The Apostle Paul could declare
with good conscience, as recorded in the 20th chapter of the book
of the Acts, that he was clear from the blood of all men. By
that he meant that he had discharged his spiritual responsibility
to men, so that if they were found in that awful day condemned
and damned, it would not be on his account. He then goes on
to say that the reason why he has this confidence of his being
clear of their blood is that he shunned not to declare unto
them all the counsel of God. And so if any servant of Christ,
pastor, evangelist, or missionary, Sunday school teacher, whoever
he or she may be, if we would have that same confidence that
we are clear from the blood of all men, We must obtain it the
same way the Apostle did, by declaring the whole counsel of
God's truth. As we indicated last week, one
of the aspects of the counsel of God is the terrible teaching
of Scripture concerning the future of impenitent sinners. And nowhere in the Word of God
is this terror more clearly seen than in the teaching of our Lord
Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus Christ is responsible for
the doctrine of hell. The doctrine is often upon his
lips. I challenge you to do what I
did several weeks ago in reading through the Gospel of Matthew
and recording every reference of our Lord to future judgment. to the lake of fire, to outer
darkness, to weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and you
will find that there are no fewer than about thirty references
in that one gospel alone from the very lips of the Son of God.
So that we are forced to this logical conclusion that we must
have the Christ of Scripture and His hell, or have another
Christ of our own. There's only one way to approach
a subject such as this. We must not come to it imposing
our thoughts of what is right and just upon the text of Scripture,
for we are but men and sinful men at that. But we must come
as true disciples whose minds are subject to the authority
of Christ, the Christ of whom the Father spoke and said, This
is my beloved Son. Hear ye Him. Hear Him when He
speaks of forgiveness. hear him when he speaks of the
glories of heaven, hear him when he speaks of life, hear him when
he speaks of death and of judgment. And so the focus of our studies
for these Lord's Day mornings, before we begin another book
study, is to consider the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ on the
subject of the future of impenitent sinners. Last week we established
but one principle that is found in the teaching of Christ, namely
this, that hell is a place and a condition of unspeakable, unalleviated
torment, misery, and woe. And to do this, we simply took
the statements of our Lord concerning two vivid imageries used to describe
hell as a place and a condition of unimmediated suffering. Torment
and woe, the figure of outer darkness, used three times in
the Gospel of Matthew, and the figure of the furnace of fire,
or Gehenna, used many, many times in the Gospel of Matthew. The
concept of outer darkness bespeaks what I call the primitive sufferings
of hell. as the person in oriental settings
who was cast out of the banquet house that was full of light
and mirth and joy and provision, put out into the darkness of
night, for this was before the days of the electric lightbulb
and streetlights. The oriental having this great
dread of the dark, it bespeaks of the awfulness of the suffering
of hell, bound up in being cast out of the circle of light and
life and joy and mirth, all of which describe in scripture the
glorious experience of the people of God who are in that city of
eternal light. And then by the figure of the
furnace of fire, Gehenna, everlasting fire, Our Lord is setting before
us the punitive aspects of the punishment of hell. The positive
infliction of the wrath of God for fire in scripture again and
again bears this symbolism of the active movements of the wrath
of God's heart against impenitent sinners and against sin. And so by these two vivid pictures,
our Lord, using the concept of outer darkness and the furnace
of fire, then tells us that the result of this will be, there
shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. And He uses
the definite article, there shall be the weeping and the gnashing
of teeth, showing us that the agonies of hell are the true
weeping, and the true gnashing, and anything that has caused
weeping here on earth, and much has caused weeping, anything
that has caused the gnashing of teeth is but a preview to
the terror of the damned in that awful day. And so from the figure
of outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth, from the result
of it, wailing and gnashing of teeth, We are warranted in saying
that our Lord Jesus Christ clearly teaches that hell is a place
and a condition of unspeakable, unalleviated misery, torment
and woe. We come this morning to establish
the second truth that is taught by our Lord concerning hell,
and it is this. Hell is a place and a condition
where soul and body shall suffer the punishment of sin. Not only
is it a place and a condition of unspeakable and unalleviated
punishment, torment and woe, but a place where the souls and
bodies of men shall be punished for sin. Will you turn please
to the tenth chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew. For this
is the pivotal passage in the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ
on this awesome subject. In this tenth chapter, our Lord
has just called to Him His special emissaries. We call them the
