Degrees / Unending / Just Punishment

Introduction: The Solemnity of Hell and the Series Context

0:03 This sermon was preached on Sunday evening, July 31st, 1983, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. With the help of God, as we turn to the great and solemn theme of Holy Scripture that has been announced as our subject for tonight, as we further contemplate the biblical doctrine of health, let us pray. Our Father, we have sought to enter into the imagery and to the thought patterns of the hymn writers, standing, as it were, with tiptoes, looking ahead to that great and awesome day, when the world as we now know it will be consumed by fire, and when our Lord Jesus, whom, not having seen, we love, will sit upon the throne of His glory and gasp, and we will gather the nations before Him. O Lord, left to ourselves these solemn truths will be but as a fool's tale, and we cry to You that we may not be left to ourselves, for we know that Your word concerning these realities is true,

1:27 and though heaven and earth do and shall pass away, Your word shall never pass away, and it is surely as we occupy these places, these seats in this building, each of us will occupy a place before that awesome throne. To hear those blessed words, Come, ye blessed of my Father, or to hear those horrible words, depart from me, ye cursed. Lord God, come by Your Spirit, that these great realities of the world to come may break in upon our minds and our spirits with such power, that we may be unable to escape their molding influence upon each life. Hear the cry that we offer, and come to us in grace and in power, for Jesus' sake. Amen. Our meditation in the scriptures this evening is the fourth message in this present series of studies under the general title of The Biblical Message.

2:45 The Biblical Message is a study of the doctrines of heaven and of hell. In our first two studies we considered together the importance of these doctrines of heaven and hell. We said a word about the primary focus of our study of these doctrines of heaven and hell, and then we sought to underscore the proper attitude and disposition which we must bring to the study of these doctrines of heaven and hell. which we must bring to the study of these doctrines of heaven and hell.

Proposition 1: Hell is a Place of Degrees of Torment

3:15 these doctrines. And then last Lord's Day, we began to address ourselves to the question, what is hell? And time allowed us only to develop two categories of biblical truth under these propositions demonstrated from the scripture in answer to the question, what is hell? Proposition number one was this, that hell is a place and a condition of unspeakable torment, misery, and woe. And then secondly, hell is a place where soul and body will undergo unspeakable misery, torment, and woe. Now tonight, God helping us and time permitting, we move on to the next chapter of the scripture. We're going to consider three additional and the final propositions relative to the biblical doctrine of hell. The scriptures not only teach us that hell is a place and

4:26 a condition of unspeakable misery, torment, and woe, that hell is a place where soul and body will undergo unspeakable misery, torment, and woe. But the word of God teaches with great clarity, though not with equal clarity, this third proposition, namely, that hell is a place where there will be degrees of unspeakable torment, misery, and woe. Hell is a place where there will be degrees of unspeakable torment, misery, and woe. This truth is taught in such passages as those I will now read in your hearing, and which I urge you to turn to in your own Bibles. In the tenth chapter of Matthew's gospel, our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who gives us the most full teaching on the subject of hell and future judgment, declares to people of his own generation, Matthew 10 and verse 15,

5:43 Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city. And in the context, he is referring to cities to whom he sends his messengers with the gospel of the kingdom. And he says, if upon arriving in such a city, that city shows itself so utterly insensitive to spiritual realities as to reject the messengers of Christ who come with the gospel of peace, that in the day of judgment, the wicked, lecherous, immoral perverts of Sodom and Gomorrah would find it easier in the eternal state than many of these religious formalists who reject the gospel of peace. And he says, if upon arriving in such a city, reject the message of the gospel of the kingdom of God. And if these words say anything to us, they tell us that the day of judgment will be the revelation of degrees of punishment upon

6:59 impenitent sinners. It will be more tolerable for the impenitent, doomed, and damned of Sodom than for the Christ-rejecting, gospel-rejecting, inhabitants of these cities of Palestine to whom the Lord Jesus sent his messengers. But the words clearly teach that there will indeed be degrees of torment, misery, and woe following the day of judgment. Similar words are found in the eleventh chapter of Matthew, verses 22 and 24. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ himself has now visited many cities. Verse 20, then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not. Here that the incarnate God, the one whom we contemplated in Mark's gospel this morning, Jesus Christ, Son of God, himself has been present, attesting the validity of his claims by his own people. And he says, if upon arriving in such a city, if upon arriving in such a city, his own miracles, but they would not repent. They went on in their pride and impenitence. And now our Lord says in

