The Truth About Hell

Thank you, Mrs. McKinney. That was quite beautiful. I couldn't help but think of the scenery as I was driving down Route 73 with the snow sticking to the trees. And I think Mr. Call mentioned in his prayer that it can be bad weather, but it sure is beautiful. It's interesting how God made snow and ice that there's the good and the bad. I'm going to share a little bit of something I remember from a long time ago in my youth. I think I mentioned before that my parents separated when I was pretty young, and I remember visiting my dad. He remarried and had another family, and he got religion for a brief time. Actually, it wasn't the type that I talk about a lot because he joined the Jehovah's Witness Church for a while. This was over 40 years ago.

I don't remember a lot about it, but I do remember that he joined in the practice of going door to door to witness to people. I remember as an 8 or 9 year old going with him sometimes on a Saturday morning. I was never a big fan of that. I don't know if everyone did this, but he and some of the fellows that he went with had this practice.

If people wouldn't listen to them, which most people didn't want to, they'd go down to the edge of the street and sort of rub their feet on the curb. That was their interpretation of what Jesus Christ said in Matthew 10-14, where he said, whoever shall not receive you or hear your words when you depart from that house or city, shake the dust off your feet as a witness against them.

I'm not sure if that's what Jesus meant. To my knowledge, as I said, my dad dabbled with this briefly. He and those he was with didn't adhere to everything in the Bible. By the way, this isn't a sermon about that particular religion. I'm just leading up to one particular experience. I remember my dad telling the story, not the actual event, but he liked to tell how one fellow was particularly rude to him and not wanting to hear his message. And my dad had had it up to here, maybe of having doors slammed in his face. So when this guy gave him what he thought about Jehovah's Witnesses, my dad shouted, you're going to go to hell and burn forever! At least that's the way he told the story.

Now, not long after that, he gave up being in the Jehovah's Witnesses. And I don't know if he still believes in any of that.

But telling that story gave me a chance to yell out aloud about going to hell.

And I thought, you know, with the weather outside, we could use a nice warm subject.

And actually, it might fit with Mr. Evans' sermonette more than we think. He was going one direction, I want to go the other direction, so to speak. So if you want to write down a title, we could call this the truth about hell.

Not necessarily an innovative subject that we don't know a lot about, but I think it's good for us to review some of these fundamental doctrines.

And hell is one of those things people don't like to talk about.

Even though, interestingly, the word itself has become so common as an expletive that we almost don't notice it.

But you rarely hear people talk about the philosophical aspects of what they think hell really is.

It's kind of depressing for people who believe in that.

Hell is thought to be the ultimate horror. For people who believe that God created a real hell fire, that's the dark side of what lies in the hereafter.

Now, we could ask, well, why talk about that?

We don't teach the traditional teaching of the Catholic or Protestant Christianity on that subject.

But I've got three reasons as part of my introduction for why I think it is worth spending some time on.

One is that Jesus Christ and others in the New Testament writers spoke about hell, and in pretty serious tones.

You could say, hell is in the Bible.

And when Christ speaks on a subject, it's good for us to pay some attention to it. Make sure we understand what he said and what he meant.

So that's one.

Another subject is, there are people who used to be in our fellowship and attend with us, who since leaving have become confused on the subject.

I've even heard of ministers who are still practicing ministers, but they're in a corporation to which we're not a part of.

That's a good way of avoiding names. But who teach a different view. Some say, well, hell is just a mental state, or as opposed to something real or a real interpretation.

If someone asked you what you believe about it, could you do it and could you explain in a clear and concise way that really had meaning?

We may think we know all about this pretty basic doctrine, and I'm hoping we do. I'd be thrilled if it turns out I'm not telling you anything new. Well, I wouldn't be that thrilled because I might see a lot of people nodding off partway through, but I could yell again. But I don't like to do that. But it's not bad to review even a well-known subject.

And it's important for us as future teachers in God's kingdom to be able to teach, make sure we're clear on understanding any and every particular subject. And the truth is, if we look out there, there's a lot of confusion on the subject of hell and many so-called Christian churches.

Many of them have officially changed their teaching in recent decades.

Others have not officially changed their teaching, but unofficially, things are different.

Hell has fallen out of fashion, so to speak.

And I guess it's been going on long enough, to be honest. As I said, other than my experience hearing my dad yell at someone, it was more like my clearest memory is him telling other people the story.

And getting back to our assignment for the men's club, some of us like to tell a story, and stories tend to get louder and more vivid and colorful over the years. I suspect that might be what happened.

Anyways, I've got to quote, you know, Billy Graham has been one of the most famous preachers in American history.

He did an interview about 10 years ago, and I found this quote interesting.

He said, the only thing I could say for sure is that hell means separation from God.

When it comes to literal fire, I don't preach it because I'm not sure about it.

Interesting. That's Billy Graham, and I haven't followed him to know exactly what he teaches. But you can see, if you study other churches, there is much disagreement among current theologians about the subject. They disagree on how the wicked could survive forever being separated from God. They disagree on the status of some people if they've never heard of Jesus Christ. Or what about babies who die very young? What degree or type of punishment do they have to go through?

We could all say, most of us might be aware of someone who doesn't consider themselves a Christian. Or we know there are people out there who are pretty virtuous people. I've known several. They're good folks. It's hard to imagine them being condemned to eternal punishment, even torture, while some people who claim Jesus Christ as their Savior might not be quite so good a people. Is God going to punish some because they've never heard of that name, while swinging wide the doors to paradise?

To someone just because they've said that? Well, as I said, I think we're familiar with those things. But let's move on to my third reason to address the subject. Properly understanding the truth really can give us a good peace of mind. It can take away any fear or concern. I mean, have you ever stopped and thought, well, what if we're wrong? What if there is a hellfire and I might be going there? That's what other people teach. But we want to be confident that we do know the truth.

You know, from what the Bible teaches and also where do these other ideas come from? It's good for us to know that because then, as I said, we'll have confidence in what we teach and believe. We don't have to be left to worry or wonder. So again, let's look into the subject today. I want to look first at the perspective of history and philosophy, and then, of course, what the Bible teaches. I had one handful. I got to pick up the other.

So, let's turn there. Most people have some idea of what they think of as hell. They might think of it as a place deep inside the earth. It's often called the infernal regions. It might be a place of tremendous heat. The common picture is the immortal souls of wicked people roasting forever and yet never burning up. There's only one place I've ever heard of that happening, and that's the burning bush that Moses saw.

