Not long ago, a man who had been an alcoholic told me that he had an accident that left him in a coma for ten days. He had a very high fever, so the doctors gave him antibiotics. Then his kidneys quit working. While lying in his hospital bed in a semiconscious state, the injured man heard the doctors say that they knew of nothing more they could do except to pray for him. This man said he realized then that he faced eternity.

A sermon he had heard shortly before the accident about the rich man and Lazarus kept going through his mind. The rich man was in hell begging for a drop of water for his tongue. The injured man explained how his thirst was a greater agony than the burning fever, which brought him into a coma. Every four hours he got a little piece of ice placed on his tongue, but the horror was to think how the rich man never got one drop of water for his tongue throughout all eternity! He expressed such amazement that he recovered and was still alive and in the day of grace: still under the good news of the gospel.

This man told me how his heart went out for his brothers who were still going on in the course of this world. He explained how the rich man asked Abraham to send Lazarus to speak to his brothers thinking they would hear if one were raised from the dead but "Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them," LUK 16:29.

What the Lord Jesus is saying is that the brothers have the law and the gospel. If they don’t hear that, they will not hear even Lazarus if he was raised from the dead. Then the man asked me, "Now it is as if I was the one raised from the dead, but how can I get to my brothers to hear? They still go on unheeding to the gospel!" It is as Jesus said in the parable of the rich man.

Think about this. You and I are still in the land of the living. We still have food and water. We still have the gospel! We still have Moses and the Prophets, i.e., the law, and the gospel, and Jesus said if we do not hear those, we would not hear even though one was raised from the dead

Oh beloved, if only the Lord would give us an ear to hear, if only He would show us that we still have a day of grace, if only He would help us to speak a word in season, it would be such a wonder of grace. The man with the five brothers desired that the Lord would help him to speak a word in season to his brothers who are yet on this side of the grave. This man said, when he was in a coma, the word "ETERNITY! ETERNITY! ETERNITY!" kept going through his heart like a dagger.

He saw that he faced eternity without a drop of water for his tongue in the fires of hell. This man understood what a burning, burning, burning thirst that was. Then to think of that for all eternity was more than he could bear.