BBB:Question: What is the final state of the wicked?

   Answer: All right, let's turn to Mark, and get Mark chapter 9, I
think it is. Mark chapter 9, in one hand--and then get Revelation
chapter 22 in the other.

   Now this is going to be kind of hard, too. See? I mean, you notice I
don't preach these things. I mean, we had a service here a little while
ago, and I preached to you. Now, I'm not going to get up there and
preach on "Adam eating a grape." I mean, some of you guys who are
called to preach, the first pastorate you get, for goodness' sake,
don't go in there and talk about people being saved by works in the
Millennium and works and faith in the Tribulation, and faith in this
age. They'll think you're Garner Ted Armstrong, or something.

   Good doctrine is not always good preaching. And good preaching is
not always good doctrine. Now, do you notice tonight, I had Lazarus up
there in heaven? Did you notice that? He didn't go to heaven! He went
down in the ground to Abraham's bosom. I had him up there in a cloud,
see? See, what's good preaching isn't always good doctrine, see? That's
good preaching. He was saved, right? O.K., so it's preached. But it
isn't good doctrine.

   All right, Revelation chapter 22, verse 15: "For without are dogs."
That's a funny thing to say! You know he's talking about people, but he
says animals. "Dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers,
and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie."

   All right, again, in chapter 21, on the final state of the wicked,
Revelation 21:8: "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable,
and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all
liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and
brimstone: which is the second death."

   Now, the problem comes up, what kind of condition are these people
in when they get there? Christ speaks about a soul being "destroyed";
look at Mark chapter 9. Christ said one time to "fear him who is able
to destroy both body and soul in hell." Mark 9:43: "And if thy hand
offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life
maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never
shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not." Now look at it
carefully: "THEIR worm." Didn't say "the", like you hear it quoted. It
said "THEIR." "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for
thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into
hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where THEIR worm
dieth not." Verse 48: "Where THEIR worm dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched."

   All right, let's go to Matthew chapter 10, and in Matthew chapter
10, verse 28: "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able
to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is..." watch it carefully!
"...able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

   Evidently the soul can be destroyed.

   What is a soul?

   Let's turn to Revelation chapter 6 and see what a soul is.
Revelation chapter 6. Now, Socrates, Aritotle, and Plato, and Louis
Sperry Chafer and all the other people who don't like the King James
Bible have funny ideas about a soul. And they think that your body is
like this, and then somewhere in your body is a peanut, or a golf ball,
or a croquet ball stuck away in you someplace--there's a soul--and
then--POP!--comes out your mouth and--POP!--out your ear when you die,
and animals don't have it, and you do. But in the Bible a soul is never
spoken of in that fashion. In the Bible, a soul always has a bodily
shape with fingers, nose, eyes, ears, lips, teeth, tongue, jaw. The
rich man in hell said, "Send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his
finger in water and cool my" what? A soul has a tongue! A soul is a
bodily shape.

   All right, Revelation chapter 6, verse 9: "And when he had opened
the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain
for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And they
cried with a loud voice..." A soul has a mouth. "Saying, How long, O
Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them
that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of
them..." A soul can wear clothes!

   A soul, then, is a bodily shape. Now, I have inside this body here
another body. Inside this body here, I have a body shaped just like
this one. "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and
lose his own soul?"

   Christ said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." Then He
turned right around and said, "No man hath seen the Father at any
time." And I'll tell you, the JWs have been cracking their skull on
that ever since. And they figure that the Father's up there, and He's
down here, so He's one God, and Christ is another god, a lesser god,
and all that nonsense.

   And the Holiness "Oneness" people broke their neck on the other
side. They said there couldn't be two of them; there is just one of
them, so it's Jesus only.

   And both those things are heresies!

   Now, I say to you, I say, "He that has seen me has seen Pete
Ruckman." But I turn right around and I say, "No man has seen Pete
Ruckman at any time." Now, what do I mean?

   I mean, you've never seen me a day in your life! There isn't anyone
in this building who has ever seen me. You have never seen me!

   You say, "I'm looking at you right now!"

   No, you're not! You're looking at my body!

   Amen?

   I'm not in my body. I'm inside my body, looking out at you.

   And that's why, when you want to see what a person's like, you look
at their eyes, because the soul is back there. The only time you see
what's in a man is when you look in his eyes. If you look in his ears,
you'll see, you know, outer canal and inner canal, you know, Eustacian
tube, all that. Through the nose, sinuses, you know, mucus--tonsils,
you know.

   But you look in the eye, and the eye is the window of a soul, and
the shape is there looking out at you through that window. Now, if I
get this hand cut off, and get it amputated, a couple of years after
that I'll feel my fingers itching, you know--I'll reach down to scratch
my fingers. They won't be there. The doctors will say, "Well, it's the
nerve endings."

