Sermon: What Happens at Death?

Good evening. Uh, as Jason said, my name is Dave Hinkley, a ruling elder here at URC, um, and he also told you what our, uh, series is for the fall. Uh, it is asked pastoral and theological questions of the Bible about the topic of death. Uh, my assignment tonight is the question, what happens at death? Uh, what occurs at the moment of death? And just after this is an eminently practical question. Uh, it's a question that each of us has asked.

It's a question about which there can be a lot of confusion, can be a source of anxiety or even worry for Christians. Uh, as you probably know, those of you who know me, uh, that I, my wife and I have four adult children, uh, what you may not know is that we had a fifth child, a daughter Abby, who died in infancy, uh, 24 years ago, uh, when she passed away a well-intentioned saint, uh, who I, I think should have known better, gave us

a book to comfort us. And the book was one of those in which the author claims to have had some kind of death or near death experience and come back to testify to the goodness of the afterlife. There. There's a, a cottage industry of this kind of book, um, and it goes to show that there is confusion and anxiety over this topic, even within the church. The danger about such a book is not the claim that heaven is for real.

It obviously and certainly is, but it is the notion that we need something other than the scripture to confirm that to us. Furthermore, uh, the official teaching about this question, uh, from some of the groups who claim the name of Christ are profoundly wrong, Roman Catholicism and Adventism both distort the biblical teaching on this matter. So what may seem like a, a question to us, those of us who've been in a Bible believing church

for a long time might seem like a question with an obvious and settled answer. Uh, it's gonna serve us to lay out the truth and to refute the error, knowing the truth. God's people can have a sure and certain comfort, the comfort that he intends for us to have about this topic and those who are far from God can be called to repentance and called to him. The text I want us to look at tonight to answer the question is from the gospel of Luke, uh,

the latter half of chapter 16, specifically the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. However, as this parable is not given specifically to answer our question of the night, I think that it would be right for us to first understand the meaning of the parable in its context. Second, ask our question of the night to the text, and then third, I want to take some time to refute the false teaching that we've just, we've just talked about here.

Um, so, so if it sounds like or it feels like three mini sermons, that's, that's why it's gonna be that. Uh, before, before we read, uh, the word together, let's ask for the Lord's blessing, uh, on its reading. Father, we, we come to your word tonight as people in need of the truth, as people hungry for your word to transform us by the renewal of our minds. Teach us, we pray. Use my words and meager efforts tonight. Uh, moreover, use your word

to accomplish eternal things that your name may be lifted up and your word honored and that we who love you and desire your glory may be strengthened in our inner being. We pray it all in Christ's name. Amen.

All right, reading from Luke 16, uh, this is going to be on page 8, 7, 6 of your Q Bibles. Luke 16, starting in verse 19. Uh, through the end of the chapter,

there was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gait was laid, a poor man named Lazarus covered with sores who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried and in Hades being in torment, he lifted up his eyes

and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side and he called out Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, prime and anguish in this flame. But Abraham said, child, remember that you in your lifetime receive good things and Lazarus in like manner bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in anguish and besides all this, between us and you, a great chasm has been fixed in order that those

who would pass from here to you may not be able and none may cross from there to us. And he said, then I beg you father to send him to my father's house for I have five brothers so that he may warn them lest they also come into this place of torment. But Abraham said they have Moses and the prophets let them hear them. And he said, no, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. And he said to him,

if they do not hear Moses in the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.

Amen. So as I said, the first thing we want to do is to understand Jesus' purpose and intent for this parable and then ask our main question to put it in context. In this chapter, chapter 16 verses one through 13, Jesus told his disciples the parable about a parable, about the love of money. He ends that parable with the following summary. No servant can serve two masters for either he'll hate the one and love the other,

or he'll be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money in the verses that follow we're told that the Pharisees had overheard his teaching about money and scorned Jesus 'cause they themselves were lovers of money. It's fair to infer therefore that are parable. Tonight in verses 19 to 31 that we just read is Jesus' response to this interaction. The story is a comparison of the lives of and the

after lives of two men, Lazarus, the poor, hungry, and physically compromised man who lays at the gate of the rich man who eats sumptuously and is clothed in purple. The rich man is not given a name. Both of the men die and their fortunes in the afterlife are not just reversed, but reversed and multiplied by infinity. Lazarus is taken to Abraham's side and comforted and the formerly rich man is taken to Hades where he is tormented by fire.

