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Revelation 19:20, 20:10, 14, 15


Hell is described in only a few spots throughout the Bible as a place of fire, and all these descriptions are in the New Testament except for allegorical stories like Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. In God’s Revelation to John, the final end of the world is depicted as a war between good and evil. The good are not Christians. Christians are raptured to Heaven before the Great Tribulation begins, sparing them the horrors that ensue.

Instead, the good who remain are those who convert to the Christian faith and die as martyrs at the hands of the Antichrist, also called the beast. He is assisted by another beast, called the False Prophet, the antithesis of the Holy Spirit. They are both controlled by Satan. They first come to power by masterful diplomacy, making the whole love them and unite behind them in the name of peace, but then, after three and a half years, the Antichrist shows his true colors, taking over the whole world, something no one has ever achieved, not Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, or Hitler.

In the end, an actual battle will take place at Har-Megiddo, in northern Israel. This place name was Hellenized as Armageddon.

The Beast will lead all the world’s armies against Jesus himself, who will ride on a white horse at the head of an army in the sky of all the Christians in history. Jesus will speak the truth, and the truth will destroy everyone below. Then the Beast and the False Prophet will be “thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur.” This means that they do not die first and then go to Hell; they are thrown into Hell still alive. John is clear that the rest of the people simply die by the truth of Jesus, and are then devoured by all the birds of the air. Satan is bound in chains by a mighty angel, ostensibly Michael, and thrown into the Abyss for 1,000 years. This is not the lake of fire. The Abyss may be another word for Hell, or it may be the same Abyss out of which come the locusts of #6.

This is interesting: all those killed at Armageddon go to Hell, but not the lake of fire. This means there must be more to Hell than a single lake of fire. After the 1,000 years are over, Satan is released, having refused to change his ways. He once again leads all the world astray against God’s holy people in the city he loves, and God rains down fire from Heaven and destroys them. Then Satan is thrown in to the lake of fire where he, the Beast, and the False Prophet burn forever in eternal torture. This is the second death.

Then God makes his final judgment for or against everyone who has ever lived. Some go to Heaven, now called the New Jerusalem, with streets paved in solid gold, twelve gates made of single pearls, twelve precious-stone foundations for the 1,400-mile high, 200-foot thick walls. The rest are thrown into the lake of fire with the Unholy Trinity, and there all the impenitent sinners burn for eternity. God saves the worst for last: this is the absolute culmination of all the “hellfire and brimstone,” “the wrath of God,” throughout the Bible.

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