It was on fire, but it didn't burn up. I don't know if that felt much. But that brings to mind a bit of humor. Somebody told me once they saw a bumper sticker on a car, and it said, Hell. It's not the heat. It's the humidity. I don't know much about that, but that made me think of Texas. I can't remember the name of the politician. It might have been Speaker Reed. It was from the late 1800s, I think. There was a politician who said of Texas, he said, if I owned hell and also owned Texas, I'd rent out Texas and live in hell.

And having lived in East Texas for a number of years, I might feel that way. Anyways, people have this image of it as this place of never-ending unimaginable torment. Torture throughout time. And also, of course, it's the place where the devil and his demons are the ones doing that torture and reveling in it. These ideas have been around a long time. Much longer than any of us. That's why we've all heard of them.

We've seen images. What surprised me when I started studying it is some of these ideas of hell can be found in all of the world's mainstream religions. Not just Christianity. And if it's a part of all these different religions, just think that makes it one of the most influential ideas of human history, whether right or wrong. In Buddhism, they teach that hells are places in which souls are purged of or punished for evil doing. And of course, there's different types of Buddhism.

Tibetan Buddhism believes in many cold hells, which surprised me, but I thought maybe if you're from a warm part of the country, like Buddhism was centered in India, where it's very warm, maybe they think being really cold is being in hell. Although the classical Buddhism teaches that there are seven different hot hells, each complete with its own torture chambers.

I read that Islam does believe in the type of hell, and in it people are chained and they're forced to drink hot boiling water. And they're also given clothes to wear that's made out of fire. And when their skin burns up, then they're given new skin so they can feel it all over again.

And I've actually, there's a lot more about Islam. I was reading recently a book about the theology of hell, and it basically said that Islam has a much worse view of hell than even Christianity, which seems surprising. In Hinduism, victims in hell are supposedly given extra acute senses, so that they can feel every refinement of that agony. And also, they believe that souls have to stop at 21 hells.

That made me think of it like a subway going along, and stop one, stop two, and you have to get off and experience it, get back on. And there is a Hindu offshoot called Jainism, and it has a record for believing in the most different number of hells. Supposedly, there are over 8 million different hells. And I'm going to say, a friend of mine gave me that number.

I didn't do the research, so I'm not sure where he got it, but it just sounded intriguing. I had to throw it out there, because I thought, 8 million? That's a lot. Now, that's not enough for every number of people on earth today. We're up in the trillions, not trillions, now billions. But I thought that religion has been around a long time. Maybe back then, there were only about 16 million people on earth.

If there's one hell for every two people, I thought, I hope they're not talking about marriage. Because my marriage isn't like that. My wife smiled, and I had to make sure I... And I hope no one else's is. Let me read a quote. The Encyclopedia Americana sums this up. This discussion of hell, it says, The main features of hell, as believed by Hindu, Persian, Egyptian, Grecian, and Christian theologians, are essentially the same. That's interesting, because most of my life I thought, well, it's this Christian idea. It might be a false Christianity, but I didn't realize all these other religions still had that.

But it makes sense, because I believe the ideas originate from the same Satan the Devil, the arch-deceiver, who is foisting these ideas off on people. And it might also be based, partially, on a misguided sense of justice.

Because, face it, a lot of people can look around and see, there are bad people in the world that just don't seem to get what they deserve. Face it, bad people get away with a lot. So it might be natural to think, well, maybe in the afterlife they're going to get a terrible punishment. But this imagined hell represents the ideas of man. It's not based on the Word of God. And, again, I don't feel like I'm telling you something new there, but we want to come back and realize what that is.

Most of the common modern ideas of hell can be traced back to the imagination of a middle age. Somebody from the Middle Ages, an Italian writer named Dante Alighieri. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing the Alighieri correct. I know it went by Dante. But the idea is that Dante wrote, represent ancient Egyptian and Babylonian theology, along with Greek and Roman philosophy. He wrote about 1300 AD. He wrote of this fictional journey through hell, and the poem was called The Inferno. And that was the first of a three-part work called The Divine Comedy.

Most of us, I think, know that. But as Dante wrote this imagery, his trip began on Good Friday, because he was a good Catholic. He was in a wooded area near Jerusalem, and he saw a gate that led to hell. And there was a sign over top of it that said, Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Ooh, that sounds like something from a Halloween-type movie. And Dante describes going in and seeing these eternal torments of the wicked, each soul suffering punishments that reflect his particular bent of sin.

And, you know, I haven't read much of it. I've read excerpts, because I'm not into reading Middle Age poetry. Every time I say Middle Age, it sounds like I'm talking about somebody in their 40s. Maybe I should say the medieval period. But if you read just even a little bit of the excerpts, it sounds like if you could put that up on a movie screen, it would match the worst horror movies that are out today, and maybe even be worse.

And some summarization of it seems like this vast concentration camp of people just packed in and being tortured for all eternity. Dante's work had tremendous influence on Christian thought ever since. The funny thing is, he wasn't trying to write something that would affect theology. He was writing it somewhat as a satire.

He was making fun of people and events of his own time. Matter of fact, he'd gotten in trouble politically. He'd been run out of his hometown. So in his poem, he put some of the leading politicians from his hometown there in hell, and also the current pope. So he wrote, the man who was sitting in the Vatican at the time, he put him in hell. I guess that's a way of getting back at someone if you write a good enough poem. But if you study into it, it becomes clear the theology of the Divine Comedy was based on the writings of Thomas Aquinas.

Thomas Aquinas was a very influential Catholic theologian of the Middle Ages. But Aquinas was well known. He was actually considered a bit of a rebel at his time. He later on was revered as one of the great Catholic writers. But during his own time, he was kind of this maverick because he loved to study the pagan philosophers. He studied Greek and Roman philosophy. And he was very much enamored with Plato and Virgil. There was a book, the title was Hell. Where is it? What is it? Written by E. E. Franke. And I've got a quote from page 12 of that book. The book is Hell. Where is it? What is it? He said, Tertullian, who wrote about 200 to 220 A.D., is said to have been the first of the early Catholic fathers who openly taught the doctrine of an eternal hell of torture. And the next writer of note to teach this doctrine was Augustine. He was a great lover of the Platonic system. Platonic based on the name Plato. The Platonic system of philosophy. And he studied the Bible from a Platonic view. So this Greek philosophy was what guided their minds as they studied and taught what they believed. So this author notes that hell was one of many pagan teachings that Catholic fathers adopted. And hell was the one that you could envision like a big stick. You've got to come join our church or else this is what happens to you. And I guess that still holds true in some churches today. Apparently Dante was very much taken with the idea of the immortality of the soul and the idea of what happened after death, the afterlife. And Dante, as I said, he was brought up a Catholic and influential, but he believed that Plato and Virgil, Plato was a great Greek philosopher, Virgil was a Roman poet. He said he believed that even though they weren't Christian, they had been inspired by God in their writings. That's interesting to me because I personally don't think God inspired very many of these pagan writers, but some have. Since ancient times, not only Christian thought but others, the abode of the dead has been thought to be deep underground. And I'm not talking about just in graves, but deep underground with various entrances from the Earth's surface. They might be caverns or volcanoes. And if you see a volcano and you've seen those images of hell, it makes sense, okay, that's the way in. Throughout the ages, many stories have included some reference to this underworld. The oldest, or at least one of the oldest, is from the great Greek epic poem, The Odyssey. Most of us have heard of The Odyssey, and it features Odyssey written by Homer, not Homer Simpson, but the Greek poet Homer. Sorry, I had to throw that in because we've got enough young people. Although, apparently, it wasn't that funny. It's amazing, although you all think it's funny when I stop and realize that what I said wasn't funny.

