Expert: Marilyn - 3/10/2010

Question
QUESTION: hi i am wondering what seal we are in? and i dont really understand the seals could you explain what they mean? thanx

ANSWER: Hello Nichole;

Revelation 1-3 describes the "church age" which began at Pentecost in Acts 2. The churches described in these chapters, Revelation 1-3, are churches that existed in John's time and also represent churches that have existed throughout time from the beginning of the church age. Anti-Christ is represented by the white horse in Revelation 6. But according to Thessalonians 2:7 Anti-Christ will not be revealed until the One who holds him back is "taken out." The One who holds him back is the Holy Spirit through believers--the church. Since the church, that is the continuous group of believers who can draw their "family tree" back to the Apostles, are still here, then Anti-Christ has not been revealed thus we are not out of Revelation 3 yet.

Revelation 4:1, "After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in Heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this."

Paul wrote in I Corinthians 15:51, "Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed--in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality."

In I Thessalonians 4:13-16 Paul wrote, "Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will come down from Heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so we will be with the Lord forever."

John is commanded to "Come up here" by a trumpet like voice. Paul says the trumpet will sound and we will be transformed and given our resurrection bodies. He also said that the "lawless one" will not be revealed until the "one who holds him back is taken out." And the voice which spoke to John said, "I will show you what must happen AFTER THIS," which I interpret to mean after the church is taken out. The Holy Spirit through the church still holds back the lawless one today. We have not finished chapters 1-3; no seals have been broken yet.

Seals were wax blobs placed on documents to "seal" them. Usually the hot wax was imprinted with the "seal" of the authority who sealed the documents. This kind of seal was a raised pattern on the end of a cylindrical piece of wood, a ring or a stone which would create the same pattern in the wax as an indentation. When a wax seal is broken, the contents are released. So, when the seals in Revelation are broken, the prophecy held within is released so that it can happen. The events described in Revelation 6 will happen when the seals are broken. But first, the One who holds back the lawless one must be taken out.

The first seal is Anti-Christ. He is a copy-cat of the triumphant Jesus who will lead the attack against satan and his army in Revelation 19:11-16. People will hail this phony as "Messiah." The bow represents military power and the crown represents military victory. The second seal is opened and a red horse is revealed. The red horse represents war, but it also may represent a nation which goes on the attack. The black horse represents economic catastrophe and famine. The pale horse represents Death. Its companion, hell, tags along. The word translated "pale" in the NIV is "chlorys" which indicates a nasty, sickly, pale green. I always think of it as that glow-in-the dark green. Death follows war and catastrophe clearing out the population of a fourth of the earth. The fifth seal shows what the white horse has been up to--killing off people who have become believers after the church has been taken out. The 6th seal is a great earthquake, which probably includes a horrible volcanic eruption(s) which throws enough dust and smoke into the air to blot out the sun. Stars falling from the sky may be either asteroids or bombs or even both. The description of what the "stars" do is not unlike the effects of a nuclear bomb: a strong wind and the sky rolling up. Earthquakes can explain the mountains and islands being moved.

Chapter seven gives us the details of the fifth seal--those who died for the Lord and His Word and how He will protect those who are still alive on planet earth and have accepted Jesus as Savior since the church was taken out. It also tells us that 144,000 Jews will become powerful witnesses for God. Chapter 8 opens with the breaking of the seventh seal. Everybody takes a breather before God's wrath is poured out on the earth beginning with a censer filled with fire from God's altar--judgment answer of the prayers of the saints. The seventh seal opens up the way for seven archangels to sound their trumpets.

Sincerely,

Marilyn



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Im not really understanding this. I have read it in the bible also and i dont understand. so are we in the 7th seal then? how long do these seals last?

Answer
Hello Nichole;

I know, this prophecy stuff is complicated.

The seals are opened in a particular order. The first seal is the white horse, the Anti-Christ who will bring the whole world together under one government. He will be dictator of the entire world. There has been a lot of effort expended by certain people around the world to create a one world government. The United Nations was an effort in that direction. The European Union is a start. There's been talk from a couple of recent US presidents to give up some of our sovereignty. Climate meetings are efforts in that direction. Clinton turned some of our prized historical and natural sites over to become world heritage sites under the control of the UN. American judges have looked to European courts to guide their decisions. Obama has given Interpol authority in the US. But we don't have one world government yet. And there isn't a world leader on the scene who can even begin to pull that off, at least that I know of.

