Listen very carefully to this message – it is all that God has to say to you. What you do with this message will decide where you spend eternity. Don't you want to be persuaded that there is a Saviour who will save your soul, and forgive your sin, and make you his own? Don’t’ you want him to change your life, and bring you to love him? Doesn't creation persuade you that there is a wonderful divine Designer and Creator, and one day you have got to look him in the face. Don't your instincts tell you there is an afterlife, and you better prepare for it even now? Haven't you spoken to others who have been saved, and they tell you that salvation is real? Can nothing convince you? Is your heart so hard? You better pray tonight, ‘Lord, soften my heart. Lord, take these chains away from me, which bind me and shackle me on my journey to hell.’ Ask that you may see truth and not go on just looking at the externals. Don't throw your life away. Repent before it's too late to seek the Lord. Put all your energy into it while you are still alive to ask him to forgive you and make you his child. And he will if you mean that prayer with all your heart.
Do you really know Christ? Have you really sought him? Have you asked him to wash you and forgive you? Have you prayed to him earnestly to be converted, and meant it? If not, remember this: that your whole life is a message to God. It doesn't matter what you say: your deeds are a message to God and they are casting your vote, choosing for you your eternal destiny. If only you would cry out to him before it's too late. If you do, here is the wonder of it: you will find he has already made provision for you and taken your sin upon himself. Think about heaven and hell, about eternity. Cry to him with all your heart, asking for pardon, and all the power of God will come into your life.
Lazarus knew the eternal glories because he knew the Lord on earth, and he had sought him, and asked to be forgiven. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ came and suffered and died on the cross of Calvary to bear in his own body the punishment which was due to us for our sins. The rich man had never been moved to turn to Christ. If he had ever asked for pardon and forgiveness, Christ would have arranged to have taken upon himself all the agony which he was now experiencing in hell and was due to suffer for all eternity. All the remorse, the pain, the despair would have been put upon him on Calvary's cross, so that he could wash him clean. If only he had cried out to the Lord before he died, just one genuine cry. ‘Lord, forgive me. Look at the wretchedness of my life; look at the arrogance of it; look at the sensuality of it, and the avarice. Look at it, O God. Can there be forgiveness for one such as me?’ One earnest cry to the Lord, and he would have been safe. But he goes to hell, and he has never prayed earnestly in his life before. Is that true of you? You have never bowed your head in prayer, and been willing to relinquish those sins that will prevent your prayer from being answered. Perhaps you have muttered the Lord's Prayer at various times in public, but you've never prayed one heartfelt genuine prayer to God in your life. You've never felt a pang of conviction. You have never gone to him and said, ‘Lord, forgive me, receive me, bless me.’