Page 320 - Maranatha (1976)

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The Earth Depopulated, October 25
I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the
heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they
trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was
no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.
Jeremiah 4:23-25
.
At the coming of Christ the wicked are blotted from the face of the
whole earth—consumed with the spirit of His mouth and destroyed by
the brightness of His glory. Christ takes His people to the City of God,
and the earth is emptied of its inhabitants. “Behold, the Lord maketh
the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and
scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.” “The land shall be utterly emptied,
and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word.” “Because they
have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting
covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell
therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned.”
Isaiah 24:1, 3, 5, 6
.
The whole earth appears like a desolate wilderness. The ruins of cities
and villages destroyed by the earthquake, uprooted trees, ragged rocks
thrown out by the sea or torn out of the earth itself, are scattered over its
surface, while vast caverns mark the spot where the mountains have been
rent from their foundations.
Now the event takes place foreshadowed in the last solemn service of
the Day of Atonement. When the ministration in the holy of holies had
been completed, and the sins of Israel had been removed from the sanctuary
by virtue of the blood of the sin offering, then the scapegoat was presented
alive before the Lord; and in the presence of the congregation the high
priest confessed over him “all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and
all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the
goat.”
Leviticus 16:21
. In like manner when the work of atonement in the
heavenly sanctuary has been completed then in the presence of God and
heavenly angels and the host of the redeemed the sins of God’s people will
be placed upon Satan; he will be declared guilty of all the evil which he has
caused them to commit.
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