Note: I posted before, in May 2007, concerning this subject, and have come to realize that I was initially incorrect in my understanding. This is my new "take" on the 6 Seals. Sorry for any confusion.
I know I have posted something about this subject before...I apologize for its length, but if you can have the patience to read it, I think you may learn something of great importance.
I think that there is much confusion amongst prophecy teachers that stems from their belief that the Book of Revelation covers only the last few years before Jesus' triumphant return as King of kings.
First, the Book of Revelation is the Revelation of Jesus Christ (not the Church, not the end times, tribulation, Antichrist, the false prophet, Babylon or anything else).
It was given to John at the end of the 1st century by Jesus. It was given in symbolic language and details the events that would happen FROM THAT POINT IN HISTORY all the way to the Millennial Kingdom. This is stated in Rev 1:19.
“Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this.”
The 7 letters are addressed to specific church families (local church communities if you will) that existed in those days. However, I believe that these letters are addressed to anyone who will read and hear what they say - “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
I am sure, from having studied Church history, that these 7 churches represent 7 different types of denominational groups that have come into being over the past 2000 years, and still exist today.
There are specific statements that Jesus makes to each church type that convince me that He was trying to warn believers of the dangers of these denominations and the remedy is specified for individuals from each group to return to the true faith, and become an overcomer. A believer being an overcomer is obviously VERY important to Jesus, and the promises He makes to those who become overcomers are very precious and sacred.
After John has recorded the letters, he is called up to Heaven: “Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this.”
The rest of what John sees and hears relates to events that will take place from that point in time onward. We now know (in hindsight) that some of the events described throughout yhe Book of Revelation have occurred during the past 2000 years, or have yet to occur in the few remaining years left before Jesus' final return.
In Revelation 4 John is taken into the Throne Room of God in Heaven, and sees the Throne, surrounded by the 4 cherubim (4-faced beings - see also Ezek 10)) and the 24 elders. These beings are always around the Throne, and you never see one without the other.
He also sees a "sea of glass, like crystal". In symbolic terms, the "sea" is people, and they look like a sea of "crystal" because they are dressed in blinding white robes of righteousness - in other worlds they are the redeemed of the Lord (those that have died, and by faith (Heb 11) have been counted righteous, all the way from Adam and Eve to the present).
In Ch 5, God the Father hands a scroll to Jesus - the only one found that is eligible to do this for He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals. Note the VERY Jewish references - no reference to any "Christian" imagery - this is straight out of the OT.
So the references in Revelation 4-5 must indicate that this event just occurs after His death and resurrection, because He was (and is) the First Born from the dead, the Great Overcomer of Death and Sin - giving Him the right to open the Scroll.
I have said before that the Lord Jesus, when He was here on earth, was in the capacity of an OT Prophet, sent solely to the House of Israel, to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. This was BEFORE the Church ever came into existence, and before the Age of Grace - the Church Age. Thus it is fitting that John is being shown what happens as a result of Jesus' death and resurrection - the Gospel about to be preached to the whole world, and the Gentiles are now, at last, going to be offered a chance to receive the promise of Abraham, by faith (see Galatians 3:14).
Now the question you need to ask is: "What is the Scroll, and what does it represent?"
I believe it represents two things:
1) It is the Title Deed to the earth that Jesus has taken back from Satan - who got it from Adam when Adam committed high treason in the Garden of Eden. This authorizes the holder of the Deed the right to have dominion over the earth and its inhabitants (land, sea and air, and all the animal and plant life - see Genesis 1:26-28). Jesus now has that authority (Matthew 28:18) and has delegated it His Body, the Church, here on earth to carry out the Great Commision.
2) It is the Scroll, Letter, Epistle of the message of the Gospel going forth - the work of Holy Spirit through the Church, who is referred to as being like a spiritual and symbolic representation of a scroll, as we are all a living epistle, (book, written on a scroll - see 2 Corinthians 3:2).
The seals are now progressively opened as the Scroll is unrolled, revealing more and more of the events of the Church Age.
