The Punishment of the Wicked
“WJuU mlt thou say when He shall punish thee?”
As we pass through life many sad and solemn scenes meet our eye, — the natural result of the fall and the bitter fruit of sin. But, perhaps, no spectacle is invested with a solemnity so appalling as that of a criminal at the bar of justice, awaiting the judgment of the court, to whom the Judge, wearing the awful symbol of condemnation, addresses the terrible question, — “Prisoner at the bar, what have you to say wherefore the sentence of death should not be passed upon you?” Awfully impressive as is this scene, it is but the faint shadow of a spectacle infinitely more appalling which awaits this fallen world, — the final and eternal condemnaiion of the wicked. That such an event is reasonable the light of nature teaches, and that it is certain, the Book of Revelation declares. Reason would teach us that, living under a moral govern* ment — a government of rewards and punishments, — if we do well, it is accepted of God, and that if we do not well, sin lieth at the door and is righteously punished. Thus by the dim light of nature we may learn that, that must be an unholy government which would allow dn to pass unpunished, and that, that must be an unjust government that would allow good to go unrewarded. But, in proof of a judgment to come we have stronger evidence than that of reason. Divine revelation comes to our aid, and afl&rms emphatically and solemnly that, “We must all appear before the JUDGMENT SEAT of Christy thai every man may receive the things done in the body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad,*’ That, “God hoik appointed a day in which He will judge the world w righteousness*’ That,” the Lord cometh with ten ihousand of His saints to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly of all their unrighteous deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him,** Such are some of the Scripture deck’ rations concerning this momentous subject. It is to one particidar view our present reading will be re stricted, — viz., the fi’nal, awful, and everlastiThg punishment of the ungodly.
If we saw a friend arraigned in a criminal court of justice about to be tried for his life, we would naturally and anxiously inquire, — “Are you well prepared with your defence? Have you carefully weighed every tittle of the evidence, and thoroughly examined the nature of the plea you purpose to adduce? “To the sinner speeding to the judgment seat of Christ we address a similar but an infinitely more momentous inquiry, — “Are you prefpared for your trial? “With what plea are you provided in arrest of judgment? What have you to say wherefore the sentence of eternal death should not be pronounced upon you? Have you any excuse for your sins, any palliation of your crimes, any reason for your rejection of His Son, which the Judge will accept? ‘What wUt thou 5ay when H^ shall punish thee?’ — what plea, what excuse, what extenuation will you allege when the Judge shall proceed to pronounce the awful sentence of eternal doom?” Such is the solemn, awakening subject, which now asks your serious and prayerful attention. May the Holy Spirit aid and bless our meditation!
First, with regard to the certainty of the punishment of the wicked. No truth is more clearly revealed in the Bible than that, it is God’s solemn purpose to punish the ungodly. It must, from the very necessity of the oase, be so. God is holy, and if just to Himself He must from the holiness of His nature punish sin. Were the ungodly, the impenitent and the unbelieving to go unpunished, what a lowering of His moral government, and what. an indelible dishonour to Himself woidd present itself to the eyes of all the holy beings in heaven. Sin can never go unpunished, God’s holiness, and justice, and truth must be vindicated, either in the person of the sinner or in the person of a substituta A few declarations from God’s Word will be sufl&cient to set this momentous question at rest That of our text is decisive: — “He shall punish thee” “Who will by no means clear the guUty,” “The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming flre, taking vengeance on them thai kfnow not God, and that obey not the Gospel of owr Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power’* “” The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the utir just unto the day of judgment to be punished.” ‘’How can ye escape the damnation of heUV^ ‘’Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ““How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? “^ What need we further evidence of the awful truth that, God will most surely punish the wicked? The Bible is replete with awful examples confirmatory of the fact The destruction of the antediluvian world by water, of the Cities of the Plain by fire, of Jerusalem by the invasion of Titus, and countless other examples testify
* 2 Theas. 19. ^2 Pet. ii 9.
