, this is a reason to take these things very seriously, but it is also, it is also a great hope for those who are in Christ, because there is, the way

Isaiah phrases it is that it's like a dream, it's like someone waking up from a dream. If you experience difficult things in this life, if you're like, if it's like Job or it's like Lazarus here, where he's suffering difficulties, as he is carried away into this state, he is comforted.

And that comfort is such that his former existence is like a dream. It's not something that's traumatic and haunts him or every time he thinks about it, he, you know, gets shivers.

It is something that is taken away from him. So let that be an encouragement for your endurance, no matter what you're facing here, that it is something temporary.

There's a great comfort awaiting those who are in Christ. Amen. Now the other thing here is that it is, it is permanent.

So it's both immediate and permanent. Just like Jesus had spoken, and recall that he is telling this story on the tail of the statement, but it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the law to become void.

So just like the law is permanent and it cannot be changed, this, this afterlife is permanent and it cannot be changed.

And this is what Abraham gets to when he speaks of this chasm. But Abraham said, child, remember that in your lifetime you received good things and Lazarus and like man are 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.

And so it is a, it is a permanent condition. Once again, to compare this to some other doctrine, this is different than purgatory, right?

Purgatory is not a permanent condition. It's something where in the

Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory, you experience some kind of fire that purges you from whatever you need to be purged with in order that you can enter the presence of God.

What Scripture teaches is something very different than a doctrine like that, a doctrine of a temporary state like that.

A doctrine of purgatory. So it is a, it is a, it is a permanent state.

And a lot of people wonder about the justice of that permanence. Why is it, why is it right for God to punish someone permanently, eternally for something that they only spent a temporary time doing?

I'll give you two reasons. Okay, one is that God is infinite. The higher someone is that you offend the greater the offenses.

Okay, God is so infinitely high. Our offenses toward Him, even though they may feel small to you, they are not small and they warrant an eternal torment.

The second thing is, there is a huge assumption in saying that people's sins are only temporary.

Our sins are not, are not temporary. They are not just while we are on this life. There is no guarantee of some kind of regenerate heart that the unbelievers are given once they reach this state.

And so they continue on eternally gnashing their teeth at God. You've seen in the

Bible that this state is described as a weeping and gnashing of teeth. That gnashing, if you go and you just search the

Bible for the word gnash, every time it comes up, it's not talking about pain, it's talking about anger. Okay, it's not talking about sadness and pain, it's talking about sadness and anger.

These people continue on eternally angry. Eternally building up judgment for themselves again from God.

And so God is punishing them, not just for the sins here on this earth, but it continues because of continuing sin as well.

This chasm, this chasm, once again, I believe that this is not a, this is not something borrowed from pagan imagery.

This is a real feature. I'd like to give you a couple of proofs for that. The first one is here in Luke, in chapter 11, verse 35, or excuse me, verse 36.

Okay, I placed my marker in the wrong spot. I apologize about that. But there is a verse where Jesus talks about when you see, when you see in the afterlife,

Abraham, et cetera. And so he's talking about, he's talking about those going off into judgment.

Who experience, who see others in the afterlife. So this chasm where one side is able to see the other is a real thing, and we also see that in Isaiah 66.

Isaiah 66 says, verse 22 says, for as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the

Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain from new moon to new moon and from Sabbath to Sabbath.

All flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the Lord. So God's describing the new heavens and the new earth, eternal worship before him.

He says, and they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me, for their worm shall not die and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.

This being the same passage that Jesus quotes to describe hell. And so it is something that, and so that chasm there where one side is observing the other is something that continues, and as Abraham explains here in this narrative, it is something that is fixed so that it's not just the case that there won't be any change.

It is set up so that there cannot be any change. There cannot be any change.

And this continues on forever and ever, building up, as I said, more and more judgment.

You know, if you consider that, if you consider what that means, first of all, I would point out that the suffering that men experience in that world is related to the degree of offense against God.

Luke 20, verse 47 says that the Pharisees devour widows' houses for a pretense, they make long prayers, they will receive the greater condemnation.

So it talks about a greater condemnation. And then also, it talks about those cities that rejected

Jesus' ministry. It says, but I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.

In other words, those cities that never experienced the miracles of Jesus and rejected the Lord, those will receive less judgment than those who experienced

Jesus' miracles and then rejected Him. Now, if that's the case, that there is a greater punishment that awaits those who have made greater offenses against God, what does that mean if it is true that they aren't granted regenerate hearts in the state but continue gnashing their teeth at God, building up more and more and more judgment?

It is an increasing torment, eternally increasing.

It is not one that remains constant. Not only is there a hopelessness of never escaping it, a hopelessness that would just cripple anyone, but there's only an anticipation of worse and worse torment as time goes on forever.

If you've ever heard a shepherd's tone, you know the thing where they play two rising sets of notes and then swap them so that it sounds like it's rising up forever and ever and ever and ever?

