Reserved Unto Fire by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · May 3, 1906

“Reserved Unto Fire”

By L. A. S.

MANY are the object-lessons which have been set before this generation, of destruction through the agency of fire. Within the life span of people not yet old, have occurred some of the greatest disasters of this kind known in the history of the world. In 1871 Chicago was almost destroyed. The year following Boston was visited, and suffered a loss of eighty million dollars. Baltimore and Toronto have not yet effaced the marks of the conflagrations which swept them with ruin, and now comes the greatest disaster of all, which makes a world's record for destruction, the almost complete obliteration of a modern city of four hundred thousand people, with a monetary loss estimated at three hundred and fifty million dollars. Many lesser fires, such as those at Ottawa, Seattle, Hoboken, Rochester, London (England), and other places, might be mentioned in addition to these.

To this record must be added also some great catastrophes from the breaking out of the earth's internal fires in the form of volcanic eruptions. The sudden, terrible, and complete destruction of St. Pierre, by the neighboring Mont Pelée, is still fresh in the memory. Other cities in the West Indies, and in Mexico, suffered at or near the same time. There was also great volcanic activity in Europe, among other volcanoes in eruption being Mt. Vesuvius. Not many years before this, occurred the stupendous eruption of Krakatoa, in the Straits of Sunda, with the loss of thousands of lives. And now again Vesuvius has been vomiting fire and spreading desolation over a vast district, obliterating towns, and throwing the great city of Naples into a panic which has hardly yet subsided.

All this destruction by fire has come within the present generation, and the greater part of it within the last few years. Who can have failed to note the significant frequency of such visitations? What preceding generation in all history had such a record? Science is supposed to have made great advances in the art of the construction of buildings. The great cities have “fire-proof” buildings now, and maintain efficient fire departments with improved apparatus for extinguishing fires; yet the conflagrations come, just the same. Human science and human foresight find themselves at fault. Something happens that was unforeseen, and all human calculations are upset. San Francisco had a fire department of which the citizens spoke with pride, and which no doubt could have controlled an ordinary fire; but no one seems to have foreseen that there might come at some time an earthquake which would at once start numerous fires in the city, and wreck the water system upon which depended the hope of their extinguishment. No provision had been made for such an emergency.

Many who have passed through these scenes of destruction have been unwillingly forced to ponder the Bible description of what is to come at the end of the world. “The heavens and the earth, which are now,” it is declared, are “reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” “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.” 2 Peter 3:7, 10. This day will come as unexpectedly as did the earthquake.

The people of San Francisco were rescued from the worst effects of the disaster by the prompt arrival of aid from parts where disaster had not come. They were rescued because the visitation of destruction was local. Yet even so, the experience was so terrible that the victims became—to quote their own words—“saturated” with horrors, and almost strangers to their ordinary feelings and instincts, while hundreds went mad in the streets. When the judgments of God are poured out, and the destruction becomes general, when one place can not send succor to another, the earth will present a scene too terrible for description.

The words of inspired prophecy will be fulfilled; the Bible descriptions of scenes at the coming of the day of God will be realized. “Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled,” says Jeremiah. “I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger.” Jer. 4:20, 26. The prophet John saw in a vision of things that were to come, an earthquake scene in which all “the cities of the nations fell.” Rev. 16:19. Well may the people of this generation be admonished by passing events that this present world with all its cities is reserved unto fire and general destruction, at the day of God which is hastening on, and that now is the day of salvation. L. A. S.