Sermon: Literal and Eternal Hell Absolutely

The Pantagraph. Fri, Jan 17, 1908 ·Page 6

LITERAL AND ETERNAL HELL ABSOLUTELY

THAT’S WHAT SUNDAY PREACHES

Evangelist Insists He Will Resign From Ministry Before He Would Cut it Out of Sermons.

UNIQUE DISCOURSE YESTERDAY AFTERNOON.

Large Crowds Continue to Throng the Tabernacle—Roll of Converts Increased—Revival News Notes.

Sunday believes absolutely that there is a hell and says he intends to fearlessly preach it as long as he remains in the ministry. Last night at the tabernacle in one of his characteristic sermons he said before he would omit the reality of hell from his preaching that he would resign from the ministry. “It’s up to you to accept or reject the gospel; it’s God or nothing,” said Sunday.

Last night the regulation crowd of 5,000 filled the tabernacle and heard Sunday preach on “How Shall We Escape if We Neglect So Great Salvation?” It is remarkable how Sunday attracts the populace. It takes a speaker of more than ordinary ability and power to draw two or three thousand people every afternoon and again each evening five or six thousand people to hear him preach, but Mr. Sunday possesses those qualities. His magnetic personality and peculiar eccentricities as a public orator combine to make up his extraordinary drawing force. After last night’s powerful sermon forty-six persons went forward and made the profession of faith.

The Sermon.

My text tonight assumes the form of a question, and although it seems to be a paradox it is absolutely unanswerable,” said Mr. Sunday. “I could go to the leading merchant in the town and when I would ask him he could tell me the principles by which to build business to success, but if I would ask him the question of my text I would gaze into a face that would give no reply. I might go to your leading physician and he could explain to me all about materia medica, about hygiene, about medical jurisprudence and about obstetrics, but if I would ask him this question I would gaze into a face of blank despair. I might go to the office of your most brilliant lawyer, a man that can interpret the law before the supreme court, a man with brains enough to codify the state laws and that knows all about organic and constitutional law, yet if I would ask him my question-text I would go down the stairs without a reply. If I could go to the lost world and the souls there could cease their shrieks long enough for me to ask this question, I would come back without an answer. If an angel of God would come to the tabernacle and I would ask it the question it would fly back and fold its wings like a tired dove in the presence of God without speaking a word.

“How Shall We Escape?”

“The text is found in the second chapter of Hebrews and the third verse—’How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?’ There is absolutely no escape; there is absolutely no answer to the question.

“Our first thought about salvation is saving from punishment. True, but you are not beginning to live unless you are a Christian. You have been merely existing. The one who lives in sin is driving the dagger into his own heart, for all that is polluting and corrupting and debasing comes through sin, yet men follow it. All that is noble and uplifting comes through Jesus Christ, yet men spurn Him.

God’s Plan.

“God has given us so many things. He knew we needed air—He gave it to us. He knew we needed water—He gave it to us. He knew that we needed eyes and ears and lungs and hands and feet, and He gave them to us. And He has salvation ready if we want it. And I have no patience with any who puts his asinine judgment up against God’s and says that he knows best. Of course there is a hell, the plan of salvation contains it. There would be no good in leaving hell out. I am not the author of the plan of salvation, but I am here to preach it as it is, whether it is pleasant to you or not. Because you do not believe in hell, that doesn’t make any difference. That don’t make you immune. A fact is a fact, whether you believe it or not. Because you don’t believe in God and heaven and hell and the divinity of Christ, don’t change the facts or scheme of salvation because you didn’t have sense and decency enough to believe. You can’t fix God’s word to suit yourself. You can’t blue-pencil His plan of salvation. You have to take it as it is or leave it. I have no doctrine. I preach God’s word. I have no use for a man who has a doctrine. Let him preach God’s.

The Truth of Hell.

“I don’t say that I’ve seen hell and I don’t intend to try and see it just to convince you. I don’t want to find out whether the fire in hell is like that in your stove or whether the word fire is an emblem chosen to represent conditions as bad. I am faithful and true to God’s trust and I never expect to know whether or not hellfire burns.

It is to the class who expect some time to be Christians that I am especially preaching tonight. This is the man who acknowledges that God has a claim on him and who sometimes expects to change and be a Christian. But that man who may be too late and who may find death before him before he has time to change. The church can only answer the question of hell in one way. He that believeth in Christ is saved, and he that believeth not is damned. If there is no hell, preachers are taking money under false pretenses.

“Is There a Hell?”

“In preaching hell and making reference to it I encounter a difficulty. Men and women don’t like to accept it. They think they cannot be happy with a hell, therefore they say there is no hell and think that settles it. Some people think they could be happy if hell was fixed like a big club with an ice chest full of Anheuser-Busch, Schlitz, and Pabst, with a button handy so they could call a servant if they wanted anything, and then could sit down, sip lemonade and puff a twenty-five-cent straight.

“Suppose I met three men walking on a road toward a precipice. To the first I say, ‘This is a dangerous road, and if you go on you will plunge over the precipice to death,’ but he doesn’t thank me.

