The Prophet Daniel said: "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt (Daniel 12:2)." 
     The Apostle Mark said: "He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation (Mark 3:29)."
     The Apostle Paul said: "Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power (2 Thess. 1:9)." 
      The Apostle John said: "And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name (Revelation 14:11)."
     From the Bible writers above, the Scriptures appear to point out that there is such a thing as eternal hell fire. But now let us turn to several other verses in the Bible that say eternal fire will do something quite different from what I once was taught by the Roman Catholic priests. Now consider the following verses:
       "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. (John 3:16). Does not the word perish mean to die? How can you ever perish if you are eternally burning alive in hell? 
     "For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. ... And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts (Malachi 4:1, 2, 4)."  Notice that Malachi says the lost sinner will burn unto ashes.
      "Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, 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 (Jude 7)."  

      Dear Reader, is Sodom and Gomorrah still burning today? The Bible tells us that these wicked cities were burned to ashes as they suffered the results of eternal or unquenchable fire and total and complete annihilation! The Apostle Peter confirmed this when he said: "And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes... (2 Peter 2:6)." And Jerusalem, just like Sodom and Gomorrah, was burned with unquenchable fire; for no one could put it out or stop it from accomplishing its purpose because it was fire from an eternal God. (See Jer. 17:19-27; 2 Chron. 36:19-21). I must ask the question: "Is Jerusalem still burning today?" Of course not! Since the Bible never contradicts Itself, and all verses on a given subject like eternal fire must harmonize, how do we explain what could appear to some readers as a contradiction? Have you ever considered that eternal fire is actually eternal in its results? That it cannot be put out, but finally goes out when its work of destruction is complete unto ashes? Now ponder on this verse: "He will ... gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire (Matt 3:11, 12)."   
     So will the wicked continue on only to live and suffer in the flames of a forever-burning hell, never to die? Or is this a concocted doctrine from the Church of Rome to scare people into obeying? Did you know that this doctrine can be traced to heathenism? The Catholic doctrine of eternal hell fire teaches that a once wicked person will live on as a conscious soul eternally in torture rather than suffer a more merciful annihilation at the second death. Let us now turn to several more Scriptures that further prove this doctrine is simply not true:
     

    "Yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be." (Psalms 37:10).

  

    "They shall be as they had not been." (Obadiah 16).
     

       "Thou hast destroyed the wicked, Thou hast put out their names forever and ever." (Psalms 9:5, 6).
     

      "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." (Ezekiel 18:4).
      

