At his second coming, Jesus will return with an army of angels to sit on his throne as king of the world. On that judgment day, he will raise everyone who has ever lived from the dead: both the righteous and the wicked. Then he’ll divide them into two groups, like a shepherd separates sheep from goats. On his right-hand side will be the righteous: people who repented of their sins and believed in the good news of Jesus.

And on his left? There will be the wicked: law-breaking sinners who did not repent of their sins or believe in Jesus. Matthew 25:41 tells us exactly what Jesus will say to these unrighteous people on the day of judgment. “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

From the very beginning, God made it crystal clear to us: sin leads to death! It was true for our first parents, Adam and Eve. And it's just as true for you and me. On judgment day, King Jesus will send the wicked to their eternal (forever) death. They will be punished in a place prepared for the devil and his angels. It’s a word we’re often scared to say, but the name of that place is “hell.”

The horrors of hell are beyond our imaginations. In Matthew 25:41, Jesus calls it a place of “eternal fire.” Revelation 20:15 speaks of a “lake of fire.” It is, as the answer above tells us, “a place of dreadful and endless punishment.”

Hell isn’t a place where the devil reigns as some sort of evil king. God won’t send him there to rule – he’ll cast that evil angel and all his servants into the lake of fire to be punished! We don’t know every last detail of what hell is like, but we can be certain that its terrors will be more frightful than we could possibly imagine!

We might ask, “If King Jesus is good, how could he ever send anyone to hell?” It’s an understandable question. But it also shows us that we probably don’t really understand just how awfully evil it is to sin, to rebel against the commands of our Creator. If Jesus, our good and kind savior, believes that sin deserves the forever flames of hell, then sin must be unbelievably more wicked than we can possibly imagine! And knowing that Jesus has saved us from such a frightful future should cause our hearts to cling to our savior as tight as we can!

Ps. 9:16, 17; Luke 12:5; Rom. 2:8, 9,12; 2 Thes. 1:8, 9; Rev. 20:12-15; Matt. 25:46; Mark 9:43-48; Luke 16:19-31