Conflagration

It is not often that entire cities burn. The Great Fire of London in 1666 was a major conflagration which swept through the central parts of the English city for days. And that fire completely gutted that medieval city.

The fire destroyed 70,000 homes of the 80,000 inhabitants. In Chicago, in 1871, the Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that destroyed over three square miles of the city and left more than 100,000 residents homeless. A conflagration is a large, disastrous fire which consumes a good portion of a city.

These great fires which burned down London and Chicago paled in comparison to the conflagration found in my Bible in Genesis chapter 19. This biblical conflagration has no equal in the history of man. Chapter 19 of Genesis describes the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah which was not ignited by human error but by divine providence.

The fire which consumed the cities of the plain did not start in the cities but rather it rained fire and brimstone out of heaven itself. Brimstone is synonymous with sulfur and it evokes the acrid odor of sulfur dioxide given off by lightning strikes, if you've ever smelled one. God rained fire and brimstone on the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and it poured down fire from the sky with the flashing strikes of lightning throwing down brimstone like bricks of fire.

I say all this, friends, because I don't believe we have a clue just how bad things got in Sodom that day when Lot entered into Zoar. The angels told Lot their hands were tied until he and his were safely out of the doomed city. They said, Haste thee, escape thither, for I cannot do anything till thou become thither.

I want us to see some truths out of God's word this evening, friends, and I chose to preach this message at night when the sky is dark and the sun is set. I want you, friends, to glance out the windows here at that dark sky which will soon be lit with flashes of light. From that consuming conflagration there are three points to my sermon this evening.

They are very plain and simple. Number one, the doom of the sinner. Number two, the danger of delay.

And lastly, number three, the destruction of the wicked. That a sinner is doomed is a great truth in my Bible. From Genesis chapter 3, concerning the fall of man and the curse upon him in the garden to the back of the book of Revelation which speaks of the last judgment and the lake of fire, all points in between, we have vivid accounts that verify and support, through Scripture, the doom of the sinner.

Just pick up your Bible, friends, and read it. And while you're at it, you may wish to read Malachi 3.6, which declares, I am the Lord, I change not. You may want to highlight that or underscore it in your Bible, friends, because there is a majority in the church today who hold a false view of the God of the Bible.

They think God is only a God of love who would never send a person to hell, much less torment them there for ever and ever. This is a hard message, friends. It's a hard message for me to bring before you this evening.

But it's a needed message, and there's some here that need to hear it. But some folks think God wouldn't act that way. He'd never send anybody to hell.

I've got news for you, friend. Your God may not act that way, but the God of the Bible will. He is a God who must and will punish sin.

And if you don't believe that, then you must think that Calvary was nothing more than a cakewalk for Jesus while he was on his way to heaven. You want to see a glimmer of God's wrath on sin? Then just behold that bloodstained Christ wiggling and writhing beneath those rusty nails thrust into his innocent flesh as Jesus became sin for us, being made a curse for us, my Bible says. I'm going to get through this message this evening, friends.

I must preach it to you. You better believe, friend, that the God who reigned hell out of heaven on wicked Sodom can reign hell on wicked America right now if he wanted to. You better kill off that God of your imagination and bow to the King of heaven and earth, the sovereign Lord of all.

In the book of Genesis, we will see the doom of the sinner and the danger of delay as well as the destruction of the wicked. The inhabitants of Sodom had much in common with a good many of us today. They were filled with leisure and pleasure and pride and arrogance.

They were stiff-necked and sinful and perverted, and they were easily consumed by their lusts every day. They lived unto themselves much like we do today, and they lived for the world much like we do today, too. They sinned when they wanted to, just like we do today, and they had no fear of God and the land, just like we do as well.

The doom of the sinner was a reality as it is today. We get a sense of how God viewed them from Genesis 18-20. And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous.

