The End of the Wicked: Be Not Among them!

[Kokavkrystallos]

When you come to know you're a sinner, cry out to the LORD for mercy, and forgiveness. For all are sinners and all have sinned. There is no way around it or out from under it: we all have a sentence of death hanging over us, and the second death revealed in the Bible will be far worse than any gruesome execution man can carry out. It will be, first: complete exposure of every sinful act and thought you ever committed, and second: judgment pronounced in front of all you ever knew, and many you never knew. Extreme embarrassment coupled with the worst dreadful fear you ever experienced, is what awaits the lost soul: the damned, the condemned.

Luke 8:17, "For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad."

Romans 2:16, "God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel."

1 Corinthians 6:2-3, "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels?"

The following is by Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), from "The End of the Wicked Contemplated by the Righteous"
(This is from when preaching was real: the sword of the Spirit cut deeply, as it is supposed to do. You would know your sin, and the dire necessity of a Saviour. Today, many sermons are designed to make you feel good, not to offend anybody, and many preachers have departed from the true preaching of the Gospel, to a watered down version - some so bad it is dragging people into hell, rather than draw them into a saving knowledge and experiential relationship with the risen Christ):

"God will exercise no pity towards you. If you might have his pity in any degree, that would be of more worth to you than thousands of worlds. That would make your case to be not without comfort and hope. But God will exercise no pity towards you. He hath often said concerning wicked men, that his eye shall not spare, neither will he have pity, Ezek. v. 11, and vii. 4, 9, and viii. 18. He will cast upon you, and not spare; you will see nothing in God, and receive nothing from him, but perfect hatred, and the fierceness of his wrath; nothing but the mighty falls or outpourings of wrath upon you every moment; and no cries will avail to move God to any pity, or in the least to move him to lighten his hand, or assuage the fierceness and abate the power of your torments.
Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, will have no pity on you. Though he had so much love to sinners, as to be willing to lay down his life for them, and offers you the benefits of his blood, while you are in this world, and often calls upon you to accept them; yet then he will have no pity upon you. You never will hear any more instructions from him; he will utterly refuse to be your instructor: on the contrary, he will be your judge, to pronounce sentence against you.

Consider what an aggravation what you have heard under this doctrine will be to your misery. Consider how it will be at the day of judgment, when you shall see Christ coming in the clouds of heaven, when you shall begin to wail and cry, as knowing that you are those who are to be condemned; and perhaps you will be ready to fly to some of your godly friends; but you will obtain no help from them: you will see them unconcerned for you, with joyful countenances ascending to meet the Lord, and not the less joyful for the horror in which they see you. And when you shall stand before the tribunal at the left hand, among devils, trembling and astonished, and shall have the dreadful sentence passed upon you, you will at the same time see the blessed company of saints and angels at the right hand rejoicing, and shall hear them shout forth the praises of God, while they hear your sentence pronounced. You will then see those godly people, with whom you shall have been acquainted, and who shall have been your neighbors, and with whom you now often converse, rejoicing at the pronunciation and execution of your sentence.

(And, when all those who told you the truth of Christ, and your dire need for His salvation), will declare how your sins are aggravated by the endeavors which they to no purpose used with you, to bring you to forsake sin and practice virtue, and to seek and serve God; but you were obstinate under all, and would not hearken to them.

Besides those things which have been now mentioned, some of you have a degree of the inward strivings and influences of the Spirit, which makes your opportunity much greater. You have Christ's internal calls and knockings. All the persons of the Trinity are now seeking your salvation. God the Father hath sent his Son, who hath made way for your salvation, and removed all difficulties, except those which are with your own heart. And he is waiting to be gracious to you; the door of his mercy stands open to you; he hath set a fountain open for you to wash in from sin and uncleanness. Christ is calling, inviting, and wooing you; and the Holy Ghost is striving with you by his internal motions and influences.
If you now repent, before it be too late, the saints and angels in glory will rejoice at your repentance.
If you repent before it is too late, you yourselves shall be of that joyful company. They will be so far from rejoicing on occasion of your ruin, that you yourselves will be of that glorious company, who will rejoice in all the works of God, who will have all tears wiped away from their eyes, to whom there will be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, and from whom sorrow and sighing shall flee away. You yourselves will be of those who will rejoice at the glorious display of God's majesty and justice in his wrath on his enemies. You will be of those that shall sing for joy of heart at the day of judgment, while others mourn for sorrow of heart, and bowl for vexation of spirit; and you will enter into the joy of your Lord, and there shall never be any end or abatement of our joy!"
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From Edwards, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" - which is considered probably the most famous sermon of all time, outside of the Bible:

"2. Men deserving​

They deserve to be cast into hell, so that divine justice never stands in the way; it makes no objection against God’s using His power at any moment to destroy them. Yea, on the contrary, justice calls aloud for an infinite punishment of their sins. Divine justice says of the tree that brings forth such grapes of Sodom, “Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?” (Luk 13:7). The sword of divine justice is every moment brandished over their heads, and it is nothing but the hand of arbitrary mercy and God’s mere will that holds it back.

4. Objects of wrath even now​

“God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.”—Psalm 7:11
They are now the objects of that very same anger and wrath of God, that is expressed in the torments of hell; and the reason why they do not go down to hell at each moment, is not because God, in Whose power they are, is not at present very angry with them—as He is with many miserable creatures now tormented in hell, who there feel and bear the fierceness of His wrath. Yea, God is a great deal more angry with great numbers that are now on earth—yea, doubtless with some who may read this book, who, it may be, are at ease—than He is with many of those that are now in the flames of hell So it is not because God is unmindful of their wickedness, and does not resent it, that He does not let loose His hand and cut them off. God is not altogether such a one as themselves, though they may imagine Him to be so. The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared; the fire is made ready; the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is whetted and held over them, and the pit hath opened its mouth under them.
O sinner, consider the fearful danger you are in! It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God Whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it and burn it asunder. And you have no interest in any mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself—nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you have done, nothing that you can do—to induce God to spare you one moment."

Flee to Christ​

And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open (Luk 4:17-21), and stands calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners (Pro 8:1-11), a day wherein many are flocking to him and pressing into the kingdom of God.
Many are daily coming from the east, west, north, and south; many that were very lately in the same miserable condition that you are in, are now in a happy state with their hearts filled with love to Him Who has loved them and washed them from their sins in His own blood (Rev 1:5), and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God (Rom 5:2). How awful is it to be left behind at such a day and see so many others feasting, while you are pining and perishing! To see so many rejoicing and singing for joy of heart, while you have cause to mourn for sorrow of heart, and to howl for vexation of spirit! How can you rest one moment in such a condition? Are not your souls as precious as the souls of those who are flocking from day to day to Christ?