General Session 2: The Puritans on Heaven and Hell - Joel Beeke

Thanks so much for coming. We look forward to this conference a long time. We're at Reformation Heritage Books in Grand Rapids. We're very grateful to Grace Community Church doing all the logistics of this conference on this end and giving giving me the privilege of uh picking out the speakers together with my right-hand man David Woolen. And we're just delighted to to have you. My only regret right now, but we can't wish him back, is I feel the empty place in this front row, but his chair is now in heaven. And there's no empty chairs in

heaven. And if you're a believer, one day you'll be in that happy throng where you never have to say goodbye again. forever with the Lord. And I do pray for Patricia MacArthur, the family, and the whole congregation. Those of you who are here from Grace Community, you should know we've been praying a lot for you in Grand Rapids. And we're so glad to hear that you're continuing steadfast. And the old Dutch tradition, no matter how long a pastor was in a church, it was a tradition to say after the pastor passed away, well, God took

the pastor from us, but the word abides, and that's your comfort. That's your strength. I'll say a bit more Sunday morning when I have the privilege of preaching to you. But I I do want to just say this. The first time we did the Puritan conference was three years ago and the staff here told us if you really want us to do it and you you want it to happen, you've got to see John MacArthur himself face to face. So, I was in Northern California, David Williams was in Michigan, and uh we made an appointment

with John MacArthur for one hour and um we were told he had a lunch appointment, he'd be back on time. So, I booked a flight out of Burbank after the hour was over. So, I had to fly down. David flew all the way from Michigan. We had one hour with John MacArthur. Well, he didn't come for the first 42 minutes. And we're like twidding our thumbs and praying. And finally, he comes and I said to him, "John, no time for falities. We got to get right down to business. I've got an idea. I want you

to hear about it right away." He said, "Let's go for it." Sat down. Bam. We went and um David will told me later and I did it in seven minutes. I presented him the idea of the Puritan conference here and I looked at him and said, "What do you think?" He goes, "Let's go for it. Let's do it." Well, thanks. Thanks, John. What now? He goes, "Well, your right-hand man, David will get some of my right-hand people here. Let them communicate. They give us ideas. You pick out the speakers. We'll do the logistics and we'll

do it." That was easy. And we actually left five minutes early for the airport. Mission accomplished. So John asked, as long as he was alive, that we would have the conference here in America every three years. This is the third year point. We had hoped he would have been here to do the closing address, but God had higher plans, but he did say to us, "Anywhere else besides United States in the world, feel free to do the Puritan conference." So, we've been doing them in Dubai, New Zealand. We've got maybe five or six more lined

up around the world right now for the next two years, God willing. So what began here three years ago is something that has had impact and I believe will have impact um far more than than even we imagined at at the beginning. Uh the turnout has been wonderful and people have been buying and reading the Puritan books like I've never seen in my lifetime. And that gives me that gives me great joy because God used the Puritans in my life to lead me to liberty in Christ when I was 15 years old. And I I've

been reading them ever since. They're they're a balm a balm to my soul. My my subject I I'll talk a little bit about the books after after at the end of my address, but my subject before you is a very solemn one this morning. The Puritans on heaven in hell. Turn with me, please, to Revelation 21. Revelation 21. Just read the first uh seven or eight verses here. The word of God. I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more

sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed

away. And he that sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." And he said unto me, "Write, for these words are true and faithful." And he said unto me, "It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcomemeth shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But but the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and horongers, sorcerers, and idolattors, and

all liars shall have their part in the lake, which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Let's pray. Great God of heaven, as we approach the profound eternal doctrines of heaven and hell. Give us a due sense of the sobriety of the magnificence of these doctrines. So profound. So much we don't know. And yet so much we do know about both places. So definitive, so arresting, so inviting, so separating from one another. Help us, oh God, to put off the shoes from our feet, for the place where we stand is holy ground.

