Delusion


 
Floating to perdition on the stream of delusion! 

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the
 kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My
 Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day,
 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in
 Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?'
 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from
 Me, you evildoers!'" Matthew 7:21-23.

This is really one of the most alarming passages of Holy Writ,
as showing how far people may go in self-deception, and how
perseveringly they may continue in it—even to death, and
through it, up to the very judgment seat of Christ!

I am truly alarmed and terrified at the thought of this state
of things, when multitudes are going down to the pit with a
lie in their right hand—floating to perdition on the stream
of delusion! 

There are many paths to perdition in the broad way, some
of which are more cleanly and some more foul, yet they all
lead to the same end. And they shall as certainly arrive at
hell, who tread the cleanlier paths of a "refined hypocrisy",
as those who track through the mire and dirt of the
grossest abominations.

Under the most searching ministry, and the most alarming
sermons—a fatal delusion sends multitudes to perdition!

How dreadful will be the disappointment and remorse of the
hypocrite, when death, which closes his eyes to all the scenes
of earth, shall open them to those of the bottomless pit!

What horror, and surprise, and overwhelming disappointment
seize him who, when he expects to arise from the bed of death,
to the felicities of heaven—sinks from it to the miseries of hell!

Oh, the indescribable, overwhelming astonishment, consternation,
and horror of the hypocrite, who wakes up amid the scenes of the
bottomless pit! It is not for language to set forth nor imagination
to conceive the torment that will in a moment come over the
miserable soul, whose first words in eternity will be, "I am lost,
lost, lost, forever! I am in hell." The wretched spirit will look
through the vista of millions of ages, and see no glimmering
spark of this to relieve its present sense of unutterable woe!

"The hope of the hypocrite shall perish!" Job 8:13


 

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