AfterLife Sermon
Series -- Part 2
Naylor Community
Christian Church
I. Introduction
-- turn in
Bibles to Luke 16:19-31
Luke 16:19-31
New International Version
19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and
fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar
named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich
man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels
carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In
Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with
Lazarus by his side. 24 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.’
25 “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. 26 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.’
27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to
my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will
not also come to this place of torment.’
29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets;
let them listen to them.’
30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from
the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
31 “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.’”
-- one day, Dorothy, a
kindergartner, was riding through town with her mother and noticed some poles
sticking up from the ground -- she asked her mother, “Is that how people in
hell breathe?" --Surprised by her daughter's question, the mother
answered, "I don't think so honey. Why do you ask?"
-- “Because
I’m worried about hell -- do you believe in hell?” -- "Yes, honey, I
do," her mother replied. -- "Does everyone believe in hell?"
Dorothy inquired. -- "No." her mother said. “Where did you hear about
it?”
-- “From my
teacher -- she talks about it every day” -- Curious as to why her daughter's
teacher would talk about hell so much -- and especially to a group of
kindergartners -- she asked, "What does your teacher say about hell?"
-- Dorothy raised her arms and imitated her teacher, saying, "Every
morning she says, 'In-hell [inhale], ex-hell [exhale]. In-hell, ex-hell.'"
-- this
morning, we are continuing in our new sermon series called “Afterlife,” a
journey through what the Bible has to say about what happens to us after we die
-- about heaven, hell, and everything in-between -- and whether our final
resting spot will be in hell or ex-hell
-- this is a
progressive study and each week builds on the last -- the messages stand alone,
but it really helps to know what we talked about last week, so that you can see
how everything stands together
-- so, if you miss a week, make
sure and go back and either watch the sermon on our Facebook page or read the
transcript on my blogsite -- http://onlyimagine.blogspot.com
-- last
week, we talked about how humans were unique creations of God -- the only
creatures that the Bible says were created in the image of God and the only
creatures that God breathed His very presence into at creation
-- we talked
about how that made us tripartite beings -- creations with three parts -- body,
soul, and spirit -- with our body being our physical, mortal part -- our soul
being the part of us that defines who we are -- our consciousness -- our
personality -- our intellect -- our emotions -- our will -- and how our spirit
is our immortal part -- the part of us that engages with God and that is capable
of a continuing relationship with Him through all eternity
-- we talked
about when we die as Christians, how the Bible teaches that we immediately go
into the presence of God -- not as incorporeal spirits without a body -- but as
souls and spirits in a new heavenly body
-- and we also
talked about how there is no intermediate stage for Christians -- about the
fact that when we die, we are in the presence of God -- there is no purgatory
-- no soul sleep -- no reincarnation -- no annihilation -- as the Apostle Paul
said in 2 Corinthians 5:8, “to be absent from the body is to be with the Lord”
-- this is
what happens to Christians on this side of the cross
-- but our
message last week left us with questions -- what about people who are not
Christians? -- where do they go when they die? -- and what about people in the
Old Testament who died before the coming of Jesus -- before His death on the
cross? -- where did they go when they died and where are they now?
-- that is
what we’re going to talk about today
II. The Abode of
the Dead (Luke 16:19-31)
-- if you
would, look again with me here at Luke 16, starting at verse 19
19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and
fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar
named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich
man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
-- in these
verses, we are introduced to a story from Jesus about two people -- a rich man
who dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day and a poor beggar
named Lazarus, who was laid at the rich man’s gate to beg for his very survival
-- now you
need to know that this passage is very controversial -- there are some who say
that this account of the rich man and Lazarus is a parable -- parables are not
true -- they are stories that are told to make a point -- in the case of parables
in the Bible, they are given to make a spiritual point
-- Jesus was
known for telling such stories -- for instance, in the gospels, we read about
the parable of the Sower -- the parable of the lost sheep -- the parable of the
mustard seed -- and the parable of the good Samaritan
-- so, a lot
of people say that this story from Luke 16 is just another one of Jesus’
parables -- and that you shouldn’t take anything more from it than the one main
point that Jesus is trying to make -- namely, that wealth and power on earth
does not mean that you are blessed by God and will receive eternal life with
Him -- this was a common teaching and understanding among the Pharisees -- and
one that is still pretty common in our day
-- in other
words, if you are in a good relationship with God, He will bless you -- and the
evidence of His blessing is wealth and health and a good life here on earth --
and, conversely, if you are not in good standing with God, He will withhold His
blessing from you -- and so, the ones that are doomed to an eternity apart from
God are like the poor beggar in this story -- poor, homeless, and in poor
health -- so, basically, the Pharisees believed that our condition on earth is
reflective of our relationship with God and our eternal destination
-- and in
this parable, as we will see, Jesus up-ends their belief by having Lazarus
receive blessings in eternity while the rich man receives punishment -- which
would have been a shock to the Pharisees that heard Jesus give this story
-- that’s
the point of the parable, these people say -- that you can’t earn your way to
heaven -- and that’s the reason Jesus made up this story
-- that spiritual
point is valid -- there is a spiritual truth given there -- everyone agrees
with that -- but there some of us who say that this is more than just a parable
-- more than just a made-up story that Jesus gave to illustrate that wealth is
not indicative of God’s favor and that you can’t earn your way to heaven
-- I
believe, along with many others, that this is not a parable -- it is not a
made-up story -- but it is a true story from Jesus that gives us a glimpse of
what happens when we die
-- and part
of the reason I believe this is because this is the only story in the Bible
like this where Jesus uses someone’s name -- in all the other parables that
Jesus tells in the gospels -- the parable of the Sower -- the parable of the
good Samaritan -- the parable of the man seeking treasure in a field -- in none
of them, does Jesus give a person’s name -- it would be out of character and out
of His normal practice for Jesus to do so here -- knowing the name of Lazarus
adds nothing to the spiritual point that He is making -- so, why add it?
