The Sixth Seal

My morning devotional is an important and inspiring part of my day. There is a seam, a frame of mind and heart, a prayerful way, a way that the Holy Spirit brings you to, a prayerful state (Daniel 10:12 of understanding and humility) where the Holy Spirit uses words and phrases in significant ways. You learn to spot those.

I have been reading devotionally through the New Testament for years and this phrase jumped out at me in Revelation 6:14.

Here is the setting: In previous chapters, we see God on the throne, holding a scroll in His hand, with only the "slaughtered lamb" of God, able to take the book and open the seals with which it was sealed with seven seals. All Heaven agreed that the lamb was the one worthy, who had given his life in obedience to God, that sin might be defeated. As the first five seals are removed, events, that are signs of God's wrath are revealed, and in the 5th Seal, the souls who were slaughtered "because of the word of God and the testimony they had given" are crying out to God for vengeance, for God to act. Before HE acts, he gives one last great, truly incredible sign to the fallen race of man, to the earth that is in rebellion, before pouring out wrath and that great sign, is given when the Sixth Seal is removed.

"Then I saw him open the sixth seal. A violent earthquake occurred; the sun turned black like sackcloth made of hair; the entire moon became like blood; the stars of heaven fell to the earth as a gif tree drops its unripe figs when shaken by a high wind; vs 14 "the sky was split apart like a scroll being rolled up: and every mountain and island was moved from its place." And then we see the response on earth - all hide in caves and shout 'hide us from the face of the one seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb'.

When the sky was split apart, the people of the earth saw Heaven open, and could see God sitting on His throne, his appearance angry, and the countenance of the wrath of the Lamb, the Lord Jesus, his face directed at the people of earth. Their first, and only vision of Heaven itself, and they see wrath. Every last person on earth must tremble.

I read this literally. I saw in my mind, that as people looked up, while signs occurred in the heavens, as the earth quaked, that the sky split apart visually, so that whatever barrier forbids us seeing Heaven was torn away, and God leaned in, and looked down, and showed people His wrath. A final warning. All is ready - you have slaughtered my people, you have defied my testimony and the provision for your sins and now look upon my wrath. Frightening grace. It was grace. But the response is not repentance but hiding.

What a sign! You cannot say that people of the earth had no chance to repent. This sign should have overwhelmed people, but in the great way that people can dissociate the unfamiliar, somehow, it struck them deeply because they cried out, but did not put the fear they felt, with the responsibility they had to accept this warning, this miracle, this horrific event, and to act on it with repentance. They next time they see His face in wrath will be after the Millennial Kingdom period, at the final judgment, when alone before God, each is judged, and they are sent for all eternity to the place none of them would wish to go.

May we see the grace of God in this sign and renew our call to others, be thankful for our salvation for the grace that called us out of darkness, and renew our prayers for their salvation.