2016-06-12 Luke 16:22-27 A Parable About "Me" (3): The Party's Over

A PARABLE ABOUT “ME” (3): THE PARTY’S OVER (Luke 16:22-27) June 12, 2016 Intro – A lady took her 3-year-old to church for the first time and he got a little fidgety waiting for things to start. He finally turned to her and asked, “What time does Jesus get here?” That’s a really good question. One we must all answer for our own lives. And since Jesus does not impose Himself on anyone the answer is, He gets there when we invite Him to take His rightful place as Lord and Master – to find a new identity in Him. Failing that, we will one day enter eternity with only our old identity of Self and disaster awaits those who choose that path – an eternity in hell. No place in Scripture addresses hell more vividly than this parable of our Lord. It is a parable about identity, contrasting one whose identity is “rich man” indicating his total concentration on piling up the things of this life – a career at which he is wildly success. His identity is self. The other man is Lazarus whose name means “whom God has helped.” His identity is God. This parable teaches the identity we choose here follows us into eternity. It appears that “rich man” has the edge there. He has everything; Lazarus has nothing. But God looks at the heart – and the chosen identity of these two men took the rich man to hell and poor Lazarus to heaven. A complete reversal of fortune because one trusted Self and the other trusted God. Our outline – I. The Eternal Me is Determined in This Life (Me Unformed). Decisions taken now define our eternity, so we must get it right. II. Death Reveals but does not Change Me (Me Unveiled). The parable reveals three things. A. There will be surprises. We saw some of those last week. So today we move on to B. There will be suffering and C. There will be splendor. These are hard sermons to preach. But God told Ezekiel that if God issued a warning of judgment and Ezekiel failed to report that warning God says in Ezek 33:8 “his blood I will require at your hand.” That’s why Jesus issued this vivid warning, and why we must speak to it as well. God is not willing that any should perish (II Pet 3:9), but for those who reject His offer of forgiveness there will be no alternative. The eternal fate of believers vs. nonbelieves are drastically different. And there is no middle ground. So, let’s examine some of the ways Jesus describes what awaits after death. B. There will be suffering 1 The rich man represents the destiny of unbelievers. Jesus describes his experience this way: 23 “and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes.” He is in hell and he is in torment. To Jesus, hell is very real; it is a place of torment; it is eternal; and it is the destination of everyone who refuses to be identified “in Christ” and instead chooses self. It’s interesting that while this man asks for a lot of things, he never asks to get out! He would not accept God’s lordship in this life, and despite the torment he is in, he wants nothing to do with God in the next life either. So what is a Godless eternity like? We get some glimpses in this parable. 1. There will be torment without termination “Rich man” is clearly in torment. 24 “And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.” Can people actually hold conversations between heaven and hell. No. This is a parable. Jesus is using this imaginary conversation to illustrate certain truths about eternity, the first of which is that hell is a place of suffering. To be without God is to suffer. It’s interesting that the rich man addresses his appeal to “Father Abraham.” He’s hoping his Jewish heritage will help him, but his appeal is to the wrong person. Jesus is the Savior, not Abraham. But his problem is way worse than that. He next says, “have mercy on me.” Have mercy. Is God a God of mercy? Absolutely, right? The Bible is filled with statements like Exod 34:6, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” Every time people do wrong and don’t die, God is extending mercy. His patience is longsuffering. But in all his life, this man had never asked for mercy. He’d never soberly considered the greatness of God’s holiness and the severe limitations of his own goodness – so he never asked for mercy. And now – after death – it is too late. Mercy has ended. His suffering is further seen in his request: “send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame” (24). The natural question is, are the flames real? Is hell really a place of fire? Clearly, fire is used to describe judgment throughout the Bible. And the ultimate judgment is described this way in Rev 20: 13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. 14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the 2 book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” Fire is the consistent description of hell. So, is it figurative, or is it real? Well, note v. 22. The rich man died and was buried. His body went into the ground. It was his soul that went to hell – the spiritual part of him. We have no indication that physical fire would have any effect on a spirit being. This would be true of all people who initially die and go to hell. It is not their body that is in torment but their soul. And, Mt 25:41 describes hell as “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Those are spirit beings, so it seems unlikely that physical fire is in view. But if the fire is figurative, what does it mean? What does fire do? Well, it creates severe pain, right? And it destroys. Throw something into the fire and it just shrivels up into nothing, right? So if the fire is not literal, it is God’s chosen physical illustration of something that causes severe spiritual pain and disintegration. And like any illustration, the reality is worse than the example. So whether the fire is literal or not, it stands for endless spiritual torment and disintegration. An endless shriveling of soul. In Mark 9:48, Jesus describes hell as a place 48 ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.” Fire not being quenched I get. But teachers tend to skip the “worm” part. Here’s what I think it means. Jesus quotes Isa 66: 24) where God describes the future fate of Israel’s enemies: “And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.” These dead bodies were subject to two forms of disintegration – one by fire and one by worms who would consume the dead. This was a physical reality with which the people of Jesus’ time were quite familiar. The Valley of Gehenna, just south of the city, was originally where child sacrifice took place. By Jesus’ time it was the city dump. It was a place of perpetual fire, burning the trash that was dumped there. But dead animals also ended up there. And the unclaimed bodies of criminals and homeless people. Then it was a question of what got to them first – the fire or the worms and vermin that waited there to feast on them. By Jesus’ time “Gehenna” was a common word for hell. Jesus used this physical reality to depict a spiritual truth as He so often did. What happened to a physical body there depicted the torment of eternity without God. But while a dead body would eventually be destroyed by the fire and worms of Gehenna, the spiritual Gehenna, hell, is