Through all their abominations, the Old Testament bride provoked God to divorce (Jer. 3:8) and finally judgment:

      "Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them. He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand.

      And, behold, six men [angels] came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brasen altar.

      And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side;

      And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.

      And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity;

      Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man [person] upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house" (Ezk. 8:18 9:6).

      Ezekiel saw all this in a prophetic vision which raises the question: To what people and in what time was this to be fulfilled? Was it applicable to just the people of that time, or in the future? Or, did it apply to both then and now? I do not believe that this judgment occurred in Ezekiel's day as there is no account of it by any other prophets. There is no record of a mysterious annihilation of the inhabitants of Jerusalem at that time. Nor was there a holy remnant there to be spared in Ezekiel's day.

      I believe this passage has two fulfillments. The first is through the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. At this destruction, Jerusalem and its inhabitants were annihilated "overnight" with the exception of its Christian population which historians tell us miraculously fled to safety. The fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. then fulfilled both Ezekiel 9 and Luke 21:17 23.

      The second and primary fulfillment is about to take place and is recorded in Revelation 6:12 7:17 as the sixth seal. Indeed, Revelation 7 and Ezekiel 9 are what the Holy Spirit spoke of through the Apostle Peter when he wrote: "For the time is coming that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it [the final tribulation] first begin at us [the Church], what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel [the statutes and judgments] of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved [the bride whom God will mark], where shall the ungodly [disobedient believers] and the sinners [wicked worldlings] appear?" (I Pet. 4:17).

      "Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples; and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come" (I Cor. 10:11).

      The seven seals of Revelation are the progression of human history from the time of Christ to the consummation at the second coming. We, for quite awhile, have been living in the time of the fifth seal. This is the period of God's longsuffering waiting for the gospel to be preached in all the world (Mat. 24:18) and all the souls that will be saved to be saved (II Pet 3:8 9). The fifth seal (Rev. 6:9 11) is the time of waiting God and the redeemed who have gone before waiting for those who are yet to be saved.

      The sixth and seventh seals are the final judgments of God. The seventh seal is composed of seven trumpets. The seventh trumpet is composed of seven vials, the seven vials of God's wrath. This wrath of God against the unsaved is what God promised all true believers would escape (Lk. 21:36; I Thes. 5:9). This wrath of God follows the last trump and thus the translation (rapture) of the saints (Rev. 10:7; I Thes. 4:16; I Cor. 15:52).

      The sixth seal is the wrath of the Lamb (Jesus, head of the Church) as purifier of His Bride, purger of falsehood, and false and apostate believers (Rev. 6:16 17). These apostates are the "stars of heaven" and "untimely figs" that fall under the "mighty wind" of Jesus' Holy Spirit judgment in Rev. 6:13. It is the time of shaking mentioned in Hebrews 12:26 28. But before His wrath, as described in 6:13 15, Jesus marks and seals His faithful bride so that she will be passed over by the destroying angels. The sixth seal is the final fulfillment of all the scripture we have been looking at in chapters 8 and 9 of Ezekiel!

      The sixth seal's opening begins with the sealing of the Bride. John had this bride revealed to him in two ways. First, he hears them as a prophetic number, the number of perfection, a multiple of 12 X 12 -- 144,000 (Rev. 7:4-8). They are not called the "12 tribes," but "all the tribes" of Israel. This is spiritual Israel, the Church Universal. It is the "all Israel" of Romans 11:26 all redeemed people Jew and Gentile, male and female. Next, John sees this bride (Rev. 7:9 10), and he sees they are not literally 144,000, nor Jews only. They are all those who have "washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (verse 14). In other words they are the Bride which has made herself ready, the bride who has been sealed!

      When the sixth seal is opened, God will begin marking this bride. Then there will follow great judgment upon the ungodly, the hypocrite, who professes and confesses, but does not obey. Do you believe this? Some of you do. Some of you doubt, and others scoff. But we will all see that my message here is credible for it is God's scriptures revealed, and it is soon to come to pass, for judgment is about to "begin at the house of God."