Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: Father, we're grateful for today. Grateful for your word that's eternal. Grateful for how heaven and earth will pass away, but your word will never pass away. We know that the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our Lord abides forever. So, we're today, Lord, depositing ourselves before you to make an eternal investment.

I thank you, Lord, for all the people that are here today. Thank you for the great seminar we had yesterday, all day. We do pray, Lord, that you would take your truth and your word as it's spoken today and apply it to the deepest needs of your people.

In preparation for that ministry, Lord, we're going to take a few moments of silence to do personal confession before you, if need be. We know that our position in you is secure, but sometimes in our natural selves, we can alienate you by way of fellowship, and that only hinders what you have for us on any given day. So, we'll take a few moments of silence at this point.

We're thankful, Lord, for the promise of 1 John chapter 1, verse 9, and the comprehensiveness of your provision for us. We just ask that you'll be with us now as we study, both in this hour and in the main service that follows, and in all the different youth groups that are meeting, youth classes that are meeting even as I speak.

We pray that as we leave today, we would be changed, whether it be correction or encouragement or perhaps salvations or any number of things, insight. But I do pray that today you would accomplish things eternal in the lives of your people. 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."

Well, good morning, everybody. Let's take our Bibles if we could and open them to the book of James, chapter 3 and verse 9. I'm surprised you guys keep coming back to this class, given what we're talking about here: annihilation versus eternal torment.

The first thing we did in this mini-series that we're doing is we introduced the controversy. The controversy is there's something that has been under the radar for a while, but it's been floating around. It's the idea that if unsaved people go to hell, which is where they go, they're not going to be there forever. They're going to disintegrate. That's called annihilationism.

The reason they're going to disintegrate is because of a belief called conditional immortality, which is the idea that unsaved people are not eternal. The only people that are eternal are believers. So, God didn't create people to last forever. How do people live forever? They have to become believers. If you're an unbeliever, then you don't have immortality.

So, what will happen to the unbelievers? They'll go into hell for a period of time, and then they'll just disappear. That's called annihilation. It's almost like they never existed at all once they're annihilated. These two views are running shotgun with each other.

Arnold Fruchtenbaum, who you guys can pray for, his health is not doing that great. I got a newsletter from the board. I think he's dealing with some onset dementia. It's very sad because the guy's absolutely brilliant and you can see how frequently I quote him, how high opinion I have of him. Anyway, it is what it is.

But he summarizes these views as follows. He's not promoting them; he's critiquing them. 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. At death, the unbeliever simply becomes non-existent and only the believer continues to exist.

That view runs tandem with annihilation, and I've got the two underlined there that we're critiquing. Annihilationism says the unsaved soul is annihilated after a temporary period of punishment. These people 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.

I knew this view was out there, and nobody really took it seriously. It didn't seem to be very popular. But lo and behold, here comes Kirk Cameron and he's on TV, so he must know something about the Bible, right? He's got millions and millions of followers and subscribers and all that kind of stuff. All of a sudden, December 6th, 2025, he comes out favoring this view. Everybody's jumping on board with that.

This new source says Kirk Cameron denies eternal conscious torment and is now an annihilationist. I went and listened to his podcast, and indeed this is what he is promoting. Then he got a lot of pushback because of it, rightfully so. Then he backed off and said, "Well, let's just talk about it," which to me means when people want to do that, it's called the Overton Window. The Overton Window is the range of accepted viewpoints.

Whenever people want to move things one direction or the other, they want to change the conversation and they want to take things that used to not be discussed and let them be discussed so that we would move closer to their view. Even if we don't adopt all of it, we want to move closer to their view. They move the Overton Window, and now this is within the range of acceptable opinions that are being discussed.

It's called the Hegelian dialectic, if you're familiar with that. Thesis, antithesis, and then, here's the thesis, here's the antithesis, and then the two come together as a synthesis. The synthesis just moves things over. One bad idea, let's refute the bad idea with a synthesis so we just move the window. All you've got to do to move the window again is come up with another bad idea. Other bad idea, thesis, antithesis, let's make everybody happy, let's go into the middle, we'll call that synthesis. So, I just took the window and moved it over here.

