THE COMING JUDGEMENT OF FIRE
COMING JUDGEMENT of fire! What do you mean, coming judgement of fire?
I sit here looking out my window onto my garden in a quiet suburb, or “commune”, in the greater Brussels area. The spring sunshine ripples on the new leaves of beeches and large, quiet, sycamores. Red squirrels run eagerly among the branches. Nearby, a blackbird sings. Further off, a woodpecker drums on his tree. I wonder at the excellent beauty of the created world.
But, as I write, the President of Russia daily threatens Europe with nuclear destruction. If such an attack were launched then Brussels, the headquarters of the EU and NATO, would be among his first targets. The place of impact, perhaps the EU Quartier at Place Schumann, or the NATO HQ in Evere, would be engulfed in a flaming holocaust of millions of degrees centigrade. The rest of the city, and its surrounding communes, would be slightly cooler, perhaps hundreds of thousands of degrees.
Of course, much would depend on the size of the explosion. But the Russian nukes are immense. Some of them divide into multiple warheads as they descend, spreading out to target a whole country. Everything in the urban centres of Brussels, Antwerp, Gent, Lille, and Namur would be instantly incinerated. Gone the blackbirds, gone their song. Gone woodpeckers and squirrels. Gone beeches and sycamores. Gone streets and buildings, large and small. Gone the people, young and old. Gone every mark and memento of the great and ancient Franco-Flemish civilisation.
WHAT WOULD SURVIVE?
There might be a few survivors, perhaps in the countryside or emerging from underground Metro travel. Perhaps blinded by the immensity of the flash, or suffering from horrific burns, they would find themselves in a post-nuclear wasteland, without food or water, gas or electricity, law and order, or medical and emergency services, a landscape of scorched earth, melted concrete, glass, and steel, swept by poisonous radioactive clouds, under the dust-heavy grey sky of an impending nuclear winter where no crops grow.
The prospect is both incredible and credible. It is incredible that everything I now know and see and hear, the whole visible world, my family, our home, our neighbours and friends, our civilization, could be so instantly destroyed. Yet it is also perfectly credible that this could happen. For these weapons certainly exist and they can certainly be launched on the whim of a single man, and the results will certainly be as described.
So people rightly ask, “Where is God in all of this?” Or “Why doesn’t God do something?” And the answer is simple. God is at the centre of this. This is what God is doing. God has spoken about this time for thousands of year. Through his prophets, he has told mankind since the beginning that a horrific judgement of fire is saved up for this world. And now, look, it hastens upon us.
THE JUDGEMENT OF FIRE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
The Bible’s first description of a judgement of fire takes place in its first book, the wonderful book of Genesis. There we read, in chapters 18 and 19, of the cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah. They were entirely given over to wickedness, and particularly to the sin that bears their name, the sin of sodomy. And so they were destroyed by fire from heaven. As it says,
Then Yehovah rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah sulphur and fire—from Yehovah out of the heavens. And he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all the dwellers in the cities and whatever grew on the earth. (Gen. 19.24–25)
The two cities were totally consumed by fire. But this was not just an isolated event. The apostle Peter says it is a sign of the future fate which awaits all who are godless:
He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly. (2 Peter 2.6)
Moving on from Genesis, we come to the book of Deuteronomy. There the Lord says to Moses:
A fire is kindled by my wrath; it will burn to Sheol below.
It will consume the earth and its harvests,
and set ablaze the foundations of the mountains (Deut. 32.22).
Then we come to the Psalms. There David writes:
Yehovah examines the righteous,
but the wicked and those who love violence his soul hates.
On the wicked he will rain fiery coals and burning sulphur;
a scorching wind will be their lot (Psalm 11.5–6).
The prophet Isaiah wrote:
Behold, the Name of Yehovah comes from afar,
with burning anger and dense smoke.
His lips are full of fury,
and his tongue is like a consuming fire. (Isaiah 30.27)
Later, at the end of Old Testament times, the prophet Malachi wrote:
Behold the day is coming. It will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire, says Yehovah of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch (Malachi 4.1).
JUDGEMENT OF FIRE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
The warnings of this judgement of fire continue into the New Testament. We first meet John Baptist. He introduces Jesus with the words,
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire. (Matt. 3.11–12; Luke 3.16–17)
Then we come to the teaching of Jesus himself. Now, please note, Jesus doesn’t say that all the prophets got a bit carried away with this judgement-of-fire thing and that nothing like that will ever happen. On the contrary, Jesus endorses every bit of it. In fact, he has more to say about it than anyone else. He says:
I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already burning (Luke 12.1).
