For the past eight Lord's Day
mornings that I have been ministering the Word here in this place,
we have been considering the sobering and awesome teaching
of our Lord Jesus Christ on the subject of hell or the future
of impenitent sinners. And everything that our Lord
teaches on this subject we have seen in our course of study can
be classified under five basic headings describing the nature,
the extent, and something of the terror of the punishment
of the most impenitent sinners. We have seen in the teaching
of our Lord that hell is a place of unspeakable misery, torment,
and woe. That it's a place where soul
and body shall suffer the punishment due to sin. A place where there
will be the pouring out of the positive wrath of God upon sinners. A place where there will be degrees
of intensity of punishment and torment. And then, fifthly, and
perhaps the most frightening aspect of all of our Lord's teaching,
hell is a place of conscious, unending, eternal misery, torment,
and woe. Last Lord's Day morning, I tried
to set before you something of the practical effect which this
awesome teaching should have upon our hearts and in our lives. Some of the practical, motivating
factors of the doctrine of hell, both with reference to those
who are confessing disciples of Christ and those who are not
such confessing disciples. We only got as far as two of
the practical effects which our Lord says this doctrine should
have upon confessed disciples. First of all, our Lord teaches
that this doctrine should create determination and desperation
in the duty of mortification. Our Lord says in Mark 9 and again
in Matthew 5 and Matthew 18 and in other passages that sins as
dear as the right hand and the right eye must be brutally, mercilessly
dealt with, or we shall be cast into hell. And it's only when
the confessed disciple, the professing Christian, is convinced of the
absolute necessity of holiness at any cost, that he will be
prepared to pay the price in this duty of mortification. And then secondly, we saw that
it's this doctrine of hell which should cause the Christian to
take a stance of unflinching stability in the face of persecution,
even in the face of death. For Jesus said, don't fear those
who kill the body, but fear him who can cast soul and body into
hell. And the statement of the old
Bishop of England, Bishop Hooper, has come to us through the ages
with all of its sane spiritual wisdom, when one sought to entice
him away from the stake by renouncing Christ, and he proclaimed, yes,
what you say is true. Life is sweet and death is bitter,
but eternal death is more bitter, eternal life more sweet. Now I want to pick up the train
of thought there this morning, and consider, as time permits,
several other motivating influences of the doctrine of hell upon
confessed disciples of Jesus Christ. This doctrine believed
and received, and follow me closely, kept before the mind by constant
meditation. not only believed, received,
but kept before the mind by meditation, should produce determination
in the duty of mortification, unflinching stability in the
face of persecution, but thirdly, it should produce constancy in
cultivating a spirit of forgiveness to our fellow men. As long as
we are in the state of imperfect imperfection and imperfect sanctification,
There will always be things done, one believer to another, one
disciple to another, that are legitimately called sin. And
whenever one believer sins against another believer, this demands
forgiveness on the part of the one who has been sinned against. Now our Lord knows the human
heart. And he knows something of its
deep sin of the spirit of unforgiveness. It is natural for us to be unforgiving
as it is for us to breathe. Now, what is going to keep us
from harboring a consistent spirit of unforgiveness? Well, there
are many things. But our Lord sets forth in Matthew
18 that one of the things that should keep confessed disciples
from harboring the spirit of unforgiveness is the doctrine
of hell. And I want you to see this in
the context of the very subject of forgiveness. Matthew 18 Our Lord had been speaking about
what should happen when one brother sins against another brother,
beginning with verse 15 of Matthew 18. If thy brother sin against
thee, show him his fault between thee and him alone. If he won't
hear you, take witnesses. If he won't hear the witnesses,
bring it to the church. So he's introduced the subject
of what happens when one brother sins against another brother.
