The Sequence of Revelations - Part 1

I would like to preface this article with the statement that I do not claim this to be the gospel according to me. This is just my understanding of the Book of Revelations that I have derived from many hours of bible study and the reading of many books and articles relating to end-time events. I firmly believe that the Holy Spirit may reveal more end time truths as we get closer to the Day of His appearing, that may have been concealed to our minds and spirits until we, this last generation of believers, will be ready to accept it. How many times have you read the same scripture several times and then at some moment a light clicks on in your mind and you say to yourself, "Aha, that‘s what this verse means!" In this same vein, is how I feel we should approach end-times scripture. While we may have pre-conceived ideas about the latter days, at some point the Holy Spirit may show us an additional truth or something different than what we always believed to be the truth. We should not let pride or the possibility of realizing we may have believed something in error, stop us from accepting what our spirit is showing us to be truth.
I was a pre-trib. rapture believer for several years before I read a book that revolutionized what I understood about the end-times. Now, I believe in the pre-wrath rapture of the church theory and credit must be given to Marv Rosenthal who wrote the book titled, "The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church" and to "Parousia" a newsletter of "The Sign" ministries. Much of the information to follow was gleaned from these two sources. Other bits and pieces were taken from other sources as well as my own studies. I believe this is a part of the knowledge that would be increased as mentioned in Dan. 12:4.
One of the problem that occurs when studying eschatology is what to do with Dispensationalism. The essence of dispensationalism is the distinction between Israel and the church. The failure of it is to believe they are so radically different that God can’t deal with both at the same time. This belief leads to an assumption based on an incorrect conclusion drawn from a biblical truth. The church is not Israel but God can, does and will work with both at the same time. As a result of that misunderstanding, many people assume the term elect as used in Matt. 24: 22 refers only to the jews, but the fact is, every time it is used to denote a group of people, it is speaking of the church. Using that same scripture reference, the elect here could not mean only Israel because Israel will be deceived into believing the a/c is the messiah for a while. Another misinterpretation by those who believe in a pre-trib rapture occurs in Matt. 24:14. "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come." The word gospel here does not mean the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It refers to the specific outline of the end-times and the literal fulfillment of the Olivet Discourse. The word gospel originally meant the reward given to the messenger of good news. Later, in Jesus‘s day, it had come to mean just good news itself. In Paul‘s writings he changed it to mean the gospel of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, of which the belief in gives us forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
Jesus Himself does not know the timing of His return but as prophesied in the Olivet discourse He knows the sequence of events that would lead to His return and He shared them with us. Prior to A.D. 325 the church fathers held what can be called a "post-persecution" rapture belief which leads us to another misunderstanding by those who believe in a pre-trib rapture. Many of them feel that the time of Jacob’s trouble as used in Jeremiah 30:7, refers to whole 70th week of Daniel. It does not mean that at all but refers only to that portion of the 70th week which contains the Lord‘s wrath or The Day of The Lord. This Day follows the Great Trib persecution which begins prior to the midpoint of the 70th week and begins immediately after the rapture.
Why should we concern ourselves with end-times teaching? Because they will be the most significant events to happen in the world since the birth, death and resurrection of Christ. This is His last written word that He gave to John for us. We, the last generation of the church age, have as great a responsibility to the world and the spreading of the gospel, as the apostles did in the first generation of the church age. The promise of blessings is given to those that read, believe and take to heart the book of Revelation. Rev.1:3, (all scripture references will be NIV unless otherwise noted), "Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near." A key verse to understanding Revelations is found in Rev. 1:19, "Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what will take place later". Revelations is in sequential order but there are many areas which pause to explain what has been happening, to introduce characters for identification or to explain what happened in the past to give us a greater understanding of these events as they unfold in the world around us. I will not deal with chapters 2 & 3, the letters to the churches, in this article because they are worthy of a separate one by themselves. I will say this, they may be representative of the various states of the church throughout the ages, but that is not all they are. Many Pre-trib rapture believers use Rev. 3:10 as proof they won‘t enter Daniel‘s 70th week but they are reading into it what they want to hear. The word "from" does not necessarily mean before but could also mean in the midst of, or kept separate from the events as they are occurring as used by Jesus in the example of The Lord’s Prayer and for example while Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were in the midst of the fiery furnace, God kept them safe. Dan. 3:19-27.
