Let the Greater Burning Overcome the Lesser.

let the greater burning overcome the lesser -- Thomas Brooks.

Hell is a place of endless, ceaseless, and remediless torment

BY THOMAS BROOKS

But now for the fact, that there is a hell, that there is such a place of misery prepared and appointed for the wicked—I shall briefly demonstrate against the high atheists and Socinians of this day.

[1.] First, God created angels and men after his own image. Man must be so much honored as to be made like God; and no creature must be so much honored as to be made like man. The pattern after which man was made is sometimes called image alone. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him," Gen. 1:27. Sometimes likeness alone: Gen. 5:1, "In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him." Sometimes both: Gen. 1:26, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness;" which makes a prudent interpreter think that when they are joined, that the Holy Spirit means an image most like his own. It is exceeding much for man's honor that he is an epitome of the world, an abridgment of other creatures, partaking with the stones in being, with the stars in motion, with the plants in growing, with the beasts in sense, and with angels in knowledge. But his being made after God's image is far more. You know, when great men erect a stately building, they cause their own picture to be hung upon it, that spectators may know who was the chief builder of it. Just so, when God had created the fabric of this world, the last thing he did was the setting up his own picture in it, creating man after his own image.

When the great Creator went about that noble work, that prime piece of making of man, he does, as it were, call a solemn council of the sacred persons in the Trinity: "And God said, Let us make man in our image," etc., Gen. 1:26. Man before his fall was the best of creatures—but since his fall he is become the worst of creatures. ["Man," says one, "in his creation is angelic; in his corruption diabolical; in his renovation theological; in his translation majestical. Man was angel in Eden, a devil in the world, a saint in the church, a king in heaven.] He who was once the image of God, the glory of Paradise, the world's master, and the Lord's darling, has now become an abomination to God, a burden to heaven, a plague to the world, and a slave to Satan. When man first came out of God's mint, he did shine most gloriously, as being bespangled with holiness and clad with the royal robe of righteousness; his understanding was filled with knowledge; his will with uprightness; his affections with holiness, etc. But yet, being a mutable creature, and subject to temptations, Satan quickly stripped him of his happiness, and cheated and cozened him out of his imperial crown—with an apple.

If God had created angels and men immutable, he had created them gods and not creatures—but being made mutable we know they did fall from their primitive purity and glory; and we know that out of the whole host of angels, he kept some from falling; and when all mankind was fallen, he redeemed some by his Son. Now mark, as he shows mercy upon some in their salvation, so it is fit that he should glorify his justice upon others in their condemnation, Romans 7:21-23. And because there must be distinct places for the exercise of the one and for the execution of the other, which are in God equally infinite by an irreversible decree from the foundation of the world—a glorious habitation was prepared for the one, and a most hideous dungeon for the other. "These shall go into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal," Mat. 25:46. Yes, so certain are both these places, that they were of old prepared for that very purpose. "Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;" and so, "Depart, you cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels," verse 41.

Look! As God foresaw the different estates and conditions of men and angels, so he provided for them distinct and different places. Doubtless, hell was constituted before angels or men fell. Hell was framed before sin was hatched—just as heaven was formed and fitted before any of the inhabitants were produced. But,

[2.] Secondly, That there is a hell, both the Old and New Testament cloth clearly and fully testify. Take some instances: Psalm 9:17, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." In the Hebrew there are two "intos," "into, into" hell; that is, "The wicked shall certainly be turned into the nethermost hell;" yes, they shall forcibly be turned into the lowest and darkest place in hell. [Sheol is often put for the grave, Psalm 16:10—but not always.] God will, as it were, with both hands thrust him into hell. If Sheol here signify the grave only, what punishment is here threatened to the wicked, which the righteous is not equally liable to? Doubtless, Sheol here is to be taken for that prison or place of torment where divine justice detains all those in hold that have all their days rebelled against him, scorned his Son, despised the means of grace, and died in open rebellion against him.

"The psalmist," says Mollerus, "declares the miserable condition of all those who live and die in their sins—They shall be everlastingly punished." And Musculus reads the place thus: "The souls of the ungodly shall be punished in hell with deserved torments." Certainly, the very place in which the wicked shall lodge and be tormented to all eternity—namely, hell, the bottomless pit, a dungeon of darkness, a lake of fire and brimstone, a fiery furnace,—will extremely aggravate the dolefulness of their condition. O sirs, were all the water in the sea ink, and every blade of grass a pen, and every hair on all the men's heads in the world the hand of a ready writer, all would be too short graphically to delineate the nature of this dungeon, where all lost souls must lodge forever. Where is the man who, to gain a world, would lodge one night in a room that is haunted with devils; and is it nothing to dwell in hell with them forever?

So Solomon, Proverbs 5:5, says of the harlot, "that her feet go down to death, her steps take hold on hell." Here Sheol is translated hell, and in the judgment of Lavater is well translated too: "which," says he, "is spoken not so much of natural death as of spiritual, and that eternal destruction which follows thereupon." And he gives this for a reason why we should understand the place so, because whoredom being an abominable sin, defiling the members of the body of Christ, dissolving and making void the covenant between God and man, must needs be accompanied with an equivalent judgment, even excluding those who are guilty thereof, without repentance, the kingdom of heaven, into which pure and undefiled place no unclean thing can enter. ["By death and hell is in this place meant not only temporal death and the visible grave—but also eternal death and hell itself, even the place of the damned." The Dutch Annotations.]

And mark those words of the apostle, "Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." If men will not judge them, God himself will, and give them a portion of misery answerable to their transgression. [1 Cor. 6:9-10; Gal. 5:19-21; Rev. 21:27; Heb. 13:4.] Though the magistrate be negligent in punishing them—yet God will judge them. Sometimes he judges them in this life, by pouring forth of his wrath upon their bodies, souls, consciences, names, and estates—but if he does not thus judge them in this life—yet he will be sure to judge them in the life to come; which Bishop Latimer well understood when he presented to Henry the Eighth, for a New-year's gift, a New Testament, with a napkin, having this note on it, "Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge;" yes, he has already adjudged them "to the fiery lake of burning sulfur," Rev. 21:8. "Nothing," says one, "has so much enriched hell as beautiful faces." The Germans have a proverb that "the pavement of hell is made of the skulls of shaved priests and the glorious crests of gallants." Their meaning is, that these sorts of people being most given up to fleshly lusts and pleasures, they shall be sure to have the lowest place in hell. The harlot's feet go down to death, and her steps take hold on hell. Immorality brings men to hell. "Whoremongers shall have their part in fiery lake of burning sulfur," Rev. 21:8. "For fornication and uncleanness the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience," Col. 3:5-6. The adulterer herself goes there; and is it not fit that her companions in sin should be her companions in misery? "I will cast her into a bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation," Rev. 2:22. She hastens with sails and oars to hell, and draws her lovers with her. All her courses tend towards hell. The unchaste are the foundations and upholders of hell; they are the devil's best customers.

Oh, the thousands of men and women who are sent to hell for sexual immorality! Hell would be very thin and empty were it not for these. Other sins are toilsome and troublesome—but sexual immorality is pleasant, and sends men and women merrily to hell.

I have read a story, that one asking the devil which were the greatest sins? he answered, "Covetousness and lust." The other asking again, whether perjury and blasphemy were not greater sins? the devil replied, "that in the schools of divinity they were the greater sins—but for the increase of his revenues the other were the greater." Bede, therefore, styles lust, "the daughter of the devil, which brings forth many children to him." Oh, that all wantons would take that counsel of Bernard, "Let the fire of hell extinguish the fire of lust in you; let the greater burning overcome the lesser," 1 Tim. 5:6. Ponder upon that Proverbs 9:18, "But he knows not that the dead are there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell." Namely, those who are spiritually dead, and who are in the highway to be cut off, either by filthy diseases, or by the rage of the jealous husband, or by the sword of the magistrate, or by some quarrels arising among those who are rivals in the harlot's love, and are as sure to be damned as if they were in hell already. It is a metaphor from a dungeon. He knows not that the dead are there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell. Aben Ezra will have the original word "there," to be referred to hell; and the meaning of the whole verse to be more plainly thus, "He knows not that her guests being dead are in the depth of hell."

But the Hebrew word here used and translated dead, is Rephaim, which word properly signifies giants. The meaning of this place seems to be no other—but that the immoral woman will bring those who are her guests to hell, to keep the apostate giants company,—those mighty men of renown of the old world, whose wickedness was so great in the earth, that it repented and grieved God that he had made man, Gen. 6:4-5; and to take vengeance on whom he brought the general deluge upon the earth, and destroyed both man and beast from the face thereof. These giants are called in Hebrew Nephilim, such as, being fallen from God, fell upon men, and by force and violence made others fall before them, even as the beasts of the field do fall before the roaring lions. These great oppressors were first drowned, and then damned, and sent to that accursed place which was appointed for them. Now to that place and condition, in which they are, the harlot will bring all her wanton lovers.

Take one scripture more: Proverbs 15:11, "Hell and destruction are before the Lord; how much more then the hearts of the children of men." [Destruction is put as an epithet of hell.] Some by Sheol understand the grave, and by Abaddon hell. There is nothing so deep, or secret, that can be hid from the eyes of God. He knows the souls in hell, and the bodies in the grave, and much more men's thoughts here in this place, Proverbs 15:11. The Jews take the word Abaddon, which we render destruction, for Gehenna, that is, elliptically for Beth-Abaddon, the house of destruction.

Though we know not where hell is, nor what is done there—though we know not what is become of those who are destroyed, nor what they suffer—yet God does; and if the secrets of hell and devils are known to him, then much more the secrets of the hearts of the children of men. The devil, who is the great executioner of the wrath of God, is expressed by this word; as hell is called destruction in the abstract, so the devil is called a destroyer in the concrete. "And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, or hell, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon—but in the Greek tongue has his name Apollyon," Rev, 9:11. Both the one and the other, the Hebrew and the Greek, signify the same thing—a destroyer. The devil, who is the jailer of hell, is called a destroyer, as hell itself is called destruction. Oh, sirs! hell is destruction; those who are once there are lost, yes, lost forever, Rev. 14:11. The reason why hell is called destruction, is because those who are cast to hell are undone to all eternity. "If hell," said one, "were to be endured a thousand years, methinks I could bear it—but forever—that astonishes me."

Bellarmine tells us of a learned man, who after his death appeared to his friend, complaining that he was adjudged to hell-torments, which, says he, were they to last but a thousand thousand years, I should think it tolerable—but alas! they are eternal. The fire in hell is like that stone in Arcadia I have read of, which being once kindled, could not be quenched. There is no estate on earth so miserable—but a man may be delivered out of it—but out of hell there is no deliverance. No prayers can rescue any who are once become hell's prisoners! I might add other scriptures out of the Old Testament—but let these suffice.

That there is such a place as hell is, prepared for the torment of the bodies and souls of wicked and impenitent sinners, is most clear and evident in the New Testament as well as in the Old. Among the many that might be produced, take these for a taste: Mat. 5:22, "Whoever shall say, You fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." "You fool," the word signifies unsavory, or without relish; a fool here is, by a metaphor, called insipid, Hebrew, Sote, which we call Sot.

"Shall be in danger of hell-fire," or to be cast into Gehenna. Gehenna comes from the Hebrew word Gettinnom, that is, the valley of Hinnom, lying near the city of Jerusalem; in which valley, in former times, the idolatrous Jews caused their children to be burned alive between the glowing arms of the brazen image of Moloch, imitating the abominations of the heathen, Josh. 15:8. And hence the Scripture often makes use of that word to signify the place of eternal punishment, where the damned must abide under the wrath of God forever, 2 Kings 23:10; Jer. 7:31, 32:35, and 19:4- 6.

There were four kinds of punishments exercised among the Jews—

    1. Stranglings;

    2. The sword;

    3. Stoning;

    4. The fire.

Now this last they always judged the worst. In these words, "shall be in danger of hell-fire," Christ alludes to the highest degree of punishment that was inflicted by them, namely, to be burned in the valley of Hinnom, which, by a known metaphor, is transferred to hell itself, and the inexpressible torments thereof. For as those poor wretches being inclosed in a brazen idol, heated with fire, were miserably tormented in this valley of Hinnom; so the wicked being cast into hell, the prison of the damned, shall be eternally tormented in unquenchable fire. This valley of Hinnom, by reason of the pollution of it with slaughter, blood, and stench of carcasses, did become so execrable, that hell itself did afterwards inherit the same name, and was called Gehenna of this very place. And that,

1. In respect of the hollowness and depth thereof, being a low and deep valley.

2. This valley of Hinnom was a place of misery, in regard of those many slaughters that were committed in it through their barbarous idolatry; so hell is a place of misery and sorrowfulness, wherein there is nothing but sorrow.

3. Thirdly, by the bitter and lamentable cries of poor infants in this valley, is shadowed out the cries and lamentable torments of the damned in hell.

4. In this valley of Hinnom was another fire which was kept continually burning for the consuming of dead carcasses, and filth, and the garbage that came out of the city. Now our Savior, by the fire of Gehenna, in Mat. 5:22, has reference principally to this fire, signifying hereby the perpetuity and everlastingness of hellish pains. To this last judgment of burning, does Christ appropriate that kind of open reviling of a brother, that he might notify the heinousness of that sin.

See also Mat. 5:29-30, "If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell-fire." Julian, taking these commands literally, mocked at the Christian religion, as foolish, cruel, and vain, because they require men to maim their members. He mocked at Christians because no man did it; and he mocked at Christ because no man obeyed him. But this apostate might have seen from the scope that these words were not to be taken literally—but figuratively. Some of the ancients, by the right hand, and the right eye, do understand relations, friends, or any other dear enjoyments which draws the heart from God. Others of them, by the right eye, and the right hand, do understand such darling sins which are as dear to men as their right eyes or right hands. That this hell here spoken of is not meant of the grave, into which the body shall be laid, is most evident, because those Christians who do pull out their right eyes, and cut off their right hands—that is, mortify those special sins which are as dear and near to them as the very members of their bodies—shall be secured and delivered from this hell, whereas none shall be exempt from the grave, though they are the choicest people on earth for grace and holiness.

Death knows no difference between robes and rags, between prince and peasant. "All flesh is grass," Isaiah 40:6. The flesh of princes, nobles, counselors, generals, etc., is grass, as well as the flesh of the lowest beggar that walks the streets. "The mortal scythe," says one, "is master of the royal scepter, it mows down the lilies of the crown, as well as the grass of the field." Never was there orator so eloquent, nor monarch so potent, who could either persuade or withstand the stroke of death when it came! Death's motto is, "I spare none!" It is one of Solomon's sacred aphorisms, "The rich and the poor meet together," Proverbs 22:2, sometimes in the same bed, sometimes at the same board, and sometimes in the same grave. Death is the common inn of all mankind. "There is no defense against the stroke of death, nor no discharge in that war," Heb. 9:27; Eccles. 8:8. Death is that only king against whom there is resistance, Proverbs 30:31. If your houses be on fire, by good help they may be quenched; if the flood breaks out, by art and industry it may be repaired; if princes invade by power and policy, they may be repulsed; if devils from hell shall tempt, by assistance from heaven they may be resisted. But death comes into royal palaces, and into the poorest cottages, and there is not a man to be found, who can make resistance against this king of terrors and terror of kings.

Thus you see that by hell in Mat. 5:29-30, you may not, you cannot, understand the grave; and therefore by it you must understand the place of the damned.

But if you please you may cast your eye upon another scripture, namely, Mat. 10:28, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." We should not fear man at all—when he stands in competition with God. Just so, Victorian, the proconsul of Carthage, being solicited to Arianism by the ambassadors of King Hunnerick, answered thus, "Being assured of God and my Lord Christ, I tell you, what you may tell the king, Let him burn me, let him drive me to the beasts, let him torment me with all kinds of torments, I shall never consent to be an Arian!" And though the tyrant afterwards did torture him with very great tortures—yet he could never force him over to Arianism. The best remedy against the slavish fear of tyrants, is to set that great God up as the object of our fear, who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Mark, Jesus does not say to destroy soul and body simply or absolutely, so that they should be no more—but to punish them eternally in hell, where the worm never dies, nor the fire ever goes out. Now by hell in Mat. 10:28, the grave cannot be meant, because the soul is not destroyed with the body in the grave, as they both shall be, if the person be wicked, after the morning of the resurrection, in hell, Eccles. 12:7, and Phil. 1:3.

From the immortality of the soul, we may infer the eternity of man's future condition. The soul being immortal, it must be immortally happy or immortally miserable.

Take one scripture more, namely, 1 Pet. 3:19-20, "By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which once were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah." [Spirits, that is, the souls departed, not men—but spirits, to keep an analogy to the 18th verse, Christ suffered, being made dead in the flesh, and made alive by the Spirit; in which Spirit he had gone and preached to those who are now spirits in prison, because they disobeyed, when the time was, when the patience of God once waited in the days of Noah.] That is, Christ by his Spirit, in the ministry of Noah, did preach to the men of the old world, who are now in hell. In Noah's time they were on earth—but in Peter's time they were in hell. Mark, Christ did not preach by his Spirit, in his ministry, or any other way, to spirits who were in prison or in hell while he preached to them. There are no sermons in hell, nor any salvation there. The loving-kindness of God is abundantly declared on earth—but it shall never be declared in hell. Look, as there is nothing felt in hell but destruction, so there is nothing found in hell of the offers of salvation. One offer of Christ in hell would turn hell into a heaven!

One of the ancients has reported the opinion of some in his time who thought, that though there is destruction in hell—yet not eternal destruction—but that sinners should be punished, some a lesser, others a longer time, and that, at last, all shall be freed. "And yet," says he, "Origen was more merciful in that point than these men, for he held that the devil himself should be saved at last." Of this opinion I shall say no more in this place, than this one thing which he there said. These men will be found to err by so much the more foully, and against the right words of God so much the more perversely, by how much they seem to themselves to judge more mercifully; for indeed the justice of God in punishing of sinners is as much above the reach of man's thoughts—as his mercies in pardoning them are, Isaiah 55:7-9. Oh, let not such who have neglected the great salvation when they were on earth, Heb. 2:3, ever expect to have an offer of salvation made to them when they are in hell! Consult these scriptures, Mat. 25:30, 13:41-42; Rev. 9:2, 14:19-20, 20:1-3, 7. I must make haste, and therefore may not stand upon the opening of these scriptures, having said enough already to prove both out of the Old and New Testament that there is a hell, a place of torment, provided and prepared for all wicked and ungodly men. But the third argument to prove that there is a hell, is this,

[3.] The beams of natural light in some of the heathens have made such impressions on the heart of natural conscience, that several of them have had confused notions of a hell, as well as of a judgment to come. Though the poor blind heathens were ignorant of Christ and the gospel, and the great work of redemption, etc.—yet by the light of nature, and reasonings from thence, they did attain to the understanding of a deity, who was both just and good; as also, that the soul was immortal, and that both rewards and punishments were prepared for the souls of men after this life, according as they were found either virtuous or wicked. Profound Bradwardine, and several others, have produced many proofs concerning their apprehensions of hell, of wrath to come. What made the heathen Emperor Adrian when he lay a-dying, cry out, "O my little wretched wandering soul, where are you now hastening? Oh, what will become of me! Live I cannot, die I dare not!" Look, as these poor heathens did imagine such a place as the Elysian fields, where the virtuous should spend an eternity in pleasures; so also they did feign a place called Tartarum, or hell, where the wicked should be eternally tormented. Tertullian, and after him Chrysostom, affirms that poets and philosophers, and all sorts of men, speaking of a future retribution, have said that many are punished in hell. Plato is very plain, that the profane shall go into hell to be tormented for their wickednesses, with the greatest, most bitter and terrible punishments, forever in that prison in hell.

And Jupiter, speaking to the other gods concerning the Grecians and Trojans, says—
If any shall so hardy be,
To aid each part in spite of me;
Him will I tumble down to hell,
In that infernal place to dwell.

So Horace, speaking concerning Jove's thunderbolts, says—
With which earth, seas, the Stygian lake,
And hell with all her furies quake.

And Trismegistus affirms concerning the soul's going out of the body defiled, that it is tossed to and fro with eternal punishments. Nor was Virgil ignorant thereof when he said—
They all shall pack,
Sentence once past, to their deserved rack.

The horror of which place he acknowledges he could not express,
No heart of man can think, no tongue can tell,
The direful pains ordained and felt in hell.

It was the common opinion among the poor heathen that the wicked were held in chains by Pluto—so they called the prince of devils—in chains which cannot be loosed. To conclude, the very Turks speak of the house of perdition, and affirm that they who have turned the grace of God into impiety, shall abide eternally in the fire of hell, and there be eternally tormented. I might have spent much more time upon this head—but that I do not judge it expedient, considering the people for whose sakes and satisfaction I have sent this piece into the world. But,

[4.] Fourthly, The secret checks, gripes, stings, and the amazing horrors and terrors of CONSCIENCE, which sometimes astonish, affright, and even distract sinful wretches—do clearly and abundantly evidence that there is a hell, that there is a place of torment prepared and appointed for ungodly sinners. ["Every man is tormented with his own conscience," says the philosopher.] Doubtless, it was not merely the dissolution of nature—but the sad consequences, which so startled and terrified Belshazzar when he saw the handwriting on the wall, Dan. 5:5-6. Guilty man, when conscience is awakened, fears an after-reckoning, when he shall be paid the wages of his sins, proportionate to his demerits.

Wolfius tells you of one John Hufmeister, who fell sick in his inn as he was traveling towards Augsburg in Germany, and grew to that horror that they had to bind him in his bed with chains, where he cried out that "he was for ever cast off from before the face of God, and should perish forever, he having greatly wounded his conscience by sin," etc.

James Abyes, who suffered martyrdom for Christ's sake and the gospel's, as he was going along to execution he gave all his money and his clothes away to one, and another to his shirt, upon which one of the sheriff's attendants scoffingly said that "he was a madman and a heretic;" but as soon as the godly man was executed this wretch was struck mad, and threw away his clothes, and cried out that "James Abyes was a godly man, and gone to heaven—but he was a wicked man, and was damned!" And thus he continued crying out until his death.

Dionysius was so troubled with fear and horror of conscience, that, not daring to trust his best friends with a razor, he used to singe his beard with burning coals—says Cicero.

Bessus having slain his father, and being afterwards banqueting with several nobles, arose from the table and beat down a swallow's nest which was in the chimney, saying they lied "to say that he slew his father," for his guilty conscience made him think that the swallows, when they chattered, proclaimed his parricide to the world.

Theodoricus the king having slain Boetius and Symmachus, and being afterwards at dinner, began to change countenance, his guilty conscience so blinding his eyes that he thought the head of a fish which stood before him to have been the head of his cousin Symmachus, who bit at him and threatened him, the horror whereof did so amaze him, that he presently died.

Nero, that monster of nature, having once slain his mother, had never more any peace within—but was plagued with horrors, fears, visions, and clamors which his guilty conscience set before him and suggested unto him. He suspected his nearest and dearest friends and favorites, he trembled at the barking of a puppy, and the crowing of a rooster, yes, the shaking of a leaf, and neither dared speak unto others nor could endure others to speak to him, when he was retired into a private house, lest the noise should be heard by some who lay in wait for his life.

Now were there not a hell, were there not a place of torment where God will certainly inflict unspeakable miseries and intolerable torments upon wicked and ungodly men, why should their consciences thus plague, torture, and torment them? Yes, the very heathen had so much light in their natural consciences, as made such a discovery of that place of darkness, that some of them have been terrified with their own inventions concerning it, and distracted with the very sense of those very torments which they themselves have described. The very flashes of hell-fire which sinners daily experience in their own consciences—may be an argument sufficient to satisfy those who there is a hell, a place of torment provided for them in the eternal world.

[5.] Fifthly, Those matchless, easeless, and endless torments that God will certainly inflict upon the bodies and souls of all wicked and ungodly men, after the resurrection, does sufficiently evidence that there is a hell—that there is a place of torment provided, prepared, and fitted by God, wherein he will, "pour forth all the vials of his wrath upon wicked and ungodly men."

Isaiah 30:33, "Topheth has long been prepared. Its fire pit has been made deep and wide, with an abundance of fire and wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze." This place that was so famous for judgment and vengeance is used to express the torments of hell, the place of the damned. Tophet was a place in the valley of Hinnom; it was the place where the angel of the Lord destroyed the host of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, Isaiah 30:31, 33; and this was the place where the idolatrous Jews were slain and massacred by the Babylonian armies, when their city was taken and their carcasses left, for lack of room for burial, for food for the fowls of heaven and beasts of the field, according to the word of the Lord by the prophet Jeremiah, Jer. 7:31-33, and 19:4-6. And this was the place where the children of Israel committed that abominable idolatry in making their children pass through the fire to Moloch; that is—burnt them to the devil, 2 Kings 23:10; 2 Chron. 33:6. Therefore king Josiah polluted it, and made it a place execrable, ordaining it to be the garbage dump where dead carcasses, rubbish, and other unclean things should be cast out. For consuming whereof, to prevent annoyance, a continual fire was there burning, 2 Kings 33:8. Now this place, being so many ways execrable for what had been done therein, especially having been as it were the gate to eternal destruction, by so remarkable judgments and vengeance of God there executed for sin, it came to be translated to signify the place of the damned—as the most accursed, execrable, and abominable place of all places.

The Spirit of God, in Scripture, by metaphors of all sorts of things which are dreadful unto sense—sets forth the condition of the damned, and the torments that he has reserved for them in the life to come. Hell's punishments do infinitely exceed all other punishments, that there is no pain so extreme—as that of the damned. Look, as there are no joys which can compare to the joys of heaven, so there are no pains which can compare to the pains of hell, Psalm 116:3. All the cruelties in the world cannot possibly make up any horror comparable to the horrors of hell. The brick-kilns of Egypt, the furnace of Babylon—are but as a fleeting spark—compared to this tormenting Tophet which has been prepared of old to punish the bodies and souls of sinners with. Hanging, racking, burning, scourging, stoning, sawing asunder, flaying of the skin, etc., are not to be compared with the tortures of hell. If all the pains, sorrows, miseries, and calamities which have been inflicted upon all men, since Adam fell in Paradise, should meet together and center in one man--they would not so much as amount to one of the least of the pains of hell.