       How much clearer can God be? Try asking a Catholic priest or most Protestant pastors these questions: 1) "How can someone burn forever and be as they "had not been"? 2) How can someone become ashes and still be alive and burning at the same time? 3) Why would the Bible say the soul that sinneth, it shall die" if the soul is actually suffering endless punishment?
      The word hell in the Old Testament is always a translation of the Hebrew word sheol, which occurs sixty-four times, and is rendered "hell" thirty-two times, "grave" twenty-nine times, and "pit" three times. The following are examples of the use of sheol in the Old Testament: "Ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave (Gen. 17:38);" "I will go down to the grave to my son mourning (Gen. 28:35);" "O that thou wouldst hide me in the grave (Job 14:13);" "My life draweth nigh to the grave (Ps. 88:3);" and "In the grave who shall give thee thanks (Ps. 6:5)?" If you substitute the word "hell" in the place of "grave" in all these passages, you can better understand the Scripture doctrine on this subject. Sheol is never used by Moses or the Prophets in the sense of a place of eternal torment after death. The term sheol means nothing more than the state of the dead in their deep abode--the grave.
      Just the other day I was reading my Bible and came across an interesting verse that mentioned the word hell. Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts was arguing the fact that Christ was the Messiah: "Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;  He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption (Acts 2:29-32)."
     Friend, did Jesus go to hell and suffer eternal torment or did He go to the grave, as in Joseph's tomb? My Bible says "Hades" is a more accurate translation than the word hell. In fact, the word Hades is also translated "grave" in 1 Corinthians 15:55. Hades is defined as the lower world or place of the dead, the grave, where Jesus went until His resurrection, but He did not go to a place where souls are supposedly suffering and writhing in eternal flames!  However, I do read in Greek mythology about an abyss deeper than Hades or the grave--the prison of Titans, who fought against their gods. Hell or Hades means a pit or grave, not an eternally burning place.
     There are three words translated hell in the New Testament: Hades and Tartarus, which are Greek, and Gehenna, which is the Greek form of the Hebrew words Gee and Hinnom, meaning "the valley of Hinnom."  Hades is used 10 times and means the lower world, place of the dead, the grave. Geenna (Gehenna) is used 12 times symbolically of the fires of the last great Day of Judgment, and Tartaroo used 1 time in Greek mythology as an abyss deeper than Hades.
     "The parable of the rich man and Lazarus furnishes another example. 'And in hell (hades) he lifted up his eyes, being in torment (Luke 16:23).' It will be remembered that the Jews had borrowed their ideas of torment in a future state from the heathen, and of course they were obliged to borrow their terms to express this. Accordingly, after the manner of the Greeks, Hades, or the place of departed spirits, is represented as receiving all, as sheol did, good and bad; but we have also the additional idea of separate apartments or districts, divided by a great gulf or river; on one side of which the blessed are located, and on the other side the damned, near enough to see each other, and converse together, as in the case of Abraham and the rich man.
     "It must also be remembered that this is only a parable, and not a real history; for, as Dr. Whitby affirms, 'we find this very parable in the Gemara Babylonicum.' The story was not new nor originated with Christ, but known among the Jews before He repeated it. He borrowed the parable from them, and employed it to show the judgment which awaited them. He represented the spiritual favors and privileges of the Jews by the wealth and luxury of the rich man and the spiritual poverty of the Gentiles by the beggary and infirmity of Lazarus. And while the former would be deprived of their privileges and punished for their wickedness, the latter would enjoy the blessings of truth and faith.
      "The question may arise, 'If Christ employed the language used by the Jews to express the torments of hell after death, did He not virtually sanction the doctrine?' If so, then He sanctioned their views as set out in this parable, which, as we have already shown, they borrowed from the heathen. He puts Himself on a level with the Pagan poets, and teaches a heaven and hell in Hades, divided by a great gulf, torments by flame, conversational intercourse between the blessed and the damned. Now no one believes in such a hell as this. A material hell of fire, and torments by flame, has been long ago abandoned. And the Savior cannot be understood as believing or teaching future torments, by using this parable, any more than He can be supposed to believe and teach the existence of Beelzebub, the Philistine god of flies (or filth), when He alludes to him, and uses his name as if he were a real being. (See Matt. 10:25; 12:24.
     So Christ says in Matthew 5:24: 'Ye cannot serve God and mammon.' 'Mammon' is the name of the god of riches; but surely no one would pretend that Christ, by speaking of serving him, sanctioned the doctrine that he was really a god. And yet He speaks of his service in the same connection, and in the same language, with that of the true God; showing the latitude with which these comparisons and figures are used, without sanctioning the errors on which they are founded. He takes their own language and opinions in both cases, without believing or approving, in order to teach and warn them. ... "The sum of the matter is, that Christ takes up a parable or story current among the Jews, and, without approving the heathen opinions on which it was founded, uses it to show that the Gentiles (Lazarus) would be received into the Gospel kingdom with Abraham and Isaac, while the Jews (the rich man) would be thrust out into darkness and desolation. And this judgment he represents by the figure of casting into hell, as He had described the destruction of Capernaum by saying it would be 'thrust down to hell.'
     "1. Though Gehenna occurs twelve times, the Savior actually used it only on four or five different occasions, the rest being only repetitions. If this is the word, and the revelation of this terrible doctrine is in it, how is it possible that Christ, in a ministry of three years, should use it only four times? Was He faithful to the souls committed to His charge?
    "2. The Savior and James are the only persons in all the New Testament who use the word. John the Baptist, who preached to the most wicked of men, did not use it once. Paul wrote fourteen epistles, and yet never once mentions it. Peter does not name it, nor Jude; and John, who wrote the gospel, three epistles, and the Book of Revelations, never employs it in a single instance. Now if Gehenna or hell really reveals the terrible fact of endless woe, how can we account for this strange silence? How is it possible, if they knew its meaning, and believed it a part of Christ's teaching, that they should not have used it a hundred or a thousand times, instead of never using it at all; especially when we consider the infinite interests involved?
     "3. The Book of Acts contains the record of the apostolic preaching, and the history of the first planting of the Church among the Jews and Gentiles, and embraces a period of thirty years from the ascension of Christ. In all this history, in all this preaching of the disciples and apostles of Jesus, there is no mention of Gehenna. In thirty years of missionary effort, these men of God, addressing people of all characters and nations, never, under any circumstances, threaten them with the torments of Gehenna, or allude to it in the most distant manner! In the face of such a fact as this, can any man believe that Gehenna signifies endless punishment, and that this is a part of divine revelation, a part of the Gospel message to the world?
     "These considerations show how impossible it is to establish the doctrine in review on the word Gehenna. All the facts are against the supposition that the term was used by Christ or His disciples in the sense of future endless punishment. There is not the least hint of any such meaning attached to it, nor the slightest preparatory notice that any such new revelation was to be looked for in this Old Familiar Word." The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment, Thomas B. Thayer, written in 1855.
      Some of you may argue that the devil will surely suffer everlasting fire for the Bible says: "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." Matt.25:41. The fire is called "everlasting" (Greek, aionion, "age lasting") because of the character of the work it does; just as it is called "unquenchable" (Greek asbestos, "unquenchable, unquenched") because it cannot be put out, and not because it will not go out when it has completed its work. "Eternal fire", remember, reduced Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes! And to further make my point let me quote Scripture that clearly reveals the fate of Satan: "Thou art the anointed cherub ... Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. ... I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, ... therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee (Ezek. 28:18)."
     I hope you now understand that the doctrine of eternal torment is not supported by Scripture, and the Catholic priests, and many Protestant Evangelists,  are wrong when they say the lost sinner will burn forever. Sad to say, the Roman Catholic Church has spread this false doctrine to many of the Protestant churches, and as a result they too have drunk of the wine of spiritual Babylon and taught this heresy to their congregations.
     Let us now turn to our Bibles and learn more of what God teaches on this subject.

