Thank you, Glen.
That's a beautiful song, brother.
Good to be back together.
Good to see you.
Hope you had a good lunch.
You know, so much is said about life after death.
Sometimes it's bewildering, misleading, and most of the time, all the time, maybe it's false.
Philosophers, wise men, so-called scholars have speculated for ages about life after death.
But one person doesn't speculate.
Jesus.
Jesus knows.
because Jesus is equally at home in the realms of the seen and also in the realms of the unseen.
And for this reason, we have great confidence in coming to this wonderful yet great parable that we'll look at this afternoon from Luke chapter 16.
The title of my lesson is A Glimpse of the Other Side.
A Glimpse of the Other Side.
We'll get to our text in just a moment.
You know, when Jesus spoke to his disciples before he faced the cross, he said something wonderful to them.
He said, these words recorded for us in John 14, the first two verses, Jesus said, let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God, believe also in me.
In my father's house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you.
I love that phrase.
If it were not so, I would have told you.
In other words, Jesus is saying, I would not allow you to believe things that are false.
No matter how comforting or maybe how reassuring they might seem to be or would be to you, Jesus said, I wouldn't let you believe it if it's not the truth.
So we get to this story, this story in Luke 16.
It's quite compelling, somewhat chilling.
and somewhat to some quite disturbing.
I've broke this sermon down into three scenes.
And when the curtain rises on the first scene, we'll see a typical day in the lives of two men.
Turn with me to Luke 16, start at verse 19.
Luke 19 and following.
There was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.
And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which lay at his gate full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table.
Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores.
So Jesus compels us to look at these two men.
That's all.
No words of comment or about the character of either man.
It's just a typical day and two different men.
So in scene number one, one of these men had a lot going for him, so it seemed.
He lived in this big, beautiful house.
I'm sure in his rooms they hung with the finest of tapestry.
He probably had rugs on the floor from all over the world.
The choices products scattered throughout the house.
What we know about this man is that he was very, very rich.
He had the kind of house that if people would walk down the street, they would admire.
They would walk past and think for a moment, maybe one day I'll live in a house like that.
They might even think to themselves, if I could live in a house like that, that means I would have lots of money.
I'd love to be in that guy's shoes.
People are coming to the latest party or gathering at this man's house, arriving in their chariots, one horse, two horse chariots, maybe some in six horse chariots, the rich, the
mighty.
And as these people are coming, they almost stumble on a pile of rags at the gate that they were entering.
These dirty rags at the gate, they walk by this path and realize, there's someone living in those rags.
That's a man there.
in those rags.
Look at him, he's a mess.
He looks awful.
And look at these wild dogs around here hanging around him just licking on his sores.
How gross.
Those dogs are starving.
But so is that man laying there.
This poor miserable man, this beggar.
And now remember the Jews in that day used to wipe their hands with leftover bread and they would throw it on the ground and
I believe that's why Jesus said this man he longed to eat what fell from the rich man's table.
So the rich man didn't even offer Lazarus the scraps off the table.
Now notice please that Jesus had no word of condemnation for the rich man.
Not because he had all these things, nor was there an attempt to put a halo on the beggar's head just because he lived in poverty and in rags.
There is a rich man here and he stands for power.
He stands for the ability to serve.
He has the ability and the opportunity to do good.
And there's the beggar at his gate.
He stands for need.
And this beggar was the rich man's opportunity.
And this story is a tragedy because the two men have never come together.
And here's a chance for an able man to make a deposit for an eternity.
And he doesn't do it.
He does nothing at all.
We don't even know if the rich man sees the beggar at all.
It doesn't say anything about whether he noticed him or took note of him or had anything to do with him.
But we'll speak about that later because I think he did.
And maybe he's busy with his affairs.
There's a lot going on, you know?
He has a lot of things going on that he has to sort off in his life.
He's not an unkind man.
He doesn't ask for this beggar to be stoned or have him dragged into prison.
No, he just leaves him alone.
