Trinity 1 Sermon 2020
Trinity 1 – Luke 16
St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, Laramie, WY
14 June A+D 2020
Hell is real. God punishing sinners in eternity for their unbelief is not something man came up with to scare people into obedience. God sending people away from His love and goodness forever is a teaching that comes from the Bible. Most Jews deny hell. Muslims stole the doctrine of hell from the Christians. Pagans just had an afterlife, which sometimes contained torment for evildoers, but missed the mark of what hell is by a long shot. Today people have the pagan view, where there may be some torment for really bad people like Hitler and Donald Trump, but not for regular sinners.
Hell is the Germanic word for the Greek Hades and the Hebrew Sheol or Gahanna. But it is already taught by God when He tells Adam, “The day you eat of it you will surely die.” It is the death of the soul forever. It is not annihilation, so that one ceases to exist. It is the deprivation of all good, because it is receiving the reward for your rejecting God. It is suffering forever without God.
God made you to live forever with Him. He made you for good. Hell is losing all good. The rich man wants Lazarus to get just a drop of water to cool his tongue, because he is in anguish in the flame of hell. The rich man doesn’t have a body. We know that because the resurrection of all flesh hasn’t happened yet. All men, good and evil, believers and unbelievers, will be raised to give an account of the deeds done in their body, whether good or bad, some to the resurrection of the righteous, some to the resurrection of condemnation. This hasn’t happened yet. But the rich man is in Hades, which is a place of torment, as Jesus describes in today’s Gospel. Jesus is describing in bodily terms the spiritual torment of the rich man. Those who die in unbelief go to hell with their spirits when they die. This is what Hebrews (9:27) teaches, “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.” And St. Peter says that these spirits are “imprisoned.” (1 Peter 3:19)
The final judgment will be in our bodies, but the judgment comes already with death our earthly death. “The soul that sins, it shall die.” (Ez. 18:4) The rich man had his good things in his life. He thought that life was about pleasing himself. He went to church sometimes probably. He knew about Moses and the Prophets. He had learned something of the Bible. He knew to call Abraham father. But he had rejected the Word of God for his own pleasure. He thought that what was good was in pleasing himself. He didn’t know God. He judged good and evil on the basis of what pleased him. And he went to hell.
The torment he suffered was the torment of his soul. It was the lack of good that every soul needs. It was the lack of God’s love, the love that he rejected on earth. He hated Lazarus, even if he didn’t feel his hatred. He ate good food and had a happy mind and life, while Lazarus sat at his gate and longed to be satisfied with just his crumbs. He ignored Lazarus. He ignored love. He ignored God. How can you love God whom you have not seen, when you don’t love your brother whom you see? And now he sees no love, because he saw no love on earth. He had his good things, but they were not enough. Those who deny hell only know earthly good. They call God evil for depriving them of His goodness, when they themselves deprive others of the good they love every day.
The rich man wanted a drop of water for his tongue. He was in anguish in the flame. The soul has a tongue as the body has a tongue. The body tastes things that are good and bad. I was sick for a week with a horrible stomach virus. I longed to taste on my tongue what was good. I could only eat chicken soup and crackers and a few other things that lost their savor after days of pain. The tongue is to taste and to speak. The rich man speaks to Abraham for relief of his tongue. But what does his tongue of his soul lack? He asks for water, but water will not help, and no one can bring it to him. There is a chasm, a great gulf, separating him from what is good. The one who had little good in his life can’t bring anything good to the one who lived life for earthly good.
It is his soul that is tormented. His tongue lacks the love of God that he rejected. His tongue lacks the Holy Spirit, who is the water of life, just as He hovered over the water at creation and just as He joins Himself to water to give the new birth. The rich man was thirsty in hell because lacked the Holy Spirit. He lacked God. He lacked all good.
