another question for the Bible

[cycloneman]

Does scripture tell us what hell will be like?

OK in the past i recall things like

a. a void of God or a place with no presence of God.

OK so is that accurate? DOes that mean that hell bound people live in a life of misery?

Or will life of all types terminate for hell bound people?

[carver]

Revelation 20:15
Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

[jack404]

of the 19 or so venerations of hell i personally think dante's version is the best , not his art or that which was interpreted , i mean his description

everyone is different , you send some folks in to one guys hell and they'll have a ball , its what you fear and hate , its what will hurt and effect you , hell to me like Heaven is personalised , we may all get together for hymms and such , but its what we are rewarded with

and hell, just as personalised, is what we are punished with

heck throw some folks in a room full of cats and they are in hell ...

thats my thinking

[Python]

Originally Posted by cycloneman

Does scripture tell us what hell will be like?

Abraham's Bosom (Luke 16:22-31) tells what hell will be like. Hell is a place of torment where those who have died in their sin "await" the White Thrown Judgement where they will then be cast into the Lake of Fire for all eternity. Simply put, hell is much like the county jail where you're held until your appointed time to appear before the judge to be sentenced.

[cutter]

I think the name of the tv show was Night Gallery, but its host was Rod Serling. The one episode that has always stuyck with me is of this subject. There was an elderly couple that were in Heaven continually showing pictures of what they loved, another guy was in hell having to watch the pictures. He was way bummed out because he thought that hell would be fire and brimstone. So to me this was a good explanation. What is Heaven to one may be Hell to another.

[RunningOnMT]

This might help:

The Severity of Hell
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
PDFPrintEmailCharles Spurgeon once advised fellow-preachers, “Shun all views of future punishment that would make it appear less terrible.” Yet another timely word from Spurgeon—efforts to extinguish the flames of hell abound in our day, just as they did in his.

As you listen to popular views about hell, you can test what you hear with a few biblically-discerning questions:

Does this view of hell diminish the threat of God’s judgment?
Does this teaching soften the urgency of repentance?
Is this offering the sinner any hope of salvation beyond this life?
Modern views of hell won’t survive the test of biblical fidelity. They’ll allow the sinner to feel more comfortable and complacent by defanging God, making Him appear less severe.

Challenges to the doctrine of hell start out by questioning what the Bible clearly says, but they don’t end there. Wayne Grudem, recognizing the trend to make hell appear more bearable, noticed a tragic pattern:

The doctrine of eternal conscious punishment…tends to be one of the first doctrines given up by people who are moving away from a commitment to the Bible as absolutely truthful […]. Among liberal theologians who do not accept the absolute truthfulness of the Bible, there is probably no one today who believes in the doctrine of eternal conscious punishment. (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology)

Two of the more prominent campaigns against hell are attacks against its eternality and severity. Travis gave us some help in understanding the eternality of hell; now let’s take a look at hell’s severity.



Will hell really be that bad?

Whenever Jesus described hell, He was never flippant or dismissive. He used vivid, terrifying terms to describe the final destination of sinners, shocking and scaring His audiences with frighteningly graphic metaphors. Hell is a place so bad that you should be willing to cut off sensitive, irreplaceable parts of your body to avoid it (Mt. 5:29-30); even martyrdom would be worth avoiding the torment of hell (Matt. 10:28). He always presented hell as a horrific place of intolerable suffering.

His descriptions are consistent with other biblical writers. Daniel referred to hell as a place of shame and everlasting contempt (Dan. 12:2). Paul called it a place of endless destruction and punishment (2 Thess. 1:5-10). Jude called hell a place of eternal fire and darkness (Jude 7). The Apostle John described hell as a place where sinners suffer everlasting torment, with no rest day or night (Rev. 14:9-11).

Taken together, all those descriptions of hell communicate pain, fear, loss, anger, separation, and hopelessness. It's utter agony, eternal torment.



Agony and Torment

The New Testament describes hell as a place of unimaginable torment. Biblical writers help us picture scenes of unspeakable horror, and most of the time they’re merely quoting what Jesus said about hell:

weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 8:12)
spiritual and bodily destruction (Mt. 10:28)
fiery furnaces (Matt. 13:42, 50)
outer darkness (Matt. 22:13)
unquenchable fires (Mark 9:48-49)
endless torments (Luke 16:23-24)
John Calvin, commenting on those descriptions, wrote, "By such expressions, the Holy Spirit certainly intended to confound all our senses with dread.” Calvin understood the Bible’s appeal to our senses. When you read about hell in Scripture, you can almost hear the agonizing wails, smell the smoke and burning sulfur, see the flames from the lake of fire, and feel the seething anger of the wicked as they gnash their teeth at the Righteous Judge.

Jesus used pictures and metaphors to help us understand the horror of hell. Darkness represents loneliness, insecurity, the sense of being lost and disoriented; fire represents the excruciating pain of burning; and a lake of fire represents the sense of drowning, suffocating, taking the burning sulfur internally. These vivid pictures of hell’s environment should provoke a reasonable sense of fear in a normal, thinking person. No one can come away with the idea that hell is a tolerable place to spend eternity.



Abandonment

While it’s true that hell is a place of untold physical pain and suffering (fire, scorching, being cut to pieces), I think we often overlook the mental agony of being completely forsaken—abandoned for all eternity. After all, the most chilling cry from our Lord as He suffered God’s wrath on the cross stemmed not from physical pain, but from being forsaken by the Father. Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46).

