The Most Terrifying Words Ears Can Hear, Part 2

Introduction: The Terrifying Words of Judgment

0:08 I would encourage you to turn in your own Bibles to the portion of the Word of God which we began to consider in our gathering this Lord's Day morning, Matthew's Gospel, chapter 25.

0:26 And our attention is particularly focused upon verse 41, though in a real sense we have used the 41st verse as the gateway into the entire passage bounded by verses 31 and 46. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 25 and verse 41.

0:52 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels. In approaching this text, I have entitled, I have titled our study of the text and its context the most terrifying words human ears can ever hear.

Terrifying Because of the Speaker and the Number of Hearers

1:25 And in our effort to understand something of the sobering weight of this passage this morning, I suggested first of all that these words are terrifying because of the one who speaks them. In this passage he is set, He is set before us in the majesty of his person as the son of man who comes in his glory, verse 31, and in the might of his position, conceived of as Lord and King, and as the appointed judge of the world. And surely if anything stands patent in the text, if anything stands out in bold relief, it is that the Christ of the Bible is not the weak effeminate emasculated Jesus who would never speak a word of judgment, who would never make a pronouncement of retribution, but in this passage he is speaking concerning himself and describes his own person and work in the terrifying words of this passage when he speaks, when he speaks in the majesty of his person as the son of man who has come in glory, as the son of man who as Lord and King of glory

2:54 sits as the appointed and rightful judge upon his own throne. And then we considered in the second place the fact that these words are terrifying because of the vast number to whom they will be spoken. The general description of those to whom they will be spoken in the context is one in which all those who do not sustain a relationship to Christ as his brethren, that's the term he uses for them in the passage, will hear the words, depart from me ye cursed. All who do not sustain a relationship to Christ in faith, love and obedience, which warrants his identification of them as his brethren, they are the ones who are described as standing at his left hand, to whom he will say, depart from me ye cursed. The Bible does not only give us this general description in this context, but there is a specific delineation of the various categories of those who will stand at his left hand. And we considered four of those biblical categories this morning.

4:19 All impenitent rebels against his law, all self-righteous hypocrites, all self-deceived religionists, and all indifferent disobedient hearers of the gospel. Now tonight we'll consider a third line of truth that is in the passage with respect to these most terrifying words which human ears can ever hear. They are not only terrifying because of the one who speaks them, terrifying because of the vast number who shall hear them, but they are terrifying because of that which will follow their utterance. Notice the conjunction between verses 41 and 46. Then shall he say to them on the left hand, depart from me ye cursed into eternal fire, verse 46, and these shall go into eternal punishment. He shall say and these shall go. So there is the strictest conjunction between the terrifying word depart from me

Terrifying Because of the Certainty of Punishment

5:47 and the awesome reality of the fulfillment of that word in the case of everyone to whom it is spoken. These in their entirety, these shall go into eternal punishment. And so I say these are terrifying words because of that which will follow their utterance described in the text in three categories. It will be certain punishment, horrible punishment, and eternal punishment.

6:23 And if ever I seek to be chased in the choice of words, restrained in the use of imagination, and disciplined by the naked language of the Bible, it is when treating of this solemn subject and I ask you to seek in that spirit of strict adherence to the very words of Scripture to trace out these three lines of concern as they are there in the text. First of all it will be certain punishment. These shall go away, verse 46, into eternal punishment. And the key to the entire passage in a very real sense is a precise understanding of the word punishment. Now the word that is used by our Lord is found only twice in its noun form in the entirety of the New Testament and twice in its verb form. So in the noun and verbal form there are four usages of this word. And in every case, it can mean nothing other than punishment in the sense of the dictionary definition.

7:48 Pain or loss or suffering for a crime committed. In no sense can the word be understood as destruction, annihilation, obliteration or reduction to nothing. The other noun use of the word is 1 John 4 and verse 8. And believing that Scripture is its own infallible interpreter, let us see what the Scripture says with respect to this punishment.

8:25 In 1 John 4 and verse 8. I'm sorry, verse 18. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath, the unauthorized version translates it torment, but the 1901 edition translates it properly, fear hath punishment, and he that feareth is not made perfect in love. Now can you imagine translating this word fear hath annihilation.

