I WAS reading 1 Thessalonians 5. this afternoon, and had reached the 3d verse, in which occur the words at the head of this paper, “THEY SHALL NOT ESCAPE.”
I cannot describe the feeling which stole over me as the passage started up before me pregnant with an awful meaning; it seemed like the sound of the distant thunder presaging the advent of a terrible tempest; and I knew it to be the voice of the Spirit of God, warning the world of its fast approaching doom.
And my thoughts traveled rapidly back into the forgotten PAST, and I seemed to hear those fateful words, “I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth” (Gen. 6); and like a dream there passed before my mind the judgment of the flood, and I gazed upon the old world, and its peoples intoxicated with their sinful pleasures, heedless of the warning voice of “the preacher of righteousness,” the herald of coming judgment. “God destroy the world by a flood?” they mockingly inquire; and they look at the ocean, whose waves gently plash against the pebbles on the beach, and then quickly recede, as though not daring to exceed the bounds prescribed by Him who had said, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further,” and the scoffers gaily say, “No cause there for fear!” and then looking up towards the cloudless sky, where the sun shines in unfaded brilliancy, just as it had shone since creation, they chant in mockery, “No cause there for fear!” and laugh God’s messenger to scorn.
Hark! the sudden rush of waters as of a deluge. What is it? The windows of heaven are opened, the fountains of the great deep are broken up! Above, the great dark clouds, bursting with God’s wrath, flit across the sky, and hide the face, of the smiling sun; below, the erstwhile innocent playful waves are changed into great vengeful monsters, which at God’s bidding break their bounds, and come leaping forth, swallowing up in their relentless jaws all things in their path. Onwards over the doomed earth they foam and roar, and a terrible cry of agony and despair goes up, as the living are engulphed in the black waters of judgment. But the cry is all too late; God’s righteous decree has gone forth, “THEY SHALL NOT ESCAPE,” and His voice is heard above the howling of the tempest and the death-wail of the lost.
And there follows a terrible silence, that tells of universal death; and the ark rides above the waters of judgment, over the bosom of the lost world’s grave.
And Christ said, “As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.”
And I thought of the scoffers of today, who were saying, “Where is the promise of his coming?”
and I shuddered as I dwelt on their certain doom.
And then my thoughts glided swiftly down the succeeding centuries until arrested by another scene of judgment.
The sun has risen over Sodom and Gomorrah, and the guilty inhabitants awake to sin away another day; the streets are already thronged with people, the object of whose lives is to gratify their horrid lusts, which have risen up before God in all their hideousness; and away they go to eat and to drink, to buy and to sell, to plant, to build, and to sin, with never a thought of Him against whom they sin, nor of His judgment, which is even now approaching them with lightning speed.
Hark! what sound is that in the air? See! what means that lurid light that spreads itself over the surface of the heavens? What mean those shouts and screams of deadly pain and wild affright? God is raining down torrents of brimstone and fire upon the guilty cities of the plain; and methinks I can hear, above the awful din, the voice of the righteous Judge in tones of thunder exclaiming, “THEY SHALL NOT ESCAPE.”
And Christ said, ― “AS it was in the days of Lot, THUS shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.”
And, again, I thought of the scoffers of this day, who are even saying, “Where is the promise of his coming?” And I stood appalled as I contemplated their awful destiny.
And then my thoughts came back to the PRESENT, and I found myself wondering at the unfathomable love of God, displayed in the gift of His only begotten Son to die for a world of sinners. And I listened with joy, as a voice told me that a holy God is now proclaiming peace through the blood of the cross, peace to the rebellious, peace to the rich, peace to the poor, peace to the young, peace to the old, peace to ALL. And as I listened, the voice went on to tell how that God required nothing of the sinner but an acknowledgment of his sins, and a simple faith in Jesus as his Saviour; that, through believing, the most wretched obtained peace; the lost, salvation; the dead in sins, eternal life, and a refuge from the coming wrath. And in response to my wonder how such wealth of blessing could be secured by the sinner on such easy terms, the voice told me that the blessed Son of God had undertaken the case of lost man, and at the cross had offered up His own pure and spotless life to meet the claims of God about sin; that God had accepted the sacrifice, and in proof thereof had taken the Sinbearer out of the grave and placed Him at His own right hand in glory; and that the Holy Ghost had come to the earth, to testify to a lost world of the sufficiency of Christ’s work to meet the sinner’s need.
