Basic HTML Version
A Safe Refuge, February 28
Behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of
the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood,
and shall no more cover her slain.
Isaiah 26:21
.
There is coming rapidly and surely an almost universal guilt upon the
inhabitants of the cities, because of the steady increase of determined
wickedness. The corruption that prevails, is beyond the power of the human
pen to describe. Every day brings fresh revelations of strife, bribery, and
fraud; every day brings its heart-sickening record of violence and lawless-
ness, of indifference to human suffering, of brutal, fiendish destruction of
human life....
Our God is a God of mercy. With long-sufferance and tender compassion
He deals with the transgressors of His law.... The Lord bears long with men,
and with cities, mercifully giving warnings to save them from divine wrath;
but a time will come when pleadings for mercy will no longer be heard....
The conditions prevailing in society, and especially in the great cities of
the nations, proclaim in thunder tones that the hour of God’s judgment is
come and that the end of all things earthly is at hand. We are standing on
the threshold of the crisis of the ages. In quick succession the judgments of
God will follow one another—fire, and flood, and earthquake, with war and
bloodshed....
The storm of God’s wrath is gathering; and those only will stand who
respond to the invitations of mercy, ... and become sanctified through
obedience to the laws of the divine Ruler. The righteous alone will be hid
with Christ in God till the desolation be overpast. Let the language of the
soul be:
“Other refuge have I none;
Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;
Leave, Oh leave me not alone!
Still support and comfort me.
“Hide me, O my Saviour, hide,
Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide;
Oh, receive my soul at last!”
[68]
65