Let's turn again to the book
of Luke, if you will, chapter 23. Luke chapter 23. Our Lord Jesus Christ had been
delivered into the hands of Pilate and then to Herod and then back
to Pilate again by the people seeking his life, seeking to
destroy him and his followers, The Lord Jesus had been delivered
over to the crowd again by Pilate to be crucified. The marks of
the cruel crown of thorns were still upon his brow. You could
see where his back had been beaten and lacerated through his clothing
which they had once again put upon his back. His beard had
been plucked from his face and the scripture said he was without
form and with no comeliness and no beauty that we should desire
him. In another place it said that he was marred as no other
man and suffered as no other man. He was going out to the
place of Calvary, Golgotha, the place of the skull, to be crucified. And as he went toward that place,
they who sought his death feared that he would die too soon. They
feared that he would perish under the weight of the cross, and
so they compelled someone else to carry his cross. It was not
a willing service. Our Lord tread the winepress
of God's wrath all alone. But they compelled this man Simon,
a Negro, to bear the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And their
sole motive was not to relieve his suffering, for they wished
him to suffer just as much as possible. Their sole motive was
not because they feared the cross was too heavy for him, because
they didn't care. But they feared that he would
die before they got to Calvary and they wouldn't have the pleasure
of seeing him suffer on that cross. And so they had this Negro
man carry the instrument of destruction, the instrument of execution of
the Son of God. And as he walked along under
the weight of that cross and then later as he followed the
Negro who bore his cross, the Scripture says a group of women
followed him and bewailed him and lamented him. They wept. Now in that crowd of people,
there were a lot of glad eyes. You looked around into the face
of the people who followed the Son of God on that day, you would
have seen people's eyes that danced with joy. They were glad
for what was being done. The chief priests and the scribes
and the Pharisees were delighted that this man who meant doom
to their tradition and doom to their religion was going to the
cross to die. At last they had attained the
goal that they had sought for over three and a half years,
the death of Jesus Christ. They were glad. They were happy. They were rejoicing that this
enemy was being destroyed. Then they were in different eyes.
The Roman soldiers, they didn't care. He was just another criminal,
another victim. Of course, Pilate said he found
no fault in him, and Herod found no fault in him, and Pilate's
wife sent a note to Pilate saying that she had suffered many things
in a dream because of this innocent man, but they didn't care. It
was their business to kill. They were being paid to destroy. They were completely indifferent
to the sufferings of Jesus Christ just as much as they were indifferent
to the sufferings of the other criminal. and they were completely
indifferent about what was taking place in their presence. But
there were some people whose eyes were filled with grief.
Their eyes were filled to overflowing with agony and grief, and they
lamented the Son of God, following after him the wail of those women,
their cries and their shrieks and their tears of grief over
this man who was suffering innocently, who had done no harm and done
no evil, They had seen him heal their children. They had seen
him raise their dead. They had seen him give sight
to the blind and ears to the deaf and cause the lame to walk.
They had brought to him their little ones and seen them restored
by the touch of his hand. They had seen him feed 5,000
people and have 12 baskets full left over and using only five
loaves and two fishes. They had seen him minister to
people. They knew that those hands had never caused anyone
any grief. They knew that that tongue had
never spoken malice or in anguish or ill temper, but only blessings
upon his heroes. They knew that those feet had
never walked in pairs of iniquity, but always in obedience to God
himself. They knew that he was a prophet
or some great man. And they cried. And they cried. And our Lord Jesus Christ turned
to them and said this, Daughters of Jerusalem, don't weep for
me. Daughters of Jerusalem, don't
weep for me. But you weep for yourself. And
you weep for your children. And you weep for those who have
brought forth into this world children. And you weep for your
grandchildren. And you weep for the generations
that shall follow you. But don't weep for me. Don't
weep for me. The day will come when that woman
who was so happy when they brought her that little man-child and
she said, I have reached the joy of joys for I have born a
man-child. He said there'll be a day when
that mother will rue the day that she ever brought that child
into the world. He said you look forward with happiness and delight
knowing that you shall bring forth another life into this
world. But Christ said the day will come when you wish that
you had never married, yea, that you had never been born. And
the crying that day will not be blessed and happy as the womb
that hath borne many children. The crying that day will not
be blessed are the paps that have given suck and life to many
children. But the crying that day will
be happy as the woman who has never brought forth into this
world a child. And the paps that have never
given suck, for they shall cry in those days to the rocks and
mountains, cover us and hide us from the face of him that
sitteth upon the throne. It was our Lord's farewell sermon
before he went to Calgary. It was the last message our Lord
ever preached before he died on the cross. I want you to notice
three things about this statement. Just by way of introduction,
first of all, I want you to notice the sorrow in it. Our Lord could
speak with majesty and yet with sorrow. I found all three things
in this statement here. I find first of all the Lord
Jesus speaking with a broken heart. Daughters of Jerusalem,
don't weep for me. Don't weep for me. Don't waste
your tears on me. But you weep for yourself. My,
there'll be a sad day one of these days. He was talking about
the judgment of God upon sinners. There'll be a sad day for you
someday. Christ said, don't wait for me,
you wait for yourself. It's a sorrowful time. I tell
you, I wish that God would so put in my heart and in your heart
the right frame of mind and heart that we could scarcely think
of an unconverted person without pity. That we could scarcely
hear on the street an oath of profanity without a tear coming
to our eyes. Our Lord says you weep for Him.
