This is my seventh trip through the book of Revelation. The insight I received this time, however, I received while driving. I realized early on, as I read through the book the third time, it was not a book you could understand with your natural mind, and the harder I tried to understand the book, the more frustrated I became. I could see it must be spiritually discerned, but you can’t force the spirit to discern. The understanding must be allowed to come naturally, as you meditate on it.
This time as I was driving along, I started thinking about the scroll with the seven seals from Revelation chapter five. I asked myself, what is a seal? A seal is a device used to join two things together to keep them from coming apart. In this case, the seal joins a scroll together so it cannot come apart, thus, locking the information contained on the scroll inside. This scroll has seven seals, so as the first seal is broken, the scroll would partially unroll, revealing what is written on the first part of the scroll. However, the scroll would be sealed a second time, requiring a breaking of the second seal in order to continue unrolling the scroll, and on to seven seals.
The scroll contains secrets. The seal is there to keep the information written on the scroll secret. Jesus is the only one found in all creation worthy to unlock the seals and reveal the secrets. I believe this is because these secrets concern Jesus. They are His secrets to tell. However, going back to my first post on the book of Revelation, the secrets are not secret. They were published by the Old Testament prophets.
Let’s go back to my first post. In it I quoted Deuteronomy 29:29: “The secret things belong to our God but those things revealed belong to us and our children forever,” and Luke 8:17, “Nothing is secret that will not be revealed.” The book of Revelation is about secrets that are revealed. Revelation 10:7 states, “The mystery of God should be finished, as He has declared to His servants the prophets.” This verse speaks of the end of the mystery of God but it also states the mystery of God was revealed to the prophets and the prophets do not keep the mystery; they publish it. In other words, the secrets have been told.
How can you have a known secret? If the Old Testament prophets told these secrets, they are no longer secrets, correct? Obviously, the secrets contained on the scroll are a very big deal. After searching all over creation, there is only one found worthy to break the seals and publish the secrets and the breaking of the seven seals unleashes a mighty war on the face of the earth. The first seal unleashes a conqueror. The second seal unleashes a war. The third seal unleashes an attack on economies. The fourth seal unleashes death. The fifth seal unleashes those killed for their faith to petition God for judgment on those who killed them.
The sixth seal unleashes that judgment on those who fought against the servants of God and killed them. This is the end of chapter six and I believe the end of the first half of the tribulation period. Chapter seven begins back at the beginning of chapter six and gives another perspective of what is happening as the six seals are broken. Chapter eight begins with the opening of the seventh seal. The opening of the seventh seal marks the beginning of the second half of the tribulation period and continues what began in the opening of the sixth seal.
It has been several years now that I set out to understand the scripture more deeply than I had in the past. We are told that Jesus died on the cross on Friday, was in hell till Sunday morning, when He arose from the dead. John’s gospel, however, in John 19:31, tells us the day Jesus died was before a high Sabbath day. The Jews observed a Sabbath day every Saturday but they also had high days that were observed by date, not day of the week. Passover was one of these high days and it occurred on the 15th day of Nissan every year. The fifteenth day of the month would only occur on Saturday once every seven years. Jesus said, “I will be in the heart of the earth three days and nights,” Matthew 12:40, and there is no way to get three days and nights from Friday at 3:00 to Sunday at 5:00. Jesus did not die on Friday.
This is an example of a secret that has been published but is still secret. Ninety nine percent of the Church still observes Jesus’ death on Friday; even though the scriptures clearly tell us it was on Wednesday that He died. Thursday was the High Sabbath of Passover; Friday was the day of preparation for the regular Sabbath, which occurred on Saturday. Jesus arose a “great while before day” on Sunday. This makes three days and three nights just as Jesus said. Once I realized what I had been taught was wrong, I set about to know what else I believed was nonfactual.
