The World On Fire

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, AUGUST 3, 1873,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the
which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements
shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are
therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be
dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy con
versation and godliness?" 2 Peter 3:10,11.

MEN have frequently inferred liberty to sin from the apparent absence
of God from the world. Because the Lord, in His infinite
long-suffering, has suffered transgression to go for awhile unpunished,
therefore they have wickedly said, "How does God know? The Almighty
does not regard us. He will neither interfere to punish men nor to
reward them, whether they break or keep His Commandments." When for a
long time no great changes have occurred in the world, no remarkable
judgments, no visitations of famine, pestilence, or war, men are very
apt to grow carnally secure and to take license to sin from the
merciful respite which ought to halve led them to gratitude, and
through gratitude to obedience. At certain periods it has seemed to the
Most High to be imperatively necessary to send great calamities upon
mankind lest pride, oppression and profanity should cause society
utterly to rot.

The fall of dynasties, the overthrow of empires, devastating wars and
dire famines have been necessities of God's moral government, bits in
men's mouths, bridles for their arrogance, checks to their
licentiousness. The Lord is slow to smite the wicked, for His tender
mercy is great and He delights not in the sufferings of men. And
therefore He keeps His arrows in His quiver and hangs up His bow. But,
alas, men take advantage of His love to grow grossly sinful and to
blaspheme His name! Against this spirit the Apostle is arguing in this
chapter. The profanely secure had said, "Since the fathers fell asleep
all things continue as they were; where, then, is the evidence of God's
existence? The world goes on like a clock, needing no hand to move its
wheels or guide its action. There is no God," they say, "to interfere,
and we may live as we like."

"No," says the Apostle, "but God has interfered." And though he might
have quoted a thousand lesser instances which I have already hinted at,
he preferred to forego them for the present, and to put his finger upon
the great event of the flood, and say, "Here, at least, God did
interfere." He could no longer bear the transgressions of mankind and
therefore He pulled up the sluices of the great deep and opened the
floodgates of Heaven. He bade the angry floods leap forth from their
lairs and they swallowed up the earth right speedily. Thus it is plain
that all things have not continued in one course–there have been
interpositions of Divine Justice. The Apostle then tells the scoffer
that there will be another interposition before long. But instead of
water, fire shall be the instrument of destruction.

God's mill grinds slowly, but it grinds to powder. Justice loiters to
commune with Mercy, but it speedily makes up for its lingering. Long is
the blow withheld, but when it falls it cuts to the soul. God's wrath
is long in kindling, but in the end it shall burn as an oven. We shall
speak this morning upon the general conflagration foretold in our text.
"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the
which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements
shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are
therein shall be burned up."

Then, secondly, we shall discourse upon the practical inferences which
the Apostle draws from it–"What manner of persons ought you to be in
all holy conversation and godliness?"

I. Let us turn our thoughts to THE LAST GENERAL CONFLAGRATION.
Information as to the future in Scripture is generally very indistinct
in arrangement and though many attempts have been made to form a
consistent scheme of prophecy, not one has been even moderately
successful. There are, in the Word of God, many clear testimonies as to
distinct events in the future, but these cannot easily be arranged in
order so as to harmonize with other events.

Neither will the most accurate observer, as I believe, ever make a
consistent series of them, so as to map them down. They are perfectly
consistent and their order is Divine–but we shall need the actual
fulfillment to make the plan clear.

So intricate is the architecture of future history that only the
Architect Himself knows where this stone and that and the other are
ordained to stand. It is not for us to fling any one of the stones
away, or censure it as ill-fashioned. We are but children and our
little plans of house-building, like children with their toy bricks,
are very simple and elementary, indeed. But God's architecture is of a
high class and we cannot, therefore, conjecture where this event will
come in, or where that marvel will find its place. But we may rest
quite assured that each one will follow in an orderly manner upon the
other and, instead of puzzling our brains over projects of
interpretation, we may be quite satisfied to take each of the facts
separately as we find them, believingly expect them and, above all,
deduce from them their legitimate practical conclusions.

