God’s Progressive Discipline

Here’s interesting news. I think we may be in between the openings of the fourth and fifth seals mentioned in the Revelation.

In Revelation 5, the word says there is a book in the right hand of God as he sits on the throne of heaven. There are seven seals on the book. At first, no one is able to open the book. Then Jesus appears as a slain lamb, and in Revelation 6, he opens the book, seal by seal.

The first four parts of the book are about the four horsemen of the apocalypse (“apocalypse” means “revelation” or “uncovering”). The opening of each seal releases a horseman to ride throughout the world.

The first horseman rides a white horse. He is Jesus himself. The word says the first horseman conquers, and many people think this means he represents war, but another horseman in the same chapter represents war, and in another part of the Revelation, Jesus appears riding a white horse. As the first horseman, Jesus conquers sin and death and spreads salvation.

The second horseman rides a red horse. He is the horseman that represents murder and war. He causes the people of the earth to kill each other.

The third horseman rides a black horse, and he represents famine and lack. He is given power to cause shortages, but he is told not to touch the oil and the wine. It seems likely that this is a reference to God’s children, saved by the blood of Jesus (wine) and anointed with the Holy Spirit (oil). I’m not sure, though.

The fourth horseman rides a pale horse, and he represents death. He kills with disease and animals. Apparently, animals will start harming people.

When the fifth seal is opened, God gives white robes to the dead martyrs under the throne and tells them to wait for their remaining brothers on earth to be killed.

When the sixth seal is opened, the real tribulation starts. Revelation 17 says, “For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” The day of God’s wrath is the first part of the true tribulation.

With the opening of the seventh seal, the remainder of the tribulation begins. The real horrors of the tribulation take place in this time, and people on earth will wish they were dead. Remarkably, the people who do not die from the plagues God unleashes refuse to repent. There will probably be gay pride parades and relief concerts during this time.

This is how I understand things now.

I used to think we had to see armies encircling Jerusalem before the end-time events could start, but having read the Revelation again, I believe that happened when the Romans destroyed the city in 70 A.D. The things that take place in that prophecy don’t fit in the modern age.

If it isn’t necessary for Jerusalem to be destroyed before the apocalypse, then it may be that the three destructive horsemen have already been released. This is consistent with the global hate, lack, and pestilence we have seen recently.

It looks like God is using progressive discipline. The time of the three horsemen will be bad. The time after the opening of the sixth seal will be worse. The time after the opening of the seventh seal will be like hell on earth.

It makes sense that the wicked would be destroyed and Jesus would return after the events of the seventh seal, because at that point, the people of Earth would have reached rock bottom. No one redeemable would be left by that point. The people who remained alive and unrepentant would be nearly as evil, and useless, as Satan himself.

God once told me, “We are all addicts,” speaking of the human race. Addicts generally do not change until their lives are utterly ruined. People who try to help addicts aren’t told to let them hit rock bottom. They’re told to “raise the bottom.” This means you cut your addict off so completely that his life falls apart as quickly as possible. The events of the seventh seal look just like that.

“Tribulation” is a term that comes from the harvesting of grain. Ancient people removed husks from grain using a tribulum, which is a board with steel nails driven into it. A man would put the grain on a rock floor, stand on the board with the nails pointed downward, and have an animal pull him around. The nails would crush the husks and free the useful grain.

God has told me that people who won’t be saved are the afterbirth of those who will.

To a plant, a seed hull is afterbirth. The life of the next generation is inside the husk, which has to be peeled off and discarded. People who are not saved are here to keep the world running so God’s children will have the necessities of life. The unsaved are like a placenta. They serve a useful purpose, but when we are birthed into the next world, they will be thrown out. They will be dumped in hell–God’s garbage dump–to rot and burn.

Through the tribulation, God is separating his children from the chaff. The children will be saved, and the chaff will burn. This is why the Bible says the ungodly are like chaff and weeds.

Prophecy student Perry Stone has said that separating different types of grain from seed husks varies in difficulty. Some grains separate easily. Others require the tribulum. That makes sense. It fits the pattern of progressive discipline.

If the fourth seal has sounded, we are now in a mildly disturbing time during which we should be turning back to God. This is as good as things will ever be, and later, they will be a lot worse. Almost no one is listening, so it may well be that a huge percentage of mankind will be stuck here, alive and unraptured, after the sixth seal is opened. There is no worldwide call to repentance and prayer, and almost no one is saying what’s happening to us is the result of sin.

If the fourth seal has sounded, more pestilence will appear, and there will be more shortages. The astounding increase in murders will continue and accelerate. We will have to forget about beating coronavirus. It probably won’t go away, and even if it did, something much worse would follow it. Coronavirus isn’t that big a deal. You can’t compare it to other plagues we’ve had. Things have been much, much worse.

I think we’re witnessing the apocalypse, but not the tribulation, right now. If not, this is just a birth pang, and the real reign of the three horsemen will be a horror.