And bless this address. We pray to every unsaved person who may be here that they may fly to Christ and to every believer that they may hope all the more in Christ and that we who are true believers would long for that place of which Kelvin said, "He who does not hanker to be in heaven with Jesus Jesus has made little progress in the Christian life. Lord, hasten the day when this mortality puts on immortality, this corruption incorruption we may ever be with the Lord. Please be with Patricia, with the family, with this church in

their heavy loss and by gone weeks. and do bless the funeral sermon that Dr. Ferguson preached. May it linger on and the other speakers and be a great blessing. But above all, prepare us all to meet thee in the righteousness and peace of Christ on the right side of Christ on that great day. And may we and our families be undivided families reserved for the heavenly mansions above. Help us now in speaking to thy glory and to our good in Jesus name. Amen. So when was the last time you sat in a chair and meditated

for even five minutes on eternity? Last month. Perhaps never. Isn't it odd that we often spend more time preparing for a two week vacation trip in the summer than we do for a never-ending eternity? If we're honest, most of us have it so good in this life in so many ways that we don't seem to have the hunger to be with God forever the way the Puritans did. In some ways, they were far ahead of us spiritually. They often spoke about the four last things, death, judgment, hell, and heaven. And they meditated often about them.

I actually had the privilege of doing a study one summer of the Puritans on meditation. Did you know that the Puritans wrote 41 books on meditation? Do you know one good contemporary book on meditation? maybe one or two. And many of the books were just a series of their own spiritual meditations. But in those books, they also give you topics on what to meditate about. Some of them give you 75 to 100 topics and a long list. I actually made a list of all 41 books and all the topics and marked them and kept track.

And do you know that the section of systematic theology that they meditated the most on, Christologology was number two, but esquetology was number one. And within esquetology, heaven was the most frequently meditated subject that they recommended and hell wasn't far beneath it. The Puritans thought about eternity. They weren't afraid of many things that we're afraid of in this life, but they were afraid of coming short at the last day. And so it was key in their lives, in their ministries to preach about hell, to preach about heaven, to preach about flying to Christ, to preach

about growing in Christ, to cultivate and nurture spiritual life, to develop holy habits of living through the spiritual disciplines close to God and be ever ready to meet the Lord in righteousness, in peace. Well, as we turn to this subject now, I want to look with you particularly at one aspect of how they thought of heaven. We can't cover all the ground, so I'm going to focus on one which will cover a fair bit of ground. Namely, the pleasure. They spoke often of the pleasure, the pure pleasure of being in heaven with the triune God,

the saints, and the holy angels, where all good is walled in, all evil walled out, and where we're sin-free forever and eternally, spiritually married to the Lord Jesus Christ with overflowing cups of joy. As Richard Baxter put it, heaven is a place of perfect pleasure because there the triune God displays his visible glory. The risen and ascended Lord Jesus rules and reigns in splendor and the redeemed saints are glorified in their bodies and in their souls. People think the Puritans were sour and dower. They were the happiest people that I know of in all of

church history because they followed the Bible on how to live, but also because they had this huge hope of heaven by which they lived. They spoke often of delighting in the possession of God as their God forever. Rejoicing in the perfection of their bodies, their minds, their graces, longing to be sin-free in glory, the pleasure of delighting in God, the pleasure of communing with glorified saints. heaven wrote Matthew me and and all the people I'm quoting by the way will be Puritans is the abstract of all blessedness the sum of all felicity reckon up all

comforts and pleasures and satisfactions and delights and happinesses and put them all together in one bundle and then separate them from finess finitness and imperfection and that is heaven for all the objects of joy which are scattered among the creatures are everlastingly heaped up and multiplied in heaven. William Garing ge a r i n g who wrote a beautiful book on heaven not well known but we hope to publish it soon says this the joys of heaven exceed the desires of our souls the joy of our glorious condition infinitely surpasses the largest capacity of our

souls though our souls be stretched to the uttermost oh the joy the pleasure of being with our triune God, sin-free in Emanuel's land forever. Now, these great heavenly pleasures, I'm dividing bringing together a number of Puritan books on heaven into six pleasures. The first is this, the pleasure of a perfect vision of God. the pleasure of a perfect vision of God. As Jesus said in Matthew 18, the angels do always behold the face of my father which is in heaven. And Paul says that believers will see God face to face. And John writes Revelation 22,

the servants of God will see his face. Believers will see the invisible God in two ways. In the face of Jesus Christ, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, who's in the bosom of the father and has declared him or you could say exuted him or explained him or made him known. Jesus risen, exalted, glorified in his humanity as mediator will be the center of heaven. As a Scottish Puritan, small P Samuel Rutherford said, "Where there are thousand heavens piled on top of one another, my Lord Jesus Christ would be the centerpiece of

