Conscious Eternal Torment

It’s also called conditional mortality. And annihilationism basically teaches, conditional morality is similar and I’ll explain that in a minute, but annihilationism basically teaches that those who do not believe in Christ will at the final judgment will be annihilated. They will cease to exist. God will blot them out. He’ll snuff them out and they will not exist anymore. And it’s called conditional mortality because the idea behind that is that the human soul is not immortal.

The idea behind that is that the human soul is mortal and it only gets eternal life. It only becomes eternal when that individual receives Christ and receives eternal life. Up to that point it is not eternal. So it’s conditional, whether your soul is eternal is conditional. So this is basically the idea that Kirk Cameron, who did not used to believe this, he has changed his belief with a little bit of superficiality or lip service to the idea that he’s open to different positions.

And maybe that’s true. I hope it is. But these things happen in circuits and if it’s not this subject it will be another subject. You just switch out the topic and there will be another topic that will fit the same kind of category and I’ll explain that to you at the end. But this happens in this sort of way. Every once in a while there’s a topic and some famous person says they don’t like that subject or they don’t believe it or whatever and then there’s a thing and then it goes away and then there’s another and it just so happens that this one is kind of at the forefront now.

So I do want to address it because it is an important scriptural truth. This is a topic, this is a doctrine, this is in our doctrinal statement of our church. It is something we articulate on purpose and so I don’t think it’s definitely not a minor question. I don’t think so at all. And so we want to discuss it tonight. We’re going to start on Matthew 3.

Let’s pray and ask the Lord to meet with us and teach us tonight before we go into the Word. Our Father, we thank you for your great mercy. Lord, you are a God who is full of compassion and tender mercies. And Lord, as we talk about this subject of hellfire, eternal torment, Lord, this is a terrible subject. There’s nothing nice or pleasant about it at all. But yet it is something written in your Word.

So Lord, guide us as we do this study. Bring clarity where there’s ambiguity. Answer questions where any questions might linger and help us to address the issue that has come up so much recently. Lord, especially that your name might be justified in your judgment. And so Lord, we look to you now in Jesus’ name. Amen. So the idea of annihilationism or conditional mortality is basically hinges on three, if you’re writing this down, is three points.

Three primary points. It’s not all there are, all the points that there are, but there are three primary points. Number one, the soul is not eternal. Number two, references in the Bible to eternal fire are only referring to the effect of the fire and not to the duration of the fire. So that’s point two. Number three is, and this is the big one, this is the big one.

The idea of eternal conscious torment is inconsistent with a God of love and mercy. Okay, so those are the three points why some people are shifting away from this biblical doctrine and are abandoning it for something. In other words, they’re kind of rethinking hell. If you want to put a title to what we talk about tonight, it would be rethinking hell because that’s essentially what’s been happening.

So what I want to do is I want to just quickly go through the verses of scripture. It is important that you remember those three points because in the verses we will cover, we will cover all three of them. Okay, we’re not going to address each one separately. Instead we’re going to go through the different passages of scripture and see what we see from the text and see if those three points are then consistent with scripture as we look at it as a whole.

Okay, number one, the soul is not eternal. Number two, references to eternal fire only refer to the effect, not the duration of the fire. Number three, it is inconsistent with a God of love and mercy. Matthew chapter three, starting in verse number 11, the Bible says this, John speaking, John the Baptist, I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear.

He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, excuse me, and with fire, whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor and gather his wheat into his garner, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Unquenchable, simply put, it is fire that cannot be put out. Fire that cannot be put out is fire that will not be put out, fire that will last eternally.

So you’re probably already starting to see one of the little issues with point number two, but let’s keep going. Matthew chapter number 13, we’re going to go fast, so hang on. Matthew 13, verse number 42. Verse number 41 for context. Matthew 13, verse number 41. The Bible says this, the Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and this is of course this is reference to the end of the world when Christ comes, he shall send forth his angels and shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire.

There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Now here’s the thing, so the furnace of fire, there’s no mention of it being eternal or unquenchable or anything like that, but there is a mention of a furnace. And note, there are sounds coming from said furnace, and there are, there is, apparently, there are events happening, gnashing of teeth. Now unless you, unless we are going to assume that a person who is cast into this furnace of fire, these wails and these, this reaction to the pain and the suffering is like that and they’re gone, and so it only happens for a brief second and that’s, and that, that it’s over.

