Remove punishment completely from the universe, and they would still serve God with all their hearts. Because of the gross misunderstanding of almost all people concerning the lake of fire, I would like to draw your attention to three words found in the passage quoted above. The word BURN means combustion, or to consume. To consume does not mean to annihilate, for there is no such thing as annihilation in the absolute sense. When fire consumes a log in your fireplace it does not destroy any of the elements within the log, it merely changes their form .
Combustion is the process by which chemicals combine to form new chemicals.
When the wood is burning the heat causes the chemicals of which the wood is composed to vaporize, mixing with the oxygen in the air to form new chemicals, including water and the gas carbon dioxide. Even if you take a pan of water and place it over a fire, before long the water will take on the property of the fire and will begin to go up in steam. FIRE is the heat and light that you feel and see when something burns. It takes heat to start a fire, but once the fire is started it produces heat that keeps the process going. The idea of judgment need not be excluded.