God, Divine Justice & A Forever Hell: What the Bible Says

Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer

Guest: Carl Broggi

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 1/14/26. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Sam Rohrer:

Hello and welcome to this Wednesday edition of Stand In the Gap Today. It’s also our second bimonthly emphasis on Israel, the Middle East and biblical prophecy. Now there are many headlines, things happening today on which I could go and spend some time, but not going to do that. We’re going to stay pretty much right on our focus here today, and that is Israel, the Middle East and Biblical prophecy. Today I’m thrilled to have with me really for the first time this year, pastor Carl Broggi. He’s the senior pastor of Community Bible Church in Beaufort, South Carolina and host of his own radio program entitled The Scriptures With a website that you can find and a lot of things there, search the scriptures.org. Now, our theme today is they’re going to go this direction several weeks ago, actually back in December. So it’s not that long ago.

A well-known and respected figure in Christian film settings in particular made a startling pronouncement that hell and eternal punishment referred to more technically as eternal retribution was neither a reality as we’ve understood it to be, nor is hell or a eternal retribution forever. And he’s declared in my Christian Daily, and I’ll just tell you who it is, it’s Kirk Kaon and we would recognize that it was in the left behind series and so many well-known and that’s why we’re dealing with it. But he declared in my Christian Daily that in eternal hell constitutes in his words quote, cruel and unusual punishment. But he also said in the Christian Post, I believe in hell, I believe in judgment. I have not denied the authority of scripture. So he said those as well. But some people like me were shocked. There’s a lot of other things that were said, but those are two I picked out.

I was shocked and it forced me to go back and do more research on what he had said in order to confirm what was actually being reported. And sadly, it is true. Now, others likely rejoice in what he said, but what does the Bible say as to this matter of judgment and hell and how it fits into God’s plan of redemption also fits into biblical prophecy and how we as believers and people generally view sin in salvation and redemption and eternal life because in the end, what God says is true in any attempt to change what he says is fatal and we need to know. And so such bold contrarian statements such as Kirk Cameron has made must be considered in light of scripture, not her opinion, but what does God’s word say? So title I’ve chosen to frame today’s conversation is this God, divine justice and a forever hell. Now what does the Bible say? And with it I welcome to the program today, Dr. Carl Bargi. Carl, thanks for being back with us.

Carl Broggi:

Sam, great to be with you. There’s so much going on prophetically doctrinally that I know you want to discuss. So thanks for having me back today.

Sam Rohrer:

You’re welcome. And Carl, just before we get into this theme that I just introduced and we’ll lay it out, here’s a timely aspect of it because at the end of the day, the reality is that before this program ends, we could be involved in a world war where the United States and Iran and Israel and other Middle Eastern countries could be embroiled in a conflict of major consequences. For instance, according to Iran International, there are likely over 12,000 Iranians that have been killed in the last few days under the orders of the Iranian Islamic government. CBS as of this morning is now saying that that number exceeds 20,000. And the Islamic leadership is being threatened by civilian protests, which we know if anybody is looking, but they are well threatening even more with some of their leaders saying that they need to move ahead because they want blood to run in the streets, which it is because to them, their ma de the antichrist we would view can’t come back until it does.

So there’s a lot of things driving last evening, president Donald Trump in his digital tweets told Iran again that the US will intervene militarily. It’s got the world on edge, told the protestors continue to fight, help is on the way. And now everyone seems to me politically Carl to be boxed in with statements made on all sides with consequences if they actually do what they say and consequences if they don’t. Here’s a question from a Prophetical perspective, how are you considering what is happening in the Middle East and the fact that right now today over half of the countries in the world are either at war or funding preparations for war? How do you look at these things? Some actors are saying the red horse of Revelation is about to ride.

Carl Broggi:

Yeah, it’s interesting. That will obviously create a lot of clickbait to say, oh, the red horse is here are coming. Obviously the red horse along with the four horsemen of the apocalypse cannot happen until the church is removed. John sees an open door in heaven and you don’t read of the church and the revelation from the fourth chapter again until the 19th chapter when we come back with Christ. And so these horsemen of the apocalypse happened during the great tribulation. The first one of course is the white horse, the antichrist, and he makes a covenant with Israel to be a peacemaker. He comes with no arrows but with a bow on a white horse like Christ will come back. So he’s a great imitator. And after he comes with the white horse, he then takes away peace from the earth and the red horse comes and the birth pangs begin to pump up into increase.

