Annihilationism, Hell, & the Weight of God’s Holiness

What if shrinking God’s wrath also shrinks His love? In response to recent comments from Kirk Cameron, we step straight into the debate around annihilationism—whether the wicked simply cease to exist—and test it against Scripture, God’s holiness, and the staggering worth of Christ’s sacrifice. With clear definitions and an open-handed tone, we unpack why Jesus spoke so often and so specifically about hell, how Matthew 25 ties “eternal life” and “eternal punishment” together, and why the smoke of torment rising “forever and ever” in Revelation poses a serious challenge to temporary judgment.

From Eden to the cross, we explore the difference between behavior and motive, and how judgment restores order so we can draw near on God’s terms. We take on the common objection that “temporal sins” can’t warrant eternal consequences by reframing sin as an offense measured by the infinite value of the One offended. If sin were small, a finite being could pay it off; but Scripture insists the price is too costly—hence the necessity and beauty of an infinite Savior bearing an infinite debt.

We also address consciousness after death, “soul sleep,” and why soul and spirit language in the Bible calls for humility rather than neat labels. With care, we note where near‑death testimonies echo biblical patterns—angelic protection, spiritual deception, and striking consistencies—without letting anecdotes drive doctrine. The pastoral heart of the conversation beats loudest: fear may wake us up, but love keeps us. Don’t choose Jesus just to dodge hell; choose Him because He’s the treasure above heaven itself, the fountain of living water, the bread from heaven.

If you care about truth, love people far from God, or simply want a sturdier hope, this one matters. Listen, share with a friend, and tell us where you land—does annihilationism hold up under the weight of Scripture? And if this helped you think clearly, subscribe, leave a review, and pass it on.

Chapters

• 0:00 New Year Gratitude And Impact
• 1:27 Kirk Cameron’s Annihilationism Post
• 3:33 Defining Hell, Universalism, Annihilationism
• 9:19 Essentials Vs Non‑Essentials Of Faith
• 14:42 Why Annihilationism Appeals Emotionally
• 20:45 Jesus’ Teaching On Hell’s Reality
• 26:12 Love, Wrath, And God’s Worth
• 33:45 Sin Against An Infinite God
• 41:12 Judgment, Order, And Approaching God
• 48:06 Genesis, Motive, And Experiencing Evil
• 55:58 Conscious Torment And Key Scriptures
• 1:03:20 Soul, Spirit, And What Happens At Death
• 1:12:04 NDEs, Deception, And Objective Realities
• 1:20:16 Urgency Of Evangelism And Eternity
• 1:26:03 Don’t Choose Jesus To Escape Hell

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Hey, welcome to Blood and Oil. We are back. It is a new year. Happy New Year to all the listeners and watchers. Yeah. We've had a fun, fun 2025 start in this podcast, guys. Thank you so much for just all of your attention on this thing. And you guys passing it around. It's getting to people that don't know the Lord and are coming to the Lord in new ways, maybe for the first time through listening to this stuff. So we're just so grateful, guys, that you are passing this around, that you are um acknowledging it at all. But we're just grateful for the comments, we're grateful for the likes, we're grateful for the, you know, just passing it around and letting people hear what the Lord's doing on this side of the world. Uh but God, you know, God is really working. And uh we are just so grateful to be able to have this platform to lift him up and to continue to learn how to seek his face in more um efficient and unique ways. Um, you know, thanks to these men of God that have are seasoned and have been in it for a minute. Um so I'm grateful for that. I'm super grateful to be able to, you know, work with you guys. But um the best thing is is receiving those texts. Hey, someone heard the podcast and got saved. I mean, that's that just warms my heart, man. So it's just absolutely wonderful. Praise God for uh his movement in this and through this. And uh today we're gonna talk about something pretty cool and unique. So I'm gonna let Jesse kind of uh open it up. But uh happy new year, guys.

SPEAKER_04: 1:26

Happy New Year, everybody. So uh right now, presently there there's a um position that's making its rounds um in social media because of Kirk Cameron. And for those of you who don't know, Kirk Cameron uh was uh a child star in the 80s. Uh what was it? Uh not growing, was it growing pains? No, it wasn't growing pains. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was it growing pains? Yeah, Mike Stevens. Uh yeah, and so he was the the teen heart throb that was the the oldest son on in in the uh sitcom. And um he so he was in Hollywood, all that stuff. He ends up coming. Uh I don't I don't actually I don't know anymore about his testimony, but at some point he ends up becoming a Christian. Um him and his sister, uh uh Candace Cameron Buer are are right now two very staunch people in the in the Christian world who have gone through the Hollywood thing and come out the other side and are believers. Um and uh Kirk Cameron linked up with a guy named Ray Comfort, who, if if you don't know, Ray Comfort is huge in the evangelism world because he does all kinds of street witnessing and evangelism and uh wrote a book called Hell's Best Kept Secret, uh very, very good book. Um it's part of our uh evangelism track for Bible school. Uh yeah, that basically talks about Hell's Best Kept Secret is this the effect of the law on the conscience of the human, meaning everybody's broken God's law and is worthy of just punishment. Um and so when we use the law in evangelism, the conscience should be uh convicted, and that opens up an opportunity for the gospel because the gospel is the only answer to the conviction of the law. Um so Kirk's been connected with Ray for a while. Um, and he just recently came out and did a oh, probably three weeks ago now, he did a video on what we call in the theology, it's called annihilational uh annihilationism. And um I'll just state for the record kind of what it is, and then uh Terrence, you probably have some thoughts on it too. Um so annihilationism basically there there's a number of different ideas on what happens to the non-believer or the sinner um after judgment. And so the the classic orthodox position is that there is an eternal heaven with joy and reward for the believer, and an eternal punishment. We it literally it's the lake of fire, but we use the phrase hell to to speak to it, but it's uh it's it's more hell is kind of a holding take presently. Um and there is an eternal damnation that includes uh torment and suffering for the non-believer and joy and glory for the believer. That's one classic position. The second um uh position is what we would call universalism, and that is uh heresy, and it's everybody gets to go to heaven at some point, somehow, um, even if they don't know the name of Jesus, and there's a lot of Christians who've defaulted to that. The the present stuff with Rob Bell and uh Love Winds and these other um these other progressive uh um movements that have come out of uh out of um these conversations in the 90s and the 2000s. Um the last is what's called annihilationism, which is what Kirk Cameron is has has espoused. And what it says is that they're one of two things. Either they are judged, they're not found to be believers, and then they just stop existing. So they are annihilated. There's no consciousness of them anymore, there's no awareness of they they cease to exist. That either happens at judgment or a version of annihilation says that they will pay the just penalty for whatever sins that they have committed, then and because those are temporal sins, the punishment is also temporal, and once that payment is done and they've suffered justly for what they've done, then they will be annihilated. Go ahead, Terrence.

SPEAKER_02: 6:08

No, no, I was just um agreeing with what you said, but I will say this, and I'm not sure if you guys know, but uh I will always be grateful for Kirk Cameron because it because of uh that teaching you just spoke about uh Hell's Best Kept Secret, I'm a Christian today. So I heard that in 2023, excuse me, 2003, which is now 23 years ago. I only reason I I clicked on it because I assumed myself to be a Christian at the time, and I knew of the TV show that you know uh Kirk Cameron played on, and I liked him as an actor and I liked the show. So I was like, let me see what this guy's gonna talk about. And God used that to save me. I was so uh enamored by what I learned that I watched another video called Soundly Saved, where him and Ray Comfort again pretty much taught the same thing grace to the humble, Lord to the proud, in order to communicate the gospel. And so uh right off the bat, I just want to say I have nothing but the utmost respect for Kirk Cameron. I actually love Kirk Cameron because of God using him to bring me into the faith. Now, with regards to annihilation, excuse me, annihilationism, I have a few friends too, uh that also believe that as well. And it always comes down to me, and I won't get too much into this, I'll wait till we speak some more, but it comes down to this, I find, not understanding who God is.

SPEAKER_01: 7:24

Um specifically in regards to his holiness.

SPEAKER_02: 7:31

And so uh again, we'll talk more about this in depth, I'm sure, but um, I just want to say at the outset that I love Kirk Cameron and I understand why some people I don't think it's true, I don't think annihilation annihilationism is true. I think God is uh infinite in his attributes, he's infinite in his love, infinite in his mercy, infinite in his wrath, etc. etc. Um, but I understand in a humanistic way as to why some people would go that way.

