The Last Night of Sodom and Christendom
Clarence E. Lunden
Table of Contents
Preface
We know of no subject so full of Christ as that of the mystery—Christ and the Church. It is not only the last in the teachings of Scripture, but the fullest. All of God’s revealed thoughts and purposes are opened in this subject. It brings out the fullness of the Godhead, the nature of God and the ultimate purpose of His counsels in creating man for His own glory.
The subject of Christ and the Church shows the full measure of God’s character—His intrinsic righteousness, His complete separation from evil, the full extent of His goodness. Love rises to its highest height when Jesus, according to the will of His Father and through redemption, takes His bride from the race of man. Joy comes to its fullest measure at the marriage of the Lamb, where God and man, as Christ and His bride, the Church, are seen as one—the Christ.
If the millennial day begins in the year 6000, we have, at the most, but a few months or years before the rapture when Christ will claim His own. The visible testimony of the Church is in fragments, although God maintains a testimony to Christ’s name.
Today, Satan is making a supreme effort to break down and ruin every visible testimony by the Church, the body of Christ. The teachings of the doctrine of Christ and the Church have suffered at his hand. Those who profess the name of Christ are being scattered. He has succeeded in bringing in such confusion that few know the right way either for salvation or for gathering to praise and worship.
Christendom, which includes all who profess to be of the Christian faith, is a mixture of true believers and false professors. At the rapture the true will be called home and the false left for judgment.
As the truth that has been given to man in this day is full and great, so will be the judgment on those who have professed with their lips but rejected it in their hearts. “Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double” (Rev. 18:6).
In this paper we will review the last night of Sodom with her sins and her judgment at God’s hand. We will notice how Sodom is a solemn picture of the present state of Christendom, and we will be warned by the judgment coming upon it and each one who professes the name of Christ, but whose heart, like Lot’s wife, is attached to the apostate earth.
The Last Night of Sodom
Abraham’s nephew Lot first became interested in Sodom following a difficulty that arose between the herdsmen of Lot and those of Abraham over pasture for their flocks. To resolve the problem, Abraham graciously offered to Lot a portion of the plain—any choice part of it that he wanted for his cattle. Abraham would take the rest.
Up to this point in his life Lot had leaned upon Abraham, living with his household and under his guidance. In material things, Lot had prospered, having now herds and servants of his own. He would separate from Abraham and live on his own.
During his years with Abraham, Lot had the opportunity to learn from him the importance of maintaining communion with God, for without it, nothing but ruin lay ahead. Abraham had his altar, enjoying communion with his God, and he had a tent, which tells us he was a pilgrim. He was prospering in his soul. We are not told that Lot had an altar. He did have a tent, but he soon lost it in Sodom.
Lot’s Choice
Lot looked out over the valley by the well-watered plain of the Jordan and at the luscious grass on the surrounding hills. What pasture this would make for his flocks! This sight and the lust for material wealth in his heart led him away from dependence upon God and from the land given to Abraham, which Abraham was willing to share with him. So he left Abraham and pitched his tent toward Sodom. Later, he gave up tent life and built his home in the city.
Not walking in communion with God, he had to pass through the trials that would teach communion. Lot had ignored God in his choice. He had gone with his wife and children, down from the mountain where he had lived with Abraham, into the wicked city of Sodom. He was tempting God, casting himself down for angels to catch (Psa. 91:11-12; Heb. 1:14).
He began to reap what he was sowing, for he lost some of his children to the ungodly world in Sodom, and his righteous soul was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. God in mercy sent two angels who appeared at the gate of Sodom to snatch away Lot, before God’s wrath fell from heaven on the city.
Lot did not recognize the two men as angels, only as travelers. Yet, among the elders who sat at the city gates, only Lot was attracted to these strangers. He spoke courteously to them, and showing hospitality he invited them to tarry all night as his guests. They replied, “Nay; but we will abide in the street all night” (Gen. 19:2). But, after he pressed his offer, the two strangers turned in to his house, and Lot prepared a feast for them, baking unleavened bread.
Natural Senses
Governed by his natural senses and feelings in a city outwardly peaceful and calm, Lot, unlike the angels, does not see things as they really are. On such a night the natural man would suggest a quiet evening at home surrounded by ease and pleasure with a climate that is soothing, thinking that the present is all that there is. While Lot knew better, he was not walking in communion and he acts like a natural man rather than as a godly one. Angels see the passing of time in the light of eternity, while the natural man walks blindly, not realizing that he may be just one step from the awful abyss of death.
The inhabitants of Sodom would not allow the thought of responsibility to God and His claims to enter their minds. Being governed by cares and pleasures, being occupied with only what passed before their eyes and being full of idleness, they were not aware, as were the angels, of what was ahead for Sodom.