So I don’t think these are obviously the horsemen of the apocalypse. However, in Ezekiel 38 and 39, God speaks of a man named Gog who’s from a land called Magog, and he’s with a coalition of nations including Iran called Persian scripture, Turkey and some other Middle East nations that are going to with Russia, which is Magog attack Israel. So right now Iran is ragging on two nations, Israel and the United States, and they’re threatening both if our president does anything. So what I think could happen is that what might be happening is this war is being set up. Now, some would say this war could unfold before the rapture and it’s possible nothing would prohibit it. My guess is it happens after the church is removed and there is this space of time and maybe it’s at that time this war unfolds, in which case the antichrist steps on the scene. It’s a supernatural ending to the war. And of course he comes with signs, wonders, and miracles. He may very well claim to be the one who ended the war, but the seven year period then begins when he makes a peace treaty with Israel and then the horses of the apocalypse begin to come in those great seal. So it’s really fascinating to see what’s happening and where it can go and no one knows, but our eyes are wide open in light of the fact of this prophetic picture God has given us.

Sam Rohrer:

We only have a few seconds left, but does it strike you that the intensity and the frequency and all of that is just undeniably increasing?

Carl Broggi:

There’s no question that’s what birth pangs do. They increase in frequency and intensity, but nonetheless, you have to have a pregnancy before you can have birth pangs. And I take it that the birth pangs in Matthew 24 perfectly parallel those seal judgments not by accident, but for that pregnancy to happen before the water to break. The church has to be raptured and you have to have a pregnancy. And I think that’s what we’re seeing. We’re near term possibly for the pregnancy to rupture.

Sam Rohrer:

Ladies and gentlemen, knowing scripture does make a big difference, doesn’t it? And that’s why we talk about these things right now. When we come back, we’re not going to go on that subject, but we’re going to get into these comments about hell is it forever? What does the Bible say if you’re just joining us, this is our bimonthly emphasis that we do every other Wednesday on the theme of Israel, the Middle East and biblical prophecy. Oftentimes we’ll also take certain themes like the one we’re dealing with today. Theme of the program is this God, divine justice and a forever hell. What does the Bible say? And we’re doing this because a well-known individual, Kirk Cameron by name back in December made some statements about hell. And I already quoted some of those in the last segment. So we want to look at that because you cannot talk about matters of judgment and hell, which obviously means you’re talking about what God says about sin and all of the things surrounding that without also talking about what God says.

And God talks about his plan of redemption, which is what the Bible’s all about. And that takes you into prophecy and that takes you to Israel and Jerusalem, the Jewish people and well, you just can’t separate one from the other bottom line. So we want to talk and lay this out. Now, the Bible clearly states for instance, in multiple places for instance, like Matthew 25 46 says this, and these shall go away into everlasting punishment with the righteous into life, eternal. Revelation 20 verse 10. It says there that the devil will be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone and be tormented day and night forever and ever, meaning that hell goes forever and ever yet many people would love to believe that God does not mean what he says. So what does the Bible say about hell and eternal retribution or punishment? Carl, let’s just go there. I’m going to just open this up for you. Take the segment now and provide an apologetic more perspective on hell and lay out the what and the why of it. For many people, it just doesn’t make sense that hell is compatible with the love of God, but there’s more to it than that. What is the biblical truth about a real and forever hell?

Carl Broggi:

Well, I preached a sermon recently where I gave 10 reasons why Cameron was in error and why hell is forever. I don’t think I could get through ’em all, but let me hit a few of them. You just mentioned one of them in Matthew 25, these will on his left, he says the part go into the eternal fire and then he’ll say a few verses later in 25 46, these will go into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life. So first and foremost, he is an error because he’s redefining words. Now, it is true that the Hebrew word ola, which is typically translated forever in the word ion, that can be translated in our English bibles as forever or for eternal can in places not mean forever and ever. Words find there are meaning in context. So the word apple, am I referring to the computer?

