January 21, 2026

This coming Sunday I plan to preach on the story Jesus told of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). This passage is well known, but it is not a favorite text to preach on, nor one to listen to. It is weighty. This is one of several statements that Christ makes about the reality of hell. The doctrine of hell is often rejected because, we struggle with it. It is hard to grasp. Why is that? Why are we prone to be put off, or even offended by this doctrine?

Am I offended by this because my moral compass is more finely tuned than Christ? Do I have a more sophisticated sense of what is right and wrong than Christ? Is the teaching on hell beneath me and is now an embarrassing relic from an ignorant and by-gone era? I think you know the answers to those questions. To presume that I know more than Christ is a level of arrogance that reveals serious spiritual blindness.

Jesus taught on hell. The Bible states it and explains it. It is true and yet it is hard to really grasp, but not because my moral compass is more refined than Christ, but the opposite. My moral sensitivities are so crude that I fail to grasp how deeply offensive sin is to God and how great a debt that Christ paid for it.

In the history of the church, denominations and fellowships have tended to move away from embracing the doctrine of hell either through denial, or through neglect. What good is it to have a doctrinal statement if the doctrines in the statement are not taught on? So, while this text is not an easy one, it is a necessary one. I am comforted by the fact that the weight that I feel in preaching this cannot compare to the weight that Jesus felt when he first said this. Jesus said this because we needed to hear it and we need to take it to heart.

Pray that we all do.

Bob

Sunday’s text: Luke 16:19-31