There Is a Hell, and If You Don’t
“And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; for it is profit¬ able for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body be cast into hell” — Matthew 5: 29 R. V.
FOR this address I have five texts. The first is quoted above. The second is Matt. 10:28 R. V., “Be not afraid of them which 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” The third is Matt. 23: 33 R. V., “Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell?” The fourth is Matt. 25:41 R. V., “Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels.” The fifth is Matt. 25: 46.... “And these shall go away into eternal punishment: but the righteous into eternal life.”
A very large proportion of the men and women in America to-day do not really believe that there is a real and awful hell. Indeed a very large proportion of the ministers and members of orthodox churches to-day do not really believe that there is a real and awful hell. I say they do not “really
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believe” that there is a real and awful hell. Theoretically I presume the vast majority of ministers and members of churches do believe that there is a hell. That is, if you put to them the question, “Do you believe there is a hell to which the wicked are sent after death (or after the return of the Lord Jesus),” they would say “yes.” But their belief is not a real belief, a belief that grips them, a belief that shapes their lives and conduct, a belief the meaning of which they realize and that moves them to the action that they would put forth if they really believed it. There is a vast difference between a mere opinion and a real faith. I held the opinion that there was a hell long before I really believed that there was a hell. And I suppose a very large proportion of those who are not professing Christians hold the opinion that there is a hell of some kind in the next world, though perhaps not an ever¬ lasting hell; but their opinion is not a real faith. It has very little if any effect upon their conduct. This widespread loss of belief in a future hell of long and awful sorrow, pain, anguish, remorse, and de¬ spair, is responsible for very much of the terrible evils that are sweeping over our land at the present time. The loss of belief in such a future hell is responsible for the appalling increase of suicide. If men and women believed that every man or woman who committed suicide (unless they were insane and therefore irresponsible) was going to an awful hell, an age-long if not everlasting, sorrow, pain, agony, anguish and despair, suicide would cease, instead of increasing at the appalling rate it has increased the last year. However great their sorrow in the present life they would not jump from a lifelong frying pan into an “everlasting fire,” Loss of real belief in an awful and long, long hell is responsible for all these infatuated men and women killing the woman or man they love who does not reciprocate that love, and then killing themselves. If these men and women really believed that such an act meant an eternity in hell, not one of them would do it. The loss of belief in an awful, eternal hell is responsible for every hold-up, burglary, murder, and all this frightful crime wave that is sweeping over this land from New York to Los Angeles. If these men and women who are unhesitatingly staining their hands with blood to get money by open or covert murder realized that their action meant an eternity in hell, the crime wave would subside into a great calm of righteousness in a day. A re-establishment of real faith in such a hell as the Bible and Jesus Christ plainly teach would do more to lift our land out of the awful chaos of crime and terror into which it has fallen than all the increase and improvement of police forces that can be devised, and all the enact¬ ment of more severe and better executed laws that can be imagined. The loss of man’s faith in hell is responsible for the sickening and appalling increase of divorce, of legalized adultery, and the ruin to homes and children that comes through it. If men and women who seek release from their wives and husbands because they tire of them or because of incompatibility of temperament, or because they have wickedly permitted their affections to be carried captive by someone else other than their lawful wife or husband, if these men and women realized that their
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violation of the law of God and the demands of decency meant an eternity in hell this intolerable evil would cease at once. One of the greatest needs of our day is a restoration of real faith in the teaching of Jesus Christ concerning hell. If we could get men, women and children generally to believe what Jesus Christ plainly teaches about hell, there would be a general cessation of crime, vice, divorce, suicide, and a general turning of men, women and children to Jesus Christ as their Saviour and Lord and example. I have no expectation of getting men, women and children generally to really believe in hell, but I do expect to get many of you here to¬ night to really believe in hell, and so to get you to quit your crimes if you are criminals, as some of you very likely are, and to get some of you who are living double lives, and are untrue to wife or husband, to quit your vile and damning sin, and to get some of you who are contemplating divorce to give up the thought of that which is pretty sure to land you in an everlasting hell if you do it, and to get every one of you who may be contemplating suicide to give up this silly, cowardly, and desperate act you are planning, an act that will take you to an ever¬ lasting hell by lightning express, and I expect to lead many of you to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour, and to surrender to Him as your Lord and Master, and to confess Him as such publicly be¬ fore the world, which in the last analysis is the only course of action that will save you from spending eternity in the “everlasting fire” never intended for you, but “prepared for the Devil and his angels,” but to which all those who prefer to cast in their lot with the devil rather than to accept Jesus Christ, will certainly go.