He does nothing.
He doesn't take any notice of him whatsoever.
So let's move now to scene number two, a familiar scene.
Verse 22 of our text.
And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom.
The rich man also died and was buried.
Scene two is a scene of death.
We all know about death, don't we?
Especially those of us who have lived a long time.
We never get used to death.
We never get used to going to funerals.
And that's because we are of life.
We think of life.
No one wants to think about dying or to think about death.
The beggar dies.
And notice it doesn't say anything about his body being buried.
No funeral services, no family, nothing.
You see, in the New Testament times at this time, there was a group of people that were employed to walk around the streets of Jerusalem at night.
And they would pick up any and all dead bodies on the street.
They would place them in a cart and take them off to the outside of town to a place called Gehenna, outside the city walls.
Imagine now the people walking by, and they would ask each other,
wonder what happened to that old beggar that used to lay here at this gate.
Someone might say, well, I don't know.
Maybe he's finally out of his misery.
Maybe he died.
Another person will say, well, you know, that might be a blessing.
He's out of his misery.
Poor old guy.
Well, but nobody gets very upset about it.
No.
Nobody is very disturbed about it.
But then they pick up the newspaper that morning and then shock.
Oh no, that rich man, he died.
That big community leader we know, the guy with all the money with the beautiful home.
eh And people begin to think, well you know he wasn't that old, was he?
I wonder if he was sick.
They start trying to figure out how this rich man died so at his age.
But his death startles them because they remember just a few days ago as they passed by this house.
One of them was saying, I wish I lived there.
Another was saying, I wish I was in his shoes.
But now they're saying, Lord, don't hear that last wish, please.
I don't want to be in his shoes now.
Changed my mind on that one.
But for that one rare moment, they face the realization that you can't live on materialism and how much you have or the power that you might have had in this life.
Rich people die just like poor people die.
And this man who they were envying and wishing that they were in his shoes is dead.
But in spite of his beautiful home, in spite of all that money, one day he's gone and everybody in town is concerned.
Scene two is a scene of death.
But notice we get into scene...
This is the world of the unseen.
This is some place we don't know much about because none of us have ever been there.
But notice how naturally Christ passes from one scene to the other scene, from the scene to the unseen.
Now, we begin to walk in a world that we have never walked before, never been there ourselves, and we begin to learn some things, very important things that we learn.
about life after death.
Go back to our text, please.
Excuse me verse 23 and 24 and in hell your version might have Hades he lift up his eyes being in torments and seeeth Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom and he cried said
father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am tormented in this flame
He saw Lazarus now.
I mean, poor man now, didn't he?
But there's five principles I want to share with you about this story and about these verses right here.
First principle is that the dead are still alive.
The dead are still alive.
I realize sometimes we read where the Bible speaks of about people going to sleep in the Lord and that's true.
The physical body is sleeping but the dead are consciously and vividly alive.
They are not asleep.
They're not unconscious.
But they are consciously alive.
And this is true of Lazarus, and it was true also of the rich man.
Notice the text says that the rich man is in torment.
He's in agony.
And he looks and sees Abraham.
He told Abraham that he was thirsty.
He sees Lazarus.
So that shows that both men are surely very much alive.
And notice the rich man knew exactly who Lazarus was.
Never paid attention to him at the gate, but he knows him now.
And remember speaking of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob back in Mark 12, saints that have passed into the unseen.
Jesus did not count them as dead.
Do you remember that?
In fact, he clearly declares in Mark 12 verse 27, God is not a God of the dead, but of the living.
We're alive as we can be in there.
And when Jesus is hanging on that cross, one of the men to his side prayed in verse 42 of Luke 23, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.
Jesus replied by giving this dying man a promise Luke 23 in verse 43 Today thou shall be with me in paradise What does that mean?
What does this promise mean it means that Jesus and the dying robber we're going to see each other in paradise They're gonna be with God gonna be very much alive that very day
not some distant time in the future But that very day they're to be consciously alive
and both are to be conscious of each other.
