Have you ever played the game “Charades?” When John was given a vision, remember he didn’t have the necessary word vocabulary to decipher what he was looking at. So he described these things in what we call written Pictorial Language.
Let me begin with some simple passages I picked out, my objectives are to allow you the reader to clue in on their simplicities, and yet, keep you from becoming shock bound!
But remember to look through John’s eyes.
Interpretation.
Rev 6:12-And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.
Rev 6:13-And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
Rev 6:14-And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
“This is a very easy passage to decipher” Reading the written Pictorial Writings, I perceive of what is a volcanic eruption! Using examples and sources that are readily available, well it doesn’t take much to figure this one out. But, it’s not the simplicity of this interpretation that got my attention here,–it is the strange insight that I picked up on as I was finishing it!
Resource: Sackcloth-Rev 6:12: A garment of rough cloth made from goat’s hair and worn in the form of a shirt or as a girdle around the loins, by way of mortification and penance. The Latin name is said to be derived from Cilicia, where this cloth was made, but the thing itself was probably known and used long before this name was given to it. The Sackcloth, for instance, so often mentioned in ancient text as a Symbol of Mourning and Penance, and the garment of camel’s hair some what similar. It is also called Haircloth, pertaining to the material used to make the cloth (Hair). The act of cleansing (Mortification and Penance) dealt with in combination of wearing the garment made from hair and ashes!
(Author’s Views)–If you the reader have ever cleaned a fireplace or chimney, you would have a clear understanding of the full meaning of soot (Ashes), it’s black!
Resource: Moon became as blood-Rev 6:12-According to folklore, October’s full moon is called the “Hunter’s Moon” or sometimes the “Blood Moon.” It gets it’s name from hunters who tracked and killed their prey by autumn moonlight, stockpiling food for the winter ahead. You can picture them: Silent figures padding through the forest, the moon overhead, pale as a corpse, it’s cold light betraying the creatures of the woods.
That same Red Light plays across the moon when it’s inside Earth’s shadow. The exact Color depends on what’s floating around in Earth’s atmosphere. Following a Volcanic Eruption, for instance, Dust and Ash can turn Global Sunsets Vivid Red. The moon would glow Vivid Red, too. Lots of clouds, on the other hand, extinguish sunsets, leading to darker, dimmer eclipses. Moon became as blood-Rev 6:12.
Resource: At least five generations have seen picture footage of the Mount St. Helen’s Volcano eruption and the aftermath of it’s explosion! The eruption reached about 80,000 feet in less than 15 minutes, spread across United States in 3 days; circled Earth in 15 days, 0.26 cubic miles (1.4 billion Cubic Yards) was blasted into the atmosphere, the ash and pumice settled 10 inches deep at 10 miles downwind; 1 inch at 60 miles downwind; the lateral blast swept out of the north side of (MSH) at 300 miles per hour creating a 230 square mile fan shaped area of devastation reaching a distance of 17 miles from the crater. With temperatures as high as 660° degrees F° and the power of 24 Megatons of thermal energy, it snapped 100 year old trees like toothpicks and stripped them of their bark. A common hydrogen bomb only has the power of up to 10 megatons.
The hydrogen bomb is thousands of times more powerful than an atomic bomb. There have not been any hydrogen bombs used in warfare, however, there have been underground testing of hydrogen bomb tests. Most of these tests are done underwater due to risk of destruction. To give you an idea of how strong the H-bomb is, think about this. This atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan which killed over 140,000 people had the power of 13 Kilotons. A common hydrogen bomb has the power of up to 10 megatons. All the explosions in World War II totaled “only” 2 Megatons–20% of the power of ONE common hydrogen bomb. Black as sackcloth of hair 6:12, stars of heaven fell 6:13–Pumice, stars of heaven fell 6:13-Pumice is a textural term for a volcanic rock that is a solidified frothy lava. The red hot glowing pumice coming back down from the sky after the eruption, I would consider “Stars of Heaven Fell.” Although, for a person to see the red hot glowing pumice, it had to be at night or very close to it.
Source: As a scroll when it is rolled together Rev 6:14. Let me point out that the individual that took the pictures forty miles from the Mount St. Helen volcano eruption did not survive. The pictures below of the nuclear blast consisted of 13 Kilotons of thermal energy compared to the 24 Megatons of thermal energy produced from the (MSHV) eruption! So in all actuality, (MSH) was 18 plus times larger than the nuclear blast pictured below! I used these pictures to display the “Heaven Departed” and the “As a scroll when it is rolled together.” Heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together-Rev 6:14.
The strange insight that I picked up on in this interpretation with the resources given:
(1) Could John have witnessed this event in his lifetime?
(2) Is there any such history of this event in John’s lifetime in the areas he resided?
(3) If John would have first hand viewed this event, would he have survived?
Now, John thus far has done a very good job being descriptive in this first scripture. In my personal view, John’s expression of this interpretation is extraordinarily precise. In all that John has written in the book of Revelation, this simple view enables the readers to trust that most of Book of Revelation can be understood.
Now again, what I am trying to express in this interpretation, is that John was clear headed. There is no sign of any drug induced–way out–wild or far fetched dream going on,–like Walt Disney’s colorful LSD trips he used to design his multi-billion dollar theme parks!
(Author)-According to the two clues to where a blast of this magnitude can happen is–I’d stay away from the areas located among Islands and volcano’s, far–far–away!
Continue to The 2nd Interpretation