Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: I'm going to open us up in a word of prayer and we'll get started. Father, we're grateful for today, grateful for this second Sunday in the new year. We're grateful that you're a God of new beginnings. As we look into this new year, we want to move forward with our feet firmly planted in truth.

I pray that you'll be with us this morning as we study both in the Sunday School hour and then the main service that follows, and then all of the different youth classes that are meeting even now as I speak. We pray for the illumination of the spirit whereby the spirit comes and helps us to understand the things of God that we could not understand through our own power. In preparation for that ministry, we're just going to take a few moments of silence to do personal confession before you, if need be, not to restore our position, but to restore broken fellowship because sometimes in our natural selves we sin and alienate the ministry that you would have for us at any given moment. So we're just going to take a few moments of silence at this point.

We're thankful, Lord, for the comprehensiveness of your provision for us. We do pray for the affairs of government as things are happening around the world relative to Venezuela and our own hemisphere, as the good people of Persia are seeking to stand for freedom in Iran even as we speak and are suffering greatly under the regime because of their stand. We pray for people's strength, courage, encouragement, and we pray, Lord, that you would use these different affairs of the state to make people aware of their need for the gospel.

This life is very short and eternity is very long, and we all need the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Somehow, even as we pray for social order as you tell us to pray for in 1 Timothy 2, we pray that the gospel would go forth uninhibited and many people would trust in the message of Jesus and so as to be saved. We ask that you'll do this work today, not only in our church but around the 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. Well, if you could locate Revelation 14 and verse 11, that would be fantastic.

This is part three of a series that we started entitled Annihilation versus Eternal Torment. To be honest with you, I'm surprised anybody even showed up for this as such a scary topic. I expect to see an empty room when I start teaching this, but you guys are here. Praise the Lord.

We introduced the controversy in our first week together, and it has to do with the merger of a couple of ideas. Conditional immortality is being wedded together with annihilationism. Arnold Fruchtenbaum explains those positions. Although he doesn't embrace these positions, he gives a good explanation of what these positions represent. He says conditional immortality means that the soul is not inherently immortal. In other words, when God created people, he never designed them to live forever. Immortality means no death, no point where you stop existing.

He goes on and he says immortality is not part of the makeup of the soul according to this belief. Rather, immortality is a gift. That's why it's called conditional. Immortality is a gift to the saved only. The only people that become immortal are believers.

So what happens to the believer at death? They live forever. What happens to the unbeliever at death? They go into hell for a season and they just disappear. So at death, the unbeliever simply becomes nonexistent and only the believer continues to exist.

That view merges with what is called annihilationism. That says the unsaved soul is annihilated, kind of like the Death Star. Remember Star Wars? The laser beam hit the Death Star and it blew into a thousand pieces and it stopped existing. Actually, I'm not even thinking about that part. I'm thinking about the laser beam from the Death Star to one of those planets. What was the name of that planet? I think it was Tatooine, something like that. I've been watching way too much TV to even know that.

But the laser beam hit the planet and it exploded and stopped existing. That's when Darth Vader said there's been a disturbance in the force. I think it was Obi-Wan Kenobi said it's like a bunch of people were in existence and they stopped existing. Remember that line? Don't get your theology from Star Wars. It's just the only example I could come up with.

So that's what annihilationism is. You go into hell, and these people aren't denying hell, but they're denying the perpetual existence in hell for unsaved people. You're in hell for a while. It's kind of like a bad weekend trip or something, and then you're gone.

What annihilationism says is the unsaved soul who's not immortal because immortality is only given to the saved, the unsaved soul is annihilated after a temporary period of punishment. Those people, annihilationists, do believe that the unsaved soul goes to hell, but not for eternity, only temporarily. Eventually, the unsaved soul is annihilated after suffering a duration of punishment.

This is a view that has been a minority opinion, kind of floating under the radar for a long time. It's not the majority view in church history as I'll tell you, but suddenly at the end of last year, it sprung to life as a major influencer named Kirk Cameron, a Hollywood actor now Christian, has come out in defense of that view. Now everybody's looking at it. Kirk Cameron didn't invent it, but he brought it to the surface. Hell has become a hot topic.