Am I referring to something I eat to the city? Depends on the context. And so words find their meaning in the context. When you look at it contextually, there’s no debate, there never has been concerning this word ion when it references eternal punishment in eternal life, even the word eternal is used in reference to God. Now to the king, eternal, immortal, invisible to him be honor and glory forever and ever. And so if God’s not eternal, hell is not forever. Heaven is not forever. And so he is manipulating words because he’s not going to say, I deny the authority of scripture, but he’s applying a very weak way in which to interpret the Bible. And that’s why God warns, let not many of you become teachers knowing that you’ll incur a stricter judgment. So first, he’s distorting the meaning of word. Secondly, there are clear examples in the word of God that would indeed deny the doctrine of annihilationism.

For instance, I just flipped to Revelation 19 and the beast was seized. That’s the antichrist. And with him, his false prophet who did all these signs and so forth, and these two, this is at the second coming, these two were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone. I like to call this, I think I coined the term, I’ve never heard anyone else use it. I call this a reverse rapture, just as my body is not suited to walk in streets of gold, this mortality must put on immortality. Neither is the believer’s body suited to spend an eternity in hell because in hell the body is not consumed. It experiences torment. And so the beast and the false prophet, they’re the first ones ever to go into hell. Right now people are in Hades, but death in Hades someday in the end will be cast into the lake of fire.

The first two recipients are these two men. It’s interesting, a thousand years later, Sam, the devil who deceived them, he’d been in the abyss, chained out for the millennial reign. He’s released. He’s released for a short period of time and the Bible says He too is thrown into the lake of fire where the beast and the false prophet are also and they will be tormented forever and ever. And so a thousand years later, they’re still very much alive, the beast, the antichrist and the false prophet where Satan comes in this term forever and ever contextually in revelation means forever and ever. It’s used of God and the throne in Revelation four, it’s used of Christ that he’ll reign forever and ever. So again, they’re distorting some of the clear examples. Even Luke 16, Hades, there’s a man in torment, he’s in agony in the flame.

It’s real. He’s conscious. He remembers his brother, I can’t get out of here, but maybe my brothers won’t need to come here. And so again, then God takes that place in Revelation 2011 to 14 says He casts it into the lake that burns with fire in brimstone and it’s a place where Jesus uses the word gona. Gona was a valley outside of Jerusalem where you threw your garbage or human refuge, dead animals. And it was a place where the worm did not die. The fire was not quenched, continual burning of fires. And Jesus used that dramatic term to give a visual of what hell is like for all of eternity. Third, to deny the doctrine of hell is I think to encourage sin. God’s put eternity in our hearts. He’s called us to live differently and just as the reality of hell may shock our listeners and revolt some of them, so does sin violate and offend God Almighty?

And just like it’s hard for me to contemplate, I think Sam, the horrors of hell, God can’t bear to look on the horrors of sin because he is so holy. And so this false doctrine of conditionalism basically denies that God is holy, that he’s just, and therefore he’s now winking at sin. It’s not all that serious. And what does that do that encourages people to sin? Listen, if I go to hell and if I’m there for a second, and again conditionalism, you’ll meet different people in the spectrum. Some people are just immediately burned up. That’s the end. Some are maybe there for a year, some for 10 years, they’re all over the map, but not forever. Well, some people will reason under the delusion of the evil one. Look, just send it up. You’re not going to last forever anyway. Enjoy the flesh, enjoy your fallen sinful nature.

And so we’re encouraging sin. I think also it’s a false doctrine that Cameron and others like him are propagating and that it removes the urgency for personal evangelism and world missions. It takes away the urgency to win people. But when you look at people and you see that they are potentially headed for an eternity without the Lord, listen, our church sacrifices, we have 400 and I forgot 27 missionaries right now all over the world and we sacrifice, we give, we build orphanages, we built a Bible college, we’ve done all kinds of things. Why waste our time? Why waste our energy? Why waste our prayers if hell is not forever? And so this is a ploy of the evil one to crush evangelism and to crush world missions. I think it’s sad. In addition to say that it’s not forever is really to make Jesus a liar because he speaks in Matthew five of those who are in the tombs who will hear his voice.