Twelve Disciples or the Apostles. He has commissioned them and
given them peculiar authority and is about to send them forth
on a preaching mission. You read this in verse 1 of chapter
10. Now he's telling them what they're
going to encounter as they go out as his representatives. Notice
verse 16. Behold, I send you forth as sheep
in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents
and harmless as doves, but beware of men. For they will deliver
you up to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge
you. Yea, and before governors and kings shall ye be brought
for my sake for a testimony. Verse 21 And brother shall deliver
up brother to death, and the father his child, and children
shall rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all
men for my name's sake. What's going to happen as they
go out? Well, among other things... They're going to see the venom
of men's hearts against the truth of God, directed against those
who are the vehicles of communicating that truth. He says, as you go
forth, men will deliver you up. They'll put you to death. They'll
scourge you. They'll abuse you. You'll see betrayal, even in
the intimate ties of family life. A child will deliver up a husband
or a father or a mother. This is what you can expect,
our Lord says. Well, what is their attitude
to be as they face such a happy prospect? Wonderful, isn't it,
to be sent out on a preaching mission and be told that some
of you will be killed, delivered up to death? What shall they
do? Verse 26, Fear them not therefore, for there is nothing covered
that shall not be revealed, and hid that shall not be known.
What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light, and what
you hear in the ear, proclaim upon the housetops. Now here's
the pivotal passage, And be not afraid of them that 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. If you catch the weight of our
Lord's teaching, he says in essence to his apostles as you go forth,
men are able by the permission of God to kill the body. They
can, in giving vent to their unrighteous hatred and anger,
mutilate you, tear you, kill you. They can destroy physical
life. But he said, don't be afraid of them, because they have absolutely
no power or no authority over the state and condition of your
soul. If there were no other passage
in the Bible teaching the distinct entity of the soul and the body,
this passage alone would bear the weight of such a doctrine.
That the soul extends beyond the death and the condition of
the body. He says, don't fear those that can kill the body.
If the soul and body are so one that in killing the body you
kill the soul, this passage would have no meaning. He said, don't
be afraid of those. They will mutilate you. They
will tear you. They will give vent to the venom
of their wrath against you, even unto death. But don't be afraid
of them. Why? Because they have no power
over the soul. But he says, here's the one who's
to be the object of your fear. There is one who has both the
power, and the word power is used here, that is ability. In
the parallel passage in Luke 12.3 it speaks of him, 12.4,
as the God who has the authority, that is the right. There is one
who has both the power and the right in his righteous wrath
and anger to cast both soul and body into hell. Let him be the
object of your fear. Out there are men who with unrighteous
anger can mutilate your body, but they can't touch the soul.
Don't be afraid of them. Because there is one who in righteous
anger, with full authority, can resurrect the body and join to
the soul, cast both into everlasting hell, make him the object of
your fear. That's the obvious meaning of
our Lord's words. Now what conclusions are we warranted
in drawing from that passage? We're warranted in drawing from
that passage the conclusion, which is the second point in
our study, that hell is a place and a condition where soul and
body together shall suffer unspeakable, unalleviated torment, misery,
and woe. Since the indestructibility of
the soul is everywhere assumed in scripture, there is little
in the teaching of our Lord to specifically state that the soul
shall be cast into hell. There is some indication of this
in the 16th chapter of Luke. Our Lord gives the parable of
the rich man and Lazarus and he says, the rich man died, that
is his body, ceased to exist as a living body, and he was
buried, and then we read, and in hell he lifted up his eyes
being in torments. The soul went to the place awaiting
the day of judgment, already experiencing the previews of
the judgments of that day. The soul shall suffer in hell,
clearly taught in that passage. It is confirmed by the teaching
of the Apostle in Romans 2 in verse 8, where he says, But tribulation,
wrath, and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil.
But it's interesting that the strong emphasis of our Lord is
upon the fact that the body shall suffer in hell. For you see,
there were in his day the rationalists, the Sadducees, who denied the
resurrection of the body, who denied the immortality of the
soul. And our Lord again and again
emphasizes that the punishment of hell shall be that not only
of the soul, but of the body. I read from the Sermon on the
Mount, and whenever I hear people thoughtlessly say, Oh, my religion
is the Sermon on the Mount, Then you mention hell and they say,
oh no, Christ is too loving to talk about hell. I know they've
never read the Sermon on the Mount. They've never read it.
