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How Shall We Tell The Children?
By Edward Chamberlain

Table of Contents

THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF SORROWS

Beginning in chapter 6, verse 12, through chapter 7, verse 17, of The Revelation, the removal of the 6th seal revealed that the earth is going to be devastated by a worldwide earthquake, and by a terrible meteor, comet, or asteroid storm. The magnitude of such catastrophes cannot be imagined. John said that he saw the "stars" fall from Heaven in his vision of this event. Whether these "stars" are from the spiritual realm or the material one is irrelevant. If a messenger from Satan can be a "thorn in the flesh," messengers from God can be rocks shot out of the sky.

I believe that there are some things and conditions which must be present on earth before the Lord Jesus Christ returns. One of those things is a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Whether there is a Temple in Jerusalem at the time that Antichrist confirms the covenant with Israel is not certain, but there will surely be one at the time he causes the sacrifice and oblation to cease, and stands in the holy place declaring himself to be God, else there would have been no place for Israel to have been offering sacrifices and oblations, and no holy place in which he could stand.

For the Jews to build their Temple today would surely mean war with every Islamic nation on earth because they would have to destroy the Islamic mosque that now stands on Mount Moriah over the ruins of the old Jewish Temples. Such reckless disregard for the "rights of others" and the status quo would also be likely to bring the ire of public opinion against them. Something is therefore going to have to happen in order to change these circumstances. I believe that "something" occurs when the events revealed under the 6th seal actually happen.

At that time the structures and forms, and edifices of man made civilization will come crashing down all over the world in dust, and rubble, and in airborne and waterborne pollution. The oil fields, natural gas wells, and coal mines of the whole earth will be destroyed by these events. The nuclear power plants will also be shaken down along with all other buildings, and structures of earth.

Rev. 6:13 says that the "stars of heaven" fall to earth at that time. The word translated stars" is the Greek word, "aster," and it means that which is "strewn" around the heavens. It includes all of the celestial bodies such as dust, debris, meteors, comets, planets, stars, and others of which we may not even be aware. It literally applies to all of the heavenly bodies that God has "strewn" within the volume of the universe.

It is entirely probable that one of these "stars", or the great earthquake described earlier in verse 12, will simultaneously destroy the Islamic Mosque atop of Mt. Moriah and the capacity of the Arab states to resist Israel's decision to clear the rubble and rebuild their temple.

In all likelihood there will not be much survive the calamities of the 6th seal in the way of industrial capacity. Since The Revelation depicts the battle of Armageddon as being fought on horse back, it seems likely that something has previously destroyed man's modern mechanized armies, or rendered them unusable.

The events revealed under the 6th seal in Revelation 6:12- 8:1 will surely result in just such destruction, not only destroying the manufacturing centers, but the energy sources also, sending mankind back into the days of the horse and mule and candle. When the events of Revelation 6:12-16 do occur, it seems unlikely that the nations will survive such destruction with enough technological, industrial, or military capacity to object when Israel rebuilds her Temple.

There are five earthquakes mentioned in The Revelation. Only the first of these applies to that time which Jesus called the "Beginning of Sorrows." The last of these earthquakes is said to be bigger than any earthquake in history, and so it will be larger and more destructive than even this first one we are about describe. During the first of these earthquakes every mountain and every island are moved out of their places. During the last of them everything on Earth is shaken so hard that the islands then sink into the sea and the mountains are leveled. At one point during these, or subsequent events, the earth itself may even roll over or be pulled over on its axis and be turned upside down or nearly so. There will be volcanoes, and tidal waves, and unbelievably huge and violent wind storms, and oceanic storms. One third of the ships at sea will be lost, and one third of all sea life will be killed (Rev. 8:8-9).

As was possible with the Flood, these events could possibly start with a another visit from a "dark star" and the subsequent collisions between Earth and many extraterrestrial bodies. Another series of comets or meteors or asteroids could strike the earth sufficient blows to start many catastrophic events.

As this monster star would approach earth, it would once more begin to have an increasing effect on the tides on earth. These tides would lift and drop the rock of earth's crust radically greater than the moon and sun have been doing. With every passing moment these tides would get stronger and stronger, rising higher and falling further every day as earth spins underneath the approaching behemoth. Buildings would start to fall, bridges would collapse, oceans would flood tidelands and low lying settlements, the ground would heave and shake continually for months, getting more and more violent with every passing moment. Great seams of magma would boil to the surface, and steam, and brimstone would spew into the atmosphere. The skies would darken, the weather would cool. On the ocean floor, salt water would pour through huge rifts in the mantle into the molten core of the earth sending huge bubbles of steam and gases belching and boiling up to the surface and into the atmosphere to condense as poisonous rain on the land and the sea. The surface of the earth would become one steady earthquake. Highways would become useless, there would be no power, no gas, no water. Airport runways would be destroyed, railroad tracks would be bent like Sherman's neckties. Even though a third of the ships will be destroyed, the safest and most stable place to be during all of this would be in ships at sea. Therefore many of the powerful and the rich would go to sea to ride it out. Many of their ships will be capsized by the violent turbulence caused by the huge gas bubbles belching to the surface.

Many huge chunks of space debris would be hurled into explosive collisions with the earth. From the surface it would seem like thousands of nuclear weapons detonations were continually being set off in the sky. Ground zero beneath most of these explosions would be flattened for hundreds of square miles. When the first wave passed, much of the debris would not have entered the atmosphere but would have passed on by to be "caught" into an orbit around the sun where it would meet the earth again every few months for some time to come.

In 1989 a meteor, M-89, was discovered in intersecting orbit with both Earth and Mars. It is a mathematical certainty that unsynchronized orbiting bodies, in intersecting orbits, will eventually collide. It is just a matter of time before this meteor collides with either Earth or Mars.

In 1993 it was reported that a comet named Shoemaker-Levy, which had been discovered earlier, that it was going to collide with Jupiter in the summer of 1994. At the expected time of this predicted collision, Jupiter, the Earth, and the comet will be in line with each other, with Jupiter being in between Earth and the comet. It will be very interesting to watch the results of this collision to see how it effects a planet as huge as Jupiter. Of course the point is that these events are not so rare as scientists would have us to believe since there have been two huge events since 1908 (We will discuss the event of 1908 in just a moment).

If the meteor, M-89, mentioned above were to hit Mars, There would be scarcely any moderation of its impact because of the sparseness of the Martian atmosphere. The collision would send untold millions of tons of red Martian dirt, dust, and debris skyward. This dust and debris might then be pulled out of Mars orbit and drifted toward Earth orbit and the sun.

It is of interest because the scripture says that in the last days the sunlight will be darkened, and that the moonlight will be reddened (Rev. 6:12). After that happens, Rev. 6:13 says that the stars of heaven will fall to Earth.

The dust may not be all bad news. Isa. 30:26 indicates that in the days before the Lord Jesus Christ returns, the sun will suddenly become seven times brighter, and the moon will then be as bright as the sun is now. Rev. 16:8 says that as the fourth angel pours out his bowl of the Wrath of God upon the sun, power is given unto him to "scorch men with fire." These two prophecies read very much like the description of an average star as it "novas." Of course the problem on earth from the sun beginning to "nova" would be the heat and radiation which could burn us to a cinder depending upon how much the sun swells and how bright it becomes. It is interesting that in 1993 the newspapers quoted astronomers as reporting that the number of novas being discovered was greatly increasing.

If the nova were not too great, and if a huge amount of red dust from a collision between Mars and some body such as M-89 were to have migrated into the space between the Sun and Earth, we might survive until the sun cooled down and darkened, for that is one of the last phases of a star that "novas"; the star cools, we won't even think about some of the possibilities for the very last phase of a star nova. Just think for a moment how unredeemed men would be "thanking their lucky stars," if all of this were to happen in this order. If it weren't so pathetic it could be humorous.

Isa. 13:1 says that Isaiah had a vision concerning the "burden" or the doom of Babylon: "The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see." And beginning in verse 10 of that vision, Isaiah saw the stars of heaven and the constellations stop giving their light.

Isa. 13:10-13:

"For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir. Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger."

First and foremost, notice that God says that he is going to punish the world for the Burden of Babylon. It is evident then that Babylon is representative of the world system in scripture.

