6th Seal - Day of Wrath will Come

 Revelation 6:12-17

When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale.  The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.  Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

When John looked up and saw the Lamb breaking the 6th seal, he saw natural catastrophes falling upon the earth prophesied in Zephaniah 1:14-16; “he great day of the LORD is near; it is near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the LORD is bitter; there the mighty men shall cry out. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet and alarm against the fortified cities and against the high towers.” or in Joel 2:10-11; “The sun and moon grow dark, and stars diminish their brightness… for the day of the LORD is great and terrible; who can endure it?”  The end of days will come with great tribulation and wrath.  The 6th seal describes some of the things that will happen to mankind in that day.

Great earthquakes, not like an 8.5 or 9.2 on the Richter scale as in California or Japan each year, but think 3-5 times greater.  An immeasurable event on the Richter scale will bring cracks across the earth’s surface.  John describes the sun turning black, not as in a solar eclipse; no, solid black, no star light, no moon light, no light to bring reflection upon the earth.  He talks of the stars falling, not as shooting stars or a random meteor, but all of them falling from the sky.  The stars, created by God the Father, will fall and no longer provide light in the darkness.  John’s ability to interpret and describe these things may or may not be exact, but his the best way of describing what he sees.  He continues to describe that, suddenly, the sky is no more.  It was split and rolled up like a scroll.  No celestial beings, no constellations, no planets, or moons.  We know that God’s finger created the skies, the stars, the moon, and the sun.  As John describes here in Revelation 6, He alone will remove them in the end days.

I’ve been to Alaska, I’ve seen Denali; I’ve been to Colorado to Pikes Peak, I’ve been to Seattle to Mt Rainier.  In Asia, there are K2 and Mt Everest in the Tibetan / Chinese mountain range.  In Africa, Mt Kilimanjaro towers over Tanzania.  100’s if not 1000’s of other mountain peaks across the globe rise into the sky over 15,000 feet.  Revelation 6 tells us that every one of them will come crashing to the ground and be removed from its place.  The towering elevations will be flattened, and the 1000’s of islands will be removed from the waters.  You and I can’t fathom this in our own minds, because it’s incomprehensible.  Yet, God is very clear in the vision portrayed for John.

This verse concludes with the statement of God’s wrath upon mankind.  Every leader, king, and the loftiest presidents, prime ministers, and military leaders will fear His wrath to the point of begging for death.  It will be obvious that God is the supreme authority, sovereign above all others.  Who is able to withstand the wrath of the Lamb?  Those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ are able, because Jesus has taken God’s judgment and wrath upon Himself already.

It's important to realize that God alone controls the creation and the destruction of our world.  As much as we believe we are in control of this planet’s life cycle and elements, we are incapable of such power.  God is in charge of the end of our planet.  We are capable of destroying natural resources that God has provided, but we are not capable of surprising God Almighty.  It’s not like God heard Al Gore talk of Global Warming in 1998 and was surprised that the earth’s natural resources were being consumed.  God has a timetable, and we are simply living within it.  Earthquakes, floods, fires, and frozen tundras are all a part of God’s plan for the end to come.  Realizing that the earth and all herein belong to God, and not mankind, is the beginning of wisdom.  When you can cause the stars to fall, the sun to be blackened, and the earth to be shattered by great earthquakes, I will follow your wise counsel on these things.  But, until that time, I propose we follow God’s plans for the end and prepare accordingly by following the Lamb who controls these things.