What plainer words could be spoken: "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." Mark the comparison,--everlasting punishment, life eternal. If you tamper with, lessen the one, you do so with the other; the only thing in fairness is to accept them thus strictly and expressly, meaning just what they say. _Eternity_, that is the word which is written over the portals of the blessed, over the place of the cursed.
Thus in its dread and awful solemnity have I set this subject before you. Why? Because it is the duty of a faithful servant of God to declare to his people the whole counsel of His Master, and do so unreservedly. A much abused subject is the subject of "Hell,"--from the playwright who works it up for public amusement, to the swearer who uses it in his foul mouth to add poison and fury to his oath, to the over-sensitive churchmen who treat the passages which treat of hell like a waxen nose that they can twist and turn to suit, and who would not recite in the Creed: "Christ descended into hell," since it sounds so bad. Over against these and all other perversions it behooves us to vindicate the clear and unmistakable teaching of the Bible. It is the Savior Himself who tells us to-day's parable, who spoke the words of our text, and it is for us to believe and declare what He says, to avoid all levity in the matter and all vain speculation, and to give it its proper weight and place.
But above all, this dreadful subject is held up before us that we may know how to escape the terrors portrayed. How? "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me, that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness and blessedness." That is the purpose of the Gospel. God wants none to perish, not one soul has He destined to eternal perdition; He would have all men to be saved. He has made every provision to save man from everlasting doom. The terrors of yonder place magnify the riches of that grace which in Jesus Christ delivers from it. Let us adore the wisdom, the unspeakable mercy that would spare us from such a doom. Let us turn to the Cross, employ the time of grace in faith and in wholesome service and life,--