The 24 elders in Revelation 4 are often interpreted as representing the 12 tribes and the 12 apostles, thus signifying for some that the church is in heaven at this time. There are two problems with this reasoning. One, the author of this book, John, one of the 12 apostles is not dead. Two, there is a specific point in time that can be pointed to for when this is occurring. In verse 2, it shows one who is sitting on the throne. God is alone at this point. Jesus is not at His right hand. This tells me that we are glimpsing into the past. In chapter 5, vs.6, we see the arrival in heaven of the Lamb of God, looking as if it had been slain. I believe the idea behind this, is he looks freshly slain, so this is most likely occurring right after His death. It is also interesting to note that in vs. 11, John can number thousands upon thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand angels that are singing. This will be important later on.
Satan is not a creator but he does copy or mimic the things of God to deceive people. Much of his and the a/c‘s time on earth will be spent duplicating as closely as possible Jesus Christ in order to convince the world that he is Christ and to convince the jews he is their messiah. The anti in antichrist does not mean against Christ, it means the opposite of Christ, ( for those who are Star trek fans, similar to matter and anti-matter), he wants to replace him. We christians have our Holy Trinity consisting of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Satan has his unholy trinity. In this unholy trinity, Satan wants to replace God, the a/c will be the acting god the son (even mimicking his death and resurrection in Rev. 13:3) and exercising the power of the Holy Spirit will be the false prophet, (compare Acts 1: 8 with Rev. 13:14). Satan will even have an equivalent archangel to Michael, his name is Abaddon or Apollyon as given in Rev. 9:11. They will excel at it as Matt. 24:24 points out. Only the elect, those who are born again with a knowledge of what to look for in the latter days will be able to see through this deception. The events during Daniel’s 70th week will occur like a train leaving from the station. It will start out slowly and then gain in speed and intensity as it picks up steam, roaring towards the climatic end at Armageddon.
Now we come to Rev. 6, the starting point of the seven year covenant that the Anti-Christ (a/c) will sign that begins the 70th week as mentioned in Dan. 9:27. In Matt. 24:3, the disciples ask this question, "...What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" The word "coming" here, is the Greek word parousia. This term is also used in Matt. 24:27, 1 Thess. 4:15, and 2 Thess. 2:1. When used in these instances it is not a verb speaking of a movement but it‘s a noun speaking of an event. Two other Greek words are used to denote coming. The word heko means a person’s presence as in Rev. 2:25 and erchoma, which is a person‘s movement as in Matt. 24:30. The sign will be explained later on.
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke parallel Rev.6 with amazing accuracy. Consider these scriptures:
False Christs: Matt. 24:4-5 Mark 13:5-6 Luke 21:8 Rev. 6:1-2
This is the first seal. The rider on the white horse signifies the false religion personified by the Anti-Christ who conquers by deception. Dan. 7:20 in various translations describe him as one "whose look was more stout" and possessing a "fierce countenance". In all he will be an imposing figure. Definitely not someone you would want to cross, but cross him we shall. There is one area in which he will differ from Christ. His spokesman, the false prophet, will come after him and will build him up, much like an athlete’s/actor‘s agent does. A type of John the Baptist but after the fact and not before.
Wars/rumors of wars: Matt. 24:6-7a Mark 13:7-8a Luke 21:9-10 Rev. 6:3-4
This is the second seal. The rider on the red horse signifies the power to conquer with a sword and to take peace from the earth.
Famines: Matt. 24:7b Mark 13:8b Luke 21:11a Rev. 6:5-6
This is the third seal. The rider on the black horse brings famine. This could be the false prophet because it speaks of things financial in the midst of famine