Well I have never believed in the concept of burning in Hell forever I find it contrary to the Word and the character of a loving God but rather the second death the death of the soul where one is turned to ashes and its as if they never were. That is cease to exsit. but that said I ran across and intersting question on Hell I totally agree with the Pastors answer but the question was quite unique...............................................Q.Hell, as explained by a chemistry student, in answer to the question, “Is Hell exothermic or endothermic.” And no, I don’t know what that means but I found out. Does Hell give off heat or absorb heat? I won’t share the whole definition but it starts out like this: First we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. Intrigued? The whole idea of Hell is so bizarre yet, as the student says, most religions believe there is a place called Hell. Where does this idea come from? Not from the Bible. When you need to find out the Truth, you need to go to the Bible—not to Greek mythology, not to Jonathan Edwards or Charles Haddon Spurgeon or Samuel Rutherford, not to cartoons, not to the position of most churches. We go to the Book. The theologians mentioned above describe a hell that is a fire that never consumes, where people cry out for mercy but it never comes, where devils with whips keep control, where Cain still leaps with pain. But a student of the Bible can research the Hebrew and Greek words translated hell in the King James Version (and other versions) or, those who feel unqualified to do such research or those who do not have the materials, can read what someone who spent his adult life searching for the Truth has said on the subject. The person I trust is Otis Q. Sellers, who writes about the subject in several issues , in his booklet The Rich Man and Lazarus, and in his definitive work on the subject, Sheol, Hades and Destruction. He says the Hebrew word sheol and the Greek word hades “have been flagrantly mistranslated in order to lend support for the idea that such a place [hell] exists.” According to Sellers, the word sheol is found 65 times in the Old Testament where it is translated “grave” and “hell” 31 times each and “pit” three times by the translators of the King James Version. He adds that the translators of the American Standard Version decided not to translate the word at all but kept it as sheol in every occurrence. But we still need a definition. It means “state of death.” How do we know? As I have told my students so many times, if you don’t know what a word means, you try to figure it out by context. Maybe seeing the word once won’t help, but seeing it many times may make it possible to define the word without using the dictionary. In the case of sheol, we can look at it 65 times and every time the definition “state of death” fits. Here are a few examples. Genesis 37:35. The story is about Jacob who believes that his son Joseph has been devoured by an evil beast. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave [sheol] unto my son mourning.Proverbs 5:5. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell [sheol]. II Samuel 22:6. The sorrows of hell [sheol] compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me. Isaiah 38:10-11. These are the words of Hezekiah, king of Judah. I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave [sheol]: I am deprived of the residue of my years. I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world. Psalm 6:5. For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave [sheol] who shall give thee thanks? Ecclesiastes 9:10. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave [sheol], whither thou goest. In Sellers book, Sheol, Hades, and Destruction, you can follow his search and look at every mention of the Hebrew word sheol and the Greek word hades, as well as the word gehenna. You can test your interpretation of the place called hell against what the Scripture says. I invite you to go on the journey.