A couple of things are significant about Abraham's presence in this parable. We know from John the Baptist scathing words in Matthew three and from Jesus Jesus' confrontations in John eight that there was a widespread and false understanding of the covenantal faithfulness of God during this time. Namely that what protected you from the wrath of God in the ne in the afterlife was your genetic connection to Abraham. Jesus succinctly, summarizes

and corrects the error of the Pharisees that challenge him about this in John 8 37 where he says, I know that you are the offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because my words find no place in you. The real sons of Abraham are not genetic, rather they are the ones who hear Christ's words and obey. So peering across the terrible chasm, the formerly rich man, a lover of money and a genetic descendant of Abraham appeals

to his father for help. His hope has never been in the mercy of God. He does not in this story appeal to God. God is not and never has been on his mind. He in his life had confidence in his money and in his death he has confidence in his DNA. Furthermore, this formerly rich man in torment still acts like a rich man. Abraham. He sees and he respects Lazarus. He considers below him, send the boy to cool my tongue, send the boy to my brothers.

Thus, we know that there is no repentance in hell. Those who are there are only sorry that they're receiving punishment and not sorry for the hearts, the attitudes of heart and the actions that merited that punishment. The presumption that Abraham should do anything for him is the height of arrogance and the obvious shift in fortune between him and Lazarus is completely lost on this formerly rich man, but it is in the man's final request

that the words of Christ pierce to the division of soul and spirit and the thoughts and intentions of the human heart send someone back from the dead to warn my brothers. Surely they will listen to someone who comes back from the dead. Abraham's response is that they have in fact already been warned and warned perfectly by the word of God. This is a frequent idiom that Jesus uses the law and the prophets or Moses and the prophets.

The idiom means the revealed and er word of God. The rich man had been warned if he and his brothers could not see from the word of God that no one can serve both God and money. Even the miracle of a resurrection will not convince them. The tragic and scathing indictment is aimed at the listening Pharisees, you Pharisees who irony of ironies consider yourselves teachers of the word of God cannot see that the love of money is idolatry

and will cause hatred of God in your heart. You whose eternal confidence rests in who your great-great many greats grandfather is, cannot recognize the one in whom that grandfather had faith. Even as he stands before you, you who claim to love the word cannot hear its author as it he speaks to you directly. And tragically Jesus predicts these false children of Abraham will also not recognize the significance of the greatest of all miracles.

When it happens in front of them, the hard hearts will stay hard, but those who hear the word of Christ and follow will prove themselves to be the true sons of Abraham and dwell with Christ in paradise.

While that, that, that I think we can say is a summary of what Jesus meant, uh, through this parable, and while it is not the express intent of the teaching, it is totally right for us to ask tonight's question of this text to apply what we see in this text to our question of the night. The story that Jesus tells includes what we should expect upon our death. Jesus overall points about the love of money and the false eternal confidence make very little sense

if we divide them from the stories underlying real world centered structure. What would it mean for the the point of the story if the basic realities that are assumed in the story about life after death are untrue? It's very safe to conclude that Jesus here is telling the truth about what happens at death. There are certainly more, but I can see three aspects about what happens at death that this parable illustrates for us.

