The Time Element Involved

But some say, “What sin can a man commit during his brief years on earth to deserve eternal judgment?” Have you ever stopped to consider that a man can commit a heinous crime in a very short time for which we think he deserves to be punished for all the rest of his natural life? Not very long ago a man of over seventy years of age came out of a prison in New England. Fifty years before he had been sentenced to that penitentiary for the horrible crime of murder. Because of his youth the law did not want to condemn him to be hung, so he was sentenced to prison. Because of his desire for gain, he was stirred to anger, and in a moment murdered a man, and no doubt he had many a month and year in which to repent of that crime. Yet society felt that it was only right that he should be shut away for fifty years. You see there may be no connection between the amount of time in which a man can commit a crime and the punishment that befits it.
Down in Kentucky there lived one of those fine southern gentlemen who had been left a widower. His wife, as she slipped away, left a darling baby who became all in all to him. He watched that child grow till she was a beautiful girl, and then on to budding young womanhood. By and by she returned from college, and was the very idol of his heart, and the apple of his eye. Then there came into that home a man who won the affection of that young woman and basely deceived her, luring her into grievous sin, ruined her sweet young life, and then cast her off, a poor brokenhearted girl. That father had been what is called a Universalist, but when that poor girl came sobbing, broken-hearted, seeking her father’s house after weeks of wandering, during which she had been afraid to go home, and told him what had happened, and when he saw the wreck that had been made of the idol of his heart and life, he exclaimed, with an oath, “If God Almighty hasn’t a hell for fiends like the one who has wrecked my happiness and ruined my child, He ought to make one I” And this Book says He has one, and it declares that “whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars” shall have their part in it for all eternity.
Why is eternal punishment the result of impenitent sin? Our Lord Jesus has told us in Mark’s Gospel. What He actually said is obscured a little in our translation, but the Revised Version makes it dear. In Mark 3:28, we read, “Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.” The Revised Version brings that out much more clearly: “Whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” There you have it, the man who dies rejecting the Holy Spirit’s testimony as to the Lord Jesus Christ is guilty of an eternal sin. That is why Scripture holds out no hope for his salvation in another world. The man who refuses the testimony the Holy Ghost has given concerning the Saviour’s love, His marvelous atonement, and His wondrous grace has no other hiding place by which he may escape the wrath of a sin-hating God. And so I come back to the text with which I began, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”
People say, “Oh, Paul or John or Peter may have believed this doctrine of eternal judgment for sin, but give me the words of. Jesus — Jesus, the loving, gentle, tender, gracious, Galilean teacher — let me hear what Jesus says; His Word will be enough for me.” Listen, my dear friends, no one ever spoke as seriously and as solemnly of the eternal consequences of sin as Jesus did. It is He who said, “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire” (Matt. 18:9). It is Jesus who speaks so solemnly over and over again of that awful pit of woe, “Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48). It is Jesus who said of Judas, “It had been good for that man if he had not been born,” but if there is any possibility of Judas ever being saved, even after the lapse of countless ages of misery, I submit that it would be good for him that he had been born. But Jesus said, “Good for that man if he had not been born.” That man sold his Saviour! Suppose you do the same thing? That man companied with Jesus for three and one-half years, and yet sinned against the Holy Ghost in rejecting Christ. You have heard the gospel over and over again, and if you should reject Him too, could it not be said of you: “Good for that man if he had not been born”?
But now it is Jesus again who utters these words, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” You cannot find fault with the love of God, for it gave Christ, and thereby provided a way of salvation. God is not holding you responsible because you are a sinner; you were born a sinner. You are not responsible because you have a sinful nature; you cannot help that. God is not going to cast you away from His presence simply because that corrupt nature has manifested itself in sin, for Christ has put away sin, and any man who will may be saved from his sin through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and receive a new nature. Why are men lost? The answer is clear: “He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” You observe how this one sentence plucks up by the very roots two modern forms of error in regard to mankind.
There is Universalism. Is there any hope for a man who dies rejecting Christ in this life, being saved in the life to come? “He that believeth not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” Jesus Himself could not have put it more plainly than that. In this world God is pleading with sinners, He is offering them salvation, but if men reject His Son, it is the solemn declaration of Holy Writ, they shall not see life. There is no hope in another world for men who reject Christ in this.
But may it not be that the punishment for sin is nothing more than utter annihilation? “He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” You cannot couple annihilation with abiding wrath. The wrath of God abideth on men because they are guilty of eternal sin, and so in the last chapter of our Bible we hear the seer saying, “He that is unrighteous, let him be unrighteous still more: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still more: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still more: and he that is holy, let him be holy still more” (Rev. 22:11, R.V., margin). Character tends to permanency.
“Sow a thought, you reap an act;
Sow an act, you reap a habit;
Sow a habit, you reap a character;
Sow a character, you reap a destiny.”

God meant men to understand, and it seems to me there can be no question about it, that if men die in their sins, there is no hope that they will ever be brought into a state of harmony with Him whose grace they have spurned, or with the Saviour whose blood they have trampled under foot. And so we read, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). I know we live in a namby-pamby age when men make light of iniquity, but according to the Word of God, sin is a fearful affront to the Divine Majesty. To be uncleansed from sin means to die in sin, exist forever in sin, and be banished eternally from the presence of a holy God.
But, thank God, this is still the day of His grace. One would shrink from proclaiming a truth like this, if he were not permitted to proclaim the other truth: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life,” and so today, if you are unsaved, you may have eternal life by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. To believe on Him is to trust Him, rest your whole soul upon Him as your Saviour, and take Him as your Redeemer.
“My Redeemer, oh what beauties
In that lovely Name appear;
None but Jesus in His glories
Shall the honored title wear;
My Redeemer! oh, how sweet to call Thee mine.
“Sunk in ruin, sin and misery,
Bound by Satan’s captive chain;
Guided by his artful treach’ry,
Hurrying on to endless pain,
My Redeemer plucked me as a brand from hell.”

You can say this if you will come to Christ today.