Wed.’s Devo - The Seven Seals

Read: Revelation 4-8
It took me forever to get through the churches but I think it is so important to see that Revelation is the Gentile history. The seals are just as thought provoking but they go back and follow the church ages. Every book that was unsealed was really a scroll with a seal around it. Every church age was given a revelation that the messenger of that church opened. Once opened, that truth was forever opened and passed on through the ages. It is revelation being revealed through time. Only Jesus is able to bring revelation, so he alone is able to open the seals. He does it with much pomp and circumstance as all heaven eagerly waits and watches. The first seal was opened and a man on a white horse comes out with a bow and a crown. His mission is to conquer. During the first church age the Nicolatians arose in the church. Their name means “to conquer the laity”. They had a bow but no sword. They defied the Word of God and wrote their own. They had a crown - no spiritual authority yet the pronounced war on the Saints of God. The first organized church came from the Roman Catholic Church. She is the whore of Revelations 17. In the first church in Ephesus they tried to take the Holy Spirit out of the church and give it all to one “Holy Man”. He starts out being the Anti-christ but he will morph into the false prophet then the Devil himself.
The second seal opens with the entrance of a red horse and a man sitting on him to take peace from the earth. He was given a sword. The next church age was marked with the blood of the martyrs and the growth of the Catholic church. Where the first age only had the spirit of anti-christ, the second age had men who stood in these offices that were crowned with honor and worship. They were more powerful and the anti-christ sprit became a false prophet.
The third seal was opened and a man on a black horse came forth holding balances in his hand. Balances have to do with justice and you see who is holding it. Not the church! Constantine tried to socialize the church and control the people. This was not justice. God wants a people who choose him, not that are ordered to worship him. Persecution only served to strengthen the church. The wheat for a penny and three measures of barley for a penny had to do with the famine and persecution during this age.
The forth beast brought forth a pale horse with Death as the rider and Hell following him. He was given power to kill one forth of the earth with war, hunger, death and the beasts of the earth. Death stands for the anti-christ. It is on a pale horse which is all the other horses mixed together. It is the spirit of anti-christ, political power and spiritual power all mixed into one great anti-christ power. None of these horses had a name till now because before they were not saying. Now we see that their names are Death and Hell. This was the age where the church actually named it’s first Pope.
The opening of the fifth seal revealed the altar and the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God and their testimony. They were given robes of white and told to rest for a little time. When Martin Luther nailed his 38 Thesis to the church door it was the beginning of much persecution. He was labeled a heretic which means whoever killed him would be honored. Persecution spread like never before and many were martyred for their faith. Those martyred then will coincide with the 144,00 Jews that will become martyrs in the end.
The opening of the sixth seal revealed an earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth and the moon became as blood. Stars of heaven fell to the earth and even the fig tree casted untimely figs when she was shaken by the wind. Not only is this a picture of the tribulation that went on during that church age but of the last and Great Tribulation before Jesus comes back.
The opening of the seventh seal came with seven trumpets blasting. Hopefully, all these blasts will happen after we are raptured to heaven. In them is the total destruction of the earth which leads right up to Armageddon. I have no great insights on this. I feel like it is yet to be revealed.
Lord, prepare us for what is ahead and let us march fearlessly through the future.