What the Rich Man Wants You to Know
Edited transcript of a lesson written and presented by Chad Sychtysz on April 29, 2006.
Transcript by Michael Franklin; editing by Chad Sychtysz.
[Luke 16:19-31 is read just prior to the lesson.]
Welcome back! We’re going to be talking about that “rich man and Lazarus” story in our lesson. That’s what this lesson is really about.
Remember our overall theme is “God’s Truth About Your Soul.” Your soul is your most important, valuable and enduring possession. It is uniquely yours and it is your responsibility to deal with it rightly. Remember also, that whatever is seen is passing away, but the unseen things, the invisible things, are eternal. God has given us every reason to believe in what cannot be seen, but He requires us to make an active decision concerning those things.
Satan, on the other hand, wants nothing more than for us to forfeit our souls for a few moment’s pleasure, self-indulgence, and artificial feelings of peace and happiness—which, of course, are justified by lies and assumptions. We stated in the last lesson that Satan offers not a single example of any success story. That is, he never shows any success story of someone who defies God to His face, denounces God, mocks God, ridicules God, dies and then goes on to eternal and glory and comfort and wealth. Satan offers nothing of the sort because he can’t produce anything of the sort—someone who lives without moral responsibility, without obedience to God, yet without negative consequences.
Satan wants you to believe that such a scenario does exist, but it doesn’t. In the hereafter, there are no such scenarios. Now, we have a number of cases of believers going on to glory, the Bible does talk about those; Jesus confirms such accounts. But we have nothing favorable to say about those who deceive people and who are themselves deceived, that such people go on to any sort of glory.
The scripture does, however, offer at least some depictions of awful consequences for unbelievers and unprepared believers—both of which, by the way, share the same destiny. It does not matter whether you are an unbeliever or an unprepared believer: both people wind up in the same place. In the end, there’s no difference between the two.
Furthermore the Bible does offer a chilling account of one man in particular who swallowed Satan’s lies, ignored his moral responsibility, and sold his soul for a few moments of the good life, only to spend the rest of his eternity in pain and regret. This man’s story is what was just read for us in Luke 16:19-31. We’re going to spend some time on this, because there are some things he wants you and me to know. The rich man wants you to know some things—things that Satan will never tell you, things that most people will never take time to seriously consider. But we will do so this morning.
Trusting in Riches More Than in God
But before we get to the rich man specifically, there are some things that we need to see to set the stage. It’s valuable to understand the context of why Jesus related this account of the rich man and Lazarus. Why Jesus provided this information and to whom it was originally told is very valuable to us. You see, the people in Jesus’ day were very much like people in our day: greedy for money and equating success with the acquisition and accumulation of physical things, material gain and possessions. They focused on the here and now. They sacrificed their spiritual future for a few moments of self-gratification and peer approval. Doesn’t that sound like modern America? Doesn’t that sound like the world that we live in? Most certainly it does!
Much of the ruling class of the Jews, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders were rich men. They considered their wealth to be a sign of God’s approval. In other words, their reasoning went, “Well, if I weren’t rich, then it would mean that I was being deprived of God’s endorsement. The fact that I’m rich indicates that God obviously finds favor with me.” And they, of course, used this propaganda to teach others implicitly or directly. They tried to serve two gods at once: money and Jehovah.
It says in Luke 18:9 that “They trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt.” Well, that kind of sounds like people today, too, doesn’t it? In other words, the world might have changed since then, but people have not changed since then. People have still the same human characteristics as in Jesus’ day. In John 12:42-43, it says that many believed in Jesus but because they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God, they did not follow Jesus. That kind of sounds like today, too, doesn’t it? A lot of people might believe that God is right, but because they love the approval of the world instead, they’re not going to follow God.
Someone says in
response to that, “Yes, but I’m not rich, so I don’t see how all this applies to
me.” Well, I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to be rich to have the
attitude of a rich man. You see, what rich men typically do is put their
trust in wealth and not in God. So the issue really is not about riches, per
se, the issue is about trust, or really, the misplacement of trust. That’s
the issue! That’s the focus here! So anyone who has misplaced his trust—anyone
who trusts in anything more than God, or anyone more than God—shares the
attitude and unfounded confidence of the rich man. So you don’t have to be rich;
in fact, I think you can be dirt poor and still have the attitude of a rich man,
as we are defining it here.