I was going to entitle this sermon series Hell Yes, but I thought that would be a little over the line. But here's a headline related to Kirk Cameron. It says Kirk Cameron denies eternal conscious torment and is now an annihilationist. You can go to his social media and see him talking about this, and all of the people on board saying, "Absolutely, Kirk, this is the right view and I've always believed this, but I was too afraid to articulate it," etc. So that's why we're dealing with this in this mini-series.

Under Roman numeral one, we introduced the controversy, and here with Roman numeral two, I'm giving you my best-case scenario as to why hell will not just last forever, but unbelievers will be in hell forever. After looking at those biblical texts, I'll give you some theological arguments why we believe in eternal conscious torment, and then I'll try to let the other side speak under Roman numerals four and five and then teach you how to respond to their arguments. Then we'll wrap up with an examination of church history, which I don't think we'll spend a lot of time on.

I just want to show you that hardly anyone ever taught this. The Protestant Reformers never taught anything like this. You find it in the teachings of the Jehovah's Witnesses. You'll find this conditional immortality idea. You'll find it if you're dealing with Seventh-day Adventists and you watch a fellow on TV named Doug Batchelor who has a show called Amazing Facts. He's a very winsome, articulate speaker, but he's very down on a lot of the things we believe at this church like the pre-trip rapture. He's very down on eternal conscious torment.

Then finally, the conclusion will be "who cares?" I'll go ahead and give you the conclusion now. If this thing gets let out of the bag, then it will put a wet blanket on missions. The struggle you have to go through to be a missionary and to get the Bible translated into remote dialects, it loses its urgency if people just kind of have a bad weekend trip after they die and then they explode and cease to exist.

Here are the texts that we looked at last time related to why eternal conscious torment is very real. We walked through Daniel 12:2. It's all over the teachings of Jesus, eternal conscious torment. In fact, if it wasn't Jesus speaking to these things, it would be hard for me to believe they're true, but he clearly taught eternal conscious torment: Matthew 25:46, Mark 9:47 and 48, Matthew 8:12, Luke 16:19-31. It's in the teachings of Paul: 2 Thessalonians 1:9. It's in the general epistles, in particular Hebrews 6:2.

There's a ton of teachings in the book of Revelation that in my mind, it's indisputable. The Bible teaches eternal conscious torment. In fact, probably your strongest verses favoring eternal conscious torment as opposed to annihilationism show up in the book of Revelation. That becomes a reason why we need to teach the book of Revelation, right? Because a lot of churches will never teach the book of Revelation, or they'll approach it as something just symbolic with no literal reference behind the symbols.

So with that being said, notice Revelation 14 verse 11. This refers to those that take the mark of the beast in the tribulation period. They're unbelievers in other words. It says, "The smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever." There's our word aionios. In this case, it's aion, sometimes pronounced eon, eons of time, and it's repeated. So that's the smoke going up forever and ever on these unbelievers.

What would an annihilationist do with this? Well, one of the things they do is they say, "Notice that it is just the smoke going up forever and ever." They try to make this argument that there's this annihilation of someone and the result is so profound that the smoke goes up forever and ever. Well, you ever heard of that saying, where there's smoke, there's fire? When there's fire, something is being consumed. Where there is smoke, there is fire, and when there is fire, something is being consumed. When that smoke keeps going up forever and ever and ever, it implies that people are in this state of torment forever and ever and ever.

Now let's focus on those two words, the two aions, translated "forever and ever." Flip one chapter to the right and look at Revelation 15 verse 7. It says, "Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God." Now we have a description of God: "who lives forever and ever." Now that's the exact same Greek construction, two aions back to back.

So there's no way you would ever conclude that that structure is referring to something temporary in Revelation 15 verse 7 because we all know that God is eternal and he exists forever. When John uses that same construction, the aion repeated forever and ever, in Revelation 14 verse 11 to describe what beast worshippers will experience in the next life, you can't play this game of, well, it's eternal in chapter 15 but it's not eternal in chapter 14. That's an inconsistent reading of the Bible.