9:05 Fear hath reduction to nothing. Fear hath obliteration of existence. No. What fear has as its inevitable attempt when it is the carnal fear mentioned by John is a present sense of crushing inward discomfort.

9:25 Fear hath punishment. And that's precisely the same word used by our Lord in Matthew's Gospel. These shall go away into eternal punishment. That is into a state of conscious, painful, acute discomfort.

9:45 And then the two verbal uses of the word. One is found in Acts chapter 4 and verse 21. Acts chapter 4 and verse 21. Speaking of those early followers of our Lord who are called upon to suffer for His name, the civil authorities in their action towards them, it is said, verse 21, and they when they have further threatened them, though finding nothing, how they might annihilate them?

10:23 How they might reduce them to nothing? How they might obliterate them? No. How they might punish them?

10:31 That is how they might inflict upon them pain, loss, or suffering. And it is the only sense of the word that makes sense. And then in 2 Peter 2.9 is the second verbal use of this word, or the use of this word in its verbal form, 2 Peter 2 and verse 9.

10:58 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment unto the day of judgment. And when we read a passage such as Luke 16, the rich man who died and in hell lifted up his eyes, being in torments, we know that the present state of the impenitent awaiting the day of judgment is not a state of soul sleep, it is not a day of annihilation, and most annihilationists teach that the soul will exist until the day of judgment, at which time eternal punishment means annihilation or reduction to nothing. But Peter says, the ungodly are even now kept under punishment unto the day of judgment. And lo and behold, when we turn to this picture of the day of judgment in Matthew's Gospel, we find that those who have been under punishment in the verbal form shall go away into punishment, precisely the same state, only augmented and intensified by the additional burden of a suffering that will not only be the anguish of the soul, but the anguish of the body. And so I say these are terrifying words

12:25 because of that which will follow their utterance, that which will follow their utterance is certain punishment. These shall go away into punishment. And oh my friend, when God speaks a shall, all the integrity of His holy changeless character is bound to that word. It will be certain punishment.

Terrifying Because of the Horribleness of Punishment

12:57 But it will also be horrible punishment. What will follow the utterance of the words, verse 41, notice the very language. Horrible punishment is the only word that begins to approach a description of what our Lord says. Notice the elements in the horror of that punishment.

13:22 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 the horribleness of the punishment is reduced to those three categories, three categories of thought. It is from Christ into eternal fire in the company of the devil and his angels. It is the horror of final irrevocable separation from Christ Himself. Depart from me. And the one who speaks you will remember is the Son of Man. The one who could say in the days of His humiliation, the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost.

14:29 The one who could say the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins. The Son of Man, embodiment of all light and grace and truth. The law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. That one whom God has constituted the reservoir of all spiritual blessing.

14:56 The one in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The one who is ineffably glorious in His grace and kindness and pity. The one who is inexhaustible in His mercy to the vilest and the neediest of sinners. That which makes these words so terrible is a certainty of punishment that has as its horror of horrors separation from that one who is indeed the source of all light, all grace and all truth.

15:38 It's as though the Son of Man says, You chose to live without me. You chose to keep yourself aloof from me in the day of your opportunity when I came before you in the pressure of your conscience by the accusations of my law to awaken you to your need that you might flee to me. When I came to you in the overtures of my grace in the gospel, offering myself and all of my spiritual blessings, if you would but have me, you said to me, Depart from me, O Christ. And you sought to take the arrows of my piercing from your conscience and heart. And you stopped your ears to the overtures of my mercy in the gospel. You said to me again and again, Depart from me, O Christ. I have nothing of your salvation.

16:37 Depart from me, O Christ. I'll have nothing of your word, nothing of your claims. Now the judge says, You chose to live without me. I will now seal you in that choice and that for eternity.

16:57 Depart from me. That in itself would be hell enough. But notice the text. It is not only depart from me but into the eternal fire.

17:16 The one is privative and now the other is punitive. To be cut off from all that is in Christ is hell enough. But now there is the positive infliction of divine wrath and anger in this vivid figure that is found throughout the Scriptures into the everlasting fire. Again and again in the Scriptures, fire is not only the symbol of the burning holiness of God, but of that holiness as it comes to expression in a holy, active, consuming passion against sin.