The right way of knowing anything is to know how to act in consequence
of it. And in spiritual things a man knows nothing until he lives what
he knows. If you and I know the Truths with regard to the future, each
one as we find them in Scripture, and then act according to the
inferences fairly to be drawn from them, we shall be wiser men than if
we became inventors of elaborate schemes. In this Epistle of Peter
there is one Truth of God very plainly taught, namely, that this
present world is to be consumed by fire. We learn, also, that this
conflagration will take place in connection with the Judgment, for,
"the heavens and the earth which now are, are kept in store, unto fire,
against the Day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men."

The former destruction of the world by water was in consequence of sin
and was a declaration of God's wrath against it. It did not happen as
an accident, or occur without design. Man sinned, was warned and sinned
again, until God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.
The amalgamation of the people of God with the world was the crowning
offense of all, for, "the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that
they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose." Thus
were Church and State set up and the Church and the world were blended
till the Lord's Spirit was grieved and would no longer strive with man.
Floods of sin called for floods of destruction. So will it be with the
last fire. It will not happen as an inevitable result of physical
causes, but because God intends to purge this material world from all
traces of sin.

It has been defiled and whenever He makes it into a new Heaven and a
new earth, He will cleanse it as by fire. Under the Levitical
dispensation the cleansing of vessels which had been defiled was
effected by passing them through the fire, as a type of the intense
energy needed to remove sin and the Lord's abhorrence of it. Even thus
shall this earth dissolve with fervent heat and thus the Lord shall
proclaim to the whole universe that He hates even the garment spotted
by the flesh. When a house was defiled with leprosy it was destroyed
and so must this earth be, for the plague of sin has polluted it. We
gather, also, from our text that this fire will burn up all the works
existing upon the earth–everything which man has constructed shall
perish. We have heard architects speak of building for eternity! Aha!
Aha! They have built but for an hour and their noblest fabrics will
disappear like children's castles of sand upon the sea beach.

Down will go the vast cathedrals and the towering palaces in one common
crash! Whole cities will flame upon earth's funeral pyre, while forests
and melting mountains blend their smoke. The pride of power, the pomp
of wealth, the beauty of art, the cunning of skill–all, all, must go!
The sea of flame will overwhelm and devour everything without
exception. The massive masonry and rock-like foundations of our vast
engineering works shall run like wax in the tremendous heat! So fierce
will be the flames that everything capable of being burned will be
utterly consumed and the elements, or the solid portions of the earth
shall be liquefied by the intense heat–rocks, metals, everything shall
dissolve–and the atmosphere, itself, shall burn with fury when its
oxygen shall unite with the hydrogen and other gases liberated by the
intense heat.

Chemists tell us that the great noise which Peter speaks of would
certainly accompany such a combustion. The whole world shall become one
molten mass, again, and this terrestrial firmament shall cease to be.
"The heavens shall vanish away like smoke and the earth shall wax old
like a garment." God has impressed Nature with His seal today, but He
will melt it down, and then, as we hope, pour out the molten matter and
stamp upon it a yet more lovely image than it has ever borne before. We
may here, note, that the prophecy that the earth will thus be consumed
with fervent heat is readily to be believed, not only because God says
it, but because there are evidently the means at hand for the
accomplishment of

the prophecy. Pliny was known to say that it was a miracle that the
world escaped burning for a single day and I do not wonder at the
remark, considering the character of the district in which he spent
much of his time.

In visiting the country around Naples, the same thought constantly
occurred to me. Yonder is Vesuvius ready at any moment to vomit fire
and continually sending up clouds of smoke. Ascend the mountainside,
clambering over ashes and masses of lava–all beneath you is
glowing–thrust in your staff and it is charred. Then go across to the
Solfatara on the other side of Naples. Stand at the vent of that
ancient volcano and listen to the terrible rumblings which attend the
rush of steam and sulfur. Then stamp your foot or dash a stone upon the
ground and hear how the earth resounds–it is evident that you are
standing over a vast cavern! Look around you and remark how the earth
steams with sulfuric exhalations. Observe, also, how the earth in some
places has risen and fallen, again and again.

