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and anarchic, those that will not submit to His sway, should be sent? I may shock you, but oh friend, I believe it is true, that the hell I am describing, which Jesus has portrayed, is the expression of God’s love. It is the best that an infinitely loving and powerful and mer ciful God can do for a man that will not accept Jesus Christ. And if men go to perdition they will go with God weeping over them, God having made provision for their salvation and they refused to accept it, and all that infinite love can do is to let them go. “These'shall go away Into everlasting punishment.” Nobody drives them. They go. In the flashlight of eternity they will recognize that it is right for them to go, and they will. I have had two experiences that well-nigh broke my heart. I went to see a young fellow in States Prison, Bos ton, Massachusetts. That was the third term he had served. I went at the request of his mother. She said this before I went: “The only place for him is the States Prison. God knows,” and she broke down as she said it, and sobbed like a child, “God knows I would die for him. I’d give everything I’ve got if I could save him from his criminal tendencies. But the place for him is States Prison, the place for him is not in my home, the best place for him, and I say it because I love him, is the States Prison; it is better than any other spot, it is the only place where he will he kept from injuring other people, hurting other folk.” Just a case of depravity, that we can hardly understand. That mother’s heart said, All I can. do is to have him put in States Prison. And the Father-heart of God has to say, All I can do for a man that hardens himself against my love, my pleading, is to let him go. If I put him in heaven against his will it will be no heaven to him. If I break his will I destroy his obedience. All that infinite love and mercy can do is just to let him go, go away to the bottomless pit. I thought that poor fellow in States Prison, was in the bottomless pit. It looked as if he had got as bad as he could be. I heard that each time he had been let out he had done something worse and had to be put baek again and serve a longer term. Getting lower and lower, an infinite capacity for sinking. And it is true of nations as well as .of individuals who harden themselves against Jesus Christ and His revelation of truth. They' sink lower and lower, into the bottomless pit. I love to think of the other side, that when we have accepted Christ as our Saviour, we begin to climb the topless height. It will be up and up and up for ever. And the man who will not accept Jesus Christ as Saviour cannot climb the topless height. His gravitation is always down and down. There is a poem that Joseph Greig wrote, one of the great Christian philosophers of the world. It is so ex pressive I am going to close with a review of it: “Choose I must, arid soon must choose, Holiness, or heaven lose.” It is a matter of choice. You are to make the choice. I place before you the way of life and the way of death, which will you have? If you choose the way of death you cannot blame God for any result that will come. It is right that if you choose it you should go in it. “While what heaven loves I hate, ■ : Shut for me is heaven’s gate.” And what does heaven love? Heaven loves purity. Do you love impurity? Heaven loves Christ. Do you love Christ? They sing His praises up there. Heaven loves God. Do you love God? Heaven loves cleanness. Do you love cleanness? Heaven loves truth. Do you love truth? (Continued on Page 116)
John 3:16 should have a hell like that. In His universe. Let us look at It squarely and not flinch, for a moment. Is it right that the bad should be separated from the good? Is it right that you should have a place out of ■which you keep vileness and wickedness and things that destroy your children. Is it right that a state should have a prison into which wicked men and women who refuse to obey the law, to which the murderer shall be sent and the thief shall be sent and the slanderer shall be sent. Are prisons a sign of weakness on the part of rulers? Shall we turn loose into the community men who have a mania for mur der, men who refuse to work and have a tendency to steal, men who revile their neighbours, who slander their friends? Shall there be nothing done to remove them from the midst of those whose happiness is marred by their presence? Gould government exist, whether it be monarchial or re public. Could civilization exist if we refuse to accept the principle that Government has a right to separate the crim inal from the innocent, the bad from the good? Is it right to separate the diseased from the hedlthy, especially if the disease is contagious? Is it right to have a quaran tine? Is it right to build a hospital for small-pox, the yel low fever and the bubonic plague? Is it right to separate those that have diseases that would destroy others, and keep them apart? And the diseases of soul are much more contagious than small-pox and yellow fever, and immensely more dangerous. To go a step further, is it right to sep arate the dead from the living. Can you defend that be haviour on ethical grounds? Can you defend it on moral principle? Is it right to leave the decaying corpses in our homes for the destruction of the living? Although it breaks our heart to do it, shall we place the dead in the grave, apart from the living? Is it right for a city to sep arate the things that pollute, because they putrefy, from the things that are healthy and that support life? You know there are four words translated “hell” in the Old Testament. The word “Sheol” in the Old Testament is equal to the New Testament word “Hades.” That re fers to the unseen world both good and bad, the Paradise and the other side of the gulf. You cannot tell from the word “Hades” which is meant. It simply means the world of the unseen. Once in the New Testament the Greek word “Tartarus” is used ip a remarkable connection which we cannot now stop to expound. The word “Tartarus” meant “the under world of darkness.” The Holy Spirit seems to have taken that word as if to say “however much you talk there is an under world of darkness into which go spiritual and moral death and diseases. That world exists. And though we do not like to think of it, we had better think of it. Oh it is well to be ,an optimist and to be an optimist on the promises of God. It is bad to be a pessimist, looking at the dark side of things all the time. But it is best of all to be a Truthist, to look at things as they are. To look at God as He is. To look at sin as it is. To look at Christ as He is, the Saviour from sin. If we can see things as they are we are always the better for it. Is it right to punish sin? There is no difference of opinion. There is no tribe or nation on this earth that do not recognize that. There is a difference of opinion as to what sin is. Savage tribes do not regard as sinful what civilized people may, but what they regard as sinful they say ought to be punished. And it is written in our texture that what is wrong ought to be punished. And whether you 'will or not you must feel and know that whatever is wrong ought to be punished. Now, is it right that a God of love should have a place apart to which the spiritually diseased and dead and rebellious
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