****Please read the scripture from the Bible first as this is God's Word****

The horrors of God's judgment are only surpassed by the glories of His grace. We have, in these two passages, two distinct actions of God with two distinctly different consequences for man. Many refuse to respond to the good news therefore making the direct recipients of the bad news. Will you respond while still able to enjoy the opportunity of God's grace?

As we see in verse 1 there will be a half an hour of silence in heaven. If you remember up until now 6 of the 7 seals have been opened, and now the 7th seal is opened. This silence is almost like the silence before the storm. There is nobody asking for mercy, no glorifying God, no repentance, no judgments, nor commandments being given, it is pure silence.

There is a great sense of fear when the first angel sounds his trumpet. Fire, hail, and blood are cast upon the earth and burns up 1/3 of the trees and all green grass. As the second angel sounds there seems to be a possible asteroid that will be cast into the sea and 1/3 of the sea creatures died and 1/3 of the ships were destroyed. The waves from possible tsunami's would cap size the ships. Loosing 1/3 of trees, all grass and sea life would cause a great famine. This would be a great time of fear.

The third angel sounds and the earth is hit with a great asteroid called "Wormwood" which means bitter. The waters will be hit with this asteroid which may contain possible chemicals and gases that will turn the water bitter. This will be a great time of bitterness and suffering as well. With the tree's burnt up and water turned bitter, and sea life killed, there will be starvation.

There will be a time of separation and disillusionment. Unfortunately many will die due to the famines and earthly terror. Some will die in bitterness and enter eternity separated from God forever. People won't be able to explain these occurrences, and will be forced to look to God for answers. We all remember the terror from the great tsunami in India, and Mt. St. Helens erupting, or maybe hurricane Katrina, I think these will be considered a walk in the park when compared with the wrath and judgment mankind will face upon the earth in the near future.

Many view the book of Revelation as the "scary book of the Bible" that nobody wants to talk about. This may be true, because there is a lot of negative news in this book. To those who are unsaved this is a scary but to those who are saved, this book is would be considered somewhat exciting and motivational to live a life of servitude to our Lord and Savior who will save us from this wrath.

If we turn to the book of Luke Chapter 2 Verse 10 - 14 we will see a positive spin of this chapter from Revelation. We see that the angel says "Fear not" as the angel brought good tidings or good news to "All People" (meaning you and me). The good news is that our Savior was born Jesus. Why do we call him savior? Lets read John 3:16 - 17. God came to earth as man (Jesus), not to condemn the world, but save the world, by walking this earth a sinless man and being the ultimate sacrifice, dying on the cross for all or mankind's sin. He died to save us from our sin. Lets look at Romans Chapter 10 verse 9 - 10, we see that all we have to do is believe on Him and confess our sins, and we will be saved. We can't save ourselves, we can't redeem ourselves, we are completely helpless, Titus Chapter 3 verse 5 tells us it is grace that saves us not our works. We are in the age of grace right now, not the age of judgment, we have a chance right now to accept Jesus in our lives and call upon him so that when we die we will spend eternity with God. Notice in verse 14 in Luke Chapter 2 we see where it says "and on earth peace". This phrase shows up in songs, and people quote this phrase as a means to ending war on the face of this planet. Complete peace from war on earth will never happen. The idea of peace here is a sense of a relationship restoration with God. It is possible to restore your relationship with God and spend eternity with him, all you have to do is call upon his name, and confess your sins, place all your dependence upon Him and you can be saved!

posted by Ben at 3:56 PM