You weep for Him. How in the world can we hear
a man take God's name in vain and laugh at Him? If you had
the proper frame of mind and heart, you'd turn away in anguish
and sorrow and weep for Him. God have mercy on your soul,
Christ. When we watch men commit sin
and rebel against the Most High God and His righteous laws, instead
of laughing at them, see an old drunk stagger down the street
and it brings forth guffaws of laughter, instead of that it
ought to bring forth tears from our hearts. Christ said, don't
weep for me. Don't weep for me. You weep for
yourselves and you weep for your children. And not only do I hear
Christ speaking in sorrow, but I hear him speaking with majesty.
He's the king. Majesty. And he turns to those
women and he says, don't weep for me. I'm a king. I can see my throne and my scepter. I can see one of these days that
my enemies shall be made my footstool. And these whose hands drive the
nails at this time will one of these days grab for the dust
at my feet, and they shall own me as Lord. And these whose tongues
now cry out, crucify him, shall one day say, crown him king of
kings and Lord of lords. And these whose minds now cry
out for my blood shall one day cry out for the rocks and the
mountains to cover them and hide them from my face. I'm a king.
Jesus Christ, the Lord, was always king. He was king on that cross,
exercising his sovereign control and his eternal covenant over
the lives of the people who at that time were crucifying him.
Our Lord is Lord of lords, and he's king of kings. Even in Bethlehem's
manger, he's King Jesus. Yonder in the carpenter's shop,
helping his father make the tables and chairs, he's King Jesus.
walking down the shores of the Sea of Galilee without a thing
in his hands, nothing but a robe on his back and sandals on his
feet, and no place to lay his head. He's King Jesus, owner
of all things, by whom all things were made, for whom all things
were made, and in whom all things consist, live, and move, and
have their being. And yonder hanging upon that
cross, they said, you be the Christ, come down. He was like
a king sitting on a throne. He could have come down. He could
with a snap of his finger snuff out every life of those who cried
against him. He said by just one word I could
call upon my heavenly father and angels, legions of them would
descend upon this creation. Our Lord came and he turned to
those women and said as a king, don't weep for me. I'm not looking
for your sorrow. I'm not looking for your tears.
I'm not looking for your sympathy. I didn't come here for your pity.
I came to do the will of my father." Listen to him as a 12-year-old
lad speaking to his mother. His mother came back looking
for him back there at Jerusalem when she found him. She said,
don't you know your father and I have looked everywhere for
you and our hearts have been broken thinking you're lost?
And I imagine he drew himself up to his small, probably four
feet and six inches, and he said in the words of a king, which
he was, wished you not that I be about my father's business. These
earthly relationships are temporary. I'm here on a mission given me
by my Father. I'm a sovereign Lord. I came
to redeem a people whom he gave me in eternity. I'm here on a
mission. Wish you not that I be about
my Father's business. And here even under the load
of the cross, and here with his back bleeding sore, and here
with a crowd crying against him, and not one friend standing with
him, he still speaks as a king. And he said, don't cry for me.