Go back a few chapters if you could, look at Revelation 10 and verse 6. This is a great way to test interpretations of the Bible. When you see a phrase, how does the writer use the same phrase elsewhere in the same book? Revelation 10 verse 6, John writes, "And swore by him." Who's him? That's God: "who lives forever and ever." That's our same identical expression, "who created heaven and the things in it, and the earth and the things in it, and the sea and the things in it, that there will be no longer a delay in judgment." So there is a second example where this same expression is used of God. Nobody in chapter 10 is going to argue that God ceases to exist.

Let me show you one more, go back to Revelation 4 verse 9. Revelation chapter 4 verse 9 says, "And when the living creatures gave glory and honor and thanks to him." Now who's the him? It's God: "who sits on the throne." Here it is again: "to him who lives forever and ever." Same Greek expression. So you'll notice the three times it's used of God in the book of Revelation. We all know that God will never cease to exist. So when you see the same expression in Revelation 14 verse 11, this is talking about something eternal.

Here's what Arnold Fruchtenbaum says of this as he's critiquing annihilationism in his excellent book Footsteps of the Messiah. He says the argument against annihilationism is also based on the expression forever and ever. This expression is used a total of 13 times. I just showed you three, but it's used a total of 13 times in the book of Revelation and it's used of God and they, that's the annihilationist, all agree that when it's used of God, it emphasizes eternality and immortality.

One time it's used of the saints in heaven, and they certainly believe, the annihilationists, in the case of the saints in heaven, that those are eternal immortal beings. Then it's used one time of Satan in the lake of fire and twice of the unbeliever in the lake of fire. But in these last three cases, they've taken three cases and made it say something that it doesn't say in the remaining 10 cases. Once you see that happening, you say, uh-oh, there's an inconsistent reading of the Bible going on here. Why are we treating some parts of the Bible using the exact same language with one standard and then we're going to treat the minority of cases with a completely different standard? You say to yourself, uh-oh, it looks like somebody is trying to read their own belief system into the Bible.

You can use this exercise not just with this issue, but any issue to discern or ascertain if it's true. Fruchtenbaum writes, then it is used once of Satan in the lake of fire and twice of the unbeliever in the lake of fire, but in these last three cases, they, that's the annihilationists, want to make it only temporary. If 10 times they agree that it means eternal, they cannot then turn around and make these last three times mean something temporary.

If that is true, it teaches that the immortality of God and the saints in heaven, or if it is true that this expression rather teaches the immortality of God and the saints in heaven, it must also teach the immortality of Satan—and we know that Satan will last forever because he's a fallen angel and we're told in Luke 20 verses 35 and 36 that angels do not die. If it is true that it teaches the immortality of God and the saints in heaven, it must also teach the immortality of Satan and unbelievers in the lake of fire. Look at this last sentence that he gives here. This is so critical. He says, again, we must deduce our theology from the Scriptures. That's what is called exegesis.

Exegesis, what does that even mean? It comes from the Greek preposition ek, and it means it's a preposition meaning "out of." In other words, I'm drawing from the Bible out of the Bible what it says. That's my job as an exegete. That's your job as a Bible reader. It's the opposite of eisegesis, coming from the Greek preposition eis, which means "into." An exegete is someone who reads into the text stuff that's not there because they have some kind of predetermined theology or preference.

By the way, this is the exact same battle with the United States Supreme Court. One of the great issues of our time is who should interpret the Constitution and how should they do it. Well, there's a school of thought that says, well, the Constitution is whatever the judge says it means. You just read into the document all kinds of things that aren't there like abortion, right to an abortion, which fortunately that was overturned. That's the infamous Roe v. Wade decision. There's a strict wall of separation between church and state, so we gotta take the Ten Commandments down from the schoolhouse wall. Well, the First Amendment never says a strict wall of separation between church and state. So all of these things are read into the document largely because people are trying to get things passed in America that they know the majority of people wouldn't embrace or vote for.

So that's one approach to the United States Constitution. There's a completely different approach championed by people like the late Robert Bork and others who said, no, that's not our job as judges. We're not going to be eisegeses, we're going to be exegetes and we're going to draw out from the document what it says according to what the founding fathers intended. So it's the same exact battle with Scripture. You're either eisegesing or exegesing. As for me and my house, we're not eisegeses, we're going to be exegetes because we're dealing with the Word of God here. We're not in any position to correct the Word of God, even parts of it that I don't like or find uncomfortable.

