Q&A – Have the Angels let go Four Winds of Strife and are they now blowing?

Winds denote strife, confusion, and destruction and we have certainly experienced much of that; however, Jesus Himself prophesied that these things would take place before He returns. He said, “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these [are] the beginning of sorrows.” Matthew 24:7, 8.

Daniel saw these winds blowing on the great sea. He said, “I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.” Daniel 7:2. The angels of heaven have been holding the winds of strife in check all through the centuries. They will continue to hold until Christ’s work in the Most Holy Place is completed and probation is closed.

Ellen White makes an interesting comment about the angels controlling these winds: “I asked my accompanying angel the meaning of what I heard, and what the four angels were about to do. He said to me that it was God that restrained the powers, and that He gave His angels charge over things on the earth; that the four angels had power from God to hold the four winds, and that they were about to let them go; but while their hands were loosening, and the four winds were about to blow, the merciful eye of Jesus gazed on the remnant that were not sealed, and He raised His hands to the Father, and pleaded with Him that He had spilled His blood for them. Then another angel was commissioned to fly swiftly to the four angels, and bid them hold, until the servants of God were sealed with the seal of the living God in their foreheads.” Christian Experience and Teachings of Ellen G. White, 102.

Here it states that the four winds, which the four angels are holding back, are not to be let loose until God’s people are sealed. In Revelation 7:3, we read, “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”

In the Testimonies we read, “Men cannot discern the sentinel angels restraining the four winds that they shall not blow until the servants of God are sealed; but when God shall bid His angels loose the winds, there will be such a scene of strife as no pen can picture.” Testimonies, vol. 6, 408.

“When He leaves the sanctuary, darkness covers the inhabitants of the earth. In that fearful time the righteous must live in the sight of a holy God without an intercessor. … As the angels of God cease to hold in check the fierce winds of human passion, all the elements of strife will be let loose. The whole world will be involved in ruin more terrible than that which came upon Jerusalem of old.” The Great Controversy, 614.

It might be well for us to stop and consider what the sealing is all about. God is going to have a group of people from this earth in these last days who are finished with sin and sealed for eternity, while the rest of the inhabitants of the world are involved in such a scene of strife as no pen can describe. These sealed ones will never sin again. They are sealed in the righteousness of Christ. They are ready for Jesus to come and take them to the Holy City.

If you have a Bible question you wish to have answered, please e-mail it to: ruthgrosboll@stepstolife.org.