What Does Heaven (and Hell) Look Like? - Life of Christ Part 55

Now, I don't know about you, but I think every thinking person who's ever been alive probably had one time or another has wondered what's on the other side of death. Don't you? I mean, I have. And every once in a while, of course, something may come into your life that kind of turbo charges that, but most of the time we don't think too much about it.

Every once in a while, though, it becomes real important to us. That's what happened to Eric Clapton, the famous rock guitarist. Several years ago when his little boy, who then was just two or three years old, fell through an upper story window and plunged to his death on the street down below. Clapton was devastated, just absolutely distraught. And as part of working through his grief, he wrote a song, a song that he addressed to his little boy, of course, who was dead. And the song asks some really searching questions about death and about what's on the other side.

And I'd like you to listen to part of it this morning. Did you know my name? If I saw you in heaven, would it be the same? If I saw you in heaven, would it be the same? If I saw you in heaven, would it be the same? If I saw you in heaven, would it be the same? If I saw you in heaven, would it be the same? If I saw you in heaven, would it be the same? If I saw you in heaven, would you help me stand? If I saw you in heaven, would you find my way through night and day? Because I know I just can't stay here in heaven. Now what are the questions he asks? He asks, well, will you know my name if I saw you in heaven? Would it be the same if I saw you in heaven? Would you hold my hand?

Would you help me stand? I mean, those are some good questions. The only problem is that Clapton can't answer them. All he does is ask the questions in his song. He can't provide any answers. So where are you and I going to go to get some answers to those questions? I mean, who can really tell us what it's like on the other side of death?

It seems to me the only person who could tell us is a person who's been there and come back and they can speak with authority because they've seen it, right? And that means, in my mind, the only person available who can answer those kind of questions that Eric Clapton is asking is Jesus Christ. Because he said in John chapter 3, no one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came down from heaven, and namely, who is that? The Son of Man, Jesus Christ himself. And so, my dear friends, as we look here at Luke chapter 16, what we've got is Jesus Christ answering Eric Clapton's question of what's on the other side of death. He's going to tell us exactly what it looks like and exactly the way it works. And so if you've ever wondered and wanted to know, Jesus is going to answer you. He's the only person who can. He's the only person who's been there and come back who knows the way it really is.

Let's look and see. Verse 19. And by the way, let me add, I don't really think this is a parable. I think this is a true story. I think there really was a rich man and there really was a guy named Lazarus because Jesus doesn't say it's a parable. However, even if it is a parable, then it doesn't change the truth that Jesus is teaching, right? It's still the same. Now, the story happens in two scenes.

Ready? Scene one. Here we go. Verse 19. There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. Now, we know from ancient writers that purple was a color that only the most aristocratic people had in the ancient world. Roman senators wore it on the edge of their tunic. The Jewish high priest had a robe made out of it. Pliny, the Roman historian, tells us that purple dye was traded for its weight in pure gold in the ancient world.

So it's a pretty valuable commodity. Here we got a guy who dresses in it every day. This guy, we would say, is filthy rich.

I mean, he would have been on, you know, the Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous if he was around today. Now, what else do we have? We have another character.

Verse 20. At his 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.

I mean, what a contrast, huh? Here's a guy who has no money. He has no food. He has no one to care for him. He's so sick that he can't even walk on his own power. He's so poorly nourished that he has sores all over his body. He's so weak that he can't even fight off the street dogs who come and lick the pus that oozes out of those sores.

Not a real pretty picture, is it? And what he wanted was just some of the crumbs that fell, the Bible says, from this rich man's table. Now, what he was actually asking for was pieces of bread because in these days, people ate with their hands. They didn't have silverware.

For example, my children would have felt very much at home eating back then and I wouldn't have had to work like I'm working on manners. But anyway, they ate with their fingers and if you were rich, what you had as a napkin was a big old loaf of bread. You would tear a piece of that bread off and you'd wipe the grease off of your fingers with the bread and then you'd just throw the piece of bread away and they would collect all these pieces of bread at the end of the meal and just chuck them. They were basically like napkins. And what Lazarus was asking for was a few of these used napkins. But the implication of the story is he didn't get any of them. End of scene one.

