Imagine yourself to be cast into a fiery oven! (The following is from Jonathan Edwards)
"Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong in the days that I shall deal with you? I the Lord save spoken it, and will do it." Ezekiel 22:14
Imagine yourself to be cast into a fiery oven, or into a great furnace, where your pain would be as much greater than that occasioned by accidentally touching a coal of fire, as the heat is greater. Imagine also that your body were to lie there for a quarter of an hour, all the while full of quick sense. What horror would you feel at the entrance of such a furnace!
And how long would that quarter of an hour seem to you! And after you had endured it for one minute, how overbearing would it be to you to think that you had it to endure the other fourteen minutes!
But what would be the effect on your soul, if you knew you must lie there enduring that torment to the full for twenty four hours!
And how much greater would be the effect, if you knew you must endure it for a whole year!
And how vastly greater still, if you knew you must endure it for a thousand years!
O then, how would your heart sink, if you thought, if you knew, that you must bear it forever and ever! That there would be no end!
That after millions of millions of ages, your torment would be no nearer to an end, than ever it was; and that you never, never would be delivered!
If you are not a true Christian, your torment in hell will be immensely greater than this illustration represents!
How then will the heart of a poor creature sink under it! How utterly inexpressible and inconceivable must the sinking of the soul be in such a case!
Whoever you are, whether young or old, little or great, if you are in a Christless, unconverted state, this is the wrath to which you are condemned. This is the wrath that abides on you. This is the hell over which you hang, and into which you are ready to drop every day and every night.
You may effectually escape these dreadful and awful torments. Be entreated to flee and embrace him who came into the world for the very end of saving sinners from these torments, and who has paid the whole debt due.
You are exposed to eternal punishment, but there is a Savior provided, who is able and who freely offers to save you from that punishment.
Justice is fully satisfied in Christ. All who believe are accepted and justified in him. Therefore believe in him, come to him, commit your souls to him to be saved by him. In him you shall be safe from the eternal torments of hell.
Nor is that all: but through him you shall inherit inconceivable blessedness and glory, which will be of eternal duration with the torments of hell. For, as at the last day the wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment, so shall the righteous, or those who trust in Christ, go into eternal life.
"Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong in the days that I shall deal with you? I the Lord save spoken it, and will do it." Ezekiel 22:14
_________________ CHRISTIAN
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