I. It Is Certain That There Is a Hell
The First thought I wish to impress indelibly upon your minds, to impress so indelibly and vividly upon your minds that it will determine your whole future conduct, is that there is a hell, that there is not only a hell of suffering and torment of conscience in the life that now is, as the consequence of sin, but that there is an awful hell hereafter, in the life which is to come, which is the only sense in which Jesus Christ ever speaks of “hell.,, We talk of <( hell on earth,” but that is only an expressive figure of speech, but the real hell, the “hell” the Bible speaks of, is after the present life is ended. It is absolutely certain that there is a hell hereafter. Why do I say so?
i. First of all, It is certain that there is a hell beyond the grave waiting vast multitudes now lizring unless they repent, because Jesus Christ says so. He says so in the plainest and most unmistakable language in every one of my texts. I have purposely taken every one of my texts not from the Bible in general but from the words of Jesus Christ Himself. It was easy to do this because Jesus Christ has more to say about hell than any other person whose words are recorded in the New Testament. Jesus Christ had more to say about hell than Peter or Paul or James or John or Jude, or all of them put together. There are two Greek words that are translated hell in our Authorized Version. One of them does not properly mean “hell” at all, but “Hades,” the abode
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of departed spirits, the abode of all departed spirits both good and bad up to the time of the ascension of Jesus Christ, at which time the spirits of the righteous dead were taken out of their part of Hades, “Paradise,” up into a heavenly “Paradise,” but the wicked were left in their part of Hades, “Tartarus,” where they will remain until the judgment of the Great White Throne at the end of the millennium, when they will be “cast into the Lake of Fire,” the real “hell.” There is a third Greek word, used once in the New Testament, which is translated “hell” in both Authorized and Revised Versions (II Pet. 2:4), but which strictly speaking does not mean hell at all, but Tartarus, i. e., that part of Hades where the wicked dead, and some of the fallen angels, now are, “reserved unto judgment,” after which they, too, will be cast into “the Lake of Fire” “prepared for the devil and his angels,” the proper hell. Now the Greek word properly translated “hell” is found twelve times in the New Testament and in eleven out of those twelve instances it is used by Jesus Christ Himself, and in only one instance is it used by anyone else, James. Of course hell is spoken of in numerous other passages where the word is not used; but most of these passages also are utterances of Jesus Christ. So to preach hell is to be Christlike in your preaching. In face of these facts, how utterly silly to say, as so many do say in these days, that they are too kind-hearted and too full of love of. their fellow-man to believe in or preach hell. Who was the kindesthearted man that ever walked this earth? Who was the most full of love of any man who ever walked this earth? Beyond a question Jesus Christ, and He is the very One who preaohed hell more than any other New Testament writer or speaker. What about these men who say it is cruel to preach hell and try to impeach the kind-heartedness of John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards, because these great thinkers, both of them among the greatest thinkers the world has ever known, have so faithfully presented the truth about hell? Whom are you really impeaching? You are impeaching Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ’s love of men was of the genuine sort: and He proved His love in a more real and practical way than by lulling men to sleep with false hopes, or by playing to the galleries and winning the plaudits of empty-headed men by telling them how kindhearted and liberal they are, and telling them how good they are, and how they are not sinners, but that there is a spark of divinity in them all, and that they are in no danger of going to hell, and that there isn’t any hell anyway, and that they can get drunk, and commit adultery, and divorce their wives, and oppress the poor, and live luxuriously, and take life easy while others starve, and reject the Son of God, and yet somehow come out all right in the long run anyhow. Men and women, what do you listen to these ministers of the devil masquerading as ministers of righteousness for anyhow? In your heart of hearts you know that they are lying to you and lulling you to sleep by false hopes that will land you in an eternal hell. No, Jesus Christ showed His love, real love, genuine love, not camouflaged selfishness, by telling us the truth about hell, and then by leaving Heaven with all its glory and com-HOW TO BE SAVED
ing down to earth with all its shame and dying the awful death of Calvary, where He bore the awful weight of our sins, to save us from going to the hell of which He had told us. Listen to Jesus Christ. You will if you are not a poor, blinded fool. The preacher who declares that there is no hell hereafter, or no very awful and long-enduring hell, is the most useful servant the devil has in this present dispensation. He is the devil’s best servitor. Of course Colonel Ingersoll declared often and with great eloquence that there was no hell. But no really intelligent and fair-minded man or woman ever took Bob Ingersoll seriously. They know he was talking for so many hundred dollars a night, and that his private morals and private conversation were not of a character to give force to his words in public. But men do take ministers seriously. Many excellent men and women think anything their minister says must be so. And often the personal morals and private conversation of this class of preachers is so exemplary as to commend their doctrine, and so they beguile many and mislead many and encourage many to continue in sin and go to hell. Therefore I say again, don’t listen to them, listen to Jesus Christ and then you are safe. What does Jesus Christ say?