So that's what Fruchtenbaum is saying here. We must deduce our theology from exegesis, the Scriptures, and not interpret the Scriptures by our preconceived theology or our emotional preferences. Because if you want to argue from an emotional standpoint, I would rather be an annihilationist than an eternal conscious torment guy. But that's not what the Bible says, and I'm not in any position to correct God. We're here to be corrected by the Bible, not to rewrite the Bible. I appreciated what he said there in that last sentence.

So I think Revelation 14 verse 11 is very strong in terms of eternal conscious torment. Let's go to our second text from the book of Revelation. Let's go to Revelation 20 verse 10. This is dealing with the casting of Satan one day into the lake of fire along with some of his buddies that have been thrown in there a thousand years earlier: the beast and the false prophet. I'll talk about those two guys in a moment. But it says, "The devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are also, and they will be tormented day and night." This is Satan along with two human beings. There's our Greek construction: "forever and ever." The same Greek construction used to describe the saved in heaven and God himself.

If the saved in heaven last forever at the point of creation, and God has always lasted forever, then we can't play a game of, "Well, those in the lake of fire won't last forever." The laws of exegesis, language, and logic will not allow you to do that. It doesn't matter how strong the emotional appeal of the other side is. Let's look at one more in the book of Revelation. Go back one chapter to Revelation 19 verse 20.

Revelation chapter 19 verse 20 says, "The beast was seized and with him the false prophet who performed the signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image. These two," what two? The false prophet and the beast, "these two were thrown into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone." Now you'll notice this is right when Jesus comes back at the end of the seven-year tribulation period.

He takes the beast, who is the Antichrist, and his assistant, the false prophet, and one of his first orders of business when he reclaims authority over the earth in preparation for his thousand-year rule is he takes those two and puts them into the lake of fire. They're the first two that go in. All the unbelievers at this point are in a different place called Hades, which is going to be summoned later on after the thousand years are over. Those people will be brought out of Hades in a resurrected state now, and they'll stand before the Lord at the great white throne judgment. As their names are not found written in the Lamb's Book of Life, they'll be cast into the lake of fire.

So you'll notice that the beast and the false prophet go into the lake of fire a thousand years before anyone else. You'll notice that Satan does not go into the lake of fire immediately. When you look at Revelation 20 and verses 1 and 2, Satan goes into a different locale called the abyss. It says, "Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil, and bound him for a thousand years."

Jesus comes back—we're not talking about the rapture now, we're dealing with the end of the seven-year tribulation period. His feet touch planet earth. He's preparing the world now for his thousand-year kingdom. He takes the Antichrist and the false prophet, who were such troublemakers for seven years. They go into the lake of fire. Satan goes to a different locale called the Abusso, I think is how you pronounce that, or the abyss.

You say, well, why doesn't God just throw them all into the lake of fire? Well, because the devil is God's devil. Satan only exists in any sense of power because God allows it. God actually uses Satan for his purposes. Paul complained about a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan, 2 Corinthians 12 verses 1 through 10. But then he said, "I thank God that I have it." He looked at it as a gift, even though he asked the Lord to take it away because it was this thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan, that kept him humble. Usable and pliable. A man that's caught up to the third heaven, who heard things 14 years earlier that a man is not fit to hear—you could see how a man like that would be lifted up with pride.

So God kept Paul humble so he could use him. Thank God for that or we wouldn't have our New Testament epistles or the missionary journeys, two-thirds of the New Testament epistles, I should say. So God kept Paul on a short leash, wouldn't let him get arrogant, kept reminding him of his limitations, and God used the devil to do it.

God has one great purpose for Satan, and we'll read about it here in just a minute. It's at the end of the book of Revelation where he's let out of the abyss to reveal the rebellion happening in the hearts of the mortals. These would be tribulation period survivors who are believers that enter the kingdom in mortal bodies and repopulate the earth. They have children, and their children have children, and the earth is repopulated with mortals. You get to the end of the thousand years and you've got a whole bunch of mortal unbelievers inhabiting the earth that won't dare say a word about Jesus because Jesus at that time is ruling with a rod of iron.

But the Lord knows what's going on in their hearts, and he actually lets Satan out of the abyss to reveal this rebellion so people can understand once and for all the reason people rebel against God is it has to do with their nature, not their environment. All the sociologists tell us that people commit crimes because of their environment. The Bible says no, people are rebellious because of their nature. You can put man in a perfect environment and he'll still be wicked. If you educate a blue-collar thief, he's going to become a white-collar thief if his nature is not changed.

We all see examples of very rich people that still commit crimes. I remember the actress Winona Ryder going through Beverly Hills there ripping off outfits and things like that in the stores, stealing clothes, and I thought to myself, why is she doing that? She's not doing it because of poverty. She's not doing it because of a lack of resources. She's one of the richest, most wealthy people on planet earth. Why would she act that way? Well, she has a nature that's at war with God.

The thousand-year reign of Christ proves this once and for all. History is pedagogical. God uses eras of history to teach humanity lessons it can't learn any other way. Who is God using to teach this lesson? He's using the devil. So that's why the devil goes into the abyss, whereas the beast and the false prophet go into the lake of fire because the devil is God's devil and God has one more purpose for Satan.

At any rate, what happens in Revelation 19 verse 20 is the beast and the false prophet are the first that go into the lake of fire. Then a thousand years pass. By the way, the beast and the false prophet that go into the lake of fire are human beings because it says of the beast in Revelation 13 verse 18, "Here is wisdom, let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man," that's our Greek word anthropos where we get the word anthropology, doctrine of man, "and his number is 666."

As a new Christian, I remember listening to a guy named Harold Camping on the radio. Remember him? He predicted the end of the world a bunch of times. When I was a teacher at the College of Biblical Studies, he had written a book predicting the end of the world in 2010, something like that. My students were all asking me about it. What do you think of it? So I just took a five-minute break and I went up to my office and I had a Harold Camping book on my shelf where it was entitled 1994. He was predicting the end of the world in 1994. So I brought the book up in front of the class and I said, this is what I think of Harold Camping's predictions. He does this stuff all of the time.

But at any rate, he is the one I heard on the radio that said the Antichrist is not a person, he's just a system. You can hear people saying this today. "Oh, there's not a real Antichrist that's coming, it's just a human tendency to make things less than what they're going to be. Oh, it's just a system of thought." But the Bible doesn't teach that. The Bible describing the Antichrist uses the Greek word anthropos. So he's a human being, the beast, that goes into the lake of fire.

When you go over to 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 3, describing the Antichrist, Paul says, "Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasia," departure, which I have taken some heat for this, but I do believe that's a reference to the rapture, "let no one in any way deceive you for it will not come unless the apostasia comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction." There's our Greek word anthropos again used to describe the Antichrist.

In fact, the Antichrist is called the son of destruction, and there's only one other person in the whole Bible that's called the son of destruction. Anybody know who that might be? Judas. I think you'll find that in John 17 verse 12 right around there. Why are Judas and the Antichrist the only two people in the Bible called the son of destruction? Because those are the only two people that we know of biblically that Satan enters. In John 13:27, relative to the betrayal of Christ at the hands of Judas, it says Satan entered Judas.

I think halfway through the tribulation period, once the dragon or Satan permanently loses access to heaven, he goes to the earth knowing he has but a short time, and I think he goes into the Antichrist. It's more of an inference, but when you look at Revelation 13 verse 4, it says they worshipped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast and they worshipped the beast saying, "Who is like the beast and who is able to wage war with him?" So the people in that time period are worshipping Satan because he's the one that directly is empowering the Antichrist because I think chapter 13, he goes into the Antichrist just like he went into Judas.

Because chapter 12, he loses his access to God's throne. Chapter 13, I think Satan actually possesses the Antichrist. So that's why those two guys are called the son of destruction, the only two guys in the Bible that I know of called the son of destruction. If Judas is a person, so is the Antichrist, right? Judas wasn't like a system of thought. Jesus actually called Judas, up until the very end, his friend.

So what happens, just to tie this together, what happens when Jesus comes back? He takes the Antichrist and the false prophet, who are both human beings, and he puts them into the lake of fire. Satan, you're over here in a timeout, the abyss for a thousand years because I got one more purpose for you.

