A Warning of Judgment

That's right dear, But God saved only 3 people out of the thousands in the cities of the plain. It was to have been four, but like Job's wife, lot's wife went against God's instructions. These women represent the apostates of the Church.

A lot of people like to say we don't know the day of Jesus' return, which is right. However, there are two teachings in the Bible that one must consider. The first was from Jesus; "And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?" (Matthew 16:3)

What are "the signs of the times" those pharisees missed? (1) The prophetic weeks of Daniel were about to expire. (2) The great herald of the new age, John the Baptist, had appeared according to prophecy, "in the spirit and power of Elijah." (3) The scepter had departed from Judah and the lawgiver from beneath his feet (Genesis 49:10). (4) Even a "sign from heaven" had already been given at the baptism of Christ when God spoke out of heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). (5) It had been revealed to Simeon that he should not die until he had seen the Lord's Christ; and it must be presumed that Simeon, by that time, was long since dead and buried. (6) All the world was expecting the coming of some Great One. (7) The Christ himself, "that Prophet like unto Moses," had appeared upon the banks of the Jordan and had been identified by John the Baptist as "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world"! And John was the only authentic prophet Israel had had in half a millennium. Yes, it must be admitted that the Pharisees missed the signs of the times, however skilled they might have appeared as weather prophets!

The second was from Paul; "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." (Hebrews 10:25)

Perhaps there is nothing so much needed in current America as a return to the old-fashioned virtue of church attendance. Our beloved nation was founded by a generation of church-goers; and, although the Puritans and the settlers at Jamestown have been made to appear rather ridiculous in contemporary literature, being hailed as dull, hypocritical, and intolerant; it is nevertheless true that such a caricature is false. They were not dull or uninteresting. The eloquent literature of those far-off days denies the current slanders against that generation of spiritual giants who lived on the highest plane of religious conviction, whose emotions ebbed and flowed with the tides of eternity, and whose men of letters, such as Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Adams, Whittier, Hawthorne, and Longfellow, just to name a few, captured in their writings the immortal loveliness of that people.

Moreover, as the noted, mid-twentieth century radio preacher, Charles L. Goodell, said, "Wherever there is a town meeting house, a free school, a free church, or an open Bible, those forbears of ours might lay their hands upon them and say, `All these are our children'." Our greatest institutions are the fruits of their church-going; and when any generation shall forsake the house of prayer and worship, and turn the Univeristies into lying institutions of government, that generation is dangerously near to losing those institutions inherited through the piety of others. In fact, they are near to waking up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

Then you see the vail of God's wrath upon the sun. "And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire." (Revelation 16:8)

What is the specific analogy of this scripture? The sun in the physical realm is "the light of the world," even as Christ and his truth are the true spiritual light of people (John 1:9). When that which should be light is so polluted that it will only scorch and burn with fire, then the bowl of the wrath of God has been poured upon the sun. Now, it is a bit ridiculous to accounted any physical, literal interpretation of this in most areas, but there is one area in which it is seen and felt very well.

All of these vials are represented as destroying, not merely injuring, the physical environment. Any one of them would have been sufficient to that purpose, but the absolute corruption and ruination of all of it are made overwhelming by the seven vials. That the physical order of environment is not meant is made evident in the promise of Gen. 8:22, to the effect that the ordered seasons of day and night, summer and winter, seedtime and harvest shall not cease while the earth remains. Howbeit, crops and harvests can fail in the event of weather and geological disasters. Therefore, I cannot believe that anything in this prophecy contradicts that promise. However, the sentence of judicial hardening is inherent in this. That the very light which should illuminate human life should be changed into scorching destruction denotes a condition mentioned by Jesus, "If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness" (Matthew 6:23).

So what does this scripture mean? It means that institutions of learning, even churches and religious organizations, are teaching: evolution, humanism, communism, libertinism, a new morality, atheism, and a host of other lies. It means that churches are preaching the philosophies of men, law makers are enforcing the commandments of men, allowing the prejudices of men, and the traditions of men to rule instead of the word of God. It means that the prophetic voice of the Scriptures no longer disturbs most of the few church-goers that are left, and that shows because the great worldwide mission of saving souls have been replaced by "social programs," endowing the church with a new status of carrying the bedpan for a sick society, instead of proclaiming the true light of the fire of God's word to a wicked world. When you and I were children, dear, this picture was by no means true of all, but it is sufficiently true at this time to raise the question of whether or not the angel of God has poured the vial of God's wrath upon the sun. The general apostasy of Christianity is almost certainly indicated by this. Instead of being lamp bearers of the true light, many teachersd today are instead merely waving the smoking torches of human wisdom.

