Revelation 7: 1-3

A comment was posted asking for me to speak a little on the altar, because of its appearance in the fifth seal. I offered to let this person do a more in depth study and said I would post it, but just for a small amount of info in the meantime, there were two altars. The large one outside the Holy place was for the different types of sacrifices that would be offered to the Lord such as animals and grain. It was the blood of these sacrifices that were put on the horns of the altar to temporarily cover the sins of the people. This was where I believe the martyrs of the fifth seal were being kept. (The heavenly one of course). They had sacrificed their lives for the Lord. It was a blood offering. That is why they are seen under the altar. The entire history of the types of sacrifices, when they were offered, etc. is a little more than I wanted to stop and cover at the moment. I am hoping my blog follower will help out. There is a second altar inside the temple which stands before the veil in front of the mercy seat. This altar is for incense only. I will be explaining more about this altar further on when we see its heavenly counterpart in chapter 8.


Chapter 7

Verse 1 “And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.”

People used to point to this verse as evidence that the Bible was inaccurate, as the world is round and did not have four corners. While it could be interpreted that God meant the four quadrants of the earth, or the four compass points of the earth, it has actually been found in recent years that the earth actually does have four corners. It always takes man a while to catch up with God’s scientific knowledge. These corners are protuberances that bulge out from the spheroid shape. While it could be that God meant this in any number of ways, whether compass points, quadrants, or the poles and equators, there is no reason not to interpret this in the most literal way, as has been done with the rest of the scriptures. Since science has shown that there are four corners there is no reason not to accept this as literal. In this case, it really does not seem to matter how it is interpreted. What is important is what the angels do.

The angels are told to hold back the four winds of the earth so that they should not blow on the earth or sea or any tree. The winds are responsible for the hydrological cycle and in mentioning the trees, it brings to mind the fact that it is the wind that is responsible for much of the pollination that goes on. The air currents, driven by temperature changes and the rotation of the earth, are a powerful mechanism that affects the weather, the water supply, the plant life, and the food supply. Four angels are all that are required to bring this powerful mechanism to a halt. This is going to have a devastating effect upon the planet. The planet will already have undergone some catastrophic events which will have created major changes in the planet’s surface and atmosphere. This will just make things even worse.

These environmental changes are the beginning of the reconstruction of the earth into its antediluvian state. At the beginning of this study, it was mentioned that the world in its lifetime will exist in five states, the pre-cursed world, the antediluvian world, the present world, the millennial world (which will be similar to the antediluvian world) and eternity, which will be as the original world which existed without sin and the curse. To bring the world back into the antediluvian state, it will be necessary to restore the water vapor canopy. This will be done by evaporating the waters of the world by heat and a lack of air currents thereby causing there to be no rain. (The lack of rain will probably cause famine, as the world is not set up to irrigate in the same way the antediluvian world would have been). The shifting of the tectonic plates will again allow for the water reservoirs underground and a leveling out of the earth‘s crust into an equalized elevation with no extremely high mountains or deep ocean valleys, (islands and mountains have already been moved) and some event will cause the elements to coalesce into a hydrogen lattice foundation. This will again create a world that will literally be a greenhouse. It will have no hydrological cycle such as we have now, and will not have black as pitch nights - the canopy will act as a conductor of light, and it will not have vast oceans or extreme mountains ranges. There will be no deserts and no glacial ice flows. The ultra-violet rays will be filtered out allowing people to live to old ages, "There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed." Is. 65:20. The barometric pressure will change altering the physiological makeup of some creatures (no poisonous snakes) "and the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain." Is. 11:8-9a.. The animals will again be herbivores and not fear man, "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox." Is. 11:6-7, "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock; and dust shall be the serpents's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord." Is. 65:25. The sky will be pink due to the hydrogen, not blue due to the oxygen. The processes that the world will have to undergo to bring about these changes will make things quite unbearable for the occupants of planet earth from this point on. The question is as to what precipitates these events, in the sixth and seventh seals, that sets into motion these changes.

Verse 2-3 “And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and sea. Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”

Now another angel appears out of the east. He is holding the seal of God. This mark of God was seen back in Ezekiel 9 when a seal or mark was put on the foreheads of men that cried over the abominations done in the temple and city. These were spared the wrath of God when he had the people slain. The seal of God is given for protection. Christians have the seal of God which protects them from Satan. He cannot touch them without God’s approval, just as he could not touch Job without God’s approval. Now there are a group that are to have that seal put in their forehead. This seal, like the other seals of God, will be for protection from the events that are about to unfold.

The verse elaborates a little more on the four angels holding back the winds. They are going to allow or cause some major damage to the earth and sea. If the sixth seal were not bad enough, there is something worse coming. The things that are happening on earth are given a short pause of time. How long this is in actual time is unknown, but it is long enough to carry out the sealing of God’s servants.