The Gospel of Luke 16:19-31 Lazarus & the rich man
Luke 16:19-31 · Vern Peterman · Feb 28, 2016
Gospel of Luke, No. 62
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926529201619

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. I had a lot of fun studying through this passage and one reason is there's a lot of controversy surrounding this and so we're going to work our way through it and even work our way through the controversies and get to what Jesus had in mind we learned from this.

This is Luke 16 19 to 31 which is Lazarus and the rich man. This account is still addressing the Pharisees, I remind you. That's the context. He's got some Pharisees there who begin to scoff at him. And we'll see that as we step our way through this. This is very directed to the Pharisees. So going back to last week's passage, Luke 16, 14.

Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, get that, they were in love with their silver, essentially is what that word says. and were listening to all these things and were scoffing at him. He was saying, you cannot serve both God and money, right? And of course they were saying, yes we can, yes we can. And so that was their perspective. And he says, well, let me tell you a little story here. So that's where this Lazarus and the rich man comes up.

So this passage is unique to Luke's Gospel. The other three Gospels don't seem to give anything quite similar. So Dr. Luke wrote another unique item. He actually wrote quite a few. Also unique to this account is that Jesus used the name Lazarus, which this is the only parable, if that's what it is, and I believe it is, where you actually have a person identified, named. That would make it unique. And Lazarus is a name derived from the name Eleazar or Eleazar, which means God help or God is my help, right? Actually, I think there are four reasons why he named him Lazarus. And one of those is simply to personalize this guy.

What the Pharisees would do is they would have someone like Lazarus, who was poor, but they looked at certain key things, and we're going to look at what those things are, and they would depersonalize those who were poor or unclean in some way, at least as they figured. Rather than helping them, they would distance themselves, make sure they kept their distance, not talk to them, not touch them, and we'll see why that was actually violating the law for them to do that. But in addition to that, you've got Eleazer, that first spelling, E-L-I-E-Z-E-R. That's the name of Abraham's servant, who were not for the birth of Isaac, would have been the heir.

So I think that's another reason why he calls him Lazarus. And I think in addition to that, the fact that the name means God helps, his very name points to God as being the helper. Whereas you'll find the rich man representing the Pharisees doesn't have anything to do with God. in fact. And then the final reason is because there is going to be a man whom Jesus is going to raise by the name of Lazarus. I don't think it's intended to be the same person, but the resurrection of Lazarus is indicated in here. So four reasons I think why he named him Lazarus.

So the question is, is this account a parable or is it the real deal? Jesus' parables were often realistic. That is, they were things that people would see in everyday life. And it would be things like, here's a sower sowing, right? And here's a vine, and he'd use things that people would see. Here's someone looking for the lost sheep and the lost coin.

And so they were realistic things. They were not unrealistic things like some of, say, Aesop's fables, where you have the tortoise and the hare in this race with one another. So they're realistic. This one is realistic as well. Some people get bothered by the idea, wait a minute, you know, then you're discounting the reality of hell. No, it really doesn't.

And we'll talk about that in a minute here. There's no indication in the Bible that there's going to be sight or conversation between the saved and the lost, right? The reason I think Jesus used this is because the Pharisees had stories where the lost could see into where the righteous ones were, right?

And so he accommodated that and then turned it on them. Here's an example. For instance, we saw in the parable of the Good Samaritan, as it's called, I talked about a road that went between Jerusalem and Jericho, and those are two real places. It was a real road, and people often were robbed by thugs along that road. So it's very real in the parable. He's not discounting the reality of hell with it.

It's probably best to consider this parable with elements of realism, but like all parables, what we want to do is find out what's Jesus' purpose in the parable, not trying to interpret every single little thing, as we call it here, over-interpreting.

So we'll see in here there'll be two lives, two very different lives, two different deaths, and two different destinies, and one more two on top of that, and two questions or proposals out of the rich man. So at death, Lazarus, this one named fellow in all the parables, is treated differently than the rich man. Lazarus is taken to a place Jesus called Abraham's bosom.

And that, by the way, only shows up in this parable and nowhere else. And I think there's a reason for it. While the rich man is taken to Hades, and we'll talk about what that is here shortly. So let's take a look at these two different lives. Two different deaths and two different destinies.

