|
WE ARE FIREPROOF!!! -Pillar
Information on "Hell"
There are three words translated “Hell” in Scripture:
Gehenna (Greek): The place of punishment (Matthew 5:22,29; 10:28; and
James 3:6)
Hades (Greek): The abode of the dead (Matthew 11:23; 16:18; Luke 16:23;
Acts 2:27)
Sheol (Hebrew): The grave (Psalm 9:17; 16:10)
There are those who accept that Hell is a place of punishment, but believe
that the punishment is to be annihilated—to cease conscious existence.
They can’t conceive that the punishment of the wicked will be conscious
and eternal. If they are correct, then a man like Adolph Hitler, who was
responsible for the deaths of millions, is being “punished”
merely with eternal sleep. His fate is simply to return to the non-existent
state he was in before he was born, where he doesn’t even know that
he is being punished.
However, Scripture paints a different story. The rich man who found himself
in Hell (Luke 16:19-31) was conscious. He was able to feel pain, to thirst,
and to experience remorse. He wasn’t asleep in the grave; he was
in a place of “torment.” If Hell is a place of knowing nothing
or a reference to the grave into which we go at death, Jesus’ statements
about Hell make no sense. He said that if your hand, foot, or eye causes
you to sin, it would be better to remove it than to “go into Hell,
into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dies not,
and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:43-48).
The Bible refers to the fate of the unsaved with such fearful words as
the following:
• “Shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2)
• “Everlasting punishment” (Matthew 25:46)
• “Weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 24:51)
• “Fire unquenchable” (Luke 3:17)
• “Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish” (Romans
2:8,9)
• “Everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord”
(2 Thessalonians 1:9)
• “Eternal fire...the blackness of darkness for ever”
(Jude 7,13)
Revelation 14:10,11 tells us the final, eternal destiny of the sinner:
“He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone...the smoke of their
torment ascended up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day or night."
|