LUKE 16:19-31 – “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate 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, for I am in anguish in this flame.’  But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your 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.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”

THEME OF THE DAY: ETERNITY’S MOST SERIOUS TRUTH.  Today’s scripture should cause us to pause and let the absolute horror of its message grip our hearts, rain tears of compassion down our faces, radically change our prayer lives, and move us to aggressively and compassionately share the gospel with unbelievers.

This horror is that of a literal and eternal hell.  Isaac H. A. Ababio said, “The most awful fact in the world is the fact of hell and that some of our dearest relations, and friends with whom we have lived and worked will spend an eternity of anguish, away from God, eternally unforgiven, eternally doomed.”

Hell. It’s not popular. Denied by many, even professing Christians, and yet it is one of the clearest truths ever taught by our Lord Jesus and today’s scripture reveals much about this horrific domain of the damned.   There are at least three things to take away about hell.

First, those in hell are in a state of vivid consciousness. The rich man is keenly aware of his existence after death. Just as heaven will be literal, so shall hell be.  There is no ceasing to exist after death.

A second truth about hell; it is a place of indescribable torment. The rich man died and was in a flaming fire of torment.  He felt pain. Much pain. Intense pain.

Still yet another truth about hell; there is no hope of ever getting out.  A wide gulf exists between heaven and hell, and there is no crossing over from the place of torment to that of happiness.  Doomed and damned forever – what a bone-chilling truth!

There is much more in this account about hell, and we should spend prayerful times studying it.  Not to gain knowledge alone, but to change us.  In what way?  To be a people who have a burden for the lost that moves us to share the only way to escape this place – the Gospel of Jesus Christ.   May it never be so that we live the Christian life silent while the masses around us are perishing and heading to a Christ-less and thus hopeless hell.

PRAYER:  Father, please break my heart over the lost and then go to the lost with the hope of Your Gospel.

REFLECTION:  The terror and hopelessness of hell should grip every believer to consistently share Christ.