This synchronizes with
her destruction, symbolized in Rev. 18:8-23. As the Papacy continues till
Christ's coming (Dan. 7:21, and 2 Thess. 2:3-8), this epoch must
synchronize with that event, when he comes to receive his chosen ones.

With the destruction of Babylon, occurs the subversion of all national
authority. As ecclesiastical hierarchies are symbolized by cities, the
"mountains" and "islands" on which they are situated must symbolize the
larger and smaller governments; and their removal from their places, their
subversion in the great moral "earthquake" which is to overwhelm them.
This synchronizes with the sixth seal, when they are all "removed out of
their places," (6:14); and it leaves the inhabitants of earth in a state
of anarchy. It is at this time that the kings and great men of the earth
become aware that the great day of God's wrath is come, 6:15-17. With this
time of trouble, comes the deliverance of God's people, (Dan. 12:1); who
shall be caught up together "to meet the Lord in the air," 1 Thess. 4:17.
To them the Lord has said, "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by
night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that
walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noon-day. A
thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but
it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and
see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the Lord which is my
refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation," Ps. 91:5-9.

The removal of the saints leaves the wicked exposed to the vengeance of
God's wrath, of which a terrific hail-storm on their defenceless heads, is
an expressive symbol. The Lord said, by Isaiah: "Judgment also will I lay
to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep
away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place.
And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with
hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through,
then ye shall be trodden down by it. From the time that it goeth forth it
shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by
night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report. For the
bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering
narrower than that he can wrap himself in it. For the Lord shall rise up
as in Mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valle