Revelation 20 - The Sixth Seal

Revelation 6:12 And I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; (13) and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. (14) And the sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. (15) And the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; (16) and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; (17) for the great day of their wrath has come; and who is able to stand?”

Has anyone seen the sun become black as sackcloth made of hair? Has the whole moon become like blood? Most people take one look at this and say, “Obviously, this has not yet happened.” But, on the contrary, we know from Scripture that these things have happened. One of the things that convinced me of the preterist view of Revelation was that I went back and read all the Old Testament references in context. In this particular reference, we go back to Matthew 24:29 “But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heaven will be shaken…” Doesn’t that sound almost exactly like Revelation 6:12? But Matthew 24:29 is a quote from Isaiah 13:10 For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not flash forth their light; the sun will be dark when it rises, and the moon will not shed its light.

What is Isaiah talking about? Again, we must look at the context. If we go back to Isaiah 13:1, we’ll see that this passage is an oracle or prophecy concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amos saw. So what Isaiah is talking about? He is prophesying the destruction of Babylon. Look at Isaiah 13:17 Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them (the Babylonians). We know from history and extra-biblical documents that the Medo-Persian empire is the one that wiped out the Babylonian Empire and took it over around 500 BC. So what Isaiah is talking about in Isaiah 13 has already happened. Now think about it. Did the sun actually become black? No. Isaiah is not talking about the sun literally ceasing to give light; he’s talking about the awesome terror of God’s judgment blotting out the world’s greatest power of that day, symbolized by the darkening of the sun. That’s what we need to understand

In the Bible, the symbols of the sun, moon and stars have to do with governments. That’s very easy to prove. Look at Genesis 1:14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; (15) and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. (16) And God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night. People who are steeped in the Old Testament and who have memorized great portions of it, who’ve heard it over and over again, wouldn’t think of the literal sun and moon and stars as we do when John mentions them. They would automatically know that what was in view here was the political structure of the world. These heavenly bodies symbolize, or represent governing authorities. What Jesus is saying here (Chilton talks about this in his book) is not the destruction of the literal sun, literal moon and literal stars. It’s the destruction of the governmental system. We still do this today. What do we have on the flag of the United States? We have 50 stars to represent each of the 50 states, with their respective state governments. It’s the same kind of use of symbolism we see here in Revelation.

(14) And the sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

There’s an interesting thing here that I’m going to go into very quickly. Years ago, when I first looked at Revelation, I thought of Revelation in the same way Hendrickson does in his book, More Than Conquerors. In that book, Hendrickson sees Revelation as a seven-fold recapitulation of history, because there are obviously a lot of “sevens” here. A man by the name of Vern Poythress who was a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia did a massive study of Revelation in which he showed that Revelation is put together as a whole series of seven sevens. Because the Jews did not have many books, they used a lot of mnemonics (memory tricks) to memorize great portions of Scripture.

The Jews used a “chiasm” or a “chiastic structure” to aid them in memorizing written material. What you would see throughout the Old Testament is an “A thought”. Then you would see a “B thought” and then a “C thought” and then there would be a repeat of the “B thought”, then they would repeat the “A thought.” What that does is form an arrow to the central thought of the passage. For example, the whole book of Ecclesiastes has this chiastic structure, pointing to one central thought in the book. Within that are chiasms within chiasms within chiasms. The whole book of Revelation is like this. Vern Poythress has a massive outline that shows how all of these “sevens” are put together. Seven upon seven upon seven upon seven. What I want to point out here is that we’re talking about the seven seals, and that there are seven judgements listed here at the 6^th seal. Chilton goes into them in his book. Number 1 is the earth, then the sun, the moon, the stars, and the firmament, the land and then man. The passage speaks of God’s judgement against those seven things. Revelation 6:12 And I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake (earth); and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; (13) and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, (14) And the sky was split apart like a scroll (firmament) when it is rolled up; and every mountain (land) and island were moved out of their places.

Then comes the judgment against man, which is also set out in sevens. (15) And the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man,… Did you notice how many items there were in John’s list? Yes, there are seven! Now, if you were Hebrew and living 2000 years ago, you would immediately understand this kind of structure, its meaning would jump right out at you. But it doesn’t to us because we’re not trained that way; we haven’t grown up saturated in the Old Testament. And we don’t generally see these kinds of things unless someone points them out to us. But once we do, suddenly we have an “Aha” experience. We understand and wonder why we didn’t see it before.

There are seven items in John’s list, because this is God’s seven-fold judgment against the seven-fold creation. The other thing that’s interesting (Chilton goes into this in his book also) is that you see this same seven-fold judgment not only in Revelation 6, but also in Matthew 24 and Mark 13, and Luke 21. Remember Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 are parallel passages talking about the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. You have war, international strife, famine, pestilence, persecution and earthquakes. These six things are mentioned in almost the same sequence and you begin to understand that they’re all talking about the same thing.  

