Unspeakable Torment

The Minister's Ambition: Preaching All God's Counsel

0:03 In speaking to the Ephesian elders in vindication of his own ministry of some three years among them, the Apostle Paul could declare, I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men. And then he gives the reason why he had this testimony borne to his conscience. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. But perhaps there is no greater ambition in the heart of a true minister of Jesus Christ than to be able to say with the Apostle, I take you to record that I am pure from the blood of all men.

0:44 Whether or not he is loved, praised, revered, or cursed by men is of little worth as long as he knows he has discharged his debt before the God who has called him. And that in that day, when he stands in his presence, he will not be guilty of the blood of men. But to have this testimony means that a price is to be paid. The Apostle Paul learned this.

1:18 With him the price was very vividly and indelibly stamped upon his very flesh. For he could say, I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. He could show you the scars he received from his beatings for preaching such offensive truth. Truth that was to the Jew a stumbling block, to the Greek foolishness.

1:41 But truth he proclaimed because it was God's truth, and he could do no other. Some truths, though offensive to the world, are a great delight to preach because they bring great blessing to the servant of Christ as he preaches them. Declaring Christ's saving love in the message of the cross, which is to the world foolishness, nonetheless is great delight. The servant of Christ.

2:09 To proclaim the glories of the delights of the child of God. The world may say foolishness, but nonetheless the servant of Christ who feeds upon those glorious truths as he preaches them at times could care less whether or not they are offensive to men for the sheer joy that comes in proclaiming them. However, there are other truths, not only abhorrent to natural men, but truths, distasteful even to the sanctified heart of the true servant of Christ. Truths which he must preach not only with the external opposition of those to whom he ministers, but truths that he must deliver with the internal tension of his own reluctance to proclaim such unsavory truth. But nonetheless those truths must be proclaimed if he is to say, I am free from the blood, and the blood of all men. As we have concluded our series of studies in the book of First Thessalonians, and we will be taking up another book shortly, I feel constrained to deal with you for the next few Sunday mornings with one of these subjects that left to myself I would skirt and never preach upon. But one of those subjects which must be preached upon

3:37 if I am to say with the Apostle Paul, I am free from the blood of all men. I am free from the blood of all men. I am free from the blood of all men. And that subject is the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ concerning the future of impenitent sinners.

Approaching the Subject: Humility Before God's Justice

3:53 The teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ concerning the future of impenitent sinners. First of all, consider with me how we shall approach the subject. And let me say at the very outset that we must not assume that we have the ability to determine the future of our Lord Jesus Christ. We must determine what is right and wrong, just or unjust, with regard to the punishment of the wicked.

4:21 Many books have been written, books that were written not because men had their minds so impregnated with biblical concepts that the pressure of divine truth caused them to pick up their pens and write. No. Books that were written because men dared to assume that human beings, have in themselves some innate ability to determine what is right or wrong, just or unjust, with regard to the future punishment of the wicked. I would remind you as we embark upon this study that first of all we are creatures and God alone is God.

5:03 And as God, he says in Isaiah 55, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways. For as the heavens are high, above the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts and my ways above your ways. Not only is this true with regard to his person, to all of his attributes of love and of mercy, but with regard to his holy wrath and his judgment upon the impenitent. My ways are not your ways.

5:35 As the heavens are high above the earth, so are my ways above your ways. God says in Isaiah 55, 40 verses 13 and 14, words that we need to keep before us as we embark upon this study. Who hath directed the spirit of the Lord? Or being his counselor hath taught him?

5:59 With whom took he counsel? And who instructed him and taught him in the path of justice and taught him knowledge and showed to him the way of understanding? You see the question? Who sat God down and said, Now God, I'd like to instruct you as to what is just?

6:17 What is unjust? What is right? What is not right? What is good?

6:22 Who sat down and talked to God and gave him lessons on justice? Did you? Did I? Why, the very question is almost blasphemous.

6:33 And so as we approach the subject, we do well to remind ourselves we are creatures who have no right whatever to assume certain canons or standards of justice and rightness and then impose them upon God. But not only are we creatures, we do well to remind ourselves that we are sinful creatures. And one of the effects of sin has been the blinding of our understanding, the darkening of our minds as we read in Ephesians 4 and verse 18. So that even in the child of God where the work of sanctification has begun, it is still true as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, we see through a glass darkly.