Rich men and people with rich men’s attitudes may offer a token nod
to God and Jesus Christ, but this does not mean they will place their trust in
Them. They will not let go of the world in order to receive what God has
offered: the grace of heaven. And they will not empty themselves to be filled
with God because they are full of themselves and they don’t want to be filled
with anything else. John 3:16, Christ said, “For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son that whoever should believe in Him should not
perish but have eternal life.” Yes, but to “believe” in Jesus Christ is not
merely to acknowledge His existence, or spend a few hours a week sitting on a
pew, or drop a check in the plate every now and then. It means putting your
soul in His hands—remember, like we talked about last night in our lesson. What
it means to have your soul saved is to entrust your soul to God who can save
you. In Luke 12:21, Jesus defined anyone as a rich man who stores up treasure
for himself and is not rich toward God.
In Luke 16:10-11, we find there Jesus talking to these Jews and He says, in essence, “If you can’t be faithful in the things of the world”—in other words, if you cannot handle riches right, if you can’t handle worldly wealth and material gain properly so that it does not overtake you and overcome you—“then you’re not prepared for spiritual things.” And He’s speaking, by the way (don’t miss the irony here), to the spiritual rulers of Jerusalem and Israel. He’s saying, “You guys haven’t even mastered the physical things, so how in the world are you going to be prepared for spiritual things?”—that is, the things of God.
In verse 13, He says there, “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will love the one and hate the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” Now Satan wants you to believe that you can do this. Satan wants you to believe that you can hang on to the world and hang on to God—and it’s going to be okay! You can actually marry these two things, these two religions, together.
We’ve already seen how Satan lies to us and persuades us with His half-truths and deceptions. To “serve” in verse 13, by the way, means to give allegiance to; to worship. This requires one’s faith and the giving of one’s faith and trust and sacrifice and time. You can’t give your faith, trust, sacrifice and time to money or possessions or this world and at the same give all those same things to God. “You have to make a decision,” is what Jesus is saying. “You’ve got to decide. Are you for God or not? You can’t serve both.”
Scoffing at the Truth
Now, look at verse 14 in Luke 16, “Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were scoffing at Him.” We shouldn’t be too surprised at this. These are men, after all, who have everything to lose, as far as the world is concerned, if they were to listen to Christ. And so they’re scoffing at Him because they believe that Jesus is wrong on every point. In their minds, they’re very skilled with money; otherwise, how did they become rich? Obviously, they’ve done something right! So Jesus is wrong on that! And God must approve of these men, because, after all, they’re rich! And if they were not rich then God would not have approved of them!
You see how people’s logic goes when they want to justify their position, even in the face of overwhelming evidence otherwise. In their minds, these men are rich with the world while still being religious and pious to God. Besides, the multitudes hold them in high esteem. So how can they be wrong? Of course, in other cases we have the rich men blast the multitudes as being ignorant and accursed [John 7:49]. In their minds, they had successfully combined the worship of riches and the worship of Jehovah—and no lightning fell from the sky and the ground did not open up! It must mean that everything is okay. “Jesus, I’m sorry, but you’re wrong.” And they were scoffing at Him.
But Jesus does not retract. He does not apologize. He does not modify His statements whatsoever. He knows that He is right. So He says in verse 15, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts, that that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God.” I’d like you to think about that passage in light of what you are being fed by the world today. The world wants you to think that it’s got all the answers, it’s got all the right answers, and God is wrong and this message is wrong and everything else. And Jesus comes back and says, “You think that what you are saying is so high and lofty. But God despises that sort of attitude, that sort of arrogance.”
Indeed, they were arrogant people filled with themselves. And to these people Jesus gives a glimpse of a man who well represents them, a man who had it all, a man who lived the good life, as they perceived it. A man who did not take his moral responsibility very seriously at all, who thrived of the praise of his peers, and his fellow company. A man who is called simply, the “rich man.”
The Rich Man and Lazarus
Luke 16:19, Jesus says, “Now there was a certain rich man,” and that’s a different way than how He opens His parables. This really isn’t a parable at all. I mean, it’s parable-like in nature, but it’s not simply a parable. In other words, what Jesus says is, “There really was a rich man.” He’s not saying, “Now suppose there had been a rich man,” or, “This situation is likened to a rich man,” like He does in other parables. But He simply comes out and says, “Now there was a certain rich man….”
