D.A. Carson - The Parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus

this evening I want your attention to another the rich man and Lazarus the account is found Luke chapter 16 I am going to begin reading at verse 19 Luke 16:19 to the end of the chapter Luke 16 beginning at verse 19 this then is what scripture says 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 Hades 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 set in place 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 family 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 one from the dead goes to them they will repent he said to them if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead this is the word of the Lord so how shall we understand this parable unambiguously there is some kind of reversal going on but are we to infer that this is the kind of reversal that always works out this way live life well and in hell suffer pain enjoy great game it's as simple as that black-and-white reversal but so much of Scripture stands against such simplistic reversal theology there is reversal going on here but that sort of simplistic analysis doesn't square very well with much of the Bible it doesn't even Square very well with the Book of Luke after all in scripture there are some God blessed and godly rich people think of job for example described as the richest man in the East however big it territory the East is and a man so practiced in disciplined holiness that he's even praying preemptively for his children he makes a covenant with his eyes so that if he looks on a young woman he won't lust after her deeply committed to looking after the poor and then there's Solomon at least in his early years asking for the right things concerned to be faithful in his task of reigning over the people of God Esther in the New Testament Philemon probably Theophilus there are some godly people who are well-to-do in other words there's not an automatic one-to-one tie with wealth it is not quite the case that everyone who is rich is necessarily wicked moreover there are some poor in the Bible who are wicked oh it's true that the Bible has an enormous amount to say about caring for the wicked who are oppressed or disadvantaged or dispossessed or alienated or marginalized I mentioned this morning passages from Isaiah or from Amos there is a tremendous amount of stress on the importance of caring for other people yet at the same time a book like Proverbs recognizes that poverty can come from different kinds of sources sometimes to be brutally frank it's tied to laziness a little slumber a little sleep a little closing of the eyes to sleep sometimes it can come from drunkenness and debauchery from a wild hedonism that knows no bounds that does not know how to save or to plan for tomorrow all of those sorts of stupidities are described in great detail and penetrating aphorisms in the book of Proverbs in other words there's no automatic one-to-one connection between poverty and godliness you may be poor in spirit and poor but there's no automatic connection so how do we integrate what this parable says with broader streams of biblical theology that that clearly have some kind of reversal open in some cases but have some limits here and there too now this morning if you were here you will remember that I began with a parable and then we looked around at the immediate context to Luke and and fit the parable into that larger context this evening I want to reverse the procedure we're going to look at the surrounding contents of Luke just quickly and then we'll focus in on the parable itself for there are some contextual clues that help us to read the Bible at this juncture a little more probing Lee first back up just a wee bit before Luke 16:19 start with verse 13 no one can serve two masters either you will hate the one and love the other or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other you cannot serve both God and money now you can have different masters different loads stars different lords in your life in different domains that's quite possible it's so for example as we saw this morning in polytheism when you have different gods operating in different domains of your life and if you have a fractured life you can do that to some extent today - without naming particular false gods you could have a never Thalassa a huge pull in your life toward this good or toward that desire toward that wealth toward towards some other goal but when push comes to shove something always wins when they're in competition the question is what wins for that one is for you God that's why Paul can describe covetousness as idolatry because if you want something badly enough that becomes for you God and in this particular case as pretty often in Luke Luke has a great deal to say about money in this particular case the particular God that may trip us up and demand our wildest allegiance is money you cannot serve both God and money when push comes to shove you love one more than the other the problem with money is that it so easily becomes a master what we pursue we serve the measure by which we judge others the measure of our own success money in other words has the great potential of de Godding God you cannot have two ultimate masters in your life so one of the things that Jesus is interested in this context that Luke is interested in preserving in this context is Jesus strong insistence on the exclusiveness of God we saw that earlier this more in Chapter ten did we not God does demand that he alone be God you shall love the Lord your God with heart and soul and mind and strength anything less than that has already sunk into the slime of a kind of idolatry but then back off a little further verse 11 this is at the end of the parable of the shrewd manager so if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth who will trust you with two riches and if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property who will give you property of your own