And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous
into life eternal.--_Matt. 25, 46._
Truth, my beloved, never changes; it is always the same. What was
true 1900 years ago, is true to-day; what is true to-day, will be
true 1900 years to come. And this is emphatically so with regard
to heavenly truth. There is no new revelation in religion. What
the Bible taught of old, it teaches now; we have no new Bible. The
Christian faith, like its Founder, is the same yesterday, to-day,
and forever. Thank God that it is so; that among the ever-changing
things of earth, the constantly fluctuating and shifting ideas and
opinions of men, firmer than the Rock of Gibraltar, more solid than
the mountains, there stands the Word of our God. And this pertains
also to the doctrine which this day's Gospel prominently sets before
us, the doctrine of future punishment.
It is only recently that the public prints quoted the minister of
a prominent church as saying: "Modern Christianity has happily
grown away from the old traditional doctrine of hell. The Church
no longer believes in a place of literal fire and brimstone, into
which all unbelievers are cast for an eternity of torment. Even
the most rigid orthodoxy allows wide latitude of belief in the
problem of future punishment." Such utterances are very prevalent,
and have caused untold confusion of thought. The matter, however,
is very simple. It is not a question of what some certain minister
thinks, however prominent he may be; neither are we to be guided
by what modern Christianity thinks, for modern Christianity ought
not think and believe differently from ancient Christianity, since
Christianity ought to be ever the same; nor are we concerned what
was the old traditional doctrine, since tradition is not, nor has
it ever been, a criterion for us. The only determining factor in
this, as in all articles of our religious belief, is, What saith the
Scripture? Nor may it be superfluous, in approaching the subject
of to-day's instruction, to warn against another element, which is
sentimentality. Sentiment in its place and sphere is noble and good;
but it must remain within its place and sphere. When it comes into
conflict with God's teaching, or when it sets itself against the
teachings of God's Word, and, because it cannot think or feel how
a loving and righteous God could do or permit certain things, then
sentiment degenerates into sickly sentimentality, becomes ignoble
and sinful. We must never allow our emotion to outrun our sober
reason, and, least of all, to set itself against the statements of
religion and the arrangements of a holy and all-wise God.
And what is that arrangement in respect to the future? Two main
thoughts would we dwell upon at this time: _I. Hell, what is
it?--its nature. II. How long does it last?--its duration._
Whenever a general in war wishes to surprise his enemy, he seeks to
conceal himself from him, endeavors to make his antagonist believe
that he is not at all about, or that he is not as formidable as the
other might think. Just so the infernal enemy of men's souls seek
to delude them into the belief that there is no hell; that, at any
rate, it is not what some would make it out to be. Hell is within
you; it's the pinching of conscience in this life, or the misery
you have to endure here. At the most, it is not terrible, it is not
going to last forever; there is going to be a final and universal
restoration; all unbelievers will ultimately be delivered.
All this passes for naught. Whether there is a future life, and of
what sort that future life is--only one can positively tell us,
and that is God--I repeat, _positively_ tell us. Human reason and
philosophy have conjectured its probability or its possibility,
but as to its _certainty_, that we have exclusively from the book
of God's revelations--the Bible. And the Bible tells us, in plain,
unmistakable terms, as plainly as it tells us that there is a heaven
and a God, that there is a hell. To discredit it is to discredit the
Bible, to contradict our blessed Lord, to shut one's eyes willfully
against the truth, and what is it? Something within us--something
confined to this world? Never does the Bible so speak. Hell,
according to the Scriptures, refers always to the future. So in
the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. The rich man _died_, and
_then_, after his death, in hell, he lifted up his eyes. When this
life is over, the scenes of this world have faded upon their vision,
then, for the unrepentant and unsaved, comes hell.
And what is it? To give it with one word--punishment. "These,"
declares the eternal Judge, "shall go away into everlasting
punishment." This punishment is twofold; it is outward and it is
inward. Man consists of body and of soul; both are the instruments
of his guilt and condemnation; both receive the just reward of
their deeds. Whenever Scripture speaks of future punishment, it
uses expressions like these: "darkness, blackness of darkness,
thirst, fire, lake burning with fire and brimstone." The Gospel
parable represents the rich man begging for a drop of water to cool
his tongue. It has been said that this is nothing but imagery,
mere drapery, pictorial embellishment; but it is _true_. Imagery
and the figure are always less terrible than the reality. It may
be idle curiosity to speculate as to whether this fire which the
Bible speaks of is material fire, how God can support life in the
burnings of hell,--though we know that He sustained the companions
of Daniel in a hot furnace in the days of King Nebuchadnezzar whose
image they would not worship. Waiving all such questions as to the
nature of the fire, the place where it is, and the extent to which
it is inflicted, the fact that Scripture almost always employs the
idea of fire to express the sufferings of hell leads one to believe
that there unhappy sufferers literally endure torments like those
which men burning in flames feel; and without running into all sorts
of revolting descriptions, so much is plain: Hell is pain, acute
sensation of the body, the sense of feeling physical suffering; and
coupled with this outward punishment is the _inward_ anguish of
mind, remorse of conscience. Thus, in the parable, Abraham speaks to
the rich man, "Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst
thy good things." Memory will be a dreadful source of misery.