What is God referring to here but the cry of rape from the filthy Sodomites who wanted to take by force from Lot's house the two angels and rape them as they burned in their lusts? The men of the city encircled Lot's house, both old homosexuals and young homosexuals, and my Bible says, And they called unto Lot and said unto him, Aware are the men which came in to thee this night. Bring them out unto us, that we may know them. And they weren't talking about playing a card game, friends, but a gang of lust-filled men intent on rape.

There have been several times in my life where I've been approached and asked out by homosexuals who wanted to take me on a date. They were persistent and obnoxious until I had to practically threaten a few of them with bodily harm to leave me alone. I live across the street from a gay bar and I watch them go in by themselves and leave with a new friend each night.

Well, the Sodomites, burning in their sin of lust, were so grievous to God that he burned them to death with his fierce wrath from heaven. You better believe, friend, that the same God who killed off Sodom and Gomorrah still is a God who is angry with the wicked every day. The doom of the sinner hung suspended over the cities of the plain like the sword of Damocles glistening in blood.

The doom of the sinner hangs over this nation at this very instant. You want to continue in your reckless sin? You want to shake your puny fist in the face of the Almighty? Then keep on sinning, for your doom is ahead of you. Next I want us to see the danger of delay.

In verse 14 we read, And Lot went out and spake unto his sons-in-law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get ye out of this place, for the Lord will destroy the city. But instead of heeding the urgent warning from a family member, they grabbed their bellies and left themselves sick. They delayed the urgency of their safety and went to sleep that night in that doomed city.

And within a few short hours they woke up screaming like all the rest, as flames fell all around them and their bones were charred to black ashes. There is great danger in putting off salvation until a more convenient time like Felix did before Paul. Old pot-bellied Felix died and went to hell because he delayed the serious matter of eternity while he had a man of God confronting him with it.

If God's been dealing with you, friend, and you have delayed getting serious with Him about your eternal soul, then I have a verse of Scripture for you, friend, and you'd better listen up close to what God has to say from you to you from His Holy Word. He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy. The remedy God is talking about is His Son Jesus, the remedy for sin.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by Me. The danger of delay was destruction to those family members of Lot.

When Lot's wife got just beyond the gates of the city she paused and looked back over her shoulder when she should have been running for higher ground. She died that day just like the rest, but her death came quicker because of her delay and disobedience to God. Lastly, I want you, friend, to put yourself in the heart of that ancient city tonight.

I want you to imagine yourself as a carefree resident of Sodom with people talking around the city and walking about. It's been a long day, and you just finished your supper, and you were out on your front porch enjoying the evening sky. You look up, and in the nighttime darkness you can make out a glimmer of a star here and a star there.

But is it a star after all, or was that a flash of lightning you just witnessed? Why is the sky lit up like that, you wonder? Look out the window, friends, at the nighttime sky. What do you see? Oh, what do you see but a conflagration of the doom of the sinner as it thunders in the distance? The destruction of the wicked is for any person who is not a born-again believer in Christ Jesus, the Lord God Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. He is your creator as well, friends, for he knit you together in your mother's womb and knew you before you were born into this world.

In his mercy, in his written word, he gives you a sense of the destruction of the wicked as seen in Malachi 4, verse 1. For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. That speaks, friends, of a terrible consuming conflagration that burns and burns and burns with intense heat. Put yourself in Abraham's sandals as he stands on the mountain looking down on the cities of the plain.

And Abraham, get up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord, and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the plain. And beheld, and lo, the smoke of the county went up as the smoke of a furnace. As old Abraham watched that conflagration burn, the black smoke billowed up with a force like a furnace to the height of that mountain.

Black with smoke. Listen to me, friend. Listen to me, please.

If you are here as a lost sinner who has no hope outside of Christ's blood, then don't delay a moment more. Listen to these pleas of God in the gospel to come to Christ for salvation and pardon for sin. Oh, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye by and eat.

Yea, come by wine and milk without money and without price. That means to come to Christ, friend, empty-handed, feeling your need of Him. Listen to this gospel invitation and let it ring in your ears like a mighty conflagration.

Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.