Two earthquakes and 4 heavenly signs.
“I watched as the Lamb broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became as dark as black cloth, and the moon became as red as blood. Then the stars of the sky fell to the earth like green figs falling from a tree shaken by a strong wind. 14 The sky was rolled up like a scroll, and all of the mountains and islands were moved from their places.” – 6:12-14 (NLT)
There is a series of six items in this passage. The first and last of the six are earthquakes, the latter being so great that every mountain and island shifts location, a truly cataclysmic event. In between the two earthquakes are four heavenly signs: the sun turns black, the moon turns bloody red, the stars fall to the earth, and heaven itself splits up. Jesus referred to these in Matthew 24:29,30. They are to occur near the end of the great tribulation.
The images are either literal or spiritual. I am not aware of a compelling case to treat the sun, moon, stars, and sky as symbolic here. So, they should probably be taken literally. In the Greek of this passage, the word “hos” usually compares something literal with something figurative. The pattern is that the sun becomes black “like sackcloth of hair,” the moon becomes “like blood,” the stars fall “like a fig tree drops its unripe figs,”, and the sky splits open “like a scroll being rolled up.” So, the sun, moon, stars, and sky are to be taken literally and what happens to them is to be taken figuratively.
Events like the first three have taken place in the past. In 1780 there was an incredibly dark day across North America in which animals came home early thinking the day was already over, and roosters were crowing at odd hours. That night the moon turned a dark red. The event was so unusual that many people took note of it. Then in November 1833, there was a meteor shower so spectacular that many people wrote their local newspapers announcing that the end of the world must be at hand.
God used these events to stimulate tremendous interest in the prophecies of the Bible around the world. But the interpretation of this text cannot stop in the Nineteenth Century.
The descriptions in verse 14 go way beyond anything history records. The sky ripping apart and every island moving out of its place, those are events never seen before. They point to the time just before the return of Jesus.
The spiritual message of this text can be found in the Old Testament texts that are echoed in this passage. “Though the mountains be shaken, and the hills removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed.” Isaiah 54:10, NIV. The assurance is that no matter what, God will never forsake His people.
Read Revelation 6:15–17, Isaiah 2:19, Hosea 10:8, and Luke 23:30. The scenes portray people of all walks of life in a panic trying to hide from the terror of the upheaval at the coming of Christ. They are asking rocks and mountains to cover them in order to protect them from “‘the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb’ ” (Rev. 6:16). The time has arrived for justice to be dispensed as Christ comes “to be glorified in His saints” (2 Thess. 1:10,). The end of the wicked is described in Revelation 19:17–21. The scene concludes with the rhetorical question by the terror stricken wicked: “‘The great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?’” (Rev. 6:17; see also Nahum 1:6, Mal. 3:2).
The answer to that question is given in Revelation 7:4: those who will be able to stand in that day are the sealed people of God.