The Book of Revelation: Part 14, The Fifth and Sixth Seals

The Book of Revelation: Part 14, The Fifth and Sixth Seals

Revelation 6:9-17 (BSB)

We are in week 14 of our sermon series on the Book of Revelation. John has been describing the vision he was given of the throne room of God. Last week, we read the first half of chapter 6, which describes what happens when Jesus—the Lamb who was slain—opens the first four seals on a seven-sealed scroll. Today we are looking at what happens when He opens the fifth and sixth seals. Just as we’ve done with the others, let’s try to discover what this passage reveals about Jesus.

We will look at both seals, but let’s read them one at a time. Revelation 6:9-11 says:

9 And when the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony they had upheld. 

10 And they cried out in a loud voice, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge those who dwell upon the earth and avenge our blood?”

11 Then each of them was given a white robe and told to rest a little while longer until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers, were killed, just as they had been killed.

You might have noticed that, unlike the first four seals, the opening of this seal is not preceded by an announcement by one of the four living creatures. Also missing are the horsemen. This time, there is no mention of them. The first four seals seemed to show us—through the personification of death and Hades, conquest, war, and famine—just how horrible the effects of sin have been on the world as humans have unjustly ruled over other humans. But we also saw that those “horses and riders” are not the ones who are ultimately in charge. It is Jesus who is not only opening the seals, but it is He who is giving them permission to ride out, and it is He who is limiting their ability to do harm. Yet, the devastation caused by those evils is felt by all people, all the animals, and the earth itself. But in this fifth seal, the living creatures do not speak. As Ellicott says in his commentary: “The voice which is now heard is not the cry of the groaning world, but of the oppressed and troubled Church.”

Most Bible translations, like the one we have been using, give this fifth seal the subheading: The Martyrs. It’s their voice which speaks this time. They are the souls “under the altar” who speak after it is opened.

Let’s read through this section again but take it one verse at a time. Verse 9 says, “And when the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony they had upheld.”

John says that he saw these souls under the altar, but we don’t know if they had always been there or if they appeared at that moment. And actually, for that matter, we don’t even know if the altar was there before this moment because John had never mentioned it before.

Again, we don’t know if this vision of souls under the altar is literal or symbolic. Whichever way we interpret this scene, I think this vision lines up with other verses in the Bible which tell us that—for those of us who trust in Jesus—when we die, we will go to be with the Lord, and our souls will be conscious, even though our bodies will “sleep” in the ground.

But these people who were martyred, were killed because they were faithful witnesses. They were slain because they upheld the Word of God and did not abandon their faith. This outcome for followers of Jesus should not surprise us. After all, Jesus Himself warned His disciples in John 16:33, saying, “I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take courage; I have overcome the world!”

And those words that Jesus spoke have certainly been proven to be true. John personally experienced his share of tribulation. He began this book by saying in Revelation 1:9, “I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance that are in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and my testimony about Jesus.”

Now, he uses those same words again and says these souls are people “who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony they had upheld.”

In other words, they had been martyred for their faith in Jesus. Which is why, as verse 10 says, “they cried out in a loud voice, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge those who dwell upon the earth and avenge our blood?’”

First, I want to point out that these martyred people praised the Lord by calling Him “holy and true.” These are the exact words that the Lord used to describe Himself to the church in Philadelphia. As Revelation 3:7 says, “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of the One who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What He opens no one can shut, and what He shuts no one can open.”

If all this is literally happening in the throne room, then it’s possible that these souls overheard the Lord referring to Himself as holy and true, and so they repeated it back. Or it could be they simply stated what is known about the Lord: that He is indeed holy and true. Meaning that He is perfect and without sin, and He is faithful and trustworthy.

If this vision is symbolic, then it’s showing us the universal cry of those who have been treated unjustly because of their faith in Jesus. All of God’s people, including nature itself, cries out for God to make things right and bring justice.

And because Jesus is holy and true, He cannot ignore the injustice that must be righted. These souls were unjustly killed for their faith. Because God is holy and true, He will make a holy and true judgment against those who killed them, so that the blood of the martyrs is avenged.

