Little Red Book Ministry

C. The beginnings of sorrows
This is a very interesting time period described primarily in the passages Matthew 24:4–8; Mark 13:5–8; Luke 21:7–11. From context these appear to occur during the Church Age and prior to the tribulation described below. In fact, they seem to be happening in abundance right now. These passages accurately describe God’s four sore judgments against nations which become too evil as detailed in Ezekiel 14:21 and 5:17. Combinations of these judgments, the sword, the famine, the pestilence, and the noisome beast, are referenced throughout the Old Testament in passages such as 2 Chronincles 20:9. They are definitely not tribulation type judgments and yet they match up well with the first four seals of Revelation 6. This being the case, then the first seal of Revelation 6 does not produce a particular antichrist, as is often taught, but rather the spirit of antichrist in noisome, evil beasts such as Hitler, Stalin, Nero, and many others right up to the final beast of Revelation 13. The 2nd through the 4th seals similarly produce the spirits of the sword (war), the famine (hunger), and the pestilence (general death from “natural disasters”). This is proven out in Revelation 6:8b which recaps the preceeding verses in the chapter.

“. . . And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth” (Revelation 6:8).

The Bible lists other events that will occur just before the prewrath rapture in passages such as 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 7 and 1 Timothy 4:1–3. Upon examining these we find that, without exception, these are natural situations rather than miraculous. Therefore we must assume that God is talking about an unusually high occurrence rate for these events. For instance, in the case of earthquakes, a little study will yield some amazing figures. According to US Department of the Interior statistics, earthquakes of 6.0 magnitude or greater worldwide averaged about 22 per year between 1900 and 1948. From the birth of Israel in 1948 through 1989, these same statistics show an average of 102 such earthquakes per year.