Now, let’s look at some historical truth. For a long period of time, the Catholic Church was the supreme ruler of the known world. In an effort to keep the gospel message pure, anyone who held a view other than the Catholic view was labeled a heretic and killed. Thousands of people were killed under the authority of the Catholic Church and in the name of God during this time. According to Revelation chapter six, the revealing of the first secret causes a great leader to step forward. It appears the purpose of this leader is to make war on God’s saints. In other words, the first secret Jesus tells will be such an affront to the established church; it will feel a need to squash it.
The Church of today does not have the political clout of the Catholic Church of the dark ages, so it will have to forge an alliance with modern governments. We have seen a general rise in animosity toward Christianity over the last several years and the next great revival may bring this animosity to a frenzied pitch. So, we know we are about 1,993 years past Jesus’ death on the cross and the establishment of the new covenant age. We know each age is a 2,000 year period of time, which means we are about seven years from the end of the third age, and we know Jesus sets up a kingdom on the earth at the beginning of the fourth age.
We know Jesus will come back in the air to call the dead in Christ back to life. It appears this occurs near the beginning of the tribulation period. Jesus comes with three things; He comes with a loud command; He comes with the voice of instruction; and He comes with a trumpet blast. The voice of instruction may be the seven secrets. Another of the secrets I have gleaned from the scriptures that the church is unable to hear is the truth of the new covenant.
Jesus perfectly kept the old covenant law, then died under penalty of its curse, to redeem mankind from the old covenant. After this, He established a new covenant. A covenant is a contract. Once the old covenant was fulfilled, keeping it no longer produced any benefits. The church though, continues to try to keep the old covenant to reap the benefits of obedience. The new covenant is a revealed secret. When the dead in Christ go out preaching the new covenant, as it has been revealed, there is no doubt it will cause an uprising in the established church, which will see this new movement as a threat to what it sees as the true gospel. The Church will make an alliance with the government and will put many converted Christians to death. These are the souls we see under the altar in Revelation 6:9.
The dead in Christ, having had the secret things of God revealed to them, will be very motivated to preach the secrets to mankind. Many living Christians will convert to the new covenant, and many of these will be put to death. Those who are “alive and remain,” will be raptured out with the risen dead and these are they we see in Revelation 7:13-14. After this the testimony of the two witnesses takes over and the war between mankind and God is centralized in Jerusalem. The first six seals cover the first three and one half years of the tribulation period.
Chapter 8 begins with the breaking of the seventh seal. Now, each of these seals opens a truth that was foretold in the second age, the age of the Jews, or old covenant age. These truths were not accepted by God’s people, however, and so God resealed them. Again, in Romans 9:33 it is revealed God placed a stumbling stone in Jesus’ Church and in Acts 1:4, it is revealed the baptism with the Holy Spirit is the Father’s gift to the Church. The Church stumbles over this gift even to this day and rejects the commandments of the new covenant in an attempt to live under the old covenant. The church attempts to use the blood of the cross to wash away sins committed against obsolete commandments.
The revealed secrets of God are resealed, having been rejected by those who would benefit by them. This resealing of the revealed secrets of God are an indictment on those who should have embraced them, thus, their reopening will unleash judgment. The Church has established itself on the keeping of the old covenant and these secrets, when revealed again will be seen as threatening the very existence of the established Church. Jesus will allow the established church to attack those who embrace the secrets as judgment for their failure to do so before. Jesus allows His enemies to rail against Him but each time, He returns their attack with calamity. In Chapter 8, this reaches a fevered pitch. Every calamity is designed to cause men to repent but mankind hardens its heart against God.
Now, again, who is this God who is at war with the people of earth and the demonic forces that backs them? In Matthew 28:18, Jesus tells His disciples, “All power is given unto me in heaven and earth,” so there is no power, no authority, that has not been given to Jesus in heaven or in earth. Colossians 2:9 reveals, “For in Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Paul calls Jesus the blessed only Potentate and Jude calls Jesus the only wise God. Philippians 2, if I can remind you, says the Father highly exalted Jesus, giving Him the name above every other name.