Down there at Puteoli in the Temple of Serapis there are pillars which
have sunk below the tide mark and then have risen above it several
times, as you can see for yourself by the mark of the sea worms. In a
single night vast hills have risen in one place like bubbles upon the
baker's dough, while in other localities there have been equally sudden
subsiding of the surface. Yet this volcanic region around Naples is but
one of the many vent holes of the great fires which are in the bowels
of the earth–300 or more burning mountains have already vomited flame.
According to the belief of many geologists, the whole center of the
earth is a mass of molten matter and we live upon a thin crust which
has cooled down, and is probably not so much as one hundred miles
thick.

When the miner descends no further than 45 feet he finds that the heat
has increased one degree of Fahrenheit, so that it is easy to see how
small a distance down the solid shell extends. There is no known rock
which would not be entirely liquefied by the heat produced at 60 miles
depth. The probabilities are that the whole internal mass is in a
liquid and, perhaps, in a gaseous state. It is well known that the
earth is flattened at the poles, just to the amount it would be by
rotation on its axis had it been a liquid mass, and therefore there is
every probability that it was once liquid and is cooling down. Everyone
who is at all acquainted with the condition of the globe knows that it
only needs the Lord's will and the fiery sea, of which yonder volcanoes
are but the safety valves, would burst forth and flood the earth with
flame. Or, if God so willed it, the thin crust which divides the ocean
of water from the ocean of fire might soon be broken through and the
result would be disruption and destruction.

Astronomers tell us that within the last 200 or 300 years some 13 fixed
stars have disappeared and, according to their belief, they have been
burned up. They have watched them blaze up in clear flames in quarters
of the heavens where no star had ever been seen before and then they
have disappeared forever, being, as it is wisely conjectured, burnt
out. If such things happen in other worlds, is there anything
improbable in the belief that the like will occur to us? But if there
were no internal sea of fire and no instance of other worlds being
consumed by fire, who can guess the power which lurks in electricity
and other subtle forces? Faraday said that there was enough latent
electricity in a single drop of water for an ordinary flash of
lightning. What reserves of destructive force there must be in and
around the globe!

God's dreadful armies lie in ambush everywhere. What if I say God's
bodyguard is sleeping in His guard chamber? He has but to speak the
word and the servants of His Omnipotence will rise, terrible in their
destructive power. He spoke to His ancients of the sea and they marched
in gigantic might till they had covered the mountain tops and laid the
race of men dead at their feet! Let Him speak to His ministers of
flaming fire and they will at once subdue the globe by quenchless
burnings. Earth is as a pile of wood and the torch-bearers stand ready
to kindle it at any moment! There has always been a cry of fire among
men and the cry grows louder every century, for the burning is near.
But if there were no such arrangements as these, we should still be
bound to believe what God has said–and it is His solemn declaration
that the day shall come when the Lord Jesus Christ shall appear as a
thief in the night. And the heavens, that is the atmosphere, shall pass
away with a great noise, while the elements, or rudimentary substances
of the globe, shall melt with fervent heat. The earth, also, and the
works that are therein, or thereon, shall be burned up.

We gather from our text that this will happen at a time when it will be
very little expected. The dread hour will come as a thief in the night.
It was not expected in Noah's day that the world would be destroyed.
That was not for any lack of warning, but because men could not
conceive it possible. They argued against Noah that all things had
continued as they were from the days of their first father, Adam, and
that so they would be. They thought Noah a fool for going up and down
the world proclaiming an absurdity and frightening people with a
bugbear. Thus speak they now, when God's Word declares that the whole
world will be destroyed by fire. They reject the testimony and continue
in sin, in

worldliness and in rebellion against God! And so will they do up to the
very moment when the shrill sound of the trumpet shall convince them
that the Lord has come and that the Day of Judgment and perdition of
ungodly men has arrived.

No preaching will, of itself, avail to make ungodly men expect the
coming of Christ, however clear, bold, consistent and long continued it
may be. The world is mad upon its idols. Its ears are too dull to hear
the Truth. Charm we never so wisely, this adder will never listen to
warning. Men's eyes are blinded. They will not see and so they hurry on
to their doom. And then, "when they shall say, 'Peace and safety,'
sudden destruction shall come upon them, as pain upon a woman with
child, and they shall not escape." It is well for us to remind you,
again, that the long time which has intervened since Peter foretold the
destruction of the world by fire is to be understood in the sense of
Infinite Mercy. We are not to interpret it according to the wicked
suggestion of unbelief, for the Lord will surely be revealed in flaming
fire. We are to read it with the eyes of faith and gratitude.

