“For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them.” (1 Thess. 5:3).
Speak not of “The good time coming”;
Say not, “Happy times draw nigh.”
Lo! The clouds with terror looming,
Darken o’er the future sky!
Undeceive thyself, O mortal!
To the winds such dreamings give.
Think upon the fearful purging
That the earth must first receive.
Rather tell of wrath and vengeance,
Pending o’er this guilty race;
In its shame still glorying, boasting;
Deaf to all the calls of grace;
God forgetting, God dishonoring,
Guilty world, thy doom is nigh.
Fear unknown will seize upon thee,
When He shakes the earth and sky.
Sodom’s fall but faintly pictures,
What thy awful lot will be;
It had not so many warnings,
As the Lord hath sent to thee.
Grace refused makes judgment sorer:
O, what grace hast thou refused!
Guilty world, thy judgments hover,
All escape for thee is closed.
Yet, as in the case of Sodom,
Lot departed ere it fell;
So, the Lord will come from heaven,
Take His church with Him to dwell,
Ere destruction’s work commences,
On this Sodom’s guilty ones:
They, the salt, alone preserve it;
They removed, the judgment comes.
To the Ark and from destruction
All who’d be preserved, then, haste!
Christ’s alone the Ark of safety;
Come, and full salvation taste:
Tarry not for reformation;
Sinners—Jesus died to save.
Art thou lost. He came to find thee;
Thou, believing, life shalt have.
Then amid the coming glory,
Which the church with Christ shall share;
Thou shalt have the happy portion,
Bride of His, His image bear.
Then, His earthly people gathered—
Earth made clean, and Satan bound;
Thou shalt, with thy Saviour, reigning
O’er a happy world be found!