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Amazing Facts

Doug Batchelor

The Final Firestorm

This presentation is brought to you by the Friends of the Amazing Facts Ministry.

Guinness World Records lists the official winter as Death Valley, California.

On July 10, 1913, the mercury there skyrocketed to 134 degrees Fahrenheit.

Some parts of Death Valley have an average daily high of 115 degrees, but The ground temperature can get even more intense.

In 1972, at a place called Furnace Creek, it registered a blistering 201 degrees, the hottest surface temperature ever recorded on the planet.

Actually, there's a good chance There are other places in the deserts around the world that get even hotter, but most humans don't inhabit the hottest places on earth.

So there are no weather stations or sensors to record the extreme temperatures.

The Bible tells us that the ultimate global warming is still in the future.

It's the time when God will cleanse the world with fire.

The scripture says, in that day, the very elements will melt with fervent heat and the earth and the things that are in it will be burned up.

To find out more, join me now as we explore the good news about Hell.

Before we get into the lesson, we always like to begin with a historical from the Bible.

These are Bible stories that help illustrate Bible truths.

And you find this story in the book of Genesis.

Now the lesson is called the final firestorm.

You remember Lot and his uncle Abraham settled in the promised land.

God blessed their flocks and herds so much that they just could not dwell together anymore.

And Abraham said, we don't want to argue, we are brethren.

And so what happened is Abraham said, Lot, You go to the right hand, I'll go to the left, you decide where you want to go.

And it says that he lifted his eyes towards Sodom and he directed his attention towards the valley because there's a lot of pasture back then, even though the Bible's pretty clear that the men of Sodom, and this is Genesis 13, 13, were wicked exceedingly.

Now, I don't know if you're aware, but God had actually spared Sodom once before, and they'd been rescued by Abraham.

He delivered the cities when they'd been attacked by the Assyrian armies in the north.

God gave them another chance, but they did not repent.

And they went deeper and deeper into sin and wickedness.

And eventually God sent 2 angels to Lot, said, get your family out of this place because God is going to destroy it for its wickedness.

Lot tried to persuade his grown daughters that were married to come with him and they thought that he was mocking.

Finally the angels said, time's almost up.

The angels took Lot and his 2 daughters and his wife by the hand.

1 angel had 2 in each hand and physically pulled them out of the city and said, escape for your life.

Do not look behind you, very explicit command, nor stay anywhere in the plain, escaped to the mountains, and as they were going back towards the mountain, the Bible tells us, then the Lord rained brimstone, that's like sulfur, and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of the heavens.

Later you read where Abraham said, it says that Abraham looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah.

There were actually 4 or 5 cities down there, Zoar in the other word, they're very small.

But the principal cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and behold, the smoke of the land, which went up like the smoke of a furnace.

Abraham was praying that Lot and his family had made it out alive.

Now, you might be a little bit apprehensive, oh, Pastor Doug, you're gonna be talking about hell.

I think you're gonna be encouraged when you find out what the Bible teaches about this regarding the justice and the love of God.

I think I shared with you the night that we talked about heaven that there are about twice as many people that believe in heaven as those who believe in hell.

And that's understandable because there are 2 incredible extremes that are out there in the world and even in the church regarding hell.

1 teaching says that if you're bad and you die, you go immediately to a place of everlasting torment, where you will be plunged into a lake of fire and brimstone, and you will have every nerve ending in your body sensing this incredible agony and pain, and you'll be writhing in this molten fire and brimstone, compounded by the anguish that you could have been saved, but you are not.

And that terrible experience will not go on for a moment or 2 or a minute or 2, but forever and ever.

Now, just the thought of that, I think, can make someone blow a gasket.

Can you imagine burning for a billion years, And then after a billion years go by, you swim to the surface of the molten lava and you say, Lord, how long?

The other view is that hell is just the bad memories of what happened here on earth that are going to bother you, or that some of the wicked might be vaporized, you know, at the end, and then they're gone.

Between these 2 extremes, you'll find the Bible truth.

There is a true teaching on hell and the lake of fire.

You also find it in Revelation 22, but, and all through the teachings of Jesus as well.

But we're gonna find out what the Bible says.

Let's go to the first question in our lesson.

What 2 cities are given as an example for the destruction of the wicked?

In our opening story, we looked at those 2 cities.

You read in 2 Peter 2, verse 6, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes.

Turned them into ashes, condemned them to destruction, ashes, destruction, making them an example to those who afterward live ungodly.

So if we want to see an example of what's going to happen to the wicked, it says, look at what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah.

What the Bible tells us, they were burnt with eternal fire.

They were burnt up, they were destroyed, they were turned to ashes, never rebuilt.

So question number 2, when will the wicked be destroyed in hellfire?

Let's find out what the Bible says on that.

Second Peter 2, verse 9, the Lord knows how to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment.

If you call a restaurant and say, I'd like to reserve a table.

That means they're holding it for you until you get there.

And this is the same way it is with the wicked, that people are reserved for the day of judgment.

John 12, 48, Jesus said, the word that I have spoken will judge him.

In fact, I'm gonna grab my Bible real quick.

If you've got your Bible or your digital Bible, go to John chapter 6.

It's amazing to me people don't catch this.

John chapter 6, these are all the words of Jesus.

This is the will of my Father who sent me, that all He has given me I should lose nothing, but raise it up the last day.

No 1 can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up the last day.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I'll raise him up the last day.

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The Final Firestorm

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