Pastor Ryan walked up to me before the service started, and in light of my sermon title, he said, so is this a fire and brimstone sermon? It’s not necessarily my intention, but maybe. but to the reality of eternal punishment.

The reason I had you, I had those sheets out there and I had you grab one is because of this being a more topical sermon, I’m not gonna plant myself in one text. We’re gonna be looking at a variety of texts and I wanted to have those texts in front of you so you could see them as I go along. So those will be in order of how I’ll hit them throughout the sermon.

But the reality of eternal punishment, that’s what we’ll be looking at this evening, an important doctrine, one that’s very difficult to understand and comprehend at times, but one that needs to be talked about.

But before we get into the sermon, let’s go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, I pray that you bless us this evening, and I pray that you bless me as I preach, that I rely on the Holy Spirit, that he speaks through me as we deal with this difficult doctrine, the reality of eternal punishment. In Jesus’ name, amen.

The topic of divine punishment, and more specifically eternal divine punishment, has come up recently in Christian circles. It’s been, especially in the last month, it’s been one thing probably that’s been talked about the most.

And before I go on, I want to say that I’ll say different, I’ll probably talk about this different ways, but what I’m talking about tonight is eternal divine punishment. Now I may say eternity in hell, I may refer to the lake of fire, but what I’m talking about tonight when I say those various things is eternal conscious torment for unbelievers.

So I may say eternal conscious torment, I may say eternal punishment, but that’s what I’m talking about, is the fate of unbelievers, eternal conscious torment in the lake of fire.

But the reason this conversation has come up, and podcasters have talked about it, people on YouTube have talked about it, pastors have talked about it, I was just talking to a friend yesterday, how his pastors recently talked about eternal punishment, and that’s because of Kirk Cameron, the very famous Christian who’s been probably in some ways, maybe the most famous or one of the most famous Christians for the past 20 or so years, was on the famous sitcom in the 80s, then became a Christian, did a variety of Christian films, has written books, has had a lot to say on Christian education, and has had a really powerful influence in the Christian community.

A lot of people respect him, and there’s a lot to respect about him. But in the past month, he’s come out and changed his view on this topic of eternal punishment. And he has embraced the view of what’s often referred to as conditionalism or annihilationism. Sometimes those two are distinguished, but in reality they end up being the same thing.

So what Kirk Cameron says, and what others who hold this view say about eternal punishment, is that man’s soul is not eternal, and the gift of immortality is only given by God if someone is saved. Hence, the conditional part. So, every person that’s born, the eternality of their soul is not a given. It’s when we die, if we’re saved, that’s when God grants us immortality. If someone is unsaved, they are not granted immortality. And for those who are not saved, they will suffer in hell after their bodily death for as long as God intends them to. And then when Christ returns, and before he initiates the new heavens and new earth, and he causes the dead to rise, and he gives their bodies back, instead of them going to the lake of fire, What annihilationism teaches is that they will cease to exist. They will be annihilated. So instead of spending eternity in a lake of fire, those who are unbelievers, after their time in hell, they will receive their bodies back and they will perish, be annihilated, cease to exist. And that’s what they view as eternal punishment.

And this means they will not spend eternity in conscious torment slash punishment. Now the traditional view of this doctrine, which I will argue is the biblical view, and what we here at Fellowship Baptist hold to is that unbelievers will face eternal conscious punishment slash torment forever. And I actually want to read our church’s statement on this doctrine. And this is what our statement of faith says. After death, the souls of the unbelievers remain in conscious misery until the second resurrection, when with spirit, soul, and body reunited they shall appear before the great white throne judgment. They will be judged and cast into the lake of fire, not to be annihilated, but to suffer everlasting conscious punishment. And that’s what we hold to.

As I go through this sermon tonight and we look at these different passages and look at some key theological themes, that’s what we’re going to be focusing on. I’m not going to necessarily be focusing on dismantling the annihilationist argument. I want us to look at these passages and say, this is why we should hold to eternal punishment. This is what scripture says. And we must submit ourselves to scripture.

