Opening of the First 6 Seals of the Sealed Scroll

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE85w-8L4M8

Bible study with Dr. Chuck Missler


Revelation 6
Revelation 6-19 details the 70th Week of Daniel (Daniel 9:27)
- This is a period where God pours out His Wrath


The Great Tribulation
- Defined by Jesus, quoting Daniel 12:1, in Matthew 24:21-22


Order of Events
- Harpazo (Rapture) occurs
- False peace between Israel and its surrounding nations is established by the Antichrist, marking the beginning of the 70th Week of Daniel
- The Abomination of Desolation occurs in the middle, marking the start of the Great Tribulation (the last 3 ½ years of the Tribulation)
- The Battle of Armageddon takes place, ended by Jesus 2nd return


During the Tribulation, the Raptured Church is in Heaven
- They first stand in front of the Bema Seat to have their works judged by Jesus
- They then partake in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb
- And finally, they return with Jesus to Earth to end the Battle of Armageddon


The Millennium starts, with Jesus reigning over us
- Satan is bound during the Millennium and released afterwards
- Final battle then takes place, where Satan is ultimately destroyed


The Tribulation doesn’t begin until the Lamb opens the seal
- The Lamb doesn’t receive the Scroll until after the 24 Elders place their crowns on the glassy sea
- The 24 Elders (and the seven lampstands, representing the Church) are in Heaven when the Tribulation begins, suggesting the Church is in Heaven PRIOR to the start of the Tribulation!


The Purpose of the Tribulation
I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me earnestly (Hosea 5:15).


In order to “return” to His place, God must have first left it! When did God first leave His place? When He came to Earth as man!


The Tribulation Begins
God’s Wrath is poured out starting in Revelation 6.


They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Revelation 6:16-17)


But in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as he announced to his servants the prophets” (Revelation 10:7).


And your wrath has come (Revelation 11:18)


I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God’s wrath is completed (Revelation 15:1).


Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth” (Revelation 16:1).


“It is done!” (Revelation 16:17)


Day of the Lord
- Used 20 times in 8 Old Testament prophetic books; used 3 times in the New Testament (Acts 2:20, Joel 2:31; 1 Thessalonians 5:2; 2 Peter 3:10)
- Also called, “day of God” (2 Peter 3:12)
- Also called, “day of wrath” (Zephaniah 1:15)
- Also called, “day of the Lord’s wrath” (Zephaniah 1:18)
- Also called, “day of darkness” (Joel 2:2; Zephaniah 1:15)


The Heptadic Structure of God’s Judgments
- There are 7 Seals (Revelation 6). Before the 7th Seal is opened, there is a break, called a parenthetical break (Revelation 7). The first 4 Seals have a special label: The 4 Horsemen.
- The 7th Seal breaks down to 7 Trumpet Judgments (Revelation 8-9). Before the 7th Trumpet is sounded, there is another parenthetical break (Revelation 10-14).
- The 7th Trumpet breaks down to 7 Bowls of Wrath (Revelation 15). Before the 7th Bowl of Wrath is poured out, there is another parenthetical break (Revelation 16).


For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem my four dreadful judgments—sword and famine and wild beasts and plague—to kill its men and their animals! (Ezekiel 14:21)


