Eternal judgment in Christian preaching emphasizes the final and unchangeable verdict God will pronounce on every soul, determining eternal destiny based on faith and deeds (Hebrews 9:27). Illustrations often use vivid images of unending punishment, separation from God, and the stark contrast between heaven and hell to underscore the solemn reality and urgency of this truth.
Unlike taxes, death’s timing is unknown; salvation through Christ is our only escape.
It's a flip saying, but true: death and taxes are the two things we can count on. But there is a difference: we know on what day the taxes fall due; we can't predict the day of death. We can put money aside to take care of taxes; but what provision can we make in anticipation of death? If we die before our taxes are paid, they'll not be forgiven. The government will take them out of our estate. If we die as unrepentant sinners, our sins will not be forgiven after death. We'll have to pay the penalty for them hereafter. But there is a difference: God has made a way of escape for us. He has already paid the penalty for our sins-yours and mine. All He asks is that you accept what He has done for you in a true spirit of repentance and faith. The Open Door
The story is told of a girl who turned her back on her widowed mother who had worked so hard to bring her up, and left home without telling her mother where she was going. Night after night the mother waited for the girl, but she did not come back. In her perplexity and sorrow the mother went to her pastor to ask his help. He suggested that she have some pictures taken of herself and bring them to him, which she did. Then he asked her what message she wanted to send her lost girl. In tears the mother said, "All I want to tell her is 'Come back.' " "Write that on each picture," said the minister, and then he proceeded to send these pictures to places of amusement in other large towns which he felt the daughter was most likely to frequent. He requested that the picture be posted on the bulletin board where it could be easily seen. One night, the daughter came to one of these places and was attracted by something familiar about the picture on the bulletin board. Little did she imagine that it could be her mother's picture. She came closer to it, and there it was-her own mother, looking much older than when she had left. Then she saw what was written on it, "Come back," and knew it was addressed to her. She could not proceed with her plans for that night. With a heart burning with remorse, she went back to her room, packed her clothes, and took the first train home. Arriving in the early hours of the morning, she was surprised to find the door of the little apartment open; in she went. There was her mother in tears, not sleeping, but sitting up, praying for her prodigal daughter. She threw her arms around her, and the first thing she asked when she could speak was, "Mother, why did you leave the door open?" "Oh, Louise, the door has never been closed since the day you left. I left it open all the time expecting your return. I didn't want you to find it shut when you came back."
Atheists ultimately face judgment and recognize God's existence after death.
Thou that sayest the Christians perish dost perish thyself, and leave the Christians behind thee. Whither go these atheists? I believe not to heaven; for they believe there is no heaven. They shall never have those joys they would not believe. They are not in hell neither: there is no atheist. Where, then? In hell they are indeed, but not as atheists. They no sooner put their heads within those gates, but atheism drops off: they believe and feel now there is a God. T. Adams.
Impenitent sinners face a fearful judgment far worse than earthly trials.
When a malefactor, on the day of assize, is brought forth from the jail, with bolts and fetters, to come before the judge; as he is going, all men pity him, and speak comfortably to him, because he is now to be arraigned at the bar of an earthly judge. Such is the estate of all impenitent sinners, yet far more miserable than the case of this man; for they are in bondage under sin and Satan, and this short life is the way they are going every hour to the bar of God's justice, there to be arraigned, and to have sentence of condemnation given against them.
— Cauclay
The path to heaven is hard to climb, but the way to hell is easy and quick to descend.
Heaven is compared to a hill, and therefore is figured by Olympus among the heathen, by Mount Sinai in God's book; hell, contrariwise, to a pit. The ascent of the one is hard, therefore; and the descent to the other easy and headlong: and so, as if we once begin to fall, the recovery is most difficult, and not one of many stays till he comes to the bottom. I will be content to pant and blow and sweat in climbing up to heaven; as, contrarily, I will be wary of setting the first step downwards towards the pit. For as there is a Jacob's ladder into heaven, so there are blind stairs that go winding down into death, whereof each makes way for another. From the object is raised an ill suggestion, suggestion draws on delight, delight consent, consent endeavor, endeavor practice, practice custom, custom excuse, excuse defence, defence obstinacy, obstinacy boasting of sin, boasting a reprobate sense. I will watch over my ways; and do thou, Lord, watch over me, that I may avoid the first degrees of sin. And if those overtake my frailty, yet keep me, that presumptuous sins prevail not over me. Beginnings are with more ease and safety declined when we are free, than proceedings when we have begun. Dp. Hall.