them all." Compared to his glory, the beauty of gazing upon him, never being distracted away from him again. Even said one Puritan, the sun and stars will be as black as the midnight sky compared to the light of Jesus. But second, believers will see the invisible God with the inner sight of the soul, which will be elevated to behold God, the Puritan said, by tasting his perfections in a deeper and fuller way than ever imagined on earth. It's what they meant. along with medieval divines by the beatotific vision. In heaven, the Puritans taught the believer

will see God with the eyes of the soul mediated through Jesus Christ. In glory, there they will have a sharper understanding, a warmer affection, a clearer perception, beholding God as the ancient of days, the infinitely perfect being, glorious in every perfection. in heaven, it will just be in awe, in worshipful awe, in amazement at the intricate wisdom and power of the triune God in his works of providence, yes, but ultimately of redemption to his own glory. William Garing. Then shall the mysteries of providence be fully opened, and we shall see the birth, the birth in

the womb of providence, which are invisible to us while yet on earth. We will stand in awe at the plan of salvation, the very masterpiece of divine wisdom, says Garing. And by understanding that more fully than ever before, the saints will finally fully understand themselves and will see God manifested in all the works of their life and see his beauty and glory not only in all his attributes but in all his leadings in our own lives and confess, Lord, thou has never made one mistake. We will be swallowed up, says another Puritan, in the enjoyment,

contemplation, possession of the triune God. As Richard Baxter says, the object of infinite goodness and beauty and sweetness, comprehending in himself the goodness, beauty, and sweetness of all things. And there we will be so God- centered that we will have greater delight in God's glory, in God being infinitely blessed than we will be in will have in our own happiness. But that will be our supreme happiness. And we will love God above all and every fiber of our being will just want to see him exalted and glorified. without ever being distracted. It's unbelievable what heaven

is. Jonathan Edwards once said, "My greatest joy on earth are those moments when I feel like I'm lifted up above my own salvation and just purely delight in the glory of God." You know, some of those moments, just a few here on earth, that's a foretaste of heaven. Oh, for more of that. But can you imagine having it always brim full and overflowing and and always enamored totally with God. Oh, the pleasure the pleasure of a perfect vision of God. Second, the pleasure of perfect communion with God. Perfect communion with God. All the delights of

the senses and of the mind are mere shadows of the unccreated beauty and glory of the triune God, said the Puritans. Whatever God here gives to man by the creature, he will supply in heaven without the creature that is immediately by himself. So if the streams are sweet, how much better and pure is the water in the spring? In heaven the saints shall lack nothing, yet shall they enjoy nothing there but God. He will be all to them, their drink, their food, their rest, their joy, their pleasure, the height of all their honor. He will

be all and in all and more than all to them. William Girian says this, "Ah, one refreshing of thine, one enjoyment of thee is to enjoy the quintessence of all good. Thou art unto me, oh my God, goodness itself. Thou art unto me rest in my labors. Thou art unto me pleasure in my grief. Thou art unto me security in my cares. Thou art unto me the only true riches of my poverty. Thou art my strong bull work against all the furious assaults of men. Thou art my refuge whatsoever evil may oppress me. Finally, thou

art all unto me whatsoever I can wish for or desire, and that forever. Well, the joy and pleasure of communion with God will be all the more glorious for the believer because it's unending. Richard Baxter. When we come to heaven, we shall not need to seek or quench to quench our thirst with any stream, when we have so crystal a spring or fountain as this, where we may lie down and drink our fill. Third, the pleasure of a perfect welcome from God. A perfect welcome from God. What will it be to see our Lord the

first time in glory? What will it be to walk that highway to the gates of the celestial city? See them go open. Hear whatever words they may be. But something like this, no doubt the angels and the saints crying out, "Welcome home, sinner, saint, saved by grace." and to see, as Rutherford said, Jesus standing at the gate of heaven with a soft cloth in his hand to wipe away every last tear from my eye and then to enter in. And the door will be shut happily, all good walled in, and the triune God will receive

