Devouring fire, from the Lord
It should be obvious to everyone on earth with access to news information that some kind of cataclysmic event will probably occur in the near future. The lessons of history, over population, natural disasters and the preparedness of nations for war are all dire warning signs for us. But we who study the Bible can, and should know what the prophets tell us about the end of this age. Amos 3:7
The Book of Revelation tells us about a sequence of terrible events called the Seal, Trumpet and Bowl judgements and we note that the Sixth Seal is referred to as ‘the great Day of the Lord’s wrath’. Then the Seventh Seal is a time gap in heaven of ‘about a ½ hour’. This calculates to about 20 years of earth time, using the one day in heaven = 1000 years on earth formula. This will allow for all that must happen until the glorious Return of Jesus.
Therefore, the Sixth Seal is the event that the Lord intends to use in order to punish the nations, who at present conspire to annihilate Israel. Their attack and its consequences are prophesied in Psalms 83 and Micah 4:11-12. Prophecies that parallel the Sixth Seal are; Isaiah 34:4 ‘the sky rolled up like a scroll’, Isaiah 2:21 ‘hide in caves, etc’, Zeph.1:14 ‘The Day of the Lords wrath, a Day of doom and disaster’, then in Amos 1 – it says how the Lord will send fire to destroy the Ishmaelite peoples [those mentioned in Psalm 83] for all their crimes. There are over 70 verses in the Bible that speak of a forthcoming fire judgement and most of them state clearly that it is the Lord Himself who instigates this fire. Joel 1:15 & 19 ‘The Day of the Lord comes, a mighty destruction from the Almighty and fire has consumed the trees and pastures.
Habakkuk 3:12 Furiously, You traverse the earth, in anger, You trample on the nations.
Isa. 66:15-16 The Lord will judge with fire….He will test all mankind, many will be slain.
How He will do this, is told to us in Isaiah 30:26-30 where it is undeniably written about ‘a devouring fire, from the Lord Himself’, that is caused by ‘the sun shining seven times stronger’. This can only be a Coronal Mass Ejection; something that the earth has experienced in the past and is expected to happen again, that can have worldwide devastating consequences – a seemingly natural occurrence that will maintain the hidden-ness of the Lord. With this scenario in mind, many other prophecies make sense, passages like Ezekiel 20:47-48, about a fire in the Land, kindled by the Lord, and 2 Peter 3:7 & 10, where Peter says: ‘The Day of the Lord will come like a thief, the Day the heavens disappear and flames bring all the earth to judgement’. Psalms 18:7-15
The four best passages that describe the Return of Jesus in His glory, to commence His Millennial reign and visible to all and NOT as a thief and unexpectedly, are; Zechariah 14:3-15, Matthew 24:27-31, Matthew 25:31-46, Revelation 19:11-19.
We are told that on that Day; ‘the Great Day of the Sovereign Lord’, Rev. 16:14, there will be an earthquake, but only in Jerusalem and that Jesus will destroy the attacking army of the Anti-Christ by the Sword of His Word. He then gathers His faithful people from around the earth and commences His Millennium reign. These four descriptions do not mention a worldwide fire judgement and as the world will have just experienced the Great Tribulation, for that judgement to occur at the same time as the Return, is simply not said to happen then, as well as being unnecessary and illogical.
The Prophetic Word 