Clearly assuming that as long as God's people are imperfect
in the flesh, they're going to sin against one another. Now
he's not commanding them to do so. He's not saying, now go out
and do it. But he knows that this will be
true. So Peter comes to the Lord and
says in verse 21, Then came Peter and said unto him, Lord, how
oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? You said
that we must forgive, but now, Lord, what is the extent of that
forgiveness? At what point can I turn to my
brother and say, look, I've forgiven you the full measure of what
God requires, and then he ventures what he thinks is probably a
very high estimate, until seven times? Certainly, Lord, When
my brother has sinned against me seven times and I've forgiven
him the eighth time, I'm warranted in having a little bit of unforgiveness,
don't you think, Lord? Isn't that sort of a reasonable
goal, seven times? Notice the Lord's answer. Jesus
said unto him, I say unto thee, until seven times, not unto thee
seven times, I'm sorry, I say not unto thee until seven times,
but until seventy times seven. In other words, Peter, The spirit
of forgiveness keeps no little checkmarks. Peter, if it's seven
times, you'll keep your little three-by-five card in your pocket
and you'll check them off. No, Peter, the spirit of forgiveness
is to know no bounds and no limits. 70 times 7. He takes the number of perfection,
7, and he multiplies it by 70. He says, Peter, if you're talking
about checkmarks, you don't understand forgiveness. You don't understand
the spirit of forgiveness. It doesn't keep checkmarks. I
want to teach you this, Peter. And so he launches into a parable.
I say unto thee, not until seven times, but seventy times seven,
therefore, is the kingdom of heaven like unto a certain king."
And then you remember the parable. There's one man who's got a very
small, a very great debt. And when he finds he cannot pay,
he pleads for mercy. Verse 26, The servant fell down
and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I
will pay thee all. And the Lord of that servant,
being moved with compassion, released him and forgave him
the debt. Here's a man who had a great
debt forgiven him, a debt of thousands of dollars. Now he
turns around, the man who's been forgiven, And he goes out and
finds one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred shillings.
And if you take, I'm reading from the American Standard, if
you take the amount, it's about a thousand to one. The debt that
this man had forgiven him by the king was the equivalent of,
say, a thousand dollars. And he finds one of his fellow
servants who owes him about a dollar twenty. And after he finds him,
he says, now look, grabbing him by the throat, pay what you owe
me. His fellow servant did the same
thing he did, fell down and pled with him, have patience with
me and I will pay thee. But he would not. But he went
and cast him into prison till he should pay what was due. So
when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were exceeding
sorry and came and told their Lord all that was done. Then
his Lord called him unto him, and saith unto him, Thou wicked
servant, I forgave thee all thy debt, because thou besoughtest
me. Shouldest thou not have had mercy on thy fellow-servant,
even as I had mercy on thee? And his Lord was wroth, and delivered
him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due."
Now notice, "'So shall also my heavenly Father do unto you,'
and he's talking to Peter. If ye forgive not everyone his
brother, fund your hearts with no checklist." So as our Lord would enforce
upon Peter, the duty of cultivating a spirit of forgiveness that
is all-pervasive and extensive, that knows no checklist or no
limit of the number of times he does so with the threat of
hell and torment if he does anything less than this. Now the teaching
is obvious, that no man or woman has scriptural grounds to believe
that God is a forgiving God to him unless he is demonstrating
a spirit of forgiveness to his fellow men. It's just saying
in different terms what Jesus said in what we commonly call
the Lord's Prayer. If you forgive not men their
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses. And Jesus adds a note here that
is most significant, forgiving everyone from the heart. It's not just saying, oh, I forgive
you and I won't say nasty things about you, but I'll sure feel
nasty things to you. No, no. It's forgiveness that
pervades the heart. Until from the deep springs of
the inner being, you can look that person in the eye, though
he may have wronged you a thousand times, and you can say from the
heart, I have no desire to take you by the throat. I forgive
you. Now, is our Lord teaching that
our forgiveness of others earns God's forgiveness for us? No. What He is teaching, and follow
closely, a man who has drunk of the spirit of forgiveness
from God will demonstrate that spirit of forgiveness to his
fellow man. A forgiven man will be a forgiving
man. And if I'm not forgiving, it's
because I am truly not forgiven. Now you see how practical this
is? I've had people tell me, confessed
disciples, professing Christians, but pastor, I can't forgive them! Oh, you can't? Well then burn,
my friend. Go to the tormentors. But I can't
forgive! Well, then you must burn. But
if you knew what they did, it's impossible to forgive! Well,
then it's possible to burn. That's what our Lord says. When
the Lord came back and found the man who had no forgiveness
to his fellow man, he said, Give him up to the tormentors, so
shall my Father do to you." Give you up to the tormentors. Now
blessed be God for those times when as children of God we are
so bathed in the Spirit of God's forgiveness to us. Ephesians
4.32. Contemplating God's forgiveness
of us so permeates the mind and the spirit that it's almost our
reflex action to forgive others. Blessed be God for those times.
