- Mar 16, 2004
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It sounds like a campaign, Napoleon was suspected in his day of being the Antichrist. His reign didn't start out with battles and conquest, it actually started out with parades and ceremonies. Eventually all of Europe was drawn into terrible conflict but it started with Napoleon rallying the crowds to what they imagined would be a glorious conquest. It goes from a kind of triumphant procession, the Antichrist sporting the bow which is some kind of a ballistic weapon. It reminds me of the parades by the Soviets and North Koreans driving their missiles as part of a parade. War doesn't come until the second seal, a great sword is given him, which seems to imply not ballistic missiles but the sword is an infantry weapon. In the wake of a third of the people of earth now dead, famine and rationing are indicated by the scale that measures out wheat and barley for a days wages. That sounds like slave labor. Always in the wake of war there is cataclysmic devastation, the fourth horseman is at an unparalleled level.
The devastation unleashed with the opening of the sixth seal has this curious description:
The stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. (Rev. 6:13,14)
That sounds a lot like ICBMs, of course there are other explanations but the heavens receding like a scroll, stars falling from heaven. One has to wonder, with the devastation with so many ground forces could the nations be resorting to nuclear strikes, the rest of the description perhaps describing nuclear winter. It could account for why they are in the dens and caves of the rocks, fall out bunkers perhaps?
What is puzzling here is how they know this is the wrath of the Lamb, especially if the cataclysm of the sixth seal are man made weapons. Unless of course, the martyrs slain in the Antichrists bloody inaugural rampage prophesied the cataclysm that would follow. Whether the church is raptured before this happens or not, there is a witness, the literal meaning of martyr, that proclaims the Word of God in the midst of persecution.
Bear in mind the word translated 'tribulation' is more often used in Scripture to speak of persecution:
Tribulation (θλῖψις, thlē'-psēs G2347) In Rev. 7:14, “the great tribulation”, RV, lit., “the tribulation, the great one” (not as KJV, without the article), is not that in which all saints share; it indicates a definite period spoken of by the Lord in Matthew 24:21,29; Mark 13:19,24; where the time is mentioned as preceding His second advent, and as a period in which the Jewish nation, restored to Palestine in unbelief by gentile instrumentality, will suffer an unprecedented out burst of fury on the part of antichristian powers confederate under the Man of Sin (2 Thess. 2:10-12; Rev. 12:13-17); in this tribulation gentile witnesses for God will share (Rev. 7:9), but it will be distinctly “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer. 30:7), its beginning is signalized by the setting up of the ‘abomination of desolation” (Matt. 24:15; Mark 13:14, with Dan. 11:31; 12:11).
Note: For the verb thlibo, in the passive voice rendered “suffer tribulation: in 1 Thess. 3:4, KJV (RV ‘suffer affliction’) (Vine's Expository Dictionary)
The tribulation that comes upon the earth, is precluded by the persecution 'anguish, suffering' of believers. Before the seals in Revelation 6:9-11 the martyrs cry for God to avenger their blood. Before the trumpet blasts in Rev. 8:5 a censor that represents the prayers of the saints is cast to the earth, a symbol of impending wrath. Then the prelude to the vials is a song:Note: For the verb thlibo, in the passive voice rendered “suffer tribulation: in 1 Thess. 3:4, KJV (RV ‘suffer affliction’) (Vine's Expository Dictionary)
“Great and marvelous are your deeds,
Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are your ways,
King of the nations.
Who will not fear you, Lord,
and bring glory to your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
and worship before you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.” (Rev. 16:3-4)
Grace and peace,Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are your ways,
King of the nations.
Who will not fear you, Lord,
and bring glory to your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
and worship before you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.” (Rev. 16:3-4)
Mark
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