Ignoring sin's guilt leads to a fearful, unprepared death and eternal misery.
That man who dares go to bed with a conscience charged with the guilt of one enormous sin is much more desperate than he that dares lie unarmed with seven armed men that are his deadly foes; for a sinner is less sure of his life than the other. What a sad thing is it to sleep securely on the brink of hell; to go to bed drunk overnight, and find himself awake in hell the next morning. He that injures not himself daily to reconcile himself unto God makes a comfortless end for the most part, and is snatched hence before he hath a thought of making his peace with his Maker. Spencer.
Life's changes illustrate our spiritual rise or fall toward heaven or hell.
When one sea floweth, another ebbeth. When one star riseth, another setteth. When light is in Goshen, darkness is in Egypt. When Mordecai groweth into favor, Haman groweth out of favor. When Benjamin beginneth, Rachel endeth. Thus we are rising or setting, getting or spending, winning or losing, growing or fading, until we arrive at heaven or hell.
— Henry Smith
Unbelievers die without peace, facing terror and an accusing conscience about eternity.
I have seen Universalists and Infidels die, and, during a ministry of fifty-five years, I have not found a single instance of peace and joy in their views of eternity. No, nothing but an accusing conscience and the terrors of apprehension. I have seen men die who were men of mercurial temperament, men of pleasure and fun, men of taste and literature, lovers of the opera and the theatre rather than the house of God; and I never saw an instance in which such persons died in piece. They died as they lived. Life was a blank, and death the king of terrors; a wasted life, an undone eternity!
— Dr. Spring
The eternal toll of being lost in hell echoes forever as a fearful warning.
In a few more months, some of you will hear the great bell of eternity tolling forth that awful word, "Lost, lost!" the great sepulchres of hell will echo your doom, "Lost, lost, lost!" and through the shades of eternal misery this shall ever assail your ear, that you are lost forever. Spurgeon.
Unprepared sinners would suffer unbearable torment entering heaven's full glory.
It was the barbarous practice of a cruel king to torture his unhappy prisoners by confining them sometimes in a dark dungeon, and then, the eyelids being cut off, bringing them suddenly into the full blaze of the sun, when shining in its full power. The result was the most excruciating pain and instant blindness. The organ of vision was wholly unfitted for the change. Such result may form some illustration of what would be the torture of a sinner, could he be admitted unprepared into the dazzling splendor of that world whose glory is above the sun. Bowes.
Endless punishment is illustrated by Tityus's eternal liver torment in Tartarus.
Virgil represents Tityus the giant lying prone, and covering nine acres in the bottom of Tartarus, while a vulture preys upon his liver, which grows again as fast as it is devoured; so that his punishment is endless.
The reality of future punishment for the wicked is an undeniable, terrifying truth.
The thought of the future punishment for the wicked which the Bible reveals is enough to make an earthquake of terror in every man's soul. I do not accept the doctrine of eternal punishment because I delight in it. I would cast in doubts, if I could, till I had filled hell up to the brim; I would destroy all faith in it: but that would do me no good: I could not destroy the thing. Nor does it help me to take the word "everlasting," and put it into a rack like an inquisitor, until I make it shriek out some other meaning: I cannot alter the stern fact. Beecher.
A future without God leads to eternal, self-inflicted suffering and isolation.
