(Luke 16:19-31)
Ignore the Bible. Don’t listen to it. Don’t read it. Don’t study it. Don’t waste your time with it. And whatever you do, don’t believe it.
I don’t even care what your reasons are, just make sure you avoid it at all costs. You don’t have enough time in the day to read it. You already know some of the things it says don’t sit well with you, so stay away from it. You don’t have any need for an old book written by old men that only suppresses women and pollutes minds by promoting patriarchy. No one actually believes all the foolish fables and fairy tales anyway, right? If you don’t already have your own reason, find one – whatever it takes – to make sure you ignore the Bible.
The rich man found his reason. He rather enjoyed the best of what the world had to offer. He “dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day” (v.19). Purple, linens, luxury – this was the stuff of the upper class, the top tier of society. This man was not financially struggling to keep his head above water or just barely getting by; he was living the high life. Indeed, there has always been a lot to enjoy and appreciate in life, no matter when a person has lived throughout history. There have always been the “haves” and the “have-nots.” The rich man had it – whatever he wanted. Money was no object. Even his meals were so extravagant that the miserable beggar at his gate would have been delighted just to have a taste of the post meal scraps scraped off his plates.
So, what do you think of this man? What is your opinion of him? We don’t have much of a biography about him. Honestly, we don’t even know if he actually existed or if he is just part of a story Jesus is telling. He was rich. It doesn’t seem that he was that interested in using his wealth to help others in need, otherwise we might expect the story of the beggar outside his gate to be a rags-to-riches story of some sort. He came from a good-sized family, having five brothers. In the second part of the story, it does appear that he is at least concerned about his brothers, which says something about him. So, what do you think of this man, this man that Jesus doesn’t even bother to mention by name?
Perhaps more important than what we think of the man is what the man thinks of his situation after he departed this earth. Did he miss the purple, the linens, and the luxury? Did he miss his lavish lifestyle and the ability to experience or purchase whatever he wanted? We might draw some assumptions, but we aren’t provided with that information, as it is overshadowed by the unyielding agony he was suffering. “The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 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’” (v.22-24).
In place of any concern about riches is his preoccupation with relief. The degree of his suffering is amplified by the fact that he asks for so little in relief! He does not request a cold shower or a cool drink, but merely the tiny tip of a finger dipped in water to touch his tongue and offer such a minuscule measure of relief. Even that would have been welcome!
Have you ever experienced anything like that? I can tell you you haven’t, because no matter what pain or suffering you have experienced, we’ve all enjoyed the same benefit: it eventually passed. The pain went away. The broken bone mended. The gash or cut scabbed over and healed. New skin eventually replaced the blisters from the burn. We have pain reliever and medicine for headaches. Every pain that we can imagine experiencing, no matter how excruciating, eventually heals and goes away.
But not for the rich man. When Scripture describes hell, after the matter of being cut off from God eternally, one of the most terrifying elements of hell is trying to imagine no end in sight, no relief, ever, from the torment and pain.
In addition to the rich man’s pleas for relief, his sudden concern for others – his brothers – also highlights his agony.
“‘I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment’” (v.27-28). While we don’t know about his relationship with his brothers while he was living, he certainly cares enough about them now to see that they never have to experience what he was experiencing. Were they as wealthy as he was? We don’t know. What we do know is that he knew that if something didn’t change in their lives, they were destined to head to where he was. So in addition to pleading for relief, the rich man is begging on behalf of his brothers, asking for extreme measures.
Listen again to the rest of the exchange, beginning with Abraham’s initial response. “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ “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’” (v.29-31). “Get their attention! Send someone back from the dead to warn them to avoid hell at all costs! The agony is unbelievably unbearable!”
Abraham’s response better grab our attention, because it is the key to this whole account. When he pointed out to the rich man that his brothers had “Moses and the Prophets,” he was simply saying, “They have the Bible. The Word of God is enough. And if that doesn’t keep them from following in your footsteps and avoiding the same outcome, nothing else will – not even someone rising from the dead to warn them.”
Ignore the Bible. Don’t listen to it. Don’t read it. Don’t study it. Don’t waste your time with it. And whatever you do, don’t believe it.
Follow that advice, and you’ll be well on your way to personally experiencing how accurate the rich man’s take on hell really was.
Thankfully, the story Jesus is telling here doesn’t just involve one man. There was the beggar, the one positioned so close to a life of luxury and means, yet so far away. The beggar Jesus happens to mention by name is Lazarus. His experience in life couldn’t have been more polar opposite than that of the rich man.
“At [the rich man’s] gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores” (v.20-21). He had nothing to his name, and his desire for relief was met not by the rich man of means, but by his compassionate four-legged companions. But when his life was over, his fate was noticeably different.
“The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side” (v.22). Where exactly did Lazarus end up? Not at all in the same place the rich man did, but rather in heaven, depicted by the presence of angels and Abraham.
Abraham is actually an excellent choice to serve as a representative of heaven. Why? Because the Bible makes it very clear how he got there. One of the New Testament writers, Paul, quotes a verse from the Old Testament to clarify how a person ends up saved and in heaven. He wrote, “What does Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness’” (Romans 4:3).Abraham was in heaven because he believed, and that faith alone is what allowed God to welcome him into heaven. The same writer explained in another of his letters, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Belief. Faith. These are the “must-haves” for heaven.
Verses like these are necessary to help us to fill in the missing blanks in Jesus’ story, because Jesus didn’t doesn’t tell us about any of the religious beliefs or activities of either the rich man or poor Lazarus. So, without any other knowledge of Scripture, a person might end up concluding that rich people are bad and go to hell and that poor people are good and go to heaven. But that take doesn’t find a shred of support in Scripture. Instead, we must conclude that Lazarus was a believer and the rich man was not.
Well then, how does one become a believer? Again we hear Paul: “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the Word about Christ” (Romans 10:17). The Word is everything, and the rich man had no time for it as he gave his attention to his lavish lifestyle. So he traded temporary comfort for eternal torment. As Abraham explained to the rich man in the story, “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” (v.25). And that final outcome couldn’t be tampered with. His choices in this temporary life directly impacted his eternal life.
As do ours. To be clear, it isn’t merely the act or frequency of reading the Bible that assures one of salvation, but believing it. Nevertheless, no one can ever believe it if they do not know what it says, for it is the only means by which the Holy Spirit convinces anyone that Jesus has provided both the necessary holiness required for heaven by his perfect life, as well as the payment for every sin by his innocent death. We only find the details of this good news, which we call the gospel, in the Bible. Only there are we introduced to Jesus Christ.
Your faith in Jesus Christ is the only thing that has everything to do with your salvation. It hinges on it. Which is to say, it hinges on the Word of God, where we come to know, love, and place our trust in our forgiving, gracious, compassionate, peace-bearing, always-with-us, patient Savior. And we have for ourselves not just Moses and the Prophets, as the rich man did; we have the whole Bible! All of it points us to the certainty of salvation that can only be found in the greatest Friend of sinners, the One who forgives all sinners, Jesus Christ. And there is plenty of room right next to him, along with Abraham, poor Lazarus, and all of the saints who believed the Word of God.
So, friends, don’t ignore the Bible. Listen to it. Read it. Study it. Spend time with it. And whatever you do, believe it.