But anyways, in this story, the hero is Ulysses. I actually read a good bit of The Odyssey some years ago because I'd heard it referenced so often and never read it. It's based on the great myth of the Greeks fighting against the ancient city of Troy. Of course, it's the face that launched the thousand ships. They had to go back and get Queen Helena. Anyway, they don't get sidetracked. But after the battle, when Troy was finally defeated, the Greeks are on their way home, and Ulysses and his men and his ship get lost, and they spend ten years trying to find their way home. At one point, he decides to visit what's called the abode of departed spirits. So he can ask a ghost, how do I get home? So Homer, in the poem, calls this place of the dead the House of Hades. So what we would refer to as hell was the House of Hades. Hades was what the Greeks called the King of the Underworld, or the God of Death. And eventually, Hades became the Greek name for what we've been calling hell. Okay, let's move ahead. In the Roman work, the Aeneid, written by the Roman poet Virgil, he described the same thing, but he liked to use a different Greek word. He used the word, instead of Hades, he called it Tartarus. That's a word that many of us have heard before. I'll come back and discuss some of these words later. But I should note that Homer did mention Tartarus. But to Homer, Tartarus was a different place than Hades. And what he described, Tartarus... Let me back up and say that more slowly. Tartarus was as far beneath Hades as Hades was below our common earth. So Tartarus was this place even worse than Hades. And in Greek mythology, Tartarus was the place where Zeus imprisoned those who opposed him, notably the Titans. Now, I've been going into all this, but we should note all of these concepts have been the product of human reasoning, imagination, and I believe influenced by Satan the Devil. Men have puzzled over the fate of wicked people. And they looked at these ideas. And actually, if we trace the history and the writings even further, we can see these ideas that were common in Greek and Roman writings can be traced back to Babylonian and even Egyptian philosophy. And then we can follow them forward to our own time. They're still with us. A Protestant scholar by the name of Edward Fudge wrote a book called The Fire That Consumes. And I'm not going to read extensively, but I've got a brief quote. He wrote this on pages 6 and 7. Around the world, in recent years, the conviction has been increasing that traditional orthodoxy needs to launch an anti-pollution effort, aimed at filtering out pagan ideas of Greek philosophy, which early Christian apologists took for granted, and which have passed largely unnoticed through the centuries. Chief among these Grecian remnants said to contradict biblical teaching is the idea that a person's soul is an entity, separable from the body, which can remain conscious even after the body is dead, and which, unlike the body, possesses some quality which makes it indestructible. The traditional belief about unending punishment of the wicked is based on this concept.

So that's written by a Protestant philosopher who basically is calling out his fellow theologians and where this idea came from. And on page 26 of his book, Mr. Fudge wrote this. The Western Church, along with larger cultures, bears the unmistakable stamp of the philosophies of ancient Greece and Rome.

A little later, he said, the soul for New Testament writers, as well as old, stands for the natural life of man. I like that. Where it says soul, many times it just means the physical body, which we've interpreted. And of course, we know in Ezekiel 18, verse 4, it says, the soul that sin shall die. There are other places where there is the writing of the soul, and it means natural life, our physical life. Not something immortal and indestructible. That was never the intention of those who wrote the original scriptures in Hebrew and Greek. But people who have read them for centuries afterward have looked through this filter of Greek and Roman philosophy and Egyptian religion before that and believed that there was some spiritual aspect of us that separates and lives on forever. And of course, in some ways that leads to the point that what people have said or thought or written doesn't really matter, right? It's what's in the Bible that matters. And we want to go to that. We want to see what God reveals in His Word. That's where we establish our doctrine. And the Word of God gives us some definitive information about the subject of hell.

I did a little bit of counting, although as my want, I've got a strong that I use sometimes, so I'm going to refer to the King James Version. And in the King James, one of the oldest English translations, the word hell appears 53 times. 31 times in the Old Testament and 22 times in the New Testament. So, as I said, the word hell is in our Bible. Notably, of course, many of us now use more modern translations, like I usually use the New King James. The word hell is still there, but not as many times. There are a number of places where the translators say, Well, I'm not sure if they would just keep either the original Hebrew or the original Greek. But hell is the Old English word that when the King James translators were on the scene about 400 years ago, they decided this one word hell was appropriate, but it was used for three entirely different ideas that the writing in the Bible conveys. Three very different ideas. And actually, if you look at the original language, there are four different words that in the Bible are translated into the one English word hell. One is from the Hebrew. So there's one Hebrew word that throughout the Old Testament would be translated as hell, but three different ones in the Greek. Okay, so to summarize that, we've got four different words in the Bible in their original language describing three different concepts of hell. So I want to run through those, starting with the Greek. Three completely different Greek words and words that have completely different meanings were translated into the one English word hell. Those three words were Hades. I've mentioned that already spelled H-A-D-E-S. The next one's a little harder to spell. It's pronounced Tartarou. T-A-R-T-A-R-O-S. Although, remember, Greek has a different alphabet, so I've seen it also Tararou, as though there's not a second T, but an extra R. So Tartarou. And then one that might sound familiar is Gehenna. Gehenna. G-E-H-E-N-N-A.

Let's start with the word Hades. We've already discussed that. And it appears 11 times in the New Testament. And all but one of those, it was translated into the word hell. The exception was 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 55. And 1 Corinthians 15 and 55 in the King James, Hades was translated into the English word grave.

And that's the meaning of the word. The Greek word Hades should have been translated grave. And actually, the translators in 1611, when King James commissioned them to look at the Bible, they were looking at an English word that essentially, at that time, most often was used for hole in the ground. Hell meant hole in the ground. So let's read some of these. I haven't turned any scriptures yet. It's long overdue. Let's go to Acts 2. Acts 2 and verse 27. We'll note just a couple of these where the word is used.