-- I contend
that He adds it because this is not just a parable -- it is a true story about
two real men and the fate that they suffered after death
-- and, in
that case, it is notable that the rich man is not named because, as we will
see, the rich man did not know God -- and was not known by God -- and therefore
was not named by God -- he was nameless before God because he entered eternity
separated from God
-- it’s like
the situation in Matthew 7:21-23, where people were trying to justify
themselves based on their works -- “did we not prophesy in your name and cast
out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name” -- to which
Jesus replied, “I never knew you -- depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness”
-- in other words, I don’t know you -- you are nameless to Me -- just like the
rich man here in this story
-- let’s
move on to the part I really want us to concentrate on -- verse 22
22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels
carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In
Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with
Lazarus by his side. 24 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.’
25 “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. 26 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.’
-- here’s
where we get into it -- here’s where we get the answers to what happened to people
when they died before Jesus came -- where did people go in the Old Testament
days before the cross?
-- we read
here that Lazarus and the rich man both died -- a reminder of our mortal fate
-- unless Christ comes first and we are raptured to be with Him, all of us in
here will walk the same road as Lazarus and the rich man -- we will all die
-- now,
Lazarus and the rich man died before Jesus went to the cross -- and that is
significant
-- Scripture
teaches -- all the way back to the beginning of the Old Testament -- that when
people died, they were sent to a temporary holding place called Sheol in
Hebrew -- Sheol was the realm of the dead -- the place where people were
sent to await their judgment by God
-- this was
true whether you were a believer in the coming Messiah or whether you were an
unbeliever -- an unbelieving Jew or Gentile -- when you died, you were sent to Sheol
-- now, this
is not purgatory, like the Catholics teach -- this is not a place between
heaven and hell where we work out our salvation or pay amends for sins in our
lives -- Sheol is a holding place for people who died before Christ came
-- in our
English translations of the Bible, we see Sheol referred to in various
ways, usually either as death or the grave
-- for
instance, Psalm 89:48 says, “Who can live and not see death, or who can escape
the power of the grave?” -- “the power of Sheol?”
-- Genesis
37:35 -- “All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be
comforted. “No,” he said, “I will
continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave” -- “in Sheol”
-- Psalm 30:3 -- “You, Lord,
brought me up from the realm of the dead” -- “you brought me up from Sheol”
-- Sheol is used 65 times
in the Old Testament to describe the realm of the dead or death
-- so, when someone in the Old
Testament days died, they went to Sheol
-- the Greek word for this is Hades
-- same concept as Sheol -- a temporary holding place for people who
died before Christ came -- it’s used 11 times in the New Testament, including
here in this passage -- in verse 23, it says, “In Hades, where he was in
torment”
-- that also reminds us that sometimes,
Hades is used with a negative connotation -- as a place of punishment --
that’s why we tend to think of Hades and Hell as being synonymous
-- but they’re not -- and when you read in your English translations the word “Hell,”
you need to find out if it is referring to Hades or to Hell, because
they are different places altogether
-- so, getting back to this story
of the rich man and Lazarus -- both of them died -- both of them went to Sheol
or Hades -- both of them were sent to this temporary holding place --
the realm of the dead
-- and while we always think of
this as being a place below the ground, that idea is not biblical -- I think we
have that idea because we bury people below the ground and the ancients assumed
that their resting place -- Sheol -- also had to be below the ground
-- this was certainly reinforced
through literature, such as Dante’s Inferno and other medieval portrayals of
life after death -- they always describe the realm of the dead as being below
the earth
-- it does say here in verse 23,
that the rich man looked up and saw Abraham with Lazarus by his side -- but
that doesn’t necessarily mean below the ground -- it’s just positional for the
people who are in Sheol -- it doesn’t mean they’re below our feet right
now
-- we don’t know where this realm
actually exists -- whether it’s hidden from us in a spiritual dimension or where
it is -- the important thing is to know that there is a temporary holding place
called Sheol/Hades where everybody who died before the coming of Christ
-- who died before the cross and the resurrection -- went -- they all went to Sheol
or Hades -- that means everybody, including Adam and Eve, all the way up
to the thief on the cross -- if you died before Christ came and was
resurrected, you were sent to Sheol/Hades -- everybody with me?
