In Luke chapter 16, Jesus tells a parable about a rich man and a beggar. whose experiences after death were vastly different. Part of what he's teaching in this parable is that the decisions we make during our time on earth will impact our lives for eternity. And today on Truth for Life, Alastair Begg takes a closer look at what Jesus' parable says and doesn't say about life after death. This man.
Obviously, he wasn't prepared to do what Jesus had said in the previous parable. Remember in verse 9 of chapter 16, he had said, use worldly wealth. to gain friends for yourselves. This man hadn't made a friend of the beggar at his gate clearly. He must have passed in the morning and said, Well, there's old Eleazar.
There's old, ha ha ha, God has helped, you know. If that's God helping, you know. And that's what people say.
Well, if this is your God and this is what He does, you say, hang on a minute. The records are not finished yet. We haven't taken the final test. The whistle hasn't blown. It's not the end of the game.
I know it looks like this. Why do the people who seem to do right get it in the ear? And why is it that the people who seem to just do what they want prosper so greatly? That's a question from the Bible. Modern America has lived with that.
Some of the most fantastic spiritual songs have come out of that experience, have they not? Tempted and tried, we're oft left to wonder, Why it should be thus all the day long. When there are others living around us, never molested, Though in the wrong. Further along, we'll know all about it. And further along, we'll understand why.
So, cheer up, my brother, cheer up, my sister, and live in the sunshine because we'll understand it all by and by. But you see, we are such time-bound creatures. There are going to have no concept of then. to influences in the living of the now.
So we live all of our now as if there were no then. Which is really dumb. Because then is what it's about, and now is a short journey. And this guy obviously never paid attention. If he heard Jesus say, when you put together a party list, invite the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame.
Verse twenty-two. Death changes everything. Scene one, in which the circumstances of these two individuals are described in their lifetime. Sin too. Takes us into the portals of eternity and gives us, in an allegorical fashion, an insight into the dramatic reversal of roles.
People who live, having gained access to every club and every restaurant and every place, have some assumption in their minds that when they go to heaven they're going to be able to do the same thing. They're going to get their car valet parked. They're going to get immediate access to whatever it is. They'll be able to sit at the right table and so on. They'll be able to say, oh, yes, it is you, Mr.
Bellingsgate. Do come in, and we have a place just for you here. No, that's what this is all about, you see. The roles are reversed. You can hardly go through a week without somebody saying death is the great equalizer.
Death is a great equalizer.
Well, there's a sense in which that's true. Death doesn't recognize class distinction.
So, no matter if you're born to play the king or pawn, for the line is thinly drawn between joy and sorrow. It's a fine line between genius and craziness. It's a fine line between sickness and health. And when you take that horizontal journey in the back of a hearse, It's not going to matter whether you're a professor or whether you're an i an income book. And in that sense, death will equalize.
Death. Doesn't recognize class distinction, Jesus makes it very, very clear. That society beyond the grave, notice this, look carefully at your Bibles, see if what I'm telling you is true. That society beyond the grave is no more egalitarian than society prior to the grave. In other words, we're not all going to go off into eternity.
And everybody gets the same kind of little garden and the same kind of little place, and no matter who we were, or what we did, or what we believed, eventually we're all just going to be absorbed into some eternal, blissful environment in which we just sort of. eke out the the the remainder of this strange notion of eternity. Yeah. What Jesus says is that eternity, and it's revealed here in this story that he tells, eternity reveals a separation that is far more polarized and far more uncrossable than that which was represented at the rich man's gate. Essentially, what he's saying is this: if you think there is an inequity in time, Check out eternity.
Because you see, There was more of a possibility of the poor beggar. being able to gain access through the gate to one of the rich man's feasts. Then there was a possibility of the rich man being able to cross from hell Injure heaven. That's what he's saying. You can't live with the notion that somehow or another the the experience of death will eradicate everything for us and it all starts with a clean slate from there simply because we died.
Jesus says no. The decisions that we make in time Impact our life In eternity. That's the significance of verse 26. Abram says Between us and you, a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from there to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there. to us.
