Ep 1284 ｜ What the Hell？ The Truth About Kirk Cameron’s Views on Eternal Punishment
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Summary
Is Kirk Cameron right about hell? Is the punishment of hell temporary or eternal conscious torment? Is this a heresy or not? Today we will be looking at both sides of this debate, and also answering the question, is this heresy a heresy?
Transcript
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Is Kirk Cameron right about hell? Is the punishment of hell temporary or is it eternal conscious
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torment? We will be looking at both sides of this debate today and also answering the question,
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is this heresy? This episode is brought to you by our friends at Olive. Make America healthy again.
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far.
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All right. Today we are going to talk about hell. We are going to talk about a specific debate that
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was reeling at the end of last year that I didn't get to wade into that I want to try to add as much
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clarity as I can for my specific audience on today. So let me back up a little bit, give us some context.
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On December 3rd, actor Kirk Cameron released a podcast episode with his son in which they
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discuss God's justice and God's mercy in relation to hell and punishment of those who do not repent
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and put their faith in Christ. And instead of affirming what is seen as the traditional view
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of hell among most Protestants, eternal conscious punishment, where non-Christians are being tortured
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and fire for all of eternity in hell with Satan, he affirmed a view called conditionalism or
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annihilationism. And this perspective holds that those who reject the gospel go to hell,
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but are not there eternally. They are eventually destroyed. They are punished for a finite period of
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time, and then they no longer exist. And I encourage you to go watch Kirk Cameron's full episode.
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Love him. Have had him on the show several times. He is so great. And you will be interested to hear
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from his perspective. Here's a clip from it. It's not one.
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I used to hold the position of conscious eternal torment because that's just what I was taught
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by people that I love and trust. I've learned that there are other positions and a very robust
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argument can be made for conditionalism or annihilationism as Edward Fudge posits here.
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And it fits the character of God, in my understanding, more than the conscious eternal
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torment position because it brings in the mercy of God together with the justice of God. It doesn't
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leave judgment out. It is just, but it also fits with the Old Testament picture of the fate of the
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wicked, which is to be destroyed. It is to die and it is to perish, not live forever in an eternal
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barbecue. Okay. So this caused quite a stir in the online Christian world. It sparked a really
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interesting debate about what God's eternal justice towards unrepentant sinners actually
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looks like. Now you had some people calling him a heretic, saying that he can't be a Christian and
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hold this position. But then you had people who simply expressed concern. My friend Samuel Say
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posted this on Acts. He said, Kirk Cameron is dangerously wrong. The Bible is very clear that hell
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is eternal punishment. His belief in annihilationism is terrible. But what makes it even more concerning
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is that he suggests that the biblical view of hell makes God merciless. And then you have author
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Owen Strand. He responded to Kirk Cameron's position by saying,
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Grieve to see this from Kirk Cameron. Scripture is abundantly clear. Hell is the place where the fire is not
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quenched. Mark 948. A good exegetical resource on annihilationism is hell under fire featuring Sinclair
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Ferguson, Al Mohler, and G.K. Beal. We'll get to that in just a little bit. Kirk's episode has been
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discussed and responded to by lots of very smart scholars, theologians, pastors. Not all of them
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agree. Al Mohler, Wes Huff, Greg Kokel, others, and we will get into their responses in just a little bit.