SPEAKER_04: 7:59

Yeah, so let's just say from the outset that um that there are brothers in the faith, even church fathers who've held something that's similar to this. Um, and so there's a difference between primary issues and secondary issues, and there's even tertiary issues. So when it comes to primary matters, we cannot diverge on primary matters at all. So the gospel, the nature of the gospel, the nature of who God is, um, these kinds of things. Like if if you don't believe Jesus is God, you're not a Christian. If you don't believe Jesus died and rose from the dead for you, you're not a Christian. These are there are there are primary matters that if you do not believe these things, you are not a Christian. No matter how Christian-esque you may be, it doesn't matter if you listen to Caleb, doesn't matter if you've got a cross on your neck, doesn't matter if you've got a plastic Jesus on your dashboard in your car. If you do not believe these primary doctrines and and there are the core doctrines of the gospel and the nature of God, then you are not a Christian because you believe in the wrong thing. The belief is like um an address in the spirit realm. So if you have the wrong address, you have the wrong house. And if you have the wrong house, you don't have the right occupant that you're looking for. So you're knocking on the wrong door. Okay. So and and further, belief is not a matter of what you intellectually assent to. Belief is is evidenced by what you do. So we do not believe that you are justified by what you do, but we believe that if you are justified, it will show on what you do. So your your faith is evidenced by your works. What what Jesus said this if you love me, you will obey me. There's a lot of people around who are living life their own way. I'm I'm running into it a lot. People are are picking not to obey God and do things God's way, and and yet they want to claim his name. And and I got news for you, you're not a Christian. Jesus said, if you love me, you will do what I say, you will obey my commandments, full stop. Okay, so there are primary issues, and there are secondary issues that whatever it is that you believe on the thing, we can still be brothers and sisters. We we can still call each other brothers and sisters. Whatever divergence it is, I'll give you some examples: pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib, rapture. Doesn't matter. Um gifts of the Holy Spirit. I if you believe in the gifts or don't believe in the gifts, we can still be brothers and sisters in the Lord. Um yet, even in that, there are things that we must even maintain unity in ministry. So, for instance, if I'm a guy who doesn't believe in the gifts of the spirit, I probably wouldn't feel comfortable in a church that operates on the gifts of the spirit. Or if I'm a pastor, I would not bring somebody on my ministry team who doesn't believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit because when I receive a word from the Lord, right, the last thing that I need is my associate saying, Yeah, I don't believe you heard anything from God. And so so though it's a secondary issue when it comes to ministry in the local church, we we wouldn't have ministry together, even though we could both sit at a worship concert and worship God together. Okay. This matter, the annihilationism, depending on the the angle that you take, if you make it essential to salvation, you've now drifted into heresy. We would call this heterodox, meaning other than orthodox. So there's heresy, something that is untenable, not okay. There's orthodox, that's the things that are right to believe in conformity with sound doctrine as revealed through the scripture in the history of the church, and then there's heterodox, something that may or may not be accepted by all, but is it's still allowed within the realm of orthodoxy, but it's divergent from other ones. Any thoughts, Terrence?

SPEAKER_02: 12:09

No, I think you you you you you kind of uh hit that really well. I especially love the uh distinction you made between um what's essential and non-essential. And so because the cut the conversation today is going to be a little controversial, I think it's important what you just stated, that this is not an essential issue to salvation, although the um, and again, you made this distinction already, I'll just reiterate, there's some practical application for how we believe non-essential issues. Scripture asks the question, shall two walk together until uh unless they agree? So, again, to your point, if I don't agree with the gifts as stated in, you know, uh the book of Corinthians, or as manifested in how we would say tongues or however whatever have you, then it I would not be uh a good add-on to your ministry. Uh we would we would sort of cancel each other out in that regard. Now we could still be brothers, we're still believing in the same essential issues, namely salvation by grace through faith alone, Jesus Christ is the truth, the way, and the life, etc. But in regards to practical application to ministry, there would be, there would be no doubt some issues there. Um but getting back to the topic at hand though, and I want to um, and I, you know, without going too fast, too far too fast, I would like to talk about uh perhaps why it is that people uh come to this um understanding, why it is they believe that there's an yeah, why why it is that people actually believe that unlike God's other attributes, namely his love, we would all testify and glory in the fact that God's love is eternal from everlasting to everlasting. But with regards to his other uh equally glorious attribute, namely wrath, why is that temporal? And I suppose um the the main argument would be temporal temporal uh sin is not equal to you know eternal wrath or something to that effect. Um and without going too much into it again, I think the crux of the issue there is that we don't know God. We don't know, we don't understand why sin is, uh, as Paul puts it, um abundantly sinful, exceedingly sinful. We we we sort of think of sin in terms of it's just a small thing, it's a temporal thing, when in fact it's not just a temporal thing. I believe scripture says it's um a thing done against an eternally worthy God with eternal consequence because he himself is eternal, and the uh ramifications of the sin is not temporal itself. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 14:28

Yeah, so uh I what I've found in listening to the arguments or the the positions, and even Kirk said it himself, is what ends up happening is people feel like they need to reconcile how a temporary sin can be punished forever if God is good. And so they they find themselves in a position where philosophically they cannot reconcile God's goodness with the thought of him causing someone to suffer forever and forever. So it's an emotional position and it's a defensive position, meaning they feel like they need to reconcile God's character. And so they they then from that position find scriptures to support the position versus letting the scripture talk for itself and then and then building a systematic understanding of what the scripture casts as far as the vision that it presents for us concerning the doctrine of eternal states, is what we would call it. So one of the things that Kirk Cameron stated is the the cessation of consciousness in the Old Testament. So there's lots of passages that speak about the dead don't hear, the dead don't speak, the dead don't praise, these kinds of things. And it's one of the reasons why the Seventh-day Adventists come up with the doctrine called soul sleep. Sleep, yep. Right. And so they what they believe is that once you die, essentially you go to sleep. There's no awareness, good or bad, like evil or righteous, which we we don't find biblical. Hebrews 12. Right. Well, Hebrews 12.1 says that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and it's talking about the hall of faith from Hebrews chapter 11. So there's a very clear understanding that the people that he just mentioned, Moses and Enoch and Noah, and all these guys in the Hall of Faith, are still watching us now. And we find courage in understanding that they're presently watching us and our past loved ones who've died in the Lord, etc. So we don't believe in that soul sleep doctrine. But because of those passages in the Old Testament that speak about what seems to present a cessation of awareness or consciousness at the point of death, they they say, okay, see, these are passages that that show us that there comes a point where the wicked cease to be. So um, you know, I I I think that uh I was looking for a post. I don't know if I'm able to find it right now or not, but um yeah, so Huff, Wes Huff, um shout out to Wes Huff, been been doing a lot, and uh uh he calls it conditional immortality or conditionalism or annihilationalism, and he he cites on it that that there have been those in church history and in the past and and others like John Stott, some great theological giants.

SPEAKER_02: 17:57

Heavyheads, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 17:58

Right, that believe this same kind of a thing. Um, and he calls it unorthodox, but it's not heresy. So Ed Edward Fudge, John Stott, uh, and some others, let me see if I can find the post. Um at any rate, the the point is is that it's an in-house debate, and so we don't want to divide unnecessarily um even if we can't operate in formal ministry together, that we don't divide as far as calling someone a believer or an unbeliever because of it. Amen.

SPEAKER_02: 18:38

Amen. I would want to say this too. Yeah, for sure. Well, before I even go on, Zayn, did you want to say anything?

SPEAKER_00: 18:45

Yeah, I I really like this conversation because um there was a time early on in you know, having come to Christ a couple years ago where I was obsessed almost with these near-death experiences where people went to hell and or saw some form of the afterlife where there was a an angelic being perhaps showing them, okay, you know, this is where people go when they do this, or this is where, you know, it's almost like um, you know, the divine comedy where where Dante is taken, you know, into hell and then to purgatory and then to heaven. Um and the reason I bring that up is because what I found when I was watching those and and listening to those was that yes, there is something going on on the other side. Okay, we'll check that off the list. But B, it's like none of these people were actually being um thrown into these places, they weren't actually engaging with these places necessarily. It was just a viewing of these places. So what it brought up for me was this what what is the consciousness of the of the of the person who's passed on? What's the nature of the consciousness? Are they conscious? Are they are they is it is it that the soul and the spirit have separated so that the soul being the mind, body, and or mind the mind, will, and the emotion, the psyche, if you will, um Is is perceiving these things, is engaging with these things, is feeling the pain of damnation, is is being burned by the fires. Or is it that there is a there's an unconsciousness that's that's taken over and that the person is now in hell, but they don't quite know that they're in hell kind of idea. So I like diving into this stuff. So I really appreciate this conversation. I just wanted to add those things on there.