They're these first that upon death judgment is immediate as Hebrews 9 27 says, it is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment. We know that there is a great and final day of judgment illustrated so vividly for us in Revelation 20, but the reward of those who belong to Christ and the punishment of those who do not does not wait until that day in this parable, Lazarus begins to receive his reward and the rich man begins

to receive his wrath at the moment of death. This parable is not the only place in scripture where we see this truth shown. Uh, we see it plainly in Jesus' words, to the thief who expresses faith in him. In Luke 23, today you will be with with me in paradise. We see it plainly in Paul's repeated weighing of his own mortality in Philippians one, for me to live as Christ and to die is gain his desire. Paul's desire at this point in in writing was

to be with Christ to depart this life and be with Christ, but he knew that his earthly ministry was for the good of the kingdom for our good. And so he says, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Second important aspect that I think we see here, uh, in this parable, the afterlife is a conscious experience. Both those who are in heaven and those who are in hell know where they are and why they're there. The formerly rich man yearned for relief

and none was to come to him. Their experience of either eternal blessing or eternal wrath is aware and awake. The horror of the idea of the wrath of God can cause us to shy away from or attempt to water down the plain testimony of the word of God. And we must not do that. The word says, says it, but I don't like it. So it must not be true, is not a viable option for a Christian that is not faith. If Jesus is your Lord, then you affirm

that his word is true. This far no further Lord is an oxymoron. It's a contradiction. We may not be sharpie Christians, those who take their Bible and cross the things out that are unpalatable to us. Our fear at the truth about eternal wrath instead of causing us to depart from faith should cause us to a desperate evangelism should lead us to a desire to see, uh, the lost saved from such, uh, a horrible fate. The third thing that I think we can see from about death

from this passage is that there is a chasm that is fixed. There is no travel between heaven and hell. There is no someday you'll move from one to the other. There is no conditionality about your stay in heaven and hell, no one goes there and returns to talk about it. What's more we don't need others to return from the dead to testify to us that what the Bible says about heaven and hell is true. We don't need testimonies

and books about near death experiences to tell us what happens because the word of God is sure and we can trust that it tells us all that we need to know. We don't need a surer message. We don't need a surer message than the word because there can be no surer message than the word of God. What the word says is true and certain and not in need of any secondary anecdotal experience. I want you to notice that this is Abraham's

reasoning in our text. The man of exemplary faith had no doubt in the word of God. They have Moses and the prophets. They should know it said it already. They have warned let them listen to Moses and the prophets. No greater or more immediate sign is needed to prove what the word commands and promises. We finite. Humans are tempted to look at other things to subjective and emotional experiences that will fade in our memories

as we go on in life. Worse yet, some of us base our beliefs on such experiences which are fleeting and not necessarily true.

The grass withers and the flower fades. Brothers and sisters, the word of God, which has been confirmed, true and is confirmed certain by the very resurrection of Jesus Christ himself stands forever.

Uh, the best summary I think of what the Bible teaches on what happens at the moment of death is perhaps unsurprisingly found in the Westminster confession of faith. Chapter 32 says it this way, the bodies of men after death return to dust and see corruption, but their souls, which neither die nor sleep, having an immortal immoral, having an immortal subsistence immediately returned to God who gave them the souls of the righteous being then made perfect in holiness,

are received into the highest heavens where they behold the face of God in light, in light and glory waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. And the souls of the wicked are cast into hell where they remain in torments and utter darkness reserved to the judgment of the great day. Besides these two places for souls separated from their bodies, the scripture acknowledge none.

Here we have I think, a summary of what the Bible teaches on the question of the night. And as I said, I'd like to turn then to thinking a little bit about some of the errors that are taught out there in, uh, the culture. In fact, I think probably most of us haven't had this question, aren't asking this, this question unless we are interacting with, uh, those who are teaching something false about this topic. So let's go through a couple of those, um,

those errors.

We'll start with the doctrine of the Adventists and then we'll talk about the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory. The Seventh Day Adventists and the Jehovah's Witnesses who come out of the same 19th century tradition teach that there is not an initial judgment at death, but only the second judgment, which we said already is described in Revelation 20. Thus, those who die are just in the ground, uh, until the resurrection and not in heaven or hell.

