Stories about wealth always seemed to attract the attention of the Pharisees, because they loved money (Luke 16:14) and despised those who were poor.  So, the beginning of this parable fitted their comfort zone nicely, although they did not know that the story would have a sting in its tail for them.  The scene is set: the rich man was flaunting his wealth and had no care for the future or for anybody else; but the poor man was suffering with a skin disease and was hungry with only dogs to comfort him.  Although the rich man had more than enough food, he would not share it with the beggar,

Adventure stories often include some impossible barrier which has to be overcome for the hero to survive: locked doors, ravines, crevasses, or wide fast-flowing rivers.  Somehow, in the fiction and against all logic, a solution is found and the main character wins through.  Such fiction does not translate to eternal life.

This world was created perfectly, and so were the first man and woman.  But since sin gained a foothold, it has become a deadly endemic disease affecting everybody (Romans 5:12).  It is like a virus, which infects and corrupts its victim and then multiplies within the person before being widely spread to others.  The consequences of sin are seen everywhere, and temptations to sin abound (1 John 2:16).  But although Jesus knew the depraved state of human society, He intentionally came to bring God’s light into a dark world (John 3:19-21), to bring people back to God (1 Peter 3:18).  

Jesus had just told His disciples to keep on forgiving others who repented of their sins against them - even if they sin and repent seven times a day (Luke 17:4).  The trainee apostles did not think they had enough faith to do that!  So Jesus taught them that faith was not generating the energy to do what might be possible, but achieving the impossible through His command.  The most difficult problem is to see a self-contented person saved into God’s kingdom (Matthew 19:23-26).