Now I want to be clear when we are talking about Christians who hold different views than us, we need to represent them correctly. Kirk Cameron is not saying that hell does not exist. He holds to hell. What he’s saying is he does not hold to the lake of fire or eternal punishment. And this does not mean that he’s an unbeliever. And the point of this sermon is not to bash him or criticize all those who hold this view. The goal here is to use this recent discussion to examine why we hold to this traditional or biblical understanding of eternal conscious punishment so that we can have more confidence in its truthfulness and be able to answer criticisms of it.

So when something like this pops up in Christian circles where someone challenges a doctrine that’s been held for, in this case, thousands of years, We need to look at the discussion and see, okay, what are they saying? Why are they saying this? And what can we learn from it? So that we can understand the teaching more, understand the truthfulness of it more, but also be able to answer criticisms of it.

Now, and I wanna say right off the bat that this is not, and as I said this evening in my prayer, this is not an easy teaching, it’s not an easy doctrine. Oftentimes, people who take the view of annihilationism will say, When you push them out, they’ll say, I don’t like the idea of my brother and my father, these friends I know, being tormented forever in the lake of fire. And we can understand that. We can be sympathetic towards that. It’s not a pleasant thought, and it shouldn’t be. The thought of people spending forever in hell or the lake of fire should cause us to squirm. It should make us uncomfortable. But just because something is hard to understand doesn’t mean it’s not true. And this is what’s important when we come to this very difficult doctrine, this very difficult teaching, is that we must submit our presuppositions and preconceived notions about life to the Word of God. The Word of God is our final authority on all these matters, including this one. It’s a difficult doctrine, it’s not fun to think about. We can all tonight think about people we know, family members, friends, people who are close to us, who if they die tonight, They would go to hell and then spend eternity in the lake of fire.

But we need to think about this doctrine. We need to wrestle with it because despite what your opinion on the matter is, the Bible does talk about eternal punishment. So we have to figure out what is it talking about? And tonight we are going to examine this idea of eternal punishment by looking at some key theological themes and some key Bible passages.

Now, when I say key theological themes and Bible passages, I don’t want to separate those. These key theological themes we’re looking at are undergirded and supported by Scripture. I want to look at two themes in particular and then separately some biblical passages.

So the first themes I want to examine are God and sin. Because when we’re talking about eternal punishment and we’re talking about divine punishment, we have to go back to God and we have to go back to sin. And we must start with God. If you get God wrong, you’re going to get everything wrong. And that’s just true. If you mess up with God, you’re going to get everything wrong. You’re going to get his word wrong. You’re going to get Christ wrong. So you have to get God right. And to understand why we deserve eternal punishment, we have to know who we are sinning against. We’re not just sinning against some guy, we’re sinning against the infinite holy God. He is the creator of all, the one who gives us purpose. And our purpose is to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.

1 Corinthians 10.31, the first Bible verse on the paper right there. It says, “…therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all things for the glory of God.” Revelation 4.11, “…worthy are you, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and because of your will they exist and were created.” So we exist to honor God and enjoy Him forever. That’s why He created us, to honor Him, to serve Him. We have to understand why we were created. We have to understand that we are the creatures and He is the creator. We answer to Him, He doesn’t answer to us. We exist to proclaim His name, to praise His name. We belong to Him. Therefore, because we belong to Him, because we are His creatures, He can tell us how to live. You know, I’m sure many of us in here have had pets or have pets. Your pet listens to you. Your dog or your iguana or whatever it is, you don’t answer to it, it answers to you. In a similar way, we answer to God. He doesn’t answer to us. We don’t get to tell God, well God, this is actually how your word should be interpreted. God, I think this is how this should be. No, we listen to what his word says. The final authority. And it’s a good thing he tells us how to live our lives because if he didn’t, we would just be living and following our own desires. We’d be following our sinful inclination, our sinful nature.

And sin, talking about sin, is direct rebellion against God in thought or action. It is a failure to obey God’s perfect standard. It is the creature rejecting the creator. So we’re talking about eternal punishment, but we need to talk about who God is in sin, because eternal punishment is for those who spend a lifetime of sinning against God, who continually reject Him, even unto their death. Continuous rebellion against the Creator, rebellion against the commands He’s given us in the Bible. When we sin, we are rejecting God’s authority over our lives. We don’t want you, it’s not just we don’t need you, it’s we don’t want you. I don’t want you in my life.

