Sermon - October 25, 2009
The Gospel: 1-4. This is the Word
of the Lord 5
6 Carried or Buried
Exodus 32:30-35, Luke 16: 19-29, Romans 8:1-6
Unless we are at a funeral, or some one we love is
gravely ill, or we ourselves are threatened by ill health, we don’t ordinarily
think about death and the afterlife. Yet this subject is one of utmost
importance to our Lord. The top subjects Jesus preached and taught about are
money, hell, and the kingdom of God. He was very clear about life, and life
after life. So for the next three Sundays, we are going to look into dark
places, bright places and the hard places in the Scriptures and what Jesus
teaches us about the Afterlife.
Today, we want to know the truth about hell. 7
Now, when you have coffee, should the conversation turn to what did
your preacher talk about last Sunday, please don’t say, “Our pastor gave us
hell.” Not even God gives hell. People choose it for themselves.
As a culture, we are squeamish about the reality of hell. 8
We make jokes about it, and are flippant with the word in conversation. People
use the word as an explicative when work is hard and tedious, or to describe a
hangover, or suggest that it as the origin of the uncooperative co-worker or
unreasonable boss. In mainline churches, hell is seldom mentioned except in
liturgies, and almost never preached. 9 By
contrast to sermons 100 years ago or more, when fire and brimstone was the club
of choice to scare people into conversion, Today, most so-called Evangelical
churches have stopped preaching hell years ago. Many man line preachers stopped
believing in hell years before that because, frankly, the thought of endless
burning screaming torture for eternity is uncomfortable. We want to fill pews,
keep our apportionments paid, and make everybody feel good, at the expense of
preaching the whole truth contained in the Scriptures.
10 In 1996 the Church of England issued
a report which proposes that if there is a hell, it is empty. I quote, “In the
past imagery of hell-fire and eternal torment and punishment…has been used to
frighten men and women…” And the report concludes, “Hell is not eternal torment,
but is the final and irrevocable choosing that which is opposed to God so
completely that the only end is total non-being.” In other words, poof, you no
longer exist. Period. It would seem that total annihilation does seem more
compassionate than eternal torture.11
Souls are not punished, just deleted by the finger of God - permanently. But
that is not what the Scriptures teach.
What does the Bible teach about hell? Let’s turn to Luke 16:19.
12 There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen
and lived in luxury every day. This man wore the uniform of opulence, and
his lifestyle was one of excessive luxury. Here was a man of great fortune, the
epitome of success, reputation, influence, and self-interest. But notice, from
Jesus’ point of view, he is nameless – he is just “the rich man”.
13 Then there’s a poor man, on the other
hand. He was not covered with finery but with open sores and ulcers which wild
street dogs would lick. Crippled and starving, he laid begging at the rich man’s
gate. Jesus knows his name, Lazarus. The name Lazarus is a Hebrew
derivative of Eleazor – meaning “God is my help”.
14 Verse 22 says, the time
came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. That
would be true heaven to the believing Jew. The rich man also died and was
buried. Poor as he was, Lazarus was probably not buried, but hauled away to
the dump and burned with the city garbage. The rich man, no doubt, had an
elaborate funeral, with paid mourners to weep and wail, and a tomb befitting a
person of his position. But no angels came to carry him. He was simply buried.
He finds himself in hell, suffering torment. 15
He looks up and in the distance he sees Abraham with Lazarus by his side. He
cries out in his anguish, Father Abraham, tell Lazarus to dip the tip of his
finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in agony in this fire.” The
rich man is still being boss, directing people for his own benefit and comfort.
But Abraham replies, “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. Abraham addresses the rich man as “Son”. The man
was a son of Abraham, but even this is not sufficient to save him: not his
heritage, or his prominence, or his wealth. Nothing in this world, or in and of
ourselves is sufficient to save our souls.
Why was the rich man in hell? Not because of his wealth,16
but because of his indifference. He recognized Lazarus, even knew him by name,
but never did anything to alleviate Lazarus’s suffering. Lazarus longed for the
crumbs from his table, dog food, because he received nothing. The rich man’s
soul pivoted on himself, not on the word or love of God. Lazarus, knew his need,
daily depended upon God for his sustenance until the time came when he died.
17 Through the story of the rich man
and Lazarus, we have a glimpse of what hell is. It is separation from God.
Abraham tells us in verse 26 18 And
besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that you
cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us. Hell, like Heaven, is
permanent. But instead of peace, joy and bliss, there is consciousness of
extreme suffering, extreme heat, and extreme anguish.
