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| The Invention of Hell |
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From Spurgeon's sermon 'The sympathy of the two worlds' You and I can never imagine all the depths of hell. Shut out from us by a black veil of darkness, we cannot tell the horrors of that dismal dungeon of lost souls. Happily, the wailings of the damned have never startled us, for a thousand tempests were but a maidens whisper, compared with one wail of a damned spirit. It is not possible for us to see the tortures of those souls who dwell eternally within an anguish that knows no alleviation. These eyes would become sightless balls of darkness if they were permitted for an instant to look into that ghastly shrine of torment. Hell is horrible, for we may say of it - eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man to conceive the horrors which God has prepared for them that hate him. From Spurgeon's sermon 'The hope of future bliss'. The righteous in heaven will be quite satisfied with the damnation of the lost. I used to think that if I could see the lost in hell, surely I must weep for them. Could I hear their horrid wailings, and see the dreadful contortions of their anguish, surely I must pity them. But there is no such sentiment as that known in heaven. The believer shall be there so satisfied with all of God's will, that he will quite forget the lost, in the idea that God has done it for the best, that even their loss has been their own fault, and that God is infinitely just in it. If my parents could see me in hell they would not have a tear to shed for me, though they were in heaven, for they would say, 'It is only just, great God; and your justice must be magnified, as well as your mercy' and moreover, they would feel that God was so much above his creatures that they would be satisfied to see those creatures crushed if it might increase God's glory. Oh! in heaven I believe we shall think rightly of 'men'. Here 'men' seem great things to us; but in heaven they will seem no more than a few creeping insects that are swept away in ploughing a field for harvest. From heaven's viewpoint, 'men' will appear no more than a tiny handful of dust, or like some nest of wasps that ought to be exterminated for the injury they have done. 'Men' will appear such little things when we sit on high with God, and look down on the nations of the earth as 'grasshoppers' and 'count the isles as very little things'. From Spurgeon's sermon, 'Resurrection From the Dead' 'Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell'- Matthew 10:28. Hell will be the place for bodies as well as for souls. There is a real fire in hell, as truly as you have now a real body- a fire exactly like that which we have on earth in everything except this - that it will not consume, though it will torture you. You have seen the asbestos lying in the fire red hot, but when you take it out it is unconsumed. So your body will be prepared by God in such a way that it will burn forever without being consumed. It will lie, not as you consider, in a 'metaphorical' fire, but in actual flame. Did our Saviour mean fictions when he said he would cast body and soul into hell? What should there be a pit for if there were no bodies? Why fire, why chains, if there were to be no bodies? Can fire touch the soul? Can pits shut in spirits? Can chains fetter souls? No! Pits and fire and chains are for bodies, and bodies shall be there. Unconverted man, you will sleep in the dust a little while. When you die your soul will be tormented alone - there will be a hell for it. But at the day of judgment your body will join your soul, and then you will have twin hells - body and soul shall be together, each brimfull of pain, your soul sweating in its inmost pore drops of blood, and your body from head to foot suffused with agony; conscience, judgment, memory, all tortured, but more - your head tormented with racking pains, your eyes starting from their sockets with sights of blood and woe; your ears tormented with shrieks; your heart beating high with fever; your pulse rattling at an enormous rate in agony; your limbs crackling like the martyrs in the fire, and yet not burned up; yourself, put in a vessel of hot oil, pained, yet coming out undestroyed; all your veins becoming a road for the hot feet of pain to travel on; every nerve a string on which the devil shall ever play his diabolical tune of Hell's Unutterable Lament; your soul for ever and ever aching, and your body palpitating in unison with your soul. From Spurgeon's sermon 'Profit and loss' 'What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole word, and lose his own soul?' - Mark 8:36. Consider WHERE the lost soul must go to - There is a place of murky darkness, where only lurid flames make darkness visible; a place where beds of flame are the fearful couches upon which spirits groan; a place where God Almighty from his mouth pours a stream of brimstone, kindling that 'pile of fire and of much wood', which God has prepared of old as a Tophet for the lost and ruined. There is a spot, whose only sights are scenes are fearful woe. There is a place - I do not know where it is; perhaps somewhere in a far-off world there is a place where the only music is the mournful symphony of damned spirits; where howling, groaning, moaning, wailing and gnashing of teeth, make up the horrid concert. There is