The Lake of Fire
In the 20th chapter of Revelation we find a brief summary of God's plan for the future. We learn that when Christ returns, Satan the devil will be bound, the saints will be resurrected, and will reign on the earth with Him for one thousand years (verses 1-4).
"But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished," the Apostle John writes (verse 5). Therefore, at the end of the thousand years, all those who lived and died, who were not saints, will be resurrected. This tremendous resurrection, of untold billions of people, is recounted in verse 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."
Notice. This is a resurrection to life. The book of LIFE was opened. Those coming up in this resurrection will be judged "according to their works"! This is not a resurrection to condemnation. Rather, these people will be the uncountable billions who lived and died in this life, who never even had a chance for salvation — those who lived and died in ignorance, those who never even heard the true Gospel of Christ during their lives! At that time they will be given a period of time in which God will open their eyes, show them His truth, and give them their first and only chance for salvation!
But now, notice what will happen AFTER this period of time. "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell (hades, already explained) delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell [hades] were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (Rev. 20:13-15).
Here is another entirely different resurrection! This is the final resurrection to condemnation!
This "lake of fire" is the Gehenna-fire Jesus spoke of; it is the "fire" that John the Baptist warned the hypocritical Pharisees about; it is the hell fire of your Bible!
Notice. This fire is called the "second death" (Rev. 20:14). It is the FINAL DEATH from which there is no resurrection! This death is the penalty of sin (Rom. 6:23). It is the death Christ Jesus came to spare you from!
John writes, "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" (Rev. 21:8).
The Tremendous Holocaust
What about this "hell fire"? Where will it be? How hot? How big? How long will it last?
Peter helps us understand. "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up" (II Peter 3:10).
Notice verse 7: "But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men"!
How plain. This great fire is the same as the "lake of fire," mentioned in Revelation, when God judges the incorrigibly wicked. It will sweep around the entire earth! The -elements themselves will be dissolved, the surface of the earth will be purged and consumed with tremendous heat. Every remnant of man's sin, every sign of iniquity, every last trace of evil will be devoured by the heat of this fire.
Then there will be new heavens and a new earth, in which the immortal, everliving sons of God will live and reign, throughout all eternity (Rev. 21:1-2).
But the incorrigibly wicked, those who deliberately persist in rebellion against God when they know better, will have no part in it. They will be annihilated in the lake of fire! (Mal. 4:1-3) God will never entrust the awesome powers of the God-Family to rebellious, selfish, spiteful, perverse men who have repudiated His love and despised His government throughout their lives.
Those who refuse God's mercy, those who refuse to repent when they receive God's truths, will be blotted out of existence! Actually, this punishment will be merciful for them. How much better it will be for them to simply die, rather than to have to suffer the agony of living forever and SEEING what they have missed out on, forever.
God is not a cruel, harsh monster. Nor is He vindictive. He does not intend to torment the wicked for all eternity. Rather, He is going to punish them for their sins, in justice — and give them merciful death instead of endless pain and eternal agony in some man-devised "hell"!
Notice more proof.
"But the wicked shall PERISH, and the enemies of the LORD shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away" (Ps. 37:20). This describes the true fate of the wicked.
The prophet Malachi writes of this awesome day. "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. . . . 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" (Mal. 4:1, 3).
These are not any man's words.
These are the words of God.
Is "Hell" Everlasting?
In the book of Matthew, Jesus Christ twice uses the expression "everlasting fire" (Matt. 18:8; 25:41). Notice 25:41 — "Then shall he say also to them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."
What did Jesus mean by "everlasting"? The Bible does not contradict itself (John 10:35).
He used a Greek word — aionios —which comes from the Greek aion, meaning an "AGE." The word aion is translated "AGES" in Ephesians 2:7 and Colossians 1:26. The aionios fire Jesus spoke of refers to the age-ending fire which will occur at "the end of this world," and which will introduce the "World to come"! It is an epochal event!
This is why Jesus calls it aionios or age-ending fire! The translation "everlasting" is misleading, since the fire itself will not burn forever. Obviously not, since God's Word clearly shows that when the present earth is purged and purified, it will be refashioned into a resplendent NEW EARTH!
Notice a Bible example which proves Jesus was not talking about an "everlasting" fire, in the sense people assume.
Turn to Jude 7, where the identical Greek expression is used, but where it is translated "eternal fire." Read this verse carefully: "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."
Jude said the destruction of these two cities is an example for us. Their fate depicts the fate of all the wicked, at the end of the age! They suffered — notice it — the vengeance of "ETERNAL fire."
Now, what happened to these two ill-fated cities?
Read the answer in the book of Genesis. "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire (a type of the "lake of fire"!) from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. . . . And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord: And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace" (Gen. 19:24-28).
This terrible destruction is a direct type of the age-end fire which will consume and annihilate the wicked!
But did you notice? Jude calls this ancient punishment "eternal fire" —yet, the fire which devoured these cities in ancient times is not still burning in Palestine today! It burned itself out, long, long ago! Nevertheless, the awesome EFFECT of this tremendous fire IS "eternal" — and is a witness for us, today!
Now you should be able to understand what the expression "everlasting" fire or "eternal" fire means. It does not mean the fire itself will burn forever, any more than the "eternal" fire which destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah is still burning, today. Rather, this expression refers to a great AGE-ENDING FIRE, whose awesome EFFECT will be eternal! The fire itself will not last forever, but its effect is complete, total, and permanent destruction!
“Unquenchable Fire”
Another much misunderstood scripture is Mark 9:43 where Jesus speaks of "the fire that never shall be quenched."
Does this mean the fire burns forever?
Not at all. Take a match, light it and set a piece of paper on fire. Let it burn. Don't put it out, or snuff it out. Just let the paper burn, until it burns up. Soon it will burn itself out.
Now, what do you have? A burned-up piece of paper. But did you put it out? Did you "quench" it? No. You left it unquenched. It was not quenched. Not at all!
Even so the final Gehenna fire will not 'be "quenched," or "put out." Nevertheless, in time it will burn itself out, when the wicked and all their wicked works are burned up!
Any fire will go out when it runs out of fuel. That's the way the final Gehenna fire will be. In time, it will naturally burn itself out!
[EDITOR'S NOTE: There are several other scriptures — Luke 16:19-31; Matt. 25:46; Rev. 14:11; 20:10; Mark 9:48 — that some still wrest and twist to try to "prove" that there is an ever burning hell fire. All these scriptures are carefully and correctly explained in our free booklet Lazarus and the Rich Man and the article "There Is a Real Hell Firer]
There you have it.
The fate of the wicked, in the Bible, is death — the second death in the lake of fire. The wicked will die (Ezek. 18:4, 20). Their consciousness will be destroyed for all eternity. They will have no feelings, thoughts, emotions. They will be dust and ashes under the feet of the righteous!
Two Choices
The wages of sin is DEATH — eternal death (Rom. 6:23). And that means death, not life in a different location!
Only those who obey God — true Christians — will inherit eternal life (John 3:16). All others will die the second death. Those are the two alternatives God places before you: eternal life on the one hand, and everlasting death on the other hand.
What about you?
Now that you know the truth, what are you going to do about it?