Okay, imagine a shepherd's tone of torment. Okay, that is what those who have trusted in themselves will experience.

But for the righteous, discomfort goes on forever, and it even increases forever.

What do we find our joy in but the knowledge of God, and what will we have more of there as we go on forever, walking with our

Lord, walking with our Savior, more and more knowledge of Him forever and ever and ever? I don't believe that paradise will be a constant state either.

It will continue being a more and more joyous one for all eternity, and that's a wonderful thing to look forward to, but it is terribly sobering for those who would not place their trust in Christ but rather think that they themselves are sufficient to stand before God on their own.

And so there is this reversal. Abraham said, child, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus, in like manner, received 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.

This great chasm has been fixed, and so it is permanent. And it is something that has totally, totally reversed them.

One experienced good things in this life, the other experienced poor things, and now they are completely reversed.

The idea here is not that all those who have any wealth will suffer torment.

The idea is not that all those who are poor will be saved. Rather, the idea is those who find their righteousness in themselves will not be saved.

Those who find their righteousness in Jesus Christ will be saved. Let me offer to you another verse.

In Luke, earlier in Luke, and this has been a frequent theme of Luke.

For example, at the very beginning of Luke, it starts off with the magnificat, you know, Mary's song where she praises

God for having raised up the lowly and taking down the high and proud. That's exactly what's happening here.

We're seeing a continuing of that theme in Luke. And then in Luke 621, excuse me, 620, it says,

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said, Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.

And Matthew, in Matthew chapter 5, clarifies the poor in spirit. So those who are poor in spirit, this is not about the possessions you have, it is about your dispossession, your disposition, thank you, towards that possession.

Your disposition towards that possession. Are you poor in spirit such that you recognize that you have nothing to stand before God with, and you are in constant need of him?

Or are you one who thinks that you have enough, who does not weep because you have enough, who is not hungry because you feel already satisfied?

The scripture says, Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.

There will be a reversal. So it is not, while it's not the case that everyone who is wealthy in the very shallow sense of it will experience torment, it is the case that everyone who is not poor in spirit, who enjoys contentment in this life and finds all the satisfaction they need in this life, not longing for Jesus Christ, not longing for the next, they will all experience, they will all experience judgment.

And so there is truly a reversal. Now, many people object to this, and they feel that it is very, it is very unjust of God to act this way.

It is not unjust. As I already mentioned, those offenses against him are so great that they warrant this judgment.

But then in addition to that, in addition to that, we must consider just how much we owe our maker, how great and awesome he is, and how lowly we are in our need for him.

Those who come to Jesus Christ for mercy, as it had explained earlier, those who are breaking into the kingdom of God, those are ones who have really recognized their need for him, who come to him knowing their extreme need.

Consider the rich man. The rich man does not see that. The rich man thinks that Lazarus still owes him. He sees this as unjust because he says,

Father Abraham, so he still, he thinks of Abraham as his father. Now, in fairness, Abraham responds to him as son because he is his literal son.

These are descendants of each other. He says, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue.

What does he think? He thinks that Lazarus belongs in this place and that he does not belong in this place.

But what Abraham is telling him is that he does belong in this place. And this will be the case, this will be the case eternally, that people will think that they are, that they do not deserve what they are getting.

Okay, the wicked in hell will eternally feel that they have gotten a bad, that they have not gotten what they deserved as they gnash their teeth at God.

The righteous will eternally know that they have not gotten what they deserve because they have received the mercy of Jesus Christ.

Now, it's important to get that right in your head now, that Jesus Christ, that mercy that he gives is what is needed in order to continue on with Christ forever and is not deserved.

We do not deserve any kind of goodness in this life. We do not deserve any kind of goodness in the next apart from that which is given by God, given that we have sinned against him.

And so place your trust in Jesus Christ. Do not look to yourself. Take this opportunity to consider the gravity with which people go about their lives and apathy not considering these things.

This is a grave, grave matter. Weigh this out fully and take this warning soberly.

But then also be encouraged that what this means is that you do not need to come to him with great riches.

You do not need to come to him with perfect law keeping.

You do not need to come to him with any kind of outward form of righteousness. Anything that the world values, anything that the world sees as successful, none of that is valuable to him because he knows where true value is found.

True value is found in his son, Jesus Christ, and the one that he would have come into his kingdom is the one who recognizes that true value is found in him.

And so do not put your trust in those things. Do not put your trust in yourself but recognize that you have nothing to offer and that your only hope is in Jesus Christ.

My prayer is that your hope would be in him and that you would joyfully come knowing that you need to bring nothing, knowing that the only thing you need to bring is empty hands and gratitude for the goodness of Jesus Christ and his merciful provision in order that we may be comforted in the next life rather than experience the horrors that await those who reject that gift.

Let us pray. Amen. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your wonderful kindness to us in disclosing to us details about the world to come.

We pray that you would help us to consider the matter soberly and clearly and that you would give us hearts of faith that would trust in Jesus Christ above ourselves or anything else.