“Is There a
Burning Hell?”
In a previous study we learned that the
dead sleep in their graves until Jesus resurrects them. When the righteous are
resurrected they will go to heaven, and when the wicked are resurrected they
will go to the lake of “everlasting fire.”
Yet, how could a God of LOVE torture sinners forever? It seems inconsistent with His
character! In this study we will find
the Eternal Truth of the matter, and we will understand the love of God as never
before.
1. How does the Bible describe
God?
1 John
4:7-8 (Ezekiel
33:11)
4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love
is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for
God is love.
2. Will God’s love excuse those who neglect or
refuse to let Jesus take away their guilt?
Numbers
14:18 (Exodus 34:6-7;
Luke 12:47-48; 2 Peter 2:9; 3:7)
14:18 The LORD is longsuffering, and of great
mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth
generation.
God does not hold the children accountable
for their parents’ sins (Ezekiel 18:20), but the results of sin are often passed
on. God will forgive the sins of the penitent, but He will NOT excuse sin in
those who try to justify themselves.
3. How else is God
described?
Hebrews
12:29; Psalms 50:3 (Deuteronomy 4:24; 9:3)
12:29 For our God [is] a
consuming fire.
50:3 Our God shall come, and shall not keep
silence: a fire shall
devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about
him.
9:3 Understand therefore this day, that the LORD
thy God [is] he which goeth over before thee; [as] a
consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall
bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them
quickly, as the LORD hath said unto thee.
4. Can a sinner see God and
live?
Psalm
68:2; Exodus 33:20; Deut. 4:33;
5:24-26 (Isaiah 59:2; Romans
6:23)
68:2 As smoke is driven away, [so] drive [them]
away: as wax melteth before the fire, [so] let the
wicked perish at the presence of God.
33:20 And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for
there shall no man see
me, and live.
If we were to come into the presence of
God without having been freed of our guilt by
Jesus, we would “cease to exist.”
God’s presence destroys sin.
5. Moses saw God
and lived. Why was he not consumed by
God’s presence?
Exodus 33:11;
17-23; Numbers 12:5-8; Psalms 1:6
(Romans 4:7,8)
33:11 And the LORD
spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he
turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man,
departed not out of the tabernacle.
33:17 And the LORD said unto Moses, I will do this
thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I
know thee by name.
33:18 And he said, I beseech thee, show me thy
glory.
33:19 And he said, I will make all my goodness
pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will
be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show
mercy.
33:20 And he said, Thou canst
not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
33:21 And the LORD said, Behold, [there is] a
place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock:
33:22 And it shall come to pass, while my glory
passeth by, that I will put
thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass
by:
33:23 And I will
take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be
seen.
6. When and how will the wicked be punished for
their deeds?
Matthew
25:31, 41, 46 (John 5:28-29; Matthew 16:27; Revelation
22:12)
25:31 When the Son
of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him,
then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left
hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
25:46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous
into life eternal.
Thus the wicked
will be cast into hell after the judgment of the last days.
7.
What is the source of this “everlasting
fire?”
Revelation 20:9;
Malachi 3:2; Deuteronomy
9:3
20:9
And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of
the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of
heaven, and devoured
them.
8.
Is God immortal?
1 Timothy 1:17; 6:14-16
1:17
Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, [be]
honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
6:14
That thou keep [this] commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the
appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ:
6:15
Which in his times he shall show, [who is] the blessed and only
Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords;
6:16
Who only hath
immortality, dwelling in
the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to
whom [be] honour and power everlasting. Amen.
9.
God being immortal... does His “everlasting fire” ever go
out?
Isaiah 60:19, 20; Revelation 22:5;
Matthew 3:11-12; Psalms
90:2;
103:17
60:19
The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall
the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall be unto thee an
everlasting light, and
thy God thy glory.
60:20
Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself:
for the LORD shall be thine
everlasting light, and
the days of thy mourning shall be ended.
22:5
And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light
of the sun; for the Lord God
giveth them light: and
they shall reign for ever and ever.
The fire IS everlasting, as
God is everlasting. It is the
“consuming” that goes out.
10. When the wicked are cast into hell, will there
be any rest during the time they are burning, and will their smoke or memory or
anything about them ever return to earth again?
Revelation
14:11 (Revelation
20:10)
14:11 And the smoke
of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor
night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth
the mark of his name.
11. Why are the saints not consumed by this
fire from the presence of God?
Psalm 84:11; Isaiah 33:10-16; Malachi 3:2-6; Revelation 14:4
84:11 For the LORD God [is] a sun
and shield: the LORD
will give grace and glory: no good [thing] will he withhold from them that walk
uprightly.
33:10 Now will I rise, saith the LORD; now will I
be exalted; now will I lift up myself.
33:11 Ye shall conceive chaff, ye shall bring
forth stubble: your breath, [as] fire, shall devour you.
33:12 And the people shall be [as] the burnings of
lime: [as] thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire.
33:13 Hear, ye [that are] far off, what I have
done; and, ye [that are] near, acknowledge my might.
