This sermon delves into the terrifying reality of hell, emphasizing the eternal hopelessness and despair that awaits those who reject God. It paints a vivid picture of the unending torment, wrath, and contempt that sinners will face, highlighting the severity and longevity of their punishment. The sermon also explores the concept of varying degrees of punishment based on knowledge and actions, warning of the dreadful consequences for those who remain unbelieving. Ultimately, it conveys the chilling truth of eternal suffering and the irrevocable nature of God's judgment.

Hell is no slap on the wrist, it is fearsome, the horrors are real, eternity, that's the thing, eternity, it is utter, utter hopelessness, Spurgeon says that about it, in hell there is no hope, they have not even the hope of dying, 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 such jubilee in hell, at the very thought of it, they are cast out into utter darkness forever, and we look at that, that's the severity, it's the longevity, burnings, yes, it talks about fiery furnace, it talks about the hell of fire, but more, who among us can dwell with everlasting burns, yes, it says we are tormented by that fire and by that sulfur, but it goes beyond that, tormented day, is there punishment, yes, God's word says He will repay you to your face if you die in your sin, He will, He will hate you, He will deal with you according to your sin, face to face, but more, it's called eternal punishment, the punishment of eternal destruction, is there wrath, is there fury, is there vengeance, yes, He says I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of my wrath, that's a text out of Ezekiel, again in Ezekiel, therefore I will act in wrath, my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity, and though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them, this is a, in Daniel, it says everlasting contempt, do you know what contempt means? It means you are everlastingly an object of God's contempt, of God's abhorrence, of God's hatred, when God says that He will punish you to your face and He will blow upon you with the wrath of His breath, it is, it is a picture of God's perfect hatred, God will hate you, God will not pity you, you are eternally an object of defiled wretchedness, and God looks at that with total disgust, that is the picture, forever, forever, that is the ultimate horror of hell, now, you guys know Jonathan Edwards, he, I think I quake more when I read him than anything, consider what it is to suffer extreme torment forever and ever, and I want you to, consider it, let your minds go wild here, I want you to be filled with a sense of this, and to suffer it day and night, from one year to another, from one age to another, and from one thousand ages to another, so adding age to age, and thousands to thousands in pain, in wailing, and lamenting, groaning, and shrieking, and gnashing your teeth, with your souls full of dreadful grief and horror, your bodies full of wracking torture, without any possibility of getting ease, without any possibility of moving God to pity you by your crimes, without any possibility of hiding yourselves from Him, without any possibility of diverting your thoughts from your pain, consider how dreadful despair will be in such torment, to know assuredly that you never, never, never, never shall be delivered from them, to have no hope, when you shall wish that you might be turned into nothing, but you have no hope of it, when you would rejoice if you might but have any relief, after you have endured these torments, millions of ages, but shall have no hope of it, after you shall have worn out the age of the sun, the moon, and the stars, without rest, day and night, or one minute's ease, yet you shall have no hope of ever being delivered, after you have worn a thousand more ages, you shall have no hope, but that still there are the same groans, the same shrieks, the same doleful cries, incessantly to be made, not just in your hearing, but made by you, and that the smoke of your torment shall still ascend up forever and ever, the more the damned in hell think of eternity, of their torments, the more amazing will it appear to them, and alas, they will not be able to keep it out of their minds, their tortures will not divert them from the thought of eternity, but will fix their attention to it, oh how dreadful will eternity appear to them, after they shall have been thinking on it for ages together, and shall have so long an experience of their torments, the damned in hell will have two infinities perpetually to terrify them and swallow them up, one is the infinite God, whose wrath they will bear, and in whom they will uphold their perfect and irreconcilable enemy, the other is the infinite duration of their torment. There the sinner will clearly see what a God he has offended, what a savior he has neglected, what a heaven he has lost, and into what a hell he has plunged himself. All the sins which he has committed, with all their aggravations and consequences, all the sabbaths he enjoyed, the sermons which he heard, the warnings and invitations which he slighted, the opportunities which he misimproved, the serious impressions which he banished, will be set in order before him, and overwhelm him with mountains of conscious guilt, and oh, the keen, unutterable pangs of remorse, the bitter