SPEAKER_02: 20:23

Amen. So I want to say this. I want to say, in regards to the topic of hell, quite frankly, and I think we would all agree with this, the reason why we have a theology of hell, why we know anything about hell for the most part, is not because of the Old Testaments and uh spurious verses that seem to suggest one way or the other whether it be eternal or not. We we get the idea of hell from Christ Himself. Nobody spoke more about hell than the Lord Jesus Himself. That's right. We understand we understand specificity about hell because of Jesus. He talks about the worm of the conscious enduring forever, the the wrath that it that endures the weeping, the gnashing of teeth, all these specific things that that occur in this place, whatever this place is that we term hell, we learn from Jesus specifically. Of course, there's um other text that we can go to, but nobody talks about it in great detail or again with regards to specificity than the Lord Jesus Himself. So that's the first thing I want to say. We have our doctrine from the Lord Himself. Who is the Lord of love? God is love. Christ literally in his earthly ministry said, If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. And all he demonstrated was the long-suffering aspect of love, the humility aspect of love, all the innards that make love love, Jesus Christ displayed what that is to in its truest essence. So much so that a Greek word had to be invented to kind of connote or convey what love is from God's perspective, namely agape, because prior to that we just didn't know love in the terms that Jesus is showing. I only say that to say the guy who is the epitome of love is speaking about hell in the clearest form, and that's the reason why we understand hell as a theological construct. So the guy, the God of love, talks about hell. Again, that's my my first my first thing. My second thing is this with regards to hell, and I and I it goes back to why people uh minimize the eternality of it. We must not, in my opinion, again, this is not an issue where with which we can, you know, should should uh remove ourselves from fellowship with one another. We should still love the brothers who disagree because they are they are in fact brothers. But I would say this when we seek to um tame Jesus, as it were, or to like minimize the rough edges, we do God a disservice and we do people a disservice too. This may sound, and push back if necessary, guys. This is my philosophical brain working over time here. It may sound a little hard to state, but follow me here. In the same way that we have a capacity for awe and a capacity for things that are beyond us. This is why we look over like the Grand Canyon, why we look into you know space and we try to lose ourselves in wonder and awe. The same thing exists when we think about God's wrath. Well, same reason why we look at scary movies, same reason why we go down roller coasters, there's this innate desire to experience fear, even the the dreadful aspect of it, so as to capture awe in the human heart. And so when we minimize God, when we remove the claws, as it were, I'm using like figurative speech here, when we remove when we remove these things in in efforts to make God more palatable for people or to reconcile what we think is uh um irreconcilable, like God's love and wrath, when we do these things, we remove the awe that God intends for us to experience through understanding his uh attribute of wrath. So I would say not to do that, because again, my first point was the God of love is the one that we got our doctrine from in the first place. So, first, love taught us wrath, because to be honest with you, and I and and this is my third point, and I'll stop here. I don't think we as human people, human beings, really understand love from God's perspective. For example, God is love, but guess what? God loves righteousness and holiness, and quite frankly, that's not us. The only reason God loves us is because he loves us in him. It's with the whole Bible. God so loved the world that he gave us his son. My favorite gospel verse is this He who knew no sin, that's Jesus, became sin for us, so that in him we could become the righteousness God himself requires. I paraphrase. And so God loves us in him because we get his righteousness, but apart from him, oh friends, there's nothing to love. Are you kidding me? If you claim to be loving, for example, and you say you love children, can you equally love a child molester? If you love people, can you equally love a slaver? No, because love demands the opposite too, you see? So I'll say that. My first point again, God the God of love taught us about wrath. Secondly, don't try to minimize God's um uh attributes, whether it be love or wrath, because in doing so you remove the awe that he intends for us to experience and then glorify him in that regard. I'm pulling that from Romans 9, by the way. What if God desiring to show his wrath? God desires to show his wrath. Yeah, and then thirdly, again, um, I forgot my third point, so I'll pass on from now on, but I just wanted to say that.

SPEAKER_04: 25:09

Yeah, so I I would add that the the problem that people run into is because uh is this what you don't understand is if you minimize the wrath, you then minimize the love. Yes, well said, and that that dynamic is what we run afoul of. What what we forget, and we said this before on the podcast, is that hate works in the service of love. The opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is I'm tapping out. So for those who like for those of you who are leaving relationships or doing this or you know, or whatever it is, uh when you tap out, that is the opposite of love. Love endures all things. Yeah, apathy. Right. So hate hate.

SPEAKER_02: 26:07

He said the opposite of love is not is that is is is indifference. So good job.

SPEAKER_04: 26:11

Exactly. So the hate hate shows us the the zealousness of love. Hate shows us the fire of love. Hate is passionate, and uh exactly, and so uh when we talk about the eternal wrath of God, it's because it's in the view not of a temporary sin, but uh in the eternal value of the one who sinned against. So if you minimize temporary sin, uh if you if you take that as your your plumb line as your standard, yes, it makes sense. How how can a temporary sin incur eternal wrath? That doesn't make sense. You're right, if you're judging from the viewpoint of temporary sin, but if you're judging from the viewpoint of eternal worth and glory, well said, eternal wrath absolutely makes sense, absolutely, and it highlights the value of the eternal quality of the blood of the sacrifice. If you demote the eternalness of sin, you demote the eternalness of the sacrifice. Correct. And Hebrews tells us very clearly, I can feel the spirit of the Lord. Hebrews tells us very clearly that the eternal quality of the Son, the eternal quality of his blood, eternal quality of blood meets eternal quality of wrath, and they cancel each other out. And that's the nature of the atonement and why the sun has to be God. Yes, if if that eternality of his worth and value is not there, it does not eternally satisfy. Yes, it's right. Yeah, and so when you demote sin to simply being it to temp a temporal thing, you fail to recognize the eternal quality of the one whom the sin is against.

SPEAKER_02: 28:27

And this is I the irony here in this, I think I believe I believe I heard this from Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort early in my Christianity. Again, this occurred in 2003, but the argument goes something like this. And actually, Kirk in his last uh talk about you know this particular topic reiterated this thought. And I don't think he's connecting it. It's this. Again, even in a temporal state, we understand offense. For example, if I were to kill, let's say, a deer outside of deer hunting season, I'll get a fine. If I were to kill a homeless person, I'll get some jail time. If I were to kill a cop, I may get life. If I were to kill a king or president, I would get executed. The same crime is being done every time, but the consequences go up uh with regards to the person to whom I'm I'm sinning against, you see? And so when we talk about God, the eternally glorious one, the one who's worthy of obedience, adherence, love, etc. etc., when we sin against him, it's no longer a matter of just a fine or some temporal, you know. Uh in the same, I just gave you a um a categorically uh explanation of you know how the offense goes up in each time. With regards to God, he's eternal. And so of course, he the sin bears eternal consequences because sin is not just an offshoot of like you just do bad, it's doing bad against the one who says, Thou shalt not. It's against him. When David sinned, for example, David said, Against you, and you alone have sinned. Of course, that's not the truth in a holistic scale. How do I know? Well, he sinned against Bathsheba, he sinned against Bathsheba's husband by killing her. But David understood something that I think we're not grasping, and it's this David understood at the end of the day, in the final analysis, sin is primarily against the one who says, Do not do this. And so, thou shalt not murder, and David murdered, thou shalt not commit adultery, and David committed adultery, and therefore that's why the consequences for sin exist in an unconsequence in a infinite manner, because the one to whom we sinned against is infinite himself, which goes, which lends to your point just now, Jesse. If Jesus Christ isn't God, and this is the crux of the issue, I feel if sin is not of an eternal consequence, Jesus wouldn't have to come in the first place. An angel could have come or good, righteous man could have done it. But God himself stepped down from glory to come and show us sin deserves this, and only the infinite one can assuage sin in a matter of three hours. If it were just simply a small thing that um time could have assuaged, then he wouldn't have then God himself wouldn't have to come. Michael the archangel could have came, another angel could have came, a good man could have came, but God himself came insinuating that the sin has infinite offense, infinite quant um infinite consequence, and therefore the infinite one himself had to assuage the the penalty.

SPEAKER_04: 31:12

Yeah, the the analogy that I use, which is very similar to the one that you use, is if I throw a rock at Zane's house, you know, it's not that big of a deal. Maybe he comes running out with a you know a broom or something, chases me off. Maybe I get the cops called on me, and you know, maybe I get a you know uh a warning or something. But if I throw a rock at the White House, it's a federal crime. Well, what's the difference? It's the same sin, throwing a rock at a house, throwing a rocket at a house. What's the difference? The difference is the stature of the one who's in the house. Absolutely measure of the worth and value of the one who lives in the house. Now, I I like saying he's a pretty valuable guy, in my opinion, but the president of the United States carries a greater stature. And so the sin isn't. Yeah, I do too. Um the the sin isn't measured by the action, but by against whom the sin has been carried out. So God has infinite worth and infinite value, so any sin at all has infinite worth and value to be judged in an eternal way. Um, the second thought that I had, uh, and I I think I forgot it, so I might just have to come back to it later.

SPEAKER_02: 32:30

Well, real real quick, this is consistent with scripture though. In scripture, we see something of the holiness of God through the the measures he takes to show us. For example, have you ever sat and thought about the consequences of Adam's biting of a fruit? Humanistically speaking, it just seems like overkill. Like, Lord, why do you you you everybody dies because of Adam? All of his prosperity, all of his children and children's children, etc., etc. Right, like what's the big deal, God? Yeah, he just all he did was eat a fruit. And he's showing you right off from the very beginning that sin against God carries such an offense that the consequences is dire. Even so much. Here's a better example, perhaps. There's the uh scene there with David walking across the uh desert with um Uzza, and they're carrying the Ark of the Covenant on an ox. And God told them before they they they started that trek there don't let anybody touch it that's who's not a priest. And the arc this the you know the story, the ox stumbles, right? And Uzzah being a good Jew is trying to keep the ark of the covenant where God's glory dwells from falling, and God kills him. But that's not the part that's in itself the strange part of the thing.

SPEAKER_04: 33:40

Kills him dead, just underline dead, D-E-E-D.