“The woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise.” (Gen. 3:6) She ate it and gave some to the man. They tasted with their tongues what killed their souls. The man and woman had everything they needed, but they took what they didn’t need, what God had forbidden them to eat. The devil told them that they would have the knowledge of good and evil, but now they no longer know what is spiritually good. And so we are by nature. We don’t know what is good. The rich man knew lots of good, good that made him happy, good that pleased his tongue, good that gave him a nice funeral where people wept for him and mourned his passing. And then he knew no good. Because he never knew the spiritual good. He ignored Moses and the Prophets by whom God spoke to him. He ignored God, and so he ignored love. God is love. Ignoring God and His words is ignoring love. It is embracing being away from God forever. It is embracing hell.
Anyone who denies hell denies God. They deny that they have no spiritual good. They think their knowledge of good is what good is, while they ignore the source of all good. They do not hunger and thirst for righteousness. They just want more of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But now the rich man is alone in hell, separated from Lazarus and his peace and his good things. The rich man knows no good, because he didn’t know good on earth. He only knew evil. He had his good things. He enjoyed them. God makes the sun shine on the evil and the good. Where is the good now? The sun does not shine in hell. It makes no fruit grow that is good for the taste. The taste of sin’s fruit is sweet, but short. The taste of sin pleases the flesh, but is bitter death to the soul, and finally to the body as well.
Those who deny hell must hate God. They think they are being very reasonable by saying that God is overreacting by punishing people with eternal pain for temporal evil. But this just shows they know neither what good nor what evil is. Good is not temporal, something that lasts only for a time. Good is eternal. God will deprive you of your earthly life. God will kill you. He will take you away from your family and your body’s happiness. He will tear your soul from your body and kill you. When He does that, will He destroy what is good? Those who deny hell say yes. They say God destroys good, when they themselves are the destroyers of what is good. They push God away. They ignore Lazarus longing to be filled with the crumbs that fall from their tables. They use their life for themselves alone, and so they will rightly and justly be left alone forever. The chose to be without God and so they will have no good. That is hell. It is real because God is real. He isn’t a theory or a concept. He is our Maker who made us to love and live forever. He made us for good, but what good is in us? Whose fault is it?
God is good. If God is not good, there is no good. Anyone who believes differently believes that he is God. This why the Holy Spirit teaches to sing in two Psalms, “A fool says in his heart there is no God.” Denying hell is denying that you are a sinner. A sinner is someone who rejects what is good for what is evil. Now there are two types of sinners. There are the rich men and the Lazaruses. The rich men think that they know good and evil. Good is what makes them happy, and evil is what makes them unhappy. The Lazaruses know that they don’t have any good. Earth has no pleasure they could share unless they have God. Lazarus means “God has helped.”
Who has helped? Have the princes and presidents and governments of this world helped? Look at Seattle and Minneapolis, and now Atlanta. The rich rulers bribe the poor for years, and now the rich exploit the poor with false hopes and dreams of peace in anarchy and destruction. Look at America. Have your votes stopped the slaughter of the unborn? Has your civic authority stopped marriage from being desecrated by adultery and divorce and perversions? Have any judges, any presidents brought more good than evil from their power? Put not your trust in princes!
Who has helped you? The doctors and scientists and modelers who made us so afraid of the disease, that not only have millions lost their livelihoods over irrational fear, but those who have power have actually stopped Christians from gathering together to think about each other and to encourage each other towards what is good, and they have even dared to tell us not to gather together unless we wear masks, and not talk to each other, and ignore Jesus who took the cup and said, “This cup is the New Testament in My blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Do this.”
Have your pleasures helped you? What good have past pleasures given you that lasts? God gives good things, but when we take earthly goods and do not desire what quenches the spirit’s parched tongue, we are rejecting what is good for what is evil. When we use the good God has given us without a thought toward Lazarus, especially the poor in the Church, does the love of God abide in us? We make what is good evil when we ignore the need of our souls for our desire for our body’s pleasure and health and safety. We ignore Lazarus at the gate when we ignore God, who spoke by Moses and the Prophets.
