THE KING’S BUSINESS
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and is of the seven, and goeth INTO PERDITION.” Here we are told ■ that the'beast goes into '‘perdition.” The word here translated “perdition” is precisely the same word that is elsewhere translated “destruction” and should be so translated here, or else in the other instances it should be translated as here, “perdition.” Now if we can find what the beast goes into, then we shall know exactly what “destruction” means, for we are told that he goeth “into destruction.” In the 19th chapter of Reve lation, the 20th verse, we are told exactly where the beast goes: "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. ■These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning voith bHmstohe." Now looking forward to the next chapter, the 10th verse, which I have already quoted, we read, "And the devil that deceived them .was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast and the false prophet, and they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” Putting these passages together we see that the beast goeth into “destruction” and the destruction to which he goes is a place in the lake which bumeth with fire and brim stone, where for a thousand years he is in conscious torment, and where after the thousand years are over he is still there and is still tormented. So then “destruc tion” is clearly defined in the New Testa ment in the same way in which death is defined, as the condition of beings in a place of conscious torment. Again in Rev.JW :10, 11, we read regard ing /those who worship the beast and his image and receive his mark in their fore heads or in their hands, "The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture' into
the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented With fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the lamb; and the smoke of their torment ascendeth for ever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and who soever receiveth the mark of i his name.” The Bible makes it clear as language can make it that the lake of fire .to which “whoever is not written in the lamb’s book of life” is consigned, is a place of con tinued, conscious torment. There is no escaping the clear teaching of the Word of God unless we throw our Bibles away and discredit the teaching of the Apostles and the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself. Next Sunday Î night we will take up the • question, Is the Punishment of the Wicked Everlasting, but we must stop at this point tonight. Shèrman said, “War is hell.” Of course, in the way in which Sherman meant it, this is true. It is far more true of war today than it was in thé worst and most inexcusable phases of our Civil War, Libby and Andersonville, for example, on the part of the South, and the march through Georgia on the part of the North. But even war today as Carried on by Germany in all its appalling frightful ness, is not hell. Hell is incomparably more awful than the war now raging in Europe, and this awful hell-of which we have been studying tonight is the ¡destiny of some of you here in this room, unless you soon repent and accept the Lord Jesus Christ. Other appalling facts ’about hell we will take up next Sunday night, but we have already seen enough to make any true Christian determine to work with all his might to save others from this awful hell. And we have seen enough to make every honest and sensible person here tonight determine to escape this awful hell at any cost.
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