SPEAKER_02: 33:44

Dead, no second chance, just dead. The part that gets me that makes me think is David has the reaction I myself would have. The scripture says by the Holy Spirit, David became angry with God. And in essence, what David said is God, that's extra. What are you doing? He was only trying to help. Guys, what I'm trying to communicate here is that God is not like us. As far as the east is from the west and the heavens from the earth, so too are his ways different than ours. And we don't think of righteousness on the same scale. He's different, he is holy. There are beings that's called angels, they're much holier than us in presently. And they stand in the presence of God and they say things like this I'm Gabriel, I stand in the presence of God, which is a cool thing to say. And they hide their face, insinuating that his holiness and their holiness is not the same. He's a blazing fire of holiness, and therefore sin against him carries consequence, eternal consequence. So if we judge God on the basis of our human understanding of righteousness, I suppose I could understand that seems like overkill, just like David felt like it. But David learned, like we're learning by the Spirit, that God is not like us. He does, he deals with righteousness on a whole nother plane. We see, we think we're like on two different train tracks, whereas God is on a different planet altogether, and we're on train track A in New York City. He's not even on the same planet, guys. He is wholly, different, perfect, and we don't know anything about that.

SPEAKER_04: 35:02

So I remember my point, um, and it actually goes back to the Uzza point, and the you know, this is actually one of the ways that we we cast our um our uh methodology of counseling, and it's the going up the hill with the Ark of the Covenant image. And why is it that God judges? The first thing is most people would get judged at that threshing floor where Uzzah reached out to touch that ark and they would turn around, they would come off the mountain. David didn't give up. David wanted to get that Ark of the Covenant to the top of the hill at Jerusalem. He wanted the glory of God with him in Jerusalem, and so he didn't give up. So he went back to figure out what the problem was. Now here's the math. They were full-blown having church, like a Pentecostal prayer service, walking up the hill, praising God, dressing their best. They've got the symbols and the horns and the prayers and all this stuff, and da da da da da. And God said, You can't come up here like that. What was the problem? They were out of order. David says it in Chronicles. Uh there are two parallel passages in Kings of Chronicles, and you read both of them to get the fuller picture of what's happening there. And he says, This, we did not seek him according to the ordinance, the way he said to seek him. And what happens is people think God judges in order to keep us out, but that's not the math. God's judgment is to for us to get rid of the stuff that keeps us from going in.

SPEAKER_02: 36:29

Well said.

SPEAKER_04: 36:34

Because if we went in out of order, and this was my point earlier that I was gonna say, sin is judged according to cosmic order. Things that are right and things that are wrong, period, according to the order that God has set, according to his character, according to his nature. Things are clean or unclean, holy or unholy, common or profane, because of where they stand in their definition by God's light, not our light. So whatever God considers is right, that's what matters. Whatever God says is correct, that's what matters. He's the one who figured it all out, has everything in order, has this glory and joy for every single one of us. It's us who's out of order. And so God says, I'm gonna judge you, but if we receive that judgment as him trying to keep us out, then we've kept ourselves out because of our own hangups. Because I I want to be uh I want to be paranoid about whether or not he accepts me or not. Dude, he slayed his son for you. Like, yeah. Like, get over. Oh, I can't forgive me. That's garbage. Self-forgiveness is terrible. There's listen, the only one who can forgive sin is the one who has sinned against. You don't sin against yourself, you sin for yourself. Oh, you you gotta learn to forgive yourself. Garbage. Get rid of that nonsense. That is pop psychology, it is it is the uh self-esteem movement. We need god esteem, not self-esteem. Okay, when it's out of order, cosmic alignment as God has created everything to be, then it is sinful. Right, yeah, it is not proper. So God judges to bring us into proper alignment, and then when that judgment falls, we either let it land and go up the hill the rest of the way, like David, or the the judgment comes and we turn around and we walk off the hill, and then we find why didn't you go into the presence of God? Because you didn't want to. Yep. Because you didn't want to. That's why you didn't go, because you didn't allow the judgment to do the work inside of you that God wanted it to do so that you could come nearer to him. Yeah, that's the matter. Amen. Well said, well said.

SPEAKER_02: 38:48

That has implications for my life right now. Thank you, Jesse.

SPEAKER_00: 38:52

Yeah, this is good. Um, I think too, you know, God pulling punches in any way dilutes his character, you know, dilutes the substance, the meaning of his character. Um he's you know, he's faithful, right? So he's he's going to do what he says. And if you are if you've turned away from him, you are going to suffer for that, right? It's just how it has to be. Um I I like this idea of of of uh going back into the garden, if you guys don't mind. Um I think that you know, when we talk about this, this this topic, you know, Terrence brought it up that Adam is is sort of the crux of a lot of this because you know, he created that generational iniquity for us that we're, you know, you know, coming to the Lord and and moving out of, right, and and being grafted into uh the kingdom. But what does it really mean? What what did it really mean to eat of the tr the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, right? Is it and to me what that brings up for me is is this idea of self deification. Like if I can have all the knowledge, if I can know good from evil, I can be like God. And I know that's mentioned in Genesis. But uh Let's let's dive into that a little bit. You know, where this all started, the sin that we are currently working out of.

SPEAKER_04: 40:06

Sure. So the uh I just preached on this recently too. The the the only thing that they had to gain was the experience of evil. When when the Bible talks about knowledge, the Bible, the Bible's not talking about data. It's talking about experience. So a husband and a wife know each other on their marriage night. Did the husband know, did the man know the woman before the husb before the marriage night? Sure, he knew data. He knew who she was, last name, first name, family, etc. All that stuff. He had that information, but he didn't know her until he experienced her on the wedding night. So when it comes to the knowledge of the tree and good of good and evil, dude, they knew what right and wrong was. They absolutely knew in their minds what right and wrong was, which is what makes the transgression of the covenant even worse. The only thing that they gained was the experience of evil. Yep. That's well said. Well said. That's that's all that and that's what makes the transgression so bad.

SPEAKER_00: 41:12

So it's an intimate knowledge of evil, then, is what I'm getting. So it's um yes, the consequence thereof. Okay. So psychologically speaking, too, you work you know, when when there is a knowledge of a new form or influx of evil, there is a contention there that one would essentially be earning a a I don't know, I a an advancement in in their being um through moving through this trial and overcoming it in a lot of ways. So there's a positive perspective on that. However, God said don't do it, and they did it. So it gets back to this main point of he sets the law. Right. The substance of the law, the meaning of the law comes from him. So there's no there's no wiggle room on an infraction of that law. You broke the law, right? But the attraction of eating the fruit, however, is interesting to examine because we contend with those kinds of things on a daily basis all the time, right? We you know, we were just talking about this ex-witch um on uh Blurry Creatures, uh, Jesse and I before we hopped on, and one of the things she mentioned was um since she came to Christ a couple years ago, she's had this voracious sort of thirst for the things that are dark, right? The the the the inner workings of the covens, you know, she was a witch herself, but she's now examining these things from a kingdom perspective in order to bring light to these things, right? So inasmuch as she's delving into these things that you know a a you know fundamentalist or someone who you know may make frown upon these things or judge her for these things, she's actually doing it in order to bring more knowledge to the world about the inner workings of these of this darkness. Now that spoke to me because again, I've I've mentioned before too, my coming to Jesus in a lot of ways was the first you know year of that was like, okay, how do how are these things operating? How is how is the kingdom of darkness operating so I can have a better understanding and perhaps I can bring that? Now it wasn't because I was obsessed with those things, it was more so I had the constitution from being in the occult for so long to be able to look at the stuff in the first place, and I was driven toward it because I feel like the Holy Spirit was saying, yes, this is knowledge that can be useful to the body. Um so I say all that to say I can see the attraction of eating the fruit, but the fact of the matter is they broke the law.