Now friends, we don't have to wonder or speculate where Jesus went when he died or where he was when he was in the grave because the text clearly tells us where he was going.
Now if I went to Revelation 6 and verse 9, we would read this.
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the Word of God and the testimony that they had maintained.
The reason I went to Revelation and read that is because it simply shows that souls do exist after death.
So death is not just an unconscious sleep for many hundreds of thousands of years.
We're consciously alive beyond the grave.
The instant you die, you're alive, still alive.
And that's what Jesus is teaching here and in other passages too.
So yes, the dead are still alive, but number two, the dead are conscious of being themselves.
The dead are conscious of being themselves.
Look at Luke 16, look at verse 25.
Abraham said, son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receiveth the good things and likewise Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted and thou are tormented.
And so just as Abraham was still Abraham.
The rich man and Lazarus were still the rich man and Lazarus.
And both the rich man and Lazarus were very much conscious of still being themselves.
You see, at death, we're going to lose some things.
We're going to lose the physical.
The physical.
We're going to lose these bodies of ours.
We're going to lose the possessions that we now have.
Death can rob me of material things.
It can rob me of the physical things.
but it can never take away anything else from us.
Nothing.
It cannot rob us of ourselves.
Yesterday I was myself, I will be with myself tomorrow.
I will continue to be myself as long as heaven is heaven and God is God.
I'm myself from now on and I've got to give up this body someday, but I'm still going to be myself.
You see these bodies of ours are here today and gone tomorrow.
and there is something you've got to know about your body.
You know our bodies are in constant process of change.
Did you know that?
We're getting older in our bodies over a period of over every seven years.
Every cell in our body has been replaced.
It's been going on from the day you were born.
It will continue until the day you die.
So I've sat and figured it out.
I had 11 new bodies.
And I know that there are some people in here probably have more or less, but it didn't work any change in us, did it?
We didn't see it happen, did it?
And even after all those cells were changed oh every seven years, we're still the same person.
It changed every cell in our bodies, but we're still the same person.
Death is not going to change any moral change in us.
You know, because you hear these stories all the time about people just live any way they want.
And all of a sudden they, oh, he sprouted wings and got a halo and he's floating up in heaven now.
How many times we hear people saying, I know he's watching me from up above.
We don't know.
And as though death is some kind of hocus pocus power to cleanse us and empower everyone to go to heaven.
Everyone's in heaven.
Did you notice that?
Anybody ever tell you, well, I know so and so.
He's in hell.
He burnt.
No.
We don't know.
And we don't go to heaven or hell when we die.
We go to a holding place, the same holding place that has Lazarus and the rich man.
We're waiting for judgment day.
Death cannot and will not work any kind of moral change in us.
That just does not happen.
Now, that might be a little frightening.
At times when we read it, maybe we don't like it that much, but do know what I mean?
Sometimes there are things in our life, things in my life, things in my life that I'm not too pleased about because sometimes I don't like me.
But I'm always going to be me.
Okay?
If any change takes place, God wants to change us through His Son.
But we're going to be ourselves from now on and death is not going to change us.
We need to change now while we're here on earth, change the way we live, change our lives only through Jesus Christ.
Number three, the dead remember.
The dead remember.
Again, let's revert back to verse 25.
Abraham said, son, remember.
Remember that thou in thy lifetime received thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things.
But now he is company in thou a tormentor.
See as we grow older we tend to forget in old age.
But guess what?
In the afterlife you're not going to forget a thing.
You're going remember it all.
Abraham asked a rich man to remember, to remember his life, to remember how good he had it.
And then the next two verses,
verses and 28 of Luke 16, he answered, listen, then he said, pray thee therefore, Father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house, for I have five brethren, that he may
testify unto them, lest they also come unto this place of torment.
Rich man will remember those five brothers, probably all like him, and knew the way they were gonna wind up too if they didn't change.
The rich man remembers his life how used to be.
He remembers his selfishness.
