Equipping University

This passage is rightly seen as an interlude of sorts between the sixth and the seventh seals. An interlude is a short act between two main acts or a short musical piece between two longer pieces. In a play, the interlude allows the audience to catch its breath after particularly engrossing act. In this case, the interlude of chapter seven serves to encourage the readers who are surely overcome by the horror of what they have just read or heard. John sets out to answer the question that lingers on the lips of the “earth-dwellers” suffering under God’s wrath in the terrors of the sixth seal. Like the original audience hearing of the horrific judgment in the previous section, they ask, “Who can stand?” That question just hangs in the air, begging for an answer. The expected answer is, “No one can stand against God’s judgment.” However, in the passage before us, John does not want to unnecessarily terrify his readers or cause them to lose hope. They need to press on and endure until the very end. This answer h

Rather than evolving morally, it appears that humanity has merely developed more effective ways to kill one another as we advance in other areas. The lists above do not even contain such infamous murders as Joseph Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, Osama Bin Laden, Timothy McVeigh, and many others. How do we explain such evil? The apostle John has just revealed to us the fact that God is seated on his throne in heaven and all authority belongs to the Lamb. If this is so, then why does so much evil continue to exist? Why do evil men rise to power only to extort and kill those under them? Why is there so much bloodshed on the earth? How do we explain the existence of diseases that can cripple entire nations? There is an answer to these questions and that answer is found in the sixth chapter of Revelation as Jesus begins to break the seals of the scroll that contain God’s plan for the world – the vindication of the righteous and the judgment of the wicked. How are we to understand this passage? If we are ho