SPEAKER_02: 43:48

Absolutely. I want to go back to the consequences too, not just the aspect of God is holy in and of himself, and therefore the consequences must be eternal as well. But I don't think we think about sin. You mentioned uh Zane, what did it mean? I like that question because that's the question I aim to not necessarily answer but highlight. Paul discusses when he talks about sin, he calls it the mystery of iniquity because there's this mysterious aspect of it for two reasons I can tell. Somebody's more much more intelligent than I could give you probably more. But so far as I can see, one, where did it come from? And then secondly, the ramifications of it. And the ramification part is what I want to deal with now. We sort of think of sin in a sort of like a capsule where we control it. We think, for example, I sinned against Zane, for example, and that that's that's all that sin goes to. Me and Zane. The problem is there. But no, sin has consequences. Go back to Adam and Eve. The consequences of their sins affected us. We have children being born with cancer today because of their sin. We have adulteries in relationships right now with married couples. It doesn't just affect the mom and the dad. It affects the kids later on when they deal with insecurities and they give themselves to other men, and and vice and on and on with the legs with which sin can go, right? We're not thinking about sin the way the Bible shows us. I thank God that God is sovereign and that just like he controls the waves, he says in Job to the waves, come this far and no further. He says essentially the same with sin. And I know this to be true. I'll just ask you to do a quick thing. And don't say it out loud, just simply do it in your mind. Think about your own conversion. Think about the places that you have done, the places you have gone, the things you have done, and the things that you wanted to do that God kept you from doing. Where would you have been apart from grace? And you're relatively good in humans, you know, compared to other humans. Sin is that bad. Sin is it doesn't have just this aspect with which you like you sin here and it stops there. It doesn't. It goes in places we never anticipate. And that's why the consequences of sin is another reason for why it's eternal, because it's not just I sinned against Zane, the consequences of their has legs that affects other people as well, and it goes on and goes on. For example, I'll stop with this too. In the book of Revelation, it says, Let those who are unclean be unclean still. They don't stop being sinful. It is not as if the people in hell right now are wanting to repent and follow Jesus. They are unclean, they will be unclean still. The murderers will want to murder, just can't fulfill their desire. The adulterous will still want to commit adultery, he just can't fulfill his desire, and on and on. They are monstrous or monsters of iniquity there. In the same way that we're getting glorified and become more beautiful the longer we stay in eternity beholding his face. Think of Moses as he's in God's face, he's shining with his glory. We go on forever and ever in that regard. So so, in a sense, we'll be more beautiful as we go on, even though we have glorified bodies. Likewise, or uh conversely, the people in hell grow from monster, monsters of iniquity to more monstrous, and they go on in that deformity because sin deforms. And so it's an interesting idea. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 47:02

Yeah, it seems like sin has a has a life of its own, right? Is what kind of what you're getting at.

SPEAKER_04: 47:06

Where it has some of the descriptions of the of hell in the New Testament are the the worm never dies and it never goes away. And so there's this continual um, like pe people don't understand the hellishness of hell. Like they're think of the the greatest amount of depression you could ever have, weeping and gnashing of teeth, anger and rage. So there's an emotional uh context. The physicality of it, the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. And that's probably one of the strongest passages concerning the the annihilationist um view is that they the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. And so what does that mean? It means there's something that's being burnt that doesn't stop being burned. And the the only thing that that can be is something that is germane to the person that connects to the person. And so there is a creation and a recreation of the the parts of the person, body, soul, and spirit, this holistic suffering that that is created and recreated over and over and over again, and the smoke of that doesn't stop. And it's the the the problem with the annihilationist view is that you you can't have the smoke going up forever if there's a point where the the torment stops.

SPEAKER_02: 48:27

To add to that real quick, Jesse, not to cut you off, I think it's important to state this note what's going on, not just the smoke, but the smoke of their torment. If people if people cease to exist, torment is something that's felt. People that don't exist don't feel torment.

SPEAKER_04: 48:42

There has to be an experiencer.

SPEAKER_02: 48:44

Exactly. And it goes up forever and ever.

SPEAKER_04: 48:47

Yeah, and the the the Greek there is ion dionis, and the it is the perhaps the strongest uh coupling of of the word ion, which is age, and it's uh ages and ages is is how you would render it literally, but it is about the strongest you can get in the Greek for um connoting eternal eternal, that's right, eternal suffering. Um, additionally, while we're here, might as well speak about on it on Matthew 25 that you have the um the statement of the sheep and the goats, and the the clear idea in the parallelism, one of the things that you you'll understand when it comes to the scripture is this idea of parallelism that's in the Bible. And when you have parallelism, you have um statements that parallel each other and concepts that parallel each other. We we've got weird words like chiasm or enclosio, which are you know scholastic and and um scholarly terms for language and things that happen in ancient writ. Well, one of those is parallelism, and in the Matthew 25, the judgment of the sheep and the goats. And by the way, for anyone listening, that's a distinction between two groups of people. So the least of these, my brethren, when he says to the least of these, you've done it to them, you've done it to me, he's not talking about homeless care for everybody, he's talking about the way you treat the church. Correct. So directly, the way that you treat God's church, Jesus considers the way that you treat him. Yes. Okay. So, you know, plug for a high view of church and high view for committed local relationship, okay, no matter how hard things get. Um so he has the sheep on one side and he says, You enter into the joy of your master, and and it says that um to the extent you did it to one of them, the righteous will say, Lord, when do we will we see you do do this to you? When did we see you sick? And the king will say, Truly, to the extent you did one of these to my brothers, you've done it to me. And it will say to those, depart from you, accursed ones, into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels, for I was hungry and you didn't answer to them. Truly, I they say, When did we do this? When you saw me sick and a stranger, etc. To the extent you did not do it to the least of these, you did not do it to me. These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. And so this couplet, verse 45 the righteous go into eternal life, and the others go into eternal punishment. Whatever you do to the one, you must also do to the other one. Okay. So this is eternal life. They they would argue this is eternal death, but it's not eternal life with no consciousness. And so if it's not eternal life with no consciousness, not eternal death with consciousness. Correct. And so the the word there is colosin, and they for punishment and or kolazo, and so you interpret scripture by scripture, and so you've got a plethora of passages that talk about the conscious eternal torment. You've you've got the Lazarus in um Luke 17, I think it is, Luke 15, um, which may or may not be a parable, whatever. But you have this this state of torment where he asks Abraham to come and dip his finger in water to cool his tongue because it's so hot and he's in torment and so torment, yeah. Right. Right. And so the the one view of annihilationism would say, well, that's appropriate until the sin is paid for. Okay. But the other view of annihilationism that says that as soon as they're judged, they don't exist anymore, doesn't jive with that. So interpret scripture by scripture. Um, make sure that that you are allowing the full vision of who God is to inform your your thoughts. And I I think that what happens is people forget the worth and the value of the sun. Okay. So when God judges Eve for eating the apple, he doesn't judge her for eating the apple, he judges her for her motive. Okay. Or whatever the fruit is. Okay, apple, orange, I don't know. Pick the one you don't like, maybe it's a great fruit. Whatever. Okay. He doesn't judge her for the act, simply. He judges her for the motive. And to Zayn's point, her desire wasn't to draw nearer in relationship with God, her desire was to become like God herself. And and it was a lie from the enemy. And so she wanted to experience evil, and the goodness of God was not enough for her. Right, right.

SPEAKER_02: 53:53

That's the crux.

SPEAKER_04: 53:54

That internal desire is what she's judged for. That is what Adam and Eve are judged for. It's not the act of eating the thing. Okay. So one of the Blurry Creatures podcasts, Zayn and I were talking about this before. This girl, she she has a near-death experience, and she doesn't know it's God until later when she becomes a Christian. But she's aware of this presence that's near her and the holiness of the presence and the ability of this presence to see through all of her game. And she realized in that moment, every single thing that she had done in her life was shot through with selfishness. Even her most righteous moments that she could conceive of for herself, she was aware, even in that, it was still shot through with unrighteousness. There wasn't anything in her that she could offer to him that would stand in light of his perfection because of her motives, because of the unseen thing. You pull away the layers of why you're doing a thing and you figure out, oh my gosh, I'm doing it for me. Yeah. The Boy Scout who walks a lady across the street, why does he do it? He does it for the merit badge, not because he's a good kid. So when it comes to motive, why does God judge eternally? Because we have rejected the supreme expression of love that there ever could be. Given us a son. The greatest expression of love that could ever exist. We look at the cross and the resurrection of the Son and we spit on him. We look at his righteousness and we say, I don't want that. And Jeremiah chapter 2 calls that evil. When we look at God, who is the fountain of living water and sustenance and meaning and purpose and satisfaction, and we refuse him and we turn instead to create our own means of righteousness, our own means of being justified. He looks at that and he calls it evil. Because we look at the supreme demonstration of love and we spit in the face of love sacrifice on our behalf. The entire story is created for this reason that God would share himself with those who would freely love him back because they want to. Because I want to. To refuse that is the ultimate evil. It is the ultimate evil. When God sets up the whole thing to show you how good he is, how much he loves, and how much you can have in him, which is your purpose in him, to enjoy him and glorify him forever, and this exchange of faith and glory forever and ever and ever between you and your creator and the brethren. And we say, I don't want that. That is worthy of eternal separation from him. Yes, it is. And not just separation from him, but you are an eternal being. We are all eternal beings, body, soul, and spirit. We are eternal beings. You will live forever, one way or another, either in eternal life or an eternal separation from God, which is called a second death. And death does not mean cessation of consciousness or awareness.

SPEAKER_00: 58:00

Right. Yeah, and then it you know these moral low points throughout Genesis. I really appreciate what you said too. It's like it's almost as though Genesis is a is a cautionary tale in a lot of ways of this is sort of the ultimate sin, is to act as though you are God, right? To try to take God's place. We had Adam and Eve doing so in the garden, they're exiled, right? We had Cain killing someone, playing God in that way. We had, you know, the brides of the watchers, if you will, they had a part in that too. It's not explicitly said in Genesis 6 that it was R-A-P-E. They chose to learn from these watchers, right? And so there's there's a there's a participation in it, right? There's a choice, there's a conscious choice to engage in this iniquity, and it only ramps up, right? Um then you know you have you have uh Nimrod, right? And he, you know, the building of the Tower of Babel, like all of these things, right, are trying to emulate God, right? And then it's almost as though as the Old Testament goes on, it's like the sin becomes more and more personalized to the to the individual, and less about this sort of cosmic scale of I want to play God and more so about I'm sinning against other men now and those kinds of things. But um I like this because to what you said, Jesse, I think I want to get into a little bit like we talk about the consciousness of the person who's passed away, right? Now they're righteous, they're in heaven, they are in, you know, or or rather they're in damnation. There's sort of these two choices, but what's the consciousness level? Where are we at here? What's what's happened to the soul? What's happened to the spirit? We got into this a little bit in one of the episodes early on in the Triune Man, but at the time of death, say the person's not coming back, the Lord is not saying, Hey, this is an NDE, so you can come back and share a testimony, you're you're done, right? What happens to the soul, body, spirit complex at that point? Could we like talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01: 59:53

Sure.

