Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: All right. Well, let’s open up in a word of prayer and we'll get started. Father, it's always exciting the first Sunday, the beginning of a new year. We just come before you as we approach a new year and are now in a new year, that this would be a year that would be all that you have intended for our church, your church here at Sugar Land, and our lives individually.

We pray that you would speak to us today through the teaching of your word. We pray for encouragement, correction, fellowship, enlightenment, all the things that only your word can accomplish. In preparation for that ministry, we're just going to take a few moments of silence to do personal confession before you, not to restore our position, but if need be to restore broken fellowship, albeit 1 John 1:9.

I pray, Lord, that you would be with us now as we study, that you would apply the scriptures to the needs of your people in a way that you only can do. Only you can see the deepest needs in people, and we invite you to do that work today, both in this hour and then the hour that follows, and then also in all of the other youth-oriented classes that are meeting even as I'm speaking. Be with us as we partake of the Lord's table and be with us during the fellowship meal. 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.

All right. Well, if you could locate the book of Daniel, chapter 12 and verse 2. We completed our last series, and since it's a new year, I was praying about what to talk about next in Sunday school, and the controversy broke out on this subject: annihilationism versus eternal torment. I thought this would be a good mini-series to look at. We're in part two. Last week was part one in a brand-new series here in Sunday school called Annihilationism versus Eternal Torment. The last time I was with you, the last Sunday in December, we introduced this controversy. Really, it's a fusion of two ideas. One is called conditional immortality, and the second is annihilationism.

I used Arnold Fruchtenbaum—not that he promotes these things, but he explains what they are—as sort of a baseline for helping us to understand these two ideas that are now being brought together by many evangelicals. Conditional immortality is the idea that we, with our soul, were never designed to live forever. People are mortal, and they don't become immortal until they become believers. Only the believers are immortal and last forever. The rest of the human population was never designed to live forever. What happens to unbelievers that don't know Christ? They go into hell for a season, but at some point, they just kind of disappear.

Why would they disappear? Because they were never granted the gift of immortality, which is something that God only gives to the believer. These ideas have been floating around a little bit for quite a long time, actually, but they never really were mainstream within Christianity until about—well, there's the date, December 6, 2025—where Kirk Cameron, who is kind of a high-visibility evangelical because he's an actor, decided to bring these ideas back into vogue. Here is a newspaper clipping that occurred when this happened. It says, "Kirk Cameron denies eternal conscious torment and is now an annihilationist." If you listen to him recently and what he's doing, he's trying to piece together conditional immortality and annihilationism to say that people that die without Christ don't go to hell forever.

We kind of introduced that idea last time, and here's an outline that we're going to follow as we try to expose this for the false teaching that it is. The first stop on this bus ride are the biblical arguments against annihilationism. I had someone come on my YouTube channel this week and, as people do, accused me of not representing the other side fairly and gave me all these verses. I looked at all this stuff and I said, "Did you even read the outline that I put up here?" Because we're going to handle all those things under Roman numeral IV. Every verse that guy put up, I'm not going to respond to it right now, but we will be responding to the verses that conditional immortality annihilationists use.

Before we get to that, we're on Roman numeral II here, the biblical arguments against annihilation. Why is it that I think hell lasts forever and that unbelievers who—people that die without Christ being unbelievers—stay in hell forever? Do I believe that because it's just a swell idea to believe in? No. If I had my choice, I would not believe this. But the issue is, what saith the scriptures? Here are the scriptures that we're going to look at as we kind of show you that hell is forever and unbelievers do go into hell forever. Let's start here with Daniel 12:2. This is one of the clearest pictures of the afterlife for both the saved and the unsaved in the Old Testament.

It says, "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others—who would the others be? Unbelievers—but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt." You'll notice that when Daniel describes the afterlife, he uses the Hebrew word "Olam" for the believer. That's the word translated everlasting. In other words, believers will go to eternity with God forever. But then Daniel has a conjunction here, "but." So here comes the contrast. "The others"—who would the others be? The unsaved—"they will go into disgrace and everlasting contempt." Here you see Olam repeated.

