The Misery of the Lost # 3

The Misery of the Lost # 3

"If I had not enjoyed the offers of the gospel, if pardon and reconciliation had not been within my reach, and often urged upon me, my anguish would not be so excruciating. But this it is which wrings my heart with unspeakable anguish - that I might have escaped all this misery! Had it not been for my own sin and folly, I might before now have been in heaven. Others who heard the same sermons, and belonged to the same family, are now in eternal glory - while I am tormented in this flame! Oh that I could cease to be; but to fly from existence is impossible.

"Here I am surrounded by wretches as miserable as myself, but their company rather aggravates than mitigates my soul's anguish. I am reproached and cursed by all who were ever led by my counsel or example into the ways of iniquity. They dreadfully scowl upon me.

"And the fiends of the pit, who were my seducers, now combine to taunt me with my folly. They never had the offers of mercy. The merits of a dying Saviour were never offered to them. They seem to entertain a malignant pleasure - if pleasure it can be called - in witnessing my extreme misery. O wretched man, where can I flee? Is there no possible escape from this prison of despair? Can no one ever pass the gulf which separates this dismal abode from the regions of the blessed? None! None! 

"Oh, if there could be a suicide of the soul, how happy would I be to escape from existence, and to plunge into the gulf of annihilation, which once seemed horrible to my apprehension, but now desirable. This would be an oblivion of all my misery. But in vain do I seek to die. Death flies from me. And here I see those deluded souls who, by doing violence to their own lives, vainly dreamed that they were escaping from misery; but alas, from a burden which with faith and patience might have been borne - they have leaped into a fiery furnace! They are now convinced of the dreadful sin and folly of suicide, but they cannot repeat the act here!

"May I hope that time will lesson the horrors and anguish of my wretched soul? Will my heart, so susceptible of the emotions of bitter anguish, by degrees become less sensible to these piercing pains, and be more able to bear up under this overwhelming weight of misery? This question can only be solved by experience: let me ask someone who has been suffering for thousands of years.

"Here comes Cain the first murderer, who is known still by having upon him the stain of a brother's blood. Suppose I speak to him - "Tell me, fellow prisoner, who have long endured the pains of this infernal prison, whether by long continuance these miseries become more tolerable?" But why do I ask? the wretched fratricide is evidently writhing in keenest anguish. He is too miserable to speak, and too full of malignity to gratify anyone. His guilt stain - the blood spot - has not been burnt out by the fiercest fires of hell. No! See, he defies the Almighty. He blasphemes the God of heaven. He asks for no mitigation of his punishment now. His malignant, fiery spirit feeds on despair, and challenges his Avenger to do His worst.

"Oh, then, I see there is a progression in wickedness even in hell. This is the most appalling prospect of all - an endless progression in sin, and consequently an increase, instead of a diminution of misery, through the endless ages of eternity!"

Another dreadful point in the existence of the damned, will be THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. Great as is the misery of the lost soul when separated from the body, this is probably small when compared with the exceeding weight of misery which shall overtake it at the day of judgment. I must then endeavor to imagine what will be my feelings if I should be found on the left hand on that dreadful day.

And here in this present world, a large portion of our pleasures and pains are experienced through the body, I know no reason why it should not be so in the future world. Certainly the disembodied spirit is capable of none of these pains or pleasures. It seems reasonable to conclude, therefore, that the bodies of the damned will be so constructed as to be inlets to excruciating pains; just as the bodies of the saints will be instruments of refined, celestial pleasures. The whole person is not complete without the body, and therefore the final sentence of condemnation will not be denounced until the body - the same body - is raised from the  dead, and reunited to the soul; that having been partners in wickedness, they may be associated in enduring the deserved punishment of the deeds done in the body!

~Archibald Alexander~

(continued with # 4)