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 continue with their destructive activity as the first trumpets are sounded shows the continuing chronological order of The Revelation. This alone establishes 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 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 say in their distress, "For the great day of His wrath (or the day of His judgment) is come" (Rev. 6:17). This that they are experiencing, though they may not realize it, is the beginning day of "the great and the terrible DAY OF THE LORD," of which Joel prophesied (cp. Joel 2:31; Rev. 6:12-17).
While the cry of the people concerning God's judgment actually happens before the opening of the 7th Seal, this seeming discrepancy with what I mentioned above quickly subsides when it is realized that the 7th Seal will be opened the same day that the 6th Seal is opened. In other words, the rapture of the Church (with the opening of the 6th Seal) and everything else that will happen this day will be a part of the beginning day of God's Day of the Lord judgment. This understanding aligns with everything we have considered so far, especially with what Paul wrote of this in I Thessalonians 4:16 thru 5:4.
That the 6th and 7th seals will be opened the same day can be easily deduced by something that we find concerning the sealing of the 144,000 Israelites at this time (Rev. 7:1-8). First of all, the sealing or salvation of these Jews is something that will take place quickly, as we are sealed at the instant of our being saved. Coupled with this, the four angels of Revelation 7:1-3 are told to wait on the destruction that they are poised to carry out, but only as long as it takes for this sealing to occur. Then, after the opening of the 7th Seal, we see evidences of their following through on their destructive activity as the first trumpets are sounded (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, imagine glancing backward in time to a few moments before 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 the gathering of 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 imagine 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 deduce that Christ will now open the cover of the Seven Sealed Book. With the unsealing of such a book finally taking place, it is easy to reason that what will take place at this time will be huge, and so it is. The dust will not have 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 will occur. As I mentioned earlier, in tandem with the sounding of these trumpets, we see evidences that the four angels of Revelation 7:1-3 will 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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