The exact same word that's used to describe the fate of the saved in the first part of the verse is the exact same word used to describe the fate of the unsaved in the rest of the verse. Whatever you're doing with Olam related to contempt, you also have to do with Olam related to eternal life. All of that to say, if eternal life with God for the Christian is forever, then so is eternal damnation because the identical word is used to depict both. The word Olam is used twice here, and it's completely inconsistent to say, "Oh, I believe in eternal life for the saved, but I reject eternal life for the damned," when the exact same verse describes both with the exact same language.

By the way, that word Olam is used to describe God. Psalm 90:2: "Before the mountains were born or you gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting—that's Olam—to everlasting you are God." There the word is used twice to describe God, and my point is if Olam doesn't mean forever for the damned, all of a sudden you're playing games with everlasting life for the saved. Then you're also saying maybe God isn't forever because it's the exact same word. Notice Micah 5:2—not the best timing on this since we just missed Christmas. I did try to teach on this, though, on Christmas Eve.

There again, Olam is used to describe God. It identifies the birthplace of Jesus Christ, and it says God is coming forth from this city of Bethlehem, and it defines God as "from the days of eternity." That's the same word Olam. Micah 5:2, written 700 years before the birth of Christ, says, "But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you one will go forth to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity," which is a translation of the word Olam. This is, of course, why Jesus had to be born of a virgin. Because if Jesus was not born of a virgin, he would have had a beginning point, the point of conception, which is our beginning point as people.

But Jesus had no beginning point. He is the eternally existing second member of the Godhead. He is the uncaused cause. He is the one that has always been and will ever be. There was never a time in which he was not. So that's the one born supernaturally into our world. If it wasn't supernatural, then you could mark his beginning point at his conception, but he had no natural conception. He was born of a virgin, and he had to be born of a virgin to protect his eternality. Eternity is going to be born in Bethlehem is what it says, and that's our same Hebrew word Olam. So if Olam means forever describing God, Micah 5:2, Psalm 90:2, then you can't say Olam doesn't mean forever for the unsaved. Just as God is forever and just as eternal life is forever, so is eternal damnation.

Notice Genesis 21:33. Some of these I have on the screen, some I don't. Some we have to do the old-fashioned way and look them up. Genesis chapter 21, verse 33. If you were with us in our Genesis study, you'll recognize this chart. This is the different names of God as expressed in the book of Genesis. Genesis 21:33 says of God: "Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God." So this becomes one of God's names: "El," which means God in Hebrew, and there's our word "Olam," which means forever. So one of the words that's used to describe God in terms of one of his names is eternal.

Micah 5:2: God is eternal. Psalm 90:2: God is eternal. Genesis 21:33: God is eternal. Do you see how out on a limb you have to go to all of a sudden reverse horses in midstream and say the exact same word Olam doesn't mean forever there? It's just an exercise in people being very selective in how they're interpreting scripture. Now, there is at least one example I could find in the Bible where Olam does not mean forever, and that's over in Exodus 21:6. Exodus 21:2 says, "If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh, he shall go free and pay nothing." It's dealing with a slave, and it's dealing with a slave being let free under the Mosaic Law.

We could go on a kind of a tirade here about slavery, which we're not going to do. But I just find it interesting that the Mosaic Law allowed slaves to go free. The Egyptians, who took Joseph and sold him as a slave into Egypt, there was no such provision. But anyway, what if the slave doesn't want to go free and likes his master? What does he do then? Well, there was provision for that in the Mosaic Law. Verse 5: "But if the servant plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,' then his master shall bring him to the judges, and he shall also bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl"—ear piercing right there in the Bible, right? "And he shall serve him"—some of the translations say forever, and that's the Hebrew word Olam.

