Spurgeon on Hell and Judgement

Twin Hells!

From Spurgeon's sermon, "Resurrection From the Dead"

"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the
soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul
and body in hell." -Matthew 10:28.

Hell will be the place for bodies as well as for souls.

There is a real fire in hell, as truly as you have now a real body-
a fire exactly like that which we have on earth in everything
except this- that it will not consume, though it will torture you.

You have seen the asbestos lying in the fire red hot,
but when you take it out it is unconsumed.

So your body will be prepared by God in such a way that it
will burn forever without being consumed.

It will lie, not as you consider, in a 'metaphorical' fire,
but in actual flame.

Did our Savior mean fictions when he said he
would cast body and soul into hell?

What should there be a pit for if there were no bodies?
Why fire, why chains, if there were to be no bodies?
Can fire touch the soul?
Can pits shut in spirits?
Can chains fetter souls?
No! Pits and fire and chains are for bodies,
and bodies shall be there.

Unconverted man, you will sleep in the dust a little while.
When you die your soul will be tormented alone-
there will be a hell for it.

But at the day of judgment your body will join your soul,
and then you will have twin hells--
body and soul shall be together,
each brimfull of pain,
your soul sweating in its inmost pore drops of blood,
and your body from head to foot suffused with agony;
conscience, judgment, memory, all tortured,
but more- your head tormented with racking pains,
your eyes starting from their sockets with
sights of blood and woe;
your ears tormented with shrieks;
your heart beating high with fever;
your pulse rattling at an enormous rate in agony;
your limbs crackling like the martyrs in the fire,
and yet not burned up;
yourself, put in a vessel of hot oil, pained,
yet coming out undestroyed;
all your veins becoming a road for the hot feet of pain to travel
on; every nerve a string on which the devil shall ever play his
diabolical tune of Hell's Unutterable Lament; your soul for ever
and ever aching, and your body palpitating in unison with your
soul.

Fictions, sir?

Again, I say, they are no fictions,
and as God lives, but solid, stern truth.

If God is true, and this Bible is true,
what I have said is the truth,
and you will find it one day to be so.

Self-examination

Spurgeon, "THE SAINT AND HIS SAVIOR"

Self-examination is clearly the most important
and most neglected of all religious exercises.

If we are in Christ, all that heaven knows of unimaginable
bliss, of inconceivable glory, of unutterable ecstasy, shall
be ours most richly to enjoy.

But if death shall find us without Christ, horrors surpassing
thought, terrors beyond the dreams of despair, and tortures
above the guess of misery, must be our doleful, desperate doom.
Do not believe yourself to be truly converted unless you abhor
sin in all its stages, from the embryo to the ripe fruit, and
in all its shades, from the commonly allowed lust down to the
open and detested crime.

Christ does not allow even the most insignificant spider of lust
to spin its cobweb on the walls of his temple.

All heinous sins and private sins, youthful sins and manhood's
sins, sins of omission and of commission, of word and of deed,
of thought and of imagination, sins against God or against man-
all will combine like a nest of serpents in the desert to frighten
the newborn child of heaven; and he will desire to see the head
of every one of them broken beneath the heel of the destroyer of
evil, Jesus, the seed of the woman.

Do not believe yourself to be truly awakened unless you abhor
sin in all its stages, from the embryo to the ripe fruit, and
in all its shades, from the commonly allowed lust down to the
open and detested crime.

What a difference!

Spurgeon, COMING JUDGMENT OF THE SECRETS OF MEN

What a difference there will be then between the babe of
Bethlehem's manger, hunted by Herod, carried down by night
into Egypt for shelter, and the King of kings and Lord of lords,
before whom every knee must bow!

What a difference between the weary man and full of woes,
and he that shall then be girt with glory, sitting on a
throne encircled with a rainbow!

From the derision of men, to the throne of universal judgment-
what an ascent!

What a contrast between the "despised and rejected of men,"
and the universally-acknowledged Lord, before whom Caesar
and pontiffs shall bow into the dust.
He who was judged at Pilate's bar, shall summon all to his bar.

What a change from the shame and spitting, from the nails and
the wounds, the mockery and the thirst, and the dying anguish- to
the glory in which he shall come whose eyes are as a flame of fire,
and out of whose mouth there goes a two-edged sword!

He whom the nations abhorred, shall judge the nations.
He shall break them in pieces like a potter's vessel, even
those who cast him out as unworthy to live among them.

Oh, how we ought to bow before him now, as he reveals himself
in his tender sympathy, and in his generous humiliation!

Let us kiss the Son lest he be angry; let us yield to his grace,
that we may not be crushed by his wrath.

You sinners, bow before those pierced feet, or else they
will tread you like clusters in the wine-press.

Look up to him with weeping, and confess your forgetfulness of him,
and put your trust in him; lest he look down on you in indignation.

Oh, remember that he will one day say-
"But those mine enemies, which would not have me reign
over them, bring them here, and slay them before me."

To be trampled beneath the foot which was nailed to
the cross will be to be crushed indeed.

Forever!