This prophecy from Isaiah also indicates that the light from the stars and constellations will cease, or very nearly cease, just prior to the day of the Lord. This could possibly be caused from light absorption by the dust from a major planetary collision, or from the steam, dust and gas released by the vulcan activities such as we have been discussing, or the stars could just flat be wearing out. Both science and the Bible agree that the sun and the stars will run down; they just disagree on how long it is going to take. Revelation 8:12 also indicates that the amount of light reaching the earth from the heavenly sources will be diminished just before Jesus returns, "And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise."

It seems plausible to me that if this dark star makes a sweep past the sun it would cause some changes, such as bulging huge balls of flaming solar gas into space toward itself as it approached the sun. Such things could lead to a decrease in sunlight. The passage of such a "dark" star might also cause the sun to flare up brightly, then diminish somewhat as the "star" proceeded on past the sun and out of the solar system.

That scripture from Isaiah, and other prophecies which we will include momentarily, likewise indicate that not only the heavens, but the Earth itself is going to be struck a severe blow in the Day of the Lord. "I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place."

Revelation 8:10-11 says:

"And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter."

And Revelation 9:1-2 speaks of another "star" that falls:

"And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit."

Whether this is a angel or an actual stellar body is not really important. The terrible thing is that it cracks the earth wide open and it has come because of judgment.

Every August Earth passes through the track of a comet named Swift-Tuttle. The annual "shooting star" display is called the Perseids Meteor Shower because the average track of the burning meteors seems to originate in the constellation, Perseus. The display is the result of Earth colliding with the debris left in the wake of this comet. But one day it is possible that it will not be the debris but the comet itself that encounters Earth. It is hard to imagine the destruction which will result from such an encounter.

As we mentioned above, on the morning of June 30th, 1908 something really spectacular crashed into the frozen wastelands of Siberia between the Yenisei and Lena rivers. There was no prior warning, no hint of anything unusual approaching in the heavens. But suddenly a fire ball seen from a thousand miles away appeared in the skies.

This "thing" has come to be known as "The Siberian Fireball." The roar this thermal monster made was heard from 500 miles away, and the explosive atmospheric pressure wave it created was detected over 300 miles away. When the thing "hit," it flattened a peasant's house 50 miles away and killed a herd of 1500 reindeer. Because of the Communist revolution and the inaccessibility of the region, it took 20 years to get an investigation team to the site of the impact. Before the expedition was ever mounted, astronomers had already surmised that the "thing" must have been a chunk of debris connected with the annual Pons-Winneckeid Meteor Shower that occurs every June.

When the expedition finally reached the center of the blast area in 1928, they reported that an area 50 miles in diameter had been completely devastated. All of the trees within that radius had been uprooted and flung outward from a central point. Within a mile of the center they found around 200 separate craters of various sizes up to 150 feet in diameter which indicated that the fireball broke apart in the upper atmosphere before impact.

The amount of material in the fireball was calculated to have been a mere 40,00 tons. By contrast, the amount of dirt blown into the heavens when Mt. St. Helens exploded sending one cubic mile of earth into the sky was estimated on public television to be around 200 million tons. The size of the meteor M-89, mentioned earlier, is believed to be about ten cubic miles or possibly up to 50,000 times larger than the chunk of 1908. It is hard to imagine what a chunk this size or larger would do to the earth, and it is even more difficult to think of thousands of chunks this size being swept into collisions with the planets and moons of the solar system in the wake of a "dark star." At the time the "Siberian Fireball" struck the earth in 1908, its parent, the Pons-Winnecke comet, was verified to have been a mere 30 million miles from Earth. This comet pays a call across Earth's orbit every six years and earth plows through the debris of its track every year in June.

There is plenty of material out there if God should chose to use it, and the bulk of the scripture certainly indicates that a series of catastrophic collisions is going to occur between Earth and some "foreign visitors." Be sure that if there is not enough strewn around space right now to accomplish his purpose, God can create what he wants in an atmos.

I believe that his dark star has been winging its way on a circuit of destiny ever since the fall of man. I believe when Adam and Eve sinned, the creation groaned, and sent this thing, or one like it, on its way toward us before the flood, and having passed upon us once at the time of the flood, it, or another like it, now journeys resolutely, and darkly silent, toward its destiny to cause the same destructive tides in the rocks that were caused during the flood. It will sweep the comets and meteors from the edge of the solar system, and grab the asteroids from between Mars and Jupiter out of their orbits and sweep them into many collisions with the sun, the earth, the other planets, and their moons.

In fact the asteroids could have themselves been created during the earlier visit from such a dark star destroyed a planet that had originally been in orbit between Jupiter and Mars. The testimony from these millions of asteroids that are now scattered over the space from earth's orbit to beyond Jupiter's is that something terribly destructive has once before visited our solar system. The current theory is that these chunks lacked enough corporate mass to conglomerate into a planet, but, because of their ragged, irregular shapes, it seems more reasonable to suppose that they were once a planet that has now been destroyed. ("Scientists" who suppose that atoms of hydrogen have enough mass to coalesce into a star, but that rocks lack sufficient mass to become a planet seem to me to able to imagine just about any condition to fit their hypotheses, just as "Sophia-ists" can REimagine any god they want.)

I believe that some agent of God's judgment such as the one that created the asteroids through the destruction of a planet could very well be silently plunging onward toward us again even now. I believe it will come from beyond our solar system, and when it is finally detected, and its velocity and track are computed all of unredeemed humanity will seek to hide, but there will be no hiding place. Its approach would likely be known for weeks or months.

It could be detected, and tracked, and its date of intersection computed. It could even strike the sun a near fatal blow. For months before it hits, men would start making plans on how to survive. The plans for public survival would be quite different from the private plans of the wealthy and politically powerful. Secret weapons caches and arsenals with food, clothing, and accommodations will be provided for the elite of the world who will take control and reestablish order after it passes. But the bunkers and bomb shelters of many of the fearful will be their graves.

This 'star' storm would also create such a great disturbance in the atmosphere that it would cause the very air to roil up and away from the surface of the earth in great turmoil. The violence of this wind storm, and the dust, dirt, and vulcan debris sent into the atmosphere when these "trailer stars" impact the earth and explode with fury beyond our imaginations, would cause the light of the sun to be all but blacked out, and the moon light to turn deep red. No sunlight means no vegetation which means no food. If this condition were to persist for very long, the existing plant life would die out. If it were to occur during the earlier part of the growing season in either the northern or the southern hemisphere, seed for replanting would not be produced and extreme scarcity would exist in that hemisphere for a considerable length of time.

The mountains and the islands of the sea are also shaken out of their places by the first of these world wide earthquakes, they are not yet gone but they are heaps of rubble. It is obvious that such events have never happened in recorded secular history and so they could not have happened at the time of the removal of the 6th seal, so we must conclude that it was "revealed" at the time of the removal of the seal that they were going to happen.

Likewise, I do not believe that the picture of the saints who were revealed under the altar when the 5th seal was removed are being pictured as having been raptured upon the removal of the seal, but were revealed as something that is being concealed from the general heavenly view within the temple walls, and as something that had already been happening and would continue to occur until the Lord returns. It seems to me that the seals do not unfold events that then occur as the seals are removed, but that these things are revealed as something that has either already been occurring, or that will eventually occur as a result of the forces revealed under the first 4 seals, as the program of God is worked to culmination.

When the events of the 6th seal do occur, most governments will collapse, most industry will be destroyed, and world wide commerce and finance will collapse (Don't bother going to your bank, and your broker won't be of any help.) Communities will begin to reform along racial, linguistic, and cultural lines. Race wars, anarchy, chaos, and violence will fill the earth. The "stronghold" of man centered civilization, in which man, all false religions, and the apostate church trusted, is devastated when the thin, unfounded veneer of philosophical civility cracks in the face of the fight for survival that follows in the chaos of this world shattering earthquake which moves every island and mountain out of place. Nearly all light is blotted out by the intense windstorms caused by the storm of extraterrestrial material that bombards most of the face of the earth.