Even hanging there on that cross, our Lord spoke as a king. And
he said to that thief on the cross beside him, he said, today
you'll be with me in paradise. Our Lord never lost absolute
control of creation. He has never surrendered for
five seconds the control of all things and the lives of all creatures
and all their actions. And he said, today you'll be
with me in paradise. And yet I hear him speaking in the words
of a prophet. Words of sorrow, words of majesty,
and the words of a prophet. As he turns to those women and
says, I see, I see. One of these days, you'll cry
for the rocks and mountains to cover you. I see that. Our Lord
not only knew the thoughts of men, our Lord not only knew the
words of men, our Lord not only knew the actions of men, but
our Lord knows the future of men. He knew from the beginning
who should believe and who should betray Him. Our Lord knew from
the beginning those the Father had given Him and those are the
ones for whom He prayed. And He knew the lives of these
people and He turned to them and said, don't weep over me.
Weep for yourselves and weep for your children and your children's
children. The day is coming and I speak
as a prophet. When this Jerusalem shall be
laid waste, and you shall be destroyed, and the ground shall
be plowed under, and salt shall be sown, and not one stone shall
be left standing on another, and men shall cry for the rocks
and mountains to cover them, and slay them, men shall seek
death, and it shall not come. And he went on to that cross. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, first
of all, let's take it statement by statement. He says, don't
weep for me. Don't weep for me. Those are strange words and I
don't know that I've ever seen them in their depths that I see
them now. Don't weep for me. Now he's worthy of our tears.
He's innocent suffering for the guilty, the innocent suffering
for the guilty, the just for the unjust, the righteous for
the unrighteous, the holy for the unholy, the heavenly for
the hellish, Why certainly if anybody on this earth was ever
worthy of tears, it's Christ. There's not many of us worthy
of tears, are we? There's not many of us worthy
of anyone wasting their tears upon us. We're not worthy of
their sympathy. We're to be blamed for our guilt.
We're to be blamed for our deeds. We're to be blamed for our word.
No one's to be blamed but us. But Christ certainly is worthy
of our tears. And a man who can't weep over
Christ has got a hard heart. When you hear of how they humiliated
him, when you hear of how they submitted him to all manner of
agony and suffering, if you don't cry from your eyes, you certainly
weep from your heart, don't you? But I think there are two reasons
why Christ said, don't weep for me. One, is such tears are deceptive. Women especially, and men too. Tears are deceptive. They'll
deceive the one who's doing the crying more even than the one
who is observing the weeping. Christ turned to them and says,
don't weep for me. Tears are deceptive. And we can
stand before a congregation and preach a sermon concerning the
death of the Lord Jesus Christ, and someone begins to cry, and
they take some measure of comfort in the fact that they can weep
over spiritual matters, but there should be no comfort taken there.
Surely there's something good in me that would bring for me
tears. while you can pick up a newspaper and read about some
little lovesick maiden that's disappointed in love and somebody's
mistreated her and you can cry over it. That doesn't mean there's
some mark of spirituality in you. It may be nothing in the
world but carnality plus. And don't be deceived by your
own tears. Don't ever, regardless of the
circumstances, ever take any comfort in the fact that you
can cry. don't ever. There are some people
who grieve over sin and can't cry. There are some people who
have a greater discernment of spiritual values and yet their
eyes never show forth any emotion. And we must not take any comfort
in tears. It's natural for us to think
the person who is most emotional is most religious. Not so. It
is natural for us to think that the person who is most emotional
and more easily disturbed is more spiritual. Not so. It may
be a weakness of character. It may be a weakness of sense
of value. It may be any reason in the world. That's one reason that has started
this terrible, damnable, Idea of this generation that women
are naturally religious. They're not they're naturally
depraved There's no such thing as a naturally
religious person and some precious grandmother which I Had one that
I knew and one I never saw She's a tender-hearted old soul by
nature But that doesn't mean she was saved by nature I've
heard people say, my precious mother, if there's anybody in
heaven, she's there. Well, there's some folks there.
