The Wrath of God – When Does It Start?

Turn Your Bible Study Notes Into Books, CDs, and DVDs For Free!
Click Here To Set Up Your Free Account On Createspace

Let me start by saying that I read the book of Revelation in order as it was written. I don’t do any complicated shifting of the text in order to fit preconceived notions. Let me also point out that nowhere in the text of the entire book does it tell us that we need to do so. That is man’s doing and not scripture.

The problem I have with those that don’t read Revelation in chronological order is the inability to adequately explain the following passages:

“And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.” – Revelation 8:1-2

My Bible clearly says that the Seven Trumpets are only given to the seven angels AFTER the Seventh Seal is broken. If we read it as it is written, there is no possible way for any trumpets to be blown prior to the breaking of Seal Seven. The next verse is also problematic to those that take Revelation out of its written order.

“And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.” – Revelation 11:15
“And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.” – Revelation 15:1

Again, the Seven Bowls are not mentioned until AFTER the Seventh Trumpet has already been blown. Until someone can provide a reasonable explanation, using the Bible, as to why anyone would take it out of order, I believe it should be read as is.

The main point of this post is to explore exactly where the wrath of God starts. Many people believe that it starts with the Seven Bowl judgments, but I respectfully disagree. The following verse seems to clearly indicate the beginning of God’s wrath:

“For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” – Revelation 6:17

Here we have the opening of Seal Six and it is clearly stated that the “great day of his wrath is come”. If we look at the phrase “is come” in Greek, we get:

Erchomai – arrived, appeared, entered

Interestingly, this is the same word used to refer to the group that suddenly appears in Revelation 7:14. I actually believe that is where the Rapture happens. My double disc CD, Is The Rapture In The Bible, explains why I feel that is where the Rapture is mentioned in the book of Revelation.

If Revelation 6:17 is taken at face value, this is confirmation that God’s wrath has officially started. The reason many people do not believe this is the beginning of God’s wrath is because of the following verse:

“And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.” – Revelation 15:1

It is the phrase, “filled up” that is the source of the disagreement. Many make the argument that these bowls contain all of God’s wrath. They also offer all kinds of reasoning as to why they take this position, but they rarely present the Greek text in their argument. Here is the phrase, “filled up” in Greek:

Teleo – bring to an end, completed, fulfill, accomplished, finished

There are actually quite a few more words that all refer to an ending, but we can clearly see that the Greek makes no mention of these being a beginning of God’s wrath. The Bible does a really good job at interpreting itself, and if we let it do its job, we find the following at the beginning of the verse in support of this being an ending and not a beginning:

“And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.” – Revelation 15:1

The Bible clearly refers to these bowls as the “seven LAST plagues”. If we compare Seal Six with the Seven Bowls, the Greek makes it 100% clear that one is a beginning and the other is an ending. The position that the bowls are the beginning can ONLY be maintained if one refuses to acknowledge the Greek in these passages.

It is important to understand where God’s wrath begins, because God has not appointed us (the Church) to wrath (1 Thessalonians 5:9). If that is true, and I believe it is, it explains why God’s 144,000 servants are sealed and an innumerable group of people from all over the world suddenly appear in heaven. All of this happens during the Sixth Seal. Don’t take my word for it, study it for yourself (Acts 17:11), and feel free to post your comments and let me know what you think.

Round Table: The Omega Hour

Make sure to tune in to The Omega Hour tomorrow night 8pm – 10pm PST. We will be having our first ever round table discussion. We will not be taking calls during the round table so please email your questions in advance or you may post them in the chat room live. Questions will be asked on a first come first serve basis. J-Rich and myself will be joined by:

L.A. Marzulli
Jim Wilhelmsen
King Wells
David Ruffino

Click here to bookmark the show page.

Soul-A-Month Challenge

All believers are called to WATCH, but we see that the televangelists and the faith healers aren’t trying to warn the Church of the coming deception. Moving forward this year, let us all make it our New Year’s Resolution, goal, etc. to at least attempt to wake up 1 person a month. At that rate and with our combined effort, there will be thousands of people per month that will be spared from spending eternity in hell.

Rating: 10.0/10 (2 votes cast)

Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)

How Many People Will Die In The Tribulation?

This has always been something that has interested me. I hear people talk about it all the time and toss out numbers, but I figured I’d go through and see for myself. Just a fair warning, this is a sort of brainstorming process right now, so it may change later. Please don’t email me yelling at me about the numbers, I’m not married to the numbers, since they are subject to change as the population grows. For this estimate I’ll be using the number 7,000,000,000 for the current population on earth.

The First Wave

Trumpet 6: 2,330,999,999 (Rev. 9:15)
New Population Count: 4,669,000,001

This was just a quick scan of Revelation, but so far, the above is the only verse I’ve found where a specific number of deaths are mentioned. Below are the lists of unknown deaths and judgments that don’t have any deaths mentioned in the verse.

Unknown Number of Deaths/Missing

Seal 2: Revelation 6:3-4
Seal 4: Revelation 6:7-8
Trumpet 2: Revelation 8:8-9
Trumpet 3: Revelation 8:10-12
2 Witnesses: Revelation 11
The Antichrist: Revelation 13
Bowl 2: Revelation 16:3
Bowl 7: Revelation 16:17-21
Armageddon: Revelation 19
The Rapture (It will reduce the population count)

No Deaths Mentioned

If you find anything that I’ve missed, please feel free to email me with the chapter and verse. As many times as I’ve heard the book of Revelation taught and read it myself, I never realized that the number of mankind that will die was only mentioned once.

Opinion: When we talk about Revelation and the End Times, we usually talk about most of the world’s population being wiped out and we get caught up in the hype. Taking another look at it, I see that most of the judgments hit nature (trees, water, sun, moon, etc.). It brings the following verses to mind.

“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” – 2 Peter 3:9

Personal Testimony

This testimony has been in development for the last four weeks, but I have no idea, even though I was involved all the way through it. About four weeks ago someone left a brand new black Bible on one of the tables at church. It happens all the time, so we just leave it back there and so whoever owns it can pick it up. My mom thought it was mine so she put it on the audio visual desk. We asked if it belonged to anyone and no one claimed it. Yesterday, I was looking in a box by the audio visual desk and the Bible was right there, so I decided to thumb threw it. It doesn’t look like it’s ever been opened.

There’s really nothing special about this Bible as far as study is concerned. No commentary, no references, and no headers. Its just the Bible, chapter by chapter, and verse by verse, just like the one I use now. The Bible I use now started falling apart about three days ago and I was thinking about getting a new one, but it had to be just right. I have quite a few Bibles here, but they have all the bells and whistles, which makes them kind of bulky to carry around. It’s hard to let go of a Bible because you have to break in a new one.

Here’s the part that makes the story strange. The Bible I use now is the same exact Bible that I had before it. I left my 1^st Bible on top of the car one morning and didn’t even know it. I got to church and started looking or it. I thought I sat it down on the Bible table and sure enough, there it was, kinda. It was the same exact Bible, except it was brand new. My mom had just bought them for the church at a $1 Bible sale, so she told me to take it. When God has something for you, He’ll make sure you get it. I guess He’s not ready for me to use other people’s commentaries and references just yet. I thank God that He gave me the Bible I use now because I couldn’t rely on the references in the sidebar, I had to learn to memorize them. Sometimes the simplest things can have a huge impact without us even knowing it.

Voting Is Almost Over

Voting will end Thursday for the co-host contest. Once this round of voting is complete, we will move on to the next round. Please get your votes in before this Thursday on The Omega Hour. You can cast your vote on the right panel.

Speaking Schedule For October (click links to listen online)

10/02/10 – Open Book Radio – 2:00pm PST – Call in number: 800-366-8883
10/04/10 – Da Cross Radio – 6pm PST – Call in number: 702-608-3259
10/09/10 – Open Book Radio – 2:00pm PST – Call in number: 800-366-8883
10/16/10 – Open Book Radio – 2:00pm PST – Call in number: 800-366-8883
10/23/10 – Open Book Radio – 2:00pm PST – Call in number: 800-366-8883
10/25/10 – Live With David Hester – 10:00am PST – Call in number: 347-677-1158
10/27/10 – Acceleration Radio – 7:00pm PST – Call in number: 800-596-8191

Do You Know Him?

