Rev 8:1-13
In the book of Revelation 8th chapter unfolds God’s judgment on planet Earth.
The beginning of the chapter we see the 7th seal is broken and all the pages of Scroll are open.
The seven were given seven trumpets to sound for God’s judgments to begin.
With the opening of 7th seal, there was absolute silence in heaven for half an hour.
This is the only recorded silence in heaven in the Book of Revelation.
The praise and worship of God stops for a moment in anticipation of the impending judgment on the earth.
Out of the 7th seal fall seven trumpet judgments and seven bowl judgments.
Another angel holding a golden censer with incense and prayers of saints approaches the golden altar before the throne of God.
A smoke goes out of the censer before God carrying the prayers of God’s people.
So no prayer will go unnoticed.
All prayers of God’s people reach God’s throne.
Prayer is like the smoke of incense ascending to God.
Now fire from the altar was added to the censer containing incense and prayers of God’s people.
Fire from the altar is God’s judgment on earth.
God brings judgment as an answer to the prayers and the angel flings fire to the earth. 
In this case, prayer brings judgment to earth.
In verse 6 the angels prepare to blow the trumpets.
First four trumpets deal with creation the world.
The last three deal with the humanity.
First trumpet brings God’s judgment as third of earth, third of trees and all green grass is burned up due to hail and fire mixed with blood.
When the second angel blows the trumpet a huge asteroid was thrown into the sea.
Third of the sea turns blood
Third of the sea creatures die
Third of the ships on sea are destroyed.
Third angel blows the trumpet a comet like blazing star struck the fresh water on the earth.
This destroys the fresh water supply of much of the Earth.
Many people die of drinking that bitter from fresh water supplies.
God sends judgment upon the like the knife in a surgeon’s hands.
Now with the fourth angel’s trumpet third of supply of light is destroyed.
Third of sun, third of moon and third of stars turn dark
The flying eagle warns the inhabitant of the earth for the forthcoming destruction when the remaining three trumpets sound.
The repetition of the word ‘woe’ three times declares that the severity is greater than the four.
God’s severe and greater level of judgment is about to unfold.
Some will respond to this proclamation and turn to the Lord and accept HIM as Savior.
Many others would simply reject and follow Satan and his devils.
They will still put their trust in their intelligence and abilities to deal with such super-natural calamities.
In spite of all that destruction, they have no place for God and submit to evil influences from Satan.
We are already looking at some similar ungodly events this very moment in our world.
We have no idea what is going to transform in the coming years.
We are living in anti-God and anti-age old traditions and values.
The seven years of God’s judgment still leave some without any remorse and repentance.
I feel that the time is already ripe for the rapture of the believers.

Rev 7:1-17
Seventh chapter is an interlude between sixth and seventh seal.
This chapter is an answer to the question posed at the end of the 6th chapter.
6:17 For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?”
Here in this 7th chapter we will see who withstood the wrath of God.
Only two categories of people are distinctly mentioned here.
They are the born again Christians from Jews as well as from the rest of world.
They will become Christians during the Tribulation period.
First 8 verses deal with people of Israel and the remaining with all people.
1st verse talks about four mighty angels holding the winds blowing on the earth.
Winds are God’s gift to the planet earth creating an atmosphere for rain, diluting the pollution, and life on earth.
God’s judgment will come from all directions on earth and it is global.
The only purpose to withhold the winds is to put a seal on forehead of the servants.
Apostle John uses the expression servants means to serve God’s purpose.
Verses 4-8 describe the list of all the servants who get the seal on their forehead.
The angel chooses 144000 people from the tribes of Israel.
God selects them as bond servants to serve HIM during the tribulation period.
These Israelites are the first converts of the Tribulation period.
Verse 9 reflects upon the privilege of the converts due to evangelistic work of 144000.
This is the work of 144000 Billy grahams on fire during the tribulation period.
Two things are crystal clear, one is these people are from all over the world.
The second is that they were wearing white robes and holding palm branches.
White robes signify the imputed righteousness of Christ on them.
They only have righteousness from the death of Lord Jesus for their sins.
These are not the sealed people but are gathered all over the world during the tribulation.
The verse in Matt 24:14 comes true to the letter at this time. 
In verse 10-12 we see the heavenly choir is getting bigger and bigger.
“Salvation belongs to our God” means God is the source or origin of our salvation. 
Salvation belongs to God because it is entirely HIS work and no one gets the credit.
All around the throne they fell down before God and worship HIM.
In verse 13-14 we are given to understand that the white robed people are the new converts and they are killed for their faith.
The white robed people are the new arrivals of martyrs from the great tribulation.
They belong to the last three and one half years of the Tribulation.
Now they stand without sin before God.
Verses 15-17 reflect upon what they had suffered in their earthly life and how God comforts them in heaven.
They will be persecuted, will be punished and eventually will be killed for their faith.
They experience hunger, cruelty, merciless torture in the hands of the world.
