Steve
I have a question it has to do with Rev 11:18. My question has to do with the last of the verse, and to destroy those destroying the earth. DO you have any ideas as to who this might be refering.
William Canant
MYREPLY
Dear William,
Although we know that God will intervene at the end of this age to save mankind from extinction (Matthew 24:22), we often forget that as the Creator, God loves every part of this creation. Jesus said that God knows it when even a sparrow dies (Matthew 10:29-31). God loves and wants to nurture everything he ever made. That includes mankind and all the other species he made in Genesis Week and the earth itself. God delighted in what he had made and called it all “very good” (Genesis 1:31). He then gave to Adam and Eve (who were made it the very image and likeness of the Creator) the responsibility to “dress and keep” all that had been created (Genesis 2:15). Mankind was to preserve and maintain the earth and all that was on it in the original “very good” state in which God made it.
However, sin entered Eden, the physical world, when Adam and Eve sinned, and a fallen mankind has despoiled this planet, damaged its beauty, allowed some of God’s original creatures to go extinct, etc. Acts 3:21 teaches that the “restitution (or “restoration”) of all things” will occur when Jesus Christ returns. Romans 8:19-22 adds that “the whole creation groans and travails in pain” as it awaits the “manifestation of the sons of God.” I think we fail to realize that when Adam and Eve sinned, the entire creation that had been placed in their dominion (Genesis 1:28) also fell with them from a state of perfection. Genesis 3:17 relates that even the very ground itself was “cursed” because of sin. When Jesus Christ returns and reigns for 1000 years (Revelation 20:1-4) with his resurrected saints, the original, blessed state of the earth will eventually be restored. God intends to re-build Eden on this earth. Only such a goal would constitute the “restoration of all things.”
I don’t think, after almost 6000 years of sinfulness on this earth, that we can even imagine what Eden was like. Try and visualize perfect fertility of soil, perfect beauty everywhere, perfect harmony among all creatures (Isaiah 11:1-9), and perfect peace among mankind (Micah 4:3-4). No one speaks the perfect, pre-Flood language any more, but Zephaniah 3:9 prophesies that God will return a “pure language” to all peoples. In other words, God will reverse what happened at Babel when he confused the languages of the nations to create the nations, and cut off mankind from the pre-Flood knowledge and technologies that were known via the pre-Flood language.
Revelation 11:18, I believe, refers to God’s anger at sin and at those who have destroyed the beautiful perfection which he originally made on this earth. Matthew 24:21-22 foretells that “all flesh” would die unless Divine intervention occurred at the end of this age. I believe that means not just mankind, but all animals, birds, fish, etc. (all “flesh” which is made out of the dust of the earth). God sees what is happening on the earth and he remembers the “Eden” he originally created. He intends to restore it when during the Millennium/Messianic Age.
I can hardly wait!
Steve
