Sudden Destruction will come as Birthpangs
By Jonathan Gray

Introduction

Today there are two Babylons: one is the Judaeo-Roman Catholic Vatican City (Revelation 17:1 – 18:20), while the second is Hollywood, Jewry's mind-manipulating 'dream factory' that has perverted the morals of Gentiles with lewd filth (Revelation 18:21-23). The first will be 'atomized' by Judaeo-Communist Gog, the land of Magog, the Czar of Meshech and Tubal, whereas earthquakes will hurl the second into the abyss:

Revelation 18:21-23, "A mighty angel took up a boulder shaped like a millstone, and cast it into the sea with the words, 'With such violence shall Babylon, the great city, be hurled down and disappear forever. And the voice of harpists and musicians, of flute players, and trumpeters, shall be heard in you no more; neither shall an artisan of any craft be found in you any more; nor shall the grinding of a millstone be heard in you any longer. And no light of a lamp shall shine in you any more, nor shall the voices of the Bridegroom and His Bride be heard in you any more. For your leading men were earth's most prominent; and all nations were deceived by the drugs of your magical arts. In her, too, was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and all who have been slaughtered on the earth'."

That "mighty angel" was Brother Branham: "I left here [Branham Tabernacle in Jeffersonville, Indiana], by a vision to go yonder to Tucson to see what the Lord wanted me to do. There He met me up there, as He told you here [in my sermon, "Is this the Time of the End, Sir" on December 30, 1962] that He would do it, and the form of seven angels, and said to return back and the Seven Seals was to be opened. That's just exactly what happened [on March 9 or 10, 1963]."

[On March 25, 1964] He said, one day with Brother Wood when he come out there, we went to the same place [Sunset mountain], and "throw up a rock," it come down. He said, "Within a day and night, you're. . . going to see the glory of God. And the next day [March 26, 1964] a whirlwind came down out of the skies, and we know the story of what taken place. When it went up, they asked what it was. I said, "It spoke three words, in three great blasts." The men only heard the blasting. I understood what It said. And said, "Judgment striking West Coast." Two days after that, Alaska like to have sunk. It's been thundering around, earthquakes, everything. Just look at them, every day earthquakes just shaking everywhere. . ."

Since that earthquake, there is a two or three-inch crack that come in the earth, starting in Alaska, goes around through the Aleutian Islands, comes out about a hundred and fifty or two hundred miles in the sea, comes back up at San Diego; takes in California, or Los Angeles, and comes out again just below the northern part of California there, a little place called San Jose, just below there" (Ashamed, p. 7:44-47, 53).

At the Lord's command the Prophet spoke this 9.2 magnitude Good Friday earthquake—the most powerful in America's history in token of a vastly more powerful Good Friday earthquake that will sink Los Angeles at the close of the Gentile dispensation.

In the 1930's Brother Branham prophesied the sinking of Los Angeles and California: "The time would come (it's written in a book somewhere) that the sea would weep it's way into the desert." Look what'll take place. If that thousands of square miles falls down into the lava of the earth and slides in, there'll be millions die at one time. And that'll cause such a tidal wave. . . Remember, plumb up into the Salton Sea is a hundred or two hundred feet lower than the sea level. That water will probably come almost to Tucson with that tidal wave coming across there. And the sea shall weep its way into the desert" (Trying to do God a Service without His Will, p. 6:25).

Message believers will be familiar with the time Danny Henry prophesied over Brother Branham in French at a Full Gospel Business Men's breakfast on February 11, 1961. I have a vision shown to him in 1957, Danny Henry saw the sinking of Los Angeles and much of California. The visions of others agree with the Message of God's prophet (Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17) as Jesus described to John in Revelation 16:17-21:

"When Brother Branham pours out the Seventh Vial into the air [or fourth dimension over which Satan is Czar or chief ruler]; a mighty shout from the throne of the Temple in heaven will declare: "The seven plagues of the Church Age Messengers are fulfilled, the first resurrection can begin" (Revelation 15:8). Then there will be flashes of lightning, rumblings of thunder, and an earthquake of a magnitude unprecedented in human history. And the great city [Jerusalem] will be divided into three parts (Zechariah 13:7 – 12:2), and the cities of the Gentiles will fall: and great Babylon [Rome] will come in remembrance before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath. Every island will flee away, the mountains will not be found (Revelation 6:14); great hailstones weighing a hundred pounds will fall from the sky upon people: and men will curse God for this fearsome plague of hail" (Revelation 11:19).

