“And in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.” Luke 16:23
February 3, 2025
Death brings us face to face with spiritual realities. The story of the rich man and Lazarus as told by Jesus stuns us by the sobering fact that one’s obituary does not reveal the whole story of one’s life. There is a hell to be shunned and a heaven to be gained. This is the historic Christian teaching. Satan has expended much effort to deny the truth of the existence of an eternal hell. One of those attempts is that of Herman Melville in Moby Dick, chapter 17, words of Ishmael: (the) “most dyspeptic religionists cherish such melancholy notions about their hereafters. In one word, Queequeg, said I, rather disgressively: hell is an idea born on an undigested apple dumpling.” Jesus Christ, the consummate truth-teller (“We cannot repudiate Hell without altogether repudiating Christ.” Dorothy Sayers, A Matter of Eternity), makes it clear that Hell is a real place created by God for the devil and his angels. It is the unchangeable destiny of the unbeliever at death. Death is the great leveler is it not? Ten out of ten people die. The rich man is not condemned for being rich, but rather the spiritual condition in which he chose to live. When death knocks at our door, what awaits us?
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“Today belongs to the soundbite; tomorrow belongs to marketing; eternity belongs to the Truth.” John Piper