Text: "But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap.” (Malachi 3:2)
Intro:
I. The city
The renaissance
Lorenzo the Magnificent
II. The preacher
Savonarola
Charles the 8th, king of France
"Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown." (Jonah 3:4)
“Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come.” (Revelation 18:10)
III. Lorenzo’s deathbed
IV. The vanities
Behold, the sword has come upon you. The prophecies are fulfilled, the scourge begun! Behold these hosts are led of the Lord! Oh Florence, the time of singing and dancing is at an end. Now is the time to shed floods of tears for thy sins.
V. The ordeal
Brother Domenico
Brother Rondinelli
VI. The end
…but they kept shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” (Luke 23:21)
“I separate you from the church militant and the church triumphant!”
Application 1: Savonarola speaks today
Application 2: Honest preaching
Secondly, what do you think of the ministers of Christ? Strange as that question may seem, I verily believe that the kind of answer a man would give to it, if he speaks honestly, is very often a fair test of the state of his heart. Observe, I am not asking what you think of an idle, worldly, inconsistent clergyman,—a sleeping watchman and faithless shepherd. No! I ask what you think of the faithful minister of Christ, who honestly exposes sin, and pricks your conscience? Mind how you answer that question. Too many, now-a-days, like only those ministers who prophesy smooth things and let their sins alone, who flatter their pride and amuse their intellectual taste, but who never sound an alarm, and never tell them of a wrath to come. Oh, believe me, he is the best friend who tells you the most truth! --J. C. Ryle
Application 3: Christ
But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:14)