Seals 5, 6 & 7: Martyrdom, Devastation and the Return.

The three verses of Revelation 6:9-11 paint a picture that is worth a million words. We have been introduced to the unholy horsemen and now we see the supposed fruit of "their" labor. They are driven by Satan to remove Israel from the face of the earth and when that fails; their full attention turns to the destruction of the seed of Israel: the new believers of the 70th week. The words that follow are hard words and by our Western standards; not very encouraging as an evangelistic message: believe and die! Our God's ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts ours!

Martyrdom for Christ is nothing new, for as you read this blog, brothers and sisters in the Lord are under the threat of death in more places than we care to imagine; many will die this very day. What we see today is only a foreshadowing of the events to come, for I believe the Scriptures teach that all who come to Christ after the rapture of the Church must die the Martyr's death if not by natural causes. There will be no church playing, for then being a believer is a matter of life and death in the here and now.

I also believe the Word teaches that the numbers that come to a saving knowledge of the true Messiah would stagger our comprehension. The number could be more than a billion for the following 3 reasons: 1) the Church (the grafted-in wild olive branch) has done its' work for nearly 2,000 years and not one "chosen" member of the Bridal party is missing in heaven or in the Bridegroom's presence; 2) re: Israel - Romans 11:24 "...how much more shall these, which be the natural branches be, grafted into their own olive tree?" The power of God's unimaginable grace shall be unleashed through His chosen people and death shall not deter the elect one iota. Today we have the testimonies of thousands who by God's grace have chosen eternal life in the face certain death but the day is coming when it will be in the millions; 3) the 6th trumpet I believe will sound at the midpoint of the 70th week and the demons released will be under the ultimate command of Satan and will kill 1/3 of the remaining population on earth. This number alone will easily be over a billion, maybe even 2 billion, out of which will be an uncountable number of martyrs.

Who are the martyrs?

• Revelation 12:17 - They are the seed of the woman (Israel). Satan's attempt to destroy Israel fails, and he makes war on those who have responded to the testimony of the 144,000 (more later).
• Revelation 5:9-11 Slain for the Word of God and for their testimony as they in turn worked to reach millions more for Christ. These in chapter 5 are under the throne, under its power and protection, in the presence of the Lamb and dressed in white robes which per Revelation 19:8 is the righteousness of the saints.
• Another thing chapter 5 teaches, is that there is a specific number to be martyred. As I believe the 70th week does not begin with the rapture but after Israel is cleansed and made ready for their 70th week role: when the last of the martyrs is killed then the final wrath of God will be released (Seal 6).

What awaits the martyrs?

• Revelation 7:15 - "...and shall serve Him day and night in His temple:...".
• The Bride shall rule and reign with Christ, the 144,000 (as we shall see) shall be our Lord's personal entourage, Israel shall serve the millennial temple and oversee the worship for the people of the millennium and the martyrs shall serve Him in His temple, the New Jerusalem.

I am going to reserve much of my comments on the 6th seal until I address the 7 bowl judgments of Revelation 16. As the 5th seal dealt with human element concerning the martyrs, I want to discuss the human element being judged.

Points to ponder!

• Satan is very confident in his knowledge of when and where Jesus is coming when He returns.
• By miracles, he has deceived the powers of this earth to gather with him for the ultimate battle as far as he is concerned.
• The armies of earth think they are prepared when a mysterious event happens: the heavens are rolled up like a scroll and exist no more. People will try to "explain" the explainable by theorizing about multiple dimensions and the like. This we do know; that Jacob saw angels ascending and descending a stairway between heaven and earth. Heaven has never been further away than the end of our noses and we have been allowed to live in this universe created initially for our pleasure. Whatever actually will happen, the outcome is that the people of earth in an instant will find themselves in the courts of heaven with an unrestricted view of the Throne.
• There is no time to repent and fear will consume all. No one will doubt what has just occurred for in Ecclesiastes 3:11 - "...also He hath set the world (that which has been concealed) in their heart" will surface and they will know they are without hope.
• From the anger and agony of the bowl judgments 1 to 5, to the ecstasy of the miracles of deception of bowl 6 to absolute hopelessness; God has given mankind exactly what they deserve and yet the worst is still to come.

And just how long has this been going on?

Check out this caption attached to the picture on the right from the BBC article: Why the moon is getting further away from earth.

"The speed at which the Moon is moving away from Earth could affect life on the planet, but this could take billions of years to happen, writes space scientist Dr. Maggie Aderin-Pocock."

Did you catch that phase "could affect life on the planet, but this could take billions of years"? Did you know that it is perfectly acceptable for an evolutionist to be a generalist when speaking of things that would directly affect our lives, but to demand from creationists specifics when concerning these same issues? Now look at a generalist trying to sound purely scientific when addressing this topic.

You have got to love these guys: they speak of both the past and future in billions of years, yet they do not address these "known" phenomenon and their impacts upon life upon this planet in the near past or future. If you are going tell a tale that can not nor ever will be verifiable, make it a whopper.

"The Moon is gradually receding from the Earth into a higher orbit, and calculations suggest that this would continue for about fifty billion years. By that time, the Earth and Moon would become caught up in what is called a spin–orbit resonance or tidal locking in which the Moon will circle the Earth in about 47 days (currently 27 days), and both Moon and Earth would rotate around their axes in the same time, always facing each other with the same side. (This has already happened to the Moon—the same side always faces Earth. This is slowly happening to the Earth as well.) However, the slowdown of the Earth's rotation is not occurring fast enough for the rotation to lengthen to a month before other effects change the situation: about 2.3 billion years from now, the increase of the Sun's radiation will have caused the Earth's oceans to vaporize, removing the bulk of the tidal friction and acceleration." Source: Wikipedia - Orbit of the moon.

Some things to think about!

These are not speculative: these are based upon facts that both the evolutionist and creationist have at their disposal and neither have a corner on the factual data.

• The earth's rotation is slowing because it is constantly transferring its energy to the moon.
• The moon is moving further from the earth at a very calculable rate because the earth's energy is waning: cause and effect.
• If you extrapolate backwards the moon would have totally disintegrated into rings around the earth; very similar to Saturn, in less than 1 billion years.
• In a much shorter period than a billion years, the earth would not be close to appearing as it does now: why you ask? The gravitational effects between the moon and the earth would be amplified and identifiable by much higher tidal evidence than exists, higher mountains and deeper canyons.
• The perfect model for this is Mars. Mars' two moons were discovered in 1877 by Asaph Hall and were initially thought to be asteroids caught up in Mars' gravitational pull. After further research they became classified as meeting all the requirements of moon-ship. Why at first they considered them to be asteroids was because they were badly misshapen and appeared to be severely space damaged, very un-moon like. Later it was discovered that there were massive electrical discharges between Mars and its two moons due to the natural result of their close proximity. Mars, a smaller planet than earth, lower in density yet it boasts mountains in excess of 40,000 feet and canyons deeper than 5 miles. The war of electrical discharges is being won by Mars and long before its moons' orbits could get much nearer to its surface, they will be gone.
• How much closer would our moon have to be towards earth before a Mars type of interaction occurs is an unknown; but even evolutionist scientists know that the earth and its moon cannot exist in close proximity to one another.

When the belief supersedes the logic of the evidence; it is no longer science but has become a religion that must be defended at all costs. Christians are not exempt from this principle either as too many have developed their own belief system apart from the whole of God's Word. They too will defend their position often resulting in the severing of relationships and the possible destruction of others lives, whether it is spiritual, financial or in the case of Jonestown, physical.