PART II, ARTICLE I: A CRITIQUE OF THE TRAGICALLY HIP, SECTION II

The most intelligible, graceful lines that I could find out of the dozen or so songs of the Hip that I read, are these, “Twenty years for nothing, well, that’s nothing new, besides/No one’s interested in something you didn’t do.” I have had to conclude that even this song is vague. Even Wheat Kings, which is supposed to be about wrongfully convicted David Milgaard, is not really about that unless someone tells you that it is. This is quite unlike Stompin’ Tom’s Big Joe Mufferaw, which is, without a doubt, about a French-Canadian lumberjack from the 19th century. The day after the lead singer’s death, the host of Ontario Today, a CBC program, invited fans to phone in to voice their thoughts on Downie’s death. The guest for the show was Alan Cross, a music journalist. During this one hour eulogy, whether by host, guest, or callers, Downie was extolled for having been elliptical, evasive, obtuse yet accessible, intentionally obtuse; and for having stated, in his songs, ‘different things to different people.’ The Bible would call him a prater; and his songs, prating. The apostle Paul, in order to see as many souls saved as possible, made himself ‘all things to all men,’ which is similar to being ‘different things to different people,’ but he made sense. In all seriousness, the guest told the radio audience that musicians like Gord feel more deeply than the common man; and that they, unlike the rest of us, can articulate what they feel. Do those lyrics that I quoted exhibit depth and articulacy? In Egos and Icons, Downie says that his lyrics are ‘user-friendly’—for listeners to deal with, not him. Then he complains, “That’s not good enough for certain people.” Obviously the lyrical quality of his songs has been an issue. It is a vulnerable scab. But it’s a scab that deserves to be picked at. He says this about one song in particular, which, I suppose, he would say for all the rest: “Even if you just sort of get a sense of the mood or the landscape or a character in it, or even if it just takes you off somewhere else so that you’re not even listening to the lyrics by the end of the song, then it succeeded; it just functioned as a sound.” A song that is no more than a sound should not be good enough for any thinking person, though—not if we care about the use of our mind. On a site called Song Meanings, fans are invited to opine on what songs like Twist my Arm and Little Bones mean. It’s all just guessing and speculation. No one really knows what songs like those mean. Members of the band have no idea. Even Downie himself didn’t know. No one knows what lyrics like these, from Poets, could possibly mean: “Spring starts when a heartbeat’s pounding/When the birds can be heard above the reckoning carts doing some final accounting/Lava flowing in Superfarmer’s direction/He’s been getting reprieve from the heat in the frozen food section.” On some level and to some degree, even a singer who is part of society’s moral meltdown should communicate something. If the lyrics of Tragically Hip songs are assessed in order to form some idea of the band’s excellence or lack thereof, it has to be said that one of the chief characteristics of their body of work is meaninglessness. Meaninglessness is a good synonym for postmodernism. Substitute the word ‘meaninglessness’ where the word ‘postmodernism’ is used today, and there is a fairly accurate, concise definition of that enigmatic word. Postmodernism is the philosophy that life has no meaning, that meaning should not be looked for, and that meaning itself is meaningless. Meaning, today, especially in the pop music sector, is as outdated as an abandoned outhouse. Coherent disclosure, furthermore, is prized about as much as what the outhouse was once full of.

PART II, ARTICLE I: A CRITIQUE OF THE TRAGICALLY HIP, SECTION I

When I write lyrics for songs, which isn’t often, the ideal that I have in mind is ‘Both Sides Now’ by Joni Mitchell or ‘Yesterday When I Was Young’ by Charles Aznavour. These songs, in my opinion, represent the standard in secular songwriting. When it was announced that Gord Downie, lead singer for The Tragically Hip, had terminal cancer, he was so often the subject of conversation on the news, and he so wearied me with his pretentious presence, that I began to examine his ‘work’ in order to see if he merited even a fraction of the praise that he was receiving. So shocked was I at the sight of his lyrics that this lengthy article was necessary to elucidate the reason for my shock.   

