Who can fairly represent the horrors of that horrible place?

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(James Smith, "The Way of Salvation Set Forth")

"Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come!" 1 Thessalonians 1:10

Salvation includes deliverance from Hell. Of all dreadful places--Hell is the most dreadful. No one figure can give us an adequate idea of it. It is the prison, where God's enemies are confined. It is a lake of fire and brimstone, where the traitors against the Savior's throne and government are punished. There, all is dark, dreary, agonizing, and horrible! Despair reigns, desperation works, and horror preys upon its victims. The worm of a guilty conscience never dies. The fire of of God's just wrath is never quenched. Prepared for the devil and his angels--Hell is now destined to be the eternal habitation of every impenitent sinner. In Hell, the sufferer is forever shut out from the glorious presence of God--and is shut in with devils and damned souls.

Hell is a prison where there is . . .
no order--but horror,
no voice--but of blasphemers cursing God, themselves, and all around them,
no sounds--but the howling of the tortured and the torturers,
no society--but devils and the damned--who being tormented themselves, forever torment others!

There sinners experience . . .
punishment--without pity;
misery--without mercy;
sorrow--without support;
crying--without comfort;
mischief--without measure;
torment--without ease;
and despair--without hope!

The wrath of God will seize upon body and soul like fire! In that flame, the sufferer is . . .
forever burning--but is never consumed;
forever dying--but never dead;
forever writhing in the pangs of the second death--and never freed from those pangs; nor does he ever know an end of his pains.

Who can fairly represent the horrors of that horrible place, where Divine wrath which has been accumulating for ages--bursts forth without control or cessation! Such is the desert of sin, and such the doom of every unconverted sinner.

But salvation is a deliverance from Hell--complete and eternal deliverance! Oh what a mercy is this! One would think that everyone who heard of it would rejoice, embrace the glad tidings, and escape from the wrath to come!

But this is not the case! There is a Deliverer--but He is despised. There is free deliverance--but it is slighted. Men choose eternal death, rather than eternal life!
What a mercy to be delivered from Hell!

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