The parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Brilliantly portrays both the majesty of heaven and the misery of hell. but it also conveys another vital message. Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah examines the truth that the decision we all must make in this life.
will determine where we spend the next. to introduce the powerful conclusion of his message. Where are they now? Here's David. I know there's a lot of confusion about the subject we are exploring, and I'm trying to do everything I can to.
make this easy to understand and not confusing because If we understand the Bible, it's not confusing. God has a special plan. Both for those who reject him and those who receive him. And we're understanding it now as we study this story from the New Testament. Let's begin.
Before Jesus' resurrection and ascension, The Bible teaches that there was an intermediate place of the dead. where souls went after they died. And it had two divisions. separated by a great gulf. Let's take a closer look at what happened to these two men in the story that Jesus told.
First of all, Lazarus in eternity.
So it was that the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. What is the meaning of Abraham's bosom? Where is it? As we have seen the term Abraham's bosom is another name for paradise. Anybody who was a believer in God went to this place called Paradise, to Abraham's bosom.
Now let's catch up with the rich man and see what's going on with him. In verse 23, Jesus said this about the rich man in eternity. And being in torments in Hades, The rich man lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off. And Lazarus. In his bosom.
So while Lazarus went to paradise on one side of this great chasm, The rich man went to Hades, the place of torment for the unrighteous dead. He is tormented in the flame. It is not hell, but it is an intermediate hell. This is also a place of memory. Notice verse 25.
But Abraham said, Son, remember That in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus' evil things. But now he is comforted, and you are tormented. Verse 25 indicates that Hades is a place of memory. The rich man lifts up his eyes and he sees Lazarus and is conscious of what he has missed. One of the tortures of hell is to look across the fixed gulf and view the comforts and blessings of those who are in paradise.
I believe that throughout eternity, the unbeliever will be constantly reminded. Of what he missed due to his rejection of God, I believe he will remember every single service he attended. where the gospel was presented and he rejected it. The Bible tells us that hell or Hades is a place of memory. we will remember what happened.
And then it is a place of mourning. This is an interesting thing. Then he said, I beg you, therefore, Father. that you would send him to my father's house. For I have five brothers that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.
And Abraham said to him, They have Moses and the prophets, Let them hear them. And he said, No, Father Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent. But he said to him, If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded. though one rise from the dead. From his place of torment, The rich man pleaded with Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his five brothers so that they wouldn't end up where he was.
If someone comes back from the dead, he said, surely they will listen to that person. But Abraham responded with a sobering truth. one that we should all take note of today. He said they already have Moses and the prophets. if they won't hear Moses and the prophets.
Neither will they respond if someone comes back from the dead.
Some of you here who have never accepted Christ. you're looking for some supernatural thing to happen.
So that you will believe and the Bible says if you won't believe Moses and the prophets, if you won't believe what the Bible says, You're not going to believe if someone drops out of the sky with a message Because Moses and the prophets are the most important messengers about this that you will ever find. They won't listen to God's word, they won't be persuaded, even if someone rises from the dead. In other words, The problem here was not a lack of evidence. The problem was hardness of heart. God's message has been declared and His truth is available.
and still many refused to believe. Miracles catch attention. But only faith in God's word brings salvation. The scriptures are clear. Will we listen?
While there's still time.
So the representative man Of the lost who are now in Hades is the rich man of Luke chapter 16. He was alive, he was conscious. He was in the full exercise of his faculties. His memory. And he was in torment.
Two people and two places.
Now let's directly and definitively answer the question. What happens to people when they die? The Bible says they go to one of two places. the unsaved go to an intermediate hell called Hades.
So far as the unsaved dead are concerned, they continue in this place. the intermediate hell until a particular time in the future which the Bible tells us about. Here's what we need to understand. At the judgment of the great white throne in the future, Hades will give up its inhabitants and they will be sent into the lake of fire. Revelation 20 tells us that.
