The Bible speaks of conscious, eternal punishment. God will even punish those who desired to murder, but never took the opportunity. He warns that if we hate someone, we commit murder in our heart, etc.

All are sins that will send us to hell. Some like to picture hell as a fun, hedonistic, pleasure-filled place where they can engage in all the sensual sins that are forbidden here.

Others accept that hell is a place of punishment, but believe that the punishment is to be annihilated--to cease conscious existence. Because they can't conceive that a loving God would punish people in eternal torment, they believe hell is just a metaphor for the grave.

While it is true that God is love (I John 4:8), He is also just (Nehemiah 9:32-33; 2 Thessalonians 1:6) and eternal (Psalm 90:2; I Timothy 1:17). God will therefore punish the evil doer (Isaiah 13:11) and this punishment will be eternal. It will also be conscious.

Scripture tells us of the rich man who found himself in hell (Luke 16:19-31). He was conscious and was able to feel pain, to thirst, and to experience remorse. He wasn't asleep in the grave; he was in a place of "torment".

We tend to forget what pain is like when we don't have it. Can you imagine how terrible it would be to be in agony, with no hope of relief? Many human beings go insane if they are merely isolated for a long time from other people.

Imagine how terrible it would be if God simply withdrew all the things we hold so dear--friendship, love, color, light, peace, joy, laughter. Hell isn't just a place with an absence of God's blessings; it is punishment for sin.

It is literal torment, forever. That's why the Bible warns that it is fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. The fate of the unsaved is described with such fearful words as the following:

"Shame and everlasting contempt" (Daniel 12:2)

"Everlasting punishment" (Matthew 25:46)

"Weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 24:51)

"Fire unquenchable" (Luke 3:17) "Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish" (Romans 2:8-9)

"Everlasting destruction from the presense of the Lord" (2 Thesssalonians 1:9)

"Eternal fire...the blackness of darkness for ever" (Jude 7, 13)

Revelation 14:10, 11 tells us the final, eternal destiny of the sinner: "He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone...the smoke of their torment ascended up for ever and ever; and they have no rest day or night."

Scripture is quite clear: hell is a real place. It is not mere unconsciousness. It is not temporal. It is eternal torment. If hell is a place of knowing nothing or a refer- ence to the grave into which we go at death, Jesus' statements about hell make no sense.

He said that if your hand, foot, or eye causes you to sin, it would be better to remove it than to "go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where the worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:43-48).

Jesus spoke more of hell than of heaven and spent much time warning people not to go there. After all, if people just stopped existing, why warn them? If hell were temporal, they'd get out in awhile.

But because hell is eternal and conscious, we must do everything we can to warn them.

Next - Repentance