We are continually surrounded by, and the innermost part of our being may be affected by, Satanic influences—influences that are incomprehensible, clothed with seemingly unlimited power and that use man’s mind as a plaything. Such are the demons of the abyss. The only deliverance for man from such creatures and their influence is Christ, the master over all creation. All deliverance for fallen man is dependent upon the death of Christ and our believing and owning Him as the Son of God, our Saviour (Luke 8:26-33).
The Sins of Sodom
“Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before Me” (Ezek. 16:49-50).
Think of Sodom at the time of her judgment. She is situated like a garden with security, beauty and fertility. From the north a lake-cooled breeze caresses the city and its people. Shepherds graze their flocks and bed them down on the hillsides for the night. The air in this land of the olive and the vine is filled with perfume from the perpetual blossoming of flowers throughout the year. The fair city revels in the profusion of everything that nature and art can produce. But God is left out.
Fullness of riches, together with idleness, stimulate the appetite for pleasure and the indulgence of voluptuous passions. The people have given their lives over to the call of their natural senses, debasing their souls and leaving God out of their lives.
Twilight
Who would think of danger at such a time? Only Lot. For the rest there seems to be no omen of danger. The sun on Sodom’s last twilight casts its rays among the shadows of the hills. As it sinks quietly from sight, a youth enticed by the siren of pleasure comes to the house of death, setting his feet on the way to hell with a smile.
Can you imagine what it was like for that young man to suddenly step from a life with every pleasure, idleness, abundance of food, wine, fragrant flowers, cool breezes, hills full of cattle, luxurious grain fields—into hell, into the place where the worm of conscience dies not and the fire of constant want and lack of solace burns forever, where past pleasure is remembered without satisfaction, while writhing without hope for eternity, never to know relief of any kind, with none to hear his cry or help assuage his unquenchable pain? (Mark 9:43-48; Prov. 1:24-28; Isa. 66:3-4).
“But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which after He hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear Him” (Luke 12:5).
Night
As the shadows of night deepen in Sodom for the last time, she is engaged in mocking divine wrath. The mob of the city treat the two strangers with rudeness and contempt. They are ready to subject them to the outburst of passion that has left Sodom indelibly inscribed over and over again in the Scriptures with an infamy throughout all generations. This treatment of God’s servants is the final sin, the final drop of iniquity, which openly invites the fiery wrath of destruction about to engulf the wicked city and all in it.
Had the city not been warned? Yes, some time before, Abraham had come to rescue Lot, saving also Sodom and her king. When the surrounding kings made war against the King of Sodom, Abraham defeated the enemy and restored to Lot and the city all that had been taken from them.
Finally, Lot begins to realize the awful situation, and says to the strangers, “Tarry all night.” They enter his house and during the night these angels tell Lot, “Escape for thy life; look not behind thee... escape to the mountain.” Lot hurries to his sons-in-law with an urgent warning. But it only brings smiles to their faces as they listen to the distraught old man.
The Morning Breaks
The morning sun climbs up over the hills, bringing with it a new day. The cry of Sodom’s sin has reached unto heaven, but before judgment, God comes down to check and make sure that the evil state of the city is as bad as the report (Gen. 18:20-21). God is patient and slow to anger, but there is a boundary between His patience and His wrath. Evil must mature before He judges it to show that His mighty power is greater than the evil that is before Him.
The angels take Lot’s hand as he lingers and pull him, together with his wife and daughters, out of the city before the storm strikes (mercy comes before wrath), and so they deliver “just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (for that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds)” (2 Peter 2:7-8).
Jesus recounted what happened to his disciples this way: “In the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone [sulfur] from heaven, and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:28-29).
The Storm Strikes
Perhaps the city was planning for new pleasures, even as the unleashed storm struck. Fire and brimstone fell from heaven, leaving, as it were, the acrid smoke of a furnace heated seven times hotter with its suffocating fumes (Dan. 3:19-23).
“And turning 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 2:6). “Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange [other] flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 7).
Scripture says, “Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:32). She did not perish in the city, but outside by a singular judgment—she became a pillar of salt. Lot’s household was a household of favor to be governed by faith, but Lot’s wife, in her heart, belonged to a wicked city. In unbelief she “looked back” to see going up in fire and smoke all that controlled her heart—her daughters, the favorable circumstances and the pleasant land (Matt. 10:37).
What a warning for us who have had higher privileges than Sodom’s. Let us be sure that by faith we pierce through the wall of Satan’s deceit to walk the path of faith as Abraham did with a tent and an altar.
