Timtofly
Well-Known Member
The 5th Seal is not about the physical act of dying so not opened before the 4th Seal. John was caught up into heaven for these views. Paul was still on earth looking up at heaven for his views. Paul was planning on being raptured. Of course 1900+ years later, we know that did not happen, unless you are preterist, and they think they know it did happen.
You have to see the 5th and 6th Seal is John's view from Paradise of the Second Coming and glorification of the church as complete, not here a little, there a little. There are no martyrs in the GT, not even those beheaded during Satan's 42 months are martyrs. Being a martyr is dying at the hands of heretics who think you are a heretic. Stephen was condemned by religious Jews who were clearly heretical in their doctrines. Those in the 42 months are beheaded as their act of confessing their sins and actually sacrificing this corruptible flesh directly. It is not living by faith, it is dying by faith. Those who have been martyrs under human heretics were living out their faith, even while martyred. They did not literally have to crucify this corruptible flesh to be redeemed. That is the difference.
And no! The Seals were not opened in the first century. The Cross was the physical deal that sealed all the names into the Lamb's book of life. It was sealed at the Cross. Then preserved before Creation. That is what the verse states:
"written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."
This is the Atonement Covenant, and it was physically enacted in 30AD. But to God it was a done deal before creation. It was sealed up, only to be opened on the Lord's Day. The Lord's Day being the whole period of the Millennium. Not the 2000 years between the Cross and the Second Coming. Revelation 5 is a specific event. It was not some long drawn out phenomenon.
We know that the Seals remove 25% of human life from the earth. The Trumpets remove 33%. The vials at Armageddon remove 100%. The percentage not declared, had to be sealed up would be 50% during the Thunders. We do know that Matthew 13 and the parable of the wheat and tares is a 50% scenario. Either you are one or the other, no sitting on the sidelines. The angels are harvesting, not the church.
Interestingly at this time we are pretty close to 8 billion souls alive on earth. Each percentage of the 4 events equals 2 billion each. The estimated amount of those professing to be Christians, which means they are familiar with Christ and the Cross is about 2 billion. Is that a coincidence? I don't see it as being that exact. I do not see all those making a profession are doing so as a personal choice, and I see many out of Christianity as a religion, who are redeemed, who just do not want to be associated with the religion as a religion. Polls do not make people believers or redeemed. Only individuals know their personal relationship with God.
The point I am trying to make is that during all 4 events those alive, the generation of the fig tree, are part of the opening of the Seals, not those who died over the last 1991 years. The event in Revelation 5 cannot happen until after the fig tree blooms and that generation will have a few people still alive, when the Seals start to open. The 5th and 6th Seal is the same event, the Second Coming and rapture as Paul described from his earthly view.
The first 4 Seals are tied together by the symbolic alliterative 4 different horsemen. Only symbols, not literal humans. They do not even symbolize any humans. Not Jesus, nor an AC. When they are opened only those in Heaven will know, because John is there in person in the Holy Spirit watching it happen. John did not say the Holy Spirit was in him, filling him with visions. There is a difference being in the Holy Spirit and being filled with the Holy Spirit to simply prophecy. Read what it says:
"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. 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. And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see."
These are all indications of John physically moving about the throne, actively participating in the event. Not just describing a future event.
John did not go through time over the course of the first century or later watching the Seals being opened. It was an event that John was physically taken by the Holy Spirit to, and actively participated in. Of course time in Paradise goes by even quicker than the effects being played out on earth.
Peter told us not to ignore that the last 1991 years on earth has been as 2 days in Paradise. John going to Paradise from Patmos would not have aged him, and he could have observed all the way to the NHNE without aging at all. Just because John wrote it all down in symbolic form, did not mean he witnessed it in symbolic form. He was literally writing as it happened. A physical act one cannot do while asleep or having visions. John ate the book while in Paradise, not in a dream.
"And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not."
John literally saw the worse case of history that could happen, and wrote down the events as they happened. Yet it has not happened yet for us on earth. It is still future for us on earth, and what John wrote in that future John delivered to the seven churches after leaving Patmos. The book of Revelation has always had useful spiritual applications. But it is also an historical account written in symbolic terms, and John was a literal eye witness to that fact. John is not addressing a court room or judge so he did not have to literally declare what he saw. Yet the symbolism declares literal events with literal consequences. What John witnessed, literally physically happened, not just some vision or dream of symbolism.
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