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- ESPAÑOL: La mayor terremoto del mundo
Hi, my name is Dean and in this podcast, I want to discuss the world’s greatest earthquake. This one, of course, hasn’t happened yet.
It is one that the Apostle John saw occurring during the apocalyptic events leading up to Christ’s second coming recorded in the Book of Revelation. It is based on a vision that John had of the end times events while banished by the Romans to the Island of Patmos.
Now we have had some powerful earthquakes over the past few millennia, but the one that John saw will make these other ones pale in comparison.
We have only been measuring the intensity of earthquakes since 1935 when the Richter scale was developed and has since been transformed into the Moment Magnitude Scale.
The scale does not reflect a gradual increase in power. For example, according to one report an 8.7 magnitude earthquake is 794 times bigger than a 5.8 magnitude one. Essentially, larger earthquakes are catastrophically more destructive than smaller ones.
Since we started measuring earthquakes about 90 or so years ago, the largest recorded earthquake in human history is the one that took place in Chile on May 22, 1960.
It had a magnitude of 9.6.
Now there may have been larger ones in the ancient past and we have no real idea how powerful they were other than studying the kind of damage they caused, which can give a bit of a clue.
Considering how powerful the Chile earthquake was, the death toll was relatively small killing between 1,000 to 6,000 people.
This was due to a couple of things. First, it didn’t take place in a highly industrialized area.
Secondly, it took place in midday, so most people weren’t sleeping and there had been several tremors before the big one which caused people to leave their buildings and go out into the streets.
But its power was demonstrated by the resulting Tsunamis that produced waves so large they killed 61 people in Hawaii, which is 6,700 miles or 10,800 km away.
The waves traveled at an estimated 200 miles an hour, and the main wave was 35’ or 10.7 meters high when it hit the island paradise.
The waves also reached the Philippines killing 32 people, which is 10,600 miles from Chile.
This was one powerful earthquake and it even spawned an eruption at the Cordon Caulle volcano located near its Chilean epicentre.
But as we turn to the Book of Revelation, we see that earthquakes will play a major role in end times’ events. And make no mistake about it, John is very clear on one thing. God is the one initiating them.
It also reveals that there will be three distinct periods of judgment.
The first set involves the breaking of the seven seals which starts in Revelation 5, the second, the sounding of the seven trumpets begins in Revelation 8 and the third, the pouring out of the bowls of wrath starts in Revelation 16.
This vision cites five specific earthquakes. There will undoubtedly be many more earthquakes than five during this period, but John cited five as being significant.
Earthquakes will take place in each of the three judgment periods, but the last of these earthquakes which is part of the bowls of wrath recorded in Revelation 16, is going to be the mother of all earthquakes.
John leaves no doubt that it will be the most powerful earthquake ever seen in human history:
We read:
17 Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, “It is done.” 18 And there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder; and there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since mankind came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty. 19 The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. (Revelation 16:17-19)
Three times John refers to it as great or mighty emphasizing how powerful it was.
It will be so devastating that it will split what John calls the ‘great city’ into three parts.
Over the years, many have wondered what ‘great city’ was John referring to?
Now there have been three approaches to determining this.
First, some believe John was referring to a great or prominent city in his day. It was one that he was familiar with, but he was purposefully disguising its identity.
If this is the case, most basically agree that this ‘great city’ would be either Rome, which was the center of John’s known world at the time, or Jerusalem which was the spiritual center .
A second group doesn’t believe John is referring to an actual physical earthquake but rather looks upon it as a more symbolic description.
Some even suggest that it had already taken place and involved the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple by the Romans in 70 AD and noted that Jerusalem was at that point divided into three rebel Jewish factions.
One was led by Simon Bar Giora who had 15,000 men in his rebel faction, John of Gischaia who had 6,000 and a rebel leader Eleazar who had 2,500 rebels in his group.
In their mind, this is what John meant when he said the great city was split in three.
But the biggest problem with this theory is that the Apostle John had this vision of the end times around 90 AD, about 20 years after the fall of Jerusalem.
A third interpretation is that since John’s vision is referring to events that would be taking place at a future date, it would make sense that he would be referring to a great city that existed at the time it took place.
So if that Great earthquake took place today, what ‘great’ cities come to your mind?
When I look at this from my Western perspective, I immediately think of London, Paris, New York, LA, and perhaps even Rome. Jerusalem could even be thrown into the mix.
We all have different perspectives on what constitutes a great city in today’s world.
If we consider it from a more pragmatic perspective such as population size, then Tokyo, Japan, with a population of 37 million, is the largest city in the world and it would certainly top the list. It is followed by Delhi, India at 32 million and Shanghai, China at 29 million.