Some will come to a resurrection of life, some will come to a resurrection of judgment. Why do they need a resurrected body? Because in hell they will live forever and ever and ever. Daniel affirmed the same thing in the 12th chapter. Those who will awake these to everlasting life. They’re the word Olam means forever and ever and ever, but the others to disgrace in everlasting contempt. Now we’ve made the prophet Daniel a liar in Jesus who quotes that prophet. And again, we’re taking apart the clear teaching of scripture. In addition, if hell is not forever, it mocks the doctrine of the great tribulation. God is going during the time of the great tribulation. By the time the seal judgments that include the four, four horses and the trumpet judgments are over half, the planet is dead. Jesus said if those days had not been cut short, no one on the planet would have survived if he let it go longer than seven years.

But he doesn’t. What is God doing? Is he enjoying this from heaven? No, it’s his final wake up call because he knows there was coming a moment when it will be forever too late. And so those 21 judgments are designed to grab people’s attention just like nine 11 did at least for a month in America. In addition, this is a false hermeneutic. Hermeneutics is how you interpret the Bible. And he’s using emotionalism. Oh, he refers to hell as like an eternal barbecue. Listen, God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked and he’s appealing to emotion rather than the sound reasoning of scripture. He’s distorting the justice of God. And I think maybe the 10th reason I haven’t hit all 10 is that he is creating a watered down rendition of what it cost Jesus to purchase us. We need to think through this. When you minimize the judgment of hell, then you are minimizing the death of Jesus on the cross because his death had to equal anything that people would experience in hell for God’s justice to be satisfied. And so there’s a link between the reality of hell and Jesus’ death on the cross. So if hell is not real or even eternal, then the penalty that Jesus bore on the cross is lessened and now we’re mocking his precious blood. And I don’t want to do that.

Sam Rohrer:

I don’t want to do that either. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you don’t want to do that either. That’s why the authority of scripture means the authority of scripture. Is it all right? Is it not right? I mean, is it true then it’s all true. Anyway, we’ll come back. We’re going to continue further on the consequences. Does it make any difference about what you believe about a hell and it’s forever nature. Alright, Carl, that was a great job of laying out in the last segment what the scripture says. And I want to go further into some of what Kirk Cameron said specifically. But one of the things I also want to deal with in this segment if I can is the concept that we can approach scripture and impose our reasoning. For instance, one of the things the quotes I gave in the first segment was that he had told one publication that an eternal hell, an eternal punishment was a cruel and unusual punishment.

Now, people listening in America today would catch that and say, well, yeah, that comes right out of the Constitution. And we understand that cruel and unusual punishment when it comes to man’s justice is why our founders put that in there. And so people know what that means, but that transfers over the ability to take and transfer that over and superimpose it on what God says it to me as a part of what we are seeing today and heretical movements away from scripture, I grew up believing that if the Bible says it, I believe it and that’s good enough for me. And not everything that I may read at first glance in scripture, can I fully explain it? But if the Bible says it, I’m going to believe it and pray for wisdom that I will come to understand it. But they’re trying to reconcile the fact that God, the God of love can actually say that somebody who does not trust him will go to a forever hell. That from a human perspective I think is what he’s battling and what a lot are dealing with. But would you address that issue and put that into perspective? What’s God’s standard and how must we think about God, his consistency, his character as it applies to a forever judgment and a forever hell?

Carl Broggi:

I know we didn’t really define the term annihilationism or conditionalism. Maybe that would be helpful to some people because I don’t want to misrepresent Kirk Cameron, as most people know, I think it was December the 30 he was doing his national podcast with his 22-year-old son James, and they concluded together that hell is not forever. So when we speak of eternal retribution, what we’re saying is that when someone dies as a lost person without trusting Christ that they’re not in hell for a short time or for a second or for 10 years, but for forever and ever and ever and ever. And that’s the fear of it. That’s the thing that is very difficult to embrace. And so this term conditional immortality basically said, you will only live forever based on the condition if you’ve received Christ as your savior. But if you haven’t received Christ as your savior, you will be annihilated.

And again, Cameron would not say like some annihilationist that you’ll be instantly annihilated. He would argue in some cases you might suffer for a week, a month. It’s open to the interpreter and whatever he wants it to be, but he would say it’s not forever. And the first mention of this was in the fourth century, but it doesn’t really show itself in church history until like the 1850s in England, some of the Anglicans denied it. And there was a guy, a congregational pastor in America, I think his name was Edward White, and he wrote a book where he systematically said why hell was not forever. And then more recently in the 1980s, there was a guy, Edward Fudge, who fudged the scriptures I would say, and he wrote a book called The Fire that Consumes and he said, no, it’s not forever. So it’s packaged under annihilationism, obstructionism termination, extermination extinction.

