The Eternal Duration of Hell's Torments # 2

The Eternal Duration of Hell's Torments # 2

Therefore it is just with God that there should be an everlasting continuance of the punishment. Here is the greatest misery of the damned - that is, without redemption, or hope, or aid, forever!

(4.) It is just with God that the sinner should be punished with everlasting misery - because he chooses it, by refusing everlasting felicity. The purchase our Lord made by His death, is an everlasting blessedness, and God by His infallible promise assures us that all who sincerely believe and obey Him, shall be rewarded with Heaven forever. For all the wages of God in the last day, whether of love to the saints, or punishment to the wicked - are everlasting and run into eternity.

Now if God's tender and promises of everlasting glory are despised - then there is nothing left to be the sinner's portion, but everlasting misery. It is the fruit of his own choice, for it is certain that God will give to every man in the next world, that which he chooses in this. "I have set before you everlasting life, therefore choose life, that you may live!" He who chooses life shall have it. He who does not choose life, but willingly cleaves to his lusts - he in the outcome chooses death and hell, and he shall have it.

He who chooses sin, chooses it with all its attendants, misery and wrath, for they cannot be separated from it. Therefore, if he chooses sin for himself - it is just that he should have the consequence  of his own choice.

He who chooses God for his portion, shall forever enjoy Him. Is it not then just, that he who chooses misery - should forever lie under it?

Many say to God here, "Depart from us. We do not desire the knowledge of your ways!" It is just that God should say to such then, "Depart from Me into everlasting fire!"

There can be no complaint in hell against God, where the punishment, however so great it is, is nothing else but the fruit of a man's own choice. For he who chooses sin as his way, does by consequence choose sin's end - which is eternal hell and misery. If he falls into the hands of the living God - then he can
blame none but himself. It is the fruit of his own choice.

Here we see the folly of lost sinners. What greater folly can any be guilty of, than to indulge sin, and gratify lust, and neglect God and Christ, and all the means of grace? Is it not folly for a man to make himself eternally wretched and miserable by his own choice? This shall be the woe of the damned, that they chose it!

But you will say, did any man ever choose to be miserable? Yes, thousands, and tens of thousands - every man who knows there is a God, and that he has an immortal soul, and must give a final account to God for all that he does in this world. He knows that sin will end in eternal damnation - and yet indulges in sin and lust! Therefore he chooses to perish and to be miserable forever. He loves hell and death (Prov. 8:36). "All those who hate Me, love death." They love their sins and lusts and pleasures, that God has entailed death on, and therefore are said to love death.

Is it not folly to do that in respect to your souls, which your discretion abhors with respect to your bodies? You will not drink poison, though ever so sweet and pleasant, because there is death in it. Yet how does the witness of sin draw us to commit it, though there is hell and damnation wrapped up in it? Is it not folly to run the hazard of hell, for the satisfactions of your lusts? Is it not the greatest folly for any man to run the hazard of eternal torments - our of a fond desire for present sinful satisfaction?

Therefore, to cure the folly of these mischiefs, it is good to counterbalance our sinful desires with frequent thoughts of eternal realities.

I am not to live always. I may be in another world, before another Lord's Day comes. I must appear before the eternal God to give an account of all that I have done in the flesh. Can I dwell with everlasting burnings? Can I endure the endless wrath of incensed justice? Think of this, when you are about to please the flesh and gratify your lusts. Can I bear the wrath of God forever?

We are apt to think that a Sabbath and a sermon long, and wish they were ended. But how long will the miseries and torments of hell be? When once they begin, they shall never end - for there, conscience shall be a worm that never dies, and the wrath of God shall be a fire that never goes out. O! then, that you would endeavor to cure your present prevailing lusts, with the frequent forethoughts of the heat of the everlasting wrath of God! "For it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God!"

"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." (Matthew 25:46).

~Matthew Mead~

(The End)