But listen, my friend, we're not always in that frame of mind.
And there are times when we are able to, as it were, suck little
sweetness from the flower of God's forgiveness to us. And
it's at those times that we think we've got some rights to have
a spirit of unforgiveness to others. May God bring back this
doctrine of hell. You go on in a spirit of unforgiveness
in your heart to anyone as a pattern of life, and you have no grounds
to believe that you're a forgiven person. None whatsoever. And what is one of the greatest
blights upon the professing evangelical church in our day? What is it? But do you know what so-and-so
did to me?" Yes, but do you know what you did to God? Once that grips me, that I, the
servant, the creature, have offended the Lord, the King, and He has
forgiven, what can a fellow worm of the dust do to me that can
begin to compare what I, the worm, have done to my God? You see, once the spirit of forgiveness
is in some little measure understood, the forgiven man becomes a forgiving
man. And our Lord says the doctrine
of hell, this doctrine that we've considered from the scriptures
week by week, should act as a motivating factor to produce constancy and
consistency in cultivating the spirit of forgiveness. Is there
anyone about whom you say this morning, I can't forgive them?
You got anyone? You answer with judgment day
honesty this morning. Anyone? Somebody coming to mind? I can't forgive them. Let me
say it with words that will haunt you in the day of judgment unless
you repent if you can't forgive. you must be delivered to the
tormentors. Oh, my friend, if you can't forgive, go to the
cross. Behold the writhing form of the
Son of God, placed there by the scheming, underhanded chicanery
of that apostate religious crowd. When the spittle of their own
wicked mouths is dripping from his face, mingled with his own
blood, He says, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're
doing. You can forgive. You've never
had a sight of the cross. And my friend, if you have any
unforgiveness in your heart, sit at the foot of Calvary and
ask the Holy Ghost to give you a sight of Jesus that will break
your heart. Another way in which this doctrine
should affect the child of God in terms of motivation, it should
not only be this influence to produce consistency and constancy
in the spirit of forgiveness, but it should be a spur to watchfulness,
to faithfulness in our stewardship of gifts and opportunity. What
a blessed thing, again, to have the wheels of devotion well oiled
by the sense of the presence and sweetness of Christ, to have
the engine of service driven by the fuel of his constraining
love. But the pressures of the world,
the influence of our own flesh and of the devil are such, at
times the feet grow reddened and the joints become stiff,
and our service becomes, at best, so indifferent Should the doctrine
of hell play a part at this juncture? Well, according to the teaching
of our Lord, apparently it should. When you turn to the 24th chapter
of the Gospel of Matthew, and we can only look briefly at some
of these passages, I just want to make you aware of what a mine
of truth there is in this whole matter that we're discussing
and considering together. Our Lord has been speaking of
the necessity of being watchful in the light of his return. And
that doesn't mean you find the nearest hill and put on a white
robe and sit down and look up and wait for the clouds to part
and for Christ to come. It means to have all your spiritual
faculties about you. It means to be fully alert of
the issues and not to allow your heart to become so engrossed
in temporal things as he says in another context. Beware lest
your heart be overcharged with surfeiting and banqueting and
the cares of this life and that day come upon you unaware. Be
watchful. Let your life be governed in
the light of the fact that the best is yet to come. This world
is not your home. You're just passing through.
Your treasures are laid up there. Now in that context, Jesus says
in Matthew 24, 45, Who then is the faithful and wise servant
whom his Lord hath set over his household to give them their
food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom
his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing. Verily I say unto
you, that he will set him over all that he hath. But if that
evil servant shall say in his heart, O my Lord, and shall begin
to be his fellow servants, and eat and drink with the drunken,
the Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he expecteth
not, and in an hour when he knoweth not, and shall take away a few
of his rewards." That is what it says. and shall
cut him asunder and appoint his portion with the hypocrites,
there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth." See what
he's saying? Here's someone who externally,
you don't build the doctrine whether or not saved people can
be lost on these parables. If you want to know if saved
people can be lost, you go to passages where the Apostle contemplates
such a thing and says, can't be, Romans 8. Whom he justifies,
he glorifies. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? No one believes that doctrine
more firmly than I, that when God lays hold of a man and saves
him, God will complete what he began. But my friend, Jesus put
these words in the Bible. The Holy Ghost put them here.