8:21 verse 22, I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. Verse 24, I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee. And so we have parallel language of the state of one group of impenitence being more tolerable than another group of impenitence in the day of judgment. And then in the gospel of Luke, here perhaps is the key passage indicating that hell is a place where there shall be degrees of unspeakable torment, misery, and woe. Luke's gospel. Gospel chapter 12, verses 45 to 48. Luke's gospel chapter 12 and verse 45. But if that servant shall say in his heart,

9:27 my Lord delays his coming, and shall begin to beat the men's servants and the maid's servants, and to eat and drink and to be drunken, the Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he does not expect, and in an hour when he does not know, and shall say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for thee. Luke's gospel. According to his will shall be beaten with many stripes, but he that knew not and did things worthy of stripes shall be beaten with few stripes. And to whomsoever much is given of him shall much be required, and to whom they commit much of him they will ask the more. Here are two classes of people. Both are worthy of punishment.

10:28 Some beaten with many stripes, some beaten with few stripes, both beaten with stripes. The imagery of punitive justice, the imagery of punishment, but clearly degrees of punishment in terms of light and of privilege. One knew the will of God by special revelation and did it not. He shall therefore be beaten with many stripes.

10:58 One is ignorant of the will of God by special revelation, and yet he disobeys God. He is still beaten. Ignorance in the light of special revelation is no exemption from punishment, but his punishment will be less than the one who knew his Lord's will and who did it not. And the great principle that comes forth from each of the passages I have read is that the Lord's will shall be beaten with many stripes.

11:28 One shall be beaten with many stripes. What you read in your hearing is obviously this, that the degrees of punishment in hell will be in direct proportion to the privileges spurned. The degrees of punishment in hell will be in direct proportion to the privileges spurned. How can it be that hell will be more tolerable for the perverts of Sodom?

11:58 Why? The believers will be more tolerable for the perverts of Sodom. Those who shall not beοι, then mascara you the things that are needed. They shall also take away theто somber that morekнаetteth to God.

11:59 Those who hath not done the working so many of the minist thi s�� ch continueth doeth ahc hum. wicked perverts who lusted after the bodies of those angels. What can it be that will bring fiercer, fiery judgment from Almighty God upon men than that perversity? It will be to have the light of the gospel and to turn away from it. It is to have the more intense light of the presence of Christ and His messengers and to reject them. It is to know the will of God by special revelation and to reject it and therefore make oneself a candidate for the more intense degree of torment, misery, and woe. The Bible clearly teaches that every soul and body in hell will be perfected. Every soul and body perfectly miserable will be tormented to its fullest capacity so that it will be unmixed torment and woe. And yet the Bible also teaches that there will be

The Principle of Treasuring Up Wrath

13:10 degrees of capacity to bear an intensified degree of judgment. And if you sit there listening to these words, you have the turn of a skeptical mind that says, how in the world can that happen? If outer darkness is outer darkness and eternal fire is eternal fire, how can there be degrees of punishment? My friend, listen to me as I solemnly say to you, if you even think that way, you better come to repentance and bow before Almighty God or your own experience will answer your question. In the intensity of its fury will be God's answer to your wicked impudence. Even. The frightening imagery in one other passage that I want to open up before leaving this point. And to my understanding, it is the most frightening imagery with respect to degrees

14:23 of punishment in hell that I have ever encountered in the word of God. And interestingly enough, it's found in the most wonderful epistle with respect to a systematic exposition of the gospel. It's found in the book of Romans. And in the second chapter of the book of Romans in which Paul is demonstrating the sinfulness of all segments of humanity, he says these words, Romans 2 and verse 4.