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The only reason that I am wading into this after so many brilliant people already have is because
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there are many people in my particular audience who don't watch or listen to other shows. They
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haven't heard about this debate, either this particular debate, or maybe they've never heard
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of it ever. And maybe if they're like me, they hadn't really taken a deep dive into alternative
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views of hell. And this is a conversation that does matter. It matters among Christians because
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what we think about God matters. There's this famous quote by a theologian named A.W. Tozer that
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says, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
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So what does God mean when he says X, Y, Z in his word is the question that Christians and scholars
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have been debating for thousands of years. It's the question that we still debate and discuss today
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because we want to have correct thoughts about God and the existence of hell, the nature of hell,
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and what that looks like tells us about what God means when he says certain things about himself,
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about judgment, and about mercy, and about salvation. God's word, as we know, is without error. It's
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trustworthy. And people are neither of those things, whether they are pastors or priests or professors
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or theologians, but through the Holy Spirit, we try. We read our Bible in textual and historical
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context. We allow scripture to interpret scripture. We rely on the scholarship of wise Christians who
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have gone before us to help us believe the true things about God. And I do believe that this debate,
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while it matters, is a non-primary issue. I don't know whether it is a secondary issue or a tertiary
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issue or something else, but it is not, in my view, a salvation issue. Those who accept or
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reject a position of eternal conscious punishment while believing that only by grace through faith
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in Jesus Christ is one saved are believers. Proverbs 27, 17, I think is relevant when it says
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that iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another. I believe that that's what happens
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through healthy debates. When we look to the Bible as our ultimate final authority and we discuss what
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the Bible actually means, what God means, not what God means to us or in accordance with our feelings,
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we are sharpening each other. We are sanctifying or we are allowing the Holy Spirit to sanctify us
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through those discussions. Now, this is an intra-church debate. This is a debate that's probably not
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very evangelistic in nature. It's not probably that attractive or relevant to non-Christians,
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although within this debate, there's always the responsibility and the opportunity to share the
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gospel. And that, of course, is appealing to those that God is calling. But these inter-church debates
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that might be confusing or frustrating for the non-Christian are still necessary, just because
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they're not evangelistic in nature doesn't make them unproductive or unnecessary. So, as we have done
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on many, many theological topics for the past eight years, we will explain the varying views on hell,
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really mostly just two beliefs. There are other beliefs outside of these two beliefs, but these are
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beliefs that I believe Bible-believing Christians can hold, and what the support for them looks like,
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and then the conclusion kind of based on all of that information. So, we'll get into that.
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What is annihilationism? What is conditionalism? What is Kirk Cameron's argument for this? What are
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other scholars' argument for this? In just a second, let me go ahead and pause. I'll tell you about our
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What is annihilationism? Annihilationism, this is according to Ligonier Ministries,
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is the view that lost people, so people that don't know Jesus, that are not in his flock,
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that were not saved by grace through faith in him, that they will go to hell, and they will be
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exterminated after they have paid the penalty for their sins. That is according to theologian and
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author, Dr. Robert Peterson. Kirk and his son, James, in this podcast episode that got a lot of
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people up in arms, brought up many of the most common arguments in support of annihilationism,
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or you might have heard of conditionalism. So it's not immortality. The soul doesn't have
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immortality, does not live forever if you go to hell, but you live for a certain amount of time
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until that's up. Your punishment is conditional. It's based on particular conditions. It does not
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last forever, no matter what. So one of the points that they bring up, fiery imagery consumes and
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destroys in scripture. So this is the first point that they say, and they point to Matthew 3, 12.
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His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the
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barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. And so they note there that the fire is
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unquenchable. The fire cannot be put out, but the chaff, which is a symbol for those who are going to
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hell, is destroyed in this process. The second point they make, they point to texts of perishing
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or destruction for the wicked, and they look to the Old Testament for this. Y'all know I love Psalm 37.
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I read Psalm 37 very often on my show because I love the picture that it paints for the righteous
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that are saved by God and those who are rebelling against God and doing wickedness. It might look
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like they're succeeding, but ultimately their end is destruction. So they'll point to Psalm 37, 20,
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but the wicked will perish. The enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures. They vanish,
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like smoke, they vanish away. And I also think of the first verse of this chapter,
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be not envious of wrongdoers. Don't care about what the evildoer is doing, or don't worry when it
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looks like they're successful. I'm paraphrasing, for they will soon fade like the grass and perish
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like the herb. Matthew 10, 28, and do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.
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Rather fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell. So they would emphasize those who hold
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this position, Old Testament language, showing a perishing, a vanishing, or destroyed. And they
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would say, this is literal. This is not just metaphorical. This is not just a picture. This
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means that they will actually no longer exist. And number three, they point to the meaning of
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eternal. So what does eternal actually mean when it's used in, for example, Matthew 25, 46? And these
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will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. And so they would
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kind of reinterpret what eternal actually means there as the final and permanent consequence of
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their lack of faith in Christ, but not necessarily ongoing, persistent torment forever and ever.
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Number four, justice, finite sins versus eternal punishment. Something we've talked about on this
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show is that in God's definition of justice, when it comes to legal justice, law giving in Israel,
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there are at least four characteristics that we see. And we typically talk about this in the context
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of social justice and how God's justice differs from social justice. God's justice is direct,
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it's truthful, and it is proportionate, and it is impartial. So this proportionate aspect of God's
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justice is kind of what this position hones in on. They would question if eternal conscious
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torment is just or proportionate, fits the crime for a limited lifetime of sin. They would say that
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this is cruel and unusual. That's something that Kirk Cameron said. And they would contrast that with God's
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mercy and justice. And Kirk Cameron's son, James, points out that we inherit our sin from Adam. So
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it is actually not possible by nature for us, pre-Christ, to not sin at all. So everyone is doing
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what they have inherited from Adam to do. And they would argue that it is unjust to be eternally and
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consciously punished for something that we inherited and did for a finite amount of time.