You do this over and over again, and this is how you end up with terrible theology. It's how you end up with Marxism and all kinds of things that we disagree with. Whenever someone says, "Well, I'm not sure if I believe it," even though he said he believed it initially until everybody started dog-piling on him, including Ray Comfort, his lifelong partner in ministry, he said, "Well, I don't believe it. I want to talk about it," which to me is just as dangerous because it's just a movement of the Overton Window. Now, this is within the range of accepted views. We have to think about this. Is this true? Are people conditionally immortal? If they never become believers, do they go into hell, not being immortal, and therefore they dissolve at a certain period of time? That's what he's promoting.

After we went over that, the last two lessons, I think this is our fourth lesson, I gave you the strongest texts that I know of that talk about how hell is eternal. It's not just hell is eternal, but people are in hell forever. As they go into hell forever, they don't disappear, they don't explode, they don't get annihilated. It's the ETC position: they're in a place of eternal conscious torment.

I gave you those, and today I'd like to give you some theological arguments. These are more broad-picture stuff: why hell and humanity in hell forever, theologically, is true. Then next week I'll start letting their side talk. I'll give you the arguments that they use, and they have arguments. They have Bible verses.

But everybody has Bible verses. If you watch the prosperity gospel teachers on TV, which I watch, not because I believe what they're saying, but I'm an opposition research guy, they use all kinds of verses. They quote the Bible, those prosperity preachers, more than your average mainstream evangelical church quotes the Bible, but they use it incorrectly. The devil quotes the Bible. The issue isn't who's quoting the Bible; the issue is are they using the Bible correctly. We'll look at next week, Roman numeral 4, answering their biblical arguments, and then we'll move into their theological arguments.

With all of that being said, what are some theological reasons why the ETC viewpoint is correct, eternal conscious torment for the unbeliever? Well, for one thing, number one, annihilationism underestimates the severity of sin. The moment you move into annihilation, you're taking sin and making it less serious than what it really is.

What is sin? Sin is an offense or a trespass against an eternal holy God. It's very grave, it's very severe. Because sin is a rebellion against an eternal God, because sin offends a holy and eternal God, it becomes mandatory that people suffer eternally for sin. If sin is an eternal offense against an eternal God, then it mandates an eternal consequence. To say it doesn't mandate an eternal consequence is to take the whole issue of the gravity of sin and the seriousness of sin and sort of shrink it.

Something that has helped me understand this, because it's a big concept to try to wrap your head around, is if sin and its penalty is not as bad as the Bible says it is, then why in the world did Jesus do what he did to fix the problem? Jesus Christ, the eternally existing second member of the Godhead, who has enjoyed his whole eternity privilege, why would he leave that place temporarily? Not giving up his deity, of course, he was deity all the way through his earthly life, but giving up the prerogatives of deity. He never gave up the independent exercise, he never gave up the exercise of his privileges, but he submitted those to God the Father.

He could have stopped the whole ordeal of the crucifixion had he wanted to, but he didn't. He took his prerogatives, he never relinquished them, but he submitted them to the will of the Father. He said, "Not my will be done, thy will be done," and he did it to the point of the cross, which is a horrific way to die.

The story of Christianity is how God, the second member of the Trinity, did that for us and he absorbed the wrath as an eternal being of a holy God in our place. For him to do that must mean that sin is pretty bad, right? It must be horrific what sin is, or else this maximum price by the eternally existent second member of the Trinity wouldn't have to be paid. That's the first thing that bothers me about this annihilationism: it sort of takes the whole topic of sin, which is an offense against an eternal God, and sort of shrinks it and makes it less than what the Bible portrays sin as.

A second reason, theologically, why I think the eternal conscious torment position is right is the annihilationist position contradicts humanity's nature. When you talk about humanity, human beings, Adam and Eve being the first, us in Adam's race, what does that even mean? Well, one of the things that it means is we're made in his image, in the image of God, which is an amazing statement when you think about it.

To my knowledge, we're the only creature that God ever made that bears his image. Certainly, the animal kingdom doesn't. The earth doesn't bear God's image. Angels that are created higher than people don't even bear his image. But we bear his image. That's found right there at the beginning of the Bible, Genesis 1, verses 26 through 28.

"Then God said, 'Let us'—the 'us' there is probably a latent reference to the Trinity of God, his tri-unity; we've got to wait for the New Testament to get more development there—'Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, over the cattle, over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female."

Notice that both genders have equal value as far as God is concerned because they're both made in his image, although God does mandate that men and women play different roles. But having a different role is not a statement of an undervalue of somebody. "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. God blessed them and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea, birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'"

It's just a huge statement of our dignity as image bearers of God. Contrary to evolutionary teaching, this is what makes us higher than the animals. According to evolution, we're just an evolved animal. But the Bible says something very different. It says we're different than the animals because we bear his image.

Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount will say things like this: "Look at Matthew 6:26. Look at the birds of the air, they do not sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?" Compared to the birds, I'm worth more. Why am I worth more? Because I'm made in God's image.

Over in Matthew 12:12, here they're dog-piling on Jesus because he healed someone on the Sabbath. What a terrible thing to do. "You broke our rules." Jesus says, "Well, you pull your own animal out of a ditch on the Sabbath. If you pull your own animal out of a ditch on the Sabbath, shouldn't I be able to heal someone on the Sabbath since a human being is more valuable than an animal?"

He says that in Matthew 12:12: "How much more valuable then is a man than a sheep? So then it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." Why is a man that Jesus healed more valuable than an animal being pulled out of the ditch on a Sabbath? Because the human being bears God's image. The animal doesn't.

That's how God created us. What does that mean exactly, made in his image? It means a lot of things. We share in some of, not all, the attributes of God. There are certain attributes God shares with us. Those are called his communicable attributes. There are other attributes God has that he doesn't share with us, which is fine, or else he wouldn't be God. He's got to have some attributes of his own that we don't share in. Three of them that come to mind are the "omnis"—omniscience, all-knowing; omnipotence, all-powerful; omnipresence, everywhere at once. God doesn't share those, but others we do share in.

God has emotions, we have emotions. Listen to this one: God has volition, we have a free will and volition. To such an extent that you can spend your life rejecting God, even though he'll go overboard trying to convict us. But you can spend your whole life rejecting God, and as you'll see from the sermon today with Pharaoh, God respects the decision. If God didn't respect the decision, he would be overriding how he manufactured us in his image.

Part of our image-bearing status is not just emotions, it's not just volition. Another thing that comes to mind is he's a ruler, and in a certain sense, we rule things. Here we're told at the dawn of creation humanity is to subdue the animal kingdom and rule over it. That's an outworking of our image-bearing status.

Here's one of the things that we share with God: God is eternal. God is forever. So, we as image bearers are eternal as well. Now, it's a little bit different in the sense that we have a beginning point. Our beginning point starts at the point of conception. God has always existed. So, there's a big difference there. We're the created being, he's the Creator. He's always been in existence, we haven't. But part of our image-bearing status is from the moment of conception, and this is true with all people whether they know Jesus or not, they are designed by God to live forever. This is why Jesus is always talking about the soul.

Notice Matthew 16:26 and the value of the soul: "For what will it profit if a man gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?" Why is Jesus always saying things like, "You could be the richest person in the world, but if you're not paying attention to your soul, you're not paying attention to something about you that's extremely valuable"? It relates back to Genesis 1, that we're made in God's image. He lasts forever, we last forever as well.

Notice Luke 12:20. This is the rich man that died in unbelief, or was about to die in unbelief, and he had achieved the American dream, this guy. He had all the money that he could spend. Jesus talks about this: "But God said to him, 'You fool'—this very night your soul is required of you, and now who will own what you have prepared?'"

Jesus is saying you spent your whole life accumulating to the point where you push God out of your life and you think you've succeeded and you're actually a total fool because you haven't paid attention to the part of you that's going to last forever. This is how it's going to be for people that aren't rich towards God. The reason he's making these kinds of statements is when you die and go into the next life as part of your image-bearing status, you exist forever, you exist for eternity. Give thought to where your soul is going to go now. That's what it means to be made in God's image.

Now, you might be asking, "Wait a minute, didn't man fall in Eden?" Yes. "Doesn't that change our status as image bearers of God?" The answer is no. Notice Genesis 9:6, I've got it there on the screen. This is post-fall, post-flood. God says this right after the flood: "Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God he made him." You'll notice long after the fall, long after the flood, humanity still bears God's image. What did the fall do? It effaced the image, but it did not erase it.

Is this a New Testament truth? Yes. Look at James chapter 3, verse 9, which deals with taming the tongue. I'm glad none of you guys need a sermon on that. I need all the sermons I can get on that, to be honest with you. It's hard to curb in that two-by-two slab of mucous membrane between the gums called the tongue.