I don't know whether she's there or not, but I know there's some
folks there. If there ever was a Christian,
this person was one. Well, there's been some Christians,
but you cannot prove the fact that she's a Christian with the
fact that she's emotional and easily disturbed. You see what
I'm saying? And Christ turned to these blessed
women, there may have been men in that group of people whose
hearts also were grieved because of the way he was being treated
as a human being, yet they didn't cry. Christ turned to these women
and said, don't you weep now, don't you do it, not over me,
don't care if you weep, but not over me, because you may take
some comfort in those tears. You may take some comfort in
the fact that you're easily turned, your tear buckets easily turned
over, and your emotions are easily disturbed, and when you're in
a service and the preacher's preaching, you're easily affected.
Don't take any comfort in that. And by the grace of God and the
truth of his word and every warning that we're able to give you,
don't take any comfort in anything but Christ the Lord. and the
reality of Christ. Here's the second reason why
I believe he told them not to cry. One, tears are deceptive. Emotions are deceptive. I say
this, I fear that most of us do not even know our own hearts. We do not even know our own hearts
and our own potentialities. We think we do. We have a little
saying, if I know my heart. You know what we mean by that?
I do know my heart. But it's a good saying, if we
say it right, if I know my heart, and say I don't know my heart,
because the heart's the most deceitful, desperately wicked
thing, this side of hell. Actually, hell comes from the
heart, as I'll try to show you in just a few moments. Hell is
in the heart, and we don't know our heart. And because you're
naturally swayed or naturally emotion or naturally fallen over
to religion and those things, please do not, for the sake of
your immortal soul, don't take any comfort in it. And the second
reason Christ said that to those women, don't weep for me, was
because those tears were toward the wrong object. They were toward
the wrong object. Brother, I am not to weep because
Christ died, I'm to weep because my sins were the cause of his
death. Do you see the difference? I'm
not to weep because Christ died. Actually that ought to be the
source of the greatest joy. I'm glad Christ died. I once was lost but now I'm found
and by God's grace I'm heaven bound. My only hope, my only
plea is that when he died, he died for me. And I'm not to weep. Christ said, don't weep for me. You see, that's it. That's the
command. Don't do it. And don't you sit
there and weep over the fact that Christ died. And when some
preacher's up here describing his agony and humiliation and
his death, don't sit there and weep over him. That's the wrong
object. Sit there and grieve in your
old sinful heart because your sin made him die. My cruel sins,
t'was you my cruel sins, his chief tormentors were, each of
my sin was a nail, and unbelief a spear. Each of my sin was a
nail, and unbelief a spear. I don't weep tonight because
Christ died, I'll be honest with you, I can't. But I weep over
my sins that sent him to that cross. Don't weep over the crucifixion. If it weren't for the crucifixion,
you wouldn't know Christ. If it weren't for the crucifixion,
you wouldn't have a Redeemer. If it weren't for the crucifixion,
you wouldn't have a Savior. If it weren't for the crucifixion,
you wouldn't know God. If it weren't for the crucifixion,
you wouldn't have any hope. Don't weep over the crucifixion.
Weep over the transgression that led to the crucifixion. Don't
weep, my friends, over the remedy. Weep over the disease. Christ
is the remedy. He came to give men life. Don't
weep over the one who gives life. Weep over those who are dead
in sin, who have no life. Don't weep for God. Weep for
yourselves, sinners. Don't weep for him who was dead
and yet is alive again, but weep for them who are dead and will
die eternally. You see what Christ is saying
there when he turned to those women? Weep not for me. Weep not for me. But the second
thing I want you to see, he said you do weep over yourself and
over your children. Believer here tonight, weep over
yourself. You've got an object for weeping.
You've got an object for all manner of grief. You're a sinner.
You sinned against God. You know, if I were to call you
a sinner tonight, you'd have every reason in the world to
grow angry with me. But I don't call you a sinner.