Revelation Ch 6 is about the breaking of the first 6 of the 7 Seals of the Scroll that Jesus is holding and opening. Scrolls sealed in this manner are progressively unrolled as each seal is broken. We see through this chapter the unfolding of the Church Age, from the Resurrection (1st Seal), with Jesus going out alone to conquer sin and death, (so that we might experience the power of His redemptive sacrifice and become "more than conquerors" ourselves) through to the Rapture after the opening of Seal 6. Seals 2 - 5 are descriptive of the various stages over the past 2000 years that lead us up to the present day - the end of the End of Days as prophesied by Daniel and Jesus Himself.
It is possible, by examining what has actually taken place in history concerning the Church and its activities, to determine that the various events described by the opening of each seal are to a great extent chronological, and continue to unfold as time goes by.
It is important to remember that we are watching God's plan unfurl here. The Church was created to be a blessing to the people of earth. It was given all authority in the earth and the heavens (atmosphere) (See Matthew 28:18), as represented by the Scroll in Jesus hand, to take dominion over the earth, so that the Gospel message could go forth unhindered.
We were supposed to have been in charge here - if we had done so, there would not have been all the wars, destruction, famines and other disasters that have decimated the world's population through disease, sickness and the results of sin over the last 2000 years.
We were supposed to be agents of God, to bring about blessings and prosperity on the earth (see Galatians 3:14).
By most standards, we have failed - but this is all indicated by the steady progression of the seals and the events unfolding as the Scroll is opened.
It is interesting to note the relationships between the natural and spiritual realms here. Absence or lack of the word of God causes spiritual famine and death, resulting in physical famines, lack, poverty, sickness and the spread of diseases. Wars are most often caused by the need or desire (=greed) by one group of people to take over the resources of another group, or to establish domination over them (=slavery) due to insufficient resources, or as the result of disease and famine - both of these traits are contrary to the message of the gospel.
In the first 2-300 years of the Church Age, the Church was subject to great persecution, but at the same time, by the end of that period, almost all the known world had heard the gospel, and the Christian population, percentage wise, was at an all time high. This attack on the Church and the gospel message is represented by the Red Horse (2nd Seal), and is an ongoing situation even today.
Unfortunately, when Emperor Constantine decide to make Christianity the "one world religion", requiring anyone who worked for the government, either directly or indirectly, to be a Christian, this opened the doors to all sorts of pagan practices being allowed into the Church, diluting its message, and leading ultimately to the "dark ages" - the Church's real power (the Acts 2 type of Holy Spirit power) having been dissipated through increasing acceptance of pagan and non-biblical practices and teachings (much of which were unfortunately propagated by the Roman Catholic church hierarchy, such as indulgences, the selling of "relics", holy water, the rite of baptism in water taking the place of a public and real confession of faith (as per Romans 10:9-10), the restriction of the written form of the Bible to Latin, thus putting it beyond the understanding of the common people, and the introduction of various "sacramental rites" which carried more weight than the Biblical ordinances, which carried on, almost unchallenged, until the time of the Reformation.
As a result of the wars and increasing barbarianism and lack of any strong and effective government (which had been provided by the Roman Empire in its heyday), poverty, famine and disease was rampant throughout the world during this time. This is represented by the Black Horse (3rd Seal). Most people never lived out their alloted "three score years and ten" lifespan - they died "before their time" of sickness, malnutrition, disease and poverty.
This is NOT the abundant life (gr zoe - the God kind of life) promised by Jesus to His followers. The God kind of life is freedom from sickness, disease, poverty, lack, fear, sadness, distress of any kind - this is the TRUE heritage of a Christian here on earth, but most of us never grasp hold of this kind of life, and so go through life poor, unhealthy, sick and often miserable, beset by fears and temptations that we never seem to be able to overcome. We are supposed to be offering the world a solution to their problems - but we cannot seem to get even our own lives on track in the way God wants us to. He has ALREADY done EVERYTHING for us, given us EVERYTHING we need - we have the very life and mind of Christ in us and the same power that raised Jesus from the dead living inside of us - why can we not make good use of it, both to enable our own lives to prosper, but more importantly to be in a position to REALLy bless others?
Returning to Revelation Ch. 6, the Seals 2 - 4 represent the spread of wars, both in the natural and in the spirit realm, famines (both spiritual and physical) and the end result - death - physical and spiritual - that has accompanied the Church's retreat over the past 1600 years.
It is only within the last 500 years that any attempt was made to reverse this progress, starting with the Reformation, and the declaration that only by faith in and through Jesus Christ could you be accounted as righteous to go to heaven.
However, during that time, right up to the present, we have seen increasing numbers of wars, culminating in the two World Wars of the 20 C. Each war was accompanied by increasing use of technology to kill and main more and more people, until now we have the potential to wipe humanity off the face of the earth with atomic and biological weapons, both of which have been used within the last 100 years with devastating effect. This is represented by the Pale horse (4th Seal)
The Dark Ages, which culminated in the Inquisition, saw the death of tens of thousands of true believers, who were accused of all sorts of grave sins, and tortured and burnt to death. This is represented by the 5th seal, where these martyrs cry out to God for vengeance.
Then came the rise of the great apostles of the 17-18th centuries, including the Wesley brothers, who followed in the traditions of the great men of God who were burnt at the stake for heresy against Rome, such as Thomas Cranmer, Nicolas Ridley, Hugh Latimer and William Tyndale. I believe this was the start of God's response to the cries of the martyred saints, preparing for the final outpouring of God's mercy, power and grace, before the Church is raptured at the 6th Seal, paving the way for the 7 trumpets that signify the final attempts by Satan to take over the world.
In terms of understanding the meaning or symbolism of the 7 Trumpets in Revelation 8-10, trumpets in Biblical terms are ALWAYS either (i) a call to prayer, or (ii) a call to war - they are not associated with God's judgment. In the context in Revelation, I would call these a combination of both - the call to prayer and sanctification by the 144,000 Jewish evangelists, and the attempts by the devil and his demons to foment war and destruction on all those that refuse to go along with his plans for global economic controls and a one world government and religion.
You see God's mercy and response to the martyrs in action especially over the last 200 years or so. There were people raised up like William Carey and his lifelong determination to translate the Bible into as many languages as possible, and the explosion of the healing evangelists in the late 19 century, such as John G Lake, Smith Wigglesworth, Charles Finney, Jonathan Edwards, Kathryn Khulman, Aimee Semple McPherson, William Branham and William Booth (founder of the Salvation Army) to name but a few.
A key series of events occurred during the time period of the late 1700's, including the move of the Moravians (protestant reformers) to Germany, helped by Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf (b. 1700), to escape persecution. From this association was birthed the first organized Protestant mission work, which grew rapidly to Africa, America, Russia, and other parts of the world. By the end of Zinzendorf's life there were active missions from Greenland to South Africa, literally from one end of the earth to the other.
The Moravians became one of the foremost protestant church planting organizations in the New World. Note - it was through their contact with the Moravians that John & Charles Wesley became converted to Christianity.
Out of the Wesley's ministry came what we know as the Methodists (who originally knew about and taught about the baptism of Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues). At the end of the 1800's a certain man, Charles Fox Parham, was converted through attending a Methodist church near Lawrence, Kansas. In 1898 Parham visited John Alexander Dowie's healing homes in Chicago. He was so impressed that he returned and founded a healing faith home called Beth-el in Topeka, Kansas. Around this time, just at the start of the 20c, another man, an African-American named William J. Seymour, started attending Parham's meetings and Bible School, now located in Houston.
