The seventh seal is summed up in a single verse, in a silence that lasted about the space of half an hour. The secret beneath the silence is revealed in Revelation 10, and in essence is the coming of the Lord (please read Jesus’ appearing and coming) as King Theophany Jesus… it is Jesus here with us now in Word form. But verses three and four are also connected with the seventh seal, and unless we account for them as well, we can never fully grasp what exactly was going on in Heaven. A detailed elaboration of the seventh seal can be found in Silence in Heaven about the space of half an hour.
The seventh seal is actually the first to be torn off the Book, because it is Christ, and He is the one to reveal the contents of the Book. Having six seals opened can only reveal sickness, suffering and the person of Death (Lucifer [Revelation 6:8]), but the seventh seal reveals the person of Life, which is Jesus Christ! Furthermore, the six seals pertain to earthly things and show the wicked scheme of Satan on the earth, but the seventh seal pertains to heavenly things, and shows how Christ comes down from Heaven to Earth in order to make His redemption claims.
There have been various interpretations given to explain the half hour silence in Heaven; however, we shall look at it in relation to when the prophet preached the seven seals. The seven seals were preached over the space of one week, from March 18, 1963 to March 24, 1963. God deals in prophetic weeks, and each day of the week represents a year. In light of this, twelve hours is six months; six hours is three months; three hours is one-and-a-half months (six weeks); one hour is two weeks, and half an hour is one week. The seven seals being preached over seven days or one week equate to the half hour silence by God’s reckoning. All of Heaven was silent whilst the Lamb went forth to take the Book and open it up for us on the earth.
After the silence in Heaven, John saw seven heavenly angels with trumpets in their hands (Revelation 8: 2). The seven trumpets represent environmental and political disturbances that would resound throughout the earth by their being blown after the smoking censer filled with fire had been cast into the earth (Revelation 8: 5-6). A lot is taking place in the first six verses of the eighth chapter, for therein we are seeing the end of intercession and the ushering in of judgment. The sword, famine, pestilence and beasts of the earth written of under the fourth seal (Revelation 6: 8) are fully manifested by the casting down of the fiery coals to the earth.
The cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary on the Day of Atonement is what is taking place under the seventh seal. After the Angel (Christ) has performed the final offering of the saints’ prayers (please read The prayers of all saints), He then takes the golden censer and fills it with the fiery coals from the brazen altar. No incense is mixed with the burning coals in this scene because there are no more prayers of intercession for those who rejected the Word at that time, thus showing that intercession has ended and the time of judgment has come.
For the Bride to go in the Rapture, intercession must firstly come to an end, so God injected a Jewish type in Revelation 7, to show how there is a sealing first, and then comes the end of intercession and the ushering in of judgment in Revelation 8. The Jewish type given in Revelation 7 is a veiled clue which hides the secret of how the Gentile Bride is being sealed before the Great Tribulation sets in. The Bride is a sealed group with a ministry of intercession in this present hour of judgment (Ezekiel 9: 1-6), but when She is taken away in the translation of the saints, then there is no more intercession available, and all that remains is total judgment.
Next, John hears the sounding of the seven trumpets. The trumpets are amateur judgment upon the earth, whereas the seven vials in Revelation 16 are the fullness of judgment upon the earth. This is confirmed to us by seeing the Bible regularly referring to “a third” of the planet being disturbed under the trumpets, and “all” of the planet being disturbed under the vials. The trumpets are sounding now, and will become more pronounced during the Great Tribulation, whereas the seven vials are the fullness of God’s wrath, and will be poured out at Armageddon, after the 144,000 Jews have been sealed away.
John saw the vegetation being burned up from acid rain, and he saw the violent storms of deadly hail (that sheds the blood of those struck by it) created by the explosions of nuclear weapons (Revelation 8: 7). He saw the polluting of the fresh water and the oceans water (Revelation 8: 8-11) from chemical waste, and ocean waste dumping, as well as from oil spills etcetera. And he saw the smog of atmospheric pollution from the factories and the mechanical transportation of the world (Revelation 8: 12).
As a small aside note of interest; under the third trumpet (Revelation 8:10-11), a star named Wormwood struck the fresh water and consequentially caused many to die because the water had become poisonous. An event with similar disastrous effects occurred on April 26, 1986, when a reactor of the nuclear power plant of Chernobyl in the Ukraine exploded, releasing massive amounts of radiation that drifted across northern Europe, affecting the inhabitants and food grown in the entire region. What is so interesting about this terrible event is that the name Chernobyl in the Ukrainian language means Wormwood!
As John looked on in shock and horror at God’s beautiful creation being systematically destroyed, he then saw an angel (the parenthesis is “eagle”) flying up into the skies above him (Revelation 8: 13). This angel proclaimed with a loud voice the coming of three woes that would affect the inhabitants of the earth. The three woes are World War One, World War Two, and World War Three. As the first four trumpets dealt with the earth, the last three trumpets would deal with the inhabitants of the earth.
Go to Revelation Chapter 9