If you have your Bibles, let's turn to the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament, Luke and chapter 16, Luke 16. And we're going to be looking at an account here that is often known as the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man and Lazarus. And so I am going to read from verse 19 through the end of the chapter in verse 31. And so let me invite you, as you're able, let's stand in honor of the reading and the hearing of God's word. Again, I'm reading from Luke 16, beginning in verse 19, wherein Luke faithfully records these words of our Lord. 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 was laid 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. 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. And in hell, he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and see if Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and 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. But Abraham said, Son, rememberest that thou in thy lifetime receivest thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things. but now he is comforted and thou art tormented and beside all this between us and you there is a great goal fixed so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot neither can they pass to us that would come from thence then he said i pray thee therefore father that thou wouldn't send him to my father's house, for I have five brethren that he may testify to them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto 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 him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, Neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." May God bless today the reading and the hearing of his word, and let us join together in prayer. Gracious God, again, as we open the pages of scripture, as we come especially seeking to know the revelation of truth as to what happens to men and women when they die, whether they be believers or unbelievers, We would seek light and we would seek truth. And so open our eyes, unstop our ears. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, we are returning today to this short study that we're doing on Sunday afternoons on eschatology. And eschatology is the doctrine of last things. And we noted starting the series last Sunday that we could say there are two aspects to eschatology. One is personal eschatology. What happens to individuals when they die? The other is cosmic eschatology. What happens to the world? How does history end? And so we're just starting to explore some topics related to that first part. personal eschatology. Last time, we looked at 2 Corinthians 5, and especially Paul's statement in verse 8, that to be absent from the body was to be present with the Lord. And we noted that the Bible teaches that human beings are made up of two fundamental parts. We have souls, or spirits, and we have bodies. We call this a psychosomatic unity. And the Bible teaches that at death, the body is placed in the grave awaiting the return of Christ and the resurrection, whereas the soul continues to exist, continues to live. And we talked about what happens to believers when they die. And we said believers, their spirits go immediately to be with the Lord. Whereas unbelievers, when they die, their spirits go immediately into torment. And really, if you want a good, succinct teaching on personal eschatology, you can look at the Baptist catechism. And in the Baptist catechism, questions 40 and 42 address this very issue of what happens to believers and unbelievers when they die. Question 40 says, what benefits do believers receive from Christ at their death? And the answer is, the souls of believers are at their death, made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory. And their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection. And there are various passages that are proof texts. One of those is 2 Corinthians 5, verse 8. And then two questions later, question 42, it asks, what shall be done to the wicked at their death? And it answers, the souls of the wicked shall at their death be cast into the torments of hell. And their bodies lie in their graves till the resurrection and judgment of the great day. So it teaches that the souls of the wicked at their deaths are immediately cast into the torments of hell. Their bodies also remain in the grave till the resurrection. And the first proof text that is cited for question 42 in the Baptist catechism on this is Luke 16. verses 23 and 24. So it's appropriate that we're going to just take a closer look today at Luke 16, verses 19 through 31, and the teaching that is known as the teaching about the rich man and Lazarus. And so this is indeed one of the key passages in scripture that sheds light on the life after life, life after this life, And there are a series of invaluable lessons for us that are found within this passage. Now, I've got to tell you, I've preached this passage many times over the years. It's one of my favorite passages to preach. And I even preached on it when we went through our series in Luke several years ago. I think it was in 2012, so it's been quite a while ago. But I've used this passage a number of times when I've spoken in conferences. Because one of the things that this passage teaches is about the doctrine of scripture. And that's most often the thing that I'm asked to speak on when I do something like a conference. And I've turned to this passage a number of times because of the way it ends. You get through the passage, and at the end, the rich man asks Father Abraham if Lazarus can be sent to warn his five brothers. And Abraham responds. If you look at verse 29, they have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. And in the first century, the time Christ spoke these words among the Jews, they often thought of the Old Testament as falling into three parts, the law, the writings of Moses, the prophets, and the writings. So basically, what Christ was saying is they have the Bible. They have the scriptures. Let them listen to them. And this fellow responded, the rich man, he said, they won't listen to that. But if someone came back from the dead, they would listen. And Christ responded in verse 31, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rise from the dead. That's ironic, because what's going to happen by the end of this gospel? Christ is going to rise from the dead, and yet there will be many who will not believe in the gospel. They will not believe the scriptures and they won't believe the gospel. So I've often used this passage to talk about the doctrine of scripture, the sufficiency of scripture. But probably the part of this passage that may prove most useful practically for many Christians will be what it has to say about what happens at death, what happens in the life after life. And so we're going to trace just a few lessons, I think