What I want you to see is that Revelation is based on the other parts of the Bible. It’s not something new and different and boldly futuristic. It’s something that someone who was steeped in the Old Testament and Hebrew tradition would have seen and understood.

(15) And the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; Who are these men? What kind of people are they? They are great, the rich, the powerful, and they are also slaves and free men. Are they saved or unsaved? They must be unsaved because they are hiding from the one who sits on the throne.” When Christians read this and think “I’ve got to hide because God is coming!” that’s the wrong attitude because it’s not true. Revelation is talking about judgment against the ungodly, the sinful, those who are hiding from God. When Adam and Eve sinned and God came walking through the garden in the wind of the Spirit, with this incredible shrieking trumpet blast, rushing water, hurricane-wind type of sound of God coming in judgement, what did they do? They hid because they knew they had sinned and were in trouble. That’s exactly what you see happening here.

(16) and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb;… Praise God that no Christian ever has to fear the wrath of God. Why? Because He has already poured out His just wrath for our sins upon Jesus Christ. There is no future judgment for our sin because in Christ we are sinless. Paul says in Romans, “Therefore now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” You and I who believe in Jesus Christ don’t have to fear the wrath of God. Rather, when we hear that trumpet sound, it’s going to be a sound of pure joy.

Revelation 7:1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, so that no wind should blow on the earth, or on the sea or on any tree. (2) And I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God; and he cried out with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea, (3) saying “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the bondservants of our God on their foreheads.” This is taken from Ezekiel 9. (1) Then He cried out in my hearing with a loud voice saying, “Draw near, O executioners of the city, (the city of Jerusalem) each with his destroying weapon in his hand.” (2) And behold, six men came from the direction of the upper gate which faces north, each with his shattering weapon in his hand; and among them was a certain man clothed in linen with a writing case at his loins. And they went in and stood beside the bronze altar. (3) Then the glory of the God of Israel went up from the cherub on which it had been, to the threshold of the temple. And He called to the man clothed in linen at whose loins was the writing case. (8) And the Lord said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, even through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in its midst.”

God is saying here that He is going to destroy Israel because of their unbelief. But before He does, He wants a mark put on the foreheads of those who believe in Him. Of those who are crying out because of the abominations being done. There is a very interesting thing about this mark. First, the Israelites were marked on their head and their hand. Remember in the Old Testament God said to bind the law on your head and on your hand: Deuteronomy 6:8 Tie them [the laws] as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. The Jews of Jesus’ day took that literally. They made what were called phylacteries, which were cases containing little pieces of Scripture. They wore these phylacteries on their foreheads. Jesus condemns them for their hypocrisy for doing so in Matthew 23:23: Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide…

But even this is not what John is referring to. We need to go to Ezekiel to understand the peculiarity of this mark. God is preparing to bring judgment upon the people of Jerusalem in that day, and we read God saying in verse 4: “Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.” What God is literally saying is put a “z” the Hebrew letter ‘taw,’ on every man’s forehead. The Hebrew letter “taw” as it was written in that day would look very familiar to our eyes; it looked like a cross. In Ezekiel, hundreds of years before Christ, before the cross, before the Romans ever even thought about crucifixion, God says to the man in Ezekiel’s vision, go through the city and put a cross on the foreheads of those are truly My people.

I think we think to ask ourselves at this point, “What does it mean to have God’s mark upon you?” And conversely, “What does it mean to have the mark of the beast upon you?” (More on that later!). The mark is a symbol of your loyalty, like athletes who wear the Nike swish. Another example is the tomb of Christ. The Jewish leaders requested that the tomb be sealed by the Romans. Which probably meant to put some sort of a ribbon around it with a wax impression of the seal of Caesar upon it. What did this seal of Caesar mean? It meant ownership. It meant “this belongs to Caesar and you’d better not break this seal, because you’re dealing with Caesar’s property.” We used to do the same things with letters, by putting wax seals on them. That meant it was yours.

It’s the same thing here: To have the seal of God upon your forehead means that you belong to Jesus Christ. Is there really going to be a big ‘666’ branded on somebody’s forehead? No, it’s simply talking about loyalty, recognizing to whom a person belongs. That’s why it’s laughable when people talk about 6’s in the UPC (Universal Product Code) and say they’re going to put a chip in your hand and forehead, and everybody’s going to have the mark of the beast, and all that nonsense. Christians don’t have to worry about any of that because we already have a mark, the mark of Jesus Christ. That’s what’s important. In both Ezekiel and Revelation, before God’s wrath is poured out, He says “go through and mark those who belong to Me.” We’re already branded.