   No, it's not! No, it's not.

   Now, they're just beginning to take pictures, you know, infrared,
and ultra-so forth, now, and seeing that "aura" around the body. But
what fool didn't know about that who had a King James Bible? I mean,
give science time, and they always catch up with the King James Bible
eventually! I mean, three hundred years, some time, six hundred
years--give them time, they'll catch up.

   So, then, I have in here a body like this. Now, when I die, this
body will step out. That body steps out, and the force of gravity will
take it right down in hell--unless I have in me a Force that will defy
the law of gravity.

   And the Bible says, "If the Spirit that raised up Jesus from the
dead dwell in your mortal body, God shall quicken your mortal body by
His Spirit that dwelleth in you." So, if the Holy Spirit is in you,
when you step out you go up instead of down.

   So, I'm all right in my picture. I'm all right in my picture. All
right, so that soul's in there. Now, Christ said that soul can be
destroyed. He never says annihilate. The word "destroy" in the Bible
never means annihilate. As a matter of fact, the word "annihilation" is
kind of a doggerel word. There isn't any such word. The first law of
thermodynamics teaches that you can neither create nor destroy energy.
You have less to work with--the second law of thermodynamics. You can
convert energy into matter, and convert matter into energy. But you
can't eliminate anything! What's here to work with is here. And you can
change it or convert it, but it's still there.

   When we say, we mean in a human sense. We mean in a sense of getting
it out of sight where you can't see it. But that doesn't do away with
it.

   So, something happens to that soul. Now, what happens to that soul?
It goes into the lake of fire. But we haven't got it all yet. Turn to
Isaiah chapter 66. When it goes into the lake of fire, evidently it's
in a different condition than when it stood before the White Throne
Judgment and was judged. Isaiah 66, verse 22: "For as the new heavens
and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the
Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to
pass, that from one new moon to another..." There's works. "...from one
sabbath to another..." There's some works. "...shall all flesh come to
worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth, and look
upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me..."
There's the body. "For their worm shall not die, neither shall their
fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh."

   Something terrible! Something terrible!

   Now he keeps saying "worm." He keeps saying "worm."

   Let's turn to Psalm 22, and get Psalm 22 in one hand, and then we'll
get John chapter 3 in the other. Now, Darwin had a very peculiar
theory. Darwin thought that man began as a little ol' one-celled
amoeba, you know, paramecium, plenaria, hydra, you know, all that
jazz--and then came up through some form of reptile, and then got up on
his feet, an opossum, and lemur, and swung around in the trees for
awhile, and got his tail cut off with an axe, and then began to walk
around on two feet. And Darwin thought the fellow began down here and
came up.

   Somebody said to Darwin one time, "What's this ear lobe for?"

   And Darwin said, "Well, once you were an ape; you had big ol' ears
hanging down like that. And that's what you call a vestigial organ.
That's a remnant of what you used to be when you were an animal."

   And then somebody said, "What's your appendix?"

   "Well, the appendix is useless. That's a vestigial organ; it's left
over. When you were an animal, you used that thing; but you don't need
it any more. That little ol' tail bone down there, at the end of your
spinal column, the coccyx, that's a remnant of your tail; you used to
be a monkey and swung around by it. But it's left over."

   So Darwin said, "Here's the deal. You've got those animal marks on
you, because you used to be an animal, and you're coming up."

   Now, wouldn't it be a thought if you had those animal marks on you
because you were like the Lord and you're going down? Now wouldn't that
be a thought?

   That's something to think about it, isn't it?

   All right, Psalm 22, verse 1: "My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?" What's that a picture of there? Psalm 22:1; that's the
crucifixion; that's Christ on the cross.

   Verse 6: "But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and
despised of the people." It's Christ on the cross.

   Look at verse 17; didn't break His bones. Look at verse 18; shooting
dice for His garments. Look at verse 14; He's thirsty. Look at verse
16; holes in His hands and feet. Verse 6: "I am a worm."

   Let's turn to John 3; it's more than a worm. It's a very definite
kind of worm. Verse 14: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up." Christ dying on
the cross likens Himself to a snake--like this. He calls it a worm.
That worm's a red maggot. The serpent in the Bible is red. Turn to
Revelation chapter 12. He's red. The Bible says when Christ appears,
we're going to be like Him, right? What do you reckon unsaved people
are going to be like in the resurrection? "Ye are of your father; the
lusts of your father you will do." Revelation chapter 12, verse 3: "And
there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red
dragon." Verse 9: "And the great dragon was cast out, that old
serpent." So when Christ dies on the cross He likens Himself to a
serpent, and that serpent is a type of the devil--a red, reptilian,
amphibian, serpentine animal.