And this is actually quoting from the Old Testament.

Acts 2 and verse 27, quoting from Psalms, one of David says, You will not leave my soul in hell, in the original King James. My new King James says, You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption. Drop further down to verse 31. It says, Now, that last scripture has sparked the mistaken idea among a lot of, you know, Christian theologians that, during the three days and three nights that Christ was supposedly in the grave, actually, He went down to this infernal burning hell and was preaching to the demons. That's not what this says. What it's referring to is a thought that is not a question of the whole and was preaching to the demons. That's not what this says. What it's referring to is a physical body put into a real grave. In his case, it wasn't a hole, well, it wasn't a dug hole, but it was a cavern. And it didn't stay there. It didn't rot. Jesus, as he foretold, after three days and three nights, was resurrected. And so, it's a very literal interpretation of what He said.

We can turn also to Revelation 1 and verse 18. See another use of this.

I need to start carrying one of my other Bibles. Revelation is giving away in this copy. Revelation 1.18, these are the words of Jesus Christ, of course, when He's appearing, in vision to John. And He says, Now, I wanted to read through these to bring, it brings an important question that I've sometimes wondered until I studied into this. If, in Greek mythology, Hades meant this underworld, and was the name of the God of the dead, why was it used in the New Testament? Why would they use that word when it had this common meaning in the Greek? Why didn't they use a different one? Bible scholars think that, well, there's one answer that we think is correct. The word Hades came into biblical usage when ancient translators in the, what we call the inter-testamental period. That's between the time that Malachi was written and before Christ was born, several Jews created, wanted to create a Greek translation of the Old Testament. That's commonly referred to as the Septuagint. It's based on the Greek word for seventy, because supposedly seventy scholars got together and they translated all the Old Testament scriptures into Greek so that they'd have a Greek copy. And as they did that, the Greek word that they chose for the Hebrew word for grave was Hades. That's the word they used in Greek to represent the Hebrew word sheol. Sheol, if I'm pronouncing it properly, is s-h-e-o-l. Even though sheol represented to the Jews a very different concept than Hades did to the Greeks. Okay, Hades to the Greeks was this underworld represented in, you know, the Odyssey and Homer going in, not Homer, Homer wrote about Ulysses going there. They used that word to translate the Hebrew word sheol, and the Hebrew word for sheol didn't mean any of that. It meant grave, hole in the ground. Now, we can wonder, did the scholars who translated the Septuagint just not think there was a better Greek word?

Maybe there wasn't a common one, and I don't know, but we know they're the ones that chose to do that. And so that's how it, you know, the later writers that got inspired to do the New Testament were comfortable with seeing the word Hades meaning grave. So when they saw the word Hades in the Septuagint, to them it meant grave. It didn't mean this underworld, you know, abode of the dead and demons and all that.

So, of course, I've already wandered into that second word of the four we wanted to consider, the Hebrew word sheol. As I said, there were four words representing three ideas. In the Bible, Hades and Sheol both represent the same exact idea, and both of them would mean the grave. Now, that being coming into hell, it's interesting. Hell is derived from the old Anglo-Saxon word, halon, H-E-L-A-N, which means, or at least meant, it's not a common word today, but meant to cover or to hide or to bury. And it's similar to the German word, whole, or H-O-H-L-E, which also can mean cavern or hole. So, you know, the Greek word, or not Greek, boy, I'm getting too much of these.

The German word that meant cavern in the ground is very similar to our word that means hole in the ground. But it's interesting, remember, if you take sheol and you don't have the S, it'd just be H-E-O-L, it'd be hole. And some people have said, you know, a lot of English words seem to, a lot like Hebrew words, and draw that connection, of course, as our understanding of the way that the ancient Israelites migrated with the Assyrians and eventually moved further north and west, it could be that they mingled together and the languages were intermixed.

So, possibly a lot of our words from the Germanic actually came from the Hebrew. That's something, it doesn't have to be true, but it would be an interesting fact if it were. And I'll mention sheol, the 65 times that it's used in the Old Testament, it's sometimes translated directly as grave, 31 of those times.

It's translated as hell 31 times, and 31, and three places it's translated into the English word pit. I'll look at just a couple. In Genesis 37, 35, if you'll turn with me to Genesis 37, in verse 35, we'll see one of those uses of sheol, and we'll see it certainly doesn't mean a burning hellfire where the demons were. Genesis 37, verse 35, and this is actually to set the stage, this is, if you'll remember, Joseph was one of the sons of Jacob, he had 11 other sons, and they weren't exactly getting along.

Jacob was having these dreams that foretold some of the future where he would rule over his brothers, and he made the mistake of telling them, not only telling them, but maybe being a little arrogant, they got fed up with this and decided to sell him into slavery and bring his ripped up coat dipped in goat's blood back to Father Jacob and say, we don't know what happened to him, is this his coat?

Anyways, Jacob presumed, as any of us would, that Joseph had died, and they tried to comfort him, but in verse 35 of chapter 37, all of his sons and daughters arose to comfort him, that's Jacob, but he refused to be comforted, and he said, I'll go down to the grave, I'll go down to Shale, to my son, Mourning, and his father wept for him. I wanted to read that because it's very clear.

Jacob might have had some problems as a young man, but by this point in his life, he developed a good relationship with God, and he did not expect his fate when he died to be going to a burning hellfire where he'd be tortured. He expected the fate of his body to be put into a grave, and that's exactly what the Hebrew says. We see that there are some other places in the Old Testament. I'm not going to turn there, but there's a passage in Job chapter 14 that we read at almost every funeral where Job asked the rhetorical question, if a man dies, will he live again?

And then he answered, he said, all my days I'll wait, and he said, in Shale, till you call and I answer. Let's also, I'll turn to this one, though, in Psalm 49 and verse 15. Psalm 49, we'll see David again, uses this. And it brings a couple of the concepts that we want to make sure we clearly understand. Psalm 49 and verse 15, David says, But God will redeem my soul, my nayfesh, from the power of the grave, Shale, he'll receive me.

By soul, David meant his human life, not an immortal soul. And by Shale, we meant grave, not a burning place of torture. David believed that eventually, at some point in the future, his God, the one that we know of Jesus Christ, would come and raise him from the dead. At some point, my life will be brought back from the grave. Okay, I think we're pretty clear on that, but I knew we had to spend time on that.

There are some other words we want to visit now. The next one is the Greek word, the second of our Greek words, Tartarou. Or, as I said, some say it Tararou. Which, Tararou, that sounds like when you've eaten too much peanut butter or something, you're trying to say. This word is borrowed from classical Greek literature.