Who can sum up the diversity of torments which are in hell!

1. In hell there is darkness; hell is a dark region.

2. In hell there are sorrows!

3. In hell there are bonds and chains!

4. In hell there are pains and pangs!

5. In hell there is the worm that never dies!

6. In hell there is a lake of fire!

7. In hell there is a furnace of fire!

8. In hell there is the devil and his demons! And oh, how dreadful must it be to be shut up forever with those roaring lions!

9. In hell there is weeping and gnashing of teeth! [Jude 13; Psalm 116:3; 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6; Mark 9:44; Rev. 20:15; Mat. 13:41-42, 25:41, 24:51, 25:30, 13:42.]

10. In hell there is unquenchable fire! Mat. 3:12, "He will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire;" in hell there is "everlasting burnings." "The sinners in Zion are terrified; trembling grips the godless—Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?" Isaiah 33:14 Wicked men, who are now the only jolly fellows of the time, shall one day go from burning to burning; from burning in sin to burning in hell; from burning in flames of lusts to burning in flames of torment, except there be found true repentance on their sides, and pardoning grace on God's. [Gen. 4:17; Amos 6:7; Job 21:12; Dan. 5:21; Amos 6:4.]

O sirs! in this devouring fire, in these everlasting burnings, Cain shall find no cities to build, nor shall his posterity have any instruments of music to invent there; none shall take up the timbrel or harp, or rejoice at the sound of the organ. There Belshazzar cannot drink wines in bowls, nor eat the lambs out of the flocks, nor the calves out of the midst of the stall. In everlasting burnings there will be no merry company to pass time away, nor any dice or cards to pass care away. Nor shall there be bottles of wine wherein to drown the sinner's grief. By fire in the scriptures last cited, is meant, as I conceive, all the positive part of the torments of hell; and because they are not only upon the soul but also upon the body. As in heaven there shall be all bodily perfection, so there shall be also in hell all bodily miseries. Whatever may make a man perfectly miserable shall be in hell; therefore the wrath of God and all the positive effects of this wrath is here meant by fire.

I have read of Pope Clement the Fifth, that when a nephew of his, whom he had loved sensually and sinfully, died, he sent one to a necromancer to learn how it fared with him in the other world. The conjuror showed him the nephew lying in a fiery bed in hell; which when it was told the Pope, he never more joyed after it—but, within a short time after, died also. Out of this fiery bed there is no deliverance. When a sinner is in hell, shall another Christ be found to die for him, or will the same Christ be crucified again? Oh, no!

O sirs, the torments of hell will be exceeding great and dreadful, such as will make the stoutest sinners to quake and tremble! If the handwriting upon the wall, Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin, made Belshazzar's "countenance to change, his thoughts to be troubled, and his joints to be loosed, and his knees to knock one against another," Dan. 5:5, 6:25. Oh, how terrible will the torments of hell be to the damned! The torments of hell will be universal torments. All torments meet together in that place of torment. Hell is the center of all punishments, of all sorrows, of all pains, of all wrath, and of all vengeance, etc.

One of the ancients says that, "the least punishment in hell is more grievous than if a child-bearing woman should continue in the most violent pangs and throes a thousand years together, without the least ease or intermission."

A heathen poet, speaking of the multitude of the pains and torments of the wicked in hell, affirmed, "that although he had a hundred mouths, and as many tongues, with a voice as strong as iron—yet were they not able to express the names of them." But this poet spoke more like a prophet, than a poet. The poets tell you of a place called Tartarum, or hell, where the impious shall be eternally tormented. This Tartarum the poets did set forth with many fictions to affright people from wicked practices, such as of the four lakes of Acheron, Styx, Phlegethon, and Cocytus; over which Charon, in his boat, did waft over the departed souls. They also tell of the three judges, Aeacus, Minos, and Rhadamanthus, who were to call the souls to an account, and judge them to their state. They also tell of the three furies, Tisophone, Megaera, and Alecto, who lashed guilty souls to extort confession from them. They also tell of Cerberus, the dog of hell, with three heads, which would let none come out when once they were in. They also tell of several sorts of punishments inflicted, as iron chains, horrid stripes, gnawing of vultures, wheels, rolling great stones, and the like. In the chapel of Ticam, the China Pluto, the pains of hell were so pictured, that they could not but strike terror into the beholders—some roasted in iron beds, some fried in scalding oil, some cut in pieces, or divided in the middle, or torn by dogs, etc. In another part of the chapel were painted the dungeons of hell, with horrible serpents, flames, devils, etc.

"In hell," says one "there is the floor of brimstone, smoky, pitchy, with stinking flames, deep pits of scalding pitch, and sulphurous flames wherein the damned are punished daily." There the wicked shall be fed with the tree Ezecum, which shall burn in their bellies like fire; there they shall drink fire, and be held in chains. In the midst of hell, they say, is a tree full of fruit, every apple being like to the head of a devil, which grows green in the midst of all those flames, called the tree of bitterness; and the souls that shall eat thereof, thinking to refresh themselves, shall so find them, and by them and their pains in hell, they shall grow mad; and the devils shall bind them with chains of fire, and shall drag them up and down in hell; with much more which I am not free to transcribe.

Now, although most of those things which you may find among many poets, heathens, and Turks, concerning the torments of hell, are fictions of their own brains—yet that there is such a place as hell, and that there are diversity of torments there, the very light of nature does witness, and has forced many to confess, etc.

And as there are diversity of torments in hell, so the torments of hell are everlasting. Mark, everything that is conducible to the torments of the damned is eternal.

1. God himself, who damns them, is eternal, Deut. 33:27; 1 Tim. 1:17.

2. The fire which torments them is eternal, Isaiah 30:33, and 66:24; Jude 7.

3. The prison and chains which hold them are eternal, Jude 6-7, 13; 2 Pet. 2:17.

4. The worm which gnaws them is eternal, Mark 9:44. 5.

5. The sentence which shall be passed upon them, shall be eternal, Mat. 25:41, "Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire."

You know that fire is the most tormenting element. Oh, the most dreadful impression that it makes upon the flesh—everlasting fire! There is the vengeance and continuance of it—You shall go into fire, into everlasting fire—which shall never consume itself, nor consume you. The eternity of hell—is the hell of hell.

The fire in hell is like that stone in Arcadia, which being once kindled could never be quenched. If all the fires which ever were, or which be in the world, were contracted into one fire—how terrible would it be! Yet such a fire would be but as a painted fire—compared to the fire of hell. For to be tormented without end, this is that which goes beyond all the bounds of desperation. Grievous is the torment of the damned, for the bitterness of the punishments—but it is more grievous for the diversity of the punishments—but most grievous for the eternity of the punishments! If, after so many millions of years as there are drops in the ocean, there might be a deliverance out of hell, this would yield a little ease, a little comfort to the damned. Oh—but this word Eternity! Eternity! Eternity! this word Everlasting! Everlasting! Everlasting! this word Forever! Forever! Forever! will even break the hearts of the damned in ten thousand pieces!

Oh, that word 'never', said a poor despairing creature on his deathbed, breaks my heart. "The reprobate shall have punishment without pity; misery without mercy, sorrow without support, crying without compassion, mischief without measure, and torment without end," (Drexelius.) Plato could say, "That the profane shall go into hell, to be tormented for their wickedness, with the greatest, the most bitter and terrible punishments, forever in that prison of hell." And Trismegistus could say, "That souls going out of the body defiled, were tossed to and fro with eternal punishments." Yes, the very Turks, speaking of the house of perdition, do affirm, "That they who have turned God's grace into wantonness, shall abide eternally in the fire of hell, and there be eternally tormented."

A certain man going to visit Olympius, who lived cloistered up in a dark cell, which he thought uninhabitable, by reason of heat, and swarms of gnats and flies, and asking him how he could endure to live in such a place, he answered, "All this is but a light matter, that I may escape eternal torments: I can endure the stinging of gnats, that I might not endure the stinging of conscience, and the gnawing of that worm that never dies; this heat you think grievous, I can easily endure, when I think of the eternal fire of hell; these sufferings are but short—but the sufferings of hell are eternal." [There is no Christian which does not believe the fire of hell to be everlasting. Jackson]

Certainly, infernal fire is neither tolerable nor terminable. Impenitent sinners in hell shall have end without end, death without death, night without day, mourning without mirth, sorrow without solace, and bondage without liberty. The damned shall live as long in hell as God himself shall live in heaven. Their imprisonment in that land of darkness, in that bottomless pit, is not an imprisonment during the king's pleasure—but an imprisonment during the everlasting displeasure of the King of kings.

Suppose that the whole world were turned to a mountain of sand, and that a little bird should come once every thousand years and carry away from that heap, one grain of sand. What an infinite number of years, not to be numbered by all finite beings, would be spent before this great mountain of sand would be fetched away! Just so—if a man should lie in everlasting burnings so long a time as this, and then have an end of his woe—it would give some ease, some hope, and some comfort to him. But when that immortal bird shall have carried away this great mountain of sand—a thousand times over and over—alas, alas, sinful man shall be as far from the end of his anguish and torment as ever he was! He shall be no nearer coming out of hell, than he was the very first moment that he entered into hell! If the fire of hell were terminable, it might be tolerable—but being endless, it must needs be easeless, and remediless. We may well say of it, as one does, "Oh, killing life! oh, immortal death!"

Suppose, say others, that a man were to endure the torments of hell as many years, and no more, as there be sands on the sea-shore, drops of water in the sea, stars in heaven, leaves on trees, blades of grass on the ground, hairs on the heads of every person who ever was, or shall be in the world, from the beginning of it to the end of it—yet he would comfort himself with this poor thought, "Well, there will come a day when my misery and torment shall certainly have an end." But woe and alas, this word, "Forever! Forever! Forever!" will fill the hearts of the damned with the greatest horror and terror, anger and rage, bewilderment and astonishment.

Suppose, say others, that the torments of hell were to end, after a little bird should have emptied the sea, and only carry out one drop once in a thousand years.

Suppose, say others, that the whole world, from the lowest earth to the highest heavens, were filled with grains of sand, and once in a thousand years an angel should fetch away one grain, and so continue until the whole heap were gone.

Suppose, say others, if one of the damned in hell, should weep after this manner, namely—that he should only let fall one tear in a thousand years; and these tears should be kept together, until such time as they should equal the water in the sea. How many millions of ages would pass! And when that were done, that he must weep again after the same manner, until he had filled a second, a third, and a fourth sea!

If then there should be an end of their miseries, there would be some hope, some comfort, that they would end at last. But that they shall never, never, never end—this is that which sinks them under the most tormenting terrors and horrors.

You know that the extremity and eternity of hellish torments is set forth by the worm which never dies. And it is observable that Christ, at the close of his sermon, makes a threefold repetition of this worm: Mark 9:44, "where their worm never dies;" and again, verse 46, "where their worm never dies;" and again, verse 48, "where their worm never dies, and their fire never goes out." Certainly, those punishments are beyond all conception and expression, which our Lord Jesus does so often inculcate within so small a space.

Now if there be such a diversity, extremity, and eternity of hellish pains and torments, which the great God will certainly inflict upon the bodies and souls of all impenitent people, after the day of judgment; then there must certainly be some hell, some place of torment, wherein the wrath of God shall be executed upon wicked and ungodly men. But,

[6.] Sixthly, The greatest part of wicked and ungodly men escape unpunished in this present world. The greatest number of ungodly people spend their days in pride, ease, pleasures, and delights, in lust and luxury, in voluptuousness and wantonness. "For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills. Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. From their callous hearts comes iniquity; the evil conceits of their minds know no limits. They scoff, and speak with malice; in their arrogance they threaten oppression. They say, 'How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?' This is what the wicked are like—always carefree, they increase in wealth." Psalms 73:3-12

"Why do the wicked continue to live, growing old and becoming powerful? Their homes are secure and free of fear; no rod from God strikes them. Their children skip about, singing to the tambourine and lyre and rejoicing at the sound of the flute. They spend their days in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace. Yet they say to God: Leave us alone! We don't want to know Your ways. Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him?" Job 21:7-15

God does not punish all here on earth, that he may make way for the displaying of his mercy and goodness, his patience and forbearance. Nor does he forbear all here, that he may manifest his justice and righteousness, lest the world should turn atheist, and deny his providence, Romans 2:4-5; 2 Pet. 3:9-15. He spares that he may punish, and he punishes that he may spare. God smites some sinners in the very acting of their sins, as he did Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and others, Num. 16; not until they have filled up the measure of their sins, as you see in the men of the old world, Gen. 6:5-7. But the greatest number of sinners God reserves for the great day of his wrath, Mat. 7:13.

There is a sure punishment, though not always a present punishment, for every sinner, Eccles. 8:12-13. Those wicked people which God allows to go uncorrected here, he reserves to be punished forever hereafter, 2 Thes. 1:7-10. Sinners, know your doom—you must either smart for your sins in this world, or in the world to come. Augustine hit the mark when he said, "Many sin are punished in this world, who the providence of God might be more apparent; and many, yes, most, reserved to be punished in the world to come, that we might know that there is yet judgment behind."