18:00 And so we read in such passages as Ezekiel 38 and verse 22, a graphic description of the judgment of God under the figure of fire. Ezekiel 38 and verse 22. Listen to the word of the prophet.

18:23 Ezekiel 38 and verse 22. And with pestilence and with blood will I enter into judgment with him, and I will rain upon him and upon his hordes and upon the many peoples that are with him an overflowing shower and great hailstones, fire and brimstone, and I will magnify myself and sanctify myself and make myself known in the eyes of many nations. God says in the pouring out of His wrath unto the figure of a shower of fire and brimstone, He's revealing who He is. And because Christ is the perfect revelation of God, in that day He will say, depart from me into everlasting fire. Fire being the symbol of that active holy passion that flows out of the very character of God to consume all that is contrary to Him. You find similar language in Psalm 11, 5 and 6.

19:42 You find it in the book of the Revelation, verses 9 and following of chapter 14, the smoke of their torment. Their torment goeth up forever and forever. Again, as I said at the outset of the study, I'm using guarded language. I'm allowing myself very little liberty in terms of imaginative language or talk.

20:06 I am quoting to you the word of God. And oh, my friends, if the horror of that language does not cause you to sense something of the awfulness of the punishment that awaits those who hear these words, then nothing I could add will ever do it. But then it's not only from me and into the fire, but in the company of the devil and his angels. Look at the language.

20:39 Depart from me, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared not for man, but for the devil and his angels. And whatever hell is, it is a place. It is a prepared place. And it is a place fitting for that arch fiend and enemy of God who from one standpoint is the great perpetrator of all the sin and wickedness and all the bloodshed and anguish and all that has flowed from the curse of sin. We can imagine what infinite wisdom has done when joined to infinite holiness preparing a place for such a foul fiendish spirit and all the imps and demons of hell who have followed him. Then we begin to understand how horrible the punishment of hell must be to go into the company of that foul fiend and all of his angels. And it is Jesus who uses that language.

Terrifying Because of the Eternality of Punishment

22:02 And so the words are terrible because that which will follow their utterance is certain punishment. Secondly, it is horrible punishment. But thirdly, it is eternal punishment. And oh, if that word eternal could only, only be erased from the scriptures.

22:28 If only it could be scrubbed from the haunting consciousness of men. But it is written, and though heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle shall pass from the law of God. Notice verse 41. Depart from ye cursed into the world and ye cursed into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels.

22:58 Verse 46. And these shall go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life. And that which makes hell such a horrible place is the eternality of that condition and that place. And nothing but the most willful perversion of the word of God can do away with the conscious eternal suffering of the damned.

23:37 For our Lord has locked into the strictest parallel the duration of the conscious enjoyment of the life of the redeemed and the horrible suffering and punishment of the existence of the damned. And notice how he has done it. Verse 46. These shall go away into eternal punishment and the meaning of punishment we've established not from imagination, not from theological prejudice, not from ecclesiastical tradition, but from the word of God itself.

24:18 It is eternal punishment. Eternal punishment. Eternal infliction of pain and torment. But now notice.

24:26 But the righteous into eternal life. And what is the nature of that life which is eternal? Well, it is life in communion with God. Life beholding God Himself.

24:43 Life serving Him. Life in the enjoyment of Him. Life in the performance of His will. Every description of eternal life in its consummate glory in the new heavens and the new earth is a description of conscious whole soul body existence in all the glory of a redeemed earth.

25:10 That is eternal life. And placed in the strictest parallel to it is eternal, endless, never ceasing punishment. And there is no text in the Bible which has been a greater bulwark against any efforts to do away with the biblical doctrine of conscious eternal suffering than this text. And it came from the lips of Him who was meek and lowly in heart, full of grace and full of truth.