He remembers his sins.
He remembers that lost opportunity that he had.
And now he wants Lazarus of all people to go up there and tell his brothers.
You see, memory is either going to help intensify the joys of heaven or it's going to embitter us the pains of hell.
But we'll remember why we're in heaven or why we're in hell.
It's got to be that way.
It can't be any other way.
Matthew 12 and 36 we read but I say unto you Every idle word that men shall speak they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment.
That's the words of our Savior and If you think about it think think about just for a moment How can God judge anyone if they don't know or don't remember why they're being
judged?
So we'll know we'll remember how can God judge anyone if they can't remember anything that they've said or done while they were here on earth
In other words, those souls in heaven will know exactly why they're in heaven, and the ones in hell will know why they're there.
Everyone will remember who they are, and who they were, and they'll remember of the things that they did or did not do while they were here on earth.
Number four, look at verse 26 of our text.
telling us that all men do not have the same destiny.
And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot, neither can they pass to us that would hence from
thence.
Now these two men didn't have the same destiny.
The text tells us that they are separated by this great gulf.
Who separated them?
God?
No, no way.
These men separated themselves.
by the deliberate choices they made while they were still here on earth.
They separated themselves so we can never blame God for where we wound up.
We can't blame God if we wound up in hell.
So they became morally separated by this wide gulf, wider than what right is from wrong and night is from day.
It's a separation that continues beyond the grave.
Now remember now in Luke 16, verse 22, Lazarus was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom.
Not because his life, he was an unfortunate or sick or neglected person.
He was carried into paradise because in spite of all the calamities in his life, he made a deliberate choice.
His choice was God.
His name signifies that.
His name means God is my
help.
it was this right choice that made him a right character, a right character made for a glorious spiritual destiny.
The rich man is not lost because he's rich.
He isn't lost because he had fine clothing or the best of food.
He was lost because of his wrong choices that he made.
He made a deliberate choice of things that were seen and he turned his back on God.
And you might say, wait a minute, preacher, wait a minute, I don't read in that way he turned his back on God.
Well, we know he turned his back on God because he turned his back on Lazarus.
And Lazarus was an opportunity for him to do right.
know, Matthew 25 has some very important things to say on the matter what Jesus says in verse 40, Matthew 25, 40.
Jesus said, verily I say it to you.
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." So the rich man didn't do anything for Lazarus.
Like I said earlier, Lazarus was his opportunity.
That was his chance.
And God has only one way of reaching men.
Maybe it's through a Lazarus.
Maybe it's through someone else.
But all of it is through Jesus Christ.
And when we turn our backs on our opportunities that we have in this life, we turn our back on Jesus.
We turn our back on believing in Him, responding to God's grace and love through His Son Jesus Christ.
And if we don't hear Him, believe Him, and baptize in His name, we will not be saved.
It's as simple as that.
So, Lazarus found himself lying against Abraham's bosom, which is a Hebrew way of saying that he was in paradise, the paradise of God.
And while Lazarus was comforted, the rich man was tormented.
Why?
Why is heaven and hell?
Well, it's certainly not because God loved one of them and did not love the other.
They had nothing to do with it.
They were different destinies, more because of different choices.
They're different lifestyles.
Who they were, who they believed in, who they placed their confidence and hope in.
All choices that we all make every day.
In 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 10, the apostle Paul says, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every man, everyone may receive the things done in his body
according to that he hath done.
whether it be good or
All of us are going to be before Jesus.
It's a tough verse, but it's a true one.
And the truth of the matter is that God doesn't have a way of getting anyone to heaven, not if they have hell in their hearts.
And that's the whole point Jesus is telling us in this story.
And if we look back, turn the page back to Luke 15, the first two verses, we find a religious group.
known as the Pharisees and the Sadducees, listening to what Jesus is saying.
And when some tax collectors and sinners join the crowd, the Pharisees and Sadducees criticize Jesus for having anything to do with them.