The Warning of Sodom
Sodom, a garden that the Lord had made, was, in a moment, turned into a city of jackals and birds of prey—a haunted city, never again to be rebuilt. Such will be Christendom.
The people of Sodom refused to heed the still small voice of conscience that reminded them of God and His claims. Now they have nothing but a bad conscience to plague them every moment forever. For two thousand years already they have been undergoing in their spirits the judgment of eternal fire. Later their bodies will be restored to them, and at the great white throne they will be sentenced—spirit, soul and body—to eternal judgment and fire.
Sodom’s history is left as an example for all to remember—a warning to all mankind. How do we live each day in view of eternity, considering our responsibility to God and His claims? Did not God delight in man, in us (Prov. 8:31)? Had He not prepared the beauty and the plenty of the city of Sodom for man? Then why the awful carnal destruction of man and beast? Because they had left God out of their lives, taking their blessings for granted—unthankful. Is it so with us?
When the fear of poverty and the necessity to work are gone, pride takes their place as the great passion of man’s natural heart. Pride coupled with wealth and leisure become his sin to drag him down the path of Sodom and its abominations. Man is not sufficient for himself—he either turns to God or his lusts. A deep sense of want often brings desire toward heavenly things in the soul. See, for example, the prodigal in Luke 15:16-19. But in Sodom, leisure was the occupation of the affluent masses. It was the sin which led them into wickedness.
Universal Warning
The explosive flame of divine justice on Sodom has sent a warning down through the centuries to remind man that there is a God in heaven. He, in His Word, has set forth His mind for us, not only to follow, but to enjoy. If we believe in Jesus as the Son of God and our Saviour, we have a new life that loves God and desires to walk according to His precepts.
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:31).
Lot’s loss of most of his family stands as a warning to every parent. Judah said to Joseph, who was going to put Benjamin in prison, “How shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me?” (Gen. 44:34). This question should ring in the ears of every parent.
The Last Night of Christendom
“Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 17:28-30).
These words from God should immediately electrify the mind and heart, because of the imminent judgment to fall on Christendom. Never before has there been prosperity in the western earth as there is today. This warning cries with special voice to the nations of the west under Christian profession.
Twilight
Sodom, like the west today, was surrounded with every blessing—a garden that the Lord planted. Flowers with their perfume were perpetual. They had abundance of food, the land being fertile bore large harvests. The luscious grass on the hills were provender for cattle, sheep and goats. In their idleness they indulged in every wicked pleasure, without restraint.
As we look at Sodom, is it not like looking at our day in a mirror? They, increased with goods, left God out of their lives. Today, spiritual lethargy has engulfed the Christian profession. Worldly pleasure is taking the place of Christian devotion to God and His claims. Christian civilization—Christendom—has fallen under the power and deceit of Satan who has inspired the world to change what was holy and good in its pristine day into a wicked source of pleasure.
Men, even believers, do not trust God, but put their trust in the institutions of men. The unequal yoke between believer and unbeliever is commonplace.
“Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit” (Jer. 17:5-8).
The Church in Ruins
Today, Christendom is a great Babylon of confusion as to ecclesiastical and spiritual profession—confusion as to the doctrine of the Church. Although there is confusion, God remains faithful, and the Holy Spirit by the Scriptures would guide each believer into all truth. We need to be willing and diligent (John 16:13).
In spite of general failure in every dispensation, God has always maintained a witness to Himself. There have been, and there are today, individuals with hearts burning for the truth, holding on to the light even unto death by persecution.
“Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding” (Prov. 23:23).
The Church periods represented in Revelation 2 by the churches of Ephesus, Smyrna and Pergamos have run their course. The periods represented by Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea will go on to nearly the end with one exception—Sardis continues into the final judgment (Rev. 3:3; Rev.16:16-18). Sardis (Protestantism) has a name to live (profession) but is dead (Rev. 3:1).
Early in the last century, God restored to the Church the truth of the one body, the mystery of Christ and the Church, and the hope of the Lord’s coming for the Church. By the work of the Holy Spirit many were led to the one table—the Lord’s table—where partaking of the one loaf expresses the truth of the one body on earth. Will you be at the Lord’s table when Jesus comes? He has only one.
Those whom the Lord addresses in Philadelphia may have but a little strength (a little power), yet the Lord has given to such to know God’s mind concerning Christ and the Church, the truth which completes the Word of God.
The body of Christ is now being added to within the kingdom of heaven during the King’s absence. Denominationalism is not authorized by God; it is a denial of the truth of the one body and opposes in practice what Christ has formed.