1st Seal: The White Horseman, the Overcoming Conqueror (Revelation 6:2)
- He is wearing a victor’s crown (stephanos), not a ruling crown of a ruler (diademata, Revelation 19:12)
- Horses = judgments (2 Kings 6:15-18; Jeremiah 46:9-10; Joel 2:3-11; Nahum 3:1-7; Zechariah 1:8-11; 6:1-7)
- He carries a bow, not a sword (cf. Revelation 19:15; Ephesians 6:16; Matthew 10:34)
- Because he carries a bow, some believe he symbolizes Nimrod the Hunter
- The word “bow” used here is the same word that appeared only another time in the Bible, in Genesis 9:13, where God gave Noah a bow as a token of the covenant with Noah (toxon = weapon or rainbow). The Holy Spirit is using a pun here, telling us that the First Horseman comes bringing a new covenant, though the covenant is a form of weapon (i.e., False peace).
- By peace, he shall destroy man (Daniel 8:25). That is, he comes not as a military leader but as a peaceful leader.
- He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing [of the temple] he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him (Daniel 9:27).
- He has many names (33 in the Old Testament; 13 in the New Testament). Here is a sample list: the “Seed of the Serpent” (Genesis 3:15), the “Idol Shepherd” (Zechariah 11:16-17), the “Little Horn (Daniel 7:8-11, 21-26; 8:9-12, 23-25), the “prince that shall come” (Daniel 9:26), the Willful King (Daniel 11:36), the “Beast” (Revelation 11:7; 13), the “False Prophet” (Revelation 13), the “Antichrist (Pseudo-Christ)” (1 John 2:22), the “Lawless One” (2 Thessalonians 2:8), the “Man of Sin” (2 Thessalonians 2:3), the “One who comes in his own name” (John 5:43), the “Son of Perdition” (2 Thessalonians 2:3).
- He is an intellectual genius (Daniel 7:20; 8:23; Ezekiel 28:3), a persuasive orator (Daniel 7:20; Revelation 13:2), a shrewd politician (Daniel 11:21; Daniel 8:25), a financial genius (Revelation 13:17; Ezekiel 28:4-5; Psalm 52:7; Daniel 11:38, 43), forceful military leader (Daniel 8:24; Revelation 6:2; Revelation 13:4; Isaiah 4:16), a powerful organizer (Revelation 13:1-2; 17:17), a unifying religious guru (2 Thessalonians 2:4; Revelation 13:3, 14, 15; Psalm 10:52, 55; Isaiah 10:11, 13-14; Jeremiah 49-51; Zechariah 5; Revelation 18), etc. He is going to be one of the most attractive, charismatic guys the world has seen coming onto the stage.


Woe to the worthless shepherd, who deserts the flock! May the sword strike his arm and his right eye! May his arm be completely withered, his right eye totally blinded! (Zechariah 11:17). These physical characteristics may be the vestige of the head wound mentioned in Revelation 13:3.


2nd Seal: The Red Horseman of War (Revelation 6:3-4)


3rd Seal: The Black Horseman of Famine (Revelation 6:5-6)
- “Black” is often connected with famine (Lamentations 4:4-8; 5:10; Jeremiah 14:1-2)
- There will be great scarcity of food
- Amos 8:11 speaks of famine of the Word of God—Just as when people are so hungry, they’d eat anything, so will people readily believe anything when they are spiritually starved.


4th Seal: The Pale Horseman of Death (Revelation 6:7-8)


5th Seal: Death of Martyrs (Revelation 6:9-11)
- The souls are conscious; they are not sleeping (1 Thessalonians 4:14-16; 2 Corinthians 5:8; Philippians 1:23)
- The martyrs were told to wait a while until “the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed” (Revelation 6:11).


Avenging the Blood of the Saints
They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” (Revelation 6:10)


For they have shed the blood of your saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve (Revelation 16:6).


And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus (Revelation 17:6).


Rejoice over her, O heaven! Rejoice, saints and apostles and prophets! God has judged her for the way she treated you (Revelation 18:20).


In her was found the blood of prophets and of the saints, and of all who have been killed on the earth (Revelation 18:24). 


For true and just are his judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of his servants (Revelation 19:2).


