Let us see what Hell is. Hell is the final abandonment of God. God is the source of all that is good. So Hell is a place where there is nothing good. Can anyone endure such torment without ceasing? Even our simplest existence is a good from God, because we are contingent beings. So, eventually, when we give up clinging to "immortality," we will cease to exist. God does not torture us in fire. Fire is the element of destruction and disintegration.
How long is eternity? Time is different from our linear sequential experience of it here. Eternity can seem like it endures forever in every moment, because God's time is utterly unlike our own concept of time. How long does a sugar cube feel like it's burning? In Hell, you can endure the pain of suffering, or choose final destruction and experience disintegration. If you turn away from God, don't expect anything good.
Hell is a place of unending regret, self-loathing and pain for the remainder of your existence. Even if it ends, you suffer forever. Don't go there by stubbornly refusing to accept Jesus. He took your penalty for sin, to save you from Hell.
"My God! My God! Why have you abandoned me?!" These were Jesus' words, spoken on the cross, just before He died for us. It's more than just a reference to Psalm 22. He fully experienced every moment of it. For that one moment of time, dying on the cross, Jesus felt what sin does to us -- separating us from God -- and He found it to be unbearable. True, the Father only let Him go for a short time, but He felt our loss.
Later, after his burial, the Father (as part of the Trinity) raised Jesus up again. Jesus said, "I have the power to lay down my life, and to take it up again." But for that moment, those three hours on the cross, He felt the total emptying of how it feels to be human and apart from God. That's what sin does to us. It removes the core of our lives.
Please, don't let his suffering go for naught. Don't turn your back and walk away. He did this for you. Hell is real. But so is Heaven. God wants you to choose eternal life, and He can make Heaven last without any ending.
"But what about the fallen angels?" you may ask. Doesn't it say in the book of Revelations that Satan will be released briefly after Jesus' millenial reign on Earth? Why would God release Satan from his prison after 1000 years of peace? It is because He is infinitely merciful, and recognizes his angels' free will. God will allow Satan one final chance to repent and humble himself, or choose to be abandoned to Hell. We all have the choice to be rebels or obedient, and so do the angels. God loves his creatures. But angels don't die, so if Satan chooses not to be reconciled, he will suffer forever without end for eternity in a place where there can be nothing good, and never another chance to beg for mercy or forgiveness. Maybe he knows that, but still he struggles to avoid his just punishment.
Satan persists in a contest to thwart God's promises to us and judgments against the fallen angels. He surely must know that he will lose, but he doesn't want any of us to be saved. All along, this has been about Satan's pride and jealousy over the status of "these human animals," being unworthy of God's favor. So this war has to play out to its end. The final question is about whether Satan will be humble in defeat and admit that his pride doesn't deserve to be forgiven. And then, how many fools will again rebel with him, though they should know better after the millenial kingdom, and go into perdition? Someday, we shall see.