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And then number five is a more personal, I don't want to call it an emotional argument in any kind of
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belittling way, but there is some kind of emotional aspect to this in that it feels wrong. And in the
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episode, Kirk Cameron expresses his personal relief. I don't want to believe in conscious eternal
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torment for anybody is what he says, which I totally understand that and can really relate to that
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feeling. And that's not some liberal expression of emotions being our ruler or being the determinant of
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our theology. It's just true. It's an acknowledgement that that seems really hard to accept and really
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difficult to understand. I've even seen scholars say that. He says that eternal conscious punishment
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misrepresents God's character, portraying him as a merciless God who tortures people forever.
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And then there's the sixth point that they make the finality of the second death, Revelation 2014,
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then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
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So the Camerons here argue in the podcast that the reference to the lake of fire being called the
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second death points to the ultimate finality of the judgment for the wicked. So eventually it's going
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to end after the resurrection and final judgment, death and Hades, the realm of the dead are themselves
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thrown into the lake of fire, meaning that death as an ongoing reality is totally ended. And then
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additionally, James Cameron, this is Kirk Cameron's son, not the famous director, asked his father how
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eternal punishment is defined in the Bible leading to this exchange. Is eternal punishment also
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punishment while being alive or is that eternal separation from Christ?
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I actually think this is a really good argument for annihilationism. And what you're saying is that
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just because the righteous go to eternal life, which is the gift of God, eternal life, the gift of God,
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what you're saying is not that the wicked are granted an eternity of punishment. You're saying
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that the punishment of the wicked is final. It is irreversible. There is no relief from that
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punishment in terms of ever going back. It's done. It's over. It's permanent. And you can't stop it.
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Okay, so that is their position. I think that's a fair assessment of why they believe what they believe
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about hell. There obviously was a negative reaction to this, and some people expressed
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their disagreement, and we'll get into that in a second. But first, I want to point out that this is not
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really fringe, that this was held by conservative theologians, is held by conservative theologians,
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and it differs from the progressive repudiation or complete rejection of hell altogether, because
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they would redefine hell. They would redefine eternal life. They would redefine sin and salvation and
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repentance and holiness altogether. And the idea of anyone being punished for their sin is just an
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anathema to those who call themselves progressive Christians. This is different than that. I do want
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to make that clear. You've got late theologians like Edward Fudge and John Stott, who would have
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defended probably Cameron on annihilationism. So this is what Edward Fudge says in a 2007 interview with
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Modern Reformation. This is a very long quote, so I'm not going to read the whole thing. But he said,
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I do not believe the Bible teaches that the lost will be made immortal or that they will suffer
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torments without end. Instead, I believe scripture teaches that God will destroy both soul and body
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in hell, Matthew 28, and that eternal punishment means being punished with eternal destruction. So
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non-existence, 2 Thessalonians 1, 9. Our God is a consuming fire, Hebrews 12, 29. Because hell's fire
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cannot be extinguished, it will eventually burn up those sentenced to it, Matthew 3, 12. This view,
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he says, is not eccentric or cultish. It's been advocated by lots of people throughout history,
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lots of Christians throughout history. This understanding of scripture is sometimes called
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conditional immortality, and those who hold it are sometimes called conditionalists, he says.
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These labels point to the truth that God alone is inherently immortal, 1 Timothy 6, 16, and that any
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human who fully and finally enjoys immortality will do so as God's gift through Jesus Christ. Very
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interesting because the traditional Christian view is that everyone is going to live forever. Everyone
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has an eternal soul. But he's saying that's not necessarily what we see from scripture. And then he
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goes into what he believes is the scriptural basis for this conditional position. He says that the
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scriptural base includes messianic texts from the Old Testament, which we've kind of already gone
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through, saying that the wicked's final destiny is perishing, is vanishing, is being shattered.
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He looks at Psalm 2, 9, and 12, Psalm 110, 5 through 6, Isaiah 11, 4, Isaiah 66, 24, Malachi 4, 1 through 3.
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He even cites the New Testament again, Matthew 7, 27, and 2 Thessalonians 1, 9.
