The book doesn't seem chronological,
However the scroll seems as though it is actually a blueprint if you will, like "Let's look over the details"

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James R Barnes

Oh, Todd! I think you are right! This explanation is so simple I wonder why I never noticed that before!

Glad you shared this.

Sandra

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Sandra Miller

QUOTE:
"The book doesn't seem chronological,"

I know. I get the sense the writer in many places will tell you what is going to happen - like a brief overview, then backtracks and gives more details how this will occur. It is a lot like Genesis 1:1: In the beginning God created the earth. Then in the following verses he backs up and shares more details about when and how the heavens and the earth were created. A person could skip a fair number of verses and proceed on with little interruption in the story line.

I have this goal of sometime making a chart or timeline of Revelation...it is a dream of mine. I took notes this winter but time is now filled with helping my husband so it may have to wait. But am meditating a lot and that is half the work - not really work... Oh, I suppose I could buy one if I looked hard enough but then I would miss out on the blessings of insights one gains for doing it himself.

Sandra

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Sandra Miller

Until the 6th seal the calamities are pretty straight forward: war, famine, plenty of oil and wine, persecution of the Believers. The drama accelerates beyond this point.

9 When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained;


It was bad for the Believers. But where were they? It says their souls under the altar. Not sure what this signifies except it must have been a safe place. Did you notice how they were described as? "and because of the testimony which they had maintained." Ah....they maintained their testimony.

Maintaining their testimony...this was the same message of warning given to the churches - they had a serious problem with it - leaving their first love.

Maintain their testimony. This word grabbed me this morning: maintain. Takes work - ain't no fun fighting the devil. We are in a war. But we must "maintain".

Sandra

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Sandra Miller

Rev. 6:9-11 NASB
9 When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained;

10 and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

11 And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.

In these verses we read how the souls who had been persecuted for the sake of Christ were crying out for justice for pain inflicted upon them.

The response to them was a reward, and a message to just be patient, it is coming. To me this is so profound.

The modern interpretation of forgiveness teaches us one should be forgiving for pain - whatever kind - accepting them, be loving and go on, do not take offense. In the end this does not work. It works to undermine conviction, love for Jesus, and challenges one of everything you had believed to be true.

These souls were never reprimanded for asking for justice. The desire for justice is God given. We cannot mete it out, only God can do that and He does it perfectly. It is the point we need to hold close to our heart even if it results in more pain, more ostracism, more persecution and even death.

The inspiration on how to be loving to those who persecute must come from God. To work on it yourself will lead to failure and tolerance for sin. This, I believe is the issue we people in the US have to deal with. And it becomes a challenge.

These verses speak to me thus every time I read it...it may help the reader to know I was taught Biblical non-resistance and while I believe this to be true there are many who have perverted it to something completely unBiblical. You see, it does not matter what Truth you embrace, the devil will come along and pervert it. Always did and always will until he gets locked into hell.

Sandra

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Sandra Miller

Revelation 6

Where is my security?

As I study the book of Revelation one learns that God is going to send calamities upon the earth, using nature and human to inflict mankind. All of these are with the purpose to destroy the things that give one a lot of security.

We can become so secure, thinking all will continue as they have since the world started spinning. The sun comes up and it goes down - all on a 24 hour cycle. Weather is predictable with some minor burps but it modifies and behaves quite well on a regular basis. One can plan to plant and harvest on a decent schedule and most of the time the weather will cooperate. And if I get to the point where I do not like its vagarities one can easily use artificial means to modify it. Routine provides one with a lot of security. There is nothing, I mean nothing that can destroy ones' security as having this disrupted.

In the loosening of these seals one sees a progression in intensity of the calamities that will befall mankind. Consider:

1. Conquering and conquering
2. Take peace from the earth, and that men would slay one another; and a great sword was given to him. (A natural result of #1.)
3. Shortage of food. Supply of non-essentials remains unchanged.
4.Death caused by "sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth."
5. Killing of the Believers.
6. Terror caused by severe earthquakes: "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 The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places."

Result: even the rulers felt helpless in face of this - they were running to hide: 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. The well-being of all was leveled. Civil authorities were helpless in face of these calamities.

Everything we know is shaken. Everything we can see has been shaken. None of these things can provide one with any security and refuge.

"What is man that thou are mindful of him?" And this is the lesson we do well to take to heart and apply its lesson. That is the point of it all.

Sandra

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Sandra Miller

10 and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

I admit I have a little bit of a hard time reconciling this with the teaching of Jesus. How can we forgive our enemies on one hand and pray for their destruction on the other?

Should not the prayer be that God will show them mercy?

Just tossin' it out there.

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Todd

I too have a hard time reconciling the evil that the word says God created. Satan is then the evil that God has created. I guess it is workless to strive with our maker. He is God, woe to me that asks why.

Then He loves me so much that He gave His only begotten to die in my place that I might be saved, a son of God, by Him that died in my place, The Son of God.

Isaiah 45:7-18 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it. Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands? Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth? Thus saith the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me. I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded. I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the LORD of hosts. Thus saith the LORD, The labour of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine: they shall come after thee; in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee; and there is none else, there is no God. Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour. They shall be ashamed, and also confounded, all of them: they shall go to confusion together that are makers of idols. But Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end. For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.

Like Peter answered Jesus, Where can we go, what can we do, There is none other by whom salvation comes. I am glad that Christ is in me and His Love for our Father is pure and without doubt or why, in loving the Father through me and for me. I am helpless to love His way, He says His way is my way, The Life I know live, I live by the life of Christ and His Faith that is in me. This love in Christ that is now birthed in me is now my love for the Father that He can accept, by the love of the Son for the Father, "as He is in this world so am I".

Do I dare ask for revelation in this aspect of my not able to reconcile God being the creator of Good and evil?

Then the question; Where did evil come from?

Yet He tells me to ask, even commands me.

Woe is me, IN Christ: Phillip

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Phillip

Revelation 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 would blow on the earth or on the sea or on any tree.

This morning as I read Revelation 7 my eyes kept going back to verse one. Suddenly I comprehended the reality of what these angels were doing and it started to sink into my mind and fed my imagination.

These angels held back the wind so it would not blow. Imagine no wind! None! None... How much of our lives is dependent on wind blowing? Pollination of flowers that produces fruit; wind turbines that produce electricity, waves of the sea...you name it.

Still...no wind. Ever been in a situation just before a storm hits and it gets real quiet, really quiet with no wind? Kind of eerie except we know why.

No wind. Hmmmm. Shaking my head...

Sandra

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Sandra Miller

QUOTE:
"Should not the prayer be that God will show them mercy?
"

I know the dilemma.

Is it possible God is showing them mercy by making life so difficult hoping to force them into repentance by destroying their securities?

Loving and asking for justice...is it possible we have been snookered into a false sense of love which is not love at all? Just asking. What say?

Sandra

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Sandra Miller