What for? to run away from them because
they don't seem to fit our doctrine of eternal security? No, no. He put them there out of a profound
knowledge of human nature and the effect of sin in the world. And here's the person who is
at least outwardly identified with the Lord Jesus, outwardly
identified with the people of God, and yet when he contemplates
the return of Christ, he said, ah, when I was a kid I heard
all about that. The Lord delays his coming. I'll
have plenty of time to get ready when I see some of the other
signs fitting together. I don't need to be careful and
watchful. And so he begins to grow careless
in life and in the discharge of responsibility. Scripture
says that man's master will come in an hour when he doesn't expect
him and he shall count his portion with My friend, dear confessing Christian,
are you tempted to become careless? The pressures are too much? It's
too hard to buck all of those combined pressures which want
to, as it were, act like anesthesia and make you insensitive to the
world of spiritual conflict. Listen, your soul is at stake.
This is not a matter of a few rewards or many rewards, it's
a matter of life and of death. Our Lord teaches essentially
the same thing in Matthew 25, where he starts with verse 14
and gives what we call the parable of the talents. And there's that
fellow who had one talent, and he didn't use it. He was not
a faithful steward of what was entrusted to him. He didn't go
out and burn it. He didn't go out and squander
it. He just buried it. Now how does the Lord deal with
him when he comes back again? Notice his words. Verse 27, "'Take
ye away therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him
that hath ten talents. To every one that hath shall
be given, and he shall have abundance, but from him that hath not, even
that which he hath shall be taken away. Cast the unprofitable servant
into the outer darkness, there shall be the weeping and the
gnashing of teeth.' I have heard men who believe the doctrine
of eternal security skip right over this teaching of the Word
of God and expound this parable in such a way to say, well, you're
a Christian, you're not using your talent, how ashamed you'll
be when the Lord will come. That isn't what the passage says.
It doesn't say you'll be ashamed, it says you'll be damned. Isn't
that what it says? I didn't put it in there, that's
what it says. Take that unprofitable servant, that one who had all
the semblance, you see, of being a servant, but who was indifferent
to discharging his stewardship and responsibility and cut him
off and put him in with the hypocrites where the weeping and the gnashing
of teeth are. My friend, God has entrusted talents to you. What are the talents? Well, I
don't know precisely, but it's obvious that it includes whatever
comes under the scope of our stewardship, our time, Our gifts,
our abilities, the privilege of parenthood, the gift of children,
to train for His glory, to instruct, to so live before them that they
see reality, the opportunity of praying with and for this
people, the opportunity of witness and testimony to the world about
us, all of this is part of our stewardship. When we're tempted
to be indifferent to that stewardship and bury that talent, We better
beware, for when the Son of Man comes and finds people who were
indifferent to that stewardship, their portion shall be out of
darkness, where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth." We find essentially the same
thing in the 25th chapter. We don't have time to go into
it, but when our Lord condemns the ghosts to hell, what's the
basis of His condemnation? Because you did it not. They're
damned for what they didn't do. Because ye did it not unto thee,
the least of my little ones, ye did it not unto me." The Lord
says, I came to you in the needs of my people. I was in prison,
you had no time to see me. You too wrapped up in your own
family, you had no time to be concerned about other families,
other confessed disciples and their needs. I was sick, and
you came and showed concern for me. Now this people They said,
well, we never saw you, sir. We never saw you! We never saw
you in prison! Ah, the Lord said, yes. Yes,
you did. I was there in my people. Sick, hungry, in prison. You were indifferent. You didn't
throw stones at my people when they were in prison, but neither
did you come and minister graciously to them. Oh, you didn't exploit
my people when they were hungry, but neither did you cook an extra
casserole and take it over to them. You were too wrapped up
in your own stinking business to be concerned about anybody
else. And my friend, that strikes fear to my heart for some of
you here. I would have far more grounds
to come to you and exhort you. that your confession and profession
maybe was a sham if you were beer-hopping and pub-hopping
and spending your time in a honky-tonk. But you don't do that. But there's
so little evidence of positive, outgoing involvement with the
people of God. And the treatment of his people
is your treatment of him. You read it in that 25th chapter.
