“Then 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; 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; for the great day
of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”” (Revelation 6:15–17).
As Jesus progressively opens the seals on the scroll
in Revelation 6, we have a visual representation of rise of the Roman empire,
which would be God’s tool of judgment on the Jewish nation. They had earned God’s wrath for their
on-going rejection and murder of God’s prophetic messengers of repentance,
culminating in the crucifixion of the Son of God Himself (cf. Matthew
23:29-39). That was the act that sealed
their fate. While Pilate tried to avoid
responsibility for putting an innocent man to death, it was the Jewish mob that
boldly demanded Jesus’ death: “His blood shall be on us and on our children!”
(Matthew 27:25). Now they would get
their wish.
The opening of the sixth seal pictures the beginning
stages of the outpouring of God’s judgment on Judea and Jerusalem. Suddenly, the tune of the rebels changes from
“We will gladly take the blame!” to “Give us a hole to crawl into to escape
God’s wrath!” The description in
Revelation 6:12-17 is almost identical to the words of Jesus as He speaks of
the coming judgment on Jerusalem in the first century (cf. Matthew 24:29-34;
Luke 23:26-31).
I pause to think of modern-day critics of God and the
Bible. May God grant them the time to
repent of their mockery and rebellion before the time comes when they too will
be looking for a way to hide themselves from the holy judgment of God Almighty. By then it will be too late.
God loves you!
Mike
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