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Implications:

1) Decisions we make in this life will govern our future condition not merely for a period of time, but for all eternity. This should sober us.

2) Conditions of this life are transit in nature -- they fade into significance when compared to eternity.

3) The nature of future estates is far more intense than anything known in this life. Images, dreams, imaginations... all are inadequate. The joy we will have there far transcends how we even relate to the idea of joy here.

4) Hell is not so much a torture chamber of physical suffering, as it is an intense and awful loneliness of total and final separation from the Lord.

The judgement of God is severe and serious. He sent His own Son, wrapped Himself in flesh to bear that judgment. This was a job he had to do himself. He absorbed the penalty, made an escape route and simply asked us to get back into covenant with Him by believing. He even said we wouldn't go back to tit-for-tat, being condemned by our own records, but that we would be seen in Him.

The eternal punishment was so severe, He had to come establish a way out.

This is the heart of the Gospel. It's HOPE! There's a way out! But this also means, denying, refusing or rejecting that way out is an eternal decision.