When the Sky Began to Fall | Stephen Davey

If you knew that destruction was coming and there was a way to avoid it, would it change the way you interact with those you love?

The larger picture of human history actually deepens our passion for what we do. Understanding the coming terror gives us a greater desire than ever to not just raise civilized third graders, if that's even possible, but to lead them to the truth of the gospel of this righteous and soon coming king. As we continue through our current study from a portion of Revelation, we come to a prophecy of God's wrath being poured out on those who have rejected him. There are two times in scripture when mankind attempted to hide from God. The first is at the very beginning when Adam and Eve sinned against the Lord and tried to hide. The second time is an event we're studying today when God comes back to judge the world. As the thunder of God's footsteps echo upon the earth, there's one all-encompassing realization.

You can't hide from God. Stephen Davey called this message when the sky began to fall. Let's rejoin our study at the opening of the next seal, Revelation chapter 6, Revelation chapter 6 verse 12. I looked when he broke the sixth seal and there was a great earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair and the whole moon became like blood and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind.

The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. Then the 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 and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the presence of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb for the great day of their wrath has come and who is able to stand? The prophets often ridiculed and ignored for their prophecies of the coming judgment spoke centuries ago with predictions of this coming day of wrath. Isaiah wrote these words.

He wrote of a time when men will go into the caverns of the rocks and the clefts of the cliffs before the terror of the Lord and the splendor of his majesty when he arises to make the earth tremble. Isaiah 2 21. Further in chapter 13 Isaiah prophesied for the stars of heaven and their constellations will not flash forth their light.

The sun will be dark when it arises and the moon will not shed its light. Isaiah 13 10. Hosea spoke of men one day begging the mountains to cover them and the hills to fall on them.

Hosea 10 8. The prophet Nahum said and I quote him, mountains quake because of him and the hills dissolve. Indeed the earth is up heaved by his presence.

The world and all the inhabitants in it. Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the burning of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire and the rocks are broken up by him.

Nahum 1 5 to 6. One more the prophet Zephaniah prophesied in chapter 1 verses 14 to 18. Near is the great day of the Lord.

Near and coming very quickly. A day of wrath is that day. A day of trouble and distress. A day of destruction and desolation. A day of darkness and gloom.

A day of clouds and thick darkness. A day of trumpet and battle cry. Who will be able to deliver them on the day of the Lord's wrath? And all the earth will be devoured in the fire of his jealousy for he will make a complete end, even a terrifying one, of all the inhabitants of the earth. You need to understand this phrase the day of the Lord is an expression used often to describe different periods of time when God intersects a group of people or a nation of people or as in this final day of the Lord the entire world with great judgment. The phrase the day of the Lord is not limited to future final wrath but sometimes it refers to imminent historical judgments.

Joel is the example of this. In chapter 2 he describes the universal day of the Lord but earlier in chapter 1 he describes an actual locust plague that comes on Judah. That act of judgment is intended by God to preview the day of the Lord which is actually the Babylonian captivity which is then used to preview the day of the Lord which is the final ultimate day of wrath discovered later in chapter 2 of Joel lived out here in Revelation in the tribulation. So this phrase the day of the Lord can be used for near events and yet illustrate even greater future events. The Old Testament used this phrase about 19 times and the New Testament used it about four times broadening it even more in fact Paul told the Thessalonians that the day of the Lord would begin in the tribulation period 2 Thessalonians 5 2. The Apostle Peter even used the phrase the day of the Lord in 2 Peter 3 10 to include the end of the millennial kingdom.

That's a little longer than a thousand years. No wonder Peter addressed us in that same paragraph and he said remember one day with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day it's gonna fly by. By the way now you'll need to know this for the test any effort to limit the day of the Lord to the middle part of the tribulation and forward or to just the battle of Armageddon as some believe at the end of the millennial kingdom is simply not defensible with the prophets and the literal understanding of their words all the way up through the apostles with the breaking of the first seal and the first rider that rides out in the early days of the tribulation begin to unroll days that now you know will will include very soon war and murder and famine and pestilence so much so that one-fourth of the world's population will die. Men and women will assume the end of the world is near. In the Gospel of Luke Jesus Christ preached on this and he said in Luke 21 there will be signs in the sun and moon and stars and on earth dismay among nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves men fainting from fear the word fainting literally means to breathe out to stop breathing in other words when the day of the Lord is unrolled and all these things begin to unfold people are literally going to drop dead from fear out of terror for what will happen next. This is all the wrath of the Lamb.