a place where demons fly, swift as air, with whips of knotted burning wire, torturing poor souls; where tongues, on fire with agony, burn the roofs of mouths that shriek for drops of water- that water denied to all. There is a place where soul and body endure as much of infinite wrath as the finite can bear; where the inflictions of justice crush the soul, where the continual flagellations of vengeance beat the flesh; where the perpetual pourings out of the vials of eternal wrath scald the spirit, and where the cuttings of the sword strike deep into the inner man. Ah! sirs, I cannot picture this! Vain are my words; light are the things I utter. They are but the daubings of a painter who cannot portray a scene so dreadful, for earth has not colors black enough or fiery enough to depict it. Ah! sinners, if you knew what hell meant, then might you tell what it is to lose your own souls. 'For God did not appoint US to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ' - 1 Thes. 5:9 'The torments in hell are manifold' by Thomas Boston Suppose the case that a man had, at one and the same time in his body, all the various diseases and pains of mankind-- the torment of such a man would be but light in comparison of the torments of the damned. For, as in hell there is an absence of all that is good and desirable, so there is the confluence of all evils there; since all the effects of sin and of the curse take their place in it, after the last judgment - 'And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.' (Rev.20:14) There they will find a prison a prison they can never escape out of; a lake of fire, where they will ever swimming and burning; a pit, whereof they will never find a bottom. The worm that never dies, shall forever feed on them, as on bodies which are interred; the fire that is not quenched shall devour them, as dead bodies which are burned. Their eyes shall be kept in blackness of darkness, without the least comfortable gleam of light; their ears filled with frightful yellings of the infernal crew. They shall taste nothing but the sharpness of God's wrath, the dregs of the cup of His fury. The stench of the burning lake of brimstone will be the smell there; and they shall feel extreme pains there. The state of the lost... The damned shall have the society of devils in their miserable state in hell-- for they must depart into the 'fire prepared for the devil and his angels'. O horrible company! O frightful association! Who would choose to dwell in a palace haunted by devils? To be confined to the most pleasant spot of earth, with the devil and his infernal furies, would be a most terrible confinement. How would men's hearts fail them, and their hair stand up, finding themselves environed with the hellish crew! But ah! how much more terrible must it be, to be cast with the devils into one fire, locked up with them in one dungeon, shut up with them in one pit! To be closed up in a den of roaring lions, girded about with serpents, surrounded with venomous asps, and to have the heart eaten out by vipers, altogether and at once, is a comparison too low to show the misery of the damned, shut up in hell with the devil and his angels. They go about now as roaring lions, seeking whom they may devour; but then they shall be confined in their den with their prey. They shall be filled with the wrath of God, and receive the full torment, which they tremble in expectation of (James 2:19), being cast into the fire prepared for them. How will these lions roar and tear! How will these serpents hiss! How will these dragons cast out fire! What horrible anguish will seize the damned, finding themselves in the lake of fire with the devil who deceived them; drawn there with the silken cords of temptation by these wicked spirits; and bound with them in everlasting chairs under darkness! 'And the devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.' - Rev.21:10 'The weepings and wailings of the damned' from Spurgeon's sermon 'Christ - perfect through suffering'. The weepings and wailings of the damned are but the deep bass of the astounding praise which the whole universe, willingly or unwillingly, must give to Christ. 'And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire' - Revelation 20:15 I must warn you who are yet without Christ, if you will not trust Christ you must be forever damned! Soon, you shall be 'cast into the lake of fire!' All who are found guilty of sin in that great and terrible day of God's wrath and judgment shall be cast into the lake of fire. There you shall be made to suffer the unmitigated wrath of almighty God forever! One by one the Lord God will call the damned before his throne and judge them. As he says to you, 'Depart you cursed!' He will say to his holy angels, 'Take him! Bind him! Cast him into outer darkness!' There will be no mercy for you! There will be no pity for you! There will be no sorrow for you! There will be no hope for you! There will be no end for you! To hell you deserve to go! To hell you must go! To hell you will go! Unless you flee to Christ and take refuge in him, in that great day the wrath of God shall seize you and destroy you forever! I beseech you now, by the mercies of God, be reconciled to God by trusting his darling Son! 'Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men!' Come to Christ now! Eternity is before you!... |
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