Text: Luke 16: 19 - 31

Introduction.

- What is a parable? A story told by Jesus to illustrate a spiritual truth
- Another detail: When you read a parable, don’t pay much attention to the details, but to the general lesson.
- What is Jesus’ subject in this parable? Life in eternity.
- Two different lives, two different deaths, two different destinies in eternity.
- Two characters in the text: A rich man, and a poor man name Lazarus. (God is my help)
- The rich man; expensive tunic and banquets every days.
- Lazarus; the image of the most extreme misery. He used to eat scraps that fell from the rich man’s table.
- It seems that the rich man was a good man. He did not send Lazarus away from his door.
Did not prohibit Lazarus to pick up the scraps from his table.
"It was not what he did that led him to hell, but rather what he did not do"
- Let’s take 4 lessons from the text:

01. After death we will be conscious.
- Luke 16:24, 27 and 28. That itself is hell.
- Jesus’ pleasure of exercising mercy. He clearly shows the eternal punishment.
- It is the only text that speaks about the emotions we will feel after death.

02. Hell is a reality.
- Luke 16:28. The ones who are not believers, when they learn the lesson is already to late.
- If God permitted a "visit" to hell, those who are not believers...
- Would come back from hell as the biggest preachers of the gospel.

03. It is impossible to have a second chance.
- Luke 16:26 and the text of Hebrews 9:27-28 confirms this truth.
- Death is the end of everyone, rich and poor.
- It is the end the poor man’s suffering. The end of the rich man’s banquets.
- Ecclesiastes 3:20

04. Communication between the dead and the living ones is impossible.
- Luke 16:26, 29, 30, 31.
- The scriptures are sufficiently clear about the salvation in Jesus Christ.
- The final lesson here is not: God likes poor and despise the rich.
- Have you been in a place, in the need of communicating with a loved one and that was not possible?

Conclusion.

- Jesus does not say that the rich man was an adulterer, idolater, murderer or a thief.
- He only says that he thought only about life here on earth.
- Luke 16:25. "Remember". That is hell.
- Luke 16:22. " Taken by the angels".
- It shows us God’s care for the saved ones. "To the side of Abraham". The place where all the ones saved are.