As I mentioned, in Homer's Odyssey, Tartarou was the place beneath Hades where the titans were chained for eternal punishment. Boy, that sounds a little familiar. The word Tartarou appears only once in the Bible. So, unlike some of these other words, it appears several times. And although I'm not going to turn there just yet, if you want to note it, it's in 2 Peter 2, verse 4.

There, in the King James, it was translated into the word hell. But as we've seen in its origins, Tartarou refers to some place of restraint. We could say incarceration. But it's important to realize that even in Greek literature, this type of hell is referred to only in relation to supernatural beings, to the titans, to Greek gods.

And in the Bible, we would say it would refer to angels or demons. There's never any implication of a burning fire or of any human beings going there. To set the stage for that, I do want to turn to Jude, verse 6.

Earlier, I looked at that and I wanted to say Jude, chapter 6, but Jude only has one chapter. Just before Revelation, Jude, in verse 6, Jude writes and he says, the angels who did not keep their proper domain, we believe these were angels who did not take the assignment God gave them and were corrupted, we become we now refer to as demons. They didn't keep their proper domain but left their own abode.

He, God, has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day. So we see spirit beings basically confined, incarcerated. If we combine this with our understanding of Revelation 12, and we've read this many times in Revelation 12, verses 3 and 4, it describes that serpent, the great serpent known as the dragon, that old serpent and devil, who his tail swept a third of the stars from heaven.

We interpret that as Satan deceived one third of the angels before mankind was ever on the scene and led them in a rebellion against God and as a result, they were cast to earth and imprisoned. I didn't want to turn there, but I do want to turn to 1 Peter chapter 3 to see that concept brought out a little more. 1 Peter 3 and verse 18.

Therefore Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, by whom he also went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the divine long-suffering waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared, in which a few that his eight souls were saved through water. Now, this passage covers a lot of ground and people today debate when did Christ go and speak to these spirits in prison? Some will say, well, it's connected to when Noah was building the ark. Others, of course, as I said, there's a Protestant belief that Jesus did it while his body was dead in the grave. We don't believe that could have been possible. And I would say we don't need to know. The point I want to make is there are spirits who are restrained.

We believe they're evil spirits who were deceived by Satan. Now, by restrained, you know, when you read this, you think of them in a room somewhere with chains like, you know, at Gitmo in Cuba or something where the, you know, terrorists have been locked up. I don't think it's like that, but we believe they've been restrained to planet earth. They can't leave. And they're restrained in what they're able to do. And I don't want to turn this to a sermon about demons and such, but remember, their spirit beings much more powerful than us. Satan is smarter than us, more powerful. He and his demons would probably just obliterate us in a moment if they were not restrained. So they're restrained in what they're allowed to do. God has put limits on them that they cannot go past. So they're in restraint, incarcerated. With that in mind, let's turn over to 2 Peter 2 and verse 4. So we can read where Tartarou actually appears. 2 Peter 2, verse 4, sums up some of what we've been looking at here. For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down into Tartarou, and my new king James says, Hell, delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment. Now, it's interesting. Again, remember the Greek mythology where this word came from said that Zeus, who was considered the chief god, confined the titans in a bottomless pit called Tartarou. We know, well, we don't know, but we presume in some cases mythology is based on some glimmer or some grain of truth. Perhaps that came into Greek mythology from those who had an understanding of the fact that God had imprisoned evil spirits on this earth.

We don't know for sure where that came from, but it's a possibility. But let's review. Our first meaning for the word hell is the grave. That's expressed as the Greek word Hades or the Hebrew word Shael. The second meaning is a place or condition of restraint for demons. That's from the expressed in the Greek word Tartarou. That leaves only a third Greek word and our fourth word that we want to consider that's in the Bible for hell, and that's the Greek word Gehenna.

Unlike these other words we've discussed so far, Gehenna does refer to fire. But I'll say it's a fire that's not burning right now, but it will exist in the future. The Greek word Gehenna appears 12 times in the New Testament, and in each of those we could say it has a literal reference to a valley just outside of Jerusalem. That valley was named the Valley of Hinnom. Hinnom-h-i-n-o-m. I'm only spelling it in case I'm not pronouncing it clearly. But the Valley of Hinnom was this narrow valley. It was a very steep, narrow ravine to sort of the south and southeast of Jerusalem.

The reason it was called Gehenna is that's a translation of the Hebrew, Ge-hinnom. So Ge-hinnom was the Greek way, the Valley of Hinnom. I'll make the point. Nobody here is from central Ohio, I don't think. But when I lived there's actually a suburb of Columbus named Gehenna, which is near my grandmother lived there all my life. And we'd get some teasing. Sometimes people in the church who come visit Columbus and they'd see a sign, you know, an exit sign from the freeway saying, here to Gehenna. And they'd think, Gehenna? Well, now we know where it is. So it's not that. It's the valley outside Jerusalem. You guys aren't from Columbus. If I said that in Columbus, probably people would laugh. Actually, for those of you that went to the teen prom last year, Gehenna is where that wall was that I got in trouble for spray painting. That makes it a little more understandable, maybe not. But you could say, I got in trouble and I was sentenced to go to hell. No, I was already in Gehenna. I'm getting off track. At the time of Christ, this steep valley served as a garbage dump. All types of garbage and refuse would be thrown in there to be burned. And a fire was constantly going. Part of that refuse would be dead animals, the bodies of dead animals. And also, remember, the Romans were fond of using crucifixion as a death sentence. You know, it wasn't just for Christ and the thieves that were with him. They crucified a lot of people and they wouldn't always bury them. A lot of times they're common criminals. They take their bodies down and throw them down into Gehenna to be burned up in time. So when Jesus referred to this valley of Hinnom, he was referring to something that the people knew exactly what he meant. It was well known. So if he described a punishment, if he used it as an allusion to a future punishment by fire, they got the reference. Let's turn to John 5. Now, this doesn't use that word, but it gives us the setting for the fact that Jesus was referring to something to happen in the future. John 5 and verse 28. John 5.48. And he was talking about his authority and judgment being given to him previously. And he said, do not marvel at this. The hour is coming when all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth, some who have done good to the resurrection of life, those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation. Now, this passage doesn't refer to Gehenna, but it does refer to the fact that there's going to be a future time of judgment.