God called you a sinner. If I were to call you tonight
an ungodly man with a desperately deceitful heart, with a mouth
that is quick to speak evil and the poison of snakes under your
lips and your conscience seared with a hot iron and your will
so perverted and your judgment so perverted that you'll choose
wrong hundred times out of a hundred in preference to good while you'd
have every right in the world to rise from where you were sitting
and walk out and say he cannot talk to me that way but I'm not
the one who said that The Lord God of Heaven says there's not
any member of the 13th Street Baptist Church that's good. No,
not one. There's not any visitor within
the walls of the 13th Street Baptist Church on this night,
May 11, 1958, who's seeking God by nature. There's not one person
in this building that's profitable unto God except as kindling wood
for the fires of hell. Not one. And God says, from the
sole of our feet to the top of our heads, with nothing but open
running sores that have not been bound up, neither mollified with
ointment. We got some reason to cry. It's like the old shepherd
who was standing looking at the frog and somebody came by and
he said, and he's standing there crying and somebody said, why
are you looking at that frog and crying? He says, because
I, who am so much above that frog, have sinned against God
and that frog who's so much beneath me has never sinned. Would to
God I didn't have a soul. Would to God I'd been born a
dog and I'd never had a mark on the record of glory against
King Jesus. Unbeliever, you weep over your
sins, they're still on you. They're still on you. And Christ
said when you die in your sins, you cannot come where I am. Unbeliever, weep for future punishment. Turn if you will to Romans 9
with me and look at this verse of scripture. Christ Jesus our
Lord says weep for yourselves, Revelation 9, I beg your pardon,
Revelation 9, verse 6, Christ said, weep for yourselves, weep
for yourselves, and weep for your children. The day is coming
when they shall cry and plead and beg for the rocks and the
mountains to fall on them and crush them and snuff out their
lives and hide them from the face of him that sitteth on the
throne. And Revelation 9, verse 6, And in those days, what days? Days of judgment. In those days they shall cry
for death. Men shall seek death. Brother,
in this generation you let a man have a heart attack and they'll
split open his chest and put their hands in there and massage
and massage and massage that heart trying to get it to keep
on pumping. Why? They don't want to die. And people can get out here in
automobile wrecks and have their heads bashed in, cut all to pieces,
and they put them on the operating table, and the last words they
say is, Doctor, don't let me die! I don't want to die. And you men who were in the service
saw men driven in panic, afraid to die. What brought about this strange
day here when men shall actually seek death? What has taken place? I'll tell you this, brother.
God has come in judgment. God has come in anger. He has
went his fierce and glittering sword and unsheathed it and brought
it out against men and their sin and they weep and cry and
beg to die. The scripture said they'll not
find death. They'll desire to die, and death
will flee from her. And mothers will stand off at
the side, yonder in agony and in judgment, in fear. And they
who were so happy on the day of their marriage, and they who
were so thrilled and delighted when God gave them their first
son, shall say, oh, that I had never been born. Oh, that I had
never brought forth into this world. Those are fierce and anguished
days. Yet our Lord said, they're coming.
You got any tears tonight to spill? Don't weep over Christ. He's the remedy. He's the redeemer. He's king. He's on a throne. He has the scepter. He rules. He reigns. Don't weep over Him. You weep over your sins. that
nailed him to Calvary. You who do not believe on him,
you weep over your sins that are laid upon your soul. You
weep for the day is coming when men shall cry for death and death
shall not come. Won't it be a horrible time when
men shall wish that they had never been born? That's what
Christ said about Judas. Better for him if he had never
been born. better for it. Brother, when
the truth of this thing comes upon your mind and you realize
what awful judgment men shall someday stand under and the fierce
wrath of Almighty God uncovered upon men for the first time,
sometimes you, if you'll display your own thoughts You'll wish
that you were all alone in this world and didn't have a single
oven over which to weep. I wish I didn't have a son over
which to cry. I wish I didn't have a brother
or sister over which to sigh. You see what I'm saying? There's
more to living than just the carnal material fleshly things
that we see and feel and come in contact with each day. There's
more to it than that. Everything that we are and everything
that we say and everything we do ought to be done in the light
of eternity and the fact that one day we'll stand before God.
We're filled with all manner of levity and foolishness and
all of that now, but some of these days we'll cry for the
rocks and mountains to cover us and hide us from His face. I see this. Men's selves are
their chief tormentors. not devils, but themselves. Our Lord Jesus Christ said this,
I'll give it to you to think about. He said, there's a place where
the worm dieth not and the fire is never quenched. Now there's
a verse of scripture that says, let every man have a wife, be
married, it's better to marry than to burn. That's not talking
about hell. That's talking about burning
with lust. It's better to marry and be satisfied
and happy than to burn within with lust that is never satisfied.
In Christ our Lord said there's a day and a time when the worm
for the sinner dies not and the fire is never quenched. That
fire, that burning is never put out. I don't know too much about
hell. I do know this about hell. I
know there is a hell. Just as positively as I'm standing
here I believe there's a hell. Our Lord said there was a hell,
there's got to be a hell. If there's a heaven, there's
a hell. If there's a God, there's a hell. If Christ is the Son
of God, there's a hell. And Christ said that hell is
a place of torment. Christ said that hell is an everlasting
place in which men shall never die and the smoke of their torment,
the smoke of their burning shall ascend up forever and ever. And
I believe with all of my heart, I know this is not true, the
devil is not the chief tormentor in hell, he's a subject of the
wrath of God in hell just like any other creature. He's not
the king of hell, he's not the king of anything. And the little
demons down there, they picture with their pitchforks and their
magazines, that's not a picture of hell at all. There is a hell. It's an eternal place, it's a
place of agony, torment, and suffering. And I put this forth,
and I know it so, and it's the most horrible part of hell. For
it's the part which the soul, the inward man, shall suffer
as a result of. This is the part of hell that's
the worst. Men shall be their own tormentors.
Not devils, but men. Pride, greed, anger, lust, unsatisfied
passions, and revenge. are the fuel for hell's fire. Like the dope addict without
his dope. Like the drunkard or alcoholic
without his drink. His dope is his tormentor. He can't get it. His alcohol
is his tormentor. The love of unsatisfied lust
and evil, hatred, wrath, anger, is the worm that never dies and
the fire that'll never be put out. To hate evil is hell. To love
evil is hell. To hate God is hell. To love
sin is hell. And Christ said there's a time
and a place where men shall go. Look at Revelation 22 11. Read
this with me. Watch it. Revelation 22 11. And
he that's unjust, let him be unjust still. And he that is
filthy, let him be filthy still. How long? Always. And he that
has that gnawing worm of sin and evil, let him have it still. And that
burning, fiery sensation of unsatisfied lust and greed and anguish and
passions and revenge, let it go on. unsatisfied. The fire will never be put out.
I know our Lord said this, fear them, fear not them which kill
the body after that have no more they can do but fear him who
is able to cast you body and soul into hell. You can't burn
the soul. You make this body suffer. But
this body's not going to be the only suffering part in hell,
brother. The inward man's got to suffer because he is the culprit. He is the criminal, not this
body. This body is simply the instrument of sin. It's that
old inward man, that old evil soul, that old inward nature
that is the criminal. It's got to pay. How shall it
pay? Can't touch it with natural fire. You can burn my body, but
Brother, after I'm dead, you can throw this body in the fire
and burn it all day and it won't hurt me. No, it won't. I watched them after they performed
an autopsy on a dead man one time. And I thought the undertaker
was pretty rough with him until I realized he didn't feel it.
He didn't feel it. After they had performed the
autopsy and cut him down through here and then all the way and
took everything out of him, he stuffed him with straw. Just
regular old straw that you get out of a hayloft or something. Stuffed that man's body with
straw and then stretched his skin tight and sewed him with
some kind of heavy yarn. Never felt a thing. He was dead. But brother, I tell you this,
the criminal in this case, in your case, in my case, is the
fella that lives in this house right here. The soul. And God
says the soul that sinneth, it's gonna die. How shall it die?
The soul that sinneth, it shall die, it shall suffer, it shall
someday endure a worm that titheth not, and a fire that'll never
be quenched, a gnawing, agonizing, unsatisfied tormentor. You ever lay down on your bed
at night and just prayed to go to sleep? Anguish was in your mind. Someone
had crossed your path that day and you were a bundle of nerves
and you just couldn't go to sleep. You just seemed like the hours
rolled and rolled and rolled and you were so, uh, keyed up
with your emotionalism and anguish and greed and plannings and so
forth that sleep was stolen from you. How'd you like to be that
way for eternity? Huh? That's the way it'll be. That's the way it'll be. Have
you ever been so lonesome? Off over yonder 8,000 miles by
yourself, never saw a soul you knew. Lonesome! Just to see somebody
you knew. How'd you like that to last always? It will. Lonesome. Let him be
cast into outer darkness where there'll be weeping and wailing
and gnashing of teeth. Lonesome! Lonesome. Brother, hell's not
a party. Hell is hell. Hell's not a gathering
of demons and devils that shake hands with one another and congratulate
them on being there. Hell is a lonesome place, away
from God, away from life, away from truth, away from beauty,
away from holiness, away from good, away from righteousness,
and everything that's wrong, and that worm will never die. Do I believe in the fire of hell?