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So that is Edward Fudge. That is one of the people that Kirk Cameron cited that kind of helped him come
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to his position. And then we have another very respected theologian whose name was John Stott.
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He argued that toward the end of his life, that annihilationism is possible based on the biblical
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prescription for destruction for the wicked. He said, quote, it would seem strange if people who are
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said to suffer destruction are in fact not destroyed. And it is difficult to imagine,
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a perpetually inconclusive process of perishing. He argued that the most natural way to understand
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the reality behind the imagery is that ultimately all enmity and resistance to God will be destroyed.
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So both the language of destruction and the imagery of fire, he says in scripture, seem to point
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to annihilation. All right. So this is the position that God's mercy, that God's character,
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and that various points in scripture, the language, the imagery, and the Old and the New Testament
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point to the idea that actually unrepentant sinners that don't come to faith in Christ will be destroyed
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forever. So what is the other position? Eternal conscious torment or eternal conscious punishment.
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That's probably the one if you were raised Southern Baptist like me, or even if I think if you were
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raised Catholic, you also believe in this position as well. So let's get into what the support for that
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Dr. John MacArthur, who died last year, he delivered a sermon in 2011 called the truth about hell. And he
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makes some points in support of eternal conscious punishment. One of the points that he makes is that
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this fire imagery does not mean consumption leading to annihilation, but unquenchable ongoing torment.
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So you'll remember the point that we made earlier that the Camerons were making and that we see
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John Stott allude to is that the fire is unquenchable, but the people within them are not enduring that
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unquenchable fire forever. They eventually will be destroyed. But this is what John MacArthur argues.
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He says in Matthew 3, verse 12, scripture calls hell the unquenchable fire. So Matthew 10,
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fear the one who destroys both soul and body in hell. It is unquenchable fire. It doesn't go out
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and it doesn't go out because it always has fuel. This is different again than what the Camerons said.
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They would say the fuel went out, but the fire itself is unquenchable. John MacArthur is saying,
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no, no, no, no. The fire is unquenchable because it is being fanned into flame by the fuel, which are
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unrepentant sinners. He points to Revelation 14, 9 through 11. He says, and another angel, a third
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followed them saying with a loud voice, if anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark
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on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath poured full strength into the
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cup of his anger. And he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels
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and the presence of the lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. And they
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have no rest day or night. These worshipers of the beast and its image and whoever receives the mark
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of its name. Sinclair Ferguson, another theologian said in a 1990 sermon, the doctrine of eternal
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punishment is the burden that lies behind the Lord's apostles proclamation. The destiny of the lost
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is one of the same with the destiny of the devil and his angels, the demons, a place of torment day
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and night forever. So he's saying that is what is behind the urgency of sharing the gospel. They would
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argue against the argument that words like destroy or destruction mean non-existence. And so if they
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look at the, if they look at the Greek, for example, the word destroy, apolumai, sorry if I'm
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mispronouncing that, um, and destruction, olethros mean ruin or loss of usefulness, they don't
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necessarily mean annihilation or non-existence. And so John MacArthur said, quote, that is a Greek word
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apolumai. It has a very broad meaning. The meaning can mean to kill, to drown, to render useless,
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or to be lost. It is possible to translate the word destroy, but it is not the word for annihilation,
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obliteration, and non-existence. MacArthur also provided biblical context on this word
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alethros, that word destruction that we see in the New Testament, Sot 7.
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This is not the word apolumi. This is a different word. Alethros, alethros, the penalty of eternal
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destruction. They suggest that destruction, eternal destruction means you're destroyed forever.
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You go out of existence. That is not what this word necessarily means.
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1 Corinthians 5.5 uses the same word, and it says, I have decided, speaking of a sinner in the church,
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a professing believer sinning in the church, I've decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the
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destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved. Well, obviously, it's not the annihilation
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of his flesh. He's not a disembodied spirit who then, in a disembodied state, would become saved.
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2 Thessalonians 1.9 says, they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the
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presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might. John MacArthur also argued that the confusion
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of these Greek words leads to annihilationism, a confusion of what eternal punishment really
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actually means. Thought 8. Furthermore, in this verse, verse 9, these pay the penalty of eternal
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destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power, which means that
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they are placed somewhere away from God. It can't mean the annihilation of a person's physical body in
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1 Corinthians 5.5, and it doesn't mean the annihilation of the person's soul and body here,
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because it refers to a place where they will be away from God.
