Of Satan’s lies in the world of religion, the greatest are these: there is a place of eternal, physical and/or mental pain, or extinction, and that we have a free will to choose whether we will end up there, or not. These two lies feed on each other; if you have one you have to have the other. This is according to the nature, purpose and works of our Heavenly Father by whom these lies, and Satan, exist.
God is “I AM;” the self existent one; the “Alpha and Omega;” the beginning and end of all things, the first and the last. ”For the invisible things if Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal Godhead.”(Rom 1:20) “By whom we live, move and have our being.”(Acts 17:28) Of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things (Rom 11:32) and many, many more. God is infinite; therefore, His power, wisdom and love are infinite and cannot contradict themselves nor can they be separated. His infinite power is driven by His infinite love and is directed by His infinite wisdom.
God cannot eternally hate anything because it would put a limit on His love, which would lesson His power to love and would question His claim to be wise. Therefore there must be a reason the bible says that He hated certain people like Cain and others who dealt in unrighteousness and sin. This reason is ‘redemption’. If we did nothing wrong, we couldn’t be forgiven for doing something wrong and God couldn’t show us His love to the greatest degree possible. Romans 11:32 says “He has concluded all in sin that He might have mercy on all”, therefore, in order for Jesus to be “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Romans 7:13 says of the law: “that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful”. Romans 8: 20-21 says “For the creature was made subject to vanity (free will), not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God”.
God could not create something He cannot control or maintain. That would limit His power and questions His wisdom. The sun, moon and stars are there because their existence, energy and movement were created by Him and are under His control and maintenance. The Earth, Heaven, Hell, the angels, man, birds, fish, bugs, wind, water and everything else in the universe is created, sustained and controlled by Him. If He didn’t completely sustain and control everything, even if there was only one atom that acted different than the way He planned, He would not be the sovereign ALL powerful infinite creator; He would just be a finite Creator. The bible in Colossians 1:17 couldn’t say “he is before all things, and by him all things consist” if this weren’t true.
The doctrines of predestination and election are biblical truths; (Rom 8:10,11;Eph 1:4,5,11; Pt 1:2) Strong’s Concordance lists more than a dozen other verses where the elect are mentioned. The saved were saved “from before the foundation of the world”(Eph 1:4) and were written in the book of life from the foundation of the world (Rev 17:8 & many other places).Paul says at least 11 times in Romans chapter 9 that God chooses the saved and lost. He also says there, the lost are fitted for destruction (when you destroy something you render it useless). If you are fitted for something, doesn’t it fit? For example: the fish are fitted for water, the birds are fitted for flight, we are fitted to breath air, etc. Jesus said the lost love the darkness (John 3:19) and hate the light (John 3:20). Therefore, they are fitted to love the darkness.
There is no free-will if you are elected, predestinated or fitted for your eternity. But since we know that we make choices every day, how can they not be free, then? How can we make choices and have everything be predetermined?
The answer has to be; He guides us indirectly. And that is what Jeremiah, Solomon and the Apostle Paul said:”I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man, that walketh, to direct his steps.”(Jer. 10:20) "A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directs his steps."(Prov. 16:9) “Man’s goings are of the Lord; how can a man then understand his own way?”(Prov. 20:24) “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and do His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13) This verse tells us that not only does God cause us to do what He wants, but to wish to do it. How can you refuse to do something He causes you to wish to do?
Can a God be called loving and righteous who puts you in a state of sin -in order that He may have mercy on you - turn around and then condemn you to an eternity of pain and suffering for something He did? Can a righteous, loving God punish for eternity the millions of ancient Chinese, African, American Indian, etc. people along with the multitude of mentally or physically incapacitated souls who never heard of Him or had the chance to learn or obey, correctly, the rules of salvation; just because they were born in the wrong condition, place or time? Can the verse found in Luke 2:10 that announces the coming of Jesus to be “good news of great joy that shall be to all people” mean great joy only to the people who know and obey Him? Can the verse that says “blessing I will bless you” (Heb 6:14) mean God is not blessing everyone, but just Abraham whom He blessed? No!
Why then does there seem to be so many verses in the bible that say He will judge and punish sinners? Again, the answer is loving ‘redemption’. If you break a law and there is no punishment or condemnation there would be no need to obey that law. There would also be no need for someone who loves you (even when you’re his enemy by breaking that law) to take on that punishment, or pay that fine, on your behalf. What does this judgment and punishment consist of then if we have a loving Heavenly father?
The answer can be discerned from the fact that the Jews in Biblical times were God’s earthly people and therefore they had earthly laws, earthly priests, earthly blessings, earthly cursings, earthly sacrifices, an earthly home, and an earthly temple. Their God was their earthly Ruler. But beyond this earthly religion was the spiritual religion of the Jews in which God promised to bless them forever apart from laws, rituals, and works according to His infinite love. True Christianity is a further revelation of the spiritual religion of the Jews with a Heavenly high priest, a Heavenly sacrifice, a Heavenly home, Heavenly blessings and spiritual curses. The Jews mixed God’s earthly promises, which were conditioned by obedience, with God’s Heavenly promises, which are unconditional—God will bless everybody forever according to His infinite power, wisdom, and love (Hebrews 6:14). They trusted in physical earthly obedience to obtain spiritual blessings. They mixed the flesh and the spirit (John 3:5–8; 6:63). The Jews heard the Gospel (Hebrews 4:2; 6:14; Galatians 3:8), that says God blesses them freely out of His infinite love, but they (along with a corrupted Christianity) changed it to mean God blesses them because of their earthly rituals, morality, and purity.
