INIQUITY ALLOWED TO RIPEN
By Roderick S. Owen
The Smoking Furnace and the Amorites — That Powerful Nation a Type of All the Wicked — Wickedness Must Meet Its Harvest — Failure to Heed God's Message Brings Its Doom This is the seventh and last of Elder Owen's studies in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis. Each article has been quite complete in itself, hence it is not essential that you should have read the previous articles in order to understand and enjoy this one. To reject God's messages and warnings means to court disaster and ruin. The special message for this time, and the need of heeding it, are made prominent in this article. Editor. “BUT in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” Gen. 15:16. The smoking furnace, and the burning lamp that passed between the severed pieces of Abraham's sacrifice, were symbols of the divine presence, and represented the agencies God would employ in carrying into effect the covenant of liberty with Abraham and his seed. The burning lamp, as we have seen in previous articles, represents the Holy Spirit in the work of searching out sin and of lighting up before us the path of righteousness. We have also shown, in a former article, that the possession of the land of Canaan by the descendants of Abraham was a type of the possession of the whole earth by Abraham and his seed. Those tribes which formerly possessed the land of Canaan were a type of the wicked who inhabit the earth to-day. Among those tribes, the Amorites were the most powerful, and they are taken as a representation of all the rest. God stated that His chosen people could not take possession of the land until the Amorites had filled up their cup of iniquity. So the inhabitants of earth must fill up their cup of transgression before God will disown them and give the earth to His people. About fifteen years after the vision of the smoking furnace and the burning lamp, God came to Abraham, and told him that because the sins of Sodom and of the other cities of the plain had become very great, He had determined to destroy those cities. Abraham interceded in their behalf because of Lot, and possibly because of others in them who Abraham believed were righteous. This resulted in a promise on God's part that He would spare the place if but ten righteous persons could be found in it. Abraham returned to his camp for the night, feeling quite satisfied that the cities would be spared. But we read: “And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord: and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.” Gen. 19:27, 28. AN EXAMPLE AND A WARNING TO THE WICKED
As he looked upon that scene of fiery destruction, how quickly his mind must have reverted to the smoking furnace that he had seen pass between the parts of his sacrifice! And he could clearly see, prefigured in this destruction, the fate of all the wicked when they shall have passed the limits of God's strong grace. So God turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemning them with an overthrow, and making them an example to all who should afterward live ungodly. 2 Peter 2:6. Hence the smoking furnace represents the earth as viewed by the prophet Malachi in that day “that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, . . . that it shall leave them neither root nor branch”; and they shall be ashes, and all the traces of sin shall be destroyed, that the earth may become a glorious possession in the hands of God's people. FATEFUL RESULTS OF REJECTING GOD'S MESSAGES
But how shall the wicked of earth fill up their cup of iniquity, and thus open upon themselves the floodgates of destruction? From the illustrations given in the Bible we may discover this. How was it done in each example cited in God's word? Let us notice: In the antediluvian world, it was done by the rejection of the message of God given by Noah; in Sodom, by the rejection of the message given by Lot and the angels; by the Jews in Jeremiah's day, by rejecting his message sent from God; by the same nation in the days of Jesus, by refusing to heed the message given by Jesus, and rejecting Him as King, saying, “We have no king but Cæsar.” So now God is sending to earth's inhabitants His last threefold message of mercy as recorded in Rev. 14:6, 16. The first of these announces, “The hour of God's Judgment is come.” The time when every case must be decided for eternity is here. In view of this fact, the message calls upon all to “fear God, and give glory to Him,” and to “worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters”; that is, to recognize His creative power, and give to Him His rightful place as Creator. But instead of doing this, the masses are fearing those things which are coming on the earth, and are preparing all manner of defenses against the mad, unchained elements of nature. They are fearing the power of man, and are forming unions and federations to protect themselves, instead of trusting the almighty arm of the Creator for protection. They are lauding and magnifying man instead of the Creator; and they are setting aside the seventh-day Sabbath, which God has ordained to be the sign of His creative power, and substituting the first day of the week, a man-made sabbath, in its stead. The second part of this message tells of the fallen condition of the religious world; but instead of humbly acknowledging their fallen estate, they are going forward with great pomp and display, erecting magnificent places of worship, in which the forms of godliness are kept up, and dedicating them in the name of the Lord, while the worshipers, like the people in the days of Noah, are giving themselves over to feasting and revelry, to planting and building, to making for themselves idols of gold and idols of silver, and heaping together treasures for the last days. The third part of the threefold message forbids the worship of the beast or his image, and the reception of his mark, and warns against the soon-coming wrath of God. But instead of heeding this, religious people are bowing down to the civil power, and seeking its aid in religious matters. In this way, like the Jews in Christ's time, they are choosing Cæsar to rule over them, and rejecting Jesus as their king. At the same time, they are asking the aid of the civil power to compel men to abandon the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, which is the sign of the true God, by enforcing upon them the observance of the first day of the week. This false sabbath is the mark of the beast, because Rome is entirely responsible for its introduction into the church as a sabbath, and because the Roman Church now sets it forth as the sign of her power and authority. When all this shall be accomplished, then Isa. 24:5, 6 will be fulfilled; for the people shall have transgressed the laws of God, changed the ordinance,—the Sabbath,—and broken the everlasting covenant, beyond the possibility of a remedy, for they shall have rejected Christ, the very one in whom the covenant centers. Then shall the earth be devoured by the curse; for the wrath of God will sweep it with a besom of destruction in the seven last plagues. But as was the ark in Noah's day, and as were the angels in Lot's time, so Christ will be the salvation of His people. Every one for whom the burning lamp shall have completed its work, shall be caught up to meet Christ in the air, while the rest of the inhabitants of earth shall be reserved till that day of destruction in which “the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” 2 Peter 3:10. Here will be seen the smoking furnace that will purify the earth; and out of it, under the hand of the Creator, of whom the seventh day is the sign, will come forth a new heaven and a new earth, in which the righteous will dwell. And “from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another,” shall all the children of Abraham come up in joy and true liberty, to worship before the Lord. See Isa. 66:22, 23.