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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadQuiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return: 82. The Breaking Storm
TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 82. The Breaking Storm
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The Breaking Storm
What determines the time of that ultimate withdrawal? Not a calendar but a condition. When God made the great covenant with lonely Abraham under the stars, He told him that several hundred years would run out before his seed should inherit Canaan, and then gave the dominant reason, "The iniquity of the Amorite (then in Caanan) is not yet full" [Note: Gen_15:16.] The movement of the Israelites was fitted into another deeper movement, by the eye and hand of God.
It's the fulness of the clouds that determines the time when a storm bursts. When the atmosphere can no longer carry the increasing load of moisture gathering in the clouds, the load is discharged, the storm breaks, the atmospheric conditions readjust themselves. The storms of the Book of Revelation are peculiarly significant. What brings the time of harvest? The ripeness of the grain. The use of the harvest figure in the Scripture is likewise very significant.
It would not seem nearly so distressing if judgment were disciplinary, and surgical, and a danger-signal, and no more. But the Book of God clearly points out more, a terrible more. In the very same breath in which the wonders of the garden-city of God are described a lake of fire is likewise told of. [Note: Rev_21:1-8.] The incorrigible stage has been reached. God's patience and pleading are persistently fought up to the very last. The unrighteous insist upon remaining unrighteous. [Note: Rev_22:11.]
God answers the obstinately continued pleading. At last He consents to withdraw, to do nothing. This makes the lake of fire. Sin kindles the fire. Man at last left to himself—God shut out, and going out—that is the worst. Jesus' heartbreaking cry over Jerusalem lays bare the heart of God,—"I would... ye would not." [Note: Mat_23:37.] Man's utter freedom has never been interfered with by so much as the lifting of a little finger. He is still in the image of God in power of choice, even in this ungodlike use of his free choice. There is an incorrigible minority at the end. Yet wise, tender love is still in control. The incorrigible quarantine ensures the safety of the race. That God is love, pure, just, wise, and tender, will never be so well understood and appreciated by all men as at the last.