True Christianity defines sin as “coming short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The judgment of God comes upon people because they “suppress” the truth of God (Romans 1:18). Breaking God’s laws is only the ‘earthly result’ of not trusting in their loving God. People can love God only if they know that God loved them first (1 John 4:7–19). They can only fear and flatter a god who demands impossible purity and obedience. Spiritual sin has nothing to do with sins of the physical flesh. Therefore Rahab, the harlot; Samson, the harlot chaser and David, the murderer and adulterer, who no doubt were filled with sins of the physical flesh, as was the Apostle Paul (Romans 7:6, 7), could still please God and go to Heaven because they “honored” God by trusting in him. Their sins of the physical flesh gave them earthly problems but in no way interfered with their worship of God in spirit and in truth and they are in Heaven today as a testimony to that fact.
The plain teaching of Scripture is that the punishment for sin is spiritual death (Eph. 2:1) (Rom. 1:18,21) (Rom. 6:23) (Gen. 2:17). Jesus did not suffer in fire and brimstone, but He tasted death for every man (Heb. 2:9). He was temporarily separated from God. The punishment for sin, therefore, is everlasting separation from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power (2 Thess. 1:9).
Darkness and fire are two words that are used in the Bible to describe spiritual death. Lost people are already in “darkness” and “fire” (I John 2:9) (Jude 23). Therefore, these words are used figuratively to mean ignorance and uselessness. Lost people do not know God, and they are therefore useless in honoring Him or fellowshipping with Him. Jesus deliberately spoke in figures of speech (and the truth is hid to the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes) so that lost people would not understand truth and be converted since they have been appointed to destruction (Matthew 13:11) (I Peter 2:8).Words like damned, tormented, fitted to destruction, condemned and ‘lake of fire and brimestone’ also show that state the unrighteous are already in and, therefore, will be in throughout eternity. The wrath of God is His perfect judgment.
There is a passage in the bible that gives a description of what it’s like in Hell.
It is found in the 19th chapter of Luke with the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In the 23rd verse, we find there is a great gulf that separates the saved in heaven and the lost in hell; therefore, Jesus is the only one who can communicate across that gulf. (Imagine on one side of a gulf where someone could see the color blue and on the other side there is someone who has never seen it as it is and/or denies it even exits). Jesus, in the form of Abraham, would be the one talking to, and judging, the rich man in this parable. The character of Abraham is used because the bible says it is the faith of Abraham that is counted as righteousness. The word ‘torments,’ in this verse, comes from the Greek word ‘basinitzo’, which means unrest. In the 24th verse the rich man addresses Abraham as Father, but not because he knows Abraham as Father. Lost people see God as a ruler and judge, but they can’t see him as a father. A father loves and takes care of his children, whether they acknowledge him or not. The lost insist they are taking care of themselves; they don’t want or need an all-controlling father, or God.
When the rich man cries “have mercy on me” he is NOT screaming in pain, he is NOT saying he is a sinner who needs forgiveness, because in his mind he is not a sinner in need of forgiveness. “His conscience is seared with a hot iron.” (1 Tim 4:1-3). The bible says “Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.” (Titus 1:15-16) “Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another.” (Rom 2:15)
Also, in this 24th verse, the Greek word for ‘tormented’ changes when the rich man stands before Abraham. The Greek word for ‘tormented’ becomes ‘odunasai’, which means physical and mental pain. The word for ‘flame’ in Greek is ‘phlogos’, which means a ‘flame of fire’. Therefore, the “tormented in this flame” in this passage is translated correctly to mean He is physically and mentally suffering in a flame of fire. Matthew 15:30 says “And they shall be cast into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth”. The reason they are suffering physically, mentally, wailing and gnashing their teeth is foretold by Jesus when he says, during the day of their judgment; “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”(Matt 7:22-24) This is the fire the rich man, and all lost religious people, will experience in asking for mercy by way of their works. When they are told by Jesus to depart from him because they are workers of iniquity, it will be the biggest jolt to their idea of righteousness they will ever experience. It will be more tolerable for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah than these religious people, because religious people have the most self-righteous pride to lose.
“Tormented in this flame” are literal words, but the words “his conscience is seared with a hot iron” are literal words, too. What is the difference between hot iron and fire? They both hurt physically in a physical mortal world, but we are talking about a spiritual pain and torment. There can be no physical pain or torment in an immortal body.
It is in this frame of mind that the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to “dip his finger in water.” In the bible, water represents the Holy Spirit of truth. “This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.” (1 John 5:6; John 3:5; Eph 5:6) and “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.” (Heb 10:22) The rich man wants to “cool his tongue”. The bible says “And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell;” (James 3:6) and “These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness (uselessness) is reserved for ever”. (Peter 2:17) What the rich man is asking for, therefore, is the faith he wrongly thinks that Lazarus has the power to give him.
The verses 27 and 28 contradict those who claim the rich man (in verse 24) is burning in a literal fire and just wants a little water to cool off. When he asked Abraham to send Lazarus “to testify to his sons, so they might not come to his place of torment” (which is now, again ’basinitzo’, or unrest), the rich man verifies that the taste of water he was asking for wasn’t liquid water. He was asking for the faith that saved Lazarus. But all this request did was to further prove he didn’t know what that faith was. Then he tried to get faith for his sons. He couldn’t get it, he didn’t earn it, but maybe his sons could.
“God is the savior of all men, specially of those that believe” (1 Tim 4:10) In Heaven and Hell there will be unspeakable joy, which means there are no human words that can describe the joy, peace and happiness that eternity holds for everyone. Some will be happy in eternal fellowship and communion with our Heavenly Father and some will be forever lost to that fellowship. Since the lost are fitted for it, they can never acknowledge the fact that God is the source of their eternal happiness and ‘that’ will be the worm that never dies, but they will be happy without it and their torment will be temporary. This is the “good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people.”(Luke 2:10) for which a loving God will be glorified.