Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: Father, we're grateful for your truth, your word, grateful for the celebration of the birth of your son. That celebration, although we celebrate it regularly, holiday wise is in our rearview mirror and looking forward to the new year. And what you might do in and through our lives, and your church here this year. We want to be open to your leading.

Dr. Andy Woods: We do pray that in this new year that's coming, that you would have your way in our lives. You would have your way at Sugar Land Bible Church. And we pray that you would have your way this morning as we take a look into your word, both in this hour and the hour that follows. In all of the classes that are meeting even now as I'm speaking, with the youth. And in preparation for your ministry to us today through your word. We're going to just take a few moments of silence to do personal confession before you, if need be.

Dr. Andy Woods: Via first John chapter one verse nine. Not to restore our position, which is unalterable, but our daily fellowship. So, we'll just take a few moments at this point. We're thankful Lord for the comprehensiveness of your provision to us. And I ask that you'll be with us now as we study. We'll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus name. God's people said, amen.

Dr. Andy Woods: Well, it's kind of hard to make it to church today with all that I don't know. Did you guys have any pumpkin pie, stuff like that? Cherry pie, probably every diet buster imaginable is all over my house. And of course, I can't throw it away, so I got to eat it all, right? So, kind of puts you in a sluggish mood where it's like, oh my goodness, I got to go to church now. And, uh, I have to, I have to show up. As the saying goes, I'm the pastor. I get paid to be good. Everyone else is good for nothing, right? Okay.

Dr. Andy Woods: Well, here we go. We finished Calvinism. You guys persevered until the end. And we're going to start a new, yeah. Yeah, that was 54 lessons. Which, uh, I think it was 54, which, which is a nice number. That was my college number when I used to play basketball, number 54. So, I planned it that way. That was like 100 pounds ago by the way. So, we're going to move into a new topic. I don't think this one will go as long, but we want to go into this one here, annihilation versus eternal torment.

Dr. Andy Woods: And you're saying to yourself, Andy, what is wrong with you? I mean, don't you, don't you know you're supposed to attract the seeker? I mean, who's going to come to church and listen to something like this? Annihilation versus eternal torment. And I wish I didn't even have to talk about this, but this subject has become a big, big, big deal within the beginning of this month, December, 2025. Because a major influencer named Kirk Cameron, who has been on a very interesting trajectory. He was the, you guys know Kirk Cameron, right? Um, he was the star in the the series Growing Pains.

Dr. Andy Woods: And I was going to entitle this, Kirk Cameron has become a growing pain, but I decided, decided not to do that. Um, he has been sort of on an, uh, interesting trajectory. He became a believer and became kind of like a, a standout, uh, Christian in the Hollywood world. So, we've all sort of appreciated him from that standpoint. He was the star, or one of the stars in the Left Behind movies, which comes from a pre-trib, pre-mill direction. But I started to notice that Kirk Cameron started to move away from those teachings. Uh, he came here to Houston, in a great big, uh, um, homeschool graduation convention, um, which meets here in Houston every year for all of our homeschool kids.

Dr. Andy Woods: And it's like a big deal. Huge crowd, uh, they have a couple days of exhibits and things for different ministries set up. My daughter, of course, being homeschooled, we were involved in that and a lot of our kids that go here, you know, they're homeschooled and so we get invited to that convention pretty much every year. And, um, I don't know, maybe it was two years ago, three years ago, something like that. They they flew in Kirk Cameron as the graduation speaker. And he gets up, uh, in front of everybody and, um, says a lot of good things, but he starts bad mouthing the pre pre-trib rapture. And I, he goes, now you kids out there, don't just wait around for a rapture.

Dr. Andy Woods: You know, as if, as if that's what rapture teaching teaches, we're just waiting around. Um, and so I noticed, I go, well, that's a change. I mean, here's a guy in the Left Behind movies, you know, trashing the rapture. And I'm thinking, is he, is he going to give back all the money he made in the Left Behind movies? Now that he's not Left Behind theology anymore. And then I just started to notice the things that would pop up on my social media. He started to move into replacement theology. Um, when Ted Cruz came out in an interview with Tucker Carlson, uh, trying to stand up for the Jewish people, based on the Bible.