Separation from God means separation from everything that is good, right,
true, lovely, awesome, and light. God is the source of life and all that is
good. Eternity without God is an endless absorption into everything that is not
of Him: darkness, falsity, despair, horror, and death.
19 In his book Beyond Death’s Door,
cardiologist Dr. Maurice Rawlings tells of a heart patient who forever changed
his view of the afterlife. The man collapsed during a routine stress test on a
tread mill. His heart stopped. Immediately Rawlings applied emergency
resuscitation measures. Four times time the patient came to, then lapsed again,
and his heart stopped. Four times he was clinically dead. Each time he
regained heartbeat and respiration, the patient cried out in anguish, “Help me.
I am in hell.” He was terrified. Each time he was revived, he pleaded 20
“ Don’t stop! Don’t you understand? I am in hell! Each time you quit, I go back
to hell How do I stay out of hell?”
The man was so distressed in severe panic, that even though Dr. Rawlings was
not a believer, he prayed with his patient. 21
The dying man, and the agnostic doctor, prayed together for God’s forgiveness
and surrendered their lives. The patient stabilized. A couple of days later Dr.
Rawlings sat by his bedside and asked about the man’s experience in hell. What
did hell look like? The man said, “What hell. I don’t recall any hell!” The
experience was so frightening, so painful, so horrible, his conscious mind could
not cope with it and completely blocked it from memory. This true story has a
hopeful postscript: both Dr. Rawlings and his patient became strong believing
Christians.
Hear how Jesus describes hell: 22 “outer
darkness , where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Mt. 25:20.
23 It is a place “where the
fire never goes out” Mk. 9:43, and ‘where the worm does not die and the
fire is not quenched.” Mk. 9:48. Jesus tells us to avoid hell at all
costs.
The thought of such a place is so repulsive to modern sophisticated minds,
many people today doubt there is a hell, or if hell exists, that God is much too
loving to ever send anyone there, or leave them there to suffer eternity. 24
The belief that all souls eventually go to heaven is called Universalism. It is
the trendy, popular thing to believe – even though it is tragically wrong.
First of all, God does not send anyone to hell. Hell was intended for Satan
and his demons, the rebels against God, not for human consumption. From the
beginning, God created us to know Him, love Him and enjoy Him for ever. 25
He asked of Adam and Eve only one thing: do not eat of the tree of knowledge –
for then you will know good and evil. That’s for Me to deal with, not you. Don’t
try to be Me. It will kill you. In a sense it did –spiritually. Sin kills. 26
Heaven is filled with God. Spiritually dead people, cut off from God by their
own choice, have no other place to go – but hell.
Some one who says God is too loving to permit, allow anyone to go to hell,
does not understand the nature of God’s love as holy, righteous, and perfect and
just. Sin disobeys, distrusts, and defies God. It negates everything that is
good, right, whole, true, lovely and just. Sin refutes faith. In fact, we read
in Romans 14:23 Everything that does not come from faith is sin.
27 Sin widens the chasm of our separation
from God. Sin negates life. Romans 6:23 teaches that The wages of sin are
death. We work for wages. Wages are something we earn. We earn death by
disobedience, by rejection of God, by rejection of the perfect manifestation of
His perfect, holy, righteous love: Jesus. 28
But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The GIFT
of God, there for the asking and the receiving. How do I stay out of hell?
Jesus Christ.
If I have one job, one task, one single purpose as pastor of this Church it
is to show, and to lead, and to encourage, and to rejoice in people coming
closer to God. For every man and woman and child to know that
29 God’s love is for real, Jesus is alive and
longing for you to know and love Him, and the Holy Spirit is ready to teach,
empower, and intercede for you. God dearly desires for you to know how He
loves you, provides for you, cares about every detail and every large scale
aspect of your life, your heart, your body, and your spirit.
Folks, hell is for real and it is for eternity.
30 The only One greater than the power of hell, is the power of
Almighty God who is on your side, if you will have Him. It doesn’t matter what
you’ve done in the past, who you are, where you have been, if you are a man or
woman, young or old, the Father loves you and would that no one should perish,
but that all would have everlasting life with Him.
It is this simple: Do you want to be carried or buried? Have you made that
decision? Don’t wait until you are on the gurney, or in the trauma room. Don’t
wait for the last moments of life to avoid hell. Christ died the blameless Son
of God. When He rose from the dead, He defeated death and conquered hell.
31 Live this life robed in His righteousness
which Christ has promised to all who seek Him, love Him, trust and serve Him.
Pray with me.
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