THE LAKE OF FIRE by John Nevins Andrews

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 19, 1869

THE LAKE OF FIRE.

By John Nevins Andrews

SHALL there be a lake of fire in which the wicked shall die the second death? Such is the express testimony of the Scriptures. Rev. xx, 14, 15; xxi, 8. The fire shall descend from God out of Heaven upon them, as in the case of Sodom. Gen. xix; Luke xvii; 2 Pet. ii; Jude, 7; Rev. xx, 9. The elements shall melt with fervent heat, till they become as a fiery oven, a furnace of fire, a devouring fire, a lake of fire, an unquenchable fire, where the wicked shall be consumed, devoured, burned up root and branch, and cease to live. 2 Pet. iii; Ps. xxi, 9; Mal. iv, 1; Matt. xiii, 43, 50; Isa. xxxiii; Rev. xviii, 4, 20; Matt. iii, 12. Our earth shall burn. Its terrible conflagration shall furnish a lake of fire adequate to the purpose of inflicting retribution upon the ungodly. It is to be observed that in Peter, in Malachi, in John, in Daniel, the future inheritance of the saints succeeds this mighty conflagration. Thus in Malachi, the wicked, having been burned up root and branch, are ashes under the feet of the saints. This proves, 1. That the fire after having done its work, is to go out. 2. That saints are to dwell just where the lake of fire has been.

So in Revelation. John describes the casting of the wicked into the lake of fire, which he says is the second death, i. e., this is the result of that devouring fire; then the next sentence reads, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.” So the new earth succeeds the melting of this one. Daniel also has the fourth beast burned, and then the kingdom under the whole

heaven is given to the saints forever. Dan. vii, 11, 17, 18, 27, compared with Rev. xix, 20.

And Peter, describing the conflagration of the earth that now is, makes the new heavens and new earth arise from its ashes, just as the present arose from the waters of the flood. The fire is a terrible reality, and our earth is the place of the conflagration. Moses tells us that the fire now burning in the earth, shall eventuate in this dread catastrophe. Deut. xxxii, 22. The interior fires of earth and the fire from God out of Heaven shall unite their forces, and melt our earth as wax. Who of us shall have part in this devouring fire?

Are the readers of the REVIEW aware that a great lake of fire has long formed part of one of the Sandwich Islands? A correspondent of the semi-weekly N. Y. Tribune, of Dec. 11, 1868, gives the following account of its present aspect. Read and ponder the description given:

Honolulu, Oct. 24. It is not often that I have had an opportunity to send you notes of my ramblings and observations, as I promised; but the sailing of the new steamer Montana, of Holliday’s subsidized line between this port and San Francisco, gives me a chance to send you a few items of news from the dominions of Kamehameha.

The great crater of Kilauea is resting from its recent labors. It no longer furnishes burning lava to a red-hot, burning river forty miles long and half a mile wide, making thousands of acres of new dominion in the sea for the Kanaka king; but the great earth cauldron is still fearful to look upon, or to look down into. Think of it! You stand on the brink of a pit, many miles wide, that would swallow up your Park; and looking down the lurid, red-ribbed walls, more than 1,000 feet, there is the lake of eternal fire, whose smoke ascends forever. What is feeble man when he stands on such a brink—when here is a pit of Gomorrah, that could boil up a nation of many millions of evil-doers?

Though the great volcano has been some time at rest, we have had, and have at this time, a smoke so dense, shading our tropical sun, that we can look upon him as though all the fires of Kilauea, Mauna Loa, and Phlegethon, were ablaze. It is generally supposed that we shall hear of some great volcanic outburst in mid-ocean, and that there is a new land for fruits and man dotting the Pacific.

J. N. ANDREWS.