JUDE'S EXAMPLE

There has been much confusion as to WHAT the Lake of Fire is and HOW long it will last. Jude said that there was in his day an EXAMPLE of eternal fire [age-lasting]. It was ACTIVE in his day and presented a witness as to the future judgement of God. This example was Sodom and Gomorrah. Jude pointed out that the cities were totally destroyed while FIRE and SMOKE were still ascending from their location.

Jude 7: "Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh, are set forth [at Jude's time] for an EXAMPLE, suffering [at that time] the vengeance of age-lasting fire."

Jude said there were fires and smoke in this area in his day that showed us an EXAMPLE of eternal [age-lasting] fire.

A first century geographer, Strabo, called the region "a land of fires" (XVI, 764). Some of the fires received fuel to continue burning from the seepage of naphtha [old term for petroleum], bitumen, and other gaseous fumes.

Over a hundred years before Strabo, a Jewish author described the Dead Sea area.

"Wisdom saved a man [Lot] from a destruction of the godless, and he escaped the fire that came down on the Five Cities, cities whose wickedness is still attested by a SMOKING waste" (Wisdom of Solomon 10:7) History indicates that the Dead Sea region was still smoking from subterranean fires at that time.

Diodorus Siculus, a first century writer, in Book II, 48 said: "THE FIRE WHICH BURNS BENEATH THE GROUND and the stench render the inhabitants of the neighboring country sickly and very shortlived."

While Jesus Christ was still a child, the Jewish writer Philo wrote of the smoke and burnings: "The fire is most difficult to extinguish, and creeps on pervading everything and smoldering. And a most evident PROOF of this is to be found in what IS SEEN TO THIS DAY [of his writing]: for the smoke which is still emitted, and the BRIMSTONE [sulfur] that men dig up there" (On Abraham XXVII).

Fire and smoke was seen coming from the MIDDLE of the Dead Sea. Geographer Strabo and Jewish historian Josephus [War IV, 8, 4] both called the Dead Sea a lake, with the description of its fiery center.

From Strabo, Book XVI, 764, "IN THE MIDST OF THE LAKE is the source of the FIRE and also there are great quantities of ASPHALT in the middle. The eruption is uncertain, because the movements of fire have no order known to us, as it is of many other gases…Together with the asphalt there arises a great deal of soot, smoke, and invisible [gases] to the sight BY WHICH brass, silver, and everything shining, even gold is tarnished…[in the area were] drops of pitch distilling from the rocks [petroleum], and boiling streams.…The lake was formed by earthquakes and boiling outbursts OF FIRE, and hot water impregnated with bitumen and brimstone [sulfur]."

These various eruptions of fire, smoke, asphalt, and brimstone were not continuous, but at intervals. The intervals were close enough to be seen by eyewitnesses during the time of Christ and His apostles. It erupted enough that Jude called it a lake of fire and smoke.

Henry Maundrell, in his book Journey, P. 45, 4, Bohn Edition says that MOST map makers before the seventeenth century show "smoke ascending above the surface of the water." He toured Palestine in 1697 AD. Maundrell saw no smoke, but explorer Volney came to Palestine in 1787 AD and was told that smoke could be observed at regular intervals coming out of the Dead Sea. Volney wrote in Travels, Vol. 1, P. 281 and 282, "The south of Syria, that is, the hollow through which the Jordan flows, is a country of volcanoes [volcanic activity]: the bituminous and sulfurous sources of the Lake Asphaltis [the Dead Sea], the lava, the pumice stones thrown upon its banks, and the hot baths of Tiberius, demonstrate that this has been the seat of SUBTERRANEAN FIRE, which is not yet extinguished. CLOUDS OF SMOKE ARE OFTEN OBSERVED TO ISSUE FROM THE LAKE and new crevices to be formed upon its banks."

Volney always asked questions concerning the land characteristics. After major earthquakes, huge amounts of asphalt has broken up from the bottom of the lake and surfaced.

A scientific investigation was undertaken in 1848 AD by a man named Lynch. He reported how the Dead Sea had "a strong smell of sulfuretted hydrogen…fetid sulfurous odor in the night…the north wind was quite fresh and accompanied with the smell of sulfur" (Journal of Royal Society Vol. XVIII, P. 127). A reported strange occurrence happened that Lynch said was an illusion, smoke coming from the center of the Lake.

"At one time today the sea ASSUMED an aspect peculiarly sombre…The great evaporation enveloped it in a thin, transparent vapor, its purple tinge contrasting strangely with the extraordinary color of the sea beneath, and, where they blended in the distance giving it the APPEARANCE OF SMOKE FROM BURNING SULFUR. It seemed a vast cauldron of metal, fused but motionless. In the afternoon of the same day it looked like molten lead. At night it had the EXACT HUE OF ABSINTHE [wormwood]" (IBID, P. 276, 324).

In Revelation 8:11 absinthe is called "Wormwood" which caused the waters of the earth to become bitter. Over the last 200 years the Lake has been most inactive. But, prophecy says eruptions will once again take place. It will become a Lake of Fire as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ draws near. BUT HOW IT WILL HAPPEN SEEMS TO BE A MYSTERY! NOT ANY LONGER.

continued...