The 7th Seal (Part 3)

 

See the series here

Biblical Silences

 

To understand the silence in Revelation 8:1, it is helpful to recall The Bible has a few explicit references, and many inferred references to silent periods in or from Heaven. Moreover, it is critical to perceive the most important period of silence from Heaven that will be relevant to the 4th age of our history—the tribulation age!

 

The books of Daniel and Revelation explicitly predict the rise of a global leader and system that will severely stress both Jews and Christians alike. Revelation calls him ‘the beast’. 1st and 2nd John indicate he will be the tail end of an exceptionally long parade of people who will deny Jesus/The Messiah has already come in the flesh—was born as a human. Daniel 7 and 12 signal the tribulation age—the Biblical 4th age of human history—will last about 7 years, or 2 halves of about 42 months each. The prophetic timeline reveals there are a series of things he must do during his roughly 42 month global reign of deception and death. Here’s the key point: 

During his pre-apocalypse reign, there are

no indicated words or actions from Heaven!

 

In my book, that equates to the most relevant silence from Heaven, keyed to the end of the seals judgments. This strategic insight hints of a possible error in our understanding of the likely timing of, duration and rationale of v. 8:1. Consider this:

•  5 times in a row, in Revelation 6, John uses the phrase, ‘…when He opened…’  He later concludes use of that phrase in chapter 8:1, referring to the silence in Heaven. Yet, because of its placement next to v. 8:2, we presume the trumpets judgments may immediately follow the seals judgments—i.e., presuming ALL of the seals judgments may be part of the apocalypse. Both history and Jesus’ own words prove otherwise!

•  Chapters 6 and 8 exclude any reference to the silence that prophecies infer the anti-Christ leader (AC) will need to complete his predicted tasks, the last one of which will be defiling the 3rd Jewish temple that will be constructed in Jerusalem. It seems we fail to integrate into our understanding of Revelation, many key points scattered across The Bible, including what Paul predicted about the anti-Christ.

 

I intuit the half hour of silence in v. 8:1 is not a brief pause just prior to the next judgment event. It is a divinely-permitted window in which the anti-Christ’s system fully forms, unopposed by direct intervention from Heaven. This means:

1. There will very likely be a significant time gap between opening the 6th seal, and the start of the trumpets judgments.

2. During this gap, Heaven will likely allow its patterned ‘hinge period’ between the ages, in this case, for the world (a) to come to terms with the deep, broad, global impacts of the 6th seal event, and (b) begin to clamor for somebody/ANYBODY to take charge of the recovery people will obviously demand. 

3. Heaven will ‘give the world slack rope’, so to speak, for the AC to be revealed, to rise to global power and authority, and for his alliances to coalesce so he can  then complete his predicted tasks well before the first trumpet judgment of the apocalypse will sound. That’s the protracted silence prophecies demand. Since we have no time-based means to understand John’s reference to half an hour, don’t get stuck trying to understand it. Rather, seek a higher, more strategic understanding.

4. That period of silence from Heaven will very likely last through the hinge period between the 3rd and 4th ages, plus, throughout the first half of the tribulation age, and will end with the start of the apocalypse! 

 

Nature teaches us this:

Silence across the heavens begins at the end of violent storms,

and ends when the the next violent storm begins.