Scene two. Verse 22, the time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried and in hell where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. Now Lazarus probably died right there in front of the rich man's house. They probably picked his body up, went through it on a dung heap somewhere, went through it on a trash pile somewhere. Nobody buried him. But he had for his pallbearers the angels who came and carried him away to Abraham's side, which is a Jewish expression for heaven. Now it says the rich man also died and was buried and I'm sure he was. I'm sure he was buried with pomp and fanfare and the old city turned out.

They named a street after him and everybody came to the funeral. But it says in hell he lifted up his eyes when he was in torment and he saw Abraham and he saw Lazarus far away. Now what follows is in my opinion one of the most phenomenal conversations ever recorded in human history and also I might add one of the most tragic ever recorded. The first thing the rich man does is he tries to get help for himself. Look at verse 24 and it says, so the rich man called to him and said, 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. But Abraham replied, Son, remember in your lifetime you received your good things while Lazarus received bad things. But now he's being comforted here and you are in agony.

And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm, a great gulf, a great divide that has been fixed so that those who want to go from here in heaven to you cannot nor can anyone cross over from where you are to us. For the first time in his whole life this rich man humbles himself and admits he's got a knee. For the first time in his whole life this rich man humbles himself, admits that he's got a problem he can't solve himself and cries out to God for mercy. And this would be a good time for me to stop and just point out to you the rich man did not go to hell because he was rich.

I hope you don't think that. Because Abraham, who was one of the richest men on the face of the earth in his day, he was in heaven. Whether the man was rich didn't have a thing to do with this. The point is the rich man was in hell because he was arrogant, because his money had made him self-sufficient, self-trusting, self-reliant, and he had never prayed on earth the kind of prayer that he found himself praying in hell.

You understand what I'm saying? He had never admitted that he had a need. He had never humbled himself before God.

He had never called out for the mercy of God. He thought he had the whole thing under control. Now for the first time in his life he admits that he has a need and cries out to God for help.

But Abraham says what? Hey pal, I'm sorry. It's kind of too little, too late here. You had your chance on earth to take advantage of the mercy of God and you spurned it and you rejected it and you didn't want anything to do with it. You thought you had it all under control. Now there's a great chasm fixed between you and me and I'm sorry, but I can't do anything to help you. Well, failing to get help for himself, he turns second of all to trying to get some help for some other people.

Look what he said. He said, well, verse 27, well then Abraham, I beg you, I beg you, send Lazarus to my father's house for I have five brothers that are still living back on earth. Let Lazarus go warn them so they will not come to this place of torment. And Abraham replied and said, they have Moses and they have the prophets. This is two divisions of the Old Testament that the Jews had. So what he's basically saying is they have the Bible. They have the truth of God in the Bible. And Abraham said, so let them listen to the Bible. They've got Jesus Christ walking on the earth, speaking the word of God. Let them listen to him. Verse 30, no father Abraham, he said. They're not going to listen to him.

I know my brothers. They're arrogant and they're self-sufficient just like I was. And they're not going to humble themselves because the Bible says something. They're not going to humble themselves because Jesus Christ says something. But look, verse 30, if someone from the dead rises and goes to them, they'll repent, maybe that'll work. You show them a drop dead miracle, Abraham, and I think we could reach him maybe. Verse 31, but Abraham said to him, hey, look, you still don't get it, do you?

You still don't get it, do you? If they don't listen to Moses and the prophets, if they won't respond to the truth of the word of God, if they won't listen to Jesus Christ talking, they will not be convinced even if somebody rose from the dead. And by the way, could I point out to you, somebody did rise from the dead? And there's people all over the world today who aren't convinced.