some four lessons I think we can draw from this passage about what happens when we die, personal eschatology. Now, as we look at this account here in Luke 16, 19 through 20, or 19 through 31, one of the questions that often arises is what kind of teaching is this? Sometimes people refer to this as the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. But if you look at this account, Christ doesn't call this a parable. It doesn't start off the way he sometimes teaches parables. The kingdom of heaven is like a rich man and a poor man who die on the same day. Instead, it seems as though Christ is simply reporting historical events that had happened. There was a certain rich man. And there was a certain beggar. And verse 22, it came to pass that the beggar died. And at the end of that verse, the rich man also died and was buried. And so I think rather than call this a parable, it's more likely that we would call it a historical incident. And maybe it was something that had happened just right before Christ had given this teaching. that there had been the death of a rich man, there had been the death of this poor man named Lazarus. And Christ is reporting what happened to these men after their death, what actually happened to them. And so this account begins with Christ presenting these two men. And as we already noted in verse 19, one of these men was A rich man, we're not told his name but we are told about his circumstances. He was clothed in purple. These were expensive clothing. Purple is the color of royalty and fine linen and he fared sumptuously every day. He had all that he wanted to eat. He was not in need materially speaking. And there's another man in verse 20. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus. In the first century world, there were a lot of people who were beggars. They had to depend upon the alms, the offerings of others, maybe because of a physical handicap, maybe because of blindness, maybe because of old age. But whatever the impairment, Lazarus, this man Lazarus, was a beggar. I probably told you guys before about a time several years ago. Again, we went to China when we were adding our Joseph to our family. And we went to a Buddhist temple. And we were almost overwhelmed by the number of people who were out there begging. Apparently, it was the custom there to go to this Buddhist temple and to sort of expect that people might be generous. And there were people with all sorts of terrible physical deformities and handicaps and so forth who were out there begging. And imagine that Lazarus was likely a man like that. It says of him in verse 20 that he was laid at the gate, a place where people were passing by, like that Buddhist temple. And he was full of sores, whereas The rich man was covered with fine clothing. Lazarus was a man who was covered with swords. Now, you might hear that name Lazarus, and you might think, oh, I've heard that name before. And the Gospel of John, of course, there's a description of a man named Lazarus, who is known as Lazarus of Bethany. And he was the brother of Mary and Martha, and he was a dear friend of Christ. And when he died, we're told in John 11 that Jesus wept, and then Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb. And some people have asked, is this the same person? And we would say, it doesn't seem so, because the Lazarus of Bethany was not a beggar. He was a man of some means, and the descriptions of him don't match up with someone who was a beggar. But this was another man who had the name Lazarus. The name Lazarus is related to the Hebrew name Eliezer, and it means God helps. And so certainly as a beggar, Lazarus's name was somewhat figurative, the fact that he depended every day for the goodwill of others. And so what we see is there's a great contrast between the external conditions of these two men. And this brings us to the first of these four lessons that I want to suggest we can gain from this passage about life after life. And that lesson is there are only two ways or two outcomes at death. There are not many things that might happen to someone. There are only two outcomes. Either one will experience what happened to the rich man, or one will experience what happened to Lazarus. And this leads us to our second lesson, which I think we see in verses 22 and 23. The second lesson follows hard upon the first, and it is that these two men went to two destinations. There are two ways. And there are two destinations or outcomes that we might have from our lives. First of all, we see what happened or what was the destination regarding the poor man. Look at verse 22. It says, and it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. And so Lazarus dies, and it says, he was carried. Now, this is referring to his spirit. His body was in the grave, but his spirit was carried by the angels. Do you know that's one of the tasks of the angels? That if we are believers at our deaths, our souls or spirits will be taken by the angels to be with God. We are told that he was taken to a place of rest where Abraham, Father Abraham, the head of God's covenant people was. He was taken to the bosom of Father Abraham, by the side of Father Abraham. Of course, this is figurative language to describe a place of heavenly rest. This place is also called by our Lord Paradise. As a little bit later in Luke's gospel, Christ will say to the thief on the cross in Luke 23, 43, today you will be with me in paradise. And we could also call this place heaven. It's the bosom of Father Abraham. It's paradise. It is a place of heavenly rest. And then secondly, we hear about the death of the rich man into verse 22, the rich man also died and was buried. And everything about him is a downward thrust to it, right? The angels carry the spirit of Lazarus up to the bosom of Father Abraham. But the rich man died and was buried. And then it says in verse 23, with respect to his spirit, whereas his body was buried with respect to his spirit and in hell behind that word, English word hell is the Greek word Hades. And in hell, he lifted up his eyes being in torments and see if Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. Notice, by the way, that it speaks here within Christ's account of this rich man looking up. Later he'll talk about, have Lazarus dip his finger in some water. And these expressions should be taken figuratively because they just had a spiritual existence at death. As it says, they were buried. So their spirits were not with their bodies. The language helps us to understand something of what was happening. His spirit was looking up. He didn't have physical eyes, but his spirit was looking up from torment and could see Lazarus in the bosom of Father Abraham. So first lesson, there are two ways. Second lesson, there are two destinations. At death, our spirits either go to the bosom of Father Abraham, to paradise, to the heavenly