You see, oftentimes when we’re talking about this topic of eternal punishment, people look at it and they say, oh, eternal punishment, it’s hard, but it doesn’t seem right to subject people to that forever. I mean, is it fair? But we gotta understand that when we sin and you spend a lifetime of sinning, it’s you shaking your fist at God saying, I don’t want you. I wanna do what I want. It’s the person putting themselves in a position where they refuse to follow God.

We are God’s creations and we are meant to serve and obey Him. Sin is ultimately not just unfaithfulness to God, but not following God. We need to understand that our very nature, even when we come from the womb as babies, our very nature is sinful. We sin because we’re sinners. It’s not sinning that makes us sinners. We sin because we’re sinners. We have a sinful nature.

Ephesians 2, verses 1-3. and you were dead in your offenses and sins, in which you previously walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them, we too all previously lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the rest.” We were indulging the desires of the flesh. When you’re apart from Christ and you’re not following God, you’re indulging the desires of the flesh.

Romans 8, 7-8, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God. For it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. So the mind is not just separate from God, it’s hostile to God. Notice what he says there, hostile to God. It means it’s enemies with God. It doesn’t want anything to do with God.

Now some who hold to this idea of annihilationism or conditionalism, and this is an important argument they make, they say it is not just for God to punish someone with conscious torment forever for a finite time of sinning. So here’s what they say, they say, okay, Joe lives for 60 years, he died at age 60, and in 60 years he was an unbeliever, he died an unbeliever. And for 60 years he sinned against God. And then he died and his soul goes to hell. Jesus will come back. His dead body will be resurrected. It’s not fair for then Joe, who only sinned for 60 years, to spend an eternity in punishment for that. That’s not fair. And that’s the argument they’ll make.

But that’s not the proper way to view the issue. Firstly, and I already said this, we don’t get to decide what is just and what is not just. That’s not up to us, that’s up to God and what we read here. We don’t get to determine His character. His character is who He is, that’s been determined. We read about His character and who He is in scripture. And the Holy Spirit also reveals that to us as we read, as we study. We do not determine who God is. He is who He is. And we also need to remember this argument of, well, can someone really be punished for eternity for only a finite time of sinning? Well, here’s the problem. One sin is an infinite offense against the infinite God. Whether you lie, you stole, you murdered, you committed adultery, it’s a sin, an act of rebellion against God. So when you say it’s just a finite time of sinning, you’re belittling your sinful nature. You’re not grasping how serious it is.

Joel Beeky, who’s a well-known theologian today, had this quote about this idea, and it’s very helpful. He says, the punishment due to sin is not proportionate to the time spent committing it. We don’t put, a murderer goes to jail because he murdered, not because he did it in two minutes or 30 seconds. A thief goes to jail because of what he stole and how much he stole. It’s the crime that merits the punishment. So it’s not how long somebody sinned or how short somebody sinned for, it’s the fact that they sinned. It’s the fact that we have sinned. That’s what matters.

So the argument of saying that we can’t be punished forever because of a finite time if sinning doesn’t hold up and it’s not a proper view of God, it’s not a proper view of ourselves and our sinful nature. And we need to remember that God tells us how to live our lives, and when we do not obey, we must be held accountable.

So we’ve talked about God, and we’re gonna talk about a little more how he has standards. Sin is direct rebellion against him. Sin is we’re not conforming to his perfect standard, the standard he sets. So when we sin, and we’re gonna talk about God is just, God is just, and when we sin, we have to be held accountable for our sin. And this is what justice looks like, and God is just. It’s part of his character. He is a just God. And because we are accountable to God, our sin must be punished. And we have to understand that our sin has to be punished. It can’t go unpunished. We are responsible for our sin before God, and we’ll be held accountable for it unless it’s taken away. Unless someone paid that price for us.

It’s important to understand when we’re talking about sin and sinning against God that God is holy. Which means he is completely perfect and can have no part with sin. He is totally separated from sin. This is important in this discussion of eternal punishment. Understanding who God is, is that God can have no part with sin. He hates sin.