It’s the same heresy, but God is clear when a man is in hell, he’s there forever. And that’s the reality of it when a man goes to hell, initially I remember walking to school one day, Sam, and it was eight below zero literally there in New England. My mother didn’t have her license. My dad was out doing surgery early in the morning as an ophthalmologist and my brother Rich and I were walking to school and it was so cold, but we had a sense of when we get to school it’s going to be warm and it was about a mile to get there, but it’s going to be warm when we get there. And so you can live with that conscious expectation, oh, there’s torment, but things are going to change. Guy goes to hell and he thinks, oh, if I can just maybe get comfortable, maybe if I can lay on my side and I can ease the pain.

And he realizes that he can’t get comfortable that this is forever. And after a while, the torment of it all in the reality of it all hits him that this never, ever ever changes. And so we’ve basically removed the doctrine of hell from the evangelical pulpit when I became a pastor in the church I’m at in 19 90, 80 6% of Americans believed in hell according to Pew. And I don’t know what Barner would say, he’s one of your guests now it’s 54%. And when you drop down to those who are in their twenties, it’s about 20%. And so this is a doctrine that is basically being distinguished, but just because Cameron doesn’t like it doesn’t change it. I don’t like war or murder or poverty or racism or child abuse, but my not liking it doesn’t change. The reality of it, hating to die doesn’t change the fact that we’re going to die someday.

And I’ve heard some pastors preach and soften hell and some who even take delight in it. There’s no delight in it. God takes no delight in the death of the wicked. So Kurt Cameron, I just hope that he’s going to come around here, but this is what he said on his 12 three podcast, and I’m quoting him, I hate to be misquoted. A lady came out of church the other day, last month actually, and she said, I heard that you taught Pastor Carl then unless you become a member of this church, you’ll go to hell. I said, listen, if everything I’ve ever said since I’ve been in this pulpit is on tape, I’ll pay you $10,000. If you can show me one time when I’ve said that that’s being misquoted, I’m quoting him. Now in context, Cameron said, eternal judgment or eternal punishment doesn’t necessarily mean that we are being tormented and punished forever and ever, every moment for all of eternity.

It means that the punishment we deserve is irreversible, it’s permanent, it’s eternal. You’re dead, you’ve been destroyed, you cease to exist, you have perished. And then a few weeks later, he doubles down on that and he hasn’t changed it. Now I’m not his judge. I hope he knows the Lord. If he does, he’ll come around and he will see the error of his ways. If he doesn’t know the Lord, he’s going to slide deeper into heresy and people like him, he’s famous and evangelicals like him, it doesn’t make it right. And we need to warn people what God plainly says. And if a person goes to hell, they go there not because God wanted them to go there, but because they rejected the provision of God. God made a wave of escape so that no one has to go to hell. When God says, I wish that none should perish, but all come to repentance, he meant just that he wasn’t blowing smoke.

I believe that anyone who wants to be saved can be saved. I believe that Christ died not for a certain select group, but for all men made a provision for all men. And while his death is sufficient to save anyone, it becomes the efficient for anyone listening when they put their faith where God put his judgment on Christ. And so the cross equaled the judgment of hell. So God provides a way of escape. And even for the guy who’s never heard the name of Christ, I’ve written a booklet about those who’ve never heard of Jesus. How can God justly send them to hell? Because it’s not because they didn’t believe in a savior in whose name they never heard, it’s because they suppressed the truth that they did have so that they didn’t get more truth. But if a man says, I know there’s a God, I see him in creation, I feel him in my conscience. If God has to parachute a missionary into that place, he will get the gospel to that person. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but God is just, he can’t overlook sin. He is holy. Sin cannot be compatible in his presence. And so he deals with it with a doctrine of hell.

