July 9, 2018
AN EXPOSITION OF THE SEVEN SEALS OF REVELATION – NUMBER 1
August 15, 2011
BEGIN 2003 NOVEMBER 8, 2003 SPECIAL PROPHECY UPDATE
SPECIAL PROPHECY UPDATE NUMBER 145A
November 8, 2003
The Seals, the Trumpets, and the Vials of Revelation
Part 1 – Beginning with comments about all the Seals followed by Seal 1
In October 2003, I presented the seventh trumpet pre-wrath position at the Missionary Baptist Seminary in Midwest City, Oklahoma, over a period that lasted from 8 A.M. to 10:30 P.M., with a break for lunch and dinner, and several short breaks for water and circulation relief. I am very grateful to one of the fine pastors there for a question he asked concerning the seven seals. He asked me where I placed them. I had not discussed them, and he wanted to be able to envision where I put them. I am grateful he asked me, because it suddenly made me very aware of something I knew, but had not really thought about for years. I covered the seals in my second book, “The Tribulation Triad,” when I wrote it in the late seventies, but during the 25 years I have lectured in more than 700 churches, seminaries, colleges, and universities I have never, to the best of my recollection, discussed the six seals as to “where” they fit in the tribulation period. I have discussed what they represent at great length, but simply did not position them as to where they belong in the tribulation period. There is a very good reason as to why I never placed them specifically in the tribulation period – I do not believe the first five occur during the tribulation period, and that the first four describe the events Jesus referred to as “the beginning of sorrows” in Matthew 24:7,8, Mark 13:8, and Luke 21:10,11.
Matthew 24:7-8
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. [8] All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Mark 13:8
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.
Luke 21:10-11
Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: [11] And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
I certainly do not believe we are now in the tribulation period, because I have long taught the first seal opened following the end of World War I on this planet, and that the others began to open in chronological when World War II began. I should have presented this series at the time we started on this web site several years ago, but better late than never. It is diagrammatically pictured on page 154 of my book, “The Tribulation Period – 777.” Even though I did not believe the first part of the tribulation period would last three and one-half years because I believed the three “he’s” in Daniel 9:27 are Messiah the Prince, and not the antichrist, knowing the vast majority of the prophetic teachers of today believe it is the antichrist, I showed the first three and one-half years on my diagram, and jammed all of it as occurring during the fifth seal. I believe when seal six opens it starts the last three and one half years of the tribulation. I do believe there will be a brief period of false peace just before the opening of the sixth seal, during the time of the fifth seal, but it will be of much, much shorter duration that most believe today. I have always taught that the sixth seal is a preview of all the horrifying events that will occur from the seventh seal through the seven trumpets and seven vials. At the time I wrote “The Tribulation Triad” I placed the time of Satan’s casting out of heaven (Revelation 12:7-12) in what most identify as the first three and one half years of a seven-year tribulation period. I have since changed my mind. Do I still change my mind about prophecy? I do not change my mind about the doctrines of salvation, the ordinances of the church, or that Jesus is coming, but I do indeed continue to change my mind about the many things in prophecy. If you are not prepared to do that, you will never learn anything. The only one who could lecture about prophecy, and never have to correct what he taught, is the Great Three-In-One. I feel sorry for all those who think they got it right the first time, and still teach exactly the same things they taught when they first taught prophecy fifty years ago. I have changed what I once believed about some things, and hopefully, if I don’t grow to think I am God, and understand it as well as He does, I will continue to change. God got it right the first time, the rest of us will have to keep changing our minds if we want to be more accurate in our interpretation of what God already knows.
I will begin this series with the first seal and, if the Lord is willing, will go through the seals, and then identify how I believe the seals, trumpets, and vials are laced into a pattern from the seventh seal through the last vial.
Again, I am grateful I was asked where the seals fit in the tribulation period, because it made me realize that what I have long believed about it had become such so engrained in me that I proceeded like the hearer already knew where I placed them, which was a real goof on my part. I knew that the vast majority of writers place the seals in what is known as the tribulation period. Knowing this, I should have explained the seal positioning at some point before he asked the question, and it suddenly made me realize that I should have put this on our web pages when we first began. So I will be putting it out on updates for some time, giving the seals in chronological order.
The riders on the first four seals do not picture specific individuals – they do not represent men, but rather all of mankind. They represent four phases through which mankind will pass preceding the tribulation period. I do not believe the tribulation period has seven full years, because Jesus fulfilled more than three years of it after his baptism. The horse colors portray the characteristics of four phases in chronological order: white for peaceful conquests, red for the blood shed in wars, black for the dark eyes associated with famine, and pale for the color of death associated with pestilence or a corpse.
Seal 1
Revelation 6:1-2
And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. [2] And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
The first great world war to engulf all the known world that existed when John wrote the book of Revelation in about 96 A.D. during the great Roman Empire, which was the fourth beast of Chapter Seven in Daniel, out of which a final revived empire of antichrist was to arise in the latter days, was what we called World War I. Out of World War I came the Balfour Declaration, which did finally lead to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The Balfour Declaration was a British statement of policy issued in 1917 by Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour. It stated British support for a Jewish national home in Palestine without prejudice to the rights of the non-Jewish population. The white horse rider represents the state of mankind that existed between the two great world wars that occurred between two German tyrants. The color of the horse, like a white dove, symbolizes the state of peace that existed between 1918 and 1932 across the territories recognized as the Roman Empire during its maximum extent. I believe most of the prophecies in the book of Revelation will be fulfilled across the known world of John’s day, not in the western hemisphere.
A long series of conquests by Hitler’s shaking of the bow, without firing any arrows, allowed the relative peace to continue until 1939. He was able to occupy several of the lands to his west, southwest, south, and southeast by a series of bluffs, without firing a shout. They succumbed to his threats, and he occupied large sections of nations around Germany. Threats, rather than arrows, secured him much land. The Prime Minister of Great Britain, Arthur Neville Chamberlain, followed a policy appeasing Hitler, rather than confronting him. So, in 1938, he went to Germany and signed the Munich Pact, which allowed Hitler to occupy part of Czechoslovakia. It was a time of peace where those who “went forth conquering, and to conquer,” did so by bluff rather than by blood. He returned home with the cry “Peace in our times.” The first of the four horse riders has come and gone. He departed the scene when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. That is when the red horse rider came on the scene. I will cover his activities in Part 2. The number of wars did increase after World War II then declined after the great Soviet Union collapse, but they have never stopped, and the red blood of Americans and the rest of the world is still flowing in the Middle East. The Tectonic Chaos of the Tribulation Period will not begin until the opening of Seal 6, and its full wrath fury will not come on the earth until Vial 1 is poured out on an unbelieving world, which ends with the greatest wrath of Vial 7.
Revelation 6:12
And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
Revelation 16:1-2
And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. [2] And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.
Revelation 16:16-21
And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. [17] And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. [18] And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. [19] And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. [20] And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.