"And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth." (Isaiah 2:19)

Ever since the convulsions of the Flood, the earth's crust has been in a state of instability, causing earthquakes from time to time all around the world.

But there are earthquakes yet to come which will exceed anything ever yet experienced. The earthquake prophesied in our text was also predicted in Revelation. "And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; . . . and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And . . . |they| hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from . . . the wrath of the Lamb" (Revelation 6:12-16). But when these judgments of God are in the earth, those who have rejected the love of the sin-bearing Lamb of God still will remain unrepentant and will merely seek to flee His anger.

God is long-suffering, but "the great day of his wrath" will surely come (Revelation 6:17). "For thus saith the LORD of hosts; . . . I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; And I will shake all nations" (Haggai 2:6-7). "The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly" (Isaiah 24:19). Finally will come "a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. . . . And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found" (Revelation 16:18, 20).

Those who belong to Christ, however, will be delivered from the wrath to come: "This word . . . signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, . . . that those things which cannot be shaken may remain" (Hebrews 12:27). HMM