The Unheeded Warning—The Destruction That Followed—Warnings for To-Day—Will They Be Heeded?
By William H. Edwards
“Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city.” Gen. 19:14.
When Lot in Sodom, on that portentous night, visited his sons-in-law, by the promptings of the two angel guests who were in his house, he gave them the significant warning quoted above; but all he received for his anxious solicitude was stoical incredulity, and they spurned his warning, and believed he was mocking them with a chimerical tale. They took it that the patriarch was just coming into his dotage, and this was the first evidence of general deterioration. To leave Sodom now, at the most opulent and prosperous moment of her history, with fullness of bread, and without need of tiresome, wearying exertion to gain a livelihood—preposterous! You mock us, father! Let those who have no investments in this section evacuate if they wish to do so, but we will attend to our property holdings a while longer.
Is it hard to believe that what was so characteristic of “the cities of the plain” in the days of Abraham and Lot is now the leprosy of universal sin, so that, as stated by another, “the earth is one great lazar house of iniquity,” and awaits destruction by fire, even like Sodom and Gomorrah, which were overthrown and turned into ashes?
Conditions of Sodom Repeated
The declaration of Christ in Matt. 24:37 is, “As the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be”; and in Luke 17:28, 30: “Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot. . . . Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.”
With the knowledge of frightful, flagrant, open sin on every side chronicled in the daily papers, and with a cruel, uncalled-for, sanguinary war in progress, the very cause of its origin shrouded in mystery, and inexplicable, but directly fulfilling the last-days prophecies of the Word, is it difficult to locate the times in which we live, and see that they are very dangerous ones, or to prove that the execution of the threatened destruction of this world is now about due?
Significant Fortunes
We are also in the age of all ages of rich men, when colossal fortunes are a sign of the last days of time, as a fulfillment of prophecy. James 5:3 states, “Ye have heaped treasure together for [or in] the last days”—just shoveled it together, as it were, piles of it, and vast stores of it idle and doing no one good. The same verse declares, “Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire.”
“Even like Sodom and Gomorrah, which were overthrown and turned into ashes.”
The mere possession of vast wealth does not bring all joy and pleasure, while in every quarter extreme poverty exists, and misery because of poverty; for this wealth hoarded, and not used for humanity or for God’s cause, is and will be a menace to the possessors. Zech. 2:9 reads, “Behold, I will shake Mine hand, . . . and they shall be a spoil to their servants”; and Zeph. 1:13, 14: “Their wealth shall become a spoil, and their houses a desolation.” A. R. V. “The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly.”
A Thousand for One Job
An advertisement for a mechanic brings a thousand applicants, some coming at heavy expense on the trains, only to find the place filled, with consequent disappointment to the unsuccessful. Men with large families of children are in forced idleness; and though the mercantile statements report the times excellent and business improving, the multitude of idle men do not credit it, and their hearts are distressed at the conditions. There is in the cities and in large communities a spirit of unrest, and an undercurrent of repressed feeling against society, which needs but the match of favorable opportunity to ignite the tinder. Farsighted men are seeking to hold this element peaceable, believing that an uprising would be like a repetition of the scenes of 1793 in the French Revolution.
God has forecasted all this in Dan. 12:1,—that there is to be “a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time.” Wars and rumors of wars, and earthquakes in many places, are but the beginning of sorrows. Evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse, and men’s hearts will fail them for fear of the things that are coming on the earth.
The Service of Prophecy
Through an understanding of the prophecies, God wishes to preserve His people from the troubles that will take all of the world unawares. He asks those to whom He has given power to get wealth, to give their means into His keeping now, as the time is near when what they hold on to will be taken from them, and endanger their lives.
One says: “I saw it was a fearful thing to hold on to a perishable substance when He has said that if we will sell and give alms, we can lay up treasure in heaven. As the work is closing up, and the truth is going forth in mighty power, those rich men will bring their means and lay it at the feet of the servants of God, begging them to accept it. The answer from the servants of God will be, ‘Go to now, ye rich men.’ Your means is not needed. God will not accept your riches now.”
At the time when God will refuse the means offered, it will be seen that sufficient is already in hand for His work. He wanted their affections with their money, and not money alone, for they had loved and trusted in their wealth.
Would Save the Wealthy
The constant plea of the servants of God for wealthy men to give their money into God’s keeping is for the purpose of saving the souls of all such; for the cause of God is going through to sure and speedy victory on the gifts of those who do give,—the poor with their nickels, which God does not despise; the dollars of the many who are not able to give more; the hundreds from the few who are willing to sacrifice for God because they love Him. He says that which is given they have lent to the Lord, and He will repay them again, “good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over.”
“Knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” Rom. 13:11, 12. Let us, like wise people, dispose of all the property we have in Sodom, and get as much of it into the Lord’s hands as can be spared, and trust Him who cannot lie, to repay us in times of need, as He has promised to do.
“The time is short.
If thou would’st work for God, it must be now.
If thou would’st win the garland for thy brow,
Redeem the time.”
