p. 35 | The Coming Doom

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 25, 1870

The Coming Doom.

“The elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” 2 Peter 3:10.

What will one day occur right in the face and eyes of a sneering philosophy, which declares it cannot be, is ably set forth, in an article on “The Relations of Geology and Theology,” by Prof. R. D. Hitchcock, in the Bibliotheca Sacra, for July, 1868, who has recently said, “The earth contains within itself the agencies necessary to its dissolution by fire. Its crust is supposed to be several hundred miles thick, while the interior is in a state of fusion like lava. The three hundred active volcanoes on the crust are the breathing-holes of the internal fire. At present counteracting agencies prevent this lava from bursting forth. But let the order be issued for its liberation, and these vents will belch forth fire and desolation. The works of man, in which we take so much pride, may be crumbled in a moment by the concussion of the crust. Liberated gases may combine explosively with the oxygen in the air, so that the heavens should pass away with a great noise. 2 Pet. 3:10. “And there are grounds of belief,” said the late Prof. George Shepherd, in one of his published sermons on Matthew 24:37–39, “that this great coming with fire is indeed not far before us. We have the same word for this greater coming with fire. And we have the fire; a world with all its caverns and bowels filled full of it; and it rages and presses against and shakes the crust on which we now stand, and it snorts out at all the openings in columns that reach to the clouds, and quantities that overwhelm us with the molten ruins. The whole world may disbelieve it—this uttered thing of God will be.”

Long ago did the unerring voice of prophecy solemnly announce the conflagration and last mighty convulsion of our globe; (1) by the bursting forth of its elementary forces and internal fires and, (2), by the ignition of its aerial gases. And we are told in plain words who kindled the fire, and when, and where, and why it was kindled. These Scriptures are already quoted. It is the work of a sin-avenging Deity, whose mighty angels wait to bring the last throb, and blow up the last flames ere this sad earth, again as at the first, “shall all be Paradise.” Nevertheless, worldly-wise and persistently-evil men love to deceive and be deceived concerning the approach of such a fearful day.—The Coming Earthquake.