The End Times Revelation of the Ark of the Covenant

Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple.                                    (Rev 11:19)

The above passage of the Apocalypse is the last mention of the Ark of the Covenant in the Bible, and is closely associated with the Woman Adorned with the Sun in the following chapter. Catholics and Orthodox alike traditionally hold that the Ark of the Covenant prefigures the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Theotokos (which means "God-bearer" in Greek); and similarly accept that the purpose of the juxtaposition between the vision of the Ark at the end of Rev 11 with the appearance of the Woman Adorned with the Sun at the start of Rev 12 is to intentionally draw a comparison between these archetypes. The Ark of the Covenant, which housed the presence of God in the form of the Divine Shekhinah Glory, directly prefigures the Woman who would bear the Eternal Logos within her own body. Indeed the Virgin Mary has been equated with the Ark of the New Covenant since the earliest days of Christianity. Writing in the third century, for example, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (c.213-c.270), makes this analogy fully explicit:

“The ark is verily the holy Virgin, gilded within and without, who received the treasure of universal sanctification. Arise, O Lord, from the Father’s bosom, to raise up again the ruined race of our first parent” 
 St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (Orat. in Deip. Annunciat. Int. Opp. S. Greg. Thaumaturg) 

The fact that the exposition of the Ark of the Covenant at the end of the cycle concerning the Two Witnesses is immediately followed by the "Great Sign" seen in heaven at the opening of Rev 12 - a vision of the Theotokos, suggests that these two elements are inextricably linked. At the same time, the vision of the Ark of the Covenant in the Apocalypse also appears to be closely related to the widespread belief in ancient Judaism that the Ark would be discovered towards the end of the world, before the final coming of the Messiah.
We can find an example of this expectation in the recently discovered Hebrew pseudepigraphical text Treatise of the Vessels (the dating of which is uncertain, see here for more info), which claims that a portion of the treasures of King Solomon's Temple, including the Ark of the Covenant, were hidden by a number of Levites and prophets before the sack of the Temple by the Babylonian forces of King Nebuchadnezzar. The Treatise of the Vessels states that the Ark was hidden away in an unspecified location, and would "not be revealed until the day of the coming of the Messiah son of David" (See Davila, J. Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures Vol 1, Eerdmans, 2013).

Most importantly for Catholics however, is the fact that the rediscovery of the Lost Ark towards the end time is prophesied in the deuterocanonical Second Book of Maccabees - which was infallibly defined by the Catholic Church as a divinely inspired work during the Council of Trent in the 16th century, and is thus considered to be part of Divine Revelation:

These same records also tell us that Jeremiah, acting under divine guidance, commanded the Tent of the Lord's Presence and the Covenant Box to follow him to the mountain where Moses had looked down on the land which God had promised our people. When Jeremiah got to the mountain, he found a huge cave and there he hid the Tent of the Lord's Presence, the Covenant Box, and the altar of incense. Then he sealed up the entrance.

Some of Jeremiah's friends tried to follow him and mark the way, but they could not find the cave. When Jeremiah learned what they had done, he reprimanded them, saying:

No one must know about this place until God gathers his people together again and shows them mercy. At that time he will reveal where these things are hidden, and the dazzling light of his presence will be seen in the cloud, as it was in the time of Moses and on the occasion when Solomon prayed that the Temple might be dedicated in holy splendor.

We are also told how the wise King Solomon offered a sacrifice of dedication at the completion of the Temple, and that when he prayed, fire came down from heaven and consumed the sacrifices, just as it had done earlier when Moses prayed. 
(2Macc 2:4-12)

We should take note here that the Catholic Encyclopedia asserts that since the above text from 2 Maccabees is quoting from a source outside of the Bible, it cannot be regarded to have Divine inspiration:

According to many commentators, the letter from which the above-cited lines are supposed to have been copied cannot be regarded as possessing Divine authority; for, as a rule, a citation remains in the Bible what it was outside of the inspired writing...
(Souvay, C. (1907). Ark of the Covenant. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. See here for the original article). 

