alt Rev 11:18 "And the nations were enraged,
and Your wrath came,
and the time of the dead to be judged [came],
and [the time] to give the reward to Your slaves the prophets and to the holy ones and the ones fearing Your name, to the small and to the great,

and to destroy the ones utterly destroying the earth."

if God and/or unfallen angels are the ones destroying the earth in the last plagues, and "drops of His judgments are already falling", doesnt this present a problem?

No, not at all. Ellen White put it this way:

God does not work on the plan of man. He can do infinite justice that man has no right to do before his fellow man. Noah would have displeased God to have drowned one of the scoffers and mockers that harassed him, but God drowned the vast world. Lot would have had no right to inflict punishment on his sons-in-law, but God would do it in strict justice. {LDE 241.2}

He said He was going to destroy those who destroy the earth, mm. so your conclusion isnt making sense to me. why would He say that if He and/or His angels are doing the devastation of this earth?

Both are true. That is, God will punish sinners for destroying the earth. However, she is not saying sinners will pour out the seven last plagues and destroy the earth.

that is one way to look at it.

what do you think of this perspective:

The apostle John was shown that just prior to the second coming of Christ, humanity will have employed its powers to “destroy the earth” (Revelation 11:18). This is an ecological statement that offers us a rarely considered sign of the nearness of Christ’s return. It indicates that God will intervene at a point in history when the human race has done irreparable damage to the earth. Peering into the mystery of humanity’s self-destructive tendency, Isaiah foretold that the breakdown of the earth’s environmental systems will signal the end: “The earth mourns and fades away, the world languishes and fades away; the haughty people of the earth languish. The earth is also defiled under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, and those who dwell in it are desolate. . . . When it shall be thus in the midst of the land among the people, it shall be like the shaking of an olive tree, like the gleaning of grapes when the vintage is done” (Isaiah 24:4-6, 13, NKJV).

Satan is identified in Scripture as the destroyer (Revelation 9:11; John 10:10). Rev 9:11 And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon. Joh 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. Self-indulgence is his bottom-line rule of action: taking without giving, consuming without replenishing, using without preserving. Those who are actuated by his character recklessly rape the earth of its resources and exploit its wealth for personal gain with no regard for the dire outcome. The only interest is to arouse and feed the human desire for consumption in order to create products and fuel markets, with the end goal being to fatten up cash flow and consolidate wealth. Paul foretold that selfishness would escalate out of control and become the ruling motive in the end time: “Know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money . . . without self-control . . .lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:1-5, NKJV).

All anti-love actions are anticreational as well, or anti-life (Romans 8:2, 6; James 1:15). Destruction is inherent in the ways of sin because sin is essentially the pursuit of taking whatever one can take for self to the hurt of others. Sin is self-gratification, self-exaltation and self-preservation, until there is nothing left to take. This has always been the course of fallen humanity, but what makes our time in history so much more dangerous is that our advances in science and industry have made it possible for us to work our ruin more rapidly. As our knowledge increases we tend to use it to extract creation’s resources in a manner contrary to its laws. Everything we touch turns to gold, and then to dust.

When Satan’s principles of consumerism and exploitation have played out to their inevitable conclusion, the earth is described as a “pit” or an abyss in the Greek (Revelation 20:1). The prophet Isaiah foretold that the human race will finally “gaze” upon Satan and realize that it was he “who made the world as a wilderness and destroyed its cities” (Isaiah 14:16-17). When it is forever too late, we will realize that destruction lies within Satan’s system of self-serving which we have so passionately bought into.

The economy established by God for Israel was an economy of stewardship, not of radical capitalism, nor of radical socialism. The basic rule was to give back whatever was taken, so that all things would either remain constant or increase. To the mass of humanity the stewardship model of living is nowhere within the purview of consideration. We simply live to consume and consume to live, and as a result we are killing the earth and its life systems one by one. Currently the human race is operating in such a manner that 50 to 80 species of life are going extinct each day, that’s 18,000 to 29,000 in the course of one year. Global warming seems to be an indisputable fact that spells the demise of countless micro life systems. Oil extraction from the earth and the wars it instigates is entirely controlled by a relatively small group of men who are driven by greed. Some scientists tell us we have already crossed the point of no return. They claim we have already so badly damaged the environment that there is no course of action we could take to reverse our journey to extinction. While these assessments are perhaps extreme, and we know as Bible students that the human race will not end in extinction, it is evident that God will have to intervene soon or we will utterly destroy ourselves. The world is over for all practical purposes and we are living on borrowed time by the sheer interventional mercy of God. If He were to back up and leave us to reap the full impact of our ways, we would likely drive ourselves to extinction in a matter of years. Scripture declares that environmental ruin is a sign that God is about to intervene to “destroy those who destroy the earth” (Revelation 11:18). May He come soon and create all things anew!

Thank you for sharing that alternate view. We have a long way to go before it be can said we have destroyed the earth. Also, does it include all of us who drive cars, takes buses and planes and boats to travel to and fro? If so, does it imply the 144,000 will be "green" in their practices including walking everywhere they go? If not, will they be destroyed with the rest of the destroyers of the earth?

those are great questions to ask of God!!

we are agreed He is the one we should consult and not each other, right?

I'm curious, then, why you keep posting here? Do you believe God can speak through people? If so, why ask these questions of Mike?

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

im confused as to what your point is considering what was said.

Teresa, in case you didn't know, the points and questions I posted above were not intended to be facetious or rhetorical. I really would like to hear your answers or, if you prefer it, what you think God's answers are.

i didnt think you were being facetious or rhetorical.

i dont answer questions like that, i dont even try to guess what God thinks about that. those kinds of issues i take to the Lord and wait for an answer.

Thank you for explaining your response. Personally, I think it is whacked out to think anyone not 100% "green" (no cars, no planes, no boats, no trains, no products that cause pollution when made or disposed of [which includes the Prius, the guru of green cars], etc) is guilty of destroying the earth and worthy of punishment when Jesus arrives. I also think it's crazy to think the 144,000 will pour out the seven last plagues. I'm not saying you believe any of these things.

What is included in "destroying the earth"?

a part of it, it seems to me, would be the pollution of our water systems. that would have to be a big part come to think of it.

And who is not guilty of polluting the water systems? The very lifestyles we live pollute not only the water systems but also the earth and atmosphere. No one is innocent. Burning wood is only slightly less polluting than burning fossil fuel.