Dr. Andy Woods: Uh, I'll bless those who bless you, I'll curse those who curse you. I noticed that, uh, Kirk Cameron came out with a video trying to say that, uh, Ted Cruz was taking the Bible out of context. So, I started to notice him moving into what we would call replacement theology. And then another video I saw of him recently where he was trying to argue that the beast of Revelation 13 is not a future Antichrist. The beast is Nero. And so, that caught my attention because that was my Master's thesis. I was trying to argue against that position that the beast is Nero. I was saying the beast is not Nero in the, in at the end of the first century, AD 64, roughly.

Dr. Andy Woods: The beast is a future Antichrist. And I thought that my Master's thesis would just go into the library and collect dust and no one would care about it. And then all of a sudden, here's Kirk Cameron in the popular world arguing for the very thing that I was trying to refute in that Master's thesis. Um, he didn't mention my name, of course. He probably doesn't know anything about me or my, uh, topic on that. But I just found that interesting and Kirk Cameron has just kind of kept moving, uh, almost in a direction that's unstable. To the point now, where he came out and he said hell is not forever. And he started to endorse something that I knew was floating around out there called, uh, conditional immortality annihilationism.

Dr. Andy Woods: All of a sudden, he started to articulate that and I said, well, that's not good because now we're not just dealing with prophetic type issues that good people can agree to disagree on, I guess. But now he's moving into the point where he doesn't think hell is forever. And I think now what he's done is he's, he's pushed the envelope so far, um, that he's moving into something that I don't think is even orthodox Christianity. So, that's why I wanted to do this series on annihilationism versus eternal torment because we're living in a time period where now influencers, you know, people, people that people pay attention to because of their popularity, are now moving what we would call the Overton Window.

Dr. Andy Woods: Um, if you know what the Overton Window is, it's kind of a figure of speech of concepts or thoughts that are considered acceptable and open for discussion. That's what the Overton Window is. And so, there's been kind of this concerted effort to move the Overton Window more and more in the side of non-literal interpretation. So, what you're starting to see is now these influencers and people of popularity. You can put in there people like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, uh, the guitar player and performer, I guess. And I have to be educated on these people because I really don't follow them, but there's a guy named John Rich, uh, who's saying now that the pre-trib rapture is a, uh, Illuminati conspiracy.

Dr. Andy Woods: And so, you're, I mean, all of these arguments that I used to hear from cooks and crackpots and academics that no one even heard of, are now being espoused by, uh, I guess I would call them mainstream conservative influencers. And people think, well, I mean, Kirk Cameron is on TV, so he must be right. And that's, that's sort of the mentality. So, the latest thing that he's moved into is now he wants to open up a discussion related to annihilation versus eternal torment. So, as we look at this subject of annihilation versus eternal torment, here's an outline that we're going to follow.

Dr. Andy Woods: Um, let me give you the contents of that outline in just a moment. I just first want to define the terms. What, what is this whole discussion of conditional immortality annihilation versus eternal torment? What do we even mean by those expressions? Let's start with a definition. Um, Arnold Fruchtenbaum, who does not espouse those views, uh, has a section in his book The Footsteps of the Messiah where he critiques those views. And before he does his critique, he gives a definition of what these people represent and what they're teaching. So, let me give you this and let's see if we can get a handle on this, uh, this new kind of teaching that's becoming, starting to become popular.

Dr. Andy Woods: Arnold Fruchtenbaum says, conditional immortality means that the soul is not inherently immortal. So, when God created people, he didn't create people to last and live forever, which is very different than what we teach. Uh, we teach that God has put eternity into the hearts of men, Ecclesiastes 3 verse 11. And every single human being will be alive somewhere 100 years from now, 1,000 years from now, a million years from now, a billion years from now. Because we're made in God's image. God is eternal, and when God fashioned man, he made him and her, humanity, eternal as well.