“Yeah coward phones, big soup stones, prideless loans/Grill sick crows, motel moans and big fat Jones, woo woo.” What a way to begin an article! What could these eloquent words mean? What masterpiece have I quoted from? Whose words of genius are these? These words are from Twist my Arm by The Tragically Hip, whose lead singer died of brain cancer on October 17th, 2017. Yes, these words form part of an actual pop song. This couplet is so shockingly absurd that I had to listen to the lyrics several times in order to make sure that I had the lines correctly rendered. “Yeah coward phones, big soup stones, prideless loans/Grill sick crows, motel moans and big fat Jones, woo woo.” Yeah, this is what Gord Downie wrote; this is what he sang; this is what he is praised for; this is what sells albums; this is what helps a singer win awards in Canada. Should such a series of words be accorded the status of a lyric? This present generation, for the most part, would answer ‘yes’ to that question. Alarmingly, we are several generations deep into compositional absurdity. In the words of Bob Dylan, though with some license: If our times have been a-changin,’ then they’ve been a-changin’ for the worse. We like to hope; in fact, thoughtful persons do hope, that bêtises like ‘grill sick crows’ will not pass for lyrics much longer. Possibly, however, it might be that the only event that will annihilate this nihilism—this absence of objective meaning—is the literal return of Jesus Christ. As pointed out in a documentary called Egos and Icons, each member of the band made some contribution to what The Tragically Hip produced. Gord Downie, though, was the chief, and maybe only, architect of the lyric anarchy that the band created. Tragically Hip songs are commonly obtuse; in other words, they are indistinct and obscure. It would not be too much to say, perhaps, that the songs are nonsensical. From a song called Little Bones—: “So regal and decadent here/Coffin-cheaters dance on their graves’ music/All it’s delicate fear/Is the only thing that don’t change/Two-fifty for an eyeball/And a buck and a half for an ear, happy hour/Happy hour, happy hour is here.” It is doubtful that anyone knows what lyrics like these are about. When Downie’s admirers refer to his lyrics as ‘obtuse,’ they somehow mean it as a compliment. A songwriter who produces lyrics that are less than perceptible should never be praised for it, however. He should never be listened to unless for the purpose of gathering material for criticism; and he should never be critically bothered with unless his music is exerting some influence, which his still is.   

Is it not tragically consistent that the man out of whose mind such lyrics issued ended up dying of brain cancer? It is as if these mentally disordered lyrics formed an immaterial tumor in his mind, which eventually materialized and metastasized, resulting in a terminal case of the now infamous disease that no one is able to outwit. This is not a nice thing to say; but not all things that are less than nice should be left unsaid. To suggest a correlation is natural, if not irresistible. Creatures endowed with understanding have souls, and they are responsible to the Maker of Souls for how they use their minds. When we make a poor use of our mind, and our brain is suddenly stricken so that our mental function begins to swiftly deteriorate, we ought to, with what little reason we have left, turn our attention to the Creator of our mind, and wonder at what might be going on from the divine perspective, and begin to search the word of God for an answer. “You can’t actually predict what your afterworld will be, if in fact there is one,” Downie says in Egos and Icons. He was a young man when he said this. But there is no indication that he ever came to a belief in God, much less to faith in Jesus Christ, through which principle alone; that is to say, through faith or trust in Jesus’ name, a certain hope of heaven may be obtained. Indeed, there is every indication that the man died in unbelief. In 2001 Downie began a solo career. While going solo, he produced an album, receiving help from musicians who go by the name of the words ‘damn’ and ‘God’ together. This collaboration was, by Downie, then, the reception of a violation of the third commandment, which is the command to not take the LORD’s name in vain. In the estimation of most of us, it is a petty sin, if it is a sin at all, to take the name of the LORD in vain. How excessively petty of me to pick on someone for doing it! But, says the word of God: “The wise in heart will receive commandments: but a prating fool shall fall” (Proverbs 10.8.) To prate is to exceed the bounds of useful speech: to chat idly and vainly. It might seem impolite to ask the following rhetorical question. But what are those lyrics that I quoted but something even more stupid than foolish prating or idle chatting? I say ‘worse’ because some idea, though it must be an unimportant one, can be discerned from prating or chatting. For the sake of calling the lyrics something, however, I will be gracious; I will grant them the status of prating. Then I must ask another rhetorical question. What happened on October 17th, 2017 but that a man without regard for a sacred commandment, and who prated foolishly till the end of his life, perished? True, Christians fall by cancer as well. But they don’t go down without receiving and respecting God’s commandments; neither do they leave the world as prating fools.

PART I, ARTICLE X: THE FUTURE OF MAN, SECTION VI

Jesus Christ. “Through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus are chronicled in the form of letters. With respect to the communication of facts, the letter is the most reliable genre in literature. God has made it easy to find salvation, for it just so happens that the way of salvation is written down in detail in the most popular, most easily obtained, Book in all of history. On one side of the Book it is prophesied that a Saviour will come. On the other side of the Book, the Saviour has come. His circumstances, character, and conduct are the same in prophecy as they have fallen out in reality. He was born of a virgin in the town of Bethlehem; he was descended from the tribe of Judah; he was called a Nazarene; he fled into Egypt; he died in Jerusalem; he fed the hungry; he healed the sick; he raised the dead; he was despised and rejected; he was acquainted with grief; and he was numbered with the transgressors. All of this and more was prophesied of the Son of God hundreds of years before he came into the world as Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Man. It would be remarkable for even one specific prophecy to come to pass in the life of any man. But the prophecies concerning Jesus are not only specific, but sundry. One writer counted thirty-three prophecies coming to pass in the life of Jesus in one single day. God has made it easy to notice who it is that he sent into the world to save sinners from their just deserts. Elijah and Elisha raised the dead through the power of God; Jesus was the power of God who raised the dead. Unlike any man born in history, he had power over his own life. “No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father” (John 10.18.) He was subject to the Father, but had the prerogative of God, for he was and is, God the Son. Now he is the authority in heaven who will judge the quick and the dead on earth.

Jesus was more than a teacher. He was more than a prophet. He was more, and is more, than man has ever been and that man can ever be. He did not miss the mark; he came to earth to obey the law of God, and fully and flawlessly did so. For the sins of man he died on the cross. The way of eternal life is through trust in what he did for sinful man. What did he do over and above the miracles that authenticated his ministry? He obeyed God’s law to the letter; and he died the death that man deserved for breaking that same law. This was satisfying to God; but that satisfaction does nothing for a sinner unless he puts his trust in Jesus. To benefit, through faith, from what Jesus has done, is the only way to heaven. To want another way to heaven is an insult to the holiness, mercy, and wisdom of the Triune God. Refusing to be saved in God’s way leaves the sinner open to God’s justice and wrath. Justification is necessary, and can only be obtained through faith in Jesus’ name; no man who rejects the gift of God through Jesus Christ can be justified.

But either sinners want to work up to heaven instead of get pulled up by free grace through faith, or they want to get eternal life through someone other than Jesus Christ the Lord, the Mediator of grace. When sinners pray to Mary, they rely on their own prayers as much as they do on Mary, do they not? Neither prayers nor Mary can save. Only Jesus can. Some sinners are offended that God the Father would accept the sacrifice of his Son as the deed to satisfy his wrath. But while the Bible says that Jesus suffered the wrath of God, it also says that he laid his own life down in order to do it. What sinners are put off by is not the treatment of Jesus by the Father, though; that is their excuse. They are put off by the repentance that the Bible requires. If going to heaven through faith in Jesus’ sacrifice for sin comes at the cost of repenting first, that is too uncomfortable for them to contemplate. It is due to the corrupted nature of a sinner that he refuses eternal life so he can go on sinning. But how long can he sin for? These are not the days of Methuselah—therefore, how long? Can a sinner sin for seventy or eighty years? He can’t do it for much longer than that. What is eighty years compared with eternity? Why enjoy sinning for less than a century if it means being punished for an eternity of centuries because of it? The average sinner would rather receive the wages of sin than repent; that is, he would rather keep his sentence of death leading to hell than receive eternal life if the reception of this life means that he must repent first. Since the offer of eternal life is extended, and since this present life leads directly to damnation, there is nothing more urgent than to receive the gift of eternal life. This present life is uncertain; the offer of life eternal is temporary, and is withdrawn at the moment of death. The reception of eternal life comes with one condition. It must be received through Jesus Christ, which means: by faith in his name, which faith implies: the repenting that Jesus preached. 

Some sinners claim to reject the offer of salvation because Christians do bad things. So often this is nothing more than an excuse as well. Even if sinners are sincere in this concern, and even if bad things are done by Christians, or have been done, in the name of Christ, that does not mean that the salvation that God provides through Christ is a lie. Many cruel deeds have been done in the name of Jesus Christ. But is it right to hate the way of salvation because counterfeit faiths exist? Numerous churches and masses of professing Christians have made a mockery of the name that is above every name. But this fact does not nullify who Jesus is, the good that he did on earth, the merit of his death, his power to save, or the certainty of his promises. Jesus is not responsible for the misconduct of persons who pretend to follow him. He is not guilty of the misdeeds that are committed in his name; in fact, he died for the misdeeds of others. He must be evaluated according to his own person and record, which are equally blameless. Can it be wise for a sinner to let all the infamy that has been done in Jesus’ name keep him from obtaining the gift of eternal life from God? God the Father has chosen Jesus Christ alone for sinners to be saved by, regardless of Roman Catholic Inquisitions, Salem Witch Trials, cultic churches, and ministers getting caught with prostitutes in cheap motels.  It is right to criticize false Christianity. But it is dumb to reject salvation through Christ because of all the wicked deeds that have been done in his name. Do we throw our money out because counterfeit bills exist? How much less ought we to throw away the pearl of great price (the way of salvation through Jesus Christ the Lord) because some false professors wear fake gems? 

