THE SEVEN SEALS OF REVELATION LEAD TO AND INCLUDE THE RAPTURE

The seven seals are amazing. The Lord wants us to know important events that are to come. And the information about these important events come from a scroll with seven seals that could only be opened by one person. Only one person was worthy to open this scroll. As the song says, “Worthy is the Lamb” because the Lamb of God, who is also the Lion of Judah, is the only one who could do it.

Many people today, try to say that the seven seals have already started, which as of this date, May 21, 2018, we can know that it has not. How can we know? We know because the first one has not happened yet. When it does, we will all know in short order. The first one is when “a crown and the authority to conquer” are given to the Antichrist. Somehow people mistake this rider of this white horse as our Lord. Jesus will not come and be the first of four horses at the rapture. At the rapture, He will come on clouds, stop in the air and call His people up. He will not be coming down on the earth or go about destruction with a crown that has to be given to Him. He already has His crown and He sits at the right hand of Father God. The Lord does ride a white horse at Armageddon and the armies of heaven will be riding with him (at the conclusion of the seven years). You can read more about it at Two White Horses, Two Very Different Riders Two Different Times.

In the article linked to, at the bottom of this blog, one can see how closely the seals correlate with Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21. The seven seals lead to the Rapture which will happen midway in the last seven years of this age. The Christians that are killed and referenced during the fifth seal, are not converts after the rapture which the Bible never says will happen; on the contrary, they are some of the believers which will be slain as things worsen in these last of the last days, just as the Bibles says will happen (Matthew 24:9, 21-22, Mark 13:12, Luke 21:16-17).

• Revelation 6:9-11 When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.
  

Christians will not have to live through God's wrath that will be poured out with the seven trumpets and seven bowls after the Rapture and after the sealing of the 144,000 Jews (12,000 from each tribe of Israel - which happens before the first trumpet blows as we know from Revelation 7:1-4). The first half of the seven years is tribulation for everyone, but the second half is the judgment and wrath of God upon the wicked. The “last trumpet” that sounds at the rapture that Paul wrote about in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 and Jesus told us about Matthew 24:31 is not the last trumpet of the seven that John saw and wrote about in the book of Revelation. John's 7th trumpet is after 6 bowls of the wrath of God are poured out upon the wicked of this earth. The last trumpet of Paul in 1 Thessalonians is the last trumpet because it will mark the “end of the age of salvation” for mankind. The two witnesses will have preached for 1260 days (3 ½ years) and the Gospel will have gone out to the whole earth as the Lord said it would before His return to get us (Matthew 24:14). The last trumpet at the rapture marks the end for the wicked as well as the call for God's children. In order to believe that the last trumpet of the book of Revelation is the trumpet of the rapture, one would have to believe that all Christians will have to live through God's wrath. This would also called a post-trib view.

The seven seals are much different from the seven trumpets and seven bowls in two very interesting ways. 1- The seals do not involve being distributed by angels as the trumpets and bowls do. 2- The seals tell us of future events involving what the church and world will go through while the trumpets and bowls are the judgment and wrath of God are clearly upon the wicked.

For more information on how the 6th and 7th seals are the rapture and more of an in-depth look at the seven seals, please consider the article: The Seven Seals of Revelation.

E. Cockrell