Chapter 7
Because even in wrath God remembers mercy, He paused to commission 144,000 Jews, 12,000 each from 12 of the tribes of Israel, to go out among the people of the Earth and once again spread the Gospel into every nation and in every language. And just then all those who had not become believers until after the rapture, but had died in faith during this series of judgments, arrived in Heaven all dressed in white and waving palm branches. They stood before the Throne of God and praised Him saying, “Salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb!” Immediately all the heavenly host joined them in worshiping God. These Tribulation Saints were assigned the special honor of serving God in His Temple, never again to hunger or thirst or feel any discomfort, for the Lamb of God had become their Shepherd.
The first series of judgments caused astounding devastation on Earth, but it also brought many millions of new believers into an everlasting union with their Creator. Before this seven-year period is over more people will come to faith than in all the History of Man preceding. But it’s also the time when the full extent of unregenerate man’s depravity is made clear. The middle ground will completely disappear as the People of Earth face their most perilous times ever.
Chapter 8
When the Lord broke open the 7th and final seal of the title deed to planet Earth, there was silence in Heaven for about half an hour. The first 6 had caused so much havoc on Earth that I’ll bet most everyone in Heaven was literally holding his breath to see what the 7th seal would bring. I know I was.
I looked up and saw seven angels standing before God. Each was given a long trumpet, the kind a herald would use on earth to announce the arrival of an important dignitary or event. And another angel appeared with a golden censor filled with incense representing the prayers of all the saints that he placed on the golden altar before the Throne. As the smoke from the incense rose up before God, the angel used the censer to scoop up the fire from the altar and hurl it down upon the Earth. Immediately there was thunder, lightning, and another earthquake. More judgments were coming, worse than the ones just past.
When the first angel blew his trumpet a storm of hail and fire mixed with blood arose on Earth burning up 1/3 of the Earth’s trees and vegetation. As the second angel blew his trumpet, a giant meteor the size of a mountain came crashing into the Earth, landing in the ocean. The force of the impact turned the ocean red like blood and killed 1/3 of all the creatures living in it. Over 16 thousand ships were destroyed and 500 thousand sailors killed from the storms and tidal waves caused by the meteor’s impact. At the sound of the 3rd trumpet, another blazing star, called Wormwood, fell from the sky contaminating 1/3 of the Earth’s fresh water supply, and causing many more deaths. As the 4th trumpet sounded the devastation from the hail storm and the 2 meteor impacts caused smoke and dust to rise into the atmosphere reducing the light from the sun, moon and stars by 1/3 and causing periods of total blackness both day and night.
As if things on Earth weren’t bad enough, I heard the voice of an angel warning people to prepare for even worse disasters when the remaining 3 trumpets were sounded. Something much more frightening was clearly in store.
Chapter 9
As the 5th angel sounded his trumpet I got a glimpse of our great enemy. Back when I was one of the Lords first disciples, He had mentioned seeing Satan fall like a star from Heaven (Luke 10:18), and now Satan was being given the key to the Abyss, or underworld. As he unlocked it, smoke rose up as if from a gigantic furnace, and out of the smoke appeared swarms of hideous insects that at first looked to me like locusts. But as I observed them more closely, I decided that they had to be some sort of demonic manifestation. Real locusts are vegetarian, but these things weren’t allowed to harm any vegetation, nor could they attack the 144,000 servants of God. But they could sting those people who weren’t supernaturally protected and when they did the pain was incredible. The sting from these locust things wasn’t fatal but it left their victims in unbearable pain for five months. Believe me, they all wished they were dead.
Here’s where my first century experience was unequal to the task. These locusts looked like nothing I had ever seen, and in all the centuries since I wrote this account, nothing like them has ever been seen on Earth by anyone else either. Maybe they’re some sort of weapons system born out of 21st Century technology and maybe they’re some invention of the devil. One thing is certain; they’re straight out of the pits of hell. The one who unlocked the Abyss controlled them. He called himself “The Destroyer.” Amazing grasp of the obvious, that one.
