The Book of Revelations.

1:3 beatus qui legit et qui audiunt verba prophetiae et servant ea quae n ea scripta sunt tempus enim prope est

1:3  Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand

Revelations.

Prophecy written in the bible.  Believers of this faith have long thought of the implications of this book.  Are these passages a portent of things to come, or have they already happened?  A biblical Armageddon,  the end of the world for some thinkers, and a rebirth of a new for others.  Yet, what is Armageddon?  The place where the final battle will take place?  The actual end of the world or a simple hill or mountain in a distant country?  

In a dream the events were foretold to St. John the Divine of what was to happen.  He was to send the accounts of the sleep time apparition to the seven churches of Asia Minor.   As a warning?  ?The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.? (1 Thessalonians 5:1-5 2, Peter 3:10, Rev 3:3, Rev 16:15).  It would contradict itself time after time, no thief I know of gave forewarning of the mess they were going to leave.  

The seven churches, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and  Laodicea were to have this warning. 

Repent their sins and return to the teachings of God, or be cast out. The first of many chastisements given in the telling of the dream.  

The corrupt churches would be the first to go in this Armageddon scenario, should such things come to pass in these times, there would be very few left today.  This would affect the religions of the bible greatly, the fall of a church would be enough to shatter many peoples faith, taken as a possible sign that their God had abandoned them.  Others would stand fast in their faith, those who have their faith placed with God, and not the church.

Here would be the beginning of worldly destruction, people who have lost their faith turn in pain to destroying what is around them.  The human element can be just as severe as a mystical or natural one.  

Revelations  5:1 And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.

Of the images in the bible, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is the one that strikes fear second only to Satan.  Famine, War, Pestilence and Death are the biblical cleansers of the world, turning man against man, and nature against man.  We have seen and felt the otherworldly fingers of these beings since the beginnings of time, why should they be feared now, as they seem to be the order of things in life?  At the time of writing the book of Revelations, these things were the worst events that could befall civilization then and now.  We cannot claim that these are the times of Revelation any more than one of 100, 500, or even 1000 years ago, simply based on these Four Horsemen, they have always been here.  Famines in third-world countries, War is in every conflict, Pestilence in all countries, forms of disease stemming from any number of causes, and the end to all suffering Death.  The first four seals bring about the second of human destruction and the first of natural.  Ruthless killing, starvation, disease and Death.

Can these be changed?

Are we given this warning to change our future?  War will remain as long as there are those who wish to fight, Famine will continue as it has for thousands of years, no man can control the weather, or water loss.  Disease will last in the bodies of every cell that exists in one form or another despite the work of scientists or doctors to eradicate it.  There is no cure for Death, it simply is, and shall always be.  

The souls of the righteous dead return to Heaven in the fifth seal.  The reward of supplication to God, to live forever with Him in Heaven. A brief interlude between destructions it would seem.  A moment of peace before the rest of the storm follows suit. 

Revelations 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;

The return to the natural disasters, earthquakes ravage the Earth, a massive turning of the soil.  People have lived and died because of earthquakes, but I don't think they are talking about a little tremor here.  One that would shake the entire Earth.  All of the moving plates that make up the planetary shell would shift and crack.  This devastating event would further deteriorate the veneer of civilized behavior,  another every man for himself scenario. But what other cataclysms would such an earthquake bring about? Tidal waves of massive scale. Volcanoes erupting, all at once, trying to release pressure.  Continental land masses falling beneath the waves, or engulfed by another plate of land.  The loss of live would be immeasurable.  All this to occur under a black sun and red moon.  Black sun?  An eclipse would be the explanation for that.  Red moon?  The moon appears red on the horizon at times as a result of heat and water vapors as its light passes through the Earths atmosphere.   We have had many solar eclipses, and have seen numerous red moons, and nothing has happened.

As well in the sixth seal we see that the stars fall to Earth.  Again common occurrence as we have meteorites fall to Earth all the time.  This reference would seem to imply a large grouping of them, as if we were pushed into an asteroid field and Earth has a large target on its face.  As if a massive earthquake wasn't bad enough, we get pelted with space rock on top of it.  The portent of mountains and islands moving from their places, as told in this seal, could be the result of these giant impacts, or of the earthquake(s).