God waits that men may be saved. He tarries that, in this long time of
waiting, hundreds everywhere may believe in Jesus and enter into
eternal life. And while we may consistently desire to hasten the coming
of the Lord, we may be equally content that Mercy's day should be
lengthened. While I have prayed, "Come quickly," I have often felt
inclined to contradict myself and cry, "Yet tarry for awhile, good
Lord! Let Mercy's day be lengthened! Let the heathen yet receive the
Savior." We may desire the coming of the Lord, but we ought, also, to
be in sympathy with the tarrying of the Most High, to which His loving
heart inclines Him. Although we read of the world being burned with
fire, we are not told that it will be annihilated. We know that nothing
has been annihilated yet. No fire has yet been able to destroy a single
atom of matter. There is upon the face of the earth, at this moment,
just as much matter as when God created it– fire changes form, but
does not obliterate substance.

This world, so far as we know, will not cease to be. It will pass
through the purifying flame and then it may be the soft and gentle
breath of Almighty Love will blow upon it and cool it rapidly–and the
Divine hand will shape it as it cools into a Paradise more fair than
that which bloomed upon the banks of Hiddekel. We believe from various
things which are hinted at in Scripture, though we would not dogmatize,
that this world will be refitted and renovated. And in that sense we
expect new heavens and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness. Luther
used to say that the world is now in its working clothes and that,
by-and-by, it will be arrayed in its Easter garments of joy. One likes
to think that the trail of the old serpent will not always remain upon
the globe and it is a cheering thought that where sin has abounded
God's Glory should yet more abound.

I cannot believe in that world being annihilated upon which Jesus was
born and lived and died. Surely an earth with a Calvary upon it must
last on! Will not the blood of Jesus immortalize it? It has groaned and
travailed with mankind, being made subject to vanity for our sake.
Surely it is to have its joyful redemption and keep its Sabbaths after
the fire has burned out every trace of sin and sorrow. Whether or not
it shall be so matters little to the saints, for we shall be with
Christ where He is, and behold His Glory! And, as to the
future–"Forever with the Lord" may well satisfy us!

II. The Apostle has drawn PRACTICAL INFERENCES. "Seeing, then, that all
these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be
in all holy conversation and godliness?" What does he mean by this?
What connection can there be between the burning of the globe and holy
conversation and godliness? The first connection is this. Our position
as Christians is, at this moment, like that of Noah before the
destruction of the world by water. What manner of person ought Noah to
have been? He said to himself, "This fair and beautiful world in which
I dwell will soon be covered with the ooze and slime of a tremendous
deluge."

He looked upon his fellow men and he thought and said of them, "Except
these men fly to the ark and are sheltered with me, they will, every
one of them, be drowned." He saw them marrying and given in marriage,
feasting and trifling at the very hour when the flood came and he felt
that if they would believe as he did they would find something other to
do than to be engrossed in carnal pleasures. When he saw them heaping
up money he would almost laugh yet weep to think that they should hoard
up gold to be submerged with themselves in the general flood. When men
added to their estates acre after acre, I have no doubt the Patriarch
said to himself, "The flood will sweep away all these landmarks and as
it carries away the owner so will it destroy all vestige of his barn
and his farm and his fields."

I should suppose such a man, daily expecting the rain to descend and
the flood to burst up from beneath, would lead a life very free from
worldliness, a life the very reverse of the rest of his fellow men.
They would reckon him to be very

eccentric. They would be unable to understand him. And, indeed, his
conduct would be such that no one could understand it except upon the
theory that he believed in the destruction of all around him. Now our
life ought to be like that of Noah. Look around on the beauties of
Nature and when you enjoy them, say to yourself, "All these are to be
dissolved and to melt with fervent heat." Look up into the clear blue
and think that yonder sky, itself, shall shrivel like a scroll and be
rolled up like a garment that has seen its better days and must be put
aside.

