Earthquakes have swallowed up not hundreds merely, but many
thousands, in many countries, and at many times.
Fire has come forth, and still comes forth from the ground, from the
clouds, from the consequences of man's own carelessness, and
destroys beast and man, and the works of man's hands. Then men ask
in terror and doubt, 'Who sends the earthquake and the fire? Do
they come from the devil--the destroyer? Do they come by chance,
from some brute and blind powers of nature?'
This chapter answers, 'No. They come from the Lord, from whom all
good things do come; from the Lord who delivered the Israelites out
of Egypt; who so loved the world that he spared not his only
begotten Son, but freely gave him for us.'
Now I say that is a gospel, and good news, which we want now as much
as ever men did; which the children of Israel wanted then, though
not one whit more than we.
Many hundreds of years had these Israelites been in Egypt. Storm,
lightning, earthquake, the fires of the burning mountains, were
things unknown to them. They were going into Canaan--a good land
and fruitful, but a land of storms and thunders; a land, too, of
earthquakes and subterranean fires.
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