[AI translation] Throughout the story of this rich man in the parable, there is one terrible word, the word "he" - We have all felt the horror of this word in some form or other: too late! For example, when we had an urgent journey to make, but arrived at the station a few minutes, or even a few moments, late, and looked helplessly at the moving train, which was speeding away, out of reach. We thought with embarrassed self-reproach why we hadn't left even a minute earlier, or why we hadn't hurried more. It was only a few moments before we could have reached it. But too late! Of course, one can take comfort in the fact that one can wait for the next train and, although late, arrive where one was going.But there are also delays in our lives that cannot be made up for so easily, that cannot be made up for! I knew someone who had been angry with his father for many years, always putting off reconciliation, until one day he received a letter from his village telling him that his father had died unexpectedly. The boy was tormented by immense self-reproach. Now he could no longer talk to his father, never to tell him what he had been preparing to tell him for so long. He had a painful unfinished business that would haunt him for the rest of his life. It's forever too late for a reconciliation! I was once called to the hospital to see a dying man. I was giving a Bible study. I finished it quickly and left for the hospital. When I entered the ward, at that moment the patient was suffering. I was too late! - Maybe I was called late, or did the patient remember late that he wanted to say something else? Anyway! But it pained me to know that this delay could never be made up for. But of all delays, the most agonizing is the delay in the story of the rich man in the parable. Almost all the hellish agony of this wretched man could be expressed and adequately expressed in this one desperate cry: too late! This man is forever too late for something that could have meant life for him. Too late to repent!
Look at him! When he saw Lazarus far away, in his heavenly bliss, and himself in the most terrible torment, that is, when the whole weight of his whole misguided life was torturing him like a hellish torment, he begins to do something that he had not done in his earthly life, that he had failed to do in his earthly life: he prayed. And he prayed, begging for mercy! Behold, we read, "Father, have mercy on me!" It is the most beautiful prayer, because it contains a profound sense of my own unworthiness, and I know that I am a lost, wretched life, with no merit, nothing to do to save it, except to beg and try to cling to God's grace! "Father, have mercy on me!" prayed this soul, who now so clearly saw her own misery and lostness! In the same way, in almost the same words, as the blind beggar on the road to Jericho. Remember? He cried out to Jesus with the same prayer: 'Son of David, have mercy on me!' And the Lord had mercy on one of them. On the other - I hardly dare say it - no! Why? Because they prayed the same way, with the same heart, the same soul, even - with the same words! But however similar the two prayers may be, there is a whole world of difference between them. A whole world indeed! For the great difference between them is that one of them - the blind one - is spoken in this world, and the other - the rich one - in the other world! If only he could have begged like that, at least then, on death's doorstep, it would not have been too late! For we know of a case in which a really great sinner, an evil-doer, with the guilt of murder on his soul, in the last moments of his life, reached out with a soft sigh for mercy, and Jesus said to him, "Today you will be with me in paradise!" Then there would have been grace even for him! But now it's too late! LATE ! - Anyone who thinks of begging for God's forgiving mercy when the gates of death have closed behind him, with all his attempts at a new beginning, his reflection, his repentance, runs into the terrible fact that this word means: LATE !
Do you feel how unmistakably Jesus is making it known here that there is a limit where the time of grace ends and the time of judgment begins?! There are all kinds of occult teachings that after death man takes on flesh again and through some of these repeated lives he is perfected until he reaches the highest life. Or there are vain teachings that one can atone for earthly sins in some kind of purgatory even after death. Jesus, the only one who came from that world and who alone can give an authoritative teaching on it, says most emphatically that God's grace is either accepted or rejected. And he has the time and opportunity to do so only here and now, in this life on earth! As we read in the Word, "And first of all there is a great difference between us and you, so that they that would pass from hence unto you cannot go, neither can they pass from thence unto us."-All other teaching is only to silence the awakening conscience and deceive those who trust in Him.
How this wretched parable-rich man covets the pardoning grace of God! "Forgive Lazarus," he begs, "that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame."-Oh, with what a burning thirst he longs for forgiveness of sins! For forgiveness of sins alone! For, brethren, when an accusing conscience burns one, when the flames of guilt torment a soul, nothing avails! Neither denying it or trying to forget it, nor psychologically analyzing it. Not even trying to make amends. Only one thing can bring true relief to this tormenting flame: the forgiving grace of God!
