Jesus Christ came and died to pay for the whole world’s sin so that no one would have to die and stand before God in their sin (John 3:16). Hell was made for the devil and his angels, not people (Matthew 25:41). Some here jump in and say, “How could a loving God send people to hell?” God doesn’t send anyone to hell. Eternity has no end, for good or for ill. While there is no time, certainly, to make this easier to understand, after a billion billion years suffering torturously in hell, the rich man will have no less time in torment before him. It’s to be in darkness and pain for all of eternity. It’s to be tormented by loneliness for all eternity. It’s to be tormented by hunger for all eternity. Hell is to be tormented by thirst for all eternity. Jesus here presents us with the reality of hell. Verse 24 says, “Then he (the rich man) 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.’”
And then we read one of the most terrifying passages in all Scripture that should drive us far from sin and into the waiting arms of God in repentance and remorse over the life that we’ve lived apart from Him. Lazarus is carried by angels to his eternity and the rich man simply dies and goes to hell forever. Instead, what we learn here as we compare Scripture with Scripture – how we should always read the Bible so we don’t take a verse out of context and form wildly inaccurate ideas about God and salvation – is that it’s simply easier to see your spiritual need in the midst of physical need and it’s harder to see your spiritual need in the midst of physical abundance. Nor is this teaching that wealth will bar you from heaven. This is not teaching that if you’re poor, you’re automatically going to heaven as though poverty is the requirement for salvation. We learn that when the rich man dies, however, he did not have faith in God so all his earthly success amounted to nothing of eternal value (Luke 12:20) so at death he was sent to hell to be reap the fruit of the life he had lived. This man, Lazarus, has nothing of this world’s goods, yet when he dies, we learn that he had faith in God and thus was received into heaven. There are two men, one wealthy, who has everything this life can offer, and the other poor and sick and maltreated by society. What He’s doing here is conveying a crucial truth to us with the added benefit of a real-life example for us to follow. So here then, when we read of one the men in the story named – Lazarus – we realize that Jesus isn’t simply making this story up to illustrate a point, i.e. If you read through the Gospels, when Jesus spoke in parables there weren’t names given to the characters involved. In this chapter we have the story – not the parable – of the rich man and Lazarus.
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