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Prophets and Kings
thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.
For, behold, the Lord cometh out of His place to punish the inhabitants
of the earth for their iniquity.”
Isaiah 26:20, 21
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In visions of the great judgment day the inspired messengers of
Jehovah were given glimpses of the consternation of those unprepared
to meet their Lord in peace.
“Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and
turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof;
... 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.... The mirth of
tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the
harp ceaseth.”
Isaiah 24:1-8
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“Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a
destruction from the Almighty shall it come.... The seed is rotten
under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken
down; for the corn is withered. How do the beasts groan! the herds
of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks
of sheep are made desolate.” “The vine is dried up, and the fig tree
languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple
tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered
away from the sons of men.”
Joel 1:15-18, 12
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“I am pained at my very heart,” Jeremiah exclaims as he beholds
the desolations wrought during the closing scenes of earth’s history. “I
cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound
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of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Destruction upon destruction is cried;
for the whole land is spoiled.”
Jeremiah 4:19, 20
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“The loftiness of man shall be bowed down,” declares Isaiah of the
day of God’s vengeance, “and the haughtiness of men shall be made
low: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. And the idols
He shall utterly abolish.... In that day a man shall cast his idols of
silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to
worship, to the moles and to the bats; to go into the clefts of the rocks,
and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for
the glory of His majesty, when He ariseth to shake terribly the earth.”
Isaiah 2:17-21
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Of those times of transition, when the pride of man shall be laid
low, Jeremiah testifies: “I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without