A dear friend lost her husband this week—it’s a very sad time for her. Have you noticed how when someone dies, we try to console one another by saying, “Well, now he’s in a better place.” What we mean by this is that someone who is now dead is no longer suffering here in this world and is now in heaven. I’ll bet we’ve all said this at some point—which means most people must believe it. The flip side of this is that apparently we don’t believe many people are going to hell. This is amazing because Jesus taught that few people find the narrow gate that leads to heaven and there are many people on the road to hell (Matthew 7:14). Did you know that Jesus said more about hell than you can find about hell anywhere else in the Bible? He did this to warn people! Jesus didn’t (and doesn’t) want anyone going to hell any more than we want loved ones—or ourselves—to end up there.
One of the “hell parables” that Jesus told was about a rich man and a poor man (Luke 16:19–31). The poor man, Lazarus, was covered with sores, and he was hungry. Day after day, Lazarus laid outside the entry gate into the mansion where the rich man lived, sick and hungry. The rich man ignored Lazarus. Eventually Lazarus died and went to heaven. Now this absolutely shocked the Jewish crowd Jesus was talking to because they considered Lazarus a good-for-nothing outcast, someone who God punished with sickness and hunger because of some great sin he committed. Then the rich man died…and the Jewish people were even more shocked…because the rich man went to hell! They couldn’t believe such a thing. Here’s why: they thought the rich were rich because God favored them and therefore blessed them with all this money. The richer you were, the more God favored you. Here’s what they thought: all rich people went to heaven and all outcasts went to hell. But that’s not so…
As Jesus continued the parable, the rich man tried to convince Abraham (from the Old Testament, remember?) who was also in heaven, to send Lazarus down from heaven to hell to cool off the rich man with some water. Abraham said no. He said this for two reasons: 1) it was now Lazarus’s turn to experience comfort in heaven just as the rich man had comfort on earth, and it was the rich man’s turn to experience anguish just as Lazarus had, and 2) there was no way for anyone to go back and forth between heaven and hell. Just not possible. Realizing there would be no relief for himself, the rich man asked that Lazarus be sent back to earth to warn the rich man’s brothers about hell, saying that someone like Lazarus—back from the dead—would be believed. Again, the answer was no. And the reason? “If your brothers don’t believe the Scriptures—which they already have—then they won’t believe a dead man either.”
What Jesus is saying about the Scriptures—the Bible—in this parable is that the Bible alone says all that we need to be saved. The truth in the Bible has the power to make you believe in God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Creation, sin, salvation, forgiveness, heaven, and even hell. Everything. That’s because it’s not just a book. It’s the very Word of God. And that’s why I so often ask if you’re reading your Bible—because God saves through His Word, and it has the power to turn unbelief into belief. I pray that you’ll pick up your Bible today and start to read. If you need one, let me know.
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