Anti-Christ has not been revealed--not THE Anti-Christ. Many anti-Christs have come and gone throughout history. The Name "Christ" is Greek for "Messiah" which means "The Anointed One." "Anti" means "against." An anti-Christ is anyone who is against Jesus and His anointing. Anti-Christs are all around us right now--but they are not THE Anti-Christ who comes out on a white horse when the first seal is broken.

The first seal is a man on a white horse who carries a bow and wears a crown. The bow is symbolic for military power and the crown is one worn by a conqueror. People have either called Barack Obama "messiah" or "anti-Christ"...it's clear he's not messiah and he has said and done things that make him anti-Christ, but he's not THE Anti-Christ, the one released when the first seal is broken. Obama has never served in the military and doesn't seem to understand the first thing about the military.

The way I understand it is according to II Thessalonians 2:7 Anti-Christ won't be revealed until the One who holds him back is taken out. The only Person who can hold back Anti-Christ is God. When it comes to what's going on on planet earth, the Person of God who has the most influence here is the Holy Spirit and He does His work through Christians. We Christians are still here. We are the ones who hold back Anti-Christ. We hold him back because the Holy Spirit works through us to resist evil wherever we live. In America we are in the midst of a battle to determine whether government is god or not. Americans have loudly asserted that government is not god, but political leaders are still trying to force government as god on us. This is a move toward one world government, but it is failing. The church is fighting back. Christians fight back against homosexual marriage, against slavery, against all kinds of evil in large and small ways. Every act of kindness, every cart taken back into the store, every dollar given to a needy family, every phone call to a representative telling him to vote "no" on some bill funding abortion, every prayer--all these are small things, but when Christians everywhere are doing them they add up to very big power. Christians are also doing big things, they are responsible for most of the hospitals and universities, they are responsible for organizations like Prison Fellowship and Feed the Children--Christians are even responsible for the very existence of the United States of America with its first-of-its-kind government and Constitution which other nations have copied ever since. All these things hold back anti-Christs both large and small. And they hold back THE Anti-Christ of Revelation 6:1.

Anti-Christ, or the "lawless one" as Paul calls him, won't be revealed until Christians are removed from the world.

The rapture or the catching away is what Paul was talking about in I Thessalonians 4 and I Corinthians 15. He describes a moment when a Heavenly trumpet will sound and Christians will be taken out--or caught up to go to Heaven. In that moment, Jesus will come with the spirits of Christians who have died and their resurrection bodies will be given to them--the dead in Christ will rise first. This is very similar to what happened to Jesus when He was raised from the dead. His body was made alive again, but in a new form that can never die again and with no limitations. This is the kind of body our bodies will become when this trumpet sounds. The dead will receive their resurrection bodies first, then we who are alive will receive ours and we will go to Heaven.

The first seal is the white horse--Anti-Christ--and that seal cannot be broken until the Christians are taken out, what has been called "the rapture" or the "catching away" Paul is talking about in I Corinthians 15 and II Thessalonians 2:7. None of the seals have been broken yet. And the people who are Christians now won't be around when they are.

In Revelation 4:1 an angel tells John, "Come up here and I will show you what must take place after this." The first three chapters of Revelation are about churches. The angels is saying that he will show John what will happen after churches no longer exist--"after this" means after the period of history in which churches are on the planet, or in other words, the "church age."

An age is a period of time in which something is happening or something exists. For example, the age of kings refers to the time when kings were the leaders of nations and nobody had representative governments as we have today. The church age refers to the period of time in which churches exist and do the work of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. Anti-Christ, the man on the white horse who is release when the first seal is broken, cannot be revealed until the One who holds him back is taken out or removed. Since Anti-Christ can't be revealed until the church is removed and Anti-Christ is released when the first seal is broken...we are not even in the first seal yet. Since the first seal has not been broken, the other seals have not been broken either. We are still in Revelation 1-3, the church age.

I do not know how long the seals will last, but Revelation 6 through 19 will last for seven years.

Hope this helps. If not, let me know. I am happy to answer all your questions and work on this until I get it where you can understand it. I know it is not an easy topic.

Sincerely,

Marilyn