Friday, January 9, 2009

LORD, Withhold Not Correction From Me; To Deliver My Soul From Hell

To help your conception of what hell is
(Jonathan Edwards)
"His winnowing fork is in His hand,
and He will clear His threshing floor,
gathering His wheat into the barn--
and burning up the chaff with
unquenchable fire!" Matthew 3:12

"They will throw them
into the fiery furnace,
where there will be weeping
and gnashing of teeth!"
Matthew 13:42

"Then He will say
to those on the left--
Depart from Me, you who
are cursed, into the eternal
fire
prepared for the Devil
and his angels!" Matthew 25:41

"If your hand causes you
to sin, cut it off. It is better
for you to enter life maimed than
with two hands to go into hell--
where the fire never goes out!"

Mark 9:43

"He will burn up the chaff
with unquenchable fire!"
Luke 3:17

"I am in agony
in this fire!" Luke 16:24


"Those who suffer the punishment
of eternal fire!" Jude 1:7

To help your conception
of what hell is
--
imagine yourself to be cast
into a fiery oven--
or into the midst of a great
furnace, where your pain
would be as much greater
than that occasioned by
accidentally touching
a coal of fire--
as the heat is greater.

Imagine also, that your body
were to lie there for a quarter
of an hour
, full of fire,
as full as a bright coal of fire,
all the while full of quick sense.

What horror would you feel
at the entrance of such a furnace!

And how long would that
quarter of an hour seem to you!

If it were to be measured
by the hour-glass, how long
would the glass seem
to be running!

And after you had endured it
for one minute, how
unbearable would it be to you--
to think that you had yet
to endure the other
fourteen minutes!

But what would be
the effect on your soul--
if you knew you must lie there
enduring that torment to the full--
for twenty-four hours!

And how much greater
would be the effect--
if you knew you must endure it
for a whole year!

And how vastly greater still--
if you knew you must endure it
for a thousand years!

O then, how would your
heart sink, if you thought,
if you knew--
that you must bear it
forever and ever!

That there would be no end--
that after millions of millions
of ages
, your torment would
be no nearer to an end, than
it ever was; and that you would
never, never be delivered!

But your torment in Hell
will be immeasurably greater
than this illustration represents!

How then will the heart of a
poor creature sink under it!

How utterly inexpressible and
inconceivable, must the sinking
of the soul be in such a case!

"If anyone's name was not found
written in the book of life,
he was thrown into the lake
of fire!
" Revelation 20:15

"Such, in brief, is the portion
awaiting the lost
--
eternal separation from the Fount
of all goodness;
everlasting punishment;
torment of soul and body;
endless existence in the Lake
of Fire, in association
with the vilest of the vile;
every ray of hope excluded;
utterly crushed and overwhelmed by
the wrath of a sin-avenging God!"
(Arthur Pink, "Eternal Punishment")


Grace Gems

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