SPEAKER_04: 59:55

Biblically, you go to one of two holding tanks, you go either to What we would presently call heaven or room of God where the righteous are that was not available until after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Or you go to this place of darkness called Hades, and Hades, Hades, or the uh the Sheol in the Old Testament, it has different compartments. And so there are degrees of torment and degrees of reward. Jesus says those who are worthy of few lashes will receive few lashes, and those who are worthy of many will receive many. Luke, uh Math, no, I'm sorry, Matthew 18 speaks about um tormentors that if you don't forgive, you go and you are placed back into the the custody of jail, and there are these tormentors that are present. And so there are lashes that are associated, and that one in particular is associated with unforgiveness. Look, guys, unforgiveness is a grace buster. You don't forgive, you don't go to heaven. That is a that is a a strong statement in the scriptures. Unforgiveness is self-righteousness, you do not go to heaven. So um you you've got these compartments. Eventually, there will be a final day of judgment. God will destroy everything, according to Peter, in fire, everything that's created apart from those things that that bear eternality, everything temporary will be destroyed, and then he will remake a new heavens and a new earth. That then becomes the real eternal abode of the righteous and the lake of fire, which is the real eternal abode of the devil, his angels, and those who do not say yes to Jesus, those who who who do not um initiate a relationship with Christ as they were created to do. Now, as far as what happens, we've got a lot of anecdotal evidence of the NDEs and these other things where there's this second heavens, third heavens dynamic that plays out. And I think we we talked about this before, where this one dude died and he saw a bunch of fake Jesus is running around the second heavens. And so when we say second heavens, we mean the spirit realm, which which is the the first heavens is the the sky and the stars right the atmosphere. The second heavens is the spirit realm, the third heavens is the most highest of heavens, essentially the throne room of God, right? So when we talk about seventeen second heavens expression, we're we're talking about the spirit realm. And so in the spirit realm, he's detached from his body, and he's he's seeing these false Jesuses run around. And if he hadn't made it to the third heavens, he would have thought that that those ones were good until he met the real Jesus and recognized, oh my goodness, those are false Christs. And 2 Corinthians um 11 says as much, 10 says as much that there is a a another Jesus. Um, and so you know, false Messiah, Antichrist, these things are are all the same idea. What happens in that moment? There's a a lot of weird stuff out there, rabbit hole stuff. And so I I wouldn't recommend that anyone go down that rabbit hole, but there are concepts of this almost soul net that the demonic realm has put in place, that people after they have left their body, they're doing the demonic realm is doing what it can to try to lay hold of those those souls and spirits. One of the evidences for this is those who who have an NDE who are righteous, there's a welcoming party. Why do you need angels with you when you die? And they will testify that they were there as protectors. From what? Right. Why do you need protection once you're dead? And so there seems to be these layers of anecdotal evidence, so stories, so it's not not scripture, so you know, understand we're we're not talking about what the Bible says, but these anecdotal testimonies that once you're dead, that's not the end of it. Like that there are additional layers of experience and moments. Well, why why would an angel come and get you? Could you get lost, maybe? I I don't know. Could could you go the wrong direction? Once you like I there's obviously some sort of spatial recognition and awareness for those who have gone there, have out have had out-of-body experiences or these visionary experiences, like um what we call an open vision, where this world disappears, kind of like John in the book of Revelation, where he see he's seeing these things, or Daniel in the book of Daniel, Ezekiel, where almost the veil is taken off of these natural eyes, and you're seeing into the spirit realm and you're seeing these things. It's locational. It it's not the same as being here present in this body, but but there is a there's a distance that's there, there's a sense of direction that's there, and and yet physics don't work the same there. Like the the dude who um uh uh the Hindi guy or the Hindu guy who died, I forgot his name. Um we talked about him before. He's standing on this bridge looking at the heavenly city, and he looks down and he says it's an infinite distance from where he's at to the bottom of this pit, but he sees a fire at the bottom. But he can see it like it's face to face. So distance in that zone is nothing. Like you can see miles and miles and miles away. If if you're looking to focus on a word that's five miles that way, you see it as if it's right in front of your face. So time space doesn't work the same as it is here. The the four hours in heaven, written by um Henry Groover, he he's he is gone from his body here on the face of the planet for like four hours, but in heaven, he's there for like 10 minutes. And he comes back and he looks at his watch and he's like, oh my gosh, I've been gone. And he you know recounts what happens. And so time doesn't work the same. So what happens when we die? It's obvious that we don't cease to be. Even physics itself says that energy doesn't, doesn't it cannot be destroyed, right? It just changes form, changes shape. It was Habermas and Anthony Flew, so Gary Habermas, um, great Christian apologist, Anthony Flew, British atheist, who never wanted to convert to Christianity, but in his later years converted to a sense of theism. Why? Because of NDE's near-death experiences where people died, meaning, you know, all the all the um um machines and such are registering no heartbeat, no brain waves, nothing for hours at a time. They die and they're blind. And while they're apart from their body, they can tell you colors, names, events, people who walked in the room, um, readings on on the instruments that they come back to their body. They're blind, they were born blind, they've never seen green, and they're like, that person was wearing green. What? And verifiable, they come back. Anthony Flew has to deal with this because he's an atheist. So in his mind, you die, that's it. You cease to be.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:40

Heibermoss presents these cases to Anthony Flew, and Anthony Flew has to deal with okay, when the human ceases to be in their body, they don't actually cease to be, they continue to exist. Yeah, and so he converts to theism, but he never converts to Christian theism.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:58

Yeah. Testifying of the reality of sin. I I I want to say this, and it's it may sound overly simplistic, but it's the truth nonetheless. God is the God of the living, not of the god of the dead. And additionally, he's not the god of the sleeping, he is the god of the living. And so, to your point, after there's these near death experiences, or even after we die, the Bible says absence from the body is to be present with the Lord. And I want to say this as my final thought too, with regards to um hell. Two things. This is not an easy topic, and it shouldn't be an easy topic. We shouldn't be speaking so glibly, not just to insinuate that we are, but I want to say this for the people who are gonna watch this later. Alright, it's heavy. It is a heavy topic. And if this that does not lead you to pray and to love the lost, you've missed anything we've said. We're not talking just to talk and uh you know, uh posit deep information for the sake of positing deep information. This has eternal consequences. God himself, the hell is so real and so eternal, I believe, that God in the Old Testament asked questions like this why would you die? If if hell was simply just a small thing, you could just stay there for a little while and then cease to exist, he wouldn't stress the importance of repenting and coming to him and ask questions like rhetorical questions like, Why would you die? I would much rather you repent. It says in a certain place in Ezekiel, God is not does not have any pleasure in the death of the wicked. Even though they're wicked, God's mercy is that he would want them to repent. In the New Testament, where God himself comes in the form of a man, he shows you again, this is going back to the uh reality of sin and what sin is, not just this thing whereby I sin against you and it stops there. It has legs that you never anticipate. And Jesus comes and he dies for sin. If sin were a small thing, the Lord God Himself would have not come down to deal with it. This is a heavy issue. And again, I would I wouldn't um I would simply plead with you guys, my friends here, specifically in talking to, pray for me as I pray for you for God to give us a heart to love people. I love how Spurgeon puts it. If people are gonna go to hell, let them crawl over us, let them see our tears, let them see our pleading. Um, because this is not an issue we just want to discuss for the sake of discussion. This has eternal ramification for us. So it'd be hypocritical for me to talk about hell and then to live as though uh hell doesn't exist with eternal consequence. So that's the first thing. And the second thing again, hell must be eternal because God Himself came down from the throne to deal with it, to deal with the consequences uh uh of our sin, insinuating this is not a small thing. If sin were small, Jesus wouldn't have come. He didn't have to come. God himself, God, Jesus is God. We know this, right? He wouldn't have to leave glory to enter into a human being's body, to suffer the shame, not just the shame that's going to come when he suffers on the cross. I'm talking about the shame of being a human being and going to the bathroom and depending upon people, etc. etc. And then the culmination of it all, to be stripped-necked, to be tortured by men. The author of the book of Acts, Luke says, You kill no Peter says this, you kill the author of life. Jesus, while they're killing him on the cross, the Bible says he upholds the world by the word of his power. They're mocking him. Come down off the cross. You help other people, come down. He's giving them breath. They're mil they're they're they're they're jeering him and and making fun of him and torturing him. And that's not the worst of it. The wrath of Almighty God Himself, the Father turns his back upon him. If sin were small, if sin were a small thing, Jesus wouldn't have to come and do this. And that's my argument for the eternality of hell. God himself displays it and is and is not wanting us to go there by doing everything he can to save us from it, which lends to your point, guys. You both talked about this. Us spurning his grace. This is not me giving you a million dollars. That that'd be a kind thing, but he's given you infinitely more in the sun. And for you to spurn that is of the Jesus puts it like this in that famous passage in John 3, we all quote 16, verse 19 says this, and this is the judgment. Literally, this is why judgment exists. That the that light came into the world, namely himself. But men love the darkness more than light, therefore they don't go into the light lest their deeds be revealed to be evil. But those who go into the light testify that their works have been wrought out in God. You see, so the issue is light is coming, we know the truth, but we reject that truth because the truth, the light of the truth of the light, reveals two things that he's holy, we're sinful, and would rather be living in pretense that we're not as bad as we think we are, and we reject the gift, thereby spurning his grace. Hence the and again, another reason for the eternality of hell. He himself is eternal, he's not gonna stop being mad that you spurned an infinite good thing. It's not a million dollars, it's more than that. So I I said that as my last comment because I I some brothers, I have to go get my groceries. I actually didn't get it, and and I'm getting text to go get it. Um, so I'll leave that as my last comment. But pray for me as I pray for you. This is a heavy topic. Word to God that we would be more loving in 2026 and and what and beyond. And because we believe hell is eternal, let's tell people about Jesus because God Himself is telling people about Jesus through the various means he uses to evangelize. And I just want to be on board with that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:14