Listen to these words. and the sea gave up the dead who were in it. and death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them, And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire, This is the second death. What the Bible says is.
that those who die Go to this place if they're not believers. They remain in this place until that point in the future after the great white throne judgment, and then Hades is emptied out of all of its inhabitants and they go into the lake of fire, which is eternal hell. What about the saved?
Well, the Bible says. The angels took Lazarus to the bosom of Abraham. As we have seen, every believer who died in the Old Testament went to paradise. Also called Abraham's bosom. This was a place of comfort and peace.
but it wasn't yet heaven. Then something dramatic happened. that you may have never noticed before as you've read your Bibles. It happened on what some people refer to as Holy Saturday. the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
This is often overlooked, but let me tell you about it. Jesus didn't just lie quietly in the tomb on Saturday after he was crucified. His body rested in the grave. but his spirit went to this intermediate place I have been telling you about. The realm of the dead we have been talking about.
He went there not to suffer. but to declare victory. As the eternal Son of God, he stepped into the unseen world and announced the triumph of the cross. We know this because of what Jesus said to the repentant thief. Remember what he said?
He said today. You will be with me where? Not in heaven. but in paradise. Where is paradise?
It's the temporary place for believers at that particular time. That paradise was the place of the righteous dead. But something happened on that Saturday. Jesus went there. 1 Peter 3 tells us He proclaimed to the spirits in prison.
Ephesians 4 says, He descended into the lower parts of the earth, And in Revelation 1.18, Jesus declares, I have the keys of death. and Hades. What did Jesus do in the place of the dead? He preached victory to the fallen angels. He went to one part of it where the unbelieving dead were, and he preached the victory of the cross.
And then he preached to the Old Testament saints who had long awaited for the Messiah. And then in triumph, we are told, he led captivity captive. What does that mean? He took paradise out of that intermediate place and transferred it to heaven.
So, where is paradise today, and where are your loved ones if they are believers? They are in heaven, they are in paradise. How do we know this?
Well, listen to this. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians and mentioned paradise and helps us understand this. He said, I know a man in Christ who was caught up to the third heaven. We learned earlier that's where God is. Caught up into paradise and heard inexpressible words.
By the time Paul wrote this, paradise was no longer the intermediate place, but had been transferred to heaven.
So when your believers die, they go to paradise. which is in the third heaven. Literally, they go to heaven. Did you catch that? Paradise is now in heaven.
Because Jesus moved it there.
So here is the answer to the question, where are they now? If your loved ones were a follower of Christ, I can tell you for sure where they are. Their bodies are in the grave waiting for the day of resurrection. and they themselves, their souls, their spirits, in paradise. A literal place that is located in the third heaven.
So, when a believer dies, his body goes in the grave, and his soul and spirit go to paradise to be with Christ. But wait a minute. There's a little problem here. that we don't know about, but we read about it later in the scripture. The Bible says that the resurrection of our bodies does not occur until the rapture of the church.
So How do we go to paradise? Do we not have bodies? Do we become Floating spirits. as the Bible speaks of them as unclothed. Do we have unclothed spirits?
Look with me at Paul's words in Second Corinthians chapter five. This is a cumbersome passage, but if you listen carefully, you will understand what it is to teach us. For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, our bodies, is destroyed, we have a building from God. A house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed having been clothed we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed.
But further clothed that mortality may be swallowed up by life.
Now, he who has prepared us for this very thing is God. And given us the Spirit as a guarantee. Paul says, That the human spirit earnestly desires not to be unclothed or disembodied. But to be clothed, to this end, a body from heaven awaits the believer when he dies. This will not be his resurrection body.
This is in. Intermediate body given to us between death and the resurrection until the resurrection happens and will be given. The wonderful resurrection body of the Lord Jesus Christ, the body from heaven. It's not the body which is in the grave. It's not the body.
That we will have in the resurrection. It is a special body that God will give us. as believers when we die.