Here, again, we shall not enter upon any speculations as to the
workings of mind and conscience in future retributions, but we know
what agony remorse of conscience occasions in this world. It has
made strong men tremble, it has smitten the knees of Belshazzar
together in the midst of his pleasure. It has forced many a one
to confess his misdeed, to give evidence against himself, and
seek punishment to escape its excruciating agony. Terrible is an
awakened conscience, and yonder it shall be fully awakened. It
will have to do homage to an offended and avenging God; be obliged
to say to itself, You are the author of your own punishment, you
suffer for your own sins. The recollection of his selfishness, his
uncharitableness, sensuality, of possessions, and of opportunities
abused and misspent, as in the case of this rich man in the
parable, will cause him keen and tormenting self-reproach. Anguish,
inward and outward, and all this aggravated by the society, the
companionship about them. Imagine the associates in yonder accursed
place! No wonder that the unfortunate subject of to-day's parable
plaintively pleads: "I pray thee, father, that thou wouldst send
Lazarus to my father's house; for I have five brothers, lest they
also come into this place of torment." The thought, not that of
pity,--for pity and sympathy are unknown in hell,--but of increasing
his misery, knowing how much he was guilty toward them in leading
them astray by scoffing word and lewd example,--it was this that
wrung from his lips this plea. How awful such association! How
dreadful it is all!
So much as to the first particular, what hell is: outward and inward
punishment in the society of the damned. And such punishment, it is
further revealed here, is ceaseless in its duration. Many theories
are taught to the contrary. It is contended by some that this
punishment is only for a time, then follows annihilation of the
wicked, they cease to exist. Others, again, hold that all the wicked
will be finally restored to God's favor and heaven; that they are
now only in a state of trial and probation; that hell will come to
an end. I grant you that we would be very much inclined to believe
that if we could. But what say the Scriptures? There is not a single
word in all the Bible which indicates that there will be probation,
another chance, after death. As the tree falleth, so it lies. When
the sand has run out of the glass of life, there is no reversion
of the glass, the period of grace is gone. "There is a great gulf
fixed, says the Gospel, so that they which would pass from hence to
you cannot; neither can they pass to us that would come from thence."
What plainer words could be spoken: "These shall go away into
everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." Mark
the comparison,--everlasting punishment, life eternal. If you tamper
with, lessen the one, you do so with the other; the only thing in
fairness is to accept them thus strictly and expressly, meaning just
what they say. _Eternity_, that is the word which is written over
the portals of the blessed, over the place of the cursed.
Thus in its dread and awful solemnity have I set this subject before
you. Why? Because it is the duty of a faithful servant of God to
declare to his people the whole counsel of His Master, and do so
unreservedly. A much abused subject is the subject of "Hell,"--from
the playwright who works it up for public amusement, to the swearer
who uses it in his foul mouth to add poison and fury to his oath,
to the over-sensitive churchmen who treat the passages which treat
of hell like a waxen nose that they can twist and turn to suit, and
who would not recite in the Creed: "Christ descended into hell,"
since it sounds so bad. Over against these and all other perversions
it behooves us to vindicate the clear and unmistakable teaching of
the Bible. It is the Savior Himself who tells us to-day's parable,
who spoke the words of our text, and it is for us to believe and
declare what He says, to avoid all levity in the matter and all vain
speculation, and to give it its proper weight and place.
But above all, this dreadful subject is held up before us that we
may know how to escape the terrors portrayed. How? "God so loved
the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "He
has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won
me, that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom, and
serve Him in everlasting righteousness and blessedness." That is
the purpose of the Gospel. God wants none to perish, not one soul
has He destined to eternal perdition; He would have all men to be
saved. He has made every provision to save man from everlasting
doom. The terrors of yonder place magnify the riches of that grace
which in Jesus Christ delivers from it. Let us adore the wisdom, the
unspeakable mercy that would spare us from such a doom. Let us turn
to the Cross, employ the time of grace in faith and in wholesome
service and life,--
So whene'er the signal's given
Us from earth to call away,
Borne on angels' wings to heaven,
Glad the summons to obey,
May we ready, may we ready,
Rise and reign in endless day.
Amen.