14:55 Or do you despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? Here are people. People violating the law of God, verse 3 makes that very clear. And yet God continues to shower his blessings upon them. He sends his rain upon just and unjust, fills their hands with the good things of his creation, gives them measures of love in their homes and peace in their countries. And he says, do you despise the riches of his goodness and forbearing, not knowing that the intention of God is to bring you to repentance? And then by saying, Lord, I've had enough of this evil person, I've had enough of this evil person living! That's what Paul is saying. The point here is that the reason for God's showering good

15:51 upon you while you live indifferent to his law and to his gospel is that seeing his goodness you might be led to repent, you might feel yourself to be the evil man that you are. But by not doing this, notice what he says is happening in verse 5, but after thy hardness of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God who will render to every man according to his deeds. Now this word, treasure up, is the standard word in the Greek language in the New Testament for laying up treasure. You remember when Pastor Nichols preached on the righteous church from Matthew 6, 19 and following?

16:35 Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth. That's the word that's used. It's the word that would be used when you would describe a man who is accumulating a treasure. And here the apostle uses this graphic imagery that when God continues to shower his goodness even in the area of his common gifts and how much more the special gift of his special grace and special mercy in the gospel of Christ.

17:09 When he continues to shower it upon us and we return him nothing but an increasingly impenitent and hard heart and indifference to his goodness and to his gospel. Every day we do it, we're putting capital in the bank. We're laying up a treasure. We are treasuring up something and the day of cashing in will come.

17:37 And what are we treasuring up? Look at the text. We are treasuring up wrath against or in the light of the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. In other words, the degrees of punishment will be the fruit of our own investment.

18:01 And I tremble to think of the measure to which some of you are investing in the bank of divine retribution and wrath. Some of you have sat in this building and in previous buildings and in other buildings where the gospel has been preached clearly, earnestly, tenderly, compassionately, where the truth of God has been brought home to the theater of your conscience closely and earnestly. You have had parents who have wept for you and prayed for you and instructed you and Sunday school teachers who have taught you. And yet this night, you are as lost and impenitent as someone who had never once for 30 seconds heard the gospel. If God would show you your bank account from the vault of wrath, it would send a shudder down your spine. Every day, you're treasuring up more than the bank vault of divine wrath, treasuring it, treasuring it.

19:23 Treasuring it up, treasuring it up, and in the day of judgment, God will take the past book and He'll say, this is precisely how much you've treasured here. Take the payment in full.

19:47 And that's not preacher's rhetoric. That's the word of God. This book, it teaches such blessed and wonderful and sublime truths. Such as we considered this morning, what we might call the sweet notes of the gospel.

20:09 It's the same book that holds forth this horrible, this frightening, this awesome truth that hell is a place where there will be degrees of unspeakable misery, torment, and woe. And that degree of torment, misery, and woe. And that degree of torment, misery, and woe. Hell will be determined by what you do with the light and the privilege that God has given.

Proposition 2: Hell is a Place of Unending, Conscious Torment

20:43 That's the teaching of the word of God. But then further, the word of God teaches us that hell is a place of unending, conscious torment, misery, and woe. Hell is a place of unending. Conscious torment, misery, and woe.

21:19 The crowning horror of hell is its unendingness.

21:29 The crowning horror of hell is its unendingness. There is a sense in which all of the horrors of hell would have at least a dimension of that which was tolerable for the human mind to conceive of and perhaps even from a human perspective to embrace.

22:03 When we come to this matter of its unendingness, it is the crowning horror of the biblical evidence is clear and it is undeniable by those who would be honest with the word of God. Yet, yet perhaps no doctrine is more attacked, hated, caricatured except perhaps the doctrine of the sovereignty of God in election and reprobation. I have been a Christian and in the work of the ministry for over 30 years. I don't think I know of any doctrine that is more hated, more caricatured, a doctrine... Which men do more to avoid in its plain setting in the word of God with perhaps the exception of the sovereignty of God in election and reprobation than this.

Biblical Proofs for Unending Torment: Plain Statements

23:05 Hell is a place of unending, conscious torment, misery, and woe. And how do we know this? We know it first of all from the clear, plain statements of text after text. Let's look at just a few of them.

23:26 Matthew's Gospel, chapter 18. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 18. And verse 8. Again it is our Lord speaking.

23:39 Verse 7. Woe to the world because of occasions of stumbling. It must needs be that the occasions come, but woe to that man through whom the occasion comes. And if your hand or your foot...