rest, or they go to hell, to Hades. Next, we see that these two men had two very different experiences in the places where they went. And so in verse 24, we see that the rich man cried out from Hades. And what did he say? He 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. Later on, he refers to this place in verse 28 as this place of torment. Now, it's hard for us to conceive how the soul can be in torment apart from physical existence. But this is what our Lord says. The rich man, his spirit in Hades was in a torment as though he were in the flames. And so he was experiencing conscious spiritual suffering. A lot of times the description of fire is used to describe the type of terrible suffering that those who are in hell undergo. In fact, if you have your Bibles and you look back to Mark chapter nine, Mark chapter nine, there's a threefold reference to what happens to people in hell as Christ teaches In Mark 9 verse 43, if thy hand offend thee, cut it off. It is better for thee to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And then he repeats something very similar in verses 45 and 46. If your foot offend thee, cut it off. And otherwise, he says, you can be cast with two feet into hell. He repeats at the end of verse 45, into the fire that never shall be quenched, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. And then yet a third time in verses 47 and 48, he says, if your eye offend thee, pluck it out. It's better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than having two eyes to be cast into hellfire, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. And so the rich man, his spirit, went into a place of torment, or as he describes it, this place of torment. And Lazarus, on the other hand, is in a place of comfort. Look at verse Twenty-five. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivest thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things. But now he is comforted and thou art tormented. Notice that their situations in this life have been completely reversed. In this life, the rich man had been well-clothed and had eaten sumptuously, was at his ease, was comforted by the things of this life, whereas Lazarus, the poor man, had been a beggar and was covered with sores, and now their lives are completely reversed. Now it is the rich man who is in torment, and now it is Lazarus who is being comforted. And so the next thing that we learn after this related to their two different experiences, we learn next that there is no possibility of changing one's status or moving from one place to another after death. This is the fourth lesson we learn. There's no possibility of change after death. Look at verse 26. Abraham says to the rich man, 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 come from thence." There's no going back and forth. Even when the rich man says, I want you to send someone to my father's house to warn my five brothers to testify to them. That's when Abraham said, they have the scriptures. And he says, but they won't listen. They won't listen. Send someone back from the dead. And Abraham responds, if they don't hear Moses and the prophets, verse 31, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. So the overall emphasis that comes from verses 26 to 31 is there is this great goal fixed, and you cannot move back and forth. For the person who is saved, for the elect, for the person who goes immediately into the bosom of father Abraham or paradise or the heavenly rest. This is a word of comfort because this means that once one at death enters into the glory of the bosom of fathers Abraham into the heavenly rest, that person can never lose his status as a glorified saint. He can't lose his salvation. This also teaches us that there is, for the believer, no purgatory. It's not that you go and you're at a lower level of heaven and you sort of work your way up over time. No, you're either immediately in glory or you are not. But if you are there, you cannot lose that status. You cannot be kicked out of heaven, as it were. For the reprobate, for the person who is unsaved, however, It is a horrible reality. It means there are no second chances after death. There is no post-mortem evangelism. When you die, you either go to the heavenly rest or you go to hell and you cannot change from one place to another. This reinforces the importance of what we do in this life. Where do we cast our lot in this life? With whom do we stand in this life? To whom do we commit ourselves in this life? Here's what the Lord Jesus said in Matthew chapter 10 when he was teaching the apostles before he sent them out to preach and to minister in his name. In Matthew chapter 10, he said this to them. Verse 32, whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. There are only two ways. Will you confess Christ in this life? Or will you deny Christ? If you confess Christ, then you will be confessed before our Father in heaven. If you deny Christ, then you will be denied before our Father in heaven. So looking at this passage with respect to personal eschatology and lessons on life after life, here, again, is the summary of four lessons we get from this passage. There are two ways. There are two ways. There's the way of Lazarus, the way of the elect, the saved. And there's the way of the rich man, the way of the reprobate, the unsaved. Secondly, there are two destinations. One spirit either goes directly into the bosom of Father Abraham, paradise or the heavenly rest, or one goes to hell. Third, third lesson, there are two experiences at death. Either one will experience comfort, whatever his circumstances were in this life, externally, or he will experience torment. Again, whatever his external circumstances were in this life. And then fourth, the fourth lesson we learn is that once we enter into that final state, that it cannot be changed. One cannot move from one place to another. That our destination is final and it cannot be changed. So friends, the overall lesson we learn is we must settle matters now. There are no second chances after death. We must heed now what the scriptures teach about Christ. We must listen to the gospel. We must repent of our sin. And we must believe in Christ for the saving of our souls. And so this is, again, a very somber a very serious, very important message about personal eschatology. Amen? We invite you to stand together. Let's join in prayer. Gracious and loving God, we thank thee for this teaching that's been preserved for us of Christ about two men, two ways, two destinations, two experiences. And we ask that you would give us a holy fear as we consider the living of our own lives, the stewardship of them, and that we would confess Christ in this life, that we would not persist in denying Him, that we would turn in faith to Christ, that we would look to Him and live. We ask this in Christ's name and for His sake. Amen.