Whilst these events were taking place in the US, believers in the Los Angeles, California area began praying for revival. The expectancy of revival intensified in Los Angeles when the believers there heard about the remarkable revival in Wales, where from September 1904 to June 1905, 100,000 people were converted to Christ. For the evangelicals around the world who had been praying for the outpouring of the latter rain of the Spirit as promised by the Old Testament prophet Joel (2:23-29), the spectacular results in Wales suggested that the great end-times revival had begun. The world could now be evangelized in the power of the Spirit before the imminent return of Christ and the impending judgment on the wicked.
One of the local LA pastors, Joseph Smale, visited the Welsh Revival, and brought back tales of God's amazing work there to the believers in Los Angeles. An African-American woman, Julia W. Hutchinson, started a small congregation that embraced the holiness belief that a second work of grace following conversion would purify the soul of its sinful nature (this group had split from Second Baptist Church). There was a growing number of like-minded congregations formed in the Los Angeles area at this time, and these new groups of believers continued to pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Through a series of events, William Seymour was invited to become the pastor of Hutchinson's small congregation in Los Angeles. In Feb 1906, Seymour arrived to take up his post. However, by his second Sunday, he found he had been locked out of the church, and the Holiness Church Association of Southern California (which his church was affiliated with) condemned him for his teaching on the baptism and the infilling of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues.
He took to preaching and leading bible studies in the home of a member of the church, Edward S. Lee. These became so popular that people were crowding around the house to listen to the teaching. Finally, after the front porch collapsed, the group rented the former Stevens African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church at 312 Azusa Street in early April. A Los Angeles newspaper referred to it as a “tumble down shack.”
By April 18, 1906, the Los angels Daily Times was reporting "a bizarre new religious sect had started with people “breathing strange utterances and mouthing a creed which it would seem no sane mortal could understand.” Furthermore, “Devotees of the weird doctrine practice the most fanatical rites, preach the wildest theories, and work themselves into a state of mad excitement.”
If that didn't grab the reader’s attention, the article continued by saying that, “Colored people and a sprinkling of whites compose the congregation, and night is made hideous in the neighborhood by the howlings of the worshippers who spend hours swaying forth and back in a nerve-racking attitude of prayer and supplication.” To top it all off, they claimed to have received the “gift of tongues,” and what’s more, “comprehend the babel.”"
It is accepted by most in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements today that the Welsh Revival and the Azusa St outpourings were a fulfillment of the prophesy in Joel 2:23-29 of the outpouring of the Latter Rains.
Out of these events has come one of the last great revivals of the Church Age - the restoration of the teachings of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, as demonstrated by speaking in tongues. This petered out during the '20 and '30's but then there was the great Healing Revival of the 40's and 50's, followed by the Charismatic Movement outpouring in the '60s and '70's, when many of the mainstream denominations (Protestant and Catholic) also experienced a measure of the experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
However, Scripture (James 5:7-8) says that in the Last of the Last Days there will be a further outpouring of both the Former (Acts 2) and Latter Rain of Holy Spirit together - I believe we are about to see this happen, and it will result in a great harvest of souls.
Back in 1901, Rev Parham prophesied in Topeka, KA that "in about 100 years there would be an outpouring of the former and latter rains together, JUST before Jesus comes back." (emphasis added)
In 1906, William Seymour, at the Azusa St. Mission, prophesied that "in about 100 years there would be a return of the Shekinah Glory that would surpass the work of God in Azusa St."
The Shekinah Glory is the power and presence of God that "filled the temple" - the power and presence of Holy Spirit. It is a visible, tangible glory cloud, and whenever it comes into a place, the power of God is present to heal, restore and renew, and we will witness great signs, wonders and miracles the like of which the world has never ever seen before.
We are now "about 100 years" since these prophesies were given. We should expect this outpouring of the power of God NOW!!!Indications are that it has started already, but many mainstream denominational churches and organizations will miss it, or worse, will preach against it, and will miss out on the awesome works of God.
As you can see, we are right at the most critical moment in history, awaiting the imminent outpouring of the Former and Latter Rains, which will result in a great, world-wide revival, which is followed very quickly by the Rapture of the Church, and the countdown to the return of Jesus in glory about 7 years later.
Are you ready!!
John
