Is Your Mind Made Up?

Luke 16:19-31
By Harold Dinsmore, M.Div.
© 2008 Harold Dinsmore

In our passage before us today, we see the familiar story of the rich man and Lazarus.  A man impoverished due to his obvious poor health sat beside the gate of the rich man, begging, hoping, from day to day, to receive a morsel of leftovers.  Perhaps that portion of food thrown into the trash, from which he would dine.

His condition was chronic.  His sores increased.  Dogs came and would often lick his wounds.  A disgusting, meager existence to those inside the gate.  And finally, the man named Lazarus died.  The householder was finally relieved of the constant cry for food and mercy.  He no longer had to put up with the uncomfortable feeling as he left his house every day.  The man, the beggar, was dead.  “Good riddance.  Serves him right.”

The householder, known only as the rich man, dressed in the finest clothes, with much to eat every day, followed suit and died shortly thereafter.

The stark contrast was the place to which these men passed.  Lazarus, it is indicated, was carried away to the bosom of Abraham.  Suffice it to say that this represents blessedness after death.

Because Abraham was the father or founder of the Hebrew nation, to be honored with this close fellowship, with this intimacy, was the highest of honors, according to the Hebrew mind.

The rich man, on the other hand, found himself in a place the Lord describes as Hades – a place of torment.  Hades is found about 10 times in the New Testament.  For the most part, the New Testament doesn’t shed a whole lot of light on the concept of Hades other than it being the place of the unrighteous dead.  Bus as Christ used it, there arises a definiteness of meaning.