But listen to the words of our Lord in this great sermon in
the fifth chapter, where he says in verse 22, I'm sorry, verse
29 and 30, But if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck
it out and cast it from thee. For it is profitable for thee
that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole
body be cast into hell. And if thy right hand cause thee
to stumble, cut it off and cast it from thee. For it is profitable
for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole
body go into hell. Chapter 18 of the same Gospel. Listen to the words of our Lord,
very similar to these that I have just read. Verse 7 of Matthew
18. Woe unto the world because of
occasions of stumbling. It must needs be that occasions
come, but woe to that man through whom the occasion cometh. And
if thy hand or foot causes thee to stumble, cut it off and cast
it from thee. It's good for thee to enter into
life maimed or halt, rather than having two hands or two feet
to be cast into the eternal fire. And if thine eye causeth thee
to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee. It is good
for thee to enter into life with one eye, than having two eyes
to be cast into the hell of fire. Can words be more plain than
these, that the sufferings of hell will not only be the sufferings
of the soul, but the sufferings of the body as well? Now this
concept is strengthened by the fact that the whole context of
the sentence to hell is always the day of judgment and the general
resurrection of all men. So this doctrine that hell is
a place where soul and body shall together suffer the wrath of
God is not only established by the explicit statement of Matthew
10.28, the individual references to the soul in hell, the individual
references to the body in hell, but the second line of evidence
is that the whole context of the sentence to hell is always
the day of judgment, which is always the day of general resurrection. Notice this in the teaching of
our Lord in the 13th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. What
is the context of the sentence to hell? It's the day of judgment,
and the day of judgment is always joined in scripture with the
general resurrection of all men. In the parable of the tares,
our Lord interpreting that parable in Matthew 13 and in verse 39. And the enemy that sowed them
is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the world. The reapers are the angels. As
therefore the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall
it be in the end of the world. The Son of Man shall send forth
His angels and gather out of His kingdom all things that cause
stumbling and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into the
furnace of fire. Then shall the righteous shine
forth as the sun. You see, the context of the sentence
to fire is the end of the world, and always associated with that
is the resurrection of all men. This is found in 49 and 50 of
the same chapter. So shall it be in the end of
the world. The angels shall come forth and
sever the wicked from among the righteous and shall cast them
into the furnace. of fire. Matthew 25 31, when
the Son of Man shall come in his glory, then shall all the
nations be gathered with him. Matthew 7 23, many will say unto
me in that day, the day of judgment. This rests firmly upon the statements
of our Lord as found in John 5 verses 28 and 29 where he's
speaking as the one appointed to be the judge
of the world, and he says in John 5.28, marvel not at this,
for the hour cometh in the which all that are in the tomb shall
hear his voice and shall come forth, they that have done good
unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil
unto the resurrection of judgment. How do we know that soul and
body shall suffer the punishment of hell? not only because of
the explicit statements of Matthew 10.28, fear Him who is able to
destroy both soul and body, but by the fact that the whole context
of the Day of Judgment is the Day of Resurrection, when all
men shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and shall come forth
with resurrected bodies joined to their souls, from thence to
pass into the joys and the bliss of the redeemed. are into the
agonies and the terrors of the damned. This is the teaching
of the Old Testament. Daniel 12 and verse 2. where
Daniel says, many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth
shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting
contempt. It's the clear teaching of the
New Testament. Paul says in Acts 24, 15, there
shall be a judgment both of the just and of the unjust. Acts
17, 31, he has appointed a day in which he'll judge the world.
Then we have the graphic description of it in Revelation 20, 11-15
where John says in that very poetic language that he saw the
sea as it were vomiting out its dead and the graves giving up
its dead and they stand before the great judge and the books
are opened and the sentence is given. If anyone has any regard
for the authority of scripture, there is but one conclusion to
draw from the teaching of our Lord in the subject of hell.
