Unpacking Prophecy: The Seals
Notes
Transcript
The word often translated "revelation" or as I translated it, "unveiling," could also be understood as "decoding." Ever heard of those Ovaltine Decoder Rings in the '40s? Ovaltine drink advertisements used to have a coded message on them (as did some of the Ovaltine radio ads you might hear when you listen to tapes or CDs of old radio programs). If you twisted the top of the ring to the symbol in the ad, you'd get a letter or number that was part of the message. Of course, those messages were designed to enhance the ad--much like the scene in the Christmas movie when Ralph finally gets his Little Orphan Annie decoder ring and deciphers the secret message only to discover that it said, "Drink more Ovaltine."
God has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit to help us decode what God wants from us. But it isn't a disappointment. The Holy Spirit not only helps us to know God's will, but to know how to accomplish God's will and empowers us to do it. But where other religions promised to let a few chosen people in on the special mysteries of their knowledge, promising the ancient equivalent of today's Scientology with its promise of amazing powers for those few special ones who are dedicated enough and donate enough to reach the upper echelons of their religion, God has revealed Himself to us in order to share the mystery of His love, His presence, and His purpose with EVERYONE.
While he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples approached him privately and said, “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what is the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Jesus replied to them, “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and they will deceive many. You are going to hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, because these things must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these events are the beginning of labor pains.
Are we in the end times? I can not say for sure, but we can see evidence of prophecy being fulfilled each day.
Themes: Prophecy
“Prophecy is not proleptic history. It is not designed to give us the knowledge of the future which history gives us of the past. Great events are foretold; but the mode of their occurrence, their details and their consequences, can only be learned by the event.”
Charles Hodge
What Charles Hodge is saying is we must study and be watchful of the occurrences around us each day. So as we look at the seals (which will last 3.5 years) , the trumpets and the bowls (21 months each) that gives us a timeline that is the great tribulation, we must understand that we are using scripture to interpret scripture to give us an idea of the prophecy that has been foretold.
Today, we will be starting with the seals that are removed from the scroll we discussed in Revelation 5. Know this, we are breaking up and looking at each seal individually, this does not mean that they will
not happen simultaneously. And we will start off with figures a lot of you may know…the four horseman. And I am not talking about the four horseman from wrestling.
Then I saw the Lamb open one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, “Come!” I looked, and there was a white horse. Its rider held a bow; a crown was given to him, and he went out as a conqueror in order to conquer.
The white horse represents a time of world peace. It is a false peace and will usher in false prophets and messiahs. It shows the antichrist (the rider), we will get to know who he is in more detail later in this series, holding a bow but there are no arrows. The bow means war, but the absence of arrows means it will be a bloodless war (at first). It will be a war won by covenants and agreements.
He will make a firm covenant
with many for one week,
but in the middle of the week
he will put a stop to sacrifice and offering.
And the abomination of desolation
will be on a wing of the temple
until the decreed destruction
is poured out on the desolator.”
The crown was given to him by the deceived. This means the world will love him and what he stands for as he conquers the world with diplomacy. How can we be so deceived?
It is not hard to figure out. Right now, if someone would bring peace to this world, even the faithful would be hard pressed not to praise it.
Paul-Henri Spaak the Belgium Prime Minister in the late 60s , who was one of the architects of the European Union is famously quoted as saying,
We do not want another committee, we have too many already. What we need is a man of sufficient stature to hold the allegiance of all people, and to lift us out of the economic morass into which we are sinking. Send us such a man, and be he god or devil, we will receive him.
When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” Then another horse went out, a fiery red one, and its rider was allowed to take peace from the earth, so that people would slaughter one another. And a large sword was given to him.
The bright red color represents the blood shed during times of war. Here the rider (not the antichrist) is given authority by God to cause worldwide wars. As horrible as this sounds, it is just the start.
When you hear of wars and rebellions, don’t be alarmed. Indeed, it is necessary that these things take place first, but the end won’t come right away.”
Violence toward each other will become commonplace. The sword depicts assassinations, massacres and slaughtering of the majority of the people.
His power will be great,
but it will not be his own.
He will cause outrageous destruction
and succeed in whatever he does.
He will destroy the powerful
along with the holy people.
We also know that out of the ten regions the antichrist will establish, three of them will rebel against him and he will destroy them will the full might of the world’s military. The antichrist will have the control over the world’s military, economy and religion.
When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and there was a black horse. Its rider held a set of scales in his hand. Then I heard something like a voice among the four living creatures say, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, but do not harm the oil and the wine.”
Black signifies famine.
Slaves rule over us;
no one rescues us from them.