now the whole context is challenging but the least that is being said is something like this if God who is the author of every good gift gives you some material blessings and you think of them not in terms of stewardship but in terms of what you own and master what you must improve for your own assets and that sort of thing if you can't treat these things entrusted to you with responsibility and integrity with a godsend earnest then why on earth should God give you anything else such as real riches such as eternal riches in some sense what we do with the material blessings of this life already reflects where our heart is it reflects already what we cherish the most but it gets more probing yet verse 14 the Pharisees who loved money heard all this and were sneering at Jesus he said to them you are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others but God knows your hearts what people value highly is detestable in God's sight now we looked at this theme briefly this morning one of the sub themes in Luke's Gospel we saw is self justification thus in the parable of the Good Samaritan that we looked at this morning the lawyer theologian with whom Jesus was conversing wanted to justify himself so asked his next round of questions and two chapters on from here in chapter 18 were told the parable of the Pharisee in the tax code and the Pharisee goes home justifying himself but it's only the tax collector who cries to god be merciful to me a sinner who actually goes home justified before God in other words divine justification where God justifies us on the basis of what God has done in Christ Jesus to pay for our sin and reckon his righteousness to us divine justification is set over against self justification and that of course is what's going on here but look more closely this self justification is tied to money money becomes a way by which you keep score now there are lots of ways of keeping score of course for some people it's a good looks I don't have any problems in that regard myself for for some it's a how fit you are being a hunk becomes more important than anything else and for others it's how far up you are in the pecking order in your institution or for still others it's it's what kind of personality you have and and and how much you're respected because of your bubbly effervescent enthusiasm but one of the means by which we keep score pretty commonly in the West is money we're not so crass as to put it that way but nevertheless deep down that's why of course people keep talking about the American dream the American dream as far as I can see is becoming less and less to do with stability and building a family and this sort of thing and and much more to do with having more money than your parents had at the same age I think that is what is regularly meant today by the American Dream and so in today's economy people get all nervous because because we're losing the American dream which does not mean that that that there's no hope or or that there's no work or any of those sorts of things it means you may come out owning a little less than your parents and that's a betrayal of the American dream you're losing in the keeping score game in the keeping score game you're going downhill now what's going on here it's exactly what's going on here the Pharisees who love money heard what Jesus had been saying about money and idolatry and things like that the things that I've just mentioned in the preceding verses and they were sneering at him they were sneering at him precisely because they were saying in effect don't you understand there is a sense in which we keep score I mean we don't put it quite that bluntly but we can say God has blessed us look at how well my business is going God has blessed us isn't that nice but yet there is always an edge of of the self-promotion in it now no let me hasten to add this does not mean that there's no place for a godly Abraham who keeps adding to his sheep and cattle and yet once the sheep and the cattle become a way of keeping score then there's something really hopeless about it it is no longer God centered at all it is not even something that is received with gratitude still less something offered up to God it is a way of keeping score that's idolatry that's why Jesus says to them you are the ones who justify yourselves that is you justify yourselves in the eyes of others you keep score that's what you're doing when you're justifying yourself and you justify yourselves by your income oh there are lots of ways we do this of course even those of us who are at the bottom end of the pile in the Western world we're driving an old rust bucket the termites hold hands to keep it together we might actually have a certain kind of inverted pride that our car is older than your car but somewhere along the line you might actually manage to get oh you're now twenty eight twenty nine you know you're getting your first car with a decent sized engine in it may not be ecologically cool but it's got a decent engine when my son who's a marine bought himself a Silverado with a big engine in it I said to him Nicholas do you really need to truck that big and he said dad you don't understand he said this one has got computer controls on it you don't need all eight cylinders you're running on four most of the time it's pretty ecologically smooth but when there's power it's there so I can be ecologically responsible and still be a man now did I hear a little overtone of something there did you see and so when you come up in this new vehicle to the light and you see there's some young character next to you with a hot rod you are tempted to drop that into neutral and gas at a couple of times just just to make sure somebody's listening to the throaty roar of your engine then you're dropping it a gear and take off and if you can win without breaking too many laws then there's a certain kind of glow isn't there oh you don't want to put it in such crass terms and you might not actually hotdog it off red lights and and yet and yet we keep score so often by what we drew how we dress or by our our possessions or our house or or our cars now we suppress it reasonably well but if we get to the point where we're sneering at others and sneering at those who point these things out then we belong under the condemnation that Jesus has for the Pharisees you are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others but God knows your hearts and then this stinging word what people value highly is detestable in God's sight that's what the text says it's not that all human values without exception are necessarily disgusting obviously that's not the case but what people value highly that is so that it becomes what you want the most what you are coveting what becomes God for you becomes wicked it's not that the thing is itself necessarily wicked the text does not say what people value that is wicked is detestable in God's sight there are some things that are detestable in God's like whether you value the mily or not but even things that you do that you value that are not wicked that may be good things may become wicked if you value them highly enough you may value for example a good education that's surely a good thing the Bible nowhere commends stupidity or ignorance when you have the opportunity to learn more and yet somehow advancing an education could become God for you it's more important that people think you to be highly educated then that you hear God's well done on the last day and then it has to be said what people value highly is detestable in God's sight to more contextual details if you are here this morning I reminded you that from luke 9:51 on we begin what is sometimes called luke's travel narrative that is from luke 9:51 on all the way to chapter 19 jesus is described as on his way to Jerusalem and to the cross to his suffering to his torment and then to his resurrection which has the effect from a literary point of view from the point of view of how this book is put together it has the effect of saying all of this takes place on the way to the cross you must read all of this on the way to the cross that includes the parable of the rich man and Lazarus one final contextual observation then will plunge into our parable there is actually a sequence of three parables here all dealing with wealth in one fashion or another in chapter 15 verses 11 to 32 the parable of the lost son is really two lost sons isn't it here a prodigal wastes his father's possessions then at the beginning of chapter 16 the shrewd manager the dishonest servant a dishonest servant wastes his masters possessions and then in our parable a rich man wastes his own possessions now in each case there's a slightly different emphasis that's made it's not that Jesus is simply repeating himself each parable is making a different point yet all have to do in one fashion or another with how possessions are handled responsibly so now we come to our parable it's divided into two parts first is the narrative the contrast between two different men and then comes the dialogue verses 24 to 31 between the rich man and Abraham and what you have is the blindness of a damned man first of all then the narrative itself a contrast between two different men verses 19 to 23 the narrative is quite simple you're exposed to the rich man who in life is absorbed in sumptuous living then Lazarus in life poor and weak and indigent then in the next life Lazarus who is now enjoying incalculable blessing and the rich man who is now in pain so it's the rich man Lazarus Lazarus the rich man that's the way the narrative runs and that's repeated as we'll see in a moment begin then with verse 19 here is a picture of a self-indulgent spectacularly wealthy man in the ancient world purple cloth was expensive there were only two ways of dyeing it in the ancient world's to make it purple and both of them were very expensive which meant that if you wanted to flaunt your wealth what you did was buy a lot of purple cloth you wore a lot of purple clothes because that told the whole world how wealthy you were you could afford it the text says there was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen the word rendered fine linen is usually used for under garments under clothes it's almost as if Jesus is saying tongue firmly placed in his cheek in case anyone is interested even his underwear is posh in other words this man is self-indulgent all the way through it were he lived in luxury everyday he ate some shulie sumptuously every day every meal a multi-course meal with servants and fine wines and excellent food and no thought of fasting or anything of that order no he is simply simply a very wealthy man who indulges all of his tastes then were introduced to Lazarus only Lazarus is named now from our point of view that doesn't matter all that much but in the biblical world it's significant it means that in the Astoria the only person who's really important is Lazarus the rich man is not even important enough to name he might think of himself as very important because he has all that money that's his his ladder for measuring himself but it's only Lazarus the poor man who was actually named and his name means the one whom God helps and you hear that and you think good grief if this is the one whom God helps I hate to be the man whom God doesn't help until you read the end of the story and then you think about it a bit more and you think I guess the only way you can assess who the man is whom God helps is to wait into eternity the very name when it is introduced gives you a dis charring note how can this be the man whom God helps when he's ill indigent broken and about to die but then you have to read the rest of the story he was laid at the rich man's gate that is he was not even strong enough to go and beg on the village green in the village square he is so ill he has to be carried by others you have to remember of course that in village life in Palestine in the first