Man’s system of education is geared to teach wickedness, to violate the principles of a true Christian profession. And the government which carries the title “In God we trust” allows murder and violates the principles of industry, which are being replaced with government subsidies. Such governments tend to take on the character of an absolute monarchy, which Scripture tells us is coming at the end (Rev. 17:8,16).
The modesty that once characterized women is turned into license, especially in dress. The man no longer lifts up holy hands. Habits and companions keep many from eternal blessing (Matt. 22:1-6).
Churches have largely changed from spiritual pursuits to political and humanitarian avocation, instead of teaching the only remedy for the evils of the day. Those who profess the higher truths are falling away to a mere profession—they did not love the truth (2 Thess. 2:10).
Sodomites have entered the ministry. “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Eccl. 8:11).
“Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange [other] flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering [undergoing] the vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 7).
The city of Sodom and her people were gone when Paul’s epistle to the Romans was written. The warning of Romans is for Christendom. Because the Sodomites gave themselves over to fornication, God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves.
“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. [God never gives man up, until he gives God up.] And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. [The disease AIDS gives present warning that God is not mocked.] And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient [unseemly things]; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness... who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (Rom. 1:26-32).
Christ’s Ministry—the First Appeal
When the Lord was on earth, ministering the truth of eternal salvation, there was Little or no response. Whole cities, where His ministry was often heard, refused to believe.
“And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained unto this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee” (Matt. 11:23-24).
Never did man receive a more blessed testimony than when Jesus ministered salvation by grace. Many had rendered testimony before, but this was the Saviour, the Son of God in person. Capernaum was exalted to heaven as they heard day after day the message of love. Those who rejected the message and the person who gave it will be brought down to hell.
“And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more” (Luke 12:47-48).
Dear soul, “repliest [thou] against God?” Awake while it is still today. Jesus may come today.
“He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal” (John 12:25). To hate your life is to put Christ first at all cost. “If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26). We must not have an object dearer to our hearts than Christ—it would be idolatry.
Laodicea—the Last Appeal
“And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of My mouth” (Rev. 3:14-16).
Christ is the true “Amen” who always been faithful. He leads us into the creation of God beyond all of the failure—a creation where all things are of God.
When so much has been done for us, to be lukewarm (pretension) is hardly right. Christ wants us to respond to His love. The assembly has fallen from its first love and is neither hot nor cold. This is nauseous to Christ and He will spew it out of His mouth. It is the cold profession that is spewed out of His mouth, not the true believer.
“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing” is to be rich in learning and intellectualism. The spread of the outward knowledge of God without the working of love in the heart will hasten on the crisis. It is self-complacency. Nature allowed in the Church excludes divine things.
“And knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” One who is wretched or miserable is one who has never been humbled in religious things and tries to walk without the power of the Holy Spirit. Self-will produces wretchedness.
“Miserable” is the permanent condition of soul unless repentance comes in. “Blind” is to have the eyes covered with self-importance in speaking of truths to others without walking in them oneself. “Naked” is one who has not been covered from his moral shame. There has not been repentance. Another has said, “The confession and forsaking of sin is the ground of all true morality.”
“I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich.” Gold is the intrinsic righteousness of God’s nature. If we are believers, we have the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
“And white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear.” Covering is needed for the shame of sin; that covering is the practical, public manifestation of holiness before others.
“And anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.” Eyesalve is an unction from the Holy One. Without it one will not see anything properly—not even the need of divine righteousness. Man is not called upon to do something, but to repent. It is a higher thing to suffer for Christ than to do service.
“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”
“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock.” This is not an invitation to be saved, but an invitation to each in the assembly. To individuals with an opened heart, He says, “I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.” The appeal is to the individual, for “conscience must be individual or God cannot be master.”
Personal affection is called for. Should it not be so with the bride of Christ. There is a special reward to the overcomer, but in Laodicea in their low state, the reward for the overcomer is not like it was for Ephesus—the tree of life in the paradise of God. There will still be the door with those within and those without. All scriptural order is maintained, but in extreme weakness and by few.
When Revelation 4 begins, there is no longer an assembly of God on earth. This we believe is after the rapture.
The Morning Breaks With Judgment
In Sodom things continued as always until the moment that Lot went out of Sodom—a picture of the believer raptured before the awful judgment upon Christendom falls in all its fury. It will be far worse than the judgment upon Sodom. It will not be merely fire and brimstone falling from heaven, but the armies of heaven descending upon the western earth. It will include those who have been martyred or persecuted for Christ’s sake, riding upon white horses, with the Son of man in the lead.
“And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations; and He shall rule them with a rod of iron: and He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (Rev. 19:13-16).
