A Time Of Darkness

As John goes on to show, the great earthquake is accompanied by terrifying events that involve even the heavens. He says:" And the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the entire moon became as blood, and the stars of the heaven fell to the earth, as when a fig tree shaken by a high wind casts its unripe figs." (Revelation 6:12b, 13) What a striking phenomenon! It represents the culmination of the catastrophic situation that Jesus had earlier prophesied about at Matthew 24:29. Can you imagine the frightening darkness that would result if the prophecy were fulfilled literally? No more warm, comforting sunlight by day! No more friendly silvery moonlight by night! And the myriad stars would no longer twinkly against the velvety backdrop of the sky. Instead, there would be cold, relentless darkness.

In a spiritual sense, such a darkness was prophesied for ancient Israel. Jeremiah warned: "A desolate waste is what the whole land will become, and I shall not carry out a sheer extermination? On this account the land will mourn, and the heavens above will certainly become dark." (Jeremiah 4:27, 28) In 607 B.C.E. when that prophecy was fulfilled, things were dark indeed for Jehovah's people. Their capital city, Jerusalem, fell to the Babylonians. Their temple was destroyed, and their land was abandoned. For them, there was no comforting light from heaven. Rather, it was as Jeremiah mournfully said to Jehovah: " You have killed, you have shown no compassion, you have blocked approach to yourself with a cloud mass, that prayer may not pass through." (Lamentations 3:43, 44) For Jerusalem, that celestial darkness meant death and destruction.

Later, a similar darkness in the heavens signified disaster for ancient Babylon. Of this, God's prophet was inspired to write: "Look! The day of Jehovah itself is coming, cruel both with fury and with burning anger, in order to make the land an object of astonishment, and that it may annihilate the land's sinners out of it. For the very stars of the heavens and their constellations of Kesil will not flash forth their light; the sun will actually grow dark at its going forth, and the moon itself will not cause its light to shine. And I shall certainly bring home its own badness upon the productive land, and their own error upon the wicked themselves." (Isaiah 13:9-11) This prophecy was fulfilled in 539 B.C.E. when Babylon fell to the Medes and the Persians. It well describes the blackness, the hopelessness, the lack of any comforting light for Babylon as she fell forever from her position as premier world power.

In a similar way, when the great earthquake strikes, this entire world system will be engulfed in the despair of total darkness. The bright, shining luminaries of Satan's earthly system will send forth no ray of hope. Already today, earth's political leaders, especially in Christendom, are notorious for their corruption, lying and immoral lifestyle. (Isaiah 28:14-19) No longer can they be trusted. Their flickering light will go into total eclipse when Jehovah executes judgment. Their moon like influence on earth's affairs will be exposed as bloodied, death dealing. their worldly superstars will be extinguished like plunging meteorites and scattered like unripe figs in a howling windstorm. Our entire globe will quake under a "great tribulation such as not occurred since the world's beginning until now, no, nor will occur again." (Matthew 24:21) What a fearful prospect!

Next time: "The Heaven" Departs