Huh? See, Abraham said, don't you understand, rich man, the issue here is not miracles, the issue is the heart. If someone has a heart that's humble and wants to do business with God and is broken before God, you will share with them the word of God and Jesus can talk to them and they will listen and they will respond.

But if you have somebody whose heart is hard and rebellious and not interested in God, you could rise from the dead and they'll find some other explanation for it and go on about their business. Now that's where the story kind of abruptly stops, it just stops. But it leaves us with a really important question and you know what that is, don't you?

What is it? All right. Well, let's ask the question, so what? What difference does this make for you and me in the 20th century? You know, when I was a college student, before I was a Christian, I was terrified of dying. I was just absolutely terrified. And I think most people are scared of dying if they don't know Christ, don't you? And it's funny to watch how people deal with that fear.

A lot of them try to get rid of it by making a big joke out of it and just treating the whole thing like it's a big funny thing. For example, there's this guy I was reading about in the paper, his name is Jay Knudsen, he lives in Des Moines, Iowa and he's just started up a new business, here's his company. His company will take your cremated remains and put them in whatever sports gear you loved. And so far, this is true, so far he's put people, their cremated remains in fishing lures, shotgun shells, the shafts of golf clubs, duck decoys and even bowling balls. You can imagine going to the lanes and saying, all right, now we're going to roll mom down the lane.

Go ahead, mom, give it a little laugh, mom, come on, get over there, mom. This guy's really done that. He says it's cheaper than a funeral, he'll do it for 500 bucks. And you know what he wants done with his remains?

He's already got it planned out, he's going to have his remains put in some high powered rifle shells and he's got a hunting trip planned for his son to go hunt for moose and bear and shoot him at moose and bear. Well, he has an entrepreneur born every minute and lots of suckers, but I don't know about you, I would prefer if I'm trying to figure out how to deal with death a little more serious approach than that, huh? In fact, Dr. Melvin Morris took one. Dr. Melvin Morris is a pediatrician and he's just gotten through writing a book called Closer to the Light. What he did is he said, you know all these near death experiences that all these people have, you know?

He said, I don't trust the adults because the adults have all this conditioning and all this education and everything. But he said, I'm going to take children, I'm going to take children who've had near death experiences because they haven't had all that and they're not going to lie and they'll tell you the truth and I'm going to find out what they experienced. So he interviewed hundreds of children who had had near death experiences and Dr. Morris said this and I quote, he said, in every case I found that there was a vividly real sense of leaving the body, of flying through a tunnel, one child called it a long noodle and of seeing a light full of love. He goes on to say, even though the details of the children's descriptions may reflect tiny differences that are cultural and religious, I believe their core experience reflects the natural universal part of dying. In other words, this is what really happens when you die. Now, man, the medical community went ballistic.

I mean, they just went up the wall and across. For example, Dr. John Corona of Cornell Medical Center wrote in response, when the heart stops, the mind goes blank, period. Dr. Dorothy Whipple in Johns Hopkins University Magazine wrote and said, when I die, I'm not going to land anywhere. I'm just going to blow out the candle and I'm gone. Well, that's the medical explanation of the afterlife, friends. That's the clinical definition of what it's going to be like.

Annihilation, nirvana, fade to black. Reminds me of Don Meredith on Monday Night Football. You know he used to sing, turn out the lights. What? The party's over. That's why I didn't make Monday Night Football.

I can't sing like Don, but that's the way some people look at it. Turn out the lights. The party's over.

That's it. Reminds me of an English tombstone. This is a real tombstone in England, by the way, and here's what it says. It says, here lies an atheist, all dressed up and no place to go. Now, the problem with all of this nirvana love, just blow out the light type stuff is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God in the flesh, the proprietor of the afterlife, the only one who can speak with authority to it says that's not the way it is.

That's a problem. In fact, C.S. Lewis, the great philosopher and Christian writer, when he was told about that tombstone, here lies an atheist all dressed up and no place to go, his response was, I'll bet he wishes that were so.