So Luke 16, 19, Now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day. From that one verse, you have the rich man, he's not identified, no name given, as opposed to Lazarus. Some will insert the name dives or davies or divas and what that's from is just a Latin word for rich man but Jesus actually keeps this guy unnamed on purpose and that's because he wants the Pharisees to identify themselves in this parable and he does that by here's the rich man and that's all he is so anybody could step into that He habitually dressed in purple, and that habitually is not from a separate word, it's from the verb tense for dressed in the Greek, where they get that. And he's joyously living in splendor every day. He doesn't like, you know, ramp up to the party that's on, you know, Friday night. This is every day this guy has got it really good. Okay? No exceptions. So he's got this purple outer garment and fine linen undergarment.

The dye for the purple cloth was really expensive and this is actually, there's two grades of purple, right? And this is the expensive one, okay? As expensive as it gets, the dye was more per ounce than gold, okay? A very expensive kind of purple. Lydia, as Dr. Luke wrote in Acts 16, sold purple cloth that was actually grade B purple.

This was top grade stuff. This was the best of the best. You just had to spend a lot of money for it. And he wore it all the time. Every day. And most people wore a linen undergarment of some kind, but the cloth was often homemade and of coarser weave. This guy but the nicest underwear you could possibly get. That's what this fine linen's about. The nicest underwear you could possibly get. With the best clothing on the outside and the best clothing on the inside. It was all the best.

Joyous splendor every day. he gets up in the morning and out of the finest sheets and the finest bed and he gets up and he looks forward to eating lots of the finest food and wearing his very very nice clothing even his fancy underwear okay all right he had everything of the best quality of great quantity and he also had the best most flattering company okay all the time, and you stay away from the ones who aren't flattering. The rich man that Jesus describes is intended to point a finger at the Pharisees who loved, as verse 14 says, they loved their money and what money could buy. They liked the fine clothing, they liked the fancy food, and they liked good Pharisee company all the time. And they especially liked it if people complimented them on all that. Luke 16, 20 and 21 reads like this, And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man's table. Besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. Anybody want to sign up for that? All right, let's talk about the gate.

We need to talk about that because while we might be thinking about this guy Lazarus, he's not done telling you how fancy the rich man has it. We might be thinking that he's talking about Lazarus, but actually as he starts to describe Lazarus, he's still telling how fancy the rich man has it.

There's one last message about the wealth and prosperity of the rich man that is hidden in the text. And the reason is because the word that Jesus used for gate was a gate for a city, a temple, or a palace. This guy lived in a mansion. And here's Lazarus right outside the gate. So at the very least, this rich man had a home that was a palace, or we might call it a mansion.

That went along with the very expensive clothing outside and even the fancy undergarments and sumptuous daily living. So then we move on to Lazarus, who is really, really, really bad off. He was a beggarly poor man. There are two words for poor. This is the poorest of the poor. He is beggarly poor. He has nothing to his name.

To add to his many miseries, his skin was also chronically covered in sores. And by the way, that being chronically covered with sores means he was constantly ritually unclean. And if the Pharisees touched him with those sores, they would become ritually unclean. But he's not done being ritually unclean, as we'll see.

Lazarus didn't even get the crumbs and scraps from the rich man's table. He would gladly have had them. As if that was not enough misery for one man, the mangy pack dogs would come lick his sores, adding to his horrid existence. The dogs. Now there's two words, remember I told you there's two words for poor and he's really poor? There's also two words for dog, and one is a pet dog. This is the one that's not a pet, okay? In the world of the Old and New Testament, these dogs ran in packs in towns and cities, okay? Wild dogs in the town and in the city, scavenging as they wandered about from place to place.

They were wretched, awful beasts, okay? oftentimes diseased, they would fight amongst themselves and they would attack somebody else that they thought was going to take their terrible food. So these were awful critters. These dogs often ate things that the Jews were forbidden to eat by Old Testament law.

So they ate raunchy stuff. The Jews despised these roaming pack dogs, and they referred to the Gentiles by this word for dogs, not the pet dog. This one. That's what the Gentiles were. These horrible, raunchy, awful, wretched pack dogs. Any contact with these scavenging, wretched pack dogs made a person ritually unclean.

