The Lord says: "I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless. I will make people scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of Ophir." (Isaiah 13:11-12) Babylon was the nation that conquered Judah and the Babylonians treated the people of Judah more harshly than necessary. The Lord will punish them for any and all atrocities committed against His people. In this same way, He will punish those who take part in the spiritually corrupt world system of the end times because, as we discussed yesterday, those people will be more wicked and heartless than anyone who has ever lived before them.
The Lord will shake the entire creation so that only that which is good will remain and so that what is His very best will come. "Therefore I will make the heavens tremble; and the earth will shake from its place at the wrath of the Lord Almighty, in the day of His burning anger." (Isaiah 13:13) The Lord spoke similar words to the prophet Haggai: "This is what the Lord Almighty says: 'In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,' says the Lord Almighty." (Haggai 2:6-7)
The Lord will shake loose the hold that wicked people have upon this earth and He will shake loose the hold that sin and Satan have upon this earth. He will end the access that the fallen angels currently still have to His throne room in heaven, which is something we will talk about when we arrive at Revelation. When He shakes the earth and the heavens He will send "what is desired by nations"---the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah---to reign over the world in righteousness forever.
The Lord of lords and King of kings is what is "desired by nations"---desired by every human heart--- because God created man to desire a relationship with Him. Even those who reject Him desire a relationship with Him, though they do not know it, and their rejection of Him causes them to try to fill the emptiness in their souls with other things. This is why so many who reject the Lord fall into various addictions and end up doing harm to themselves and to those around them. They are denying who they were created to be and they are denying the One who created them.
The author of Hebrews spoke of our passage from Isaiah 13 and stated that the Lord would shake loose all the bad and preserve all the good: "Now He has promised, 'Once more I will shake not only the earth but the heavens.' The words 'once more' indicate the removing of what can be shaken---that is, created things---so that what cannot be shaken may remain." (Hebrews 26b-27) The reference to having shaken things up before is a reference to the way His voice shook the earth at Mount Sinai when He gave the law to the people. In the end times He will shake the earth and the heavens; doing away with everything that is temporary and establishing only what is eternal.
Once He has done that, this prophecy about the Messiah's eternal kingdom on earth will come true: "Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life." (Revelation 21:27) There will be no sin and no sinners on earth. Satan and the angels who followed him in his rebellion will be in their eternal place of punishment. No temptations will befall the children of God. There will be no sickness, no death, no heartbreak. Isn't this what the human heart desires most of all, to forever be with and behold the face of our God and to live in a state of peace and joy forever? Isn't this the culmination of all things the Lord planned since before He created the universe? Isn't this the glorious destiny He wanted for mankind? We can have it! We can have it forever by placing all our hope and trust in the Lamb of God.
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