The Lamb, in John’s vision, is now set to open the seals on the scroll. This devotional reading looks at the significance of the seals.
Nuggets
- The call for Someone Who was worthy to open the seals had been made, and Jesus had stepped forward to perform that task.
In Revelation 4 and 5, John’s vision has taken place in Heaven. The focus of the vision now moves to earth.
Starting in Revelation 6, John really rolls out the word pictures because he is talking about the Day of the Lord. We know he was doing his best to describe what he was seeing with limited ways to describe the totally unimaginable scenes he was witnessing.
So, I think we need to approach this not as a playbook of how. Rather, we should look at it as what and why.
First, we have to set up some things.
Let's Put It into Context #1
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Devotions in the Opening the Seals series
Let’s Put It into Context #2
Where is the Church in the story? Pre-Tribulation Dispensationalists believe they have been raptured.
- The Rapture happens before the opening of the seals.
- The Tribulation, a seven-year period, occurs next.
- The Great Tribulation is the last three and a half years of the seven-year period.
Precedence is set for God calling the faithful out before releasing His wrath on sinners.
- “So the LORD said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD” (Gen. 6: 7-8 ESV).
- “As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, ‘Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.’ But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the LORD being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city” (Gen. 19: 15-16 ESV).
- “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Rise up early in the morning and present yourself to Pharaoh, as he goes out to the water, and say to him, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Let my people go, that they may serve me. Or else, if you will not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies on you and your servants and your people, and into your houses. And the houses of the Egyptians shall be filled with swarms of flies, and also the ground on which they stand. But on that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, where my people dwell, so that no swarms of flies shall be there, that you may know that I am the LORD in the midst of the earth’” (Ex. 7: 20-22 ESV).
Do disciples feel the consequences of the original sin? Of course, we do.
Do we feel the full extent of God’s wrath? No.
Unfortunately, older texts do not include the article the. In other words, there is no specific time of tribulation.
We really aren’t told when God will come get His Church. We know tribulation started occurring before Jesus was crucified.
Believing in The Tribulation means that we believe there will be punishment here on earth. What if what we term the Tribulation is just events that need to occur before the Day of the Lord can occur?
Let’s Put It into Context #3
The happenings of the first four seals contain the four horses of the apocalypse. Each holds an event that has been experienced already on a regional — or even a national — level.
The difference here, we expect, is that it is on a world-wide level.
If so, it is important to look the events by the all-inclusive stage on which they are set. There will be no physical neutral Switzerland to which to run.
Everyone is going to be involved, and everyone has no choice but to experience the event.
Everyone — except Jesus’ disciples? Are they going to escape all these events? If the rapture hasn’t occurred, they won’t.
We can’t bank on the Rapture occurring before the Tribulation. If we do, we are just writing in what we want to believe.
But if we are still here, we will have a hiding place.
- You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah” (Ps. 32: 7 ESV).
- For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock” (Ps. 27: 5 ESV).
- Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land” (Isa. 32: 2 ESV).
- You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word” (Ps. 119: 114 ESV).
- He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty” (Ps. 91: 1 ESV).
- In the cover of your presence you hide them from the plots of men; you store them in your shelter from the strife of tongues” (Ps. 31: 20 ESV).
- The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (Ps. 18: 2 ESV).
- For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat; for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall” (Isa. 25: 4 ESV).
- Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings” (Ps. 17: 8 ESV).
Let’s Put It into Context #4
I was always told that the four horsemen are from God. Thomas believed they could be from Satan – even the Antichrist himself.
Resource
Maybe. It is logical to think that Satan’s control over this world will increase as we grow closer to the Day of the Lord. We are even told this.
“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people” (II Tim. 3: 1-5 ESV).
Jesus described the end times as in the days of Noah. “For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Mt. 24: 37 ESV).
Yes, Jesus could have been talking about things going on as business as usual. But God wouldn’t have ended the world as they knew it if it was acceptable business as usual.
The world was wicked. I think it will continue to become even more wicked until God said, “Enough is enough.”