Sir James Hamilton, having been murdered by the Scottish king—he appeared to the king in a vision, with a naked sword drawn, and strikes off both his arms, with these words, "Take this, before you receive a final payment for all your impieties;" and within twenty-four hours—two of the king's sons died. If the glutton in that historical parable being in hell, Luke 16:22-24, only in part, namely, in soul—yet cried out that he "was horribly tormented in that flame," what shall that torment be, when body and soul come to be united for torture! It being just with God, that as they have been, like Simeon and Levi, brethren in iniquity, and have sinned together desperately and impenitently, so they should suffer together jointly, eternally, Gen. 49:5.

The Hebrew doctors have a pretty parable to this purpose: A man planted an orchard, and going from home, was careful to leave such watchmen as both might keep it from strangers and not deceive him themselves; therefore he appointed one blind—but strong of his limbs, and the other seeing—but a cripple. These two, in their master's absence, conspired together; and the blind man took the lame man on his shoulders, and so gathered and stole the fruit. Their master returning, and finding out this subtlety, punished them both together. Just so, shall it be with those two sinful yoke-fellows, the soul and the body, in the great day; they have sinned together, and they shall suffer at last together, 2 Cor. 5:10-11.

But now, in this world the greatest number of transgressors do commonly escape all sorts of punishments; and therefore we may safely conclude that there is another world, wherein the righteous God will revenge upon the bodies and souls of sinners the high dishonors that have been done to his name by them. But,

[7.] Seventhly, In all things natural, and supernatural, there is an opposition and contrariety. There is good, and there is evil; there is light and darkness, joy and sorrow. Now as there are two distinct ways, so there are two distinct ends:

1. Heaven, a place of admirable and inexpressible happiness, where the holy angels convoy the souls of the saints who have, by a holy life, glorified God, and adorned their profession, Luke 16:22.

2. Hell, a place of horror and confusion, where the evil angels hurry the souls of wicked, incorrigible, and impenitent wretches, when they are once separated from their bodies. "The rich man also died and was buried; and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments," Luke 16:22-23.

"And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal," Mat. 25:46. In these words we have described the different estate of the wicked and the righteous after judgment, "They shall go away into everlasting punishment—but these into life eternal." After the sentence is past, the wicked go into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal. Everlasting punishment, the end thereof is not known, its duration is infinite. Hell is a bottomless pit, and therefore shall never be fathomed. It is an unquenchable fire, and therefore the smoke of their torments ascends forever and ever, Rev. 14:11. Hell is a prison from whence is no escape, because there is no ransom to be paid. No price will be accepted for one in that estate. And as there is no end of the punishments of hell, into which the wicked must enter, so there is no end of the joys of heaven, into which the saints must enter.

"In your presence is fullness of joy, and at your right hand there are pleasures for evermore," Psalm 16:11. Here is as much said as can be said. For quality, there is in heaven joy and pleasures; for quantity, a fullness, a torrent; for constancy, it is at God's right hand; and for perpetuity, it is for evermore. The joys of heaven are without measure, mixture, or end.

Thus you see that there are two distinct ends, two distinct places, to which the wicked and the righteous go. And, indeed, if this were not so, then the bloody Nero would be as blessed a man as Paul, and Esau as happy a man as Jacob, and Cain as blessed a man as Abel. Then as believers say, "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable," 1 Cor. 15:19; because none out of hell ever suffered more, if so much, as the saints have done. So might the wicked say, "If in this life only we were miserable, we were then of all men most happy." But,

[8.] Eighthly, and lastly, You know that all the princes of the world, for their greater grandeur and state, as they have their royal palaces for themselves, their nobles and attendants; so they also have their jails, prisons, and dark dungeons for rogues and robbers, for malefactors and traitors. And shall not he who is the King of kings and Lord of lords, Rev. 19:16; he who is the Prince of the kings of the earth, Rev. 1:5; he who removes kings and sets up kings, Dan. 2:21; shall not he have his royal palace, a glorious heaven, where he and all his noble attendants, angels, and saints shall live forever? Shall not the great king have his royal and magnificent court in that upper world, as poor petty princes have theirs in this lower world? Surely he shall, as you may see by comparing these scriptures. [Eph. 2:3 John 14:1-4 Luke 12:32; Neh. 9:6; 1 Kings 8:27; Heb. 8:1; Rev. 3:21.]

And shall not the same great King have his hell, his prison, his dungeon, to secure and punish impenitent sinners in? Surely yes! And doubtless, the least glimpse of this hell, of this place of torment, would strike the proudest, and the stoutest sinners dead with horror. O sirs! those who have seen the flames, and heard the roarings of Mount Etna, the flashing of Vesuvius, the thundering and burning flakes evaporating from those lava rocks, have not yet seen, no, not so much as the very glimmering of hell. A painted fire is a better shadow of these, than these can be of hell torments, and the miseries of the damned therein!

Now these eight arguments are sufficient to demonstrate that there is a hell, a place of torment, to which the wicked shall be sent at last. Now certainly, Socinians, atheists, and all others who are men of corrupt minds, and that believe that there is no hell—but what they carry about with them in their own consciences; these are worse than those poor Indians, who believe that there are thirteen hells, according to the differing demerits of men's sins; yes, they are worse than devils, for they believe and tremble, James 2:19. The original word seems to imply an extreme fear, which causes not only tremblings—but also a roaring and shrieking out. Their hearts ache and quake within them, they quiver and shake as men do when their teeth chatter in their heads in extreme cold weather, Mark 6:49, and Acts 16:29.

The devils acknowledge four articles of our faith: Mat. 8:29, "And behold, they cried out, saying—Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?"

1. They acknowledge God;

2. They acknowledge Christ;

3. They acknowledge the day of judgment;

4. That they shall be tormented then.

Those who scorn the day of judgment are worse than devils; and they who deny the deity of Christ are worse than devils. The devils are, as it were, for a time respited and reprieved, in respect of full torment, and they are allowed as free prisoners to flutter in the air, and to course about the earth until the great day of the Lord, which they tremble to think on. But those who mock at, or make light of the day of judgment, are worse than devils. The devils knew that torments were prepared for them, and a time when these torments shall be fully and fatally inflicted on them, and they were loath to suffer before that time. Ah, sirs, shall not men tremble to deny what the devils are forced to confess! Shall I now make a few short INFERENCES from what has been said, and so conclude this head?

1. First, then, Oh labor to set up God as the great object of your fear. This grand lesson Christ commands us to take out, "Fear not those who kill the body—but are not able to kill the soul—but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell; yes, I say unto you, fear him!" Mat. 10:28. Christ doubles the precept, that it might stick with more life and power upon us, Luke 12:5. As one fire drives out another, so one fear drives out another. Both the punishment of loss and the punishment of sense may be the objects of a filial fear—the fear of a son, of a saint, of a soul who is espoused and married to Christ. The fear of God, and the fear of sin, will drive out the fear of death, and the fear of hell, 2 Cor. 11:2; Hos. 2:19-20.

O sirs, will you not fear that God who has the keys of hell and death in his own hand, who can speak you into hell at pleasure, who can by a word of command bring you to dwell with a devouring fire, yes, to dwell with everlasting burnings? Rev. 1:18.

Ah, friends, will you fear a burning fever, and will you not fear a burning in hell? Will you fear when your house is on fire, and when the bed you lie on is on fire, though it may be quenched; and will you not fear that fire which is unquenchable? Isaiah 33:14. When men run through the streets and cry, Fire! fire! fire! how do your hearts quake and tremble in you. And will you not fear the fire of hell? Will you not fear everlasting fire? Mat. 3:12, 25:41.

Sir Francis Bacon, in his history, relates how it was a byword of Cordes, who was a profane, popish, atheistical French Lord, that he could be content to lie seven years in hell, so he might win Calais from the English. But had this popish Lord lain but seven minutes under unsupportable torments, he would quickly have repented of his mad bargain. It was good counsel which Bernard gave, "Let us go into hell while we are alive, by a serious meditation and holy consideration, that we may not go into it when we be dead, by real miseries."

God can kill, and more than that, he can cast into hell. Here is both temporal and eternal destruction, both rods and scorpions. He can kill the body, and then damn both body and soul, and cast them into hell. Therefore it behooves every person to set up God as the great object of their fear. "Yes, I say unto you, fear him! Yes, I say unto you, fear him!" This redoubling of the speech adds a greater enforcement to the admonition. It is like the last stroke of the hammer, that rivets and drives up all to the head. Thus David uses this reinforcement, "You, even you, are to be feared; who may stand in your sight when you are angry—you can look them to death, yes, to hell," Psalm 76:7.

O sirs, temporal judgments are but the smoke of his anger—but in hell there are the flames of his anger! That fire burns fiercely, and there is no quenching of it. Thus said the martyr, "You threaten bonds and imprisonments, O emperor—but God's threatenings are much more terrible. He threatens hell torments and everlasting damnation!" Certainly, where there is the greatest danger, there it is fit that there should be the greatest dread. But,

2. Secondly, Then flee from the wrath to come! "Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?" Luke 3:7. O sirs, that you would seriously and frequently dwell upon those short hints!

[1.] The coming wrath is the greatest wrath. It is the greatest evil which can befall a soul. "Who knows the power of your wrath?" Psalm 19:11. Wrath to come is such wrath as no unsaved man can either avoid or abide, and yet such is most men's stupidity, that they will not believe it until they feel it! As God is a great God, so his wrath is a great wrath. I may allude to that which Zebah and Zalmunna said to Gideon, "As the man is, so is his strength," Judges 8:21. Just so, may I say, "as the Lord is, so is his wrath!" The wrath of an earthly king is compared to the roaring of a lion, Proverbs 19:12; that is—of a young lion, which, being in his prime, roars most terribly. He roars with such a force that he terrifies the creatures whom he hunts, so as that they have no power to fly from him. Now if the wrath of a king is so terrible, oh how dreadful must the wrath of the King of kings then be! The greater the evil is, the more cause we have to flee from it. Now wrath to come is the greatest evil, and therefore the more it concerns us to flee from it, Rev. 17:14. But,

[2.] The coming wrath is treasured-up wrath. Sinners are still "a-treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath," Romans 2:5. In treasuring there is, 1. Laying in; 2. Lying hid; 3. Bringing out again as there is occasion.

While wicked men are following their own lusts, they think that they are still adding to their own happiness—but alas, they do but add wrath to wrath, they do but heap up judgment upon judgment, punishment upon punishment! Look, as men are daily adding to their treasure more and more, so impenitent sinners are daily increasing the treasury of wrath against their own souls. Now, who would not flee from this storehouse of wrath? But,

[3.] The coming wrath is pure wrath. It is "judgment without mercy," James 2:13. The cup of wrath which God will put into sinners' hands at last will be a cup of pure wrath, all wrath, nothing but wrath, Rev. 14:10, "They must drink the wine of God's wrath. It is poured out undiluted into God's cup of wrath. And they will be tormented with fire and burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb." Look! as there is nothing but the pure glory of God, which can make a man perfectly and fully happy; just so, there is nothing but the pure wrath of God, which can make a man fully and perfectly miserable. Reprobates shall not only sip of the top of God's cup—but they shall drink the dregs of his cup. They shall not have one drop of mercy, nor one crumb of comfort. They have filled up their lifetime with sin, and God will fill up their eternity with torments. But,

[4.] The coming wrath is everlasting wrath. Rev. 14:11, "And the smoke of their torment ascends up forever and ever!" "Would to God," says Chrysostom, "that men would everywhere think and talk more of hell, and of that eternity of punishment—which they shall never be able to avoid, or to abide." See the scriptures in the margin. [2 Thes. 1:8; Jude 6, 7; Mat. 25:46; Isaiah 33:14, etc.] "The damned," says Gregory, "shall suffer an end without end, a death without death, a decay without decay; for their death ever lives, their end ever begins, their decay never ceases, they are ever healed to be newly wounded, and always repaired to be newly devoured; they are ever dying and never dead, eternally broiling and never burnt up, ever roaring in the pangs of death, and never rid of those pangs; for they shall have punishment without pity, misery without mercy, sorrow without support, crying without comfort, mischief without measure, and torment without ease—where the worm dies not, and the fire is never quenched." The torments of the damned shall continue as many eternities as there are stars in the skies, as there are grains of sand on the sea-shore, and as there are drops of water found in the sea! When the present worlds are ended, the pains and torments of hell shall not cease—but begin afresh, and thus this wheel shall turn round and round, without end.

Oh the folly and vanity, the madness and baseness of poor wretched sinners who expose themselves to everlasting torments, for a few fleshly momentary pleasures! O sirs! "Who can stand before his fierce anger? Who can survive his burning fury? His rage blazes forth like fire, and the mountains crumble to dust in his presence!" Nahum 1:6. Now how should these things work poor sinners to flee from wrath to come by fleeing to Christ, "who alone is able to save them from wrath to come," 1 Thes. 1:10.

