The misery of dying without Christ

 Posted at Reformation Scotland:

Pope Francis was buried in a ceremony attended by hundreds of world leaders and hundreds of thousands of lay people. Others leave this life unnoticed and are buried with no fanfare. The one thing that we all have in common is that we will all die. But in death, all are not equal. In the Apostle John’s vision, a voice from heaven instructed him to write: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.” Among the several sermons which James Durham preached on these words, one is on the difficult topic of the contrast between those who do and do not die “in the Lord.” Durham confronts us squarely with the misery of those who die “outside of Christ.” The late Pope was deeply religious, widely revered, and had a well established reputation for a form of holiness, humbleness and ordinariness. But God will judge him, along with all the rest of us, on whether or not we are “in Christ.” In the following updated and abridged extract, Durham exposes the dreadfulness of not dying “in Christ,” points out the terrible mistakes we might make about what this means, and urges us to make sure that we belong to Christ.

As the happiness of those who die “in Christ” is inexpressibly great, so the misery and unhappiness of those who do not die in Him is also inexpressible, for they are excluded and shut out from God and from all good, and have his wrath, his furious indignation, and his most severe justice pursuing them for ever and ever.

Excluded from the greatest happiness

They are shut out from the greatest happiness, that is, from the fellowship of God, who is the chief good. They are excluded from conversing with the Lamb, and with the glorious angels and saints. They shall not have one saint in all their company. There is not the least evidence of the love of God among all the thousands in hell, not one drop of cold water to cool the tongue of any of those who are tormented in these flames. They have judgment without the least mixture of mercy (Jam. 1:13), and that for ever without intermission. They shall never have the least glimmering of light nor the least mitigation of their pain, but they shall have no rest night nor day.

Worst of all, they have no way out, or hope of it. They lie in utter desperation under that felt eternal torment. It would be some lightening to the damned in hell if their torment were to continue only for some thousands of years, or even only for some millions of thousands of years (as poor Spira said, it would have been a comfort to him if hell had only been for 20,000 years), but it is for ever.

Continue here...