Now, let me just say a word or two about the central part of this parable, and I'll say it as swiftly as I can, but hopefully helpfully. What are we going to do with the details of this story? The dipping of the finger in the water, the cooling of my tongue, and so on? Let me just remind you that we are dealing here with a parable. That is, that Jesus is using in this section of this Gospel a literary device.
for teaching spiritual truths by allegorical means. That Jesus is not in this section. seeking to satisfy the curiosity of those who are concerned about the details of life after death. If If you use this parable to try and build a doctrine of the afterlife, You will be confused and you will in turn be very confusing to everybody else. If you think about what Jesus is doing here, he is speaking in a moment in time.
He is speaking to a gathered company of people. This eventually is enscripturated so that men and women living in time. May be confronted by the seriousness of making decisions now which will affect then.
So, in other words, we need to remind ourselves that the plain things are the main things and the main things Are the plain things?
So for example, where it says that when the beggar died, the angels carried him to Abraham's side.
Now, this can take the average home Bible study off on one of the most unbelievable tangents you could ever conceive of. And the way to remedy that is to ask yourself the question: how many other places in the New Testament is there any mention of anybody dying and being taken by angels to the sight of Abraham? And the answer is not one single other reference in the whole New Testament. Uh-huh.
So, are we going to build a doctrine then on one reference in the middle of a parable? Not if we're wise.
Well, where does this kind of emphasis come?
Well, it actually comes in the rabbinical writings. It's impregnated in the rabbis' teachings. Uh-huh.
So what does Jesus do? He takes the Thought forms and the expressions and the genre of those to whom he is speaking. and he employs them in order to engage their minds so that by means of these different hooks and barbs he may then lead them to the central truth that he is conveying. Therefore, it is unwise to press the details too far. And having said that, someone will come up to me or write to me this weekend and say, Well, is it possible to see heaven from hell?
You see, that's one of the questions. He was in hell and he looked over and he saw heaven. Can you see heaven from hell? Answer, I don't know.
So don't write. Unless you want a different answer, but I mean I want you to know what the answer is right now. You say, well, aren't you taking the Bible literally? Yes, I am. I'm taking it very literally.
What we have here is a description, a parable, an allegory, and we've learned already in the parables that you don't try and take everything and explain it all away. You realize that in laying out the story, Jesus is making a central point.
So Let's take our principle. The plain things are the main things, and the main things are the plain things. What then can we say from this?
Well, number one, we can say categorically, heaven and hell exist. Jesus is in no doubt about that, right? One went here, one went there. Secondly, Personalities survive death in a conscious state. This person did not go into oblivion and was whirring around as it were on a cloud.
No, he went somewhere and he knew that he was there, and he knew that as a result of being there, he was not there. We can say that categorically. Thirdly, it is clear that death brings division and distinction between human beings. Also that the dead are sustained by God in two different states.
Some in a state of bliss. along with the redeemed of every age represented here in Abraham as the father of the faith, and others in a state of isolated anguish represented by this lonely rich man in hell.
Now you see, when you go to the heart of the matter and you say, well, what can we say with absolute clarity? Then it's like eating fish. When you get a bone, you take the bone out, you lay it at the side, and then you go ahead and eat the rest of the fish. You don't make the bone the feature of the remainder of the meal unless there's something wrong with you. And when you read your Bible, if you get to something like he dipped his finger in the water, you know, and then you want to make that the key to the rest of the evening, then there's something wrong with you.
Because the Bible has not been put together as some trick book that only a weird group of people can ferret the meaning from. This is not some strange code. You can get that at the mall, but you don't get that in the Bible. This is not a trick book that only the initiated can discover. It is clear.
You need only an open heart and a thinking mind, and you will be able to get to the gist of it all and the central parts of it all. Jesus is seeking. to express incomprehensible things in comprehensible language as an accommodation to each of us who can only figure things in terms of time and space. The crux question to which I come in conclusion is is surely this. Any thinking person says, Well, I'm not sure about this and I'm not sure about that, but there is one question I want to ask.
How did the one guy end up in hell, and how did the other guy end up in heaven? On what basis? Is this a kind of quasi-Marxist critique of the inequalities of a class-ridden culture? Is this the victory of the working classes over the bourgeoisie employers?