century there were no social services was no clinic nearby no medical authorities so what the accepted custom was when somebody just became too ill to look after themselves the accepted custom was to to bring them to the home or the homes of the richest person or people in the village it was accepted that it was part of their social cultural responsibility to use some of their excess wealth to look after the most indigent you see they would take them in give them a room make sure they were washed up there the servants to do it then they had enough to pay for little extra food in a small village the poor people didn't have much in any case they had to be out in the fields how could they do very much so the villagers did what they were expected to do they they brought the man - - to the rich man's gate they expected the rich man to do something about it that was his social duty let alone a responsibility for alms giving that was laid on all Jews the very fact that they lay this man at the gate shows that this man lives in a walled compound in other words he was not simply comfortably off he was really well-to-do by 1st century standards he lived in a walled compound complete with gate and then we're about to be introduced to dogs now you must understand that in the first century dogs were not kept as pets people didn't keep a little Labradoodle and stroke its ears and tickle its tummy and buy one of 57 different varieties of dog food dogs are either wild dogs think Australian dingo or they were working dogs usually guard dogs and it appears that that's the case here their guard dogs that is in this walled compound how do you feed them if you can't go to the shop and buy bags of dried dog food or or cans of canned food complete with chicken nuggets in it well what you do is you feed him the scraps from the table that has shown up elsewhere in the New Testament if you recall Jesus conversation with a syrophoenician woman even the dogs eat the scraps from the table don't they so this is part of the social structure of the day but what do we read about Lazarus at his gate the rich man's gate was laid a beggar named Ezra's covered with sores so he's ill he's weak he's poor longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table he longed to eat the dog food at least that but the dogs came and licked his sores most of her English translations have even the dogs came and licked his sores the text doesn't say even it says but it's very clearly an adversity he would long to eat the dog food but at least the dogs came and licked his sores they were the only ones that showed compassion here the guard dogs came and licked his sores and then a time came when they both died the beggar died there's no mention of his funeral no mention of his burial he most likely would have been put in a common grave reserved for the really poor in the indigent but that's not the end of him the angels carried him to Abraham's side they carried him to Abraham's bosom now that needs a bit of explanation too because it's important in the rest of the narrative different cultures have different rules about how close you can get to somebody I was brought up in French Canada so in French Canada people are pretty jovial we greet each other by kissing on both cheeks yeah I can manage that and if you go to the Arab world and it's often three kisses I sometimes find a difficulty difficult to remember which side to begin on which has its own challenges but nevertheless I can do that too but nevertheless my genes are British both my parents were born in the United Kingdom and so there's a part of me that thinks that the appropriate distance between two consenting adults is 36 inches and then I go to Latin America where they labor under the delusion that the appropriate distance between two adults is 18 inches so they keep crowding me getting closer and closer and closer and I keep backing up and they keep crowding me and getting closer and closer and I keep backing up and then I think I'm going to try and experiment I'll stick up my foot as they get closer they step on it they think I'm reserved and and and a bit standoffish and I think they're they're pushy and in my face they're getting into my turf it's all just culture if I go to the Middle East and I'm with some of my Arab Muslim friends well the men want to walk down the street with me hand in hand that does not signal exactly what it might signal in San Francisco it's the way it's done but if I'm there with my wife in some of those cities she's expected to walk behind me and certainly not hand in hand that's lasciviousness so so you you realize that some of these these human contact rules are are culturally constrained in one fashion or another and so also this one Abraham now being the place where Lazarus is Lazarus at Abraham's side on Abraham's bosom if you want to understand what's going on remind yourself of the biblical narratives of the the Passover and in particular the last Passover when Jesus is eating it before he goes to the cross it looks as if it's one of those posh meals that the Jews sometimes had where instead of standing up or sitting they actually lay down on on low mats that was the way they did it with a low table and around the low table these narrow little mats where each person leant leaned on an arm and then reached onto the table and there would be some bread at each place and each person would take some bread break some off and dip it into one of the bowls of either fruit puree or meat puree you see and they would eat it themselves or sometimes pass it to a friend and give it to a friend as part of a sharing device that indicates friendship and and and and affection but that meant that the person next to Jesus had his back to him and it turns out when you put the biblical narratives together that the person next to Jesus was John John Peter was farther away and at some point Jesus says some things that startled everyone you're in the midst of this prescribed Feast