Themistocles, understanding that King Admetus was highly displeased with him, he took up the king's young son in his arms, and so talked with the father, holding his darling in his bosom; and by that means pacified his wrath. Ah sinners, sinners! the King of kings is highly offended with you, and there is no way to appease his wrath—but by taking up Christ in your arms, and so present your suits to him. But,

3. Thirdly, If there is a hell, then don't let fly so fiercely against those faithful ministers who seriously and conscientiously do all they can to prevent your dropping into hell. 2 Cor. 5:20, 12:15. Don't call them legal preachers, who tell you that there is a hell, and that there are no torments compared to hellish torments, if either you consider their extremity or eternity. Be not so hot nor so angry with those ambassadors of Christ who are willing to spend and be spent that they may keep you from running headlong to hell. "To think of hell," says one, "preserves a man from falling into it!" Says the same author, "I could wish men would discourse much and oft of hell." It was a saying of Gregory Nyssen, "He who does but hear of hell is, without any further labor or study, taken off from sinful pleasures." But what minister can say so now? Surely men's hearts are grown worse since, for how do most men run headlong to hell, and take a pleasure to dance hoodwinked into everlasting burnings! [Millions of years multiplied by millions, make not up one minute to this eternity—but who considers it, who believes it? etc.] Oh, had but the sinners of this day who swear and curse, drink and party, and drown themselves in fleshly pleasures—but one sight of this hell, how would it shut their mouths, appall their spirits, and strike fear and astonishment into their hearts!

I cannot think that the high transgressors of this day dared be so highly wicked as they are, did they but either see or foresee what they shall one day certainly feel—except there be sound and serious repentance on their sides, and pardoning grace on God's. Bellarmine was of opinion that one glimpse of hell were enough to make a man, not only turn Christian and sober. And yet, he tells us of a certain advocate of the court of Rome, who being, at the point of death, stirred up by those who were about him to repent and call upon God for mercy, he, with a constant countenance, and without sign of any fear, turned his speech to God, and said, "Lord, I have longed much to speak to you, not for myself—but for my wife and children; for I am hastening to hell, I am now a-going to dwell with devils, neither is there anything that I would have you to do for me." And this he spoke with as placate, serene and tranquil a mind, as if he had been speaking of going to the next town or village. Ah, who can read or write such a story without horror and terror! But,

4. Fourthly, If there is a hell, then do not fret, do not envy the prosperity and flourishing estate and condition of wicked and ungodly men; for God has given it under his hand, that they shall be turned into hell: "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God," Psalm 37:1-2, 73:21; Proverbs 3:31; Psalm 9:17. It was a wise saying of Marius to those who envy great men their honor, "Let them envy them their burdens!" I have read a story of a Roman, who was by a court-martial condemned to die for breaking his rank to steal a bunch of grapes; and as he was going to execution, some of the soldiers envied him—that he had grapes, and they had none. Says he, "Do you envy me my grapes, I must pay dearly for them!" Ah sirs! do not envy wicked men's grapes, do not envy their riches, their honors, their greatness, their offices, their dignities; for they shall one day pay dearly for their things.

High seats to many are uneasy, and the downfall terrible: "How have you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" Isaiah 14:12. It is spoken of the Chaldean monarch, who, though high—yet had a sudden change befell him. It is not a matter of so great joy to have been high and honorable, as it is of grief, anguish, and vexation to be afterwards despicable and contemptible: "Come down, and sit in the dust," Isaiah 47:1. Babylon was the lady of kingdoms—but, says God, "sit in the dust; take the mill-stones, and grind," verse 2; "The Lord Almighty has purposed to stain (Hebrew, to pollute) the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honorable of the earth," Isaiah 23:9; "He shall bring down their pride together," Isaiah 25:11; "Woe to the crown of pride: the crown of pride shall be trodden under feet," Isaiah 28:1, 3. God will bring down the crown of pride to the dust, to ashes, yes, to hell; and, therefore, do not envy the crown of pride.

Croesus was so puffed up with his crown of pride, with his great riches and worldly glory, that he boasted himself to be the happiest man who lived—but Solon told him, that no man was to be accounted happy before death. Croesus little regarded what Solon had said unto him, until he came, by miserable experience, to find the uncertainty of his riches, and all worldly glory, which before he would not believe. For when he was taken captive by King Cyrus, and condemned to be burned, and saw the fire preparing for him, then he cried out, "O Solon, Solon!" Cyrus asking him the cause of the outcry, he answered, that now he remembered what Solon had told him in his prosperity—that no man was to be accounted happy before death. Who can sum up those crowns of pride that in Scripture and history God has brought down to the dust, yes, to the ash-heap! Have not some wished, when they have been breathing out their last, that they had never been kings, nor queens, nor lords, nor ladies? etc. Where is there one of ten thousand who is advanced, and thereby anything bettered?

Few men believe what vexations lie under the pillows of princes. "You look upon my crown and my purple robes," says Artaxerxes—"but did you know how they were lined with thorns, you would not stoop to take them up." Damocles highly extolled Dionysius. Dionysius, to convince him of his mistake, provides a royal feast, invites him to it, commands his servants to attend him. No dainties, no mirth, no music are lacking—but over the table, a sharp sword was hung by a horse hair, which made Damocles tremble, and to forbear both food and mirth. "Such, even such," says Dionysius the Sicilian tyrant, "is my life, which you deem so pleasant and happy." O sirs! there is a sword of wrath which hangs over every sinner's head, even when he is surrounded with all the mirthful and gallant things of this world!

Outward prosperity is commonly given in God's wrath, as you may see by comparing these scriptures. [Hos. 13:11; Psalm 73 and 78:30-31; Proverbs 1:32; Luke 12:16-22; Eccles. 5:12-13.] Prosperity kills and damns more than adversity. It had been infinitely better for the great men of this world that they had never been so great, for their horrid abuse of God's mercy and bounty will but increase their misery and damnation at last. Augustine hit it on the head when he said, "Because they have tasted so liberally of God's kindness, and have employed it only against God's glory, their felicity shall be short—but their misery shall be endless; and therefore to see the wicked prosper and flourish in this world is matter rather of pity than envy. It is all the heaven they must have." ["The whole Turkish empire is nothing else but a crust cast by our Father to his dogs, and it is all they are likely to have, let them make them merry with it," said Luther.]

These are as terrible texts as any in the whole Book of God: Mat. 6:2, "Truly I say unto you, they have their reward." Luke 6:24, "Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation." James 5:1-3, "Go now, you rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered: and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire!" Gregory, being advanced to places of great preferment, professed that there was no scripture that went so near his heart, and that struck such a trembling into his spirit, as that speech of Abraham to Dives, Luke 16:25, "Son, remember you in your lifetime received your good things." Those who have their heaven here—are in danger to miss it hereafter. "It is not God's usual way," says Jerome, to move from delights to delights—to bestow two heavens, one here and another hereafter!" Doubtless hence it was, that David made it his solemn prayer, "Deliver me from the wicked, from men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and whose belly you fill with your hid treasure," Psalm 17:14. It is a very difficult thing to have earth and heaven too. God did not turn man out of one paradise, that he should here provide himself of another. Many men with the prodigal cry out, "Give me the portion that belongs to me," Luke 15:12. "Give me riches, and give me honor, and give me preferment, etc." And God gives them their desires—but it is with a vengeance; as the Israelites had quail to choke them, and afterwards a king to vex them, and a table to be a snare unto them, Psalm 78:24-32. When the Israelites had eaten of their dainty dishes, justice sent in a sad reckoning which spoiled all.

Ah friends, there is no reason why we should envy the prosperity of wicked men. "Suppose," says Chrysostom, "that a man one night should have a pleasant dream that for the time might much delight him; yet for the pleasure of such a dream should be tormented a thousand years together with extreme torments; would any man desire to have such a dream upon such conditions? All the contentments of this life are not so much, compared to eternity—as a dream is to a thousand years! And, oh, how little is that man's condition to be envied, who for these short pleasures of sin must endure an eternity of torments!

O sirs! do wicked men purchase their present pleasures at so dear a rate as eternal torments? And do we envy their enjoyment of them so short a time? Would any envy a man going to execution, because he saw him in prison nobly feasted and nobly attended and bravely courted? or because he saw him go up the ladder with a gold chain about his neck and a scarlet gown upon his back? or because he saw him walk to execution through pleasant fields or delightsome gardens? or because there went before him drums beating, colors flying, and trumpets sounding, etc.? Surely not! Oh, no more should we envy the grandeur of the men of the day, for every step they take is but a step to an eternal execution! The sinner is cursed, and all his blessings are cursed! Who in their wits would envy a man under a curse? Oh, how much more worthy of our pity than envy, is that man's condition who has all his happiness confined to the narrow compass of this life—but his misery extended to the uttermost bounds of an everlasting duration! Mal. 2:2. But,

5. Fifthly, If there is a hell, then, Christians, spend your days in admiring and in being greatly affected with the transcendent love of Christ—in undergoing hellish punishments in your stead! Oh pray, pray hard that you "may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of that love of Christ, which passes knowledge," Eph. 3:18-19—of that love of Christ, which put him upon these bodily and spiritual sufferings which were so exceeding great, acute, extreme, universal and continual—and all to save us from wrath to come! 1 Thes. 1:10. Christ's outward and inward miseries, sorrows, and sufferings are not to be paralleled, and therefore Christians have the more cause to lose themselves in the contemplation of his matchless love. Oh, bless Christ! oh, kiss Christ! oh, embrace Christ! oh, welcome Christ! oh, cleave to Christ! oh, follow Christ! oh, walk with Christ! oh, long for Christ! who for your sakes has undergone insupportable wrath and most hellish torments, as I have evidenced at large before, and therefore a touch here may suffice. [Psalm 103:1-2, and 2:12; Cant. 3:4; Rev. 14:4-5; Isaiah 63:8; Gen. 6:9; Cant. 8:14.]

Oh, look up to dear Jesus, and say, "O blessed Jesus, you were accursed that I might be blessed, Gal. 3:13; you were condemned that I might be justified, Isaiah 53; you did for a time undergo the very torments of hell, that I might forever enjoy the pleasures of heaven, Romans 8:30, 34; Psalm 16:11; and therefore I cannot but dearly love you, and highly esteem you, and greatly honor you, and earnestly long after you!"

But, for a close, you will say, "Where is hell? where is this place of torment? where is that very place that is so frequently called hell in the Scripture? That there is a hell, you have sufficiently proved—but, please, where is it? where is it?" Now, to this I answer,

[1.] First, That it becomes all sober, serious Christians to rest satisfied and contented with those scriptural arguments that do undeniably prove that there is a hell, a place appointed where the wicked, the damned, shall be tormented forever and ever—though they do not know, nor for the present cannot understand, where this hell is. But,

[2.] Secondly, I answer, Curiosity is one of the most dangerous engines, which the devil uses to undo souls with. When Satan observes that men do in good earnest set themselves to the obtaining of knowledge, then he strives to turn them to vain inquiries and curious speculations; so that, if they will are knowing, he may keep them busied about unprofitable curiosities. [Curious inquirers have always lain under the lash of Christ, as you may see by comparing these scriptures together: Job 21:22; Acts 1:6, 7; Luke 13:22, 24.] The way to make us mere fools, is to attempt to know more than God would have us to know. Adam's tree of knowledge made him and his posterity fools, Gen. 3:5-6. Curiosity was the bait whereby the devil caught our first parents—and undid us all! Curiosity is the spiritual adultery of the soul. Curiosity is spiritual drunkenness. Look, as the drunkard, be the cup ever so deep, he is not satisfied unless he sees the bottom of it; so the curious searcher into the depths of God, he is unsatisfied until he comes to the bottom of them, and by this means they come to be 'mere fools', as the apostle says, Romans 1:22. Adam had a mind to know as much of God as God himself; and by this means he came to know nothing. Curiosity is that green-sickness of the soul, whereby it longs for novelties, and loathes sound and wholesome truths; it is the epidemic distemper of this age.

Ah! how many are there who spend their precious time in inscrutable and curious questions! [Basil says that multitudes of questions may be made about 'a fly'—which no philosopher is ever able to answer; how much rather about heaven, hell, or the work of grace!] Ah, what did Christ dispute of, among the doctors? Where did Paradise stand? In what part of the world is local hell? What fruit was it that Adam ate, and ruined us all? What became of Moses his body? How many orders and degrees of elect angels are there? etc. Oh, that we could learn to be contentedly ignorant, where God would not have us knowing; and let us not account it any disparagement to acknowledge some depths in God's counsels, purposes, decrees, and judgments, which our shallow reason cannot fathom, Romans 11:33.

It is sad when men will be wise above what is written, and love to pry into God's secrets, and scan the mysteries of religion by carnal reason, Romans 12:3, and 1 Cor. 4:6. God often plagues such pride and curiosity by leaving that sort of men to strange and fearful falls. When a curious inquisitor asked Austin what God did before he created the world, Austin told him that "God was making hell for such busy questionists, for such curious inquirers into God's secrets!" Such sharp replies are the best answers to men of curious minds. But,

[3.] Thirdly, I answer, It concerns us but little to know whether hell is in the air, or in the concave of the earth, or of what longitude, latitude, or profundity it is. ["Let us not be inquisitive where hell is—but rather let our care be to escape it!" says Chrysostom.] Let hell be where it has pleased God in his secret counsel to place it—to men unknown, whether it is in the north or in the south, under the frozen zone, or under the burning zone, or in a pit or a gulf. Our great care should be to avoid it, to escape it, and not to be curiously inquisitive about where it s—which the Lord in his infinite wisdom has not thought fit clearly to reveal or make known to the sons of men.

