Bible Discussion Thread

Revelation series focusing on God's destruction rather than those of the world's armies: SEALS 2-4

INTRODUCTION

I am going to continue with the second through the fourth seal of Revelation here. My purpose is not to nit pick about every time death occurs because of man's weapons of war or whether it is by other means. The overall emphasis is to show how all the future events are ultimately controlled by the Lord and in a sense "choreographed" that way. Indeed; whatever the means surely the time of Jacob's trouble will be like no other in terms of the level of destruction on the earth. ( Jeremiah 30:7; Matt. 24:21).

Since this is the case; we can't just look at statistics here to determine how awful things will be. That is clear from seeing that just EIGHT souls were saved on Noah's ark. Clearly there are many more than that; albeit a small percent of the earth at large that survives to repopulate in the Millennium. The demonic release "en masse" from the bottomless pit and probably other places in the underworld is what makes it so horrible as they will clearly be tormenting men by the 5th Trumpet. The giant hybrids of Noah's day were destroyed but we never saw a time of such horrible devastation by agents of evil as is to come.

War famine and pestilence

Deuteronomy 32:24-25 states: I will send wasting famine against them, consuming pestilence and deadly plague;

I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts, the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.

25 In the street the sword will make them childless; in their homes terror will reign.

These themes of war; famine and pestilence are rife throughout the Old Testament in Ezekiel; and several passages in Jeremiah along with the solemn warnings of Matthew 24 and of course Revelation which we are discussing now. (also see Luke 21:11).

God has judged this way as we see from the passages in Jeremiah in the past in order to take vengeance on the idolatry of Israel. The same thing will happen again.