NEW TESTAMENT PROPHECIES AWAITING FULFILMENT 2
NEW TESTAMENT PROPHECIES AWAITING FULFILMENT 2
The opening of the first seal and the revelation of Antichrist in 6:2 is synonymous with the first half of Daniel's seventieth week, which was prophesied in the Old Testament. It represents the last seven years of this age when Antichrist will be revealed and the Tribulation comes upon the earth. Antichrist rises up at the start of this period and enters into a seven years peace treaty with Israel which he breaks after three and a half years, and then makes war with Israel (CP Dan 7:7-8, 20-21, 24-25; 8:8-14, 23-25; 11:36-45 with 9:24-27; Rev 12:7-9, 13-17). These scriptures reveal the emergence of Antichrist at the start of Daniel's seventieth week as the little horn among the other ten horns. He rises to power as the eleventh king among the other ten kings through the empowering of Satan (CP Dan 8:24 with Rev 13:1-8). This prophecy will be fulfilled after the church is raptured to Heaven in the first resurrection (CP 2Th 2:7-9). The opening of the second seal in Rev 6:3, and the revelation of the rider on the red horse who was given a great sword, and the events that follow in Rev 6:4, signals the onset of the Great Tribulation in the middle of Antichrist's seven years peace treaty with Israel. This is synonymous with the second half of Daniel's seventieth week (CP Rev 6:3-4 with Dan 7:25, 9:27; 11:36-39; 12:1; Mt 24:6-7, 15-22).
We learn from those scriptures that the Great Tribulation will last the second three and a half years of Antichrist's seven years reign. For the first three and a half years Antichrist will be a benevolent dictator, not yet the enemy of God. He becomes God's enemy at the end of the first three and a half years when he breaks his peace treaty with Israel and sets up the "abomination of desolation" in the temple (CP Mt 24:15-22 also Mk 13:14-20 with Dan 9:27, 11:31, 36-37; 12:11). Abomination of desolation refers to the image that Antichrist will set up in the temple of himself as God, which people will be forced to worship or be killed (CP 2Th 2:3-4; Rev 13:1-6, 11-15). The opening of the third seal reveals famine personified as a rider on a black horse. The exorbitant price of grain and the scales for weighing it in his hands symbolises the scarcity of food and the economic hardship the world will suffer during Antichrist's reign (CP Rev 6:5-6; Mt 24:5-8 with Eze 4:16-17). It is not known what the command not to hurt the oil and the wine means.
The opening of the fourth seal reveals death and hell personified as two horsemen. Together with the previous two horsemen - the one given the great sword to take peace from the earth at the opening of the second seal, and famine, with the beasts of the earth, they will kill a quarter of the earth's population. There will be an intensification of war, famine, pestilence, evil beasts, and death (CP Rev 6:7-8 with Lev 26:22; Eze 5:16-17; 14:21; 33:27-29). The four horsemen that will be involved symbolically in these judgements are known in Christendom as "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse". In the opening of the fifth seal next, we are given a prophetic revelation of the multitude of saints who will be martyred during the Tribulation (CP Mt 24:9 with Rev 6:9-11; 7:9-17). The saints martyred during the tribulation will be beheaded for their witness to Christ (CP Rev 13:7-8, 15-17; 14:13; 15:2-4; 20:4). The cry of the Tribulation saints for God to avenge their blood in Rev 6:10 is not for personal vengeance, but for the vindication of God's justice - that the wicked who have rejected God and killed His saints, will receive divine justice (CP Ro 12:19 with Rev 18:1-2, 5, 7, 15-16, 20; 19:2).
At the opening of the sixth seal next, for the first time since the seals were loosed, the outpouring of God's judgement upon sinners is revealed (CP Rev 6:12-17). Sinners would rather be crushed to death by mountains and rocks than endure God's judgement, which will be so cataclysmic it will cause the sky to recede as if it were a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island will be moved from their positions. We come now to the opening of the seventh seal (CP Rev 8:1-6). The opening of the seventh seal reveals seven trumpet judgements about to be unleashed upon the earth. We will look at them shortly, but first let us look at the hundred and forty four thousand Jews who the prophecy predicts will be sealed with the Seal of God in their foreheads to ensure their safety during the trumpet judgements in the first three and a half years of the Tribulation (CP Rev 7:1-8; 8:1-2 with 9:4). The significance of the hundred and forty four thousand is that they will be the first fruits out of the Tribulation of a new redeemed Israel and will be raptured to Heaven in the middle of the Tribulation (CP Rev 14:1-5).
Now let us go back to the opening of the seventh seal and the seven trumpet judgements about to be unleashed upon the earth (CP Rev 8:1-6). V 4 here teaches that these trumpet judgements are in response to the prayers of the saints (CP 5:8 and 6:9-11). Many in the church see the trumpet judgements as symbolic, not literal, but they are literal judgements, as scriptures clearly prove. The first will be hail and fire mingled with blood which will be cast upon the earth, burning up a third of the trees and all green grass (CP 8:7). The second undoubtedly refers to a huge meteorite which will be cast into the sea, contaminating a third of it, turning it into blood and killing a third of all the sea creatures, as well as destroying a third of the ships (CP 8:8-9). The third trumpet judgement will be a great star called Wormwood which will fall from Heaven upon a third part of the rivers and freshwater streams and springs on earth, killing many because the waters will be made bitter (CP 8:10-11). The fourth trumpet judgement will smite the sun and moon and stars causing darkness to fall upon a third part of the day and night (CP 8:12). After the fourth trumpet judgement an angel (KJV), will warn the inhabitants of earth of the terrible things they must still suffer when the three remaining trumpets are sounded (CP 8:13).
In the fifth trumpet judgement, synonymous with the first woe, an angel of God will loose hordes of demon locusts upon the earth, which will inflict pain like scorpion bites upon earth's inhabitants for a period of five months. The pain will be so terrible those inflicted will want to die, but cannot. The only ones the demon locusts cannot touch are the hundred and forty four thousand Jews with the Seal of God in their foreheads (CP 9:1-12). In the sixth trumpet judgement, synonymous with the second woe, four fallen angels will be released from being bound in the Euphrates River, who will have been held in readiness for this exact time. They will lead two hundred million demon horsemen in killing a third of earth's inhabitants then still living. Those not killed still will not repent however, underlining the reason why God will judge the earth and its inhabitants, as Revelation foretells (CP 9:13-21). The seventh trumpet judgement synonymous with the third woe, will involve all the events of the second three and a half years of the Tribulation, leading up to Christ's second coming (CP 10:7). The mystery of God which he has declared to the prophets that will be fulfilled in the seventh trumpet judgement, synonymous with the third woe, is the casting down of Satan out of Heaven to earth (CP 11:14; 12:7-12).