What is the Coming Tribulation All About? Part 15
In our last article – What is the Coming Tribulation All About? Part 14 – we covered The Sixth Trumpet of Revelation. We’re going toward The Seventh Trumpet, but we need to discuss the contents of Revelation 10 as well as the Two Witnesses in Revelation 11.Yes, it’s been a couple of weeks since my last article on the Tribulation. I’ve been too busy at my other blog dealing with the Ebola “crisis,” but I do want to finish this series on the Tribulation so here we are with another entry.
You’ll recall that with the blowing of The Sixth Trumpet, four angels who had been bound at the Euphrates River until just that specific time, were released. These angels were given the task of killing 1/3 of mankind with an army of 200 million soldiers. We spent some time discussing the possibilities regarding the make-up of these soldiers, whether they were human or demonic. The description of the soldiers in Revelation 9:17-19 tends to point toward these soldiers being supernatural (demonic) as opposed to human. However, we won’t know for certain until that event happens.
Let’s also not forget that even after The Sixth Trumpet does its work, we read in the last few verses of Revelation 9 that no one repented.
The rest of [r]mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; 21 and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts.
That should amaze people. Considering how brutal the trumpet judgments have been so far, you would think that people would be on their knees pleading for mercy. Nope, not the arrogant people of earth. Repentance is not something for which they will stoop.
Revelation 10 is a relatively short chapter in which we see a bit of pageantry occurring in the heavenly realms. In my opinion, the first verse tells me that this angel is not the Lord Jesus Christ. I realize that others disagree with that assessment and the point is not to argue over it.
I saw another strong angel coming down out of heaven, clothed with a cloud; and the rainbow was upon his head, and his face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire;
The fact that the text says “I saw another strong angel coming down out of heaven…” tells me that this is exactly what John saw. He saw “another angel.” I believe he would have known instantly if this was Jesus, but John describes this being as “another” angel. I think it would be impossible to mistake Jesus for an angel or an angel for Jesus. Nevertheless, if you have arrived at a different position, you are certainly free to do so. We can argue about that until the cows come home and in so doing, completely miss the message of the angel.
The angel has a book (v.2) which is open. The angel then places his left foot on the land and his right on the sea. When he spoke, it was like the roar of a lion. In response, the seven peals of thunder uttered their voices. John was about to write down what the thunders said, he was told not to do so. Following this, the strong angel with the little book swears by Him who lives forever and who created all things. We know according to Hebrews 1 and Colossians 1 that Jesus is the Creator of all things.
This all happens just before the blowing of The Seventh Trumpet. John is then told to take the “little book” and swallow it. The book tasted sweet to John but as soon as he swallowed it, it was sour in his stomach.
This is often the case with prophecy regarding the end times. There is a sweetness in knowing the end result, however; to get to that point is often painful and filled with sorrow.
We are living in a world in which the end is coming. Every day brings us one day closer. There are so many things happening in the world that are the result of corrupt governments, treasonous laws and dealings with society. We have a government in the USA that seems not to care whether society is overwhelmed by Ebola. President Obama made the decision to keep our borders open and to even purposefully bring those infected with Ebola into America. We are now seeing how it is spreading from Dallas to Atlanta. Even though 30 countries have travel bans in place, President Obama does not believe that is the way to go. Because of this, Ebola is literally being carried and spread into the US. This is actually treasonous and it is only one example of how things are going.
We see the economy not only not improving, but getting terribly worse. Ebola could even make that worse if travel bans are placed within the US and those bans are enforced using the National Guard. This could easily turn into Martial Law.
Political corruption appears to be at an all-time high with no let up in sight. Politicians don’t even care if they appear corrupt anymore. Integrity is gone, except for a few in Congress and they cannot get anything done by themselves. Yet, nothing is lost at all. God is still in charge. He is the Victor and if we are on God’s side, then we are victors as well.
The Two Witnesses of Revelation 11 are next and they have a specific ministry. There are people alive today who actually deign to believe they are the two witnesses. We’ll talk about them, the real Two Witnesses, and their ministry next time.
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