However this is one of the few instances in which the material contained in an article in the Catholic Encyclopedia is simply outdated and mistaken (having been composed in the early 20th century), as this is quite clearly at odds with subsequent papal teachings on the extent of Divine inspiration in the content of Public Revelation. As Pope Pius XII states in his 1950 papal encyclical Humani Generis: 

"If, however, the ancient sacred writers have taken anything from popular narrations (and this may be conceded), it must never be forgotten that they did so with the help of divine inspiration, through which they were rendered immune from any error in selecting and evaluating those documents."
Pius XII Humani Generis 38)

As Pope Leo XIII further confirms in his 1893 papal encyclical Providentissimus Deus:

"But it is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred... For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. This is the ancient and unchanging faith of the Church, solemnly defined in the Councils of Florence and of Trent, and finally confirmed and more expressly formulated by the Council of the Vatican... It follows that those who maintain that an error is possible in any genuine passage of the sacred writings, either pervert the Catholic notion of inspiration, or make God the author of such error."
(Pope Leo XIII Providentissimus Deus, 20-21)

In citing the above material concerning the whereabouts of the Ark of the Covenant, the author of 2 Maccabees clearly intended that his audience should accept this account as genuine, and was working under Divine inspiration in doing so. So according to Church teaching, Catholics are therefore compelled to accept not only that the Ark of the Covenant was hidden by the Prophet Jeremiah on the mountain where Moses saw the Promised Land, but also that it will one day be miraculously revealed towards the end of time by the descent of the Divine Presence in dazzling light, like the theophany at Sinai, after the eschatological ingathering of the Jews to the land of Israel. All other options, such as that the Ark was hidden beneath the Temple Mount, carried off to Axum in Ethiopia, was captured by the Babylonians, or destroyed, should therefore be discounted, since Scripture itself tells us its exact location.
According to Deut 34 the mountain from where Moses looked down to see the Promised Land is Mount Nebo, located in modern day Jordan: 

Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the Negeb, and the Plain, that is, the Valley of Jericho the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar. And the LORD said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, ‘I will give it to your offspring.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.” So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD, and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day.

(Deut 34:1-6)

Mount Nebo in Jordan, which 2Macc tells us is the final resting place of the Ark of the Covenant

The prophecy that God's chosen people would be granted mercy at the time of the revelation of the Lost Ark, after the eschatological ingathering mentioned in 2Macc 2:4-12, can only be equated with the end time conversion of the Jews - which the Catechism states must take place before the Second Coming of Christ: 

The glorious Messiah's coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by "all Israel", for "a hardening has come upon part of Israel" in their "unbelief" toward Jesus. St. Peter says to the Jews of Jerusalem after Pentecost: "Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old." St. Paul echoes him: "For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?" The "full inclusion" of the Jews in the Messiah's salvation, in the wake of "the full number of the Gentiles", will enable the People of God to achieve "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ", in which "God may be all in all".
(CCC 674)

It would thus appear that the eschatological discovery of the Ark of the Covenant prophesied in 2Macc 2:4-12 is the primary catalyst for the future conversion of the Jews - an event which the Apocalypse links to the appearance of the Great Sign seen in Heaven during the birth pangs of the coming of the Messiah:

Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail. 
And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth.
(Rev 11:19, 12:1-2)

