So the Tribulation period
So the Tribulation period
So the Tribulation period on earth begins then with a false peace, energize by Antichrist. And if you have any desire to compare that, look at Daniel 9:27 where it says the very same thing. He makes a pact with the people of God and sets up a false peace. So he is a false Christ, brings what looks like peace. But it doesn't last long. I mean it doesn't last long at all because the second seal is broken open in verse 4 and another horse comes out, this wasn't isn't white, this one is red. These are the four horsemen of the apocalypse, by the way. And power is given him that sat on it to take peace from the earth that they should kill one another. The second seal is war.
That leads us to the third seal which is broken open and it's a black horse, verse 5. The one who sat on it had a pair of balances in his hand. In other words, weighing out, measuring out. And it says when it measured out a measure of wheat, verse 6, for a denarius, that means you get about one and a half pints of barley or less wheat, maybe a third of that for one day's wages. In other words, you work one full day to make not enough for one person to eat...or barely enough for one person to eat. Those are famine conditions. And it says, "See thou hurt not the oil and the wine," that's the rich man's food, don't touch that.
So what you have then is peace followed by war followed by famine. And where there's worldwide war there's going to be worldwide famine. And then the fourth seal comes along and it's dead. What follows war and famine but death. Verse 8 says, "There came a rider on a pale horse, his name was death and Hades followed after him." Why? He goes along killing and Hades comes along scooping up all the dead. "Power was given to them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, the beast of the earth."
Then you come to the fifth seal and you find some people under the altar. These are no doubt the redeemed people who have been slain during that period and now they're in heaven. And they're at the very altar of God, the very throne of God as it were and they're under there praying, verse 10, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" Because in this war and in this carnage and in this famine and all the debacle on earth, the redeemed people are slaughtered by the Antichrist. When their spirits come to heaven they gather together and they cry to God, "How long You going to let this go on without bringing vengeance on those who are slaughtering the saints?" That's a very important section. You ought to make a note about that. That section is a premise on which much future discussion in Revelation is based. Verse 11 says, "And white robes were given to every one of them and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season until their fellow servants also and their brethren that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled." What He says to them is you just be patient, in the mean time here's a white robe, here's your heavenly garment, enjoy and hang in there until the rest of the martyrs are done being martyred. It's not over yet...as someone once said...it's never over until it's over. And it's not over yet.
And so back to earth, the sixth seal, an earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth of hair and the moon became like blood. Joel talked about that and so did Peter on the day of Pentecost. The stars of heaven fell to the earth. Now imagine that, folks. The sun goes black, the moon goes blood, the stars fall out of the sky like a fig tree casting untimely figs. In other words, you have over ripe figs, you shake the tree, they all fall down. The stars all fall out of heaven. And the heaven then departs like a scroll. You ever pull down a blind in a window and you let go of it and it went...bleh-bleh-bleh-bleh- bleh-bleh...like that? That's what's going to happen to the whole heaven. Bleh-bleh-bleh-bleh-bleh-bleh-bleh-bleh...see. The whole thing is gone. And every mountain and every island moved out of their places. Can you imagine that? Scary time. And they get really afraid. And you have tremendous fear in verses 15 to 17. They scream for the rocks and the mountains to fall, to hide them from the face of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb for the great day of the wrath has come and who shall be able to stand?
Now those six seals, just took you right to the final utter devastation when heaven rolls up, the stars fall out of the sky, the moon goes black, the sun goes to blood and all of these incredible events happen and the Lord comes in vengeance and wrath and His blazing glory comes out of heaven and people are screaming for protection from that glory which lights the blackened space.
Now you can only take so much of this and you'd be a basket case. And poor John, can you imagine what it would be like to have all these visions? So the Lord gives him periodic respite and chapter 7 is one of those. And in chapter 7 He says, "By the way, John," and I want to tell you, before I get into that, how the Hebrew journalist wrote. You tell the story to the end, then you go back and pick up the details. Have you ever seen that in a newspaper article? That's good journalism. A newspaper article starts out and says So-and-so and So-and-so was walking down the street, was struck by a truck, died, was taken to So- and-so hospital and So-and-so's family came, he was already dead on arrival. And that's the end of the first two paragraphs. Then what happens? It goes all the way back through some details and then it will go back through some details again. That's the highest interest level kind of writing. You go back through details. Genesis 1, the creation all the way to the end. Genesis 2, you go back and pick up the details. The writer of Revelation does the same thing. He sweeps us in the sixth seals all the way to the end and then he comes back to pick up the details. We'll see seven trumpets, right? And seven bowls. What those do is go back and cover the territory already included in the seals. They go back and pick up some more details closer to the end.