This is the awful beginning days of the day of the Lord. There are those that believe the rapture will occur here in chapter six of Revelation with the opening of the sixth seal because soon after is a trumpet call and there are those that believe this is the trumpet call of the rapture. That view is called pre-wrath rapture. I get asked about it often and we'll deal with it later in detail as we look at these trumpets there are actually seven of them but for now this particular paragraph alone ends that particular view because simply the rapture doesn't even rescue these people from the outpouring of wrath and terror. Furthermore skip down to verse 17 of chapter six in Revelation and notice what humanity is saying for the day of their wrath that is the wrath of the Lamb. This has come. The day of their wrath has come. The tense of that verb has come and aristindicative which means these people are concluding the wrath of the Lamb which has already begun to be poured out not only in the sixth seal but there in their minds with this aristindicative are going all the way back to the beginning of the opening of the first seal they are concluding all of it is the wrath of the Lamb. So for those who believe you're going to be rescued from the wrath of the Lamb we're way late if it happens here in chapter six verse 17. Now before I go any further let me address a question which most believers might have in the larger church world maybe even in here. Why do we even bother with this information? Why does God inform us of all the terror and fear and blood shed and death and earthquakes?

Is he trying to ruin a good night's sleep? So many might be tempted to ask you know what good does all this information do for me? It doesn't help me at work. It's not going to help me on Monday morning. It doesn't help me understand my third grader unless I redefined the word earthquake.

You know you should see his room. Well listen all this wrath and doom some would say doesn't help me understand my spouse or even give me some little nugget to help me deal with my crabby boss on Monday morning although he could use a little of God's wrath I'm sure. Well part of the reason that we think this is all kind of take it or leave it and I for one have never heard a sermon on the sixth seal ever or any seal is that our attention church wide like never before is riveted on us. We are consumed with us. We are focused on our lives. Now we would expect the world to be focused on themselves but in the church like never before most of the sermons most of the stuff most of the books are focused on overcoming the aches and pains of life and how to resolve everything from having had bad parents to solving bad health to living with bad credit. And here's the irony of it all. Our world is now admitting the stress of acute compounding guilt and a feeling of a sense of dread about life now and hopelessness about life in the in the future and in the church at the same time is all absorbed by how to have your best life now.

That is the title of a best seller. Guess what instead of being like our forefathers who at least sounded a warning like Jonathan Edwards who preached sinners in the hands of an angry God that would never sell today. It sparked a great awakening then.

The church is absorbed with itself missing the moment. See there's more ladies and gentlemen there's more than raising third graders or getting out of debt. Don't misunderstand those are good and noble duties but there is a bigger picture to understand in fact understanding the larger purpose of God for planet Earth which he evidently wanted us to know. The larger picture of human history actually deepens our passion for what we do. Understanding the coming terror gives us a greater desire than ever to not just raise civilized third graders if that's even possible but to lead them to the truth of the gospel of this righteous and soon coming king.

But think of the irony before I leave it. This tragic irony at the very time in our generation when people are fairly convinced that doomsday is coming. That something bad is going to happen. That the human race needs rescuing from itself and an aging planet. We are determined as a church never to talk about what? Doomsday, wrath, judgment and we're missing the moment when we could say to a receptive audience listen that thought that you have of coming trouble that sense of doomsday coming for the human race that movie you just watched about the end of civilization as we know it the basic idea is actually true.

In fact let me tell you why you don't want to be here when it happens. There is a promise of rescue coming from the wrath to come first Thessalonians 1 10 and it is in believing in the lamb of God who can forgive your sin and secure your future with him forever. Frankly studying the wrath of the lamb as a body of believers should deepen our gratitude for the grace of the lamb and cause us to more quickly more easily with deeper understanding say you are Lord. Now let's take a closer look at what happens as this sixth seal is broken and the scroll unrolls a little further. We'll call these five disturbances on earth you'd rather watch from heaven. The first disturbance in verse 12 is a great earthquake.

Notice it there in verse 12. There was a great earthquake. The original language calls this, the Greek language calls this a mega seismos.

You recognize those words we use mega to refer to something huge. This is a mega earthquake. The Greek word for earthquake is seismos.

We've adopted that word today seismology is the science of studying earthquakes. So John is an eyewitness to a monster quake literally a shaking of the earth. The second disturbance is a total eclipse of sun and moon. John records and the sun became black as sackcloth literally black as hair.

This is a reference to the black goat hair worn by those in a funeral mourning the loss of loved ones. It's as if he says the sun was covered with the sackcloth used in mourning the dead. The moon is eclipsed as well and the description John writes it fits perfectly with the deep reddish color of the moon during an eclipse. The fact that these things bring terror to the planet some well respected men believe that this is ash and debris spewing up covering as it were the moon.

I don't believe that would create any new sense of terror which this does. An earthquake followed by darkness with a blood red moon would. The word for stars astair refers to any luminous body in the sky other than the sun and moon. The stars here are what we would call shooting stars these are meteors or asteroids that literally pummel the earth.

On November 13, 1833 eyewitnesses testified that hundreds of shooting stars could be seen simultaneously and people actually fell to their knees begging God for mercy. NASA scientist Don Youmans who manages the near earth asteroid tracking program. Yes there is one out there and they've identified a couple thousand potential asteroid impacts. He said and I quote the probability of an asteroid impacting earth is low but it is also a high consequence event.

Don't you love the way scientists talk? A high consequence event. The last major asteroid to cause damage by colliding with earth occurred in a sparsely populated region of Siberia in 1908 and its impact literally toppled 700 square miles of forest. Now think about that.

