58
Spiritual Gifts, Volume 3
they had used to form into idols, and to corrupt themselves with, God
has reserved in the earth, in the shape of coal and oil to use as agencies
in their final destruction. As he called forth the waters in the earth at
the time of the flood, as weapons from his arsenal to accomplish the
destruction of the antediluvian race, so at the end of the one thousand
years he will call forth the fires in the earth as his weapons which he has
reserved for the final destruction, not only of successive generations
since the flood, but the antediluvian race who perished by the flood.
When the flood of waters was at its height upon the earth, it had
the appearance of a boundless lake of water. When God finally purifies
the earth, it will appear like a boundless lake of fire. As God preserved
the ark amid the commotions of the flood, because it contained eight
righteous persons, he will preserve the New Jerusalem, containing the
faithful of all ages, from righteous Abel down to the last saint which
lived. Although the whole earth, with the exception of that portion
where the city rests, will be wrapped in a sea of liquid fire, yet the city
[88]
is preserved as was the ark, by a miracle of Almighty power. It stands
unharmed amid the devouring elements. “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, the
earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”
By transgressing God’s commandments a curse fell upon Adam
and Eve, and they were deprived of all right to the tree of life. Christ
died to save man, and yet preserve the honor of God’s law. He says
“Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right
to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the City.”
The Son of God here presents the doing of the commandments of God
as the condition of a right to the tree of life. The transgression of God’s
commandments deprived man of all right to the tree of life. Christ
died, that by virtue of his blood, obedience to God’s law might make
man worthy of the heavenly benediction, and grant him a right again
to the tree of life.
When the faithful dead shall be resurrected, and the king of glory
shall open before them the gates of the city of God, and the nations
who have kept the truth enter in, what beauty and glory will meet the
astonished sight of those who have seen no greater beauties in the
earth than that which they beheld in decaying nature after the threefold
[89]
curse was upon the earth.