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Patriarchs and Prophets
ripe for destruction. Soon the judgments of God are to be poured out,
and sin and sinners are to be consumed.
Said our Saviour: “Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your
hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of
this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall
it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth”—upon
all whose interests are centered in this world. “Watch ye therefore,
and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these
things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.”
Luke 21:34-36
.
Before the destruction of Sodom, God sent a message to Lot,
“Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the
plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.” The same voice
of warning was heard by the disciples of Christ before the destruction
of Jerusalem: “When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies,
then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are
in Judea flee to the mountains.”
Luke 21:20, 21
. They must not tarry
to secure anything from their possessions, but must make the most of
the opportunity to escape.
There was a coming out, a decided separation from the wicked, an
escape for life. So it was in the days of Noah; so with Lot; so with the
disciples prior to the destruction of Jerusalem; and so it will be in the
last days. Again the voice of God is heard in a message of warning,
bidding His people separate themselves from the prevailing iniquity.
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The state of corruption and apostasy that in the last days would
exist in the religious world, was presented to the prophet John in the
vision of Babylon, “that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the
earth.”
Revelation 17:18
. Before its destruction the call is to be given
from heaven, “Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of
her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”
Revelation 18:4
. As
in the days of Noah and Lot, there must be a marked separation from
sin and sinners. There can be no compromise between God and the
world, no turning back to secure earthly treasures. “Ye cannot serve
God and mammon.”
Matthew 6:24
.
Like the dwellers in the vale of Siddim, the people are dreaming
of prosperity and peace. “Escape for thy life,” is the warning from
the angels of God; but other voices are heard saying, “Be not excited;
there is no cause for alarm.” The multitudes cry, “Peace and safety,”