of the Jews the Passover Feast and Jesus says in a momentary lull one of you is going to betray me can you imagine the electric shock I'll bet some of them were just about to put something in their mouth and never quite made it another's were chewing and then a little murmur starts around the table surely not I Lord what is he talking about and from somewhere across the table Peter signals to John because John is next to Jesus it's asking what he means asking what he beats but of course although John is next to Jesus he's got his back to Jesus so what you do in those circumstances is you push on your arm and you put your head back on the bosom of the friend next to you that's why John is described as the one who rests his head on Jesus breast at the Last Supper so he pushes on his arm puts his head on Jesus breast and he says who is it Lord and Jesus gives his response it's the one who puts his hand in the bowl with me now from our point of view that just seems unseemly a bit too close a bit too cloying listen if after this meal I were to go with you to the nearest McDonald's for a bite to eat I have to tell you you can jolly well keep your head off my breast yet nevertheless in the context of the first century what this means is that John the Baptist is in the place of privilege of Honor he's he's a Jesus right hand and there's a kind of intimacy and friendship that has has has John's head on Jesus breast talking him to my own familiar friend to use a biblical expression and that's where Lazarus is next to Abraham Oh in this life the rich man ate sumptuously many course meals every day and now of course there in the hereafter and Abraham the grandest patriarch of them all the head of the entire covenant people of God the head of the entire Old Testament Abrahamic covenant the one who had received spectacular promises that through him and his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed the man who was called one of only two men so called in the Old Testament a friend of God the man of faith the one who serves in Paul's writings as as the very exemplar of someone who was justified by faith he is there and Lazarus is next to him with his head on his breast at a banquet within the biblical framework doubtless the Messianic banquet although that isn't brought up here and the rich man where is he the rich man also died and was buried doesn't mention Lazarus as burial mentions the rich man's burial you don't want to read in too much but almost certainly there was a village procession and decent speeches were offered about how much this man had contributed to our community and it employed so many people and so forth he was buried but in Hades in hell he was in torment he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side we're not told how he recognized Abraham there were no photographs after all in those days the filling in of details like that isn't part of the part of the parable but somehow or other he recognizes who Abraham is and he certainly recognizes Lazarus he's from his village after all and he sees Lazarus by Abraham's side that ends the immediate narrative the contrast between two men and so we start the dialogue verses 24 to 31 there are three cycles in each case the rich man in Hell says something and then Abraham responds verse 24 is the first one what would you expect the rich man to say at this juncture you follow the narrative with me the man wakes up in Hell sees Abraham and Lazarus a long way away what would you expect him to say do you see one of the problems we have sometimes in reading the Bible is that we've become so sort of superficially familiar with it that the shock of parables we sometimes lose because we know the words we've read them enough and we've heard them and often and so on we don't hear the shock that they that they manage to evoke when they were first given the only way I can get at the shock now is to ask you what do you think the man would be expected to say wouldn't you expect him to say something like oh my did I get that wrong ah Lazarus I am so sorry could you ever forgive me oh my I was so selfish oh I beg of you please forgive me oh I wish I could I wish I could take that all back I I beg you wouldn't you expect me to say something like that you get is in fact astonishing the rich man does not even speak to Lazarus he still treats him as a menial person and untouchable he says father Abraham have pity on me so he's playing the race card the race and covenant card father Abraham have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my dog he doesn't even ask Lazarus himself you can get the boss man to send Lazarus Lazarus is just part of the menial Bunch somewhere beneath the blue collar worker thank you send Lazarus look at me I'm suffering here it's not right send this piece of unwashed humanity sending to me in other words he demands services from the one to whom he would not even give dog food the rich man even in hell cannot imagine giving up his self-importance he ignored Lazarus when he was in pain and now he wants something to alleviate his own pain there's not a sign of contrition here anywhere in Abraham's response son that's meant to be ironic the man has started off father Abraham all right son he may be a son by genetics but he's no son of Abraham by faith 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 in other words this remember clause is followed by a brief repetition of what's happened in the previous verses the rich man Lazarus Lazarus the rich man it's exactly the same order it's nicely pulled together just to remind this man of the narrative that has preceded that is broaden to this point in Hell itself and then he says and besides all this between us and you a great chasm has been set in place so those who want to go from here to you cannot nor can anyone cross over from there to us a great gulf fixed this does not sound as if anyone in hell is eventually going to get out there have been some Christians who have argued