THE SEVEN SEALED BOOK
and a different pre-trib rapture view
To the Church,
the Body of Christ, of which I am most grateful to be a part.
The Day of the Lord begins the day the 6th and 7th seals are opened, which is the same day.
NOTE:​ That the four angels of the 6th Seal interlude (Rev. 7:1-3) continue with their destructive activity as the first trumpets are sounded (Rev. 8:6-11) shows the continuing chronological order of The Revelation. This helps to establish that there is no parallel or overlap of the 1st Seal with the 1st Trumpet and 1st Vial, or, the 2nd Seal with the 2nd Trumpet and 2nd Vial---and so forth---as is sometimes theorized.​
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PROPOSITION 1
As I began to put forth in PROPOSITION H, the book with seven seals could rightly be entitled, THE DAY OF THE LORD, for this is what the content of this book is all about. Of course, this understanding suggests that the time of God's Day of the Lord judgment will not commence until after the book opens, which would require that the 7th Seal be removed. However, it is after the opening of the 6th Seal that the people cry in their distress, "For the great day of His wrath (or day of His judgment) is come" (Rev. 6:17). But, this seeming discrepancy quickly subsides when it is realized that the 7th Seal will be opened the same day that the 6th Seal is opened. This means that the time of God's judgment will begin the same day that the Church is raptured, which aligns with everything we have considered in Scripture, especially with what Paul wrote to the Thessalonians concerning the rapture and the Day of the Lord (I Thess. 4:16-5:4).
That the 6th and 7th seals will be opened on the same day is easy to deduce when it is realized that the sealing of the 144,000 Jews (Rev. 7:1-8) is something that will take place quickly, as we are sealed at the instant of our salvation. Moreover, though the four angels of Revelation 7:1-3 are told to wait on the destruction they will effect, they are only to wait for as long as it takes to seal these Jews. Then, we see the evidences of their following through on this destruction after the 7th Seal is removed, during the sounding of the first trumpets (cp. Rev. 7:3 with 8:6-9). There is no scriptural timeframe that detracts from the position that the 7th Seal will be opened the same day, or even the same hour, as the 6th Seal.
In light of the above realizations, let's imagine glancing backward for a moment from Christ's opening of the 7th Seal (Rev. 8:1). Try to imagine Jesus in Heaven, after opening the 6th Seal, laying the Seven Sealed Book aside to come to the earth for His Church. Within the moment, after making His "sign" appearance (Matt. 24:30), He and His angels will return to Heaven with the Church (Matt. 24:31) and all of the saints who had gone on before, now in their resurrection bodies. After a time of praising, glorifying, and worshiping God and the Lamb (Rev. 7:9-12), imagine things starting to get quiet. Try to envision Christ at this time with all that are in Heaven looking on. He will reach again for the book, which had been sealed with seven seals. There is just the one seal left. Picking back up with John's account from Revelation chapter eight, we read:
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1 And when He had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in Heaven about the space of half an hour.
2 And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.
3 And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.
4 And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand.
5 And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.
6 And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.
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So, the last seal is removed. Everything is silent in Heaven. It is elementary for us to assume that Christ will now open the cover of the Seven Sealed Book. What will take place at this time is huge---REALLY HUGE. The dust has not settled from what just happened with the opening of the 6th Seal, and now the devastation that will accompany the sounding of the first four trumpets is about to occur. In tandem with the sounding of these trumpets, we can see that the four angels of Revelation 7:1-3 will also continue with the destruction that they had been poised and ready to bring on the earth. As we shall see, not only will the time of God's Day of the Lord judgment have begun, the nature of the devastation that will take place at this time relates in a very interesting way to how things will come together for the fulfilling of the last seven years of Daniel's Seventy Weeks' prophecy.
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