Let the fairest star be selected, like a beauteous Island in the vast and shoreless sea of the azure heavens, as the future home of the criminals from the earth, and let these possess whatever they most love, and all that it is possible for God to bestow; let them be endowed with undying bodies, and with minds which shall forever retain their intellectual powers; let no Saviour ever press his claims upon them, no Holy Spirit visit them, no God reveal himself to them, no sabbath ever dawn upon them, no saint ever live among them, no prayer ever be heard within their borders; but let society exist there forever, smitten only by the leprosy of hatred to God, and with utter selfishness as its all-prevailing and eternal purpose: then, as sure as the law of righteousness exists, on which rests the throne of God and the government of the universe, a society so constituted must work out for itself a hell of solitary and bitter suffering, to which there is no limit except the capacity of a finite nature. Alas! the spirit that is without love to its God or to its neighbor is already possessed by a power which must at least create for its own self-torment a worm that will never die, and a flame that can never more be quenched.
— Dr. Macleod
Life's journey leads either to death and hell or to home, symbolizing eternal destiny.
RACES, Influence of "Harper's Weekly" pictures this thus: A carriage is returning from the races. On the back seat, Youth reclines, with Craft at his side, picking his pocket; opposite, on the front seat, sits Youth again, with the Wanton at his side. Mephistopheles mounts the box, while Death, filling the cup, is behind. A sign-board in the background points to home. It reads, go To HELL.
The dread of execution after sleep illustrates the terror of resurrection to damnation.
If a man were ordered to bed, and, after he had slept, to execution, it would make his heart ache within him; yet a thousand-fold worse than this is the condition of the impenitent. Cawdray.
Rejecting the gospel is self-condemnation, resulting in eternal punishment and regret.
Sinner, thou wilt drive the dagger into thine heart thyself. If thou despisest the gospel, thou art preparing fuel for thine own bed of flames, thou art hammering out the chain for thine own everlasting binding; and, when damned, thy mournful reflection will be this: "I have damned myself, I cast myself into this pit; for I rejected the gospel. I am the miserable suicide of my own soul." Spurgeon.
Life is like sailing under sealed orders, with our eternal destination unknown until the end.
It is not unusual for captains, in time of war, to start on a voyage under sealed orders, not to be opened till they reach a certain place. So we all sail under sealed orders, not knowing our destination till the last port is made, and heaven or hell is gained.
Wealth without heaven is meaningless and terrifying when faced with hell.
A gentleman, being shown through the magnificent grounds of a nobleman, said to the owner, "Well, my lord, all this and heaven would be noble; but this and hell would be terrible."
A man's soul condition determines his eternal destiny unless changed by God.
He who rightly understands the laws that govern the material world can predict with utmost certainty when eclipses shall take place, when old ocean shall overflow its boundaries, or when another comet shall sway the vaulted heavens. So a man's destiny. Tell us the moral principles that reign over a man's soul, and we will predict his condition a thousand years, ay, a thousand ages, hence, unless these principles are eradicated. Homilist.
The wicked face eternal torment and separation from God after death.
If ye wanted the best proof that "He will not at all acquit the wicked," ye should borrow the black wings of a miserable imagination, and fly beyond the world, through the dark realm of chaos, on, far on, where those battlements of fire are gleaming with a horrid light. If through them, with a spirit's safety, you would fly, and would behold the worm that never dies, the pit that knows no bottom, and could you there see the fire unquenchable, and listen to the shrieks and wails of men that are banished forever from God; if, sirs, if it were possible for you to hear the sullen groans, and hollow moans, and shrieks of tortured ghosts,
— then would you come back to this world, amazed and petrified with horror, and you would say, "Indeed, he will not acquit the wicked." Spurgeon.
Rejecting God's call leads to eternal anguish and destruction after death.
"Ah! Mr. Hervey," said a dying man, "the day in which I ought to have worked is over, and now I see a horrible night approaching, bringing with it the blackness of darkness for ever. Wo is me! when God called, I refused. Now I am in sore anguish, and yet this is but the beginning of sorrows. I shall be destroyed with an everlasting destruction."
A mother's love endures beyond death, anticipating peace amid eternal judgment.
The pious mother of an unworthy son, whose misconduct had brought upon her that species of decline familiarly termed a broken heart, sent for him before her death, and addressed him in this remarkable language: "My dear
Charles, how tenderly I have loved you, is but too evident from the state to which you now see me reduced; and so long as I remain in this body, I shall not cease to love you, and to pray for you, with all a mother's anxiety; but the period is approaching when I shall hear the sentence of even your eternal destruction with a majestic composure and an entire complacency, arising from a feeling identified only with perfect purity and infinite rectitude." The impression this appeal made, was never effaced; it was the means of effecting a permanent change of character.