Does that sound reasonable to you? No, it doesn’t sound reasonable. I would, I would, I would say to you, what’s being described is the sound coming from the furnace of fire. And this is, this is terrible to think about, is it not? It is absolutely horrendous to think about. But what’s being, what’s being described in verse number 42, wailing, gnashing of teeth, you know what that, you know what that very much sounds like?

And it’s going to get even more and more consistent. It sounds like people who are suffering. It sounds like people who are being tortured, who are being tortured, who are being tortured, sounds like people who are being tormented. It sounds like people who are, who are in great pain. And that’s consistent with what we see here. Look at Matthew 8, Matthew chapter 18 now. Matthew chapter 18, Matthew 18 verse number 8.

Jesus says this, Wherefore, if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off and cast them from thee, it is better for thee to enter into, it is better for thee to enter into life, halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. Okay, first thing I want you to see is in verse number 8, this person at the beginning of the verse who doesn’t have, who is halt and maimed, who doesn’t have an arm, doesn’t have a leg, is this person alive or is this person dead when they enter into life?

They’re, they’re, they died, right? They were, they were willing, and I know the Lord is using an extreme here. He’s using an extreme to describe something. But, but in other words, they were willing to lose a limb and enter into life, eternal life, rather than having both to enter into, the contrast is, everlasting fire. So the, the, the life being mentioned in verse 8, although it’s not as specifically described in this passage, the life being mentioned here is eternal life, which nobody questions is the eternal conscious bliss, right?

Nobody questions that the person who enters into life is, knows what’s going on and is enjoying it and it’s forever. That fact, that condition is set in direct contrast to everlasting fire in verse 8. So if you have one, then it stands to reason you have other. If, if the one, and this is not the only time we’ll see this, if you have a description of eternal conscious bliss, then the, the contrast to that, the opposite would be eternal conscious torment.

Now what’s, now notice what it says in verse 8. At the very end it says, then having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. So they pause it and they say, I know it says everlasting fire, but it is everlasting in the sense that if you go out and you walk in front of a, in front of a bus and you get hit by the bus, then you’re everlasting hit by a bus.

In other words, everlasting really means irreversible, really means permanent. So by this, by this it is meant that God’s fire, God’s wrath will be poured out on this person such that the condition that results is a, is an eternal condition. So when God snuffs a person out and deletes them from existence, that is irreversible. It lasts forever. Here’s the problem with that. The problem with that is it is contrary to the words of the text because the word everlasting is an adjective describing not the condition of the person after said judgment, but of the fire itself.

And in order to make it something else, what you have to do is you have to just slightly tweak the verse. You have to alter the words. That’s dangerous to do, is it not? In fact, I think the Lord actually specifically forbids that, to just slightly alter it. So in other words, it’s not eternal fire, it’s eternal results of fire. But that’s not what the verse says.

Be very, very leery when someone wants to tweak a verse in order to fit their doctrine, especially a doctrine that has strong support in other parts of scripture. Now look at the next verse. So this, that’s not the end of it. Look at the next verse. It says this. So this is a parallel construction. So the Lord says the same thing in verse 8 and verse 9.

Verse 8, he uses the term everlasting fire. Verse 9, he uses the term hellfire. So that tells us that everlasting fire and hellfire are synonymous. And it also tells us that whenever the Lord uses the term hellfire, it’s everlasting. Everybody with me? Okay. Now, there’s a reason I’m going through this methodically. Because this doctrine is not found in one proof text here or there. It is a progressive doctrine that builds.

It’s cumulative. So if you nail down these things early on, as you go further, it’s going to get clearer and clearer because you’re going to start to see the same things over and over again. Matthew 25, Matthew 25, verse 41. This is a parable picturing the final judgment of the Lord. Verse 41, then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, depart from me, ye cursed into everlasting fire.