Obdurate sinners will be denied heaven no matter what their excuse is for rejecting the offers of grace. There is no way to heaven by going around Jesus. He cannot be gotten around. He is all-powerful and omnipresent; he stands in the way because he is the Way. There are no other futures for a man to come to than eternal life and everlasting death. His destiny must be one or the other. Jesus himself endorses both of these ends, and only these, in his closing Revelation to John the apostle, right near where he declares himself as the beginning and end: “I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last” (Revelation 22.13.) One end will terminate thus: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still” (verse 11.) This is one future. The other end will be: “he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.” This is the other future. Who are the righteous that are spoken of in this last verse? These are the “blessed…that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life” (verse 14.) The ‘blessed’ are not saved by doing what is right; they do what is right because they are saved. Their lives have been cleaned up; this is why they live clean lives; this is why some of them have been called Puritans.     

What do sinners do after they sin? They clean up; or they at least prefer to be clean than dirty. What would it be like to be left filthy forever? Is a dirty destiny to be desired more than a holy one? Holiness is indeed unapproachable. It makes us uncomfortable. It made saints like the prophet Isaiah and the apostle John exclaim and tremble. But once the saints are fully redeemed at the general resurrection of the dead, holiness will attract them more, even by an infinite measure, than the grossest lusts allure the most debauched persons right now. It may be that sinners will long for their sins even from hell. But whether they will long for them or else loathe them, it is certain that they will not be able to enjoy them. They will see, from their place in the abode of the damned, how happy the saints are in the city of God. “The wicked in hell will be sensible how the righteous in heaven enjoy the favor of God” (Jonathan Edwards, Unless You Repent, p. 215.) Better to be slowly starved to death while having to look at people feasting than to be conscious that others are delighted forever while we are eternally miserable. The Lord Jesus says that ‘everlasting fire’ was ‘prepared for the devil and his angels’ (Matthew 25.41.) Yet he says that this is where unsaved sinners must go. To have to go where even Satan and his fellow demons must go must be a worse outcome and destiny than the best writers of horror have been able to imagine. The only way to a better future is through Jesus Christ, who went through hell on the cross to save all sinners who are willing to repent.       

That person is rare today whose impression of sin, death, Jesus, faith, and the afterlife even marginally agrees with the Bible’s revelation of the same. There are many things that we can afford to be wrong about. But subjects that the future of our soul swivels on are not things that we can afford to misapprehend. The wages, or payment, for sin is death; there is no righteousness, outside of Christ, to cancel that payment; this is why death outside of faith in Christ must be everlasting. We have sin; we are sinful; God will not dwell with sinners. Sins must be turned from, and they must be seen by God as either covered or cleansed by Christ (depending on which figure of speech one prefers to use.) Sinners who won’t repent will be shut out of heaven because nothing unholy is permitted entry there. Life on earth is our probation. If our probation fails, we are undone forever; there is no purgatory to make up for a botched probation. The future of man is an ever-dying existence in unquenchable fire. We have seen people in the process of dying; imagine this process going on without end. Hell and the lake of fire are worse than that. Through faith in Christ the future can be better, even by infinity, than what heaven can be imagined to be. Happiness in heaven is proportionate to the misery of hell. One future is as high and heavenly as the other is bottomless and hellish. The whole creation groans and travails right now (Romans 8.22), that is, until it gives birth to something new. The entire cosmos will be renovated on the basis of Christ’s redemption. The saints of God will enjoy the full scope of God’s creation, from the Milky Way to the Pleiades and beyond.   

“To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth on him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10.43.) When the apostle Peter uttered this, “the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word” (verse 44.) The truth of verse 43 has, therefore, been certified from heaven. Jesus Christ is the Saviour of sinners from their sins, just as the angel sent to Joseph said (Matthew 1.21.) Look at all the witnesses in these few verses: ‘all the prophets,’ Luke (the author of the book of Acts), Peter, the angel, Joseph, Matthew, and the Holy Spirit. Even more witnesses could be called forth to testify that Jesus is the Saviour that sinners need. Who but stiff-necked sinners determined to go their own way would demand more? It will be—it must be—no future but conflagrations for sinners who ‘pull away the shoulder’ (Zechariah 7.11.) Warnings in Scripture can be shrugged off here and now; not so there and then.