6th Seal: Cosmic Upheavals (Revelation 6:12-14)
- There will be at least 3 major earthquakes during the Tribulation (Revelation 6:12; 11:13; 16:18-19)
- The Bible documents literal earthquakes (as opposed to allegorical): Exodus 19:18; 20:18-19; 1 Kings 19:11; Matthew 27:51-52
- Earthquakes have been associated with the sun turning dark (Joel 2:2, 10, 30-31; Matthew 24:39; Mark 13:24-25; Luke 21:25)
- Seismos is the Greek word for “shaking” and has been translated as earthquakes: Isaiah 24:1, 3, 4, 19, 23; 34:2-4; Psalm 148: 3-6; Hebrews 12:26-29; Haggai 2:6; Joel 2:1, 10-12, 30-31; 3:15; Zephaniah 1:15; Isaiah 13:9-10; 34:2-4; Ezekiel 32:7-8
- The sun “became black as sackcloth” was also mentioned in Isaiah 13:10; Joel 2:10
- The moon “became like blood” was also mentioned in Isaiah 13:10; 24:23; Joel 2:51; Matthew 24:29
- The stars “fell unot the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs” was also mentioned in Mathew 24:29 – Could this be a meteor shower?
- The sky “and the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together” was also mentioned in Isaiah 34:1-8
- “Every mountain and island were moved out of their places” was also mentioned in Jeremiah 4:23-24; Revelation 16:20


Space is fabric-like
- Who alone stretches out the heavens (Job 9:8)
- Stretching out heaven like a tent curtain (Psalm 104:2)
- Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in (Isaiah 40:22)
- The Lord who stretches out the heavens (Zechariah 12:1)
- Etc.


Space is not just an empty vacuum
It can be…
- Torn (Isaiah 64:1)
- Worn out like a garment (Psalm 102:25)
- Shaken (Hebrews 12:26; Haggai 2:6; Isaiah 13:13)
- Burnt up (2 Peter 3:12)
- Split apart like a scroll (Revelation 6:14)
- Rolled up like a mantle (Hebrews 1:12)
- Rolled up like a scroll (Isaiah 34:4)


The fact that space can be rolled up and bent implies that space has more than one dimension! That is, there are additional spatial dimensions than what we are aware of today!


The Wrath of the Lamb has come (Revelation 6:15-17)



The Reason for the Tribulation
The LORD Almighty planned it, to bring low the pride of all glory and to humble all who are renowned on the earth (Isaiah 23:9).



Parallels between Revelation and Joshua
- Joshua = Yeshua = Yehoshua
- Joshua was a military commander dispossessing the usurpers
- Joshua held a 7-year campaign against 7 (of an original 10) nations
- The Torah was ignored at Jericho (The Sabbath was ignored; Levites were not supposed to go to war, yet they led the procession at the battle of Jericho)
- Though Joshua was the commander at Jericho, it was really Jesus who fought the war! (Joshua 5:13-15)
- Prior to the battle at Jericho, Joshua sent in TWO WITNESSES (Cf. Revelation 11).
- There were SEVEN TRUMPET EVENTS during the battle of Jericho (Cf. Revelation 8).
- The troop was to march around in silence prior to the 7th day of marching (Cf. Revelation 8:1, where the opening of the 7th Seal was preceded by “silence in heaven for ½ hour)
- Enemies of Joshua confederated under a leader in Jerusalem, called “Adoni-Zedek,” or “Lord of Righteousness. This leader was ultimate defeated with hailstones and fire from heaven and signs in the sun, moon, etc. (Joshua 10:1-15). These are all preludes of what is going to occur to Earth in Revelation!
- The kings hid in caves and had rocks rolled upon them (Joshua 10:16-19, Cf. Revelation 6:16).


Parallels between Groups of Signs Mentioned in Revelation and the Olivet Discourse
- False Christs (Matthew 24:4-5; Luke 21:4; Revelation 6:1-2)
- Wars (Matthew 24:6; Luke 21:9,10; Revelation 6:3-4)
- Famines (Matthew 24:7; Luke 21:11; Revelation 6:5-6)
- Death (Matthew 24:7-8; Luke 21:12; Revelation 6:7-8)
- Martyrs (Matthew 24:9; Luke 21:24; Revelation 6:9-11)
- Global upheaval (Matthew 24:10-13; Luke 21:25; Revelation 6:12-17)