Now, this is so important. Mark it down. If you’ve taken notes, this is where you need to mark. Prepared for the devil and his angels. Now what is, according to what we just read in Matthew 18, everlasting fire is the same as hellfire. Okay? Everlasting fire is the same as the hellfire. Okay? You see that this everlasting fire, aka hellfire, is associated with and prepared for the devil and his angels.

Now I can’t say any more than that right now, but you need to remember that. Okay? We will come back to that. But notice, but just keep that in mind. Keep that in mind. There is a clear association with this everlasting fire with the devil and his angels. Okay. Look at Mark chapter 9. Mark chapter 9. Mark chapter 9 verse number 43. And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off, it is better for thee to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched.

All right? We’ve seen these. The wording is a little bit different. Verse 44 adds a little bit more information though. Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. Now there’s all kinds of explanations about their worm and what that refers to. I’ll tell you what I think. Can I prove it 100%? I can’t prove it 100%. But I have heard other explanations of this worm that doesn’t die, and they’re kind of silly to be honest with you.

I think this worm refers to the soul of a man. And the reason I think that is because in scripture people who are in a low place call themselves a worm. Like a very low, and in this case, who is lower than a person who has entered the flames of hell fire? Who is in a worse place than that? There is no worse place than that. And so it’s very fitting for that to be referring to someone who has perished in hell.

But notice the worm doesn’t die. Their worm dieth not. So if you take that to mean dying would be annihilation, it explicitly says they don’t. But it also says the fire is not quenched. Let me pose a question to you. This is an apologetic question, a logical question. If a person enters the hell fire, and immediately we assume is snuffed out of existence, then why does the fire need to keep burning forever?

The same reason you turn off the stove once you’re finished cooking. Once it’s done, it’s done. There’s no need to keep...the very fact that the fire burns eternally and is never quenched demonstrates that the fire is in use that long. Now again, that’s a logical question, but I think that’s a valid point. Look at Jude. I’m sorry, not Jude. We don’t want to go there yet. Look at Luke 16.

Luke 16. Verse 19. There was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus which was laid at his gate full of sores. And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table, moreover the his sores. And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom.

The rich man also died and was buried. And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivest thy good things, and likewise Lazarus’ evil things.

But now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you, 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. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, Father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house, for I have five brethren that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. And he said, Nay, Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto them, unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. To believe in annihilationism, or the idea of conditional mortality, that the soul is not conscious after death, probably the biggest stumbling block, the biggest hurdle in your way that you have to literally leap over with the agility of a pole vaulter, is Luke 16.

And so what is usually done in Luke 16 is this. We reach into our coat pocket, we pull out our magic wand, and we say, Abracadabra, it’s a parable. And that solves all of our problems. How many of you have heard this line of reasoning? It’s a parable. Therefore, nothing in it is relevant to the discussion. I don’t think Luke 16 is a parable of the story of the rich man and Lazarus.

I don’t think it’s a parable. But whether it is a parable or not is irrelevant. Here’s why. Because parables, to be useful, must be true to life. If they’re going to be useful, because a parable is something that is presented, that is set beside something else, that’s what the word means, set beside something else as a comparison to teach a lesson about this thing. So the point of a parable is not the parable, the point of the parable is the lesson that it’s trying to teach.

So in order to do that, you have to take something that’s relatable that people understand, that’s true to life, and then use that to teach that lesson. For instance, the parable of the sower uses the grounds and the seed and sowing the seed and bearing fruit, and everyone in that period, especially in that society, understood that thing. So take, for instance, that parable. If you were to introduce a kind of plant that nobody knew, that nobody was familiar with, and you were to try to talk about a parable with unfamiliar or made up information, nobody it would be useless as a parable.

The whole point of a parable is that it’s true to life. That means, let’s just say, Luke 16 is a parable. The facts in Luke 16 must then be true to life. And so the excuse at this point is, well they’re just talking about well-known Jewish mythology. So the Lord Jesus is going to present this information as a true account, not as a parable, because usually a parable has a lesson that follows it, which is not readily apparent in this case.

Of course, you all know that there’s proper names used, which also don’t usually indicate a parable. But the other thing is that the point of this parable is the parable itself. It’s not a second lesson. It is what is in the parable. There is no other lesson that it points to. So even if you see that it is a parable, that doesn’t change the fact that these events are true events, not fantastic events.

