DESTRUCTION OF THE WICKED

When the Lord shall appear the second time, sinners then living will be destroyed by fire, and the earth will be desolated. “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; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in that day.” 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10. “And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.” Chap. 2:8. SEADV 5.2

The man of sin, the papacy, is to be destroyed with the brightness of Christ’s coming. And, at the same time, those that know not God, the heathen, and those that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, will perish under the vengeance of flaming fire that attends the revelation of the Son of God from heaven. When the heathen, the papists, and all others who do not obey the gospel of Christ, shall be destroyed, there cannot be one wicked person living. SEADV 5.3

Christ’s explanation of the parable of the tares of the field proves the destruction of all wicked men who shall be living at the time of his second coming. “The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of the world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire.” Matthew 13:38-42. That will be a clean work. When all things that offend, and they which do iniquity, shall be gathered out of the earth, there cannot be one sinner left in it. SEADV 6.1

The prophet describes the day of the destruction of the wicked, and the desolation of the earth, in those fearful words” “Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.” Isaiah 13:9. “Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.” Chap. 24:1. “The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled; for the Lord hath spoken this word.” Verse 3. SEADV 6.2

The voice of the Lord proclaimed to the prophet the blindness and deafness of apostate Israel, which led him, in anxiety and anguish of spirit, to cry, “Lord, how long?” And the Lord answered, “Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate.” Isaiah 6:11. SEADV 6.3

God speaks by the weeping prophet. The terrors of the day of the coming of the Son of man are portrayed in most fearful words. In the general slaughter there will be no escape for wicked men, though their profession be as high as Heaven. “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground. Howl, ye shepherds, and cry; and wallow yourselves in the ashes, ye principal of the flock; for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are accomplished: and ye shall fall like a pleasant vessel. And the shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor the principal of the flock to escape.” Jeremiah 25:32-35. SEADV 6.4

Isaiah is carried forward in prophetic vision to the point of time just prior to the general desolation, and describes the state of things when false professors shall be aroused to their lost condition. “Now will I rise, saith the Lord; now will I be exalted; now will I lift up myself. Ye shall conceive chaff, ye shall bring forth stubble: your breath, as fire, shall devour you. And the people shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up shall they be burned in fire. Hear, ye that are far off, what I have done; and, ye that are near, acknowledge my might. The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? Isaiah 33:10-14. SEADV 7.1

Again the Lord hath spoken by another prophet: “I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the Lord. I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked: and I will cut off man from off the land saith the Lord.” Zephaniah 1:2, 3. “The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord. The mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.” Verses 14-18. “Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.” Chap. 3:8. SEADV 7.2