I do not know that this is how these events will be brought about. The fact that men of science state that the possibilities for such collisions have a very small probability of occurring is an arrogant assumption that men of science know about everything that is "out there." The undisturbed surface of the pock-marked moon shows the evidence of just such an event having occurred once before. There is absolutely no proof that these pockmarks on the moon took billions of years to accumulate. When I say that they were all the result of a single, recent event I have given you as much proof to back up my belief as have those so called "scientists" who say they have accumulated over billions of years. There is also a huge meteor crater in Arizona that demonstrates these things can happen, and the event of 1908 demonstrates that mankind is not aware of everything that is out there.

Rev. 6:12-15 describes these events and says they are the result of the "wrath of the Lamb." Man has wiped his feet upon the blood of Jesus Christ for the last time. The church has failed to repent for the last time. No more is he the suffering servant, from now on he is the King of Kings to the earth, and he will brook no insolence.

Verse 6:14 says that the heaven rolls up like a scroll. I have seen storms in the North Atlantic that made parts of the sky look like this. These storms whipped up ocean swells 70 to 80 feet high which would lift our ship (which was over 700 feet long and approximately 90 feet wide, and 90 feet tall) up onto the top of these swells, and then roll out from under it while the inertia of the ship was still carrying it upwards, and then the water would drop away while the ship would be suspended in mid air, leaving only wind and ocean spray between the keel and receding ocean. The ship would then plunge downward to meet the upsurge of the next swell, slamming first into the water, and then under it, until the buoyancy of the ship overcame its inertia and it started floating upwards again. Hour after hour this pattern would be repeated sending violent shudders along the backbone of the ship, and sending salt spray 150 feet into the air and covering the entire ship with layers of salt. It is hard for me to imagine the fury of the storm that will produce a sight like this in the whole heaven.

As the aftermaths of these events subside men turn in one of two directions to find hope and answers. I believe there will be a revival and that many repent of their materialistic, humanistic beliefs. One of the reasons for this hope is that Rev. 7:9 & 14 indicate that there will be a great multitude of saints saved who "came out of great tribulation" which means that there has to have been a great many converts during the tribulation, because apostasy in the church determines the time in which these events will begin, and since it is obvious that saints cannot come out of apostasy, something therefore has to jolt the world into a great world wide revival after the apostasy has come. There are other indications in the Revelation of a great revival which we will discuss later.

But many do not repent, and these who do not, begin immediately to rebuild the Babylonian system over the entire earth. At this time they will be supernaturally empowered and assisted by the demonic forces of Satan himself.

I believe that the nation of Israel survives in miraculously good shape in comparison to her neighbors. As we mentioned, it is possible that either this "meteor" storm, or this earthquake will have destroyed the Islamic mosque on Mount Moriah, paving the way for the reconstruction of the Jewish Temple. At this point the Arab nations are left in shambles and their oil production, which they so highly prized, is destroyed.

Also at this same time the industrialized nations are left in chaos and collapse, having no government, no electrical power, no fossil fuel, no water supply, no horses, and no capital. I believe that the world's systems of finance all collapse because of the losses they sustain in these earthquakes and "star storms," making way for the world finance system of Antichrist, which will be once again a gold based system founded upon newly opened seams of gold. I believe that fantastic mounds of wealth are going to be uncovered by the events of the 6th seal. We have previously mentioned the probability that huge amounts of silver and Gold will uncovered in Israel. Additionally, there is going to a vast amount available to the forces that assemble for the destruction of Jerusalem, and Zech. 14:14 indicates that they leave all of this in Israel when they are defeated. Isa. 60:17 indicates that there will be as much gold in the world during the millennium as there was brass during this age, and as much silver as there was iron, and as much brass as there was wood, and as much iron as there was rock. It is for the exploitation of this new found abundance that the empire of Antichrist is formed and goes forth in conquest.

After the initial fright of the events of the 6th seal, the "kings" crawl back from the mountain rocks in which they have hidden, and nations begin to rebuild themselves in the same old mold. Glowing tributes will be written to the "spirit and resilience of man" even as racial hatred, violence, anarchy, civil war, insurrection, criminal activity, murder, pillage, rape, extortion, looting, and larceny sweep unchecked over the globe. (Much like the humanists are writing today in the face of all this degradation.)

Christians will at this time be concentrating upon the "weightier matters" of judgment, mercy, and faith, and the world will be going its separate way into final destruction. Many will be saved out of this chaos through a church that has once more returned to its first love, even while mankind in general revisits Babylon.

The fulcrum of world power will at this time be shifted from industry and technology back to horse power, and the nations with the most surviving horses per capita will be the world leader in the recovery. I am not trying to frighten anyone, but it seems to me from reading the Book of The Revelation, that events more terrifying than even Hollywood has ever imagined are about to overtake Planet Earth unless the church experiences a revitalization in the Gospel soon. It seems to me that there is just too much selfishness, iniquity, and unbelief in the lives of the Delivered for God to continue to ignore it and remain true to the words he spoke to the nation of Israel. Read carefully the text below because it is one of the most severe warnings that Jesus Christ ever gave to men.

Matthew 24:32-39

"Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: 33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. 34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. ...37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, 39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."

I do not know how long the period of time will be between the events revealed by the 6th seal and those revealed by the 7th. I believe that the majority of mankind will still trust in the same old Babylonish system. But I also believe that the rest of mankind will finally understand that it is what they themselves believe, and not what the majority believes that matters in the final analysis.

Enough time will pass for the empire of Antichrist to manifest itself from which he will rise to world wide dominion. The tyranny of this empire is even now taking root in the world of unfaithful, unrestrained democracy, and it is most likely that it is the seeds of this tyranny that will survive the collapse of civilization. It will then only have to be "mobilized" to rapidly spread over the disorganized earth, and to be directed by the rising Antichrist to come together around Israel.

I believe that the weapons and forces of Antichrist survive in better shape than anyone else's because he clandestinely and supernaturally prepares for such during the approach of the "star." I believe that Israel is surrounded by the forces of Antichrist soon after she signs the treaty of peace with him, and that these armies are brought into place under the guise of protecting her from the threat of invasion from the north of Israel and by the political powers of the east who are now able to come all the way from Japan over land that once was mountains and oceans, and rivers, and valleys. Even today the most significant threat to the leadership of western civilization in the world is from Japan, one day soon I believe Japan and China will unite together in an economic block which will threaten commerce the world over. This threat will be even greater when the industrial capacities of western civilization have been destroyed by the events of the 6th seal.

Jesus said that the generation which saw these things begin to come to pass would not pass away before the age was culminated, and so the time between the events of the 6th seal and the end of the age shall certainly not last longer than the lifetimes of those who see the world wide earthquake, the storm of "stars," and the wind storms, which rolled the heavens up as a scroll.

Isaiah 13:13 says, "Therefore, I will shake the heavens, and the earth will remove out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of fierce anger." It really is a "terrible thing to fall into the hands of the Living God," and men ought to consider how helpless they are against such things as earthquakes, volcanoes, meteors, floods, and storms. The popular belief and teaching is that a loving God would not visit such calamities upon "innocent" victims.

Jesus did not subscribe to such thinking when the people of his day asked him about Pilate killing "innocent" Galileans, or when he mentioned a tower that fell in Siloam and killed 18 "innocent" people. Jesus told them, and us, that unless we repent, we will all likewise perish (Luke 13:1-5). This passage which I just referenced is not usually associated with the return of Jesus but I believe that his words apply well to that time, because the era in which men get so self righteous that they think of themselves as innocent victims instead of defective children born under sin into a cursed reality, is that era in which they will refuse to repent, and it will be that era in which men will then "all likewise perish."

The Bible in general, and the Book of Revelation in particular, clearly indicate that such natural catastrophes as meteor storms, earthquakes, volcanoes, wind storms, floods, droughts, etc. are the results of the judgment from God against sin, and that men ought to fear God, and not the natural catastrophe, and give him Glory when such things occur.

The Psalmist spoke on this matter in this fashion in Psalms 46:1-3, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof."

The sense of the above passage is that those whose trust is in the Lord will not be afraid even when all of the earth shakes, and the mountains fall into the sea, and the oceans storm and rage, and the mountains rumble and heave from volcanic activity. But think for a moment how terrifying it is going to be for those, whose faith and hope and confidence has been in the material reality, when they see that whole reality shaken, and they no longer have a firm place to stand.