And as I listened, I heard the blessed news that Jesus is coming to fetch His saints; that the midnight cry has sounded, and His coming may take place even today; that in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the dead shall be raised, and the living changed, and all shall be caught up to be with Christ forever (1 Thess. 4:1 Cor. 15.). And I inquired why Jesus had not long ago put an end to the weary waiting; and the voice replied, “The Lord is long-suffering to us ward, not willing that any should perish, but that ALL should come to repentance. The long suffering of the Lord is salvation.”
And then the voice changed its tones of tender grace to those of solemn, urgent warning, and it bade me leave the PRESENT and gaze into the FUTURE. And as I looked, the veil was taken away, and I saw Heaven open, and One descending; and as I gazed upon His form, I knew that it was Jesus. But not now as the Man of sorrows, the despised Nazarene. On His head were many crowns, His eyes shone as a flame of fire, out of His mouth proceeded a sharp sword with which He might smite the nations, and His name was KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.
And an angel stood in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice to all the fowls that fly in the midst of Heaven, “Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great” (Rev. 19).
And the kings of the earth, with their armies, came up against God’s anointed; but the battle was short and swift, and the slaughter dire and universal, and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.
And I wondered at the sight, until I seemed to see the awful words inscribed athwart a sky red with the flames of judgment, “THEY SHALL NOT ESCAPE.”
And the wailing cry of a doomed world reached the ear of my fancy, and I knew that the prophecy had received its awful fulfillment, that “man’s day” had ended, and that the great day of the Lord had come, and a Christless world was exposed to the wrath of Him whose love it would not have in the day of His long-suffering. And I remembered that it was written, “When they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as a woman in travail; and THEY SHALL NOT ESCAPE.”
And then my gaze pierced yet deeper into the wondrous FUTURE, gliding over the events of a millennium, and I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God: and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20).
And then I knew that time was ended, and eternity had begun; and that the vast multitude who stood before the throne, were those who had rejected God’s salvation; that the open books recorded the history of their lives, each thought, each word, each deed; and that God, in righteousness, must judge according to them. And as each lost soul was borne away to its eternal abode of misery, there to agonize amid the flames of mingled fire and brimstone, again were sounded in my ears the words of doom, “THEY SHALL NOT ESCAPE.”
And I saw no more, for my heart grew sick and faint as I thought of the millions around and about me who were hastening on to this fearful end, without thought or care for their precious souls.
And I turn from my reverie to you, my unsaved fellow-creatures, and I bring before your gaze the solemn scenes of past and future judgments recorded in God’s eternal Word; and, with all the energy of my redeemed soul, I shout into your ear the awful fact, that the great and terrible day of the Lord is at hand. Flee, flee, this instant, from the coming wrath.
Oh! perishing soul, thou who art rushing onward to meet that awful doom, which is as quickly rushing towards thee to catch thee in its deadly embrace, — this moment, while God is sounding forth, Now is the accepted time, Now is the day of salvation, I implore thee to accept His offer of pardon, and find in Jesus an ark of safety, and a refuge from the fast approaching tempest.
Take to thy heart the wonderful fact, that God is willing, yea, waiting, to receive all who approach Him through the shed blood of His Son; that He is making no demand upon the sinner, but is offering an eternal salvation to “whosoever will.” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16).)
Oh! tarry not; the sound of the coming storm is even now heard by the attentive ear. Just as God shut Noah in the ark the moment before the flood came, and as the angels dragged Lot out of Sodom just before the destruction of the cities, so Christ will come, and in a moment catch His ransomed ones out of this doomed scene; and then, oh then, will the vials of God’s wrath and fiery indignation be poured out upon all who would not come to Him that they might have life.
“AND THEY SHALL NOT ESCAPE.”
W. H. S.