How does this scorch men today? he next verse (9) tells us men were scorched with great heat. Actually, it started before we were born, but nothing this sinister happens over night. The wars, revolutions, social unrest, bitterness and frustrations of our present times may only be a token of what is indicated by this. The less true light possessed by people from the word of God, the more they are scorched and burned by the fires of evil. The most likely view is that it is intended for us to see by the final and terminal nature of these judgments of war and calamity that not for one moment has mankind ever thought of repenting before God.

The pouring of God's wrath prophesies the corruption of human governments which have become instruments of suppression, persecution, and destruction of God's truth in Christ. The USSR was an excellent example from our own times of what Rome was in John's. This pouring out of the vials upon the sun prophesies that the brutal godless governments faced by the first Christians will reappear near the end-time. It should not be overlooked that the hardening of the pre-Christian Gentile nations is again to take place when "the times of the Gentiles" is fulfilled (Luke 21:24). When history has run its course but that guide, once more the judicial hardening of impenitent mankind will again occur. Romans i is therefore a vital comment upon what is prophesied here.

Twice the Holy Scriptures reveal that, "It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps"; and the darkening of the true light, as by this vial, results inevitably in the deterioration and ultimate collapse of godless states, always accompanied by the proliferation and destruction of the civilizations of mankind. One day it will destory the earth itself.

Actually a remnant of those that pass through the first Resurrection (Spiritual Baptism), which occurs when one is baptized into Christ. “But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able. And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father.” (Matthew 20:22-23)

Then consider Paul’s statement; “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” (Romans 6:4-6)

Paul's mention of the "burial" is to the action which constitutes baptism, this being true because one cannot be "dead to sin" unless and until he is in the body of Christ, which state is entered into through baptism. A person dead in their sin is yet unsaved; the person dead to sin (through being in Christ), is saved. Howbeit, they must be conformed in salvation as defined in the epistle to the Hebrews.

Having shown that the baptized believer, upon his being thereby united with Christ, is then dead unto sin, Paul at once went a step further by pointing out that Christ rose from the dead to a higher type of life, and appealed to this as an analogy of the Christian's rising from the watery grave of baptism to "walk in newness of life”; not merely to the upright morality and integrity of the Christian pilgrimage, but also to an entirely new status that pertains to him following his union with Christ in baptism. The old man has been renounced, the old identity repudiated, the old self, having been slain; and the Christian is, in a sense, no longer his old self, but "lives in the faith of Christ" (Galatians 2:20). This pertains to the first resurrection mentioned in Revelation 20:6.

I know that dear sister, But Those verses are the principal proof-text for sponsors of the Great Tribulation theory; but the words "they that came" are translated from the present middle participle, meaning they continue to come. Thus, these are those that contenue to come. This positively identifies the "coming" of these white-robed saints with the dispensation. The whole history of the church is a time of tribulation. The Great Ordeal (tribulation) is a prolonged process, 2300 years to be exact, which from John's temporal standpoint was partly past and partly future. Right here is the key to Rev. 1:19. Many of the scenes in Revelation mingle visions of things past, present, and future simultaneously. Any neat little scheme of making one section of Revelation past, another present, and yet another future, collapses in a careful understanding of the text. I would point out that there is nothing here which points to any one particular distress.

In the part of verse 14 "and have washed their robes" is the undeniable reference to the conversion of the saints at the time of their residence upon the earth through Baptism. The understanding of this passage derives from such Scriptures as Acts 22:16; Rom. 6:3-5; Gal. 3:27; and Titus 3:5, all of which refer to primary obedience to the gospel, the unique manner by which anyone since Pentecost was ever able, in any sense, to "wash" his robes in the blood of Christ.

This is a metaphor, but it surely stresses the part which sinners themselves have in their own salvation. They must obey the gospel. Note that it is said, "They washed," a reference to what one must do to be saved. Christ provides the means of our redemption, but he requires of people that they appropriate the blessings of it through obedience. "If ye love me, keep my commandments." (John 14:15)

All of the apostles taught this same truth. Peter, on Pentecost, commanded those who wished to be saved to "Repent and have yourselves baptized ... save yourselves from this crooked generation" (Acts 2:38,40). "Save yourselves ... wash your robes," etc., all such passages stress the human response in salvation.

Again, note the doxology of Rev. 7:12, which was being spoken by this white-robed throng. When they praised the Lord for salvation, they spoke not of what they had done (though they could not have been saved without it), but of the blood of the Lamb.

The great tribulation of this passage is the persecution of the followers of Christ which broke in such intense malignity in John's day and will continue until the ultimate triumph of Christ. The following verses, designed to comfort and encourage the suffering church, must be understood with reference to the dark background of persecutions, and the time they started.