They regard as such people as the lowest of the low, beyond the reach of salvation, not worth bothering with, keeping arm's length away from those people.
Many of the Jews believed that if they had accumulated enough wealth and upped their social status into a prominent position in the religious community, they proved that they
were under the blessings of God.
No.
They also thought, according to their logic, that those who were poor were under the curse of God.
So Jesus is using an everyday event to make His point.
There were rich people in their houses, and there were
poor people, even beggars walking around the streets every day.
Jesus is telling them that just because you guys are well off and have high positions in the Jewish religious community doesn't necessarily mean that you're right with God.
Number five, the living cannot mix with the dead.
The living cannot mix with the dead.
And you also need to realize that you can't mix them that you wouldn't do in this life.
What I mean is when the rich man wanted Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn his family, his brothers, look at verse 29 to 31 in our text.
Abraham said to him,
they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them." And he said, "'Nay, Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.' And he said unto them, "'If
they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.'"
One rose from the dead for us.
and yet there's more people that's not persuaded yet.
That's why I find it very disturbing when you get these so-called spiritualists and medians who claim they can speak to the dead.
You never hear of any dead person telling their loved ones, hey, you better believe in God, you better be obedient because you don't want to come where I'm at now.
No, they're spiritualists and...
Medians, all good news.
All lovey-dovey stuff.
You see, when we lose a loved one to death, we know we can't keep them.
We have to bring them to the funeral.
We have to bring them to the place of the dead.
Bring them to a cemetery.
Why?
Because you cannot do physically here on earth, that is, the dead with the living.
It's the same with eternity.
You cannot mix the living and the dead.
I want to tell you one thing about hell.
I don't know much about it.
Hope I don't.
But I'll tell you this much.
Whatever hell may be, it's a burying ground of dead souls.
Souls that were dead in their trespasses and sins while here on earth.
And forever you're going to live.
Remember that.
You are created in the image of God.
Your soul will live forever.
We spoke about it this morning.
Remember when Adam was created?
He was just a body, a dead body, until God breathed life into him.
He breathed the Spirit into him.
There is something really special about you.
Forever you are going to be yourself, and you are going to have to keep house with yourself for all eternity.
Forever we're going to have to either enjoy or suffer our destiny,
that we, we have created in this life.
Whether it is through the grace of God to love and to embrace His Son, our Savior, and live with Him and be created anew by His Spirit, or whether we are going on our own,
constantly turning our backs on God and on His Son, just living for the day, live for the material things, thinking we can take it with us.
Live for how much we can store up and stash away.
Go right ahead.
but you're setting up where your destiny will be.
Remember this, even though some are lost, no one has to be lost.
No one.
Jesus said and recorded for us in John 6 and verse 37, All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and he that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
Brethren, I hope and pray this day that whatever or wherever you are in life,
you will seriously consider this matter.
I know that this is not a feel-good story, but it's not my job to make you feel good.
I'm standing here to tell you the Word of God, the truth, what God says.
And now it's up to you to heed those words or not.
I know it's a little chilling, a little disturbing to face sometimes these thoughts of eternity and what's going to happen to us.
It shouldn't be that way.
You should be sure where you're going.
But I hope and pray that you will seriously contemplate these matters and make a decision.
Make a decision that you will do everything in your power to be a child of God.
That you will serve Him in His Kingdom.
That you will live for His Son.
You have that opportunity again at this moment.
That you will make your life something special.
You will live your life in purity.
and in commitment and have assurance of God's salvation.
We extend the Lord's invitation to you again after this sermon that you hear the gospel, believe the Word of God, repent of your sins, confess faith in Jesus Christ, and be
baptized for the remission of sin in His name.
That's how you become a child of God.
Now the hardest part is remaining faithful.
But you need to do it like we said this morning.
Just keep praying.
keep the devil away from you with your prayers.
And if you are a Christian but you somehow got into the trap of this world, the devil is feeding that to us every day.
Don't believe him.
Believe the Word of God as we stand and sing our invitation song.