He just sneers and walks on. The second asks, ‘Have you ever been to the end?’ and when I admit I have not, he says I don’t know what I am talking about, then. The third says that he knows it, but that he intends to turn off just this side of the precipice.

‘I meet three journeying from the cradle to the grave. The first curses and damns me when I speak to him of Christ and tries to show that he knows more than God. He ends in hell. A fellow told me to go there the other day and I told him if he wanted to go he could just pack up, but I wasn’t going. Whatever hell is, I don’t want to test its reality. It must be an awful place or God wouldn’t open a plan of salvation in order to keep us out. The second man asks me if I’ve ever been there to find out, and the third tells me that he believes he is a sinner, believes the bible is the word of God, believes in hell, but that he will repent before he dies.

‘Why put it off? Nearly everybody expects to become a Christian before he dies. Almost nobody wants to spend eternity in hell. I only met two men who believed in a literal hell who said they expected to spend eternity, and they were both converted.

‘How God will damn I do not know. But I do not want to go to hell. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? You can depend on it, there is no escape.

‘What is the use of churches and religion and temples and tabernacles, if there is no hell? Why open up a plan to save you if there is no hell? But, my friends, if heaven is eternal, hell is eternal. Don’t make God out a liar. Just take His word. You can’t find the truth from ethical and philosophical lines. You can’t settle a spiritual truth by scientific revelations. God has set before you an open door. You can accept or reject. God will never have another plan for you. It is accept Jesus Christ or nothing. Don’t shut your eyes to God’s danger signals.

Don’t rush like stampeded cattle to destruction. Don’t try to test the reality of hell.

The Plan of Salvation.

Wonder of wonders is the plan of salvation. So simple it is that a child can grasp it and so complex that scientists are puzzled. You can better afford to neglect anything else than your salvation. Neglect your health, your business, your education, rather than your salvation.

There are multitudes in hell who did not expect to go there, but who waited too long. I have seen men and women in Bloomington grasp the backs of the seats to steady themselves. I have seen them turn pale as I have hurled the truth at them. I have done my part. If you won’t take advantage of a thing when you may, don’t complain when it gets beyond you. A man can’t afford to trifle with God. The greatest calamities of the world have come from neglect—Johnstown, Ashtabula, Martinique—multitudes have had no more intention of spending eternity in hell than you have, yet they waited too long, and they are there. It is not that you have failed to hear, but that you have failed to heed. It is the only salvation; Mother Eddy or any of the rest of the bunch have nothing like it. The scheme of it shows God’s love. If you are damned, you have only yourself to blame. God has provided. You won’t go to hell because you are a sinner, but because you have failed to repent that sin. The bitterest dregs of hell that you will taste will be the thought that you have no one to blame but yourself.

eformation Not Salvation.

Oh, said a wrinkled browed, stoop shouldered, gray bearded old gambler to me. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Bill. I’ll quit gambling.

Good I said. And I booze fight a little, not very much for no gambler can and keep ahead of the game but I booze fight a little, and I’ll cut that out.

Good. And I’ll stop my impure living.

Good. And I’ll quit my cussing.

I said. And what else? Well, I guess that’s about all, isn’t it? he asked.

Won’t you accept Jesus Christ? I said.

Why, I won’t have to, will I, if I live straight? he asked.

Say, and Sunday seized his bible to illustrate his point. Suppose you reach the age of accountability at this point, and he indicated a spot, and you are here when you reform and will be over here when you die. Your reformation counts all right from this point where you reformed to where you die, but what about the sins you committed from the time you reached the age of accountability? Your reformation doesn’t wipe them away and the only way they can be wiped away is through Jesus.

Just Faith.

No matter who you are—no matter how smart you are, you are damned and I tell you in your teeth you are damned. You can talk about salvation by refinement and culture. You can go to hell with all your culture. It is not worth a snap of your finger. By repentance and faith is the only way. If God could do no more than simply pardon a man, it would not be so much. But God pardons and justifies—makes you as if you had not sinned.

Don’t forget the story of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man was a good fellow. He was not a bad man. He was just too busy to pay attention to God. He was like a lot of business men I met at the banquet at the Illinois the other night—cracking good fellows but too busy for God—and the rich man went to hell and cried aloud there for help. In hell you will carry with you the fact that you had the chance and failed to take it. You will remember in hell—God pity you. You are hurtling back every tender thought—every offer—God pity you.

In the name of my God and my Christ, I hurl to you a life line tonight.

A Sunday Prayer.

The sermon was closed with the following prayer: “Jesus, it seems too good to be true that you would provide salvation for us. But God to see men and women pass it up. That is staggering to me. I could understand why you would not love us; why you would not provide salvation for us, but Lord: to step in and provide salvation, to send prophets and priests, and to send Christian mothers to weep and beg and importune us to receive it and to see men pass it by and shake their heads. Jesus, I do not know what to do; I do not know what to say. Lord, I pray men and women may yield and say ‘I give up; I have neglected it long enough; there is too much at stake. My heart may stop tonight; my lungs may congest; there might be a blood clot on my brain. Lord, I will do it now.’ The trumpet may sound for me tonight and might shake a shroud round me tonight. What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Give me the answer. Give me the answer. Give me the answer. What will it profit you if you gained McLean county and lose your soul?”