Look on your fellow men, your own children and your household, and
those you pass in the street or meet with in transacting business, and
say, "Alas, alas, unless these men, women and children fly to Jesus and
are saved in Him, they will be destroyed with the earth on which they
dwell, for the day of the Lord is surely coming and judgment awaits the
ungodly." This should make us act in a spirit the opposite of those who
now say, "Go, let us buy and sell and get gain. Let us heap together
treasure. Let us live for this world. Let us eat and drink, and be
merry." They are of the earth, therefore is their conduct and
conversation earthy. They build here, on this quicksand, and after
their own sort they find a pleasure therein–but you whose eyes have
been opened know better–and you, therefore build upon the Rock.

You understand that the things which are seen are but a dream, that the
things unseen are, alone, substantial. Therefore set loose by all
things below the moon and clutch as with the grasp of a dying man the
things immortal and eternal which your God has revealed to you! Such
conduct will separate you from your fellow men, as there is down deep
in your heart an objective different from theirs. And as you set a
different estimate on all things, your conduct will be wide apart from
theirs. Being swayed by different motives, your life will diverge from
theirs and they will misunderstand you. And while trying to find
motives for you, as they do not know the true motive, they will ascribe
ill motives to you.

But so it must be. You must come out from among them, be separate and
touch not the unclean thing. And the fact that all these things are to
be dissolved should make it easy for you to do so, no, natural for you
to do so, as it must have made it both easy and natural to the
Patriarch Noah. I will, however, not dwell longer upon that thought,
but remark further that the nearness of the Lord as suggested by the
fact that the world is to be destroyed, according to His Word, suggests
holiness. The sinner finds a reason for sin when he says, "God is not
here. Everything goes on in the ordinary way. God does not care what
men do." "No," says the Apostle, "He is not away, He is here, holding
back the fire. He is reserving this world a little while, but by-and-by
He will let the fires loose and the world will be destroyed. He is not
far off. He is even at the door."

If I give the Greek rendering, it should be, "All these things are
dissolving." They are even giving to dissolve. They are in the process
of dissolution. God is close upon us, can you not hear His footsteps?
Christ is returning. He is on His journey now. Faith hears the tramp of
His steeds as they hurry on the chariot of His vengeance. "Behold, I
come quickly," is the word which rings over the mountains of division.
The King is coming! He is coming to His Throne and to His judgment. Now
a man does not go up to a king's door and there talk treason! And men
do not sit in a king's audience chamber, when they expect Him to enter
any moment, and there speak ill of him! The King is on His way and
almost here. You are at His door. He is at yours. What manner of people
ought you to be? How can you sin against One who is so close at hand?
How can you rebel against One whose eyes of fire behold and whose hand
of vengeance is uplifted to smite the sinner?

The words of the text are very forcible. The Apostle says, "What manner
of persons ought you to be? "Remember he was talking to saints and be
teaches us that even saints ought to be more saintly than they are. He
is not saying to the ungodly, "What manner of persons ought you to be"!
He might have so spoken, but with how much greater force does he
address those who profess to be loved with the everlasting love of God,
to have been bought with the precious blood of Jesus, to be affianced
unto Christ in eternal wedlock, to be members of His body, parts of
Himself? "What manner of persons ought you to be?" He implies that they
are not what they should be and I am afraid there is no man of God but
what will grant the truth of the implication in his own case. We have
not attained to what we ought to be and I may say to the best child of
God here this morning, "Dear Brother and Sister, there is a lot
beyond."

Yes, Brethren, and the text is so broad in its expression that it
plainly teaches the limitless nature of Christian holiness. "What
manner of persons ought you to be?" As if he could not tell what sort
of persons they ought to be. As if holiness had in it no Ultima Thule,
no pillars of Hercules beyond which the adventurous mariner might not
go. There is a lot beyond for us all, if we are to be holy as God is,
His is infinite holiness and where can a limit be imagined? He does not
say, "You ought to be kind, just, loving, prayerful, truthful," and the
like. But as if he held up his hands in wonder

and could not express the obligations of the Christian, he cries,
"Because these things are all passing away, what manner of persons
ought you to be?"

