According to a persistent ancient legend there once existed an inhabited island called Atlantis, which was destroyed, the legend says, by an earth-quake thousands of years ago. Recently, Soviet ocean explorers reported having uncovered the huge land mass 200 to 300 miles off the coast of Portugal. They claim to have photographed parts of it at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean.
In more modern times, we are told, there stood a now lost island in the Indian Ocean. It had many people living upon it. Over it shone the sun by day and the moon and the stars by night. Round it rolled the waters of the tropical sea, and across its mountain heights and groves of palm trees swept the fresh sea breezes.
But now no one can find that island. Waters roll where once it stood—waters that tell no tale of the awful catastrophe that once they witnessed.
None lived to tell the story of the moment when the fierce volcanic fires burst forth upon the dwellers there; but ships sailing many miles away were shaken by the terrific roar. The sky was darkened, the firmament shook, and never more has human eye beheld that island with its woods and hills.
Men living in Ceylon at the time, which was more than a thousand miles away, claimed that they had distinctly heard the roar of the terrible explosion when the water and the fire met and destroyed that sunny land with all its inhabitants.
"The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.
Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; And He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground."
And why this consuming judgment? God turned "... the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly." 2 Peter 2:66And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; (2 Peter 2:6). What a warning to our wicked world!
O delay not, my reader, if unsaved, to flee from the wrath to come! Pause not, while the love of God for a fallen and doomed world still stays its certain judgment.
"Of that day and hour knoweth no man" said the Son of God. Not even the angels in heaven know the awful secret. God keeps the knowledge of that dreadful day from even the most trusted of His creatures, so solemn is the event.
"Be ye therefore ready" is the Savior's warning, in view of the suddeness and unexpectedness of that fearful day.