Sam Rohrer:

Carl, that’s great. Lemme just ask you a question here because most listening I think may know, but clarify this and that is the reality of hell. Did God make hell for mankind? Clarify that it’s understood where hell came from, why God created it,

Carl Broggi:

He created it. The Bible says for the devil in his angels, and by the way, Cameron does not deny that angels will spend eternity in hell that they’re not annihilated. Now, angels are persons. They’re not human persons, but they have all the characteristics of mind willing emotions as I cover in my course on angel ology. And yet angels are going to be there forever. Now wait a minute, to whom much is given, much is expected and man is created higher than the angels. So God is not going to lower his standard for humans where angels are going to spend an eternal eternity and divine retribution for which hell was originally created. But humans also are going to spend an eternity there if they were reject God’s provision. So if he were sound and thinking in his theology, he would have to conclude hell is forever because it’s forever. For angels, we have greater accountability than angels because we’re humans. Someday we will judge the angels. And so again, it’s a distorted twisted theology where verses and words are taken out of their contextual, historical, grammatical context. And you can come up with all kinds of false doctrine

Sam Rohrer:

And all the more reason, ladies and gentlemen, when we say the whole council of God, oftentimes that phrase is used by people for very Sunday reasons. But if it’s really meant, it meant that when we go to scripture and we talk about a theme such as we’re talking about today that you can’t take just one verse or as Dr. Carl Broggi is saying, to take the words of that verse and take it out of context and come up with something that is contrary to other parts of scripture. God’s word does not contradict itself. God is all truth. There is no error, there is no mistake, there’s no contradiction, can’t be, and God remains God and God’s word remains God’s word. And so again, all these things we’re talking about, just an example, we could talk about a lot of other things today other than just health, so many heresies.

But this is an important one. Now, when we come back, we’re going to conclude by looking at using this as an example. How then should we live as God believing people? Well, Carl, as we go into our final segment here, I’m going to want to ask you to close this segment in prayer for a number of reasons. Because this theme about which we’re discussing today, example of an individual that is well known, leading people astray, taking a position that scripture does not take and telling people in the matter of hell that it’s not forever and therefore downplaying its severity. And I mean they’re really into a dangerous area, heresy that is. But there’s a lot of things happening out there and there’s a lot of things happening across our country that we’ve talked about in other programs. We certainly know that we are in days of great significance.

And as we talked about the beginning when I asked you how you perceiving things in the Middle East, you went right to Prophetical scripture and how what God has told us is laying itself out. And all in the midst of this we’re told not to be deceived. And there’d be a lot of distractions that would come up. I’m glad that today, and I really wasn’t aware of it until sometime ago, but during the program, Franklin Graham had called for a time of prayer of people across the country because of our sin as a nation, which it is great. And made a comment that if we’ve thought things to this point have been bad, just wait something of that flavor. Very significant. And there is nothing more significant ladies and gentlemen than our relationship with the Lord in returning to him. So Carl, I’m going to want you to pray for our nation and all that’s going on and all that when we close.

But here’s my question to you right now in this theme, and that is if the consequences of believing that his Bible says is real and forever as compared to what others would like to believe, that it is not forever and it’s a cessation of life. I mean, if the consequences of that were not so significant, we could just ignore it, but we can’t ignore it and that’s why we’re dealing with it today. So here’s my question. How does the truth of hell and judgment and forever punishment, how does that fit into God’s greater plan of redemption, understanding prophecy yet to unfold? And how should this impact both the saved and the unsaved who might be listening to this program right now?

Carl Broggi:

Well, Sam, several things come to mind. First and foremost, for the believer, I think the reality of eternal retribution ought to increase my hatred for sin. God gave doctrine not to make us smarter sinners but to make us more like Christ. And so does hell offend you. I said earlier, just as we can’t bear sometimes to look on the hearts of hell, even so God cannot bear to look upon the horrors of sin and as revolting as hell is for us, so is sin for God. And so if sin is this bad that it deserves hell, then we ought to hate sin as God hates sin. I find it interesting again, when Jesus looks for a word in the Jewish vocabulary to describe hell, he goes to that valley gehenna and then he’ll say, if your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than having two eyes to be cast into hell.

And then in the next verse he says, where there worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. Again, speaking of eternality, not of annihilationism. So he’s using a dramatic figure because he wants to get his listeners attention and he’s obviously not teaching mutilation but mortification, if you plug out your right eye, you’d still have your left eye to exercise your sin. If you cut off your right hand is in the parallel passage, you’d still have your left hand to execute the temptation. And so while it may seem dramatic, Jesus is underscoring, we need to look at sin as God does. We had better treat sin the way sin would treat us because if you are out of the kingdom of God, you go to a place where their worm doesn’t die. And Jesus knows, he said in John three, the lights come into the world.

