The Psalmist, addressing the Lord, inquires: "Where shall I go from your Spirit? or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend up into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there." (Psalm 139:7-8)
But of the wicked we read that they "shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power." (2 Thessalonians 1:9)
The presence of the Lord, when He manifests the glory of His power, causes the destruction of the wicked; and as His presence is everywhere, and will be manifested in the glory of His power against the wicked in the day of vengeance, the fate of the wicked can be nothing else but utter destruction. "Our God is a consuming fire," (Hebrews 12:26) and when that fire comes down from God out of heaven upon all the wicked, in the last great Judgment, it devours them as the flame licks up chaff, and makes an eternal end of them and of sin. "And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them." (Revelation 20:9)--Present Truth, July 18, 1895--Psalm 139:7-8.