PART I, ARTICLE X: THE FUTURE OF MAN, SECTION V

Gift. “But the gift of God is eternal life.” No fault more perilous can be made than the assumption that persons who have no interest in God while on earth go automatically to heaven when they die. This seems to be the default religion of irreligious people. Go to practically any funeral, and you will hear a eulogy that will prove this point. The deceased usually has no history of loving God, no marked up Bible, no evidence of a point in life of turning from sin—nothing that should convince a pastor that his departed soul has been welcomed by angels and is now at rest in ‘a better place.’ There is no ‘Better Place’ for these exaggeratedly eulogized folks; there is no ‘Nirvana’ for Buddhists and Hindus; there is no ‘Happy Hunting Ground’ for American Indians; there is no ‘Paradise’ for Muslims; there is no ‘Valhalla’ for warriors and soldiers; there are no ‘Elysian Fields’ for heroes. There is only ‘the Kingdom of Heaven’ for sinners who become Christians. The kingdom of heaven is holy. It does not cavort with sin. We have no reason to believe that a person who went on in sin all his life has gone to a place that is the very antithesis of sin. It is true that even the Christian sins, for sanctification is a gradual process that stems from the regenerate soul. But any Christian in more than a name has his confession and testimony substantiated by an upstanding life, notwithstanding his occasional faults. To assume, and even declare, that a deceased person, regardless of lifestyle and belief, has been ushered into the care of heaven, is what pastors unjustifiably do and what families and loved ones routinely expect. The gift of God is eternal life. This gift comes by an act of grace. Grace is holy, and therefore consecration must exude from any sinner who has received the gift. To be holy is to be set apart. If a person is not known for standing apart from sinners and what sinners do and must be judged for, that person has not received the holy gift of eternal life, and there is no heaven for him.  Grace makes a person hate sin more than like it. If a person has not been tiresome in his denunciation of sin, it is wrong to assume that he has had grace worked into him. A soul saved by grace and in possession of eternal life is daily outraged at sin. “Horror has taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law” (Psalm 119.53.) Can this honestly be said of the last person we knew who was eulogized? Was that person habitually horrified upon hearing of wickedness like extramarital liaisons, abortion, idolatry, euthanasia, oppression, pornography, homosexuality, and perversities by any other name? 

Death happens because of sin; life happens by the gift of God. Both are eternal futures. The exchange of one for the other is characterized by the power of sin being broken, which is what an operation of grace will do. It is true that every man has lied, and this reality is stated in the Bible more than once. It is a hard thing to lie no more; probably no one can live up to that. But we must reckon with the fact that even lying must be overcome, for liars, not just murderers, “shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Revelation 21.8.) It seems out of sync for lying to be put next to murder, idolatry, and whoredom (debauchery) as a sin that a person will be consigned to the lake of fire for committing. The question is not: Have we lied? We all have. The question is not: Can we stop lying from now on until we die? The questions that help us to know if we are the kind of liar condemned in the verse are these: Is our profession of faith a lie? Do we feel guiltier before God than before man when we lie? “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned” (Psalm 51.4.) Have we ever struggled with the ethical issue of Rahab lying to save the Hebrew spies? Have we ever struggled with the ethical issue of lying to save Jews during the Holocaust? Christians are wont to grapple with questions like these.

PART I, ARTICLE X: THE FUTURE OF MAN, SECTION IV

Life. “But the gift of God is eternal life.” We should like any other future than a hellish one, even if we have to play country-gospel on a harp for the first thousand years. We should pray God to give us, through any process that is necessary: comfort instead of torment; instead of regret, relief; instead of weeping, laughing; instead of banishment, welcome; instead of isolation, company; instead of outer darkness, the glory of God and the light of Christ; and instead of being forgotten, that white stone with our heavenly name written inside it (Revelation 2.17.) We should like for our future, anything but the loneliness that being ‘cast out’ by God entails. 

Incorruptible riches will be the treasure, and holy raptures the experience, of all sinners who abandon their condemning sins here and now. Heaven might not seem like an attractive option to those sinners among us who fancy themselves tough guys—until they’ve been breathing suffocating fumes for a minute or so, or bobbing in the lake of fire for a second or two. It is one thing to snicker at the rigors of this little world when we have been blessed with a strong constitution. But we should be mindful that when it gets hot, we run for shade and water; that when we get weary, we go to sleep; that when we get lonely, we talk to someone; that when we suffer a setback, we receive help. How would we bear an eternity of heat? What is it like to never be allowed to sleep? Everyone has been lonely. But once a person has hell for his abandonment, there can be no visitation or consolation ever. That will be, in fact, the perfection of loneliness. To scoff at heaven and joke about hell is easy to do from an easy chair with a beer in the hand. But he who thinks himself too mighty to need soft living in the kingdom of heaven does not take account of his own weakness. One moment in hell, and, like the rich man in the parable, the sinner will change his mind. 

Think not that heaven is powerless to keep a sinner out if suddenly the sinner decides he wants in. The heavenly realm is not the harmless place that it has been made out to be. The commonest angels there can overtake the mightiest kings here. “And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the LORD stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces” (1 Chronicles 21.16.) The way people talk when a loved one dies, they must suppose that they and their loved ones will have it just as they like hereafter. Whoever thinks that he will go automatically to heaven no matter how he has lived his life is in for the worst kind of awakening. Whoever thinks that he will be able to break out of hell, take heaven by storm, and fashion a beer commercial to live in, is ignorant of basic metaphysical facts. Whoever thinks that he will be able to cross the chasm between hell and heaven in order to rule in heaven as he ruled on earth is ignorant of his own impotence. The powers of heaven will never be overcome, neither by partiers nor politicians. Because heaven is so impossible to imagine, I frequently meditate on what the Bible tells me will not be included there. “As wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God” (Psalm 68.2.) This judgment will be fulfilled to benefit the saints in heaven. ‘The poor of this world’ will be found ‘heirs of the kingdom’ (James 2.5), while the rich oppressors who blasphemed God by their conduct will be locked out (verse 6.) If the men who control the world right now could get into heaven in their impenitent state, they would tear down the pearly gates, paint the streets of gold in gaudy colors, and begin immediately to contrive ways to take over and oppress. Heaven would be too hot; so they would impose taxes. Heaven would be unhealthy; so they would force vaccines. Heaven would be too holy; so they would announce pride parades, ban heavenly speech, and imprison every outspoken angel and saint. Heaven will be free of oppressors because it will be free of sinful indulgences. The kind of restraint that we need on earth will be operative in heaven; and yet heaven’s new inhabitants will be freer than they ever imagined a sinless state to involve.    

Life in heaven will be the enjoyment of what God himself is satisfied with: his expulsive glory. It is a controlled expulsion; but it is more than merely self-generated. Glory is the resplendent emanation of who God is. Whatever the Creator of creatures, worlds, and spirits is satisfied to bask in is unimaginable, which is why heaven is practically indescribable.    

PART I, ARTICLE X: THE FUTURE OF MAN, SECTION III

Death. “For the wages of sin is death.” We are all familiar with physical death: the separation of the soul from the body. But there follows another after that: the separation of the soul from the goodness of God in eternity, which happens because the soul would not unite with God while on earth. It used to be common knowledge that Jesus spoke of hell more than heaven. Since the wisest Teacher spoke of hell more often than he spoke about heaven, it must be more useful to scare than it is to coax. The final Revelation is given for the ‘servants’ of Jesus Christ, the already saved (Revelation 1.1.) The specific revelation of hell is given (note the ‘Pharisees’ in Luke 16.14) for those who are under condemnation. It is always a good idea to rake some truth up from the bowels of hell—from the story that Jesus told as he looked into it with his piercing eye, for most of us are still in peril of perishing. The story is a comparison of the dissimilar futures that two souls came to after their deaths on earth. One man is called ‘the rich man’; his future ended up being hell. The other is Lazarus; he had been the beggar at the rich man’s gate. We will stick to the rich man’s future, and the characteristics of it. (1) The rich man was in torment. He said: “send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue” (Luke 16.24.) The rich man will condescend to let the beggar touch his tongue with his dirty finger? If it has water on it, he will. (2) He was denied his request for relief: “son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented” (verse 25.) (3) He could not leave his place of confinement: “there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence” (verse 26.) (4) He was depersonalized, known only as ‘a certain rich man,’ while Lazarus was dignified with a name. The rich man’s future, then, came down to this: conscious torment, no relief, no escape, and no name worth remembering. There is some argument about whether this parable is historical or not. There is no consolation in the opinion that Jesus told a story that is not historically true. There is no proof that the story is not historical; there is no proof that this story is merely a parable. In any case, Jesus didn’t waste his time telling stories that do not touch, in decisive and material ways, ultimate reality. As a matter of fact, be it a parable or not, the story of Lazarus and the rich man only dimly conveys what an experience of hellfire is. “But those things that are used as similitudes, instead of exceeding the reality, are only faint images and shadows of the torments of hell” (Jonathan Edwards, Unless You Repent, p. 35.) Stories of hell are told to make the strongest impression on sinners in order for them to take every possible pain to avoid what is not possible to convey the horribleness of. Jesus taught spiritual truth. He did it plainly and by parable. It makes no difference whether the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man is historical or not.