7:19 Bless God, we see, but we see darkly, we see dimly, we see in broad outlines and only then shall we know even as we are known. And so as we approach the subject, we do well to keep this before us. For in the words of one of Christ's eminent servants of a bygone day, it is obvious that this is not a question, the question, of the future of impenitent men. This is not a question which can be decided by any so-called a priori, preconceived notions of right and wrong.

7:59 No one can reasonably presume to decide how long the wicked are to suffer for their sins upon any general principles of right and wrong. The conditions of the problem are not within our grasp. What the infinitely wide, amazing good God may see fit to do with his creatures, or what the factors of a government embracing the whole universe and continuing throughout eternal ages may demand, it is not for such worms of the dust as we are to determine. If we believe the Bible to be the word of God, all we have to do is to ascertain what it teaches on the subject and humbly to submit.

The Disciple's Posture: Hearing Christ's Words

8:43 No, we must not come, with any preconceived notion of what is right and wrong, but positively we must come as true disciples, those whose minds are subject to Jesus Christ as our prophet. Our Lord said in Matthew 11, Come unto me and learn of me. He describes his own as those, John 17, 8, they have received my words. The mark of a true Christian is that he receives the words of Jesus Christ.

9:21 His mind is subject to Christ as his prophet, as well as his will subject to Christ as his king, as well as his faith firmly planted in Jesus Christ as his great high priest. The Father says of his dear Son, This is my beloved Son. Hear him. Hear him when he says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

9:48 Hear him when he says, Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. Hear him when he says, I go to prepare a place for you. But hear him when he says, He shall bind them and cast them into outer darkness. Then shall he say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

10:11 Hear him when he speaks words of pardon and when he speaks words of forgiveness. When he speaks these sobering words of the future of the impenitent.

10:23 It is interesting to note that though many of the truths fully developed in the New Testament epistles are only found in germ form in the Gospels. Jesus said, you remember, I have many things to say unto you, but you're not yet able to bear them. How be it when the Spirit is come, he'll guide you into all the truth, clearly indicating that many truths were going to come to their fullest expression and their clearness, clearest delineation in the apostolic teaching. That's why the epistles are the seedbed of Christian doctrine as opposed to the gospel, are the, I should say, the full blooming flowerbed whereas the seeds are there in the Gospels.

11:03 But it's interesting that this is not true with the subject of the future of the impenitent. It's an area which our Lord more clearly than all the other writers put together, delineates and expands and explains in great detail. And we shall approach the subject then primarily seeking to discern what our Lord Jesus Christ taught concerning the subject of the future of impenitent sinners. Letting his words come to us in their plain and natural sense of meaning, seeking to put ourselves in the situation of those who sat at his feet when he spoke them.

11:45 What did those words convey? What did those words convey to them? What did our Lord assume they would convey unto them? And so much for the approach to our subject, now we come to begin to consider the subject proper, our Lord's teaching on the subject of the future of the impenitent.

Four Principles of Christ's Teaching on Hell

12:05 And we shall be working our way through and I've tried to categorize our Lord's teaching under four general headings. Let me give them to you this morning and then we shall only have time to begin to consider the first.

12:19 Our Lord teaches that hell is a place and a condition of unspeakable and unalleviated torment, misery, and woe. Secondly, our Lord teaches that hell is a place and a condition where soul and body will suffer the punishment of sin. Thirdly, hell is a place and a condition of dignity. Thirdly, hell is a place and a condition degrees of punishment for sin. It shall be more tolerable. He uses these words often.

12:58 Fourthly, hell is a place and condition of endless, eternal, unceasing punishment for sin.