After Jesus was laid across the heavenly altar and His throat was cut and His life poured out in a bowl, the Father infused His own life into Jesus, so when you look at Jesus, you see the Father and when you look at the Father, you see Jesus. The two are one. These are secrets, secrets revealed by the old covenant prophets but rejected by the early Church and resealed by the Father to be revealed again by Jesus at the end.
The world will rebel against these secrets and its rebellion will be met with judgment from Jesus. Jesus is the one who suffered and died to give mankind eternal life, first as redeemer from the law, then as the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world. To assign the glory due Him to another will be met with terrible consequences but a certain population of earth will only bow when Jesus knocks their knees out from under them. Jesus will have His revenge.
Chapter 10 begins with an angel coming down out of heaven with a cloud and a rainbow about his head. The angel has a small scroll open in his hand. He calls out in a loud voice and seven thunders answer him but what the seven thunders say is kept secret. Then the angel makes a vow to the God of heaven.
Here we see this phrase again; God’s secret plan that He announced to His servants the prophets. Throughout history the prophets have written out the words of God. God’s secret is meant to be discovered by those who seek it. The scroll is not sealed; nor is it closed. This scroll is open, but the secret is not told here. We know the secret has to do with God’s promise to mankind because of the rainbow. The scroll was sweet in John’s mouth because the promise is sweet, but because the promise was rejected by mankind, it became bitter in John’s belly.
This scroll probably contains 1John 2:2: “He is the propitiation of our sins, but not ours alone, He is the propitiation of the sins of the entire world.” The word, propitiate, means to make right with God. When Jesus fulfilled the old covenant law, He fulfilled it for all mankind. This made all mankind right with God and Jesus gave His righteousness to all mankind as a free, undeserved gift, unmerited favor, because of God’s love. All mankind wears this righteousness as a robe. All mankind had to do to make heaven its home was keep the three commandments of Jesus.
The promise, however, is not heaven. It is back in Genesis that God destroyed the world that then was with a flood because of mankind’s wickedness, but afterward God made a covenant with mankind and promised to never again destroy the world and placed His rainbow in the sky. There is an unknown here. The story of the flood is well known in Christian circles and outside those circles; the importance of the covenant or its terms is not. Mankind failed to realize the importance of the promise. When mankind realizes the mistake it has made, the sweetness of the promise will become bitterness and gall in its belly. As Jesus said, “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Chapter 11 begins with the two witnesses and again we are at the half way point in the tribulation period. The 1,260 days is right at three and one half years. The dead in Christ have been called back from the dead, given instruction, and have gone out preaching the new covenant. Many Christians have been converted, quite a few have been put to death by the established Church, and the precious fruit of the earth has been reaped. This all took place in the first three and one half years. The chapters keep folding back upon themselves, with each chapter telling a different story of the period of time it is addressing. Chapter 11 ends with the end of the new covenant age.
Chapter 12 begins with a story that seems to cover the time from Jesus’ birth through the Church age. Its symbolism comes from God’s perspective. Chapter 13 tells of the governments that are formed during the tribulation period. Strange and different alliances will be formed as the Church joins with secular society. Satan will be revealed as the force behind the Church. There is nothing mysterious about the number 666; the number six is the number for man, 666, is the number for mankind. As the tribulation period progresses, mankind will become more and more unified against the perceived threat and as at the tower of babble, seemingly, nothing is impossible with them, at least from their viewpoint.
Chapter 14, again, skips to the end of the tribulation period. The 144,000 are the Jews from the twelve tribes of Israel we see back in chapter seven. They have come through the tribulation period, where they were tortured for their unbelief. Jesus stands on mount Zion. Mount Zion is typically translated, the Church, so it is likely Jesus is standing on the foundation of the Church. The 144,000 are Jews, from the old covenant era, people who belong to the Father. They represent the union of the two ages, the age of the Church and the age of the Jews.
Now, when I speak of the Church, I’m really talking about two entities. There is an established organization called, church, made up of lots of denominations, and groups, and peoples. When Jesus begins to break the seals and publish the secrets, these many different entities will coalesce into two groups: those who embrace the secrets and those who feel threatened by them.