* Matt xxiii. 33. Heb. iL 3. to His hatred of sin and of His inexorable justice in punishing it. And, were it possible to unveil the bottomless pit, and for a moment penetrate the “mist of darkness” that enshrouds the damned, with what startling and convincing force woidd the terrible fact flash upon every sceptical mind, hitherto wont to regard hell as a myth and to make sport of its quenchless fire! Nothing, my unconverted- reader, has kept you from increasing the countless witnesses to the truth that, God will by no means clear the guilty, but His infinite, long-suflFering patience. “The long-suffering of God is salvation’* It has been thus far your salvation from immediate destruction, into which at any moment of its suspension, and at any hour of your being, you may inevitably and irremediably be plunged. Thete is no want of power on the part of God to do this. More easily than you can crush a worm, or snap a thread, can God cast you into helL He but “lookeih upon the earth and it trembleth,” and, “at His rehiJce the rocks are thrown down!” It is no security against this awful infliction of God’s power that there are no visible means of death at hand, no apparent prospect of immediate destruction. They are at hand, however unseen by you. When you go forth in the morning in an unrenewed state, your whole path throughout the day is on the very brink of an eternity of woe, and along the very mouth of the bottomless pit. The bow of death is bent, and the arrow, pointing at your heart, is upon the string, waiting but God’s word to bid it fly. There is no necessity that God should suspend a single law of nature in order to remove you from the world. He has but to unveil His power, to withdraw His restraints, and the finest hair, an atom of matter, a simple vapour, a drop of blood, could send your soul into eternity. Over the abyss of hell God holds you in His hand, as you would hold a deadly scorpion over burning coals, ready to let it falL What are you in His sight, viewed as in your sins and guilt and rebellion, but as a loathsome tiling, more repulsive and hateful to ffim than to you is the most venomous serpent that drags its slimy form across your path. Nay, more, you are under present condemnation. ^’Ht (kat believeth not is condemned already The sentence is not yet executed, the law has not yet taken effect; but like a criminal condemned to die, you only wait the solemn knell that announces the awful moment has arrived. Again I remind you that nothing but the good pleasure of God keeps you any moment out of helL No robustness of health, no watchful guards posted along the avenues of life, no adroit evasion of the pestilence, no running from danger, no preservatives against, or palliatives of, disease no remedy or skill, can prevail when God ceases His forbearance and withdraws His power. Then will He *^l(mgh at your calamity and mock when your fear Cometh’^ “J will tread them in Mine anger and trample them in My fury; and their blood shall he sprinkled upon My garments, and I will stain all My raimmtr solemn thought, that the Omnipotence of God will so crush out the blood of ungodly men, that it shall sprinkle and stain His very garments! Can any image convey to us a more appalling idea of the destruction of the wicked?” Whai if God, willing to show His wraih and to make His power known, endured with rrmchlofng-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction? “What if that longsuflTering should in a moment cease? — that moment you are in hell! All the ministers of grace on earth, and all the angels of God in heaven, could not prevent you when the pit opens its mouth to swallow you up. Presume not, then, upon the patience and longsuflfering of God. Persist not in sin and rebellion. “Because sentence
against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evU” God grant that this may not be your presumption and your end! The punishment of the wicked will be terrible in the extreme. The imagination of man cannot conceive any calamity so appalling as the final condition of a lost souL The Italian poet Dante, with his terribly vivid imagination and marvellous powers of description, has drawn an appalling picture of hell; but no picture is so appalling, and none so true, as that presented to us in the Word of God. What are some of the expressions and images employed by the sacred penmen, to delineate the place and condition of the lost? Listen to them attentively, my reader, ponder them thoughtfully, and pray over them earnestly, — it is for your life! The hell of the wicked is described as the ‘’outpouring of God’s wrath” — as “the lake of fire” — as “fire and brimstone” — as the “bottomless pit” — as ‘’the worm that dieth not, and as the fire that shall never be quenched “— as “damnation” — as “tJie perdition of ungodly men” — as “torment” — as an “impassable gulf” — as “outer darkness” — as “the gnashing of teeth” — as “destrTiciionfrom the presence of the Lord” — as the “winepress of the wrath of Almighty Qod” — as “tJie smoke of their torment ascending up for ever and ever” Surely we need not multiply these appalling expressions, so vividly and truly descriptive of the terrible condition of sinners falling into the hands of a holy, just, and angry Lord God. Will not this suflB.ce to arouse, alarm, and induce you to pause and reflect upon what may be, upon what must be, the final end of your present course of sin and rebellion against God, — of the rejection of Christ, and of the self-destruction of your own soul. Dying unconverted, dying with the weapons of hostility against God in your hands — terrible witnesses to your treason and your crime 1 — how can you escape the damnation of hell?
