“Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.” – 2 Corinthians 5:11
SCORN NOT THIS SCRIPTURE, O vain man. Do you not know that our God is a consuming fire, and it is a fearful thing to fall into his hands? Do you not know that, if you are yet to believe on his Son for salvation, his wrath abideth on you? Do you not know that, should you perish without obeying the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, you shall be punished with flaming fire and everlasting destruction? Do you not know that you who reject the free gift of eternal life will be thus addressed when ye stand before your Maker: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire?” You will be devoured by the Almighty’s fiery indignation, should you die in your sins. Is this the fate you desire? Is this the eternity you seek?
I should hope you do not yearn to suffer the vengeance of eternal fire. The terror of the Lord is no scheme to connive men into exchanging the embraces of one religion for another, for no religion can deliver you from the horror thus described. Many foolish men will mock mention of hell and judgement as tawdry myth; others will deride the gospel as a scare tactic intended to frighten sinners into believing on Christ. Aye, and only a fool would reject the water of life because he was frightened by reality into accepting it. No unbeliever among the torments of hell would affirm the hypocritical falsehood that scaring men into trusting Christ is dishonorable. If you were to warn your neighbor that his house were aflame, and if he entered he should surely burn, ought you to be accused of using “scare tactics” to dissuade him from folly? Yet such a base charge is frequently made against the act of warning every man what awaits him unless he is born again, though those who speak so would doubtless complain, if hell was never mentioned them, that they were never warned about it!
Hear well, dear reader. This place of torment, this abyss of anguish and implacable despair, is no fiction concocted by those seeking to control mankind, though it is probable some friendly to that sentiment have leveraged this truth as part of their plans. It is an awful reality which all who have perished without believing on Christ can testify to the agonies therein. Aye, and who better than they could relate that “the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night…” (Revelation 14:11). Who better than they could relate the horrors of forever abiding in the unquenchable flames of damnation, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched? There is no joy among the desolation which Milton described as “sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest never dwell, hope never comes That comes to all, but torture without end Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed…”
I give you the rich man of Luke 16, who died without believing the gospel, and “in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments” (Luke 16:23). He did not merely cease to exist, as detestable, pseudo-Christian, Masonic cults as Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses absurdly claim. He did not enjoy a sumptuous banquet of merriment and conviviality, as asserted by the unbelieving imbeciles who long to indulge in hellfire. What saith he to Abraham? “Have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame” (Luke 16:24). But not even a solitary drop of water could be provided to slake, albeit ephemerally, the raging thirst which was but one of the many miseries the erstwhile rich man endured, and has endured in the two millennia since this tale was related, and will endure for the two millennia to follow, and millions upon millions of years after that, through all ages. For between paradise and torment there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass hence from one side to another cannot (Luke 16:26).
Such is the nature of everlasting, dear reader. It may be difficult for the finite, feeble human mind to comprehend so profound yet horrid a concept as this, but it remains true whether mortal men can understand it, or not. There is no end to the suffering of the Lake of Fire – not after a thousand years, not after a million years, not after a billion years, not after a trillion years, not after a thousand years multiplied by a million years multiplied by a billion years multiplied by a trillion years, multiplied by that product and then squared perpetually. Such is anguish interminable, a degree of suffering beyond the faculties of speech, inflicted upon the unbelieving forever and ever.
But this need not be your plight. If you will but acknowledge you are a sinner who has violated God’s holy law, and deserves this wretched punishment thus described; and if you will believe as your only hope for heaven that Jesus Christ, the only begotten, sinless Son of God, died on Calvary’s cross to pay for your sins with his blood; was buried; and was bodily resurrected three days later unto your justification, you will not have to endure an eternity of torment, but contrariwise will dwell with your Redeemer in paradise. Your sins will forever be washed away by Christ’s blood, and your name will be written in heaven, whereby you will be ransomed from the wrath to come and spared the punishment which your sins have merited.
CONCLUSION
I do not hesitate to admit I attempt to persuade you to believe on Christ, dear reader. I do not warn you of everlasting fire to frighten you into lifestyle changes and personal reformation in accordance with how I think you should live, for no amount of behavioral alterations can ever make a man righteous before God. I earnestly beseech you, out of sincere concern for your soul, to receive Christ as Savior at once. For he is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh unto the Father, but by him (John 14:6). He is the door, by which if any man enter in, he shall be saved (John 10:9). He is the bread of life, and he that cometh to him shall never hunger; he that believeth on him shall never thirst (John 6:35). To they who labor and are heavy laden, he offers an easy yoke and a light burden, and rest unto their souls (Matthew 11:28-30). Come now to Christ, for “him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). Do not delay, for you know not what tomorrow may bring forth; now is the day of salvation. I pray that you believe on him at once, and leave you to ponder these dread words describing those who perish without Christ: “The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb” (Revelation 14:10).