Men love the darkness rather than the light. Men love sin by nature. And again, annihilationism encourages it. It encourages sin. Oh, what’s the big deal? I can sleep with a thousand women. I can get drugged up, drunk up, doesn’t matter. I’m just going to be annihilated. That’s the devil talking. So number one, the reality of hell should increase my hatred for sin. Number two, the reality of hell should make me more passionate in my witness. I mean, if I’m really gripped with the reality of hell and I see unbelievers in their little petty human activities, I need to be moved with compassion. Some kid came through the parking lot yesterday doing 60 in a dirt bike digging up our lot. And I didn’t want to yell at the kid, but you know what? I talked to him about the Lord and I said, Hey, look, if I were 16, I’d probably be doing the same thing you’re doing today.

Let me ask you a question. You go to church. He told me the church, how sure are you going to have an 80%? What do you think you’d have to do to go in to having to make it a hundred live better? Didn’t know what was more important, him digging a hole in the parking lot or where he was going to spend eternity. And so I shared Christ with us. And so when we understand hell, it ought to move us to compassion. And then I would say in addition, the reality of Hell ought to make me want to be saved if I’m unsure. And so when you come to the great white throne judgment Revelation 2011 to 15, there’s the Book of Life. And what you discover there is that the only people’s names who are written in the Book of Life are believers. And no one who’s at that judgment has their name written in that book. And so it’s just a reminder. Someone comes to the book and they say, oh yeah, there’s my dad’s name, there’s my grandparents, there’s my brother, but where’s my name? And so the Lamb’s book of life also called the Book of Life is an eternal reminder of God’s just judgment that if someone’s name is not found there, no name equals no entrance into heaven,

Sam Rohrer:

But

Carl Broggi:

Their name can be there. And I think of the gathering demoniacs when Jesus dealt with them and sent a couple of thousands of their pigs into the Sea of Galilee that people said, just leave us alone. You know what? Jesus answered their requests. He left them alone. And there may be someone listening to me today and they’re unsure of salvation, and they may say, leave me alone God. And if they say that long enough, God’s long suffering. He won’t always strive with men by His spirit, but he’ll eventually give you your wish. And so you can be saved Christ bore your judgment, not some of your sin, most of it, all of it. And if you’ll call upon him, if you’ll put your faith where God laid his wrath on a substitute, Jesus who raised them from the dead, proving his ability to take it he’ll instantly and eternally change you and make you one of him.

Sam Rohrer:

And with that, Carl, that brings us up to about a minute before the program closes. I’d like to do is I’d asked you earlier, lead our listeners to the Lord in prayer. There is so much to prayer for friends, neighbors, family who don’t know the Lord, our nation, we’re in desperate needs Israel in the Middle East. Who knows what’s going to happen there. Pray as the Lord leads you, please

Carl Broggi:

Our Father, I thank you that there’s someone listening somewhere who’s unsure of heaven and they just need to believe that you cannot tell a lie and you promise because what Jesus did that if they would call upon him, they would instantly and eternally be saved. Help someone to say, Lord Jesus, save me. And our Father, we thank you that though it appears the world is falling apart, it’s coming together. You are sovereign in the affairs of men and nations, and the things that we’re witnessing are the things that you wrote about long ago. Thank you for the rest that that brings. We know we’re not to do nothing and to sit on our hands. We’re to pray for your will to be done. We pray for our President that you give him wisdom, that you would help him to do what is right, but we thank you that even if he does what is wrong, that you’re over him and over all the kings of the world, and that someday your perfect will be completed. And we give you praise for that. In Jesus’ name,

Sam Rohrer:

Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Dr. Carl Broggi, ladies and gentlemen, his website, search the scriptures.org, a lot of information there that he has made available and encourage you to visit that. Thank you for being with us today, and I trust that our focus, our theme here today, I know it’s practical. I know it’s real. I know the Lord wants us to know the truth, and I hope that it has been helpful to you and that you would leave this day more fervent than ever in sharing the gospel with others before it is too late.