The purpose of the shakings.
This chapter, which has been full of comforting elements, rises to the highest kind of comfort at the close—that to be drawn by the believing heart from the conviction that stable good is coming out of all present vicissitudes. Terrible as was the shaking at Sinai, that only affected an infinitesimal part of the crust of the earth for a short time. There remains a far more terrible and searching experience. The shaking at Sinai was only a sign of Jehovah's power, but the shaking yet to come will be more than a sign; it will bring a result the most desirable of any we can imagine. Heaven and earth will be shaken, so that the heavenly Jerusalem, the place of Jehovah's glory and the abode of his saints, may at last appear in all its strength and all the excellency of its beauty. The alternate rising and falling—the one generation going and the other coming—of the present scheme of things will cease. The things of eternity will then be finally freed from all the weights and encumbrances of time, sin, and death.
I. THIS GREAT CATASTROPHE OF THE FUTURE. Vain to speculate on the mode of its happening. Far more important to be well assured that this catastrophe is coming, and to rejoice that something inexpressibly glorious and beautiful lies beyond. Only then will the perfect men in Christ Jesus be constituted into the perfect society. Only some such revolution in human affairs as is here indicated can set things right finally and completely. Good and evil are not to be forever mingled. The Lord who has so often shaken the earth will shake both earth and heaven. Then it will be seen who is on the rock and who on the sand, who has built gold and silver and precious stones, and who wood, hay, and stubble.
II. THINGS WHICH CAN BE SHAKEN OUGHT TO RE SHAKEN. Shaken in order that they may be utterly removed from us. Each of the elect and glorified now within the walls of the new Jerusalem is there because he has known within his own experience what it is for both earth and heaven to be shaken. The whole process of life is but a continual loosening and steady progress towards the dissolution of all the corruptible frame. We are in the hands of both Builder and Destroyer. The spiritual life is strengthened and enriched, while the natural is weakened and diminished. That it is so shows that it ought to be so. All bitter and trying experiences only bring the weak and unworthy to the surface and cast it out. Like the corn placed in the ground, we must be ready to decay and die; that even as it presently breaks forth to the air and sunlight, so we may break away from our limitation and darkness into a sinless and sorrowless eternity. This truth may be illustrated
III. A very practical question is—HAVE WE EXPERIENCE OF THE UNSHAKEN THINGS? Do we know the work of the Lord Jesus to be our only secure refuge amid the tempests and earthquakes of our life? Can we look away through vicissitudes of time and sense, and feel that far out of their reach is a kingdom of eternal life, which the Lord fills with his life and love and power? Our citizenship must be in the heavenly Jerusalem.—Y.