Revelation 6:17

But then, amazingly, even this would pass. After these few terrifying days, the stars stopped falling and the terrible shakings ceased. The survivors emerged from their shelters and began again to rationalize their resistance to God. After all, these calamities could be explained scientifically, so perhaps they had been too quick to attribute them to God’s wrath. They quickly set about rebuilding their damaged structures and became more resolute in their opposition to the gospel of Christ.¹⁴

The book of Revelation discredits those who hold that God is so loving and kind that He will never judge people who have not received His Son. Though the modern mind is reluctant to accept the fact that God will judge the wicked, the Bible clearly teaches that He will. The Scriptures reveal a God of love as clearly as they reveal a God of wrath who will deal with those who spurn the grace proffered in the Lord Jesus Christ. The passage before us is a solemn word that there is inevitable judgment ahead for those who will not receive Christ by faith.¹⁵

Friends and brethren, what a mercy that day is not yet upon us! There is a Rock to which we still may fly and pray, with hope of security in its wide-open clefts. It is the Rock of Ages. There are mountains to which we may yet betake ourselves, and be forever safe from all the dread convulsions which await the world. They are the mountains of salvation in Christ Jesus. I believe I am addressing some who have betaken themselves to them. Brethren, “hold fast the profession of your faith without wavering; for He is faithful that promised.” (Heb. Heb. 10:23.) But others are still lingering in the plains of Sodom, who need to take this warning to heart as they never yet have done. O ye travellers of the judgment, seek ye the Lord while He may be found, and call upon Him while He is near! And may God in His mercy hide us all from the condemnation that awaits an unbelieving world!¹⁶

Notes

¹ John MacArthur, Revelation 1-11 : The MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1999), Rev. 6:17.

² Renald E. Showers, “The Day of the Lord,” in Elwood McQuaid, ed., Israel My Glory (Westville, NJ: Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, March/April 2003), 18-19.

³ Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 1-7 (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1992), Rev. 6:17.

⁴ Marvin Rosenthal, The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1990), 147.

⁵ We will use the term “prophetic” for “proleptic” since most readers are more familiar with that term.

⁶ “The aorist tense describes an undefined action that normally occurs in the past.”—William D. Mounce, Greek for the Rest of Us (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), 157, 160.

⁷ Rosenthal, The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church, 164-167.

⁸ Tommie P. Dana and Julius R. Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament (Toronto, Ontario: The Macmillan Company, 1955), 198.

⁹ Thomas, Revelation 1-7, 460.

¹⁰ Rosenthal misrepresents Isaiah: “The prophet Isaiah said men would flee to the caves of the mountains immediately before the Day of the Lord.”—Rosenthal, The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church, 175. This makes little sense. Why would they flee before that day when it is the events which attend the day which they recognize as being God’s wrath which cause their flight?

¹¹ MacArthur, Revelation 1-11 : The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Rev. 6:17.

¹² Rosenthal, The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church, 147.

¹³ Renald E. Showers, Maranatha, Our Lord Come (Bellmawr, NJ: The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, 1995), 120.

¹⁴ Henry Morris, The Revelation Record (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1983), Rev. 6:17.

¹⁵ John F. Walvoord, The Revelation of Jesus Christ (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1966), Rev. 6:17.

¹⁶ J. A. Seiss, The Apocalypse: Lectures on the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1966), 159.