In hell there's nothing heard but yells and cries;
In hell the fire never slacks, nor worm ever dies.
But where is this hell placed? My muse, stop there:
Lord, show me what it is—but never where!

Look, as there are many who please themselves with discourses of the degrees of glory—while others make sure their saving interest in glory; just so, many please themselves with discourses of the degrees of the torments of hell—while others make sure their escaping those torments! Look, as many take pleasure to be discoursing about the place where hell is—so some take pleasure to make sure their escaping of that place; and certainly they are the best and wisest of men who spend most thoughts, and time, and pains how to keep out of hell—than to exercise themselves with disputes about it. ["As in heaven one is more glorious than another, so in hell one shall be more miserable than another." Augustine.] But,

[4.] Fourthly, I answer, That it has been the common opinion of the fathers, that hell is in the heart of the earth; yes, Christ and the blessed Scriptures, which are the highest authority, do strongly seem to favor this opinion, by speaking of a descent unto hell, in opposition unto heaven; and, therefore, we may as well doubt whether heaven be above us, as doubt of hell being beneath us. Among other scriptures ponder upon these: Psalm 140:10, "Let them be cast into the deep pits, that they rise not up again. Bring them down into the pit of destruction." Proverbs 9:18, "Her guests are in the depths of hell." Proverbs 15:24, "The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath." Sheol is sometimes taken for a pit, sometimes for the grave, and sometimes, and that significantly too, for hell—all downwards. One says that Sheol generally signifies all places under the earth; whence some conclude that hell is in the heart of the earth, or under the earth. Without doubt it is below, because it is everywhere opposed to heaven, which is above. It is therefore called Abyssus, a deep pit, a vast gulf; such a pit as, by reason of the depth thereof, may be said to have no bottom. The devils entreated Christ that he would not send them to this place, Luke 8:31, in Abyssum, which is, says one, "a gulf of immeasurable depth," etc.

The apostle, 2 Pet. 2:4, speaking of the angels that sinned, says, "God cast them down into hell." So Beza, in his Annotations, tells us the Greeks called that place which was ordained for the prison and torment of the damned. And reason itself does teach us that it must needs be opposite and contrary to that place in which the spirits of just men made perfect, Heb. 12:23, do reside, which, on all hands, is granted to be above. Some have been of opinion that the pit spoken of, into which Korah, Dathan, and Abiram went down alive, when the earth opened up and swallowed them up, was the pit of hell, into which both their souls and bodies were immediately conveyed, Num. 16:33.

As we know little in respect of the height of heaven, so we know as little in respect of the lowness of hell. Some of the upper part of the earth is to us yet an unknown land—but all of the lowest parts of hell is to us an unknown land. Many thousands have traveled there—but none have returned thence, to make reports or write books of their travels. That piece of geography is totally unknown to us. Heaven and hell are the greatest opposites, or remotest extremes: "And you people of Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to hell!" Mat. 11:23. Heaven and hell are at farthest natural distance, and are therefore the everlasting receptacles of those who are at the farthest moral distance—believers and unbelievers, saints and impenitents. And it is observable, that as the height of heaven, so the depth of hell, is ascribed to wisdom, to show the unsearchableness of it. "Oh the depth," as well as "Oh the height," "of the wisdom of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" Romans 11:33. Certainly God's depths, and Satan's depths, and hell's depths, lie far out of our view, and are hard to be found out, 1 Cor. 10, and Rev. 2:24.

Though I ought piously to reverence the wonderful wisdom of God, and to wonder at his unsearchable judgments—yet I ought not curiously and profanely to search beyond the compass of that which God has revealed to us in his word.

The Romans had a certain lake, the depth whereof they knew not. Doubtless hell is such a lake, the depth whereof no man knows; it is such a bottomless pit that no mortal can sound. But,

[5.] Fifthly and lastly, I answer, Some of the learned are of opinion, that hell is outside this visible world, which will pass away at the last day, 2 Pet. 3:10-13, and removed at the greatest distance from the place where the righteous shall forever inhabit: Mat. 8:12, "But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness." Mat. 22:30, "Then said the king to his servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness." Mat. 25:30, "And cast you the unprofitable servant into outer darkness." Into a darkness beyond a darkness, into a dungeon beyond and beneath the prison. The darkness of hell is compared to the darkness of those prisons, which were oftentimes outside of the city.

A prison was outside the gate, near mount Calvary, and it was the loathsomest and vilest prison of all, for in it the thieves who were carried to Calvary to be executed were kept; and Christ alludes to this prison in Mat. 8:12, and Mat. 22:13, and that Mat. 25:30, "Cast him into utter darkness;" which allusion could not be understood, unless there had been a dark prison without the city, where was utter darkness. 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6; Acts 12:10. By outer darkness, the Holy Spirit would signify to us that the wicked should be in a state most remote from all heavenly happiness and blessedness; and that they should be expelled out of the blessed presence of God, who is highest good. By outer darkness we are to understand the greatest darkness that is, as in a place most remote from all light. They shall be cast into outer darkness, that is, they shall be cast into the palpable darkness of the infernal prison. Immediately after death, sinners' souls shall be cast into the infernal prison, and in the day of judgment both their souls and their bodies shall be cast into outer darkness. Darkness is no other thing than a privation of light. Now light is twofold, namely,

1. Spiritual light—as wisdom, grace, truth. Now the privation of this light is internal darkness, and ignorance in the spirit and inward man.

2. There is a sensible and physical light, whose privation is outer darkness; and this is the darkness spoken of in the three scriptures last cited. For although there is fire in hell—yet it is a dark and smoky fire, and not clear, except only so as the damned may see one another, for the greater increase of their misery, as some write. Now I shall leave the ingenuous reader to conclude as he pleases concerning the place where hell is—desiring and hoping that he will make it the greatest business of his life to escape hell, and to get to heaven, etc.

OUR GOD IS IN CONTROL

This is not how it should be
This is not how it could be
This is how it is
And our God is in control

 This is not how it will be
When we finally will see
We'll see with our own eyes
He was always in control

And we'll sing holy, holy, holy is our God
And we will finally really understand what it means

So we'll sing holy, holy, holy is our God
While we're waiting for that day
 This is not where we planned to be
When we started this journey
But this is where we are

And our God is in control
Though this first taste is bitter
There will be sweetness forever

When we finally taste and see
That our God is in control
 And we'll sing holy, holy, holy is our God
And we will finally really understand what it means
So we'll sing holy, holy, holy is our God

While we're waiting for that day
We're waiting for that day
We'll keep on waiting for that day
 And we will rise Our God is in control
Our God is in control
Our God is in control

 SCC

JESUS WILL MEET YOU THERE

When you think you've hit the bottom
And the bottom gives way
And you fall into a darkness
No words can explain
And you don't know how you make it out alive
Jesus will meet you there.

 When the jury says, "Guilty, "
And the prison doors close
When the one you love says nothing,
Just packs up and goes
When the sunlight comes and your world's still dark,
Jesus will meet you there.

 When you've failed again
and all your Second chances have been used
And the heavy weight of guilt and shame
Is crushing down on you
And all you have is one last cry for help
Jesus will meet you there.

 SCC

TEACH ONE TO PRAY.

I would rather teach one man to pray than to teach ten men to preach.  -  CHS.

Shunned Like a Deadly Plague

Certain it is, my reader, that any preacher who rejects God's law, who denies repentance to be a condition of salvation, who assures the giddy and godless that they are loved by God, who declares that saving faith is nothing more than an act of the will which every person has the power to perform, is a false prophet, and should be shunned like a deadly plague.... AW Pink

WALKS WITH GOD IN EVERY MATTER

By Octavius Winslow

"But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered." Luke 12:7.

“You know so little of God, my reader, because you live at such a distance from God; you have so little transaction with Him- so little confession of sin, so little searching of your own conscience, so little probing of your own heart, so little dealing with Him in the blood and righteousness of Christ, so little transaction with Him in the little things of life. You deal with God in great matters; you take great trials to God, great perplexities, great needs; but in the minutiae of each day's history, in what are called the little things of life, you have no dealings with God whatever; and consequently you know so little of the love, so little of the wisdom, so little of the glory, of this glorious covenant God and reconciled Father.

I tell you, the man who lives with God in little matters, who walks with God in the minutiae of his life, is the man who becomes the best acquainted with God- with His character, His faithfulness, His love. To meet God in my daily trials, to take to Him the trials of my calling, the trials of my church, the trials of my family, the trials of my own heart- to take to Him that which brings the shade upon my brow, that rends the sigh from my heart- to remember it is not too trivial to take to God- above all, to take to Him the least taint upon the conscience, the slightest pressure of sin upon the heart, the softest conviction of departure from God- to take it to Him, and confess it at the foot of the cross, with the hand of faith upon the bleeding sacrifice- oh! these are the paths in which a man becomes intimately and closely acquainted with God!”

new life is imparted

The new life is not imparted because man perceives the truth, but he perceives the truth because the new life is imparted. A man is not regenerated because he has first believed in Christ, but he believes in Christ because he has been regenerated." - W. T. Shedd

Grace Causes Me to Triumph

The riches of His free grace cause me daily to triumph over all the temptations of the wicked one, who is very vigilant, and seeks all occasions to disturb me.

—George Whitefield

Reading the Bible on my Knees

"I went to my room and locked my door, and putting the Bible on a chair, I went down on my knees at the chair. There I remained for several hours in prayer and meditation over the Word of God; and I can tell you that I learned more in those three hours which I spent in this way, than I had learned for many months previously." George Muller

"Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long!" Psalm 119:97

Scriptures on my Knees

"My mind being now more open and enlarged, I began to read the Holy Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside all other books and praying over, if possible, every line and Word. This proved food indeed and drink indeed to my soul. I daily received fresh life, light and power from above. I got more true knowledge from reading the Book of God in one month--than I could ever have acquired from all the writings of men!"
George Whitefield

Natural Evangelists

We are all natural evangelists for the things and the people we love most. Kevin DeYoung

Eternal Happiness is your Destiny

Christian, eternal happiness is your destiny. Today’s whisper of joy will turn into a symphony. 

Higher Purposes in Our Sicknesses

David Platt at #SecretChurch18: “God may accomplish higher purposes in our sickness than in our health.”

Regeneration is the Fountain

"Regeneration is the fountain, sanctification is the river." - J. Sidlow Baxter; Both flow from our union with Christ. JH.

LONGING TO BE HAPPY

Your longing to be happy is from God. Don’t deny it. Don’t resist it. Direct it to God, and he will satisfy it — forever.

Slander Christ

"I do believe we slander Christ when we think we are to draw the people by some else but the preaching of Christ crucified." - Charles Spurgeon

FAITH LOOKS TO CHRIST

"We can put it this way: the man who has faith is the man who is no longer looking at himself and no longer looking to himself. He no longer looks at anything he once was. He does not look at what he is now. He does not even look at what he hopes to be as the result of his own efforts. He looks entirely to the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work, and rests on that alone.

He has ceased to say, "Ah yes, I used to commit terrible sins but I have done this and that." He stops saying that. If he goes on saying that, he has not got faith. Faith speaks in an entirely different manner and makes a man say, "Yes I have sinned grievously, I have lived a life of sin, yet I know that I am a child of God because I am not resting on any righteousness of my own; my righteousness is in Jesus Christ and God has put that to my account." -. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

J. Gresham Machen

BY J. GRESHAM MACHEN

"There are congregations, even in the present age of conflict, that are really gathered around the table of the crucified Lord; there are pastors that are pastors indeed. But such congregations, in many cities, are difficult to find. Weary with the conflicts of the world, one goes into the Church to seek refreshment for the soul. And what does one find? Alas, too often, one finds only the turmoil of the world. The preacher comes forward, not out of a secret place of meditation and power, not with the authority of God's Word permeating his message, not with human wisdom pushed far into the background by the glory of the Cross, but with human opinions about the social problems of the hour or easy solutions of the vast problem of sin. Such is the sermon...

 

Thus the warfare of the world has entered even into the house of God, And sad indeed is the heart of the man who has come seeking peace. Is there no refuge from strife? Is there no place of refreshing where a man can prepare for the battle of life? Is there no place where two or three can gather in Jesus' name, to forget for the moment all those things that divide nation from nation and race from race, to forget human pride, to forget the passions of war, to forget the puzzling problems of industrial strife, and to unite in overflowing gratitude at the foot of the Cross? If there be such a place, then that is the house of God and that the gate of heaven. And from under the threshold of that house will go forth a river that will revive the weary world."