23:52 What cause you to stumble, cast it off, cut it off, and cast it from you. For it is good for you to enter into life maimed or halt rather than having two hands or feet to be cast into the eternal fire. And the word used here for eternal, though it can be demonstrated in certain contexts that it does not mean literally, unendingness, but speaks of a lengthy period of time, the context clearly indicates that it is used in that figurative sense. But if this word does not mean unendingness, the Bible contains no such word.

24:44 It is the word used to describe the unendingness of the bliss of heaven, the unendingness of the glory of the redeemed, and God uses precisely the same word to speak of the unendingness of the terrors of hell when the terrors are set before us under the imagery of fire. It is not temporal fire or merely age-long fire. It is eternal, unending fire. Again, our Lord, in Matthew 25 and verse 14, Matthew 25 and verse 41, Then shall he say to them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels. And verse 46, And thee shall go away into eternal punishment, now notice the strict parallel, but the righteous into eternal life. You have colossin ionion, punishment eternal. You have zoein, life ionion.

26:13 In other words, there is a strict parallel between the life that is unending, which is the bliss of the redeemed, and the unending, and the fire and punishment which are unending, which is the curse of the impenitent. And by no reasonable rules of exegesis and honest handling of the word of God can we maintain the unendingness of heaven without maintaining the unendingness of hell. This is not only the testimony of our Lord, but also, of several parts in the epistles. Notice the language of Jude, Jude and verse 13,

27:04 speaking of the ultimate destiny of false teachers and those who follow their teaching. Jude describes their destiny in this language, verse 13, Wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame, wandering stars, wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved forever. The blackness of darkness forever. And then the language of Matthew 3, 12, when John the Baptist is speaking of our Lord, he speaks of him who will take up the chaff and he will burn it, notice, with the quality of the fire described as unending, unquenchable fire. Some of you have heard of a fire that broke out in a certain place and the tragedy was that though the firemen came and trained all of the apparatus upon it and poured thousands upon thousands of gallons upon it, alas, they finally gave up because the fire was unquenchable. They could not extinguish it. John the Baptist says that Jesus Christ under the imagery, of one who separates chaff from wheat, will burn up the chaff

28:31 with fire that is unquenchable, fire that is inextinguishable, fire that is eternal. And so the plain statements of the Word of God teach us that hell is a place of unending, conscious torment, misery and woe. But then it not only teaches us that doctrine, by plain statement, but it also teaches it by graphic figure. By graphic figure.

Biblical Proofs for Unending Torment: Graphic Figures

29:03 Mark's Gospel, chapter 9. By plain statement our Lord teaches us, yes, but by graphic figures of speech He teaches the same truth. Mark's Gospel, chapter 9 and verse 43. And if thy hand cause thee to stumble, cut it off.

29:27 It is good for thee to enter into life maimed, rather than having thy two hands to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire. And now what is the characteristic of that unquenchable fire? Notice verse 48. Where their worm dies not, and the reference is back to the last word of verse 47, to be cast into hell.

29:58 Where? In which place? Their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. Do you see the picture?

30:11 It's not a very pleasant one, or aesthetically pleasing one, but our Lord used it and I must expound it. When the worms that breed and feed upon a dead carcass have no more carcass on which to feed, what happens to the worms? What happens to them? They die.

30:38 They must feed upon the dead flesh in order to live. And when there's no more flesh on which to feed, they die. Jesus uses that unesthetic, coarse imagery. The incarnate God speaks of hell as the place where the worm does not die.

31:11 And why does not the worm die? Because that upon which it feeds will have eternal existence. And where the fire is never quenched. Now what happens?

31:27 You children know. If you have a wood stove at home, if Pop doesn't put more wood in the wood stove, after a few hours, what happens to the fire in the wood stove? It goes what? Everyone under seven tell me.

31:39 It goes what? It goes out, doesn't it? Pop's got to put more wood in the fire. If he doesn't put more wood in the fire, the fire can't just go on being fire unless it has something to burn on.

31:51 You see what Jesus is saying? As he's pressing home, and notice how practical it is, my dear friend. Notice the context. He's talking about the necessity of mortifying sin, of dealing with sins as precious and dear and as clinging as right hand and right eye.

32:09 And he says you must deal with those sins at any cost. If you do not, you'll go to the place where there is eternal torment under the graphic figure of the worm that never dies because that upon which it feeds has eternal existence and the fire is never quenched because it will have eternal fuel. That's why it is eternal fire. What is that upon which the worm feeds and the fire consumes forever?

