91. Hell a Reality

Hell a Reality

HELL A REALITY.—One thing is certain, there is a Hell, a place of punishment for those who reject salvation. It is the Lake of Fire, the abode of the damned, that Jesus warns us against; be that Hell place or condition, the punishment corporal or mental, it will be the doom of lost souls. He who, instead of coming merely to deceive with idle tales, came to “seek and to save the lost,” most emphatically warns of punishment for the wicked in this solemn language: “Everlasting fire,”—”Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth,”—”Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” We can dispose of Hell for the unsaved only by saying that Christ did not mean what He said.

I AM IN THE FLAMES.—Mr. W., an infidel residing in the state of New York, was bitter against the cause of God. He once held up his hand and said: “Show me a hair on the palm of my hand, and I will show you a Christian.” At the age of seventy-four, he came to face death. About fifteen minutes before his departure he cried out: “I am in the flames—pull me out, pull me out!” This he kept repeating until the breath left his body.

HELL FIRE.—Whether or not the fire referred to is to be literal may be a question, but certainly God could give the mind or spirit such a degree of mental anguish and suffering as could equal, or even exceed, the pangs of mere literal misery. To be forever shut out from all that is good, and pure, and true, would, of itself be a fearful Hell. “Without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.”—Revelation 22:15. Hell will be where the inhabitants will be such. It will be the vast cesspool of all that is vile, abandoned, profane, false, cruel, reckless, God-hating, murderers, depraved, and filthy.

I CAN SEE THE DEVIL.—A man, whom we shall call Mr. B., was accustomed to mock at Christianity, but old age came on, and he passed the seventieth year. On his deathbed he said to one who called to pray and read: “I can see the Devil here on the bed with me, and he takes everything away from me as fast as you read it. It is too late, too late! Oh! see the stream coming up! See the river rising higher and higher! Soon it will be over me and I will be gone!” Soon after, he died.

I AM LOST, LOST FOREVER.—As Miss A., of Georgia, who had lived in the pleasures of sin and the fashions of the world, came to the close of her life, she called her father to her bedside and said: “Your heart is as black as Hell. If you had taught me to live for God I might have been saved.” Then she cried: “Oh! the Devil is coming to drag my soul down to Hell! I am lost, lost forever!”—then died.

SATANIC COMPANY.—Bunyan said: “In Hell thou shalt have none but a company of damned souls, with an innumerable company of devils to keep company with thee. When thou hast been in Hell so many thousand years as there are stars in the firmament, or drops in the sea or sands on the seashore, yet thou hast to lie there forever.”

I SEE A HIGH WALL.—An infidel in Michigan who had hated the cause of Christ came down to his deathbed. With a look of despair he said: “I see a great high wall rising around me, and am finding, when it is too late, that it is easier to get into Hell than it will be to get out.” In a few moments his spirit was gone.