his people, said Garin, with an abundance of affection. of an abundance of affection. For then the father will receive home his beloved sons and daughters. The son will receive his bride for the consummation of the heavenly marriage. And the holy spirit will res forever inhabit the people of God as his temple to the full. I have a friend who visits me once a year every June and he wants to talk books, but he's a very godly man. And every year he asked me this question. What will you say to Jesus when you first see him

in glory? And what do you think he'll say to you? Will you just fall and worship or will you just embrace and be silent? I sometimes think about, don't you, that one resurrection appearance of which we know no details. Simon Peter, the Lord appeared to Simon. The other nine, we have details. Why no details with Simon? Too sacred, do you think? Too sacred to put into words. Maybe it was just an embrace. Oh, to see him. Oh, to feel that perfect welcome. Sometimes when you visit people, they welcome you with great affection into their home.

It makes you feel good right away. But those welcomes are nothing compared to the welcome you will receive by pure grace. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. By grace enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Edward Pierce, another Puritan, wrote a whole book called The Best Match about the heavenly marriage, spiritual marriage we have with Christ. He said, "God the father will greatly rejoice to see his son's spouse come home to him so richly decked and adorned. Christ the son will greatly rejoice that he's gotten his got his spouse into his arms and

bosoms, never depart with him again. The Holy Ghost will greatly rejoice to see his work in tying the marriage knot between Christ and the soul completed. The angels will greatly rejoice as being friends both to the bridegroom and bride and as partaking with them in the marriage supper. And you yourself will greatly rejoice and that now your happiness is consummated and you will forever be in the bosom and embraces of your husband's love. Oh, how sweet, how glorious, a welcome will this be. Number four, the pleasure of perfect fellowship. In their treatises on heaven, the

Puritans said that believers will experience blissful communion, not only with God, but with each other and with the angels for all eternity. It will enjoy intermingling. Communion with God is sweet and secret. But how much sweeter it is to gather with the saints on the Lord's day and to commune with him corporately. Well, in heaven, that will be multiplied 10,000 times. I once had the privilege of being in a men's conference of 2,500 men. Man, have you ever se seen that many They were ministers. Have you ever seen that many ministries singing their house out

together in in beautiful harmony? I looked around. I think a third of the men the tears are streaming down their face. But what will heaven be? Millions and millions and millions in the heavenly choir. It'll be overwhelming. Overwhelming. The fellowship. The fellowship in song. The fellowship one-on-one, the fellowship in groups, the fellowship in worshiping God. We will recognize one another. Puritans made that plain. JC Riyle borrowed heavily from the Puritans when he wrote his famous sermon shall we know one another in heaven and said there are seven proofs in the Bible that we will in

our company will be the patriarchs the prophets the apostles the martyrs the people of God from all ages and all times in all places and time will not tear us away from each other and we'll be reunited with loved ones in Christ who've long since departed from Dear widow, your believing husband who's gone before you will be there. Dear parents, your believing child you lost so young will be there. Maybe the children you never saw that were miscarried, they'll be there. David said, "The child will not return to me, but I will return to the

child." Those of you whose dear friends have moved far away to other parts of the country, overseas, to the mission field, will be there. I can't put into words, the Puritan said, the fellowship of the people of God. It's amazing, isn't it? Amazing that in 10 minutes time when you meet a child of God somewhere else in the world, you can feel like you've known each other for 50 years. What will heaven be? I had a friend who is now with the Lord, but I first met him in New Zealand before we he picked me

up at the airport. before we even out of the airport, he was telling me his conversion and he was telling me how he hated God so much that he actually took a physical globe in his hand and he put his finger on the Netherlands. He was he grew up in the Netherlands and he put poked his finger on the other side of the globe because he said, "I want to get as far away from God as possible." Turn the globe over. It was New Zealand. Ah, he said, "I have a friend in New Zealand. I'll

call him." He's an atheist. Great. I'll escape God. So he calls his friend. His friend says, "Sure, I'll pick you up. Sure, you can settle in New Zealand." He packs everything up, goes all the way to New Zealand. His friend picks him up. And they're driving out of that same airport. And his friend said, "Oh, by the way, there's one thing I forgot to tell you. I've become a Christian. Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ?" God smoked him. It was used for his conversion. 10 years later, I was there preaching for him as a

