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

 John's vision continues: "And the heaven departed as a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and every island were removed from their places." (Revelation 6:14) Clearly, these are not the literal heavens or the literal mountains and islands. But what do they symbolize?

 Regarding "the heavens," we are helped in our understanding by similar prophecy that tells of Jehovah's rage against all the nations.  "And all of those of the army of the heavens must rot away.  And the heavens must be rolled up, like a book scroll." (Isaiah34:4) Edom in particular must suffer. How? She was overrun by the Babylonians soon after the destruction of Jerusalem in 607 B.C.E. At that time, there were no outstanding events recorded as happening in the literal heavens. But there were catastrophic events in Edom's "heavens." Her human governmental powers were abased from their elevated heavenlike position. (Isaiah 34:5) They were "rolled up" and put aside, as it were, like an old scroll that was no longer of any use to anyone.

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

 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, this 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 moonlike influence on earth's affairs will be exposed as bloodied, death-dealing. Their worldly superstars will be extinguished like plunging meterorites and scattered like unripe figs in a howling windstorm. Our entire globe will quake under a "great tribulation such as had not occurred since the world's beginning until now, no nor will occur again." (Matthew 24:21) What a fearful prospect! 

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

 Later, similar darkness in the heavens signified the 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. 

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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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