Amen. Bless you, brother.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:17

God bless you guys, man. Take it easy.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:19

I would piggyback on uh on what Terrence said is that we lose the urgency of evangelism. If if like what what am I gonna like think about it? How many people do you know they would thumb their nose at God and be like, all right, whatever, just cause me to pay for some sin, and then I'll I'll cease to exist. Like the the person who would pick to tap out, or the rebel, that's exactly what they would choose. They they would in in essence still thumb their nose at God in the final analysis.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:52

That's the easy route.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:54

That's exactly right. It it is the oh, okay, so I have to pay for a a temporary amount of time and pain and suffering, but then I cease to exist. All right, well, then I still pick to not have God. Yeah, and I'm just gonna have that. There are those who would be who who would do that willingly. And so I think that the rebel, sure, let me pay for my sin and then cease to be. Well, here's the here's the idea. Inherent in that statement is that sin can be paid for by a human. So if a person can pay for their sin and cease to exist, then they can pay for their sin. The problem is the scripture says it is too costly. No one can pay for sin. So God has to come in and redeem himself. And so I think that I think that philosophically inherent in this position of annihilationism is the the the uh the presupposition that uh sin can be paid for. And the problem is sin can't be paid for. It is a it is an eternal affront against God. Nothing can ever pay for sin enough. He says the Hebrew, the author of Hebrews says the blood of bulls and goats is not sufficient. Proverbs and and Psalms says a a man a man cannot pay for, or Job, who who can pay for the sin of man? Nobody. What man can redeem his brother? Life is too costly. There there it can't be done. Hence, God must do it. Well, why must God do it? Because of the eternal quality of the nature of the Son and the eternal quality of the sacrifice in order to redeem eternally.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:41

Yeah, these things, I mean, it is a heavy topic, and I think that you know, these these these theological sort of almost diversions are you know, sort of peeling off from the you know interpreting the interpreting scripture in a way that lightens the blow of of the eternality of of of hell is is is a response, I think, that comes out of fear, um a lack of commitment to to the gospel. Um because if that is if if the punishment is as is as severe as the scripture says, then you have to be all in. And there is a reluctance, perhaps, to be all in for some. And so there is a different interpretation of what that might be on the other side. The more we talk about this too, I I start to think about the the constitution of the person suffering in hell and what that's like, and we talk a little bit about it psychology psychologically, but I'm thinking that like if our memory is held in the brain, and we don't have a brain necessarily because the brain is a part of a body. Um, so when we pass on, the body's gone, but we're just a soul experiencing, um, it's it's really just a momentary, moment by moment experience of the torment of hell without any memory of how long you've been there or anything like that. So, in a way, it's interesting because it sort of alters the perception on what that might be like for someone in hell. It's just like it's a constant moment of torment, right?

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:10

Yeah, and well, so I uh if the soul is the mind will and emotions, then our memories don't go away when we die. That that's just uh the organic brain component. Um, so we we continue to have memories, um, but I I think that what ends up happening is uh so you look at the the Revelation um 14 and the revelation uh I think it's 20 um passages, and you you get this um the smoke of their torment arises forever and ever. Okay. So that means so everybody gets a resurrected body. Okay. We will either get a resurrected body suitable for eternal glory and joy to experience with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and the brothers in eternity, or we're gonna get a resurrected body suitable for eternal torment. And that's the offensive thing to people because they and and here's where it goes back for the Christian who who ends up taking this position. They want to defend God, they feel like it's not just or or it's contradictory to God being good for sin to be paid for eternally. They they cannot conceive of a a sin that is so bad that God would judge it. But the problem is is uh judge it um eternally. The problem is that's judging sin this way. That's judging sin on the face of the planet. The the the it's a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of sin being first and foremost against God, and then the fundamental misunderstanding of the worth and value of God Himself, who is the most holy, the most worthy. What does revelation say? Worthy are you? Why? Well, what is what is all of heaven declare is the nature of the worth and value of God, the worth and value of the Son, for you have died and purchased for God men from every tribe and tongue. And so the the worth the worth of God is demonstrated in the cross and in the resurrection in the gospel of Jesus giving himself for sinners. If that's true, then why judge sin this way? Like w we should be judging judging sin based on the worth and value of God who's done all things and is all things and is uh the the greatest treasure, you know, Matthew ten, the treasure of eternal value, the treasure of great worth instead of judging sin this way.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:56

Right. Interesting. So what's What's happening to the spirit at this point? Do you think? Is it truly the soul, the mind will, and the emotion that is experiencing the afterlife? Does scripture say anything about the divide between soul and spirit, or do they unify?

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:12

I think that um the non-corporeal portion of the person, like the the the mind will and emotion are kind of the personality of the person, and the spirit is kind of the nature of the ontology. Right. And so so I I don't think that there's a a a separation from them, um, like like something can be a spirit and not have a soul. That that kind of an idea. I mean, I don't know, maybe maybe there is, maybe you know, but if we define the soul as mind, will and emotions, we see that angels have mind-willing emotions. We see that, you know, so um so I I I I there is a division or a distinction between them because Hebrews 4 says that they can be divided, yeah, with the the word of God. Right. But I don't but it's almost like if you remove one, then you destroy both.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:07

Yeah. Yeah, I I see it's almost as though the soul is almost like an emanation or a reflection in in a way of the spirit, um, being the psychology of the person, the ego of the person, the perception in physical reality. And so when that physical reality goes away and everything is spirit, it would stand to reason that spirit and soul become one, right? Because more of a heavenly perspective, more of a spiritual perspective. You're not able to have a physical perspective because your eyes are gone, right?

SPEAKER_04: 1:21:34

I I think they're one still now. Like I I I I think that it's yeah, I I think that they they are one now.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:44

It's almost impossible to perceive them as one from this physical perspective, though, too. And I think that's something we contend with regularly in our walk, as well as being distracted too much by the world, right? Being distracted by the world and not not considering the spiritual realm at every moment that it is actually the the genes, you know, it's it's where all of this is is created from, it's where everything is birthed from almost is like this this physic the spiritual realm exists all around us and interpen interpenetrates us, it should be considered regularly because that way our glorification of God is considered regularly, right?

