Desolation of the Earth
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old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come
not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at My sanctuary.”
Says the prophet: “They began at the ancient men which were before
the house.”
Ezekiel 9:1-6
. The work of destruction begins among those
who have professed to be the spiritual guardians of the people. The
false watchmen are the first to fall. There are none to pity or to spare.
Men, women, maidens, and little children perish together.
“The Lord cometh out of His place to punish the inhabitants of
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the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and
shall no more cover her slain.”
Isaiah 26:21
. “And this shall be the
plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people that have fought
against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand
upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and
their tongue shall consume away in their mouth. And it shall come to
pass in that day, that a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them;
and they shall lay hold everyone on the hand of his neighbor, and his
hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbor.”
Zechariah 14:12,
13
. In the mad strife of their own fierce passions, and by the awful
outpouring of God’s unmingled wrath, fall the wicked inhabitants of
the earth—priests, rulers, and people, rich and poor, high and low.
“And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the
earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented,
neither gathered, nor buried.”
Jeremiah 25:33
.
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