self-reproaches, the unavailing regrets, the fruitless wishes that he had pursued a different course, which will be thus excited in his breast. The word remorse is derived from a Latin word which signifies to gnaw again, or to gnaw repeatedly, and surely no term can more properly describe the sufferings which are inflicted by an accusing conscience. Well then, may such a conscience, when its now sleeping energy shall be wakened by the light of eternity, be compared to a gnawing worm. The heathen made use of a similar figure to describe it. They represented a wicked man as chained to a rock in hell, where an immortal vulture constantly preyed upon his vitals, which grew again as fast as they were devoured. Nor is this representation at all too strong. You just come with me, you just come with me. There you are standing, and you're watching one after another after another. He is calling his angels, come, bind them hand and foot. You watch that one go and be cast into the lake of fire. One after another they fall. Now you're up, sinner friend, you're up. And there you are pleading away. Oh Christ, please, have mercy. I didn't mean it. I really didn't want to serve you. The tears are freely flowing perhaps, because you see what's awaiting you. The smoke is rising up, and you know in just a moment of time you're going to be cast there. You have pled with all your soul. And the no regret. There will be no one to pity you there that day. No one to shed a tear for you. What does Jesus mean by that expression, it'll be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for Horeb and Bethsaida. What he means of course is this, that in comparison with the punishment which people will have who heard Jesus and saw him and still resisted him, in comparison with the punishment which they shall have, it will look as if Sodom and Gomorrah are in a tolerable condition. Those creatures in hell will veritably pity gospel sinners so much more dreadful will be the punishment of those who know Jesus Christ. And I say, dear friends, without straying the point of the slightest, that while Jesus Christ has been absent from us bodily speaking for the last two thousand years, and you may feel that we are in as beneficial a period now as the disciples were in the days when Jesus was with us in the flesh, I think the opposite is the case. We not only having read the story of the gospel, knowing all about Jesus' words and his teachings, but having had the influence of his spirit for two thousand years and the cumulative effects of the church's history and study of the doctrine, I propose, dear friends, if anybody in this company remains impenitent and unbelieving and perishes in hell, your judgment will be so much more terrible that not only will Sodom and Gomorrah find their condition relatively tolerant, but Bethsaida and Chorazin will actually find their condition tolerable to those of you in Jacksonville and hereabouts who remain unbelieving in spite of all the likeness which you have of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Another way by which Jesus Christ indicates these varying degrees of punishment is that startling expression in the twelfth chapter. Every idle learner shall be brought into the judgment. Let it go, we say. We're prone to overlook. We want to turn the other way. God doesn't. According to Jesus Christ, every idle learner shall be brought into the judgment. Why does he talk about an idle learner? What's the point of singling that out? The point is that this thing is so frightfully unimportant. What could be more trifling than an idle learner? If anything would escape the divine judgment, it would be an idle learner. And on the contrary, if Jesus Christ says that even an idle learner shall be brought into the judgment, what about other sins? If an idle learner is not going to escape the judgment, do you think a gossiping learner is? If an idle learner is going to escape the judgment, do you think a cruel learner is? If an idle learner won't escape God's fire at the last day, do you suppose that a hateful learner will? If an idle learner is going to be brought into judgment, what do you think of an idle deed? If an idle learner is going to be brought into judgment, what do you think of a cruel deed? If an idle learner is going to be brought into judgment, what do you think of a cruel deed? And if every idle learner is going to be brought into judgment, what do you think of a cruel deed? If an idle learner is going to be brought into judgment, what do you think of a cruel deed? If an idle learner is going to be brought into judgment, what do you think of a cruel deed? If an idle learner is going to be brought into judgment, what do you think of a cruel deed? If an idle learner is going to be brought into judgment, what do you think of a cruel deed? If an idle learner is going to be brought into judgment, what do you think of a cruel deed? If an idle learner is going to be brought into judgment, what do you think of a cruel deed? If an idle learner is going to be brought into judgment, what do you think of a cruel deed? If an idle learner is going to be brought into judgment, what do you think of a cruel deed? If an idle learner is going to be brought into judgment, what do you think of a cruel deed? If an idle learner is going to be brought into judgment, what do you think of a cruel deed? If an idle