The punishment of the wicked, thus terrible, will yet be most righteous. No truth will flash upon the condemned mind with more overwhelming force in the last great day than this, — the perfect Hghteous ness of God in the condemnation of the ungodly. Sinners will read in the lurid light of the quenchless flames of hell, as they never read before, the strict jiLstice of their doom. In their eyes, God*s throne, though awftd, will appear guiltless; His justice, though severe, most just; and the sentence, though more terrible than thought can conceive, or language describe, based upon the principles of the divinest equity. sinner, thou neglecter of the great salvation, thou despiser and rejecter of Jesus, thou slave of Satan, thou servant of sin, thou Sabbath-breaker, thou profane, thou unclean, thou who maketh and loveth a lie, how will these sins then rise before you in all their measureless magnitude, indescribable blackness, and ineffaceable guilt! You will then remember — for no faculty of the mind will be in such awful force as memory — you will then remember the glorious Gospel that ypu heard but to turn from it; the faithful sermons but to reject them; the life-boat of salvation that floated to your aid but to reject it; the convictions you had but to stifle them; the hand of God outstretched to you but to spurn it; the loving, beseeching Saviour inviting you but to disbelieve, despise, and reject Him! Then will you see that you preferred sin to holiness, Satan to God, yourself to Christ, hell to heaven, eternal woe to eternal happiness. Will not your condemnation, then, be strictly just? In giving you what you asked, in granting you what you preferred, in assigning to you a doom you yourself intelligently, deliberately, solemnly chose, will you not be most equitably judged, and most righteously condemned t Most assuredly I Every lost soul shall acknowledge that he himself, and not God, was the author of his ruin: “I am here,” he will exclaim, “in this insufferable agony, in this interminable torment, in this quenchless fire, because I chose it. I am a moral suicide. I loved my sin, and served Satan, and followed the world; made a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell, and I now receive the due reward of my choice. The wages of sin is death: I faithfully earned my wages, and the just payment thereof is mine. ‘Thou art righteotis, Lord, in that Thou host judged thiLS^ This conducts to another and a yet more solemn thought.
Thep punishmerU of the ungodly will he eternal. That there should be those who deny this truth is no marvel Satan has left no art unemployed, and no eflfort untried, to lessen in the eyes of sinners the terribleness of their appalling doom. One of his most ingenious and successful devices is, the denial of the eternity of future punishment. If he can succeed in palming upon his victims the fiction that hell is a myth; or, if this idea is too monstrous to believe, that it is, at the least, but a place of temporary purification, washed in whose flames, and purified by whose sufferings, the soul is fitted to enter Paradise, he has done much to lessen the apprehension of its terrors, and to reconcile the sinner to the thought of his dread doom. Hence the popular notion of an ideal hell, or else of a brief purgatorial state of punishment, so welcome to the depraved nature, the sin-loving heart of man. But no sophistry of Satan, and no ingenuity of error, and no self-deception of the human heart touches the revealed doctrine that the future punishment of the wicked is endless. In vindication of this all-momentous and all-solemn subject, human reason shall be silent. Let God’s Word alone speak. His voice only shall be heard.. And even here we are compelled to place a limit. A few Scripture proofs only must sulBce. To the law and. to the testimony let us refer a doctrine, involving interests outweighing the worth of ten thousand worlds like this. Listen devoutly and believingly to the following declarations: —
“The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that hnovj not Ood, and that obey not the Gospel; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power. * “And many. of them, that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”* Depart
