What About "For Ever"?
In Scripture, "for ever" is often used in conjunction with an event that has already taken place.
For instance, Hannah pledged to God that she would take her infant son Samuel to serve in the temple at Shiloh, where he would abide "for ever" (1 Samuel 1:22). No student of the Bible would take this to mean that he would remain in that temple for as long as time should last. Hannah herself interpreted the statement as meaning that Samuel would serve in the temple for "as long as he liveth" (verse 28).
Jonah stated that he was in the belly of the fish "for ever" (Jonah 2:6), but we know that he endured his eerie journey beneath the sea for "three days and three nights" (Jonah 1:17).
More than 50 times the Bible uses "for ever" to mean "for as long as time lasts in that specific case." The term is used colloquially today to describe a downpour or a hot summer's afternoon (or a sermon!) that "went on forever."
Death, Not Eternal Torment
The Bible tells us that "the wages of sin is" not eternal life in hellfire, but "death" (Romans 6:23), the same penalty God assured Adam and Eve would be theirs if they ate the forbidden fruit.
Ezekiel states clearly that "the soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4), and a plethora of other Bible verses and passages endorse this position. The prophet Malachi wrote that sinners would burn up as "stubble" and would become "ashes under the soles" of the feet of the redeemed (Malachi 4:1, 3). Even the final fate of Satan is explicitly pronounced in Ezekiel 28:18, where the Bible says that the enemy of souls will be reduced to ashes upon the "earth." Compare that with Psalm 37:10 ("For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be"), Psalm 68:2 ("as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God"), and other similar verses. Soon you get a clear picture that the purpose of the fires of hell is to eradicate sin and to expunge the universe of its awful presence.
Interestingly, it was the devil who was first to suggest that sinners would not die (Genesis 3:4). A hell where sinners never perish would prove the devil right and would make God, who told Eve she would "surely die" as a result of transgression (Genesis 2:17), a liar.
The Lumber Camp
Some years ago in a lumber camp there worked a giant of a man who was feared by all who knew him. Rumor had it that he had killed several people.
One day he summoned a fellow worker and demanded to know if the man was telling people that nobody was burning in the fires of hell.
"That's right," the co-worker answered. "That's what the Bible says."
"Can you show me where it says that?" the burly woodsman inquired, betraying a tinge of hope in his gravelly voice. He sat in rapt attention as his Christian colleague showed him text after text from the Bible proving that God is not now torturing anybody in hell and that God will not permit anyone to burn in the lake of fire any longer than necessary.
As they continued to study God's Word, the man whom others regarded as having a heart of stone dropped his face into his hands and began to weep.
"My son died 20 years ago in a bar fight," he finally explained. "I was told that he had gone straight to hell, where God was torturing him and would torture him forever. Ever since that time I've been mad with God."
That day, his heart was softened and his entire life transformed as he came to understand what the Bible really says about the end of the wicked.
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