   Let's go to 2 Corinthians, and get 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse
21. Now, I don't understand all that I'm about to say. And I've got to
be careful; the Bible says, "No man speaking by the Spirit of God calls
Jesus accursed." But the Bible says He was. Galatians chapter 3:13
says, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a
curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a
tree." And when Jesus Christ hung on Calvary's cross--in some way I
don't understand, and in some way I can't explain--He became sin. He
became the personification of sin.

   The personification of sin is the devil!

   Now, I'm not going to say that Jesus Christ turned into the devil.
You can't go that far. But, boy, the Scripture sure carries you a ways!

   Look at 2 Corinthians 5:21: "For he [God] hath made him [Jesus] to
be sin for us." See that thing? "Hath made him...sin..." S-I-N "...for
us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in
him."

   So when Christ dies on the cross and experiences the wrath of God,
there is some transformation that takes place in his soul. Let's turn
to Matthew chapter 26. Nothing sheds light on the English like the
English. Matthew 26, verse 38; the soul is a bodily shape--but
something went wrong at Calvary. Matthew 26:38: "Then saith he unto
them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." Destruction of
the soul!

   Let's try Isaiah 53. We never use the original Greek or original
Hebrew; they cover up the truth, so you couldn't find the truth. The
best thing to do is get the truth. Isaiah 53:10: "Yet it pleased the
Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief." Watch it: "When thou
shalt make his soul an offering for sin." Verse 12: "Therefore will I
divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with
the strong..." watch it! "...because he hath poured out his soul unto
death."

   Now, when you get all that together, here's what you've got. You've
got Christ hanging up there like this, and He's got His spirit in
Him--that's just wind, air. He has a bodily shape in Him--the Son of
man. He has a bodily shape in Him like a man. And He offers that soul
as an offering for your sins, and God turns Him into sin. He becomes a
personification of Satan, and says, "I'm a serpent; I'm a worm." And
that bodily shape in there looks like that--like a snake.

   And so, on this day, the symbol for the medical corps is a little
ol' pole, with snakes wrapped right around it. That god is called
Aescapulus, the god of healing. And that's what the U.F.O. occupants
had on their uniforms in Pascagoula, Mississippi--which is interesting.

   All right, the Lord hangs up here like this, and this soul is in
here like this, and this soul becomes the personification of Satan. And
that would indicate--and I don't say it for sure-- it would indicate
that, when an unsaved man goes to hell at the White Throne Judgment,
that, instead of becoming a god, he goes back to an animal shape--and
winds up like an animal, like a red maggot.

   He winds up with a shape like a red maggot.

   Turn to Revelation 9. Get Revelation 9 in one hand and Isaiah 34 in
the other. The strangest Book in the world, brethren, is the Bible! The
Bible is still the strangest Book you've ever read. It's the best
seller and the least read and the least known. Revelation chapter 9.
Now, I'm showing this to show you something. I'm showing this to show
you that if you think I'm kind of wild for teaching you that a bodily
form can degenerate into a beast form, I'm going to show you some
people that are half beasts!

   Revelation 9. This passage was used by Charlie Manson before he
killed Sharon Tate, right down where I'm going. Revelation 9, verse 3:
"And there came out of the smoke locusts." That's an animal. Verse 7:
"And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses." That's an
animal. "Their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair..."
like Charlie Manson! They had hair like women.

   So, when a man has a woman's hair, it's a picture of a demon that
comes out of the bottomless pit. That's the picture. Face like a man,
hair like a woman--in the King James 1611 Authorized Version--which is
ahead of any scholar, anytime, anyplace, anywhere.

   Verse 10: "Tails like unto scorpions." Isn't that a wild looking
thing? Verse 8--teeth like lions.

   It's a monster!

   Now these things that get out of U.F.O.s are funny-looking. You say,
"You believe this stuff?" Well, I believe half of it. Some of them say
the arms are too long. They're five feet or four-feet-six. Some say
they're gray, with a horn on top. One says no nose. One says no eyes.
One says scales. They're not uniform.

   Whatever those things are, they're not human, and they're not
superhuman. They're mongrels. They're mixed--whatever those things are,
if they're there.

   If they're there, they're from some kind of a combination that isn't
strictly human. Now, in your Bible, you read about things under your
feet. And these things under your feet, that come up in the
Tribulation, are a combination of human and beast. That's Bible; that
isn't a U.F.O. sighting or a comic magazine-- that's Revelation 9.

   So, you know one thing. You know that there are things down under
your feet, and they're half-human and half-monster. And they are not
from outer space. And they are not from other planets.