So admitting that this is a parable does not disprove what the rich man suffered or that it was true to life, if not actually indeed true. And it could very well be, I think, likely that Luke 16 is an actual account of something that really happened. I want you to see something, though. The rich man and Lazarus are both conscious after they die. So much for conditional mortality.

They’re conscious. This is why it’s so important for people who deny eternal conscious torment to be able to wave their magic wand and just say it’s a parable and dismiss Luke 16. Luke 16 is like a monument of truth in the scripture on this subject. And as I said a minute ago, there is no lesson in Luke 16 outside what’s in the parable itself. It’s not teaching a second thing, which is the characteristic of a parable.

In fact, if there is a lesson, it’s in verse number 28, which is very interesting. If there is a lesson in Luke 16, it’s verse 28, where the rich man in hell says this, “’For I have five brethren that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’” The lesson of this narrative is don’t go to hell. That’s the lesson. And it’s not spoken by Jesus, it’s spoken by the guy who’s there.

That’s the irony of it. But there might be a second lesson, which is mentioned in verse 25, where Abraham says, “’Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivest thou good things, thy good things, and likewise Lazarus’ evil things. But now he is comforted and thou art tormented.’” This idea of what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world but lose his own soul. That’s exactly what happened to the rich man.

But note, the parable itself is the lesson. It doesn’t point to another thing like the parable of the sower does. And besides that, these truths, as illustrated in this parable, are taught by Jesus in other places of the gospel. Now I’ll admit this, because as you can imagine, on this subject, annihilationism, Luke 16 is a major battleground. It’s like Gettysburg, right? Or Waterloo. Or, give me another one.

Yeah, the Battle of the Apollos. Just pick your war, right? One thing that Luke 16 does not teach or clarify is the idea of eternal torment. Because all we see is a snapshot where the rich man is in torments. The rich man is in fire. The rich man is suffering and he is conscious. But we don’t know how long that lasts. Why do we not know that?

Because it’s not stated. Now we know from other parts of scripture, but I’m trying to be really clear that Luke 16 does not state that. So we’ve got to make that clear. There is a group of people that believe in annihilationism, but they believe basically a lost person, most of them believe in soul sleep. A person dies, they’re unconscious until the judgment, then they’re annihilated. There is a segment that believes that people who die without Christ go to hell and are tormented until the final judgment, at which time they stand before God and are then annihilated.

Which to me is six one half a dozen another. I mean, if you’re annihilated, you’re annihilated and whatever happens before that doesn’t matter anyway, because you’re annihilated, right? Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die, right? What was interesting about Luke 16 is it contains, and this is why it’s so important to cumulatively study this, it contains elements that are found in other descriptions of eternal conscious torment in the Bible.

Let’s go to Jude now. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Verse number seven. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. That word eternal everlasting fire again. Let me ask you a question. I want you to, not a trick question. The fire that came down from heaven out of heaven and landed on Sodom and Gomorrah, is that still burning?

No. Is that what Jude is referring to? No. And so this is the argument for a person who believes in annihilationism. They say see, yeah it says eternal fire, but Sodom is still not on fire. Once they were killed that was it. But that’s not what Jude’s talking about. Yes, they were killed. But the point Jude is making is that though God judged them physically, they suffered eternal punishment, eternal fire beyond just their physical suffering.

That’s the whole point. And yet this is dismissed because of course here’s that you know you go through the verses and you find all the ones that say eternal fire, everlasting fire, and you try to dismiss each one and that takes away all the arguments. Alright now Revelation. Revelation chapter 14. This is where we start to come in for our landing. Revelation 14 verse 10. Now we’ve covered several verses that indicate that the soul is conscious after death among those who are lost.

We’ve seen several examples of that. We’ve also covered several verses that show that the fire itself is eternal and not just the effect of the fire is eternal. We’ve seen that. The one thing we haven’t covered is the third point which is this. It is inconsistent with a God of love and mercy to have eternal conscious torment. I’ll be the first to admit that if I think about this subject for any length of time, I shudder.