33:14 The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness
hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us
shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting
burnings?
33:15 He that
walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of
oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his
ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing
evil;
33:16 He shall dwell on high: his place of defence
[shall be] the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters [shall
be] sure.
3:2 But who may
abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he
appeareth? for he [is]
like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap:
3:3 And he shall sit [as] a refiner and purifier
of silver: and he shall
purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer
unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.
3:4 Then shall the offering of Judah and
Jerusalem be pleasant unto the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former
years.
3:5 And I will come near to you to judgment; and
I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and
against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in [his]
wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger [from his
right], and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts.
3:6 For I [am] the LORD, I change not; therefore ye
sons of Jacob are not consumed.
14:4 These are they which were not defiled with
women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow
the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were
redeemed from among men, [being] the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.
14:5 And in their mouth was found no guile: for
they
are without fault before the
throne of God.
12. Who has already suffered “eternal fire”
as an example of the hell fire in the last days?
Jude 7 (2 Peter 2:6;
Ezekiel 20:47-48; Jeremiah 17:27)
1:7 Even as Sodom
and Gomorrha, 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.
13. What will be left when the fire is through
burning the wicked?
Malachi 4:1,
3 (Isaiah
47:14)
4:1
For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the
proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh
shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts,
that it shall leave them neither root nor
branch.
4:3 And ye shall tread down the wicked; for
they shall be ashes under the soles of your
feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of
hosts.
We have already
read that God only has immortality thus man is mortal or subject to death. Why
would man have to partake of the ‘tree of life’ if he was
immortal?
14. What will happen to the “soul” of the
unrepentant person?
Ezekiel 18:4,
20 (Obadiah
16)
18:4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of
the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that
sinneth, it
shall die.
18:20 The soul that
sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the
father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness
of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be
upon him.
NOTICE VERSE
21... But if the
wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my
statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall
not die.
15. How will the soul be
destroyed?
Matthew
10:28 (2 Peter
3:9-11)
10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but
are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Revelation
20:12-15 (Nahum
1:9)
20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand
before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the
book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in
the books, according to their works.
20:13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in
it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were
judged every man according to their works.
20:14 And death and
hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second
death.
20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the
book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
17. Will every sinner receive the same
punishment?
Luke
12:45-48 (Romans 2:6;
Matthew 16:27; Revelation 22:12)
12:45 But and if that servant say in his heart, My
lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the
menservants and maidens, and
to eat and drink, and to be drunken;
12:46 The lord of that servant will come in a day
when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut
him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.
12:47 And that
servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did
according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.
12:48 But he that knew
not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few
stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required:
and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the
more.
18. What will happen to Satan in the fire of
hell?
Ezekiel
28:18-19 (Revelation
20:9-10)
28:18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the
multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic; therefore will
I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it
shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of
all them that behold thee.
28:19 All they that know thee among the people
shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
Though the Hebrew verbs here can
technically be translated in either the past or future tense, the King James
Version correctly translates this as future, for Satan obviously hasn’t died
yet! “Therefore WILL I bring forth a
fire from the midst of thee, it SHALL devour thee, and I WILL bring thee to
ashes upon the earth” (KJV).
Psalms
37:9-10 (Psalms 145:20;
Obadiah 16; Proverbs 24:20)
37:9 For evildoers shall be cut off: but those
that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.
37:10 For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt
diligently consider his place, and it shall not
be.
20. What are the wages of
sin?
Romans
6:23 (Romans
5:21)
6:23
For the wages of sin is death;
but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord
21. If our life gives testimony that we truly
believe in Jesus, what will we be saved from?
John
3:16 (John 17:3;
4:14; 6:27, 47)
3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Beloved, we have seen that it is God that
is this everlasting fire that will never go out. God being “unquenchable,” this
fire is also. The Bible is clear that
ALL will go through this fire.
The righteous will be as “gold tried in the fire” and the wicked
will be consumed by it… becoming ashes under the feet of the saints. There is then, an eternally burning fire but
only the righteous will be living in it, because they will be living in the
presence of God Himself.
“And they shall see his face; and his name
shall be in their foreheads. And there
shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for
the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and
ever.”
Revelation 22:4-5.
Beloved, Isaiah
28:9-10 says that anyone who clings to a preconceived interpretation of an
isolated text, without comparing everything else the Bible says on the subject,
CANNOT BE TAUGHT TRUTH! As we compare
what the Bible says about God’s character, it is evident that a God of love will
not burn people forever. Notice what the Bible says concerning the character of
God in Ezekiel 33:11:
“Say unto
them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the
wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from
your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of
Israel?”
Dear friends,
Satan has slandered and misrepresented the character of God! Aren’t you glad
that you can enjoy heaven without worrying about one of your relatives being
tortured throughout eternal ages, while you are trying to be happy regardless?
Does this wonderful truth help you to better understand God’s love? Will you
respond to that love by accepting Christ as your
Savior?