What should the Pharisees have been doing with a guy like Lazarus? Well, let's read Leviticus 25, 35. So in case a countryman of yours becomes poor in his means with regard to you falter, then you are to, what? sustain him like a stranger or a sojourner that he may live with you. You see a poor guy? The law says you go and help him. That's the law of Moses, right? Got to do it. Deuteronomy 15, 7 and 8, if there's a poor man with you, one of your brothers, that is a Jew, a fellow Jew, in any of your towns in your land which the Lord your God has given you, you shall not harden your heart nor close your hand from your poor brother, but you shall freely open your hand to him and shall generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.

Like we've already seen, the Pharisees were strongly inclined to view anyone who was bad off in any way as having sinned to deserve it. And sometimes they had certain lists of, oh, if you have this problem, then you must have done this sin. And they had already got the sin identified that causes that problem, right? And so they would have looked at a guy like Lazarus and said, oh, you've sinned badly to have all that.

And besides that, your open sores make you ritually unclean, and you have these unclean dogs licking at your sores. So you're just unclean all the time. And we're not touching you, you horrible, wretched, awful sinner. This is God's curse. So this man they thought had sinned. This man whose name means God helps. So rather than following the law of Moses, which would have required them helping this destitute man, this man like Lazarus, there was instead an ethic of distancing oneself and condemning him for sinning, and all calling it the law of Moses, even though it completely violated the law of Moses.

So here's Luke 16.22. Now the poor man, here Lazarus is the poor man, died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom.

And the rich man also died and was buried. Now we'll be taking a look at this because Abraham's bosom is only referenced here, nowhere else. But we're going to see it has an equivalent and it'll be explainable. The rich man also died and was buried. Interesting. Two different kinds of deaths. So both died. The poor man, Lazarus, died and nothing is said of his burial. It does say that the angels carried him to Abraham's bosom, which we'll talk about in a minute. The Pharisees assumed that they, of course, would go to be with their father Abraham. Yeah, I mean, Abraham, we're really tight with that guy, right? All Jesus said was that the rich man's death was buried. That's it. The rich man, representing the Pharisees, had a nice burial, but that's about all that was nice. That's it.

This Abraham's bosom means by Abraham's side. It means close to him. It may even mean personal intimacy. And so this term is only used here in all the Bible, but Lazarus appears to be comforted and eternally safe. Appears to be no threat to his standing there. Being placed by Abraham's side meant that Lazarus was now in a place of honor with the man of faith.

The next two Sundays will be taking a closer look at all the deaths and resurrections and judgments of scripture and summarizing the structure of the physical and spiritual realms. Here's an example of what that Abraham's bosom would mean. Here's John 13 23 using the picture that we often have accompanying the Lord's table. And what you see is there's the Lord and he has the bread in his hand and John is next to him, and it says, there was reclining on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples whom Jesus loved, John.

That's how he referred to himself. So that's what it would have meant that this Lazarus who was outside the gate and nobody helped him, nobody touched him, now you see Lazarus has that place of honor and a place of intimacy with Abraham. close, close with Abraham. And that fits with the fact that his name Lazarus comes from Eleazar, which would be Abraham's servant. He was the one who was going to inherit Abraham's household had not Isaac been born.

So let's talk about buried. What would that mean? And as I refer to when I look at it, this is the only time I've seen Nancy come out of a tomb. I've never ever seen her come out of a tomb in any other circumstance. And inside there would be these little niches, right? And so what they would do is they would wrap a body and the intent would be to bury the exact same day. They'd wrap a body with cloth wrapping and they would use spices and aloes so that it would stick and also keep the odor down.

And so Jesus, who was actually given a criminal's death, was given a king's burial. It says in the New Testament that Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea gave him a burial and a hundred pounds of cloth, aloes, and spices. That's something like three times the normal. So this would have been a royal burial that they gave him. And that might have been the case with this man, right?

And then after a year, what they would do is then take the bones, once the flesh is now decayed off, and put them in a box, which would be smaller enough to get the bones in. And that would typically be labeled. So you have here, here is the ossuary box of Alexander, who is not certainly, but probably the son of Simon of Cyrene, the one who carried Jesus' cross piece. Here also is Caiaphas' ossuary box, and you can see it has his name engraved on the end, and it's also carved real fancy because he's a rich guy, right? So that sort of thing would happen. So long-term, that's, if you say buried, that would be the process that they would use at that time.

