Sixth Seal - Great Earthquake
Seal - God's Judgement on the Pagan Rome (Dragon)
Revelation 6:12 - I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood.
Revelation 6:13 - And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind.
Revelation 6:14 - Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place.
Revelation 6:15 - And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains,
Revelation 6:16 - and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!
Revelation 6:17 - For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?
Haggai 2:21-22 - Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying: I will shake heaven and earth. I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms; I will destroy the strength of the Gentile kingdoms. I will overthrow the chariots And those who ride in them; The horses and their riders shall come down, Every one by the sword of his brother.
Ezekiel 31:2 - Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his multitude: Whom are you like in your greatness?
Ezekiel 31:3 - Indeed Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon, With fine branches that shaded the forest, And of high stature; And its top was among the thick boughs.
Ezekiel 31:16 - I made the nations shake at the sound of its (Egypt) fall, when I cast it down to hell together with those who descend into the Pit; and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the depths of the earth.
Earthquakes in the prophecy represent great political upheavals.
Emperor Constantine the Great defeated Diocletian's army in 312 A.D, which ended the persecutions. Diocletian (the Sun) was so panic stricken, he died insane. Constantine defeated emperors Maxentius and Licinius to become sole ruler of both west and east by 324 A.D. The Roman leaders (stars) fell and their power receded as a scroll.
Jeremiah 15:9 - She languishes who has borne seven; She has breathed her last; Her Sun (King of Judah) has gone down While it was yet day; She has been ashamed and confounded. And the remnant of them I will deliver to the sword Before their enemies, says the Lord.
Matthew 24:29 - Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
Isaiah 60:20 - Your sun (King) shall no longer go down, Nor shall your moon withdraw itself; For the Lord will be your everlasting light, And the days of your mourning shall be ended.
Isaiah 13:10 - For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
Ezekiel 32:2 - Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say to him: 'You are like a young lion among the nations, And you are like a monster in the seas, Bursting forth in your rivers, Troubling the waters with your feet, And fouling their rivers.
Ezekiel 32:7 - When I put out your light (Pharaoh king of Egypt), I will cover the heavens, and make its stars dark; I will cover the sun (Pharaoh king of Egypt) with a cloud, And the moon shall not give her light.
Ezekiel 32:8 - All the bright lights of the heavens I will make dark over you, And bring darkness upon your land, Says the Lord God.
Isaiah 24:23 - Then the moon will be disgraced And the sun ashamed; For the Lord of hosts will reign On Mount Zion and in Jerusalem And before His elders, gloriously.
Isaiah 24:21 - It shall come to pass in that day That the Lord will punish on high the host of exalted ones, And on the earth the kings of the earth.
Joel 2:10 - The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining:
Joel 2:31 - The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
Joel 3:15 - The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.
Acts 2:16 - But this is (present tense) that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;
Acts 2:20 - The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come:
Amos 8:1 - Thus the Lord God showed me: Behold, a basket of summer fruit.
Amos 8:2 - And He said, Amos, what do you see? So I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then the Lord said to me: The end has come upon My people Israel; I will not pass by them anymore.
Amos 8:9 - And it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord God, That I will make the sun go down at noon, And I will darken the earth in broad daylight
Amos 8:10 - I will turn your feasts into mourning, And all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist, And baldness on every head; I will make it like mourning for an only son, And its end like a bitter day.
Jeremiah 49:3 - Wail, O Heshbon, for Ai is plundered! Cry, you daughters of Rabbah, Gird yourselves with sackcloth! Lament and run to and fro by the walls; For Milcom shall go into captivity With his priests and his princes together.
Isaiah 15:3 - In their streets they will clothe themselves with sackcloth; On the tops of their houses And in their streets Everyone will wail, weeping bitterly.
Ezekiel 27:31 - They will shave themselves completely bald because of you, Gird themselves with sackcloth, And weep for you With bitterness of heart and bitter wailing.
Psalms 81:3 - Blow the trumpet at the time of the New Moon, At the full moon, on our solemn feast day.
Isaiah 1:14 - Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; They are a trouble to Me, I am weary of bearing them.