John MacArthur explained the significance of God forsaking the Son in relation to hell: “This is a reminder to all sinners that while hell is the full fury of God’s personal punishment presence, He will never be there to comfort. He will never be there to show sympathy. He will never bring relief. […] it is both the punishment of God and the absence of comfort. […] That’s hell—punishment without relief (“The King Crucified: Consummation at Calvary”). As the Puritan Thomas Vincent put it, “Not only will the unbeliever be in hell, but hell will be in him too.”



Imprisonment

The New Testament frequently presents hell as a prison—a place of eternal confinement (Mt. 22:13; Jude 13; 2 Pet. 2:9). It’s impossible to understand first-century prison conditions by looking at American prisons today where accommodations include cable television, three square meals, educational opportunities, outdoor exercise, and toilet/shower facilities. In many of the world’s jails throughout history, jailors didn’t just treat prisoners like criminals, but rather as sub-humans, as animals.

But even the worst of earthly prison conditions serve as weak analogies to the eternal dungeon of God’s hell. God will offer nothing to comfort or relieve his agony—ever. In hell, sinners will forever be hopeless, helpless, and powerless. God casts them into hell for one reason—punishment (2 Thess. 1:9).



Look at the Cross
If you want an inside glimpse of the agonies of hell, look at the Savior in Gethsemane as He anticipated the cross. See the bloody drops of sweat falling from his body as He faced the reality of absorbing His Father’s eternal wrath. Hear His agonizing screams from the cross as His Father—for the first and last time—abandoned His sin-bearing Son. Feel His loneliness as He faced those agonies alone.

Hell is a place where God’s full wrath and fury will be poured out eternally on sinners. Possessing in Himself the essence and omniscience of deity, Christ knew what He spoke of. And as our sin-bearing substitute, He anticipated the torments of hell and finally experienced the full outpouring of divine wrath for all those who believe.

Scripture is abundantly clear about the doctrine of hell. Nothing good can come from advocating a view of hell that makes it out to be anything less than a hopeless, agonizing, eternal separation from the good and gracious presence of God. If you reject, diminish, or neglect the doctrine of hell, you undermine the gravity of our sin in contrast to the holiness of God. But armed with accurate teaching on hell, you help the sinner understand why he must flee from the wrath of God to the mercy of Jesus Christ.

[Caneman]

i think it says it is going to pretty hot

[howlnmad]

I never really give it a thought. I know I'm no where near perfect, there is only one, but I believe that I am glory bound.
A little church down the road has a sign out front that says "Projected forecast... no cold days in hell".

[Python]

Originally Posted by howlnmad

I never really give it a thought. I know I'm no where near perfect, there is only one, but I believe that I am glory bound.
A little church down the road has a sign out front that says "Projected forecast... no cold days in hell".

In the story of Lazarus & the rich man (Abraham's Bosom) there are two compartments, Paradise & Hades (Hell), separated by a great fixed chasm. Hell will be hot, but Hell is not where the lost spend eternity. Hell is where the lost suffer torment awaiting the Final White Thrown Judgement at the end of the millennium. After judgement "death and Hades" (Hell) are cast into the Lake of Fire burning with brimstone for all eternity. This is the Second Death. Like the saying goes, "Born once die twice, born twice die once".

[ampaterry]

I have not rang in here previously, because I am not a hell-fire preacher.
I know that many are, and I have read that some like to "lead them right up to the brink of the pit, let them feel the heat and smell the smoke!"

I prefer an old black preacher who said "Scared religion ain't worth one damn!"

God's love towards us should be a greater incentive than the punishment of the lost.

But hell is hot.
It is flames.
It is torment.
And it continues forever.

Revelation 14:9-11 (KJV);
9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

[howlnmad]

Rev. 20:14-15.

14 Then death and the world of the dead were thrown into the lake of fire. (This lake of fire is the second death.) 15 Whoever did not have his name written in the book of the living was thrown into the lake of fire.

TEV

[RunningOnMT]

Terry, Not to hijack this thread but there's something I've never been able to understand. That is that while I understand that the torment of hell can be a motivator for some to repent, be saved, and live a righteous life, I can't quite wrap my head around why God's wrath is so terrible. Why wouldn't it be enough to simply let unrepentent sinners die and go out of existence as if they were never born. It would seem to me that missing out on eternal life in heaven would be motivation enough. No, this is more than an incentive; it is more like (by our standards) a sadistic vengence. It seems to me that justice would require that different sins deserve varying degrees of punishment. Why would an idolator or adulterer deserve a punishment as severe as a brutal murderer? I hope that asking that question is not irreverant or blasphemous, but I am trying to better understand the full nature of God. Can you shed some light on this?

[ampaterry]

I cannot answere that one, ROMT.

It is possible that man was created an eternal soul, and cannot therefore be simply blotted out of existance.

There are things we will NOT know in this life - but we will understand in the next. I think this is one of them.

[Archie]

Jesus spoke more about Hell than He did about Heaven. In almost all the comments made about Hell, the imagery is of eternal fire, eternal worms and '...gnashing of teeth...'.

I am convinced Hell is a real place. I am also convinced that no matter the specifics, no one will like being there.

Running on MT, you don't like the idea of Hell. You're not alone. However, that doesn't change the reality. Here's the question: Does God know what He's doing? If He does, then Hell has a legitimate purpose even if no one here understands that purpose now. If God does not know what He's doing, then don't bother with Him at all.

[vytoland]

hell = a complete absence of sanity and logic.

[Archie]

Originally Posted by vytoland

hell = a complete absence of sanity and logic.

No, that's the essence of atheism. Which, I suppose is a form of hell.

[jack404]

Originally Posted by vytoland

hell = a complete absence of sanity and logic.

so your saying when i attend the socialists meetings i'm in hell ??

heck!!

glad they caught me and tossed me out now ...