People say, "Wait a minute. Olam doesn't mean forever there." You're right. It doesn't, because a slave obviously died after a few years, a few decades, and this was not, therefore, a permanent arrangement. So I'm completely willing to acknowledge that Olam doesn't mean forever everywhere in the Bible. What do you do with this Hebrew word Olam? You say it's a non-technical word. A technical word is a word that always means the same thing everywhere it's used. Sometimes the word Olam can mean a long period of time that's limited, as is clearly the case here in Exodus 21:6. But just because it means it there doesn't mean it means it everywhere.

You can't just read any meaning of a word into a passage unless there's a context that supports it. I'm here to tell you that the context of Daniel 12:2 does not allow for that limited meaning because Olam is used to describe the afterlife for the saved and the unsaved. If you're going to play this game of, "Well, Olam means something limited with damnation," then you also have to say Olam in this context means something limited for the saved as well, and the context doesn't support that. I don't know anybody in their right mind that would say God is not forever. Psalm 90:2, Micah chapter 5, verse 2. In fact, El Olam is one of the names for God himself. Does Olam mean a limited period of time sometimes? Yes. Is that what it means in Daniel 12:2? Absolutely not.

I'm not free to take the meaning of a word as used in a limited sense somewhere and beam that everywhere into the Bible, and that's what annihilationists do. All right. Let's go to the teachings of Christ. What did Jesus think about eternal hell? I mean, did Jesus ever comment on eternal hell? Sweet Jesus that we love so much. The truth of the matter is Jesus talked more about hell than he did even heaven. I think that's divine design because I probably would not believe such a place existed if it came from the mouth of someone else. But the eternally existing second member of the Godhead clearly talked about this place. Jesus, of course, being the highest authority in the sense that he is God incarnate, when he talks about something, it's like the E.F. Hutton commercial—if you're old enough to remember that—when E.F. Hutton talks, people listen, right?

When Jesus talks, you gotta listen. He's the ultimate authority. What did he believe about this issue of hell, and what did he believe about the eternality of hell? Well, over in Matthew chapter 25, verse 46, this is the sheep and goat judgment, and it's almost the same issue as we just saw in Daniel 12:2. Daniel 12:2, written in Hebrew, uses the word Olam to describe hell. This here, written in Greek, quoting Jesus, uses the word "Aionios." Matthew 25:46 says, "These will go away into eternal—that's the Greek word Aionios—eternal what? Punishment. But—just like in Daniel, we have a contrast there—the righteous into eternal—see how the word Aionios is repeated?—into eternal life."

If you're going to say Aionios, which basically means forever, doesn't mean forever in Matthew chapter 25, verse 46 concerning the unsaved, then you can't right in the middle of the verse say, "Well, Aionios means eternity for the saved." That's a completely and totally inconsistent reading of the Bible. If heaven is forever, then hell has to be forever as well. Regardless of what your personal beliefs are about hell, regardless of your personal theology about hell, forget all that stuff and just look at the text at face value, exegetically. There is an obvious case for the eternality of hell because the exact same word Aionios is used to describe the fate of the righteous. Aionios, just like the word Olam, is repeated two times. So if heaven is forever, then hell is forever as well.

The thing to understand about heaven is it's conscious. There are a lot of groups that teach soul sleep, meaning you die as a Christian, you just kind of go to sleep, and then you awaken at the final resurrection. I'm here to tell you that that is not what the Bible says. The Bible describes the afterlife for the saved in the same vivid terms that it uses to describe what you would experience in daily life. Just like your experience right now is a very real experience—I mean, you're really here, even though some of you might be a little sleepy, right?—you're really here. I mean, this is a real experience. The afterlife, the moment you take your next breath on the other side into eternity, that life is just as vivid and is just as real and just as experiential, if not more so, than this life. So there is no biblical case for soul sleep.