    

     "But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men (2 Peter 3:7). The present heaven and earth and sinners await the fires of the last day. The Greek for "perdition" is apoleia, meaning "loss" or "destruction". 

    

     "Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?  Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness (2 Peter 3:11, 12)."

 
How does Christ say sin and sinners will be eliminated?

    

     "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; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire (Matthew 13:41, 42)."

    

     "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished (Rev. 20:5)." How can anyone live again unless they were once dead? This verse has always caught my attention, for it proves nobody goes to a place called hell at death but to the grave until the resurrection a thousand years later!

    

     "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." This act of destruction, also referred to as "the second death (Rev. 20:6)", may be called God's "strange act" and His "strange work (Isaiah 28:21)." By this act of destruction, God will cleanse the universe of sin and all its sad results. Death itself will then be at an end--cast into the lake of fire. (See Revelation 20:14). In fact, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9)." By their choice they have proved themselves worthless. Their destruction will, in fact, be an act of love and mercy on the part of God; for to perpetuate their lives would be to perpetuate sin, sorrow, suffering, and misery. Eternal fire has destroyed them and they will never live again.
     The last verse I want to comment on is Revelation 14:11: "And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name (Revelation 14:11)." The Book of Revelation is filled with symbolism. For example, water symbolizes people (Rev. 17:15), a whore symbolizes an apostate church (Rev. 17:1), and a beast a kingdom (Rev.13:2). John used the descriptive phrases "tormented with fire and brimstone (Rev. 14:10) and "the smoke of their torment ascendeth forever and ever (vs. 11)" to illustrate the destruction of the wicked by eternal ("forever and ever") fire when the lost sinners will be brought to ashes. Remember Sodom and Gomorrah were also tormented with fire and brimstone or eternal fire (Gen. 19:24) and they are not burning yet. The Greek word for "forever and ever" used by John is aionon which literally means "unto ages and ages", thus conveying again eternal fire. Here the Apostle uses Revelation-style, figurative and superlative language to denote that the wicked will not exist forever and ever, for ages and ages, or in other words, for eternity. 
     Rest assured, beloved, that a God of love would not torture sinners forever. But after the 1,000 years, the eternal fire from the eternal God will burn up sinners who continued in sin, while it also purifies the earth, and they will be as if they had not been. God is merciful and would never torture people or punish them this horrible and despicable way. God must do away with sin, and those who cling to it are choosing their own destiny. How fair would God be anyway if He tortured a 15-year-old Roman Catholic boy for billions of eons who had chosen a life of sin for a few short years? How repugnant to every emotion of love and mercy, and even to the sense of justice, is the doctrine that the wicked dead are tormented with fire and brimstone in an eternally burning hell; that for the sins of a brief earthly life they are to suffer torture of the worst kind as long God should live.  
     Catholics actually pray for the dead to get them out of Purgatory--another place that does not exist and cannot be found anywhere in the Holy Bible. Yes, they are wrong about both places. The Catholic Church says: "Prayer for the dead is one of the greatest acts of charity we can perform. Our prayers help them during their time in Purgatory, so that they can enter more quickly into the fullness of heaven." Not true! Now who will you believe--Roman Catholicism or God?