a place where the fire never goes out, the worm of disintegration never stops eating away – so both internally and externally, unending destruction is going on. I think that describes the unending regret, 3 all-consuming anger and total frustration and torment, internally and externally that awaits those who reject Christ. This is the torment He describes when He on 7 recorded occasion describes hell as a place where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth”. Life without God is an unending downward spiral into oblivion with no relief. Life can turn on small moments in time. A couple of years ago a 16-year-old girl named Aubrey Peters was hanging out with a friend in NC. Somehow they got ahold of pistol belonging to Aubrey’s father. They got playing with it. Thinking it was not loaded, the friend pointed it at Aubrey and pulled the trigger sending a bullet through her heart and killing her. Imagine the regret that girl will live with all her life? If only she could have that one moment back, but she can’t. It’s gone forever. Multiply that “if only” by a million billion and you have some idea what hell will be like. The torment of hell is the eternal “if only” that will burn like a fire. Why did I reject Jesus that Sunday when I could have given my life to Him? If only. Unending, ceaseless regret, anger, frustration and hatred. The issue isn’t whether the fire is real or not – an eternity of “if only” will be real enough. 2. There will be darkness without dawn Now, hang with me here for a moment. You probably see no darkness in this parable. But in hell it’s lights out! II Pet 2:4 says, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment.” In II Pet 2:17, speaking of unbelievers, Peter says, “For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.” In both Jude 6 and 13 Jude speaks of unbelievers as those “for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.” And Jesus Himself 3 times says that unbelievers “will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Thus though hell is described as a place of fire, it is also described as a place of utter and complete darkness. How can both be true? Well, we’ve already seen that the fire is probably figurative – describing the eternal disintegration of personality of the unbeliever. If the darkness mentioned is physical, that would be awful enough. Imagine 5 minutes in darkness where you cannot see your hand in front of your face. Now imagine an eternity of that condition. But the darkness certainly stands for something more. What is darkness? It is the absence of light. And who is the light of the world? Jesus. So what is spiritual darkness? It is the complete absence of Jesus. Darkness speaks of complete and total separation from God. 4 At night when I go down in our basement to go to my office I hold my hands in front of me. Why? I don’t know whether or not the door is open or closed. I’ve bent more pairs of glasses, to mention nothing of dents in my forehead trying to walk thru closed doors or stumbling over footstools that moved. Why? Because when you are in the dark, you are out of touch with reality. You don’t know what’s there. You don’t know truth. It’s there, but you don’t see it. That’s why the kingdom of Satan is consistently called the kingdom of darkness. There is no truth there because God is not there. There is no reality there because God is not there. Unbelievers are constantly said to be dwelling in darkness. However smart they may be in worldly terms, they are totally without spiritual reality. John says in I John 1:5, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” Without Him there is no light at all. That’s why John said of Jesus in John 1:4, “4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” For those who will believe, a wonderful transformation occurs described by Paul in Col 1:13: “He has delivered us [believers] from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” But there is a problem. Not everyone wants the light. Jesus knows that. And He knows why. He tells Nicodemus in John 3:19-20, “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” What’s the problem? People prefer their sin to forgiveness. They prefer their selfish darkness to His revealing light. Hell is merely an eternal extension of this preference for moral darkness – an everlasting denial of spiritual reality. It is that denial of reality that is glaring in the response of the rich man. He is helpless in hell, yet he has lost touch with reality. Reality is he’s in a world of hurt while Lazarus is covered in glory. But he still sees Lazarus as a delivery boy! From the one to whom he would not even send dog food, he now asks for relief. He still sees himself as the center of the universe. “Send Lazarus” (v. 24). He can’t acknowledge that the tables have turned. He’s operating in outer darkness. Reality is he’s in eternal torment in hell. But does he ask out? No. He asks only for temporary relief: “Send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue” (v. 24). He’s operating in 5 outer darkness. Reality is he is completely outside the presence of God. But does he ask for God? No. He doesn’t want God any more now that he did in this life. The light is out. He is operating in total darkness – hopelessly lost, groping around for some solution when there is none to be had. No escape; no relief; no hope. To be in hell is to be forever seeking relief from the unremitting regret and bitterness and pain and suffering and -- never finding any help – none at all. Because in hell there is no God, no Jesus and no salvation and no hope. The light’s been turned out; The party’s over! But payment has just begun. Conc – Next week we’ll conclude this look at eternity without God, but for now, let’s ask, why did Jesus tell this parable? So we would come to the light now – while we have the chance. Tomorrow may be too late. David said in, Psalm 11:28, “For it is you who light my lamp; the LORD my God lightens my darkness.” Paul similarly reported in II Cor 4:6, “6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” We need never experience the outer darkness of an eternity with Christ. But we must want Him for who He is. And we must invite Him in now, while time remains. David Hume was a philosopher and skeptic – a naturalist who believed that what we see is all that exists. British humanist Kathleen Nott says that Hume “hung his nose as far as any over the nihilistic abyss.” His identity was Self, and he wrote at one point, “I am affrighted and confounded with that forlorn solitude in which I am placed by my philosophy [identity].” He was alone – no Christ. How did it work out for him? The nurse attending at his deathbed said that when his friends were with him he was cheerful, “even to frivolity.” But when he was alone he sunk ever deeper into despair. He said, “I have been in search of light all my life, but I am now a greater darkness than ever.” Darkness had become his identity. And it was also his destiny without Jesus. That doesn’t have to be you. Jesus is the light of the world. He will light your life if only you will confess your need of Him, ask His forgiveness and accept His life as yours. What time does Jesus get here? As soon as you ask. Let’s pray. 6