The wicked shall not burn Eternally

Questions 59 (COD Page 247)
When-when you say “the wicked shall not burn Eternally,”… (Well, now I got Jehovah Witness on the run, haven’t I?)… When you say the wicked will not burn Eternally, do you mean in hell or in the lake of fire? I know it says in Revelation (that’s the 20th chapter) that hell will be cast into the lake of fire. If they do not burn Eternally, then what becomes of them?

227 Just as I have just got through saying, brother or sister, whoever it was; they become extinct, there’s no more to them. They had a beginning, and there they end; they’re just nothing no more. How will… how long they will burn, that’s just hard telling. But, look, there…

228 If you can just get this in your mind, see, it’s very simple. There is but one type of Eternal Life, and that comes through God Himself. And God alone is Eternal Life. If you’ll just get here in the lexicon, look up the Greek word Zoe. Zoe is “Eternal Life.” Eternal Life is “God.” And Jesus said, “I give unto them Eternal Life.” And if you’ll look here at the lexicon, it said, “Zoe.” That’s the only Eternal Life there is. No place in the Bible where It ever says there’ll be an Eternal hell, it said they’ll burn “forever and ever.”

229 Now, to get the word “forever” look at the aeon-aeon. Did you notice here in the Bible? How many’s ever heard it said, “And aeons and ae-… ”? How many knows that aeon is “a space of time”? Why, sure, anybody knows that aeon is “a space of time.”

230 “And they shall burn for aeons,” that’s spaces of time. “Cast into the lake of fire, and shall burn for aeons.” Aeons means the “spaces of time.” They may burn for a hundred million years in punishment but, finally, they have to come to an end; to be extinct, altogether. See, because everything that is not perfect is the perverted off of the Perfect; and it had a beginning, so it must have an end.

231 But we who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ has Zoe, “God’s Own Life” in us, and have Eternal Life. Not have life forever and ever, the sinner has life forever and ever, but we have “Eternal Life.”

232 Brother Cox, not long ago, was setting on my runway before we put the… after we had the rocks there, and he picked up a little, old fossil, and he said, “Brother Branham, how old is that?”

233 “Oh,” I said, “chronologically, you might say it’s ten thousand years old. Some kind of a little, old sea monster that lived at one time, a little sea animal, might have lived way back in the ages gone by.”

234 He said, “Just think how short human life is to that life.”

235 I said, “Oh, but, brother, that thing has an end, but the Life that we have in Christ has no end. That may live two or three forevers, but it’ll never have Eternal Life, ’cause Eternal Life comes from God alone.”

236 Eternal, “He that heareth My Words and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath Eternal Life and shall NEVER come to the judgment but passed from death unto Life.” There you are, you get Eternal Life by being a believer. An unbeliever has life forever. An Eternal… a believer has Eternal Life, and cannot perish because It’s Eternal.

237 But a believer, he will go… An unbeliever will go through the world, he’ll have miseries, woes; what he calls having a big time, “whoopee, having a big time.” Women, wine, and big time, he thinks he’s going on. He’ll die, he’ll go into a lake of fire and brimstone which burns, where burning is going on forever and forever, and maybe for a hundred million years his soul may be tormented in a lake of fire and brimstone.

238 I… You say, “Will it be just like regular brimstone?” I believe it’ll be a million times worse than that. I believe you couldn’t describe it by fire, by a literal fire. The only reason it’s put “by fire,” that fire is the most consuming thing that we had. It absolutely consumes and destroys everything, fire does. Well, then, it’ll be in there, but you’ll have a soul that’ll have to be punished through some kind…

239 Now, you have to watch the word fire, because the Holy Ghost is used “the Holy Ghost and fire”; ’cause Holy Ghost fire burns sin out, see, and makes clean.

240 But this fire, it comes from hell, it said a “lake of fire.” And ever what it is, it’s a punishment with torment. The rich man lifted up his eyes, being in hell, and said, “Send Lazarus with a little water on his fingers, to put on my lips, for this flames are tormenting me.” Don’t think there isn’t a burning hell, and a literal hell, there is. If there’s a literal devil, there’s a literal hell.

241 But, you see, everything that’s perverted has a end to it, because it finally must come back to that purity and holiness of God. And God is Eternal; and if we have Eternal Life, God is in us, and we can no more die than God can die. There you are.

242 Now, the text really explains Itself, see, and makes it right. Now, let’s see, I had a… I don’t know whether… Yes:

“What will-what will become of them?”

243 They become extinct, there’s no more to them: the soul goes, the spirit goes, the life goes, the body goes, the thoughts goes, the memory goes.

244 And there will be no more thoughts of even evil, or it ever-ever happened, in Glory. That’s right, it’ll all be… Could you imagine, that here would be people over here in this part…

245 Don’t the Bible say, “Even the thoughts of the wicked shall perish”? The very thoughts of it will perish.

246 Here will be a man over here, here’s God the Great Holy One here, and knowing that right out yonder’s a pit with souls burning in it? Why, that couldn’t be Heaven. The very thoughts, the very memory, everything that’s perverted, every evil thought, everything will perish, and everything that’s evil in it. And we’ll be nothing but purity, with Zoe, the Life of God; to Eternity, and for ages roll on, and on, and on, and on, and on; It’ll never end, be Eternal!

247 “They went into everlasting punishment, but the righteous went into Eternal Life.” You get it? Everlasting punishment, Eternal Life, what a difference.

248 Now, see, it doesn’t… Now, I know, to you, my dear little young’ns, I-I don’t mean to try to present myself as a know-it-all. If I’d do that,…

249 Now, I’ve got three or four more good questions. I’ll pick them up Sunday morning, the Lord willing.

250 Now, look. See, these rise questions. I’m an old preacher. I-I-I-I’ve twenty-six years in the ministry. And I-I am very grateful for this, that I can say this, my… I have never tried to try to present anything in my life without first it being revealed. And I am so thankful that the Angel of the Lord… Which I had no education, no ability. And this Angel come down, and has been my help sent from God. And He has never told me one thing but what absolutely dovetailed from Genesis to Revelation with that, insomuch till… I wrote down right quick when He said “And you-and you shall take a gift of Divine healing.” And I put it down just the way He said it.

251 And in about three years later, the manager called my-my attention to it, said, “Brother Branham, did you notice that? That’s so perfect till He even told you ‘a gift.’”

252 See, never said “the gift.” And every-every one in the Bible… every gift is “the gift” but Divine healing, and it’s “a gift.” It’s “gifts of healing.” You can have all kinds of gifts of healing, different ways. But, every other is “the gift”: “the” gift of prophesy, “the” gift of this. But Divine healing is in the plural: “gifts.” And I never noticed that, that the Holy Spirit is so perfect. Oh, blessed be the Lord!

253 Do you understand that the same Holy Ghost that wrote that Bible, by hundreds of man, hundreds of years apart… and not one of them divied one from the other, every one of them was complete; and one never even heard of the other one.

254 And Paul went down, and was down in Arabia, and never even visited Jerusalem for fourteen years, but was down in Jerusalem and down… went from… never went to Jerusalem. But down in Arabia, and started preaching, never even seen Peter and the rest of them for fourteen years. And when they come together, they were preaching the very same thing: water baptism in the Name of Jesus Christ, and Divine healing, and the power of God.

William Marrion Branham
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