And what is that arrangement in respect to the future? Two main thoughts would we dwell upon at this time: _I. Hell, what is it?--its nature. II. How long does it last?--its duration._
Whenever a general in war wishes to surprise his enemy, he seeks to conceal himself from him, endeavors to make his antagonist believe that he is not at all about, or that he is not as formidable as the other might think. Just so the infernal enemy of men's souls seek to delude them into the belief that there is no hell; that, at any rate, it is not what some would make it out to be. Hell is within you; it's the pinching of conscience in this life, or the misery you have to endure here. At the most, it is not terrible, it is not going to last forever; there is going to be a final and universal restoration; all unbelievers will ultimately be delivered.
All this passes for naught. Whether there is a future life, and of what sort that future life is--only one can positively tell us, and that is God--I repeat, _positively_ tell us. Human reason and philosophy have conjectured its probability or its possibility, but as to its _certainty_, that we have exclusively from the book of God's revelations--the Bible. And the Bible tells us, in plain, unmistakable terms, as plainly as it tells us that there is a heaven and a God, that there is a hell. To discredit it is to discredit the Bible, to contradict our blessed Lord, to shut one's eyes willfully against the truth, and what is it? Something within us--something confined to this world? Never does the Bible so speak. Hell, according to the Scriptures, refers always to the future. So in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. The rich man _died_, and _then_, after his death, in hell, he lifted up his eyes. When this life is over, the scenes of this world have faded upon their vision, then, for the unrepentant and unsaved, comes hell.
And what is it? To give it with one word--punishment. "These," declares the eternal Judge, "shall go away into everlasting punishment." This punishment is twofold; it is outward and it is inward. Man consists of body and of soul; both are the instruments of his guilt and condemnation; both receive the just reward of their deeds. Whenever Scripture speaks of future punishment, it uses expressions like these: "darkness, blackness of darkness, thirst, fire, lake burning with fire and brimstone." The Gospel parable represents the rich man begging for a drop of water to cool his tongue. It has been said that this is nothing but imagery, mere drapery, pictorial embellishment; but it is _true_. Imagery and the figure are always less terrible than the reality. It may be idle curiosity to speculate as to whether this fire which the Bible speaks of is material fire, how God can support life in the burnings of hell,--though we know that He sustained the companions of Daniel in a hot furnace in the days of King Nebuchadnezzar whose image they would not worship. Waiving all such questions as to the nature of the fire, the place where it is, and the extent to which it is inflicted, the fact that Scripture almost always employs the idea of fire to express the sufferings of hell leads one to believe that there unhappy sufferers literally endure torments like those which men burning in flames feel; and without running into all sorts of revolting descriptions, so much is plain: Hell is pain, acute sensation of the body, the sense of feeling physical suffering; and coupled with this outward punishment is the _inward_ anguish of mind, remorse of conscience. Thus, in the parable, Abraham speaks to the rich man, "Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things." Memory will be a dreadful source of misery.