WHEN SUDDEN DESTRUCTION COMES

WHEN SUDDEN DESTRUCTION COMES

By Given O. Blakely 

God has revealed that the destruction of His enemies will be abrupt. It will occur in a time of apparent tranquility and safety. “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they [the ungodly] shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction comes upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall NOT escape” (I Thess. 5:2-3). Thus will the final curtain be brought down on the stage of mortal life, wherein God’s eternal purpose shall have been accomplished.

The suddenness of the destruction of the wicked will demonstrate the superiority of the heavenly Kingdom. The enemies of the Lord will not see their overthrow coming, and consequently will not be unprepared for it. Their wisdom failed them in preparation, and their power shall fail when they confront the “wrath of the Lamb” (Rev. 16:16).

There are those who teach that when Jesus comes the next time the wicked will survive – even organizing a war against Him. There is some truth to this, but not much. The wicked will, indeed, gather against Christ – not after He comes, but before He comes, and not directly, but indirectly. In the Revelation, it is written of this gathering: “And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them" (Rev 20:9). Earlier in the Revelation this destruction is described in vivid and startling language. It is depicted as the harvesting of “the vine of the earth.” “And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs" (180 miles) (Rev 14:18-20).

Paul writes of the coming of the Lord, “And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:" (2 Thess 1:7-8).

The Lord Jesus also spoke of the sudden destruction of the wicked. “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." (Matt 24:37-39). The Lord also drew a parallel between the sudden destruction of Sodom and His appearing: “Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed." (Luke 17:28-30).

The glorious triumph of the Kingdom of God shall be manifested in the complete overthrow of the enemies of Christ. It shall be total in scope, and eternal in duration. Not one enemy shall rise in rebellion from the ashes of this overthrow – not a single jot or title of authority shall remain among those who chose to oppose the Lord’s Christ by not being “with” Him!

This must be told to the saints of God, lest their eyes be clouded by the circumstances of the day, which make the wicked appear larger and stronger than they really are. Men feel at liberty to pass laws that give advantages to the wicked. Hostile religions launch attacks against those who believe in Christ, and speak disparagingly of them. Wicked men are filling the earth with expressions of sin that fill their coffers with gold, and establish new lows of morality. Whole churches are dying in an onslaught of shallow and lifeless religion. Men who are actually attached to this earth are becoming wealthy by hawking their writings which seek to make men at home in this world – doing so in the name of Christ. We are now in the fourth generation of young people who have not been tutored in the ways of God, and are consequently abysmally ignorant of the Scriptures, of God, and of the ways of God.

It all may out of control, but it is not! These are times of sifting, when pretenders are being sifted out, and the serious are rising to the surface. But when these times are over, and the sifting has been accomplished, the vine of the earth will be harvested and destroyed – suddenly and without remedy. The objective of every believer must be to keep themselves clean, and prepare for the coming of the Lord and the consequent destruction of the wicked.

PRAYER POINT: Father, in the name of Jesus I thank You for the stabilizing impact of hope, and for the promise of the destruction of the wicked.