The Lord opens the fifth seal today and we learn that many who come to Christ during the Great Tribulation will be martyred for their faith.
"When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained." (Revelation 6:9) While some scholars feel this group represents all the martyred saints of all eras, I agree with the scholars who believe this group represents those who lost their lives because they came to faith in Christ during the end times and refused to worship the Antichrist or to bow before his image.
The reason I believe this is because we have already seen the raptured church symbolized by the twenty-four elders wearing white robes and crowns. These elders encircle the throne where they can forever behold the face of the One who saved their souls. It doesn't make sense to me that we would suddenly see a portion of this group under the altar. In addition, in our passage today we will see the Lord giving each of these slain souls a white robe to wear. The church is already wearing white robes, so this has to be a new group, and that's why I side with those who feel these are the souls of those who were killed during the reign of the Antichrist for professing the name of Jesus Christ.
Why are they "under the altar"? In the Old Testament, we see references to blood being poured out at the base of the altar in Exodus 19:12 and in Leviticus 4:7b. The priest would take part of the blood of the sacrifice and apply it to the horns of the altar. He was instructed to pour the remainder out at the foot of the altar. These souls are pictured as being under the altar because they sacrificed their lives for the name of Christ. Their blood was poured out on earth because, in the hour of trial, they refused to renounce the One in whom they had come to believe.
In yesterday's study we took a look at some prophetic passages from the book of Daniel. Today's portion of Scripture reminds me of something that happened in Chapter 3 of the book of Daniel. Three of Daniel's friends were faced with a life and death decision. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who had conquered Judah and taken these men captive, had erected an image (most likely of himself) and had commanded everyone in his kingdom to bow down and worship it when certain music was played. But Daniel's friends---Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego---refused to bow. When everyone else fell to their knees face down on the ground as the music played, these three men remained standing. They were given one more opportunity to bow or else the king was going to have them thrown into a furnace and burned alive. This was their answer: "Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up." (Daniel 3:17-18)
We know that in the case of these three young men, the Lord did deliver them. But they were prepared to die for their faith. And I think that the people whose souls we see under the altar in our study today had the same attitude. They said to the Antichrist, "Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us out of your hand. But even if He doesn't, we will not serve you or worship the image that you have set up." In their case, the Lord didn't deliver them from the hand of the Antichrist and this is why we see them under the altar, but in a sense this may have been merciful, for they were removed from the earth before more dreadful things happen on it during the second half of the Great Tribulation.
The souls under the altar ask the Lord to avenge their deaths. "They called out in a loud voice, 'How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until You judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?'" (Revelation 6:10) These souls acknowledge the Lord's sovereignty, holiness, and faithfulness when they make their plea. They know that the timing is up to Him. They also know that He will do what's right. The Lord is responsible for those who belong to Him and He can be trusted to avenge wrongs done to His children. This is why He says in Deuteronomy 32:35, "It is Mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them." In other words, He's saying, "It's My place to take revenge. You don't have to lift a finger. You don't have to dirty your hands. In the right time and in the right way, I will see to it that they pay for what they've done to you."
The souls under the altar know that the timing and the method are up to the Lord, but naturally they want to know how much longer it's going to be. They are feeling what we might call "righteous indignation", the same type of indignation that often compelled David to cry out in the psalms for God to judge his enemies. God created us with a sense of fairness, and we are naturally indignant when someone disregards the rules of fairness and mistreats us horribly. We have the right, as the children of God, to ask our Father to avenge us. But at the same time we must trust Him to do it in the right time and in the right way.
The Lord doesn't answer the question of "how long" it will be until He avenges the blood of these martyred believers. We've probably all asked the Lord when certain things are going to happen in our lives, and He doesn't always tell us, does He? In those cases He's asking us to just trust Him. He's asking us to trust His timing and His methods. Waiting, difficult as it is, can actually build our faith and strengthen our relationship with Him. While we are waiting, He is able to comfort us with His presence, which is what He does for the martyred souls under the altar. "Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been." (Revelation 6:11) He clothes them in white robes which symbolize them being dressed in His righteousness. They have been made holy and pure by their faith in Him, so they are given white robes just like the robes the church was given.
The Great Tribulation is not finished on the earth at this point in Revelation. It is probably at about the halfway point, for the halfway point is when the Antichrist is going to set up an image of himself in the temple in Israel. If the Lord cut short the end times, those who are going to come to faith in Him during the last half of the Great Tribulation would be lost. Some of those who give their hearts to Christ in those days will lose their lives for professing His name, but the destiny of their eternal souls is more important than the fate of their temporary mortal bodies. These saints of the end times are going to have the same attitude that the Apostle Paul and his friends had when faced with the daily persecution and threat of death that they endured while preaching the gospel: "As long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord... We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord." (2 Corinthians 5:6,8) I want to stop here and say that no one should seek martyrdom. We don't ever see the apostles and teachers of the New Testament purposely doing things that might get them killed. They just go about their business of fulfilling the great commission of preaching Christ to everyone they can. But when martyrdom sought and found them, they stood their ground bravely, willing---and feeling honored to be counted worthy---to sacrifice their earthly lives rather than renounce their Savior.
The world around us grows more wicked every day. Sometimes it seems to us, just like it seems to the souls under the altar, that justice is a long time in coming. But the Apostle Peter said this is the reason why the Lord is still allowing the world to continue during the present age: "The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. Instead He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9)
The Lord is going to avenge all the wrongs that have been perpetrated against His children in every era of history. But if He destroyed the world today, what about the souls that were still going to come to Him? The Bible tells us that the Lord knows every person even before they have been conceived. (Jeremiah 1:5) This means He knows the name of every person who will ever accept Him as Lord, and He has to allow the world to stand until these people give their hearts to Him. The same is going to be true even during the Great Tribulation. If He avenged the deaths of the martyrs under the altar at this point in the end times, He would be removing the opportunity of salvation from those whom He knows are going to come to believe in Him. So we have to trust His timing. Our hearts naturally cry out for Him to avenge wrongs. Our sense of fairness compels us to ask Him to judge those who are cruel and inhumane. And He will do all those things at the appointed time. Until then, we need to do what the souls under the altar do in our passage today: acknowledge His sovereignty over the times and the seasons, and comfort ourselves with the knowledge that He is holy and faithful and will do what's right.
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