The devastation of California and diverse places of the world will be SUDDEN, preceded by convulsions in the heavens when Satan and his angels are cast down (Revelation 12:7-13). This catastrophic earthquake will mark His first step on earth, and when this comes to pass all men, with the exception of 144,000 elect Israelites, will find no place of repentance, for the marriage of the Lamb will have come to pass and the door to the Wedding Supper will be shut (Matthew 25:10; Revelation 19:7). The time to repent is NOW – Editor.

"We're going to CRASH"! The lady screamed. Too late to repent! I looked out, recalls Jonathan Gray: on both sides of the plane steep Andean mountains pressed ominously close. It seemed any second the wingtips of our DC3 would scrape.

Next to me a Peruvian man looked about to faint. My stomach was in the back of my throat. It was no comfort to know (a) this ancient aircraft was a 'cast-off' from some defunct South American airline and (b), that crashes were not uncommon in these parts.

I was now gasping for breath. The Peruvian lay back, his eyes shut tight—his knuckles white as he gripped the arm rest. A rocky spur raced toward us. The plane dipped its wing; oxygen masks dropped down. I ravenously grabbed mine and sucked in deeply. Two miles above us high in the clouds stretched Lake Titicaca . . . and a Pacific seaport that had been SUDDENLY thrust 12,000 feet above sea level. Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world. But did you know that 4,000 years ago Titicaca was on sea level?

It is commonly believed that mountain uplifts occurred over millions of years, until about a million years ago, but eminent geologist Bailey Willis said, "The great [Asian] mountain chains challenge credulity by their extreme youth" (Research in Asia. II, p. 24).

Seashells on the former surf line of the beaches at Valparaiso, Chile, now raised to an elevation of 1,300 feet, have not even decayed—a clear indication of 'recent' upthrust.

Geologist J.S. Lee reports convincing evidence that "the mountain ranges in western China have been elevated since the Glacial Age" (The Geology of China, p. 207). And in Kashmir, Helmut de Terra found deposits of a sea bottom at an elevation of 5,000 feet or more, and tilted at an angle of 40 degrees. And the shock is that: "These deposits contain paleolithic ['Old Stone Age'] fossils" (Arnold Heim and August Gousser, The Throne of the Gods, An Account of the First Swiss Expedition to the Himalayas, p. 218).

The fact is that this change occurred in historical times, however fantastic changes so extensive may seem to a modern geologist.

Citing extensive evidence, Immanuel Velikovsky concluded that "the great massif of the Himalayas rose to its present height in the age of modern, actually historical man. . . With their topmost peaks the mountains have shattered the entire scheme of the geology of the 'long, long ago'" (Earth in Upheaval, p. 76).

A shock indeed! It can be demonstrated that the mountain chains of the Caucasus, China, Tibet, the Rockies, the Alps and the Andes all rose to their present heights in historical times. We have the same 'late' dating from all parts of the earth.

At 11,500 feet, a curious whitish streak composed of the calcified remains of marine plants runs along the side of the Andes mountain range for over 300 miles. This shows that these slopes were once part of the seashore, in fact, many lakes up in the Andes contain saltwater. One such lake is Titicaca, straddling the border between Bolivia and Peru. A watermark of salt along the lake shore now runs at an angle to the water level. Originally it must have been horizontal, so clearly the land was not only thrust up to its present altitude, but was tilted in the process.

Not only is the water saline. On the beach of this lake high in the mountains, there are seashells as well as traces of seaweed. The lake must have been a bay or inlet of the sea. Even today, various sea creatures (including sea horses) survive in the lake. And although this lofty, almost sterile region is capable of sustaining only a scant population today, we are confronted with a colossal mystery, traces of a huge city lie at the southern side of the lake.

In the fifteenth century, Spanish conquistador Cieca de Leon reported his astonishment at seeing ancient pivoted gateways hewn from solid stone 30 feet long and 15 feet high in the extensive ruins of Tiahuanaco, Bolivia. Obviously once a great city. But here is the mystery. At an altitude of 13,000 feet, maize will not bear fruit. Yet endless agricultural terraces, now abandoned, rise as high as 18,400 feet above sea level, and continue up under the snow to some unidentified altitude. Such abundant cornfields must once have supported a huge population, but the region is too high and too barren to do so now.

Could the site once have been lower? You see, if the Andes were 2 to 3,000 feet lower than it is today, maize would ripen around Lake Titicaca and the city of Tiahuanaco could support the large population for which it was evidently built.

