“…the blood of Jesus Christ His [God’s] Son cleanses us from all sin.” 1 John 1:7b.

Having examined the way of escaping hell in “Why is There a Hell? Part 1”. Let us now look over some of the aspects of hell itself.

Technically hell is a temporary holding tank reserving the unsaved for the Day of Judgment. This miserable place is located inside the earth and is a place of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

However, on Judgment Day all the occupants of hell will be removed from that miserable place to stand before the judge of all the earth, His name is Jesus Christ.

“For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.” John 5:26-27.

Because Jesus, God the Son, lived life on this earth as a man, He has the right as a man to pass judgment upon those who have experienced the same difficulties and temptations as He.

Jesus was given a shovel and pushed into the trenches with the rest of us. He shoveled mud, hardpan earth, sweated and got calluses with the rest of us. Who better to judge us?

His judgment will be righteous, fair and without partiality, and those who stand before Him will be cast:

“…into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels…” Matthew 25:41b.

The lake of fire was created for the devil and his angels. Not one human being has ever had to go into the lake of fire, because it was created for the devil. Men will find themselves there for their own willful ignorance or their love of wrongdoing.

About the lake of fire, in his book, “Things to Come”, J. Dwight Pentecost tells us that the above statement in Matthew is actually present tense, meaning that the lake of fire was in existence at the time the Lord spoke of it some two thousand years ago.

He then goes on to theorize that the lake of fire may even be a dwarf star. Now this book was printed in 1958, so the science may be dated but the description of the star is chilling.

As shown in the book the characteristics of a dwarf star are extreme density and a temperature of about 30 million degrees Fahrenheit. These properties are enough to burst atoms stripping them of their electrons and create a sea of liquid fire, see chapter 32, “The preparation for the eternal kingdom”.

The upshot is this, at 30 million degrees the question of heat becomes moot and at the risk of misinterpreting Scripture I would like to say that while it will be a dreadful place, the heat of the lake of fire is not what will make this the terrifying place that the Lord Jesus describes in Mark 9:44, 46, 48, “where ‘their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched’”.

“And if your hand makes you sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched – where ‘their their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’” Mark 9:43-44.

“If your hand makes you sin…” Jesus is not telling us to literally cut off our hand, or our foot, or pluck out our eye. The message here is to do everything that can be done to turn from the road to perdition.

The worm of the damned is the conscience which is constantly active, while the fire is the humiliation and agony of remorse for the things which the conscience constantly regurgitates in this lake of real fire.

The conscience of all unbelievers in the lake of fire will be regenerated to function as it was designed to do – convict a person of sin.

Evil serial killers and pedophiles will not revel in their thoughts in the lake of fire; they will relive their evil deeds by feeling the pain and terror of their victims for eternity; as will everyone in the lake of fire!

To bring this all together, the lake of fire is a huge prison designed to hold the devil and his angels for eternity. And for one reason or another rebellious men who have elected to join him.

Why does this have to be this way?

The answer is simple. When a person rejects God, they reject all of Him.

Big deal, men live without God all the time here on earth! No, no, no, God is omnipresent, He is always with us, we may not feel His presence, but He is here, He is next to you right now and as it says in Proverbs 5:

“For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He ponders all his paths.” Proverbs 5:21.

God ponders all your ways; you never leave His mind and as it says in Acts:

“And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us…” Acts 17:26-27.

Notice that last phrase, “He is not far from each one of us”, He is next to you waiting to embrace you as His little child, yet mankind has spent the last six thousand years fleeing from Him. No one living has ever experienced the total absence of God.

The total absence of God means something else too; God is the Creator of everything, that means that there will be an absence of the things He created, such as love, dignity, fellowship, hope, and beauty (both hidden and outward).

In the lake of fire, a person will no longer experience the love of a mother and child, husband and wife or that of the family dog for that matter, think of the torment of a loveless eternity.

Without God, man loses his dignity. You can see some of this in our day as men, women and children were loaded into cattle cars to be transported to gas chambers and then loaded into ovens for cremation, by godless men.

God gives us dignity. There will be no fellowship in the lake of fire, no card games with beer and pretzels, ever. There will be no hope of leaving that awful place, ever.

There will be no beauty either of men or women, nor will there be any rivers and valleys green grass or luxuriant cool trees, nothing beautiful, ever.

The hidden beauty of the heart will turn to ashes as the utter sense of loss captivates a person’s being never a kind face ever.

And again, “their worm does not die”, there will be nothing left but the conscience constantly dredging up horrifying thoughts of the things done in life, bringing about a continual sense of shame and humiliation over their lives.

Worse yet the relentless reminder that all they had to do was accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. Instead, they mocked Him and His messengers and trampled the blood of Christ under foot as though it had no value at all.

God gives everyone the freedom to choose. What will you do with God’s Son?

Why is there a Hell? Part 2 taken from godisrevealed.com posted on 8-19-09, updated and reposted on 2-10-25 ck.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission, all rights reserved.