(i.) Listen to my first text, Matt. 5: 29: “And 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 thy whole body be cast into hell.” These are the words of Jesus Christ and they are from the Sermon on the Mount, and I have given you the Revised Version. I have taken these words from the Sermon on the Mount for two reasons. First, because they exactly suit my purpose and state in a plain and unmistakable way the important truth I am trying to make you see and feel. I have taken them from the Sermon on the Mount for a second reason, and that is, because pretty much everybody says they believe that part of the Bible even though they do not believe the rest of the Bible, and these words are taken from that part of the Bible which pretty much every¬ one professes to believe. I have also taken them from the Revised Version for two reasons. In the first place, I took them from the Revised Version because the Revised Version is a more exact rendering of the original than the Authorized. And I have taken them from the Revised Version in the second place, because there are many people, including some alleged “scholarly preachers,” who say that “the Revised Version has done away with hell.” That shows how little they know about the Revised Version; there is still plenty of hell left in our texts. It is true the Revised Version does translate one word “Hades” that the Authorized Version translates” hell,” and it is abundantly warranted in doing so; but where the Lord Jesus really spoke about hell we find it in the Revised Version just as strongly as in the Authorized Version. Now these words of our Lord Jesus Christ clearly teach that there is a hell into which men are cast after death, and that that hell is so awful that you would better suffer any conceivable, lifelong, earthly loss than to go there. Now if there is no hell after death, or, if the hell after death is not a place of inconceivable agony, then the Lord Jesus was either a colossal fool or a
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shameless liar. If there is no immeasurably awful hell after death, then either Jesus Christ thought that there was and, therefore, so taught, when there was not, in which case He was a colossal fool, or else He knew that there was not but taught that there was to scare men into doing what He wanted them to do, in which case He was a shameless liar and stupendous fraud. You cannot deny a hell after death of immeasurable agony and horror without making Jesus Christ out to have been a colossal fool or a shameless liar and stupendous fraud. But Jesus Christ was not a colossal fool, He was not a shameless liar, and He was not a stupendous fraud. He was a teacher sent from God who spoke the very words of God, He was the only begotten Son of God, He was God manifest in the flesh. That was His claim and God Almighty set the stamp of His endorsement upon that claim by raising Him from the dead. The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead is, as I have shown time and time again from this platform, the best proven faot of history, and that indisputable fact proves Jesus Christ to have been a teacher sent from God who spoke the very words of God, and therefore we must believe whatever He says, and He says that there is a hell after death, a place of conscious torment,
and its loss and agony are so inconceivably terrible that you would better suffer any lifelong loss here on earth than go there: and as Jesus Christ says so that settles it.
We know nothing about the future, but what Jesus Christ tells us, tells us either directly Himself or through His inspired apostles. The wisest man’s speculations, the greatest philosopher’s speculations, about the future are absolutely worthless. You may say “I don’t believe what the Bible says, I think so and so.” But your “think so” is not worth the breath you waste in telling it. Your opinion about either Heaven or hell or about the coming of Christ, or about anything else that lies in the future is worth no more than the opinion some man has about the interior of Africa, who has never been in the interior of Africa, nor heard directly or indirectly from someone else who had been in the interior of Africa. Your opinion is utterly foolish and futile guessing. The man we want to hear is the man who has been there, the man who knows. Jesus knows. Listen to Him.
(2). Turn to another utterance of Jesus Christ on this subject, Matt. 10:28 R. V.: “Be not afraid of them which 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” Here Jesus tells us that hell is a place to which “both soul and body” go. The body does not go to Hades, the soul goes there, it may have some temporary body there, but this body that we now inhabit lies in the ground and is disintegrated, but at the end of the thousand years Jesus will raise the bodies of the wicked dead, the righteous dead having already been raised at His coming, but at the end of the thousand years the wicked dead shall hear His voice and come forth and their bodies will be raised and soul and body will both (be cast together into hell to spend eternity there and suffer (Rev. 20: 11-15). It is evident from this verse that according to the teaching of
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Jesus Christ, hell is a place of physical torment as well as of mental anguish, of remorse and shame. The physical agonies of hell are not the worst agonies of hell, but they constitute a very important part of its misery.
Even in this present life sin has physical penalties. My! but what awful physical suffering I have seen men undergo as a direct consequence of their wrongdoing. It will be so in a greatly enhanced de¬ gree in hell.
(3.) Listen to a third statement of Jesus Christ, Matt. 25: 41 R. V., “Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels”; and to a fourth, Matt. 25: 46 R. V., “And these shall go away into eternal punishment: but the righteous into eternal life.” Here the word “hell” is not found, but the fact of hell is set forth in vivid and appalling language, and it is Jesus Christ who is speaking. We see something of the awfulness of the suffering of hell, and we see the everlasting duration of hell. The question arises, Does the word “eternal” used in both verses forty-one and forty-six mean never ending? To this would say that the word, according to its etymology, might mean simply a-lasting, but according to its unvarying usage in the New Testament it does mean m?rlasting. That I have shown in my pamphlet “The Real Truth About an Everlasting Hell.” But, furthermore, the word “eternal” is used twice in the forty-sixth verse. In the first instance it is coupled with the word “punishment,” and in the second instance it is coupled with the word “life” Now what it means in one case it must mean in the other, because certainly our Lord Jesus Christ was no mere trickster in His use of words, and therefore He would not use the very same word in one sense in one part of a verse, and in an entirely different sense in another part of the verse where it is put in contrast with it: so what the word “eternal” means in connection with “punishment” it must also mean in connection with “life,” and what it means in connection with “life” it must also mean in connection with “punishment” Now every one knows that the life that is the reward of the right¬ eous is endless, therefore according to the teaching of Jesus Christ the punishment of the lost must also be endless. Never accept any interpretation of any passage that inevitably involves your making Jesus Christ out to have been a contemptible trickster in His teaching.