Job 34.10, therefore listen to me, you men of understanding. Far be it from God to do evil and from the Almighty to do wrong. Habakkuk chapter 1 verse 13 says, your eyes are too pure, talking about God, your eyes are too pure to look at evil and you cannot look at harm favorably. So for us to have a relationship with him, for us to have a relationship with God, our sin nature must be changed and we must be declared righteous by Christ.

The holy, infinite, just, perfect God cannot tolerate sin. And a life of sinning must be punished eternally. God is distinct in who He is, He’s holy in who He is, and He’s morally distinct.

Psalm 99 verses 1 through 5 hit on this a bit. The psalmist writes,

The Lord reigns. Let the people tremble.
He is enthroned above the cherubim. Let the earth shake.
The Lord is great in Zion and He is exalted above all the peoples.
Let them praise your great and awesome name.
Holy is He.
The strength of the King loves justice. You have established equity. You have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob. Exalt the Lord our God and worship at His footstool. Holy is He.

So he’s holy in who he is, and because of that he’s holy in his actions. We read how he executes justice. Executing justice is executing punishment. That’s part of who he is. It’s part of his just character. And God desires His creation to be holy. Leviticus 11, verse 44. So He wants His creation to be holy.

And when His creation is not holy, when people, humans, people made in the image of God are not holy, they’re not walking with Him. They’re not following Him, and they deserve eternal punishment When Adam and Eve sinned it caused all of humanity to become sinful Which means that every person born enters this world of sinner separate from God not in a relationship with him and the righteousness of God demands that man’s kind sin must be paid for and that’s important to understand is that Mankind sin cannot go unpunished

the righteous just just God demands punishment for it. I He’s righteous in all that he does, and all that God does is good and right. He not only sets the standard for what is good and right, but he is the standard. Psalm 119, 137 through 138. Righteous are you, O Lord, and upright are your judgments. You’ve commanded your testimonies in righteousness and exceeding faithfulness.

God sets the standard. The Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 are an example of that, of the standard he has. His perfect standard. So when we sin, we violate God’s standard. And because God is holy and righteous, sin must be paid for. It would be unjust if he let sin go unpunished.

The righteousness and justice of God are very similar, but think of justice as the result of God’s perfect standards, his laws. Because God says this, but you didn’t do it, this must happen. So God says, you must follow my laws, you must follow my commands, you must be holy, you must obey me, and if you do not, you are separate from me. There is punishment, there is eternal punishment.

Scripture’s clear. The unbeliever, when he stands before the white throne of judgment, can’t say, I didn’t know God, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. It’s clear. Romans 1 talks about how creation speaks to the fact that God exists. No man can walk away knowing I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, how I was supposed to live.

It would be unjust if someone committed a crime, a murder, stole something, and the judge said, nah, you’re good, I’m just gonna let you go off free. That’s unjust, that’s not right, and that’s not what God does. For God to let sin go unpunished, it would be against his nature. And a one-time punishment is not enough. A sin against the infinite God requires an infinite punishment, an eternal punishment.

And the only reason Christians Those who have given their life to Christ and are following God, following His statutes and commands in Scripture, the only reason they can stand before God as holy and righteous is because Christ gave us His righteousness, His robes for mine. He took that penalty for us. Paid the penalty for the sins of the elect.

So it’s important as we’re talking about eternal punishment to understand who God is, and understand the severity and the significance of our sin, and understand that when we sin, we’re sinning against the holy, righteous, perfect judge, the justice, the just judge.

But as we go on, we need to talk about the immortality of the soul. One of the criticisms of those who hold to an annihilationist or conditionalist view say, the soul is not immortal. See, when you look at scripture, the soul is not immortal. Immortality is a gift given by God upon someone’s salvation. But when we read scripture, we see that our souls are eternal. Everyone born has a soul, and it is immortal. God does not bestow immortality based off a person’s salvation.

Matthew chapter 10 verse 28 says, and do not be afraid of those who kill the body but aren’t able to kill the soul. But rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. So the soul cannot be killed. No one can kill the soul. So the soul will live on.

Now, annihilationists will point to the second half of that verse where it says, talking about God, it says, but rather fear him, which is God, who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. They say, well, the word destroy there is used. That means they’re annihilated. That means they cease to exist. But that’s not the best reading of that word in the original language. Destroyed can refer to ruining and not death. And that’s true. God, when he destroys somebody in eternal punishment, that person’s ruined. They’re wrecked. So it doesn’t mean they cease to exist, it means that they’re ruined. Their end is final.

