What makes the Book of Revelation so complicated for the masses is that it was given to John in the form of SYMBOLS, then was SEALED WITH SEVEN SEALS. Anciently, seals were applied to keep the sealed object from being breached. The measure taken to keep Christ’s tomb from being opened is a case in point. In this case, the seals were designed to keep men from understanding what was written on the scroll. Daniel wrote: “I heard, but I understood not.” The angel explained why he was not allowed to understand: “The words are CLOSED UP AND SEALED UNTIL THE TIME OF THE END” (Dan 12:8,9). In Daniel 12:4 the angel said, “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” As men “run to and fro” in search of God’s Truth concerning all things religious today, there has simultaneously been an “increase in knowledge” concerning all things religious. However, as God said, such seekers are “… ever learning but never coming to the knowledge of the Truth” (2 Tim. 3:7). Over the past several decades, as the world has continually gotten farther away from God, the religious masses have been paying more attention to their leaders as they preach concerning the end times. But God has not sent those leaders; their messages come from their own hearts (Jer. 26:16,17,21). The blind have been leading the blind; unbelievers have been teaching unbelievers. As a result the Truth concerning the final days of the age has remained hidden (“under seal”) from the Institutional Church while those to whom God has revealed His Truth have been rejected as heretics and their message as the ramblings of the spiritually demented. Why? Because their message contradicts the prevailing theology of the church. As in all cases in which God’s Word conflicts with church doctrine, God loses.

Every area of man’s existence is increasing in size and scope exponentially, so much so that it is impossible for anyone to accurately predict what ten years from now will produce in terms of communication, information, social change, politics, travel, military actions and production of goods and services. But the most important change over the past few generations has been taking place in the realm of the spiritual. It is there that God is focused, for it is in the spiritual realm that churchman is determining his relationship with his Maker. Today God is removing the seals of Revelation and allowing Daniel’s visions and prophesies to be understood by His watchmen. The in turn are warning those with eyes to see and ears to hear about the coming Great Tribulation and the terror it will bring on most of mankind. For the first time in some 1900 years the Book of Revelation is being understood. God began to open the eyes of a few godly men relative to the Apocalypse some 80 years ago. In these final hours of the age their spiritual descendants are warning those who have ears to hear and eyes to see what the Spirit is revealing to the Institutional Church.

In Revelation 1:10 we find one of the most misunderstood aspects of the Book–when the revelation took place. John said: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day.” All of my church life I was told that John’s vision took place on Sunday, the supposed “Lord’s Day.” God’s Sabbath having been discarded and replaced by Sunday–the day the heathen worship the sun god–it was preached from pulpit and podium that Sunday was the Lord’s Day–His Sabbath. Only after determining to follow God’s command to study the Bible for myself (2 Tim. 2:15) and to learn from those who believed what God said did I come to know that John was not referring to a day of the week, but rather to a prophetic time period referred to in more than 30 prophecies as “the Day of the Lord” and “the great and terrible Day of the Lord.” In spirit, John was carried forward in time more than 2000 years into the Day of the Lord–a year-long time span lying just ahead of us which I believe many in this generation will live to see.

The Day of the Lord is described by the Prophet Joel as a time when God will send destruction upon the world’s sinning masses. It is described by Zephaniah as “the Day of God’s Wrath.” Revelation describes it as a time when God will send an unbelievable level of famine, plague and military destruction upon the sinners of the earth. The Lord’s Day is a one-year period that immediately follows a 2 1/2 year period called the Great Tribulation. The Day of the Lord will begin at the end of the tribulation and end with the second coming of Jesus Christ. To be continued. L.J.