Hell as Unspeakable Torment: Outer Darkness

13:09 The first principle that emerges from the teaching of our Lord, and you will forgive me if I stick more closely to my notes than I generally do, because I want to be restrained by the words of scripture alone, so that there be no imposition of imagination or flights of rhetoric. The simple words of our Lord are enough to strike terror to the most careless heart, and I want to be true to those words. Hell is a place and a condition of unspeakable and unalleviated torment, misery and woe. This teaching comes to light in the two figures which our Lord constantly uses to describe hell, the place of future torment. The one figure is that of outer darkness. The second figure is that of fire, the furnace of fire, the Gehenna of fire. Will you turn, please,

14:12 to the Gospel of Matthew and most of the references we shall be considering, or in this Gospel? This past week I read through the entire Gospel of Matthew, writing down every reference from the lips of our Lord, touching the matter of the future state of the impenitent, and I discovered there were close to thirty distinct references in this one Gospel alone, a theme which was shot through the entire ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. I read now Matthew 8, verses 11 and 12. And I say unto you that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer darkness. There shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. Chapter 22 and verse 13.

15:22 The setting here is the parable of the wedding feast. And the king comes to behold the guest, verse 11 of Matthew 22. But when the king comes in to behold the guest, he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment, and he said unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness. There shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. And then chapter 25 and verse 30. Here the account of our Lord's parable of the talents.

16:11 And when the king comes back to deal with those to whom he has entrusted the talents, he calls before him the wicked, unprofitable servant. And we read in verse 30, And cast ye out the unprofitable servant, and cast ye out the unprofitable servant, and cast ye out the unprofitable servant, into the outer darkness. There shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. Three times then in the gospel of Matthew, the figure of outer darkness is used.

16:39 What did that convey to our Lord's hearers? We must not ask, what does it convey to us? What did it convey to them? And to the oriental, this conveyed a very, very vivid picture.

16:53 Remember the setting of these three references. One is the feast. Many shall come from the east and the west and the north and the south, and shall sit down to feast in the kingdom of God, but others shall be cast out. The other is the setting of the wedding feast.

17:09 And this man who has come in without a garment is cast outside the feasting room, outside the banquet room, into outer darkness. This was a very vivid figure. It communicated very clearly to our Lord's hearers. I read, I read from an excellent book that I've made reference to a number of times, Strange Manners and Customs of Bible Lands, the writers who spent years in the Orient and the Near East, speaking of some of the customs concerning banquets and feasts, says, Ancient banquets were usually held at night in rooms that were brilliantly lighted, and anybody who was excluded from the feast was said to be cast out of the lighted room into outer darkness of the night.

17:54 In the teaching of Jesus, such exclusion is likened unto the day of judgment, that children of the kingdom shall be cast into outer darkness. This expression, outer darkness, takes on new meaning when it's realized what a dread the Oriental has for the darkness of the night. In the east, a lamp is usually kept burning all night in the home. To sleep in the dark as the Westerner usually does would be a terrible experience. To sleep in the dark as the Westerner usually does would be a terrible experience.

18:24 To sleep in the dark as the Westerner usually does would be a terrible experience. To sleep in the dark as the Westerner usually does would be a terrible experience. pulling the shade down. I don't know why that was, but that was part of the ritual. And then I was spanked.

19:31 That was punitive. But there was another kind of punishment that was privative. Son, you go upstairs to your room without your supper.

19:40 You see, I was taken away from the warmth of the table and from the provision of that table. And our Lord, in using this figure of outer darkness, is signifying that the future of the impenitent will involve these privative judgments of God cast into outer darkness. For when we read the description of heaven, it's rich with oriental imagery. It's spoken of as the marriage supper of the Lamb.

20:10 And when all the redeemed are gathered together, it's in the concept of a great feast. Jesus said, I shall no longer drink of this fruit of the vine until I drink it new with you in the kingdom of God. It speaks of that place as a place where there is no need of the sun nor of the moon, for the Lamb is the light of that temple. And the warmth, the joy, the fellowship, all the glories of the redeemed.

20:35 What is it to be cast into outer darkness? To be cut off from all of this and all the opposite of the glories of the redeemed. This concept that comes out in the teaching of our Lord is confirmed in the apostolic writers in 2 Peter 2 and verse 17. We read words that were probably taken from these very words of our Lord.

21:01 For Peter heard them. These are springs without water and midst driven by a storm for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved. And then Jude, in Jude 13 says,

21:20 for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved forever. What would be the meaning of this? What would be the results of this privative judgment of God? You remember in each case, following the pronouncement, cast them into outer darkness are these words, there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.

21:43 Now it's interesting. The American Standard rightly translates it. It puts the article, there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. And in every instance where the phrase is used, it doesn't say, there shall be weeping and wailing or wailing and gnashing of teeth, but there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.

22:08 Why is the article used? We say we believe in verbal inspiration that the very words are inspired of God. I'll tell you why they're there. Our Lord is saying that everything that has ever been connoted by weeping, all the grief and the sorrow and the hopelessness, that has ever caused any weeping in this veil of tears is but a preview of the true weeping of that awful hour when the impenitent are cast into outer darkness.

22:43 There shall be the weeping of which every other weeping has been but a faint preview. The word weeping is used in Matthew 2 of the great sorrow that came when all the children two years and under were cut off, by that decree of Herod. Think of what it was like to come into that very botchum, a very veil of tears, when mothers by the scores were pouring out the agony of their hearts at the grief of having their little ones snatched from their breast and brutally and cruelly smitten and killed.

23:20 Ah, the weeping of that hour was not true weeping. The weeping awaits that hour when the impenitent should be cast into outer darkness. And then all the gnashing of the teeth we read of some of it this morning when filled with rage against that holy man of God they gnashed upon him with their teeth and they took him out and stoned him. All the gnashing of all the anger of all the corrupt and wicked hearts of all corrupt and wicked men through the ages our Lord says are but previews of the gnashing of the anger of that awful day when the wicked hearts and the wicked shall receive their full and just dessert of the wrath of God. You have a picture of it in Revelation 16 verses 9, 10 and 11 where you read of God pouring out judgments, temporal judgments in the last hour of human history and it said though men are swallowed up with the agonies of this that they blaspheme the name of God and curse the God of heaven. And so shall it be in that awful day weeping, speaking of the agony and remorse the gnashing of teeth of the rage and anger against God. And dear ones I remind you the Father says of his Son hear him, hear him, hear him when he said to Jews

24:48 to whom the whole concept of their culture involving the feasting room the banqueting room with its light, with its mirth with its joy, with its delights and who knew what it was to be cast out of their culture into the banquet room into the darkness away from the place of light and provision. Either our Lord was deliberately deceiving the ears of his day or there is such a place of privative judgment to be cut off from all that is light and love and to experience the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.

25:26 Either we must keep Christ and his hell or relinquish Christ and his hell.

Hell as Unspeakable Torment: Furnace of Fire

25:35 Then the second figure that our Lord uses

25:39 to show that hell is a place and a condition of unspeakable, unremitting torment misery and woe is the concept of the furnace of fire. Turn again to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 13.

25:57 Our Lord gives the parable of the tares in Matthew 13, 24 to 29 I'm sorry, 24 to 30 and then he interprets that parable for us in verse 36 Then he left the multitudes and went into the house and his disciples came unto him saying explain unto us the parable of the tares of the field and then he does and he says he who sows the good seed is the son of man the field is the world and the good seed these are the sons of the kingdom and the tares are the sons of the evil one the enemy that sowed them is the devil the harvest is the end of the world and the reapers are angels as therefore the tares are gathered up and burned with fire so shall it be in the end of the world the son of man shall send forth his angels gather out of his kingdom all things that cause stumbling and them that do iniquity and shall cast them into the furnace of fire and that they shall not be dealt with as wheat and tares that are consumed and then gone into other elements our Lord again follows up with these words there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth the furnace of fire notice verses 47 to 50 again the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea

27:26 and gathered of every kind which when it was filled they drew to the beach and sat down and gathered the good into the vessels but the bad they cast away so shall it be in the end of the world the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the righteous and shall cast them into the furnace of fire there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth in chapter 25 in verse 41 our Lord uses these words depart from me into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels Matthew 18 and verse 8 if thy hand or foot causes thee to stumble cut it off cast it from thee it's good for thee to enter into life maimed or halt rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into the eternal fire and then not only does our Lord use such terms as we have read furnace of fire eternal fire fire prepared for the devil and his angels but he uses again and again the word Gehenna it's a word used twelve times in the New Testament eleven times used by our Lord and again I ask the question what did that word convey to the Jewish hearers of our Lord's day for our Lord uses it in his sermon on the mount