25:47 And it is because our Lord, as the One through whom all things were created, knows better than any of us that place prepared that He speaks more faithfully and pointedly and graphically of eternal punishment than He does of the bliss and the glories of eternal life. If you doubt my word, I challenge you to sit down and read through the Gospel of Matthew at one sitting, and check every reference to heaven as a place, any description of what it is and shall be, and then put in another column every reference to hell as a place and what it shall be, and you will find that there is an overwhelming preponderance from the lips of our Lord of graphic descriptions and affirmations of the horror of eternal punishment. It is from the lips of our Lord that we find such words where their worm dieth not and the fire is never quenched. And when the text says, These shall go away, it means not just the souls shall go away, but the picture here is the day of judgment when the Son of Man,

27:15 seated upon the throne of His glory, summons men out of their graves, and the impenitent, the deceived religionist, and the self-righteous hypocrites, and all the indifferent hearers of the Gospel have a resurrected body joined to their lost and doomed souls, and in soul and body they shall stand before the Judge. When they hear the words, Depart from me, then, alas, the warning of our Lord will come to pass. Fear not them which kill the body, but after this have no more that they can do, but fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. These shall go away, soul and body, into eternal punishment, there to bear for the unending ages of eternity. And our minds stagger at the very idea of utterance of the words, and as we open as it were our spirits to feel something of the weight of them, we find ourselves utterly at a loss even to begin, to begin, to begin to comprehend the horror of what it must be

28:38 to have every faculty of mind and spirit and every faculty of the senses of the body made a track upon which the white-hot anger of God will run and run and run and run and that for eternity. No wonder the Psalmist cried, Who knoweth the power of thine anger and thy wrath according to the fear that is due unto thee? As the love of God is infinite, as the love of God is incomprehensible, as the love of God is described as that which passeth knowledge, everything about God is God-like, it is infinite, transcendent, it is above us in terms of being able to grasp it in the magnitude of its dimensions. But as is His love, so is His wrath. And as surely as we cannot comprehend the love that passes knowledge, we cannot comprehend the fury and the anger of God vented upon the creature made in His image, who is determined that He will not

30:06 voluntarily reflect that image upon the creature who owes his very existence and sustenance to God, but who will not acknowledge the rights and the claims of that God, who hath them, the righteous anger of God, when it is vented upon a creature that dares to defy his almighty Creator. So the words are terrible, terrifying, not only because of the one who speaks them, the vast number to whom they will be spoken, terrifying results that follow their utterance, but in the fourth and final place they are terrifying words, because none to whom the Gospel comes need hear them. None to whom the Gospel comes need hear them in terms of the devil and his angels and fallen spirits who were bypassed for generations to whom no Gospel ever came, surely among their number there is a sufficient aggregate of lost humanity

Terrifying Because None Need Hear Them

31:28 to be an eternal monument of the righteous anger of the Almighty God. And God in His love has now sent His word not primarily to one little pocket of humanity, in one little parcel of real estate in the Middle East, where for centuries the entire vast nations of the world were left in darkness apart from the light of general revelation, which indeed is a wonderful light, but because of the perversity of men's hearts, it is not a light which leads to salvation. And now the Gospel has come to all the nations. It is a Gospel which has come even into this place, and what makes these words terrible is that they will be spoken to men to whom they need not be spoken, because the way of deliverance has not only been secured in Christ, but it has been promised freely and broadly in the glorious Gospel of the grace of God. Oh, my friends sitting here tonight, if you ever hear these words in the last day, it will be a terrifying thing, because this very sermon, this very night,

32:57 will come to your remembrance. You need not hear these words in the judgments. You say, why? Because God Himself declares that He takes no delight in the destruction and death of the sinner.

33:13 He says in the clearest terms in such passages as Ezekiel 18 and verse 32, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that he turn and live. Oh, my friend, never conceive of God as one who would wring his hands with delight, as he sees these multitudes sink into hell. God says judgment is His strange work. And though because He is God and He is holy and righteous, His work of judgment will have the engagement of His whole being, may I say it with reverence, it will be a reluctant engagement. I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. This is the Word of God. And so He then turns to plead and to entreat sinning Israel with these words, Turn ye, turn ye.

34:16 Why will ye die, O house of Israel? God takes no delight in the death of sinners. And we have more than His word of entreating, His word of affirmation. We have His deeds in the person of His Son.