This future—the wrath of God endured in hell—will be the unending reality for every unfortunate soul who refuses God’s alternative offer. Not only that, but it gets worse than hell when hell and all of its grimacing inhabitants are cast into a lake of fire at the final judgment: “This is the second death” (Revelation 20.14.) What we thought was quintessential (hell) ends up being merely penultimate (because the lake of fire is even worse.) This is the future of man without God. Thin-skinned Christians do not like to hear the tribulations of hell referred to as ‘torture.’ But torture means anguish that is inflicted. And what is that but a description of being punished? To be punished by provoked omnipotence must be a torturous experience. This is why the word ‘torture’ is often used in older books of divinity to characterize the agonies of hell. The fate of the impenitent is terrible beyond words to describe. It is an ‘outer darkness,’ wherein is a continual ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ (Matthew 25.30.) Sometimes in Scripture it is difficult to ascertain whether hell is being described, or else the lake of fire that hell is eventually poured into. Hell, hellfire, the lake of fire—it is not wrong to treat these synonymously; but there are two stages of punishment in the afterlife, just as there are many aspects of punishment. There is hell, where remorseless sinners are consigned to wait to be finally judged; and there is the lake of fire that follows upon the final judgment. In the Bible, many similitudes are used to describe the future that impenitent sinners must one day have for their everlasting experience. How all of these similes agree and harmonize exceeds our ability to fathom, no matter which, whether hell or the lake of fire, is the subject. “Everything that gives an idea of an extreme misery is used to set forth hell torments because no one is sufficient to express it” (Jonathan Edwards, Unless You Repent, pp. 35, 36.)

Considering the future that obstinate sinners are headed toward, what a shame it is that the majority of them will not pause to contemplate their likely destination! The future that they are speeding toward is more harrowing than their worst nightmare. The agony will be worse than the most lingering, painful death. It will be worse than dying of stomach cancer forever. The nightmare will be one that no soul will be able to wake from, for souls in hell will be eternally awake. The irreversibility of this outcome is the worst aspect of it. 

PART I, ARTICLE X: THE FUTURE OF MAN, SECTION II

Sin. “For the wages of sin is death.” One of the biblical definitions of the word ‘sin’ is ‘offense.’ Anything less than perfect obedience to God is an offense. To sin is to offend God by falling short of his holy law. We all fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3.23.) The wages for our offense is death; but ‘the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ Far from falling short, we no longer aim to obey God, do we? But we seldom call our shortfall ‘sin.’ This word ‘sin’ has become an unacceptable word in our society. The more wickedness is done and encouraged, the less mention is there of wickedness being sinful. Abiding sin has made us hate the word ‘sin.’ Our society scoffs at the mention of something as ‘sin.’ But should something that we are condemned to hell for doing be something to scoff at? The reason for the scoffing is that we wish to live in denial of what we permit ourselves to wallow in day after day. Sin is tolerated, while being held responsible for it is unpopular. Righteousness makes us uncomfortable because righteousness is a light that points out the darkness of sin. The next time you see something wrong being done, yell out the word ‘sinner’ and then observe the reaction. It is a myth that people are dumb to the word ‘sin.’ They know that it means an accusation of guilt. This is why they hate hearing the word brought up. Compare how indifferent people are to cursing, to how terrified they are of praying, in a public place. Terrified faces show a horror of holiness and righteousness. When a young woman took a man aside in the mall in order to pray for his soul, I stood back and watched the reactions. Bystanders were visibly uncomfortable at what they saw and heard. Who else but guilty sinners can curse God thoughtlessly one minute, and in the next be embarrassed by, or insulted at, God being prayed to? 

When confronted with reverence to a holy God that he is at odds with, the sinner turns away in disgust. This world is dark and mean and lewd. These are the days when, “The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted” (Psalm 12.8.) Our heroes consist of entertainers, villains, and cheaters. Man pays tribute only to what feeds his lust, pride, and greed. Most songs are about fornication, adultery, and violence. Movies are degenerate. Professional sports are corrupt. And if celebrities are wicked, and if they are nevertheless admired, then the vilest men are indeed exalted among us. They are idols, and are even spoken of that way. These are the days when evil is called good while good is called evil (Isaiah 5.20.) Virginity is laughed at while promiscuity is praised. Serious literature is shunned while trashy books fly off the shelves. So far are we from acknowledging sin that we have been inventing euphemisms to make allowances for vicious behaviors. A young hulking thug, for example, who stomped his teacher almost to death because she took his digital game away, was said to be suffering from ‘Oppositional Defiance Disorder’ and ‘Reactive Explosive Disorder.’ He had been detained, before this, not in a prison or asylum, but in an ‘Intensive Behavior Group Home.’ When sin is no more sin, pretty soon crime is no more crime; and then law-abiding citizens are targeted by both brutal ruffians and their political abettors, which is persecution of the best persons among us by a combination of anarchy and tyranny. The Western world has been stabbing itself for a long time now; it’s finally slitting its throat. ‘Oppositional Defiance Disorder’ and ‘Reactive Explosive Disorder,’ by the way, are dreamed up diseases that make drug manufacturers a lot of money. 