Unless the church experiences a revival in holiness and spirituality soon, the near future for earth is grim. The most amazing and terrifying things are going to begin to occur on Earth just before the Lord Jesus Christ returns, but natural man, the apostate church, and the kingdom of Antichrist will view them as terrible misfortunes which have occurred at the worst of possible times. The reason for this is that they will be seen as mindless acts of mindless nature because they have been conditioned to think as natural men and not as spiritual men. Hundreds of years of material enlightenment have convinced them of the impossibility of a Supernatural God controlling and directing natural events.

Peeling away the 7th seal revealed many things to the church. First we are shown that there will come a period of time when there will be silence in heaven for 1/2 hour. Without a doubt this will happen at a point in time after the events of the 6th seal. I have a picture in my mind of God the Father standing up from the throne and turning around to see an ethereal, living mural showing Jesus as he laid down his life on that old rugged cross. I can see the Father looking for that entire half hour, once more as Jesus hangs on that cross. As his anger builds toward rebellious man who has walked upon and spit upon that sacrifice, and as his judgment builds against the devil that has inspired man to do those things, God The Father looks, once more, deeply within Jesus' suffering. This time, it is not to satisfy his righteousness, as it was at the first, when he looked upon him nailed to that cross, and then left him forsaken as a man being judged. But this time, God is looking as the Creator and Redeemer of mankind, and as a Father who is having to identify the crushed body of his beloved Son. I can feel an apprehensive trembling shiver through every living soul in both heaven and earth, and in every angel, as we all begin, at last, to understand the cost of that moment when Jesus cried, "My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?" I believe that this is the first time that God the Father has allowed those words to sink down into his ears. I believe had he done so earlier, unregenerated man would have been an endangered specie.

I realize that this is probably nothing more than fantasy upon my part, still it helps me to identify with the cost, and to praise God that it was paid.

Next, it is revealed that an angel will one day offer the prayers of all the saints up to God at a time that God is looking out from his throne, i.e. He is ready to judge. When this angel fills the censor that held the incense of the prayers of all the saints with fire from the altar of God, not only is God at that time looking upon the suffering of his only begotten son, but He is also looking upon the suffering of all of his children in Christ, and his anger boils over toward the earth, the inhabitants thereof, and the demons in whom they have believed.

As saints we are told to pray for those of this world who are in power over us, that they do nothing to prevent the proclamation of the Gospel. These prayers, which are precious to God but are of no concern to the majority of the political powers of earth, are now hurled upon them as coals of fire on their heads (Ez. 1:13, and 10:1-22, and Rom 12:20 are germane).

The last event revealed before the trumpets begin to sound is another earthquake. The mention of this earthquake is almost ominous in its lack of fanfare. Look at Rev. 8:5. It almost seems that this earthquake was too ordinary to mention. I think it likely that following those terrible quakes, which were revealed under the 6th seal, that unredeemed men will have begun to believe that the earth has settled down into a "sedate old age," and that the days of earthquakes are passed. Since it says that every mountain and island is moved out of its place when those terrible quakes of the 6th seal occur, it appears that seismic stresses could be relieved for a while following those earth shattering quakes. This little earthquake then, which is revealed under the 7th seal, simply foretells of much more ominous events to come, and lets mankind know once more that his trust in "mother earth" is unjustified.

With the sounding of the first trumpet, there begins a series of 7 judgments, followed by a series of 7 punishing manifestations of wrath. If you will notice the bowls of wrath seem to repeat the series of the trumpets, and they could almost seem to alternate between trumpet and bowl except for the fact that some of the events which are reported in some of the judgments are subsequently mentioned in earlier bowls. For example, the "beast" is mentioned in the first bowl, but does not appear until the 7th trumpet is sounded. For this reason I believe the trumpets proceed in order, followed by the bowls. This is also the simplest, most straight forward way of seeing these things, and therefore, it should be the preferred way to understand them, unless there is some overriding scriptural reason for doing otherwise.

Trumpets are used for making announcements, for summoning participants, directing attention, etc. The trumpets of The Revelation call our attention to certain things and summon forth events whereby God is going to exercise his judgment upon the Babylonish constructions of mankind as man has been inspired by Satan to produce them.

The events released by the sounding of the trumpets are catastrophic events of both natural and supernatural origin. Even the natural events, which are normally of such rare occurrence and such limited scope, will require supernatural direction for them to occur over such a wide area and in such a short period of time. The trumpets are sounded beginning in verse 7 of chapter 8 of the Revelation and continue through the pouring out of the bowls of wrath which begin in chapter 16 verse 2 and end in chapter 16 verse 21. The church will be raptured during the sounding of the 7th trumpet before the first bowl of wrath is poured upon the earth.

Rev. 15:8 says that when the church is raptured and receives the baptism of fire, that the Temple of God is filled with smoke and no man can enter the temple until the seven bowls of wrath have been poured out upon the earth. While those bowls are being poured out upon the earth, the church, gloriously assembled and purified in heaven, is shown a panoramic history of the Babylonian Whore. At last we understand the things that we should have been understanding throughout all of history: That we were always called out to be a peculiar people, and to forsake the Babylonian Whore and her political and commercial fornications. Through out the ages, the voice of Jesus has been heard crying: "Come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." Finally we will understand that we should have paid some attention to that voice, and because we did not do so, Babylon was not spared. The events described in chapters 17 and 18 are revelations that are occurring in a "moment of time," to teach us these things.

Many of the trumpet judgments repeat the plagues which God brought against Egypt in leading up to the Passover. When the trumpets begin to sound I do not believe that there is any longer any doubt in the minds of unregenerated men who is behind these judgments. They have seen the catastrophes described under the 6th seal, and they have seen that they are identical to the words written in The Revelation. They know it is the "wrath of the Lamb" that is falling upon them, and yet they are convinced by the spirit of the deceiver at first, and personally by Antichrist eventually, that they can be victorious over the Lamb, and that they, therefore, will not have to repent of the things they love most.

Revelation 9:20-21

"And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts".

There are two works of man listed above which are of particular interest concerning why brutish, natural men do not repent: sorceries and fornication. Sorceries translates the Greek word "pharmakeia" which comes from a root which was used for both a medication and "a drug induced spell." Fornication is any kind sexual activity that is conducted outside of the sanctity of the union of one man to one woman in Holy Matrimony. Even today the majority of mankind is rebelling to the laws of God that say that all homosexual intercourse, and all heterosexual intercourse between consenting adults, who are not married to each other, is sinful. Fornication and spells induced through drug use are the two most popular sins in society today, and God clearly states that those whose lives are characterized by such unrepented sin will not inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9-10). The general consensus is today that such restrictions are arbitrary and open to personal evaluation. As we have previously seen, the tendency is toward tolerance and advocacy of these sins in the popular view.

As judgment comes, and the consequences of sin become increasingly more harsh with each rapidly succeeding trumpet, it soon becomes apparent even to the most humane of humanists that there is an all out war going on between unredeemed man and Supernatural God, and that the side of man is loosing. This does not lead them to repentance, but to stiffer rebellion.

By the time the five month plague of supernatural locusts of the 5th trumpet has passed, all men of the apostate church and the world come to blame the true church and Israel for these plagues. This plague of supernatural locusts is ushered in when another one of those "stars" from outer space plows into Earth, once again opening the crust and sending smoke into the skies so thick and so high that the whole sky is darkened and the sun is obscured. The world is now in as great a physical darkness as it is in spiritual darkness. The crater created by the impact of this collision is too deep and too wide to explore, and men are too frightened to do so anyway. It opens the very seams of Hades, and under the cover of darkness, demonic beings crawl out of Hell in the smoke as it billows up out of the depths of the earth. Unredeemed man will see these demonic beings as proof that life really does exist in outer space, for he will conclude that they came riding in on the "wings of a meteor."

These demonic beings will feed upon unregenerated man. They do not kill them, but they torment them for 5 months, then disappear. Unredeemed men will be reminded of the H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds" when they are gone, but the saints will be reminded of The Revelation and will praise God. At this time the political kingdom of the Antichrist will begin to fall apart. Not only will all the nations within his empire be facing starvation and organic collapse, but they will also be facing economic collapse and invasion from the orient.