And then what follows is when the Antichrist and the false prophet, human beings, are put into the lake of fire, then a thousand years elapse. That's the millennial reign of Christ. It says, "Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for how long? A thousand years. And he threw him into the abyss and he shut it and sealed it over him so that he would not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were completed. After these things, he must be released for a short time."

Picking it up at verse 4, "Then I saw thrones and they sat on them and judgment was given to them, and I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus and because of the Word of God and those who had not worshipped the beast or his image and had not received the mark on their forehead and they came to life and they reigned with Christ for how long? A thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. I think I'm seeing a pattern here. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection. Over these, the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years." So that's something you always look at when you're reading the Bible, you look for these repetitions. It's like God is trying to say something.

Verse 7, "When the thousand years are completed—anybody counting how many times the expression 'thousand years' has been used? Six times. When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison and he will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog," not to be confused with Ezekiel 38 and 39, which is a different battle that happens, I would say, in the tribulation period itself. It's just by this time that battle will become so famous it will be the battle that's used to gauge all other battles. It's like when someone says "I've met my Waterloo." We don't think the literal battle of Waterloo is being refought, we're just saying "this is my cosmic struggle" and the only gauge you have is to a historical great conflict.

"And will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for war. The number of them is like the sand of the seashore." Who's stimulating this rebellion? The devil who's been in this place called the abyss for a thousand years. Now we're understanding why God didn't put Satan in the lake of fire right away. He has one more purpose for Satan. History is pedagogical. God even uses his enemies to teach humanity lessons.

"They came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and this little—well, it's a pretty big rebellion—those involved in it are like the sand of the seashore. That's a lot of folks. But what's big to us is pretty small to God. They came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them, and the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet—uh oh—are."

You mean they're still in there even though a thousand years have passed? You mean they didn't get annihilated? You see why I'm bringing all this up? The devil, and their two human beings, not systems like Harold Camping taught me as a new Christian. I guess human beings don't dissolve. So many theological issues like this are answered through a literal, grammatical, historical, contextual, consistent approach to the book of Revelation. You can fix so many theological errors this way. And that's why the devil doesn't want you to read the book of Revelation because it's a key part of your armor in terms of the belt of truth and discerning truth from error in these last days.

The devil who deceived them finally, when God is finished with Satan, he goes into the lake of fire to join his pals, his buddies in the lake of fire because God is now finished with Satan. The devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are—not were. If they got annihilated, it would say "were," but they're still in there a thousand years later. And if that's not clear enough, it says "they," that's Satan with his two buddies, "will be tormented day and night," here we go, "aion and aion," which is the same Greek construction used to describe the saints and God.

No wonder people don't want us to study the book of Revelation. You study the book of Revelation, you can see through all of this insanity that people are floating around today related to annihilationism. Norman Geisler of this whole thing I've tried to communicate writes, against the annihilationist position, there is a clear biblical example of still conscious beings who have endured a thousand years of hell's torment. The beast and the false prophet were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur, Revelation 19 verse 20, before the thousand years even started, Revelation 20 verse 2. Yet after this time, the devil was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet still are. Not only were they alive when they entered, but they were still alive after a thousand years of conscious torment. This alone is the definitive argument against annihilation. That ought to be enough, I think.

So anyway, those are the best texts that I know of that criticize annihilation. We'll move into next week, Roman numeral three. There are some arguments against annihilation that aren't so much exegetical, but they're more theological in nature. And then once we do those, we'll give the other side a chance to talk because they have their Bible verses and I'll explain how I think they're misusing their verses.

So if it says a thousand years six times, what does that mean exactly? A thousand. Here's—you guys ready for this? You gotta come to Sugar Land Bible Church to get this insight. Here it comes. When you see a thousand years in that paragraph, it means a thousand years. Robert Thomas writes, "No number in Revelation is verifiably a symbolic number." You want to convert something that's a clear number in the book of Revelation into a symbol, then the burden is on you to explain that. You better have some good theological and exegetical grounding and reasons for that because other than that, we take the Bible and its numbers at face value.