Could the appearance of the Great Sign in Heaven be one and the same as 2 Maccabees' prophecy of God's presence descending upon Mount Nebo in dazzling light, at a time when great mercy would be shown to the Jews? It seems quite plausible that it would require an event on the magnitude of  the discovery of the most revered religious object in Judaism to effect a mass Jewish conversion to the Catholic Church. But the revelation of the Ark would only truly be able to win Jewish converts if its discovery was specifically related to Catholicism itself, such as being involved with a major Marian apparition, the fulfillment of a Catholic prophecy, or that it led to some radical new understanding of Scripture proving the truth of the Catholic faith. 
Reading 2Macc 2:4-12 side-by-side as a theological diptych with the above section of the Apocalypse, we are certainly left with the distinct impression that the rediscovery of the Ark of the Covenant brought about by the appearance of the Divine presence in the Shekhinah Glory would be accompanied by the Great Sign in Heaven - which is described in the Apocalypse as a vision of the Woman Adorned with the Sun. By combining both texts, we appear to have a prophecy of a future Marian apparition in the vicinity of Mount Nebo that leads to the discovery of the Ark of the Covenant, which has been lost to history for the past 2,600 years. And it would also seem that this Marian apparition coincides with the appearance of the Divine Shekhinah Glory to reveal the Ark of the Covenant. Could it be that the Theotokos herself will appear with the manifestation of her Spouse the Holy Spirit in the Shekhinah Glory, and reveal not only the location of the Ark of the Covenant, but also leading to the the understanding that the Blessed Virgin is in fact its physical embodiment - thus securing the future conversion of the Jews promised in the writings of the New Testament?
A detailed discussion of the role of the Ark of the Covenant in prophetic events can be found in chapter 10 of Desmond Birch's excellent work Trial, Tribulation & Triumph, which is widely considered to be the best book dealing with the subject of Catholic prophecy.

The New Fatima Revelation and the Prophecy of Sr. Jeanne le Royer

I have just reread a prophecy by Sr. Jeanne le Royer, and was immediately struck by just how similar it is to the vision seen by Sr. Lucia in Tuy, 1944 during an apparition of Our Lady, when she was instructed to write down the contents of the Third Secret. As most readers will by now know, this vision was only recently published in Sr. Lucia's biography A Pathway Under the Gaze of Mary. I will quote the relevant portion of Sr. le Royer's prophecy below, which can then be compared with the 1944 Tuy Apparition:

“…As well as that I can see that the earth will be shaken in different places by frightful earthquakes. I see whole mountains cracking and splitting with a terrible din. Only too happy will one be if one can escape with no more than a fight but no I see come out of these gaping mountains whirlwinds of smoke, fire, sulphur and tar which reduce to sinders entire towns. All this and a thousand other disasters must come before the man of Sin (antichrist)…” (Sr Jeanne le Royer). 

Compare the above words of Sr. le Royer to Sr. Lucia's vision below:

"I felt my spirit flooded by a light-filled mystery which is God and in Him I saw and heard: the point of the flame-like lance which detaches, touches the axis of the earth and it [the earth] shakes: mountains, cities, towns and villages with their inhabitants are buried. The sea, rivers and clouds leave their bounds, they overflow, flood and drag with them into a whirlpool, houses and people in a number unable to be counted; it is the purification of the world from the sin it is immersed in. Hatred, ambition, cause destructive wars."
(The Tuy apparition of 3rd January, 1944)

I had composed an article about the prophecies of Sr. Jeanne le Royer almost two years ago (the original of which can be found here), and had linked her prophecies to the Secret of Fatima back then. This assertion now appears to be fully vindicated, so it should be worth reposting the article in full below:

The prophecies of Sr. Jeanne le Royer were recorded in the 1817 book Vie et Révélations de Sœur de la Nativité (The Life and Revelations of the Sister of the Nativity), by Charles Genet. Her prophecies correspond quite closely with many of the hypotheses I forward in my book Unveiling the Apocalypse - which is quite remarkable, given the fact that my theories on this subject were not in any way influenced by this particular source. 

Sr. le Royer's prophecies mention mountains "cracking and splitting" after a series of great earthquakes, which she states will take place just before the coming of the Antichrist. As anyone who has read the book will know, in Unveiling the Apocalypse I argued that the rise of the Antichrist will take place following the total economic collapse of America, which I believe will happen as a result of the greatest natural disaster in human history. If the East Coast of the Americas is devastated by the mega-tsunami event generated by the lateral collapse of the volcano Cumbre Vieja in the Canary Islands (an event which will fulfill the "great mountain, burning with fire" being thrown into the sea in Rev 8:8), this unprecedented disaster would ensure the total economic collapse of the entire United States. This event would then leave a political vacuum that will provide the perfect opportunity for the rise of the Son of Perdition to world dominance. In turn, I argue that the repercussions of this catastrophe will inevitably lead to the battle of Armageddon, when the world will be destroyed by fire "falling from the sky" (as was warned by Our Lady of Akita). 