Dr. Andy Woods: And what they're saying here is no, that isn't true. People are not created to last forever. Um, the only people that will last forever are believers. And they are given the gift of immortality, lasting forever, at the point of faith alone in Christ alone. Everyone who's not a Christian has never been given that gift. And so, since they're not designed to last forever, that leads to annihilation. Kirk Cameron is not denying the existence of hell with this view. But what he's saying is there are people or unbelievers that will go into hell. They will experience conscious torment in hell up to a point.

Dr. Andy Woods: Um, so the really bad people like Hitler will be in hell a lot longer than, you know, your average atheist, let's say. But if an unbeliever dies without Christ, making them an unbeliever, they are not inherently immortal. So, they go into hell, and at different junctures, they will simply be annihilated, meaning there's a point in which they will cease to exist. So, Fruchtenbaum says conditional immortality means the soul is not inherently immortal. Immortality is not part of the makeup of the soul. Rather, immortality is a gift for the saved only. See that?

Dr. Andy Woods: The reason I evangelize people, and the reason you should evangelize people, is you're dealing with someone that has an eternal soul. And you understand that they're going to be alive somewhere, um, forever. And what, what he's saying here is that isn't true. If the person you're evangelizing dies without Christ, yeah, they may go into hell, but they're going to be in hell temporarily, because they were never given the gift of immortality at the point of conversion. So, rather immortality is a gift for the saved only, so at death, the unbeliever simply becomes nonexistent, and only the believer continues to exist.

Dr. Andy Woods: Now, I would tweak that a little bit. Uh, Kirk Cameron with his view is not saying at death, the unbeliever becomes nonexistent. What he's saying is they will go into hell, but they won't be in hell forever. Now, that view, conditional immortality is fused together with annihilationism. So, what is that? Because we got two things operating here. Um, we've got number one, conditional immortality, which I just tried to explain. And they're fusing that together with annihilationism.

Dr. Andy Woods: So, what is annihilationism? What annihilationism says is this. The unsaved soul is annihilated after a period of what? Temporary punishment. So, yeah, they'll go into hell, and they'll stay there depending on how bad they were, but there's there comes a point where they won't eternally suffer. They'll just kind of like, poof, disappear. And God can do that because he never gave them the gift of immortality. The gift of immortality only goes to the believer. God never created people to be immortal. So, they're taking conditional immortality and annihilationism and they're merging them together.

Dr. Andy Woods: What annihilationism says is this unsaved soul is annihilated after a temporary period of punishment. Those people do believe, uh, when Arnold says, these people, he's talking about those that espouse this, the Kirk Camerons of the world. These people do believe that the unsaved soul goes to hell, but not for eternity, only temporarily. So, when they're cornered on this, and they're asked, do you believe in hell? They, they, they're able to hide behind this excuse. Yeah, we believe in hell. And if you don't know enough to keep asking questions, you'll be satisfied with it.

Dr. Andy Woods: Hey, all is fine. Kirk Cameron believes in hell. The right question to ask is not, do you believe in hell? Do you believe in everlasting hell? Because he denies that. Uh, these people believe that the unsaved soul goes to hell, but not for eternity, only temporarily. Eventually, the unsaved soul is annihilated after suffering a duration. See that? Duration of punishment.

Dr. Andy Woods: And if I was functioning completely on my emotions, which is how people get pulled into this, I mean, I would love to believe something like that. I really would. Um, in fact, there was a Jehovah's Witness that came onto, my brother was a student at Biola University back in the 80s, and so I would go there to visit him. And there was this Jehovah's Witness that came onto campus and he was trying to convince all of us there as we're sitting in the dorm lobby, you know, that hell is not forever. It's just the common grave. You die. You go maybe to hell for a little while if you're a really bad person, but but eventually you just disintegrate.

Dr. Andy Woods: And at the time, you know, I was, I I knew very little about the Bible at the time. Um, my emotions said to me, I want to believe that. Because this whole idea of hell, I mean, I've never liked that idea. Um, in fact, when I was, uh, oh, this must, this goes back to maybe, let's see, grade school, little after grade school, junior high school. This guy that I knew invited me to this Baptist camp. I think they were Southern Baptist in hindsight. But these people got in front of us in every single teaching they did at this camp. And all they talked about was hell.