Oh, how precious, how more important than anything else, can this forgiveness be, if a soul in a torment of repentance is so desperate to taste even a drop of it! Only a drop, only as much water as is on the finger-tip when one dips it in the water. - But even that is not enough for one who is too late to feel thirsty! Jesus once said, "If anyone drinks of the water that I give him, he will never thirst forever!" And if a man drinketh not of the water that I give him, he shall never quench his thirst for evermore! The greatest of all afflictions, then, is when one is too late in developing this thirst, too late in coming to God, too late in clinging to Christ. Too late, when it is no longer available to him! Do we realize what a privilege it is that Jesus still cries out to us today, "Let him who is thirsty come, and whoever wants to, let him take the water of life freely!" What would this rich man of the parable have given for that! Surely he would have gladly given his whole earthly life of wealth to have heard this divine call one more time.
So even with the most depraved life you can come to Jesus before it is too late! Let me also tell you now how a man can most surely come to Jesus. How can God's forgiving grace, which we talk so much about, become a truly liberating, life-renewing experience for him? As the Apostle James exhorts us in the Bible: 'Confess your sins to one another, that you may be healed. Confess! This is very different from simply telling your problems, talking to the person yourself, confessing what is on your heart. Every person longs to talk to someone, to tell someone about their difficulties. But that is not what the apostle says: "confess your sins". It is one thing to tell my problems, the burden of my soul, and another thing to confess my sins. One is pleasant, the other is extremely difficult for me. I have a longing in my soul for the one, and my self is in me to the end against the other. Because to confess something always means to accept the sin as a sin and to expose it ruthlessly! I confess: that is, I express that I no longer enter into solidarity with that sin, that I no longer cherish it, that I no longer warm it. To confess, is to express the readiness to confront it. Sin loves darkness, it loves cover. Therefore, when I confess, I have, as it were, betrayed the evil within me, exposed its work! And before God! Before a God who hates sin!
Confessing sin is difficult because there is no room for error. There, each one comes before God with his own individual sin, each one brings his own personal account. If someone really wants to be healed, if he really wants to start a new life, he should not excuse himself, he should not accuse anyone else, he should not confess the other person's sin, he should not look for an excuse, but he should confess his sins, all that God judges to be sin in him! It is very good to confess our sins to one another, to an understanding, praying brother or sister in faith, and in the presence of God. The presence of such a brother or sister makes the sinfulness of sin and the presence of the invisible God more real, almost tangible, than the difficult act of confessing sin. It helps to make us feel that God is not an idea, not a thought, but a living reality. He is as personally present, as all-hearing, as the helping brother beside me. That is why the apostle says, confess your sins to one another! And he adds; that you may be healed!
True confession of sins means to come unveiled and fully before God. And I know from experience that wherever such a confession is made before God, healing always takes place. This healing is exactly what the rich man of the parable longed for with such a thirst: the miracle of forgiveness, the liberating experience! Do you know what hinders the outpouring of God's forgiving power in the lives of many, many believers? It is that we do not dare or do not want to confess them! And once one has confessed, there is no longer any obstacle to the healing power of Jesus' redemptive death and resurrection flowing in to take hold of forgiveness. More correctly, forgiveness of sin takes hold of him and carries him away. When you confess your sins, forgiveness becomes a reality, because then you know what God forgives for the merit of Jesus.Confessing sin is nothing less than the unsealing of the sick wound of our lives, bringing them under the healing rays of divine grace. Then the forgiving love of God heals and heals what was sick, what was hurting, where life was bleeding! By confession of sin, we put ourselves into the great love of God that restores!
For it is by God's forgiveness that we are healed! That God forgives all the wickedness we have confessed as if it had never been, as if it had never existed! He wipes it out of our lives, He frees us from its burden, its memory, its accusation, its power! A few years ago a book was published. It says that a doctor has found that every memory has a specific place in the brain. In fact, with a very small operation, it is possible, in principle, to remove that memory. But not practically! If it were possible, a lot of people would need that operation. Yet there is a doctor who can rid a person of all his tormenting thoughts and memories. He who comes to him with a sincere, true confession of sin, will find his conscience freed from all the burdens of which he has been so much tormented. Thus it is written in the Bible, "If ye confess your sins, faithful and just to forgive them, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin!"
That is what is not too late! With such a spiritual cleansing, one can begin a life anew - After such a great cleansing, one can live blessed and work among men. After such an experience of forgiveness of sins, it even happens that the redemptive power of Jesus begins to work physically: restlessness disappears, nerves calm down, excess stomach acid is eliminated, blood pressure normalizes, sleep at night becomes restful, people are healed of unexplained illnesses. Because their lives are made right with God, the eternal order!
The whole tragedy of this parable of the rich is contained in this single word: too late! It's too late for him! It is not too late now! With all the wickedness of your life, come to Him, to Jesus, confess everything honestly, so that you may be healed by the power of His forgiving grace! Today you can cry out, "Father, have mercy on me!"
Amen
Date: 23 April 1967 Evangelization