And I'm convinced that a thousand means a thousand. "Oh, come on, Pastor, you don't take the chain literally, do you? I mean, it says Satan was chained in the abyss for a thousand years. I mean, you don't really believe there's a chain around Satan, do you?" Well, let's try this one out. I was at work the other day and I was chained to my desk, and I was stuck there for five hours. Can you understand what I just said? Five hours is literal. The chain can be allegorical to describe literally my confinement at my desk.

The Bible's doing the exact same thing. Satan is chained, it's a figure of speech meaning he's confined, but the time period of a thousand years is absolutely literal. I mean, we talk like this all of the time. So why does a thousand mean a thousand? Well, John knows how to use indefinite concepts elsewhere. Back in verse 8, he says, concerning the rebellion, it's like—what kind of figure of speech is that? That's a simile. It's like the sand of the seashore.

Back in verse 3, he says he threw him into the abyss and sealed it over him so that he would not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were completed, after these things he must be released for a short time. I mean, you want to make a thousand into something other than what it says, John's pretty good at explaining himself. He can say short time, he can say long time, because that's what people say—"A thousand is not literal, it's just a long period of time." Well, why didn't John say that? He knows how to say stuff like that. "Oh, a thousand, that's just a metaphor, that's just a simile." Well, John knows how to use similes through the words "like" or "as." He never does that with this number "a thousand."

So a thousand means a thousand. And it's sort of like the days of creation. When you see a number with the word yom all the way through the Scripture, it's a reference to a 24-hour day. So therefore God created the world in six days, and you start to say, well, that really means a billion years each, you would never treat the Bible that way anywhere else. And that's what's happening here. You've got the word year or years with a number: a thousand. And go through the Greek New Testament and you'll see that that combination always refers to a literal period of time.

And if a thousand doesn't mean a thousand, what in the world are you going to do with every other number in the book of Revelation? Those are up for grabs, aren't they? Maybe two witnesses doesn't mean two witnesses. And maybe 7,000 people doesn't mean 7,000 people. And maybe four angels doesn't mean four angels. And maybe seven angels doesn't mean seven angels. And maybe 144,000 Jews doesn't mean 144,000 Jews. And by the way, from these 144,000 Jews, there's 12,000 from each tribe. It's right there in your Bible, Revelation 7. Maybe 12,000 doesn't mean 12,000. And maybe 42 months doesn't mean 42 months. And maybe 1,260 days doesn't mean 1,260 days.

You want to play this game of "a thousand doesn't mean a thousand" in Revelation 20, then you've got a problem with every other number in the book of Revelation is up for grabs, and the Bible becomes very subjective. And it is true that the book of Revelation is a symbolic book. That's what people always say. "The book of Revelation is a symbolic book. The book of Revelation is a symbolic book. The book of Revelation is a symbolic book." And I'm like, "Hold the phone, I totally agree with you it's a symbolic book." Nobody's going to argue that the book of Revelation is not a symbolic book. However, when the book of Revelation wants to be understood symbolically, it will tell you, "Hey, this is a symbol."

Like in Revelation 17 verse 18: "the woman," this is the harlot, which is a symbol of religion, false religion, one-world religion in the last days. Do you take the harlot literally? No, because it says at the end of the chapter, "the woman which you saw is the great city," that's the Greek word polis where we get the word metropolis from, "is a great city which reigns over the kings of the earth." So I'm reading Revelation 17, I'm seeing this woman that has universal religious influence over the whole world. Do I look at her as a literal harlot? No, because the Bible itself tells me what the harlot represents. The harlot represents a city.

Did we not see that earlier in Revelation 20 verse 2? "He laid hold of the great dragon." Is that a literal dragon? "The serpent of old." Is that a literal serpent? No, because those are identified as the devil. So I'm reading the book of Revelation, I'm running into a dragon, I'm running into a serpent, and I just keep reading and it tells me those are symbols for something. They're symbols for the devil. And so that's how you interpret the symbolic language in the book of Revelation. You don't just carte blanche convert things into symbols unless the text tells you to do it.