Until then, this, this, uh, term is called soul sleep. Uh, they dismiss this passage that we read tonight as Jesus using the common misconceptions of his time about what happens at death in order to make his larger point. Thus he doesn't bother, they would say telling the truth about what happens at death. His point is for them to understand something else. I think this is a problematic understanding of this text for a number of reasons, not the least of which is

that it doesn't comport with the rest of the testimony of the New Testament. We've already seen that Jesus words to the thief on the cross and Paul's wishes to be at home with the Lord make very little sense if, uh, there's not an immediate gathering to God of the soul at death. There's simply too much scriptural evidence for this, uh, for what they say to be the case. And another problem that I see with this interpretation is

that none of Jesus other parables are taught in this way. While he does employ hyperbole and metaphor, he never lies about the basic nature of reality or invents a fanciful story. Parables are all quite grounded and real in structure and what, and the groundedness is what lends the metaphor, its power. Uh, the Adventists also teach, uh, that while heaven is for real hell is not. They say that the punishment of the unsaved is simply total destruction

and not a conscious torment. Now, I did not grow up in the church or with any kind of religious belief. One of my earliest memories of any conversation about God was with my Jehovah's Witness aunt saying that her God wouldn't send people to hell, that she wouldn't believe in that kind of God, the, the great theologian and Pastor John Stot Orthodox in his other beliefs and not an Adventist by any means taught something similar.

Uh, with all due respect to my kind aunt and to John Stott, such a conclusion is in conflict with any claim to believe in the authority of the word. Again, if we choose what biblical doctrines to believe based on what is palatable to our finite and fallen ears, our word is in fact the authority and not God's word. Now, these people that I referred to would never accept that they are merely picking and choosing. In fact, they would pride themselves on doing the opposite.

But the evidence of the New Testament is just too strong. It always qualifies the punishment of the wicked in the next life with words like everlasting and eternal. For example, a fire that never goes out. Mark nine, eternal fire and eternal punishment. Matthew 25, eternal destruction, two Thessalonians one. If simply the unmaking of the unbeliever is in view, then these qualifiers that are present all over the New Testament are meaningless.

What's more logic demands that the punishment for man's sin be an eternal punishment. Every sin care against an infinitely holy God is of infinite weight. And some of Canterbury reasoned this out in the 11th century and he argued that the deity of Christ is an essential part of Christian doctrine because the gospel itself doesn't make any sense without it. The penalty paid for sin had to be paid by a man because man sinned, but it also had to be paid by God

because no other being in existence could actually pay the debt that is owed by sin. The death of a finite man does not begin to pay down the debt of even one of his sins. It is an infinite debt because God is infinitely holy and thus the penalty to the sinner logically is also infinite. Hell is eternal because the offense of mankind's sin is against God and God is infinitely holy. But thanks be to God that the God man did come

that we might be saved from the wrath of God by trusting in him the only one who could have paid our penalty came and paid our penalty by the marvelous and wonderful grace of God. Third turned to the the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory, which is plainly at odds with the teaching of the Bible and ultimately it is plainly at odds also with the gospel itself. The Roman Catholic catechism states it this way, all who die in God's grace and friendship,

but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation. But after death, they undergo purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. What they mean is that ordinary believers, ordinary Catholics upon death go to a place of temporary punishment to burn off the stains of their earthly sins while they end up in heaven. They have to start out in a temporary hell called purgatory

because of what they've done. This doctrine you'll remember is was instrumental in the sparking of the reformation as Luther was scandalized by Johann Teal's sales of indulgences. Uh, it was a campaign to raise money for the St. Peter's Basilica and Rome and an indulgence was money donated to the church that earns time off of purgatory for your deceased loved ones. One of the things that Luther said was, if the Pope has the ability

to reduce everybody's time in purgatory, why doesn't he just do it?

