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Does Eternal Really Mean Forever? · Bible Tract Echoes Podcast

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, friend.
• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to Bible Track Deco's.
• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Mike McCurrier host.
• 0:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so very much for joining me once again today.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: In just a moment, I'm going to have the great privilege of introducing to you the founder of the Ministry of Bible Tracks Incorporated Doctor Paul Levine.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Paul, he went to heaven in 1996, but thanks to what used to be modern technology and cassette tapes and all that type of stuff, we have still around some of his messages that he preached in the years before he passed.
• 0:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Paul was just a fiery preacher, but he was always one with a wonderful attitude.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: He just had a charisma about him, a personal magnetism.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was just someone
• 0:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Paul, of course, and 60 years of full-time evangelism, he preached many a message.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm thankful for the ones that we have a recorded that we can share with you.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: This isn't something we do all the time, but every past 6-8-10, 12 weeks or so, I like to give a little blast from the past, because I believe the whole spirit is still using these messages over the airwaves, and I want you to hear what Dr. Paul had to say.
• 1:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: He always had a wonderful attitude.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: but he also had a great burden to reach the lost.
• 1:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe listen and say, the lost.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you mean by that?
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're listening right now and you don't know what eternity looks like for you.
• 1:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you've never trusted Christ as your Savior.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe in truth, when it comes to the real things of life, when you come down to brass, tax, you'd say, yeah, I feel kind of lost.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well,
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: What Dr. Paul is going to talk about, I'm not going to spill the beans, I'm going to let him explain it to you in just a moment.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'd like you to listen, what he's going to talk about today might be a help to you.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want you to listen to Dr. Paul of being this message to him, I think, go away back in 1979, but it's still true today.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Listen now.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I hope you'll be faithful now throughout the whole week.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, a crowd attracts a crowd, supposing tomorrow night, somebody.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: As well, or something doing all of that at the church, let's go see, and they walk in here, and they see 11 people.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then they'll say, we thought they were having a revival meeting, must be committee meeting tonight or something.
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they just go right on.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: But suppose they look in here tomorrow night, she just plays crowded.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then what they do, then they'll come in to see what's going on.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yet the same way with cars parked out here in this big parking lot that you have.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Supposing somebody drives by tomorrow night, and they see three cars,
• 2:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: drives the one I'll be riding in and they'll say the same thing.
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: We thought they were having a reviving me must be primary meeting night or something like that and they wouldn't even slow down.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: But supposing the parking lot is just loaded with cars.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then you know what they'll do?
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, the man's a gentleman, he'll let the wife and the kids out here and he'll drive down the road three blocks, get out, walk all the way back to the rain just to see what's going on.
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: So even if you don't come back anymore, please leave your car parked out here all week,
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if you've got four or five moral cards that won't run, you can hook a tractor on them, drag them up here, just leaving.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: The words are glad you're here.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Your Bible is pleased to Matthew chapter 25.
• 3:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Enjoyed the waggle singers.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nice to see Don Sandberg again.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: He and I grew up in the same church together at different times.
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: That was Ray, your cousin, nephew, uncle, or what?
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ray, where do you go?
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Where are you?
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Don, oh, don't hear.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, he's your uncle?
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, we both grew up in the pre-church in Moline.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I used to play in the string band.
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: We used to have a string band, and just Moline Illinois, and I played the violin some of the times, other times, I played the mandolin.
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now what we're going to do here tonight, I have a few mandolin solos on tape, and on some of these tape, Bob Timmy's playing the guitar, on other tapes, we have some other musicians and some other background music.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: What we're going to do is run this tape through the P.A.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: system and then I'm going to add the second man lens so that we have some man lens do that for you this week.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, your Bible is now to Matthew chapter 25 and I would just want to call your attention out of two verses without going into the context about this just two.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Two verses and just an expression or two here verse 41.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Look at verse 41.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then she'll then show he say also one of them on the left hand the part from me ye cursed into ever lasting fire.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's what I want you to remember.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ever lasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now look at verse 46 and these shall go away into ever lasting punishment.
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the righteous into life eternal.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you have here ever lasting punishment.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: everlasting fire and eternal life.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, we're told by the scholars that the Greek word which is translated everlasting with reverence to punishment and everlasting with reverence to fire and eternal with reverence to life is the same Greek word.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: In other words, they all last just as long.
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everlasting punishment and everlasting fire will last just as long as eternal life.
• 5:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Eternal life will last just as long as the everlasting fire and the everlasting punishment.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: In other words, if you say everlasting fire does not mean everlasting, then you have to say eternal life doesn't mean eternal.
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you say everlasting fire is only for a thousand years, then you have to say eternal life is just 4000 years.
• 5:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: But if you say that eternal life is life without end, then you have to say everlasting fire and everlasting punishment is also without end because it's the same Greek adjective which describes the duration of both.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: everlasting fire, everlasting punishment, or eternal life.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Some years ago, I was preaching at Bible Institute, and so I went to the man who taught Greek there for many years.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I said, Dr.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would like for you to tell me what this Greek word is, nearly as I can pronounce it, I own it, translated everlasting fire, everlasting punishment, eternal life.
• 6:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I said to this teacher, I'd like for you to tell me yourself, as to teach you a Greek, what does this word mean?
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he took me in his office, maybe he didn't get the books down off the shelves, and he opened these books and laid them out in front of me, and we went from book to book, and he said, now he said, he said, I'll tell you, I'll just show you.
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he went from book to book, I all, all manner of books, the Greek lexicon's word studies and so on, and he said, that word ionist, adjunct adjective, in the Bible, always without fail, means without end.