And then he goes on to specify two branches of holy life. "In all holy
conversation," that is to say, all holy behavior towards men. "And
godliness," that is, all pious dealing towards God. True religion, by
no means, depreciates the duties of the second table of the Law. Some
professors think very little of the common virtues of daily life, but
they err greatly, and will find themselves in an evil plight at last.
My Brother, if the grace you possess does not make you honest, God have
mercy on you and take such grace away from you. If you have a kind of
grace which does not keep you chaste and make your behavior decent. If
you have a sort of grace which lets you cheat and lie. Which allows you
to take undue advantage in trade–away with such grace! It is the grace
of the devil and not the Divine Grace of God, and may you be saved from
it! If our religion does not make us moral, it is a millstone about our
necks to destroy us! If you have not reached morality, how can you dare
to talk about holiness, which is a far higher and loftier thing? The
best morality in the world will not prove a man to be a Christian! But
if a man has not morality, it proves that he is not a child of God.

And then as to God–the duties of the first table are not to be
neglected. We are to fulfill all manner of godliness. God is to be
worshipped by us devoutly and we are to take pains to worship Him in
His own way. How many people have a kind of–what shall I call it?–a
happy-go-lucky religion? Whatever their mother or their father was,
that are they. A great many of you go to certain places of worship, not
because you have ever enquired whether the denomination you belong to
is right or not, but because you have drifted that way and there you
stick! How few take the Bible and search for themselves. Yet no man has
obeyed God aright who has not done so. If I could not honestly say, "I
am a member of this denomination because I have weighed the Truths of
God which are held by my Brethren and I believe them to be according to
God's Book," I could not feel that I had done right towards the Most
High.

The idea that there are good people in all denominations is well
enough, but a great many have perverted it into an excuse for never
caring what God's Truths or ordinances are. Rest assured that he who
neglects one of the least of Christ's ordinances and teaches men so,
the same shall be least in the kingdom of Heaven. Every Truth of God is
important. Trifling with conscience is the sin of the present age. Men
have even come to occupy pulpits in churches when they do not believe
the fundamental doctrines of the Church. We have heard them even claim
a right to retain their pulpits after they have denied the doctrines of
the denomination to which they belong. From any power to believe in
such a conscience may God deliver every one of us! Be right even in
little things! Be precise–you serve a precise God. Charity towards
others is one thing, laxity for yourselves is quite another thing.

Believe that your brother is conscientious though he may be in error,
but as for yourself use your conscience and practice your judgment in
the careful study of the Truth of God, and then whatever your
conclusions, carry them out at all hazards. Though you should lose
everything thereby–you will lose nothing in the long run! If you count
the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt,
you have made a wise choice and will rejoice in having made it! Oh,
when I think that all I see about me is to be consumed, there remains
nothing worth living for but to glorify God! If we were to live here
forever and this world were all, we might, perhaps, think it some gain
to sin. But if we are soon to pass away and all around us is to
dissolve in smoke, there is nothing to do, if we are wise, but to do
our duty in the station in which God has placed us, both towards God
and man, resting in the precious blood of Christ for our pardon, and in
His righteousness for our acceptance.

For these things will endure when we are dead, according as it is
written, "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, yes, thus says the
Spirit, for they rest from their labors and their works do follow
them." The evanescence of all things around us suggests our looking
away to eternal things. I saw yesterday with much solemnity of mind the
spot where the Bishop of Winchester met with sudden death. A cross is
cut in the turf to mark the place. The spot is in the midst of the most
lovely scenery conceivable. I have often walked hard by, full of
delight at the fair prospect. It is a spot too fair to be darkened by
so dark a cloud. Death seems hardly congruous with the beauty which
everywhere charms the eye. I could only imagine if anyone knew that he
should die just at that moment, what would be his conversation? Riding
over the downs what would be the conversation of a man of God who
expected to die in the valley below?

Such ought to be our constant conversation. We should live always as if
we might die in a moment. Mr. Wesley once said, "Now, if I knew I
should die tomorrow morning, I would do exactly what I have planned to
do. I should take the class meeting at such an hour, preach at such an
hour, and be up at such a time in the morning to pray." That good man's
life was spent in prospect of sudden departure and it was therefore
active and holy. Is ours the same? The motive for holiness becomes
stronger,

still, if the thought is not merely that I shall die, but that all
these things around me shall be dissolved. That breezy down, that
towering hill, yonder lofty trees and this overhanging cliff, these
rich meadows, the ripening harvest, all, all will, in a moment, be on a
blaze!

