What Will It Cost to Be Lost?

Even though the Scriptures do not teach that the fire of hell results in endless suffering, it does give us a glimpse of what a terrible experience it is to be lost.

“God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled. . . . This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. THEY WILL BE punished with everlasting destruction and SHUT OUT FROM THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD.”
—2 Thessalonians 1:6-9.

The wicked are going to miss out. They’re going to miss out on eternal life, “shut out from the presence of the Lord.” That’s why there is such “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 22:13). What a horror it will be to realize that the joy of eternal life with God has slipped through your hands, that you’ll never, ever experience the bliss of perfect, loving relationships throughout the ages.

When Christ hung on the cross with the world’s sins separating Him from the Father, He must have felt the agony of the eternally lost. As the wicked look into the black void ahead of them, they see only eternal destruction. They must die with no hope of a second resurrection. At the same time they see how they repeatedly pushed Christ away when He came near with overtures of love. In the end they fall to their knees and acknowledge God’s justice and His love (Revelation 15:4; Philippians 2:10, 11).