34:36 God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. God so loved that He gave. My friend, as I hinted this morning, if you have any doubt about the validity of the reality of hell, then you have no explanation for the cross of Christ. There is no explanation for the agony, for that terrible agony of Golgotha.

35:07 Apart from the reality of the biblical doctrine of hell. It is because God is determined to uphold all of the sanctions of His holy law. That law which says, This do and live, the soul that sinneth it shall die. And when the Lord Jesus voluntarily assumes the debt of sinners, the Scripture says in Romans 8, 32, He that spares not his own sins, but delivered him up for us all.

35:44 And to what did He deliver him? He delivered him to nothing less than the very thing described in this text. Hell is described in many passages as outer darkness. Does not the Scripture tell us from the third hour, from the sixth hour, to the ninth hour, from high noon to three o'clock, the heavens will be shrouded in blackness.

36:11 The outer darkness of the hell to come was poured into the bosom of the Son of God in those hours of agony. Is hell to be found in the words, Depart from me? Then you understand the cry from Golgotha, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I say it reverently, but on the basis of Scripture I must say it.

36:42 There is a sense in which the Father said to His own Son, Depart from me, ye curse. A strong language. It's biblical language. Galatians 3.13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become, what? A curse for us. And if the curse of a broken law is that frightening, that irrevocable separation, depart from me, ye curse. And in a sense the Father spoke those words to His own Son when He hung upon the cross.

37:31 And if hell is in its essence, according to this language, entering into the company of the devil and his angels, the Bible makes abundantly clear that Jesus entered into mysterious interactions with the power of darkness in His sufferings that we will never understand. He says, This is your hour and the power of darkness. The Scripture speaks of Him entering into conflict with principalities and powers by which He ultimately triumphed over them in His death. But there was, as it were, the very engagement of those powers of darkness in such a way that who can imagine the horror it must have brought to the spotless holy soul of the Son of God to be in that kind of hand-to-hand conflict with the Prince of Darkness. I say these are terrifying words because none to whom the Gospel need hear them. God has declared that He takes no delight in the death of sinners. God has made an adequate provision for sinners in the death and resurrection of His Son that answers to all the demands of His holy law.

A Pastor's Plea and Warning

38:55 And then what has He done? He has sent His word to you even in this place tonight. Stop and think for a minute, unconverted friend. Why in the world would I ever choose to speak on a text like this?

39:14 If you're honest and if you're thinking, you have to come to one of two conclusions. You say either that man ought to be the one up there on Fairfield Avenue in Overbrook. Something has snapped in his judgment so that he gets some kind of a sadistic charge of the talking about morose things. You must accuse me and attribute to me mental and psychological and emotional imbalance tantamount or bordering on madness.

39:51 Or you must believe me when I say that God is so thirsty for your salvation that He would take a natively selfish, man-pleasing, man-fearing creature such as I am and so work in my heart a genuine desire for your well-being that I would speak to you simply, plainly, tenderly and earnestly, pleading with you to flee from the wrath of the devil. Now I ask you in the theater of your own conscience, what do you regard me to be? A psychopath? Someone bordering on mental and emotional and psychological imbalance? Or will you believe me that I stand before you as one who is a brand plucked from the burning, who can well remember his own experience as a little boy and right up through his teenage years living day and night with the frightening, awesome fear that he might be cut off and drop into hell as a little boy who read enough of his Bible and heard enough from the lips of his mom and dad

41:16 and from preachers to know that hell was no doctrine that was simply a carryover from medieval theology. It was a reality of the Bible and if I believed in the Jesus of the Bible I had to believe in Him and His doctrine of hell. And as one who lived under the terrors and the torments of that dread place for so long and who knows the sweetness of living now under the consciousness of sins forgiven, a sinner yet, a sinner still, but a pardoned sinner, a forgiven sinner, a ransomed redeemed sinner, an adopted sinner. Oh, my friend, it's out of that desire to communicate to you something of the joy of sins forgiven, the knowledge that these words will never be spoken to me that I speak so plainly to you tonight. And isn't it a terrible thing that men will hear these words, depart from ye, ye cursed, who need never hear them. God's love for sinners has been declared to them as it's being declared to you tonight. God's mighty deeds on behalf of sinners is expounded