This will be a time of great physical darkness and abject misery, and a great window of opportunity will be opened one last time to the saints to witness to a hurting and dying world about Jesus Christ. Look for a moment at Rev. 10:11 where it says, "And he said unto me, Thou must prophecy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings." Because prophesying is to be conducted before all manner of people, mankind is being given one last chance at redemption. The true church must forgive past injustices and injuries, as did Stephen in Acts 7:59- 60, and rise to the opportunity to serve the Lord of Glory yet another time in earnest, and with joy, even at the peril of life and limb.

When the 6th trumpet sounds, the men on earth become aware for the first time since the near collapse of modern civilization of the great armies which have been quietly assembled for the purpose of empire building, and which are also being used to systematically eliminate both Christians and Jews from the face of the earth. Almost all of mankind that are not of the house of Israel or the redeemed of Christ will seek to join themselves to the power behind these armies at this time. But there will be some gentle souls who will be neither Jew nor Christian who will also resist this barbaric Antichrist. These will attempt to help and to hide both Jews and Christians from the hunters.

The earth will once more feel the hoof beats of horsemen bent on conquest. Following the destruction of the 6th seal, rag-tag communities and cities will have been rapidly formed into regional republics before citizens even realized to what nation they belong. I believe that the planning for the rebuilding of Babylon could occur in secret between the time that the "dark star" is discovered and the destruction that it causes. When the major part of the destruction is past, the planning is implemented without fanfare. That this system of republican empires will be forged from out of the same old Babylonish system may be seen from the image of the horses of these armies. These armies are borne upon horses (strongholds) whose heads were "like lions" and out of whose mouths issued smoke and fire and brimstone. The mouth or head of the lion represents the man-derived Babylonian law, and when these speak, the things they speak of are represented as the philosophical things of Hell in as much as it is smoke and fire and brimstone that comes from their mouth.

These armies are the combined forces of the world unification force of the 8th beast mentioned in Rev. 17:11, and are authorized by the law which they themselves have ordained. The resistance to the formation of this "empire" results in one person out of every three being killed. There is violence and general chaos in the world as these nations take shape. As we noted earlier, Egypt, Syria, and another nation that is probably Iraq, will be defeated by the nation of Antichrist at time. Then nation after nation begins to fall to his power. False religion and the apostate church are deeply involved in authenticating this "empire of man and law" and justifying the slaughter required to bring it fruition. But at this time all men fall upon all apostate religions except that of Antichrist, and they are all destroyed. I pray that many will be able to repent when this begins to happen and that this destruction is as much a dissolving and an evaporation as it is a pulverization by the forces of Babylon.

Here is why I pray and hope that: At the time that these things are occurring, John said he saw an angel stand upon the sea (Humanity) and upon the earth (the place that is now being judged) and he saw a "little open book" in his right hand. John was told to go and take the little book from the angel and eat it. He was told that when he ate it, it would be sweet in his mouth but bitter in his belly. John reports that sure enough when he'd eaten the book, it was sweet in his mouth but bitter in his belly. And John also reports that as soon as he'd swallowed the book, and it had turned bitter in his belly that the angel told him he must "prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings."

What is this little book? The answer to that comes from the 2nd and 3rd chapters of the Book of Ezekiel and from the jealousy offering test for an unfaithful wife in Numbers 5:12-31. Ezekiel was given a little book to eat that contained the word of God concerning the judgment of God. Ezekiel reported that "it was in my mouth honey for sweetness." And God told Ezekiel to speak to his rebellious people, and that he was going to make Ezekiel's head harder than a flint rock when it came to proclaiming God's word. Ezekiel was in no way going to compromise God's word with the popular opinions of the men of his day. You were not going to find Ezekiel preaching a "responsible interpretation" of homosexual marriages, premarital sex, teen age condom instruction, or ordination of homosexuals, etc. The popular preachers may have called him hard headed, and a fundamental fanatic, but Ezekiel preached the word as God gave it to him. Ezekiel did not report that the word became bitter in his belly.

Jeremiah said, "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name O Lord God of hosts." (Jer. 15:16) Jeremiah preached the word as God gave it to him, and he did not report that the words became bitter in his belly.

Bitterness in the belly is the test given in Numbers 5:12-31 for unfaithfulness. I do not mean that John was unfaithful but that the "wife" which John represented is a mixture of both faithful (sweet in the mouth as in Ezekiel) and unfaithful (bitter in the belly as the unfaithful wife) in the last days of this age.

Then John is told, "Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings." The question is whether this directive was to John personally, or to the church of which John was representative, or both. I think both. John truly prophesied to many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings after leaving Patmos. Tradition has him going to Ephesus, and then to Rome, and then back to Ephesus where he wrote his account of the Gospel and confirmed the truth of the earlier three, and wherein he supplied a more Spiritual emphasis in the character of the Gospel, which was only logical since he had been called up into the third heaven just before he wrote it. It can not be denied that through this Gospel and his personal testimony, John truly prophesied to many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings.

It is likewise true of the church throughout subsequent history that she has likewise prophesied to these, but I think more is intended here. John is given this directive immediately before he is told to measure the Temple. When God has the measurement of something taken, it is for the purpose of judging or evaluating that something, and the one doing the measuring is given the authority to do so, e.g. given the "reed."

When David took the measure of Israel (conducted a census) without the authority of God, he came under the judgment of God (1 Chron. 21:1-14), and 70,000 Hebrew fighting men died from a disease which God sent for the purpose of teaching David that, as king, his choices did not only effect himself, but his entire people. We need to pray to God that America's leaders, and especially her presidents, would learn that same lesson.

Here John is given the reed and told to measure the "temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein." And he is told to omit the measurement of the gentile court because they are going to be allowed to trample Jerusalem under foot for 42 months.

The temple in Jerusalem is therefore completed at this time; it may even be upon the dedication of this new temple that these events occur. Whatever the circumstances, God is, at the completion of the measurements, once more going to look upon Israel and respect their worship, which means the beginning of Daniel's seventieth week has commenced.

Next we are told about two special witnesses which shall begin their prophecy in Jerusalem at this time. There are many differences of opinions concerning these two "witnesses." Probably the most popular belief among conservatives is that they are Enoch and Elijah. The reason is because these two men were directly translated into Heaven without facing death, and the scripture says "It is appointed unto man once to die." But Jesus also said that whoever lived in him and believed in him would never die since he has overcome death. Therefore, it does not appear that the fact that they never died is, by itself, sufficient justification for naming these two witnesses as Enoch and Elijah.

However, the scripture is clear that Elijah will come before the "coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord" (Malachi 4:5-6), and that Elijah "truly shall first come and restore all things" (Matt. 17:11), and so one of these witnesses must surely be Elijah. I believe the other is John, for it is John who has just been given the "reed" to measure the temple and the altar, and those who worship at those places, and it is John who has just been told he must "prophesy again." At that time the witness of Elijah and Israel, and of John and the real church will be true and the word of God will be sweet in their mouths, but the witness of the apostate church and apostate Israel will be false and the word of God will be bitter in their belly. You may wonder how Elijah and John could come back to life and begin preaching in Jerusalem without raising a stir all over the world. To me the answer is so obvious. If someone told you right now that Elijah and John were preaching in Jerusalem, would you believe it?

The Revelation (11:4) identifies these two witnesses as "the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth." Zechariah 4:1-14 says of the two olive trees, that they provided the oil that was burned in the candlestick (lampstand) through two golden pipes (branches), and that these two olive trees "are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth." The picture then, is of two trees, receiving oil (anointing) from Almighty God and then channeling this oil through themselves into the lamp stands for light for the whole earth. In the Tabernacle and the Temple and in the vision of Zechariah, there was but one candlestick. In the Revelation of the heavenly Temple there are two, signifying the light from both the Old and New Covenants, and so we have Elijah as Israel representing the Old Covenant, and John as the body of Christ representing the New, as the two witnesses who are supernaturally empowered to bear witness to the truth of Jesus Christ in the last days before his return. Both the true church and true Israel have been types of these two witnesses during the ages.

The testimony of these two is extremely troubling to Israel, and their supernatural powers cause many to fear their presence. I believe that it is at this time that many orthodox Jews begin to seriously investigate the messianic claims of Jesus.