Well, there are some people who have teached taught that from this parable. You can read about it in liberation theology. That's the whole emphasis. The fact is, you need an empty head and a closed Bible to get there. It's obvious that Jesus is not saying that.
The key here is not that the man went to hell because he was rich, and the poor man went to heaven because he was poor. That would then lead us all to the divesting of everything.
So, you know, people will be running out here trying to trying to uh Get um Put a hole in your boat in Lake Erie so that you can sink it as another means of being able to get to heaven, because you're sure not going to get to heaven. on a on a boat in Lake Erie because that's uh a sort of bourgeois Entity.
Well, no, Abram's in heaven. Abram's the key character here. Do you remember Abraham? Abraham is the daddy warbucks of the of the Old Testament. This is not some guy who lived in a shack.
This is Abraham. Abraham had stuff. Stuff, stuff, stuff.
So we know that it is not poverty that gets you to heaven. Physical poverty. And we know that it is not riches that keep you from heaven.
So what in the world's going on? What? Jesus is revealing in this story. Is an expression of what he has taught in the previous story. He said, Listen, you cannot serve God and money.
If you make money your God, then I cannot be your God. And only those whose God I am. Will live with me in eternity. Therefore, to the extent that whether it is money, whether it is academics, whether it is success, whether it is relationships, whether it is pride, whatever it might be, to the extent that any other thing would take the dominance of my life, thereby. Meaning that I refuse to bow before God, to believe His word, to trust His promises, and to accept His Son, any of those things will keep me out of heaven.
And to the extent that this man's poverty, and it's interesting, isn't it, he never speaks any time at all in the whole parable. There's no complaining out of him at the gate. And there's no rah-rah out of him in heaven. Blessed are the poor in spirit. I deserve nothing.
See, that's what's keeping some of us from faith. We believe we deserve it. I think God should come and give do a miracle for me. If he would come and do a miracle for me, then I'd believe him.
Some of you are waiting for the ghost of Christmas Past to come and visit you somewhere in the middle of the night, you see. To remove your Scrooge-like experience, I got news for you. No miracle. No ghost. That's the answer that is given by Abraham.
The guy says, Well, listen, if you would go to my brothers, and let them know so that they won't come. Abram said, I don't need to go to your brothers. Why? They've got their Bibles. That's the message.
They have got Moses and the prophets, they've got the Decalogue and they've got the prophetic books, they've got their Bibles. See this guy? When you become a person like this, it's very, very difficult. He's still giving orders from hell. Right?
Even hell doesn't cure a guy like this. Send Lazarus over and get me a drink of water, would you please? Hey, who do you think you are? You're in hell, mister. You're not giving directions to anybody.
Well, then, could you send somebody over to my brother's house? See, you don't give directions. You're done. They've got their Bibles. Oh no, he says, no, no, no, no, Abraham, Abraham, excuse me.
Excuse me. Let me just tell you something. If somebody would rise from the dead, you see, if we could send Lazarus over there, if we could send a beggar over. They knew the beggar died. If the beggar shows up at their house, They're going to believe.
Hey. If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced, even if someone rises from the dead. Here it is. The confidence of heaven is in the Bible. If you will not believe the Bible.
You will not believe in Christ. If you will not be changed by the Bible, you will remain unchanged. Look at the story. Who would you like to be? Be honest.
Well, I'd like to be the guy with the nice clothes. The big driveway, the gate. The parties I don't want to be the guy lying there in the street. Dogs licking my back?
Well, what if Eternity was just to completely reverse the roles. See, here's the question. I'm finished now, just so you know, I promise I'm finished. I can hear in my head I'm finished, so I may as well acknowledge it. But The challenge for the Parkside congregation out of Luke's Gospel is surely this.
Because by any standards we are rich people. I mean, we're all rich. I don't care what the scale is, we are stinking rich. And we have the freedom to travel, we have the freedom of our passports, we have opportunities, gazillions of opportunities, we have so much that is ours. And impregnated in our skulls, along with that, is somehow the notion.
