when He says in Matthew 25:41 of the judgment of the wicked in the words we quoted before: “ Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into ever lasting fire, PREPARED FOR THE DEVIL AND HIS ANGELS.” Matt. 25:41 What a tremendous solemn revelation! The fires of everlasting hell were never meant for mankind. They were never meant for you, my poor sinner friend. Hell was prepared for the Devil and his angels. God never made man for hell, nor did He make hell for man. If man goes there, it will be only because he chooses to do so by refusing to receive God’s wonderful gift of love and salvation. You will never be able to blame God for sending you into the everlasting fires. There are only two destinies then, heaven and hell. There are only two masters, Christ and the Devil. And you, my friend, as well as I, can only serve one of these. It must be one or the other. Jesus said: “No man can serve two masters.” And if you serve Christ here below, it is wholly just and fitting and right that you should spend eternity in bliss in heaven with the One whom you loved and served here below. But if you choose to serve the Devil, and refuse to receive the Lord Jesus Christ, let me ask you honestly and sincerely, isn’t it right and just and proper, con sistent and wholly fitting that you should spend eternity with your master, whom you have chosen to serve, even the Devil, in the place of torment prepared for the Devil and his angels? It is your own choice, my friend. You can blame no one else. Certainly there can be no argu ment here. When this place of torment was prepared we, of course, do not know, but we do know that it was made necessary by sin, and particularly the sin of the angels, and prepared as the place of eternal punishment for the Devil, his angels, and all who choose to follow him, rather than be saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. Ah, my precious friend, as we contemplate these thoughts, why not take Jesus Christ as your Saviour? How awful to be the companion of the Devil throughout eternity in the place o f outer darkness! But it is not only darkness, but it is called “ outer darkness.” We may translate it as “ uttermost dark ness.” A place so far removed from God and probably from the universe as we see it today, that not a single ray of light will ever penetrate. To grope in stygian darkness without one ray of hope, banished from God forever, in the place of which Jesus says: “ There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Matt. 25:51 Why do I say these things? Why do I preach on hell? If a doctor knew you had a terrible disease, but also knew an absolute remedy, he would be a devil if he didn’t warn you and suggest the remedy. If I knew a bridge was out down the track, and I didn’t try to flag down the train, I would be a murderer. If I saw your house on fire, and you were asleep in the house, and I did not try to awaken you, what kind of a brute would I be? Well, my friend, what would you think of me, a preacher of the gospel called to warn men and women of the coming judgment, if I did not warn you. I f I for fear of being unpopular or of being criticized should fail to cry out to you, “ Flee from the wrath to come,” there are no words to describe my despicable condition. And so here is the remedy. Right where you are you can be saved from sin, and judgment, and the fear of hell forever. Here it is. Simply acknowledge that you are a sinner, believe God’s Word, and then accept His promise of salvation.
told that in the beginning when God created the uni verse, “ the heavens and the earth,” He already was. The Creator is un-created. And so John tells us: “ In the beginning WAS the Word, and the Word WAS with God, and the Word WAS God.” John 1:1 The verb translated “was” is a Greek verb used only of the existence of God. It denotes existence without reference to any beginning at all. In the following verse in John 1 we read this concerning the creation: “ All things were made by him; and without him WAS not anything made that WAS made.” John 1:8 In this verse again the verb “was” occurs three times, twice as “was” and once as “were,” but in this instance it is quite another word which denotes exis tence from a beginning. It literally means to “ become.” What a wonderful evidence of divine inspiration! When John uses a verb with reference to God, he uses the word “was” which means to exist without any begin ning, but immediately when he begins to speak about the creation, he changes the word and uses another which means “ to become” or to “ exist from a begin ning.” In the beginning, then, God created the heavens and the earth. The word in your Bible is heaven (sin gular) but in the Hebrew text it is plural, “heavens.” The word is shamayim, the ending im being the plural ending, just as the letter “ s” denotes plurality in our English language. The reference is, of course, to more than one heaven. The Bible distinguishes at least three heavens, the lower heaven (auronos) ; the middle heaven (mesoranios), and the upper heaven ( eporanios). The lower is the atmospheric heaven of air and of clouds and of vapor enveloping the earth. The mid-heaven is the planetary, astronomical, starry heaven, and beyond this is the third or the upper heaven, also called in Scripture, “ the heaven of heavens.” When God created the heavens and the earth, it in cluded at least the two lower of these heavens, and we believe the atmospheric heaven and the planetary heav en were created at this time, and possibly the third heaven. Remember the word is in the plural shamayim, the heavens. But strange and yet not so strange, there is no mention of hell in this original creation. The Bible does not say: “ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and hell.” No, hell is significantly omitted. Of course, God being omniscient knew that sin would come, and a hell would become necessary later on, but before sin entered, there was no hell prepared by God. Hell was a later provision. The question then arises, “When did God prepare this lake of fire?” To this we cannot give a positive, definite an ar, but it must have been after the fall of the -ngels ?rom the book of Job we learn that the angels (called morning stars) were present at the original creation of the earth. There is much evidence that the original earth, millions upon millions of years ago, was the habitation of these created angels. And then Lucifer, the archangel, and the leader of the an gelic hosts, rebelled against Almighty God with a host of lesser angelic beings, and as a result was cast both out of the earth, and out of heaven, and banished to the upper atmosphere. Some wicked angels are in the place called “ tartarus” today. (2 Peter 2:4). Now because o f the sin of these fallen angels, to gether with that of Satan, God prepared a place to which they will be consigned in everlasting damnation, to be tormented day and night forever and ever. This is plain from a statement of our blessed Lord Himself,
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MARCH, 1965
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