0993. Overwhelmed with Water–with Fire
Overwhelmed with Water–with Fire
"And the flood came, and destroyed them all.
"It rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all" (Luk_17:27, Luk_17:29).
The fact that these very things occurred away back in history no one can reasonably doubt; there are abundant marks of the flood, and there are no reasons to discount the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
It is, however, passing strange–the world will accept the statements of the flood far quicker than it will accept the statements of the coming fire.
God is a just God. If conditions before the flood led the Lord to say: "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth," will not like conditions bring at least a like judgment?
Once more the harvest of the earth is ripening–soon it will be fully ripe. Then God, Who, with all longsuffering has waited as He waited once in the days of Noah, will say to the angel, "Thrust in thy sickle, and reap" (Rev_14:14-15).
The Lord has been longsuffering to usward; not willing that any one should perish; but, "the day of the Lord will come." The world that then was, was overflowed with water, and perished. The heavens and the earth which are now, by the same Word are kept in store reserved unto fire.
This age is yet to drink of the cup of the mixture of the wrath of Almighty God.
The world will reel to and fro like a drunken man. The earth will be shaken, like as when the fig tree casteth forth her untimely figs. The people of the earth will languish and mourn, the people will be burned and few men left.
He Who sitteth in the Heavens will laugh and hold His haters in derision. He will vex them in His sore displeasure.
Men will be crying unto the rocks and to the mountains to fall upon them and to hide them from the face of the Lamb, when the day of His wrath has come.
There shall be a time of trouble such as the world has never known, no, nor will ever know again. It will be called a day of darkness, of gloominess and of fierce anger. It will be known as the day of tribulation, which cometh to try men who dwell upon the earth.
That day is to the ungodly "a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversary" (Heb_10:27).
However, there will be those who, like Noah, will pass safely through the flood. A man will prove their hiding place from the storm, and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. To the chosen of Israel, God will say: "Come, My people enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.
"For, behold, the Lord cometh out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain" (Isa_26:20-21).
There will be those among the chosen people who will find shelter in the Ark. How gracious is the warning: "And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.
"For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.
"Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man" (Luk_21:34-36).
Thus, "as it was in the days of Noah; so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man."
Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR