Seals 5 and 6 - Rumor notes 30

 

As discussed in the previous chapter, I believe the best way to view the nature of these seals, given the context of how they appear in the flow of this narrative, is that they most likely represent a perfect (7) system of compelling lies and insinuations crafted by the most brilliant created mind to distract and derail attention from, and dependence on God as the source of all life, wisdom and knowledge. Because this attack has resulted in a serious erosion of trust in God's system of governing, the evidence desperately needed to diffuse the power of these charges must be publicly exposed. Yet the lies themselves are designed to reinforce each other and keep truth covered up, making this matrix of complex lies so effective that it can appear God's reputation might never be restored fully.

We might assume we are safe interpreting this last horseman as clearly being connected to the enemy, and we could be right. However, we can still be in danger of subtle deception if we continue to harbor beliefs that at times God will resort to using some or all of these things to manipulate or punish those who resist His will. Because this war is primarily over methods and motives, we must be very alert to the reality that what we believe about God is the focal point of contention. This war is primarily one putting God on trial, not us. Only from this perspective can we see how everything fits together perfectly and that those who follow the Lamb will not participate in accusing God of ever employing tactics or having motives like those of His enemies.

[Explore how the East is the location of the only gate into the sanctuary. The East is represented by the Lion which represents emotions/feelings. Thus, when feelings become the primary motivation behind the use of our will, that divine piece of authority entrusted to us by God, we become susceptible to be fully manipulated by the enemy who captures our authority which he turns against us to erode our very ability to make free choices until we become so hardened by sin that it becomes impossible to repent.

We were not designed to rely on our emotions to be the deciding factor in our character development. While feelings and emotions compose an important aspect of our makeup, they will prove fatal to our eternal salvation if we allow them to capture the ascendancy over our will. Our intellect and objective capacity to think, reason and make decisions based on truth apart from feelings is the critical point where freedom is either used in our restoration or is given up and destroyed through self-indulgence and lower passions, transforming us into habitations of demons. This is the last great deception of Satan he is relying on now to take control over all who dwell on the earth, all who give themselves over to their feelings instead of surrendering their will back to their rightful Creator.]

When sword, famine, death or exposure to violent wild animals come, it is a temptation to imagine God is at work in punishing them. We can easily get sucked into assuming His motives are similar to how He is portrayed to by the enemy of souls. Yet this is precisely why the Lamb of God was sent to take away the sin of the world, for the sin of the world is distrust of God resulting from lies we believe. These kinds of attitudes about how God treats His enemies are what has given sin such power to influence not only our perceptions about Him, but have also affected unfallen beings who likewise needed their perceptions corrected to see God in a true light.

Now is the judgment of this world. Now the prince of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all [people] to myself. (John 12:32)

First we must realize that any word inserted after the all here does not originate in the original language. It comes from translators who think they know what Jesus meant to say and don't allow it to read the way He actually intended. This is because of our self-focused obsession with making sinners the center of the war instead of God. The influence of Lucifer's subtle deceptions that instigated the original rebellion in heaven before this world was even created caused enormous damage to God's reputation, and that damage is still being remedied through the ever increasing light of truth brought to view by the Son of God whose main purpose is to restore complete confidence in God, not just among humans but throughout the entire universe of intelligent beings far beyond our tiny planet.

What we are witnessing in Revelation is merely what is being acted out on the main stage that the whole universe is intently watching. For it is on this stage that the contest between the truth and the lie about God are confronting each other with increasing intensity. What the Lamb is exposing in this first wave of His assault is the enemy's concentration of lies saturated on our planet that fill the minds and hearts of humans. This world is the primary location of this war, but its influence extends far beyond the confines of humans alone, which is why Jesus often addressed far more than mere humans when He spoke at times. He was addressing not only supernatural forces directly involved in various situations but also had vital revelations of truth directed at heavenly watchers and other observers with a keen interest in clearing up every last doubt about the true nature of God's character.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching for who or what kind of time the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, pointed to, when he predicted the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that would follow them. To them it was revealed, that not to themselves, but to you, they ministered these things, which now have been announced to you through those who preached the Good News to you by the Holy Spirit sent out from heaven; which things angels desire to look into. (1 Peter 1:10-12)

Fifth Seal

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been killed for the Word of God, and for the testimony of the Lamb which they had. They cried with a loud voice, saying, "How long, Master, the holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?"

A long white robe was given to each of them. They were told that they should rest yet for a while, until their fellow servants and their brothers, who would also be killed even as they were, should complete their course. (Revelation 6:9-11)

First a reminder that we are dealing with symbols. This is one of the keys we are to use consistently in our study of this book so as to remain tuned to understand the real intent and receive the blessing from reading promised at the beginning. This passage is not proof that people's souls live on after death in some form of intelligent activity, for that contradicts the clear teachings of Scripture. Rather, what we find here is an analogy of how living people in the present perceive the history of God's dealings with those in the past and how that affects our thinking about what is transpiring in history and what God is like. The expression of souls as being seen under the altar really relates to our imagination when we rehearse what happened to God's loyal followers in the past that often seems so unsettling because it appears that God's enemies have gotten off with murder without due punishment.

By using this analogy of souls martyred for clinging to allegiance to God, what is exposed here is not only the attitude of those who died, but more importantly a mindset, both in some martyrs as well as in many of us resulting from faulty concepts of what God is supposed to do about injustice and crimes committed against Him through the deaths of His children. This seal is really an alert intended to expose one of the most deeply embedded lies that continues to affect the thinking of God's followers. This is why the Lamb alone has the power and credibility to expose and dispel this lie, for the disposition of the Lamb alone fully reveals the heart of the Father like no other, and the heart of God is a heart free of any contamination by desires for revenge.

I believe the key to understanding the true intent of this metaphor is to contrast the desires of these martyrs for retribution on those who killed them, with the disposition and attitude of the Lamb when He suffered a fate similar to what they experienced. We must keep in mind here that it is the Lamb who is opening these seals, so the light from the Lamb is what we must use for every seal as our only means of interpretation. If we rely on any other venue to interpret these symbols, we will lose sight of what this is really about and fall into the snares of Satan whose greatest weapon are subtle insinuations and lies about God's motives and methods causing us to likewise desire what these souls are represented as desiring – judgment and vengeance worldly style. This desire merely exposes how deep the infection of commerce permeates our thinking. Only the Lamb has the credibility to expose and heal this sinister infection that continues to retain such control over our thinking.

Let's begin by unpacking the clues from the symbols found here. We start with the altar as the location of these souls and allow Scripture to provide important clues as we assemble evidence in a way that can make sense out of what we are reading here.

The altar of sacrifice was where things are mentioned as being under the altar. The life blood from the following sacrifices were instructed to be poured out at the base of this altar:

A bull used to dedicate the priests (Ex 29:1; Lev 8:14)

A calf on the eighth day of this dedication offered as a sin offering of atonement for the high priest (Lev 9:1-2,7-8)

A bull for sin of a priest bringing guilt on the people (Lev 4:3)

A bull for unintentional sin by the whole assembly of Israel (Lev 4:13-15)

A male goat for unwitting sin by a ruler (Lev 4:22-23)

A female goat for unwitting sin by a common person (Lev 4:27-28)

A female lamb for unwitting sin by a common person (Lev 4:32)

For miscellaneous sins of a person, blood from a female lamb or goat, or for the very poor a turtledove or young pigeon (Lev 5:1-7)

Contrast this with the the purpose of the only other altar, the Altar of Incense which represents communication with God by His followers and is witnessed in chapter 8.

Another angel came and stood over the altar, having a golden censer. Much incense was given to him, that he should add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. (Revelation 8:3)

those who had been killed for the Word of God, and for the testimony of the Lamb which they had

This coupling is a key for connecting the dots of an important thread found in this book. I believe we can see how God is nudging His children to progress through various stages of maturing their understanding of His true character until they finally come to embrace the complete truth about Him and their reflection of Him finally is free of all taint of the lies of the enemy.

The dragon grew angry with the woman, and went away to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep God's commandments and hold Jesus' testimony. (Revelation 12:17)

Who are the rest of her seed mentioned here? This correlates to what is mentioned in the fifth seal.

until their fellow servants and their brothers, who would also be killed even as they were, should complete their course

This war is over what we will believe about God, and the Lamb alone provides clear revelation of this truth. What happens throughout this book is God moving His followers from immature perceptions about Him into better understanding and appreciation of His true character until they come to embrace His motives alone and let go of every false notion about what we think God should do to overcome evil. This is seen clearly in the opening of this seal. After exposing the four facets of the enemy who controls this world through the 4 horsemen, the Lamb now shifts our attention to the children of God who need to upgrade their opinions about how the war should be fought and what it will require to bring closure to the reign of evil.

Those referenced as relying on the same two sources as these martyrs, the rest of those to be killed, are ones who at the end of time are willing to have their views of God upgraded beyond what those in the past have presumed about Him. We see increasingly as we near the end of this book how God is refining all who are willing to cooperate to reflect only the purist reflection of God like the Lamb exhibits. This will require discarding our desires for vengeance to rely on the Lamb alone to define the motives and methods defining a true overcomer. These will be people who complete the course, for they mature beyond those in the past who, though loyal to God, failed to fully grasp the true nature of how God defeats evil with good, not through Satan's kind of justice.

While it is true these martyrs were killed for their testimony of the Lamb, their testimony was not based on a mature understanding of the truth revealed by Jesus. Today many remain deeply infected by similar immature ideas about the testimony of the Lamb, which is why God invites us to also come up higher to see things from heaven's perspective as offered us through this book.

A long white robe was given to each of them.

From our previous study of white garments we know this refers to righteous acts of the saints. Yet does this infer that these souls under the altar were not righteous when they were alive? Or does this imply a certain validity of false theories promoting notions that the righteousness of Jesus is currency we need to pay a debt God holds against us, because nothing we can do has enough value to satisfy Him? No, we must refuse to indulge in such base thinking about God. Rather, we need to see God through the revelation of the Lamb alone in order to get these things into proper perspective.

Consider this angle for understanding these phrases. When martyrs in the past were killed, it was often done by people insisting that those being martyred were the ones in the wrong. They portrayed their victims as requiring punishment and that God was furious with them for disrupting long-held religious tradition. The martyrs were viewed as disruptive to peace and harmony. In other words, their choice to be loyal to God more than religion put them at odds with those viewing them as deserving of punishment for daring to defy traditions of religion, so their deaths were intended to defame or destroy their reputations and to make them despicable in the minds of everyone around. This was just as much an attack on their reputation as on their lives, which is just what Jesus experienced.

What I see this describing is rehabilitation of the reputation of all who have been martyred for clinging to the truth as they knew it, truth about the goodness of God even while it was an immature truth. Their reputation was not to be left in the dirt like those who killed them intended, but needs to be exonerated for their allegiance to God. However, that does not vindicate their testimony as being mature enough to be embraced by future generations. Remember that Jesus pointed this out to the bigoted religious leaders of His day who later killed Him just as their ancestors had killed the prophets. What He was sharing with them and us, is that just because we might honor martyrs in the past does not mean we are free of the same spirit as those who killed them. Simply honoring saints of the past who suffered at the hands of religious intolerance does not put us on the right side.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and decorate the tombs of the righteous, and say, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn't have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.' Therefore you testify to yourselves that you are children of those who killed the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna?

Therefore, behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city; that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar. Most certainly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to you desolate. (Matthew 23:29-38)

Jesus here contrasts the difference between His methods and those relied on by religion. Religion presumes God must resort to violence to settle the debt of sins committed by those who defy Him, and this results in persecuting and killing those who refuse to embrace that view. Why? Because we ultimately reflect the kind of God we believe Him to be in our mind and act out accordingly.

This is another reason to not identify too much with, or depend on emulating former martyrs as our example. What we see here are immature views of God held by former martyrs. But using them as our example will not free us from the infection of desire for vengeance that is seen in their level of maturity. It might have been plausible for them in their immature ignorance of the revelation of God brought to light by the Lamb, but to emulate them instead of following the Lamb alone ourselves can turn us into persecutors while imagining that we are honoring God.

These things have I spoken to you, so that you wouldn't be caused to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time comes that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God. (John 16:1-2)

they should rest yet for a while

Notice how the message given to these souls does not comply with what they demand. This is consistent with the nature of the New Song which is a major element brought to light in this book. The New Song is our only antidote with sufficient power to lift us all the way out of darkness, because this song is like the Tree of Life – there is no darkness in it at all, it is only life-giving.

Instead of censuring these martyrs for not seeing God properly, they are told what can satisfy them most – entering into God's rest. This is the theme of the book of Hebrews and is close to the core of what is fought over in this war. Rest means choosing to let go of everything that creates tension, worry, doubt and fear. Rest means choosing to trust God's heart beyond what we can imagine as possible, resting in the Lamb's version of God instead of the immature version of Moses. This is why there is a difference between the Song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb. It is the Lamb who alone gives us the true rest that can result in experiencing peace beyond understanding.

There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For he who has entered into his rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from his. Let us therefore give diligence to enter into that rest, lest anyone fall after the same example of disobedience. (Hebrews 4:9-11)

Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. (Jude 1:21)

I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became as blood. The stars of the sky fell to the earth, like a fig tree dropping its unripe figs when it is shaken by a great wind. The sky was removed like a scroll when it is rolled up. Every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

The kings of the earth, the princes, the commanding officers, the rich, the strong, and every slave and free person, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains. They told 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 his wrath has come; and who is able to stand?" (Revelation 6:12-17)

It is very tempting at this point to step away from reliance on the second key from verse one of this book and insist that this is referring to literal events on earth. While I do not deny these may well be literal events, I cling to the principle of first doing everything possible to unlock the symbolic meaning of each phrase before releasing it to apply to literal explanations. Otherwise it is all too easy to rush past vital revelations and thus make serious mistakes in our observations of how everything fits together in this book and how each one affects the flow and progression laid out. So I want us to turn our attention to potential meanings of each of these things relying on Scripture to be our primary medium for interpretation and remaining faithful to the Lamb as the only accurate revelation of the Father's heart.

If an earthquake can be symbolic, what might that look like? Well, what might the earth itself represent in the context of this war between light and darkness, truth and lies? We will soon see a key phrase that shows up repeatedly throughout this book that goes like this, all those who dwell on the earth. This is found to apply to all who resist the mercy and kindness of God designed to produce repentance, all who cling to reliance on Satan's methods and who fight against the truth the Lamb brings to light. These are described by Jesus when He defined the true nature of judgment.

This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and doesn't come to the light, lest his works would be exposed. (John 3:19-20)

If these are what is described in Revelation as those who dwell on the earth, then what might a mighty earthquake look like in that context?

Shaking the earth just might be an symbol of a massive upheaval brought on by revelation of truth in the titanic struggle between truth and lies, light and darkness. The reverberations this could cause could upend everything we long thought was settled and firm as everything is challenged. This may well relate to the final shaking time that polarizes the world as motives and character becomes exposed.

The sun became black as sackcloth made of hair

Just as the sun is the main source of light for our planet, it can represent God who is the source of all life and truth. When the light of the world brought to us by the Lamb becomes obscured by pervasive unbelief and distortions about God so thoroughly that it becomes nearly impossible to find truth, would that fit this symbol of the sun becoming black? And why might sackcloth made of hair be used as representing what darkens the sun? What might we learn from that symbol?

Let's connect available clues found primarily in this book but extending to other Scriptures when possible. Here is the only other reference in Revelation to sackcloth, and it gives important context to what this might refer to symbolically here.

I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred sixty days, clothed in sackcloth. (Revelation 11:3)

Students of prophecy will know that this number 1260 was used in Daniel as well. It is most likely this refers to the prophetic period of 1260 years that covered what we call the dark ages, after Satan hijacked the movement Jesus began on earth and turned the gospel completely on its head. The result of the massive assault of dark lies, insinuations, assertions and hideous teachings about God that took over Christianity during those dark centuries nearly obliterated the glorious revelation exposed by the cross of Jesus. By forcing the narrative of the cross of Christ into the mold of trading and commerce principles, the light of truth was nearly lost entirely before the reemergence of a new dawn began in the 1800's and continues to expand yet today.

I see this as a very good fit to explain the sun being blackened by sackcloth as connected by this verse in chapter 11. This is not to suggest that the same thing might happen again, maybe this time in literal days rather than prophetic time. So too, these events may well be exhibited in literal events in nature, but I believe it is a mistake to insist this refers primarily to physical events instead of sticking with seeking first a symbolic application and leaving the door open for other applications to apply secondarily.

the whole moon became as blood

Moon gives off reflected light. Appearing like blood could infer confusion assuming that Scripture confirms ideas about punitive vengeance by God or evolution discrediting humanity's design to reflect God's character. Sun darkened, moon red, both are light obscuring, darkening the truth revealed in Jesus that has been blocked or twisted by those in His church on earth.

stars of the sky fell to the earth, like a fig tree dropping its unripe figs when it is shaken by a great wind

With the sun and moon obscured, the stars are the only light left, yet they too are fallen. Stars can represent angels, leaders of God's people or any leaders that people look up to for guidance or identity.