Last night (and into the wee hours of this morning) Dana and I attended Secret Church 2016. David Platt stressed the eternal urgency of our gospel message. He called our attention to two realities – (1) heaven is a glorious reality for everyone who believes the gospel (Philippians 3:20-21); and (2) hell is a dreadful reality for everyone who does not believe the gospel (2 Thessalonians 1:5-10; Revelation 14:11). As Kevin DeYoung reminds us, “The coming of the Kingdom is not good news for sinners. It is good news for sinners who repent.”
Thus it is in hell; they would die, but they cannot. The wicked shall be always dying but never dead; the smoke of the furnace ascends for ever and ever. Oh! who can endure thus to be ever upon the rack? This word ‘ever’ breaks the heart… The torments of hell abide for ever… If all the earth and sea were sand, and every thousandth year a bird should come, and take away one grain of this sand, it would be a long time ere that vast heap of sand were emptied; yet, if after all that time the damned may come out of hell, there were some hope; but this word ‘ever’ breaks the heart.
~ Thomas Watson, Puritan minister
There will be no end to this exquisite, horrible misery. When you look forward, you shall see along forever a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul. And you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages in wrestling with this Almighty, merciless vengeance. And then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains… How dreadful is the state of those that are daily and hourly in danger of this great wrath and infinite misery! But this is the dismal case of every soul in this congregation that has not been born again, however moral and strict, sober and religious, they may otherwise be. Oh! that you would consider it, whether you be young or old!
~ Jonathan Edwards, Colonial minister and theologian.
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, 1741.
Shooting over the Horizon 