Today, exercising one’s faith in Christ is not that difficult in many countries except some Islamic and communist countries.
Believing in the Lord Jesus may become a great risk for some today.
But in the seven year tribulation it will be the most challenging times for the converts.
They will go thru untold persecution in the hands of the world under Anti-Christ.
16 ‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them,’ nor any scorching heat
17 For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’
‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’
In Heaven the Lord Jesus Christ personally shepherds these martyrs by leading them to fountains of living water.

America celebrates Mother’s Day with great excitement and fervor and treat mothers with flowers and expensive lunches and chocolates.
But when it comes to Father’s Day we don’t see such excitement in children as well as in the market place.
The world focuses more on Mother’s Day whereas the Bible focuses on Father’s Day.
In the Scripture Father’s play great role in the lives of their children.
Fathers are not only the head of a family but also spiritual leader of the family.
Unfortunately we don’t find that true in our society today.
We Christians understand that our God is our Heavenly Father.
Dads are not perfect but in them the children get a glimpse of how a Heavenly Father looks like.
I choose three wonderful men of God from the Old  Testament.
They were fathers and used by the Heavenly Father as trend setters or role models.
I. NOAH is a Hard Worker
He stands as a great laborer building a ship for 120  years.
Noah did not know what rain looks like but obeyed God to build a boat.
His work and his "religion" were to obey God faithfully in the midst of all ridicule.
His Children just were just with him all the way because they trusted their father.
I. ABRAHAM is an Explorer
He stands as a great visionary to explore a promised land against all odds.
God asked him to leave his family and friends to go to a place where God showed him to go.
He just believed God’s promise that he will have his own son at the age of 100 years as a gift from God.
He was crazy to sacrifice that son because God told him to so.
His faith was beyond any human understanding and he became the father of all faithful in the Lord.
He became the father of 3 major religions in the world  today.
III. MOSES is a Great Leader
In my understanding Moses is the greatest man ever lived on the planet earth after Adam.
His saw God face to face and still lived in the human  history.
He talked with God extensively throughout his life.
He led the people of Israel for 40 years in the wilderness and struggle with them every day.
God chose to reveal the beginning of the creation story and asked him to record it.
He wrote the first 5 books of the Holy Bible under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
He was the only human being God took care of his body after his death.
Today we will focus on an obscure father of the Old Testament not like Noah, not like Abraham or Moses.
Adam was great because he was never born to a woman.
This father like any other common dad today but with a  difference.
We do not have much about this father but he stands very tall amongst other fathers of the Bible.
He was the father of King David.
We all know the story of David and Goliath.
In this context we come across the family of David.
Jesse was the father of 8 sons and Davis was the youngest son of all.
Three sons followed King Saul and were fighting his  wars.
So three sons were warriors and Davis was a shepherd boy in his teens tending flock.
We have to understand as to how David stood firm with confidence in the Lord he loves.
This fellow, described as a man after God’s own heart, stood confident because he came with the right stuff inside of him.
I do think Jesse did something right with all his 8 sons teaching them the fear of God.
He taught his children to trust in the Lord God and put their all trust in HIM. 
1 Samuel 17:45
“David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.”
This verse reflects everything about David’s character.
His character, his confidence, his upbringing, his faith and trust in the Lord
I don't think David could have stood confident in the midst of a giant like Goliath unless his father Jesse planted in him the fear of God right from his childhood.
I am sure Jesse instilled in him the basic strengths of his faith.
Jesse stands as an obscure father who contributed to the greatness of King David.
The same is true for all of those fathers who sacrificed their lives and imparted such great biblical truths to shape their children’s  future.
It is true that sons imitate fathers in every way and wanted to become like their dads.
On this father’s day, we have to keep this fact in view that fathers take the place of the Heavenly Father as HIS representatives.
Those who have no father for various reasons may be helped by other fathers to become their father figures to fill the gap for them.
Father's Day is a reminder to all parents that parenting is like facing a giant in our world.
May they have the Holy Spirit’s counsel to guide their children in the fear of God.

Rev 6:9-17
Let us summarize so far.
White horse – Anti-Christ riding – promising false peace – whole world obeys him.
Red horse – Rider has a drawn sword – brought war and bloodshed.
Black horse – Rider has a pair of scales – worldwide famine – scarcity of food.
Pale horse – Rider is death – companion Hades – one fourth of population killed.
Oswald Chambers once said that if we fear God we fear nothing.
In Matt 10:28 the Lord says one very important fact of every human life.
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Satan can kill our body but cannot kill our soul.
Only God can kill both soul and body in hell as an eternal punishment.
Those who feared the Lord and accepted HIM as Savior definitely escape the tribulation.
When the Lord Jesus breaks the 5th seal on the scroll, the souls of the martyrs cry out God when He is going to avenge their  death.
These are the souls who were killed during tribulation of 7 years on earth.
Many believers in the Lord were killed worldwide every day for the past 2000 years for their in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Apostle John is not seeing the souls of these martyrs but those who were killed during the seven years of tribulation.