28:55 when he stands there on that mount and delivers as it were the Magna Carta of the kingdom that he has come to establish he uses this term Gehenna several times in the sermon on the mount he uses it with his disciples fear not those which kill the body and after this have no more that they can do but fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna he uses it with the Pharisees he says how can you escape the judgment of Gehenna of hell Matthew 23 33 for the word itself is a compound word from two Hebrew words which mean the valley of Hinnom it was a valley southeast of Jerusalem a valley where an image of Moloch the God that we read about in Stephen's sermon this morning or Baal or perhaps a sun god was erected and here the idolatrous Jews in the worship of this false god would offer their children as human sacrifices during the revival under Josiah and you can read about it in 2 Kings 23 in verse 10 Josiah abolished the worship of Moloch and to render that valley odious he turned all the filth of Jerusalem into it the dead bodies of animals and criminals were thrown into that valley the sewers of Jerusalem emptied their filth into it to consume this filth

30:23 and awful a fire there continually burned and so that valley by a natural law of all ideas became a symbol of cruelty of misery of pollution and of perpetual burning this by a law of language thus by a law of language its name was transferred to the place of the punishment of the wicked you have a similar thing with Paul when our Lord said to the thief on the cross today thou shalt be with me in paradise he used the word the original meaning of which was a Persian hunting ground walled in and well stocked with animals the delight of a hunter but it became more and more in the evolving of the word to speak of a place of bliss a place of delight until the very word paradise used by our Lord used by the apostle when he said he was caught up into paradise is the word which has as its etymology a Persian hunting ground it be just as foolish to say that when our Lord speaks of Gehenna he simply means the dumping grounds of Jerusalem just as foolish to say when he said to the thief today thou shalt be with me in a Persian hunting ground ridiculous no this word had one connotation to the Jews of our Lord's day and this is interesting our Lord never was reluctant to correct the unscriptural thinking of the Jews wherever it came to light ye have heard that it was said but I say unto you ye have heard that it was said but I say unto you ye have heard that it was said

31:53 but I say unto you it's interesting that he corrected doctrine after doctrine he said beware of the doctrine of the scribes and the Pharisees but the Jews of our day believed in the future punishment of the impenitent and our Lord not only did not correct that notion he affirmed it in the very midst of correcting other notions he says ye have heard that it was said thou shalt not kill but I say unto you whoever says Reha whoever has anger in his heart shall be in danger of the Gehenna of fire and so the word Gehenna the phrase furnace of fire everlasting fire is the second great symbol used by our Lord now what is the significance of it just as the concept of outer darkness signifies the privative punishments of hell that from which the wicked shall be taken away so fire bespeaks the awfulness of the punitive punishment of hell fire has ever been among other things the symbol of the active movement of the wrath of God when God's wrath would be poured out upon Sodom and Gomorrah it's done by fire when God would pour out his wrath upon the murmurers against Moses in Numbers 11 he does so by sending fire

33:22 into the camp when his judgment would be shown upon Achan and his family it is by burning them with fire so that fire in scripture is again and again spoken of as the symbol of the active movements of the wrath of almighty God and it's precisely in this context that we read in Revelation 14 verses 9 to 11 the following words verse 9 to 11 verse 9 to 11 verse 9 to 11 verse 9 to 11 verse 9 to 11 if any man worshippeth the beast in his image and receiveth a mark in his forehead or upon his hand he also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is prepared unmixed in the cup of his anger and how does that wrath that wine of wrath come to expression he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the land and the smoke of the fire and the smoke and their torment goeth up forever and ever and they have no rest day and night they that worship the beast and his image and who so receiveth the mark of his name notice it's his wrath the wine of his wrath unmixed comes to expression in the fire of his judgment

34:44 someone asks will it be literal fire I think such a question is almost irreverent I don't know what it shall be but the fire symbol is never greater than the thing symbolized and just as it's a terrible thought to think of outer darkness cut off from all that is light and love and purity and holiness and warmth so to become the object of the active movements of the wrath of an infinite God is to think of thoughts that stagger the mind and cause us to cry out with Moses in Psalm 90 who knoweth the power of thine anger what will the result of this be precisely the same thing as the result of outer darkness for you remember in each of the passages that I read in Matthew 13 it says of the furnace of fire that there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth Matthew 13 42 and 13 50 as with the outer darkness the wailing and the gnashing because of the privative punishment so here the positive infliction of God's wrath upon men shall cause