So we go back. And we find in chapter 7 that there is in the midst of all of this some protection going on. There's going to be some blessing. There are going to be some people spared from this judgment. And everybody is not going to be under the altar, some believers are going to be spared. Who are they? They're 144 thousand Jews out of every tribe. Dan is omitted because of gross idolatry, Deuteronomy 29, but in case you're worried about Dan, in Ezekiel 48 they're included in the kingdom layout so they are restored graciously to the King and they're just not allowed to serve in this particular ministry.
Now what does this say? In the middle of the week when the holocaust begins, there will already be Jews saved believing Jesus Christ to be their Savior and Lord, already been saved and they will go through that same period and they will not be able to be killed. Why? Because they can't be hurt. They're sealed. They're protected. It says that in verses 2 and 3. Nothing can harm them so during that second half you're going to have 144 thousand Jews going through preaching the gospel. They're going to be very effective, folks. Look at verse 9. "I saw a great multitude which nobody could number." I mean, they were an uncountable number. "Of all nations, kindreds, peoples, tongues, they stood before the throne, before the Lamb clothed with white robes with palms in their hands, they cried, Salvation to our God who sits on the throne and unto the Lamb." Where did they come from? They are the fruit of the 144 thousand Jews.
You know, this is one of the marvelous statements about God's sovereignty in salvation. God will choose to be saved 144 thousand Jews and He'll choose 12 thousand out of every tribe of Israel. And only He knows where people connect up with their tribes. They lost all the records in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. but He doesn't lose the records. God will literally elect 12 thousand out of every tribe so there will be 144 thousand redeemed Jews in that second half. And they will be the evangelists. And out of their ministry will come an innumerable number of people from every tribe and tongue and nation and people praising the Lord Jesus Christ.
And then, of course, you have following that a whole lot of worship in the rest of chapter 7. A marvelous marvelous thing.
Now you come to the seventh seal in chapter 8. And the seventh seal is very often a response to the first six, or the seventh trumpet a response to the first six, or the seventh bowl a response to the first six. In verse 1, by the way, is some people's life verse to prove there are no women in heaven because it says, "There will be silence in heaven for the space of half an hour." But I think that may be pressing the point a little. Well when He opened the seventh seal there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. What does that mean? That means what stopped? What stopped? Well what goes on in heaven? Worship...just been going on in chapter 7. So it stops for half an hour. Why? They're in awe. I mean, they're in awe of the holocaust of divine fury being poured out.
It's bad, isn't it? Really bad. And just to help you see how really bad it is and why heaven was actually silent, John's taken back again. Only this time he doesn't go all the way back to the middle of this week, clear back to the second seal or the first seal, he just goes back a little ways to the final devastation. And the seven trumpets run right toward the end of the seventh seal. In fact, they may well describe just the events of the sixth seal, could be broader than that. But when you look at the seven trumpets don't think the seven trumpets happen, then the seven...or rather the seven seals happen, then the seven trumpets happen, then the seven bowls happen. It isn't that way at all. And it isn't that the seven trumpets happen and then out of them the seven bowls either. It is that you have the seven seals and then at the end of the seven seals the seven trumpets and at the very end of the seven trumpets in a staccato rapid fire machine-gun effect you have the seven bowls fired out at the very end. And that's the chronology of these sevens.
So here come the seven trumpet judgments, another way to signify judgment. The Lord has rolled out the seal and at the end of it come trumpets announcing judgment. Verse 6, seven angels, had seven trumpets ready to sound. The first trumpet sounded and there was hail and fire mixed with blood, cast on the earth a third of the trees and all green grass was burnt up. That's a judgment on vegetation. A judgment on vegetation is a judgment on man because he can't live without vegetation in many places, and a judgment on animals because they can't live without vegetation either. And it may be some kind of a judgment on the oxygenation of the world as well...where vegetation is needed.
And so we see the third part of the creatures that were...the third part and the second trumpet in verse 8, the third part of the sea became blood and the third part of the creatures in the sea that had life died, a third part of the ships were destroyed. God does a judgment...and imagine, one third of all vegetation is gone and one third of the sea becomes blood like and a third part of the creatures in the sea die and you've got floating around on one third of the seas of the world the stinking rotten putrefying mess. In other words, man failed to recognize the gift of God in creation and so God takes it away. Man failed to give God glory for the wonderful things that He had made, the green grass, the plants and the trees, the sea and all the life that's in it. Man wouldn't glorify God and so God takes it away. And then you have the third trumpet in verse 10, and it fell on the third part of the rivers, did the judgment. And the fountain of waters, it was called wormwood. And it became bitter and this is the judgment on the fresh water, all the fresh water sources are struck with bitterness. And a third of them destroyed like the rest.
