FromNowUntilForeverBook8.5x5.5 REV.indd

out history. A couple of Old Testament pagan leaders come to mind. Nebuchadnezzar built a gold statue, demanding that the people bow down in worship to it (Daniel 3:12). Later, Belshazzar held a feast and desecrated sacred vessels that his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple by drinking from them (Daniel 5:2). Of course, nothing that has or will happen prior to the tribulation can compare to the actions of the Antichrist. Note next, the intensified devastation that takes place as the great tribulation heats up. As the last chapter drew to a close, we stopped between the sixth and seventh seal, that being the halfway point of the tribulation. Now opening the seventh seal, you’ll see that the devastation and destruction move into high gear. It doesn’t seem so at first, since this seal represents no specific judgment of its own.Yet, we soon learn that it paves the way for seven trumpets that follow. At first, these judgments resemble the first seven in that they involve various earthly and celestial calamities. The last three, also described as “woes,” represent terrible, destructive power (Revelation 8:13). Once the fifth angel sounds his in- strument, locusts pour out from the Abyss, a place of demonic imprisonment. Although these sci-fi like creatures can’t kill, they’ll make the victims of their stinging tails wish they weren’t alive. (see Revelation 9:6). Death then invades with a ven- geance with the onslaught of the sixth trumpet. At that point, four angels, accompanied by a two hundred million member cavalry of demons, destroy a third of mankind (Revelation 9:15-16). The suffering intensifies with the sounding of the last trumpet. And though the seventh blast, or third woe, contains no specific plague, it constitutes the last of the three judgments –the seven bowls. As with the trumpets, the bowls resemble

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