Because you did not unto me You squandered your stewardship.
You had more than enough for your own table. You could have
taken the overflow to some of my people who had less. You had
enough time to watch your favorite TV program week after week, but
you had no time to get in your car and spend an evening with
that lonely saint who has no one. You had time to sit around and try
to think. Why didn't the pastor do this
or do that, but you never did anything. Squandering of stewardship. Squandering
of stewardship. It's a frightful thing, isn't
it? That unprofitable servants are cut off. Well, another motivation that
this doctrine should have in our lives, it should be a code
to avoid hypocrisy and unreality in religious experience. Wherever
true religion is preached and practiced and we come into the
circle of its influence, there is always the frightening possibility
that we assume a mere show and a form without reality. Mr. Goebbels spoke of that in his
dealing with Noah this morning. Hence our Lord's warnings concerning
the doctrine of hell are continually couched in this context of this
possibility of hypocrisy and unreality in religion. His warning in Matthew 7, 21
to 23. Not everyone who says unto me,
Lord, Lord. Well you see, the only people
who can say Lord, Lord are the people who hear about it. The
people who come into the circle of the influence of true religion,
biblical religion. But he says, not everyone says
unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he
that doeth the will of my Father. In other words, he says, if your
religious experience gets no further than the notions of the
head and the words of the mouth, it hasn't gone far enough. And
he said, sad to say, many, many, are going to be found out in
the day of judgment, deficient just at that point. For many
will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy
in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name
do many wonderful works? Then will I profess unto them,
Depart from me, I never knew you, leave that work iniquity."
That's a frightening thing. What's our Lord saying? He's
saying as he brings that Sermon on the Mount to a conclusion,
to confessed followers, don't be content with anything less
than reality. Don't be content that you can
say the right words in the right context. Be content with nothing
less. and vital experience that transforms
the light. Not everyone who says, Lord,
Lord, but he that does the will of my Father, he whose relationship
to me and to God and to truth is such that the truth holds
his light and molds the light, not merely shapes his notions
and frames his words. See? All the difference in the
world. Where there's hypocrisy and unreality, the mind can hold
the truth and the lips can parrot the terms. But where there's
true Christianity, the life is held by the truth. Are you held
by truth this morning? Does the truth hold you? See,
this is one of the mysteries and the glories of preaching.
You never know what's going to happen because you never know
where the truth is going to take you. You see, a preacher doesn't come
into this pulpit with his sermon Something he has to give to the
people. No, no. I say to you young men preparing
for the ministry, if that's your idea in any way, ask God to purge
it out of you, every last vestige of it. What is preaching? No,
no. It's not that. Preacher's got some truth that
he holds and he's going to give it to the people. No, no. There's
some truth that has held him. The word of the Lord came to
me. That truth holds him. And then
when he stands to preach, that truth carries him out. to his
people. You say you're talking double
talk. Well, maybe I am. But it's true. And a Christian
is that way. You see, he just doesn't hold
some facts about God and about Christ conveniently to think
about them and talk about them and parrot them in the right
situation. No, no, no, no. Some truths about
God and Christ have taken hold of him! And wherever he is, in
whatever situation, that truth holds him. Does the truth hold
you this morning? The Lord warns us about anything
less than that in Matthew 7. He says the same thing in Matthew
23 when he's speaking to the Pharisees. They were those, he
said, when they tell you to do something, do it. They're teaching
the right thing, but don't follow their example. You see, they're
holding the truth, and they're parroting the truth. But it hasn't
held them, and so he brings his exhortation to a climax with
them in verse 33 of Matthew 23, and he says, O generation of
vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Matthew 25,
1 to 13, the parable of the virgins. In one area all the commentators
are agreed that the foolish virgins are a picture of those who have
the form of religion. but they lack the indwelling
of the Holy Spirit. I would ask you this morning,
as you've come to this place of worship, the outside is clean
and beautiful, but what about the inside? Do you ever, when
you go away on a Sunday morning, ever really feel deeply grieved
because as much as you tried, you couldn't bring your heart
to worship? Do you know what it is to leave a service pained
right down inside, deeply pained? Because you felt you never once
really rose to a level of true worship. Do you know what that
is? May I say, if you've gone to any true Bible preaching,
God-honoring church for a period of more than three to six months
and have not known what this pain is, you don't have a clue
of what true Christianity is. You don't have a clue. For you
see, the Christian's concerned about his heart. He's concerned
that when he comes into the right building at the right time and
sings the right words, that his heart will be right. And if his
heart doesn't go out, he doesn't take any comfort that he's been
in the right building at the right time, saying the right
words. He's pained. Do you know anything about pain?