pastor in New Zealand. God's ways are marvelous. His fellowship is sweet among the people of God. And then fifthly, the pleasure of perfect rest and true freedom. The pleasure of perfect rest and true freedom. In heaven, there will be an incredible rest, a beautiful rest. It will not be an idle rest or a dissipating rest, but one in which we will be occupied in praising and serving God with restful contentment for all eternity. You will forever delight, says Baxter, in the fruition of God, wherein the glories of God's being will be communicated to your glorified

body and soul. In the rest, you will possess what you've been striving for throughout life. And then get this. Like a sailor, you'll arrive at the haven. Like a workman, you'll receive your wages. And like a traveler, you'll finally arrive at your destination. Heaven is glorious rest. Rest from what? Freedom from sin, from evil, from temptation, from the effects of sin, from the troubles of life, from my own inconsistencies. My Achilles healed, my hard heart free from sickness and disease and aging and fear and anxiety. Your soul, your body perfected, both perfectly designed to enjoy

God and serve him. You will be immortal, incorruptible, powerful, and have glorious bodies controlled by the Holy Spirit with enlarged capacity to serve and enjoy God forever. William Garry said, "You have such a full capacity in heaven that it will far exceed Adam and Eve's capacity to glorify God in prefall Eden." And above all, you'll rest in the triune God as the chief good. You'll truly see and taste that the Lord is good. Back there, all good whatsoever is comprised in God, and all in the creature at best are but drops of this ocean. Ever

Pierce, death will carry you from trouble to rest, from a tempestu tempestuous sea to a quiet haven, there to lie at an eternal anchor in the bosom of your sweet Lord. Number six, the pleasure of perfect love. perfect love. If you've never read Jonathan Edwards sermon, famous sermon, 30, 40 pages, read it slowly, take a couple hours with, meditate on it. Called heaven, a world of love. You've got to read it. It's an amazing sermon. Heaven, he says, is a world of perfect love. The palace of the supreme being who's both the cause and source

of all holy love. He portrays the giving and receiving of love in heaven like a fountain where God the father is the fountain head of love. Whoever flows his goodness and love to his people through Christ. In heaven the father is a source of all love like the son shines forth its own light does not derive its light from another source as moons and planets do. The father pours out his infinite love upon his son who's the infinite object of his love. The son in turn loves the father with infinite love and communicates the infinite

love of the father to all his people. The saints as well as the angels drink in this everlasting love of God the father mediated through the son applied by the spirit and they reflect this love which has its origin in God back to him much like the planets reflect the light of the sun back to the sun. Thus, heaven is a place of holy, exuberant, perfect, infinite love that never ends between the triune God and all his people and all his holy angels for all eternity. There's nothing but love in heaven there. Everyone will be

in perfect unity among the saints. Calvin and Luther will agree on everything. So Will Baptist and Pedal Baptist, Spurgeon actually, we'll call him a late Puritan for a moment. Spurgeon actually said, "Both can't be right, but who's ever wrong will admit they're wrong, and they'll all be right in heaven." Because God will, he's made our hearts right by the righteousness of Christ, by substitutionary obedience, by faith in him alone. But in heaven, our heads will be made totally right as well. That's a comfort. No more debates in heaven about what's the truth. Everyone will know

there'll be a perfect love of all truth in the triune God of truth. Now, as fullome as the Puritans were about heaven, so sober were they about hell. They preached fully the glories of heaven, even more, by the way, than they did the terrors of hell. But they weren't afraid to preach the terrors of hell. But they didn't preach it with relish like they did heaven. They preached hell out of pity and out of love for souls. And while many sinners, they said, can be drawn or will be drawn to Christ through the depths of

his love, others may be so hardened that only a sobering, terrifying sermon on hell may be the spirit's instrument to awaken them from their sleep of death. I personally have noticed that in my my ministry over the last four or five decades when people have genuinely been saved, which is always the most humbling thing a minister can experience. But I've noticed the sermons under which that's happened. And I think a good half of them have been warning sermons. God can often use a warning sermon to wake up, especially a nominal professor about what their future's

going to be unless they repent and believe the gospel. And the the Puritans believe in this. The doctrine of hell is not to be dwelt on for its own sake, they said, but as a tool to use to drive the sinner to Christ and the saint to praise. because by the grace of God, he's not going there and it makes us praise him. Now, the Puritans usually began their treatments on hell by looking at the nature of hell. And they use scriptural language. They describe hell as a lake of fire and brimstone. Revelation 21, furnace