-- now, notice here in these
verses that two different places are referenced -- Abraham’s side or bosom --
and a place of torment, called Hell here in verse 23, but keep in mind what we
just talked about in regards to the term Hell -- more to come on that later
-- so, Sheol/Hades is separated
into two separate areas -- a place of pleasure and happiness -- and a place of
torment and punishment
-- the area of pleasure and
happiness is known by two terms in the Bible -- Abraham’s side or bosom -- and
paradise -- they both mean the same thing -- they both refer to the side of Sheol/Hades
that is a place of pleasure and happiness
-- the other area is generally
referred to as Hades or Hell -- and even though I made the point that Hades
refers to the entire realm of the dead, when you see it translated as Hell in
your Bibles, they are basing that on a negative connotation -- so, it’s not
really Hell -- it’s Hell-like -- but there’s not a specific name for it in the
Greek, so the translators default to the term Hell to show it’s a bad place to
be
-- this part of Sheol/Hades
is the place that is described in the New Testament as the darkness -- as the
place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth -- it is a place of torment
and punishment
-- so, who goes where? --
everyone who died before the coming of Christ went to Sheol/Hades --
some went to Abraham’s bosom or paradise -- the rest went to the place of
torment with darkness and weeping and gnashing of teeth -- so, who went where?
-- your
destination was based on your faith and belief in the Messiah -- if you were a
believer in God -- if you were standing on His promise that was given to Adam
and Eve and to Abraham and then to the nation of Israel of a redeemer who was
coming -- of the Messiah -- of the Anointed One who would take away the sins of
the earth by paying the penalty for those sins on behalf of those who received
Him -- if you believed in the coming Messiah and put your faith in Him to save
you of your sins, then you were sent to Paradise or Abraham’s bosom
-- just like Lazarus in this
passage -- just like the thief on the cross who turned to Jesus in repentance
and asked Jesus to remember him when He came into His kingdom -- that’s why
Jesus replied to that thief, and not the other, “Today you will be in Paradise
with Me”
-- your faith in the coming
Messiah -- in the promises of God -- were what determined if you went to Paradise
or Abraham’s Bosom or not
-- for those people who did not
believe in God or who rejected Him or His promised Messiah, they were sent to
the other side of Sheol/Hades -- they were sent to the place of torment
-- just like the rich man in this story
-- and that was the warning Jesus
was trying to make to the Pharisees when He told them the story of the rich man
and Lazarus -- that they could not save themselves -- that they could not
redeem themselves from the grave and from the consequences of their sin through
their works, their wealth, by following the Law, or anything else -- they could
only be redeemed through faith in the saving work of the Messiah -- and here
Jesus was pointing to Himself and what was going to happen on the cross and
with the resurrection
-- when the rich man begs Abraham
to send a messenger to his brothers to warn them of their fate if they didn’t
change their lives and put their faith in the Messiah, Abraham said in verse
31, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets” -- in other words, the
Old Testament Law and Prophets -- “If they do not listen to Moses and the
Prophets, they will not be convinced, even if someone rises from the dead” --
referring implicitly here to Jesus and His coming resurrection which proved He
was the Messiah and had defeated sin and death
-- so, to sum all this up -- for
the people who lived before the cross and resurrection of Jesus, they all went
to Sheol/Hades -- those who believed in God and put their faith in the
coming Messiah, were sent to Abraham’s bosom or Paradise -- the rest were sent
to the part of Sheol/Hades that was the place of torment
-- and these two areas were
separated by a great chasm -- it says in verse 26 that there is a great chasm
fixed between those in Abraham’s Bosom and those in the place of torment -- and
that people cannot cross from one area to the other, even if they wanted to
-- they are separated for all
eternity by their faith
-- everybody got it? -- you understand
Sheol/Hades and Abraham’s Bosom and the place of torment, right? -- if
not, get with me after the message and I’ll be happy to talk with you more
about it
-- so, that’s what happened to
people in Old Testament times who died before the coming of Christ
-- let’s
move on and talk about people in our day
-- as we discussed last week, we
know that if a believer in Christ dies, they are immediately taken to be in the
presence of God -- if we are a Christian, we no longer go to Sheol/Hades
when we die -- we immediately go to heaven to be with the Lord -- we talked
about that last week
-- so, what
about those who don’t believe in Jesus today? -- what about those people in our
day who haven’t put their faith and trust in Him and haven’t asked Him to
forgive them of their sins?
