The Sabbath-School by Ellet Joseph Waggoner

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Aug 3, 1882

The Sabbath-School.

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

Question.

"WHAT is meant by the expression in Matt. 24:29, 'The powers of the heavens shall be shaken'?"

By comparing other passages with this, we learn that it means a literal shaking of the heavens by the voice of God. This is mentioned in prophecy, as quoted by Paul, in Heb. 12:25, 26: "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from Heaven; whose voice then shook the earth; but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven." That is, at Mt. Sinai the earth trembled at the voice of God, Ex. 19:18, but at the last day both heaven and earth shall shake. The same thing is brought to view in Rev. 6:14: "And the heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places." In 2 Pet. 3:10 it is expressed thus: "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also," etc. Finally, as positive proof of this, and that the voice of the Lord is the agent by which the shaking is done, see Joel 3:16, where, after speaking of the darkening of the sun and moon, he says, "The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake; but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel."

For extended comments on this passage see the pamphlet, "Refutation of the Age to Come," for sale at this Office. E. J. W.