The future state of those who reject in the life that now is the
redemption offered to them in Christ Jesus is plainly declared in the
Word of God to be a state of conscious, unutterable, endless torment
and anguish. This conception is an appalling one, but it is the
Scriptural conception. It is the unmistakable, inescapable teaching of
God's own word.
I wish that all men would repent and accept Christ. If any one could
show me one single passage in the Bible that clearly taught that all
men would ultimately repent, accept Christ and be saved, it would be
the happiest day of my life, but it cannot be found. I once thought
it could, and I so believed and taught. These ideas so widely noised
about to-day as something new, these theories of "Pastor" Russell,
formerly of Pittsburg, Mr. Gelesnoff of this city, and Dr. Mabie of
Long Beach, and Mr. Pridgeon of Pittsburg, and many others, are not at
all new to me. I held and taught substantially the same views regarding
ultimate universal salvation years before these men were heard of,
indeed nearly forty years ago. I was familiar with the arguments that
they now urge, and other arguments which they do not seem to know, but
which were to me more decisive than those that they urge. But the time
came, as I studied the Bible more carefully, when I could not reconcile
my teaching with what I found to be the unmistakable teaching of God's
Word. I had to do one of three things: I had to either give up my
belief that the Bible was the Word of God, or else I must twist the
words of Jesus (and others in the New Testament) to mean something else
than what they clearly appeared to teach, or else I must give up my
doctrine of ultimate universal restoration and salvation. I could not
give up my faith that the Bible was the Word of God, for I had found
absolutely overwhelming proof that it was God's Word. I could not twist
the words of Jesus and of others to mean something else than what was
clearly their intended meaning, for I was an honest man. There was only
one thing left to do and that was to give up my doctrine of universal
restoration and salvation. I gave it up with great reluctance, but
I was compelled to give it up or be untrue to my own reason and
conscience. It is the inescapable teaching of the Word of God that all
who go out of this world without having accepted Jesus Christ, will
spend eternity in hell, in a hell of unutterable, conscious anguish.
This Bible conception is also a reasonable one when we come to see the
appalling nature of sin, and especially the appalling nature of the sin
of trampling under foot God's mercy toward sinners, and rejecting God's
glorious Son, Whom in His love He has provided as a Saviour.
Shallow views of sin and of God's holiness and of the glory of
Jesus Christ lie at the bottom of weak theories of the doom of the
impenitent. When we see Sin in all its hideousness and enormity, the
Holiness of God in all its perfection, and the Glory of Jesus Christ in
all its infinity, nothing but a doctrine that those who persist in the
choice of sin, who love darkness rather than light, and who persist in
the rejection of the Son of God, shall endure everlasting anguish, will
satisfy the demands of our own moral intuitions. Nothing but the fact
that we dread suffering more than we loathe sin, and more than we love
the glory of Jesus Christ, makes us repudiate the thought that beings
who eternally choose sin should eternally suffer, or that men who
despise God's mercy and spurn His Son should be given over to endless
anguish.
If, after men have sinned and God still offers them mercy, and makes
the tremendous sacrifice of His Son to save them—if they still
despise that mercy and trample God's Son under foot, if then they are
consigned to everlasting torment, I cannot but say, "Amen! Hallelujah!
True and righteous are thy judgments, O Lord!"
At all events the doctrine of conscious, eternal torment for impenitent
men is clearly revealed in the Word of God, and whether we can defend
it on philosophical grounds or not, it is our business to believe
it; and leave it to the clearer light of eternity to explain what we
cannot now understand, realising that God may have many infinitely
wise reasons for doing things for which we in our ignorance can see
no sufficient reason at all. It is the most ludicrous conceit for
beings so limited and foolish as the wisest of men are, to attempt to
dogmatise how a God of infinite wisdom must act. All we know as to how
God is to act is what God has seen fit to tell us.
In conclusion, two things are certain. First, the more closely men
walk with God and the more devoted they become in His service, the
more likely they are to believe this doctrine. Many there are who tell
us they love their fellow men too much to believe this doctrine; but
the men who show their love in more practical ways than by sentimental
protestations about it, the men who show their love for their fellow
men as Jesus Christ showed His, by laying down their lives for them,
they believe this doctrine, even as Jesus Christ Himself believed it.
As Christians become worldly and easy-going they grow loose in their
doctrine concerning the doom of the impenitent. The fact that loose
doctrines are spreading so rapidly and widely in our day is nothing
for them, but against them, for worldliness is also spreading in the
church (1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 3:1; 4:2, 3). Increasing laxity of life and
increasing laxity of doctrine go arm in arm.
Second, men who accept a loose doctrine regarding the ultimate penalty
of sin, be it Universalism, Restorationism, or Annihilationism, or
that fantastic combination, or conglomeration, of them all, Millennial
Dawnism, lose their power for God. I have seen this proven over and
over again. These men may be and are very clever at argument, and very
zealous in proselyting, but they are seldom found beseeching men to
be reconciled to God. They are far more likely to be found trying to
upset the faith of those already won by the efforts of those who do
believe in everlasting punishment than trying to win men who have no
faith at all. If you really believe the doctrine of the endless torment
of the impenitent, if the doctrine really gets hold of you, you will
work as you never worked before for the salvation of the lost. If you
in any wise abate the doctrine, it will abate your zeal. Time and time
again I have come up to this awful doctrine and tried to find some way
of escape from it, but when I have failed, as I always have failed at
last, when I have determined to be honest with the Bible and myself,
I have returned to my work with an increased burden for souls and an
intensified determination to spend and be spent for their salvation.
Eternal, conscious suffering, suffering without the least ray of
hope of relief, awaits every one of you here to-night who goes on
persistently rejecting Jesus Christ, as you are rejecting Him to-night,
and who shall pass out of this world having rejected Him. In that world
of never ending gloom there will be no possibility of repentance. As
you look out into the future there will not be one single ray of hope.
"Forever and ever" will be the unceasing wail of that restless sea of
fire. After you have been there ten million years and look out toward
the future you will see eternity still stretching on and on and on and
on, with no hope. Oh, men and women out of Christ, why will you risk
such a doom for a single year, or a month, or a week, or a day? Hell
is too awful to risk for five minutes the chance of going there. There
is but one rational thing for you to do, that is to accept Christ and
accept Him _right now_ as your Saviour, surrender to Him as your Lord
and Master, confess Him as such before the world, and strive from this
time on to please Him in everything day by day. Any other course is
utter madness.