By the way, Caiaphas' granddaughter's ossuary box has also been found, so lots of biblical connections there. Then they would take them, and not always but often, they put them on the Mount of Olives, on the side of the Mount of Olives, and you find quite a few Jewish graves there. The reason for that being, they anticipate the Messiah returning. His feet will touch the Mount of Olives.

That's out of Zechariah chapter 14. and then that's when the resurrection will take place, and therefore if you get buried there, then that gives you front row seats to the resurrection, right? So that's what the intent is. So when they say buried, that's what all is involved in the Jewish process, but Jesus doesn't go into detail. He just, alright, this guy's buried. You might have a rather large or fancy monument. This is right there at the corner of the Temple Mount, just across the small ravine. And so this is the tombs of the kings, and so you might have a fancy tomb on top of that.

So here now is Luke 16.23, and things turn quite a corner at this point.

So in Hades he lifted up his eyes, this is the rich man, being in torment and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. That is like we saw with John. Here is Lazarus right next to Abraham. And he recognized that. He recognized Abraham and he recognized Lazarus. And so he can see far away. So Lazarus is right next to Abraham. having the close intimate position right next to him. And here this guy is who would have called himself a son of Abraham and closely related to Abraham. And now he is far away. So here's a part of what makes it a parable.

We don't get the indication from the rest of scripture. You would get somewhat of it from Jewish literature outside of scripture. that there will be either sight or conversation between those who are unsaved and those who are saved and with Abraham. And so that aspect of it is not something we see from Scripture, but it would play into what the Pharisees would believe would be the case. From this point forward in the passage, that is verse 23, where we're just beginning here, to 31, the sights and conversations between the formerly rich man, and he never gets named, and Abraham are what would take place if this were possible. It's expressing a hypothetical conversation. If it were possible, this is how the conversation would go.

Hades is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word Sheol in the Old Testament, which means the place of the dead. There's a big difference, however, in the usage of the words between the Old Testament and the New. And that is, in the Old Testament the word Sheol is used for the place of both the righteous and the unrighteous, who are in like separate compartments. But Hades in the New Testament is only the place of the unrighteous dead. Only. Hades is a place of torment already. And by the way, this is before the white throne judgment. And we'll be talking about that next couple Sundays here. So this is, before he's actually judged, it's still already a place of torment.

This rich man, this genealogical son of Abraham, sees Abraham at a distance and he recognizes, oh, that's Father Abraham. He gets hopeful. Lazarus is literally by the side of him, that is, by the side of Abraham, right? The man Lazarus is apparently recognizable. As we're going to see, the rich man still considers Lazarus at best a servant of his, right? So this formerly rich man, representing a formerly wealthy Pharisee, will try in his torment to get help from Abraham, using, in each case, Lazarus as the servant of him.

Here's Luke 16.24, "...and he cried out and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me..." You can imagine him yelling across a great chasm. "...have mercy on me and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame." You can imagine his desperate, desperate cries. Father Abraham. Relationship, right? The Pharisees would have referred to Abraham as their father, and in fact, they did.

In John 8.39 and 56 and other places, they come close to saying the same thing. Their relationship with Abraham, they thought, well, we're locked in with that guy. So this former Pharisee calls out to Father Abraham and begs for mercy.

He's not liking this. And it's just begun, and he hasn't even been judged yet. What's more, he pleads for Lazarus, as his servant, to bring just one drop of water to cool his tongue. Some relief. He admits to being in agony in the flame of Hades. So here's Luke 16, 25 and 26. But Abraham said, Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise, Lazarus, his bad things. But now he's being comforted here, and you are in agony."

Which doesn't tell the guy anything he didn't already know, right? Except, verse 26, "'And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able. Lazarus can't come to you. And that none may cross over from there, where you are, to us. Not happening. So, was that request denied? So the first part is trading places.