And this rich man’s life intersected with that of a poor man named Lazarus who was afflicted with some disease, licked by dogs, and laid at his gate. Lazarus was laid at the rich man’s gate. The rich man, in other words, could not have missed him. That’s the point that’s being made. Lazarus was not sitting off in a corner in an alley, you know, in some darkened place somewhere, waiting to be discovered by the rich man. He was sitting there at the entrance of the rich man’s home. He could not be missed. And yet, the rich man found ways to miss him, went out of his way to miss him, purposefully missed him and ignored him and did not offer to feed him or to help him. He showed him no mercy.
Notice the rich man here has no name. The rich man is just known as the “rich man”—a generic rich man who will not be remembered or honored for anything other than once, while he was here on this earth, he was rich. But Lazarus, he has a name, which implies that he has a relationship with God. And I would cite 2 Timothy 2:19 here, for example: “The firm foundation of God stands having this seal, ‘The Lord God knows who are His.’” I want you to think about that. The rich man is just a generic rich man, but God knows who Lazarus is. He knows him by name and He takes care of him. When both men die, it is Lazarus who is escorted by angels to Abraham’s bosom, not the rich man. In other words, Lazarus is embraced by Abraham, who is very revered by the Jews. In fact, in John 8:39, the Jews defiantly and proudly say, “Abraham is our father!” And every Jew longed to be embraced by Abraham in the hereafter.
“And the rich man also died and was buried.” He receives no honor, there is no celebration, no angels whisking him away to his future glory, no reception on the other side. Instead, in Luke 16:23, “In Hades, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham”—and Lazarus—from a distance, or in the distance. Now this word “Hades” here really refers to the realm of the dead. The King James Version uses the word “Hell,” which really is a misnomer, a misrepresentation. We think of hell as a place of torment and so on. In fact, the rich man is in the place of the dead just as Lazarus and Abraham are in the place of the dead. But the realm in which the rich man finds himself is clearly different from the realm where Abraham and Lazarus are. He is in a place of torment as a precursor to the sentence of judgment after the Final Judgment.
I want you to think of the impact of what’s going on here. As a Jew, the rich man no doubt thought that he was entitled to glory, honor, and rest, but he did nothing to prepare himself for that. Instead, he acted as if life is one big party, one big celebration. When he was alive, he gave little thought to the condition of his soul. In fact, his time was consumed with throwing parties and having friends over, eating and drinking and being merry. And now in his predicament there are no parties with friends. There is no dressing in fine clothes. There is no good food to eat, no good drink to drink. There’s no joy, no comfort and there’s no chance to re-decide [repent]. There’s no chance to do this because there’s no time.
In Luke 16:24-26, we read there, “And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’” Just as in his earthly life, he’s thinking of himself. Rich men usually do, and rich men usually do become rich at the expense of, well, people like Lazarus. And now he actually wants Lazarus to leave his comfort to tend to his misery. Notice that the rich man, when he was in his comfort, never once tended to Lazarus’ needs. But now he wants Lazarus to drop everything and come to his aid and give him some comfort—even if it’s just a little comfort.
And Abraham speaks for Lazarus and says, in essence, “You have made your choice by failing to pay attention to your soul. By failing to pay attention to your soul, now you must reap the consequences of that decision. Secondly, Lazarus cannot cross over because no one crosses over from here to there or from there to here, because it is fixed. The boundaries are set.” The rich man was rich on earth but now he is destitute and in misery. Lazarus was destitute and miserable on earth and now he is rich with God. We see here the ultimate reversal of fortune.
Luke 16:27-28, “And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father that you send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—in order that he may warn them, so that they will not come to this place of torment.’” The rich man implies, “They [i.e., his brothers] are doing the same thing that I did and they’re making the same decisions that I made.” Basically he’s saying, “They’re going to come to this awful place just like I’ve come, unless, of course, someone warns them.” Finally he is thinking of someone else but himself—but too late. His brothers were making the same awful choices; they also regarded life as a time for pleasure, not for preparation. Life is a time for celebration and partying, not a time for seriousness and preparation of the soul [1 Peter 4:4-5].