We secure our food at the risk of our lives
because of the sword in the wilderness.
Our skin is as hot as an oven
from the ravages of hunger.
The war will destroy the worlds food supply. The scale signifies that food rationing will be common (bread lines), due to the scarcity of food. Food cost will be inflated to a point where a day’s wage will barely feed one person one meal. It is not hard to see with war going on, food distributions shut down (look at the great toilet paper shortage of 2020) , riots shut cities down, our great electronic banking system is shut down, land and crops destroyed (no more crawfish season). The leaving of the oil and wine signifies the luxury items, they are not needed for survival, meaning only the wealthy will be able to afford to eat and provide for their families.
When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and there was a pale green horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following after him. They were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill by the sword, by famine, by plague, and by the wild animals of the earth.
The Greek word for pale is “chloro” which means to have the character of decomposition like that of a corpse. God gives authority to have a quarter of the world put to death. Death and Hades are commonly together in biblical text and writings of that era.
And being in torment in Hades, he looked up and saw Abraham a long way off, with Lazarus at his side.
1/4 of the population. Can you imagine the amount of people that will die?
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered because of the word of God and the testimony they had given. They cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, the one who is holy and true, how long until you judge those who live on the earth and avenge our blood?” So they were each given a white robe, and they were told to rest a little while longer until the number would be completed of their fellow servants and their brothers and sisters, who were going to be killed just as they had been.
This is the halfway mark during the Great Tribulation.This is 3 ½ years into it and we will see an intensification of God’s wrath. We see the prayers of the saints (Christians martyred for their faith) coming from the alter of incense asking for revenge.
“But you, be on your guard! They will hand you over to local courts, and you will be flogged in the synagogues. You will stand before governors and kings because of me, as a witness to them. And it is necessary that the gospel be preached to all nations. So when they arrest you and hand you over, don’t worry beforehand what you will say, but say whatever is given to you at that time, for it isn’t you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.
“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by everyone because of my name, but the one who endures to the end will be saved.
Here we see God will answer their prayer of vengeance but not until the predetermined number of saints have been martyred.
Then I saw him open the sixth seal. A violent earthquake occurred; the sun turned black like sackcloth made of hair; the entire moon became like blood; the stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its unripe figs when shaken by a high wind; the sky was split apart like a scroll being rolled up; and every mountain and island was moved from its place.
Then the kings of the earth, the nobles, the generals, the rich, the powerful, and every slave and free person hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb,
The first five seals were just a precursor to the sixth seal. The events here in the sixth seal unleashes the seventh seal which contains the trumpet and bowl judgments. We are talking overpowering fear that grips the world.
People will faint from fear and expectation of the things that are coming on the world, because the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
The earthquake will be all the earths fault lines simultaneously fracturing, resulting in one global earthquake. We will see numerous volcanic eruptions that will blacken the sun and cause the moon to be seen as blood.
On that day there will be no light; the sunlight and moonlight will diminish. It will be a unique day known only to the Lord, without day or night, but there will be light at evening.
Large meteors will fall into the earth’s atmosphere. As can be imagined, all this will affect the earths atmosphere and the quality of the air supply. Due to the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, every continent will be shifted and not in the place it was before the start of Tribulation. This starts what scholars call the “Day of the Lord”. People will finally start to recognize the source of all the wrath.
As the days of Noah were, so the coming of the Son of Man will be. For in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah boarded the ark. They didn’t know until the flood came and swept them all away. This is the way the coming of the Son of Man will be.
When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand in the presence of God; seven trumpets were given to them. Another angel, with a golden incense burner, came and stood at the altar. He was given a large amount of incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar in front of the throne. The smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up in the presence of God from the angel’s hand. The angel took the incense burner, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it to the earth; there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.
8:1 The silence in heaven is the grim reality of the judgement God is about to release on Earth.
8:2 Trumpets or rams horn normally announced a proclamation or a judgement in biblical times. Here we see it as God’s judgement on the Earth. The trumpets will be more destructive than the seals, but the bowls will be even worse.
8:3-4 A censer is a pan that is attached to chains that is used to carry coals to the alter of incense. We have discussed several times that the incense is the prayers of the people.
8:5 Some scholars believe that the earthquake will be even greater in intensity than the one described in the sixth seal.
There are several lessons we can learn from these future judgments. To start, we must see that God is extremely patient, but evil will need to dealt with. It also reminds us that Christ is the Son of God and the rightful and sinless judge of this world. It also reminds us of God’s mercy, even though we are talking about His Mighty Wrath upon the Earth. Most of all, it should spur us on to spread the gospel as much as possible.