NO REPENTANCE IN HELL

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 11, 1901

NO REPENTANCE IN HELL.

This declaration, “There is no repentance in hell,” is made by a prominent writer, to clinch the sentiment that afflictions make good men better, but bad men worse. And the Bible seems to support the thought. At least, we read of men’s actions, under the infliction of the seven last plagues: “And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the Beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores [the sores being those that result from the first plague. Rev. 16: 1, 2], and repented not of their deeds.” Under the last plague, the same thing may be inferred, though it is not stated. It says this: “And men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail.” Verse 21. This leads one to say, “Wrath converts no man; it is grace that saves.” Christ speaks of a time of suffering without repentance: “There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.” Luke 13: 28. Suffering which causes weeping and gnashing of teeth would certainly suggest repentance, if repentance was at that time possible. But we reach a time before Christ comes when probation is ended, and repentance is impossible: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: . . . and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still. . . . And, behold, I come quickly.” Rev. 22: 11, 12. This period of the end of probation must begin with the pouring out of the plagues; for there, while cursing God for their pains, they repent not. Reader, if there is anything in your character, or life, that calls for repentance, attend to it now, while the door is open, and not put it off till the mind is so overwhelmed at the prospect of losing heaven, and so racked with remorse, that there will be neither power nor inclination to divert attention from present calamities to the thought, How often I have been invited to heaven, and how easily I might have escaped death; but now it is too late; and this uncoupled with any desire to turn and live. It is an awful thought that men may get into a condition in which God’s judgments lead them to blaspheme, as in case of the hail; and the heavier the judgment, the more they blaspheme.

There are two kinds of employment in the future state: in heaven, the righteous praise; in the day of the Lord, the wicked blaspheme. Which do you choose?