Some one may ask, Does the “fire” here mean literal fire? We will not stop to argue that to-night. If you take it as a figure, remember that figures always stand for facts, and that as Jesus was no liar, the figures He use9 never overstate the facts. How terrific, how appalling must be the facts that war¬ rant Jesus’ using such a figure as this.
It is certain that there is an everlasting hell because Jesus says so. We have exactly the same reason for believing in a future hell for the wicked as we have for believing in a future life of blessed¬ ness for the righteous, God’s zuord uttered by God’s own Son. There is no other conclusive proof for either Heaven or hell. Give up belief in hell and, if you are logical, you must give up belief in Heaven or any future after death. Give up your belief in
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hell, such a hell as Jesus taught, and logically nothing remains but annihilation for everybody.
But if you are really logical you will not give up one or the other. For Jesus Christ taught both, and the known facts about His resurrection from the dead and many other things also, compel us, if we are really logical, to accept Jesus Christ as a teacher sent from God, absolutely reliable and inerrant, who spoke the very word’s of God. It is certain, then, that there is a hell after death, that its agonies are so appalling that we would better suffer any loss or pain than go there, that body and soul both share in its suffering, and that its agonies are so awful as to warrant the figure of “everlasting fire” (if it be a figure) in speaking of them, and that its suffering never ends.
2. If there were time or necessity I could show you that if there is any future life at all, it is certain that there is an awful and eternal hell because every fact of experimental psychology, every dictate of unprejudiced reason, every known fact of God’s present dealing with man, points that way, and the only thing against such belief is an appeal to prejudice and mere baseless sentiment, or an irrational dwelling upon, and drazmng unwarranted inferences from some statements in Scripture, which inferences flatly contradict other plain statements of the same Bible. There is nothing more certain about the future than that there is beyond the grave an awful and eternal hell for many.
II. If You Don’t Look Out You Will Go There
Now a few words about the second part of our subject. The first part of our subject as announced was there is a hell. That we have seen is certain. The second part was, if you don’t look out you will go there. Nobody will escape hell with¬ out a conscious effort, without deliberate action, without doing one specific thing. We all deserve to go to hell; for we have all sinned, and God is an infinitely holy God. There is not a man or woman here to-night, young or old, who has not sinned: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23 R. V.). “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.... If we say we have not sinned, we
make God a liar, and his word is not in us” (I John I :8-io R. V.). There is not a man or woman here to-night who has not sinned outrageously, there is not a man or woman here to-night who has not broken God’s first and greatest commandment and thereby committed the greatest sin a man or woman can commit. What is God’s first and great commandment? Listen to the words of Jesus again, Matt. 22:37, 38, “And he (Jesus) said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment.” This is God’s first and great commandment, to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, to put God first in everything, God first in business, God first in politics, God first in home life, God first in social life, God first in amusements, God first in study, God first in everything. Not one of us has ever done it our whole life through; therefore every¬ one of us has broken this first and greatest of God’s
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commandments and therefore everyone of us has committed the greatest sin a man or woman can possibly commit, and we all deserve to go to hell; and we will go to hell unless we look out, unless we make some definite effort and take some definite step to keep from going there. No one ever drifted to Heaven. Anyone who merely drifts, drifts to hell. Many of you here to-night are merely drifting. I once saw a little card. On one side of the card this question was printed, “What must I do to be saved?” and then God’s own answer to the question was given as found in Acts 16:31, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved.” At the bottom of the card it said “Turn over.” And turning it over I found this question, “What must I do to be lost?” and it gave the answer in one word, “Nothing.” One does not need to do anything to be lost. We are lost already unless we do some¬ thing definite. If you are on the Niagara river, even way up above the Falls and the Rapids, if you just drift you are bound to go over the Falls. You do not need in order to go over the Falls to take up the oars and pull with the stream. The way to keep from going over the Falls is to pull upstream, and you must begin pulling before you get into the rapids. Well we are in the current of sin, and the current is moving toward hell, at first slowly, but soon faster, and at last with a rush that cannot be resisted. Consent to drift and you are sure to wind up in hell. If you don’t look out you will go there.