As far as the nature of that suffering, it will be suffering
of soul and of body. Now having established it, the
question that I want to set before your mind is this. Why will God
cast soul and body into hell? If the wicked are resurrected
only to be consigned to hell, and if the torments of the soul
are such that a man who is merely suffering in his soul, as the
rich man in Luke 16 cries out, I'm tormented in this flame,
is God some kind of a fiend that he should resurrect the body
only to make it a faggot for the flames of hell? Why? Why are soul and body to be consigned
to hell? And the answer is basically this.
As a body-soul entity, a true human being comprised of soul
and of body, man carried out his rebellion to God, lived indifferently
to the claims of the law and of the gospel, So when God comes
to mete out his punishment for that indifference, he will mete
it out upon the whole man in which that rebellion was carried
out. It was as a soul, body, entity, a human being, that man
said, I'll live as I please. And when the gospel was set before
him, he said, nah, I'll take my chances. God says, alright,
then with body and soul, you shall experience the brunt of
my wrath. That's why in passages such as
the one I read in Matthew 5, our Lord says, if it's some physical
appetite that leads you into sin, if thy hand offends you,
if thine eye offends you, if your foot offends, far better
to mutilate the body, lest in failure to deal with that sin,
that body which did the sin will bear the wrath of God for that
sin. The whole body be cast into hell. Yes, the body is man's tempter
to sin. It is the soul's tool in sin,
and so it shall join the soul in the wrath of God against sin. The body, I repeat, is the soul's
tempter to sin. The lust of the eyes, see? The lust of the flesh. It is
the soul's tempter to sin. It is the soul's tool in sin. It's with the hands that theft
is made. It's with the hands and the other
members that lust is carried out. It's with the ear that gossip
is received. It's with the tongue that lies
are spoken. It's with the eyes that covetousness
burns within the breast. And so the body having become
the soul's tool in sin, it shall join the soul in the wrath of
God against sin. Will you think with me of the
state of the impenitent? Think with me. In this whole
area of the body's judgment for sin, when the lust of the flesh
cried out, ratify me, the infinite God stood before us and above
us and said, thou shalt not. And when we have, as it were,
put one ear to the cry of our lust and our other ear to the
demands of our God, And we've said, no, I'll choose my lust. What have we done? This is what
we've done. We've said, my burning lusts are more worthy of obedience
than the living God. My passions will dictate my ways
rather than the precepts of my Creator. The satisfaction of
carnal appetite is worth more to me than the delighting of
the heart of my God. The purging of my senses with
pleasure is more important than the glorifying of my Sovereign.
Shall such an instrument of rebellion and reproach to God and His laws
and His gospel go unpunished? No. The body that has been such
an instrument shall be cast into hell. My friends, this is sobering
truth. I've lived with this doctrine
for two weeks now, and there are times my wife will bear witness
when I've just had to walk out of my study and say, I can't
take any longer upon it! That body of yours, this body
of mine, If it chooses to obey the cry and the demands of its
own depraved lusts, at the expense of the glory and the demands
of God, God says, all right, that body shall bear the brunt
of my wrath. But God has also said, and now
I move to the state of the soul, My son, give me thy heart. Thou
shalt love me with thy whole heart and mind and soul. God has said, think my thoughts
after me, will my will after me. But the sinner says, my ideas
are more to be trusted than God's revelation of himself, and with
the soul of which the mind is an integral part. We have said,
no, I'll think what I want to think, about God, about what's
right, about what's wrong, with the affection We've attached
them on people and things instead of upon the living God. With
the conscience, we've not heeded that little vice-regent of God
within the breast. Instead of hearing its whispers
and at times its thunders, we've tried to stuff rags in its mouth.
We've tried to sew it. We've tried to obliterate it.