That because we've gained access to all of these other things. Then we'll be able to gain access to heaven as well. And Jesus says no. You can serve God. and money at the same time.
The condemnation of the man was not that he was wealthy. The condemnation of the man was not even how he became wealthy. The condemnation of the man was that he was just one. Wealthy. That's all he had.
That was his treasure. What will it profit a man if he gives the whole world and loses his own store? Instead of using what he had as an expression of his gratitude to God, as an expression of his kindness to others, as a means of enabling others, he used it as a basis of self-gratification. He was the kind of man, if we saw him in the Chagrin Valley, everybody says he's a very nice man. He never does anybody any wrong at all.
And therefore if he's a nice man and he's obviously done well and he never does anybody any wrong at all, then presumably he's going to heaven. No he's not. And the reason he's not going to heaven is not on account of the bad things he'd done, but the reason he's not going to heaven is on account of the good things that he had left undone. For to him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. How can I see my brother in need and claim that I love God and do nothing about it, and actually claim to be a bona fide member of the family of God whose heart is for the poor and the downtrodden and the blind and the beaten and the broken?
It doesn't work. That's the danger you see. In a sterilized Bourgeois, self-satisfied, evangelical, cliché-ridden American subculture. Because as long as we hang around with one another long enough, we can convince one another that we're all okay. Because after all, 1500 people together couldn't be wrong, could they?
Yeah, he could. If you will not listen. To the Bible. You won't listen to anything. Therefore, I suggest to you that if you have any Inkling.
to think about who Jesus is and why he came. That you go home and read your Bibles. Frankly, I've said enough this morning to make any sensible person go home and read his Bible or her Bible. If I'd been listening to me, I'd be going home to read my Bible. Because I'd be sitting there saying, you know what?
I'm going to check this out. Because I'm not sure that he was just as clear as he could have been. I'll buy that. And I'm just going to go and figure this out. Go ahead.
Go ahead. Because if you won't listen to the Bible, You won't listen to anything. And if you won't be changed by the Bible, Nothing. or change it. You're listening to Bible teacher Alastair Begg, UnTruth for Life.
Alastair returns shortly to close today's program with prayer.
Now, here at Truth for Life, our mission is to teach the Bible with clarity and relevance every day. We have three outcomes we're praying for: that unbelievers will come to know Christ, believers will grow in their faith, and local churches will be strengthened. And we want to recommend to you today a book that is right in line with our mission. It's called The Story of Grace: An Exhibition of God's Love. This is a masterful presentation of the depth of God's grace from creation to the fall of man to the finished work of Christ on the cross.
Whether you're new to Christianity or a long-time student of the Bible, this book, which is gospel-centered, will help you gain a deeper understanding of God's unmerited grace. It will show you that that's not just a biblical concept, it's a life-altering reality. Tomorrow is the last day we're offering the book The Story of Grace with a donation, so be sure to request your copy when you give a gift to Truth for Life today. You can do that using the mobile app or online at truthforlife.org/slash donate. or you can call us at eight eight eight five eight eight seven eight eight four.
Now here is Alastair to close. O God our Father, Help as we pray to become students of the Bible. Help us not to fiddle with it, to tamper with it, to manipulated How was to bow before it? The parts we like, the parts we don't like, the parts that are apparently easy, the parts that are hard. Most of us want simply to believe that Life in the fairground will go on forever.
That we'll be able to ride the carousel right out into the sunset of our lives We don't want to think about terminus, we don't want to think about destiny, we don't want to think about heaven. We certainly. Don't want to think about hell. And yet you've put it in the Bible. To remind us that every time we hear the Bible taught, we're at a crossroads.
Every time we hear the Bible taught, we're at the gate of heaven and hell. Oh, grant us grace. That by your enabling, we may step through the door that leads to life. And may the grace of the Lord Jesus and the love of God. Fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
Rest upon and remain with each one who believes. Today and forevermore. Amen. I'm Bob Lepine. Thanks for listening today.
How is it that the religious leaders in Jesus' day failed to recognize the Messiah? We'll find out tomorrow when we're what it was that blocked their view. The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.