In what way must we look out in order not to go there? What must we do to keep us from going to hell? There is only one thing we can do that will keep us from going to hell. Anyone who does that one thing will escape hell and go to Heaven, but on the other hand anyone good or bad, vicious or moral, liberal and generous or outrageously miserly, lovely and amiable or mean and disgusting, anyone who does not do it will go to hell. What is that one thing? The answer is found repeatedly in the Word of God: Accept Jesus Christ as your Saviour. Read John 3: 18, “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten son of God.,, Listen to John 1:12, “As many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name” Listen to John 3:36,” He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life, but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him” We have all sinned as we have seen, and therefore are hellward bound. But Jesus Christ died for our sins, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Is. 53:6). He made perfect atonement for our sins, and then He arose from the dead and lives to-day, and has “all power in heaven and on earth,” and therefore has power to give us victory over sin every day. Accept Him as your atoning Saviour, who settled every one of your sins by dying for them on the cross, and trust God to forgive you because the Lord Jesus died in your place, and the moment you do it your sins are all forgiven. “Be it known unto you therefore,
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brethren, that through this man is proclaimed unto you remission of sins; and by Him every one that believeth is justified from all things” (Acts 13:39). Trust Him also as your Risen Saviour to keep you from the power of sin, and He will. Do that and you will be saved, do not do it and you will spend eternity in hell. Really doing it involves surrender¬ ing your life, and your thoughts, and your will, and your conduct to His control. It involves also the open confession of Him before the world. Real faith always leads to open confession. As Paul puts it, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved: for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom. 10:9, 10). What are you going to do? Are you going to choos? Heaven or hell? Will you accept Christ to-night, and make sure of Heaven? or will you reject Christ and make sure of hell?
XII
THERE IS A HEAVEN AND WHOSOEVER
WISHES TO CAN SPEND ETERNITY
THERE
“In my father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may he also. And whither I go, ye know the way. Thomas saith unto him, Lord we know not whither thou goest; how know we the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” — John 14:2-6.,
AS in the previous address, I am here using five texts. My second text is Jno. 17:24: “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory; which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.”
My third text is Heb. 8:1: “Now in the things which we are saying the chief point is this: We have such an high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.”
My fourth text is II Cor. 5:1: “For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dis-HOW TO BE SAVED
solved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.”
My fifth text is I Pet. i: 3-5: “Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begot us again into a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, and un¬ defiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in Heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
My subject in the previous address was: There is a hell and if you don’t look out you are going there. We saw that it was absolutely certain that there was a hell after death, that its agonies were so appalling that we would better suffer any loss or pain than go there, that body and soul both shared in its suffering, and that its agonies are so awful as to warrant the figure of “everlasting fire” (if it be a figure) in speaking of them, and that its suffer¬ ing never ends. And we saw that it was certain that we would go there unless we did one specific thing, accept Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour, and, that that involved the surrender of ourselves to Him as our Lord and Master, and the open confession of Him before the world. To-night we turn from this very dark and forbidding subject to a very bright and alluring subject, namely, There is a Heaven and whosoever wishes to can spend eternity there. Last Sunday night I confined my texts to statements of Jesus Christ, because men very naturally are so unwilling to believe in hell, and because with very many the words of Jesus Christ have more weight than the words of Paul or John or other New Testament writers. Indeed, with any really intelligent and fair-minded and genuinely logical man, who faces the facts in the case, the words of Jesus Christ must be absolutely conclusive and decisive. When Jesus Christ says anything, that settles it for any man who is not really a fool. I know that there are those who pose as great scholars, who do not accept the statements of Jesus Christ as final, but that only shows how a man can be a great scholar and at the same time be a great fool. We all know that the history of human thinking abounds in instances where great scholars have been proven to be great fools. In fact through the whole history of human scholarship the “assured results” of the scholarship of one generation have continually proven to be the exploded nonsense of the next generation. Every generation of scholars admits that about the scholarship of preceding generations, but each generation cherishes the hope that it will not prove true of their generation. They fancy that they at last have attained “the final science,” and the “Absolute Philosophy.” Well, that is what our dear departed ancestors thought about the science and philosophy of their day, but it did not turn out that way. And, our descendants will be making merry over our scientific and philosophical follies, just as we are now making merry over those of the scholars who have passed on. But amid the wreck of human scientific theories and human philosophies, the words of Jesus Christ stand unmoved and unassailable. And every man who is really wise believes His words absolutely, and the man who does not may
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fancy that he is a Philosopher, but he would better spell the first syllable with two o’s rather than one i.
To-night I start with two foundation texts that are from the words of Jesus Christ, but also use texts from others who were unquestionably inspired of God, texts that illuminate and emphasize the words of Christ.
