NOT IN THE LEAST. HELL is the LAKE OF FIRE, THE EVERLASTING BLAZING FURNACE.
QUOTE:
Perhaps no doctrine is harder to accept emotionally than the doctrine of hell. Yet it is too clear and too often mentioned in Scripture either to deny or to ignore. Jesus spoke more of hell than any of the prophets or apostles did—perhaps for the reason that its horrible truth would be all but impossible to accept had not the Son of God Himself absolutely affirmed it. It had special emphasis in Jesus' teaching from the beginning to the end of His earthly ministry. He said more about hell than about love. More than all other teachers in the Bible combined, He warned men of hell, promising no escape for those who refused His gracious, loving offer of salvation.
In the Sermon on the Mount alone, the Lord gives several specific and direct warnings about hell: "Whoever shall say, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell" (
Matt. 5:22), and, "It is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell"
v. 29; cf.
v. 30;
18:8-9;
Mark 9:43.
Jesus declares that the wicked "sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (
Matt. 8:12) and that unbelieving Capernaum would "descend to Hades" (
11:23; cf.
Luke 10:15). He asked the evil and hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, "How shall you escape the sentence of hell?" (
Matt. 23:33). On many other occasions Jesus alludes to hell and warns about damnation (
5:20;
7:13,
19,
23,
27;
10:28;
12:36;
16:18;
18:8-9;
21:43-44;
23:14-15;
24:40-41,
51;
25:30,
46;
Mark 3:29;
Luke 12:9-10,
46;
16:23;
John 5:29;
15:6).
Hell is not merely the fate of forever reliving bad memories or of going out into nothingness, as many people believe and teach. Nor is it a place where sinners will continue their sinning, unrestrained and unrebuked. There will be no pleasure at all in hell, not even the perverted pleasure of sin—only its punishment.
When an interviewer asked a young punk rock singer what she was looking forward to at the end of her career, she replied, "Death. I'm looking forward to death." When asked why, she said, "I want to go to hell, because hell will be fun."
Such deception is tragic beyond words. Nothing could less describe hell than fun. The human mind cannot begin to conceive of the eternal horror that is hell. Even the biblical figures related to hell are only suggestive, because the finite mind cannot comprehend infinite pain and torment any more than it can comprehend infinite joy and bliss. But from God's Word we learn four basic truths about
the furnace of fire that will help us to partially grasp its terror
MacArthur New Testament Commentary, The - MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Matthew 8-15. END QOUTE.