Ecclesiastes chapter 12 verse seven says, then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. So our souls live on. Everyone who’s born has an immortal soul. And once we understand that our souls are eternal, we understand that some people will spend eternity in the new creation, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and that some will spend eternity in eternal conscious torment in the lake of fire.

Some biblical passages that I want to look at briefly this evening, some we’re actually going to turn to. If you can, you can go ahead and turn to Matthew chapter 25. We’ll look at a couple verses, specifically a couple verses in verses 31 through 46. Now, there are a plethora of biblical passages we could look at this evening. From different ones in the Gospels, we could look at the way words are used in the Old Testament, numerous passages all over Scripture. But I’m going to focus on just a few key passages, a couple in Matthew and then some in Revelation, that I think really help us understand this doctrine of eternal conscious torment.

So Matthew chapter 25 is a famous passage. We read in the first 13 verses, the parable of the 10 virgins. After that, we read the parable of the talents. And in these two parables, we see that Jesus is talking about people needing to be prepared for his return. Five of the 10 virgins were not prepared for the bridegroom’s return, so he did not know them. So they were cast into hell. The master throws in the parable of the talents, the master throws the slave who did not use his talents wisely into the place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. And verses 41 and 46 seem clear that this punishment that these people are experiencing goes on forever.

Verse 41 of Matthew chapter 25 says this. Then he will also say to those on his left, depart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels. Verse 46, these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. So the word eternal in verses 41 and 46, it’s describing, in verse 41, eternal’s describing hell, and in verse 46, it’s describing punishment. So we see when we look at these two verses, That this idea of eternal punishment is not just an idea, it’s a reality. It will happen. It will go on forever. And this word eternal is being used in a quantitative state. Sometimes annihilationists will say, well that word eternal refers to the quality of the person’s existence. No, it’s a quantity of time. When we look at scripture and we look at how the word eternal is used, it’s most often used as a quantity of time to go on forever and ever. So this punishment will go on forever and ever.

And in verse 46, the righteous will go on for eternal life. Forever and ever. So verse 46, the wicked are paralleled with the righteous. When we go to Revelation, if you can, turn to Revelation chapter 14, specifically verses nine through 11. There’s some passages here in Revelation that really help us see this doctrine of eternal punishment is a reality.

In Revelation 14, chapter 14, verses nine through 11, say this. The apostle John writes, starting in verse nine, Then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, If anyone worships the beast in his image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. They have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image and whoever receives the mark of his name.

So these verses seem to clearly teach that those who follow Satan and his servants, which in this case is the beast, will be eternally punished in hell, verse 11. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. Verse 10 says, they will drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone. So he’s going to be tormented with fire and brimstone and the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. The wrath of God, the wrath of the just, perfect, holy God is going to be poured out on unbelievers.

One scholar helpfully noted that this passage doesn’t even talk about death. It doesn’t mention death, it doesn’t mention destruction. Like in other passages we read, it talks about eternal torment. It says the smoke will go up forever. And it’s important to understand that with the idea of annihilationism, if you cease to exist, when you talk to someone who holds that view, they say, well, what about eternal punishment? And they’ll say to you, well, that is eternal punishment. The fact that the person no longer exists, that’s the eternal punishment. But one problem with that is you can’t actually experience punishment. You can’t experience something if you don’t exist.

Now, someone could say, well, what about a kid who’s grounded? Say a kid does something wrong and he’s grounded. The person could say, well, they’re not experiencing something they previously had. So that’s an argument for annihilationism. The problem is the kid’s still experiencing what he’s not experiencing. He’s experiencing that lack of something he wanted. So one of the biggest problems with him saying eternal punishment is this ceasing of existence is that the person isn’t experiencing the eternal punishment. Where scripture seems to clearly teach that this eternal punishment is something the individual will experience. That the smoke will go up forever. Torment. Torment is something you experience. For me, torment is sometimes seeing a big cockroach run across the floor. Or a snake, which is why I don’t go hang out in pastor’s sheds, where he keeps those snakes. But no, torment, you have to experience it. These people in this passage in verse 11 are experiencing the torment.