Do you? Conversely, a Christian knows
something of joy. Not because he's been in the
right building at the right time, but he's got what he came for. He
read about it in Psalm 27 this morning. One thing have I desired. That will I seek after to behold
the beauty of the Lord and all that happens when God gives you
a little sight of His glory. He gives you a little glimpse
of Jesus. And you say, oh forget the clock, forget everything
else. I've seen Jesus. I've seen Him. I've seen Him. Do you know what it is to have
your heart ravaged because you've seen Him? Do you know that? You
see, the true Christian knows both the grief when he doesn't
see it, and the exhilaration when he does see it. Do you personally
know that grief and that joy? Do you? If so, my friend, take
comfort that perhaps you're more than just a confessing and professing
child of God. But this doctrine of hell should
be a constant goal lest we be content with anything less. For
Jesus teaches in passages that I've given to you, that those
who are content with the mere external and unreality in the
midst of religious duty, there's one place for them, the pit of
eternal burden. And then another influence that
this doctrine should have upon the believer. It should have
what I'm going to call the influence of being an incentive to earnest
and tender witnessing to unbelievers. In Matthew 23, where Jesus said,
How can ye escape the damnation of hell? That chapter closes
with Christ weeping over Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how
oft would I have gathered you. And there's a direct relationship
between his tender pleading and his weeping, and his consciousness
that they're slated for the damnation of hell. When he spoke of outer
darkness, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, he couldn't
think of that place and relate specific people to it without
feeling the bowels of his compassion stirred. This is what we find
in the Apostle Paul, who contemplating that day of judgment which ushers
in eternal hell as well as eternal heaven. He says in 2 Corinthians
5.10, we must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ,
that we may receive the deeds done in the body, whether good
or bad, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord. We persuade
men, knowing the terror of the Lord. We persuade men, we plead
with men, we entreat men. May I again bear my heart to
you, I think one earns that privilege after he's preached for a while
with one group of people, that I know of nothing that more moves
me to say before I enter this pulpit and many times as I sit
right here, oh God help me to preach as though I do believe
that this is your truth, than to actually sit here and look
out as I do sometimes and look at your faces and look at each
of you as individuals, and remind myself that the day is coming
when every one of you is going to hear one of two words. Come
ye blessed, depart ye cursed. And if anything makes me want
to preach faithfully, clearly, tenderly, if anything makes me
want to plead with you, to pull out not just my mind in preaching,
but my heart in pleading, it's the realization that all of you
are fuel for hell or potential revealers of the glory of redemption
in the presence of Christ. And my friends, we need to do
that with our brothers, with our sisters, with our children.
You parents, can you look at your children and try to think
what it'd be like to see their faces go ash and white? To see
the horror fill their eyes when the judge says, depart from me?