The false religion of Babylon, the apostate church, and the apostate Jews will all oppose these two witnesses. At the very beginning of their ministry the nation of Israel will sign a treaty with an emerging world government, the head of which is the individual who will be revealed to be the Antichrist 42 months later. Even as you read this today Israel is negotiating a treaty which they hope will bring peace to Israel. I believe that this current treaty will be nothing more than a type of the eventual treaty because not all has been fulfilled. But the Bible says that Gaza will be forsaken, and so we ought to be ready and keep watching. Even as this last treaty is signed, Antichrist is gathering and equipping his armies around Israel for the stated purpose of protecting her, but secretly he is preparing for the eventual sacking of Israel and destruction of Jerusalem.

As opposition to the testimony of the two witnesses increases within the nation of Israel, they begin to demonstrate their supernatural gifts which afford them protection for the period of their ministry, but when their 42 months are expired, Antichrist himself kills them and probably accuses them of being false prophets,¹ which indicates that their supernatural protection was not available for use against him. After 3 1/2 days their dead bodies are resurrected and transported into heaven. But while they lay dead in the streets, Antichrist, emboldened by his "easy" victory over these supernaturally empowered witnesses, steps into the holy place of the Temple and declares himself to be the god of the Temple and causes the Jewish sacrificial system to cease, making the "image" of the first beast, which we have previously discussed, the object of all worship on earth, and the great tribulation begins.

Remnant Israel and the true church resist this blasphemy vigorously and become the objects of Antichrist's wrath from that time until the Lord Jesus Christ returns and destroys him and his kingdom.

Just after Antichrist declares himself and his kingdom to be the object of all earthly worship, two things happen simultaneously. Life is restored into the bodies of the "two witnesses," and there is another great earthquake. This earth quake, which kills 7000 people in Jerusalem, helps confuse the terrified reports from many witnesses who say they saw the dead bodies of the two witnesses resurrected and ascend up into heaven. The 7000 dead bodies caused by the earthquake also help cover up fact that the bodies of the "two witnesses" are gone.

Notice how no one, not even the apostate and the humanists, any longer doubts the reality of a Spiritual Realm. The thrust of their resistance at that time will not be denial, but it will be from their determined choice of alliance. They are convinced that they can put Satan upon the throne of Almighty God and not have to repent and change to achieve immortality. The rejection of the testimony of these last two martyrs has sealed the fate of mankind. They have been largely convinced by Satan and the blasphemous fictions of the Babylonian entertainment industries that man can be victorious over this spiritual reality.

It is obvious from the foregoing that many of the things of which we have spoken are things which occur simultaneously. The same sort of thing is going to happen when the 7th trumpet sounds. The sequence in which these things are written within each group, does not have to be their exact sequence in reality. The events in The Revelation are grouped together in a sequence of groups, but within each group many of the events are happening at the same time or in a different sequence.

The next thing which John reported was the sounding of the 7th trumpet, and I believe it must sound for several months, if not for the entire 42 months remaining in Daniel's seventieth week.

First, John reports that the heavenly kingdom is informed by way of an official, angelic announcement that the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of "our Lord and his "Christ." Since Antichrist is still on earth, this has to be an anticipation of the actual event. It is revealed that the nations of this world are angered by this and by the wrath which is to come, but that the saints of both the Old and the New Covenants are in agreement with these things.

The announcement is also made at this time that it is the time that the dead should be judged. Since the spiritually dead are not judged until the closing of the millennium, Rev. 20:5-15, and since the saints are not at all dead, these passages indicate that these things which are being announced in the heavenlies at this time are proclamations which are opening to the angels' understanding the plan and the purpose of God which "he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth..." (Eph. 1:9-10). Ephesians 3:9-10 says that these kinds of things have been hid in God from the beginning of the world for the purpose of demonstrating his wisdom to the angelic powers of heaven through the church. 1 Pet. 1:9-12 says that the end [result] of our faith, which is the salvation of our souls, is the thing which the earlier prophets preached, and is the thing which the angels desired to look into.

And lastly Jesus told the church that what ever we bound on earth would be bound in heaven, and what ever we loosed on earth would be loosed in heaven (Matt. 16:19). It seems obvious then that as the church goes through life living, working, rejoicing, crying, and dying, and doing all of the other things of life, we of the church are continually either binding some demon or heavenly angel on earth, and thus in heaven, or we are turning them loose by our acts of living. I know that such a notion will not be popular because it places great responsibility upon Christians to seek the will of God in every moment of life. When I think of the demons that I have unwittingly turned loose upon earth and in heaven by a remark in anger, or lustful look, or by prideful self glory, or a covetous longing, etc. I wonder that I can be forgiven such great offenses. But the Bible says that He is faithful and just to forgive our sins when we confess them.

Therefore, our situation as Christians seems to be this: We go through life in a redeemed status, equipped with the power and counsel of the Holy Spirit to guide us and help us in our witness and our decisions and actions. But we also come with a "self" as standard equipment, and this self has been under the total dominion of Satan, and his legions since Adam. Satan works upon all mankind from outside the intellect by stimulating our emotions through our physical nature. The Spirit of God works from within our intellects outward, imploring us to overrule our selfish emotions and motives, and to live by His counsel and not the rush of sensuality. As we go through life choosing, during every abiding moment, to obey one side of our nature or the other, we turn loose the results of that choice both on earth and in heaven. On Earth our choices accumulate unto apostasy; in Heaven they accumulate into the revelation of the manifold wisdom of God unto the Heavenly Angels who are being shown that anything less than absolute, total obedience to the will of God will eventually destroy His Creation.

In those verses above, we are given the barest glimpse of what this material reality is all about. Look at Daniel 10:21: The angel Gabriel has been talking to Daniel about what the history of the world is going to unfold. As he finishes telling Daniel of these things, he makes what amounts to an astonishing statement for a heavenly being when he says, "But I will shew thee that which is noted in the scripture of truth: and there is none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael your prince." How is it possible that out of all the multiplied millions of angels in heaven, only two of them, Gabriel and Michael, at the time of Daniel's vision, believed the scripture of truth as it concerns the earth and the kingdoms thereof? So much for popular opinion!!!

That passage from Ephesians 3:9-10, which we just mentioned, says that these things had been hidden in God from the beginning of the world, but Paul said that by REVELATION God made known to him the mystery which had not been made known to men until God revealed it to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. While this particular mystery, of which Paul was speaking, was that the gentiles would be made fellow heirs of God's promise of the messiah, it is the principle, that the mystery was unknown even to the angels until they observed God's purpose working in the church, that is of interest to us here. Just as the date of the return of the Lord Jesus is hidden from the church, and the thus the angels, these events of the Revelation are likewise hidden to the angels until they are revealed through the church.

It would seem that the heavenly powers, while they are not sure of the outcome of this reality, are being shown all of the facets of God's wisdom through the things which are either bound or loosed by the church simultaneously with in both realities.

Notice in The Revelation that it is only after the 7th trumpet sounds, and after the church has been raptured, that it is ever recorded that any of the angels ever agree with God concerning his judgment of the Babylonish establishment and the whore that prostituted herself for it. It is recorded that the angelic beings praise God and the Lamb that was slain before the rapture of the church, but it is not recorded that they agree with the judgment of Babylon and its whore. Rev. 16:5 says the angel of the waters (the waters represent the people, of which there is at least one angel for every person who has ever lived) agrees with the judgment of God, and Rev. 16:7 says that a voice from the altar (worship, or true religion, of which there is at least one angel for every person who has ever worshiped God in spirit and in truth) likewise agrees.

In Job 38:1-7 God tells Job that all the angels sang for joy in the day that he created this material reality. What made them so happy?

This is purely conjecture because God has not specifically explained his purpose in creating the material realm, but it seems that the scripture teaches in general that, in eternity, there was a rebellion, lead by Satan, in the spiritual realm. The motivation for this rebellion was Satan's desire to be equal to God. The desire to be equal with God primarily expresses the desire to possess free agency along with the power to "realize" that agency in "self expression" i.e. to create freely by the expression of the will. Satan was the most important angel in the eternal reality, but at some point that became not enough for his "self," and Satan rebelled in an attempt to make himself equal with God (Ez. 28th chapter and Isa. 14:12-17).

