Revelation chapter six records the beginning of Satan's counterattack against the wholesale worship of God by all of His creations. Just as God allowed Satan to ruin Job completely except for taking his life, so God must allow Satan to ruin the earth and mankind completely in order to prove that His Love and Being cannot be destroyed. God's Love must be absolutely and thoroughly tested in order to prove its eternal worth. Any partial test would still leave some doubt and fear within His creations. Doubt and fear probably open those little doors that allows evil to enter God's creations from the abyss. God will shut that door completely.
God will no doubt recover His image in man completely, and He will no doubt consign total evil to the lake of fire forever. But the book of Revelation, and the whole story of mankind, relates that which God does to rescue man from his weakness that causes sin. Cleansing anything from dirt requires work. Man happens to be far too weak to cleanse himself. God, in His love and compassion for man, took on Himself the job of cleansing man from sin.
In Revelation chapter six, Jesus begins to open the seven seals on the book He received from His Father. In the entire book of Revelation, God directs His wrath towards total evil, never towards mankind. By opening the seven seals, God allows Satan to begin his evil work in the Tribulation period of seven years. God allows Satan to do his worst in order to test His Love thoroughly. Satan believes that if he can only ruin God's goodness in just one man, he can begin the process that will cause the downfall of God. Satan brings war, famine, and torture on mankind in his efforts finally to break the power of God's goodness in man and thus to break God Himself.
But in Revelation 6:9-11 and the entire seventh chapter, God shows that all of Satan's horrible efforts to ruin man and God forever always continuously fail. God continuously saves believers even in the Tribulation, takes them to heaven, washes them in the blood of Jesus, separates them forever from their sins, and gives them a home with Him forever. Revelation 7:13-17. God even separates and recovers all of His goodness that He put into unbelievers and uses these good elements to recreate a righteous human race to live on His recreated earth. Revelation 21:3-5; II Peter 3:7. God can never lose any good element that He has ever created. Ecclesiastes 3:14.
But Revelation 6:12-17 records that those men who surrendered to their totally evil nature, and who kept quiet during the great worship service, will then begin to try to run and hide from God's revealed holiness. They hate God and desire only that second death that will separate them from God's presence forever. God will accommodate their desire when He casts all that is totally evil into the lake of fire forever. Revelation 20:15; Revelation 21:8.
However, God will separate for Himself all that is left of His image, even from these evil men, by the use of His consuming fire. God will recover all of His goodness that He put into His creations and use it to recreate righteous men to live on His new earth. Colossians 1:20; Romans 11:36; Revelation 4:11; Revelation 21:3-5; Revelation 22:11-12.
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