surely God's love is so powerful so winsome so pursuing that that eventually everybody in Hell will see the error of their ways and and and turn and repent and God because he's rich in mercy will will will eventually forgive their sin and they will escape from hell they will go to heaven themselves it's hard to justify that conclusion from this passage there is a great gulf fixed a great chasm and no one can go from there to here Abraham says but the striking thing is that Abraham says something else no one can go from here to there you might well ask yourself who would want to but in the narrative there's only one other person at issue namely Lazarus and the only reason given why anybody would want to go from here to there in the entire narrative is that somebody might want to go to bring a little bit of water for the rich man the text doesn't quite say so but yet to make sense of what Abraham means when he says so that those who want to go from here to you cannot I think you are supposed to imagine that Lazarus is as it were tugging on Abraham's Co and saying it's okay I'll go I'll bring you some water okay okay I'll go but just as no one can go from there to here no one can go from here to there the line has been crossed there's no crossing over there's no turning back and then the second exchange verses 22 7 to 29 the rich man answered then I beg you Father send Lazarus to my family for I have five brothers let him warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment now in the first verses we were introduced to a beggar named Lazarus but now it is the rich man who is begging I beg you but don't be deceived by what the man says this does not yet indicate repentance he has natural concern for his own family he would he would like his own brothers to escape a similar destiny he doesn't want the gospel to be preached to the whole world or something of that order he still doesn't address Lazarus he still hasn't got a clue he still hasn't asked for forgiveness he still hasn't hasn't apologized nothing of that rather if Lazarus still not addressed cannot be used as a table waiter to bring him some water than mate then perhaps he might be used as an errand boy to bring a message to the folks back home and Abraham's response they have Moses and the prophets let them listen to them in our terms they have the Bible let them listen to the Bible in fact we could say much more couldn't we not only they have Moses and the prophets but they have the Gospels and the epistles in the apocalypse that they have the clarity of revelation now this side of the coming of Jesus yes the Old Testament looks forward to the coming of Jesus under the typology of a lamb who is wounded for our transgressions and yes the Old Testament looks looks looks forward to the coming of Jesus as the great Davidic King and yes the Old Testament looks forward to the coming of Jesus as the great covenant maker and yet so many of these things are in types and in in in structures and in in patterns and people weren't putting all of them together they knew that a messiah was coming they knew that a king and David's lion was coming they they knew we needed a great priest but they didn't get it all to get it all together the New Testament writers have it all together they've seen Jesus they've seen how all of these diverse strands from the Old Testament get woven together into one who was simultaneously the king and the suffering servant simultaneously the priests offering a sacrifice and the Lamb who was sacrificed one who presides over this new covenant and the one who is himself the embodiment of the New Covenant the one who offers himself up as it were in the heavenly sanctuary whose flesh is nevertheless described as the veil that is torn to get into the very presence of God in this new heavenly sanctuary all of these pieces coming together so that you see more clearly who Jesus is listen listen if you think that somehow you'd be more likely to believe if only someone like Lazarus would come back from the dead and tell you what God says to you through Abraham is this you have Moses and the prophets and you have the Gospels and the epistles and you have the book of Revelation what more do you need and that brings us to the third cycle now this rich man is emboldened to correct Abraham's theology no father Abraham you've got that wrong you've misjudged this situation entirely if someone from the dead goes to them then they will repent you put much too much emphasis on the word written don't you see if you just have someone rising from the dead that will answer it that will be proof positive all arguments will be resolved and Abraham says if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead and as Luke is writing these words he knows where his book is going someone did rise from the dead and people still do not believe that was true even before Jesus resurrection from the dead there is another Lazarus mentioned in Scripture a different Lazarus whom Jesus brought back from the dead his account is found in John chapter 11 and after Jesus brings the man back from the dead well it turned out to have been a pretty spectacular resurrection because the man had been in the grave for days at a time when there was no embalming already we're told he was smelling pretty badly his decomposition had set in mid middle-eastern heat and four days guaranteed that it was a pretty ugly situation but you know what even though he was resurrected some believed and others went and ratted Jesus out some still did not believe so let me conclude with some reflections for all of us number one there is a sphere of rejoicing to pursue and there is a place of torment to flee the Bible has many different pictures of both heaven and hell most of them highly symbol Laden on the heaven side we've all seen these silly little line drawings you know people sitting on white puffy clouds wearing a white nightgown and playing a harp after the first billion years or so I'm quite