2 Thess. i 7 — 9. ‘Dan. xii,.2.
274 THE lONISTBT OF HOME.
from Me, ye cursed, into EVERLASXIKG fire, prepared far the devil and his angels “^ ‘*And these shall go away into EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT, Imt the righteous into life ETERNAL.**^ ‘*If thy hand offend thee cut it off: it is tetter for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into heU, irUo the fire that NEVER shall be guenched; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” * “To whom the mist of darkness is reserved FOR EVER.” “And her svnoke rose wp for ever AND EVER.” Let these awful .statements suffice to prove the scripturalness of the doctrine, of the endlessTiess, the eternity of future punishment And what imagination can conceive the terribleness of never-endiTig woe! How dreadful and indescribable the anguish of one moment’s endurance of hell fire! Imagine then, if it be possible, what interminable ages must be: millions and millions of years rolling round, and yet millions and millions more to roll, — and still no nearer the end of suflfering than when it first began! who can adequately portray the state of the soul in such a woe as this? And yet see how sinners risk eternal happiness, and court everlasting torment, and rush into quenchless flames, for the carnal, sensual, worldly enjoyment of a moment!
listen, listen to the searching, solemn question of
Matt XXV. 41. h Matt. xxv. 46.
Matt. xviii. 8.
THE PUNISHBiENT OP THE WICKED. 275
our Lord: “WhcU mil it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his aum soul!” The loss of the soul! What can compensate for such a catastrophe? What make up for such a loss? Not present wealth, — nor fame, — nor pleasure, — nor aught that earth can give when once the soul is cast away for ever! whatever else you lose, lose not your precious, priceless, immortal souL Once lost, it is lost fob ever!
X Lord, skaU we part with gQld for dross,
With solid good for show!
Outlive our bliss, and mourn our loss
In everlasting woe!
“Let us not lose the living €rod
For one short dream of joy,
With fond unbrace cling to a dod
And fling all heaven away.
“Vain world, thy weak attempts forbear, — We all thy charms defy,
And rate our precious souls too dear
For all thy wealth to buy.”
But God propounds a personal, searching, and solemn question: “What wilt thou say when He shall punish HheeV In other words, “What, sinner, will be your excuse, what your line of defence, what your plea in arrest of judgment when God shall arise to punish?” What should we think of the wisdom of a man about to stand in a court of justice to meet a charge imperilling his most precious interests, who had bestowed no
reflection whatever upon his line of defence I Or, yet more, what would be our opinion of the sanity of a criminal arraigned upon a capital charge, whose proposed proofs of innocence and pleas of defence should be of the most puerile and childish, even of a most treasonable and criminating nature? But such will ceiiiainly and inevitably be the position of every unconverted sinner cited to appear at Christ’s tribunal in. judgment What then will you say 1
You will not, as a rational being, with your mental faculties unimpaired, and your consciousness of right and wrong unclouded, be able to plead exemption from punishment on the ground of irresponsibility. Nor can you plead that you possessed no Bible — had not been favoured with a preached Gospel — had not heard of Christ — had not been warned by providence, nor admonished by conscience, nor moved by conviction, nor stirred by the Spirit. You cannot prefer the plea that you had no time to seek salvation; that your incitements to sin were irresistible, your evil passions irrepressible, your position in life surrounded by influences with which you had no power to combat. None of these pleas — even had you the temerity to present them — would avail to arrest the stern and terrible arm of Divine law and justice. What then will you say when He shall pimish you? Alas! like the intruder at the marriage feast not having on a wedding garment, to this solenan, heart-searching appeal you will be ‘* speechless’* You have now your ready excuses, your plausible arguments, your ingenious pleas wherefore you should not be religious. You can start objections, and indulge in cavils, and postpone to a more convenient season the great work of conversion, the duty of repentance and feith, but what will you do in the solemn day? What will you answer Him when God shall punish you? Will you dispute His authority, defy His power, or flee from His presence? This you cannot do. All beings now bend to Him the knee, and all nations are prostrate at His feet. Escape from Him you cannot. No rocks, or mountains, or hills move at your call, to veil you from His eye, or shield you from His wrath. Speechless and seK-eondemned, bound hand and foot, you are led away, and “cast into (mter darknesSf where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth” Inquire, in the language of Job, — “What then shall I do when God riseth up? And when He visiteth, whM shall I answefr Him?”
