Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Eternal Punishment

Question: Do you believe in the eternal punishment of the wicked? What proof is there of eternal punishment?

We know nothing positively and absolutely about the future except what God Himself has been pleased to reveal in His Word. Everything beyond this is pure speculation, and man's speculations on such a subject are practically valueless. God knows all about the future, and He has been pleased to reveal some things that He knows about the future. On such a subject as this, an ounce of God's revelation is worth tons of man's empty speculation. God has clearly revealed in the Bible the fact of eternal punishment for those who persist in sin and in the rejection of Jesus Christ, and this is conclusive proof of its reality. I have shown in another book [Powerful Faith] that the Bible is unquestionably the Word of God. The Bible tells us what God says, and the Bile distinctly teaches that there will be an eternity of punishment for those who persistently reject the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Consider these verses: "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels ... These will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Matthew 25:41, 46). ""Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone... The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever ... But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death" (Revelation 19:20; 20:10; 21:8).

The expression "forever and ever", used here of the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels, to which the persistently wicked will also go, is used thirteen times in the book of Revelation. Nine times it refers to the duration of the existence or reign or glory of God and Christ, once to the duration of the blessed reign of the righteous, and in the three remaining instances to the duration of the torment of the devil, the beast, the false prophet, and the persistently wicked.

~R. A. Torrey~

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