At the seventh seal we see another lull in the storm.  The chosen saved of the tribes were marked and taken to Heaven.  Then there was silence in Heaven.  The next harbingers of destruction, seven angels bearing seven trumpets, and the angel of the censer.  The censor filled with holy fire is cast down to Earth to echo the earthquakes and storms. The first of the trumpeters sounded, and a rain of hail, fire and blood, fell and burned the trees and grasses.  Famine once again, only to the highest extent.   The next angel we see sounds, and a great burning mountain falls to the sea causing a third of it to turn to blood.  This is another great impact in the sea, the meteor/asteroid would probably be comprised of red elements to cause the waters to turn red, also contaminating the water supply, killing marine life in the area.  Some resemblance to red tide, which causes marine death.  

8:10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; 

8:11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. 

The angel of Planet X, Nibiru and many other appellations.  The mythology behind this star is large.  Be it fantastical or scientific, many have watched the skies for this bringer of doom.  The stories are too numerous to mention,  some say that this was the star that led the three magi to Christ's birthplace.  Fitting that it would also be the star of destruction in Revelations.  Wormwood, a poison, also a component in the making of absinthe would poison the waters making them bitter.  Killing the world with its own bitterness wrapped up into a collective ball/star.

The fourth angel darkens the sky, blacking out part of the sun, moon and stars.  The darkness of a major cataclysm, clouds shielding the sky from view as if struck by nuclear winter.  The days and nights shorten as the amount of light is lessened more and more death ensues.  Venturing a guess as to how few people are alive if any at this point in time, it seems now that it is a chalkboard being smashed instead of a wash down.  All traces of human civilization would be completely destroyed and churned under the soil.

Locusts, are let loose by the fifth angel to ravage the survivors who are not marked with the seal of the tribes.  Not to touch the land or anything that is green, yet how could anything be green still on this now hellish planet?  Torture of the unsaved is the purpose of these locusts, not to kill them, but to ensure punishment for five months.  Five months of torture, nothing to end the punishment, even suicide would not end it. (Revelations 9:6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.)  

And the sixth angel blew its trumpet.  Four bound angels released to make war on a third of man, wiping them out with an army of thousands.  With their fire and brimstone breath they are to kill the third part of man.  How is this to be interpreted?  If  by chance the planet is not in complete shambles, and technology is still in working order, would not the fire and brimstone breath hint at an atomic bomb, the four angels being four countries letting loose on each other.  
At the seventh angel the destruction has passed, it proclaims the cleansing of the Earth. 

This angel proclaims that St. John should prophesize to the nations on the Earth of the coming war.  The queen of heaven bears a child that fights for God that Satan, as the dragon, fights to overcome.  The beast rises from the depths of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns with ten crowns upon those horns.  Many believe that the seven heads represent the hills of Rome, and the ten horns the offshoots of the Catholic Church. 

This is the time of the mark of the beast, the number that most people fear, even when getting change from the store.  This feared number when sealed on the forehead or their right hand, is to be the only way one is recognized to buy or sell.  From Implanted chips under the skin, to UPC codes, nothing has escaped the scrutiny of bible readers in their search for this ominous number.  

Why the fascination to find this marking?  

This Six Hundred and Sixty Six will denote the being that will be known as the anti-Christ.  

From the Latin translation: 13:18 hic sapientia est qui habet intellectum conputet numerum bestiae numerus enim hominis est et numerus eius est sescenti sexaginta sex.

 This does not denote a single man, but Mankind.  In the English translations it is the number of a single man.  This translation began the wildfires of who the anti-Christ was is or may be in the future.  Currently the rumors of G.W. Bush, Saddam Hussein and others in current politics have been tapped as this figure. 

The political aspects of the book of Revelations do seem as if they apply to today, though there is the possibility that what we read in the book is a record of the past purges, things that have happened before. The war for the rest of humanity takes place between Christ and the anti-Christ here.  It seems as if it is a political battle.  But it is not, plagues besiege mankind again, poisons, famines and the like reoccur once again.  Quite a bit of redundancy to say the least, like most morality tales from earlier times.  It must be repetitive in order to teach the lesson.  After once again, these things happen on the Earth, another figure appears on the stage.  
Mystery, Babylon the great mother of harlots and abominations.  This woman sits upon the back of the seven-headed beast in a position of power.  She is drunk with the blood of the saints, yet the beast she sits upon turn against her.  She is the great city that kings despise and would destroy.  After much destruction, Babylon is fallen and God claims the victory over the anti-Christ and binds Satan to the bottomless pit for a thousand years. This seems to happen repeatedly it seems as the bonds are loosed after the tenure and cast into the lake of fire.  The return of the city of God, Jerusalem the perfect utopian world, evil, night and death are no more.