Why? It was the voice of God to us. And so with the soul,
we've thought our own thoughts instead of God thoughts. The
affections have been placed upon idolatrous objects. The conscience
has been seared. The world has said, I will not
have this man to reign over me. Shall such a noble faculty, the
soul, which has turned all its powers against God, shall it
escape the judgments of God? No. And so the body and the soul
shall enter this place in condition of unspeakable and unalleviated
torment. misery and woe. The next question I want to ask
is this, what will be the effect of hell upon the body and the
soul? And here one can only speak hesitantly,
for scripture speaks to us in figures, but the figure is never
more powerful than that which it signifies and typifies. What will be the effect of that
place and condition of torment upon the soul, the soul, that
noblest part of man, that in which man bears most of the image
of God, that part of me that experiences love and joy and
peace and anger and fear, that part of me which has at its very
essence knowledge, memory, reflection, conscience, That part of me which
is worth more than the whole world. For our Lord said, what
shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his
own soul? When the soul is at rest, the
worst of physical pains can be endured. You've read the stories,
as I have many of you, of martyrs whose bodies are placed upon
the rack, who are tied to the stake and the flames lick at
their flesh. that they could sing to their
death, because the joy of their soul neutralized the pain of
the body. Scripture tells us in passages
like Proverbs 17 and verse 22, something which we've all experienced,
a cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a broken spirit dryeth up
the bone. Proverbs 18 and verse 14, the
spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a broken spirit,
who can bear? You've heard of people, they
lost their will to live, and so the body just quit on them.
Any of you who have had any contact with doctors and medicine, you
know that many doctors will put the percentage up as high as
75%, they say, of their patients that they deal with. They're
convinced that the problems of their bodies are tied in intricately
to the problems of the soul. When the soul, the spirit of
a man is at rest and in joy, he can bear the intensest of
physical pains. But a wounded spirit, who can
bear? Our experience confirms this.
We have seen people whose case physically was left nothing to
be desired. They had every physical comfort
imaginable, but they'd been tormented and torn with grief and accusing
conscience, buffeting regrets, tormenting memories, and they
found out that a wounded spirit they could not bear. Hence in
hell this faculty shall bear the brunt of the fury of the
wrath of God, who can conceive the horror of the soul being
made the positive object of the outpouring of the wrath of God. All of its noble faculties of
memory, of thought, of reflection, a channel through which the fiery
wrath of God shall be poured for all eternity. No wonder that
man in hell cried out, I am tormented in these flames. Conscience, refusing, memory
reflecting sun, remember. The horrors of hell. What will
the effect be upon the soul? That's all I know to say. Unspeakably
horrible, when that noble faculty becomes the object of the positive
infliction of wrath, when that faculty which has an affinity
for harmony and beauty is cast into outer darkness, away from
all light and harmony and love and peace and joy, starved, as
it were, for eternity. What will the effect be upon
the body, that part of man which David says is fearfully and wonderfully
made? with its many windows of delight
to the soul. The eye that beholds the beautiful
and brings delight to the soul. The ear which appreciates the
harmonious and brings delight to the soul. The nose which smells
the sweet fragrance and brings delight to the soul. The thousands
of nerve endings which can be the channels of delight or the
conveyors of excruciating pain. In a resurrected body made capable
of enduring the endless wrath of God, man shall sink into hell
and all of these noble faculties of the body shall become the
receptors, not of delight or of pleasure, but of the most
intense and fiercest agonies. Soul and body cast into hell. Now do the words of our Lord
take on new meaning? There shall be the wailing and
the gnashing of teeth. Do they take on new meaning this
morning? There, in that place where soul and body bear the
outpoured wrath of God. the wailing of pain, the gnashing
of teeth in anger, frustration, and hopeless despair. Such is
the teaching of our Lord, the second principle of His teaching,
that hell is not only a place in a condition of unspeakable
agony, torment, and woe, pictured by outer darkness and a furnace
of fire, but it is a place where soul and body together shall
suffer the wrath of God. Now in the light of this teaching
I want to bring a special word of exhortation and application
to several classes of my hearers this morning, and I trust you
listen carefully. It's been a long time since I've
prayed over the messages as I have over these and prayed over individual
people as I have in these past two weeks. It's been the cry
of my heart that God would be pleased to use this truth in
some of you in a way that no other truth has yet been used.
I have a special word of exhortation to you young people and to the
children present this morning. Will you listen to your pastor?
And listen carefully. You young people are cursed with
the generation that we have created. A generation which has as its
philosophy a worshipping of the body as a sensual playground. The movies, the TV, And even
the so-called innocent Sears Awards catalog has as its whole
pervasive mood that the body, with all of its capacities for
pleasure, is a little playground somehow deposited at your doorstep
to do it as you please. Since I have a body, and since
it has nerve endings that can be made to feel pleasure, why
not use it any way I please? So if I want to make it feel
nice and relaxed with pot, I take a little grass. If I want to make it feel good
with sex, I just get on the pill and go ahead, I know how to take
care of myself. As long as I don't get a girl
pregnant, as long as I don't get myself pregnant, it's all right. If I want a neck and pecs, so
what? You're being brought into a society, young people and children,
where this is the pervasive philosophy of the body. Vividly described by Paul in
Romans 6, 19, when he says, As ye presented your members as
instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, the members of the
body are looked upon as our own possession to do with as we please,
just so long as it pleases us. Do your own thing! I stand to tell you, young people,
and I trust the Holy Ghost will burn it into your hearts. Listen,
that's not the philosophy of the Bible. That precious body
of yours, with all of those things that I call windows to the soul,
that body with all of its nerve endings, that body with all of
its capacities, is given by God. But in giving it to you, He doesn't
relinquish His ownership. He gave it to you that it might
be the instrument through which you would do His will. Even as
Jesus said when He came into the world, A body thou hast prepared
me, lo, I come to do thy will, O God. Hebrews chapter 10. He looked upon His body as the
gift of His Father, through which the will of His Father would
be done. So that he could say, as he did in John 17, I have
glorified thee on the earth, having accomplished the work
you gave me to do. And he did it in that body. Young
person, that's why that body was given to you. Boys and girls,
God gave you that body, so that in that body you might do the
will of the one who gave it to you, and in so doing it, bring
praise to him. So that when you gratify its
appetites according to His will, He's glorified! Even when you
eat and drink, 1 Corinthians 10.31. And when in the providence
of God, God gives you a wife or a husband, and you know together
the pure delights of your marriage union, God is glorified in the
embrace of a husband and wife, and He's delighted. But when
those appetites are gratified outside the circle of His will,
when you use that body any way you see fit, God is angry! He says, that's My possession,
made to do My will, you're thief! In the day of judgment I'll apprehend
you, and I'll cast you into prison. That body that burned with lust
shall burn with the wrath of My anger. And young people, listen carefully.
You keep that before you as you contemplate your moral standards.
That body of yours has capacity for many pleasures, legitimate
and illicit. And as you weigh the issue, and
you find your heart's affections going out to that young woman
or to that young man, And with it those natural desires to express
that affection. But it's not God's time because
He hasn't brought you into the blessed abandonment of the marriage
relationship. You feel the burning fire of
your passion, young person. Remember this. Get into it. And those very nerve endings
that are titillated by that illicit relationship will one day feel
the fire of wrath in hell. And don't you forget Don't you forget it. Don't you
forget it. That body is not a playground. It's God's loan to be his instrument
through which he's glorified. This is what kept Moses. For we read of him in Hebrews
chapter 11. when he was come to years. He refused to be called
the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction
with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of
sin for a season. How would those pleasures come
to him? Many of them through the body. He could have had his
own harem. He could have had the choices
most exquisite of all the foods of Egypt. Why did he do it? The next verse tells us, for
he had respect to the recompense of the reward. He says, if I
choose the course that means the pleasure of sin for a season,
I'll burn in hell. Not me. I'll suffer affliction
with the people of God, walk the path of purity, chastity,
and one day I'll be in His presence. Oh, dear young people, dear children,
that's the issue before you. Nothing less. Nothing less. Let me say a word to you young
people about your soul. We've created for you a generation
which looks upon the faculties of reason and thought and moral
judgment as though they too were just cut loose to do as they
please. Think your own thing. Make your own conclusions. Occasionally
I've looked at some of the interview programs on television. This
is the philosophy shot right through. As long as it's good
to you, meaningful to you, doesn't hurt somebody else, anything's
all right. Think what you want about God, about life, about
death, anything you want to think. Use the faculties of the soul
to think, to feel, anything you want. Oh, no, no, no. That noble
faculty made in the image of God was given to you that with
that mind you might think your thoughts after God. That with
your affections you might love what He loves, hate what He hates.
