On the morning of November 11, just before 9:30 UT, a mysterious rumble rolled around the world.
The seismic waves began roughly 15 miles off the shores of Mayotte, a French island sandwiched between Africa and the northern tip of Madagascar. The waves buzzed across Africa, ringing sensors in Zambia, Kenya, and Ethiopia. They traversed vast oceans, humming across Chile, New Zealand, Canada, and even Hawaii nearly 11,000 miles away.
People mock Christians who take the judgments in the Book of Revelation in a literal fashion, claiming it is all “symbolic” and out of the realm of possibility and will not correspond to a future, historical reality.
And yet just recently we received a foretaste of what will become a devastating global earthquake. There was a global earthquake on a small scale that happened on Nov 11, where it even slightly “moved” some islands. The notion of global earthquakes, islands moving, and other global catastrophes can no longer be denied as out of the realm of possibility (especially since God promised this).
This is all foreboding of the divine-human collision that will happen at the day of the Lord’s wrath—when God says, “no more.” Make no bones about it, this is not about whether the world can “figure out” that the events depicted in the book of Revelation are not out of the realm of possibility—they are not, as the recent global earthquake and moving of islands demonstrates.
Rather, it is about the refusal to repent and make Jesus Lord. For if anyone refuses to repent and be saved, they will certainly experience God’s judgments in his wrath.
Repent and be saved, for the day of the Lord is coming.
“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves [σάλος]. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” (Luke 21:25–26)
“When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and there came a great earthquake; the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood. . . The sky vanished like a scroll rolling itself up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.” (Rev 6:12, 14)
“Then there were flashes of lightning, roaring, and crashes of thunder, and there was a tremendous earthquake—an earthquake unequaled since humanity has been on the earth, so tremendous was that earthquake.” (Rev 16:18)