President N challenges a restorationist on eternal punishment, affirming the Bible's teaching.
AND THE RESTORATIONIST.—President N—once preached a discourse near Schenectady, in which he set forth the intense and eternal torment of the finally impenitent. One of our modern restorationists heard the discourse, and having "an itching palm" to show his knowledge of futurity and divine dispositions, he followed the President to the house, where he took tea after the exercises of the day were closed, and introduced himself by saying to Mr. N—, "Well, sir, have been to hear you preach, and save come here to request you to prove your doctrine." "I thought I had proved it, for I took the Bible for testimony," was the reply. "Well, I do not find any thing in my Bible to prove that the sinner is eternally damned, and I do not believe any such thing?" "What do you believe?" "Why I believe that mankind will be judged according to the deeds done in the body, and those that deserve punishment will be sent to hell, and remain there until the debt is paid," &c. Says Mr. N—, "I have but a word to say to you; and first—For what did Christ die? And lastly—there is a straight road to heaven; but if you are determined to go round through hell to get there, I cannot help it." The man took his leave, but his mind was "ill at ease." There is a straight road to heaven, still rang in his ears; he went
361. QU
A child's question about the wicked uncle highlights the seriousness of eternal destiny.
A pious minister of respectable talents, now in the Methodist connexion, was previously a preacher among the Universalists. The incident which led him seriously to examine the grounds of that doctrine is striking and singular. He was amusing his little son by telling him the story of the "Children in the Wood." The boy asked, "What became of the little innocent children?" "They went to heaven," replied the father. "What became of the wicked old uncle?" "He went to heaven too." "Won't he kill them again, father?" said the boy.
Universalism offers false hope; true repentance and faith are necessary before death.
The subject of this notice was the daughter of Universalist parents, and had herself, together with others of the family, become attached to the doctrine of universal salvation. This furnished a quiet to her fears, whenever her conscience was oppressed with the guilt of living in sin and rejecting the gospel. The village where she lived was blessed with a revival of religion. While many were made subjects of the kingdom of God, by being born again, the delusive dream of Universalism led her to believe that there was no necessity of being born of the Spirit, in the present life. Suddenly, sickness visited her, and recovery was impossible; she must die. But ah! where were her hopes of heaven? The refuge under which she had taken concealment was swept away, and the wrath of God was revealed from heaven against her unrighteousness. She lost forever all hope of being reconciled to God. The offers of mercy she could not appropriate to herself. Her last hour was at hand. A minister of Christ stood by, and prayed for her departing soul. She could not ejaculate. "Lord Jesus! receive my spirit;" but with the giving up of the ghost uttered a shriek that will never cease to ring in the ears of those who heard it.
A death so full of horror, made such an impression on the minds of the parents of the wretched girl, that they abandoned a doctrine so treacherous, and by the converting grace of God, became hopeful subjects of the revival, together with one or two others of the family.
How many parents are there in our country, who by their countenancing a doctrine which they do not themselves more than half believe, occasion their children to adopt it, and thus inevitably, here or hereafter, bring distress and anguish on their souls.
Ill-gotten wealth cannot save a soul from sinking into eternal judgment.
The only sailor who perished in the Kent Indiaman was present in the hold very shortly after the commencement of the fire which destroyed the vessel, when, availing himself of the confusion, he hastened to the cabin of the second mate, forced open a desk, and took from thence four hundred sovereigns, which he rolled up in a handkerchief, and tied round his waist; but in attempting to leap into one of the boats, he fell short, and the weight of his spoils caused him immediately to sink! Unhappy sailor! of what avail were his four hundred sovereigns when he lifted up his eyes in an eternal world, and stood before the righteous Judge as a self-convicted robber?
What if he had gained the whole world, and could have put it round him? It would only have sunk him deeper and quicker into the bottomless pit. How many millions of immortal souls have gone down to this abyss, loaded with ill-gotten wealth!