With conscience you might judge what he judges to be evil, that
you might judge what he judges to be good, that you might choose
with that will what he chooses. You see? So if you look upon
that soul, that noble faculty, as something with which you've
been doing as you please, God says, all right, you've taken
my property, that which should have been the vehicle of my glory,
you're a thief, and he shall cast the soul into hell. Dear young people, remember that
when you're tempted to submit to the brainwashing job of your
biology teachers who want to tell you that man was not created
distinctly in the image of God. He just came up through the ranks
of the beast. You want to sell out your soul
to be intellectually respectable? Then remember the price. If with
that mind, which is a part of your soul, you think thoughts
contrary to God, God will judge you, for the scripture says it
shall be that whosoever does not hearken to that prophet speaking
of Christ in all things shall be cut off from among the people.
And you want to think your thoughts about any aspect of life, morality,
ethics? That's the price, young person.
Never forget it. Never forget it. Never forget
it. That's the price. Now may I say a word briefly
to all of you who are strangers to faith and repentance and to
new life in Jesus Christ? Ah, listen this morning. Jesus
Christ, who bore the agonies of hell in both soul and body
when he died upon the cross, stands before you in the gospel
and in his promises and says this morning, give yourself to
me. Repent and take pardon from sin. All the sins that you've done
in your body and your soul, I will freely forgive and blot them
out. What would you think of a starving
man who continued to starve and died when bread was held to his
lips? What would you think of a man
thirsting, yea, thirsting even unto death, who died of thirst
while water was held to his lips? Will some of you perish in hell
with the bread of life held to your lips this morning? The bread
of life held to your lips right now this morning in the gospel.
In the person and word of Jesus saying, repent, look and live. I bore in my body the agonies
of hell. I bore in my soul the terrors
of hell. I cried out, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? I bore this for sinners. Come
to me. and find forgiveness for every
sin done in the soul and in the body. Will you perish with such
provision set before you? Earnestly, and I trust tenderly
and lovingly, oh, look and live, young person, adult, whoever
you be, a stranger to repentance and faith, don't leave, still
a stranger, but look to Christ and live. Then I have a closing
word that I want to address to all of you. who have been rescued
from that pit by the effectual call of God, who have been brought
to repentance and faith and into the way of holiness and obedience.
May I remind you in the words of the prophet Isaiah, look unto
the rock from whence you were hewn and unto the pit from whence
you were digged. Ask yourself this morning, do
the sins that I have done in the body deserve the wrath of
God upon my body? Do the sins that I have done
in the soul deserve that wrath? And if you're thinking at all,
the answer is yes. Yes, a thousand times yes! And
yet, wonder of wonders, there are those of us this morning
who rejoice in this glorious hope that ere long our souls
shall be utterly purged from the last remnant of sin. We shall
know, even as we are known, we shall love Him with an unsinning
heart. This soul that could be the receptor
of the wrath of God through all eternity will soon break the
bars of its earthly prison and leap forth into the presence
of Christ. Oh, look under the rock from
whence you were hewn and under the pit from whence you were
digged. This body that has so often by its appetites and passions
led into paths that have dishonored my Lord. You mean this body actually
has hope? of the resurrection and being
a body made like unto his own glorious body, no pain, no sickness,
no weakness, no death, no flu bugs, no head colds. Hallelujah. Child of God, this is what the
Lord has rescued us from. We ought to look often to the
rock from whence we were hewn and to the pit from whence we
were digged. And then I say, if he's rescued us, Oh, how we ought to be found
as the Apostle, knowing the terror of the Lord. We persuade men. There are some of you who may
leave this morning and say, what in the world has gotten hold
of that preacher? He talks at times like a madman. Listen to me. You wake up in
hell and feel the torments of soul and body. You'll say, this very morning. You say that
preacher didn't tell us the 1,000th part of the terrors of the damned.
I know now why he wept, why he pleaded, why he intrigued. May God have mercy upon the impenitent. I'll be honest. God has laid
a concern upon my heart for the children and young people of
our assembly in the past weeks, the likes of which I have not
known in the seven years I've been here. The Spirit of God is striving
with some of you. Don't quench the Spirit. In an age that worships the flesh,
deifies man's mind, hear the call of Christ to give yourself and in Jesus Christ to be delivered
from the wrath to come. May God grant that the most any
of you here will know of hell is what's been preached. May
you not confirm it by your experience. Let us pray.