But there was a poor man, named Lazarus. And they laid him at the gate of a rich man. And he had sores all over his body. He had very little earthly good. God made the body, and the body is good, but he knew only its pain. What would you tell this poor man? How would you help him? No one cares about him. But his name is Lazarus. God is his helper. His bodily desires are never fulfilled on earth, because there is no fulfillment of the flesh’s desires. The flesh can’t be satisfied, because it doesn’t desire God or love or what is good. It desires the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and Old Adam continues to think that he is like God when he tastes sin, because he knows good and evil, and God would be evil to kill him and send him to hell for tasting what he feels and thinks and believes is good. Your flesh doesn’t desire help, and so your flesh doesn’t help others. The world is no better than it was 200 years ago. If anything, it is worse. The flesh thinks he is rich, and he is a fool for thinking it. He doesn’t realize that he is already in prison.
But there was a poor man Lazarus, whose desires weren’t fulfilled, whose flesh was crucified in repentance, whose best earthly friends were dogs who came and licked his sores. He received bad things on earth, but he went to heaven because God was his helper. There he received all good. He received the boldness in the Day of Judgment, because as Jesus was, so Lazarus was in the world.
And this is how we come to know what is good when our lives have been filled with evil. We know it when we are weak and when we know we are evil. We come to know love when we see no love in us, and no love around us that can save our souls. We come to know God when we confess that we deserve hell, we deserve to be away from the God we have pushed away time and again by our sins, by our love for only ourselves.
But it is to such Lazaruses that God draws near. It is to such Lazaruses that the angels draw near to carry to Abraham’s bosom. They do not rely on their earthly status. They don’t rely on their own righteousness. They can’t be satisfied with what falls from the world’s table. They are full of the sores of sin and guilt and shame and regret. They know that they brought nothing into this world, and it is certain they can take nothing out.
When we know our sin then we know that God has helped us. God is good because He helps poor, wretch, wicked sinners who are ungodly, who have pushed God away with their hearts, with their choosing what they feel is good instead of clinging to the true good, the true God, who has made us in His image to love, and love is good, but love is not the passions of our flesh; love is not satisfying our cravings; love is not our pride or our enjoying the company of people who like us; love is not our putting another person in his place or gaining glory over others because we were right and they were wrong. Love is God helping us.
And He has. There was a rich man, who became poor for us. He was laid in a manger, where animals had lately licked up their food. He was rich in His soul, but He became poor for us. He gave up all that He had so that He could carry our sicknesses and sins. His food was to do the will of the Father who sent Him. He was all good made flesh like ours, and His flesh was not sinful. He was spotless and clean, but He came to know the evil of our souls. He is life, but HE came to know our death. He is eternal pleasure, but He came to know our eternal pain.
We have thirsted for what is evil, but His thirst for our salvation led Him to carry in His body all our evil. He saw you alone, astray, choosing your own way that leads you away from love and God and all good. His heart was filled with pity. He was rich, and you were laid outside of heaven’s gate with no hope of entering in, but He did not ignore you. He saw you, and He joined you in your misery and poverty and shame.
He looked to the good that He came to win for you. It is the joy of rescuing you from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil. When he saw the dying flesh and souls of countless sinners, He saw what Abraham saw. He saw stars shining in heaven, because He came to redeem what His own hands had made. He came to bring good back and to destroy our evil, to redeem our fallen creation and lift it up to heaven. So hear the promise that Abraham heard and Lazarus believed.
Abraham saw that God would raise up believers in God. He saw that God would redeem men from hell and give them eternal life. Abraham believed that God was good. He believed that God gave him all that was good, that He forgave him because of the Savior He would send, who be his own seed and the Son of God. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to Him for righteousness. It was counted to Abraham for good. The good did not come from Abraham. The righteousness didn’t come from his obedience. The good came to Abraham from God in the promise, in the words He spoke that Christ fulfilled for Abraham, for Lazarus, and for you.