If we study the prophecies below, we can see that series of events depicted in the Sister of the Nativity's visions corresponds exactly with the hypothesis I forward in the book:

“…I see in God that a long time before the rise of Antichrist the world will be afflicted with many bloody wars. Peoples will rise up against peoples and nations will rise against nations sometimes allied, sometimes enemies in their fight against the same party.  Armies will come into frightful collisions and will fill the earth with murder and carnage….”

“…These infernal and foreign wars will cause enormous sacrifices, profanations, scandals and infinite evils, because of the incursions that will have been made into the Church…” 

“…As well as that I can see that the earth will be shaken in different places by frightful earthquakes. I see whole mountains cracking and splitting with a terrible din. Only too happy will one be if one can escape with no more than a fight but no I see come out of these gaping mountains whirlwinds of smoke, fire, sulphur and tar which reduce to sinders entire towns. All this and a thousand other disasters must come before the man of Sin (antichrist)…”

According to Sr. Jeanne le Royer, some time before the coming of the Antichrist, the world will experience the "nations rising against nations" foretold by Christ in His eschatological discourse on Mt. Olivet (which I argue relates to world wars of the 20th century). After this, she sees the earth being shaken by a series of earthquakes which cause "whole mountains" to crack and split. In the book, I theorize that the eruption of Cumbre Vieja in the Canary Islands is directly related to the eschatological earthquake which devastates Jerusalem during the Second Coming of Christ. This earthquake is described in the Book of Revelation as the greatest earthquake in human history - which takes place just  before God punishes "Babylon the Great":

"And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth, so great was that earthquake. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath."

(Rev 16:18-19)

The Book of Jeremiah tells us that this punishment will be brought about by the casting down of a "burning mountain", after which, "Babylon" is engulfed by huge tidal waves: 

“Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, declares the LORD, which destroys the whole earth; I will stretch out my hand against you, and roll you down from the crags, and make you a burnt mountain"....

"How Babylon is taken, the praise of the whole earth seized! How Babylon has become a horror among the nations! The sea has come up on Babylon; she is covered with its tumultuous waves. Her cities have become a horror, a land of drought and a desert, a land in which no one dwells, and through which no son of man passes"...

"A voice! A cry from Babylon! The noise of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans! For the LORD is laying Babylon waste and stilling her mighty voice. Their waves roar like many waters; the noise of their voice is raised, for a destroyer has come upon her, upon Babylon"...

"When you finish reading this book, tie a stone to it and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates, and say, ‘Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the disaster that I am bringing upon her, and they shall become exhausted."

(Jer 51:25, 41-43, 54-56, 63-64)

"Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more"...

(Rev 18:21)

"The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood".

(Rev 8:8)

In the book, I theorize that if the world's greatest earthquake took place in Jerusalem, as is predicted in the Apocalypse, this would almost certainly lead to an increase of volcanic activity across the North African tectonic plate, which in turn, could ultimately lead to a devastating eruption of Cumbre Vieja. This would then explain how "Babylon" is to be punished after the greatest earthquake in human history, as is described in Rev 16:18-19. So the sequence of events given in the prophecies of Sr. le Royer fits in perfectly with timeline of events I attempt to detail in Unveiling the Apocalypse. 

