OPENING THE SEVEN SEALS
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Reflection: Can you see any other principles of prayer in this dialogue? What about the promise of protection from God’s wrath in Rev 3:10? Does this promise only apply to the Church and not to the Tribulation Period? The wholesale martyrdom of saints during the Tribulation Period, both the first half and second half, demands that the promise to the Philadelphian church be seen as “keeping [the Church] out of the hour of testing” that will come on all mankind. The fifth seal is a description of this testing that the Church will be kept from by a previous Rapture.
6. THE SIXTH SEAL (6:12-17) – EARTHQUAKES AND METEORITES The beginning of divine acts of judgment
6:12-13
I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. 13 And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. 6:12-13 The horrible sixth seal opens with a “…great earthquake… sun became black as sackcloth… moon became like blood” then “the stars” fall “to the earth”… “the sky receded as a scroll” (6:14a) from the ash covering from the massive volcanic explosions. This all resulted in “every mountain and island being moved from its place” (6:14b) This is an unparalleled changes to the geological earth surface, since the time of the flood. The sixth seal introduces the heavenly signs as mentioned in Matt 24:29 and Joel 2:31. These six frightening natural disasters occur in the latter part of the second half of the Tribulation, just before the Second Advent. Cosmic disturbances are mentioned just before the first trumpet (8:5), in connection with the fourth trumpet (8:12), fifth trumpet (9:1) and seventh bowl (16:17-21). Jesus spoke of great disturbances in the atmosphere in Matt 24:29 and Joel 2:30-31 refer to the events at the close of Day of the Lord. If we look at these descriptions one at a time we begin to see their terrible destruction to the planet earth. The first disaster is a “great earthquake” (megas seismos, “great or abundant shaking”) is used in the LXX in Joel 2:10 to describe the heavens trembling. He shook the earth at Mt. Sinai (Ex 19:18) and at the death of His son (Mat 27:51, 65) and locally when he released Paul and Silas from jail at Philippi (Acts 16;25). Because of an earthquake that resulted in the jailor experiencing the fear of the Lord, which brought him to Christ. There have been many localized