From Spurgeon's sermon, HEAVEN AND HELL

In hell, there is no hope.

They have not even the hope of dying,
or the hope of being annihilated.

They are forever -forever -forever lost!

On every chain in hell, there is written, "forever."

In the fires, there blaze out the words, "forever."

Up above their heads, they read, "forever."

Their eyes are galled, and their hearts are pained
with the thought that it is forever.

Oh! if I could tell you tonight that hell would one day be burned
out, and that those who were lost might be saved, there would
be a jubilee in hell at the very thought of it. But it cannot be-
it is "forever" they are "cast into outer darkness."

That day!

Spurgeon, "A Blow at Self-Righteousness"

I think I see that day of fire, that day of wrath.

You are gathered as a great multitude before the eternal throne.

Those who are robed in Christ's fine linen, which is the
righteousness of the saints, are caught up to his right hand.

And now the trumpet sounds; if there be any that have kept the
law of God, if there be faultless ones, if there be any that have
never sinned, let them stand forth and claim the promised reward;
but, if not, let the pit engulf the sinner, let the fiery
thunder-bolt be launched upon the impenitent offenders.

Now, stand forth, sir, and clear yourself!
Come forth, my friend, and claim your reward.

What! what! does your tongue lie dumb in your mouth?
Come forward, come forward- you who said you had been a
good citizen, had fed the hungry, and clothed the naked-
come forward now, and claim the reward.

What! what! is your face turned to whiteness?
Is there an ashy paleness on your cheek?
Come forward, you multitudes of those who rejected Christ,
and despised his blood.

Come now, and say,
"All the commandments have I kept from my youth up."

What! are you seized with horror? Has the better light of
judgment driven out the darkness of your self-righteousness?

Oh! I see you, I see you, you are not boasting now; but you,
the best of you, are crying, "You rocks, hide me; you mountains,
open your stony bowels; and let me hide myself from the face of
him that sits upon the throne!"

Why, why such a coward?
Come, face it out before your Maker.

Come up, infidel, now, tell God there is no God.
Come, while hell is flaming in your nostrils; come, and say
there is no hell; or tell the Almighty that you never
could bear to hear a hell-fire sermon preached.

Let me not mock you in your misery; but let me picture
to you how devils shall mock you--
"Aha!" say they "where is your courage now?
Are your ribs of iron and your bones of brass?
Will you dare the Almighty now, and dash yourselves upon the
bosses of his buckler, or run upon his glittering spear?"

See them, see them as they sink!
The gulf has swallowed them up; the earth has closed again,
and they are gone; a solemn silence falls upon the ear.

But hark below, if you could descend with them, you would hear
their doleful groans, and hollow moans, as they now feel that
God omnipotent was right and just, and wise, and tender, when
he bade them to forsake their righteousness, and flee to Christ,
and lay hold on him that can save to the uttermost
them that come unto God by him.

The most awful sight!

From Spurgeon's sermon, "Pricked in Their Heart"

The most awful sight for the impenitent in the day of judgment
will be the face of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I do not find that they cry, "Hide us from the tempest,"
nor "Hide us from the angel-guards,"
nor "Hide us from their swords of fire,"
but, "Hide us from the face of him that sits on the throne,
and from the wrath of the Lamb."

Love, when once it turns to wrath, is terrible beyond
comparison.

As oil when set on fire blazes with great force,
so the meek and loving Jesus, when finally rejected,
will exhibit a wrath more terrible than death!

Where the lost soul must go

From Spurgeon's sermon, "Profit and Loss"

"What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole word,
and lose his own soul?" Mark 8:36.

Consider WHERE the lost soul must go to--

There is a place of murky darkness, where only lurid flames
make darkness visible; a place where beds of flame are the
fearful couches upon which spirits groan; a place where God
Almighty from his mouth pours a stream of brimstone, kindling
that "pile of fire and of much wood," which God has prepared of
old as a Tophet for the lost and ruined.

There is a spot, whose only sights are scenes are fearful woe.

There is a place- I do not know where it is; perhaps somewhere
in a far-off world there is a place where the only music is the
mournful symphony of damned spirits; where howling, groaning,
moaning, wailing and gnashing of teeth, make up the horrid
concert.

There is a place where demons fly, swift as air,
with whips of knotted burning wire, torturing poor souls;
where tongues, on fire with agony, burn the roofs of mouths
that shriek for drops of water- that water denied to all.

There is a place where soul and body endure as much
of infinite wrath as the finite can bear;
where the inflictions of justice crush the soul,
where the continual flagellations of vengeance beat the flesh;
where the perpetual pourings out of the vials of eternal wrath
scald the spirit, and where the cuttings of the sword strike deep
into the inner man.

AH! sirs, I cannot picture this!
Vain are my words; light are the things I utter.
They are but the daubings of a painter who cannot portray
a scene so dreadful, for earth has not colors black enough
or fiery enough to depict it.

Ah! sinners, if you knew what hell meant,
then might you tell what it is to lose your own souls.

"For God did not appoint US to suffer wrath
but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ."
1 Thes. 5:9