Rather interestingly, the Sister of the Nativity's prophecies appear to be related to the first decades of the 21st century:

“…One day I found myself in a vast plain alone with God. Jesus appeared to me and from the top of a small hill showing me a beautiful sun in the horizon. He said dolefully: “the world is passing away and the time of my coming draws near. When the sun is about to set one knows that the day is nearly over and that night will soon fall. Centuries are like days for me. Look at this sun; see how much it still has to travel and estimate the time that is left in the world.“ I looked intently and it seemed to me that the sun would set in about 2 hours. Jesus said “Do not forget that those are not millenaries but only centuries and they are few in number” But I understood that Jesus reserved to Himself the knowledge of the exact number and I did not wish to ask him more. It sufficed me to know the peace of the church and the restoration of the discipline were to last a reasonably long time…”

Writing towards the end of the 18th century, Sr. le Royer was told that the "sun would set in about 2 hours", and that these hours represented centuries - placing the significance of her prophecies as relating to sometime around the turn of the millennium. Yet before this "setting of the sun", when the world will pass away, Sr. le Royer was shown that the Church would be restored during an age of peace which would last "a reasonably long time". Given that her prophecies are centred around the turn of the millennium, it seems that the age of peace given to the world before the coming of the Antichrist is related to this exact time period.

The above prophecies of Sr. Jeanne le Royer are fairly well known, having been cited in the books Catholic Prophecy by Yves Dupont, The Prophets and Our Times, by Rev. Gerard Fulton and Desmond Birch's Trial, Tribulation & Triumph. But there is another lesser known prophecy of the Sister of the Nativity which dates the significance of her prophesied events even more specifically to the second decade of the 21st century:

"Woe ! Woe ! Woe to the last century !

Here is what God wanted to show me in his Light. I began looking in the light of God, the century which must begin in 1800; I saw by this light that judgement wasn't there, and that it wouldn't be the last century. I considered, thanks to the same light, the century of 1900, until the end, to see positively if it would be the last. Our Lord made me know, and at the same time made me doubt, if it would be at the end of the century of 1900, or in that of 2000. But what I saw, it is that if the judgment arrived in the century of 1900, it would come only towards the end, and that if the world exceeds this century, the one of 2000 will not pass without the judgment intervening, as I saw it in the light of God."

(Vie et Révélations de Sœur de la Nativité, Charles Genet, book IV, pp. 125-126)

Here, Sr. le Royer tells us that a judgment she was shown in "the light of God" would take place before the 21st century had passed. But what could this particular judgment refer to? The fact that the visionary was shown a judgment taking place in "the light of God" sounds remarkably similar to the words of the Third Secret of Fatima:

"After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and  a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing,  it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire;  but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated  towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand,  the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!'.   And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people  appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it' a Bishop dressed in White  ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father'. Other Bishops, Priests,  men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there  was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark"...

In the Third Secret of Fatima, the Shepherd Children were also shown a judgment taking place in "an immense light that is God" - in the form of the final Passover of the Church, which will take place during the persecution of the Antichrist. But the children were additionally shown that this light was "something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it". As we will discuss in some more detail in a future post, the great mirror-like "light" shown to the Shepherd Children of Fatima (which takes place just before the final Passover of the Church) is related to the appearance of the Great Sign foretold by St. Faustina and Our Lady of Akita, which many commentators believe is directly related to the prophecy of the Illumination of Consciences - when people will see the state of their souls reflected back at them as if shown in a mirror. It seems that the appearance of the Great Sign (which will possibly be something like a spectacular cross-shaped supernova) will cause people to deeply reflect and examine the state of their consciences, and will help to fully establish the Second Pentecost. In the Third Secret, the appearance of the mirror-like "immense light that is God" takes place in direct response to the Angel's threefold call for penance before the earth is struck by the flaming sword. This call for repentance will be met with the arrival of the Second Pentecost, when Our Lady will intervene to quench the flames that threaten to consume the planet through the triumph of her Immaculate Heart.

Is it possible then that the "judgment" seen by Sr. le Royer taking place in the light of God is one and the same as immense light seen by the Shepherd Children of Fatima? If so, then the arrival of this event is dated by the Sister of the Nativity to occur before the close of this very century - which is yet another remarkable convergence on this particular time period.