What will the end of these things be? We are going backwards nationally and running after hell individually. Each man must come to the end of his life on earth; and each one must begin his future in another world. For sinners who will never repent, the sooner their life on earth ends, the better it will be for them in hell. “Sinners are little sensible that hellfire grows hotter every day they live in sin; by their sins, they increase the heat of that furnace more than the heat of Nebuchadnezzar’s was increased for the three children. If they go on in sin therefore till they die, it is no advantage to ‘em to live long; the sooner they die the better for them. If they should live twenty years longer and then die in sin, it would be a great Calamity to them that they lived so long” (Jonathan Edwards, Unless You Repent, p. 79.) This might seem like risky preaching. But it’s the preaching of truth. Sinners want to live long; but this means a worse experience in hell unless they repent in time. In this present age of weak minds and faint hearts it should be said that suicide would not be a good solution because this would make one’s hell begin sooner than necessary. Each day out of hell is worth a world of kingdoms; each day out of hell is an opportunity to learn how to avoid going there; each day out of hell is a blessing forever lost to any who are in hell already. Suicide, furthermore, is murder; and murder, even of oneself, is just another way of turning hell’s temperature up. Living long, in any case, without repenting, occasions and ensures the accumulation of wrath to oneself.        

An Englishman by the name of Tom Parr is reputed to have lived to the age of 152. His years are 1483-1635. Such longevity in a man is outstanding in the comparatively recent past. There was another Englishman by the name of Henry Jenkins who eclipsed even Tom Parr. His years are 1500-1670. “There were also four or five in the same parish that were reputed all of them to be 100 years old or within 2 or 3 years of it, and they all said he was an elderly man ever since they knew him” (Anthony Cumby, Evidences of the Great Age of Henry Jenkins, p.6.) Henry Jenkins’ great age was so believed to have been authenticated that a mural of black marble was fashioned in his honor to preserve the knowledge that he had lived so long on the earth. The inscription reads: “Blush not marble/to rescue from oblivion/the memory of/HENRY JENKINS/a Person obscure in birth/But of a Life truly memorable/for/He was enriched/with the goods of nature/if not of fortune/and happy/in the duration/if not variety/ of his Enjoyments/and/tho the partial world/despised or disregarded/his low and humble state/The Equal Eye of Providence/beheld and blessed it/with a Patriarch’s Health and Length of days/to teach mistaken man/these blessings were Entailed on Temperance/Or a life of Labour and a mind at Ease/He lived to the amazing age of/169/was interred here Dec. 6/1670/and had this justice done to his memory/1743” (Ibid., pp. 10, 11.) Well, congratulations to Henry Jenkins. But at last, even for him: Gutta cavat lapidem. (The drop wears away the stone.) 

We tend to admire men who live to a hundred years of age or more; and it is our duty to live as long as we can because life on earth is a gift of God. But unless aged patriarchs and elderly matriarchs are reconciled to God before they die, they have done nothing more than store up more punishment to receive at the day of God’s wrath. Man stores up punishment by living long or sinning big. To bring so many men to greater punishment, God withdraws his restraining grace; and, sinking deeper into sin, these men go on to commit dishonorable deeds of the grossest kind, like sodomy (Romans 1.27), a sin so wicked that it is rarely forgiven because seldom repented of. To meet a Christian who was once a homosexual is a rare thing; it is so rare that it might be called a phenomenon. The acceptance and normalization of homosexuality is the measure of how filthy a nation’s character is, and of how far from God that people have distanced themselves. A people so flagrant, and that so readily dismiss God’s natural order, are eventually given over to a swarm of hostile behaviors, which are delineated in Romans 1.28-32. Are the USA and Canada not nations full of people who are ‘filled with all unrighteousness’? Most of us do not commit homosexual acts; but multitudes of us celebrate that lifestyle; and almost everyone else defends its ‘right’ to flaunt and strut. What mayor disallows a pride parade? Does irreverence and unrighteousness not characterize North America and Europe? We should never mind how evil the rest of the world is until we have studied history to learn how far toward hell the Western world has fallen. Then we might wake up before we are taken over by violent migrants from third world countries. 

Have we not been delighting in wickedness progressively since at least the year 1900? Sin is part of us. We think about it; we talk about it; we act out our offensive conversations and thoughts; we even celebrate sinners who commit the vilest abominations. We ‘have pleasure in them that do them’ (Romans 1.32.) The end of all this countenancing of sin is the future death, not only of body, but of body and soul in ‘the second death.’ This must be the destiny of all sinners who refuse to repent. The consequence of continuing in our despicable condition is the second death, the death with no end to it in a fire that will never be extinguished. Therefore the wretchedness of an impenitent, unredeemed sinner cannot be overstated.