Revelation: Four Angels

 Revelation: Justification by Faith

Four Angels

Revelation 7:1-3

After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, so that no wind might blow on the earth or sea or against any tree.
2 And I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the earth and the sea,
3 saying, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.”

At the sixth seal of the seven seals, we also encounter the 144,000 sealed servants and the four angels who hold back the winds from blowing on the sea, the trees, or the earth.
These four winds are therefore universal, covering the whole world.
Until those servants receive the seal, these winds must wait.
What do these winds represent?

Jeremiah 51:1

Thus says the Lord:
“Behold, I will stir up a destroying wind against Babylon
and against the inhabitants of Leb-Kamai.”

Jeremiah 49:36

I will bring against Elam the four winds from the four quarters of heaven,
and will scatter them to all these winds;
there shall be no nation to which the fugitives of Elam do not come.

The winds were often used by the prophets and psalmists to symbolize what is scattered, destroyed, and driven away like chaff.
In Revelation, it also concerns the harm the winds could do. They could bring damage against the world. But for now, these universal destructive winds are held back until the sealing.
In Ezekiel, we also find such a sealing for Jerusalem:

Ezekiel 9:1-7

1 Then He called out in my hearing with a loud voice: “Let those who have charge over the city draw near, each with a deadly weapon in his hand.”
2 And behold, six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his deadly weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed in linen, with a writer’s inkhorn at his side. They went in and stood beside the bronze altar.
3 Then the glory of the God of Israel went up from the cherub on which it rested to the threshold of the house. And He called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writer’s inkhorn at his side.
4 And the Lord said to him, “Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.”
5 And to the others He said in my hearing, “Go after him through the city and kill; let not your eye spare, neither have pity;
6 kill old men, young men, maidens, little children, and women, but do not come near anyone on whom is the mark. And begin at my sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were before the house.
7 Then He said to them, “Defile the house, fill the courts with the slain. Go out!” So they went out and killed in the city.

This is what the sealing means. Those who are sealed will avoid judgment. These people are not careless, but they sigh and groan over the abominations committed. They are sensitive to sin.
Those who are not sealed will feel those winds of destruction when that time comes.
Why? Because it says:

Ezekiel 9:9-10

9 Then He said to me, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, the land is full of bloodshed, and the city full of oppression.
10 For they say, ‘The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see.’
Therefore I will also deal in anger; my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. I will bring their deeds upon their own heads.”

God is merciful and patient, but He will not remain silent forever. He will bring judgment.
Then we want to have done everything to be sealed.
Only through faith working by love and perseverance in this will we be sealed. When much hardship, sorrow, and pain press upon us, like a sealing stamp, this will be our seal.