One last striking parallel of the prophecies of Sr. Jeanne le Royer with the theories I present in Unveiling the Apocalypse is the nature of the relationship between the Two Witnesses and the martyr-pope seen by various Catholic visionaries.

“…Antichrist will kill the Pope, probably by crucifixion. As a child of ten he will know more than anyone else in the world and when he is thirty he will begin his real work. Fifteen days after the ascension of Enoch and Eli as into Heaven, terrible catastrophes will come upon the earth: most severe earthquakes, tidal waves inundating much of the earth's surface, culminating in a thick darkness over the entire earth. “

Here, Sr. le Royer foretells the martyrdom of a pope under the auspices of the Antichrist - which appears to deliberately echo the deaths of the Two Witnesses by the Beast that rises from the bottomless pit:

And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified.

(Rev 11:7-8)

The mention of the pope being "crucified" is a symbolic link to the martyrdom of the first pope, St. Peter, and also further ties into the Third Secret, where the "bishop dressed in white" embarks on his own via dolorosa, before being martyred at the foot of the Cross in Jerusalem. Sr. le Royer then turns from mentioning the assassination of a pope under the Antichrist to describe the ascension of "Enoch" and "Eli" (Elijah), which further suggests that the identity of one of the Two Witnesses is a Roman Catholic Pontiff. After the martyrdom and ascension of the Two Witnesses in the vision of Sr. le Royer, she is shown "tidal waves inundating much of the earth's surface", which would again tie in with my mega-tsunami hypothesis. In this scenario, the "thick darkness" enveloping the earth would most likely be due to a massive volcanic eruption (i.e. at La Palma in the Canary Islands). This would then   correspond with my theory that the "huge mountain, burning with fire" being thrown into the sea takes place in response to the martyrdom of the Two Witnesses. The water turning to blood after the burning mountain is thrown into the sea recalls the ministry of Moses and the plagues of Egypt - which may also have been caused by a volcanic eruption (see the earlier post The Santorini Eruption and the Apocalyptic Plagues of Egypt). 

The Book of Zechariah tells us that a "great mountain" is thrown down by Zerubbabel - who is used by the Book of Revelation to represent one of the Two Witnesses:                  

Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. 

(Zech 4:7)

In addition to this, the Apocalypse describes a great earthquake taking place in Jerusalem after the ascension of the Two Witnesses into heaven:

But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them. And at that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

(Rev 11:11-13)

This earthquake, centred on the Holy City of Jerusalem (the place the Lord was crucified), is the same as the eschatological earthquake which splits the "great city" into three parts in Rev 16:18 - after which God punishes Babylon the Great. The Book of Zechariah tells us that this great earthquake, which splits apart the Holy City, will take place during the Second Coming of Christ:

Behold, a day is coming for the LORD, when the spoil taken from you will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women raped. Half of the city shall go out into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward. And you shall flee to the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azal. And you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.

On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost. And there shall be a unique day, which is known to the LORD, neither day nor night, but at evening time there shall be light.

(Zech 14:1-7)

In turn, the Book of Ezekiel states that after this colossal earthquake in the land of Israel, mountains would be thrown down and God will summon a sword against the end-time enemy referred to as "Gog" during the battle of Armageddon. It is then that the realm of Satan under his servant the Antichrist will be destroyed by fire falling from the sky, as warned by Our Lady of Akita:

But on that day, the day that Gog shall come against the land of Israel, declares the Lord GOD, my wrath will be roused in my anger. For in my jealousy and in my blazing wrath I declare, On that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. The fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field and all creeping things that creep on the ground, and all the people who are on the face of the earth, shall quake at my presence. And the mountains shall be thrown down, and the cliffs shall fall, and every wall shall tumble to the ground. I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Lord GOD. Every man's sword will be against his brother. With pestilence and bloodshed I will enter into judgment with him, and I will rain upon him and his hordes and the many peoples who are with him torrential rains and hailstones, fire and sulfur. So I will show my greatness and my holiness and make myself known in the eyes of many nations. Then they will know that I am the LORD.

(Ezek 38:18-23)