Unbelief shall have its portion in the Lake of Fire which burns with fire and brimtone.
Make no mistake! Our God IS consuming fire! If its not like the Lord Jesus himself it's headed for the ash pile.
Unbelief shall have its portion in the Lake of Fire which burns with fire and brimtone.
Rev.21:8
The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the Lake which burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death. The Lake is a Lake of Holy Ghost fiery water; filled with the fiery judgment of Almighty God.
The Lake is a propetic spiritual picture of the revelation of the Lord Jesus himself. This is the revelation of Jesus who is the savior of the entire world as he is working his saving grace. The Lake which burns with fire and brimstone is revealing our God!
Deut.4:24
The LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
Deut. 9:3
Understand therefore this day, that the LORD thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the LORD hath said unto thee.
Every stronghold, every bondage, every idol, every adversary that withholds the manifestation of the glory of the Lord, shall be consumed in the righteous judgment of the Lake of fire and brimstone. The Lake of Fire is a prophetic picture of the righteous judgment of the Lord Jesus himself as he abolishes all sin and death. This Lake which burns with holy fiery words and brimstone is the dealing of the Lord in which consumes all wood, hay and stubble; spiritually speaking of the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, the lust of the eyes, all shall be consumed by the washing of His holy fiery words of power and might.
Because of the gross misunderstanding of almost all people concerning the Lake of Fire, I will draw our attention to three words found in our text. “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”
The word burn means combustion, or to consume. To consume does not mean to annihilate, for there is no such thing as annihilation in the absolute and scientific sense. When fire consumes a log in your fireplace it does not destroy any of the elements within the log, it merely changes their form. Combustion is the process by which chemicals combine to form new chemicals. For example, a tree might be cut down, sawed into fire wood, and burned in your fireplace. When the wood is burning the heat causes the chemicals of which the wood is composed to vaporize, mixing with the oxygen in the air to form new chemicals, including water and the gas carbon dioxide. So what was formerly a tree is no longer identified as the form of a tree, but the substance thereof is now simply changed into a different form and exists in its new form within the atmosphere as water, carbon dioxide, etc.
Thus, to burn means to change! God is not speaking of our bodies being burned up in the Lake of Fire — the fire is spiritual fire and its work is a spiritual work upon our stubborn wills, our carnal minds, our flesh nature, our corrupt passions, and all that causes us to be cast into this divine processing of God! Furthermore, that fire does not burn down; it always burns up; it seeks the highest level. All that it consumes “goes up in smoke,” to exist in a new form in a higher dimension. Even if you take a pan of water and place it over a fire, before long the water will take on the property of the fire and will begin to go up in steam.
To burn means to change, and the change is always upward in motion!
Fire is the heat and light that you feel and see when something burns. It takes heat to start a fire, but once the fire is started it produces heat that keeps the process going. Thus, fire is really heat and light. The Lake of fire and brimstone signifies a fire burning with brimstone. The word ‘brimstone’ or sulphur defines the character of the fire. The Greek word theion translated ‘brimstone’ is exactly the same word theion which means ‘divine.’ Sulphur was sacred to the deity among the ancient Greeks; and was used to fumigate, to purify, and to cleanse and consecrate to the deity; for this purpose they burned it in their incense. In Homer’s Iliad (16:228), one is spoken of as purifying a goblet with fire and brimstone. The verb derived from theion is theioo which means to hallow, to make divine, or to dedicate to a god (See Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon, 1897 Edition).
To any Greek, or any trained in the Greek language, a ‘lake of fire and brimstone’ would mean a ‘lake of divine purification.’ The idea of judgment need not be excluded. Divine purification and divine consecration are the plain meaning in ancient Greek. In the ordinary explanation, the fundamental meaning of the word is completely left out, and nothing but eternal torment is associated with it.
Fire means heat and light. Brimstone means divine. The Lake burning with fire and brimstone is, actually Divine heat (judgment), and light (illumination), producing a change! Is such a process eternal? All the laws of nature shout that it is not! More than 2500 hundred years ago the Holy Spirit warned the wicked inhabitants of Jerusalem that God would kindle a fire at Jerusalem’s gates which would devour her palaces. “But if ye will not hearken unto me then I will kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched” (Jer. 17:27). Did not God say this fire “shall not be quenched”? This prophecy was fulfilled and the fire did occur a few years later when Nebuchadnezzar’s armies devastated Jerusalem (Jer. 52) and the fire did destroy all the houses of Jerusalem. Since God said no person or thing would “quench” this fire, did that mean that it would burn forever?
That is what most people think when they hear of “unquenchable fire!” The fire at Jerusalem accomplished the work it was sent to do, and since it is not burning today, it obviously went out by itself after accomplishing its purpose! Unquenchable fire is not eternal fire — it is simply fire than cannot be put out until it has consumed or changed everything it is possible for it to change! It then simply goes out, for there is nothing more to burn. Yet we hear the preachers ranting and raving about poor souls being cast into hell fire where “their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” and this, we are told, means eternal, unending torment. How foolish, illogical, and deceptive! Such a view blatantly contradicts the plain meaning of the term “unquenchable” and its use in the Word of God.
J. Preston Eby writes, unbelief is to be void of faith, and the writer to the Hebrews assures us that “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6). The message is just this: Unbelief is sin! Faith is the spiritual sense by which we recognize the presence, character, and purpose of God; both that He is, and that He rewards the seeker. Faith seeks for God; it believes that He is; it keeps the heart open towards Him; it bows in humility and hope for Him to make Himself known. To know God, to see God in everything, and everywhere, to hear in our heart His voice and His teaching, and in our daily life to be conscious of His presence so that we always walk with Him — this is the true nobility of the man of faith! This is the life that faith lives; this is the blessedness that Jesus has now fully revealed by coming by His spirit of sonship into our hearts, whereby we cry, “Abba, Father!” Faith can walk with God as a son of God! And it’s not our faith, but as Paul said, the life which we now live in the flesh we live by the faith of the Son of God who…gave Himself for (and to) us. Truly, He is both the author (origin, source) and the finisher (maturity, consummation, fullness) of our faith! Consider His faith! Jesus had faith to walk with the Father. He had faith to acknowledge and walk out His sonship to God. He had faith to speak as the oracle of God. He had faith to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, feed multitudes with five loaves and two fish, walk on water, turn water into wine, raise the dead, forgive sins, and fulfill the whole purpose of the Father in His life even unto Calvary and the tomb, and to conquer death, hell, and the grave! Oh, yes! That, and much more, is the faith of the Son of God! To doubt that faith within ourselves, to neglect the growth and development of that faith, to be unbelieving of God’s call, purpose, and power in our lives would surely put us in the category of “the unbelieving” who must be purged and purified in the Lake of Fire!
When our God's fiery judgment is working in people's lives, the people shall learn and prosper.
Isa. 26:9
With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yes, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
The Lake of Fire and Brimstone is a spiritual picture of Jesus bringing righteous judgment of the love of God setting the captives free from sin, decay and death. ~Tim Wray