I'll bet he wishes he was right. What does Jesus teach us here in Luke 16 about what happens after death? Four things I want to point out to you. Write them down. You'll never remember them.

Here they are. Number one, after death, Jesus tells us that people keep their same identity. Would you notice that Lazarus was still Lazarus, that the rich man was still the rich man?

They recognized each other, no problem. In fact, 2,000 years after he left this earth, Abraham was still Abraham. He said, well, by the way, how did the rich man know that Abraham was Abraham?

I don't know. Maybe they were name tags, but for whatever reason, they knew. And listen, by the way, after you die, guess who you're going to be for all eternity?

You can be you. After death, people keep their identity. Number two, after death, people keep their memory. They keep their senses.

They keep their reasoning. Would you notice the people that Jesus tells us about? They could see, they could speak, they could hear, they could desire things, they could feel pain, they could remember the past, they could think logically, and they could even negotiate.

You see that? This idea of annihilation, soul sleep, turn out the light, the party's over, blessed unconsciousness. Jesus says that's not the way it is at all. These people were alert, they were awake, they were conscious, and they were aware of everything.

This guy even remembered he had five brothers. Third, Jesus said after death, there are only two options for where people will spend eternity. A real place called heaven, Abraham's side, which is described in what Dean read this morning from Revelation 4 and in other places in the Bible as a place of bliss and a place of happiness, a place of peace with Jesus Christ, and a real place called hell, which right here in Luke chapter 16, four times Jesus describes it as a place of torment and agony. As a matter of fact, do you realize this is the fullest description of hell anywhere in the Bible right here in this chapter? Four times Jesus uses the words torment and agony.

He calls it in verse 24, a place of fire. And I've met people, and maybe you have too, who say things like, well, if I do go to hell, I'll have lots of company. All my buddies will be there. We'll just kind of party on, man.

Wayne's world, except just bigger. Would you notice Jesus doesn't present hell as though it was some kind of cosmic New Year's Eve party. As a matter of fact, this rich man doesn't look like he's having a blast at all, does it?

Looks like he's having a pretty miserable time, actually. What's interesting is that the way Jesus presents it here, the rich man's not in contact with anybody in hell, and it may very well be that all of your buddies may go, but you'll never talk to one of them again for all eternity. We don't know that people in hell talk to each other.

This man seems to be alone. The one thing we do know is that above everything else what he wanted was to get out. However, that brings us to the final and most tragic truth about what happens after this life, at least tragic for some people, and that is that fourth of all, after death, people's eternal destiny is fixed, set in concrete, once and for all. There's no change in it. The people who are in heaven are in heaven. The people who are in hell are in hell, and there's a great chasm, gulf, fixed, in between, and in all eternity, friends, listen, nobody ever changes places.

You can't change places. For people in hell, there is no way out. God withdraws the offer of mercy that he made to them here on this earth. Isn't it interesting when you look at this that the rich man begged for the mercy of God, and what did God say? God said, no, sorry. He said, well, that's not like God. God is the God of mercy. Anybody who calls out for the mercy of God gets it.

You're right here on this earth. You're right. But you see, once you leave this earth, if you've spurned the mercy of God your whole life, and then suddenly you change your mind, it's too late. It's too late for this rich man. In fact, this is what landed him in hell to start with, is he had the chance to accept the mercy of God. He had the chance to embrace God's mercy here.

He didn't want it here. That's how he ended up in hell in the first place. And now that he's there, his eternal destiny is sealed irreversibly forever.

Dante in 1310 wrote the Inferno, and he wrote about an inscription over the gate of hell, and here's what he said it said. Through me, one enters the sorrowful city. Through me, one enters into eternal pain. Through me, one enters among the lost race. Justice moved my great maker.

Divine power made me. I endure eternally. All hope abandon ye who enter here. Friends, in actuality, hell is a whole lot worse than anything Dante or anybody else could describe in words. It's so bad, as a matter of fact, that the people who are in heaven really would cross over and go try to help those people. Except if you look right here, the verse, verse 26, he says that Lazarus might want to go from here to help you, but he can't.

