Revelation 6:1-8:1 presents the Lamb’s breaking The Seven Seals. This is the first of three cycles of judgment in Revelation (seals, trumpets, bowls). When the world rejects God’s way, it suffers the consequences of conflict, bloodshed, scarcity and death. The first four seals symbolize these consequences of human wickedness as God’s judgment allows them to play out in history. The fifth seal expresses the martyrs prayers, and the sixth the natural disturbances in nature that arise from a fallen world. Then there is the interlude of “Security and Salvation” (Mounce) in chapter 7 (the subject of the next sermon), followed by the seventh seal– which opens the scroll– with a “dramatic pause”– leading to the sounding of the seven trumpets. The message of judgment is clear, challenging our far-too-casual view of God and sin. The promise of the fifth seal, however, is that, though God’s people suffer, they are ultimately redeemed.
