Chapter Eighteen/Earthquakes in the Lord's Day-A Time of Darkness - Continue

 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 shall I 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 cannot pass through." (Lamentations 3:43, 44) For Jerusalem, that celestial darkness meant death and destruction. 

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Chapter Eighteen/Earthquakes in the Lord's Day - 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, friendly comforting sunlight by day! No more silvery moonlight by night! and the myriad of stars would no longer twinkle against the velvety backdrop of the sky. Instead, there would be cold, relentless blackness.  

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Chapter Eighteen/Earthquakes in the Lord's Day - The Great Earthquake - Conclusion

 Some 200 years after Joel, the prophet Habakkuk said in a prayer to his God: "O Jehovah, I have heard the report about you. I have become afraid, O Jehovah, of your activity. In O bring it to life! In the midst of the years may you make it know. During the agitation, to show mercy may you remember." What would that agitation be?  Habakuk goes on to give a graphic description of the great tribulation, saying of Jehovah: "He stood still, that he might shake up the earth. He saw, and then, caused nations to leap. . . . With denunciation you went marching through the earth. In anger you went thrashing the nations. Yet, as for me, I will exult in Jehovah himself; I will be joyful in the God of my salvation." (Habakkuk 3:1, 2, 6, 12, 18) What a mighty shaking Jehovah will cause in all the earth when he threshes the nations!

Ezekiel too foretold that when Gog of Magog (the debased Satan) makes his final attack upon God's people, Jehovah will cause "a great quaking" to occur "in the soil of Israel." (Ezekiel 38:18, 19) Though literal earthquakes may be involved, we should remember that Revelation is presented in signs. This prophecy and the other prophecies cited are highly symbolic. Hence, the opening of the sixth seal appears to disclose the culmination of all shakings of this earthly system of things-the great earthquake in which all humans opposed to God's sovereignty are destroyed.

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Chapter Eighteen/Earthquakes in the Lord's Day - The Great Earthquake! - Continue

 Others of Jehovah's prophets foretold such an earthquake and it catastrophic consequences. For example, about820 B.C.E., Joel spoke of "the coming of the great and fear-inspiring day of Jehovah," stating that then "the sun itself will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood." Later, he adds these words: "Crowds, crowds are in the low plain of the decision, for the day of Jehovah is near in the low plain of the decision. Sun and moon themselves will certainly become dark, and the very stars will actually withdraw their brightness.  And out of Zion Jehovah himself will roar, and out of Jerusalem he will give forth his voice. And heaven and earth certainly will rock; but Jehovah will be a refuge for his people, and a fortress for the sons of Israel." (Joel 2:31; 3:14-16) This rocking could apply only to Jehovah's execution of judgment during the great tribulation. (Matthew 24:21) So the parallel account at Revelation 6:12, 13 would logically have the same application- See also JEREMIAH 10:10; ZEPHANIAH 1:114, 15. 

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Chapter Eighteen/Earthquakes in the Lord's Day - The Great Earthquake!

 Yes, these critical last days have been a time of earthquakes-literal and figurative. (2 Timothy 3:1) But not one of these quakings is the final great shaking that John sees at the opening of the sixth seal. The time for advance tremors is ended. There now comes a great earthquake that is totally new2 to human experience. It is so great an earthquake that the upheavals and convulsions it causes cannot be measured by the Richter scale or by any other human gauge. This is no mere local shock but a cataclysmic shaking that devastates the entire "earth," that is, all depraved human society. 

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Chapter Eighteen/Earthquakes in the Lord's Day - Jehovah Does Some Shaking - Conclusion

 Are you one who has started to respond to that preaching? Are you perhaps among the eight million and more who in recent years attended the Memorial celebration of Jesus' death? If so, keep on progressing in your study of Bible truth. (2 Timothy 2:15; 3:16, 17) Abandon completely the corrupt life-style of Satan's doomed earthly society! Come right on into the Christian new world society and share fully in its activity before the final catastrophic "earthquake" smashes all of Satan's world to pieces. But what is this earthquake? Let us now see.