When the 6th trumpet was blown, an invisible barrier came down on Earth. The Euphrates River has always been the traditional boundary between East and West. It starts in the Mountains of Turkey and flows southward through Syria and Iraq emptying into the Persian Gulf. Culture, language, custom and religion all change dramatically when you cross the Euphrates, and for centuries it’s width and depth prevented the armies of both eastern and western nations from crossing. But now this barrier, represented by four bound angels, was being lowered and a massive army, 200 million strong, was on the march. Before this army was finished, fully a third of the world’s remaining population would die. These deaths, when added to the ones from the earlier judgments would bring the total dead to nearly 3 billion, about 1/2; the Earth’s population. Once again my experience was inadequate to the task of describing the appearance and weaponry of this huge army, but suffice it to say that it was a fearsome and awful sight to behold.
You’d think with those demonic locusts attacking people and 3 billion others being killed from wars and other disasters, that the survivors would be flocking to the Lord in search of comfort and security. But this just didn’t happen, and I’ll tell you why.
There is a belief floating around that’s as old as mankind but in the last days will become a religion that deceives almost everybody. It’s called the Luciferian Doctrine and understanding it helps explain why the world won’t turn to its Creator in this, the worst time in human history. The Luciferian doctrine is named of course after Lucifer, a Latin name that translates “light bearer”, and holds that Lucifer is the good guy trying to enlighten the people of the world in preparation for the spiritual evolution necessary to bring peace to all mankind. According to Luciferian Doctrine our physical evolution is finished and all we need to do now is throw off the bonds of Judeo-Christian thinking to complete our spiritual evolution and enter into the Utopian Era. But Lucifer’s being hindered in all this by the evil Adonai (Hebrew for Lord) Who, along with His followers, is working to thwart Lucifer’s grand plan by requiring everyone to adhere to His reactionary religion, effectively preventing our spiritual evolution. In order for humanity to achieve Utopia those who insist on clinging to their obsolete Judeo- Christian faith have to be eliminated. The Great Tribulation is characterized in Luciferian Doctrine as the evil Adonai’s last great effort to destroy mankind’s “light bearer” and prevent our ascension into Utopia, keeping us in bondage to Him.
Following the church’s disappearance the Truth became pretty scarce on Earth and whole world was deceived into believing the Luciferian Doctrine just as my friend Paul warned would happen (2 Thes. 2:9-12). So naturally, thinking the Lord is the bad guy, they became even more intense in their worship of Lucifer, hoping that he would prevail and bring an end to their suffering. (There is a way that seems right to man, but the end thereof is death … Prov. 14:12) Lucifer, of course, is also widely known as Satan or The Devil.
Chapter 10
Like He did after opening the 6th seal, the Lord paused now after the 6th trumpet had sounded to provide some insight on what was about to happen. A huge and mighty angel appeared as if in a vision and planted his right foot on the sea and his left one on the land. This symbolized the fact that what was coming would affect the destinies of all living things on earth, whether on land or in the sea, and all peoples. As he raised his voice to the heavens, I heard seven peals of thunder, each one a description of judgments to come. Before I could write down what I had heard, the Lord commanded me not to do it. The information contained in these 7 peals of thunder was to remain secret until the appointed time.
Then the giant angel shouted, “There will be no more delay!” When the 7th angel begins to sound his trumpet all the end-time prophecies will finally come to pass. Then the Lord told me to take the scroll that the giant angel was holding, and as I did he commanded me to eat it. At first taste, it seemed sweet as honey, but after I swallowed it, my stomach turned sour. This is to signify that the fulfillment of prophecy, when the Lord rights all the wrongs done through the ages to Him and His people, takes back all that has been stolen from Him, and puts His enemies to utter defeat, is anticipated with much excitement and joy by His people. But the horror and carnage of the warfare required to accomplish this is enough to make you sick.
In addition to the problems caused by my limited language and experience, I soon realized I had another even bigger challenge in writing this story. Even though events on Earth and events in Heaven were sometimes happening all at once, I could only write about them one at a time. Its kind of like the football commentator trying to describe the actions of all the 22 players on the field in a play that only lasts about 30 seconds. It takes longer to tell about it than it did to do it, so he has to “stop the play” from time to time to explain certain parts of it. With the vision of the giant angel we’ve entered into a time where lots of things are happening all at once, some on Earth and some in Heaven. Like the football commentator, I’ll have to “stop the play” a couple of times in order to describe what I saw.