In this text, Matthew 25:31-46, it mentions ‘everlasting fire’ and ‘everlasting punishment’.  In Jude 1:6, 7 *, it says, “ And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own habitation, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”  The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire from God because they over stepped the patience of God and they made the choice to totally go against God’s leading.  The fire that consumed Sodom and Gomorrah is no longer burning.  So when Matthew 25:31-46 mentions ‘everlasting fire’ and ‘everlasting punishment’ it means that the wicked will be destroyed with fire and will burn until there is nothing left to burn. Take for example a fire that you make at a camp ground.  If you keep adding wood to the fire, it will keep burning.  But, if you don’t add wood to the fire, the fire will eventually go out. For example, ask yourself this.  When all the righteous are in heaven enjoying the pleasures that God has given them and they look down on planet earth and see the wicked forever burning in the flames of hell, what would that say about the Lord.  Why would a loving God, who loved and died for the whole world, be so mean to let the wicked burn for eternity.  If this happened, it would keep the results of sin before the righteous for all eternity. “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the children of God!  Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.  Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”  1 John 3:1-3  * *  New King James Version