And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
~ Matthew 25:33
Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; for the LORD hath heard the voice of my weeping.
~ Psalm 6:8
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
~ John 8:44
Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed, which do err from thy commandments.
~ Psalm 119:21
And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
~ Matthew 25:46
A Sermon on Matthew 25:41, by Thomas Manton. The following contains an excerpt from his work.
SERMON VIII
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.—MAT. 25:41.
I come now to speak of hell. Startle not at the argument; we must curse as well as bless. See our gospel commission, Mark 16:16.
In this verse you have—(1.) The persons sentenced; (2.) The sentence itself.
First, The persons sentenced; in that title, or terrible compellation, ye cursed.
Secondly, The sentence itself; where we have—
1. Pœna damni, the punishment of loss, depart.
2. Pœna sensus, the pains, into fire.
3. The duration, everlasting.
4. The company and society, the devil and his angels. I shall prosecute the text in this order:—
1. Show you that there are everlasting torments in hell, prepared for the wicked.
2. These torments shall be full at the day of judgment.
3. Concerning the persons sentenced; it shall light upon the cursed.
4. The nature of those torments; the loss of communion with God in Christ, and the horrible pain of fire; the duration, everlasting; and the company, the devil and his angels.
First, That there is a place of everlasting torments in hell, prepared for the wicked.
This being a truth hated by flesh and blood, ought the more strongly to be made evident to us. Now there is a hell, if God, or men, or devils may be judge.
1. Let God be the judge. He hath ever told the world of a hell, in the Old Testament and the New.
(1.) In the Old Testament, but sparingly, because immortality was reserved as a glorious discovery, fit for the times of the gospel: Deut. 32:22, ‘A fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn to the lowest hell.’ God’s wrath is still represented by fire, which is an active instrument of destruction; and the seat and residence of it is in the lowest hell, in the other world. So Ps. 11:6, ‘Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, and fire, and brimstone, and an horrible tempest.’ First snares, and then fire and brimstone. Here they are held with the cords of vanity, and hereafter in chains of darkness. Here they have their comforts, crosses, snares; then hell-fire for their portion. So Isa. 30:33, ‘For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared: he hath made it deep and large, the pile thereof is fire, and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.’ Tophet is the same place which is called the valley of Hinnom and Gehenna in the New Testament; a filthy hateful place, which the Jews defiled with dead men’s bones: 2 Kings 23:10, ‘And he defiled Tophet, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech. And he brake in pieces the image, and cut down the groves, and defiled their places with the bones of men.’ Infants were burnt there, with horrible cries and screeches, and sound of drums and tabrets and other instruments, to drown the noise; and those that were condemned were burnt in that valley, as also the bones of malefactors. Now, to the piles of wood, and the piles continually burning there, doth the prophet allude. This was represented in Sodom’s burning as a type, as the drowning of the world was a figure of Christ’s coming to judgment: the burning of the sacrifice, which, in the interpretation of the law, was the sinner himself, was the figure of it.
(2.) Now come we to the New Testament. There are places without number. It is sometimes represented by fire, where we read of a furnace of fire: Mat. 13:42, ‘And shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ God’s wrath is compared in the Old Testament to a fiery oven, where the contracted flame appeareth most dreadful. Sometimes to a lake of fire: Rev. 19:20, ‘And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet, that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image; both these were cast into a lake of fire, burning with brimstone.’ At other times it is compared to a prison: 1 Peter 3:19, ‘By which also he went and preached to the spirits that are in prison.’ Or to a bottomless pit: Rev. 9:11, ‘And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit.’ There is darkness, and chains, and gaoler, and judge; the chains of invincible providence, and their own horrible despair. There is no making an escape; but of this more hereafter. So that, unless we will count God a liar, there is such a place of torment provided.
2. Ask men. The blind nations had a sense of eternity, and fancies of a heaven and hell, Elysian fields, and obscure mansions, and places of torment. There are some relics of this truth in the corrupt doctrine of the Gentiles. But we need not go so far back as tradition: look to conscience. Wicked men find in themselves an apprehension of immortality and punishment after death: Rom. 1:32, ‘Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death.’ Reason showeth that he that perfectly hateth sin will perfectly punish it; not in this life, for abominable sinners are many times prosperous: here justice is not discovered to the utmost, therefore guilty conscience presageth there is more evil to come. There is much in these presages of conscience, especially when we are more serious, however they dissemble the matter when well: Heb. 2:15, ‘And deliver them from the fear of death, who all their lifetime were subject to bondage.’ Yet, when they come to die, when they are entering upon the confines of eternity, then they cannot hide their fears any longer. Oh! the horrors and terrors of wicked men when they lie a dying! If ever men may be believed, it is then.
3. The devils are orthodox in this point for judges. There are no atheists in hell: Mat. 8:29, ‘And behold they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come to torment us before the time?’ They know there is a time when they shall be in greater torment than now they are. Therefore, if we will take God’s word or authentic record for it, or man’s word when he is not in a case to dissemble, or the devil’s word, there is a hell, or everlasting torments prepared for the wicked.
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