I. The Absolute Certainty That There Is a
Heaven
The first thought I wish to drive home and so rivet in your minds that you will never question it again is, that It is absolutely certain that there is a Heaven to which certain persons are going. I am as certain that there is such a place as Heaven as I am that there is such a place as Los Angeles. Why is it absolutely certain that there is such a place as Heaven?
i. First of all, It is absolutely certain that there is such a place as Heaven because Jesus Christ says so. He says so in the first of our texts. He says, “I go to prepare a place for you.” He does not say, I go to prepare a state or condition for you, He says, “I go to prepare a place for you,” and when our Lord Jesus says “place,” He means place. All this modern swash about Heaven being a condition, or a state of mind, has no warrant in the words of Jesus Christ nor in anything else in the Bible. Of course it would be better to be in a heavenly moral condition and a heavenly state of mind in a decidedly unheavenly place, than to be in a hellish moral condition and hellish state of mind in a heavenly place, but it is better yet to be in a heavenly moral condition and heavenly state of mind in a heavenly place, and that is what is ahead of us if we meet the conditions that I shall state later. Yes, Heaven is a place. We are not going to be disembodied spirits in our eternal condition any more than Jesus Christ to-day is a disembodied spirit. His spirit, His real, essential personality, was disembodied for three days and three nights. He left His body on the cross, and went down into Hades, but after three days His body was raised, which we have seen again and again from this platform is the best proven fact of history, and His spirit returned to that body, and took that resurrected, transformed, and glorified body up to Heaven with Him, and Stephen saw Him in His body after His ascension (Acts 7:55, 56 R. V.), and Saul of Tarsus saw Him after His ascension, and He is in a bodily form to¬ night, in a place, Heaven. We, too, shall have bodies and be in a place, and that place is Heaven. You may like this disembodied spirit stuff, I do not. As I read Sir Oliver Lodge’s “Raymond,” and the descriptions given by the alleged spirit of his son, through various spiritualistic fakirs, of the life he was living since his death, I thought to myself, I cannot see what comfort Sir Oliver Lodge gets out of that. If that is the Heaven of Spiritualism I would about as soon that my son should be in hell, and much rather that he would be annihilated and utterly cease to be. But that is not the Heaven Jesus Christ teaches, nor is it the Heaven of actual fact. Heaven is a place, and no one who goes there will have any desire to come down and hover around
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darkened and uncanny rooms, and get in contact with his friends through some low-living medium, who is usually a drunkard or a dope fiend, and many of whom are notoriously immoral, and all of whom are of a low type of mentality.
Jesus Christ emphasizes the fact that Heaven is a place by the first statement of the same verse when He says, “In my father’s house are many mansions” that is many “Abiding places” as distinguished from the transitory character of our earthly homes. I had a home in Montrose, Pennsylvania. It was as beautiful and comfortable a home as I desired in this world. My wife was tired of wandering about Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and America, and wanted to settle down, and I bought this home; and we thought it would be our home for the rest of our earthly lives. She said, Let us call it “Alabama,” which means “Here we rest.” And we called it “Alabama,” and we rested, or she did. How long? Less than four years, and here we are away out in California, and in a few months from now we will be in Asia again. But in the next world we have a “Continuing City” (as God calls it in Heb. 13: 14); the Revised Version translation is “an abiding city.” The Greek word translated “abiding” is the participle of the verb from which the noun translated “Mansions” in John 14:2 is derived. Heaven is a place, and a permanent place. Yes, Heaven is a place.
Furthermore, Jesus says, “I go to prepare a place.” Evidently He was going from a place where He then was, Jerusalem, on this earth, to another place where He was not then but was soon to be.
What was that place? Verse twenty-eight of the same chapter answers the question, “Ye heard how I said to you, I go away, and I come unto you. If ye loved me, ye would have rejoiced, because I go unto the father.” Here Jesus says, “I am going away from where I now am and where you are. I am going away from you to My Father” that is God. Well, where is God? Turn to the Lord’s Prayer as found in the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus will tell you just where God is. That prayer which our Lord taught us begins with the words “Our Father Who art in Heaven” (Matt. 6:9 R. V.). That is where God is, “in Heaven.” Of course God is everywhere in His spirit, but that is only one side of the truth. God has a local habitation and that habitation is Heaven. That is where God is, and that is where our Lord Jesus Christ now is, at His right hand. That is where Stephen saw Him (Acts 7: 55, 56). That is where we are going some day. Somebody heard that I was going to China next summer, and they asked me if I would not take them along as private secretary. Let me tell you, I am going before a great while to a much more interest¬ ing place than China. I am going to Heaven, and any of you can go along if you wish to. I will tell you how before I get through to-night.
There are other places in the Sermon on the Mount in which our Lord Jesus tells us that Heaven is a place, and that God the Father is there. Fie tells us so, for example, in Matt. 7: 11, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven, give good things to them that ask Him?”
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And in Matt. 7:21, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my father which is in Heaven”
Our Lord Jesus tells us in another of our texts that Heaven is a place, and a glorious place, and that all those who will believe on Him are going there. Listen again to John 17:24, “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me.” If there is anything that Jesus teaches over and over again, and that is therefore absolutely certain, because there is no possibility of doubting what Jesus taught about it, it is, that there is a Heaven, and that Heaven is a place, and that God is there in a sense that He is nowhere else, and that Jesus is now there, and that all who really believe in Him are to be there some day.
2. In the second place, It is certain that there is a Heaven, not only because our Lord Jesus says so, but also because those who have been unmistakably proven to have been inspired of God say so.
