When The World Is On Fire! # 1

When The World Is On Fire # 1

II Peter 3:3-14

The atomic experts tell us that unless we came to some sort of a peace league, that unless we invent or evolve some sort of an international organization that will definitely control the nuclear bomb, the result will be that nuclear weapon misuse will destroy the world. I do not believe it at all! The reason these experts seem to believe it is because they do not study the Word of God. Nuclear bombs are not going to destroy the earth. That is reserved for the Lord. God is going to destroy it when He gets ready! Our nuclear weapons will act just as did gunpowder, or dynamite, or TNT, or cannons, or poison gas, or, before that, bows and arrows, or any other weapons. It will just make one more mess for us to get into. That is all. It is not going to solve any problems. It is not going to stop any wars. It is not going to make wars quicker or easier. Those of us who are waiting and watching for the imminent coming of the Lord Jesus Christ are constantly saying that the world will be on fire at His coming. We forget the fact that in many ways the world is on fire already. I believe we have in some way missed this point.

This world of ours right now nationally. There is no great nation on earth that is fully at peace, not even our own United States of America. Think of the strikes, of the race problems, of the awful and many difficulties that beset us in our land. Multiply them by the tremendous burdens that are weighing down every other nation and you will see that I am justified in saying that the world is on fire. Think of England. Think of France. Think of Spain. Think of Germany and Japan. Think of the internal conflicts waging in Asia. You will agree with me further that this world of ours is on fire internationally. Nations are at odds, at loggerheads, with each other, seemingly unable  to come together on any sort of peace terms. I remember very distinctly, at the end of World War I, some of our preachers even went so far as to say that there never wold be any more wars, that the League of Nations would solve, and dissolve war forever. They prophesied that the death-dealing destruction of the awful days between 1914 and 1918 taught mankind a lesson that would preclude forever the change of our engaging again in any such bitter cataclysm. Now we all know better. We know that wars do not - cannot - prevent wars. Neither can elaborate and impressive peace treaties. Nothing can. My Bible teaches, as does yours, that there shall be wars and rumors of wars until the Lord Jesus, the Prince of Peace, comes to establish peace.

The world is on fire religiously. Hear me! Some short months ago in a certain southeastern state a group of preachers met together in a conference. One of them from a northern city preached a sermon on "Hubba-Hubba." This was his thought: He said that the disciples did not really believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. He said that when Peter cried our, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," he was just saying the words as a boy would say them in "Hubba-Hubba" fashion about a beautiful girl. Those other preachers sat there and kept on listening to him instead of rising in a body and walking out of that room. In that same sermon, this preacher declared that when Thomas sobbed out, "My Lord and my God," he did not mean that at all. He meant "Hubba-Hubba." This world is on fire!

There are certain things that God expects us to do. It is not enough for Christians to come together in Bible conferences, then go away, their own souls filled, knowing more about the Bible, yet not putting into practice the things that have fired their souls during the days together. My purpose is - my prayer is- that God will use me as a man uses a match to strike fire to the heaped-up wood that you already have in your souls. God grant that a conflagration might start and spread wherever you go in this nation and to the ends of the earth.

Let us consider, then, an outline based on this chapter of Scripture. First, there is the contention of the scoffers. Secondly, there is the coming of the Lord. Thirdly, there is the continuance for us Christians, what we Christians are to continue to do in the Name of the Lord while we are waiting for the appearing of the Son of God.

1. The Contention of the Scoffers

Travel with me as the Lord leads from one end of this continent to the other. Make contact, as I have by the very force of my ministry, with liberals, with fundamentalists, with fundamental liberals, with liberal fundamentalists. I have the good fortune (sometimes I think it is a misfortune) of having to review scores of books yearly, books pouring off the religious presses. These books would shout an amen to the contention of the scoffers here in our country and abroad.

The Attitude of Anti-Godism

With your permission, may I coin a word about these scoffers? There is an attitude of anti-Godism - not the attitude of anti-godliness, but anti-Godism. The Lord Jesus Christ has been destroyed. The Saviourhood of the Son of God is being denied. His sovereign rights are ridiculed. He is just one more great teacher, according to so many of these scoffers. Not only have they denied the Lordship of Jesus Christ, but they are also using their penknives on the Word of God. They have taken out of the blessed Book all that pertains to old-time religion, repentance, faith, the new birth. Morality is preached instead of repentance. Even in so-called fundamental circles, instead of faith, there is a kind of ideology that exalts the manhood and the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of them go so far as to grant Him the rights of divinity, but treating it merely as a historic transaction, having absolutely no echo, no feeling, no responsive attitude in their hearts and souls.

Instead of new birth, they teach an idealism, a psychology, a kind of Dr. Cone proposition, "Day by day in every way I am getting better and better." [the old "I", "self", the idea that "self" is more important than Christ. In truth, Christ teaches us to rid ourselves of "self" and depend on Him and the Holy Spirit.]

~Hyman Appleman~

(continued with # 2)