When in the hour of utmost need We know not where to look for aid; When days and nights of anxious thought, No help or counsel yet have brought
Lord, for our sins hide not Your face; Forgive us through Your boundless grace. Be with us in our anguish still, Free us at last from every ill For Jesus’ sake. Amen.
The story is told of a king who reigned for more than 70 years. Many of his subjects knew no other king. They were born, lived, and died all during his reign. But eventually, the great king died. At his funeral, when it was time for the sermon, you could have heard a pin drop. What was the preacher going to say upon the death of this long time king? What could he say? He opened his mouth and said, “In the hour of death, only God is great.”
In the hour of death, only God is great. I might add, in the hour of death, only God is God. And in the hour of death, nothing is more important than the Word of God and faith in that Word. This is not more evident anywhere in the Bible than when Jesus was talking about the rich man and Lazarus. On the surface, this rich man appeared great. He habitually dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. In contrast, a beggar by the name of Lazarus was laid regularly at his gate. Covered with sores, Lazarus longed to satisfy his hunger with anything that might fall from the rich man’s table. Poor Lazarus couldn’t even keep the dogs away. They would come and lick his sores, adding insult to injury. The rich man looked like he had everything. Lazarus seemed to have nothing.
Someone once told the movie mogul Louis B. Mayer, “You can’t take it with you.” He said: “Then I won’t go.” But no one has that option. The Bible says, very simply, the rich man died and was buried. All of his possessions were left to someone else. All of his pretenses were swept aside. In the hour of death, only God is great. Still more, the rich man found himself undergoing torment in hell. You see, it won’t do for us to take comfort in the thought: “I’ve had a ball and if I check out tonight, it’s OK.” In death, you and I will face a holy God who alone is great.
Once again, notice the contrast between the rich man and Lazarus. Angels, servants of the great God, carried Lazarus to heaven, called “Abraham’s side.” It’s interesting that, except for Abraham, Lazarus is the only person named here. His name means, “God furnishes help,” and in his case, God did just that. Truly, in the hour of death, only God is great.
Further, in the hour of death only God is God. Before she gave birth to Jesus, the virgin Mary sang of the God Who scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts; Who puts the strong down and lifts up the lowly; Who fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty. This is exactly what God did with the rich man and Lazarus. But the rich man still didn’t quite get it. He saw Abraham and Lazarus far away. So he asked Abraham to have Lazarus come and cool him off, just a bit, from the fires of hell, as if Lazarus was supposed to be serving him! Abraham answered, “Remember, son, you had good things in your life, while Lazarus had his misery. Now he is comforted here, while you are suffering.”
So, is this saying everyone is entitled to some share of pleasure, and people should simply have the sense to pick the eternal kind instead of the temporary? No. All people are sinners and no one deserves anything good from God. You don’t and neither do I. Earlier, Jesus had said: “Blessed are you that hunger now, for you will be satisfied” and “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” That is, the rich who rest content with what they can give themselves, instead of what God wants to give them, end up getting exactly what they want, paltry and fleeting as it is. Security, false security, brings many vices. People with this kind of security don’t repent. They don’t fear God’s judgment. They spend little or no time even thinking about God. Their whole existence gets wrapped up in themselves, like the rich man who ignored poor Lazarus while he was enjoying one feast after another. We see ourselves in the rich man. The fact is, anything in which we are rich, as one scholar put it – anything that makes our lives more spacious and fascinating – can come between us and God. It could be money or prestige. It could be intelligence, the esteem of others or the work of our hands – anything.
In the hour of death, only God is God. At that time, everyone will want to be in good with Him. But for many people, it will be too late. Abraham told the rich man in hell about a wide chasm. It is “fixed between us and you,” Abraham said, so that people in heaven cannot cross over to hell, and those in hell cannot somehow sneak into heaven.
The way to heaven is not once we die. It is here and now. For finally, in the hour of death nothing matters except the Word of God and faith in that Word. The rich man wanted Abraham to assign Lazarus another errand: “Send him to my father’s home for I have five brothers to warn so they do not also come to this place of torture.” Abraham said, “They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them.” “No, father Abraham,” the rich man said, “but if someone comes to them from the dead, they will repent.” Abraham answered, “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone should rise from the dead.”
“Moses and the prophets” was a nickname for the Old Testament, (the Scripture) at that time. The point is obviously to heed the Word from God, and not only when it is convenient or when doing so makes you look good even though you’re really puffed up all the while with false security. God’s Word is a life-and-death matter. In the hour of death, nothing is more important. But the Old Testament is a pretty big book, filled with laws no one can keep. What specifically was it in the Old Testament that the rich man’s five brothers should have been listening to? What could save them? What saved Lazarus?
We can pick up a clue from what Jesus said. He did not say Lazarus went to “heaven,” using that very word. Recall that he said Lazarus was carried to Abraham’s side, literally “Abraham’s bosom.”
What’s so special about the Old Testament patriarch Abraham? Abraham had faith in God’s promise, most of all the promise “in you [or “in your Seed”] shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Abraham knew that a blessing big enough to cover all the families of the earth could not originate with him; it had to come from no one other than God Himself. Yet it would come through Him – through One of His descendents: a Man Who would also be God. In other words, Abraham believed in Jesus Christ some 2,000 years before Jesus was born. Jesus is the One of Whom Moses and the prophets wrote. “You search the Scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life,” Jesus said, “and it is they [the Scriptures] that bear witness to Me.” In the hour of death, nothing matters but the Word that bears witness to Jesus, because no one can save you from death and hell except Jesus.
Jesus told people about the rich man and Lazarus while He was en route to Jerusalem. There, as He knew, He was going to be put to death on a cross. He had to die, according to the will of God. Yet He died innocently, not for any wrong He had done. He was dying as our Substitute, yours and mine. Hanging on that cross, He was answering for your smug security, your lack of concern about God, and your refusal to care for others, as well as mine. Jesus paid for every kind of wrong that characterized the rich man, and all the rest of human sin, too. He paid in full. He paid for you.
The hour of death is the time when your need and mine is perhaps laid most bare, even for ourselves to see. But at all times, only Jesus Christ is great. Only He could pay for our sin, and He did it. At all times it is Jesus Christ Who is God, and there’s none other. God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, He brought the love of God Himself to bear on our plight of guilt and death, and went to the cross to save us. At all times, nothing is more important than the Word of God which tells you about Him, and your faith in that Word.
Dr. E. V. Rieu, a distinguished classical scholar known for his translating ability, was asked at age 60 to render into English the four Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Although he had been a lifelong agnostic, he agreed to do it. At the time, his son said, “It will be interesting to see what father makes of the four Gospels. It will be even more interesting to see what the four Gospels make of father.” As it turned out, Rieu was converted. Interviewed about his translation of the Gospels, he agreed that “the whole material was extraordinarily alive.” He added, “My work changed me. I came to the conclusion these words bear the seal of the Son of Man and God.”
Dr. Rieu died almost 30 years ago. He knew well from his translating work on the rich man and Lazarus, “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone should rise from the dead.” In fact, someone did rise from the dead: Jesus Christ Himself. The same power that raised Him is packed into His Word today! God’s Word is not merely God having spoken, but God still speaking, calling into being things that do not exist, such as faith in your heart. God’s Word is not mere communication. It’s transportation; it brings you Christ and all His gifts. He went through the tortures of hell so you don’t have to. He rose from the dead to tell you your sin and guilt is put away as far as the east is from the west.
God’s Word brought these gifts to Dr. Rieu. Through the Word, he got the gift of faith before the hour of death came. You’re going to die, too. In the hour of death only God is great, and only God is God. Therefore, nothing is more important for you than the living and life-giving Word of God. By the power of the Holy Spirit, believe it! Amen.
LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for Otober 14, 2001 “In the Hour of Death” 69-05
ANNOUNCER: I’m Mark Eischer of Lutheran Hour Ministries. We have in the studio today Dr. Jeff Gibbs, professor of the New Testament and Greek at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. Dr. Gibbs the prophet Amos says, “Woe to you who are complacent in Zion.” What does it mean to be complacent?
GIBBS: That’s a good question, Mark. I think about it this way: Although God is a God of comfort and He wants to give great comfort to His people, He does not always call us to be comfortable. That along with His comfort, He gives power to reach out and love, to care for those He has asked us to administer to. To be complacent is to just soak up what we can get and be unwilling to carry out the calling and love and service to others which He has asked us to do.
ANNOUNCER: Now, someone who is complacent is self-satisfied and smug in the way they deal with others, right?
GIBBS: Yes. We’ve all heard this classic phrase, “turned in on themselves.” That’s complacency, and God will not allow it.
ANNOUNCER: To whom was the prophet Amos speaking back then, and to whom is he speaking today?
GIBBS: That’s a crucial question because it raises the issue of the relationship between the Old Testament Word of God and the New Testament Word of God. Back then, Amos’ message was to the people of God, the nation of Israel, and especially as we read carefully in chapter 6, the leaders. It’s the leaders – the priests, the wealthy, the nobles — who are to care for God’s people, especially the poor, the widows and orphans and they are not doing it. Now, if we’re going to ask the question to whom is He speaking today, we take that Old Testament message and run it through Christ, we understand it — through Christ — so that the message of Amos for today is not to a nation like modern Israel, but to Old Testament people of God and New Testament people of God. Old Testament people trusting in God waiting for the Messiah, both Jew and Gentile in the Old Testament time — New Testament people of God, both Jew and Gentile — all who place their trust in Christ the Messiah who has come.
ANNOUNCER: But the prophet is offering this stern warning to those leaders, people in positions of responsibility, who are not looking out for others. That’s a stern word of law, then and now. Where is Christ in this? Where is the Gospel in the book of Amos?
GIBBS: That’s another very good question. It doesn’t come for awhile, although there are hints of it. It’s because the people weren’t repenting. The prophet Amos is willing to give unrelenting law until he sees the broken and contrite heart. He does offer a beautiful full paragraph of Gospel at the very end of the book. He talks about the day when the fallen booth of David will come, which is his way of talking about the people of God rebuilt. St. James, the leader of the Jerusalem church, picks up on this in Acts 15. He says, “Now with the preaching of Good News in Jesus Christ, the Son of David, Israel’s fallen booth, is being rebuilt as the Gentiles stream in and trust in the Messiah promised so long ago.”
ANNOUNCER: So, the prophet Amos is not only looking forward to the coming of Christ. He’s really awaiting the day when we are brought into the church; the day we are brought to faith in Christ.
GIBBS: God’s love, Mark, is unrelenting. He seeks the lost and as long as He allows this world to continue, this is what He will do. Turn to Me and live. Trust in Me. Come to me. That’s His Old Testament message. That’s the promise of the New Testament faith we hold now, given in the book of Amos.
ANNOUNCER: Thank you. We’ve been talking with Dr. Jeff Gibbs, professor of New Testament and Greek at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis.