Revelation 6:12

And I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon became as blood;

This and the following five verses are a prophetic description of the Second Advent and the judgment of the great day. There is no way that the total imagery of these amazing verses can be accommodated to any other view.

Smith said, "The events here must be placed at the end of this age."[45] "It is the day of the Lord's summing up of all things."[46] "The fullest application of this belongs to the final advent."[47] It is our sincere conviction that those expositors, of many illustrious names, who fancy that these verses are a prophecy of "the decay of society,"[48] or "sudden revolutions that would fill the world with alarm,"[49] are mistaken. These words simply cannot be so explained. It is true, of course, that Joel's very similar language was declared by Peter to have been fulfilled by the momentous events of Pentecost, but there are most essential differences in the prophecy here from those found in the Old Testament.

The cosmic earthquake in view here should be understood in the light of Hebrews 12:28, under which see fuller comment on "the end of the world," in my Commentary on Hebrews, pp. 335ff. "The whole universe will be shaken to pieces, and the only things to survive will be those that are unshakable."[50] Hendriksen was sure that, "This describes the judgment day, the one great catastrophe at the end of the age."[51]

[45] Wilbur M. Smith, Wycliffe Bible Commentary, New Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971), p. 1068.

[46] Douglas Ezell, Revelations on Revelation (Waco: Word Books, 1977), p. 43.

[47] W. Boyd Carpenter, Ellicott's Bible Commentary, Vol. VIII (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1959), p. 562.

[48] Charles H. Roberson, op. cit., p. 45.

[49] Albert Barnes, op: cit., p. 136.

[50] F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1967), p. 383.

[51] William Hendriksen, op. cit., p. 129.