Lazarus and the Rich Man Sunday School Lesson

Use this Lazarus and the Rich Man Sunday School lesson to talk to kids about Heaven and Hell.


Needed: Bibles

Lesson: (Note: Always allow students enough time to think about and to give their answers to the questions before clarifying the teaching.)

Ask students, If we believe in God and do the right things that God wants us to do, where do we go when we die? (Heaven.)

We get to go live forever in Heaven with God and Jesus and everyone else who believed in God and died. But what happens if we don’t believe in God we do the wrong things that God doesn’t want us to do, then where do we go when we die? (Hell.)

It’s sad when people go to Hell because it’s not a very nice place. That’s why we try to tell people about God so that they can believe in God and go to Heaven and not have to go to Hell when they die.

(Have students take turns reading Luke 16:19-21, or read it yourself.)

So there are two men in this story. One is a poor man named Lazarus. The other is a rich man and we don’t know his name. The poor man, Lazarus, keeps begging the rich man to give him some food, or even some leftovers from the rich man’s dinner, but the rich man won’t give him anything. Do you think the rich man should give Lazarus some food and help him? (Yes.)

(Have students take turns reading Luke 16:22-24, or read it yourself.)

Where did the rich man go when he died? (Hell.)

Why do you think the rich man went to Hell? (Because He didn’t believe in God or do the right things that God wanted him to do, like helping the poor man, Lazarus.)

(Have students take turns reading Luke 16:25-26, or read it yourself.)

Can someone go from Heaven to Hell, or from Hell to Heaven? (No, the story says that people have to stay in Heaven or Hell. They can’t go from one to the other.)

(Have students take turns reading Luke 16:27-28, or read it yourself.)

What does the rich man want Abraham to do? (He wants Abraham to send someone from Heaven to go tell his brothers about God so that they can believe in God and go to Heaven when they die instead of going to Hell.)

Do you think Abraham will send someone down from Heaven to talk to the rich man’s brothers?

(Have students take turns reading Luke 16:29-31, or read it yourself.)

Abraham says that he won’t send someone back from Heaven to talk to the rich man’s brothers. Instead, Abraham says that the rich man’s brothers should believe who? (Moses and the Prophets.)

Moses and the Prophets are the people who wrote the Bible. Abraham is saying that people should believe the Bible and believe in God that way instead of wanting people to come down from Heaven to tell them about God.

That’s why we read the Bible in church. God gave us the Bible so we can learn about God and believe in God and know the right things that God wants us to do so that we can go to Heaven when we die and not Hell.

And we should do our best to tell other people what we learn about God in the Bible so that they can believe in God and go to Heaven when they die too.

Find more Sunday School lesson ideas on our Free Children Sunday School Lesson Helps page.