 

-----

Excerpt Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen (Free ebook)

NO GREATER INSULT

"We cannot offer to God a greater insult than not to believe the Gospel; for he cannot be deprived of his truth without taking away all his glory and majesty"- John Calvin

MORE READY TO FORGIVE ME

"I believe that as often as I transgress, God is more ready to forgive me than I am ready to offend." (Charles Haddon Spurgeon)

Sam Cooke

The Soul Stirrers:  Sam Cooke

Well, my Lord done just what he said
Yes, Jesus done just what he said
Said he'd heal the sick
Said he'd raise the dead
Jesus done just what he said

You know he done just what he said
Jesus done just what he said
Said he'd heal the sick
Said he'd raise up the dead
And he done what he said

Well you know he done just what he said
Jesus done just what he said
Said he'd heal the sick
Said he would a-raise the dead
And he done what he said

Well, he said he'd be a doctor
He'd heal the rich and poor
Said he'd be a healer
He'd heal the meek and low
Said he'd be a mother
He'd give the poor and needy bread
And he done what he said

Tell you

He done just what he said
Jesus done just what he said
said he'd heal the sick
Said he'd raise the dead
Jesus done what he said

Well, he said he'd be a teacher
He'd teach his children right
Said he'd be a warrior
He'd help his children fight
Sure been a burden barer
He'd raise the bowed down head
And he done, Lord, what he said

Well, you know he done just what he said
Whoa, Jesus done just what he said
Said he'd heal the sick
Said he'd raise the dead
Jesus done just what he said
Joy, Joy to My Soul:  Sam Cooke

I can tell the world about this
I can tell the nation that I'm blessed
Tell them what my Jesus has done
Tell them that the comforter has come
And he brought joy, great joy unto my soul

Well my Lord done just what he said
(Yes he did, yes he did)
He healed the sick and he raised the dead
(Yes he did, yes he did)

Now I can tell the world about this
I can tell the nation that I'm blessed
Tell them what my Jesus has done
Tell them that the comforter has come
And he brought joy, great joy unto my soul

GREEN PASTURE

Jesus makes us to lie down in green pastures, and then we find out that Jesus is the green pasture. He is the living bread who laid down His life and by the breaking of His body He gives us eternal life.

VANITY OF TIME INTO RICHES OF ETERNITY

Saving grace draws us out of the vanity of time--into the riches of eternity! --- William Law

The most brazen lie of all

“The most brazen lie of all is the lie people tell themselves: "I have nothing to worry about from the wrath of God. My God is a God of love.” If that is your thought, your god is an idol.” 
- R. C. Sproul

PREOCCUPIED

GOD AS MORE WORTHY

GOD AS MORE WORTHY

There are two ways in which a person may attempt to displace from the human heart its love of the world—either by a demonstration of the world’s vanity, so that the heart shall be prevailed upon simply to withdraw its regards from an object that is not worthy of it;

or, by setting forth another object, even God, as more worthy of its attachment, so that the heart shall be prevailed upon not to resign an old affection, which shall have nothing to succeed it, but to exchange an old affection for a new one.

My purpose is to show that from the constitution of our nature, the former method is altogether incompetent and ineffectual, and that the latter method will alone suffice for the rescue and recovery of the heart from the wrong affection that domineers over it. --  Thomas Chalmers

DEALING WITH DEATH, DAVID MURRAY

(from David Murray: Tabletalk Magazine) The Heidelberg Catechism asks the same question: “Since Christ has died for us, why do we still have to die?” (Q. 42). Its answer: “Our death does not pay the debt of our sins. Rather it puts an end to our sinning and is our entrance into life.”

I want to expand upon that answer by demonstrating that although Christians do not have to die, God wisely allows the vast majority of believers to pass through death because of the immense spiritual benefits of the experience.

Dying brings us into communion with Christ’s sufferings. Christ’s death is different from the believer’s “penalty-free” death because Christ’s death was a penalty for sin—not His sin but our sin. However, dying reminds us of what Christ did for us. Like nothing else, it helps us understand the death Christ experienced for us, and so death brings us into closer communion with Him, increasing our love for Him (Phil. 3:10).

Dying gives us a unique experience of Christ’s all-sufficient grace. Bodily death is still a painful evil to believers. They will fear it and feel it. As the last moments approach, there is often great physical pain and, sometimes, spiritual fear. There is also the emotional distress of seeing loved ones’ weeping. At such times, dying believers can experience tremendous help from Christ. His grace is found to be more than sufficient at this time of greatest need (Heb. 4:16).

Dying transforms us into Christ’s image. One of the blessings of dying is the rapid ripening of the believer’s character and the acceleration of his sanctification. The outer person is growing weaker, but the inner is growing stronger and stronger (2 Cor. 4:16). Though death can take an ugly toll on the body of a Christian, his soul is swiftly beautified. I’m sure many pastors have seen how the approach of death can result in a believer’s “shining” in a way he never has before.

Dying is our last and perhaps greatest opportunity to witness for Christ’s glory. Death, in many ways, is the supreme test of faith. What an opportunity to speak of how faith in Christ helps us to die and gives victory over the greatest enemy (1 Cor. 15:55). How many unbelievers have been converted by the dying words of godly fathers or mothers? When the victory of faith is seen by the world and other Christians, it brings great glory to Christ, especially if the believer can speak of and commend Christ in these last moments (Phil. 1:20). The dying witness of believers is even celebrated in heaven (Rev. 12:11).

Dying brings us into Christ’s presence. Death hastens us into the presence of Christ and our coronation as His precious people. Death temporarily separates us from our bodies, but it unites our souls to Christ in a new and wonderful way. We will see Him as He is (1 John 3:2). No longer will we see Him through a dark lens, but we will see Him face-to-face (1 Cor. 13:12).

In summary, Christians do not have to die, but they do die in order to have communion with Christ’s sufferings, to experience Christ’s grace, to be made into Christ’s image, to witness for Christ’s glory, and to bring them into Christ’s presence. The Christian’s death may on the surface look like the death of the non-Christian, but it is essentially and wonderfully different.

PRAYER IS THE OPEN ADMISSION

"Prayer is the open admission that without Christ we can do nothing." -- John Piper.

SEE HIM - JOHN PIPER

See him on his knees,
Hear his constant pleas:
Heart of ev’ry aim:
“Hallowed be Your name.”

See him in the Word,
Helpless, cool, unstirred,
Heaping on the pyre
Heed until the fire.

See him with his books:
Tree beside the brooks,
Drinking at the root
Till the branch bear fruit.

See him with his pen:
Written line, and then,
Better thought preferred,
Deep from in the Word.

See him in the square,
Kept from subtle snare:
Unrelenting sleuth
On the scent of truth.

See him on the street,
Seeking to entreat,
Meek and treasuring:
“Do you know my King?”

See him in dispute,
Firm and resolute,
Driven by the fame
Of his Father’s name.

See him at his trade.
Done. The plan is made.
Men will have his skills,
If the Father wills.

See him at his meal,
Praying now to feel
Thanks and, be it graced,
God in ev’ry taste.

See him with his child:
Has he ever smiled
Such a smile before,
Playing on the floor?

See him with his wife,
Parable for life:
In this sacred scene
She is heaven’s queen.

See him stray. He groans.
“One is true,” he owns.
“What is left to me?
Fallibility.”

See him in lament
“Should I now repent?”
“Yes. And then proclaim:
All is for my fame.”

See him worshipping.
Watch the sinner sing,
Spared the burning flood
Only by the blood.

See him on the shore:
“Whence this ocean store?”
“From your God above,
Thimbleful of love.”

See him now asleep.
Watch the helpless reap,
But no credit take,
Just as when awake.

See him nearing death.
Listen to his breath,
Through the ebbing pain:
Final whisper: “Gain!”

UTTER DESPAIR

For when man through repentance has come to the knowledge of himself, he finds nothing but utter despair. Hence, wholly distrusting himself, he is forced to take refuge in the mercy of God. But when he has begun to do that, justice makes him afraid. Then Christ appears, who has satisfied the divine justice for our trespasses. When once there is faith in Him, then salvation is found; for He is the infallible pledge of God’s mercy.

– Ulrich Zwingli

A HOLY MAN KNOWS

A holy man knows that all sin strikes at the holiness of God, the glory of God, the nature of God, the being of God, and the law of God: and therefore his heart rises against all; he looks upon every sin as the Scribes and Pharisees that accused Christ; and as that Judas that betrayed Christ; and as that Pilate that condemned Christ; and as those soldiers that scourged Christ; and as those spears that pierced Christ. -- Thomas Brooks

Reference:   A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 261.

IT IS GOD WHO GIVES THE WILL AND POWER

"We can do nothing but by a supernatural grace of God.  It is God who gives the will.  It is God who gives the power."  -- Calvin.

This is not only true before conversion, but also true of every facet of the Christian life after conversion.  This is not only true for matters of "earthly providence and labor"  but also especially true of every spiritual matter. (witnessing, preaching, loving, walking by faith, serving, laboring, praying, reading, and all)

GOD IS MORE ATTENTIVE AND ACTIVE THAN WE ARE

SANCTIFICATION

'We often become discouraged because of our lack of progress in the Christian life. When we are discouraged about that, we need to remember that God cares more about that progress in the Christian life than we do." - Ligon Duncan


I want to make the same point about "making an impact"

EVANGELISM

We often become discouraged that we are not "making an impact" to see souls saved.

Yet, we need to remember that God is more focused, attentive, and active in saving sinners than we are.

DISCIPLESHIP

We often become discouraged that we are not "making an impact" to see saints mature.

Yet, we need to remember that God is more focused, attentive, and active in maturing saints than we are.  (also, to see the purity of His church, than we are.)

MUST READ EIGHT GREAT QUOTES

You called, You cried, You shattered my deafness, You sparkled, You blazed, You drove away my blindness, You shed Your fragrance, and I drew in my breath, and I pant for You.
-- Augustine

“To delight in the glory of Jesus Christ as He is revealed in the Gospel...that is the heart of the Christian's new sense. Although the new convert may have known the truths of the Gospel for many years, now they shine with a fresh light and beauty. Once they were dull doctrines which he was required to believe; now they illuminate all of life and bring joy to his heart. The unconverted professor of religion generally wants to talk about his experiences, but the new man in Christ wants to talk about the Savior who has captured his mind and heart.”

-- John K. LaShell, "Jonathan Edwards and the New Sense"

He will have the supreme affection of His saints; they shall find their all in Him; and to this end He sends afflictions, crosses, and disappointments, but to wean them from their idols and draw them to Himself.
-- Octavius Winslow

Sicknesses, losses, crosses, anxieties and disappointments seem absolutely needful to keep us humble, watchful and spiritual–minded. They are as needful as the pruning knife to the vine and the refiner’s furnace to the gold.
-- J.C. Ryle

Clear conviction of sin if the only true origin of dependence on another's righteousness, and, therefore of the Christian's peace of mind and cheerfulness.

-- Robert Murray M'Cheyne

Some may engage in reading with alacrity for a time, and afterwards feel it a burden, grievous to be borne. They may find conscience dragging them through the appointed task without any relish of the heavenly food. If this be the case with any, throw aside the fetter, and feed at liberty in the sweet garden of God. My desire is not to cast a snare upon you, but to be a helper of your joy.

-- Robert Murray M'Cheyne, regarding his Bible reading plan

As furnaces burn with ancient coal and not with the leaves that fall from today’s trees, so my heart is kindled with the fiery substance I find in the old Scripture-steeped sermons of Puritan pastors.
-- John Piper

Delighting in God always produces resignation and holy contentment. Whatever they have — they enjoy it as the undeserved gift of God; and they feel obligated and thankful for all. They would rather be conformed to God's will — than have their own will. They know that His appointments are best — because they are infinitely wise, holy, and gracious.
-- John MacDuff

Excellency of the Treasure

Quote, "The earthen-ness of the vessel does not take away from the excellency of the treasure."

WOULD YOU STARVE YOUR KIDS

If you do not worship God in your family, you are living in positive sin; you may be quite sure you do not care for the souls of your family. If you neglect to spread a meal for your children to eat, would it not be said that you did not care for their bodies? And if you do not lead your children and servants to the green pastures of God’s Word, and to seek the living water, how plain is it that you do not care for their souls? Do it regularly, morning and evening. It is more needful than your daily food – more needful than your work. Robert Murray Mchenye

The Enjoying of Knowing and The Enjoying of Obeying

God is glorified most not merely by being known, nor by merely being dutifully obeyed, but by being enjoyed in the knowing and the obeying. The Enjoying of Knowing God. The Enjoying of Obeying God. The Enjoying of Knowing about God. If you did not "know about" a Car's Radio, then you would not "Know the Car" fully, nor "Enjoy the Car fully." If you did not "know about" the "Speed Limit sign", then you would not "Know the Law" fully, nor "Enjoy the Road fully." You remained driving 35 mph when you could have driven 65 mph, because you did not "know about freedom" (loss) You remained driving 65 mph when you crashed off the road in a curvy 35 mph zone, because you did not "know about the law which is designed for your good and safety." (loss)

Visibility Does Not Equal Impact

Visibility does not equal Impact. Impact does not equal Visibility.

Powerful Verses

Deu 28:47  Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things,  Deu 28:48  therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.  Today, by grace alone in Christ alone through the Spirit alone: -- serve God with joyfulness and gladness of heart! -- preach with joyfulness and gladness of heart! -- witness with joyfulness and gladness of heart!

God Himself Supplies the Necessary Condition.

“God Himself supplies the necessary condition to come to Jesus. That’s why it is sola gratia, by grace alone, that we are saved.” - R. C. Sproul

The Finite cannot declare the Infinite.