of fire. Matthew 13, a parched place without water. Luke 16, the great wine press of God's wrath. Revelation 14, a dungeon. 1 Peter 3, a place of torment. Luke 16, utter darkness with weeping and nashing of teeth. Matthew 22, a place with chains of darkness. 2 Peter 2, the second death. Revelation 21, destruction. Matthew 7, everlasting punishment. Matthew 25, the wrath to come. 1 Thessalonians 1, a bottomless pit. Revelation 20. Bible has a lot to say about hell. It refers to hell 253 times and more often by Jesus than anyone else. And the Puritans said,

"Every every every every reference to hell in the Bible is like a road sign along the Broadway to destruction. Flee from the wrath to come." Christopher Love, I wrote a sweet book on heaven, also wrote an amazing book on hell. He said, "Hell is a place of torment ordained by God for devils and reprobate sinners, wherein by his justice he confines them to everlasting punishment, tormenting them both in body and soul, being deprived of God's favor, objects of his wrath, under which they must lie to all eternity." Puritan said, "There are degrees in heaven, but

there are also degrees in hell. And those who've heard the gospel all their life and rejected it all their life will be thrust, said Thomas Brooks, into the hell of hell. By which he meant the center of hell. God said Brooks inflicts no less and no more torment than the sinner has earned through his or her own sin because the sinner is now paying for his or her own sin in hell. paying the debt of divine justice in full forever. So for the Puritans, you understand the doctrine of hell is inseparable from the nature of

God. As God is holy, just, good, all powerful, he must punish all sin as the righteous judge and almighty king of the universe, either in Christ or in the sinner himself. If he failed to punish sin, he would cease to be God. He'd be an unjust judge. He'd contradict his righteous nature, which is an utter impossibility. The Puritan said he must punish all those whose sins have not been borne by Jesus Christ on the cross. Now, the Puritans said three things about this punishment that I want to use as my outline for the last half

of this paper, this address. And I'll be briefer here. the punishment of sense, the punishment of loss, and the punishment of despair. Let's look at each of these for just a few minutes. The punishment of sense. Thomas Vincent said, "The Lord's reference to unquenchable fire refers to the torments of the body in hell, and his reference to the undying worm refers to the painful gnawing of the conscience in hell. So the punishment of sense in hell consists of both physical punishment and spiritual misery. Misery in body, misery in soul. The rep probate then will suffer

eternal misery also in their body. Just as all the pleasures of life combined into a single moment of bliss cannot compare to the joys of heaven. So the Puritan said all the pains and miseries of life combined into a single moment of torment and despair cannot compare to the least pains of hell. That's an amazing statement. Each of the five senses, the Puritan said, this is Robert Bolton, by the way, who wrote a very good short book called the four last things. Each of the five senses senses will suffer unspeakably. Bolton declares that the fire

of hell is blown by the angry breath of the great God who burns far hotter than 10,000 rivers of brimstone when sinners refuse to bow before his son. The body will suffer. Second, the reprobate will suffer eternal misery of soul. They'll be filled with sorrow and guilt and anxiety and horror and anguish and hatred and blasphemy. And it will lead them to weep and nash their teeth in torment, frustration, and despair. They'll hate God. They'll hate themselves. They'll hate their fellow creatures in both heaven and hell. They'll be miserable forever. In hell, said Thomas Boston.

The damned will find a prison they can never escape out of, a lake of fire where they will ever be swimming and burning, and a pit whereof they will never find a bottom. Jonathan Edwards said it even stronger. He said, "It is more vain for a worm to bear the weight of a boulder upon it than for a damned soul to endure the weight of the eternal almighty God's holy wrath upon it. Punishment of body and soul. Secondly, punishment of loss. Loss the loss of God himself. The loss of the beatotific vision. the loss of

all good, the loss of all created comforts, the loss of even common grace, the loss of infinite pleasure, the loss of a glorified body and soul. John Bunan puts it this way, those who live and die outside of Christ lose heaven for hell, lose God for the devil, lose light for darkness, and lose joy for sorrow. First of all, in hell, the damned will experience a loss of God's favorable presence. Henry Greenwood writes, "As the absence of the sun causes darkness, so the lack of God's presence brings inexpressable grief." That is God's favorable presence. This