Abraham refers to the formerly rich man as child, but not as my child. Not as my son. He doesn't identify with him in that way. Abraham states truthfully the character of the life of the rich man and of Lazarus. That's verse 25. Now Lazarus is being comforted by Abraham's side, the formerly rich man begging for even the slightest bit of momentary relief from the constant agony of the flames of Hades. A great chasm is fixed. This great chasm is fixed. That means that the opportunity to show mercy has passed. Can't do it. We can't get over there. You can't come here. Eternal outcomes cannot be changed. You're not coming here. We're not going there. We can't even come there temporarily to help you.

It's one reason why this visibility and conversation between this formerly rich man and Father Abraham is just hypothetical. It's given to teach some lessons. Hopefully the Pharisees will listen. But it's not something that would really happen. It's a conversation that would take place again and again. Can you imagine Because there were, over time, thousands and thousands of Pharisees. The Pharisees were missionary.

Two-thirds of the Jews lived outside of the land of Israel. So we read about Jesus talking to Pharisees. A great many Pharisees went out to the other lands and into the places where Jews were gathered and had congregations, synagogues. And the Pharisees would go into those places.

Two-thirds of the Jews lived outside of Israel. Therefore, you had a great many Pharisees all over the place. There weren't Sadducees out there. There were not Essenes out there. It was out there in those places where the Jews were located out in the Gentile lands that the Pharisees went. And those many thousands and thousands of Pharisees if they could, would beg for mercy.

And Abraham would have all his time taken up with saying, no, I can't help you, I can't help you, I can't help you. Right? The same conversation. So here's Luke 16, 27 and 28. And he said, Then I beg you, Father, that you send him to my father's house. For I have five brothers, in order that he may warn them. so that they will not also come to this place of torment." So what's he going to answer to this one?

This formerly rich man can't come over to where Abraham and Lazarus are, and neither can Abraham and Lazarus go to where the formerly rich man is. There is no crossing over. So the rich man in Hades begs for Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn the man's brothers, five of them, right, about how awful this place called Hades is. Luke 16, 29, but Abraham said, they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear him. Hear them, brother.

And then This term, Law and the Prophets, we saw in last week's passage, was an expression for the Law of Moses. It was the first section was the Law, and the last part of the Old Testament was the Prophets. And then it included everything in between, just similar to our expressions A to Z in English, right? The first one, the last one, and everything in between. They had a similar expression. It was Alpha and the Omega in the Book of Revelation.

The Aleph and the Tav. in the Hebrew alphabet, but here it's Moses and the Prophets, because Moses wrote the first five books, the Law. So Moses and the Prophets is just an expression for the whole Old Testament. Moses and the Prophets, or the Old Testament as we would call it, was a sufficient warning for those who would listen. It was a sufficient warning for those who would listen.

Can you imagine, here is Moses, he gives them the second giving of the law, that's the book of Deuteronomy. Everything I'm giving you through this entire book is to get you ready to go into the promised land. How are they going to do when they get there? Oh, very disappointing. But he warned them nonetheless.

It doesn't contain, however, some important revelation that we have in the books that we come to call the New Testament. What God has revealed in the Bible is not exhaustive truth, but it's true truth, and it is also sufficient truth. There's enough truth there that if you read that and you respond to that, you'll have what you need to be warned. Here is an instance that shows us how much of the truth is contained in the Old Testament.

Here's Luke 24. verses 13 through 15, and then jumping ahead, for the sake of brevity, to 25 and 27. And behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which is about seven miles from Jerusalem. And they were talking with each other about all these things which had taken place. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself approached and began traveling with them. Oh boy, this is getting interesting.

In verse 25, again jumping ahead through some verses there, and he said to them, so here's Jesus, O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary for the Christ, the Messiah, to suffer these things and to enter into his glory? Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures.

What Scriptures were that? The Old Testament. Here's a for instance, 1 Corinthians 15, 3 through 5, written about 55 AD. So a couple decades after Christ was ascended, right? For I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. Which Scriptures?

The Old Testament, right? that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. The Old Testament has the content of the gospel. And that explains why Philip could point out to the Ethiopian eunuch what you need to know to be saved out of the book of Isaiah. That Christ was crucified and buried and rose again.

So here's Luke 16, 30 and 31. But He said, No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. And He said to him, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead. And they're about to. Now there's several ifs here. You may have heard that the ifs in Greek don't all mean the same thing, and that is true. There are three ifs in this passage I just read. First and the last if are probabilities. Probably so. The middle one is reality.