32:40 It is the soul and body of every impenitent man or woman within the sound of my voice who goes to judgment. It is the judgment in the condition in which you came into this building. Every unrepentant, unbelieving, unholy, unsanctified, unjustified man or woman, boy or girl, will the words of Christ await you? The worm will not die, my friend.

33:07 The fire will not be quenched. And your body and your soul are that upon which the worm of divine justice and judgment will feed forever. Your body and your soul will be the fuel for the fire that cannot be quenched. And Jesus Christ is the course graphic.

33:43 Don't try to write this off as the rantings and the ravings of a preacher who has lived too long in the writings of another day. These are the words of him of whom it is said they wondered at the words of grace. They proceeded from his mouth. The Jesus who was so much at home with little children that they came and ran and popped up upon his knee.

34:10 Friend of publicans and sinners, but all this dimension of our Savior must never be overlooked. He uses language Paul never used. He uses language that none of the other apostles use in their writings. He, he and he alone speaks of the worm.

34:30 That never dies. The fire that's never quenched. And I say again, will you dare God to make your experience the final exegesis of that imagery? Then go on loving your sin.

34:48 Go on excusing your sin. Go on clinging to the world. Clinging to your lust. Clinging to your secret attachment to pornography.

34:58 Your secret attachment to lecherous thoughts. Your secret attachment to covetousness and pride and every other form of sin. And my friend, as sure as you hear my voice, you will know what Jesus meant. Unless you repent, become a holy man, a holy woman.

35:19 Unless you forsake all hope in your own righteousness and rest only in the righteousness of Jesus Christ the Lord. I say, the crowning horror of hell is its unending. Taught by explicit statement. Taught by graphic figure.

Biblical Proofs for Unending Torment: Unmistakable Description

35:46 But thirdly taught by the language of unmistakable description. In other words, there is a passage in which by prophetic vision one was given to see the unendingness of hell and he describes it. Turn to the book of the Revelation, chapter 14. Revelation, chapter 14, verse 9.

36:26 And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a great voice, If any man worships the beast and his image and receives 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. That's the God of the Bible. He has unmixed wine of holy anger, and it's prepared. Now notice, when it's poured out, what expression will it find?

37:00 He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest. Day and night that worship the beast and his image, and whoso receive the mark of his name. Until Almighty God comes and extracts this verse from His word, I defy anyone who claims submission to Scripture to teach any other doctrine other than the doctrine I'm expounding tonight, only because the Word of God compels me to expand. I would never have created it. I would not dare even to think it, let alone to preach it, if the words of God did not compel me. But I defy anyone as long as this text stands in Scripture to look into the face of Almighty God and say, O God, I have been true to Your Word, and teach that there is no hell, or that hell

38:27 is only temporal, and there's a growing number of men who are claiming to be evangelicals, whom others are prepared to call evangelicals, who are denying the eternity and the consciousness of that eternity of punishment that awaits the impenitent. And I could name names in books. Yes. Yes.

38:51 Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

38:51 Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

38:51 I thought it would be unto edification. The language of unmistakable description is, the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever. Why? Not as the lingering reminder of a torment that was, but as the perpetual indication of the torment that is.

39:14 The smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever. Why? Because the torment goes on forever and ever. No rest.

39:23 No day. No night. Forever. In another generation there was a godly and powerful Methodist preacher.

39:39 There was a farmer and a preacher. And while he followed his mule behind his plow, he meditated long and hard upon these awesome things like few preachers have ever done. And at the conclusion of a sermon that he preached and then wrote on the awfulness of eternal punishment, he said these words. He said.

40:02 He said these words,

40:07 Love incarnate can curse a sinner, speaking of Christ. Love incarnate can damn a sinner. And if love incarnate can curse and damn a sinner, it can do it for all eternity. Oh, eternity.

40:26 Let your ages tramp and your cycles roll, but you cannot crumble or scar the walls of hell or rust and break its locks or silver the hair of God who has sworn by His eternal self that the sinner shall die. The pendulum of thy clock over the gates of hell vibrates through all ages and says, Forever and ever. Forever and ever. Forever and ever.

