Neither Jesus, Jude, nor any of Jesus’ other bondservants ever minimized or trivialized the facts of hell’s existence and horrors.
Hell exists because of Jehovah’s pristine holiness. It is God’s holiness that gives heaven its splendor and beauty. It is God’s holiness that gives hell its torment and anguish.
Since the Garden of Eden, God has been revealing His just and fearful wrath against all human ungodliness and unrighteousness. Repeatedly in the New Testament, readers are earnestly warned of Gehenna’s everlasting, unquenchable fire which God has prepared for the devil and his angels.
According to the Bible’s final book, the lake of fire—i.e. the second death—will be the unceasing punishment for all of God’s human and angelic enemies, as well as the destination of His vanquished foes death and Hades (Revelation 20:11-15). This lake which burns with fire and brimstone will be the permanent prison of all the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars (Revelation 21:8).
Jesus tells of a rich man who had experienced a foretaste of the tormenting vengeance of eternal fire (Luke 16:19-31). Because of the agony and anguish he was experiencing, the man sought to warn his five living brothers lest they also die as impenitent sinners. His request was denied because his brethren had the written word of God to persuade them.
Like the rich man’s five brothers, we have God’s written word to persuade us of the existence and vengeance of eternal fire.
Has it?
