God, The Bible And Eternal Punishment - Jesus Christ Spoke More About Hell Than Heaven.

                    (Increasing the font size will cause text overlapping with some browsers, such as Firefox)
For good reason hell is not a popular subject. It is ignored, disbelieved, scoffed at and denied but nothing will alter its reality. Jesus Christ spoke more about hell than about heaven and said that the majority of people are heading there. In Matthew 7.13-14, He said, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

The Bible describes hell as a place of eternal torment, forever separated from God. In Matthew 25:46, Jesus said that the unrighteous "will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." Clearly both life in heaven and punishment in hell are eternal.

Jesus said that people "will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" and into "the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth," (Matthew 8:12 and Matthew 13:42). In the verses Mark 9:42-48, Jesus said that if a hand, foot or an eye caused you to sin, it would be better to lose it and enter heaven maimed than to be tossed into hell because of the sin it causes. Because, Jesus said, in hell the worm doesn't die and the fire is never quenched. The fire represents external torment and the worm describes internal torment, neither of which ever end. There are many other verses which describe hell as a terrible, dark place of eternal, fearful punishment.

Some argue that hell is not eternal but that the unrighteous will undergo annihilation. If something is annihilated, then it obviously has no feeling - it's like a rock. The trouble with this argument is that to a rock the fire is quenched, the worm is dead and it knows nothing of the darkness and fire where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. A rock can't suffer at all so for punishment to be eternal the victim must have life. Whatever hell is, it is certainly a place to fear because God is going to pour His anger out on those who reject His Son ... for ever and ever. God allowed Jesus to suffer greatly, without mercy, on the cross to bring us to Himself. How much more is He going punish those who reject His offer of forgiveness?

1 John 4:8 says that "God is love." He has proved this love to the world through His Son Jesus. However, little thought is given to the fact that He is also Holy, Righteous and Just and that He will do exactly what John 3:36 says will be done ... "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."

Each person has the choice given by God in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Please go to How To Be Saved, consider it carefully, and choose life.

Return to previous page                                                                                            Mick Alexander
                                                                                                                              leeandmick@gmail.com
                                                                                                                             www.ChristianIssues.biz