p. 11 | The World on Fire by C. H. Spurgeon

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 14, 1904

The World on Fire

By C. H. Spurgeon

“But 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, and the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” 2 Peter 3:10.

We gather from our text what will happen at a time when it will be little expected. The dread hour will come as a thief in the night. It was not expected in Noah’s day that the world would be destroyed. That was not from any want of warning, but because men could not conceive it possible. They argued against Noah, that all things had continued as they were from the days of their first father Adam, and that so they would be. They thought Noah a fool for going up and down the world proclaiming an absurdity, and frightening people with a bugbear. Thus speak they now, when God’s Word declares that the whole world will be destroyed by fire. They reject the testimony, and continue in sin, in worldliness, and in rebellion against God; and so will they do to the very moment when the shrill sound of the trump shall convince them that the Lord has come, and that the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men has arrived. No preaching will of itself avail to make ungodly men expect the coming of Christ, however clear, bold, consistent, and long continued it may be. The world is mad upon its idols, its ears are too dull to hear the truth; charm we never so wisely, this adder will never listen to warning. Men’s eyes are blinded, they will not see, and so they hurry on to their doom, and “when they say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them.”

God now waits that men may be saved. He tarries that in his long time of waiting hundreds everywhere may believe in Jesus, and enter into eternal life; and while we may consistently desire to hasten the coming of the Lord, we may be equally content that mercy’s day should be lengthened. While I have prayed, “Come quickly,” I have often felt inclined to contradict myself and cry, “Yet tarry for a while, good Lord; let mercy’s day be lengthened, let the heathen yet receive the Saviour.” We may desire the coming of the Lord, but we ought to be in sympathy with the tarrying of the Most High, to which his loving heart inclines him.

Although we read of the world being burned with fire, we are not told that it will be annihilated thereby.

We know that nothing has been annihilated yet. This world, so far as we know, will not cease to be; it will pass through the purifying flame, and then it may be the soft and gentle breath of Almighty love will blow upon it and cool it rapidly, and the divine hand will shape it as it cools into a paradise more fair than that which bloomed upon the banks of Hiddekel. We believe from various things which are hinted at in Scripture, that this world will be renovated, and in that sense we expect “new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”

Luther used to say that the world was now in its working clothes, and that by and by it would be arrayed in its Easter garments of joy. One likes to think that the trail of the old serpent will not always remain upon the globe, and it is a cheering thought that where sin has abounded, God’s glory shall yet more abound. I can not believe in that world being annihilated upon which Jesus was born, and lived, and died. . . . It has groaned and travailed with mankind, being made subject to vanity for our sake; surely it is to have its joyful redemption, and keep its Sabbaths after the fire has burned out every trace of sin and sorrow. — C. H. Spurgeon.