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Seminary professor Denny Burke, I really like his writings very clear. He emphasized this point. He
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said, when a car is destroyed by a collision with another car, we don't mean that that car was erased
00:26:18.340
from existence. We mean that it was utterly and finally ruined, and will never again be what it
00:26:24.060
was designed to be. That is how the Bible's language of destruction works as well, and the Cameron
00:26:30.540
sadly missed this. Also, on the point that eternal means everlasting duration for both punishment and
00:26:38.760
life, denying endless punishment would deny endless life. That's what people like John MacArthur
00:26:45.120
argued. He says, both words eternal are identical. So if hell is not eternal, then guess what? Neither
00:26:51.960
is heaven. If there is eternal life, then there is eternal punishment. And so you remember the previous
00:26:58.060
argument that was made that eternal life means immortality for the believer, but eternal punishment
00:27:04.220
doesn't necessarily mean eternal punishment, or they're being eternally punished in that they cannot for
00:27:11.880
all of eternity turn back and have another chance to go to heaven, but that that does not necessarily mean
00:27:18.840
eternally persistent bearing of that punishment. I hope that I'm kind of making sense, but John MacArthur
00:27:25.620
is saying, no, it actually means that. If by eternal life, the scripture means that we get to enjoy the fruit of
00:27:33.040
salvation forever, then eternal punishment, that exact same Greek word used for eternal means bearing the
00:27:40.940
fruit of eternal non-salvation or damnation. Matthew 25, 46, and those will go away into eternal
00:27:48.560
punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. So that is the scripture that he is referencing.
00:27:54.680
J.I. Packer, another theologian, he wrote a 1997 article in Reformation and Revival magazine,
00:28:01.620
and he said, the assertion that in the age to come, life is the sort of thing that goes on
00:28:06.880
while punishment is the sort of thing that ends, begs the question. Though this assertion is constantly
00:28:12.920
made by annihilationists, it lacks support from grammarians and is in any case begs, and in any
00:28:20.440
case begs the question by assuming that punishment is a momentary rather than a sustained event. That is a
00:28:29.500
very good use of begging the question, by the way. That phrase is very often misused. Begging the
00:28:35.100
question does not mean that leads me to the question or that brings the question to mind. It
00:28:40.980
means exactly how he said it, that an argument is not really completing the argument. It's actually
00:28:46.680
begging a question. So good job, J.I. Packer in 1997. Finite sins warrant eternal punishment. This is
00:28:54.100
another argument for eternal conscious punishment that's made because they are against an infinite
00:28:58.920
God, and sinners continue sinning eternally in hell without repentance. And Kirk Hammer does
00:29:04.600
acknowledge that when you sin against someone of a higher rank or higher authority, the punishment is
00:29:10.460
greater. So he does acknowledge that point. John MacArthur says, the amount of time that a sinner sins
00:29:16.060
is irrelevant. So this is his argument. Crimes against the infinitely holy and exalted God are
00:29:21.500
infinitely wicked, and the punishment fits the crime. Sinners who go to hell never repent. In hell,
00:29:26.960
they continue to hate God. The punishment never catches up with the sin. They go to hell and keep
00:29:31.800
on sinning forever. He references Revelation 20.10, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into
00:29:38.660
the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day
00:29:44.440
and night forever and ever. Mark 3.29. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has
00:29:52.720
forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin. So he's pointing out, okay, that was just a one-second
00:29:58.980
sin. Whatever you believe that is, there's debate over what blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is, but
00:30:05.180
really the conclusion that most come to is that it is the rejection of Christ. Like, that is the one
00:30:12.160
thing that keeps you from salvation, and that might have been a split-second decision. You could argue
00:30:18.120
that's a decision that was made in someone's entire life, but it doesn't really matter how long
00:30:22.900
it was. It is whom you are sinning against. And then we also have Al Mohler. I've had almost all
00:30:28.420
these people on my podcast, those that are alive, Kirk Cameron and, of course, John MacArthur and Al
00:30:33.540
Mohler, and I respect all of them, and Wes Huff, who we'll talk to in just a little bit.