They believed and put their faith in the Lord after the Rapture of the believers in Christ.
The Gospel message sank into their mind after they witnessed the worldwide phenomenon of sudden disappear of Christians and the church.
All these believers in the Lord during tribulation will be killed for their faith in the  Lord.
These souls of the martyrs cry to God with loud voices and ask how long they have to wait.
Because they were mercilessly tortured and killed by the troops of Anti-Christ and they wanted justice.
We have to understand that this is not a day of grace but a day of God’s judgment on the earth.
So God gives them white robes signifying the imputed righteousness of Christ on the believer.
Believers killed before Rapture - They have glorified bodies - with Christ forever
People who became believers during Tribulation - killed - souls go to the Altar- Not got yet the glorified bodies
When the Lord breaks the sixth seal there was a great earth quake.
This could be the ‘big one’ of all times in human  history.
This earth quakes causes the earth to open up multiple volcanic eruptions all around the globe simultaneously.
As a result of multiple volcanic eruptions lot of ash, smoke debris was thrown into the atmosphere.
“The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red.”
Verse 13 talks about stars falling on the earth like ripe fruit from the trees.
We know that the stars are much bigger than the earth.
These are meteoric shower from the skies due to cosmic  shakeup.
We now see the terrible consequence of this great earth  quake.
It is global catastrophe of unimaginable destruction and devastation. 
This is worldwide phenomenon of God’s wrath that was poured out on this tiny planet earth.
Everything that was unshakable since the creation of the world is shaken.
Everything that was at one place since beginning is removed from its place.
The atmosphere of the sky is dramatically altered once for all.
Due to cosmic catastrophe and great earth quake, the unsaved people try to take shelter from the displaced mountains and rocks.
Most of the people were terrified and gripped with fear.
What they were, what they had is useless at that moment.
Instead of turning to the Creator they once again turn to the created things of the world.
The irony is that they still reject HIM who sits on the throne in Heaven.
The wrath of God was unleashed upon the earth.
We have to understand that God is not only a God of love but He is a God of judgment.
We see all-round us that people worship the creatures than the Creator.
In spite of the evidence, they still reject the salvation through Lord Jesus Christ.
It is nothing but human pride that keeps people from the truth in Lord Jesus.

Rev 6:1-8
The breaking of the seals by the Lord triggers the 7 year tribulation period.
The days of tribulation are the time for ‘retribution, response, and redemption’.
Pastor Wiersbe says that horses represent God’s activity on earth, the forces HE uses to accomplish HIS purpose on earth.
Each judgment is cosmic in nature and has global  implications.
Description of each seal is the same as we read in Verse1, verse 3. Verse 5, and verse 7.
The four living creatures invite Apostle John to come and see the unfolding of each event.
The main purpose of the Tribulation is to bring Israel back to God
When the Lord breaks the first seal, we see a rider on white horse. 
He has a bow without arrows and a crown on his head.
This crown is not the royal crown but a victor’s crown as he sets out to conquer the world with false hope and false peace.
He is the counterfeit Messiah known as the Anti-Christ.
This rider represents a conquering power that no one can resist. 
THIS IS THE WHITE HORSE OF FALSE PEACE.
When the second seal is broken, a rider on a fiery red horse emerges with a large sword.
He represents a political power with a military might.
This second rider takes this peace won by the first rider away from the world through a global confrontation with the power of military.
He brings not just a typical warfare but also civil war, rebellion, assassination and terrorism.
THIS IS THE RED HORSE OF WAR.
When the third seal is broken, we see a rider riding on a black horse holding a pair of scales.
Global famine is the consequence of global war and chaos.
Most affected person is the common man who will face extreme shortage of food and skyrocketing prices.
The pair of scales signifies the difficult time for most of the people to use extreme caution in consumption of food.
The world economy will come apart in the Tribulation.
An inescapable outcome of war is starvation and worldwide inflation and collapsing world economy.
THE BLACK HORSE REPRESENTS FAMINE.
When the fourth seal is broken, we see a rider called ‘death’ riding on a pale horse.
Death has a companion called Hades.
Death takes the body and Hades takes the soul.
This death has the power to kill one fourth of world’s population thru sword, famine, plagues and wild beasts.
Sword means terrible wars between nations, and worldwide terrorism.
Famine means extreme food shortage and crops failure worldwide.
Plagues mean terrible diseases like AIDS and other epidemics.
Wild beasts represent both animals and inhuman actions of lawless societies.
As a result of these 4 horses, one fourth of the human population is killed. (1.5 billion)
Before breaking the seals on the scrolls, Lord Jesus comes for HIS church we call it ‘Rapture’.
The church will be raptured before the 7 year tribulation  begins.
Apostle John is writing to all ages of people to be watchful and be ready to hear the Trumpet call of the Rapture.
When we see the unfolding of end time scenario in front of our eyes, we need to be faithful and ready to meet our Lord Jesus Christ.