Originally posted by drew1749
Someone on this board pointed out that the BP oil logo looks like the wormwood plant.

Similarly at the time of the Chernobyl accident people were pointing out that Chernobyl was the Russian for "wormwood".
To be honest, I don't see much point in finding significance in these minor resemblances, especially when they're as vague as that one. You may as well say that the logo resembles hyssop or the fig-tree. It's like those people who keep finding "666" all over the place.
I think the way to approach the question is to try to understand, from the book, what the reference to "wormwood" actually MEANS, and only then try to look for it in the world.
There are two paragraphs in "Battered Planet" which are relevant.
One is the paragraph on "The symbolism pointing towards adultery" which specifically relates to the "wormwood" verse, so that's the one you need to read if you want to know what I think about wormwood.
And the long paragraph about "human pollution" makes specific reference to the BP oil spill, as part of the whole issue. If the two things are tied together, I tie them together through those two paragraphs.

Originally posted by DISRAELI

Originally posted by truthiron
The silence in Heaven, Rev. 8:1 may very well be when the seventh seal is taken off then and only then can it be seen what is in the book as even with one seal on it, it is held closed.

This theory doesn't explain why something happens each time a seal is removed.
The first seal, is broken, something happens.
The second seal is broken, something happens.
And so on, all the way through the seals.
On your theory, there's no reason for this. It makes no sense.

On the theory in the OP, there's a connection between the two.
The events themselves are the contents of the book. Each time the a seal is broken, the scroll can be opened up a little more, and another event is "released".Try to visualise it. Imagine a first century book, a rolled up scroll, being gradually unrolled, segment by segment. On my theory, there's a reasonable connection between things. They're not just arbitrary.

DISRAELI,

I just didn't give you my view of the first six seals as I think I may make a thread about that but it is far different than your view. There is a timing element I've found that must be obeyed to come to the right conclusions. I'm not a prolific writer or I would do it quickly. I am more prolific if I could sit down and explain things but at typing things out and then to have them soon covered up by replies later I don't find it profitable so that is the reason for my own thread if I do. I don't have conventional views as I don't listen to theologians that don't go on long and I see where they err.

The thing I wanted to make clear was the seventh seal is taken off in Heaven. As He takes off each seal He reveals something that is to happen that is for sure. And that scroll or book is the book of life and "it" is not opened until that last seal is taken off. That seventh seal still keeps it secret until it is removed.

Truthiron.

Originally posted by DISRAELI
I want to offer some thoughts on Revelation ch8 v1.

I'm deliberately taking on a short passage, to make the discussion more manageable. I see this verse as one of the pivots in the overall "storyline" of Revelation, which is another good reason for choosing it.

I'm going to be asking the question; what does John mean by the statement that "There was silence in heaven for half an hour"?
So, breaking it down...

What does he mean by "half an hour"?
There's a reference to "one hour" later in the book. It comes in ch 17 v12, which tells us that the ten kings "receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast".
If we see "one hour" in one part of Revelation, and "half an hour" in another part, it seems reasonable to suppose that the two are connected.

So I suggest that the phrase "half an hour" means "one portion of the reign of the Beast".

What does he mean by "silence in heaven"?
There's an important clue in the way the silence gets broken, a few verses further down. There are "peals of thunder, voices, flashes of lightning" in v5, just as the seven trumpets are about to start work. We get the same thing at the time of the seventh trumpet(ch11 v19)- thunder and lightning and voices. God sends down trouble upon the earth, and this is accompanied by (and seems to be signalled by) what could be described as "noise in heaven".

Perhaps you can see where this is heading.

If the presence of "noise in heaven" (i.e. thunder and lightning and voices) indicates a time when God is bringing trouble on the earth...
Then presumably "silence in heaven" (i.e. the absence of thunder and lightning and voices) is an oblique way of indicating a time when God is NOT bringing trouble on the earth.

Putting those two pieces of information together, I suggest that "There was silence in heaven for half an hour" can be interpreted as "The Beast rules for a certain period of time, and for the first half of that period God does not trouble it, does not try to destroy it."

Putting this into the context of the overall "storyline" of the book...
This period of relative tranquillity is sandwiched between two bouts of havoc and destruction.
The first part of the sandwich is the "4 Horseman" episode. That is brought to an end in ch7 vv1-3, when the angels are told to restrain the four destructive "winds of heaven", which have been blowing, metaphorically, all the way through ch6.
The description of the 7 trumpets and 7 bowls is the other side of the sandwich.

On this reading of the story, the Beast is prospering, and presumably rising to power, at a time when the world is taking a deep breath and trying to recover from the first bout of destruction.

I can see analogies in history for the way this might work.
When Germany was rocked by defeat in the First World War, and the later demands for Reparations, and finally by the Great Depression, the rise of Hitler seemed to offer the opportunity to revitalise the country.
In the 3rd Century, the Roman Empire nearly fell apart in various disasters and it was pulled back together by a series of stronger Emperors. This culminated in the work of Diocletian, who is notorious in church history as a small-scale Beast in his own right.

If, then, there was a regime which was apparently pulling the world back together and reviving global society after the events of the 4 Horsemen, surely that regime would be welcomed at the time as "saviours of the world". They could get the enthusiastic support of most of the world without much need for compulsion.

As for the timing of all this-
If the 4 Horsemen episode is anything like as drastic as John seems to be describing (but I must do another couple of threads on this), then we haven't seen it yet.
If we haven't seen the 4 Horsemen episode, then we haven't yet seen the events which follow the 4 Horsemen episode.

This leads me to the conclusion that the period covered by ch8 v1 (including, therefore, the Beast) remains in our future.

I think your angle is too literal:

The thunder voices and flashes are a methaphor for the pinealgland that will be kick started.
These describe what you will actually be experiencing when it starts working properly.


This wiill happen after the gates of the 7 chakras will be flooded with the devine light and tear away the illusion.
The beast is a methaphor for the ego, the individual and collective one.The half hour is a methaphor for the last time the ego will play last tricks on us as a test for our faith in god and sense of self
Four winds are a methaphor of the higher dimensions and the beings that are waiting to welcome us and who will be guiding us in the process.

Make no mistake about it, this transition is both physical and spiritual and the two will merge to create a much greater reality for mankind.

I think your angle is too literal:

The thunder voices and flashes are a methaphor for the pinealgland

I took "thunder and lightning" as a metaphor for "God causing trouble on the earth". Nothing particularly literal about that.
But Revelation is a book of the Bible, and like all Biblical books it is about the relationship between the Creator God and the human race. As I point out in a number of these threads, it focusses as much as any other book of the New Testament on the importance of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It certainly won't be about the pineal gland. If you want to talk about the pineal gland and the chakras, it ought to be based on some text written for the purpose, like the London bus timetable.

Just to clarify;
Nothing in the OP is intended to suggest any particular prophetic significance in the year 2012 or the date 21/12/2012