00:30:37.160
Um, and Al Mohler has an interesting perspective on this, too, in support of eternal conscious
00:30:43.180
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So this is what Al Mohler says. He's the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He
00:32:16.740
The argument about finite sin and the injustice of eternal punishment fails to recognize the fact
00:32:22.000
that sin, every sin, and the very fact of sin is an infinite offense against God's infinite
00:32:28.380
holiness. Eternal conscious torment is not disproportionate, much less unjust. It is the
00:32:35.140
revelation of God's perfect righteousness and justice. He says that hell manifests God's glory
00:32:41.280
and justice. It is retribution. It is not remedial, and sinners remain rebellious forever. So this is
00:32:48.760
actually going back to John MacArthur's 2011 sermon where he says,
00:32:52.380
God's honor and God's glory is manifest in the punishment of the wicked. Hell is for those who
00:32:58.460
hate God. They continue to do so forever. J.I. Packer goes on to argue, the Christian idea of hell
00:33:06.940
is not a freestanding concept for pain's sake, but a gospel-formed notion of three-coordinate miseries,
00:33:14.420
namely exclusion from God's gracious presence and fellowship and punishment and with destruction,
00:33:18.820
the justice of God's final judgment lies in two things. First, the fact that what people receive
00:33:24.860
is what they have in effect already chosen. Second, the fact that the sentence is proportioned to the
00:33:30.920
knowledge of God's word, work, and will that was actually disregarded. Now, the question still remains,
00:33:39.580
is annihilationism heresy? And we've got very smart people on, I guess, both sides of that debate.
00:33:48.580
I haven't seen a whole lot of people that I follow, that I've had on, that I respect say,
00:33:52.780
yes, this is absolutely heresy and someone is going to hell if they deny eternal conscious punishment.
00:33:59.300
And apologist Wes Huff explains this position or explains why it is not heresy. He says,
00:34:06.920
with Kirk Cameron announcing his position on conditionalism, I'm seeing a lot of people
00:34:11.340
attempting to critique it. I hold to eternal conscious torment, but I do understand the topic
00:34:16.360
of conditional immortality. And I've yet to see anyone actually give a rebuttal that shows me
00:34:21.000
they've interacted with the arguments and biblical reasoning from the other side to condemn conditionalism
00:34:25.760
as heresy is to say that John Stott, Edward Fudge, F.F. Bruce, potentially even Athanasius of
00:34:31.520
Alexandria are all heretics. This is, with all due respect, ridiculous. While the position might be
00:34:36.360
unorthodox, it is not heresy. If you actually want to interact with someone who knows the topic,
00:34:40.940
reach out to my friends, Dan Peterson and Chris State. Both are solid, fair-minded, well-educated,
00:34:48.320
and articulate holders of conditionalism. Elisa Childers wrote on Acts, there has been a lot of
00:34:54.600
backlash against Kirk Cameron regarding his openness to a position called conditionalism.
00:34:59.160
Although I disagree with this position and have concerns about its recent popularity,
00:35:02.620
I have always been careful to avoid calling it heresy. It's not a denial of divine judgment or hell,
00:35:07.220
nor does it indicate that someone is progressive. When I met Kirk several years ago, I could tell
00:35:12.540
that he was smart, well-studied, and deeply committed to the Lord and to his word. He is a brother in
00:35:16.180
Christ with a proven track record of faithfulness. I agree with that. I agree with that, that it is
00:35:25.860
not heresy. I also disagree with it. Really, one of my biggest disagreements, I would say,
00:35:32.940
is when it is asserted that eternal conscious torment is incongruent with the merciful character
00:35:41.900
of God, and that it is a disproportionate punishment to a finite amount of sin, as if the mercy of God can
00:35:52.380
only be expressed through ending eternal conscious punishment. But the mercy of God is expressed to
00:35:59.300
everyone through Christ. There was an analogy that was made, I believe, by Kirk Cameron's son
00:36:04.300
that was like, it would be like the federal government saying, okay, we're passing a law that
00:36:10.200
says that you can't breathe since, you know, sinning to us comes as easily as breathing. That's true.
00:36:15.200
And then punishing everyone forever who took a breath. But it's not actually the same. That's not a good
00:36:20.940
analogy because God, before we die, has given us, without excuse, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Like,
00:36:28.200
he has given us a way to avoid eternal punishment. So if we want to see the character and the mercy and
00:36:35.100
the grace of God, we don't have to necessarily end hell. Maybe there are other arguments for that.
00:36:41.300
But we see the mercy and grace of God, that while we all deserve hell, while we all have chosen that,
00:36:49.220
by grace through faith, he has made us alive in Christ. That is where we get to see the mercy of God.
00:36:55.000
I just, I'm not settled with the, it's incongruent with God's merciful character
00:37:00.180
argument. Evangelist Ray Comfort, he is the CEO of Living Waters. He affirmed eternal conscious
00:37:06.680
torment, but he also defended Kirk Cameron. This is thought four.
