Chapter Nineteen/Sealing the Israel of God -The Sealing of God's Slaves

 John goes on to describe how some will be marked for survival, saying: "And I saw another angel ascending from the sunrising, have a seal of the living God; and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea, saying: 'Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until after we have sealed the slaves of our God in their foreheads.' " - REVELATION 7:2, 3. 

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Chapter Nineteen/Sealing the Israel of God - The Four Winds -Conclusion

 Can we be sure that God's judgments will ravage the entire earth? Listen again to his prophet Jeremiah: "Look! A calamity is going forth from nation to nation, and a great tempest itself will be r0used up from the remotest parts of the earth. And those slain by Jehovah will come to be in that day from end to the earth clear to the other end of the earth. (Jeremiah 25:32, 33) It is during this tempestuous storm that darkness will engulf this world. Its ruling agencies will be shaken into oblivion. (Revelation 6:12-14) But the future will not be dark for everyone. For whose sake, then, are the four winds held back? 

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Chapter Nineteen/Sealing the Israel of God - The Four Winds

 Before Jehovah unleashes this fury, heavenly angels perform a a special service. John now beholds this in vision: "After this I saw four angels standing upon the four winds of the earth, holding tight the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow upon the earth or upon the sea or upon any tree." (Revelation 7:1) What does this mean for us today? These "four winds" are a vivid symbol of destructive judgment about to be let loose on a wicked earthly society, on the surging "sea" of lawless humanity, and on lofty treelike rulers that draw support and sustenance from the people of the earth. - ISAIAH 57:20; PSALM37:35. 36. 

No doubt these four angels represent four angelic groups, whom Jehovah uses to hold back the execution of judgment until the appointed time. When the angels release those winds of divine wrath to whirl at one time from north, south, east, and west, the devastation will be tremendous. It will resemble, but on a stupendous scale, Jehovah's use of the four winds to scatter the ancient Elamites, shattering and exterminating them. (Jeremiah 49:36-38) It will be a gigantic storm wind far more devastating than the "tempest" by which Jehovah annihilated the nation of Ammon. (Amos 1:13-15) No part of Satan's organization on earth will be able to stand in the day of Jehovah's fury, when he vindicates his sovereignty for all eternity to come. PSALM 83:15, 18; ISAIAH 29:5, 6.

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Chapter Nineteen/Sealing the Israel of God

 "Who is able to stand?" (Revelation 6:17) Yes, who indeed? When the great day of divine wrath devastates Satan's system, rulers and peoples of the world may well ask that question. To them it will appear that the impending cataclysm will snuff out all human life. But will it? Happily, God's prophet assures us: "Everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will get away safe." (Joel 2:32) The apostles Peter and Paul confirm that fact. (Acts 2:19-21; Romans 10:13) Yes, those who call on the name of Jehovah will be survivors. Who are these ones? As the next vision unfolds, we shall see.

It is remarkable that anyone should come through Jehovah's day of judgment alive, for another of God's prophets describes it in these words: "Look! a windstorm of Jehovah's rage itself has gone forth, an onward-sweeping tempest. Upon the head of the wicked ones it will whirl. The burning anger of Jehovah will not turn back until he will have executed and until he will have carried out the ideas of his heart." (Jeremiah 30:23, 24) It is urgent that we take steps to weather that storm! - PROVERBS 2:22; ISAIAH55:6,6; ZEPHANIAH2:2, 3.

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Chapter Eighteen/Earthquakes in the Lord's Day - "Fall Over Us and Hide Us" - Conclusion

 Those who have refused to recognize the authority of the victorious Rider of the white horse will be forced to admit their error. Humans who have willingly been part of the seed of the Serpent will be faced with destruction when Satan's world passes away. (Genesis 3:15; 1 John 2:17) The world situation at that time will be such that many will in effect, ask: "Who is able to stand? They will apparently assume that no one at all can stand approved before Jehovah in that day of his judgment. But they will be wrong, as the book of Revelation goes on to show.

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Chapter Eighteen/Earthquakes in the Lord's Day - "Fall Over Us and Hide Us" - Continue

 Now the opening of the sixth seal has shown that something similar will happen during the coming day of Jehovah' wrath. At the final shaking of this earthly system of things, those committed to supporting it will desperately seed for a hiding place, but they will not find one. False religion, Babylon the Great, has already failed them miserably. Neither caves in the literal mountains nor symbolic mountainlike political and commercial organizations will provide financial security or any other kind of help. Nothing will shelter them from Jehovah's wrath. Their terror is well described by Jesus: "Then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will beat themselves in lamentation, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." - MATTHEW 24:30. 

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Chapter Eighteen/Earthquakes in the Lord's Day - "Fall Over Us and Hide Us" - Continue

 Similarly, when Jesus was being led to his death by the Roman soldiers, he addressed the women of Jerusalem and said: "Days are coming in which people will say, 'Happy are the barren women, and the wombs that did not give birth and the breasts that did not nurse!'  Then they will start to say to the mountains, 'Fall over us!' and to the hills, 'Cover us over!' " (Luke 23:29, 30) The destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 C.E. is well documented, and it is evident that Jesus' words had an import similar to that of Hosea's. There was no hiding place then for the Jews, who remained in Judea. Wherever they tried to hide in Jerusalem, or even when they fled to the moutaintop citadel of Masada, they were unable to escape the violent expression of Jehovah's judgment.

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Chapter Eighteen/Earthquakes in the Lord's Day- "Fall Over Us and Hide Us - Continue

 When Hosea was pronouncing Jehovah's judgment on Samaria, the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel. he said: "The high places of Beth-aven, the sin of Israel, will actually be annihilated. Thorns and thistles themselves will come up upon their altars and people will in fact say to the mountains, 'Cover us!' and to the hills, 'Fall over us!" (Hosea 10:8) How were these words fulfilled? Well, when Samaria fell to the cruel Assyrians in 740 B.C.E., there was nowhere for the Israelites to run. The words of Hosea express the feeling of helplessness, abject terror, and abandonment that conquered people felt. Neither the literal hill nor the mountainlike institutions of Samaria could protect them, even though they had seemed so permanent in the past. 

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Chapter Eighteen/Earthquakes in the Lord's Day -"Fall Over and Hide Us"

 John's words continue: And the kings of the earth and the top-ranking ones and the military commanders and the rich and the strong ones and every slave and every free person hid themselves in the caves and in the rock-masses of the mountains. And they keep saying to the mountains and to rock-masses: 'Fall over us and hide us from the One seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, because the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able stand?' " - REVELATION   6:15-17.

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Chapter Eighteen/Earthquakes in the Lord's Day - "The Heaven" Departs" - Conclusion

     Therefore, "every mountain and every island" as referred  to at the opening of the sixth seal would logically be political governments and dependent organizations of this world that have seemed so stable to many of mankind. They will be rocked right out of place, to the consternation and horror of those who have previously trusted in them. As the prophecy goes on to relate, there will be no question that the great day of the wrath of Jehovah and his son-the final quaking that removes all of Satan's organization-has come with a vengeance! 

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