Paul says so in II Cor. 5: 1 R. V., “For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens J’ The “house of God” of which Paul here speaks, refers, as the context plainly shows, to our glorified resurrection body, the body made in the likeness of our Lord’s own glorified body (Phil. 3:21 R. V.). And Paul here tells us that that body is not only “eternal” but “eternal, in the heavens” That body will exist elsewhere eternally, and where that body will exist eternally is” in the heavens”
Peter also tells us that there is a Heaven, and that it is a place, in I Pet. i: 3-5: “Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begat us again into a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in Heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Here Peter tells us that Heaven is a place, and that in that place there is an “inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away,” securely kept there for all those who are themselves kept by the power of God through faith unto that glorious “salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” People are wondering in these days of bank looting, and high-power explosives, and Bolshevik uprisings, where they can store their possessions with absolute safety. Well, there is no place on this earth where you can store them with absolute safety. Even if they do not succeed in blowing up your safe or safety deposit vault, you may die any day, and then you cannot get at your possessions, and some one else will get them, probably the lawyers. But if they are “reserved in Heaven” they are absolutely safe. People sometimes want to know if you have your money in a “Federal Reserve Bank.” Better have it in the Heavenly Reserve bank. If it is there not only can “neither moth nor rust corrupt nor thieves break through and steal,” but further¬ more there is no power either in earth or hell to rob
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you of it. It is absolutely eternally safe. And what a glorious inheritance it is, “incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.” It is more specifically described in Rom. 8:17, “Heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ,” that is, heirs of all that God has and all that God is. Better give up any¬ thing and everything on earth and get Heaven, than to get everything that you can get on earth, great wealth, beautiful homes, high-power sedan automo¬ biles, diamonds and other gems, operas, theatres, balls, and all the rest, and lose Heaven. Do you know how I feel when I ride by the palatial homes of some of our very rich and utterly godless millionaires, and sometimes enter them? I do not have a feeling of envy at all, I feel a great pity; so rich to-day, and utter paupers to-morrow, paupers for all eternity.
The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews also teaches that there is a Heaven, and that it is a place. It makes no difference whether Paul is the author of this Epistle to the Hebrews or someone else, the book in either case is inspired of God. In either case it bears the marks of its inspiration on every page. It differs radically from all the other literature, outside the Bible, of that time or any other time. It has the unmistakable inspired flavour. Listen to what God says in Heb. 8:1, “Now in the things which we are saying, the chief point is this: We have such an high priest (that is, of course, Jesus Christ) who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens” God here teaches us that there is a Heaven (or Heavens), that it is a place, that His Own throne is there. and that Jesus is there. Elsewhere in this same book He tells us that we are going there, too, if we are Christ’s. He tells us that Christ has entered Heaven as “a forerunner” (Chapter 6:20), that is He has gone there before us and we are to follow after.
It is absolutely certain then that there is a Heaven because Jesus Christ says so, and because men who beyond an honest doubt were inspired of God, men through whom God Himself spoke, say so. That settles it. As I stated last night, we know absolutely nothing about the eternal future but what God has been pleased to tell us through His Son Jesus Christ and through His inspired servants, the writers of the New Testament. That is absolutely sure, all else is mere guesswork and baseless speculation. What the philosophers or the speculative theologians or the scientists guess about Heaven or hell is of no more value that what an inmate of an imbecile asylum guesses about them. Here the philosophers and scientists are entirely out of their sphere. A story is told of a distinguished man of science who had to cross a ferry in a rowboat. As the man at the oars pulled him across, the scientist said to him, “Do you know Astronomy?” “No,” replied the rugged oarsman, “I do not.” “Well, then,” said the man of science, “a quarter of your life is gone.” “Do you know anything about geology?” “No.” “Then one-half of your life is gone.” “Do you know anything about biology?” “No.” “Then three-quarters of your life are gone.” Just then the boat struck a snag and upset. As they plunged into the water the oarsman cried, “Do you know how to swim?” “No.” “Well then your
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whole life is gone,” and the ferryman struck out for shore, but the great scientist drowned. He was out of his element And when mere scientists and philosophers begin speculating about the eternal future, they are out of their element, and they floun¬ der around and drown, unless they will let some one who knows his Bible pull them ashore. What the scientist or philosopher speculates about Heaven or argues about Heaven is pure and simple guessing, and absolutely worthless: what God says through His Son, and through the inspired writers of the Bible, is absolutely sure. It is absolutely sure then that there is a Heaven, and that Heaven is a place, and that it is a wonderful place, and that God is there, and Christ is there, and many of us are going there, and we can all go there if we so desire.