punishment of loss is the greatest part of the second death. For as the first death separates the soul from the body, the second death separates soul and body from the presence of the Lord forever more. The tears of hell are not sufficient to bewail the losses of heaven. The greatest misery of hell is to be eternally separated from the favor of God who is goodness itself. The separation of the soul from God which is the essence of the second death. the Puritans said is the very hell of hell. Now, some insist today that the essence

of hell is the absence of God. The Puritans didn't put it that way. They taught that the essence of hell is the presence of God, but in his holy wrath only. As Revelation puts it, he'll be pouring out the mixture of his wrath without any common grace intermixed. The damned will never again relish the goodness, lavish bounty, and common grace of God in ordinances and providences, nor will they find the faintest glimmer of hope from his word, says another Puritan. As great as heaven's happiness will be, so great will the damned's loss be. And there

will not only be a loss of of God's gracious presence, favorable presence. There will also be a loss of God's gracious gifts. In hell, the rep probate will not enjoy a single ounce of God's favor, not a single ray of sunshine, and not a cold drop of water to cool their tongue. And my dad came out of his second heart surgery. I went to visit him. He was crying when I entered the room. And I said to him, "Dad, why are you crying? Are you in great pain?" "No, no, no." He said, "A nurse just

came in and took an ice cube and moistened my lips. I've had nothing to eat or drink." But I broke down because I was thinking of the rich man in hell. Didn't have a drop of water to cool his tongue. Who am I to get an ice cube? Have you ever been thankful for an ice cube? How seldom we realize what we deserve. How seldom we realize what we receive and receive in Christ. The damned in hell will never relish anything anymore. There's a loss of every gift of God. And finally, there's the punishment of

despair. The punishment of despair. There's no end to hell. There's no intermission to hell. The Puritan said, "The wicked will not be relieved by a moment of rest or intermission from their miseries, nor will they be comforted by the hope of death or annihilation. They will experience dying without death and burning without being consumed. If there was a fraction of a chance that the reprobate could be released from hell in thousands and millions of years, they would have a glimmer of hope. But there's not a spark of light in hell. All hope is walled out

forever. As long as heaven shall continue to be heaven, as long as God shall continue to be God, wrote one of the Puritans, and as long as the saints shall be happy in their enjoyment of God, so long shall the wicked be tormented in the fires of hell. So why would you ever think about living for this life and this world when it's a tiny little blip on the horizon and throw away your one soul for a never never never neverending eternity? Oh, I say to you, my friend, if you're not in Christ today, don't

go another day without taking the gospel pen in your hand and signing your name as it were. You sign off your own righteousness and you surrender to Christ to find that only savior in life and in death. One Puritan said this, "I've preached the gospel to you many times, and sometimes the pen was in your hand, as it were, and you were almost ready to sign the marriage contract between Christ and your soul. But unhappily, you dropped the pen, and you turned your back from the Lord to your lusts again to destroy yourself forever if

you don't repent. There are no wells of salvation in the pit of destruction, said another Puritan. And Edward said, "When you look forward, you'll see a long forever a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts and amaze your soul, and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all through millions and millions of ages. You will find no relief, despair. Listen to Thomas Watson. Oh, eternity, eternity. If all the body of the earth and sea were turned to sand, and all the air up to

the starry heaven were nothing but sand, and a little bird should come every thousand years and fetch away in her bill. but the tenth part of a single grain of all that heap of sand. What numberless years would be spent before that vast heap of sand would be fetched away. Yet if at the end of all that time the sinner might come out of hell, there would be some hope. But it's the word ever forever that breaks the heart. The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever. Friend, if you are yet outside of

Christ, why would you trade eternal joy for the passing pleasures of sin which are so small and bring so much bitterness in the end? Why would you reject the father's invitation to all sinners to come and drink and eat, to come to the wedding feast? Why would you feed your body and soul with forbidden delights only to suffer in body and soul forever under the wrath of God? Why will you indulge in a few moments of sinful pleasure just to suffer for an eternity in unending pain and misery? Why would you lose the chief good,