42:42 as it is expounded tonight. And fellow sinners who deserve hell as much as you do, and by nature as selfish and self-centered as you are, God has worked in them a genuine desire for your well-being so that they can say with the Apostle Paul we were willing to impart unto you not the gospel of God only but our very souls because you were become dear to us. We seek not yours but you. What a terrible thing for sinners to hear these words who need never hear them, who could hear the words in the text, come ye blessed of my Father, enter into that kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Oh, my friend, as I conclude the exhortation and the exposition tonight, let me do so in this simple, simple couplet of biblical perspective. You have no choice with respect to future dealings with the Lord of glory. The Son of Man shall come and he shall be seated upon the throne of his glory and the nation shall be gathered

44:08 against him. Oh, but you say I don't believe in the immortality of the soul. I don't believe in the resurrection. Your unbelief will not hinder the power of Christ from keeping your soul in its never dying state and from calling your body from the dust of the earth in the day of the resurrection.

44:29 The Son of Man shall come, before him shall be gathered all the nations you're going to be there. I'm going to be there. God's not going to wait for your vote. God's not going to ask for your consent.

44:45 He made us. He will summon us from our graves to stand before him. And in that day you will have dealings with the Son of Man upon the throne. Now when we turn to the book of the Revelation, John says he saw in the midst of the throne a lamb as it had been slain.

45:08 And it's the picture of the Lord Jesus in his capacity as the dying redeemer of sins. And in the very next chapter we read that men will cry for the rocks and hills to fall upon them in the day of judgment and this will be their cry. Hide us from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. Isn't that a strange conjunction of words?

45:40 The wrath of the Lamb. I thought the Lamb was the epitome of meekness. As a lamb before her shearers is done so he opened not his mouth. But you see the Lamb is the judge.

46:02 And if you will not flee to the wounds and to the merit and to the forgiveness and to the righteousness and to the pardon and to all that is held out to sinners in the Lamb in his submissiveness to death in the submissiveness to the wrath of God if you will not flee on to flee in the day of his wrath. But you must have dealings with the Lamb upon his throne. Would God that this night while he is still upon a throne that is called a throne of grace while he is yet upon that throne to receive sinners to smother them in his redemptive love to cover them in his own righteousness to wash them in his own precious blood oh that you would behold the Lamb of God who bears away the sin of the world. My friend what is there in Jesus Christ that you will not have him on his terms? What can you find in Christ

47:28 that is unlovely that is unreasonable that is ungracious and unkind? I ask you what is there in Christ to keep you at a distance from him? You can find nothing in him but loveliness grace gentleness no the thing that keeps you from him in him but it's in your own heart and you know what it is? Christ tells you he says this is the condemnation that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil neither will they come to the light you see the Lamb is also the light of the world and whatsoever maketh manifest is light and the reason you will not come to the Lamb is that you know if you do you've got to come out of the darkness of your sin and your self-will and your hypocrisy and your evil thoughts and intentions and that's true and so the choice is before you will you cling to and love your sins only to hear the words depart from me only to cry from the wrath of the Lamb

48:55 you flee from your sins and run to Christ and say hide me from the destruction of my sins faith is described in Hebrews 6 as fleeing for refuge to the Lord Jesus now running away for a hiding place is not the act of a hero but a penitent believing sinner is not a hero the hero is the mighty Savior who enfolds needy helpless sinners in His grace and in His love as I was meditating this morning before coming to preach to you there was a text of scripture that was brought to my mind and I read this as I close tonight from Ezekiel's prophecy chapter 3 and it was this text among others that pressured me to speak on this subject today I am not Ezekiel I am not a prophet but as a minister of Christ called by Christ and recognized by His church to preach His word there is in that sense an extension of the prophetic responsibility upon every minister and we read in Ezekiel chapter 3

