H e ll~A Reasonable Belief Quotation From a Sermon by) the Pastor o f Calvary Baptist Church, New York City DR. JOHN R. STRATTON
MOMENT’S clear thinking will convince any reasonable mind that it is a rational and neces sary truth which Jesus Christ proclaimed in His teaching about hell. You believe that
soul to be finally alienated from God and turned into Hell is the supreme tragedy of the whole universe! Call me an extremist, if you please, laugh at me as “ out of date,” sneer at me as a “ fanatic,” because I dare sound the warning, but I stand here tonight as a messenger of Jesus Christ and I do warn you, as he did, that justice will be finally vindicated, and that “ except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish.” Justice must be done, or this universe will come to its end in moral chaos. And justice will be done, to the last resource of infinite power! Will you believe Christ or will you be lieve the Devil? That at last is the real issue in this entire matter. Even a man as cultured and gentle as Ruskin declared that the denial of hell is “ the most dangerous, because the most at tractive, form of modern infidelity.” But alas, my friends, is it so very modern? No! It is the devil’s same old lie. He came to Eve and insinuated a doubt about God’s truth. He asked her, “ Yea, hath God said?” And then he followed this adroit question, which carried with it a doubt of the truthfulness of God’s word, by his own lie, his insistent denial, “ Ye shall not surely die.” This is what led to the fall of man. And it is the Devil’s lies that have deluded and mis led the children of men down all the ages, and produced all the sin and sor row and suffering and despair in the whole long, dark, tragic history of the human race. Oh, let us believe God’s truth rather than the Devil’s lie! Let us accept divine revelation rather than human speculation Let us heed what Christ so plainly taught, and we shall be forever saved! Every consideration of
crime ought to be punished and that there ought to be jails and penitentiaries in this world. Will you be so foolish, then, as to think that God Almighty ought to be less firm, less wise and less just than earthly rulers? You would tremble for your safety if you had vio lated some law here in New York. You would dodge a policeman as though he had the smallpox, and the sight of a jail house would almost throw you into fits! And yet you will go on day after day violating God’s laws, as though you believe that you could easily “ get away with it.” How do you figure that out? Do you think that God is a fool and that you can “ put it over on Him” ? or do you think that He really doesn’t care? or do you believe He is so weak that He can not vindicate His laws? One of these three things must be true of your thinking. Ei.ther God is a fool, or He is immoral, or He is weak, if he has pro vided no Hell for violators of righteous law! But he is. neither of these things. Hear me tonight, you are the “ fool,” as Jesus said, and not God! “ Be not de ceived; God is not mocked.” And he has both the means and the power to attend to your case! He must and will provide some place where the ungodly go. Violators of His holy laws must pay the penalty for their folly and sin. Certainly Jesus Christ is trying to say to us in all of this teaching, that Hell is an awful reality, whatever its exact condition may be, and that for a human
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