The Weeping at the Last Day
(1770—1837)
Luke 13:28
"There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God—but you yourselves thrown out!"
In some future day when men are sunk in doltishness as in the days before the flood—when they are eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, the sign of the Son of man will appear in Heaven. The blast of the last trumpet will rouse the world from sleep, will raise the dead and summon the universe to judgment! The heavens shall pass away with a great noise; the earth shall be on fire; the sea shall burn like oil.
The Son of man, arrayed "in the glory of his Father" and surrounded with saints and angels, shall fix his throne of judgment. "Before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats." The books shall be opened, in which are recorded all the actions of men; the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed; every idle word shall be brought into judgment; every dark corner of the life shall be laid open; the shame of sinners shall be exposed to all!
The Judge shall then say to those on his right hand, "Come, you who are blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." But to those on the left hand he will say, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal."
In that day there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth when the wicked Jews, the children of the covenant, who boasted their descent from Abraham—shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God, and themselves thrust out!
These words lead us to reflect on the miseries of the wicked at the last day.
It will be the time of the final separation of near and dear friends. The line of division will sunder many a father's house. A parent will be on one side, and a child on the other; a husband on one side, and a wife on the other; brother will be parted from brother, and sister from sister. When sinners shall look away beyond the gulf and see in Heaven their former acquaintances, the companions of their youth, their neighbors, those who met them from Sabbath to Sabbath in the house of God, who used to sit on the same seat and stand by their side in prayer—when they shall look up and see the members of their family, those who were nursed at the same bosom and partook of their youthful sports—when they shall see a father, a mother, a wife, a child, forever separated from them, and admitted to that banquet from which they are eternally excluded—O then there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth!
Their sorrows will be increased by a remembrance of the opportunities and privileges they have lost. This remembrance will be awakened in the Jews when they see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God. When sinners shall look back to sabbaths which dawned upon them with heavenly light—to seasons in the house of God under awakening sermons—to days when they might have had frequent access to prayer meetings—to years in which their closets offered them a retreat for prayer and their Bible lay moldering on its shelf; when they shall look back to days in which the Spirit of God moved upon their minds—to hours when their souls were awakened to prayer by a sense of eternal realities, and when their hands seemed to take hold of the very threshold of Heaven; when they shall look back to days of divine power when Jesus of Nazareth passed by, when multitudes pressed into the kingdom of Heaven and almost bore them in on their shoulders; when they shall reflect how near they came to Heaven and yet fell short; then will they "mourn at the last when" their "flesh and their body are consumed, and say: How have I hated instruction and my heart despised reproof." "I had a soul but prized it not, and now my soul is damned."
In that day they will call upon every being that has ears to pity and relieve them, (as the rich man cried to Abraham,) but will find them all deaf to their prayers. They will entreat God to mitigate his wrath and give them a little respite, but will only receive this answer: "Because I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand and no man regarded, but you set at nothing all my counsel and would none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear comes."
They will entreat their parents, their brothers, their children, by all their former love, to send someone to "dip the tip of his finger in water and cool their tongue," and will not move compassion enough in all Heaven to grant this small relief. They will cry to rocks and mountains to cover them, but rocks and mountains will have passed away. They will pour their lamentations on the ears of Hell, but no sound will come back but groans and reproaches. Not a solitary friend will they find through the bounds of universal being. They will see an enemy in every creature they meet. No companions will they have but devils and the frightful ghosts of Hell, who will only prove their tormentors. Ten thousand times will they wish that they could spend their eternity alone; but even this blessing will be denied to them. On earth they thought that if worst come to worst they would have company enough; but now they find that the more fuel the more fire!
They will utterly despair of all good—of ever seeing another pleasant hour or pleasant thing for all eternity. They will utterly despair of one moment's respite from pain, or the least mitigation. All happiness will have flown forever. If a single day of comfort could come after ten thousand ages of misery, they would have something to look forward to; but now they have nothing but the blackness of darkness forever, growing still darker as the ages of eternity revolve! They are utterly undone, and their constant cry will be, O that I had never been born! O that I could sink into nothing and be no more!
An unspeakable aggravation of their misery will be their guilt and shame. When their eyes are opened to see the eternal love against which they have always been in arms—the infinite majesty which they have insulted and defied—the dying compassion of Jesus which they have trodden under foot—and that immeasurable good which they have sought to destroy—they will be crushed under guilt and shame beyond the reach of thought. Remorse will be the never dying worm that will gnaw their vitals. As dreadful as eternal damnation is, and as selfish and proud as they will still remain, they will feel that they deserve it all. With all the haughtiness of their pride raging without restraint, to be held up to public scorn, so polluted, so degraded, so accursed—will fill them with agonies of shame not to be described. The contempt with which they will be regarded by their former acquaintances—their former dependants—their former admirers—the infamy of your state prisons is glory compared to this.
The passions of the damned will be unbridled. Their selfishness and pride, their malice and envy, will rage without restraint. A tempest of passion will tear and rend them with the fury of whirlwinds. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. They will gnash upon God, they will gnash upon his saints, they will gnash upon their tormentors. Those who have known the agony which only one of these passions can effect, may judge of the torment produced by them all, when every restraint is taken away.
But that which will blast and wither all their powers is the wrath of an infinite God—a God from whose hands none can deliver them. In this life the anger of God is less regarded than the displeasure of men: but in that day they would rather have all creation incensed against them, than God alone. When they awake and find him their enemy whose being and power are above created thought; when they fall into his hands and are lashed and broken by almighty strength—how will they stand appalled and overwhelmed!
The cloud that darkens the earth and breaks in jarring thunders on the affrightened town; the earthquake that with tremendous roar suddenly bursts upon the astonished city—these awaken terrors not to be described. But neither the thunder that jars the world, nor the earthquake that heaves the agitated ground, nor the shriek of sinking thousands—can raise such terrors as the wrath of an incensed God! When the damned, overwhelmed with guilt, shall behold God their enemy—their infinite enemy—their eternal enemy—an enemy from whom none can deliver them—and shall see all the energies of his justice engaged to crush them as a worm beneath a falling rock—the terror that will appal them! But language fails; I leave imagination to supply the rest.
Need I advert to any bodily pains to render their sufferings complete? But God has said that they shall be cast into a lake of fire! He has said it often, and has never unsaid it. He has never hinted that the representation is figurative; and I know of no consideration drawn from Scripture or reason, against the literal construction of these numerous texts. If you say: it is too dreadful to be believed, I answer: if it is not fire it must be something as bad, or the Scriptures have practiced a great deception upon us. And if it is something as bad, why may it not as well be literal fire as anything else?
Besides, if there is any place where figures are not employed, it is on the judgment seat, in the act of passing a judicial sentence. This is certainly the case in human affairs. But he who is to be the Judge has told us exactly what the sentence will be: "Then shall he say unto them on the left hand: Depart from me, you who are cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels!" And is this judicial language from the judgment seat nothing but poetry?
To complete the misery, it will be eternal. On earth few cases are so bad as not to admit of the hope of amelioration. The deepest wretchedness looks forward, with some expectation of an end to their distress. But in Hell, no chance remains for hope to fix on. All is blank despair—all is eternal misery. Could they escape after they had suffered as many millions of ages as there are stars in Heaven, added to all the sands of the sea, and all the leaves in the forest—the sunken eye of Hell could be illumined with hope. But Hell is FOREVER! That one word withers all their expectations and rivets them to infinite despair! And if their misery is eternally to increase, so that what they now endure is nothing to what they expect, then it is infinite despair multiplied into infinite despair.
I would drop down among that despairing company a thousand ages hence, and ask them: What now do you think of the Bible? of opportunities for prayer? of the day of probation you enjoyed in yonder world? What now do you think of your former folly in putting off religion and neglecting your souls? I would be answered by one loud and universal groan!
But blessed be God, I am speaking to a different assembly—to an assembly of living men, in a world of hope. But am I not speaking to some who will be in those circumstances at last? God knows. I fear there are some such in this house.
How many of you have lived twenty, thirty, forty years without religion, and still are sunk in sinful doltishness! In this state of doltishness the greater part of those who have passed the middle of life, in all probability will die. They will go on making a thousand excuses and hoping for future conversion, until they open their eyes in eternal torment! Thus men have done in all past ages; thus they are likely still to do.
And why should this congregation be exempt? I will not conceal my anxiety. My soul is distressed with the apprehension that I shall another day see some of my hearers crying to rocks and mountains to cover them, and cursing the day that they ever heard a Gospel sermon! All the entreaties of God and man cannot bring them to pray in their families, nor even in their closets. All the blaze of light around them cannot stop them from making excuses and casting the blame of their impenitence upon God.
We may weep over them until our hearts break, and yet they will not have an anxious thought about their well-being in all future ages; and yet many of them have already passed the period of probable conversion. If they fully believed that the grave would terminate their existence, I would not wonder. But perhaps they all believe that they shall live as long as the throne of God endures. With such a creed—to be anxious to provide for old age, and take no thought for all the years between seventy and a thousand—between a thousand and an epoch which numbers cannot reach—this is madness—this is folly that lacks a name.
My dearly beloved hearers, practice no longer upon yourselves the cruelty of tigers. Have some compassion on your eternal souls. Have mercy on yourselves: have mercy on me. O for mercy, mercy, mercy! I cry to you as a dying man for relief. My prayer to you is for this one blessing, that you would be happy to all eternity. Grant me this and I ask no more. I entreat you by that compassion which "looked down from the height of the Heaven—to hear the groaning of the prisoner and to loose those that were appointed to death." I beseech you by that love which bled on Calvary—by that patience which has called after you from your childhood. I warn you:
by all the dreadful weight of your guilt,
by the terrors of a dying bed,
by the solemnities of the last judgment!In the name and by the authority of the eternal God I charge you not to make your bed in Hell!