The city of Raleigh and Cary combined is about 130 square miles. The impact of one asteroid leveled 700 square miles of whatever was standing. Thought it was humorous as I researched this to read one scientist who works for a research laboratory in California he concluded and I quote him the most sensible thing to do about earth striking asteroids is to try and not think about it.

Just don't think about it. In my research I saw an illustration of what an asteroid collision would look like stunning terrifying at the same time it's literally a ball of fire that comes hurtling through the atmosphere striking the earth with the power of a nuclear bomb. Now imagine this scene. The earth is shaking and then the sky goes black. The moon appears red blood like color and then through the black sky you see screaming toward earth fireballs the size of boats and all you can see through the darkness is what appears to be stars fireballs scorching toward our planet and you hear the collisions you see the bursts of flame you feel the rush of hot air from some nearby impact and trees are bursting into flame along with homes and skyscrapers alike and people can only think of one thing the sky is falling it is the end of the world. The fourth disturbance in verse 14 is the atmosphere it tells us it splits apart it rolls back in two opposite directions I think the vocabulary is impossible to describe what John saw but it's like the atmosphere high above the planet is shriveling up peeling away in this fiery ordeal. The fifth disturbance in verse 14 is the change in geography he writes in verse 14 the mountains and islands were moved out of their places the planet is still shaking the sky is still dark the earth is pummeled with fireballs the size of buses are exploding on the earth and everything is in so much upheaval that mountains shift and islands disappear out of sight the earth's crust shifts and moves and the devastating natural disasters accompanying the sixth seal that John doesn't even mention hurricanes that are caused by this tsunamis that sweep inland drowning untold numbers of people the most terrifying yet the devastation is absolutely unbelievable and just who is affected by these disturbances. John gives us the six categories of people impacted by the sixth seal first he mentions in verse 15 look quickly the kings of the earth these are the heads of state the rulers the presidents the prime ministers of the nations of the earth and at this moment they will recognize their power is powerless. John mentions next the great men senators senior ranking officials from all walks of life. John mentions next commanders they're caught up in the panic with everybody else the word for commander here is the same word used elsewhere for a Roman officer who commanded a thousand soldiers these are the unflappable generals experienced in battle. Fourth John mentions in this text the rich he uses the words from which we get the phrase the hoi polloi it's the Greek words used the rich and famous all the hoi polloi none of their wealth can buy them safety their money is worthless on a planet where everything seems to be on fire. Fifth John mentions the strong it's a reference to influential people you could call them mighty these are the movers and the shakers of the planet but now they see the planet is being moved and shaken by an unseen hand and finally John wraps it up in verse 15 by just including everybody else in this phrase every slave and free man this is a reference to all classes of people free and enslaved free and imprisoned this is the way to say and everybody else nobody's left out everyone is without relief in other words from kings to common laborers they are all now running to try to find safety somewhere anywhere screaming crying literally out of their minds as we can only imagine and many of them dropping dead with heart attacks from the sheer terror of it all not believable scene we don't know how long it lasts but what happens next is utterly amazing to me the last part of verse 15 and they hid themselves in the caves among the rocks of the mountains and they said to the mountains and to the rocks fall on us and hide us in other words all these terrifying events spark the biggest prayer meeting the world has ever seen this is a universal call to prayer and all of humanity is praying but you notice they're not praying to God they are praying to objects of nature God is behind this the lamb that they've come to understand through the pages of this book is behind this but they would rather die than trust him this is where I believe by the way God judicially abandons them as Paul wrote to the Thessalonians in chapter 2 verse 11 of the second letter that that these will be those who will be sent a strong delusion so that they will believe the lie of the antichrist now almost finished the dust settles the earth settles back down the fires are put out we will discover the antichrist will move in Jerusalem to desecrate the altar of the newly constructed temple probably damaged as well and claim to be God see this is the perfect opportunity to say the God of the Jews is behind us look what he's done to you I'm actually God and I will lead you in a different way follow me great opportunity which he will seize and it won't be long hence the beast will take over the planet and begin even greater times of bloodshed and horror let me ask you my friend are you ready to be rescued from all of this if you don't know Jesus personally today is the day to respond to the gospel this is wisdom for the heart with Stephen Davey the lesson you just heard is called when the sky began to fall it comes from Stephen's series entitled four horsemen and the coming world madness it might be that you'd like to listen to this series again and if so we can make it available for you on a set of CDs give us a call today at eight six six forty eight Bible that's eight six six four eight two four two five three if we can help you spiritually or in any other way you can use that number to reach our office today if you'd like to write to us our mailing address is wisdom international P O box three seven two nine seven Raleigh North Carolina two seven six two seven I'll repeat that address one more time in case you're trying to write it down it's wisdom international P O box three seven two nine seven Raleigh North Carolina two seven six two seven I hope we hear from you today you can also interact with us on our Facebook page follow us on Twitter or Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel where we upload videos of Stephen teaching God's Word we have two more lessons to go in this current series I hope you'll be with us in the days ahead join us back here for more wisdom for the hearts you