SPEAKER_04: 1:22:16

Yeah. I think part of the interesting of the in the occult world, and you know, with the the new the the uh alien phenomenon too is the idea that we are soul containers, our bodies are our soul containers, and they're that these occultic uh beings that you know the demonic stuff with alien stuff, they're they're intensely interested, or at least what they've said in their uh encounters with humans is that um that they are intensely interested in our soul, which is a very interesting idea. What's uh Bob Lazar, uh the the UFO guy who worked at Area 51 or whatever, um is reported as saying that that there are there were conversations that had happened about the uh human religion and uh it being um a method or a means of controlling humans for the sake of our our bodies as containers for souls or you know, something something strange along those lines. But yeah, it's uh you know what what is the non-corporeal part of the person? And you know, there are places in the scripture where spirit and soul overlap. And so you you you you have to take them as as one and and the same and yet distinct, kind of like the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are one and the same, and yet there's a distinction between them, yet they can't be divided. And so that that same kind of dynamic. It's one of the reasons why, you know, when people think about what is the the Trinitarian nature of of God reflected in humans in his image and likeness, they would say body, soul, and spirit. That's one of the arguments of image and likeness as far as the the breakdown. I, you know, I don't believe that or espouse that, but but that's out there. And also you know, why be because of the same reason.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:06

Yeah, it's also three and one, and it's not easy to um conceptualize. And I think that with our, you know, uh our our scientific minds that sort of you know expand into these areas of like philosophy and psychology, we want to pick apart those things and categorize those things and make it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:24:22

We we want neat categories, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:24

Yeah, but in the spiritual realm, it's all one, essentially, I would say. And so when we move into that realm, you're back into that space of it all being one. Now it's time to experience the afterlife in the way that you're living in the physical realm will dictate and God will decide, right, where you go. And so I think that that you know, this entire conversation, it's really highlighting the enormity and the the weight of of uh the gospel and our purpose here, which is to glorify God. And if we're turning away from that purpose, that's that's there's there's major consequences. And if that's not a motivator to come to the Lord, I don't know what is. And what I've contended with too, coming out of the new age, was one day I am a um, I guess I would say that you know, I believed in multiple lifetimes of incarnation, and the next day heaven and hell, right? So there's this complete contextual shift in terms of my perception of after of the afterlife after coming to Christ. And so I can see, you know, and that was extremely rocky because it's like, okay, what do I do with all of this? This is stuff that I did believe, you know what I mean? Um, where does all that go? And is there any truth to the idea that that deception itself has so much weight and truth? Because, like we talk about the idea of tulpas, things that are believed by a a large amount of people actually manifest in a certain way, you know, energetically. Um, so this idea of reincarnation being such a trope um in the minds of the collective, you know, there's weight to it, there's truth to it in that sense, but not in the sense that that's actually what's going to happen when we die, right?

SPEAKER_04: 1:26:11

Yeah, there's a spiritual substance to it, but that doesn't make it truth.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:15

But that also brings us into the realm, which is interesting. And I was meditating on this recently of I heard a um an ND, I like ND stories as much as you do, but I I heard one recently of a um a not even a non-believer, it's a he was an atheist who died and uh came back, obviously, and was telling the story of what happened to him. He was wandering in some inner, you know, it was I guess it was sort of like an in-between kind of world, an upside down, if you will, from like Stranger Things. So it's this idea of like almost a purgatory. So he's wandering down these streets, and it's almost like he's in the the the land of the dead. And I think that this is this is talked about as well by people who are are Christians, that they'll, you know, it's like a you you mentioned it earlier when there's that there's a passing on, and when you die, that you're then in this space of, okay, um we need to put you somewhere, but we're not sure where to put you yet, so it's like a holding tank. It almost kind of sounded like what he was talking about, but it it it it calls to question the idea of, okay, so we have believers, let's just say three categories. We have believers, we have non-believers who are maybe agnostic, and then we have atheists who are like, God doesn't exist. Is there any way that the perception of the person and what they believed the afterlife would be like when they died? Is there any way that there's a reflection of that to that person, right, when they die? Because we hear about that as well, where it's like what you believe the afterlife to be is what it is. Now I believe in the kingdom of heaven and I believe in hell, right? Because I'm a Christian. But like someone who's an atheist, like I'm like I'm saying, you know, maybe that's it, maybe they're wandering into purgatory before they're placed in hell. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04: 1:27:55

Yeah, no, and unfortunately, like the the uh um the the Hindu man we were talking about earlier, um, God, I forgot his name. Um, he had no Christian upbringing, no Christian structure, and he saw Revelation, Revelation 19 and 20. So it is objective um to those whom God is doing something with, there's an objective reality to it, absolutely. Um, there is also a deceptive quality to it in some areas where um you've got these these uh events where the person thinks that they're being surrounded by their friends and then time goes on and now they're being molested by the same people that they thought were their friends. Right. These these spirits. And so so that it's it's interesting the the gamut of um the continuing perception of the human once they pass. And what happens after that, uh there's there's a ton of data out there for objective stuff, the continuing of deception, the um uh oftentimes what you have with the deception quality is you have this continued uh play or um deception that these entities are are continuing to uh keep going until the person realizes oh something something's not right, something's up, and then they turn. Right. And now there's torment. And um, so there are lots of cases like that. So I I I I don't think that there's a um this is how I perceive the afterlife to be, and so I step into that zone and that's how it is. You've actually got a a lot of stories where when you cut away um some of the the trappings of ideas, yes, and you get to the core of the event, yeah, that they're all virtually the same. They're there's like a seven 70 to 80 percent agreement.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:53

It's almost a transition period. So if you have a belief system about the afterlife that is, you know, um it um you know, in stark sort of contrast to heaven and hell, which is the objective reality, it's gonna take a little while for that those belief systems kind of burn off, perhaps, or there's a transitional period maybe where the psyche has to adjust to okay, now this now we're now we're actually being judged, right?

SPEAKER_04: 1:30:20

Yeah, I'm I'm I'm not sure. I know that there are others who they died and they knew immediately there there was no yeah, like the the Singdu, the Hindu guy who's who's standing on the bridge looking at who he knows as God, he's like that dude doesn't match any of the deities in Hinduism. I I don't know who that is, but we've never been taught about that guy. So there was no acclamation needed. There was no, and so uh, you know, I mean, I don't know. If if they're if if they're one of these NDE people whom God is obviously that death is not the final death, right? Because he's gonna send them back or they're gonna have an opportunity to come back or whatever it is for whatever the purpose is that God is doing in his sovereignty. Um if if they're not one of those people, maybe there's, you know, if they're suffering in hell, there's a period of confusion and stuff like that because God isn't he's not available to them, he's separated himself from them. And you know what happens in that place of torment? Perhaps there is a point of confusion and acclamation that happens. I don't know. But for those who go to heaven, they realize it immediately. Boom. They're like, No, I know who that is. I know there are others who they don't have any Christian trappings at all, and they're like, That's the creator. Yeah, I I I don't know any that dude, that's the guy. Like your wife, when she she meets, she's like, That's Jesus, and he's from Nazareth. She didn't have any of that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:31:42

And he's God, never been in training, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:31:45

Exactly. But you know, so there is this there is this component where this this awareness and revelation comes. And so, so I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:31:53

Um, you know, it's yeah, it's hard to say interesting. I appreciate you uh entertaining my philosophical meanderings as we love to do. Um with uh you know speculations and all that, but it's it's an interesting topic, and I and I don't want to take away from the weight of the entirety of it because again, it is it is the crux upon which a lot of this rests is where are you going when you die? You know, and that's that's that's the way a lot of times to preach the gospel is well, I want you to be saved, you know what I mean? And and I I want that for you because I want you to go where you're headed, right? Um and I love you, you know, and God loves you. Yep. And he's real. Um and so these are these are really, really important things here. Um any closing thoughts before we wrap?

SPEAKER_04: 1:32:32

Yeah, I think the the the closing the one closing thought that I've got as far as the this topic is concerning is is this. Don't pick Jesus to get out of hell. Okay, that that's a thing, and if that's what gets you in the door, fine. But you pick Jesus because Jesus is worthy. You pick him because he's the ultimate treasure, because he's he is glorious and he is good, and he is the fountain of living water, and he is the bread from heaven, he is the supreme satisfaction of all things, he's the darling of heaven, he is he is all these things. And so John Piper put it this way, he said, listen, if you could have heaven and not have Jesus, would you go? And if your answer to that is yes, then you don't want Jesus and you're not going to find heaven. You go to heaven because you you want the Lord beyond everything else. And so, yes, the reality of hell is absolutely real, and the underscore of the the eternal consequences of going to one place or another is is absolutely real. And and yes, it is a a an eternal suffering that is systemic. You're you're not going to just experience it bodily, but you're going to experience it in your soul. And and there will be no break. The worm never dies, the the torment never stops. But you don't pick Jesus to get away from that. You pick Jesus because he's worthy, because he loves you, because he died for you and rose for you to give you his life, because he is the greatest treasure, he is he is the everything. That's why you pick. That's that's the reason why you say yes to Jesus. So in the final analysis, if if you're looking at hell and heaven and you're like, I want to get out of jail free card, and that's why you're saying yes to Jesus, that's not the right reason. You say yes to Jesus because of who he is, because he's worth a lifetime of chasing, and in a future when he wraps everything up, you will spend the rest of eternity dancing from mountaintop to mountaintop, chasing him and frolicking and having fun with your savior, experiencing new things in God for the rest of eternity. That's why you say yes to God.

SPEAKER_00: 1:35:08

Amen, brother. Thank you for saying all that. I'm excited for 2026, man. Blood and Oil's got some cool stuff coming down the pipe. We're gonna be expanding into new areas, doing some outreach, and uh getting out on the street talking to people, hopefully. So that'll be a lot of fun, man. Um man, this was a great, great conversation, and thank you for saying that. It's exactly right. We were made to glorify him. Bottom line, right? So let's do what we're made to do, you know. Um, thank you, brother. Amen. Amen. All right, everyone, thank you for tuning in. Um please comment, like, share the video, share the share the podcast audio. Um it'll be out soon, but uh enjoy, guys, and uh I'm glad we could go down this road together. And just as always, you know, um feeling uh feeling pumped up and uh excited about this topic and everything we discussed today. So hopefully hopefully it blessed you guys as well. And uh blood and oil out.

SPEAKER_01: 1:36:01

Okay, so uh I got