Revelation 6:13 Devotional

"And the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale."

(Revelation 6:13)

What we have here is a symbolic picture of the terror of the judgment day. The symbol, taken as a whole, teaches us just one lesson, namely, that the final and complete effusion of God's wrath upon a world that has persecuted the Church will be terrible indeed.

In the stars of the heaven falling to the earth, as a figtree casts her winter figs when shaken by a violent wind. No doubt John had often seen those winter figs hidden under the leaves until they dry up and come down in showers when a violent wind shakes the trees. In similar showers the stars are seen falling out of their orbits. They fall to the earth. Not comets, or meteors, but stars. You say: how is this possible? The earth is altogether too small for even a single star to fall upon it. Again, we reminded you that this is a picture. In pictures things are possible which are not possible in reality. When we say this, we do not deny, of course, that there will be a most thorough-going dislocation of the heavenly bodies and a rejuvenation of the universe, in connection with the end of this present age. But the main point of our passage is this: it stresses the terror of the day of rest for the wicked. The dissolving elements, earthquake, falling stars, etc., ad terror to the picture.

(William Hendriksen)