II. What Kind of a Place is Heaven?
Now what sort of a place is Heaven? Some think that we know nothing about that, that it is all guess¬ work, and they quote I Cor. 2: 9 to prove it, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” But they stop too soon. They should quote the next verse, “But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God.” We know nothing about Heaven but what God has revealed, but God has been pleased to reveal a great deal about Heaven. I think very few Christians realize how much God has told us in the Bible about Heaven. I think even very few Bible scholars realize how much God has told us about Heaven. I have studied this subject more or less for many years, but when I took it up again last Monday night, I confess that I was surprised to find so much about Heaven in the Bible. What God, Who made Heaven and Who lives there, has told us about Heaven in the Bible, what God has revealed to us about Heaven through His Son in the Bible, is not only very interesting but immensely cheering, and calculated to awaken in every wise and sensible heart an intense desire to go there. But we have not time to go into that at length to-night. Just this hasty summary without any attempt to cite the passages or to expound at length:
1. Heaven is a place of matchless, and to our present minds, inconceivable, external, material, visible beauty. I love beauty and it has been my good fortune to see a very large share of the most renowned beauty spots of Europe, Asia, Australasia, and America. I have sat for hours just drinking in the beauty of some of these places. But nothing I have ever seen in Japan or China or India or Australia or New Zealand or in the Yosemite or the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, or in the Alps, or in the Rockies, or on Loch Lomond, or at Ben Nevis, or anywhere else, can be compared for one moment to the beauty and majesty and sublimity and glory of that land beyond the shadows — the peerless City of God.
2. Heaven is a land of indescribable harmony, and melody, and music. They have a choir of one hundred million voices there, (Rev. 5:11), and every voice sweeter and richer than Caruso’s, and
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no orchestra of earth can match those “harpers harp¬ ing with their harps.”
3. Heaven is a place of countless wealth. Every inhabitant is a multi-millionaire, “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ” (Rom. 8:17).
4. Heaven is a place unmarred by Sin, where God’s will is perfectly done by all, and where “nothing that defileth” mind or affections or will shall ever enter.
5. Heaven is a place where there is no trace of sickness or twinge of pain, and where Death never enters, and zvhere no tear is ever shed.
6. Heaven is a place of highest, holiest and most ennobling companionships.
7. Heaven is the place zvhere God is, and zvhere His son, Jesus Christ, is, and where we shall be with Christ and with God the Father, and we “shall see his face” (Rev. 22: 4). Oh! to see the face of God! Moses wanted to see the face of God, but was told that no man could see His face and live (Ex. 33: 20). But with the strength of our resurrection bodies and perfectly redeemed spirits we can gaze and gaze and gaze upon that wondrous face of God, and live. I wonder, if when God took Moses up into Mount Nebo, to die, He did not let Moses have his prayer at last and see His face and then die, die a death of immeasurable ecstasy. But in that world we shall see His face, and live! and be satisfied! Oh! how profoundly significant are the words of the Psalmist in Ps. 17:15, as rendered in the Revised Version, “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with beholding thy form.”
III. Anyone Who Wishes to, Can Spend
Eternity in Heaven
Now just a few words on the last part of our subject: Anyone who wishes to, can spend eternity in Heaven. Why do I say that? Because our Lord Jesus says so. He says so in our first text. He says, “Whither I go, ye know the way.” And then Thomas said unto Him, “Lord, we know not whither thou goest; how know we the way?” Then Jesus replied, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Here He says that He Himself is the Way to Heaven, and anyone who takes Him takes the way to Heaven, and if you really take Him and start to Heaven you are bound to get there. He says also in John 10:9, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in he shall be saved.” “If any man,” mind you, no exceptions. The poorest are as welcome as the richest, the most ignorant are as welcome as the wisest, the vilest sinner is as welcome as the finest saint. “If any man.” Come along, friends.
Peter also tells us the same thing in our last text, I Pet. 1: 3-5, “Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begat us again into a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in Heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” That is all, “kept by the power of God through faith.” It is not a question of our puny strength, but of His Al-HOW TO BE SAVED
mighty strength, given to all who just believe on His Son. Believe in Jesus Christ, that is all. All God’s children are certainly going to spend eternity in the Father’s House, and Jno. 1:12 tells us how to become children of God, “as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name.” Just accept Jesus, that is all. Accept Him as your personal Saviour, the One whom God Himself tells us bore all your sins in His own body on the cross, and trust God to forgive all your sins because the Lord Jesus died in your place. Accept Him as your Risen Saviour who now lives in Heaven, and who has “all power in Heaven and on earth,” and there¬ fore has power to keep you every day and hour, and just trust Him to do it. Accept Him as your Lord and Master to whom you surrender the entire control of your thoughts and life, and confess Him as your Lord before the world, and you will spend eternity in Heaven. Refuse to do that, or neglect to do that, and you will spend eternity in hell. There is a Heaven, and whosoever wishes to can spend eternity there. Do you wish to? It is up to each one of you to-night to say for yourself whether you will spend eternity in Heaven or eternity in hell. Which do you choose? Oh! unless you are a poor, blinded fool you will choose to spend eternity in Heaven. Then accept the Lord Jesus Christ right now. You may say, “I do not want to do it right now, but I will do it some future time.” Take no chances. Hell is too awful to take any chance of going there, and Heaven is too glorious to take any chance of missing it. There is only one thing for any man or woman who has a least spark of wisdom left and who has not already accepted Jesus Christ, to do, and that is to accept Jesus Christ and confess Him to-night.