Dr. Andy Woods: I mean, they talked about hell all the time. Um, and it sure scared the hell out of me. I'll tell you that much. I I thank God that I was sitting there listening to this because I I would hear all these people older than myself talking about hell and the reality of hell. And I really didn't know the Bible up, you know, hardly anything about the Bible, but I knew that hell existed and I didn't want to go. And so, when the time came for me to hear the gospel of grace, I took the opportunity because I didn't, I don't want to go to hell. Hell is a terrible place. So, after sitting under that teaching, listening to this Jehovah's Witness, he came in and said, you know, hell doesn't last forever. You get annihilated. And emotionally, I was sucked in because that's what I wanted to believe. But I just didn't have the theological grounding or footing to reject it.

Dr. Andy Woods: So, if if we're going based on emotions, yeah, I love conditional immortality annihilationism. But the question is, is that what the Bible teaches? Okay, that's what we're going to look at here. Kirk Cameron has all of these followers on on social media and all of these people, if you look at the comments, it's so sad. They're chiming in saying, yeah, you've got it right and this needs to be open for discussion and conversation. And what I'm saying is shut the door on this whole thing. Because if if this thing gets out into the open, which apparently it already is, you're, you will destroy modern day missions.

Dr. Andy Woods: You will absolutely destroy it. Because there really is not much of an incentive to translate the Bible into another language, to learn the dialect of a foreign culture, try to share the gospel with people that have never heard it before. If they're just going to kind of disintegrate after a point. So, anyway, that's basically a definition of what conditional immortality being tossed together with annihilationism is teaching. It's basically an emotion based argument.

Dr. Andy Woods: So, who is teaching this? Uh, Norman, excuse me. Norman Geisler in his book, uh, Systematic Theology, Volume 4, has a wonderful discussion of this. And he gives the history of this. And long before the Kirk Camerons of the world ever grabbed hold of this, uh, this view was sort of, you know, existing beneath the surface in the minds of a lot of people. It certainly is not a majority opinion, but you can find examples of it, um, early on in church history.

Dr. Andy Woods: And so, here is Norman Geisler's summation of this. He says, annihilationism was embraced by Arnobius, I think is how you say that, who lived in the fourth century. But did not become popular until the 19th century, when it was propagated by Congregationalist Edward White. And then by, look at this, Seventh Day Adventist Leroy Froom. And you can see when he lived. 1874 to 1970. Now, that name, Leroy Froom, I know, because I've got these four volumes in my library, and they're beautifully done on the subject of eschatology, the end times, and what everybody believed about the end times during different sections of church history.

Dr. Andy Woods: So, you can see, uh, by reading through that, where a-millennialism came from, where post-millennialism came from, where post-tribulationism came from. And so, these volumes by Leroy Froom are just outstanding. But the thing to understand about Leroy Froom is he was a Seventh Day Adventist. His scholarship on church history is really good, but he's coming from the angle of a Seventh Day Adventist. And apparently, Seventh Day Adventists embrace this sort of, uh, annihilationist conditional immortality perspective. For, for example, there's a guy that comes on TV.

Dr. Andy Woods: Um, his show is named, um, Amazing Facts, I think it is. The guy's name is Doug Batchelor. Uh, you ever seen him on TV? Uh, those of you that haven't, blessed be your ignorance, as I like to say. Um, and he's, he's like very articulate and very winsome. And a lot of the things he says are, are true, but when it gets into eschatology, uh, he is always down on the pre-tribulation rapture, kind of like, uh, Kirk Cameron recently. And if you listen to him long enough, he's going to try to sell you on this idea that hell doesn't last forever. So, if you're dealing with Seventh Day Adventists, they'll, they'll come from this perspective as well.

Dr. Andy Woods: Other proponents are the Jehovah's Witnesses. And I already mentioned them with the fellow that came to the campus and almost sucked me into this emotionally. Jehovah's Witnesses are also annihilationists. And then he mentions some other names that you may not have heard of. In the mid, uh, 20th century, Harold, uh, I'm not even sure how to pronounce that. Guillabud, something like that, Gillabud, and Bossle Atkinson defended conditionalism.

Dr. Andy Woods: And a few other evangelicals, such as John Wenham. Now, tell me if you recognize these names. Do you recognize the name John Stott? John Stott is an evangelical scholar. John Stott has had some absolutely wonderful things to say about John's Gospel and other things. But when you're reading John Stott, you just have to understand that when it comes to this subject of hell, um, he is going to move into this conditional immortality annihilationist perspective. So, John Stott. Now, here's the one that most recently hit home in my life, is a guy named Clark Pinnock, another who has embraced the view.

Dr. Andy Woods: Clark Pinnock was pushing all of this stuff when I was in seminary at a big group, a big academic meeting where evangelicals meet, called the Evangelical Theological Society. Clark Pinnock at the Evangelical Theological Society, in a minority as a minority opinion, was pushing conditional annihilationism. He was also pushing open theism. Open theism was really the hot topic when I was going through seminary. Open theism is the idea that God doesn't know everything. Um, what God knows are the possibilities. So, I've got this red tie on.

Dr. Andy Woods: I like to wear it during Christmas because it kind of looks like a candy cane, right? So, and this is not my only tie. I've got a bunch of them. So, according to an open theist, when I woke up this morning and was trying to make a decision concerning what tie I would wear, God didn't know which one I would pick. But he did know all of the possible ties and colors that I could select from. But it wasn't until I actually made the pick that God knew that I would pick this tie. And that's what you call the open openness of God.

Dr. Andy Woods: Who, who would teach something like that? Well, sometimes if you get into the history of these people, you start to figure out why they're teaching this. In his case, and I can't remember if it was a friend or a family member or something like that. Something really terrible happened to them. It was like a murder or a rape or something just awful. And Clark Pinnock said, how could God have known about that and not stopped it? His solution is not God gives us a doctrine of suffering. God allows all kinds of things to happen in our lives for some purpose higher than ourselves.

Dr. Andy Woods: Um, he didn't move into his doctrine of suffering. What he said is, you know what, God didn't stop it because God didn't know it would happen. Because if God knew it would happen, he would have stopped it. So, you see what's happening here with Clark Pinnock? It's very emotional. And isn't that what Satan did with Eve? Genesis 3, when he started a discussion with her? It was like kind of an appeal to her emotions. I mean, and emotions are real. God gave us emotions. But Satan would love for you to, to live your life and develop your theology based on your emotions, rather than what he said.

Dr. Andy Woods: So, Pinnock is interesting because he not only believes in conditional immortality annihilationism as an evangelical, but he also believes in the openness of God. And this is taking place within the Evangelical Theological Society movement. This is not the Jehovah's Witnesses teaching this, although they do with annihilation. This is one of our own. See that? And when Norm Geisler, now with the Lord, got wind of this, he left the Evangelical Theological Society. He he said, you guys by tolerating this stuff, have, have moved so far away from what we would call evangelical Christianity that it's not evangelical Christianity anymore, and I withdraw my membership.

Dr. Andy Woods: And a lot of people criticized him for that because the other camp said, you need to be a voice of truth within this society. But these things really bothered Norm Geisler, and he departed from the Evangelical Theological Society because of it. So, we're living in, and this is probably the best way to summarize this. We're living in a time period where the movement that God raised up to fight liberalism. That's where evangelical Christianity came from, beginning with the fundamentals of the faith. Written what, 1920s, somewhere around there, maybe earlier. Names like RA Torrey, who was very influential in the founding of Bible University. Lewisberry Jayfer, very foundational in the founding of Dallas Seminary.

Dr. Andy Woods: People who influenced, were influenced by them like J. Vernon McGee, who you hear on the radio. Uh, talk through the Bible, I think is what it's called or walk through the Bible, something like that. All of those guys are coming from a fundamentalist, uh, mindset. And they all came together to fight liberalism as it was coming from Europe into our schools and seminaries, roughly around the 1920s. By the way, the fundamentalists lost. They could not keep control of what we would call the seven sisters. The seven sisters are the denominations that represent Christianity.