Abraham didn’t deny hell. He knew that hell is first felt in the conscience, where our sins accuse us, and we see that the devil really did defeat us, and we are powerless to gain what is good for ourselves. But God spoke and promised forgiveness, and Abraham believed, and Moses and the prophets wrote it down, and they still speak to sinners of the God who is love, who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.
We see good when we confess our evil, and Christ comes to us, where we are covered in sores, and there is no healing for them. The world’s medicines are as good as dogs licking our sores. No earthly pleasure can heal the pain of our souls. No food or drink can satisfy the soul’s tongue that needs the Holy Spirit, who is the water of life.
And it is the Holy Spirit whom Jesus pours into our hearts with the love with which He loved us. This water is poured in the word of life that Abraham believed. It is the word that Christ died for the ungodly, that the righteous suffered for the unrighteous that He might bring us to God, that it is not by our works or efforts, but by the grace and love of God that we draw near to God again today, having failed to be the Christians He called us to be, having stumbled and doubted, and sometimes even fallen back into sins from which He saved us, but His name is still Jesus, the Lord saves, and He calls us Lazarus, because He has come to help us again. He has come to lift us up out of the prison of judgment and make us sit in the heavenly places, where there is no sin because Christ has purged it all from our flesh by dying for it in His own flesh, and He is risen pure and perfect, and “it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 John 3:1) We will be pure and holy and free from all sins that vex us, and unaware of death that threatens us, and at peace and no longer fighting against unbelief and sin within us – that will all be gone, as we believe that is already all gone, because Christ has destroyed death and sin and conquered hell, and given us forgiveness of sins, a good conscience, and eternal life.
St. John says, “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17)
The Holy Spirit is not speaking of love that we perfect. He is speaking of the love that gives us boldness in the day of judgment. Whose love gives us boldness in the day of judgment? The love of God which He showed to us when while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The love He has for the whole world, that gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. The love that Moses and the Prophets testified to, which Christ fulfilled, as He said, “Whoever believes in Me shall not see judgment, but has passed from death to life.” John 5
So you have boldness in the day of judgment. You have boldness now in your conscience when you feel God’s judgment against you, and you can’t overcome your sins, and you feel as if the Law has put you in prison, and you can’t get out, but Jesus comes and He says, “What are you doing here to my Lazarus, Law? I fulfilled you. You have already said what you have to say to Me. Do not trouble this poor Lazarus. I am his helper, not you. And He breaks the bars of the prison, and the shackles of sin fall off of your soul, because He speaks words of Spirit and life, “I forgive you. You are clean. I have washed you in My blood in your baptism. Take, and eat what will satisfy you more than any rich man’s table. Take, and drink what will quench the parched tongue of your soul. Receive My righteousness, My good, and know that I see no evil in you. I already saw it in My suffering and death when I felt the flames of hell, but now I feel it now more because it is all gone. I am risen, and you will soon be to. Though you see your sin and feel death and hell in you, yet as I am, so you are. Believe it because it is true. You shine like the stars your father Abraham saw in the sky. You are clean and good and righteous and alive from the dead, and hell is closed to you, and heaven is open to you.
Dear Jesus, I pray You to keep me as Your Lazarus, that I may keep You as my helper. Keep me poor, that I may be rich in you. Keep me repentant, that I may believe and trust in you. Let me hear Moses and the Prophets speak of You rising from the dead. Let me know the Apostles’ testimony that you have fulfilled all that You promised Abraham. Then I will know all good, and evil will not frighten me. Then I will learn to love as You have loved me. Then I will hope for love to be perfected in Me as it is perfect in You. How my heart yearns within me! And when You decide to take me from this vale of tears to Yourself in heaven, send your angels to carry me to Abraham’s bosom, that I may rest until the resurrection of all flesh, when I will see You as You are, and I will shine like the stars in heaven with You as my only light and joy. Amen.
~Pr. Mark Preus