So that Paul says we won't go through eternity naked. We won't be without a body. The spirit longs to be clothed and will be given this special body.
So that's what the Bible teaches, and maybe you've never heard that before, but that's what the Scripture says.
So we've talked about two people and two places. Actually, we've talked about two bodies, but Let's talk finally about two principles. Whenever you read a passage of scripture that answers doctrinal questions, If you're not careful, you can get lost. In the logic that is being presented. And you can be sitting there thinking, well, it doesn't matter to me if I have a body or not.
I just want to die and go to heaven. That's what most people think.
So let me just tell you what I've learned from this passage that speaks to every one of us. First of all, I'm reminded of the priority of the presence of Jesus. When you immerse yourself in all these passages about temporary and eternal bodies and All of the things we've talked about, the one truth that jumps off the pages of Scripture is this. Paradise Heaven The New Jerusalem, whatever name you want to call it. is the place where Jesus is.
Over and over, that truth is hammered home in the verses of the New Testament. Heaven is where Jesus is.
So, what is the best thing you can say about your loved one if they're a Christian, when they die? They went to be with Jesus, right? They went to heaven, but more than that, they went to be with Jesus. My brother, my sister, my father, my mother are with Jesus. After Jesus had explained to his disciples about the mansions in heaven, He comes back and makes this point.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself.
Now, watch this. That where I am You may be also. Jesus wants us to be with him. When Jesus gave assurance to the thief on the cross, what did he say? And he said to him, Assuredly, I say to you, You will be with me.
in paradise. Paul explained death in these same terms. He said, We are confident yet well pleased. that to be absent from the body It is to be present with the Lord. When Paul was writing to the Philippians about his own death, he wrote, I am hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ.
which is far better. After all is said and done, after all is written, after all of the understanding that we have about what happens. to our bodies when we die. The most important thing you can take away from this is When you die as a believer, you go to be with Jesus. And that is critical.
Richard Baxter said it this way. He said, my knowledge of that life is small. The eye of faith is dim. But it is enough that Christ knows all and I shall be with him.
So it is enough to know that when you die, you go to be with Jesus. The first thing I want you to remember is The priority Of the presence of Jesus. When you die, Oh yes, you go to heaven. You go to paradise. The New Jerusalem, the Holy City, all the names that are given in the Bible.
But more important than all of that is. All of those places will only be what they are because Jesus will be there. And when you get there, you're going to be so occupied with who Jesus is, being able to look upon Him, you will not care about where you are, you will just care about who you're with. You'll be with Jesus.
So, the first thing that I take away from this story is the priority. of the presence of Jesus. Here's the second thing. the permanence of personal decisions. Luke 16:26, in the story of the rich man and Lazarus, there is this verse.
And besides all of this, between us and you, there is a great gulf fixed.
so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot. nor can those from there pass to you. The story of the rich man in Lazarus teaches us. But The decisions we make in this life are irreversible. What is done in this life?
Fixes. Forever. what the next life will be like. There is no such thing as getting it right after you die. There is no such thing as reincarnation.
There are no second chances after death. What you do for eternity, you do between now and the moment you die. And when you die, It's over as far as any decisions about the future are concerned. Listen to me, there is no purgatory. The story in Luke 16 is not about purgatory.
There is not one sentence in the Bible that speaks of a person's destiny being changed after death. Once a person enters paradise or Hades, Their fate was fixed forever and ever. Let me just say that as lovingly as I can to any of you here who may not know the Lord. You may think you have all the time in the world, and maybe you have all the time of a normal human life, and maybe you don't have all that time. Every day we watch on the news as unexpected things happen to unprepared people.
Don't play with your eternity by putting off until sometime in the future what you know you should do today. The Bible says today. is the day of salvation. Many years ago. Donna.
We're on a speaking tour. in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I did not know when I went there. That I was going to speak at the Bear Bryant Conference Center. And it was a prayer breakfast.