But here is an even greater surprise . . . the remains of an ocean quay. That's right, an ocean quay. This suggests that the city, when built, was at sea level—12,500 feet below its present altitude! Remains near the stadium of Tiahuanaco show five distinct landing places, harbours with moles and a canal which heads inland. The docks are vast—and one wharf is big enough to take hundreds of ships. So we're confronted by a sea harbour at an altitude of 12,500 feet and 200 miles inland! Staggering, isn't it?

Well, someone says, perhaps these gigantic docks were intended for ships on Lake Titicaca. Good try. But I'll tell you why not. You see, they face in the opposite direction from the lake. Not only that, the mooring rings on the stone piers were so large that they could only have been used by ocean-liner sized vessels. This place, I tell you, was a seaport on the Pacific coast. And it was thrust, so to speak, two miles into the sky! Now, how about that?

You've probably heard it said that mountain building took 'long ages.' That in the case of the Andes (the second highest mountain range on earth), it occurred more than a million years ago. Well, I'm sorry to be a spoil sport. But the change in altitude occurred AFTER the city was built. I would suggest about 4,000 years ago. And since only a few intermediate surf lines can be detected, the elevation could not have proceeded little by little, but was SUDDEN!

Explorer Colonel H.P. Fawcett, who traveled this region early last century, was persuaded by the evidence Tiahuanaco had been destroyed by the terrible seismic upheavals which accompanied the raising of the Andes to their present height (Exploration Fawcett: The Travel Diaries and Notes of Colonel H.P. Fawcett). And I believe he got that right.

There is some evidence that the monoliths of the city were not entirely finished when the catastrophe struck, SUDDENLY raising the whole city and lake 12,500 feet. Cast-down builders' tools were found in the ruins when the Spaniards came upon the place in the 16th century. The heaps of blocks of worked stone bear evidence of sudden abandonment. . . men fleeing for their lives, taken by surprise.

After the disaster, the populace lay buried in gullies that became mass graves, covered by silt. Fragments of skeletons, both of animals and men, lay scattered among the ruins. Jewels, pottery and tools were found mixed in utmost confusion. This massive uplifting exposed a continental shelf which is now the desert lowlands of Peru and northern Chile.

In the traditions of the Ugha Mongulala tribe of the western Amazon jungle, the South American continent was ". . . still flat and soft like a lamb's back, . . . the Great River still flowed on either side." But then came a cataclysm: "The Great River was rent by a new mountain range and now it flowed swiftly toward the East. Enormous forests grew on its banks... In the West, where giant mountains had surged up, people froze in the bitter cold of the high altitudes" (Karl Brugger, The Chronicle of Akakor, 1977).

Upswellings of other mountains may have been as violent. These were never forgotten by the inhabitants. For example, the Washo Indians of California say their ancestors witnessed the uplifting of the North American sierras from the plains. Other tribes of the Americas likewise recall in their oral history the memory of new mountains being raised and others flattened (Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision, p. 102).

After the Great Flood of 2345BC, it took the earth's crust millennia to settle down. During the tectonic adjustments, lava continued to flow. Isolated areas of land were submerged or raised thousands of feet. Today these effects are being felt only to a comparatively minor degree. Still, it should be mentioned that even in modern times, the ocean has been known to raise or lower its islands or its depths, as much as thousands of feet. No need to invoke long evolutionary periods.

There are many recent examples of rapid up or down thrusts. During the earthquake which occurred off the northern tip of Sumatra on December 26, 2004, the sea bottom in the Straits of Malacca uplifted almost 4,000 feet in only about three minutes. The US-based National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyses spy satellite imagery and produces maps and charts for the Defense Department, was reported to have received information that one area of the Straits of Malacca, which separates Malaysia from the Indonesian island of Sumatra had its depth cut from 4,060 feet to 105 feet.

In another affected area, a merchant marine ship logged that the depth was cut from 3,855 feet to just 92 feet (Star, Kuala Lumpur, January. 13, 2005, quoting a report in the shipping journal Portsworld).

The US Navy reportedly sent two ships to re-chart the waters. Sonar images from British navy ship HMS Scott showed the massive uplift of a large area 10 kilometers wide and up to 1.5 kilometers high (4,800 feet plus). Yes, land can rise or sink quickly . . . even in our day. It does NOT require millions of years.

Revelation, repentance with the remission of past sins and new birth likewise does not require millions of years, but heartfelt sincerity and firm resolve. Acts 2:41, "Those who gladly received Peter's Word were baptized: and the same day about three thousand souls were SUDDENLY added to the Kingdom of God." So Paul admonished, "Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end".