What are the six secrets Jesus reveals in Revelation 6? The first could be the truth that Jesus was born a man of Mary’s womb. He was not the God-man; He was simply, man. The second secret could be the truth that Jesus fulfilled the old covenant law through His death on the cross. A fulfilled law is null and void and keeping it doesn’t add up to anything. The third secret could be the truth that Jesus established a new covenant after He had fulfilled the old covenant and it is in the keeping of the new covenant that mankind becomes citizens of heaven. The fourth secret could be that Jesus’ death on the cross does not provide atonement for sin.
The fifth secret could be that the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the death of hell by simply asking Satan if he had found any sin in Jesus. Having inspected Jesus for sin, Satan could not keep Jesus in hell; hell was made for sinners, and had to release Him. Jesus raised His body from the grave because He was righteous upon His death, undeserving of death, and ascended into heaven where He presented Himself blameless before the Father. The sixth secret could be the truth that the Father laid Jesus across the altar of heaven and Jesus became the perfect sacrifice for sin. The seventh secret could be that Jesus died; the Father infused His own life into Jesus, making Jesus God’s Son, begotten of the Father.
These are Jesus’ secrets to tell. The Old Testament prophets foretold all these secrets; they are hidden only to those who refuse to believe. These truths are heresy to the Church and are an affront to its doctrine and dogma. These truths, if allowed to stand uncontested, signal death to the established Church, whose very foundation stands in opposition to these truths. These truths cannot be allowed to stand and anyone preaching these truths will have to be put to death.
Consider the foundational truths of the Church we know today. Jesus could not divorce Himself of His Godhood and came to earth as the God-man. He was fully God and fully man. The new covenant is merely a remodeling of the old covenant. Mankind must continue to keep the Ten Commandments and repent of transgressions. The new covenant commandments do not apply. It is Jesus’ death on the cross that provides atonement for sins and it is the blood shed there that washes away sins against the old covenant law. The Father God raised Jesus from the death of hell and it is the Father God that remains ruler over all. Jesus sets at His right hand in heaven, not on His throne.
The truths I have set forth in my studies are a direct assault on all the Church holds dear. If these truths are revealed from heaven, with all the authority and glory placed on Jesus by His Father, the church will rise up against all who embrace these truths and put them to death. Of course, the risen dead in Christ cannot be killed a second time and the church will view them as demons because it cannot kill them.
From Revelation chapter 4, it should be blatantly obvious it is not the Father setting on the throne of heaven. John sees one throne in heaven and He who sets on the throne is He who is the creator of all things and by His will, they are created, a title ascribed to Jesus. John addresses Him who sets on the throne as Lord, a title given to Jesus by God. I believe chapters 4 and 5 are meant to convey Jesus as both Lord and Christ, Him who sets on the throne but also Him who takes the scroll from Him who sets on the throne. Colossians 3:11 states, “Christ is all and in all.”
The church will not be able to abide a doctrine that throws everything it believes out the window as so much garbage. It will not be able to abide a bright and shining truth, a glorious truth that everything it has taught for two thousand years has been wrong. It will rise up with a vehemence unseen before.
During the second half of the tribulation period, the church will establish itself in the city of Jerusalem and plant itself firmly on the foundation of the old covenant saints in an attempt to legitimize itself. The two witnesses are there as a constant reminder of the fallacy of this argument. Eventually Satan will expose himself as the founder of the Catholic Church. Consider the irony, the entity that labels people heretics and puts them to death is itself founded on heresy.
Now, earlier I made this statement: To assign the glory due Him to another will be met with terrible consequences. The church has taken the glory due the Lamb, who was sacrificed and glorified in heaven, and assigned it to the Christ who died on the cross. The church then wipes the sacrifice of Jesus in heaven away, erases it, so that it never existed. The church literally takes the glory due to the Lord and assigns it to the Christ. The church doesn’t see a transformation of Jesus because the church does not see when Jesus was begotten of God. The book of Revelation is about the destruction of the present church.