Luke 16:23-31“In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire. But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your life-time you received good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’ He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ ‘No, Father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

No one teaches us more about hell and its horrors in the pages of the Bible than Jesus does. I don’t believe I need to go on and on about it for his warning to do its work and send us running to the cross for his grace and forgiveness. The first thing to note is the reality of the place. Jesus considered the existence of hell a given.

The second thing to note is the agony. You may have heard people joke that they don’t mind going to hell because that is where all the “fun” people are going to be. Make no mistake. No one in hell is having fun. “Torment” is not fun. Longing for the tiniest drop of water to cool your tongue is not fun. It’s not as though the rich man ate too many jalapenos at the fiesta.

The third thing to note is the permanence. The rich man’s situation could not be changed. No one could bring him relief. There was no escape from his fate, no undiscovered route to freedom, no end to his sentence. For the rich man it was too late. But Jesus is warning us before it’s too late, while we have time to know the love that forgives all our sins and trust the Savior who shows us such love.

The last thing Jesus’ parable teaches us is the reason why, the reason why the rich man and his kind end up in such a tragedy, and the way that we can avoid it. People in hell don’t become believers. They remain unbelievers. They can’t deny the reality of God, his ways, and the whole other spiritual world they never cared about before. But they aren’t suddenly filled with trust in God. They don’t even begin to agree with him. That is clear in the rich man’s reaction to his situation.

For him, Moses and the Prophets (a summary way of saying “the Bible,” the “Word of God” in Jesus’ day) was not enough. In life the rich man either didn’t pay attention to this word or he didn’t agree with it. Now, nothing has changed. He has no idea of the life-giving power in that word. He has no confidence that the record of God’s love for his people, the story of his ongoing rescue of the world, the promises of grace and forgiveness and life in his Son, will have any impact on his brothers. He wants a miracle, but he remains an unbeliever in what God has to say.

Miracles are of little use in overcoming unbelief. If Jesus’ ministry was filled with anything, it was filled with miracles. He spent entire days performing them, one after another after another. Still, his skeptics could see him at work, then look at him with a straight face and say, “Show us a miraculous sign to prove that we should listen to you.” Show us a sign? Just pick one! But the skeptic will always have an explanation for why the miracle isn’t real. Suspending the laws of nature doesn’t change hearts.

Listening to the words of the man who really did rise from the dead is the only thing that will. Today those words aren’t just our warning. They are our salvation. They are the light that opens our eyes. They speak the love that melts our hearts.

So listen to Moses and the Prophets, and Jesus and his Apostles. Then we will see. Then we will believe.