I’ll be honest with you. I shudder. I don’t like talking about this. I don’t like preaching about it. I avoid it if I can. This is not something I talk about gleefully at all. When you think about the gravity of this matter, is it inconsistent though with a God who is a God of love and mercy? And really this is the crux of the matter. It makes God, and this is my words, it makes God look mean and unjust.

That God who is a God of love, he that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love. And a God who is full of mercy, that endures forever, oh give thanks unto the Lord for he is good for his mercy, endureth forever. How can that be squared with a God who sentences someone who is without Christ to eternal conscious torment? If he is love, if he is mercy, how can it be that he would do that?

That makes God look mean. And I want to tell you something. This is what the whole argument is about. This is what this issue, the sentiment of our recoiling at how this makes God seem, is the reason why it’s questioned. The real reason. I’ll get back to that in a second. Revelation 14 verse 10. Is it mean, unjust, is it against God’s love and mercy for God to sentence someone to eternal conscious torment?

If we can find one, hear me now, if we can find one clear, you know, a clear verse of scripture where there’s, it’s unambiguous, where there is a person without Christ who is conscious in conscious eternal torment, if there is one anywhere in the Bible, then that means that they’re, one of their, the primary arguments that God would be unjust and God would be mean and it’s inconsistent with his love, that goes away.

If he does it, it’s right. Everybody can say amen right? If God does the thing, it is right and consistent with his attributes and character, no matter how it might make us feel. Okay? And in Revelation we have just that, not one, not two, we have many examples of that, unambiguous examples. Revelation 14 verse 10. Or look at verse 9. And the third angel followed them saying with a loud voice, if any man worship the beast and his image and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same, the same man that worships the beast shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation.

And he, that same man, shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever and they, those same people, have no rest day nor night who worship the beast and his image and whosoever receive it the mark of his name. Is that clear? That is dreadfully clear.

It’s not just one or two, it’s a whole host of people that worship the antichrist. Note, note also the references to fire and brimstone, everlasting, torment, these are all elements we’ve seen in Matthew and Luke and these Jude, these other passages. So it’s going together, alright? Look at, you have to understand that. Verse chapter 19, look at chapter 19. Verse 20, this is the second advent of Christ and the beast, the beast is a human being, this is the antichrist, and the beast was taken and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him with which he had received the mark of the beast and them which worshiped his image, these both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.

Next page, chapter 20, verse number 10. So we see that the antichrist and the false prophet are cast alive, that is they did not die physically, they go straight to the lake of fire, what are the conditions of that place? 20 verse 10, and the devil, there he is, that deceived them was cast into the lake, the same lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are, what we just read, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever.

That is unambiguous. Now you could say, well this is the devil though, no it’s not, it’s the beast and the false prophet, the antichrist and the false prophet, those are human beings, and it’s all of those also that received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image, Revelation 14, 10, and 11, they’re all in the same place. And you remember you go back to Matthew 25 that this place of, as the scripture says, this place of eternal fire is prepared for the devil and his angels.

So whatever the devil is experiencing, so they which are in that same place are also experiencing. Revelation 20 verse 15, it gets worse, and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the very same lake of fire. And this includes all of humanity whose names are not written in the book of life. Not annihilated, tormented day and night forever and ever. Look at Revelation 21 verse 8 for our last verse.

21 verse 8, but the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. To an annihilationist, the second death is the moment in which God annihilates that person and snuffs out his existence. But according to the Bible, the second death is when that same person is cast into the tormented day and night for all of eternity.

21 verse 8 makes that perfectly clear. So it is without question that there are human beings, many, many human beings who will be consciously tormented for all of eternity in the lake of fire. So the argument that God is mean or else he wouldn’t do that is false. God is love and God is just and God is kind and God is full of mercy and yet God does that which means all of those things are all consistent with his character.

Now, one of the arguments that’s brought up, that’s sometimes brought up in this question I want to quickly cover is this. How can God condemn a man to an eternal torment for a finite sin?

To that I say this, there is no such thing as a finite sin. The term finite sin, the term finite sin is an idea that’s been invented out of whole cloth to try to address, in other words, to try to create a leg of support for the main point which is it makes God look mean. So we’ve invented this term finite sin such that a person who sins is committing just a finite sin but God is giving them an eternal punishment.