But let’s see what Zechariah had to say.
“Again I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, four chariots came out from between two mountains. And the mountains were mountains of bronze. The first chariot had red horses, the second black horses, the third white horses, and the fourth chariot dappled horses — all of them strong. Then I answered and said to the angel who talked with me, ‘What are these, my lord?’ And the angel answered and said to me, ‘These are going out to the four winds of heaven, after presenting themselves before the Lord of all the earth. The chariot with the black horses goes toward the north country, the white ones go after them, and the dappled ones go toward the south country.’ When the strong horses came out, they were impatient to go and patrol the earth. And he said, ‘Go, patrol the earth.’ So they patrolled the earth. Then he cried to me, ‘Behold, those who go toward the north country have set my Spirit at rest in the north country’” (Zech. 6: 1-8 ESV).
Okay, the horses were described in a different order and they were just directionally sent. Patrolling the earth isn’t the same as impacting what happens.
Do they punish, too? I would say the answer is yes because they are war chariots.
This translation says that they are the four winds. I don’t think this would be a big stretch to equate this to spirits. “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (Jn. 3: 8 ESV).
Opening the Seals
“Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, ‘Come!’” (Rev. 6: 1 ESV)
The call for Someone Who was worthy to open the seals had been made, and Jesus had stepped forward to perform that task.
I love what Exell said. They were opened by strength, humiliation, and sacrifice.
Resource
Yes, I think there was some physical strength required of Jesus. I mean, He and the Apostles travelled three years, not staying extremely long at any place. Even if the walking was challenging, staying out in the open must have been trying, also.
More importantly, Jesus had to have strength of character. He had to resist all temptation.
Yes, Jesus was God. But if He hadn’t felt the temptation, then He wouldn’t have really been human.
Jesus was definitely human.
Death on the cross was a humiliating experience. Crucifixion was the punishment for the worst criminals.
All the movies show those hanging on the cross stripped down. We know that is accurate. “And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots” (Mt. 27: 35 ESV).
But Jesus willingly became the Sacrifice to pay the debt for our sins. He gave up His place in Heaven to come down to give up His life for us.
After all that, Jesus was set to open the seals that outlined the fate of mankind. God had a plan — He had this plan from before He made the universe.
Isn’t it wonderful that our Mediator and Advocate is the One opening the seals?
- “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (I Tim. 2: 5 ESV).
- “Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant” (Heb. 9: 15 ESV).
- “And to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Heb. 12: 24 ESV).
I doubt that He took of His hats of Mediator and Advocate while He opened the seals. H was still standing in the gap for us even then.
I have to process what Maurice said. So, I am going to do this in Elaine-speak.
- When Jesus died on the cross, He altered the course of events. Mankind no longer had to die a spiritual death because of their sins.
- Mankind can’t save himself, so Jesus stepped in to prevent this judgment.
- We approach that, though, based on our own faith and wants. We speculate what we want to believe is true — even if it isn’t God’s way.
- We need to read God’s Word to find God’s way.
- We think God is set to enact His judgment on evil now.
- We look to Jesus in order for Him to change this judgment and bend God’s Will.
- Instead, God is a benevolent God Who has a perfect plan, which included sending the Lamb to be our Savior.
Resource
Ooo, baby. I can see that.
We approach God for our reasons, not His reason. His reason is to restore us to Him so that we can worship Him.
God is the only One Who can alter the course of events. Yes, we make our own choices, but God already knows what those choices are going to be. He has them worked into our plan.
Making the Connections
The description of what happens when the seals will be opened is scary. But disciples don’t have to worry.
We can take comfort in this revelation. We will be consoled and protected by Jesus. Our faith in Him will see us through.
How Do We Apply This?
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Don’t believe that our interpretation of God’s Word can only be the correct way to interpret it.
Father God. We are humbled that You have shown us through John’s eyes events that signal the approach of the Day of the Lord. Forgive us when we interpret them through selfish desires. Help us to seek Your Will and Your way. Amen.
What do you think?
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