Hell/Hades is the Lake of Fire

[hobie]

The "lake of fire" described in Revelation is the ultimate destiny of the wicked. It is the Hell/Hades we find where the wicked will meet their ultimate fate and are punished with eternal separation from God as they perish. The lake of fire is the Second Death from which the wicked meet their end which scripture shows happens at the end of the thousand years of the Millennium..

Revelation 20:7-9
7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.

The wicked perish in the fire from God after the thousand year reign of Christ with His saints in heaven, all those who have not received the mark of the beast or its image scripture shows.

We see the words of Christ Himself of what will happen to the wicked at the end in the lake of fire/Hell/Hades...

Matthew 7:13 King James Version (KJV)
"13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:"

Matthew 10:28 King James Version (KJV)
"28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

Matthew 13:40-42 King James Version (KJV)
"40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. 41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

Matthew 25:41 King James Version (KJV)
"41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:"

We have to repent or we shall perish as is see here, and how will the wicked perish is shown above, thrown into the lake of fire...

Luke 13:3 King James Version (KJV)
"3 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."

And Christ gives us eternal life...

John 3:14-16 King James Version (KJV)
"14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The wicked will be separated from God forever and ever, it is the end of sin and sinners as they will be destroyed and perish in the lake of fire.

But the saints have nothing to fear, Christ will take the saints to heaven when He comes at the Second Coming as He promised.

John 14:1-3
1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

Revelation 20:4
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

 

[hobie]

Now there has been much confusion brought in by the pagan Greek ideas mixed in, but its clear the lake of fire that the Bible speaks of, is 'Hell' or 'Hades'. Christ gives us some clues when He said 'As in the Days of Lot', we find it in Luke 17:28.
Luke 17:28
Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;

It was just another day, and was starting as usual, and folks were waking up and eating their morning meal and having their morning beverage and doing everything they did every other morning, it looked like another great day and then suddenly everything changed. We see it in the next part of the text:
Luke 17:29-30
29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.

So what did Jesus mean by this. Well lets look what was happening 'in the days of Lot'.
10 And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.
11 Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other.
12 Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.
13 But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly.

Lot had picked out a place to settle in and it looks like a good choice with good sources of refreshing water and nice vegetation all around, but there was a problem. The people there it says 'were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly.' and as a result of that, after years of patience God sent two angels to Sodom and we know how they were treated by the people of Sodom. The angels went to Lot’s home. Abraham meanwhile, was certainly praying for Lot who was his nephew because God had clued him in that Sodom was doomed. And the angels told Lot to basically, get out of town, and escape for your life, and dont look behind you, escape to the mountains lest you be,” what? The angels say to get out lest you be 'consumed', lest you be burnt up. We see it in Genisis

12 And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place:
13 For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.
14 And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law.
15 And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.

You see Lot went and grabbed his family and the Bible says he got out of town and the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. It rained down and it destroyed the city in basically a lake of fire, not the one that will be at the end, but Christ was giving a very true picture of what will happen at the end. Jesus speaks also of Noah's day with the same warning He gives about Lot and his family in Sodom and Gomorrah.

Matthew 24:36-39
36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

The wages of sin for the wicked is they perish in the lake of fire, which is the final place for the wicked and sinners before the Lord, which is the hell we are shown by scripture. Now the destruction of the wicked is said to be "everlasting" or "eternal." Some have assumed that the wicked will burn in hellfire for eternity, but even in our courts that would not be considered 'just' and God wouldnt do that.

Jesus said: "The chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire" which we know are the same as the fires/smoke given in Revelations descriptions of the same event. .

Matthew 3:12
Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Luke 3:17
Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.

The fact is that an eternal fire does not mean a fire that will never go out as we find same expression is used in Jude concerning the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha.

Jude 1:7
Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

In this use for the fire in the destruction of the wicked of 'unquenchable', 'eternal' 'everlasting', most people today are applying modern definitions without understanding their context.

Sodom and Gomorrha are not burning today, yet they burned with "eternal fire," and we are told that it was an example of something, lets look..
2 Peter 2:6
And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

Sodom and Gomorrah suffered a punishment of 'eternal fire' . But the wicked people in those cities are not still burning. Those cities and their inhabitants were reduced to ashes. The eternal fire which brought Sodom to ashes is an example of what will finally happen to the wicked. So the fire that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha will also burn the wicked in the lake of fire. This is a eternal fire as like Sodom and Gomorrha.