When God shakes the heavens and the earth and the seas, the material world will be “dust in the wind.” Kansas had it wrong. They sang, “Don’t hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky. It slips away and all your money won’t another minute buy.” They’re right in the fact that “all your money won’t another minute buy,” but they are wrong in thinking that the earth and sky will remain forever.  Revelation 6:14 teaches us that “The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.” No wealth will prolong a life beyond that allowed by God as Zephaniah 1:18 says, “Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the Lord. In the fire of his jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed; for a full and sudden end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth.”

The second coming of  Christ to judge and to rule has already been mentioned in Hebrews chapter 1 verses 10-12. It says, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands; they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed.  But you are the same, and your years will have no end.” The visible world will not last forever. But Christ and His kingdom will last forever. This is a truth that is not only earth shaking, but it shakes the heavens as well. God spoke from Sinai and he shook the earth. He speaks to us today through His Son, Jesus, as we read in the first chapter of Hebrews but there is a time coming when Christ will return and speak to us again. The author of Hebrews explains this to us in Hebrews 12:27. He writes, “This phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.”

Do we respond to these warnings in fear or do we respond to these warnings in faith? The writer quoted the coming destruction of heaven and earth from Haggai 2:6 but did not mention the two verses that preceded that warning. In those verses Haggai addresses those of faith and says in verses 4-5, “Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not.” The covenant God made with Israel will be fulfilled but how much more will the unconditional covenant God made with us through the blood of His son be certain of fulfillment for us as well. Allen quotes A. Thiselton who said, “Those who seek their security in ‘created things’ will share in the dissolution of the created order in the final shakeup, while God’s pilgrim people who accept hardships in full trust in God as their security will be vindicated; theirs will be a ‘kingdom that cannot be shaken.’ ”[1]

[1] David L. Allen, Hebrews, The New American Commentary (Nashville, TN: B & H Publishing Group, 2010), 596.