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Chapter Eighteen/Earthquakes In the Lord's Day - Jehovah Does Some Shaking - Continue

 At Haggai 2:6,7 we read: "For this is what Jehovah of armies has said, 'Yet once-it is a little while- and I am rocking the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry ground. And I will rock all the nations, and the desirable things of all nations, must come in, and I will fill this house with glory,' Jehovah of armies has said." Since the year 1919 in particular, Jehovah has caused his witnesses to proclaim the judgements among all elements of human society on earth. Satan's world system has been rocked and shaken by this global warming as the warning intensifies, God-fearing humans, "the desirable things," have been stirred to separate themselves from the nations. It is not that they are shaken out by the quaking in Satan's organization. But as they discern the situation, they make their own decision to share with the anointed John class in filling Jehovah's house of worship with glory. How is this accomplished? By the zealous work of preaching the good of God's Kingdom. (Matthew 24:14) This Kingdom, made up of Jesus and his anointed followers, ever keep standing to Jehovah's glory as 'a kingdom that cannot be shaken. - HEBREWS 12:26-29. 

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Chapter Eighteen/Earthquakes in the Lord's Day - Jehovah Does Some Shaking

  Such tremors in human affairs are the result of man's inability to direct his own step. (Jeremiah 10:23) Moreover, that old Serpent, Satan, "who is misleading the entire inhabited earth," is inflicting woes in last-ditch effort to turn all mankind away from the worship of Jehovah. Modern technology has caused the earth to shrink into single neighborhood, where nationalistic and racial hatreds are shaking human society to its foundations, and the Unted Nations, so-called, can find not effective cure. As never before, man is dominating man to his injury. (Revelation 12:9, 12; Ecclesiastes 8:9) Nevertheless, the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, Maker of heaven and earth, has been doing his own kind of shaking over the past 70 years, in preparation for solving earth's problems once and for all. How so?

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Chapter Eighteen/Earthquakes in the Lord's Day - Tremors in Human Society - Conclusion

 Earlier, economic troubles has opened the way for Mussolini and Hitler to seize power. Babylon the Great lost no time in courting their favors, and the Vatican entered into concordats with Italy in 1929 and Germany in 1933. (Revelation 17:5) The dark days that followed were surely a part of the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy that the sign of his presence would include "anguish of nations, not knowing the way out . . . while men become faint out of fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited earth." (Luke 21:7-9, 25-31) Yes, the quakes that began to shake human society in 1914 have continued, with powerful aftershocks.

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Chapter Seventeen/Earthquakes in the Lord's Day -Tremors in Human Society - Continue

World War II brought another wave of upheavals. And smaller wars continue to shake the earth as we approach the end of this century. But will the present system make it that far? The fearful threat of a nuclear holocaust has many people wondering. Happily, the answer rests not with man but with his Creator. - JEREMIAH 17:5. 

Other things besides wars, though, have shaken human society to its foundations since 1914. One of the most traumatic upheavals was triggered by the U.S. stockmarket crash of October 29, 1929. This brought on the Great Depression, which affected all capitalist countries. That depression bottomed out between 1932 and 1934, but we are still feeling its effects. Since 1929 an economically sick world has been patched up by makeshift schemes. Governments indulge in deficit financing. The oil crisis of 1973 and the stock market plunge of 1987 and added to the shakings of the financial empire. Meantime, millions of people buy largely on credit. Countless numbers are victimized by financial gimmicks, pyramid schemes, and lotteries and other gambling subterfuges, many of which are sponsored by governments that should be protecting the people. Even Christendom's television evangelists stretch out their hands for their multimillion-dollar share! - Compare Jeremiah 5:26-31. 

 

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Note: Look around! people have you seen any improvements in what man has done. No! you have not and neither have I, nor will we, because man -imperfect sinful man are not capable or intelligent enough to make anything better. Because man is not running the world without help from Satan and his demons. Jesus Christ threw him and his demon angels out of heaven because he was challenging God's Sovereignty and right to rule this world. He thought he could do better. Well, you see what happened don't you. This world is unfit for any human to live here. It is nothing but misery, violence, sickness, diseases, wars, and death and not to burst your bubble some of you are living in, but it not going to get any better.  Read the Bible if you truly want the truth. Or go to jw.org  website and read the Bible on there.  And may God help you if don't listen to his words in the Bible. AMEN! 

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