-- in that
case, when they die, they will go to Sheol/Hades just like the unbelievers
who died before the cross -- and, because they are unbelievers, they will be
sent to the place of torment -- not Hell -- keep that in mind -- Hell is different
-- they will be sent to the place of torment that is part of Sheol/Hades
-- they will
be there with all of the other people throughout history -- from the very beginning
of time up till now -- who have died without putting their trust in Jesus -- in
putting their faith in the Messiah that God first promised in Genesis 3:15
-- so, what
happens to people in our day who are not Christians and who die in their sins? --
they are sent to Sheol/Hades -- the same temporary holding place that people
before the cross were sent to -- they are in the temporary realm of the dead,
waiting for final judgment at the Great White Throne, which we read about in
the Book of Revelation
-- so,
summing all this up:
1. If you are a believer in Christ right now,
when you die, you immediately go to be with the Lord in Heaven
2. If you are not a believer in Christ, when you
die, you immediately go to Sheol/Hades to the place of torment
-- but what
about the people who were believers in Christ before His coming? -- those
people from the Old Testament times who believe and died and were sent to the
region of Sheol/Hades known as Abraham’s Bosom or paradise -- where are
they right now? -- are they still in Abraham’s Bosom or Paradise?
-- well, I
hoped to be able to share the answer to that with you this morning, but I am
running long and I can smell the food in the back and I know that we’re all getting
hungry -- so, we’re going to have to table that discussion until next week
III. CLOSING
-- let me close by telling you
about an incident that happened with the British ocean liner, the R.M.S.
Lusitania, that was struck by a torpedo from a German submarine on May 7, 1915.
-- In an effort to minimize panic
in the aftermath of the torpedo strike, the captain created a false sense of
assurance -- when a passenger cried out in panic to him, "Captain, what do
you wish us to do?" -- he replied, "Stay right where you are, Madam, it's
all right -- the boat will not sink”
-- his comment was greeted with
cheers -- and the people who were lining up and trying to get on the life boats,
turned around and quit trying to save themselves because the captain told them
what they truly wanted to hear -- they were in no danger and everything was
okay -- to just keep doing what they were doing before and nothing would harm
them
-- unfortunately, the captain’s
false assurances were just that -- false -- the ship did sink
-- and because the people trusted
in the captain’s false assurances that nothing was wrong and they would all be
okay, 60% of the people on the ship perished in the waters of the Atlantic because
they were not ready when the ship finally sank
-- the lesson we can learn from
the Lusitania and from the story of Lazarus and the rich man is that we need to
be ready -- that we need to be prepared for the moment that we face death
-- as Jesus teaches in this story
-- as we read elsewhere in the Bible -- we cannot save ourselves -- our good
works -- our wealth -- our prosperity -- have no value in salvation and are not
necessarily evidence of God’s blessing in our lives
-- salvation only comes through
belief in Jesus’ atoning sacrifice on the cross of Calvary for our sins and in
His resurrection, as proof of His victory over sin and death -- salvation only
comes when we put our faith and trust in Jesus and Him alone
-- and the Bible promises that if
we do that -- if we truly believe in our heart of hearts that Jesus is Lord and
ask Him to forgive us of our sins and be our Lord and Savior -- that we will be
saved and that when we die, we will immediately go to be with Him forever
-- if we reject that truth, as
the rich man in this passage did, then we face the consequences of our sins and
will be sent to the place of torment in Sheol/Hades to await our final judgment
before God
-- it’s that serious -- and we
should use the truths that are taught by Jesus in this story of Lazarus and the
rich man to warn others of the danger -- to not placate them with a false sense
of assurance like the captain of the Lusitania -- but to lead them to the truth
and to point them to the only One who can save them
-- that is what I want you to get
from this message today -- and that needs to be the message that we carry forth
to this world today
-- with that, let us close in
prayer
-- let us pray
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