sure that would get boring those of us with lower extent lower attention spans might find it it takes a little less than a billion years to find that boring but it's such a ridiculous reductionism the pictures in the Bible of what the new heaven and the new earth are like are staggeringly diverse come and share your masters happiness we read in another parable or you've been faithful over a few things I will make you ruler over many things you know there's going to be work their work and expanding horizons and renewed responsibilities and the strength to do it and no night there and no perversity no death no loss no sorrow no tears and that's just the negative side and meanwhile people around the throne in great choirs and praise and existence and and learning forever we've come to the place now I think where we recognize that the Bible depicts the crowd around the throne on the last day as as being made up of people from every tongue and tribe and people and nation so there'll be cultural diversity there as far as I can see they'll also be linguistic diversity there of every tongue language and tribe and people and nation I'm not sure that the new heaven and the new earth is going to mean that we all speak the same language anymore that we all speak the same language again to sort of go back pre Babel no no the very diversities of the languages will be there and if it takes me a million years to learn Mandarin who cares the lots of millions laughed don't you see the very diversity will be celebrated in it all and Hell itself also described in many many ways a place of fire or of darkness or of Chains the absence of God a place of torment in Luke 12 we're told that some will be beaten there with more stripes and some with fewer stripes because God will take into account different degrees of responsibility it'll all be fair and be seemed to be fair but it's hell the striking thing to observe in this passage and in many many others is that as far as I can see there is not a single passage in all of Scripture that suggests there is repentance in Hell hell is not made up of people who are thoroughly sorry for their sins and wish to repent only God won't let them it's made up of people like this rich man who still thinks he's at the center of the universe hell is made up of people who are in an endless and eternal and wretched cycle of sinning and condemnation world without end people make stupid jokes about how they'd like to go to hell because all their friends will be there ha ha ha ha but there are no friends in hell as long as you think you're at the center of the universe it's not long before all the friendships die it's more one-upmanship games more wickedness and so the very passages of scripture that teach us great comfort when we ourselves lose loved ones to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord which is far better also warn us that there is a hell to be feared it is appointed unto us once to die and after that the judgment there is a sphere of rejoicing to pursue there is a place of torment to flee second the things in which in this life we take so much pride in this parable wealth but it can be ethnicity or religious privilege or power or health accomplishment quick-wittedness good looks youth the very things in which our culture teaches us to take so much pride may actually blind us to our need of grace the things themselves may be good bad or indifferent but if they are the things in which we locate our pride they may simply blind us to our need of grace the question eventually arises who is Lazarus that is who is the one whom God helps and the one whom God helps the most is not the one who has all of the advantages in this life but who has no place for God but the one who is on Abraham's bosom in the next life any other value scale is simply incoherent in biblical terms and finally God has not left himself without witness we must listen to the witness of Scripture or we are damned I know that in the mercy of God sometimes a spectacular miracle actually does help people to come to faith I could introduce you to people from an Iranian Muslim background who are introduced to the gospel and started reading the Bible and then somehow as part of their conversion they had some kind of spectacular vision of Jesus somehow and that sort of tipped the scale and they were converted I know God can convert people out of all sorts of backgrounds but at the end of the day the witness to which Abraham here primarily appeals is the truth of what God has disclosed disclosed in events in history like the Exodus like the giving of the law like the rise of the prophets like the coming of cheeses like the resurrection from the dead and all of these events we have primary access to through witnesses whose witness has been inscripturated that simply means has been written down and has become god-breathed canonical text by which we know the mind and thoughts and activities of God he has not left himself without witness and we must listen to that witness or we are dead but if we do listen to that witness then we discover something of the enormous grace of God in coming to us not only to redeem us but to disclose his very thoughts to disclose his heart his character his purposes and the blessings that will follow because of what his son has done in our behalf this same scripture that comes to us as our aroma unto death comes to us also as an aroma unto life it discloses God in His mercy and grace as well as in his severity and holiness above all it discloses to us Jesus who is the hinge on which way we will take these scriptures such that we sneer them with condescension and self-sufficiency and arrogance or we bend the knee and with gratitude hear the voice of God and cry God be merciful to me a sinner lord I believe help my unbelief let us pray

Channel: Bethesda Baptist

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Id: Tij_z7TcsME

Length: 57min 51sec (3471 seconds)

Published: Thu May 30 2013