So the man in Hades thinks that probably if someone goes from the dead to warn his brothers that they'll repent. They probably will, he thinks. But Abraham says that really they won't, and even if someone rises from the dead, and probably will. So there are a couple of resurrections coming right up. Within just a couple of months, there would be two resurrections of unlike kind in the general area around Jerusalem. One would be Lazarus, and here's where I think the name was chosen as one of the reasons for naming him Lazarus. would be resurrected back to this life. Back to this life.

It means that Lazarus died, was resurrected, and would die again. And the Pharisees wanted to hurry it up. Christ would be resurrected with a new kind of body, with a couple of exceptions, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. The Pharisees, who loved their money, would take part in bringing Jesus to crucifixion. It also tried to suppress the news of Christ's resurrection.

What with? Money. Pay off the soldiers. A large sum of money. Right? So did resurrections convince anyone who didn't believe? Rarely. Rarely. Apparently resurrection appearances did convince Thomas and Jesus' half-brother James and then apparently the other brothers. But the Jewish leaders just wanted to kill the resurrected Lazarus and to pay hush money to the Roman guards. The hush money went along with a made-up story about the disciples stealing Jesus' body, which they knew wasn't true. They knew it wasn't true. So God does not generally go about resurrecting people so that people, others, will believe. He doesn't generally do that.

Now let's talk about good things and bad things. If good things happen to someone, it doesn't mean that automatically they're doing everything right. Likewise, if bad things happen to people, it doesn't automatically necessarily mean that they've done something wrong.

For us in the body of Christ, discipline can come. It's not punishment, it's discipline. because God has allowed such things in order to restore a person to fellowship. We find that in Hebrews chapter 12. Trials can come to grow us and conform us to His image. God can do that. The Word of God, this parable tells us, is the best.

It's God's first choice to reach people. God has inspired His written Word so that people will either believe its message or not. But it's still presented and it's still inspired. So the Word of God is sufficient, it is effective to send a saving message, and it will grow us and impact us deeply as well. The Gospel and the written Word of God is essential to salvation.

There's enough in the Word of God for each of us to grow for a lifetime. Can you imagine that? God has not only put the salvation message in there, but there's enough to grow for a lifetime. I've been a believer for about 60 years, and I still have a lot to learn. But God's Word has the key. God's Word has what I need, because it's inspired by the infinite God who loves us enough to die for us.

Let's talk about procrastination. It's actually good to procrastinate about a few things. Worry is one that's really good to just keep procrastinating. Just procrastinate about worry. That's a good way to handle it. But the question of one's eternal destiny is not a good one to procrastinate about.

I've talked to people and they say, well, I'll think about that when I'm older. Do you know you're going to get there? Right? I'll think about it. I hope you have a chance to think about it. Come to a conclusion. Right? Having the gospel and having the truth and just thinking about it is not sufficient. Is it, think about the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved? No, that doesn't get it done, does it?

Eternal destiny questions don't have a retrofit after the fact kind or fix, do they? And one of the things you notice here in this parable, and we'll see it everywhere else we look, is people are not given a second chance. If you're here, you've got a pulse, you're breathing, now's the time you better decide these eternal destiny things. The man in Hades pondered the options. Hmm, can you do this for me? Can you do that for me? It didn't do any good. Abraham had to decline every one of his requests. Nope, can't do that. Can't do that.

One of the points to make too is life matters because eternity matters. What happens in this life matters because eternity does matter. While we are still on this earth, we can place our trust in Christ for eternal salvation, and it never goes backwards. You can't lose that. Every single moment walking in fellowship with the Lord matters forever. Think about that. Every moment that you walk in fellowship with the Lord, It matters for eternity. Every little instance.

And we can't save up nor coast on the past. Oh, I walked with the Lord for hours last week. I'm just taking a vacation today. Right? Can't coast on the past. Ah, but Lord, you know, I really studied the Bible back in seminary. You know, that ought to be good. I put in lots of hours.

We can only fellowship with Him right now, for right now. That's it. That's the opportunity that's put before us. Let's pray. Lord, thank you that as you put this parable out there, some really immense truths come out. And we find that what happens here in life that many give no thought to really do matter, and they matter forever. And we thank you that we have forever a blessed hope. And we will be with you. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.