FOR FAIR USE AND EDUCATION AND DISCUSSION PURPOSES




Most "carnal" Christians will be excited to learn more about what will happen when this seal is opened...."THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE"...Rev.6:12. When, where, how? Those are the questions most of us ask. And for a very long time (20 years or more), I searched for the same answers and never found them. But, that's another Romans 8:28 thing! I sure did learn where everything was found in my bible through all of this. And this prepared me for the directive in I Peter 3:15:

"But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready ALWAYS to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: (vs.16) Having a good conscience; that, wheras they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. (vs.17) For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing."

I admit that I am not the most "meek" person alive...but I'm learning. [Thanks Steven]. And I understand that some will speak, and think evil of me just because I think in a different way than they do. I'm just trying to follow God and not man.

Link explaining the Sixth Seal...and the sun, moon, and stars (in their spiritual meanings).


http://www.godfire.net/eby/rev-94.html


Piece of the article link:



As the sixth seal is broken the whole scene changes and John sees in vision such a display of divine power as to cause believers to wonder and unbelievers to stagger. The throne room vanishes, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders are not in view, the horses have galloped away, the temple is gone, the altar scene has disappeared. The Seer is looking down upon the earth.

He sees a great earthquake, an eruption of nature that not only shakes the boot of Italy, not merely Japan, Portugal, Nicaragua, or San Francisco, but convulses the whole world of nature with mountains sinking, abysses yawning, cities falling; the sun goes into total eclipse, a big full moon appearing as a huge, awe inspiring bloody ball, stars fall from their sockets, plunging into the earth - not comets or meteors but stars! - and the heavens are rolled up like a scroll.

He sees the sea raging and every island engulfed, the whole population in terror, high and low, all ranks and classes seeking shelter, as men do in times of catastrophe. The vision, if taken literally, implies that God would visit this earth with judgments so terrible and universal that kings, crown princes, field marshals, the rich and the strong, all bondmen and free men, would hide in caves and cry for the mountains and rocks to cover them from the wrath of the Lamb.

Of course this is not to be taken literally! Such a convulsion would be the total destruction of the universe! Stars do not fall to the earth. Some of them are larger than our entire solar system! Should even one star literally fall upon the earth there would not be even a cinder left. And we know, even from the book of Revelation, that the world exists long after these events.

Again, I remind you that this is a picture. It is a figurative description! The imagery is taken from the prophecies of Joel and Isaiah where the coming of the day of the Lord is described in metaphorical terms of the dissolution of the heavens and the earth, denoting the passing away of the old spiritual order and the establishing of the new! (Joel 2:30-31; Isa. 34:2-4).

On one occasion Isaiah says, "The moon shall be confounded and the sun ashamed when the Lord shall reign in mount Zion" (Isa. 24:23). This is a prophecy of the superior light of the kingdom of God dimming into obscurity the lesser light of the old covenant of the law and the old-order church systems of man. Another metaphorical use of the sun is found in the prophecy of Jeremiah, "Her sun is gone down while it was yet day: she hath been ashamed and confounded: and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword" (Jer. 15:9).

This was a prophecy of the rejection of Israel because of the sin of unbelief. And again the prophet Micah says, "The sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them" (Micah 3:6) - the withdrawal of the light of inspiration from the prophets of Israel because of their unfaithfulness to the Lord.

You see, beloved, we don't really need to spiritualize anything, for the greater part of the whole of scripture has already been spiritualized by the Holy Spirit! It is only the carnal mind of unspiritual men that seeks to literalize the word of God of which Jesus said, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life."

Of the carnal-minded "literalists" who were offended by the teaching of Jesus, the Lord said, "In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: for this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear" (Mat. 13:14-16).

Those who see only the "letter of the word" simply do not have ears to hear the Spirit! Upon first glancing upon a scripture we will get the surface meaning, but we must look deeper to gain Truth. When you read of the sun being darkened and the moon turning to blood, the stars falling and the mountains and islands moving out of their place, it may be difficult to see that this refers to your little world, as the sixth seal is broken! But when you do see, you will be blessed indeed, for "blessed are the eyes that see, and the ears that hear!"

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I understand the frustration, and anger, of those who only see "literal" things. I've been there, too! And one day soon, they will understand as well.....everybody will!!

Arlene