You know, just as a side note, I think this will be part of the horror of hell. Those who end up there will know that the decisions they made not only affected themselves, but they also affected others. The failure to make good decisions not only affected themselves, but they failed to warn others as well. That will be part of the horror of hell. Hopefully you will never experience that, but that will be part of the horror of those who are there. They will know that, in some way, they contributed to the demise of loved ones in their lives. What an awful thing to participate in, to know that you might have contributed to your mother’s or your father’s or your child’s or your grandchildren’s demise—this awful place that you’ve allowed them to come to because you didn’t make good decisions and you didn’t teach them how to, either. Think about that.
In verse 29, Abraham comes back and says that what the rich man requested is not necessary: it’s not going to happen. “…They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.” The Law of Moses clearly defined what was required to be in fellowship with God. In other words, these people are all under the Law of Moses. Moses is who they appeal to; the Law is what they’re obligated to keep. Certainly the rich man had full knowledge of the Law and he had plenty of opportunity to keep it in his life. These five brothers also have full opportunity to keep the Law. They have knowledge of that Law, but because they will not pursue that, doesn’t mean that they’re going to be spared.
And finally in verses 30 and 31, the rich man continues his protest: “No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!” And Abraham comes back and says, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’” They’re not going to be persuaded even in that extraordinary case. Even the Law of Moses was given in the midst of many profound and unprecedented miracles and wonders. God gave the children of Israel every reason to believe—not only the children of Israel who saw those miracles, but also the children of Israel who read of those miracles in later generations. I hope that you see the parallel here with the gospel. You don’t have to see the risen Christ. You should believe those who did see Him; that should be enough.
Now as a very brief point here: my understanding is that Jesus [in Luke 16] described the rich man and Lazarus and Abraham and their respective conditions in this afterlife scenario in very human or earthly terms because He is speaking of a spiritual existence which is not compatible with ours. What I mean by that is: to take these men’s circumstances absolutely literally, and to impose earthly time and human circumstances to the afterlife, to apply an earthly context to a spiritual realm, is impossible. This illustration is not intended to provide doctrinal, physical details about the afterlife. But Jesus describes this in such a way that we can understand what’s going on without compromising the reality of what’s actually happening to these people.
Lessons to be Learned
So through this real life parable, He offers some very valuable and sobering things to learn. In other words, the rich man wants you to learn some things. He couldn’t warn his five brothers, but he has a message for you and me. The most obvious message is that everyone dies. I don’t mean to be morbid about that, but the fact is: everyone dies. Regardless if you’re rich or poor or healthy or sickly, your life on earth is temporary and finite. And we should also conclude that even though your life here ends, even though your body dies, your consciousness goes on to somewhere else. You are still conscious in another life—just as the rich man and Lazarus and Abraham, for that matter, were conscious.
Secondly, regardless of whether you are remembered here on earth, what matters is if God knows who you are. In Matthew 7:22, Jesus says, “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not do all these things?’” And Jesus comes back and says to them, “Get away from Me, I never knew you.” Now I paraphrased that somewhat, so I invite you to look at the passage yourself, but the idea is, “We [i.e., Christ and those men] don’t have a relationship.” But they claim, “Didn’t we do these great things, in Your name?” “You don’t have a relationship with Me, so it really doesn’t matter what you did in My name!” is in essence what Jesus says to them.
Everyone who enters the kingdom of God will be known by God and will certainly know God. “Those who do the will of My Father,” Jesus says, are those who will be known by God and will know God. To the rest, He says, “I never knew you.” And immediately after we die, if we are unprepared, all the masks, all the pretenses, all the delusions that we talked about in the last lesson, all the façades and all the hypocrisies are stripped away as a person is suddenly faced with stark reality. They are suddenly without all the blinders, and all the propaganda, and all the smoke and mirrors, and everything else that Satan has provided. All those things are gone and suddenly they are staring reality in the face. That’s what the rich man did. He saw reality up front and immediately after his death. He saw the wretched condition of his soul, and there was nothing he could do to change it.
On the other hand, if a person is rightly prepared to meet the Lord, then the reality will be the glory, honor, and rest that were promised to him while he was here on earth. And he will join the company of the righteous for all eternity. And this, too, is a reality, and that will be manifest to him as well upon his death.
