50 Days to Understanding the End-Times More Accurately – Day 32 – The Fifth Seal

narrowminded (58)in #rapture • 8 years ago

DAY 32 - The Fifth Seal

If these seals were actually “seal judgments” of God’s end-time wrath, then we would need to see something occur between each of the seals that could be understood as God’s wrath or some sort of judgment.

If we cannot find evidence of this for every seal, then they cannot collectively be “seal judgments” of God’s end-time wrath.

With that in mind, let us evaluate the following passage.

“And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were 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, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal…” (Revelation 6:9-12a)

This selected portion clearly begins with “And when he had opened the fifth seal” and ends with “And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal”.

Every single event that we can be sure occurs between these two seals are recorded in these few verses.

We certainly do see words like “God” and “judge”, but based upon that alone, we cannot conclude that God’s judgment is being unleashed.

The question that we must evaluate is the question asked, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”

Not to take anything away from Scripture, but instead to reduce this question to a more manageable size, “How long, O Lord… dost thou not judge… them that dwell on the earth?”

This is the question that caused me to doubt the existence of “seal judgments” of God’s wrath.

First of all, there is no judgment that occurs between the fifth and sixth seals.

Some misguided pretribulationists will claim that the “fifth seal judgment” is “Martyrs being slain for their faith”, but it is illogical to believe that God would be killing Christians in an attempt to judge the world.

Also, the “souls of them that were slain” are crying out to God for judgment.

However, instead of God beginning to “judge… them that dwell on the earth” at this point, prior to the opening of the sixth seal, they are told “that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled”.

They are crying out to God requesting that He begin to judge the earth and He replies “Not yet”.

Based upon the actual verses in the Bible, I cannot perceive that any judgment of God’s end-time wrath occurs in this passage.

Additionally, some other important insight can be gained from the question asked.

Though I realized right away that it negates the possibility of the fifth seal being a judgment of God’s wrath, it took me more than a year to see that this question also rules out the possibility of the first four seals being judgments of God’s end-time wrath.

No one could validly ask, “How long, O Lord… dost thou not judge… them that dwell on the earth?” if God had just spent four “seal judgments” pouring out His end-time wrath upon the earth.

If God had just done so, He would be more likely to answer their question with an answer such as, “What are you talking about, haven’t you been paying attention!?!”

However, God sees their question as valid, and answers it, in essence, with “Not yet.”