Dr. Andy Woods: Uh, Methodism, Lutheranism, Presbyterianism, etc. And so, what started to happen within the seven sisters is they started to, there started to be these splits, where people that were more conservative said, we're not going to do this. Let's split off and form, uh, you know, a Presbyterian church that's more conservative. And the other thing that started to happen is people started to leave the seven sisters and started to form, um, what we would call independent Bible teaching churches. And Sugar Land Bible Church is is is that kind of a church. Um, it's basically comprised of people that left the seven sisters.

Dr. Andy Woods: Uh, because they felt that the theology was going south because liberalism was taking over everything. And as the saying goes, to the victor goes the spoils. It was a huge loss for the fundamentalists. You lost control of denominations. You lost control of elder boards. You lost control of, um, schools, massive libraries. I, I've done research over at Southern Methodist University. They've got a, uh, school of theology there called the Perkins School of Theology.

Dr. Andy Woods: We used to joke around that it was really the Perkins School of Mythology because it was so, so liberal, but the library was just outstanding. I mean, they had every resource that you would ever want to get your fingertips on. So, you lose control of libraries, you lose control of endowments, you lose control of money. And, um, so essentially, what happened is people left the seven sisters, and they started independent Bible teaching movements. Sugar Land Bible Church being in that tradition. So, fundamentalism that we call evangelicalism was started to fight liberalism.

Dr. Andy Woods: And what is happening in our day is the very movement that God raised up to fight liberalism is now becoming liberal. See that? This is the, this is why Geisler left the Evangelical Theological Society towards the end of his life. So, what I'm describing here, I mean, it would be one thing if this is just coming from the Jehovah's Witnesses, you know, who, who cares about them? I mean, I don't, I mean, I say that facetiously, but that's a cult. They don't believe in the Trinity, they don't believe in, they have their own version of the Bible. I mean, it's one thing when a teaching comes from them, that's on the outside.

Dr. Andy Woods: But what is happening with people like Clark Pinnock and now popular influencers like Kirk Cameron, is now it's coming up from within. See that? Uh, I wasn't planning on going there, but if you could just turn to Acts 20 for a minute. And look at verse 29. Paul is warning about what would happen to the church once the apostles started to die off. And it's a wonderful talk he gives here to the elders at Ephesus. He's at an area called Troas. Sort of wrapping up his third missionary journey.

Dr. Andy Woods: And he says in verse 29 of Acts 20, I know, not this might happen. He says, I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in, what does it say? Among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves. See that? That's Clark Pinnock's. That's Kirk Cameron's. That's not an external attack. That's an internal attack. And from among your own selves, men will arise speaking perverse things. Like what kind of perverse things? Well, like conditional immortality annihilationism. Weird stuff like that. To draw away the disciples after them.

Dr. Andy Woods: Therefore, be on the alert. Christian, are you on the alert? Are you aware of these trends? Paul says, pay attention. Remember that, look, is Paul serious about the subject matter? Verse 31. Remembering that night and day, that's a long sermon series right there. I was talking to you about this night and day. Therefore, be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years, I did not cease to admonish each of you. Look at this, with tears. I I warned you about this for three years nonstop, night and day, night and day, night and day. To the point where I emotionally, uh, you know, kind of opened my heart and I started to emote. I started to cry because I knew this was coming.

Dr. Andy Woods: And so, what you see here is not an external attack, theologically. This is something coming up from within. So, you can go to the Evangelical Theological Society, you can sit under people like Clark Pinnock, who are teaching in this area of annihilationism, exactly the same stuff you get from the Kingdom of the Cults. And that is, and and then you can get the star of the Left Behind series teaching the exact same stuff related to annihilationism that you get from the Kingdom of the Cults. That is an attack, uh, that comes up from the inside.

Dr. Andy Woods: So, without introduction in mind, boy, we didn't get very far today, did we? Here is where this, uh, series is going to take us. We, we're going to talk about the introduction of the controversy. So, we just did that today. What is this conditional immortality annihilationism? Who's teaching it? And then I'm going to give you my best case, number two there, on the biblical arguments against annihilation. And these are the verses that will cover. There's about 10 of them. Many of them coming from the lips of Christ himself.

Dr. Andy Woods: Who said that not only is hell forever, but Christ rejecters will be in hell in eternal conscious torment forever. Um, then there are some theological arguments against annihilation. And these don't come from specific texts. They come from, um, the bigger category of theology, meaning God's justice is against annihilationism. God's eternality himself is against annihilationism, etc. So, Roman numeral two and Roman numeral three is going to be my side of the argument in the sense that eternal conscious torment is a biblical view.

Dr. Andy Woods: But then we'll get to Roman numeral four, and what you'll see is these people have Bible verses. They got a ton of them. In fact, if you if you listen and I don't recommend you watch people like this, except if you're like me and you like doing opposition research. Watch the people like Kenneth Copeland on TV that teach the prosperity gospel. You know, that he's got a ton of Bible verses he uses. In fact, that guy uses more Bible verses than you get in most sermons today in most churches. Did you know that? But the issue isn't is he using the Bible? Because the devil quoted the Bible to Jesus. Remember in the temptations? The issue is, are you using the Bible rightly?

Dr. Andy Woods: So, I'll give you their side of the equation. They've got verses that they use to promote this annihilationism, and they've got theological arguments that they use. And you've heard him, how can a God of love put someone into an eternal hell? Those kind of arguments. And then with Roman numeral six there, we'll move to the voice of church history. Church history is not inspired, as is the scripture. But if I've got some view on something that only a few splinter groups have ever taught in church history, then maybe I should rethink my position. Because as you'll see under Roman numeral six, there are some splinter groups that have taught this, conditional immortality annihilationism.

Dr. Andy Woods: But the overwhelming voice of church history has always believed in eternal conscious torment for the unbelievers. And then at the end, Roman numeral seven, we'll, we'll reach a conclusion. And the conclusion will be what has happened is these people are trying to make God in their image. See, God made man in his image. But the human tendency is to take God and and make him more, make him more warm and fuzzy. And that's what's called a golden calf. Humans have always done this. They've always tried to make God in our personal image. And when you take one attribute of God like his love and you magnify it, and that's all you focus on, and you take another attribute like his justice, and you shrink it, what do you have at the end of the day?

Dr. Andy Woods: You don't have the God of the Bible. We are told to worship the Lord in spirit and truth. John 4 verse 24. And that's what this excursion into annihilationism is doing. That's what the excursion into open theism is doing. And you ask Clark Pinnock, well then how did Jesus know, if God doesn't know everything, then how did Jesus know that Peter would deny him three times? Jesus said, Peter, you're going to deny me not twice, not four times, but exactly three. Hey, Clark, how did Jesus know that? If God was just aware of the possibilities, but didn't know exactly what Peter would do. And he'll say something like, well, you know, Jesus knew Peter's character so well that he knew what he would do under pressure.

Dr. Andy Woods: But he didn't have an exhaustive foreknowledge that Peter would deny Jesus exactly three times. So, what you've just done there, Clark, is you have taken an attribute of God, his omniscience and his foreknowledge, and you've shrunk it to something that would help you explain a tragedy that happened in your life related to a family member. So, you've been sucked in through emotions and you've created a God in your own image. And it's not supposed to work that way. God made us in his image. We're to come to the scripture with fear and intrepidation, not trying to rewrite it all the time.

Dr. Andy Woods: So, that'll be the sort of conclusion, you know, that we reach with, um, the end there with, uh, eternal conscious torment versus annihilationism. So, not exactly the happy, fuzzy thought of the day, but I think you guys will enjoy this series and it will equip you wherever God has you. Father, we're grateful for your truth, grateful for your word. I pray that you would use these teachings to fortify us and, um, we'll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus name, and God's people said, amen. Happy intermission.