• 6:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: This word is found 70 times in a new Testament, three times as a noun, it could simply mean the word age.
• 7:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: But as an adjective, as an adjective describing the duration of eternal punishment, or eternal fire, or eternal life, that word always and without exception means without end.
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now then, somebody says, well, how can you be sure about that?
• 7:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm not a scholar, Michelle.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't pretend to know and agree, but I'll tell you what you can do.
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can read your Bible and find out how God uses a certain word in the Bible.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Take, for example, so I can print in his 418.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to have to hurry.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody look it up quickly.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll show you something here.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I can print in chapter 4 and verse 18.
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Bible says, the things that are seen are temporal.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the things that are not seen are eternal.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, we're told it in the Greek language.
• 7:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: This word, eternal, is that same Greek word again.
• 7:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I only ask, it's the same word translated, everlasting fire.
• 8:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's the same word translated, everlasting punishment.
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's the same word translated, eternal life.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And here God says, the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's that same word again.
• 8:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, now what's he saying?
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: this microphone, or less forever, as a microphone, this pulpit, or less forever, as a pulpit.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And anything that you can see, the plug, the building, the flowers, anything, anything that you can see is temporal.
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not going to last forever.
• 8:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: It may last a day or a week or a month or a thousand years, or ten thousand years, but it's not going to last forever.
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: But now, in contrast to the things that you can see, which will only last for a certain length of time, in contrast to that, the things that you cannot see are alonius, the things that you cannot see are eternal, the things that you cannot see are everlasting.
• 8:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: In other words, now look, the things that you can see have a limited duration.
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: But whatever is Ionius, translated everlasting, any eternal.
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Whatever is Ionius,
• 9:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: is the opposite in duration from anything that has an end.
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: So what God is saying here now, he's saying the things you can see, will only last for a certain length of time, but the things that you cannot see that are going to last forever.
• 9:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: They are the opposite in duration from anything that comes to an end.
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Take for example, your soul.
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: You've never seen your soul, but your soul is going to last forever.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, I'm sure you believe that you are a soul, that you are going to live somewhere forever.
• 9:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've heard about a wise guy, real smart Alec, who didn't believe that.
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: He was setting on a tree next to a brilliant man, the name of a Bennett.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I forget the Bennett's first name, but he was a lawyer.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the Bennett began to witness this young man.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And as he witnessed, he went into a young man, looked at Bennett, and he said, I ain't got no soul.
• 9:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: He didn't have two good or grand reads or by the way, but after he said, I ain't got no soul.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Dr. Ben says, you don't believe you have a soul.
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: He said, no.
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: He said, why don't you believe you have a soul?
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: He says, because I've never seen my soul.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, Dr. Ben, it's said, you're mean now, that because you have never seen your soul, you don't believe you have a soul.
• 10:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: He said, that's right.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ben, it says, you mean that if you can't see it, you don't believe you have it.
• 10:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
• 10:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, Dr. Ben says, do you have any brains?
• 10:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, he might have had so many one, you and them do well right then.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you can see your soul or not doesn't matter.
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: You have a soul, and that soul here that you cannot see is going to live on forever.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I remember one time reading about a doctor talking to a preacher.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And a doctor said to the preacher, you said, have you ever seen your soul?
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, said, have you ever smelled the soul?
• 10:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, I've heard the soul.
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, tasted the soul?
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, have you ever felt the soul?
• 10:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: He said, yes.
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the doctor said, then he said, if you've never seen your soul, or smelled your soul, or tasted your soul, or heard your soul, then five, then four of the five senses, are you against the fact that you have a soul?
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the preacher said to the doctor,
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Have you ever seen pain?
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, have you ever heard pain?
• 11:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, have you ever smelled pain?
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, have you ever tasted pain?
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, have you ever felt pain?
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, well, he said four of the five senses are you against the fact then that there is any such thing as pain?
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: My pen, listen.
• 11:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if you'll believe you have a soul or not.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or whether you are a soul or not.
• 11:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: But you have a soul that's going to live forever somewhere.
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the Bible says the thing you can see will come to an end.
• 11:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the things that you cannot see are the opposite of anything that comes to an end.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: The things that you cannot see are eternal.
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Your soul is eternal.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can't see your soul, but your soul is eternal.
• 11:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can't see God, but he is eternal.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now you can't see heaven, but heaven is eternal.
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can't see hell, but hell is eternal.
• 11:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now then look, since the things that you and I can see are only temporary, and will someday come to an end.
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if the things that we cannot see are eternal and will never end, then we ought to get left interested in what we can see and get more interested in something we can't see.
• 12:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I wonder, friend, how interested are you in eternal things?
• 12:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: The things that will really last.
• 12:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Paul just spoke to us for just a few brief moments and he will again, tomorrow,
• 12:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to talk about the fact that there are some things that will last forever and we're going to ask the question, what really interests you?
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're one that would ignore eternity, you might need to listen up tomorrow.
• 12:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to thank you so much for listening in.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: My prayer is always is that you have a great day for his glory.
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: We will plan on talking you soon.
• 12:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Tune in tomorrow for the continuation of this message from Dr. Paul Avine.
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: God bless.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for tuning in to Bible Tract Echoes, the radio ministry of Bible Tracts Incorporated.
• 13:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Want to see our gospel tracks and other resources?
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Visit us online at BibleTracksInk.org that's BibleTracksInk.org or follow us on social media to learn how you can partner with this ministry.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks again for listening.
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: May the Lord richly bless you as you live for Him.