So we read through, did we not, Revelation 20 verses 1 through 10? You saw the expression "a thousand years" used six times. Did you see one example where John says, "Hey, here's what the thousand years mean"? He doesn't do that. So therefore, a thousand means a thousand. So these are at least four reasons why the thousand year is literal. John knows how to use indefinite concepts elsewhere. If a thousand plus years is not literal, then you go against a pattern of the rest of Scripture where a time period plus a number is always literal. What do you do with all the other numbers in the book of Revelation? And of course, Revelation is a symbolic book, but when it wants to be understood symbolically, it tells you. If it doesn't tell you, "Hey, this is a symbol," then you take it at face value.

"Oh, come on, Pastor, God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Do you believe God owns the cattle on a thousand hills?" Yeah, I believe that. "Well, do you believe that God owns the cattle on the thousand and first hill?" Well, I believe that too. "Oh, well, you didn't take a thousand literally in the Bible." And they'll try to wring that one around your neck. Where are they getting that from? They're getting it from Psalm 50 and verse 10.

Psalm 50 and verse 10 says, "For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills." "Well, if you take a thousand to be a thousand, then you must be a wooden literalist because we all know that God owns the cattle on the thousand and first hill." Answer: that's a totally different context in Psalm 50 verse 10. Psalm 50 verse 10 is what is called synonymous Hebrew parallelism. The Hebrews didn't rhyme sounds like our poetry does, they rhymed ideas. And in Hebrew Bible, in the language of Hebrew, there's something called parallelism where you have the two lines and you have to take the two lines together because sometimes the two lines together communicate a thought.

So when the second line is communicating the same idea as the first line or vice versa, that's called synonymous Hebrew parallelism. So in Psalm 50 verse 10, "every beast of the field is mine," point one, "the cattle on a thousand hills," point two. That's the wrong way to interpret Psalm 50 verse 10 because that's synonymous Hebrew parallelism. You take two lines together. The second line in synonymous Hebrew parallelism repeats what's in the first line, but in different language.

So the cattle on a thousand hills is not meant to be understood literally there because it's in the context of synonymous Hebrew parallelism, which is meant to communicate what's in the first line in different language. So Revelation 20 verses 1 through 10, there is no synonymous Hebrew parallelism. I mean, to get an allegorical understanding of a thousand and go to Psalm 50 verse 10, you've got to go to a different language and a different genre entirely where synonymous Hebrew parallelism is in play, but it's not in play in Revelation 20 verses 1 through 10. A thousand just means a thousand.

So taking it at face value, how does this whole thing work? Jesus comes back, second advent. He takes two human beings, the beast and the false prophet, and throws them into the lake of fire. And then a thousand years elapse, and at the end of that time period, Satan is released to stimulate the rebellion taking place in the descendants of the mortals who survived the tribulation period. And then when God is finished with Satan, he says, "Join your pals, your buddies in the lake of fire." And by the way, they're still in there. They didn't disappear, they didn't dissolve, they weren't annihilated. It wasn't a bad weekend trip. They're still in there.

And look at how this is—the NASB, but the King James also translates—Revelation 20 verse 10 as follows: "And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet—what does it say?—are," not "were." If they got annihilated, it would say "were," but they're still in there a thousand years later. And if that's not clear enough, it says "they," that's Satan with his two buddies, "will be tormented day and night," here we go, "aion and aion," which is the same Greek construction used to describe the saints and God.

Boy, no wonder people don't want us to study the book of Revelation. You study the book of Revelation, you can see through all of this insanity that people are floating around today related to annihilationism. Norman Geisler, of this whole thing I've tried to communicate, writes, "There is a clear biblical example of still conscious beings who have endured a thousand years of hell's torment. The beast and the false prophet were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur," Revelation 19:20, "before the thousand years even started," Revelation 20:2. "Yet after this time, the devil was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet still are. Not only were they alive when they entered, but they were still alive after a thousand years of conscious torment. This alone is the definitive argument against annihilation." I mean, that ought to be enough, I think.

So anyway, those are the best texts that I know of that criticize annihilation. We'll move into next week, Roman numeral three. There are some arguments against annihilation that aren't so much exegetical, but they're more theological in nature. And then once we do those, we'll give the other side a chance to talk because they have their Bible verses and I'll explain how I think they're misusing their verses. So let's pray.

Father, we're grateful for your truth, grateful for your word. Help us to accurately divide your word in these last days. 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. Happy New Year!