41:05 It's sounding. Bells striking off the centuries, the ages, the cycles. The appalling monotony of its pendulum going, going, going, repeating still forever and ever. Forever and ever.

41:24 Forever and ever. Oh, eternity. God has wound up thy clock and it will never run down and its tickings and its beatings are heard by all the lost. Forever and ever.

41:43 Forever and ever. Forever and ever. God being my judge, I would die to save you this day.

41:58 And every preacher who half believes what I've tried to preach would say those words.

Proposition 3: Hell is Just Punishment for Sin

42:07 What is hell?

42:10 Hell is a place and a condition of torment, misery, and woe. Hell is a place where soul and body will suffer torment, misery, and woe. Hell is a place where there will be degrees of unspeakable torment, misery, and woe. Hell is a place of unending misery, torment, and woe.

42:35 And finally, and I'll touch upon this just briefly, hell is a place and a condition of unspeakable misery, torment, and woe. As the just punishment for sin.

42:51 It is a place and condition of unspeakable misery, torment, and woe as the just punishment for sin. Hell is not instructive. Hell is not corrective. Hell is not therapeutic or sanctifying.

43:10 Hell is, in the language of Romans 4-5, the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. Hell is punitive. This is why the Scripture says in 2 Thessalonians 1, Jesus Christ will come in flaming fire to take vengeance, not to bring instruction, not to bring purification, not to bring sanctification through the fires of hell, but in flaming fire He will come to wreak holy vengeance.

43:45 And all teaching that hell will ultimately be instructive and sinners will come to repentance and be released. Hell will be sanctifying and therapeutic and ultimately the souls will go back to nothingness or ultimately end up in heaven is a contradiction of every clear teaching of the Word of God. For God says for which things sake the sins committed, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Romans 2, tribulation and anger and wrath upon every man.

44:18 Every soul of man that doeth evil, my friend, hear me. The sins so dear to you tonight, sins of deception, sins of pride, sins of lust, sins of dishonesty and self-seeking, sins of getting even, sins of nursing grudges, sins of stubbornness, whatever they be, hell is God's place for God to meet vengeance upon sin in the name of God. The person of the sinner.

44:50 It is not a place of correction. It is not a place of instruction. It is not a place of sanctification. It is the place of retribution.

The Necessity of Holiness and the True Cross

45:06 Why do we preachers labor to get you to take your sins seriously? Hear me now.

45:12 God takes it seriously enough to make a hell and to send the likes of you there if you don't repent.

45:23 I know there are some of you that really think we're a bit imbalanced in our emphasis upon holiness. I know that. You're a bit disturbed with this preaching that always goes out to your conscience, cries out to you to live in the fear of God in every relationship of life, to have stamped upon every dimension and facet of your life from the most secret chambers of your thoughts to the most visible deeds before the world. Holiness, it's unto the Lord.

45:57 I know you're irritated, Summer. It has a constant pressure upon your conscience to be holy. But my friend, unless you're irritated that someone's trying to keep you from hell, don't ever be irritated with preaching that says without holiness no man shall see the Lord. We don't tell you to be holy in your own strength.

46:23 We point you to Christ. We point you to Him as the Lamb, the God who takes away the sin of the world. We point you to Him as the one who gives His Spirit to give you power to be holy. We point you to motives that flow out of His cross.

46:40 I reject accusations that we preach a legal holiness. We do not. We preach holiness that has its roots in the cross, that is only nurtured at the cross. But hear me now.

46:56 We preach no cross. That leaves you forgiven but still in love with your sin. We preach no cross that will take you to heaven while you dabble with your sin. And the day we preach a cross like that, may God strike this preacher dead.

47:16 Because that preaching will send you to hell with a lie in your hand.

47:22 You can go to hell clinging to a cross that doesn't put you on the cross and kill yourself. The cross on which Jesus died to forgive us is the cross that will kill you as a self-centered, self-serving man, woman, boy or girl. And if you've never embraced the cross on which He died so that it's become the cross on which you've died, you know nothing of the power of the cross.

47:54 God giving us sanity and breath, we're committed to try to save you from hell in the only way you can be,

48:06 coming to Christ. Amen. Forgiveness and pardon. Coming to Him for the gift of His Spirit to be a holy man or woman.