Isaiah 24:23 - Then the moon will be disgraced And the sun ashamed; For the Lord of hosts will reign On Mount Zion and in Jerusalem And before His elders, gloriously.
Ezekiel 32:7 - When I put out your light, I will cover the heavens, and make its stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, And the moon shall not give her light.
In Israel, the feast days were celebrated based on the rotation of moon. Hence, moon signifies the ecclessia or religious order of a kingdom.
Isaiah 34:4 - All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, And the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll; All their host shall fall down As the leaf falls from the vine, And as fruit falling from a fig tree.
Isaiah 34:5 - For My sword shall be bathed in heaven; Indeed it shall come down on Edom, And on the people of My curse, for judgment.
Isaiah 34:6 - The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, It is made overflowing with fatness, With the blood of lambs and goats, With the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah, And a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
In this verse, the Holy Spirit paints the slaughter and ruin of the kingdom of Edom, a kingdom of idols. Likewise in Revelation 6:13-14, the downfall of Pagan Empire alongs with their idols is portrayed.
Isaiah 51:6 - Lift up your eyes to the heavens, And look on the earth beneath. For the heavens will vanish away like smoke, The earth will grow old like a garment, And those who dwell in it will die in like manner; But My salvation will be forever, And My righteousness will not be abolished.
Nahum 3:12 - All your strongholds are fig trees with ripened figs: If they are shaken, They fall into the mouth of the eater.
Hosea 2:12 - And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, Of which she has said, These are my wages that my lovers have given me. So I will make them a forest, And the beasts of the field shall eat them.
Daniel 2:35 - Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
Daniel 2:44 - And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
Jeremiah 51:24-25 - And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith the LORD. Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, Who destroys all the earth, says the Lord. And I will stretch out My hand against you, Roll you down from the rocks, And make you a burnt mountain.
Isaiah 2:18 - But the idols He shall utterly abolish.
Isaiah 2:19 - They shall go into the holes of the rocks, And into the caves of the earth, From the terror of the Lord And the glory of His majesty, When He arises to shake the earth mightily.
Isaiah 2:20 - In that day a man will cast away his idols of silver And his idols of gold, Which they made, each for himself to worship, To the moles and bats,
Isaiah 2:21 - To go into the clefts of the rocks, And into the crags of the rugged rocks, From the terror of the Lord And the glory of His majesty, When He arises to shake the earth mightily.
Exodus 12:12 - For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute Judgement: I am the Lord.
Numbers 33:4 - For the Egyptians were burying all their firstborn, whom the Lord had killed among them. Also on their gods the Lord had executed Judgements.
In truth, as the Lord, when he was about to conduct ancient Israel out of Egyptian bondage, is said to have exercised Judgement on all the gods of the Egyptians, so here, when he was about to deliver the Christian people from Roman tyranny, he exercised Judgement on the gods of the Romans.
The event of this seal is a wonderful commotion of heaven and earth, by which that marvellous change of the heathen Roman state, by Constantine the Great and his successors; All the gods of the Gentiles, shaken from their heaven, their pontiffs and their priests degraded from their offices, unhallowed, cast down, and forever deprived of their revenues; the temples, and images of demons throughout the whole Roman world ruined, overthrown, burnt, and demolished.
And this is the first completion of that victory of Jesus, of which the foundation was laid in the first seal; to which the seals which have preceded it have been subservient.
The demolition of shrines and temples was effected under the authority of emperor Theodosius I. For Constantine the Great only shut up the temples of the gods; he did not destroy them, except at Constantinople and the adjoining places. Julian opened them again. But this emperor Theodosius ordered them to be utterly demolished. He dissolved the order of the Vestal Virgins (equivalent to Catholic nuns) in Rome.
Galerius, Maximin, and Licinius, made even a public confession of their guilt, recalled their decrees and edicts against the Christians, and acknowledged the just Judgements of God and of Christ in their own destruction.
About one half of the Roman Empire turned Christians in the time of Constantine the great and his sons.
At the opening of the sixth seal, that which letteth (2 Thessalonians 2:7) is taken out of the way, namely the heathen Roman Empire.
2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 - And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.
The heathen roman empire (restrainer) was removed to make way for the little horn antichrist (Papacy) to grow slowly.