The Watchman's Responsibility and the Call to Compassion

50:24 these very sobering words verse 16 and it came to pass at the end of seven days that the word of the Lord came unto me saying son of man I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel therefore hear the word at my mouth and give them warning from me Ezekiel you are to be my watchman to speak my word to my people when I say this is Jehovah speaking when I say to the wicked thou shalt surely die and thou givest him not warning nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his life the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity but his blood will I require at thy hand yet if thou warn the wicked and he turn not from his wickedness nor from his wicked way he shall die in his iniquity but thou hast delivered the wicked thy soul and my dear friends gathered here tonight with every fiber of my being in the midst of no little degree of weariness and physical discomfort I have sought this day to deliver

51:52 my soul and in that day when I stand with you before the Lamb on the throne of his glory my hands will be clean of your blood but I confess that doesn't give me the comfort I want I would rather be able to say with Paul what is my crown of rejoicing are not even ye at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with all his sake though there will be some consolation that none of you will be able to point the finger and say that that man did not warn me from the words of God that man did not tell me of a place of torment that man did not tell me of the way of escape though there will be some comfort to be vindicated from blood guiltiness my friend that's a negative comfort oh the consolation I long is to be able to say as Paul did ye are my crown of rejoicing oh to be able to stand with you that day and say Lord Jesus because you take the weak things

53:22 to confound the mighty and the things that are not to bring to naught the things that are you use the instrumentality of a poor sinful man speaking in all the limitations of human language of holy things but you made your word effectual Lord Jesus here is the fruit of your suffering Lord Jesus Lord of your agonies and your pangs it's that for which we live it's that for which I preach it's that for which we pray oh do not rob us of that joy flee to our savior embrace him and stand with us in that day and hear his words come ye blessed we are here at this time we are here in this place in this place in this time to evangelize us and lead us into the right place to repent and rise to his

54:47 Make us His brothers and His sisters in His family to know that we will hear the words, Come ye blessed. What a debt we owe to our gracious Savior. What an obligation we have to lost sinners. Paul says, knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.

55:07 Oh, how compassionate we should be. How earnest in pleading with God. How tender in pleading with men. So I trust as the people of God, we will not feel that this word has been for someone else today, but that our hearts will be filled with a new sense of gratitude to our Savior, compassion to the lost, and a burning zeal to see them brought to the knowledge of the Son of God.

Prayer for Sinners, Ministers, and the Church

55:40 Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father,

55:58 we confess that when we sit in moments such as these,

56:04 in which Your Word is set before us in its naked purity,

56:10 we are sobered by the language of the text that we've studied today,

56:19 and yet we confess that so quickly the world of sense and time and things and people obscures these awesome realities,

56:32 and we live as though there were no hell to shun, no heaven to gain, no Savior to embrace. Oh, God, don't leave us at the mercy of our own carelessness. We pray for sinners in this building tonight to whom these words will be spoken unless they undergo that mighty change that You call a new birth, that mighty change that Your Word calls conversion, those mighty spiritual upheavals that Your Word calls repentance and faith. Oh, God, we pray that You would let us be Oh, God, in Jesus' name, may Your Word fasten itself upon the conscience, upon the heart, upon the whole being, and may that great and awesome day reveal that some this day, April the 20th of this year, were brought to the knowledge of Your Son. And we pray, our Father, for those who sit amongst us preparing for the work, for the ministry. God, make them pleaders with men. May none be able to slip into hell drowsy and careless under their ministries.

57:50 Oh, God, make them, we pray, to preach in such a way as to arrest the careless and to bring up short the indifferent. And we pray for Your dear people in this place, many who've been rescued from that horrible pit, many who will not hear these words because of Your grace. Oh, God, give to them, give to us a new measure of compassion for sinners. Help us to believe in the hell that we say we believe in.

58:25 Help us to warn sinners to flee from the wrath to come. Help us so to live as to give credibility to our witness. Oh, Father, have mercy upon us. Upon our society, upon this city, upon Essex County, upon this state, upon our nation.

58:48 For surely, if Your word is true, that You will cast into hell all the nations that forget You, then our nation is ripe for that judgment. Oh, Lord, come, we pray. Come, we pray. And may we yet see multitudes turning, from sin and fleeing to Christ.

59:15 Hear our prayer. May the blessing of Your presence rest upon us. We ask these mercies through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

59:27 Amen.