Since the heavenly kingdom had no basis for understanding the consequences of rebellious free agency, God, in demonstrating those consequences to the angels, has, through his determined counsel, caused an alternate reality to exist which he is using to explain the consequences of rebellion to the heavenlies through the church. The effects of rebellion upon mankind as we all grope around doing "our thing" within the spiritual darkness of separation from God in a material reality that is under total damnation from God, and which is in total rebellion to God, are being shown to the spiritual reality whereby God's judgment of Satan's rebellion is being vindicated. The whole point of God's demonstration to the angels is that one little act of rebellion to the absolute truth of His word which is not immediately judged and condemned is enough to eventually destroy his whole creation.

This demonstration has created a whole other reality which God will eventually redeem to himself in order to vindicate his righteousness. This purpose he has hid in himself since he laid the foundation of the world, and only as the events of the age unfold do the angels understand and come to agree with God in his judgment of the original Satanic rebellion.

However, Satan and his angels think they are "winning" because, in our bungling of everything we do "down here," we have all along been turning his minions loose both in heaven and earth, and we have thus, been giving Satan ammunition to accuse God of ineptness for making man in the first place. When they find out that by one man (Adam, who as the original sinner is the type of Satan to the heavenly powers) sin and death entered the creation, and that by one man (Jesus Christ, who is The Revelation as God in both heaven and earth) sin and death have been defeated, they are livid with hate for both Jesus and man, and they begin the war in heaven.

Therefore, that which is now described in The Revelation from chapter 11 verse 15 to chapter 14 reveals future, heavenly events that will be informing the heavenly reality of that purpose which God has had previously hidden within himself. When the Heavenly Temple is opened revealing all of the saints of God under the altar, and God's eternal purpose is revealed, Satan and his angels are incited to begin a war in the heavenly reality. Just as there were legions of Angels upon which Jesus could have called by the time of his passion, there are, by the time of the Heavenly war, many angels who "hold in these things" with Gabriel and Michael. Michael and his angels throw Satan and his angels out of heaven while "Gabriel blows his horn."

I am aware that many believe that Satan has already been cast out, and does not have access to the Throne of God in heaven because Jesus once said, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven" (Luke 10:18). But how then does Satan accuse the brethren before (literally in the face of, and thus in the presence of) God night and day (Rev. 12:10)?

Certainly not, as some have suggested, through the judgmental accusations of the brethren against each other, for the following reason: Romans 8:9-11 teaches that all of God's children have the Holy Spirit indwelling them, and all who do not have this Spirit are not his children. And, verses 20-27 of that chapter teach that God, not of his own will, but because of his own reasons, has subjected this whole material creation to vanity (ungodliness¹) in hope, and that from the time that God subjected the creation in hope to such ungodliness until now, the creation has groaned, yearning for that hope to be realized. Now, verses 26-27 teach that in the same manner that the creation now groans for the realization of the hope to which God has subjected it, the Spirit also now helps our weaknesses by groanings which cannot be uttered (they are not spoken)¹. Because we do not know what to pray for as we should, the Spirit therefore is the instrument2 that makes our prayers ready for God according to his will. Therefore, even if we were to accuse one another, our accusations would not be presented to God except as they were stripped of our selfish motivations and made to be in accordance with his will. "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin" (Romans 4:6-8), is a doubly working sword protecting both me and my brothers and sisters from ourselves and each other. However, Satan hears these prayers unretouched by the Spirit, and he uses both them and our lives to accuse us before God.

When Jesus said that he "beheld Satan fall as lightning from heaven," he used the word "theoreo" which is indicative of a witness using detailed observation or discernment. The tense in which he spoke is indicative that he was discerning these things even as the 70 disciples were exercising the powers over the demons which he had authorized them to use in his name. As these events took place Jesus discerned, for us, that war in heaven which would be triggered when Satan and his angels, observing the church during this age, finally realize the purpose and the wisdom of God in creating the material reality.

When Satan and his angels learn of this purpose, they will be moved to war. Jesus said he was even then watching as these events would begin to unfold on earth, in which God's wisdom would be made manifest to the heavenly angels through the church. The conclusion of the church age was a finished program even then; it was finished when Jesus said it was finished. When Jesus told the church that whatever it bound on earth would be bound in heaven, and whatever it released on earth would be released in heaven (Matt. 18:18), he told us that all subsequent events in history have been, and will continue to be relevant to this heavenly war and the inevitable casting out of Satan and his angels from heaven.

This purpose of God is hidden from the heavenly powers until the 7th trumpet sounds, but then the wild cat is out of the bag, and the heavenly war starts. Satan is cast out to earth where he takes his revenge out upon mankind in general and upon the Jews and the church in particular.

Rev. 11:19 says that there is also another earthquake at the 7th trumpet. Zechariah 14:4 says that when the Lord Jesus Christ comes back and plants his feet upon the Mount of Olives there is going to be an earthquake that splits that mountain in two and results in a great, east-west valley between what will then become two mountains. And Zechariah 14:5 says when that happens, "...the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee." Hallelujah, brethren! Acts 1: 11 says that the church was told when the Lord Jesus Christ ascended back into heaven from this same Mount of Olives that "this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven."

Revelation chapter 14 describes the events which occur when Jesus returns to earth again at the last trumpet. He comes with uncountable millions of his saints from both the Old and the New Covenants, and causes those saints who are yet alive upon the earth to be instantly translated into the air where his angels gather them together unto him. He then "lands" upon the Mount of Olives and another earthquake shakes the earth terribly (Zech. 14:4-5).

While the world is trying to recover from this quake, Jesus meets with the 144,000 Hebrews who have been supernaturally gathered to Mount Zion, and they "sing the song" of the millennial covenant together. At some point after that, as the Armies of Antichrist attack Jerusalem, he roars out of Zion to crush all nations and all resistance to his kingdom, and to take democracy (the beast from the sea), which natural man so loves, but which has once again inevitably lead to tyranny, and throws both the beast and the Antichrist (the false prophet) into the lake of fire.

At this time it is announced throughout the spiritual reality that the strongholds of the Babylonian system of politics, commerce, and false religion are fallen and finished (Rev. 14:8). These things are accomplished through the bowls of wrath that are being poured out upon the earth and the kingdom of Antichrist.

As mentioned earlier the scripture indicates that 1/3 of mankind will survive these terrible judgments of All Mighty God. The criteria for survival must be "meekness" or gentleness, for Jesus said that the meek would inherit the earth. It is also necessary that these meek should not have received the mark of the beast. It would therefore seem evident that they heard the proclamation of the everlasting gospel from the heavens and obeyed it (Rev. 14:7).

At the time that God pours out his wrath upon the earth, Rev. 14:14 will be fulfilled when the Lord Jesus Christ returns to earth upon a cloud. He will be wearing a Golden crown as King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and he will be bringing a great sharp sickle with which he reaps the earth. At that time he will tell his angels to gather first the tares "and bind them into bundles for burning," and then put his wheat in his barn in fulfillment of the scripture from Matt. 13:30. Notice that the tares are not at this time burned, but are bound together (The first Death) where they are reserved for burning (the second Death).

The tribulation is over, and all mankind who have afflicted the saints of God, from either the Old Covenant or the New, are reserved unto this judgment when the Lord reaps the earth of its harvest. Then in Rev. 15:2 we see all of the Old Testament and New Testament saints of God (they sing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb) in Heaven standing firmly and securely upon the cleansing laver of the Baptism of Fire. The church has been raptured and God pours out his wrath upon the earth in the same moment that Jesus Christ returns. The wrath of God, as it is poured out to judge and cleanse the earth of those who are to be bound by death, is described in the 16th chapter of Revelation.

While this is happening on earth, the God's judgment against the Babylonian whore, and the commercial and political realms over which she has ruled, is being shown to the angels and to the church in the heavenlies as we have just previously discussed. The reasons for the judgment of these three Babylonian strongholds is being shown to the heavenlies, and is described in the 17th and 18th chapters of Revelation. The execution of these judgments are described in Chapter 16 as the bowls that are full of the wrath of God. These judgments fall and prepare earth and its kingdoms for Millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ.

When these judgments start, there are only unredeemed humanity and the true nation of Israel left on earth. Some of this unredeemed humanity have the mark of the beast and some do not. The only people on earth who will survive these final events will those true Israelites who have been sealed, and those of unredeemed humanity that did not receive the mark of the beast.