Could anything be more solemn than the sight described, especially for the masses of professing believers left behind when Jesus comes to take His Church home? Why were they left behind? Because they did not have the truth? No, because they did not love the truth, evidenced by not walking in it (2 Thess. 2:10).
The beast and the false prophet will be cast alive into hell, then the armies of His enemies will be slain. Following this, the sword will go out to all of Christendom so that the entire western earth will be destroyed. What a picture the Word gives of the western nations with their armies slain and with hoards of soldiers of Media and Persia descending upon millions and millions of defenseless people to slay them with the sword.
Russia will be in control of Media and Persia at that time and will send them to do this awful work. The great Assyrian—Russia will say, “By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent: and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man: and my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped” (Isa. 10:13-14).
Armageddon Consider the following description of the final end of Christendom, those who have had the most light—much more light than Sodom. They have had the message of salvation through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, which Sodom did not have. Also, like Sodom, their spirits will undergo the judgment of eternal fire (Jude 7).
“The burden of the desert of the sea.
“As whirlwinds in the South pass through, so it cometh from the desert, from a terrible land. A grievous vision is declared unto me: the treacherous dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, Elam [Persia]! besiege, Media [Babylon, or that which Babylon caused]! All the sighing thereof have I made to cease. Therefore are my loins filled with pain; anguish hath taken hold upon me, as the anguish of a woman in travail: I am bowed down [at the report, dismayed at the sight]. My heart panteth, horror affrighteth me: the night of my pleasure hath he turned into trembling unto me.
“Prepare the table, appoint the watch; eat, drink: arise, ye princes, anoint the shield.
“For thus hath the Lord said unto me: Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth. And he saw chariots [a cavalcade], horsemen by pairs, a chariot with [cavalry on] asses, a chariot with [cavalry on] camels; and he hearkened diligently with much heed. And he cried as a lion, Lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and I am set in my ward whole nights. And behold, there cometh a chariot of men; horsemen by pairs. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground. 0 my threshing, and the corn of my floor! What I have heard of Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you” (Isa. 21:1-10 JND).
“And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the [western] earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground” (Jer. 25:33).
Hell—the Lake of Fire
A lake is a figure that suggests confinement; it receives what comes in, but has no exit. A lake of fire is judgment from which there is no escape.
The rich man in the eternal confinement of hell gives us a picture of one who had everything during his life—making good cheer in splendor every day. But he was ungodly, he left God out.
“The rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence” Luke 16:22-26. (See also Prov. 1:24-33; Isa. 66:3-4.)
Let us be reminded that we are living in serious days. May we search our hearts as to our state of soul in view of our destiny.
Dear friend, are you sure that in your heart you have believed in Jesus as your Saviour? Is He precious to you each day? Do His things come first in your life, or does He have to fit into your plans? Are you looking each day for the Saviour?
“Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21).
“And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40).
“Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity” (Matt. 7:22-23).
Abraham and the Life of Faith
Abraham’s life gives the believer a pattern for walking by faith. Abraham was given no commands or rebukes as to his everyday walk through this world. Communion took care of everything. He lived in the presence of God with a tent and an altar. Without communion, dear believer, your life will be a complete ruin. We are dependent creatures. We are not sufficient for ourselves.
Abraham had nothing in this world, yet he was promised the entire land of Israel (Gen. 13:15). He had faith and hope, and God was his reward.
Abraham did not do right when he lied and spoke of his wife as his sister to the king of Egypt. But God did not rebuke him. Later he met Abimelech and told him that his wife was his sister. This too was wrong. Upon discovering the truth, Abimelech rebuked Abraham. Abraham learned the lesson without a direct rebuke from God (Gen. 20:9).
Is this the kind of life you wish to live, a life of constant communion with your ways corrected by the circumstances God allows and not by rebuke? Does your love go out to Christ because He first loved you? Perhaps you are still without Christ, without hope? When the Lord comes for His own, will you be there? Or will you be among the masses who received not the love of the truth?
Have you counted the cost of being consigned forever where you would have nothing but your conscience and your memory, which will constantly bring your entire life before you. Your faculty for memory will be perfect then. This is to go into hell, “into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their [your] worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:43-44).
How awful for you if you discover that it is too late to be saved—forever lost, with no one to comfort you as you lay among the eternal flames of God’s wrath—the most awful that man ever has or ever will see or know. Is this what you want? Be sure you make this decision now before it is forever too late. God is not asking for perfection, only for your heart.
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation [judgment]; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).
We trust that these thoughts have served to awaken not only the reader but also the writer. May God bless His Word to our souls in order that our hearts may be watching and waiting till Jesus comes for us to take us to His own home.
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