He's not allowed. There's a great chasm fixed. These are the truths about the afterlife. You're going to be you.

You're going to be able to think and reason and feel and remember. You're going to be one of two places, heaven or hell. There is no middle ground. There's no soul sleep. There's no purgatory. There's no nothing. And wherever you find yourself, you're going to be there forever.

There's no way to change places. This is what Jesus teaches about the afterlife. Now, you know, in the church today, we don't like to talk about hell. Some of you are real uncomfortable this morning because you don't like to talk about hell. You don't like me to talk about hell. And yet, friends, could I say that Jesus talked about hell an awful lot? He talked about hell, as a matter of fact, more than he talked about heaven. And the reason he did is because Jesus knows it really exists, really is there. We'd like to find some kind of middle ground where when someone says to us, well, if I don't believe in Jesus Christ, do I go to hell? And we just don't want to say yes.

We want some kind of middle ground that makes it a little softer, a little sweeter. But, you know, I wish I could tell you the Bible said there was some middle ground, but the Bible says there is no middle ground. And above every other reason, this is why Jesus Christ came and died on the cross. I want you to understand that because he knew the awful reality of hell. Listen, do you really think, think for a second, do you really think Jesus Christ would have died to save you and me from a myth? Do you really think Jesus Christ would have let them nail him to a cross to save you and me from some kind of philosophical religious theory of the afterlife?

Huh? Do you think if the worst that was going to happen to somebody, if they spurn God and reject God and reject Christ, if the worst that was going to ever happen to them is that they were going to be blown out like a candle and just be nothing for all eternity, don't you think that night in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus would have looked up and said, Father, go ahead and send those 10,000 angels. I'm out of here. Just let them be nothing for eternity.

It'll be alright. But you see, Jesus stayed in the garden and he went through with the cross because Jesus knew that heaven and hell really do exist. He knew that.

He'd seen it. He'd been there because he knew that if people go out of this world the same way they come in spiritually, dead to God, alienated from God, in sin, if they go out that way, which is the way they come in, that hell for all eternity is their destiny with no hope of ever reversing it. And because Jesus Christ loved you and me so much, he was willing to go to the cross and give his life to make a way for you and me to escape.

We need to understand that. Jesus didn't give his life just so you could live a better quality of life. He gave his life so you and I wouldn't have to go to hell forever. Now if you're here this morning and you've never embraced Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you've never come to the place where like the rich man, you've said, God, I've got a problem I can't solve. It's called sin and I need your mercy and I need your help and I'm trusting what Christ did on the cross instead of all my human works.

If you've never come there, I've got some good news and some bad news for you. The bad news is that if you never do that, you're going to spend eternity in hell. The good news is you can fix the problem this morning.

You can fix it right today. I mean, would to God we could fix every problem as easily as you can fix this one by simply opening your life to Christ, humbling yourself, and letting him show you mercy this morning. We're going to give you a chance to do that in just a minute, but just before we do in closing, I'd like to say a word to those of us here who are Christians. People who have trusted Christ, we know we're going to heaven. We know hell is not an option for us.

We're very secure in that. Could I say that I believe that for us as Christians, I think our evangelism needs a fresh glimpse of hell. I mean, I think many times we go out and offer salvation to people. We offer Christ to people and a lot of times we act like all we're really offering them is an alternative lifestyle that will bring them less pain, less heartache, less consequences, more fulfillment, and more peace. And if they don't really want it, well, then all right, well, I guess they're just not smart enough to realize how to make their life better and I'll move on.

Friends, that is true. Accepting Christ and letting Christ be the center of your life will bring you more fulfillment, more peace, less pain, and less unhappiness, but those are not the real bottom line stakes here. The real bottom line stakes are heaven and hell for all eternity.

And when a person rejects Christ, they reject a whole lot more than just a better lifestyle. And if realizing that doesn't kindle a passion in you and me, to not worry about our egos, not worry about our reputations, not worry about being embarrassed, not worry about what people think about us and get out there and tell them about Christ anyway and who cares what they think now, we're worried more what they might think in eternity. If this doesn't ignite a passion in us, then God help us. I don't know what will.

I don't know what will. I'd like to suggest in closing that you take this parable and let's put some new names in it. For Lazarus, put your name in.

And for the rich man, put in the names of friends or loved ones you have that aren't Christians. And then play it out, huh? And play it out to the point where you're in heaven standing next to Abraham and that friend or that loved one is in hell, if that's where they end up. And then there's a conversation where they either say, Father Abraham long lovingly told me this is where I was going to be and I didn't believe him and I didn't listen. That's all my fault. How could I be so stupid?

Or they may say, Father Abraham, if Lon really knew this was going to happen, why didn't he tell me? How could he pass me every day in the office? How could he pass me every day in the neighborhood?

How could he pass me at Thanksgiving and family reunions and never tell me if he knew? And never give me a chance to escape this. Well, friends, I don't know about you, but I'll tell you one thing. I want to keep those kind of conversations, the second one, to a minimum.

I'd rather be embarrassed here than be embarrassed having to try to answer that question on the other side of eternity. So I'll take my chances sharing Christ with people and I hope you will too. There are people out there who need Christ and who'll take Christ if you'll offer Christ. I believe that.

And even if they don't, our job is not to worry whether they take him, our job's to offer him. God didn't leave us here to make money, buy cars, go on vacation. He left us here with the prime directive of reaching people for Christ.

Everything else you do is secondary. So how you doing? How am I doing? I think a fresh glimpse of hell will help knowing that it's real, knowing real people are going there, people you pass every day and that you and I have the answer. May God motivate us to tell the answer to people. And I'm going to pray that somebody, you get one person this week, that God opens the door for you to tell.

And I hope you will. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, I want to talk to those of you here who have never trusted Christ in a real and personal way, have never really said, God, I need to stop trusting myself to work my way to heaven and I need to call out for the mercy of God. If that's you and you're willing this morning to take Christ as your personal savior, to trust what he did on the cross for you, you want to change destinies this morning from hell to heaven for eternity, then I'd like to pray with you. And I will if you'll simply raise your hand and let me know you're out there.

We'll pray together in just a moment. Anyone like to do that? Just lift your hand up.

You can put it right back down. Anyone like to pray? Thank you. Anybody else? Thank you. Anyone else?

Thanks. Well, whether you raised your hand or not, if you need to pray and ask Christ in your life, pray silently behind me. Lord Jesus, I admit that I'm a sinner. I've done things that displease you. I've offended you. I've been my own God.

And I'm self-destructive. Both here and in eternity. Today, I want to disavow my trust in any human effort to work my way to heaven. And I want to trust, beginning today, what Jesus did on the cross for me as payment for my sin and as my ticket out of hell into heaven. Forgive my sin today. Cover me with the blood of Christ in your holy sight.

Transfer my eternal destiny from heaven to hell. I invite you into my life as my Savior and my Lord, in Jesus' name. And Father, I want to pray for these people who have prayed this prayer, that right now the Spirit of God would touch their hearts deeply, and if they were sincere, would communicate to them you've heard them and that you've shown them the mercy that you've offered. And Father, I want to pray for those of us who are Christians, that you would ignite inside of us a passion for reaching lost people, not just because we'd like to see them live a better lifestyle, we would, but far more seriously because we want to see them escape eternity in hell. This is tough teaching, God, but if it's true, then we need to deal with it.

Thank you for providing a way out. We pray that we would see many of our friends and neighbors take that way out as we try to lovingly offer it to them. And I pray that you would open the opportunity for every single Christian here this morning to speak to at least one person about Christ this week as you open that door. Give us the courage to step through. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.