[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear Saints, it is appointed for man once to die and then to be judged.
That is a fearful proposition, especially as we consider that we are sinners and that
we have deserved the Lord’s judgment, that we’ve earned it, that we have by our breaking
of God’s commandments made ourselves worthy of hell and condemnation and unworthy of God’s
presence.
But Jesus in His grace and mercy would make known that judgment to us ahead of time so
that we would be ready, and so we have the text set before us of Lazarus and the rich
man.
It’s often treated as a parable, but it’s not 100% clear to me that that’s the case.
Normally the parables begin, the kingdom of heaven is like, or the kingdom of God is like,
Or, he told them a parable saying, in this text, Jesus simply starts telling the story
of Lazarus and the rich man, as if maybe there were, Lazarus and the rich man were two people
who did in fact die.
Either way, the point is the same, that this is a description of reality.
It’s not a picture of us, it’s a description of how things go.
So there’s the rich man who has everything he could possibly want, rich clothing, he
feasts sumptuously every single day.
He has parties all the time with friends and family.
And then out in front of the estate, by the gate which was no doubt locked and guarded,
there was a poor man, Lazarus, who sat there hoping just to get a crumb that fell from
the rich man’s table, covered in sores, licked by the dogs, but they both die and everything
is flipped on its head.
Now, there’s so much in this account that we should pay attention to.
In fact, this account is probably the richest place in all of Scripture to consider the
intermediate state, that is the time between death and the resurrection of all flesh.
One of the things that it tells us is that there are really only two options, heaven
or hell.
We got to see this summer in Italy the Sistine Chapel, which has that great and famous painting
of the Last Judgment, Michelangelo, and you remember the pictures of it.
that on the one hand people are being lifted up to heaven and on the other side people
are being sent down to hell.
Apparently Michelangelo was influenced and was reading Luther, and he painted that painting
and when they unveiled the painting all the Catholic bishops in Rome were upset about
it.
They stood in the Sistine Chapel and they looked at the painting and they said to Michelangelo,
where’s purgatory?
And Michelangelo apparently responded and he said, it’s not in the book.
The painting confirms the text here, one way or the other, that we know that there is two
places to go.
We see that the rich man is sent to affliction, to hell, to what the text calls Hades, while
Lazarus is carried by the angels to Abraham’s side, Abraham’s bosom, the place of paradise,
heaven itself, the place of rest.
We also see, and this is a very interesting thing, we see how the condition of these two
men is reversed, at least it seems like that at the beginning.
The rich man whose tongue tasted the finest food and the finest wine now cries out only
for a drip of water to cool that tongue scorching in the heat.
Or, consider how Lazarus, who would have sat there at the gate begging, and we know that
the prayer of the beggar is this Kyrie Eleison, Lord have mercy.
Now we find that prayer in the mouth of the rich man, Abraham, have mercy, send Lazarus
over to dip his finger in water to cool it down.
It seems like, it seems like the state of both of these men is completely reversed.
But when we look a little bit further, and this is one of the very interesting things about the text,
which tells us the condition of the condemned, we see that maybe the rich man hasn’t changed all that much.
He, for example,
he doesn’t ask if he can leave the place.
He would rather Lazarus leave his comfort and come over there.
The rich man is still used to bossing people around. Even in hell,
he’s trying to tell Abraham and Lazarus what to do. He doesn’t even consent a
a condescend to talk to Lazarus. He says only I can talk to Abraham
I don’t want to talk to Lazarus, the poor man. He talks to Abraham instead of to Lazarus
and he thinks that it’s not even fair that he’s there
remember what he proposes if Lazarus can’t come from here to there
he says well send him back I have some brothers, five brothers, send him back to
my brothers
and then they’ll be warned and they won’t come to this place of torment
and you can hear the hint there that if someone would have come back from the
dead and warned me about it, then I wouldn’t be here either.
As if God did not give him enough.
As if he didn’t have a chance to believe and trust the Lord.
As if this rich man, if he could tell you how to run the church, and if he could tell
you how to win people’s salvation, then there would be a lot fewer people in hell and a
lot more people in heaven.
His arrogance is there.
We see it.
But here’s the main point, and the thing that Jesus is driving at.
When Abraham answers the rich man from paradise, preaches across the
unsurmountable gulf, he says to him this, they have Moses and the prophets. Let
them listen to them. If they don’t believe Moses and the prophets, they
won’t believe even if someone is raised from the dead. And that’s the key
difference.
We might be tempted to think just at first glance at the text that the difference between
the rich man and Lazarus is that the rich man is rich and Lazarus is poor.
That the rich man is comforted and that Lazarus is in affliction.
That the rich man is healthy and Lazarus is sick.
That the rich man has doctors and Lazarus has dogs.
But it turns out that the difference is a little more subtle, but much more important.
The rich man has everything that you could possibly want for the good life, but Lazarus
has Moses and the prophets.
And that’s what matters.
Lazarus has the Word of God.
Lazarus has the promise of the Gospel.
Lazarus has the Holy Spirit by faith and trusting in the Lord, and so it turns out that while
the rich man was rich in the things of this world, that Lazarus all the whole time was
rich in the things of God.
Lazarus knew that Jesus Christ was Lord, as Moses and the prophets preached, that God
will raise up a prophet like me from amongst the myths, that the virgin will conceive and
give birth to the child, that the Lord will accept the death of another in my place, that
He will on the third day be raised and sit at the Father’s right hand and rule over
all things for the sake of His church.
Lazarus knew it by faith, and now in death he knows it by sight.”
This is our only hope on the judgment day.
This is the only thing that will stand between us and God’s wrath over our sin, the blood
of Jesus Christ for sinners.
sinners.
The rich man could have mounted a case for his own goodness and righteousness, he probably
argued it all the time.
I mean, how could God hate him if he’s giving him all of these good things?
But all of this falls away.
And on the last day when it comes to look eye to eye with Jesus, the only hope for all
of us, for any of us, for each of us, is this, that Jesus loves you, that he’s died for you,
that he has taken your place under the wrath of God to save you and to make a
place for you in eternal life which means for you and I that if we have nice
clothes and nice food or if we have sores and dogs licking them it doesn’t
matter because you have Moses and the prophets and Christ Jesus has you and on
On the last day when you close your eyes in death and open them to see the face of Jesus,
on that face will be a smile and a welcome and joy that never ends.
So may God grant us to trust as Lazarus trusted and on the last day to sit next to Him at
the feast in the resurrection.
May God grant it for Christ’s sake.
Amen.
And the peace of God passes all understanding.
Guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