Paul the Apostle talked about this a lot. He says, "We are of good courage." He says, "I say and prefer to be absent from the body is to be"—what? "At home with the Lord." I mean, what does at home mean? Isn't it nice to go home? You're on a trip and you go home and the dishwasher is emptied, and the house is vacuumed, and there's a fire going in the fireplace, and you just say, "It's just good to be home." When you go home, you don't just stop feeling things. So that's how Paul describes the fate of the righteous. You go into an experience that's just as pleasant and just as real as being at home. It's just in this case you're at home with the Lord.

Heaven is conscious is what I'm trying to get at. Paul said in Philippians 1:21 through 24, he said, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; for I don't know what to choose. I'm hard-pressed from both directions, having the decision to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much"—what? "Better." "Yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake." Paul says, "I know that God is using me to write the New Testament, to accomplish the missionary journeys, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, plant churches, win people to Christ while I'm here, and that's a good thing because while I'm here, I'm being fruitful. But if I really had a choice in the matter, I'd rather just depart and not go into some kind of void or some kind of black hole somewhere, but go to be with the Lord, to be with Christ, for that is very much better."

When he describes gain and very much better, there's no possible way he could be talking about something where you just kind of go unconscious awaiting the final resurrection. So my point is the scripture defines the afterlife for the believer as something very conscious. If Jesus back in Matthew chapter 25, verse 46 uses the exact same Greek word to describe hell as he does heaven, then the afterlife for the unsaved must be just like the afterlife for the saved in this sense: it goes on forever because Aionios is repeated twice, and it's a very real conscious existence.

Then interestingly, Aionios is also used to describe God. Notice Romans 16:26. Paul writes, "But now is manifested by the scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment of the what God? Eternal God." There's our word Aionios again, describing God. "Has been made known to all nations leading to obedience of faith." Aionios is used there to describe the eternality of God. When the exact same Greek word is used to describe the fate of the saved and the fate of the unsaved, the fate of the saved and the unsaved go on forever, just like God does, and it's a very real literal conscious existence.

Take a look at Hebrews 9, if you could, and verse 14. This is describing the Holy Spirit who is the eternal third member of the Godhead. Paul writes, "How much more will the blood of Christ who through the"—what's the next word? "Eternal Spirit"—there's Aionios again—"who through the eternal Spirit, blood of Christ offered through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works and to serve the living God." The Holy Spirit—and the Holy Spirit is God because in Acts 5 around verses 3 and 4, Peter accuses Ananias of lying to the Holy Spirit, and then in the same context he says you've lied to God. So the Holy Spirit is God.

The Holy Spirit is a lot of things. He's a person, he has feelings, we can grieve the Spirit, quench the Spirit, et cetera. But we know that he is the eternally existing third member of the Godhead, as is the Son, the eternally existing second member of the Godhead, as is the Father, the eternally existing first member of the Godhead in our trinitarian understanding. So if the Holy Spirit is forever and God is forever and those the words used describe their eternality are the words is the word Aionios and Jesus uses the identical word to describe hell just like he uses the identical word to describe heaven, then if you start playing this game of hell is not forever, then suddenly heaven isn't forever and God isn't forever. You just reach these crazy absurd interpretations by not being consistent in our approach to scripture.

Notice Matthew chapter 25, and look at verse 41. We looked at verse 46. Matthew chapter 25, verse 41. As Jesus is speaking of hell for the unsaved, he makes a very interesting statement. He says he will say to those on his left, "Depart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire"—there's Aionios—and then he says this: "which has been prepared for the devil and his angels." Here is where you get the idea that hell itself, that is a conscious state that lasts forever, was actually never something that God brought into existence for human beings. It was a place originally created for Satan, the Luciferian rebellion.

Yet, if human beings will align themselves with Satan, then they'll still share in his fate. But the first thought that God had when he brought hell itself into existence is it wasn't created for people. Now, think about this for a minute because this actually forms a very powerful argument for the eternality of hell. Who is Satan? He's an angel, right? A fallen angel. 2 Corinthians 11:14 says Satan masquerades as an angel of light. We only have two verses in the Old Testament that describe his fall. You have Isaiah 14:12 through 15, which describes him as a star. "How you have fallen from heaven, O Lucifer"—it's translated star—"son of the morning." The angels are called stars, aren't they? When Satan's tail sweeps a third of the angels out of the sky, Revelation 12, it talks there about how that looked to John as he was describing it as falling stars.

When Isaiah 14:12 through 15 describes Satan as the morning star that fell, that's more evidence that he originally was an angel. Then you throw in the Ezekiel passage, Ezekiel 28:12 through 17. There Ezekiel is more explicit and calls Satan in his original state a cherub. "Cherubim" in Hebrew would be plural. It's like adding the word "s" onto a noun in English. So there were cherubim, a special kind of angel, and Satan was among them. Satan himself was not just a cherub, but he was a covering cherub. He was an anointed cherub. This is Satan in his original state where he could worship and serve as the highest, perhaps, of the angels.

He lost his position in the heavenlies. We know from the book of Job that he can still go into heaven, not to worship and serve as he once did as a high-ranking angel, but rather to communicate and accuse. He moved from being a glorious angel—and his beauty is described all the way through this passage, it's almost like the colors of the rainbow, like a prism or a diamond or something like that, if you hold it up to the light, it reflects can refract and reflect multicolored beauty. So Satan made sense when he was operating under the authority of God. That's where you could see his beauty because the Shekinah glory of God is the light source that made Satan attractive and beautiful.

Of course, then his name wasn't Satan, his name was Lucifer. What does Lucifer mean? It means light-bearer. That's who Satan originally was. All this stuff about him having a pitchfork and a red cape and horns, just throw that out. He's one of the most attractive things that God made. He exercised his purpose beautifully when he was under God's authority. But you know the story: he became lifted up with pride. The Isaiah passage says he wanted to lift his own throne above the stars of God, above the rest of the angels. "I'm not happy governing the angels for God. I want to govern them on my own behalf."

We know that he was a heavy hitter because in the book of Jude, I want to say it's around verse 7, he would not argue with Michael. Michael and Satan got in an argument about the body of Moses. That's kind of weird. Why would they talk about—of all things to talk about, why talk about that? Well, I think the answer's Revelation 11 where Moses is going to need his body again because there's a case to be made that one of the two witnesses is Moses. But anyway, they got into this argument, and the Jude passage says Michael would not even dispute Satan. He just said, "The Lord rebuke you." Michael wouldn't get into an interfaith dialogue with the devil, wouldn't get into a shouting match with the devil. Michael is no slouch. He's an archangel. So it shows the power that was originally vested in Satan.

What happened to Lucifer, who became Satan, who's clearly an anointed cherub? A lot of people take this passage and say, "Well, this is just talking about the King of Babylon." In context, it is talking about the King of Babylon, but it sure goes way beyond the King of Babylon when it starts describing the King of Babylon as a cherub. That's an angel. What Ezekiel is seeing is not just a prophecy concerning the King of Babylon; he's looking at the power source motivating the King of Babylon. It's kind of like Jesus talking to Peter. Peter took Jesus aside and started to rebuke him. Can you imagine that? Jesus says to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan." For an instant, Jesus went beyond a conversation with Peter and saw what was motivating Peter, and he saw the devil behind it.

It's always been Satan's ambition to keep the Son of God away from accomplishing his purpose. Ezekiel is seeing the exact same thing. He's seeing the King of Babylon, but he's seeing the fallen angelic presence behind the King of Babylon. In the process, they give you two glimpses into Satan's fall. First comes pride, then comes a fall. We have to have those somewhere in our Bible for Paul's statement in 1 Timothy 3 to make any sense. Paul has to be referring to something, the condemnation of Satan. What is that if these aren't Satan passages? Then Paul's statement just kind of hangs suspended in space there with no explanation.

But as Ezekiel is describing this fall of Satan, looking at the King of Tyre and seeing Satan and Satan's fall, he describes Satan for what he is: a cherub, an angel, a guardian cherub. He says, "You were the anointed cherub who covers; and I placed you there on the holy mountain of God; you walked in the midst of the stones of fire." I think this is stones of fire. When you track that through, it's heaven. It's not to be confused with the Garden of Eden. It's another Eden, which is a heavenly existence. "I placed you there; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked among the stones of fire; by the abundance of your trade, you were internally filled with violence." Boy, maybe that's the reason our world is so filled with violence. That's what Satan was like in his fallen state.

"And you sinned, and therefore I cast you from the mountain of God; I have destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the fire." Satan in his original state when he was Lucifer is described as a cherub twice, not once, but twice. The King of Tyre was not a cherub. King of Tyre is a human being. Ezekiel is seeing more here than the King of Tyre; he's seeing the angelic force motivating the King of Tyre. So Satan was originally created as an angel. What is he today? He's a fallen angel. Incredibly beautiful, not as beautiful as he once was, but incredibly beautiful and incredibly attractive. Revelation 12:9 says he deceives the whole world. That's how he gets away with it, because what he presents to people seems right given his beauty.

Satan was an angel and is an angel. Now, here's the thing to understand about angels. Look at Luke 20. This is where I'm going with this. Luke 20, verses 35 and 36. Here they're trying to stump Jesus, which is not wise. These are the Sadducees. Who are the Sadducees? They're very sad, you see, because they didn't believe in miracles and they didn't believe in resurrection. They posit this hypothetical to Jesus, trying to make him look dumb. If a guy marries a woman and then he dies, and then the next man comes along, which happens to be according to levirate marriage his next of kin—let's see. Is it the guy that dies or the gal that dies? I think it's the guy that dies, isn't it? Yes, she marries him.

There are seven marriages, and each of these spouses dies. Now, if you were like the third or fourth person, would you marry that individual? I'd be like, "No, thank you." That's what you call a black widow or something like that. Death, death, death. Okay, who are they going to be married to in the resurrection? Let's see you answer that, Jesus, because we don't believe in resurrection. Jesus makes this statement here in verse 34. He says, "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage." He's saying, "You don't know the power of God, and you don't know the scripture. There is no marriage in the life to come." They're just like the angels.

As he's speaking of the angels, he says in verse 36, "For they cannot"—what? "Die. For they cannot die anymore because they are like the angels and the sons of God, being sons of the resurrection." You're in error because you don't know the power of God and you don't know the scriptures. In the next life, there is no marriage. So your whole hypothetical is silly is what he's saying. But in the process of describing the afterlife, he draws an analogy with the angels, and he says the angels don't die. The angels exist forever, is what he's saying. Now, they haven't been around forever like God has, because they had a beginning point, just like we have a beginning point: the point of conception. But from the beginning point on, they last forever.

Now, think about this for a minute. If Satan is an angel, a fallen angel, and hell was created for him, and he lives forever, doesn't hell have to go on forever? You follow? If that's what Jesus is saying: Matthew 25:41, hell was created for the devil and his angels. Then he says elsewhere, and they don't die. They don't disappear. They don't get annihilated. So if Satan is going to last forever and hell was created for him, you can't have a scenario where hell goes out of existence. Satan will be in there forever. Then he says in verse 46, human beings that cooperate with Satan will be in there forever as well. That's why he uses the Greek word Aionios.

Daniel 12:2, that by itself refutes annihilationism. Matthew 25:46, that by itself refutes annihilationism. Now go to Mark 9, verses 47 and 48. As you're going there, keep your Bible open to Isaiah 66, which is very easy to find. It's the last chapter. Just go to your first writing prophet there, the prophet Isaiah, the way our Protestant Old Testaments are organized. Notice what Jesus says there in Mark 9, verses 47 and 48. He says, "If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out." Wow. In other words, if you reject the transferred righteousness of Christ, you have to live a perfect life. I don't know about you guys, but I'm not going that route. I'm a path of least resistance guy. I'll take the transferred righteousness of Christ rather than my own.

If you want to go in on your own merits, here's the standard: if your right eye causes you to stumble, throw it out. Now, there have been those in church history that have literally cut out their eyes, but that doesn't really fix the problem either, does it? Because I can fantasize about a lot of sins in the dark. Jesus is getting to the point that it's the heart that's the problem. He says in Mark 9, verses 47 and 48, "If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out, for it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than having two eyes and to be cast into hell."

This idea of hell is not from a theologian; this is the Son of God talking about this. Then he starts describing hell, verse 48: "where the worm does not die"—see that?—"and the fire is not quenched." What is hell like? It's the fire goes on forever, and the objects in hell, which apparently in this case he talks about worms, I'm not sure exactly how that works, they don't disappear, and it just goes on and on and on. Where is he quoting from? He's quoting from Isaiah 66, verse 24, very last verse in the book, where Isaiah in the Old Testament talked about this. This is quite a way to end a book. Quite a way to end a sermon series.

Isaiah 66:24: "Then they—that's the unsaved—will go forth and look on the corpses of the men who have transgressed against me; for their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched; and they will be an abhorrence to all mankind." The fire never goes out, and the objects in the fire, apparently worms in this case, don't die either. Do you realize the amount of gymnastics you got to do to make that fit annihilation? As much as annihilation is a much more comfortable topic.

Go over to Matthew 8:12 for just a minute. If Jesus himself didn't keep talking about this place, I probably would have a hard time believing that it's true. If Isaiah just talked about it and Paul just talked about it, maybe I could say it's not a real place. But the eternally existing God-man talked about it more than those other guys did. Matthew chapter 8, verse 12 says, "The sons of the kingdom"—now these would be in this case religious type people, maybe Jews that happen to be unbelievers, any unbeliever for that matter—"the sons of the kingdom will be cast into outer darkness."

You say, "Wait a minute. I thought you just said it was fire. Now you're talking about darkness. Can you explain that?" I can't explain it. There's lots of images used to describe hell. Fire: place of torment. Darkness: what does that mean? It means separated from God, because God is clothed in unapproachable light. There are many images that the Bible uses to describe this place, and none of them portray it as a fun or happy place. They all describe it as going on forever. Matthew 8:12: "But the sons of the kingdom will be cast into outer darkness; in that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Does that look conscious to you? You're weeping and gnashing teeth in this terrible place, and it doesn't say hang in there for five more years and you're done. The biblical images don't fit this whole conditional immortality annihilationist model.

Notice Luke 16, verses 19 through 31. This is probably in the teachings of Christ the most graphic description that I know of describing the eternal conscious torment of hell. Again, if it came from someone else, I might dismiss it. But this comes right from the teachings of Jesus. It says, "Now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyous living in splendor every day. And there was a poor man named"—named, named, there's a name here. In fact, by the time you finish this paragraph, there's three names. Jesus never uses personal names in any parable. Everybody's trying to turn this, and I understand why they do it, it's so horrific, and they want to turn it into a parable.

This is not a parable. Certainly, the surrounding context he's teaching in parables, but he gives here a vivid, explicit, graphic presentation of what the afterlife is like for the saved and the unsaved. "A poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores and longing to be fed with crumbs which were falling from the rich man's table. Besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom, and the rich man also died and was buried. In Hades"—this is Hades. Hades is a big argument for the annihilationist because they want Hades to mean just a common grave. But that's not how the Bible uses the word Hades.

There's a lot more here than just a common grave, although the word does mean death, but not death the way they think of it: a temporary situation. This is not temporary. "In Hades, he lifted up his eyes"—that looks physical to me—"being in torment, saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in the bosom. And he cried out and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger'"—that looks bodily to me—"in the water to cool off my tongue"—that looks physical—"for I am in agony in this flame. But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that during your life you received your good things and likewise Lazarus his bad things; but now he is being comforted here and you are in agony.'"

"And besides, between us and you there is a great chasm so that those who wish to come over to here will not be able to, and that none may cross over from there to us. He said, 'Then I beg you, Father, that you send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers in order that he may warn them so that they will not come to this place of torment.'" So the man in torment can now remember; he's aware of his family connections, remembers his kin. This is conscious. "But Abraham said, 'They have Moses'—that's personal name number two—Abraham, personal name number one; Moses, personal name number two; Lazarus, personal name number three. 'And the prophets.' Are the prophets historical characters? Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel. Those are historical characters."

"But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.' But he said, 'No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.'" Really? Why is it that when Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead, the Jews from that moment on set out to kill him? If seeing someone come back from the dead is enough, then the whole situation in John 11 and John 12 for the unbelieving Jews would have turned out differently. Why did the unbelieving Jews keep persecuting the early church wherever it went when their main message is Jesus rose from the dead? So he's saying even coming back from the dead is not going to help these people if they've made a decision that they're not going to believe.

"But he said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.'" You'll notice here the whole paragraph does not begin with "learn the parable of," which is very common in the teachings of Christ. For example, in Matthew 13—you keep your place here in Luke—over in Matthew 13 and verse 3, "And he spoke many things to them in parables, saying, 'Behold the sower went out to sow seed.'" So here comes a parable, guys: parable of the sower. You know it's a parable because I'm telling you it's a parable.

Matthew 24:32 about the fig tree: "Now learn the parable from the fig tree; when its branch has become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know the summer is near." So when Jesus wants to talk in parables, he'll say, "I'm going to give you a parable." He doesn't do that in Luke 16. There's no parabolic introductory formula whatsoever. Beyond that, there are three personal names used here: proper names, proper nouns we might call them, Abraham, Lazarus, and Moses. Jesus never does that in parables. When this man rich man in unbelief—and the problem with this guy is not that he had money—the problem is his money clouded his understanding that he needed God. That's the issue. He died without the transferred righteousness of God.

If you reject Jesus, you get Moses, meaning your life has to be held up to a standard in the Mosaic Law, which is an impossible standard. So when this rich man went into this place, it was conscious suffering, and there's absolutely nothing here about him being annihilated. There's nothing here about a word of comfort to him, "Just hang in there for 15 years because pretty soon you're going to explode and disappear." So you can start to see that this whole idea of annihilationism is just crazy, what these people are teaching with this.

Notice 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, verse 9. Leaving the teachings of Christ, looking now at the teachings of the Apostle Paul. 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, verse 9, talking about the fate of the unsaved when Jesus comes back. "These will pay the penalty of what kind of destruction? Eternal destruction." It doesn't just say destruction; it says eternal destruction, which is the Greek word Aionios. "Away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power." Well, what this really means, the annihilationist says, is you're destroyed in the sense that you just don't exist anymore. Okay, then why doesn't the Bible say that? Why does it use the word Aionios to describe destruction, which is the same word used to describe heaven and the same word used to describe God? It's not just destruction; it's eternal destruction.

One more. I have this quote from Alan Gomes, one of my teachers. He says, "A punishment such as torment that is not felt is not a punishment. It's an odd use of language to speak of an insensate state, unfeeling, an inanimate object, receiving punishment. To say I punished my car for not starting by slowly plucking out its spark plug wires one by one would invoke laughter, not serious consideration." Let me show you one more verse: Hebrews chapter 6, verse 2. "Of instructions about washing and laying on of hands and the resurrection of the dead," and look at this, "eternal judgment." Not just judgment, it's eternal. It's the Greek word Aionios. 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, verse 9: not just punishment, but eternal punishment. Hebrews 6:2: not just judgment, but eternal judgment.

We'll pick it up with those last three in the book of Revelation next time. Father, we're grateful for your truth, grateful for your word. Help us to not water it down, as many are doing in these last days, but to see it for what it is. You give us these warnings for our own well-being and betterment. We praise you for these warnings and help us to represent this correctly to a lost and dying world. 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.