September 13, 2015

Sunday School
Revelation Chapters 6-8
References: AmazingDiscoveries.Org; Google

• The Seven Seals repeat the same history as the Seven Churches "but" with different emphasis.
• The first four seals are well known as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (The Great Disaster)
• In Revelation the horse represents "war."
• The 1st seal - a white horse meaning purity and righteousness (Revelation 7:14; 19:8; & Isaiah 1:18) and represents the Church of Ephesus. Ephesus went out to conquer as Christians.
• The 2nd seal - a red horse meaning persecution of the Church of Smyrna. Red is the color associated with sin (Isaiah 1:18), the dragon (Revelation 12:3) and bloodshed (2 Kings 3:22-23).  When faith and devotion of the church became corrupt, it lost the power of God to carry the Gospel forward to victory.
• The 3rd seal, a black horse meaning corruption of the Church of Pergamum. Black is the color of darkness and error.
• The balancing scale, which was used for measuring wheat and barley are symbols of the buying and selling of the Gospel, salvation and forgiveness. Pergamum was in a period of moral and doctrinal error. They substituted pagan beliefs for God's Word.  Hurt not the oil and the wine which symbolizes the Holy Spirit (Zechariah 4:3-6).
• The 4th seal, a pale horse, the dead Church of Thyatira. Pale horse meaning the color of a sickly green for nausea and death. The church had undergone a spiritual death which paralyzed the Christians. They were starving themselves of God's Word.
• The 5th seal, Sardis, the Martyred Church. Under the alter the souls, slain for the word of God. This was not an actual alter with souls beneath it but a symbolic one with many martyrs whose blood was spilled in the name of God. Like Abel (Genesis 4:8-10) the crying out to God for justice and vindication of the truths of why they died.
• The 6th seal, the Churches of Philadelphia and Laodicea, the End time. Now we shift from symbolic to literal with earthquakes, stars falling from the sky, the moon turning blood red, etc.
• There will be still time to receive Jesus as Savior and to be forgiven and cleansed (1 John 1:9).

Chapter 7

• In this chapter, we see the angels holding back the winds of disaster.
• The sealing on "their" foreheads, the mark of God's protection for His people.
• 144,000 will receive the seal of the living God.
• Also a great multitude of the redeemed, without number from every nation and language holding palm branches as a symbol of victory over the world and sin, clothed in white robes representing Christ's righteousness are seen.
• Praising of the redeemed will be a joyful part of life in heaven.
• Their characters will have been purified through the blood of the Lamb. 1 John 1:7
• Hungry and thirst and other hardships are no more.

Chapter 8

• The seven trumpets follow the pattern set by the seven seals and seven churches but the trumpets focus on the judgments which God pours out upon the persecutors of His people.