So, why control the tongue? Why not just go around slandering people? Why not go on social media and just say ugly things about people all day long? James 3:9 tells us why. Concerning the tongue, it says, "With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God." Some translations say, "Who have been made in the similitude of God." That's not even Old Testament teaching anymore. This is the New Testament. The fall is long behind us, the flood is long behind us, the Tower of Babel incident is long behind us, Israel has been under the Mosaic legal system for 1,500 years, and so all of that time has passed and you would think that something would change in people making them less valuable, and it's not true. We still bear God's image. The image has been effaced, but it's never been erased.

Notice 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 7, and I give this to you with a little bit of concern because it gets into head coverings, which I don't want to deal with. But in the process of head coverings in church, it says, "For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and the glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man."

Here we are now in the New Testament Pauline epistles. The verse I read to you earlier is from James, probably the first book of the New Testament. Now Paul is reiterating the fact that we are image bearers of God. As image bearers of God, there's something very different about us. We are designed by God as human beings to last forever.

I believe that the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 3, verse 11, makes reference to this. Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes says, "He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end."

Notice that God says there in the book of Ecclesiastes through Solomon that he has put eternity into our hearts. The word for eternity there is *olam*, which can mean forever. That's a very strange statement to me to someone that thinks people just at some point, if they're unsaved, just disappear. This whole annihilationist mentality, it goes against how God manufactured us and designed us as image bearers.

By the way, that same Hebrew word *olam* is used of God in Psalm 90, verse 2: "Before the mountains were born or you gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting"—there's a repetition of *olam*—"you are God." Does God last forever? Yes. As his image bearers, we last forever as well. I haven't always been, but from the point of the beginning of life, conception, I never cease to exist because God has put eternity into the hearts of men.

The same Hebrew word *olam* is used of Jesus prophetically in Micah chapter 5, verse 2. This is the great prophecy given 700 years in advance detailing the birth of Christ. Micah writes, "But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, the days of eternity."

Eternity is going to be born in Bethlehem, is what he's saying, which is a statement of the coming Messiah. It's a statement of Jesus himself, the eternally existent second member of the Godhead. When you see that exact same word used to describe people, you can't say, "Well, God is forever, but people aren't." That's a totally inconsistent way to read the Bible.

And again, this is true of everybody. All human beings are eternal. Therefore, what profit does it do someone to gain the whole world if they're going to try to do that at the exclusion of eternal things, the exclusion of the soul? That's why Jesus calls people that do those kinds of things foolish, because they're not planning for eternity, and they should plan for eternity because they're going to be here forever. This whole annihilationist mentality ignores all of this teaching that I've just given here, and I see that as another problem with annihilationism.

A third problem with annihilationism is it denies degrees of punishment. Annihilationism is like the great equalizer. Everybody just at a certain time poof and they go out of existence. They all have the same fate. The guy that tells a white lie has the exact same fate as someone who did mass genocide. They're both sins, but you would think that one would be punished more severely than the other.

Annihilationism basically says no because everything is equal. Everybody goes out of existence at a point. Yet, the Bible teaches degrees of punishment in hell, just like it teaches degrees of reward in heaven. We spent a lot of time yesterday dealing with that in the rapture seminar. It teaches degrees of punishment in hell, and annihilationism seems to me it denies degrees of punishment in hell because it equalizes everything. The guy that tells a white lie disappears just like the guy that performs a mass genocide.

Where does the Bible teach this, different degrees of punishment in hell? Notice Luke 12, verses 47 and 48: "And that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will will receive many lashes." That's 47. "But the one who did not know it and committed deeds worthy of flogging will receive but few." Look at that.

Then he goes on and he says, "For everyone who has been given much, much will be required; to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more." One guy is beaten with a few blows, one guy is beaten with many blows. Why is that? Because the guy that's beaten with a few blows had less information to act on. He's held to a lower degree of accountability. The guy beaten with many blows had more information to act on. He's held to an even higher standard. This whole idea of degrees of punishment in hell is lost because annihilation makes it equalizes everyone.

One of the strongest passages on differing degrees of punishment in hell is over in Matthew 11, verses 20 through 24. Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles were done because they did not repent. Then Jesus says this, verse 21: "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable"—you should underline the words "more tolerable"—"it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you."

