Before considering the significant and momentous events occurring under the sixth seal, it will be advantageous to first review one important principle that will greatly aid our understanding of almost all the scenes we behold not only under the sixth seal, but throughout the remainder of the book of Revelation. I would draw your attention to the fact that the vast majority of the events in the book take place in one of three dimensions: HEAVEN, EARTH, and SEA. These are, of course, symbolical and prophetical terms! They represent states of being, life-styles, levels of consciousness, spheres of existence, and dimensions of life within each of us.
THE SEA
The lowest of these three realms is the sea. Throughout the book of Revelation a number of things transpire in the sea. A few of them are as follows. “And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and a third part of the sea became blood.” “I stood upon the sand of the sea, and I saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns.” “And the sea gave up the dead that were in it.” “Woe to the inhabiters of the sea, for the devil is come down unto you.” “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth…and there was no more sea.”
Throughout the scriptures the sea is a type of the inner storms and turbulent nature of the Adamic man. The prophet Isaiah penned these inspired words: “The wicked are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked” (Isa. 57:20-21). Jude also described wicked men when he said, “These are raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame” (Jude 13). The beloved John, on the isle of Patmos, had a vision of a great whore sitting on many waters. The angel revealed the meaning of the many waters, saying, “the waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues” (Rev. 17:15).
The natural sea is a great deep, an abyss (Gen. 1:2; 7:11; 8:2; Deut. 8:7; 33:13). The Psalmist wrote of this abyss of the wickedness of man, “They search out iniquities; they accomplish a diligent search: both the inward thought of every one of them, and the heart is D-E-E-P (an abyss)” (Ps. 64:6). To the enlightened mind of David the depth of iniquity of which the human heart is capable is so great that it is beyond the ability of man to comprehend. The heart of man is an unfathomable depth, or, as Jeremiah observed, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). While John the Revelator saw a beast (bestial nature) rising out of the sea (abyss, depth) of humanity, Jesus expressed the same truth thus: “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed all these evil things!”
No one can dispute the fact that it is this restless, turbulent, raging, evil heart of the fleshly man that inspires every evil and devilish perversion, and has filled the world with ever increasing confusion, faithlessness, immorality, falsehood, fraud, hatred, violence, greed, cruelty, strife, wars, bloodshed, and oppression. There are wars and rumors of wars and terrorism that strike fear into the hearts of men. Among the ruthless surging tide of unbridled crime, drugs, rebellion, illicit sex, disease, suffering, abuse, poverty, - 2 - sorrow, and injustice, we hear the groans of the dying. The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain! Men‟s hearts are failing them for fear in looking after those things which are coming upon the earth. It is more than a raging sea of evil — it is a virtual tsunami of self-destruction! As we look at the sad earth today, it is plain for every eye to see that, flowing from the corrupt minds of the corrupt rulers of every corrupt government on earth, taught in the schools, practiced in business and in the courts, and propagated by the media and Hollywood, we find the evil fruit of sin and death manifesting itself. Everywhere on the planet mankind is being overwhelmed by its evil until the earth is filled with violence and the thoughts and imaginations of men‟s hearts are only evil continually.
The natural man is not getting better, as some affirm. The unregenerate man, old Adam, is corruptible. That means not only that he is dying, but that he is continually being brought into a worse state and inferior condition leading to destruction. He is on a never-ending downward spiral into oblivion. Is not this the terrible danger of the hour in which we live — enough bombs stockpiled to not only blow planet earth to smithereens but twenty more like it! And all in the hands of unpredictable, corruptible men, and terrorists everywhere on the prowl. You may suffer from the illusion that human nature has improved during the past sixty-five years since the horror of the Holocaust and the savage warfare in which fifty million men, women, and children were blown into eternity, but you are mistaken. Human nature never improves, old Adam can never reform, for his is a corruptible nature, growing steadily more vicious, deceitful, and immoral.
For us the seashore is a place of vacation, and a cruise across the sea is for many the dream of a lifetime. Not so for the ancients! To them the sea symbolized chaos and destruction and unrest. One description of this is found in Psalm 107:23-30. These things, gathered together in the concept of the hostile sea, represent a part of human existence. The disquiet that goes on in many souls is sometimes almost beyond bearing. Friend, have you ever heard someone who has passed through mental or emotional torment speak of its hell? Have you ever seen the quivering jaw of someone crying bitter tears after having taken all that a human being could be expected to endure? Have you ever tried to encourage someone who is in an impossible corner of life with absolutely no exit to be seen? Have you ever stood beside someone and felt by way of empathy a groan of inner misery so deep that it cannot even find its way into words? Some of you have known dear people who have so suffered. Some of you have experienced some of these things yourselves! But there is a place — a place in God‟s new heaven and in God‟s new earth, in the realm of the Spirit, where the anguish represented by the sea exists for us no more! “And there shall be no more sea.” Thank God!
