The Lord says, “In a little while I will shake the heavens and the earth once more. I will also shake the ocean and the dry land. I will shake all the nations. Then what is desired by all nations will come to my temple. And I will fill the temple with glory,” says the Lord who rules over all. (Haggai 2:6-7 NIRV)
Days of turmoil, uncertainty and pressure are upon us. Some are buckling under the strain and doubting God, but almost everyone is aware of the changing nature of the life we are now experiencing.
Some seem to believe that Christians should never be shaken or tested, nor suffer the ill effects of this world’s evil, but that is contrary to scripture.
1 Peter 4:12-19 ESV
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.
Acts 14:22 ESV
Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.
James 1:3 ESV
For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
- Verses about being tested: https://www.openbible.info/topics/being_tested
What is Shaking?
Shaking is what farmers do to separate the wheat from the chaff. It is what they do to collect the ripe fruit from the tree.
Shaking is a form of “sifting” or “winnowing” and the bible mentions it as a process that God uses: “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire”. [Matthew 3:12]
Sifting the wheat from the chaff is a metaphor that tells us how God will separate those who are worthy and those who are unworthy.
In literal terms, chaff is the husk around a seed, which is not fit for eating. It has to be discarded. Shaking, sifting, winnowing – this is what MUST take place before the grain can be of any use.
Sifting
Jesus used the illustration of sifting the grain also to refer to satan’s work: And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers,” Luke 22:31-32.
Notice here that Jesus, although the Son of God, did not forbid Satan his sifting process of Peter, but instead permitted it with the prayer that Peter would survive and even be strengthened by it. That is an important point for us to see.
God does not necessarily shield us from shaking and testing, but uses the process to strengthen us.
Sifting is a form of SHAKING.
Those who separate the good grain from the chaff have to violently shake the sieve. We have to be shaken! Only the good grain is to be collected.
Those who shake the trees at the time of harvest collect the good, ripe fruit, but the unripe and rotten fruit is discarded and cast away. There needs to be a shaking. The good fruit is collected into baskets and carried away.
How would you feel if you were a fruit on one of these trees? Upset? Disturbed? Fallen? Fearful? But it HAS to happen, the Lord explains. However, if you are not defective, worm-eaten and rotten at the core, you have nothing to worry about.
When will this all take place?
- See website: http://peoplegetready.org/prophecy/day-lord-great-shaking/
- When sifting comes: https://chosenandcalled.com/2016/05/23/when-sifting-comes/
In one sense the shaking has already begun as the things we all rely on are being slowly removed. But there is going to be another greater shaking. Compare this OT passage with the one in Revelation, at the opening of the Sixth Seal. (Rev 6:12-17)
People will flee to caves in the rocks
and to holes in the ground
from the fearful presence of the Lord
and the splendor of his majesty,
when he rises to shake the earth.
In that day people will throw away
to the moles and bats
their idols of silver and idols of gold,
which they made to worship.
They will flee to caverns in the rocks
and to the overhanging crags
from the fearful presence of the Lord
and the splendor of his majesty,
when he rises to shake the earth. (Isaiah 2:19-21)
“I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”
We are Spared the Great Day of Wrath
Why do I believe that true Christians will be taken out at, or just before, that time? Because although we may suffer sifting and shaking, and troubles (“tribulation”) we are NOT destined for wrath!
For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, [1 Thess 5:9] —Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. [1 Thess 1:10]
Because you have kept my command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown. [Rev 3: 10-11]
And also because Jesus told his disciples the same thing!
He likened the opening of the first five seals to the troubles we will all have to face in the shaking of this world’s system, but at the crucial changeover to Seal Six when the cosmic disturbances begin that will ultimately result (during the seven trumpets sequence that follows) in something resembling a great mountain being cast into the seas, and the heavens themselves are shaken (denoting the downfall of satan and his fallen angels) Jesus says to his disciples, at THAT time LOOK UP — why look UP? — to see the Coming of the Lord in the air.
Luke 21:28 “Now when these things begin to happen, LOOK UP and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.”
The Wrath to Come
This event, that begins at Seal Six of Revelation, ultimately leads to the greatest shaking of the earth in modern history, with the object “like a mountain” (asteroid??) slamming into the earth, causing great distress, fear, darkness and disruption, and kicking off the reign of the Beast.
Presumably, at that time the fallen and deluded people of earth call upon their “god” satan to help them, and he promises to do so, promising to come down and use his powers as the “god of this earth” to rectify what has happened.
Thereupon the whole world worships him – but not for long!
THIS is the period of time – the time that the fallen inhabitants of earth value so much as their rescue from disaster – this same period of time that the bible calls the “wrath of God” – THIS is the time period from which genuine believers are rescued.
It is the “Day of God’s Wrath”.
Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger. (Isaiah 13:13)
Even the unbelievers know this, because they say “the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” – this is not just a generalised anger of God, but the GREAT DAY of WRATH, further described in Revelation as covering the entire three and a half years of the devil’s regime after he is thrown out of the heavens to earth “knowing his time is short”.
A thread is found running all through the Bible pointing to a climactic time in history when human life and the earth as we know it will be changed. In the book of Zephaniah, verse 2:3, it is said that some shall be hidden from the negative portion of that time. “Seek ye the LORD, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD’s anger.” [Source]
Only those who have survived their personal shaking and remained standing firm on the ROCK of their salvation will be hidden in that day.
As Noah and his family were hidden from the flood, so will the believing Church be taken up above the endtimes “flood” in the ARK of God. (“As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man”. Matt 24:37)
Noticeably, in Revelation the first signs of the cosmic disaster (seal six) are quickly followed by the protective sealing of the Jewish Remnant and the “great multitude” being suddenly seen in Heaven, prompting the angel to explain that these have “come out of the great tribulation” (Rev 7:14).
This is exactly the same sequence described by Jesus in his explanation of his coming.
So here we do have the gathering in of the good grain/fruit, even despite the shaking that is taking place on earth, preparatory to the Great Day of God’s Wrath, and the culmination of the “mystery of God” at the blowing of the seventh angel’s trumpet. (Rev 10:7)
At that same point we are informed that the “kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord” and He has “taken [his] great power and reigned”. As we might say, at this point – with the harvest of believers gathered in – it’s “all over bar the shouting”. and the WRATH has arrived. (Rev 11:15-18)
Hidden, Gathered, or Discarded?
Our reaction to the present shaking is an indication of what is to come.
Will we be faithless, denying the goodness of God? Will we be prone to doubt, or even complain against God for shaking us? Will we stick at the point of arrogance, believing that no Christian should ever suffer? Will we be lured into the same God-forsaking sins as the rest of the world?
Or will we trustfully and obediently continue to follow God, knowing that all things are in HIS hand?
What's Happening...? 