July-August, 1934
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rupted his way upon the earth” ; and God was compelled to say unto N oah : “ The end o f all flesh is come before me” (Gen. 6 :12, 13). Therefore, “ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains o f the great deep broken up, and the windows o f heaven were opened” (Gen. 7 :11 ). What mean those words, save that a mighty seismic upheaval lifted the bottoms of the seas so that the waters were hurled in mighty tidal waves out over all the land, an inundation which, together with a torrential downpour for forty days and forty nights, swept man from the earth! But when all was over, behold, God had pre served a seed! Man was still on the earth, and Man had dominion (Gen. 9:1, 2 ). O ther J udgments A ccompanied by E arthquake As the years passed by, Satan, by continuing his de vices for the overthrow o f Man’s dominion o f the earth, brought forth a time when the highest glory of man’s civili zation, even Sodom and Gomorrah, fell under the wrath of the Holy God, who determined their removal. Once again the earth shook, and mighty convulsions in nature took place. That great and godly
E arthquakes W ill A ccompany F uture J udgments As in the past, so the revelation o f God declares it will be in the future: Divine judgments are to be preceded or accompanied by convulsions in. nature, especially earth quakes. When God’s two last messengers to men in this age are slain and their dead bodies defiled, judgment will fall, and there will be a great earthquake in Jerusalem. Men will be “ affrighted” and seven thousand will be slain. Thereupon, “ the seventh angel” shall sound, and all heaven shall proclaim that now “ the kingdoms o f this world are become the kingdoms o f our Lord, and o f his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 11 :3-15). When, with the breaking o f the sixth seal, the seer o f Patmos, looking ahead, beheld man’s day pass and “ the great day o f his wrath . . . come” (Rev. 6 :1 7 ), the seer cried : “ I beheld . . . and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth o f hair, and the moon became as b lood ; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth . . . And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled to gether ; and every mountain and island were moved out o f their places.” And the mighty men o f earth cried “ to the
the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide u s!” (Rev. 6:12 -17 ). The scene closes with Omnipotence convulsing the earth by the arm o f His might, for a new day has come! Like wise, as he beheld the sev enth seal break, the seer of Patmos saw the seven an gels which had the seven trumpets, prepare them selves to sound, and warn ing came to man through “ voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake” (Rev. 8 :1 -6 ). When, in the course of the stupendous events he was witnessing, the seer saw “ the temple o f God . . . opened in heaven,” in that
archaeologist, the late Mel vin Grove Kyle, says in his book, The Deciding Voice o f the Monuments, p. 67: The geological theory of the destruction o f the cities of the Plain has also been very exactly con firmed by the examination of the strata. Professor Emerson, one o f our most eminent geologists, de scribes the region about the Dead Sea as one “ where sulphur, deposited by many hot springs, is abundant in the clay, and where bituman oozes from every crevice o f the rock, and every earthquake dis lodges great sheets of it from the bottom o f the lake.” A bituminous re
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gion, a great stratum of rock salt capped by sulphur-bear ing marls and conglomerates cemented by bitumen, an ex plosion of pent-up gases, which collect in such geological formations, blowing the burning sulphur high into the air, and the waters o f the Jordan coming down and dissolving the ruptured rock-salt stratum—all this provides for exact ly what the Bible describes and for the conditions found there today; the pillar o f smoke rising up to heaven, the rain o f fire and brimstone falling back from the blowing- off crater, and the catching o f Lot’s wife in the cataclysm and her incrustation with salt. Professor Emerson says it was a “ sinking of the ground, at the time when geology and history join, which, with its earthquakes, overthrew the cities of the Plain and caused the outpour o f petroleum from the many fault-fissures and the escape of great vol umes o f sulphurous and gaseous emanation, which, ignited either spontaneously, by lightning, or by chance, furnished the brimstone and fire from heaven, and the smoke o f the land going up as the smoke o f a furnace which Abraham saw from the plains of Judea.” And once again, there came a day when “ the dayspring from on high . . . visited us” (Lk. 1 :78 ), only to find that man had fallen so low in his iniquities that he deliberately spit into the face o f Omnipotence incarnate! With that insult, God ordered the curtain to fall on the age. Then “ the earth did quake, and the rocks rent” (Matt. 27:51) until the graves o f men were torn open (v. 52), and seismic terrors caused even the unregenerate Roman crucifier to cry out in terror: " Truly this was the Son o f God” (v. 54).
temple was seen “ the ark o f his covenant” (R . V .)— the ark that ever was seen and only seen when God walked with Israel. The bringing forth o f this ark now can only mean that the sun o f the Gentiles has set, and that God will again show forth His mighty wonders and salva tion through Israel. The setting o f the one sun and the rising o f the other was accompanied by “ lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail” (Rev. 11:19). And when, in the vision, the utter end o f the age came, and the moment arrived for the heavens to open and for the Conqueror on His great white horse to ride forth with His armies to Armageddon (Rev. 19:11-21)— in that moment “ there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great . . . . and the cities o f the nations fe ll: . . . . And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found” (Rev. 1 6 :17-20). The utter removal o f man’s mis erable cosmos is to be brought about by earthquake. Isaiah, eight and a half centuries before the seer o f Patmos wrote, gave a vivid description o f these same stupendous events: “ Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear o f the Lord, and for the glory o f his majesty . . . . the loftiness o f man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness o f men shall be made low ; and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day . . . . And they shall go into the holes
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