Another point that we could make here is that once you die and cross over, there is no changing whatever decisions you made while on earth. This is the time to make right decisions. The rich man, though he was made a believer in the hereafter, though he finally did believe, could not respond to that belief. He could not repent of any sins. He could not obey God in that condition. He was not granted any help. He was given no second chances. God didn’t say to him, “Oh, you’re paying attention now—so let’s try that again! Let’s send you back and then you can make good decisions.” Abraham said [in essence], “You have made your decision and now you’re going to live with that decision.”
Another point that we could make is that, despite the tales of ghosts and souls and departed spirits coming back from the dead to warn us or anyone else, there is just no such thing. Now I know someone might take issue with me on that. There is always someone who claims to have seen a ghost or spirit or who swears he’s had some kind of supernatural, paranormal experience. What I’m telling you is—in a passage like this, what it’s teaching us is—that God is not going to warn you from the realm of the dead. If you’re not listening right now, that is, if you’re not going to listen in this life, then you’re not going to listen even if someone did come to warn you. And God is not going to make a special concession just for you. This [rich] man, after all, had five brothers who had the Law of Moses to tell them how to avoid the awful fate that he was suffering. So we have the gospel to tell us the same thing. That’s what the gospel is for. Imagine what Abraham would say to any of us if we were lost and then made appeals to him for our loved ones who are still on earth, who are making the same poor choices that we made to get there. He’d say, “Well, they have Jesus and the gospel, it is sufficient. If they’re not going to listen to that, they’re not going to listen to anything.” That is all that they need. If we will not listen and obey the gospel, then God’s not going to make special concession. In 2 Peter 1:3, it says that we have everything we need “pertaining to life and godliness.” Everything that we need. Think about that. God has given us everything that we need to deal with all of our soul’s needs.
And we might say, too, that just as the Law of Moses was inaugurated with signs and wonders on an unprecedented scale, so the gospel is inaugurated with even greater signs and wonders—the culmination of which is, ironically, a dead man coming back to life to warn everyone of the reality of their soul! And people still won’t listen. Jesus was right! Abraham was right! People won’t listen if they refuse to listen to the gospel they are certainly not listening to Someone who has indeed come back from the dead! Jesus has come back from the dead and yet many, many people are not listening. Acts 17:30-31 says,
Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day (remember that fixed boundary in Hades; God has also fixed a day) in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.
That “Man” in that passage is, of course, Jesus Christ. And yet people still will not believe.
What—or Who—Do You Trust?
If the account of the rich man is a bit unnerving, it’s supposed to be. You see, Jesus gave it to people who were very comfortable and very confident in themselves. I want you to think: are you very comfortable and confident in yourself? Do you trust in your riches? Are you placing your trust in anything or anyone more than you are placing your trust in God? Because if you are, then you are having the attitude of the rich men that Jesus spoke to. In other words, this story, this account is really intended to unnerve you.
I’m not trying to imply at all that all rich men are automatically lost because they’re rich, anymore than all poor people are automatically saved because they’re poor. That would be a misconception and a poor conclusion to draw from this story. Abraham himself was very rich and yet we find that he is saved. God does not condemn or save anyone based upon their financial standing alone. Rather, He saves them or not based upon whether they have faith in Him—whether they trust Him or not.
Anyone who fails to trust God by failing to respond to and obey the gospel forfeits his soul and that person will join the rich man in his agony and torment. On the other hand, the believer gives Jesus full control of his soul. In 2 Timothy 1:12, that we cited last night, Paul says, “I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.” What is it that you’re entrusting to Christ, Paul? It is his soul that he is entrusting to Him. Not his life here, not his riches, not his possessions, not his earthly status. It’s his soul! Remember our lesson series is “God’s Truth About Your Soul.” What are you entrusting to God?
This lesson is not intended to scare anyone into religion. Its intent, rather, is to provide God’s truth about who you are and where you’re headed based upon decisions that you’re making. The truth is that losing your soul is by far the worse thing that can ever happen to anyone.
The truth also is that you don’t have to lose your soul. No one has to lose their soul. The rich man lost his soul and once it was lost he could not save it and he could not find relief. Lazarus, however, had his soul saved by God and once it was saved it was never lost.
Finally, the paradox: the rich man, as we said before, could not warn his five brothers, would not be permitted to warn them; however, because his account is part of the gospel that is preached all over the world, the rich man is warning you and me right now. He’s warning millions of other people this morning as well. He has a message for us; the rich man wants you to know some things. And I hope that you believe at least partly due to the story that he has provided with his own life and his own circumstances.
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