We would fain close this chapter with these delightful reflections, and leave the minds of all free from fearful apprehensions, and happy in the contemplation of a future resurrection to the enjoyment of a blissful immortality and eternal life. But the Laws of God are stern and inflexible in their requirements; His judgments sure; His revelations plain, and all are in duty bound to contemplate them.
We have told you that at His call "the righteous shall come forth to a resurrection of life." And now we have to record the fact that—at His command—"the wicked shall come forth to a resurrection of damnation." To contemplate or depict the scene startles the mind, and baffles and beggars the human intellect.
We fancy a death-like silence prevails throughout the earth and seas, and the vast domain of Heaven. Songs of triumph, and shouts of joy, of both saints and angels, have ceased for one hour of eternity. The Judge ascends His throne, from which to issue His command. The four and twenty Elders remove their glittering crowns of gold, and bow before Him. Moses and Elijah, and all the prophets, apostles, and martyrs are there. There the redeemed of the Lord—whom no man can number—are assembled with legions of angels. All bow before the Lord, and "there is silence in Heaven." Hark! the command was given! The voice of the final judgment-trumpet; in thunder tones, waxes louder and louder! and seems to shake heaven itself, with its surrounding universe of worlds. It is the trumpet-voice of the "WRATH OF GOD" summoning the wicked of a sin-cursed world, to arise and come to judgment.
See! the Earth is convulsed from the centre to its circumference, and is "rocking to and fro, as a drunken man." Graves are opening on every hand, and from all the Earth, from deep dark seas and oceans' depths, behold the pale, ghastly multitudes coming forth, filled with terror and dismay. Mountains are sinking, and valleys rising, like surgings of contending billows; and their rocky foundations, though ten thousand feet deep, are breaking into fragments! A tempest of God's fiery indignation is smiting the Earth! Hear the muttering thunders of the judgment storm! see the dread lightnings flashing amidst the surrounding gloom! The internal magazine-fires of the Earth are belching forth their molten lava, which is lifting the deep foundations of seas and oceans into mountain-peaks, and rolling fiery billows. See! behold! the Universal conflagration of the world! seas, oceans, and all the Earth, one vast sheet of flame. While the angel (which John saw) "standing in the Sun" calls in thunder tones, ARISE YE DEAD AND COME TO JUDGMENT! And then swears by Him, that liveth forever and ever, "Time shall be no longer."
The unnumbered millions of resurrected bodies of the wicked would fain refuse a reunion with their long lost souls, and fall back and be consumed or annihilated by the raging elements. But now, for the wicked there is no place of safety. They refused the refuge once freely offered them in the "cleft side of the Redeemer," and trifled away their days of grace, and now the stern reality of the threatened judgment is upon them. Their souls, perhaps, have already suffered for thousands of years in fiery torments, and now death and hell give up their dead to a reunion, that all may receive their final sentence from the "Judge of quick and dead" to depart and "dwell in everlasting burnings."
In their direful extremity they would fain "flee from the presence of God." Hear them calling upon the fiery whirlwind-tempest of rocks, and moving mountains "to fall on them, and hide them from the face of Him that sitteth on the Throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb," and crying aloud, "Behold! the great day of His wrath has come; who shall be able to stand?" Yet these fragments of a convulsed and dismembered universe are restrained from performing such office of mercy, and by the Word—which created them—are hurled back into the raging chaotic storm, to "melt with fervent heat" and mingle with the elements in the convulsive throes of a wrecked world, which is being consumed by the "spirit-fires" of Jehovah's wrath.
"And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them; and I saw the dead small and great stand before God, and they were judged according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire; and the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation. And I saw an angel standing in the Sun. And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the Sun, and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire; and men were scorched with great heat. And they shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever."