Revelation Chapter Six, Part 6 of 6

6:15-17 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?
After thousands of years of patience and forbearance, God finally looses wrath upon this sinful world: the great day of God Almighty has come. The day of the Lord had been a subject of prophecy amidst the men God chose to speak through since the days of Enoch, Jude 1:14-15. The universality of this judgment is indeed global as the language implies: it affects all manner of men from the highest to the lowest; just as the destroying angel in Egypt killed all the firstborn from the lowliest prisoner in the dungeon to Pharaoh upon the throne.

Again, it is like the Flood of Noah’s day; it was not a “local flood” that created a deluge in the region of Mesopotamia as some assert. It was a flood that wiped man off of the face of the earth save eight. The judgment of that time was global; none were exempt. So it will be in the Tribulation. Those alive at this point in time will be the subjects of God’s wrath as He finally ceases patiently enduring the blasphemy of men as they trivialize His Son and His mercy. The day has dawned and men realize it! As David noted, there shall be no escape from God’s all-seeing presence and displeasure, Psalm 139:7-12.

Unfortunately for these men their admission of God’s hot displeasure displayed before them is not “saving faith.” Joel promised that anyone who called on the name of the Lord during this terrible time would be saved, though they would still be in terrible jeopardy of being martyred by the Antichrist. But these men did not call on the name of the Lord; they called on the mountains and rocks to hide them from God and His judgments. In other words they believed in Him because they had to (there was no more choice in the matter) but they did not believe on Him: that is, they did not trust Him for eternal life. James tells us that even demons possess this sort of faith because they are confronted with God’s reality every second of their existence, James 2:19. An admission of what can no longer be denied is hardly saving faith; and that grudgingly. Many people will not be looking for salvation; they will be looking for escape from the wrath of the Lamb. They will search in vain, and entrust their temporal state to the man of sin, being branded by him in due time as a sign of loyalty.

As for the question of who shall stand, the answer is simple: no one. “If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?” Psalm 130:3. We are informed in Proverbs that there is a generation that is so self-absorbed that looking beyond themselves seems like it may be an impossibility. “There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother. There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness. There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up. There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men,” Proverbs 30:11-14.

While there has always been this mentality among mankind there certainly seems to be an increase in traffic, so to speak, of this irreverent and godless behavior. They see no wrong in themselves, and that is the primary hindrance that prevents them from ever approaching the Savior. That could be these men who cry out to be hidden from God. He is superior to them as an elephant could crush an ant; but do they acknowledge that He is their source of life and the only means of salvation? As long as we continue under the delusion of “I’m not so bad” or “I’m better than so and so” we will never recognize our need of a Savior. God does not compare you to so and so. He holds us up to His flawless law of perfection and finds us sorely lacking. Compare yourself to the holy God Jehovah; if that does not humble your pride nothing will.