But need this be your terrible and inevitable doom? Listen to the touching message of God: “-4s / live, saith the Lord Ood, I have n pleasure in the death of the wicked; hit that the uriched turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why vnil ye diey”^ **Let the toicked forsake his way, and
J Ezekiel xxxiii. 11.
the unrighteous man his tJumghts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He vnll have mercy upon Him; and to our Ood, for He iJtnll abundantly pardon.” In proof of this God has provided an expedient most glorifying to Himself and suitable to us, by which the greatest sinner, repenting of his sins and believing in Christy may be saved. It is revealed in those wondrous words:” God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, hut have everlasting life!* Accept, in penitence and faith and gratitude, this marvellous message of love; abandon your excuses, ground your weapons of rebellion against God; turn from your evil ways, look to the Cross, accept the Saviour, believe and be saved! God now commands you to repent, and Christ now invites you to believe. Why, then, should you perish? Is there no balm in Gilead, and no Physician there? Is there no life-boat that will rescue you from the yawning abyss, no plank that will float you safely to the shore? Oh yes! There is a Physician — it is Jesus. There is balm — it is His precious, sin-atoning blood. There is a plank that will snatch you from death — it is the Cross of Calvary. There is a life-boat that will bear you through the surging billows in safety to the shore of Heaven — it is the Saviour who, upon the Cross, died for the
Isaiah Iv. 7. chief of sinners, and of whom it is recorded that,” He is aile to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by HimJ’ Why then will you, why should you die?
Believer in Jesus! that day of wrath, that scene of punishment will have no woe nor terror for you The day that will “rain upon the wicked sfnares, and fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest,*’ will be to you a day of salvation, of glory, and of triumph. You will be found in Christ, robed with His righteousness and washed from every stain in His blood.. Your present faint love will then be found true love; your weak faith, real faith; your trembling hope, firm as the throne. Christ has engaged in covenant to bring home all that the Father gave to Him. There will not be one stray sheep from His fold, not one missing jewel from His cabinet, not a soul lost for whom he shed His atoning blood. All will be there when He comes in majesty, glory, and power to receive and to present His Bride to His Father. Oh, what a day of glory, of bliss, of triumph will that day be to you! From myriads of voices — and your*s will swell the harmony — the anthem of salvation, the shout of joy will ascend and roll through the mansions of heaven: “Lo, this is our Ood, we have waited for Him, and He will save us: this is the Lord, we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in Him’’ The very elements which will be employed in the everlasting destruction of the wicked, will be the very elements which will unite in the everlasting salvation of the righteous. The waters which drowned the antediluvian sinners, bore Noah and his family in safety to the shora What proved a grave to the one, proved as an ark to the others. Terrible as the last day will be to the ungodly, it will be a day of consummate gloiy to the saints. In the person and face of the Judge you will recognize the form and countenance of the Saviour. The eye that will flash indignation and vengeance upon His eneinies, will beam love and kindness and welcome upon His friends. The voice, louder and more piercing than ten thousand thunders, which will say to them” depart! “— sweeter and more melodious than the united harps of angels, will say to you “come!” The Lord grant that we may find mercy of Him in that day. ‘’Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? — who among its shall dwell .in everlasting burnings t** Not one who has fled as a poor, lost sinner to the Cross, and has hid him in the wounded side of the Saviour. Covered within a cleft of this Rock, he shall be safe in the great, the terrible Day of the Lord. Reader! are you there? then, go forth and live and labour, and if need be, suffer and die for Christ! If not there, give no sleep to your eyes, or slumber to your eyelids, imtil you know that you are!
“Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thm art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the Judge, and the fudge deliver thee to the
TEE FU^’ISEUCKST OF THE WICKED. 281
ofiter and tkau he cad into prison. Verily I my unto tka, Thau shall by no means came out thence, till thou had paid the uHermoet farthing.”
H<nr win iky iMart codme
Tbe tenon id Hhat djy,
When earth and Hearen before His face
AatonJahfid, shiiiik away?
“But ere the tmmpet shakes
The mansioiiB of tibedead.
Hark! from the Goqpd’s gentle roice
What jojfol tidingi spread.
**Ye sinnen seek His grace
Whose wrath ye cannot bear;
fly to tibe shdter oi the Ooss
And find salTation thcreu”