He talks about four cities that are moving off into judgment. Two of them are New Testament cities, Chorazin and Bethsaida. Two of them are Old Testament cities, Tyre and Sidon. All four cities are moving out into judgment, and yet everybody is going to be punished. But the New Testament cities are punished more severely. Why is that? Because they saw something that the Old Testament cities never saw. The New Testament cities saw the incarnate Son of God, they heard his teachings, they saw his miracles, and they rejected him. The Old Testament cities didn't have that privilege. All four cities are moving off into judgment, but the New Testament cities because they had a higher threshold of knowledge are going to be throughout the ages punished more severely. That's what he means by "more tolerable." Very clearly you've got hell and you've got different degrees of hell. To whom much is given, much is expected. God keeps a perfect record of human behavior, and the ones that know the most and reject it are the ones that are punished most severely. But how can you be punished more severely if everyone just disappears and we're all equal in that sense?

This continues on, as if those four cities weren't enough of an example, he gives even more examples. If you look at Matthew 11, verse 23, he says, "And you, Capernaum, will you not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles that had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day. Nevertheless I say to you that it will be"—there it is again, verse 24—"more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you."

Here we have a New Testament city, Capernaum, an Old Testament city, Sodom, both cities are moving into judgment, but the New Testament city Capernaum is going to be punished more severely. Why is that? Because Capernaum saw something that Sodom never saw. Sodom never saw the incarnate Son of God in their presence, they never directly heard his teaching, they never saw his miracles, and so both cities are going to be judged for unbelief, but the New Testament cities are going to receive a stricter judgment because they had more and they knew more and they turned it down. Sodom turned God down, but not with the threshold of knowledge that the New Testament cities had. When he makes these statements "more tolerable," "more bearable," that doesn't fit with annihilation, which equalizes everyone.

Look at the Great White Throne judgment, Revelation 20, verses 11 through 15. It's a terrible judgment here at the end of the age. And it says this: "Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and there was no place found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, before the throne."

Look at this very carefully. You've got to look at verse 12 and verse 13 very carefully. "I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened." Now, is "books" the noun singular or plural there? It's plural. Many books. To be contrasted with "a book."

Let's keep reading here. "And the books were opened; and then another book was opened." That second use of the noun "book," is that singular or plural? That's singular. So, I've got a book and I've got a bunch of books. That's interesting.

The second book is a big deal because the second book is the Book of Life. The Book of Life is the most important book you can ever get your name in because that is a record, I believe, of all people that are redeemed because they've placed their personal faith in Christ. The moment you place your personal faith in Christ, your name gets in a book.

It's a book of believers, a book of the redeemed. It's what Jesus said when the disciples—he sent them out in Luke 10 to offer the kingdom to Israel and he empowered them for the task and they were so proud of themselves: "Lord, even the demons are in submission to us." Jesus says, "Don't rejoice that the demons are in submission to you; rejoice that your name is recorded in heaven." That's what you ought to be happy about.

That Book of Life is a big deal. I want the entries in there to get bigger. That's why we give the gospel here every week and send out missionaries, etc. Verse 12 says, "I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books according to their deeds."

Verse 13: "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every one of them according to their deeds"—says it twice. "Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire."

And now we get an awareness of what the book singular is about, verse 15: "If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." I trust Christ, I get my name in the Book of Life, and I'm not going into the lake of fire. As this final judgment is occurring, the Great White Throne judgment, and it's only for unbelievers, the Lord is looking at people, and as their name is not in the book, they're thrown into the lake of fire.

If that's true, what are the "books" for? If there's no degrees of punishment, you don't need books. You just need a book. You're not in the book, you go into the lake of fire. But there's another record here of "books" of deeds of people. What I think those deeds are are their sins that you have to pay for for all eternity, which is terrible. That'd be a terrible fate to wish on anybody because the Bible says if you don't get Jesus, you get Moses. Moses is the lawgiver. If you won't take Jesus as the one who kept the law in your place and died for our infractions of the law, then someone's got to pay. You're going to pay.

So, the books determine degrees of punishment in hell. This is why the guy that commits genocide is punished more severely than the guy that tells a white lie. If that weren't true, there'd be no need for the books because the books are consulted after it's determined that someone is not in the book. That becomes another scripture paragraph, verse, verses that you can use to explain this idea of differing degrees of punishment in hell. This is why I don't think annihilationism is right, because it just equalizes everyone. Adolf Hitler just disappears just like a guy that took a paperclip home from work.

