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In Luke 8: 22, 23 "the lake" is associated (1) with the storm that threatened the
lives of the disciples, and which the Saviour "rebuked", and the place where the swine,
possessed of demons, were choked. In every place a lake of water is intended, which
makes it strange that a "lake of standing water, a haven, and a harbour" should burn with
"fire and brimstone". There is only one other set of references that may have some
bearing, and these are found in the Apocrypha.
Difficult as it may be for us to understand, at the sounding of the sixth trumpet,
four angels are let loose, which had been bound in the great river Euphrates (Rev. 9: 14).
How could angels be held by a river? In the article entitled "The Bottomless Pit" we
show the connexion that exists in Scripture between "The Abyss", "The Sea" and
"The Deep" of Gen. 1: 2. That connexion must be kept in mind here. In the 2nd book
of the Maccabees, 12: 1-9 we have the following record:
"The men of Joppe also did such an ungodly deed: they prayed the Jews that dwelt
among them to go with their wives and children into the boats which they had prepared,
as though they meant them no hurt, who accepted of it according to the common decree
of the city as being desirous to live in peace, and suspecting nothing: but when they were
gone forth into the deep, they drowned no less than two hundred of them.
When Judas heard of this cruelty done unto his countrymen, he commanded those that
were with him to make them ready. And calling upon God the righteous Judge, he came
against those murderers of his brethren, and burnt the haven ("lake") by night, and set the
boats on fire, and those that fled thither (or from the fire) he slew . . . . . But when he
heard that the Jamnites were minded to do in like manner . . . . . he came . . . . . and set
fire on the haven and navy, so that the light of the fire was seen at Jerusalem two hundred
and forty furlongs off."
We Gentiles have never had impressed upon our hearts, minds and memory the
exploits of the Maccabees. Were we to have had a revelation written especially for
English speaking people, it might use a mixture of figures; it might speak of a fat boy
carved in stone, a monument built by Sir Christopher Wren, and refer to Pudding, Pie,
and the sin of gluttony; but it is very unlikely that a Chinese reader, or come to that,
some readers nearer home, would make sense of this oblique reference to the great fire of
London! So, the essentially Hebrew atmosphere of the book of the Revelation not only
draws freely upon O.T. imagery, but contains allusion to uncanonical or traditional
happenings that may never find a place in a respectable commentary written for English
readers. It may be that this "lake" of fire, before the judgment of that day, had been a
"haven" for those evil beings, the Beast and the False Prophet, and it had been "prepared
for the Devil and his angels" as the place of their final destruction. Nothing definite can
be adduced from what we have presented, but we have at least given the term employed
something more than a casual glance.
We have devoted some attention to the promise to the overcomer, that such would not
have their names blotted out of the book of life. We must now devote some attention to
the parallel promise given to the overcomer in the church of Smyrna "He that overcometh
shall not be hurt of the second death", and this second death, together with the book of
life and the lake of fire, figures prominently in the judgment of the Great White Throne