Danger of Damnation in a Devil's Hell — E.A. Johnston

False Concepts of God and the Reality of Hell

All false concepts of God must be laid aside if a man has any hope of getting to Christ for salvation. It is very dangerous to hold to an opinion that God does not send people to hell, that God is such a loving God that he will not punish sin.

God's Condemnation and the Strictness of His Law

Is a contradiction to my Bible. All men outside of Christ ponder God's condemnation and await a future day when the sentencing of the law will be carried out against them. That man must be made aware of the strictness of God's unbanding law so they won't be exposed to its severity.

Human Sinfulness and the Coming Judgment

Men must be brought to see the malady of the badness of their heart before they will seek a remedy for sin in the person of Christ Jesus. But the modern church refuses to preach searching sermons that awaken sinners to their lost condition and perilous position outside of Christ's blood, that there is a future judgment that awaits all mankind where every mother's son will stand before the judge of all the earth as the books are opened and whosoever is not found written in the book of life will be cast into a lake of fire.

Malachi's Warning of Eternal Damnation

Eternal damnation is a terrible, frightening thing. Where God's wrath for sin is poured out upon all guilty sinners in Malachi we read the dangers of damnation and the fury of God's anger which will burn as an oven.

For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

The Furnace Illustration and Spiritual Lethargy

When I was just a boy in high school I worked at a local grocery store and one of my duties was to take the cardboard boxes that the produce came in and flatten them out with a box cutter and then stack them on a two-wheeler and take them back to the back of the store where there was a cast-iron furnace and then burn them.

I'll never forget the sensation I got every time I opened that heavy furnace door because as soon as I did my face would be singed from the intense heat of those white-hot flames. But men lie in their natural condition and feel no danger as a man in a deep sleep will not be brought out easily from his lethargy.

Unbelief in Literal Hell and False Security

Many men do not believe in a literal hell and if they did they flatter themselves that they are not bad enough to go there. They believe that their God would never send them to hell as to damn them in eternal darkness and fire.

Christ's Warnings About Damnation

And God speaks of such misled individuals who face being damned in hell forever. He writes in Psalm 36 too, He flattereth himself in his own eyes until his iniquity be found to be hateful. Good preaching should imitate that of Christ who warned against the dangers of damnation.

It is better that one of the members should perish and not that the whole body should be cast into hell. Jesus warned his hearers, Broad is the gate and wide is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be that go in thereat.

The Terrors of Hell and the Call to Repentance

Christ peppered his teachings with continual warnings to avoid damnation and hell fire. The angels shall cast them into a furnace of fire. There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Good preaching will warn of the danger of damnation and bring out its terrors to such an alarming degree and be pressed with such force as to make men to be shot out of a cannon of carnal security.

The terrors of the law and the threatenings of damnation should drive men out of their false hopes and false refuges and blast them away. Men must be brought out of themselves and brought unto a bleeding and dying savior for sin.

Isaiah's Warning and the Final Urgency to Repent

The shock and surprise of dying in one's sins to wake up in hell will be alarming. As Isaiah declares, the sinners in Zion are afraid. Fearfulness has surprised the hypocrites who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire, who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings.

Men must be driven out of their carnal security as Lot was driven out of Sodom where they too will perish in the firestorm of God's outpoured wrath on sin. Forever and ever in a burning hell, repent before it's too late.