While creation does declare the glory and attributes of God, creation is entirely insufficient, inadequate, and incapable of declaring the glory of God fully. Why? Because creation is finite, God is infinite. Creation presents billions of stars, but God's wisdom and power and glory and knowledge is finite; a billion is a lot less than an infinite number. My mind freezes because it is too much to consider or understand. The Finite cannot declare the Infinite. The Finite heavens, full of billions of galaxies, cannot declare the Infinite. They cannot declare God's infinite knowledge, power, wisdom, glory, goodness, greatness. They are "expressions" of His glory, but no expression will be exhaustive, because expressions are always finite, and the glory is always infinite.

Unending Glory

If God’s glory and our joy in him are one, and yet we are not infinite as he is, then our union with him in the allsatisfying experience of his glory can never be complete, but must be increasing with intimacy and intensity forever and ever. The perfection of heaven is not static. Nor do we see at once all there is to see—for that would be a limit on God’s glorious self-revelation, and therefore, his love. Yet we do not become God. Therefore, there will always be more, and the end of increased pleasure in God will never come. “I suppose it will not be denied by any, that God, in glorifying the saints in heaven with eternal felicity, aims to satisfy his infinite grace or benevolence, by the bestowment of a good [which is] infinitely valuable, because eternal: and yet there never will come the moment, when it can be said, that now this infinitely valuable good has been actually bestowed.” - Edwards, from Piper.

Horatius Quote

"The secret of a believer’s holy walk is his continual recurrence to the blood of the Surety, and his daily [communion] with a crucified and risen Lord. All divine life, and all precious fruits of it, pardon, peace, and holiness, spring from the cross. All fancied sanctification which does not arise wholly from the blood of the cross is nothing better than Pharisaism. If we would be holy, we must get to the cross, and dwell there; else, notwithstanding all our labor, diligence, fasting, praying and good works, we shall be yet void of real sanctification, destitute of those humble, gracious tempers which accompany a clear view of the cross." ~ Horatius Bonar

To Know God is to Rest in Him.

To know God is to love God

To know God is to enjoy God

To know God is to trust God

To know God is to obey God

To know God is to proclaim God

To know God is pray to Him.

To know God is to sing His Praises.

To know God is to seek Him.

To know God is to rest in Him.

Valley of Vision Feb 2018

Occupy the throne of my heart,
take full possession and reign supreme,
lay low every rebel lust,
let no vile passion resist thy holy war;
manifest thy mighty power,
and make me thine for ever.

—Valley of Vision

Remember Christ's Pardonings

"Remember your sins, Christ’s pardonings; your deserts, Christ’s merits; your weakness, Christ’s strength; your pride, Christ’s humility; your many infirmities, Christ’s restorings; your guilt, Christ’s blood; your failings, Christ’s assistance; your wants, Christ’s fullness; your temptations, Christ’s tenderness; your vileness, Christ’s righteousness." ~ Thomas Wilcox 

What is a Christian

What is a Christian? One who, by the grace of God, can declare that he justly deserves the wrath of God, save for the mercy of Jesus Christ alone. He casts aside all hope in his self-righteousness and puts away all pride in his own goodness. One who is glad to be regarded as spiritually bankrupt, a poor sinner, saved by the free grace and righteousness of Christ and, with a renewed heart, yields in allegiance to Him alone as LORD and sovereign. In a word, one who "glories in Christ Jesus and has no confidence in the flesh." (Phil. 3:3)

To be a Christian, is to be in Christ ... to be forgiven and granted a place at His table. We affirm salvation is by Christ alone - its all of grace. Good will, works, obedience and merit add nothing to our just standing before God (Rom 9:16; Gal 3:3; Eph 2:9). Neither these nor anything else can help us attain or maintain our just standing before God. Obedience flows from the cross, it does not contribute to it. It is a fruit of our union with Christ not the root. We obey, because we are saved, not in order to attain or maintain our just standing before God (that is Christ's office, and His alone).  It only as we are joined to Christ by the Holy Spirit that we have life... that the power of sin is broken and we are declared righteous in His sight - and all our sins, both now and forever are forgiven on account of His name alone. AMEN

A Christian, then, is one who is called by God, and by the grace of God has been made a disciple, a follower of Christ and one who clings to the gospel. Furthermore, a Christian is one who is prepared to suffer for the sake of Christ, if God so ordains it.-- Monergism.

Joining the Unending Worship Service

“We don’t start to worship and then conclude it the way we start and conclude a church service. We join worship. It is universal-going on all over the world-and it is going on in Heaven too all the time night and day. When we begin to sing, praise, give thanks or extol the beauties of our Savior, we are joining an activity already in progress”

Meaningful

[Not only is all your affliction momentary, not only is all your affliction light in comparison to eternity and the glory there. But all of it is totally meaningful. Every millisecond of your pain, from the fallen nature or fallen man, every millisecond of your misery in the path of obedience is producing a peculiar glory you will get because of that.

I don’t care if it was cancer or criticism. I don’t care if it was slander or sickness. It wasn’t meaningless. It’s doing something! It’s not meaningless. Of course you can’t see what it’s doing. Don’t look to what is seen.

When your mom dies, when your kid dies, when you’ve got cancer at 40, when a car careens into the sidewalk and takes her out, don’t say, “That’s meaningless!” It’s not. It’s working for you an eternal weight of glory.

Therefore, therefore, do not lose heart. But take these truths and day by day focus on them. Preach them to yourself every morning. Get alone with God and preach his word into your mind until your heart sings with confidence that you are new and cared for.] -- John Piper.

Platt Video of the Day

SEES IN SECRET

Somebody is being interviewed at a conference with cameras watching, another person is at the most despairing nursing home and singing about Jesus with faith and love for those weak bodies who still have mind enough to benefit from the minister's testimony. James tells us not to "go speak at conferences, be professors, and keynote speakers." James tells us to visit the widows. May we not overlook the significance of giving a cup of cold water (a very unseen and private ministry). May we give (truth, kindness, wisdom, love) in secret, and He who sees in secret will reward thee openly.

Small Things

God's grace made Jonathan Edwards who he was, and yet God used "means" to develop Edwards. It may have been Edward's Dad, Mom, Uncle, Aunt, Brother, sister, neighbor, friend at church, christian co-worker, and countless "unknown nobodies" behind the scenes to develop, direct, nurture, and guide Edwards along the way. May we (as I often am) not strive to be Edwards (asking for some public ministry and public attention), but may we strive to be faithful in the secret and hidden ways to minister to others. A small word in the parking lot or at dinner table with friends can be just as pivotal and useful as anything else. If a paramedic found me all alone in the woods, His medicine (good news and truth) would be just as life giving as if I had received it in front of millions.

GREET THE DAY

Rough draft, flaws and all. As you begin the day, greet it. And if the day welcomes you, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not welcoming, let your peace return to you. And if anyone will not receive you, nor listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you end that day. My goal was to substitute "people/unbelievers" (which is still true) with the concept of "day" such as having a good day or a difficult day; My goal was not to edit Scripture, but exemplify how the fundamental principle is still true regardless if we are literally travelling city to city as the original disciples did. I've been living in the same house for over 8 years, so I wanted to take the premise of the passage and extend it to something that would strengthen me as we also face the word's apathy, indifference, and deafness.

Prayer Closet

A personal, private, prayer closet comes from an awareness that education alone is entirely insufficient.

WITHOUT EXCUSE

Stephen Charnock lists ten attributes of God that may be recognized by the light of Nature:

1. the power of God, in creating a world out of nothing
2. the wisdom of God, in the order, variety, and beauty of creation
3.  the goodness of God, in the provision God makes for His creatures
4.  the immutability of God, for if He were mutable, He would lack the perfection of the sun and heavenly bodies, “wherein no change hath been observed”
5. His eternity, for He must exist before what is made in time
6.  the omniscience of God, since as the Creator He must necessarily know everything He has made
7.  the sovereignty of God, “in the obedience his creatures pay to him, in observing their several orders, and moving in the spheres wherein he set them”
8.  the spirituality of God, insofar as God is not visible, “and the more spiritual any creature in the world is, the more pure it is”
9.  the sufficiency ofGod, for He gave all creatures a beginning, and so their being was not necessary, which means God was in no need of them
10.  His majesty, seen in the glory of the heavens
All of these attributes of God may be known by sinful man by observation of the natural world.

Charnock, The Knowledge of God, in Works, 4:115; cited from Beeke, Jones, A Puritan Theology, p. 17.

While the gospel may not reach every individual person in their lifetime, everyone is without excuse for sinning against the light God did give them in these four books.

“Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened” (Romans 1:19-21).

SERIOUS AND CHEERFUL

Christians should be grave and serious, though cheerful and pleasant. They should feel that they have great interests at stake, and that the world has too. They are redeemed—not to make sport; purchased with precious blood—for other purposes than to make men laugh. They are soon to be in heaven—and a man who has any impressive sense of that will habitually feel he has much else to do than to make men laugh. The true course of life is midway between moroseness and levity; sourness and lightness; harshness and jesting. Be benevolent, kind, cheerful, bland, courteous—but serious. Be solemn, thoughtful, deeply impressed with the presence of God and with eternal things—but pleasant affable and benignant. Think not a smile sinful; but think not levity and jesting harmless. —Albert Barnes

Contentment

Contentment, then, is the product of a heart resting in God. It is the soul’s enjoyment of that peace that passes all understanding. It is the outcome of my will being brought into subjection to the Divine will. It is the blessed assurance that God does all things well, and is, even now, making all things work together for my ultimate good. A.W. Pink

MERCY IS HIGHER THAN SIN, SO JOY IS HIGHER THAN SORROW

And since the greatness of God's mercy is far above our sins as the heavens are above the earth, our faith and joy in God's mercy ought to be far above our sadness for our sins. ~Henry Scougal

ATONEMENT- MacArthur

The fallout of that would be like this. Hell is full of people for whom Christ died. I’ll say it another way. Hell is full of people whose sins were paid for in full on the cross. That’s a little more disturbing when you say it like that, isn’t it? Another way to say it would be that the lake of fire, which burns forever with fire and brimstone, is filled with eternally damned people whose sins Christ fully atoned for on the cross. God’s wrath was satisfied by Christ’s atonement on behalf of those people who will forever stay in hell.

Now by the way, heaven will also be populated by the souls of those for whom Christ died. So, Christ did exactly the same thing for the occupants of hell as He did for the occupants of heaven. That makes the question a little more disturbing. The only difference is the people in heaven accepted the gift, the people in hell rejected it. That’s pretty much the traditional evangelical view. But it just sounds strange when you start to kind of pick it apart a little bit, doesn’t it? That Jesus died and paid in full the penalty for the sins of the damned, and died and paid in full the penalty for the sins of the glorified, that Jesus did the same thing for the occupants of hell that He did for the occupants of heaven, and the only difference hinges on the sinner’s choice?

That is to say, the death of Jesus Christ, then, is not an actual atonement, it is only a potential atonement. He really did not purchase salvation for anyone in particular. He only removed some kind of barrier to make it possible for sinners to choose to be saved. So the message then - the typical evangelical message - is to sinners, “God loves you so much He sent His Son who paid in full the penalty for your sins. And won’t you respond to that love, and not disappoint God, and accept the gift, and let Him save you since He already paid in full the price for your sins?” The final decision is up to the sinner.

And it kind of carries the notion that God loves you so much, you’re so special, He gave His Son and He paid in full the penalty for your sins, and that’s supposed to move you emotionally to love Him back and accept this gift. And so you kind of work the sinner, and kind of manipulate the sinner in that direction, trying to find a psychological point, a felt-need point, play the right organ music, sing the right invitation hymn. You know, grease the slides and get him moving in the direction of making the choice.

Now we’ve got a problem here, folks. We’ve got a big problem. We saw in our last study that no sinner on his own can make that choice, right? This is the doctrine of absolute inability. He can’t make it. He cannot make that choice. All people - all people - are sinners, and all sinners are dead in their trespasses and sins. All of them are alienated from the life of God. All do only evil continually. All are unwilling and unable to understand, to repent and to believe. All have darkened minds, blinded by sin and Satan, all have hearts that are full of evil, all are wicked, desperately wicked. All desire only the will of their father who is Satan. All of them are unable to seek God. They are all trapped in absolute inability and unwillingness.

So how then can the sinner make the choice? I don’t care what felt need you might find. I don’t care what you might think you see “in his heart” that will let you lead anyone to Christ. I don’t care how many invitation verses you sing, or how much organ music or mood music you play to try to induce some kind of response, the sinner on his own cannot understand, cannot repent, and cannot believe.

Remember what we saw in John 1? To as many as believed He gave the authority, “the right to become children of God but not by the will of man or the will of the flesh. Ephesians 2:8-9. “By grace are you saved through faith; but that not of yourselves.” It is through Him that you are in Christ, 1 Corinthians 1:30. Salvation is from God. We saw that. He has to give life to the dead. He has to give sight to the blind. He has to give hearing to the deaf. He has to give understanding to the ignorant. He has to give repentance to those who love sin. He has to give faith to those who can’t believe. -- JOHN MACARTHUR