2. Now let us look at what "_Destruction_" means in the New Testament. We are told by a certain school of religious thought that "destruction" means destruction. Yes, "destruction" means destruction, but what does destruction mean? They say it means annihilation, or ceasing to be, but the Greek word so translated never means that in the Bible, nor even out of the Bible. In the best Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament extant, Thayer's translation of Grimm's great work, we are told that when a thing is said to "perish" (and the verb from which the noun commonly translated "destruction" and "perdition" is derived, is the one translated "to perish") it is not meant that it ceases to be, but that it is "so ruined that it no longer subserves the use for which it was designed." Furthermore, here again God has been careful to define His terms. He Himself has given us in the Bible a definition of "destruction." We read in Rev. 17:8, 11: +"The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition; and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder . . . and the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition."+ Here we are told that the beast goes into "perdition." The word here translated "perdition" is precisely the same word that is elsewhere translated "destruction" and should be so translated here; or else in the other instances it should be translated, as here, "perdition." Now if we can find what the beast goes into, then we shall know exactly what "destruction" means, for we are told that he goeth "into destruction." In the 19th chapter of Revelation, the 20th verse, we are told exactly where the beast goes: +"And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone."+ Now looking forward to the next chapter, the 10th verse, which I have already quoted, we read: +"And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast and the false prophet, and they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever."+ Putting these passages together we see that the beast goeth into "destruction," and the destruction into which he goes is a place in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, where for a thousand years he is in conscious torment, and where after the thousand years are over he is still there and is still tormented. So then "destruction" is clearly defined in the New Testament in the same way in which "death" is defined, as the condition of beings in a place of conscious torment.