This doctrine has no scriptural warrant and it is plainly refuted by what we saw in, uh, the parable of Lazarus. And the rich man, the thief on the cross, admitted that he deserved his punishment and asked for mercy from Christ. He was never baptized. And surely if anyone had some leftover sins to be cleansed in purgatory, he did. But Christ doesn't say to him, I'll see you when you get out of temporary hell. He says something different Today, you will be

with me in paradise. The biblical gospel is trust in the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ and you will receive full mercy and remission for your sins. And that is what we see, uh, portrayed for us by the thief on the cross is interaction with Christ. The doctrine of purgatory points to a greater error within Roman Catholic theology, which is that their soteriology, that is a theological word that means their their system of theology about salvation.

Their soteriology, uh, in their soteriology Christ only partly accomplished the salvation of his people. Christ's death did not fully pay for our sin, our original sin, our yesterday sin, our today sin our tomorrow sin rather it paid for your sin according to the Roman Catholic system. Up to the moment you commit a mortal sin and then is back to you to follow the remedial system established by the church purgatory fits into this remedial system

and illustrates that to the Roman Catholic. Christ's accomplishment was not final. He did not redeem his people. He only opened the door brothers and sisters. The gospel of Jesus Christ is far, far better news than that. Our warrior King did not merely fight through the enemy lines and establish a path pathway so that we prisoners can escape. Our warrior king broke through, found us, and brought us all the way home,

all the way home to himself. When we say Christ accomplished our salvation, we mean fully. If there is something left for you and I to do, to accomplish our salvation, then Christ did not accomplish it. If there is a remedial formula that you must follow prescribed by the church that includes a temporary hell, then there is no sense in which you can say that Christ redeemed the captive sinners and accomplished their salvation.

But thanks be to God. He did accomplish our salvation

To close. Accepting and trusting the Bible on its own terms is a vital aspect of our faith and incredibly relevant as we live today in our contemporary culture. What is more? It is plain that not all those who claim to affirm the authority of scripture actually do so and that it is easy. It's plain that it is easy for fear and our fear and finiteness to impact what we believe and what we teach. But as difficult as some of these truths can be,

there is much comfort to be had resting in these revealed truths. Here are some things that this means, that what we've learned tonight means it means that those whom we love who have passed on in the Lord are with Christ and rejoicing today this very moment.

It means that we who believe in Christ will do the same alongside them when we die. It means that we who have suffered in the Lord will, as Lazarus did receive our comfort in the life to come and let me challenge us that it is right, that God would judge and that he would punish, and that if we don't feel that it is good, We should repent and we should work to be thankful for the goodness of God. As I, as I teach it in the the children's profession

of faith class, the goodness of God means two things. It means first that he's just, and second that he's merciful. We need both of those things. Both of those things prove the goodness of our glorious and wonderful Father in heaven.

Paul tells us that in uh, through this act of judgment that God has will do, he desires to make the riches of his glory known to us, the objects of his mercy,

and we should also rejoice that Christ in his work on the cross and his resurrection accomplished our salvation. He did not merely start it or merely open a door for us. We will not suffer in any temporary hell to finish his work. His accomplishment is far, far greater than that. Those who call on the name of the Lord, who reach out to the Lord for mercy, who acknowledge that he is Lord and seek to follow him in faith are forgiven

completely and will be with him on the day of their death, will be with him on the day of their death in paradise. Thanks be to God. Even that very faith that I just described, even that desire to call out for help is a mysterious gift of the sovereign Holy Spirit. For by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God so that no one may boast. Amen and amen. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word,

which is a gr which is our great help and guide. We thank you that it is clear enough for us to understand and draw help and comfort from it as we present ourselves humbly before what you have said. Help us we pray to delight in your goodness, in your mercy, and in your justice. Help us to delight in the great accomplishment of the cross. Thank you that you have not left us in our sins, but have brought us from blindness to sight, from ignorance

to faith, and from death to life. It is in the unpassable name of Jesus Christ that we pray. Amen.