As the world becomes more and more obsessed with the spiritual realm, supernatural activity is increasing. Thankfully there is someone that is more powerful than any ghost, vampire, demon, alien, or UFO. “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” – Philipians 2:9-11

If you don’t know Him, Get to know Him.

Isaiah 13:21 – Stranger Than Fiction – Leave Your Comments Please

For the last week or so this verse has been rolling around in my head. I wasn’t sure why at first, then something I’ve been talking about for a while suddenly hit me and it became very clear and has very disturbing implications.

“But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.” – Isaiah 13:21

This chapter deals with the coming destruction of Babylon, and I have always assumed and have been taught that this verse was describing demons inhabiting the destroyed city, which I definitely don’t doubt. Before we get into exactly why this is so disturbing, let’s look at a Hebrew word.

Satyrs – Sa’iyr (a hairy woodland demon)

In Greek mythology Satyrs were human/goat hybrids that love to dance, kidnap women, and have sex with them. The Hebrews believed them to be demonic. In Hebrew tradition, the fallen angel Azazel is usually depicted as a Satyr. Azazel, according to the book of Enoch, was one of the 200 Watchers that came to earth in Genesis 6 and created the Nephilim.

I’ve never seen Isaiah 13:21 come up in reference to the “days of Noah”, but it is a direct reference to creatures that were known to abduct women for the purpose of having sex with them. I encourage everyone to keep digging into the Bible. There seems to be a lot of information hiding right in plain sight, so it is very important for us to start reading it with a very critical eye.

Let me know what you think. Am I reading too much into this or could there be something to it?

Books By Minister Dante Fortson

Rating: 10.0/10 (3 votes cast)

Rating: +3 (from 3 votes)

My Interview On Knight Zone Radio

Last night I was blessed to have an interview on Knight Zone Radio with Colin Knight. The topic was Revelation but we covered a lot of ground in an hour. Honestly, I didn’t know exactly what to expect going on the show because it isn’t necessarily a “Christian” broadcast, but I believe it went very well. I must admit that Knight Zone Radio is one of the most professional sounding Blog Talk Radio shows I’ve ever heard. Colin has done a great job with the show.

Many guests have been on before me discussing supernatural phenomena, but not necessarily from a Christian perspective so I wasn’t sure what kind of attitude I was going to walk into. Colin had some great questions about fallen angels, nephilim, and alien abduction. Somehow we also managed to get into the translation of the KJV vs. Other versions of the Bible. Readers of this site know that one of my favorite topics are fallen angels and the nephilim, so we definitely got into that.

One thing Collin asked me to do was explain how the angels fell and why they would even bother taking women and having children with them. I personally think I explained it sufficiently, but you’ll have to listen to the show if you want to hear what I said. The host did manage to hit me with a couple of question I didn’t expect, but was definitely prepared for. Surprisingly we got into ghosts and demonic possession and how this kind of activity happens in people’s lives. I’m surprised we squeezed this much into one hour of radio.

I definitely enjoyed the show last night and will definitely go on again if I’m invited back. If you didn’t catch the show live, make sure you go take a listen. Here is the link:

My Knight Zone Radio Interview

Minister Dante Fortson, Nephilim, Fallen Angels, Demons, Demonic Possession, Spiritual Perspective, God, Jesus, Bible, Genesis 6, Giants, Days of Noah, The Omega Hour, Bro. BJ, L.A. Marzulli, Guy Malone, Chuck Missler, Alien Abduction, UFO, Flying Saucer, hybrid, Joe Jordan, Van Smith, Russ Dizdar, Chris White, YHWH, YHVH

Rating: 10.0/10 (2 votes cast)

Rating: +2 (from 2 votes)

Revelation: Apocalypse – Part 9

This is a very basic starting point on the book of Revelation and the End Times. I posted this series for everyone that wants to begin their journey on the subject of the last days. Please keep in mind that Revelation is not the only book that covers the end of the world. Again, this video is not intended as a deep study, but is great for getting started.