To help your conception of what hell is

(Jonathan Edwards)

"His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor, gathering His wheat into the barn—and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire!" Matthew 3:12

"They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth!" Matthew 13:42

"Then He will say to those on the left—Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels!" Matthew 25:41

"If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell—where the fire never goes out!" Mark 9:43

"He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire!" Luke 3:17

"I am in agony in this fire!" Luke 16:24

"Those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire!" Jude 1:7

To help your conception of what hell is—imagine yourself to be cast into a fiery oven—or into the midst of a great furnace, where your pain would be as much greater than that occasioned by accidentally touching a coal of fire—as the heat is greater. Imagine also, that your body were to lie there for a quarter of an hour, full of fire, as full as a bright coal of fire, all the while full of quick sense. What horror would you feel at the entrance of such a furnace! And how long would that quarter of an hour seem to you! If it were to be measured by the hour-glass, how long would the glass seem to be running! And after you had endured it for one minute, how unbearable would it be to you—to think that you had yet to endure the other fourteen minutes!

But what would be the effect on your soul—if you knew you must lie there enduring that torment to the full—for twenty-four hours! And how much greater would be the effect—if you knew you must endure it for a whole year! And how vastly greater still—if you knew you must endure it for a thousand years! O then, how would your heart sink, if you thought, if you knew—that you must bear it forever and ever! That there would be no end—that after millions of millions of ages, your torment would be no nearer to an end, than it ever was; and that you would never, never be delivered!

But your torment in Hell will be immeasurably greater than this illustration represents! How then will the heart of a poor creature sink under it! How utterly inexpressible and inconceivable, must the sinking of the soul be in such a case!

"If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire!" Revelation 20:15


"Such, in brief, is the portion awaiting the lost—
  eternal separation from the Fount of all goodness;
  everlasting punishment;
  torment of soul and body;
  endless existence in the Lake of Fire,
  in association with the vilest of the vile;
  every ray of hope excluded;
  utterly crushed and overwhelmed by
    the wrath of a sin-avenging God!"
 (Arthur Pink, "Eternal Punishment")