Luke 16:25-28
v. 25: 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.” Sinners are now called upon to remember; but they do not, they will not, they find ways to avoid it. But in eternity, memory becomes a torment. Abraham’s words reveal the justice of God: each received their portion in life, and now justice demands the reversal. v. 26: “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.” But the damned in hell shall not have the least abatement of their torment. In this world, blessed be God, there is no gulf between a state of nature and grace; we may pass from sin to God. But if we die in our sins, there is no coming out. The chasm is fixed—not by arbitrary decree, but by the settled character and choices that led each to their eternal destiny. v. 27–28: The rich man 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.” The rich man had five brethren, and would have them stopped in their sinful course; their coming to that place of torment would make his misery the worse, who had helped to show them the way thither. How many would now desire to recall or to undo what they have written or done! Yet even this concern for his brothers springs from selfish motives—to lessen his own anguish. –
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