Am I ready to be caught away to be with my Lord in the air? Or shall I
he left to perish amidst the conflagration? How ought I to live! How
ought I to stand, as it were, on tiptoe, ready when He shall call me,
to be away up into the Glory, far off from this perishing world! It
makes us look upon all these things in a different light and upon
eternal things with a more fixed eye–and a more stern resolve to live
unto God. Observe, if sin, even on the inanimate world, needs such a
purging by fire as this–if the fact that sin committed here makes it
necessary that God should burn it all up–what a horrid thing sin must
be! O to be purged from it! Refining fire, go through my heart! Spirit
of the living God, sweep with all Your mighty burnings through and
through my body, soul and spirit till You have purged me of every
tendency to sin.

This ought to be the prayer of the Christian. If all these things will
have to be purged, what manner of persons ought we to be in daily
purging ourselves by a holy jealousy and a sacred revenge from every
unclean wish, every false word and everything that would be
inconsistent with that life of God which is in our nature? And if,
again, God is so angry with sin that when He comes to judge it He will
come with flaming fire and if the terrors of God against the wicked
will be utterly overwhelming, what gratitude ought you and I feel for
pardoned sin? What joy for safety in the Lord Jesus Christ?

And then, again, as the result of that, what a detestation of the sin
which made it necessary that Christ should die to save us from the
wrath to come! Oh, Believer, you will never have to say–"Rocks hide
me, mountains fall on me." Believer in Jesus, you will never have to
escape from those tongues of flame which will lick up the sea! You will
not be alarmed at the melting mountains–you will be safe–not a hair
of your head shall be singed! Oh, what do you owe to Sovereign Grace
for such an escape as this? Bless the Lord Jesus! Fall down at His dear
feet and adore Him! And then, rising up, say, "What can I do to glorify
You? O Lord, keep me clear of the sin which would have destroyed me and
help me to live such a life as becomes one who has been saved from the
wrath to come." Is there not much force in the Apostle's inference? I
only trust we may all feel it.

Once more, he meant us to feel that the suddenness of all this ought to
keep us on our watchtower. This conflagration will come with no signs
to herald it which the ungodly will observe. You who are on the watch
will observe them. You will see the tokens of His coming. You will
rejoice to go forth to meet Him. But to the ungodly His coming will be
as much unawares as was His first Advent which happened in the night,
when all the world was wrapped in sleep. Men will still be buying and
selling, and getting gain, and thinking of nothing so little as of the
last Advent. And then the Lord will appear. Christian, let not that day
come upon you as a thief! Stand ever watching. Live as if you said to
yourself, "Today everything I have may be burned up. Today all my lands
may run like lava. All my gold may melt like molten lead. Today I,
myself, may have done with this world and the world may be consumed."
Live such a life as that.

"Why," says one, "then we should be pilgrims and strangers." That is
just how you should be! "Then," says another, "we should not be minding
much about the stock in the bank and laying in for the future." Just
so. That is how the Master would have you live–He would have you duly
prudent and provident, but not covetous or anxious. If you feel that
all these things are to be dissolved, you will then do all things as in
the Presence of God. You will wish to use everything you have as not
abusing it and as reckoning that it will perish in the using. God grant
you, Brothers and Sisters, so to live.

I would to God that all here present were prepared for the future. You
remember John Bunyan makes Christian sit in the City of Destruction at
ease until he hears from one called Evangelist, that the city was to be
burned up. And then he cries, "Alas, alas, woe is me, and I shall be
destroyed in it." That thought set him running and nothing could stop
him. His wife bade him come back, but he said, "The city is to be
destroyed, and I must be away." His children clung about his garments
to hold him, but he said, "No, I must run to the City of Safety, for
this city is to be burned up." Man, it will all go! If all you love is
here below, it will all go! Your gold and silver will all go!

Will you not have Christ? Will you not have a Savior? For if you will
not, there remains for you only a fearful looking for judgment and of
fiery indignation! Tempt not the anger of God! Yield to His mercy now!
Believe in His dear Son. I pray that you may this day be saved and God
be glorified in your salvation. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–2 Peter 3.
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A Song Concerning Loving Kindnesses