The fourth trumpet blows in 12, a third part of the sun was smitten. Do you know what that will do to the calendar? Do you know what that will do to the schedule? Do you know what that will do to day by day? You lose a third of the sun? I don't know what kind of chaos that will cause in heaven. A third part of the moon is gone, a third part of the stars are gone. A third part of them is darkness and the day shone not for a third part of it and the night likewise. Amazing, the whole calendar is wiped out, it's gone whacko. You've got all kinds of screwball eclipses going on all over everyplace. And I heard an angel flying around in the middle of all this, in verse 13, saying, Woe, woe, woe. I can identify with that angel. And what that angel says is, you think this is bad, wait till you hear the next three. You haven't heard anything. Whew!
And then in 9 the fifth trumpet sounds. And a star fall. Oh, who is that? Lucifer. And he got the key to the bottomless pit. You know who is in the bottomless pit? Bound demons, demons that are bound down there by God. There are demons right there bound in the pit, they can't get out. But the key is going to get in the hands of Lucifer in the Tribulation in the fifth trumpet, he's going to go down, unlock the bottomless pit. And you know what's going to happen? All the bound demons that have been bound down there, some of them have been bound for centuries and centuries and thousands of years and finally they're going to get out and they're going to gush out of there and it says in verse 2, "Smoke out of the pit like the smoke of a furnace and the sun and the air darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit," and they're like locusts, it says in verse 3. Just like a plague, they just sweep the earth.
You know why the Tribulation is going to be a terrible time? Because all the bound demons in hell are going to be turned loose to add to the ones that are already running all over the earth. And it says they were commanded in verse 4 that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree but only those men who have not the seal of God on their foreheads. The demons aren't going to do anything to the creation, they're just going to wipe out men. And they don't even give the privilege to kill them in the fifth trumpet. They can't kill them it says in verse 5, they can only torment them five months and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when he strikes a man. And in those days men shall seek death and not find it and shall desire to die and death will flee from them. They're going to get stung like the sting of a scorpion, the locust plague of demons are going to cross the globe torturing men for five months, unable...men will be unable to find relief even in death. And then you have a description in verses 7 to 10 of these demonic beings, symbolic language. And it says in verse 11 they had a king over them and the king is the angel of the bottomless pit whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, means destroyer, and in the Greek tongue, Apollyon means destroyer. Their king is the devil himself.
You think that's bad? There are two more trumpets. And during that period of time the sixth trumpet blows and the Euphrates River is opened up, as it were, and the angels, verse 15, who were prepared for an hour and a day and a month and a year to slay the third part of men. Here comes a host released by an angel who are going to slaughter one third of the world. And the number of the army of the horsemen is two hundred thousand thousand, that's 200 million, and they come from the east, across the Euphrates. It goes on to describe them. It's always interested me that whether this is a demonic army or a demon- possessed army of men is immaterial. I believe it is an army from the east numbering 200 million, possessed by demons. You might be interested to note the Red Chinese army now numbers 200 million. Time magazine said that ten years ago.
And so, by verse 18 it says they kill a third of the world by fire, by smoke and brimstone which comes out of their mouth. It may be some kind of weaponry described in those ancient terms. And the rest of the men who were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, they should worship demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood that can't see or hear or walk and neither repented they of their murders, nor of their pharmakeia, that's drugs, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. Men didn't repent, they just cursed God.
Now those are pretty formidable trumpets, aren't they? There you have the first six trumpets. That's all going to come in the end of the Tribulation. Have you noticed that the church isn't around all this time? Chapter 10 is another little respite. I mean, poor John, poor us. So He gives him another little vision of the good part. And He gives him a vision of Christ. "His face was though it were the sun and His feet like pillars of fire. And He had in His hand that scroll and His right foot is on the sea and His left foot is on the earth and He cries with a loud voice like a lion and seven thunders out of their voices." And, you know, here He is in his glorious vision, but He says to John in verse 5, "Don't let them know about this, don't tell them." Too fantastic. Judgment on sinners, too much, too terrifying, too horrible, too horrifying, don't tell them. Don't tell them. This is mystery. Verse 7, the mystery of God shall be finished. This part we're not going to reveal.