Now, let's determine some of the specifics of what he's referring to. And I want to do this by a device I actually use in my classes very often. The five W's. You might remember this from any expository writing class. Who, what, why, where, when, and sometimes how. I add how, it's sort of like with the five vowels, you know, A-E-I-O-U and sometimes why. So we're going to include all of these. Let's start with what. And so we're going to do the five W's of Gehenna. What is it? If you'll turn to Matthew chapter 18 and verse 9. Matthew 18 and verse 9. We'll look at a couple scriptures to address this. And I'm going to break into the, you know, Christ goes on with a similar theme, so we'll just read one example that he gives. But he says, if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Cast it from you. It's better for you to enter into life with one eye rather than having two eyes to be cast into hellfire or Gehenna. So remember, the audience who heard him were thinking, oh, the valley of Hinnom, that's Gehenna. Okay, so he's referring to a future judgment, but one that includes this burning. Go back a little further to Matthew 10. Matthew 10, verse 28. Matthew 10, 28, he says, don't fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. By soul, we don't mean an immortal soul, but human life. Or we could say the potential for resurrection. Only God has power over us being resurrected. But rather, fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell, in Gehenna. I want to say here, this describes a literal consuming fire, something that destroys. In that sense, you could surmise that maybe the Gehenna fire he's referring to is hotter than the hellfire of what people imagine because he's talked about people being burned up. And with that, I want to make a connection, and we'll see this become clear. This is a Gehenna fire that sometime in the future, those who rebel against God or will not conform to his way will be burned up. That matches another term for the same thing that we'll see in scripture, which is the Lake of Fire. Gehenna and the Lake of Fire are one and the same. But before we turn to any of the other W questions, I want to remind us that nothing in the Bible that refers to the Lake of Fire or Gehenna says anything about souls descending into the nether regions of the earth to be burned up and tortured forever. No, it doesn't. It talks about being burned up, and we'll come back to that in a bit. Before that, let's consider who. For that, let's go to Revelation. And we'll start in Revelation 19 and verse 20. Revelation 19 and verse 20.

We're breaking into a thought here, which says, then the beast was captured and with him the false prophet. Now, we don't have names, but we believe this might refer to a political leader and a religious leader. You know, the false prophet who worked signs in his presence by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image. And these two were cast alive into the Lake of Fire, burning with brimstone. Okay, so the beast and false prophet are thrown into this Lake of Fire, otherwise known as Gehenna. If you look across the page at Revelation 20 verse 14, death and Hades were cast into the Lake of Fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire. So we're addressing the who. We've got the beast and false prophet are two individuals, but now it's saying anyone not found written in the Book of Life. We can add what types of people won't be written in the Book of Life. We turn the page to Revelation 21 and verse 8. Now, I'm going to list some traits that could apply or have applied in the past to any of us, but I want to make the point that it's people who will not repent and turn from these ways. Because it says, "...the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." And second death does fit with our teaching that there's a resurrection, that everyone who's ever lived will be resurrected, but not all, and not because we have an immortal soul and can't die, because there is a second death. Now, our understanding of God's mercy and His plan of salvation tells us that the only people that have this second death are those who refuse to repent.

You know, they won't accept God's way, and they know what they're doing, and they willingly choose that they prefer eternal death to live in God's way. I can't imagine there would be very many like that, but we see that there will be some. They prefer that sinful state. They won't turn from it, so they're cast into a lake of fire, which symbolically is referred to as Gehenna, because, of course, Jesus didn't have a lake of fire around, but there was a narrow valley where there was constantly a fire burning to burn things up. Now, let's move to when. We're in Revelation 20. Let's look back to verse 14 again, or we were near Revelation 20. And actually, we read this. I want to refer to it again. Revelation 20, verse 14. Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. That described the wicked at a time in the future. They're not there now.

And it's worth noting there's no indication that they'll be there for long.

It doesn't say they're cast in and they're there forever burning up.

I'll also, without turning there, refer. Remember we read John 5, verses 28 and 29, where Jesus said that there is a time coming when all who are in the graves will hear his voice, meaning Jesus Christ's voice when he comes. And other scriptures would tell us they'll hear a trumpet. My grandma used to tell people, it's a trumpet that's going to be so loud it'll wake people up from being dead. That's one way to put it. Of course, there's God's power resurrecting people. But some will come forth to life, some to condemnation. Now, it's not my point here to turn to Ezekiel 37 and talk about the great white throne judgment. But we don't believe it's a con...

You're raised from the dead and thrown in the lake of fire. We believe they'll be raised and have a period of time to have their understanding and have a chance to change and turn, and that most will. But some, the when after they've had their chance. There's some scriptures that indicate they'll have a full hundred years to overcome, which is longer than any of us have had. Of course, a lot of us think, I still need a hundred years. We're in progress, right? Okay, where? And so, I want to turn to one scripture for where? Because we've pretty much established... I'm going to turn to Isaiah 30 and verse 33. Because in some sense, we know where, because the literal Gehenna that Jesus referred to, as I said, was south southeast of Jerusalem. And so, he used that as a symbol for this lake of fire that perhaps will at least start in that location. I want to show that that idea, you know, that the valley of Hinnom was referred to in the Old Testament, but usually of one place within the valley. And Isaiah 30 and verse 33 refers to that as... Here we go. For Tofet was established of old. Yes, for the king is prepared. He's made it a deep and large. Its pyre is fire, with much wood, and the breath of the eternal like a stream of brimstone kindles it. This seems to be, if we understand it, Tofet was a place within the valley of Hinnom. And our understanding of history and culture is that that's the place where people who started worshiping the false god Molech went and sacrificed their children to this altar, and they were... the bodies were burned up. It's an actual horrible, wicked thing. And several times in the Old Testament, God in no uncertain terms condemns it. He said, I never taught that. He said, never even entered my mind. You know, God wouldn't have imagined that people would do such a horrid thing, but he points that out. It's like, you're willing to burn up sacred... human sacrifice there? Well, I'm going to kindle it with the breath of God and brimstone. Meaning the lake of fire, of course, is symbolized by that valley of Hinnom and Tofet within it. My thought was the actual lake of fire, when it happens, will probably be larger than that one valley, but I don't know how, you know, we don't have any mention of dimensions. It's not like the temple in the last part of Ezekiel, when Angel came and measured it. And if he did, we'd probably go, boy, that's an awful lot of measurement. That's the one I'm teaching the class, like, okay, it's there and it's this size. Let's move on to talk about how. We've got our Ws. Let's talk a little bit about how, and I would say, how will it work?

For that, let's turn to Malachi. Malachi chapter 4, I think, gives us a very succinct description of how this is going to work. You know, what is going to happen. I guess, apply a couple Ws to describe this, but Malachi chapter 4 says, Behold, the day is coming, remember its future, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, and all who do wickedly, will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts. It will leave them neither root nor branch.