And one final passage I wanna look at is Revelation 22, verses 14 through 15. So if you just turn over a few pages in your Bible, this is getting to the very end of Revelation. John writes in Revelation 22, starting in verse 14,

Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter by the gates of the city. Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices lying.

If unbelievers are killed in the sense that they no longer exist, how are they outside the city? How are the wicked outside the city? So if annihilation is to say that in eternity, The wicked, the unbelievers cease to exist. This passage seems to indicate that they’re not just gone. They are separate from Christians, they are separate from Christ, but they do still exist. They’re outside the city because they’re in the lake of fire, they’re in eternal punishment.

And those are just a handful of passages that really help us understand this doctrine and this teaching. There are many more that we can look at. But before I close this evening, I want us just to look at this teaching and think about it in our own lives. So when we talk about hell, when we talk about eternal punishment, what do we take away from it? Well, first off, we need to submit to what scripture has to say about this difficult topic, this difficult doctrine. You don’t have to like it. I’m not saying you have to like the doctrine of hell. I’m not saying you have to like the doctrine of eternal punishment, but it is here. It’s in scripture. God intended it to be there. It’s hard, but are we going to trust what we want or our feelings over what God says? We must trust what God says.

And one final thing about this doctrine is that it should motivate us to share the gospel. When we hear hell come up, when we hear eternal punishment come up, we need to think about witnessing and telling people about Jesus. That’s what we need to think about. Do we have a desire to see people saved and spared from eternal judgment, eternal punishment? Eternal conscious torment. And this is something that I, all of us, have to think about.

As I was working on this sermon, I was thinking about people I know who I believe are unsaved. Are we moved to see people saved? We need to pray. God, give me a desire to see people saved. Give me a desire to see the lost come to know you. Give me opportunities to witness. Give me the words to say when I’m in those witnessing encounters. And when he gives us an encounter, We need to take it. Don’t run from it. Yes, it’s scary to share the gospel, but we need to share it. We’re commanded to. Before Jesus ascended, he told us to preach the gospel. We read about that in Matthew 28, 18-20.

But we need to keep in mind that people who don’t know Christ will spend eternity in punishment, in conscious punishment, conscious torment. Are we motivated to share the gospel? Can we articulate the gospel? Can we share the gospel? Can we talk about God? Can we talk about the creator? Can we talk about sin? Because if we’re sharing the gospel to someone, we have to tell them, you’re a sinner. You can talk about God, you can talk about Jesus, but you gotta talk about what they gotta be saved from. If someone walks away and says, I believe in Jesus, this is great, and then you ask, well, why do you believe in Jesus? What are you saved from? And they say, I don’t know, they’re not saved. They have to recognize that they are a sinner and it’s an infinite sin against the infinite God.

You have to talk about repentance, turning from a life of sin to a life of following Christ. Can we articulate that Jesus, the God-man, came to earth to save sinners and that we must believe He is the only one who can take away our sins, that we must put our faith and trust in Him and repent of our sins? This is the message that even if you are a Christian, we need to continually remind ourselves of what we’ve been saved from. but that we need to tell people about.

Eternal conscious torment is real and it will be real for all eternity. And this should cause us to pray for the unsaved and have a desire to witness to them. I want to end with, earlier I read our church’s statement on eternal conscious torment, that eternal punishment is forever. But I want to read our church’s stance on for those who know the Lord and eternity with them.

Our church’s statement says this, The souls of the redeemed are at death, absent from the body and present with the Lord. In conscious bliss, they await the first resurrection when body and soul are reunited to be forever glorified with the Lord. Forever glorified with the Lord, forever with him in the new heavens and the new earth.

That is, if you are here today and you’re saved, that’s what we can look forward to and that’s what we want for our friends and our family and for all the people we know.

Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you where it can teach us about all the important doctrines, even this difficult doctrine of eternal punishment. I pray that when we struggle with different doctrines and teachings, we come to your word and we come to you in prayer. And recognize no matter how difficult it is, what matters is what your word says. And I pray that you would give us a strong desire to see people saved. In Jesus’ name, amen.