36:13 the weeping and the wailing if outer darkness and the furnace of fire are both the place of the weeping and the wailing they are one in the same place the place and the condition of unspeakable unalleviated torment misery and woe our Lord said of himself I speak not my own words but the words of him that sent me every boy girl man or woman in this place this morning you must reckon with these words of Christ he spoke of outer darkness he spoke of the furnace of fire Gehenna eternal fire and I trust that the issues as clear as daylight that either you must utterly reject the authority of Jesus Christ in any area or you must submit your mind to these frightening descriptions of the future of the impenitent

The Sobering Reality and Call to Repentance

37:42 which our Lord gives to us again and again if there is such a place of unspeakable misery torment and woe then I trust every one of you realizes that nothing is worth anything unless I'm certain that I'll not come to that place of woe if I were to say this morning that while we met someone planted a time bomb in the pocket of one person in this place you look around and say well there are about 80-90 of us here one chance in 90 that it might be in mine oh that's not a very high percentage I won't be bothered to look in my pocket not on your life if I said on the basis of valid authority there's a time bomb in one coat out there only one every single one of you has a coat on that rack would not put that coat on until you turned over every single fold to make sure that it wasn't yours if the bible said only one person in a billion would go to a place of outer darkness a furnace of fire we should spend a lifetime if necessary discovering am I that one but the frightening thing dear ones and this is what's made this such a an oppressive study

39:10 to live in these areas of truth for these past days is that the bible says that many go into destruction why does our lord teach us of hell to warn us that we enter not into that place ah but you say if there was some kind of miracle to show that it was true if someone could come back from that place reeking of the brimstone and speaking of his experience ah then I'd believe it ah that's exactly exactly what somebody thought who's there remember what the rich man said father Abraham send some of my brothers from the dead then they'll listen Abraham says they have Moses and the prophets if they'll not hear the word they will not hear they'll run come back from the dead and I tell you dear ones this is what makes my task as a minister of the gospel so sobering for I realize that my only weapons are the words of Christ and if you'll not be persuaded by the law and the prophets it'll take hell itself to convince you of the awful reality may God grant that every one of you boys and girls men and women will soberly reflect and ask yourself do I have biblical grounds to believe that I'm safe

40:39 from that awful judgment notice my answer do I have biblical grounds to believe I am united to Christ and that there's no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus not that I have some vague notions about salvation some vague hopes that I may be a child of God do I have biblical grounds to believe that I've passed from death unto life and that in that awful day I shall hear him say to me enter thou into the joy of thy Lord and I'll see you I close with one of the great hymns of Wesley it's not in our hymn book I want to read it to you low on a narrow neck of land twixt two unbounded seas I stand secure insensible a point of time a moment's space removes me to that heavenly place or shuts me up to hell oh God mine inmost soul convert and deeply on my throne thoughtful heart eternal things impress give me to feel their solemn weight and tremble on the brink of fate and wait to righteousness before me place in dread array the scenes of that tremendous day when thou

42:07 with cloud shalt come to judge the nations at thy bar and tell me Lord shall I be there to hear thee say well done be this my one great business here with holy joy and holy fear to make my calling sure thine utmost counsel to fulfill to suffer all thy righteous will and to the end endure ah dear child of God this is what makes the cross precious because all that's involved in the privative punishment of outer darkness the punitive punishment to fall upon our blessed Lord who caused him to cry my God my God why hast thou forsaken me he bore my hell that I might not taste blessed be God for a savior who would sink himself beneath such awful wrath and knowing the reality of it in his own experience knowing the reality of that place prepared that's why our Lord spoke of hell more than any other may God grant that we'll hear his voice and flee the wrath to come may God grant that knowing the terror of the Lord we'll seek

43:36 as never before to persuade men to persuade our children persuade our neighbors persuade those that we touch from day to day lest they come to this awful place of outer darkness and eternal fire let us pray