I have inferred from your response that you believe God will literally set people on fire for hours or days on end. Before discussing this further, I would like you to confirm that I've understood your response to this point correctly.

But now with the terrible weight of guilt He bears, He cannot see the Father's reconciling face. The withdrawal of the divine countenance from the Saviour in this hour of supreme anguish pierced His heart with a sorrow that can never be fully understood by man. So great was this agony that His physical pain was hardly felt. {DA 753.1}

T:Consider taking someone who has irrevocably chosen to be separated from God, such as Lucifer, and making him live with the consequences of that decision for thousands of years before putting him out of his misery. Wouldn't you say that living in opposition to God for millennia causes quite a bit of suffering? Which causes more suffering: physically burn for a few days or live in conscious and constant rebellion against God for 6 thousand years? Which is more "cruel"?

T:The issue is if God is acting cruelly, and arbitrarily torturing individuals He's selected for such treatment. Regarding my view, it sounds as if you're suggesting that having any judgment at all is cruel on God's part?

A:Hold on here. You do agree with me that when the saved are in Heaven during the Millennium, the lost are dead on Earth, yes? Dead, no pain, not knowing anything, right?

Yet, you have them, at some future time, coming back to life and suffering untold mental anguish. Who is able to bring the dead back to life, enabling them to suffer such mental anguish? Only God. I trust you do not disagree.

Whether the suffering is imposed or innate, the fact is that God gives the lost the ability to experience it.

God could just as easily judge them while they are dead.

In fact, that's near the top of the to-do list during the Millennium. Once the universe has seen the justice of God's judgment, what's the point of bringing them back? Just so they could suffer the anguish of knowing what they have lost, then die?

I'm not suggesting God acts cruelly.

I just try to figure out what He's going to do, and trust that He is good. Unlike Lucifer and Eve, I do not want to give myself the job of judging whether or not God is right. That job has a terrible retirement package.

Setting someone on fire is more cruel.

God invites us to reason together. He has put Himself on judgment. He invites us to examine Him, and lays out His case for us to examine.

Based on your study, you have determined that God will not burn anyone, despite all the texts about burning, fire, stubble, fervent heat, etc. In contrast, I'll just take whatever God sees fit to give, and I'll take advantage of the 1000 years to examine all the evidence. In the meantime, I'll trust that God knows what He's doing.

Saith the Lord: "Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations; and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. They shall bring thee down to the pit." "I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. . . . I will cast thee to the ground. I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee." "I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. . . . Thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more." [ Ezekiel 28:6-8, 16-19.] {GC88 672.1}
"Every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire." "The indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter." "Upon the wicked he shall rain quick burning coals, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup." [ Isaiah 9:5; 34:2; 11:6 (MARGIN).] Fire comes down from God out of Heaven. The earth is broken up. The weapons concealed in its depths are drawn forth. Devouring flames burst from every yawning chasm. The very rocks are on fire. The day has come that shall burn as an oven. The elements melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein are burned up. [ Malachi 4:1; 2 Peter 3:10.] The earth's surface seems one molten mass,--a vast, seething lake of fire. It is the time of the judgment and perdition of ungodly men,--
673
"The day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion." [Isaiah 34:8; Proverbs 11:31.] {GC88 672.2}
The wicked receive their recompense in the earth. [Isaiah 34:8; Proverbs 11:31.] They "shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts."[Malachi 4:1.] Some are destroyed as in a moment, while others suffer many days. All are punished "according to their deeds." The sins of the righteous having been transferred to Satan, he is made to suffer not only for his own rebellion, but for all the sins which he has caused God's people to commit. His punishment is to be far greater than that of those whom he has deceived. After all have perished who fell by his deceptions, he is still to live and suffer on. In the cleansing flames the wicked are at last destroyed, root and branch,--Satan the root, his followers the branches. The full penalty of the law has been visited; the demands of justice have been met; and Heaven and earth, beholding, declare the righteousness of Jehovah. {GC88 673.1}

Then the end will come. God will vindicate His law and deliver His people. Satan and all who have joined him in rebellion will be cut off. Sin and sinners will perish, root and branch, (Mal. 4:1),--Satan the root, and his followers the branches. The word will be fulfilled to the prince of evil, "Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; . . . I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. . . . Thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more." Then "the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be;" "they shall be as though they had not been." Ezek. 28:6-19; Ps. 37:10; Obadiah 16.

This is not an act of arbitrary power on the part of God. The rejecters of His mercy reap that which they have sown. God is the fountain of life; and when one chooses the service of sin, he separates from God, and thus cuts himself off from life. He is "alienated from the life of God." Christ says, "All they that hate Me love death." Eph. 4:18; Prov. 8:36. God gives them existence for a time that they may develop their character and reveal their principles. This accomplished, they receive the results of their own choice. By a life of rebellion, Satan and all who unite with him place themselves so out of harmony with God that His very presence is to them a consuming fire. The glory of Him who is love will destroy them.

At the beginning of the great controversy, the angels did not understand this. Had Satan and his host then been left to reap the full result of their sin, they would have perished; but it would not have been apparent to heavenly beings that this was the inevitable result of sin. A doubt of God's goodness would have remained in their minds as evil seed, to produce its deadly fruit of sin and woe. (DA 763,764)

It is no part of Christ's mission to compel men to receive Him. It is Satan, and men actuated by his spirit, that seek to compel the conscience. Under a pretense of zeal for righteousness, men who are confederate with evil angels bring suffering upon their fellow men, in order to convert them to their ideas of religion; but Christ is ever showing mercy, ever seeking to win by the revealing of His love. He can admit no rival in the soul, nor accept of partial service; but He desires only voluntary service, the willing surrender of the heart under the constraint of love. There can be no more conclusive evidence that we possess the spirit of Satan than the disposition to hurt and destroy those who do not appreciate our work, or who act contrary to our ideas. (DA 487)

We can see that the same event is being discussed; even the same Scriptures are quotes. We note that she points out that the destruction of the wicked is NOT due to an imposed act of power on the part of God, but is the result of their own choice. 9 times in a row she makes the point that the destruction of the wicked is due to their own choice. They so ruin their characters that the mere presence of God is a consuming fire to them.

They choose against heaven, because they want no part of it or of God, because their characters have been settled with principles that are contrary to the principles of God's kingdom.

Desires for goodness and holiness are right as far as they go; but if you stop here, they will avail nothing. Many will be lost while hoping and desiring to be Christians. They do not come to the point of yielding the will to God. They do not now choose to be Christians. {SC 47.2}

Desires for goodness and true holiness are right so far as they go; but if you stop here, they will avail nothing. Good purposes are right, but will prove of no avail unless resolutely carried out. Many will be lost while hoping and desiring to be Christians; but they made no earnest effort, therefore they will be weighed in the balances and found wanting. The will must be exercised in the right direction. I will be a wholehearted Christian. I will know the length and breadth, the height and depth, of perfect love. Listen to the words of Jesus: "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." Ample provisions are made by Christ to satisfy the soul that hungers and thirsts for righteousness. {2T 265.2}