1. Did you know that there were two Lazarus stories? This is the “fictional” one that Jesus tells to prove a point. The other one is when Jesus raises His friend from the dead…
2. High contrast here: rich guy who’s decked out to the nines and a poor guy who gets his sores licked, hoping to go through the rich guy’s trash for some food.
3. Interesting phrasing…”Abraham’s side.” Where’s that, do you think?
4. The rich guy went to Hades (which was really just the Greek word for hell…keep in mind that the Gospels were written in Greek). Interesting that he could see Abraham and Lazarus from hell.
5. His experience in hell is described as “agony.” I don’t want to know what that feels like. Interesting that this dude still doesn’t really treat Lazarus with respect. He just wants to use him to get a taste of water.
6. I think Abraham definitely explains the finality of hell. Once you’re there, you have no opportunity (because of this “chasm”) to go to the other side.
7. Also, we see that the rich man doesn’t have the ability to speak to his loved ones who are still on earth. He wants Lazarus to do it for him. Whether he can do it for him or not, we don’t know. But we DO know that Abraham (and since Jesus is the story-teller, Jesus) thinks that it isn’t necessary to get messages from the afterlife. All that is necessary is to listen to “Moses and the Prophets,” aka God’s Word. This is what we have. If we believe, we have life.