Perhaps just coincidentally a powerful 7.6 earthquake hit the western side of the island of Honshu Japan on Jan. 1, 2024, killing over 200 people and destroying nearly 90% of the buildings in the small city of Suzu. The same area was hit again by a 6.0 earthquake on Jan. 9, 2024.
Tokyo is located on this island and was just 180 miles away from the earthquake’s epicenter. So it’s a possibility.
But John added another clue about the identity of the city stating that the devastation will result in the falling of cities in other nations.
Now this may indicate that this earthquake will be so powerful that its reach will extend into other countries, suggesting it will occur in an area of the world where we have several smaller countries concentrated together.
But it’s also possible, that John was not referring to the physical destruction of other cities, but rather the economic impact its destruction would have on cities in other countries.
If we look at it from this perspective, we get a slightly different list of cities. According to a report published by the Martin Prosperity Institute in 2015, the five most economically powerful cities in the world are:
New York City with its financially powerful Wallstreet, sits at number one.
It is followed by London, and its huge financial sector, at number two. These two are followed by Tokyo, Hong Kong, and then Paris to round up the top five.
But in what was undoubtedly just a coincidence, as I was working on the script, a small 1.7 magnitude earthquake, actually hit New York City, the most powerful economic hub in the world, on Tuesday morning Jan 2, 2024, one day after the Japan earthquake.
Though buildings shook, there was no structural damage or injuries because of the quake. However, it is apparent, the city is vulnerable to earthquakes.
But maybe we should be considering cities with political clout. Certainly, capital cities such as Washington DC and Beijing, China may qualify, as would New York City which houses the UN, or Brussels which is the headquarters of the European Union.
But for whatever reason, John chose to keep the identity of this great city hidden.
As I mentioned earlier, this is not the only earthquake that the Apostle John saw in his vision of judgments that would strike the earth during the apocalypse.
Similar to the mother of all earthquakes mentioned in Revelation 16, we are not provided any clues as to where these four earthquakes will take place.
This shouldn’t really surprise us as Jesus specifically warned about massive earthquakes taking place in the lead-up to His second coming. Jesus referred to them as some of the birth pangs that would take place leading up to the main event.
We read:
11 and there will be massive earthquakes, and in various places plagues and famines; and there will be terrible sights and great signs from heaven. (Luke 21:11 NASV)
These earthquakes will be happening everywhere.
So for John’s four remaining earthquakes, the first is mentioned in Revelation 6:12-14, as one of the series of judgments associated with the opening of the seven seals.
The earthquake that takes place with the opening of the sixth seal will be combined with a series of other events that will probably happen in quick succession. This will include what appears to be a solar eclipse, a blood moon and the earth being bombarded with several destructive meteors or asteroids.
This rapid succession of destruction will have such an impact on people’s psyche that it will cause people to hide in caves or underground bunkers.
The three remaining earthquakes will take place in the second set of judgments, the sounding of the seven trumpets.
As part of this, an earthquake is mentioned in Revelation 8:5 at the announcement indicating the seven trumpet judgement is about to start.
The second earthquake in this set, Revelation 11:13, will coincide with other events including the deaths of the two end-time prophets.
John adds that the earthquake will strike ‘the city’ destroying a tenth of it and resulting in the deaths of 7,000 people.
Obviously, John has one particular city in mind but doesn’t reveal its name. It appears to be the same city where the two prophets died.
Though there have been earthquakes that have caused much more massive destruction than this one, its uniqueness is seen in the number of reported deaths. I do not believe that this is referring to exactly 7,000 deaths as similar to today, people back then rounded their numbers.
It seems that this earthquake also caused a bit of a revival among those who survived.
The third earthquake will take place at the sounding of the seventh Trumpet in Revelation 11:19. It will coincide with the opening of the Temple of God in Heaven.
Many believe we are entering the end times and it seems that earthquakes are starting to become a thing.
In February 2023 a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Turkey and Syria killing nearly 60,000 people.
It doesn’t seem to fit the description of any of the five earthquakes mentioned in the Book of Revelation, but it would certainly qualify as one of the birth pang earthquakes that Jesus warned about.
If so, this may even be more concerning because this is just the start, and it is only going to get worse. And with that final bit of good news, I would like to thank you for joining me on this podcast, and I will catch you again.
Sources: Sorry, London: New York Is the World’s Most Economically Powerful City | Japan is rocked by powerful new 6.0-magnitude earthquake – as death toll from New Year’s Day tremors and tsunami climbs past 200
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