I'll drop down to verse 3, it says, You'll trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes, under the soles of your feet, on the day that I do this, says the Lord of hosts.

Notice, this isn't torture. You could call it disposal. The unrepentant wicked will burn up, and not be anymore. That's a much more merciful idea. And as I said, understanding the truth about hell as it is in the Bible should bring great peace of mind, because even if I were one of those wicked that wouldn't repentant would be there, I'd say, okay, gonna be over in a flash, I'll be ashes under the feet, I won't be, you know, having to wear clothes made out of fire, and then have my skin replaced so I can put them back on again. Let's see that also in the old, further back, in Psalm 37 verse 20 is another good reference. Psalm 37, 20.

The wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the eternal, like the splendor of the meadows, shall vanish into smoke, they'll vanish away. Oh, I forgot, I said we're done with the Ws. I was wrong. There is a W that we do need to address, and that's why. Why is this going to happen?

Well, you say it pretty succinctly. I would normally turn there, but most of us have memorized Romans 6.23. Romans 6.23 tells us the wages of sin is death, not ever burning torture in hell, but it is death. That's the reason there will be a death for those who won't accept the Christ sacrifice and payment for that. The gift of God is eternal life. We don't already have it.

I will turn to 2 Peter 3 and verse 10. We don't, at least we don't all have this memorized. 2 Peter 3, 10.

Remind us, the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens will pass away with great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat. Both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. That's interesting. Now, this verse is compressing the events from the time when Christ returns, we could say, to the end of what we call the great white throne judgment, whether it's a hundred years or some other period of time, when apparently this lake of fire will expand from the valley of Hinnom and cover the surface of the earth. It says the elements will melt. We could see this as God's way of purifying the earth. Burn up all the remnants of man's civilization that don't fit with God's way, and of course, perhaps him building new and starting over. And that fits with what the Bible says about the fate of the wicked. The Bible teaches the wages of sin is death. It teaches that unrepentant sinners will pass away and will just be no more. That's reflected in some of Christ's parables. He gave a parable of the tares and the wheat, and in that parable the tares were gathered up and thrown into the fire, not tortured forever but burned up. And another parable where Christ said, I am the vine and you are the branches, you know, and if you don't, the branches don't bear fruit, they're cut off and thrown in the fire.

I'm not sure if it's good news for us. If the branches do bear fruit, well, they get pruned, which isn't always pleasant, but that's so they'll bear more fruit.

And all this burning that we talk about in the lake of fire was represented by the valley of Hinnom, Gehenna. Gehenna was a place of destruction by fire. Leaving ashes behind was not a place of torture. And Christ used that analogy for people who were well aware of what Gehenna was and what happened there. So I would say the time, place, and nature of this real hell is a lot different than the mythological concepts we discussed earlier. As I said, it's a place of burning up.

And it's important for us to not only know this, but know that we know it. Know that it's in the Bible that we'll never doubt. You know, if you're like me, you have times where you don't revisit a concept and then you hear something different and you can say, wait a minute, it's what I believe, right? How long has it been since I've, you know, it's good to look at it again and say, no, I know what I know. It's there. I'll make reference to some of the scriptures. Psalm 104, verse 35, tells us that sinners will be consumed from the earth and be no more. We read Malachi where it says, The day is coming, burning like a fire. Those who do wickedly will be like stubble, burned up, ashes under your soles of your feet. And of course, Matthew 3, 12, he discusses having this winnowing fan as hand to gather the wheat into the barn, the chaff to be burned up with fire.

Now, there are a lot of other scriptures, and I'm starting to refer to them because I don't want to drag down turning to too many, but you get the idea. It's there in the Bible. But it's also worth pointing out that there are some scriptures in the Bible that people read and say, well, see, this is showing an eternal hellfire. We've read those. I thought it's worth turning to some of those to make sure we understand what they do say and what they don't. But because I would say they're misunderstood scriptures, that people read with that false paradigm and they interpret it into what they, you know, that idea in their mind of that under-nether world where Satan's burning people up forever, if they have the paradigm of what we just studied is in the Bible, they can interpret it differently. Let's look again to... Well, let's turn to Mark 9.

This is a parallel account of Jesus basically saying it's better to do without some things than to let them lead you into the valley of Hinnom or Hinnah fire. Matthew 9 and verse 43.

Here it says, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better for you to enter to life maimed than having two hands to go into hell into the fire that never shall be quenched, where their worm doesn't die and the fire is not quenched. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better to enter life lame than having two feet to be cast into hell into the fire that shall never be quenched, where the worm doesn't die and their fire is not quenched.

Likewise with the eye. Your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It's better to enter the kingdom of life with one eye. It's funny, I guess only one eye causes to sin, the other doesn't.

Never thought of that before, but the point is, you know, get rid of it. It's better to be maimed than again, go into hell fire where the worm doesn't die and the fire is not quenched. Now that sounds like ever burning hell fire, but there are a couple of explanations of this we need to understand. And again, I know this is review for most of us, but remember Christ was referring to Gehenna, that fire in the valley of Hinnom that was never put out. Nobody ever even tried to put it out as far as I know. And by the means they had it that day, it would have been nearly impossible. So a fire that's never quenched just means one that you can let burn until it burns all the fuel it has and then it goes out. You know, they didn't have planes with fire retardant where they could drop a 727's worth of orange stuff down on it and put out the fire. They knew Gehenna was going to burn until there was nothing left to burn. And we could say likewise when the lake of fire burns, it'll burn everything that there is to burn and it won't be quenched, but it'll probably, not probably, it'll stop burning. It'll go out on its own. And there's also this reference to worms that don't die. This is quoting from Isaiah 66-24. And it's not a teaching that there are immortal worms, which would be a weird thing, but we believe it's referring to the valley of Hinnom and the fact that, remember, they threw organic matter, dead bodies and things like that. And when you have that, if the fire doesn't get it right away, flies will drop their eggs and they come out as larvae, otherwise known as maggots. They would have used the term worms back then.