For All of the people in that part of West Alabama, and it was at the conference center there on the campus. As I walked into the venue early that morning, One of the organizers told me that someone was waiting to see me.
Now, I must tell you, that always makes me nervous. I think you'll want to meet this man, said the organizer. And I was introduced to a middle-aged man. They called him Red. He had long hair pulled back into a ponytail.
And he looked like he had lived a hard life. When we met, Reb grabbed my hand and began to tell me his story. He said his life had spiraled downward for years and recently he had lost all hope. He decided that he was going to take his life. and he plotted it out on a road that he traveled often There was a big turn, and at the middle of that turn was a large tree, so that if you missed the turn, you would hit the tree.
So he decided to take his life. by speeding his car into this large tree. And the plan was simple: get up to 80 or 90 miles an hour on the road to the tree, miss the curve. and life will be over. He was quite a colorful man and had colorful language, if you want to know the truth.
As he prepared for that final ride, He turned on his rock station because he wanted to have as much music to keep him From thinking. But the signal kept cutting in and out. He got so mad, he cursed and he told me what he said. And he punched the radio. And suddenly the rock music was gone, and in its place was a preacher's voice.
My voice. Broadcasting a message about God's love. And I actually said on that program: you may be thinking of taking your life, but don't do that. Your life is valuable. Christ died for you.
And that's what he heard on the radio. He was so startled. He pulled over and listened in that day God reached his heart. He prayed. He accepted Christ.
He told me how his life had changed since then. He hugged me. And he thanked me for being there at that pivotal moment. I went back a few years later and found out. But he was teaching Sunday school in a church.
He and his wife were involved in serving the Lord. By the way, you can always tell the reality of a person's conversion. by whether or not they're serving. And he was serving. Most people You understand, don't get a last minute chance like that.
That was miraculous. That was God's mercy on display. I don't know of any other story like that. I haven't heard any stories like that. None of those things have ever happened to me since.
Most people, if you're honest, They quietly slip into eternity. holding on to whatever they trusted on in life. And for many of them, it isn't Jesus Christ.
So I hope you're not gambling with your future. Don't think you're going to get a moment like that because it won't happen. The decision you make today will determine where you spend eternity. And I hope you will hear me carefully. If you want to be with Jesus.
You have to have Jesus in your heart. and you get Jesus in your heart when you invite him to come. and forgive your sin and give you eternal life. And you can do that wherever you are right now. in the very place Where you're listening to this program, you can invite Christ into your heart and become a Christian.
It happens in a moment. You don't have to wait for a long time and go through any kind of catechism. You just have to believe. And trust that Jesus Christ is who He said He was, and ask Him to come and live within your heart. And when you do that, be sure and let us know.
We have a whole packet of material we'd like to send to you to help you grow in your faith and help you know Jesus better and walk with Him with a great deal of joy in your life. Tomorrow here on Turning Point, we're going to discuss the problem of children. What happens to them? Children are little. They can't understand the gospel.
What about them? Do they go to heaven? And on what basis do you make that assertion? We'll discuss it together tomorrow. I hope you'll be with us as we continue our discussion of the promise of heaven.
Here on Turning Point. Our message today came to you from Shadow Mountain Community Church and senior pastor Dr. David Jeremiah. We always welcome your notes of encouragement.
So please write us at Turning Point, PO Box 3838, San Diego, California 92163. Visit our website at davidjeremiah.org slash radio or call 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's new book, The Promise of Heaven. 31 Reasons to Get Excited About Your Eternal Home. It's yours for a gift of any amount.
You can also stream more than 1200 of Dr. Jeremiah's messages on demand on any screen. With our streaming service Turning Point Plus for a monthly gift of any amount. Visit TurningPointPlus.org for details. This is David Michael Jeremiah.
Join us tomorrow as we continue the series The Promise of Heaven on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
