12th February 2003 at 06:22 AM Rize said this in Post #45
...Come on. Supernatural locusts instructed not to harm those with the seal of God aren't the wrath of God. You're stretching things here...
Note that it doesn't say the locusts are the wrath of God.
God has allowed faithful Christians to be tortured by men, and to be tormented by scorpion stings, and to suffer from excruciatingly painful diseases such as cancer, throughout history, from the beginning of the church down until this day, and not because he was bringing his wrath against them.
I believe it's possible that "it was commanded" the locusts by God to torment "only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads" (Revelation 9:4) in the same way that God controlled exactly what Satan could do during his tormenting of Job: "The LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life" (Job 2:6); God could be saying "Behold, all men can be tormented; but the sealed men." Note that none of the suffering that God allowed Satan to bring upon Job was God's wrath against Job.
I believe we are to look to the patient suffering of Job as our example: "Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy" (James 5:10-11). We Christians will need such patience in the coming tribulation, whether during the torment from the locusts, or during the persecution from the Antichrist: "Here is the patience and the faith of the saints" (Revelation 13:10); "Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus" (Revelation 14:12-13).
12th February 2003 at 06:22 AM Rize said this in Post #45
...The only thing that Christians will suffer in the tribulation is persecution at the hands of the anti-christ...
I believe that we Christians will suffer and die throughout the wars, famines, plagues, persecutions, martyrdoms, and natural disasters of the seals and trumpets, just as we Christians have always suffered, and not because God was bringing his wrath against us.