And of course, you know, the worms, because they're the larvae, you know, they wouldn't die. They would transform into flies. And so the worm didn't die. Or there's also the aspect of, as long as refuse is thrown in there, their life cycle would continue. There'd always be a point where there were maggots in the valley of Hinnom until stuff was burned up. And I've talked enough about maggots. Boy, that's an unpleasant subject. Are we going to eat later? Let's talk about something else. Let's turn to Matthew 25. Matthew 25 and verse 41. He says, Matthew 25, 41, he'll say to those in his left hand, and this is concluding the parable of the sheep and the goats. And so the sheep and the goats represent people who serve others and do charitable deeds and others who don't. And he describes it. He'll say to those on the left hand, depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food. I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger and you didn't take me in, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you didn't visit me. And they'll answer him and say, well, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick in prison and didn't minister to you? He'll answer and say, surely I say to you, and as much as you didn't do it to the least of these, you didn't do it to me. Now, there's a very deep lesson there for us that we could, a whole different sermon could be addressing that, but he says, and these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous will enter into eternal life. We want to consider a couple points there because it does sound like he's talking about ever burning hell fire on the surface of it, but this word that's translated everlasting is from the Greek word aeonion. That's tough, but it's based on the root word aeon. We're familiar with that one. It could be spelled A-I-O-N, and it means age. You know, for an age or an era, a period of time, not necessarily forever, but aeonion would mean age-lasting fire or fire that lasts until the end of that age, and it could potentially be a long period of time, but not necessarily forever.

Okay, and this is just parsing the literal meaning of the word, but we also want to look in verse 46 where it says everlasting punishment, and we often in the church, we've pointed out that this is saying when a wicked person is put to death in this fire and burned up, the punishment is forever.

They become dead and stay dead, so the punishment is eternal, but we could say the punishing, the process of being burned up, would be very short, especially if it's that hot of a fire. So the punishing would be quick. The punishment lasts forever, and of course, that's not referring to the fate of Satan and the demons, who we read will also go into the fire. Now, they're composed of spirit. I don't think they're quickly burned up. Revelation 20 verse 10 indicates that they'll be tormented forever, and that opens up a whole different question, and it can be fun to discuss because we don't have a clear answer, that of whether or not spirit beings ever could be destroyed.

I've heard some pretty strong arguments both ways, and traditionally, you know, and as a church, we've taught that they could not, and there are some very strong arguments for that. The argument saying maybe they could, I think, aren't as strong, but are worth considering, but it's a different discussion than what I want to get into today. I'm talking about our fate, not that of spirit beings. So there's one last section of scripture that is often used to support a hell, and I want to touch on it briefly. It's in Luke chapter 16, and it's the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, and I'm going to say briefly, because you could spend a whole sermon on it, or I could say you could send a whole split sermon, because that's exactly what I did.

I think it's been two or three years now I gave a message on this. Let's read over it briefly. Luke 16, starting in verse 19. There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day, but there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores.

By the way, this isn't Jesus' friend, Lazarus, but this was a man who was full of sores, laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores, and so it was the beggar died and was carried by angels to Abraham's bosom.

The rich man also died and was buried, and being in torments in Hades, I'm not sure if you have an Old King James, I believe it says, torments in hell, but it's Hades, you're referring to the grave. He lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, Lazarus in his bosom.

Now, I'm going to stop there because what I want to remind you all is, when I gave that message, if you study the culture and history of the time, you could see that Jesus was using a very common allegory, a common pattern of presenting things that was known at that time in which people, you know, the good and the bad in life or the rich and the poor, would find their position switched after death. And I said, using this format is sort of like saying, you know, a rabbi, a priest, and a minister walk into a bar. And I'm not saying these three literally are going out to drink together, but it sets up for a punchline.

Jesus was using a common format to set up for a punchline. But even aside from that, it's worthwhile to notice what Jesus did and didn't say in the parable. I'm going to back up to verse 23. Being in torments in Hades, the rich man lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out saying, Father Abraham, have mercy on me.

Send Lazarus that he might dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I'm tormented in this flame. If this were intended to be an accurate portrayal of a future punishment, which I don't believe it was, but it doesn't say the rich man is about to be tormented forever and ever. It basically says, I'm in torment because, look, there's flame and I'm going to be burned up. And I'm in mental anguish because I don't want to be burned up. That would fit with all the other scriptures that we've read. But the idea of him being tortured forever wouldn't fit anything else in the Bible.

So we could see this, again, as a picture, if we want to, of someone who might be in agony mentally because he's about to be burned up, but not someone who's going to be tortured forever.

Well, there is one more scripture I wanted to look at because we can turn also... Sorry, I forgot I had this one. Revelation 14 verse 11.

I'm only apologizing because I thought I was about to lead into my conclusion, but I've got one more thing I want to look at here. Revelation 14 and 11, a quick reference. It says, the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever. They have no rest day or night who worship the beast in his image, whoever receives the mark of his name.

And once again here, because whenever you hear the word forever, it makes you think. But this again is the translation of the Greek word aeonion, which could mean to the end of the age. And what's going on forever? It says the smoke doesn't say anything about torture lasting forever.

Again, as I said, I might be parsing words, but if we want to base our teaching on the Bible and not on Greek or Roman mythology, we want to look at what it does say and doesn't. And what this verse is saying, that those who choose to follow the beast, they know they're not going to escape God's final punishment. That knowledge is going to keep them from being able to sleep. They won't be at peace in their mind. They're not going to be at ease, and they're going to be burned up, and that punishment will be forever. Not the punishing, but it'll be a permanent punishment.

If we think about it, you know, over the centuries, how much mental anguish to people living on this earth have they suffered because of the false teaching of an ever-burning hellfire? A lot of people have been really troubled either because they're afraid they might be going there or because they envision people they love perhaps being there. But what it seems is that Satan has foisted off on billions of people this idea of what is more likely his own fate. And the Bible says he's going to be cast into a burning lake of fire. So this lie has deprived people of the peace of mind that they could have from knowing the truth. You know, from knowing that God isn't going to torture people forever, he'll be merciful. If someone won't accept his way of life, he'll let them be dead and be out of it. Because otherwise, the other possible concept is this horrible idea of God.

I saw a quote once that said, the popular concept of hell would make God far worse than Hitler.

You know, someone who would do that. God's not a sadistic monster. And I think all of us know that. If you have God's spirit in you, you've got a sense of the eternal, you know, his essence is in you, and you just know he's not like that. And we don't want to be like that. God is merciful and loving.

And the truth about hell is as simple as 1-2-3. The words translated in the Bible as hell mean, 1. The grave, 2. A place of restraint for demons, or 3. A time in a place where wicked people who refuse to repent will mercifully be burned up and will exist no more. And knowing the truth on this subject should give us peace of mind, confidence in the type of God that we worship, and a lack of fear for either ourselves or others. You know, as I said, even ending up there, although I intend to not be there, and I hope all of us do, it wouldn't be as bad as this fate that seems to be projected.

That truth is an important part of God's overall plan for all people who have ever lived.

The truth of hell is sobering, but it can also be reassuring. We worship a God who is merciful, loving, and kind, and who has a love that never ends.