So, what is this problem with annihilation? I'm not just giving you texts here; I'm just giving you some big theological reasons why it's a problem. It underestimates sin's severity, makes sin less than it is—an offense against an eternal holy God. It contradicts our nature as image bearers that last forever, whether we're saved or not. And then it ignores what I think is a clear biblical teaching: degrees of punishment in hell.

The last one I'll give you here is sub-letter D: it seeks to escape sin's consequences. Humanity has always wanted to get out of the consequences of sin. We don't want to think sin is that big a deal, and once we figure out it's a big deal, we want to get out of the consequences. Who wants to bear severe consequences? I don't.

But even in the natural world, you get greater consequences, don't you, depending on the severity of the crime? There's misdemeanors, there's felonies. Humanity just doesn't like those consequences, and this is as old as Eden. Genesis 2, verses 16 and 17, this is what God said before the fall: "The Lord commanded the man, saying, 'From any tree in the garden you may freely eat; but from the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you will surely die.'"

Now, is there anything unclear about that? It's actually the easiest job description ever. Do whatever you want, just don't eat from the tree that's in the center of the garden, the tree of knowledge. And if you eat from it, you'll die.

So, what does Satan say to them a chapter later? "The serpent said to the woman, 'You will not surely die.'" But wait, God said you would. Satan says, "No, you won't." God says it's bad. Satan says, "Ah, it's not that bad." God says there's a consequence. Satan says, "No consequence."

That's part of our makeup, that's part of who we are. We don't like the idea of the consequences of sin, so we try to take the consequences, which are eternal, and shrink them and make them less than they are. Annihilationism, to be honest with you, is something that I personally would love to believe is true because I'm a sinner and I'm guilty. I emotionally like the idea of annihilationism. But the reason I like it is because I'm on the guilty side of the ledger as part of Adam's fallen race.

This is kind of the genesis, of other ideas that people have, like universalism. Rob Bell, if you know that name, emergent church, wrote a book and the title of the book is *Love Wins*. Basically, the premise of the book is, when it's all said and done, love wins and everyone goes into heaven. The only problem with this book is it flatly contradicts the Bible. Everyone doesn't go into heaven. In fact, the Bible's very clear that not everyone will go into heaven. You don't have to be a Bible scholar to see that. You just have to know a few verses.

Matthew chapter 25, verse 46, sheep and goat judgment: "These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." Universalism then must not be true. Matthew 7, verses 13 and 14: "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few which find it."

So, the five-lane freeway is, to quote those great theologians AC/DC, a highway to hell. Why is the highway to hell? It's like the five-lane freeway, the highway to hell. The little access road on the side—and I love Texas because in California we don't have little access roads; that's why I got to the promised land as fast as I could—little access road on the side, that's the highway to heaven.

How could Rob Bell write a book called *Love Wins* and flatly contradict the Bible? Answer is he wants to believe in universalism because he wants to escape the consequences of sin and make sin less than it is. And that's where annihilation grows out of.

So, what are some theological arguments against annihilation? It underestimates sin's severity, it contradicts how we're manufactured as image bearers, it denies degrees of punishment, and it's just right out of Eden where God says this is going to happen and we instead believe a lie that says this won't happen.

Next week we'll answer the biblical arguments that annihilationists use. They say things like, "Well, it says 'destroy,' doesn't that mean you disappear?" And then they have a lot of theological arguments that they use. In other words, how can God be the winner in history if there's still evil people in this universe that are rebellious in hell? They say that denies God's victory because God has to blot out evil, not allow it to exist somewhere in hell. Those kind of arguments.

I'll show you that this annihilationist viewpoint is not the mainstream opinion. Under Roman numeral 6, there are councils that have condemned it as heretical. And then number 7, we'll reach the conclusion. Why are we getting into this? Well, if you throw a wet blanket, pardon the pun, on hell, then there's no incentive for missions. It takes the urgency of missionary work and causes it to disappear.

We're going to have a missions moment today. Why do we support missionaries? Why would someone go to the trouble of being a missionary, learning another culture and language? Why would we translate the Bible into some dialect so people can read it for themselves if they're just going to disappear at some point? You destroy evangelism and missions when you move into this annihilationist perspective. That's why it really has gotten under my skin a little bit, why Kirk Cameron is moving in this direction.

Let's pray. Father, we're grateful for your word, grateful for your truth, even the hard things. We're saved, but we're saved unto something, but we're saved from something, and we can't understand what we're saved from until we understand the reality of eternal conscious torment. Help us to walk these things out this week. 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 to you.