You better. You better. It could happen to
them. Do you think of this doctrine
of relationship to your children? If so, you won't tell me you
don't have time to pray with them. You won't tell me or anybody
else I don't have time to catechize them, time to teach them the
Bible. You won't talk like that! All that talk will go out the
window. You'll see if there are possible candidates for that
awful pit, unspeakable torment, body and soul writhing in anguish,
and that forever, the bulls of wrath breaking upon the head
of the darlings of my own bosom. In His truth, in my example,
the two most powerful influences to see them turned from wrath
to come, I'll make time to be a holy man, a holy woman. I'll
make time to teach them and to instruct them. The reason some
of you don't, you don't believe that your kids are going to hell,
you don't believe it. Your life gives lie to the doctrine
of hell. And that's why it doesn't take
much effect upon your children when they hear me preach it,
because the way you live, they say, Mom and Daddy can't really
believe that. And I'm convinced the reason why some of this truth
has taken effect upon some of you young people is because you've
seen at least a little bit of example in Mom and Dad that makes
you believe what the preacher's talking about they believe too. It'll make us earnest, careful,
tender, patient in our witnessing. And then the last thing I shall
mention is that as the people of God, this doctrine should
be the occasion of holy dread and godly fear. Follow me closely
now. God in the great manifold aspects
of his character draws forth different responses of the heart
as we contemplate the different aspects of his character. Like
a beautiful gem that is seen in different lights, I say it
reverently, the character of God is contemplated in different
respects, and in each respect it draws forth a different response,
all of which are part of true worship. When we think of God
in the light of Psalm 103, like as a father pities his children,
so the Lord pities those that fear him. What should that draw
forth from us? It should draw forth that sense
of confidence, that in all my folly and all my stupidity, it
pities me. I can come with the confidence
of a child to a loving father. When I contemplate the truth
of Psalm 139, that there's nowhere that I am but what God knows
me. He was there covering me with his hand in my mother's
womb, as David says. What response should it bring?
Well, the response it brought to David, such knowledge is too
wonderful for me. It brings holy bafflement. He
says, this is so great and so wonderful, it's beyond me. Now,
when we contemplate God as the God who will say to people, depart
from me, cursed, And then for all eternity will pour out upon
them the positive infliction of holy wrath. What should that
draw from our hearts? I say it should draw forth holy
dread and godly fear. That's what it drew forth from
the heart of Moses, who wrote the 90th Psalm. For he says in
verse 11, Who knoweth the power of thine anger and thy wrath
according to the fear that is due unto thee? He says, Who,
Lord, renders the proper attitude of holy fear and dread in the
light of your awesome anger? Psalm 76, 7, essentially the
same truth, and when we turn to the book of the Revelation,
chapter 11 and chapter 19, we actually find the redeemed worshipping
God for the pouring out of His wrath and His anger. It's obvious
that there is very little in the present evangelical life
of these two things wholly dreaded. and godly fear. Everybody's snuggling
up to God and to Jesus. Everybody's writing sweet little
songs about being in love with the lover of their soul. But
where is the godly fear and the holy dread? Now, that's not all
God should draw forth from us. If our religious experience and
concept of God is such that there's nothing but holy dread, that's
not good. And I was struck with that again
over at the conference. Some of my dear friends from
up in the highlands of Scotland have so preserved this concept
of God that they never call Him Father when they pray. And one
of them admitted, he said, I just couldn't call God Father. When
they approach Him, it's always Most Holy and Eternal God. Well, that's a welcome other
end of the extreme, but may I say that's not all the truth either.
He's not only most dreadful and most holy, but he said, when
ye pray, say, Our Father, the Spirit of His Son in our hearts,
crying, Abba, Father, the term of endearment. So I'm not saying
that all we should have with reference to God is holy dread
and godly fear, but I am saying that's an integral part of a
true response of worship, and without it, there is a great
lack in the totality of our worship of God. And may I suggest that
this doctrine is calculated to produce it in the hearts of the
people of God. When you can contemplate God saying to his own creatures,
depart from me, and then pouring upon them infinite rock and extending
it to eternity, you can't say in your heart, oh God who knows
the powers I have. and worship Him with holy dread,
then something is terribly wrong in your concept of God and of
His wrath. Well, having gotten to the effects
it should have upon the unconverted, perhaps I'm going to have to
extend it for another week. As I say, you never know what's
going to happen when you start preaching, and when the truth
carries you out to a people who are obviously eager to receive
it. But may the Lord help us as His people Now that I'm concluding
this series, that we'll not conclude our thinking about the truth,
but that again and again we'll call to mind these aspects of
God's word, and that God will use them to produce in us everything
he intended they should produce for our good and for his glory. Let us pray.