48:16 Coming to Him again and again when you fall and stumble and find the fresh kiss of His forgiving grace. And then looking to Him for fresh grace to do what? To whack off right hands, gouge out right eye, to buckle on the armor of God and to fight against the sin that is all around us. And to be an overcomer that at last we shall hear His words.

48:49 Come ye blessed. Come ye blessed.

Pastoral Exhortation: Flee to Christ

48:54 I've said it on several occasions in the past and I want to say it in closing. There aren't many of the songs I learned in the early days of my Christian experience that often give me much comfort. There are some that do. But this one does.

49:08 It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.

49:14 One look at His Jesus. One look at His Jesus. One look at His dear face. All sorrow will erase.

49:20 So bravely run the race till we see Christ. My friend, listen to me. What are you bartering your soul for?

49:31 What are you trifling?

49:34 What is the thing that puts your soul in the balance? Is it a relationship to a young man, a young woman?

49:47 Is it a possession?

49:50 Is it a dream?

49:52 Is it some sensual delight? What is it, my friend? Weigh it. Weigh it.

49:57 Weigh it. Weigh it against the hell that is God's just retribution for the willful continuance in sin.

50:08 Is it your pride?

50:11 What is it? Whatever it is, is it worth going to hell forever?

50:20 If not, then forsake it tonight. Run from it. Flee it. And run only one place.

50:29 Run to the one who knows by experience what hell is. Run to the one who knows the only one who was ever there and came back again.

50:40 Hell came to him upon the cross and he's come back from the agonies of hell that you and I might not have to go there. When he cried, My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? That was hell come to the cross into the very bosom of the Son of God. My friend, if you go there, you'll not come back. Our Father, we confess that there are times when we wonder that you should reveal such truths to poor, weak, frail, time-bound creatures of the dust. Our minds and our spirits cannot contain such awesome,

Closing Prayer: Mercy, Gratitude, and Burden for the Lost

51:55 such holy but horrifying things.

52:00 But Lord God, we're under constraint of your word.

52:05 We cannot, we dare not trifle with your word and only we can. Lord, as your servant has sought to be true to that word tonight, will you not by the Spirit make it effectual? Oh, may it not result merely in hell being all the more a hellish place because some heard such plain preaching on hell and went to hell in their pride and impenitence. Oh God, for the sake of your beloved Son who died, that men and women and boys and girls be rescued from the pit.

52:45 Draw, draw to yourself with gracious and powerful hand sinners for whom the Savior died. And oh God, those of us who've been delivered from the pit, give us a renewed sense of joy and gratitude that you would have rescued the likes of us. We marvel that you didn't cut us off in our sins. Oh, how our sins cried to heaven that you would, send us to hell but you bore with some of us so long.

53:19 We thank you for that mercy. May we show our gratitude for you have said to whom much is forgiven the same loveth much. Oh Lord, what lovers of Christ each of us should be who has been rescued and delivered from so much sin. Oh, give us, give us renewed love for your Son.

53:41 Give us renewed concern for those that are on their way, to this terrible, terrible place. Give us a renewed burden for our own flesh and blood who are not yet in Christ. Oh God, may this company of parents not only be known as a company of those who instruct their children and discipline their children and train them, but oh, that we may be a company of those who weep over our children, who will give you no rest or peace until you come back. You are pleased to break their hearts and bring them to yourself.

54:20 Oh Lord, we acknowledge that all of our longings for them and all of our prayers for them are ineffectual. You must give them new hearts and we cry to you to do so. Have mercy upon any hypocrites sitting here tonight who think that because they've got their act together before the eyes of their fellow men all is well. Lord, you know them.

54:44 You know if there be such. And if there are, you take your own word, Lord, and track them down. Follow them to their homes. Follow them to the secret place where they sin.

54:55 And there, Lord, may your word arrest them and draw them to yourself. Oh God, we plead with you that the final day will show that this night your word was not preached in vain. Have mercy. Have mercy.

55:14 Hear our cry. Lord, don't let us quickly shake off the sobering impression of your word. Help us, oh you, to guard our speech and our thoughts lest we should be a stumbling block to some unconverted person upon whom you have fastened a serious impression tonight. Oh God, we cry to you.

55:38 We know not what to ask, but that you would have mercy and rescue sinners. Hear us for Jesus. Amen.