God himself? Oh, that God would turn your heart to him today before he destroys you forever. This is the Puritan doctrine, the biblical doctrine of hell. So, let me close with a few applications to you who remain outside of Christ. The Puritans say this. Every sermon, every scripture reading, every warning will only testify against you in the judgment day if you don't repent. And the memory of your gospel privileges squandered will make a hell within a hell for you. Don't stay away from Christ. Run to him. Fly to him. Bow before him. He stands ready

to save you. He's never turned a sinner away who comes to him for everlasting life. He's willing to forgive you even from your abuse of the gospel privileges. Now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Wilt thou go with this man? Will you be a Rebecca? Will you receive the greater Isaac? He offers himself to you. He offers you his spotless robe of righteousness. He offers you the infinite satisfaction, the perfect atonement. He's accomplished on the cross. God takes no delight in the pleasure of no pleasure in the in your death

in your destruction. He offers you the water of life freely. Even right now, he puts the cup of salvation up to your lips. Drink, sinner. He promises if you bow before him, receive him, repent, believe in him, you may have him, you may have him from this time forth and forever. You may be spiritually engaged to him and be married to him. He will be yours and you will be his forever. My Lord and my God. Why would you turn away from the only good? And to you who are believers, I hope that's the vast

bulk of us. Let us thank God for our salvation. We've never done anything to deserve it. We were dead in trespasses and sins. If Christ can save you and can save me, he can save anyone. Go out and live that way. Go out and evangelize that way. Go out and teach that way. Go out and preach that way. And second, let's meditate a lot more than we do on the glories of heaven, on our future home. Why would you why would you meditate more on the future home, your inheritance that awaits you forever? Such meditation

the Puritans had will sweeten your labor and it will encourage you to live holy and solely for Christ. And third, let's fight sin with holy violence. It was sin that put our savior on the cross. Let's hate sin more than we do and love Christ more than we do. Why would we trade infinite unending pleasures, said one Puritan, even George Twinch, even for one vile lust in this veil of tears, one inch of time? Oh, do not the words of Christ ring in your ears, that it's better to enter life maim than to enter hell

with a healthy body. At present, says Swanach, the sinner burns in lust, but then in a flaming fire. Oh, drink of the fullness of God. Mortify sin. Put the sword through it. And finally, share the gospel with urgency. Don't sit on an airplane and not try to evangelize the person next to you. It's the only time you'll meet him probably in all your life. See every unconverted person as a mission field. If you know the truth and you found where life is, everyone else needs it. What you have, tell them. Tell them the gospel. Tell

them what the gospel means to you. Tell them they can have it as well. Share it. Proclaim it. Live it. Speak it. Reflect it. Think of it with holy zeal. Be like the Puritans who were white hot flames of zeal. for the Lord of glory. And to those of us who are pastors, Puritans often talk to pastors both when they talk write about heaven and when they write about hell. Oh eternity, eternity, eternity, said Robert Bolton. Upon the little inch of time in this life depends the length and breadth, the height and depth of immortality

in the world to come, even two eternities. the miseries of hell, the everlasting joys of heaven. Preacher friend, preach as if this were indeed true, because it is. When Jonathan Edwards was a 13-year-old boy, he made this resolution. Oh God, stamp eternity upon my eyeballs. Ponder the momentousness of eternity before you enter the pulpit. And you, dear believer, live every day in the shadow of eternity. We are all on the brink of it at any moment. That the realities of eternity cause you to run to Christ for salvation daily. Cause you to be thankful for

grace daily. Urge you to frequent meditation daily. Lift up your heart in adoration to Christ daily. Make you plead with God for the salvation of souls. Also your own dear family members daily and pour fuel on your zeal to share the gospel with the lost daily and spur you on to live every moment in light of eternity for the glory of God. Let's pray. Lord God, heaven and hell, death and judgment, the four great last things. Oh, help us. Help us to live in the reality of our future and to be prepared, every one of

us and every one of our family members. Oh, that we would pray with tears like my father used to often pray. We can't miss any one of our children or grandchildren on the wrong side of Christ on that great day. You must be born again. Dear children, dear grandchildren, oh God, bind the reality of life and death upon us and open the vistas and the storehouse of grace in Christ for us. Help us to embrace with joy the fullness, the freess, the glory, the beauty of the gospel in our faithful triune God. Lord bless the

teaching of the Puritans on heaven and hell to our hearts in Jesus name we pray. Amen.