I sure do. I believe it's a fire that'll
never be quenched. Do I believe in a natural fire?
I don't know. But I do know this, that inward
fire is a whole lot worse. A whole lot worse. I know that the sufferings of
a man's body aren't one-tenth the sufferings of the soul. I
know that when our Christ went to the cross of Calvary, the
sufferings of his body were not one-ten-thousandth as agonizing
as the weight of the sin of his people that was laid upon him.
He suffered. He didn't cry, my God, these
nails! He cried, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? He didn't cry, my God, this spear,
my God, this cat of nine tails, my bag, no sir, why hast thou
forsaken me? Separated from God, separated
from righteousness, separated from truth, lonesome, But I tell you this, I don't
want to go to hell. And it's not because I'm afraid
of fire, I am, but that's not the chief reason. I don't want
to be separated from everything that's holy eternally, do you?
I don't want to be separated from God for eternity. I don't
want to never see anything that's right and truthful and holy and
pure for eternity. I don't want to live alone for
eternity. I don't want to go through the
agonizing years with lust and passions and never are satisfied,
rolling and tossing in sin. There's a whole lot more to hell
than fire and brimstone. Hell is a place away from God.
And brother, the word God means everything that's good. I want you to look back at Luke
23 and I'll quit. Luke 23 and verse 31. Maybe I can give you a little
light on this verse here that I think I have. Christ said to
He's telling the awful, awful fear of judgment and wrath and
anguish of God upon men. And he said they'll cry for the
mountains and rocks, verse 30, to fall on us and cover us from
him. And verse 31, for if they do
these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry? A green tree filled with juice
and moisture. is not fit fuel for a fire. Men do not go out and gather
green branches to build a fire. Christ is the green branch. He
did nothing worthy of death. He did nothing worthy of punishment. He did nothing worthy of God's
wrath upon him. He is not fit fuel for the fires
of hell and yet Christ said he received it. If they do these
things in a green tree. If they take a green tree and
send it to hell, and Christ literally endured hell for his people,
if they make of the green tree fit fuel for the burning by God's
decree, by God's justice, Christ said, what about the dry tree?
It is already fuel for burning. It's fit for nothing but the
fire. If you think you shall escape hell and you shall escape
judgment, you say, brother, God surely wouldn't sentence me to
eternity in hell, wouldn't he? Wouldn't he? Christ said, if
my heavenly father will take his only beloved, only begotten
son, who is filled with the beauty of holiness and righteousness
and truth, who is not fuel fit for burning, and crucify him
for sinners, what will he do with a dead, dry, brittle branch
that's made for the fire? Now you think about it. If, if Christ said, if this is
done for me, if the righteous scarcely be seen, what about
the ungodly? If the Holy One of Israel shall
die for sinners, what about the sinners for whom he didn't die?
If God shall subject his one who is his beloved only begotten
to his anguish and wrath, what do you think he will do with
the rebel? Don't you take any comfort, assurance, joy, or hope,
or dependence, not the slightest bit in the goodness of God apart
from Christ? There is none. Don't you for
one moment think, well, because after all, I never have gone
to the limits that I could have gone. Don't take any comfort
in that. For Christ said, if this shall
be done to me, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
Daughters of Jerusalem, weep for me. Weep for yourself and
for your children. for the days coming when they
will cry for the rocks and mountains to fall on them and cover them
from the face of him that sitteth on the throne. For if a God of
judgment and righteousness and truth will nail his son to the
cross and cause him to be smitten for me and you, what will he
do with the wicked? I'll tell you, they'll be turned
into hell. They'll be turned into hell.
and all the nations that forget God. Number 425, will you sing that
with me? As we stand together, we'll sing
this as our closing hymn. May we stand. Bless me not, O gentle Savior,
hear my humble cry. While on others Thou art calling,
do not pass me by. Savior, Savior, Hear my humble cry, while on
others Thou art calling, do not pass me by. You're dismissed. The Lord bless
you.