00:37:10.300
Kirk Cameron has been a dear friend of mine for decades. I've known him to be a godly man,
00:37:14.600
a man who loves the Lord, his family, and the church. In a world filled with phonies and make-believe,
00:37:20.240
especially in Hollywood, I think Kirk's the real deal. He's not only been a friend of Living Waters
00:37:25.820
for nearly 25 years, but we've served in ministry together for a good portion of that time.
00:37:31.040
While it certainly seemed from some of the things Kirk said on his podcast that he was indicating
00:37:35.720
that this is now his official view, when I spoke with him personally on the phone, he told me
00:37:40.320
that while he believes the Bible appears to point in the direction of this view,
00:37:44.680
he's not settled on the matter and has asked for further discussion.
00:37:47.760
So his point was that it's not settled, that he is still kind of debating it. And then
00:37:53.460
Stand to Reason founder Greg Kokel. I love Greg Kokel. I really encourage you to read the book
00:38:01.400
In my view, the people who differ with us theologically on this issue, even on a big issue
00:38:05.800
like this one, need patient brotherly counsel and not personal attack. This just tends to galvanize
00:38:16.140
people and make them, I think, more calcified in their position, more resistant to learning,
00:38:22.000
and instead of helping them to get them to rethink their view.
00:38:28.240
Yeah, I think that's a good point. I have zero concerns about Kirk Cameron not taking the Word
00:38:34.220
of God seriously or possibly becoming progressive. He is one of the most serious people about faithfulness
00:38:44.560
to God that I've ever interacted with just in my few conversations that I've had with him. And so
00:38:50.420
I do think it's an interesting and important discussion. One thing that I can relate to,
00:38:55.340
even though I don't think that I can agree with the position of conditionalism just from what I see in
00:39:00.740
Scripture, the arguments that I hear from people like John MacArthur, what I can relate to is wanting
00:39:05.340
to believe it. I do have a very hard time with the thought of eternal conscious punishment, and I think
00:39:14.300
it's okay to say that. I think it's okay. John Stutt even said this, that we're lying to ourselves if
00:39:21.940
we're not uncomfortable with that thought of eternal conscious punishment. But that discomfort should give
00:39:28.680
us the urgency to share the gospel. It should be the driving force, in addition to loving people,
00:39:35.640
really that just goes hand in hand, wanting to save them from hell, but it should be the driving force
00:39:41.000
behind us sharing the gospel. And I think Kirk Cameron would agree with that. What we don't want is to lose
00:39:46.120
the urgency because we have in our minds that, well, at least it's just a short period of time or it's
00:39:50.680
just temporary, so it's not as big of a deal. No matter where you land on conditionalism and
00:39:56.120
annihilationism or ECT, we can't lose that urgency because separation from God and the torment of
00:40:04.360
hell, however long it lasts, is really bad. And we want people to go home. We want people's souls to
00:40:12.780
go where they were meant to go, to be in fellowship with their creator. We want them to be liberated from
00:40:17.660
sin both in this life and the next life. So no matter what, we can't lose that urgency. The other thing
00:40:23.940
that we cannot do is allow that feeling of discomfort against ECT to be the driver of
00:40:30.000
our theology. I'm not arguing that's what Kirk Cameron is doing. I'm saying for all of us on any
00:40:34.840
subject, we can't say, I don't like that, or that doesn't fit my definition of love, or my definition
00:40:41.080
of justice, or my definition or perspective on God's mercy, and therefore it must not be true.