Reflect on that. Jesus is not talking about the ‘Holy Ghost Fire’ that we sing about. The Holy Ghost fire purges believers from sin. But Jesus speaks of a terrible and fearful fire that will purge the whole world. He has come to throw this fire upon the earth. And he is impatient, he ardently desires that this will happen because, we must understand, he is sickened by all the wickedness and evil on the earth. But for 2,000 years he has waited. Yet, since he is the Son of the Father, his desire will certainly be granted. And now the time rushes toward us when his desire will be fulfilled. He also says:
As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 13.40–42)
The apostles also speak about this fire. Paul said,
The Day…will be revealed with fire. (1 Cor. 3.13)
And again he says:
God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. (2 Thess. 1.6–7).
The author of Hebrews says:
Land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned. (6.8) For our God is a consuming fire. (12.29)
And Peter says,
7The present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly… 10But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare… 12That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. (2 Peter 3.7–12).
The Revelation also speaks in several places of the coming judgement of fire. In one place, it records that, in a moment, a third of the earth will be burned up.
The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. (Rev. 8.7)
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE EARTH
There are other Bible passages which speak more generally about the destruction of the earth. Isaiah, for instance writes:
In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill. (Isaiah 30.25).
A day is coming when the towers will fall. Think on that when you next walk through London or New York or any other great city. There is a promised day when these towers will fall, in wreckage of glass and steel, melted to the ground.
And I could quote many more texts which say the same thing. Now this is a truly fearful scenario. It isn’t my idea. It’s scriptural. The Bible says a holocaust of fire is coming to destroy the world and all its people. These are the words of Jesus and the prophets and the apostles. And, if you’re like me, you take these words seriously.
WHY THIS JUDGEMENT OF FIRE?
But, you ask, “Why is this judgement of fire to come on the world?” The answer is: For the same reason that it came on Sodom and Gomorrah. Remember what Peter says. Sodom and Gomorrah are a picture of what is to come. The book of Genesis says that they were great sinners before the Lord.
They people of Sodom were Canaanites and practiced some form of the Baal rite. These rites involved human sacrifice. They sacrificed little children, burning them alive, to their gods. They had ritual prostitution. The men engaged in sex with cultic prostitutes, both male and female. And Ezekiel tells us that Sodom was arrogant and overfed; they did not help the poor and needy. They were proud and did detestable things before me (Ezek. 16.49). But the thing that really gets the attention in Genesis is the sin that bears their name; that is, sodomy. When the Lord’s angels arrive in Sodom, they attempt to subject them to homosexual rape. And when Lot rebuked them for their sin, they turned on him. And so, in addition to all their vices, they rejected God’s word of correction.
Our world is not unlike Sodom and Gomorrah. Little has changed. Little children are still slain. People are still arrogant and overfed. Prostitution and sodomy are everywhere. And they still reject the word of God. These days, you can read the Bible on the internet for free, but people act like it doesn’t exist. Once people honoured the Bible, but now the world is going backwards. It has rejected the word of God. And for this, and for all its sins, the long-threatened judgement of fire hangs over our heads.
HOW WILL THIS JUDGEMENT OF FIRE HAPPEN?
How will this judgement of heavenly fire happen? Well, the Bible doesn’t exactly say. I suppose it could be the explosion of a super-volcano. There are places where such a thing is possible, like the Yellowstone Caldera. Or it could perhaps be a meteor strike on earth. But it seems to me that the likeliest explanation—the best explanation for “the elements melting in fervent heat” (2 Peter 3.10)—is that it will be a nuclear holocaust. After the fall of the Berlin wall, people sort of forgot about nuclear weapons. But they still exist.
Indeed, the nuclear arsenals keep growing. There are well over 30,000 nuclear weapons stockpiled in the world. Each one is many times greater than the bombs which fell on Japan in 1945. There are enough such weapons to destroy every city and town in the world several times over. And, I fear, they are not lying there for nothing. There is a terrible purpose in their existence. It is so that the wickedness of mankind will finally manifest itself in the utter destruction of the earth. In a final outburst of Satanically-possessed madness, mankind themselves will push the button to bring God’s dreadful judgement of fire upon a world gone wrong.
WHEN WILL THIS JUDGEMENT OF FIRE HAPPEN?
The question of when this will happen in one of these answers that is hidden in the secret counsels of God. We may discern that the time is near, but the actual day and hour are hidden from us.
If the current cycle of boasting and sabre-rattling continues, it could all flare out of control and the nuclear cataclysm could happen next week, or next month. On the other hand, the Russians, knowing that a nuclear strike would lead inevitably to their own destruction, might refrain for now. In that case, the current order of things could continue for another five or ten or fifteen years, until one of the countries that possess nuclear weapons decides to launch them against their enemies, triggering the whole process.
But the event will certainly come. And when it comes, it will happen in the moment of the fullness of God’s time. Neither before, nor after, but in his chosen time. And the world we know will be destroyed by fire.
SO WHAT’S THE GOOD NEWS?
Now this is a truly fearful scenario. And maybe you are thinking, “I thought the gospel was good news!” But there is indeed good news. The good news is this: The faithful will be saved.
Now I do not say this quickly or lightly. The Lord doesn’t always spare believers from suffering. Christians were persecuted in the Roman Empire. They suffered bitterly under communism. They suffer under Islam. The faithful are not always spared from persecution.
But, on the other hand, there is a theme that runs through the Bible that says that when the Lord himself brings judgement on a city or a nation, he spares his chosen people from that judgement. For instance,
- When he brought the flood on the ancient world, he spared Noah and his family.
- When he sent fire from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah, he spared Lot.
- When he sent the plagues on Egypt, he spared the Hebrews. When he slew Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea, he brought Israel through on dry land.
- When he burned the men of Korah’s rebellion by fire, the earth swallowed them alive and “they became a sign”, but he spared the sons of Korah (Num 16.23–35; 26.10–11).
- When he destroyed Jerusalem in the Roman holocaust of AD 70, when the temple and the city were consumed by fire, he spared the Christian community. Warned by their prophets, they left the city, crossed the Jordan, and were saved.
And the Bible seems to say that the same thing will happen in the coming judgement of fire: the faithful will be saved. The Lord himself says it.
Men will faint from fear and anxiety about what is coming upon the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to happen, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. (Luke 21.26–27)
In other words, “when these things begin to happen”, that is, before the Lord comes, people will be in horror about what is approaching. But we should recognize that our redemption is coming. And again Jesus says that the burning is for the wicked, not for the righteous.
Collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn (Matt. 13.30).
Whoever does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are gathered up, thrown into the fire, and burned. (John 15.6)
Peter has a lot to say about this. He continually draws a parallel between the judgement of the Flood, the judgement of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the coming judgement of fire upon the whole world. He compares the Flood to the coming judgment by fire. He says,
By waters the world of that time was flooded and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved fro fire, being kept for the day of judgement and destruction of ungodly men. (2 Peter 3.6–7)
And he says clearly that, just as Noah and Lot were saved, so the righteous will be saved through the coming cataclysm.
If he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men… then the Lord knows how to rescue the god-fearing from trials and to keep the unrighteous for punishment till the day of judgement. (2 Peter 2.6–9)
HOW WILL WE BE SAVED?
But how will we be saved on this terrible day? The answer, I believe, is that the Lord will catch us up to heaven. This is what is sometimes called the Rapture of the Saints. Paul speaks about this.
The Lord himself will come down from heaven. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air (2 Thess. 4.16–17).
Now some people dismiss the Rapture. They say it is simply one passage from Paul, and they think that is not enough to take it seriously. But, first of all, even if it were only one passage from Paul, that is absolutely enough to take it seriously. But, secondly, it is not just one passage from Paul. The Lord Jesus teaches about it too, when he says about himself, the Son of Man, that
He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. (Matt. 24.31)
In fact, if we read the Bible carefully, we will find the Rapture alluded to repeatedly from Genesis to Revelation. But that’s a bigger subject than I can treat here.
But the good news is that the Lord will catch us up before he does as he has promised and casts fire upon the earth.
WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
First, let’s be people who will be numbered among the righteous. If you are already a Christian believer, trying to walk in the light, then it will be well with you on that day. Let us hold to the faith we profess for he who promised is faithful (Heb. 10.23). But if you are a Christian believer, then go, repent and be baptized, calling on God to forgive your sins, and live a life of Christian obedience. Then you too will find mercy on that day.
Second, we should not fear. Did you know that the commonest command in the Old Testament, repeated 51 times, is just this: “Do not fear!” The Lord is with us. We need not fear. God is able to save us from the fiery furnace (Dan. 4).
Third, let us witness where we can, so that we might save some by snatching them from the fire (Jude 23). And Let us be self-controlled and alert. For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 5.6, 9).