The Misery of the Lost # 4

The Misery of the Lost # 4

The state of the lost soul before the judgment, may be compared to that of a criminal confined in prison waiting for his trial. Let me then imagine myself to have died unreconciled and impenitent. At an unexpected time the sound of the last trumpet will be heard; and as it is the last trumpet, so it will be the loudest. The departed spirits confined in prison shall hear it, and their bodies, long crumbled to dust, shall hear it; and I shall certainly hear that awful, deeply penetrating sound, and I shall come forth - coerced by an irresistible power! I shall again be clothed with a body; but O, what sort of body!

Among millions of millions I am forced to appear. O what solemn majesty in the Judge, now coming with all His holy angels - now seated on His great white throne. Solemn moment! The books are opened. There all my crimes of thought, word, and deed, are recorded - sins of omission as well as commission. O for a hiding place under the rocks or caves! But no! I must appear - I must hear my sentence of condemnation and banishment. The misery of an age seems condensed into this moment. The tremendous sentence comes forth, "Depart, you cursed one, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Imagination fails - I can write no more! Experience must teach the rest.

The misery of those who are eternally lost, cannot be adequately conceived, must less expressed. It cannot be exaggerated by any description; and this will be manifest if we consider what they know they have lost.

All the good things which they enjoyed in this life they must leave behind. All their riches, honors, and sensual pleasures are left at death; and for these there will be no substitute in eternity. The wicked cravings of the immortal soul will continue, but there will no longer be any objects to gratify them; for lack of which, like some venomous creatures when wounded, they will turn and prey upon themselves.

A soul with its active powers and passions, must be miserable if depraved of all objects suited to its gratification. We know scarcely any misery on earth more intolerable than a human being perishing for lack of bread or water. Hunger and thirst, if not seasonably gratified, are the sources of most excruciating pain. And the soul can never lose its desire of happiness. How miserable then, must it be when this insatiable desire meets with nothing to gratify it. 

Evil passions are in their very nature attended with misery; for as benevolent affections are pleasant - so malevolent feelings are accompanied with misery.  Let any person who is totally depraved be abandoned to himself - and he must be miserable! His own passions will become his everlasting tormentors. He will carry a hell in his own bosom!

But of all the feelings of misery, none is so intolerable as REMORSE. The conscience. The consciousness of having done wrong, of having sinned against God, and of being the cause of his own destruction - is a kind of hell as dreadful as any of which we can conceive. The lost soul will forever have the conviction clearly impressed - that it is its own destroyer - and that heaven with all its joys has been lost by its own sinful folly and neglect!

And the bitterest ingredient of all in the cup of misery is despair -black endless despair!  Men may here "dream" of a deliverance from hell after a long time of suffering, but the delusion will vanish as soon as they enter eternity. They will then find that the word of God, which denounced eternal destruction on impenitent sinners, was not a vain threat; that God will not spare the guilty, but will punish them with everlasting destruction - just as He said He would.

O my soul, consider now how you will be able to endure such misery as must be experienced by all the lost, but especially by those who enjoyed the light of the gospel. Can you fortify yourself against all this misery? Will you be able to endure it with patience? Only imagine your condition millions of ages hence. Still writhing in anguish - still belching out horrid blasphemies - still covered with the blackness of darkness - still without a ray of hope! Not a moment's ease during this long period. O my soul, will you not make one vigorous effort to escape so great misery? Will you not strive to flee from the wrath to come? Life, eternal life, is still within your reach! Lay hold on the prize! Press on to the kingdom. Take refuge in the Cross, and you will be safe!

"Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God" (Romans 5:9).

"For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ!" (1 Thessalonians 5;9).

~Archibald Alexander~

(The End)