Earthquakes in the Lord's Day - 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 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!  Can you imagine the frigthening 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 of stars would no longer twinkle against the velvety backdrop of the sky.  Instead, there would be cold. relentless blackness. - Compare MATTHEW  24:29. 

In a spiritual sense, such 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 may not pass through." ( Lamentations 3:43:44) For Jerusalem, the 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 constelletions 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 comforing 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 be trusted,  Their flickering light will go into total eclipse when Jehovah executes judgment .  Their moonlight influence on earth's affairs  will be exposed as bloodied, death dealing.  Their worldly supestars 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 has not occurred since the world's beginning until, no, nor will occr again." (Matthew 24:21)  What a fearful prospect!  

Next time: Earthquakes in the Lord's Day - "The Heaven" Departs 

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