The first bowl is poured out upon the earth, and a painful and evil disease develops in mankind. It seems strange that the wrath poured out on the earth should show up as a disease in man. However, the wrath of God upon the earth could lead to more famine, and there are many diseases associated with famine, among which are scurvy, and pellagra. It seems the description of this disease answers closely to pellagra, which causes not only painful skin eruptions but painful convulsions. Whatever the disease, all of mankind who have the mark of the beast, or have worshipped the beast will be afflicted with it. It would not surprise me to learn at the rapture that the method by which this disease was transmitted only to the "beasties" was because they had all been avoiding some "scientifically" proven unhealthy substance, such as hamburgers or such like, and this very item turns out to be the prevention for the grievous boils of the first bowl of wrath.

The second vial is poured out upon the sea, and the sea turns red. There is a phenomenon called the red tide that kills all sea life where it develops. I have read that this red tide is actually a huge mass of deadly suspended microbes which kills all sea life where it is found. I saw the results of such a tide in the harbor of Corpus Christi, Texas a few years ago. We arrived there just 2 days after the tide had passed through, and there were dead fish along the shoreline, and there were dead fish floating in the bays, and there were dead fish clogging up the inlets; there were dead fish everywhere. The whole area smelled like dead fish. I would not want to see or smell the effects of this "blood" that fills all the seas of earth, and kills every living thing in the oceans. This extinction of all sea life can only increase the hunger on earth at this time.

The next bowl is poured out upon the rivers and the aquifers of earth. It could be that the same plague which was poured out upon on the oceans is now poured out to pollute the fresh water supply on earth. Men can only live about three or four days in the heat without water so the end is now very near, especially in light of the next bowl which is about to be to be emptied.

The fourth bowl is poured out upon the sun. As we've discussed before, this is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isa. 30:26. It would seem that the contents of this bowl cause the sun to nova and to burn 7 times brighter than normal for a while which scorches mankind even as they die of thirst and starvation. And yet it says that they do not repent and refuse to glorify God.

The 5th bowl is poured out upon the throne of the beast, and his whole earthly kingdom is full of darkness. The sunlight is not gone but shaded. The word translated darkness in 16:10 comes from a root which means shadow or shade. As mentioned earlier, Zechariah 14:6 also says that the sunlight on earth will be lessened but constant.

Zechariah 14:6-7

"And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear (bright), nor dark: But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light."

Let's review right here and list what the conditions on earth are going be like at this time:

1) The church has been caught up into heaven and changed and is being shown a panoramic history of earth and God's purpose.

2) The Lord Jesus Christ has inaugurated the millennial covenant with Israel.

3) Jesus Christ is in Jerusalem and the armies of Antichrist which earlier had surrounded Israel for her "protection," have now invaded Israel and are proceeding toward Jerusalem and the Lord Jesus Christ.

4) The everlasting covenant from inside the book with seven seals, has been angelically proclaimed to every human being on earth even as the saints were gathered from the air.

5) Most of the earth neither repented nor accepted the covenant. But 1/3 do repent and believe and accept the eternal covenant.

6) The armies of all the nations are gathered to come against Jesus Christ in Jerusalem.

7) All mankind who have worshipped the beast or received his mark have been struck with a disease much like pellagra.

8) All life in the ocean is dead.

9) All fresh water is polluted and contaminated.

10) The sun has been darkened, but there is no longer any night time.

11) Men gnaw at their own tongues because of the sores and pain of their illness.

12) Yet they still blaspheme God and refuse to repent of their wickedness.

13) The Babylonian establishment of civilization has fallen and all commercial trade has stopped. Food is most probably very scarce and the armies moving toward Jerusalem are foraging, stripping the land like locusts.

The next thing that happens when the 6th bowl is poured out is that the River Euphrates dries up allowing the Eastern armies of the Orient to join the fray in Israel. Since Dan. 11:44 says that tidings out of the east and the north shall trouble him, I believe these oriental forces come to oppose both Antichrist and Christ. Rather than fear God, and give glory to him, worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of the waters, man would rather suffer these things and gather to fight him.

Notice that some time ago Satan and his angels were cast out of heaven but we have not seen any of his angels on earth involving themselves with the preparation for this fight. The scripture says that 3 unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouths of the dragon, and the beast, and the false prophet. I believe these represent the spiritual demons of the Satanic legions which will take possession of unregenerated humanity and will now cause them to make haste toward this showdown in Jerusalem.

How long this takes is unknown, but this much is certain, Satan knows now that he can not possibly win, but because of his nature, he wants to take as many human beings into the lake of fire with him as possible, and so, he delays his attack until his legions have time to assemble the multitudes of humanity from all over the planet. There are going to be men, women, and children being gathered for this battle, and all the while Antichrist is wreaking havoc in Israel on his way to Jerusalem.

The lake of fire and hell are not the same thing. When Satan is bound during the millennium, he is bound in hell with all of the other lost souls who had no part in the first resurrection. For the next thousand years Satan is prevented from deceiving the "ethnos" of earth, but he continues to rule over those lost souls in hell. When He is released after the thousand years, he storms through the earth, once more deceiving them that dwell on the earth. Satan does not want to take men into the lake of fire with him so he can torture them. This idea of Satan ruling in the lake of fire rather than serving in heaven is completely askew. The hottest, most painful, most hateful, most disgusting place in the lake of fire is reserved for Satan. Satan wants to take men there with him because he hates them, and he hates God for creating them, and he hates Jesus Christ for redeeming them.

But before all of that happens, the forces of the false prophet, who is the Antichrist, are impelled toward their destiny in the Valley of Megiddo where there will be millions upon millions in the valley of decision. When they are all gathered together at the place called Armageddon (Hill of Megiddo), the 7th bowl of wrath is poured out, and there are:

"voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great. And the great City was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent (75 lbs.)...." (Rev. 16:18-21).

This is the last earthquake that will ever shake the earth. It is also is the strongest of any that has ever shaken it. The mountains are all flattened, the islands all sink back into the sea. Even as they see these judgments come against them, mankind continues to gather for the Battle. For over three and a half years Satan has been gathering mankind to this place called Armageddon knowing the outcome. For over sixty centuries men have been following him there because they see and believe not. Zechariah says at that time living waters begin to flow out of Jerusalem toward both the east and the west. As we discussed earlier when talking about the events as they were revealed in heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ roars out of Zion and strikes all the people who have assembled against Jerusalem.

Zechariah 14:12-17

"And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord shall smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth. And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbor, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbor. And Judah also shall fight at Jerusalem; and the wealth of all the heathen round shall be gathered together, gold, and silver, and apparel, in great abundance. And so shall the plague of the horse, of the mule, of the camel, and of the ass, and of all the beasts that shall be in these tents, as this plague. And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of the tabernacles. And so it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain."

Those men who survive this battle go home and tell people, "There is a God in Jerusalem!" Every year they come back to celebrate the feast of the tabernacles or the "in-gathering," which commemorates the harvest of the earth. This is the only feast that will be celebrated during the Millennial Reign of Jesus Christ, and any who do not observe it will receive no rain.

As we mentioned above, while these things have been happening on earth, the now redeemed saints have been getting an "eye opening" review in heaven of the Babylonian Whore with whom they have lived and loved, and we see why her judgments are so severe. Chapter 17 of The Revelation covers this review, which I believe is given in a moment of time, and we at last begin to understand why she was so evil. In chapters 18 and 19 we are watching as all dominion and rule and authority are put down on earth and made subject to the Lord Jesus Christ. We are then established with him as kings and judges on the earth during the millennium.

I believe we review the books of the heavenly records of every soul that has ever lived, and who is now awaiting the second death, in order to present to them God's justice and judgment when the millennium is over. The reason I believe this is contained within the verses with which we began to study The Apocalypse, 2 Cor. 10:3-6. Verse 6 of that passage says the weapons of our spiritual warfare are mighty through God for: having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience when our obedience has been fulfilled. Our obedience is not fulfilled until we are translated to be with and like Jesus. From then on we rule and reign with him exercising his authority and standing ready to revenge all disobedience in the Millennial Kingdom, and to provide the prosecution's case against all disobedience that had occurred prior to the millennium when God opens those cases at the end of the thousand years.

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