But there is no such thing as a finite sin to an eternal God. Remember, sin is, all sin is related to God because all sin is a transgression of God’s law. That’s the definition of sin. So it is God’s nature, not our nature, that makes sin an eternal crime against him. Because he is eternal, sin is eternal. Our culpability is also eternal. Ask yourself this and to follow up on that, at what point would God forget the sin that we had committed?

It’s not possible. Why? Because he is eternal. At what point would a transgression be overlooked by God’s eternal justice? It is not possible because he is eternally just. You would have to alter God’s very nature to make this finite sin idea work. And so that idea is just how can God condemn a man to an eternal torment for a finite sin? It’s not. It’s an eternal sin against an eternal God.

Now, at the core of this whole question and argument and debate is really the issue of how this makes God look. The idea that God would sentence someone to an eternity of conscious torment in the lake of fire makes God look bad. And that’s what people think, although they might not use that terminology. And so that idea only ends in two ways. Number one, it ends in annihilationism, which is what we’re talking about tonight, or it ends in universal salvation.

The idea that since Christ died for everybody, everybody’s going to heaven. In the end, God’s going to have mercy on everybody. The arguments that I’ve described and dealt with tonight address both. The problem with Kirk Cameron is that his idea is part of a broader aversion to elements of biblical truth that are frowned upon by the world. Christians have become ashamed of these truths and have sought some way to soften them or ease them, or in this case, deny them.

And this is true of a lot of issues, not just the issue before us tonight, issues such as sodomy, issues such as gay marriage. Listen, I want to tell you something. The conservative movement as a political thing has given up on those things. And now I saw last night, I was complaining to my wife, I saw Prager University, the super conservative Dennis Prager has a well-known lesbian as a spokesperson.

Julian Michaels. They have given up the fight. And no doubt many of them philosophically and religiously have changed their mind. There’s a few still out there, but they’ve changed their mind on the matter. It’s no longer in vogue. Other things like biblical husband and wife roles, child rearing, modesty of dress, and We could go on and on and on with greater and smaller doctrines that are in the Bible that people are just, they’re rethinking them.

You know, we’re just rethinking. Any biblical issue that the world frowns upon, no matter what that issue is, you will always find a group of pathetic Christians rushing to rescue God from a bad look by softening, editing, or rethinking what he has clearly revealed in his word. And you know what? That’s always been the case. And you have people like Kirk Cameron say things like this, I used to think like you, but now I know better.

To a lot of people that’s powerful. You know, I used to be like you, kind of pat you on the head. You love that, don’t you? I used to be like you. But in closing, I do want to deal with this one thing. Does the biblical truth of eternal conscious torment, does that make God look bad? I don’t know that I can answer that. That’s not really, it doesn’t really even matter how it makes God look.

God’s not concerned. But I will say this, that that truth is dreadful. I don’t like that truth. I don’t like that the lake of fire is real. I don’t like that people go there. But I don’t like it not because it’s not true, but because it is. Because it’s real. That’s the reason I don’t like it. How terrible. How terrible a fate for people who don’t know Christ.

How dreadful. People the world over live in just thick darkness of soul. How dreadful. People we love. People who live in pleasure. People who reject the gospel. We can’t just lightly put it away. We can’t just lightly brush it off and say, well, this is a biblical doctrine. I believe in lake of fire. No, it should strike fear. It should. It should shake us to the core that people go there.

We have family, family members who are there. More who were going. People who are serious. It’s serious. I don’t know. Maybe there’s somebody here that’s afraid of that place. Indeed, you should be. You should be afraid of the God who would sentence you there. You should. It’s a serious matter. So it’s not one I talk about lightly, like gleefully. Thump our chest, our theological chest. No, it’s not that at all.

But I’m forced to believe it from the scripture. I want to or not. And I’m for you, just like we were talking about, God is incomprehensible. I’m forced to deal with this fact of a just, yet holy, yet loving, yet merciful God who does this, who sentences people to this just punishment. So the only answer is, Lord, we trust you that your ways are right. And Lord, we want to do everything we can to make sure that people don’t go to that place of torment.

Let’s pray.