00:40:46.760
Is there an out? Is there some kind of exit ramp? Again, that's not what the Camerons are doing,
00:40:52.380
but all of us have the propensity to put our feelings and our discomfort first. God is merciful
00:40:57.500
because he says he's merciful. God is good because he says he's good. God is gracious and kind and
00:41:02.440
loving and just because he says he is, no matter what I think. I mean, I think we see Paul wrestle
00:41:09.220
with this in Romans 9 when he's talking about, okay, how can someone be destined to wrath or destined to
00:41:15.480
mercy before they're even born? And Paul says, well, can the clay say to the potter, why did you
00:41:23.100
make me this way? Basically, we trust God's goodness and sovereignty, that he is who he says he is because
00:41:29.640
he says it and because he's God and we're not. That's where we have to land in all of this,
00:41:36.160
no matter what we disagree on. All right, I've got one more thing to talk about and really something
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All right. Last thing I want to discuss today as we shelve that very important conversation—maybe
00:43:08.420
we'll pick back up on it. Maybe we'll have Kurt Cameron on to discuss this at some point—is a
00:43:13.200
request for prayer for our friend Megan Basham, whom we've had on several times. She is a sister in Christ,
00:43:19.920
and she's done so much good work to bring transparency to the pulpit and to encourage
00:43:25.360
pastors, especially to be faithful to the truth of God's Word and to not be persuaded by culture and
00:43:36.200
by social justice warriors. She's done such a good job. So thankful for her. And she has been battling
00:43:42.100
cancer. We thought she was in the clear, but she posted an update on January 5th about her health
00:43:48.480
journey after being diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer. She went through chemotherapy. She had
00:43:54.140
surgery, but her most recent scan revealed a spot on her lungs, which she doesn't know for sure. But
00:43:59.200
she is saying that doctors are telling her to assume it's cancer. And she posted on X about this,
00:44:08.140
and she said that she had a hard time over Christmas and New Year's feeling pretty down. Her oncologists have
00:44:14.020
told her not to panic, but this is really where she gets her hope and her steadiness. She says,
00:44:20.240
living the life of a Christian doesn't mean you don't have hard days or that news like this won't
00:44:24.900
cause you to spend a few days curled up like Elijah and praise him for passages where he shows his great
00:44:30.560
patience with our weakness. He assures us that he is close to us when we are brokenhearted in Christian
00:44:36.060
spirit. Psalm 34. But it does mean that you wrestle through it with the Lord and take these
00:44:43.040
disappointments and fears to him, the great physician, knowing that he ultimately is the
00:44:47.420
one who can heal spiritually, emotionally, and physically. And then she quotes 2 Corinthians 4,
00:44:54.280
Therefore, we do not lose heart, though outwardly we are wasting away. Inwardly, we are being renewed day
00:44:59.540
by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs
00:45:04.740
them all. So we fix our eyes, not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. Since what is seen is
00:45:10.400
temporary and what is unseen is eternal. So please pray for her. Pray for full healing. Pray that her
00:45:18.920
body would be healed. Pray that the doctors would have compassion, that the doctors would have insight,
00:45:24.080
that they would have discernment, that they would care to be so deliberate and so careful about every
00:45:30.360
every suggestion that they make, everything that they see on her scans, every step of the process
00:45:37.620
of healing, that they would be so careful and so caring toward her. And pray for her husband. Pray
00:45:44.180
for her two girls. I know that she wants to be present for them. And I'm not just talking about life
00:45:49.700
or death, but she wants to be healed. She wants to be restored. She wants to feel good. And yet the Lord is
00:45:56.140
using this as a trial to bring her closer to Him, to make her more like Him as He does with all of us
00:46:04.300
in various trials. But we just pray for our sister for relief from this trial and that she would be
00:46:10.060
fully and totally healed, that she would have a very long life of telling the truth and causing
00:46:16.320
godly trouble and raising a respectful ruckus ahead of her. And so pray for peace for their family and just
00:46:23.760
share the spiritual arrows with her, share the prayer arrows with her by going before the Lord
00:46:28.960
and just interceding for her. All right. That's most of what we have time for today. I do have,
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All right. Just a reminder that we have my dad that is going to, he is going to be releasing two
00:47:58.600
episodes a month on Relatable. He's going to be breaking all kinds of things down. I want you to
00:48:03.700
submit questions for my dad. You can just send me a message on Instagram and you can say question for
00:48:09.380
Ron or I'll post about it on my Instagram story. And these can be financial questions. These can be
00:48:14.840
personal questions. These can be relational questions, marriage questions, and we'll pick a
00:48:19.340
few and we will answer them. He will answer them at the end of the episode. And we will also be doing
00:48:24.420
two Saturdays a month. My dad's episodes are going to come out two Saturdays a month. A replay episode
00:48:31.000
is going to come out. And tell me what topics you want to hear from me this year. Tell me what guests
00:48:37.180
you want to hear from. We have a lot of awesome guests lined up this Friday. We are going to have
00:48:41.960
someone who has evangelized to Muslims for many years. And he is going to talk to us about how best
00:48:47.120
to do that, what the reality is. Are Muslims really waking up to the reality of the gospel? That would be
00:48:52.920
really good news as we've been talking about this. So we'll get into all of that on Friday. All right.
00:48:57.600
Thank you guys so much for listening and watching. We will be back here on Friday.