   So, if they're coming up ahead of time, they're not coming down from
Jupiter, from Venus, and from Mars. They're coming up through the
Bermuda Triangle--or some other place. Now, I said IF. I said IF, you
know.

   Isaiah 34, verse 6; there's no Book like this one! Isaiah 34:6,
Second Advent: "The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, it is made
fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat
of the kidneys of rams: for the Lord hath a sacrifice in Bozrah--"
that's south of the Dead Sea. "And a great slaughter in the land of
Idumea." That's Edom. "And the unicorns- -" A unicorn is a horse with
one horn in the middle of his head. Did you ever see one of them
really? I wonder if there is any such animal!

   The new "bibles" don't say "unicorns." They've all changed the word
"unicorn" because none of the translators in the new bibles, including
the Lockman Foundation, or any book recommended by Bob Jones
University, believe there is a unicorn. So, their unbelief makes them
change the text and then get mad at you for believing the text.

   I don't know why there couldn't have been a horse with one spike in
the middle of his forehead. Did you ever see a picture of Brontosaurus
or Stegasaurus or Triceritops or Terradactyl? You talk about some weird
looking animals! I know how you believe an animal had three horns on
his head, with a potato grater across his back--and can't believe in a
horse with one horn! I mean, if there were monsters back there like
Darwin said, you just as well have had a horse with one horn as three.

   All right, verse 7: "And the unicorns shall come down with them, and
the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood,
and their dust made fat with fatness." Watch it: "For it is the day of
the Lord's vengeance." Second Advent! "And the year of recompences for
the controversy of Zion." Second Advent! "And the streams thereof shall
be turned into pitch." HELL! "And the dust thereof into brimstone."
HELL! "And the land thereof shall become burning pitch."

   "It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go
up for ever." That's a picture of hell!

   But who's in hell?? Verse 11: "But the cormorant and the
bittern...the owl..." What??

   Verse 13: "...dragons...." Verse 14: "...satyr..." half goat and
half man. "...screech owl...." What are storks and owls doing in
hell--and ravens? What are they doing in hell? Are there blackbirds
flying around the lake of fire?

   In Revelation chapter 17, birds are types of unclean spirits. In
Matthew chapter 13, birds are types of unclean spirits. In Ecclesiastes
chapter 10, "That which hath wings shall tell of the matter." Demons
are small, and they're winged. So, you can take Unger's Demonology and
throw it out. Demons are winged things, whatever they are. They're
small enough for a guy to have a thousand in him--Mark chapter 5.

   Nothing like a Bible, is there?

   I'm going to get this stuff together now. Now let's see what I've
given you. I've given you verses to prove there's such a thing as
people who are not real people, who are half monster. I've given you a
verse to prove that animals can be in hell--of some kind. I've given
you a verse to prove that the soul, when destroyed, is like a serpent
or like a snake or like a worm. And from that I would gather this.

   Now, you noticed I didn't preach that tonight when I preached on
hell. When I drew those fellows in hell, I drew their arms and faces.
And that's probably the way they look now. But when they go from hell
into the lake of fire, they probably don't look like that.

   So you see, brethren, I don't preach as doctrine what I'm not sure
of. But I know what the Bible suggests. And here's what it suggests. It
suggests that when you stand up there and face that White Throne
Judgment and face that record, and the Lord says, "Depart from me, ye
cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels,"
and you whip off to the limits of the universe and fall a couple of
hundred billion light years down that lake of fire, and, as you go,
this ol' arm cements into here, and this ol' arm cements into there,
and these legs cement into here, and those legs stretch out, and those
eyes go closed, and those ears stop, and that mouth can't eat any more.

   And what you've got out in eternity, it implies, out in eternity
what you have is just a great, big, seething mass of maggots crawling
all over each other. "An abhorring to all flesh." Body against body.
The end of all flesh.

   You can't see; you can't hear; you can't eat.

   You're destroyed.

   The Bible says, "God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not" what? WHAT?

   PERISH!

   That's some word! You know that?

   You know what Christ said? Christ said, "What shall it profit a man
if he gain the whole world and lose his" what? His SOUL! HIS SOUL! It
has a shape to it!

   Now that's what that stuff implies. I don't teach that, because it's
a deep thing and a heavy thing, and there's not enough Scripture on it
to get it all together. But, boy, I'll tell you, the implication is
there!

   Now, if you ever doubt it, don't you forget that your first seed was
born of corruptible seed. Right? You know what the male seed looks
like? Did you ever see Spermatozoa under a microscope? Well, why would
you think you'd wind up any different?

   All right, you can think on that tonight.

   You've got enough to think about. And, I'll tell you something else.
You've got enough to think about in regard to some of your lost
neighbors.

   All right, Lord bless you, and good night.