But maybe you are wondering, just like the martyrs do, why the Lord waits to bring judgment against the unjust. From our perspectives, and certainly from the martyred people’s perspectives, it doesn’t seem like the Lord should wait to carry out justice. But the people who murdered these souls under the altar would most likely have already died. So, they are not necessarily crying out for judgment against people who are still alive. I think they are crying out for Judgement Day to arrive when all people will go before the Lord and He will judge all people. That time—when Jesus returns—has not yet arrived. But when it does, then all will be judged by the One who is holy and true.

But since that time has not arrived, we see, in verse 11, that “Then each of them was given a white robe and told to rest a little while longer until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers, were killed, just as they had been killed.”

As in most places in the New Testament, when we read the word “brothers,” we should not think it is referring only to men. In Greek, the masculine form is used to denote both genders, the same way, for example, it is in the Spanish language, and as it used to be common in English: mankind meant all people.

I don’t think these souls are in physical bodies but are in spirit form, and yet they are also wearing a white robe, so that robe is symbolic of how they were purified, not from their actions as martyrs, but by the blood of the Lamb who washed them clean through forgiveness.

These martyrs are not the only ones who are given white robes, though. Back in the letters to the churches, we see that others are promised this too. Revelation 3:4-5 says, “But you do have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments, and because they are worthy, they will walk with Me in white. Like them, he who overcomes will be dressed in white.” Also, later on in Revelation 7, we will read about a great multitude who are dressed in white and stand before the throne.

But all of us who have been washed and cleansed by the blood of Jesus, we are made white and holy. As just two examples from other places in Scripture, we see that 1 John 1:7 says, “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” And Isaiah 1:18, which says, “‘Come now, let us reason together,’ says the LORD. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will become like wool.’”

So, we shouldn’t think that only those who are killed for their witness will be clothed in white and will be with Jesus in the throne room. And, at the same time, I don’t know that we will literally wear white clothing or if that is said symbolically to tell us that we will be sinless and holy in the Lord’s presence.

But before we move on to the sixth seal, I want to go back to what the martyrs are saying. They are asking the Lord, “How long until You bring justice?” And the Lord tells them, “Rest a little while longer.”

Isn’t that what the Lord tells us sometimes, too? We want Him to bring justice to situations we find ourselves in, and we want God to respond right away. And yet so often He tells us to wait for His timing. It can be difficult to wait. But, just like the martyrs, we don’t have to wait alone. We can wait as they do: in the presence in the Lord. If we draw near to Him, and worship and praise Him as we wait for His help, it makes all the difference in our ability to find peace.

Now, let’s move on to the sixth seal. Revelation 6:12-17 says:

12 And I watched as the Lamb opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black like sackcloth of goat hair, and the whole moon turned blood red, 

13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth like unripe figs dropping from a tree shaken by a great wind. 

14 The sky receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place.

15 Then the kings of the earth, the nobles, the commanders, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and free man hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 

16 And they said to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. 

17 For the great day of Their wrath has come, and who is able to withstand it?”

In the same way that the fifth seal was subtitled ‘The Martyrs’ in our translation, this one’s subheading is ‘Terror.’ It certainly sounds terrifying, doesn’t it? Earthquakes, the sun turning black, the moon becoming like blood, stars falling from the sky, and then the sky rolling up like a scroll and every mountain and island moved. I think this is why people consider the Book of Revelation to be apocalyptic, but they wrongly define that word to mean annihilation. That word, apocalypse, as John uses it, only means unveiling.

I think we are right to be terrified by what this sixth seal is unveiling to us, but I’m not sure most people are terrified for the right reason.

Now, let’s go back through this passage again. Verses 12-13 say, “And I watched as the Lamb opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black like sackcloth of goat hair, and the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth like unripe figs dropping from a tree shaken by a great wind.” 

A lot of commentators think this sixth seal is a prophecy of what happens when Jesus returns. And indeed, it sounds very similar to the language that Jesus uses to describe what will happen right before He returns. In Matthew 24:29, when talking about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, Jesus says, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days: ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.’”

Joel 2:31 also prophesies that, “The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the LORD.”

But we also see similar language in Isaiah 13:9-11, which is a prophecy about the destruction of Babylon. It says, “Behold, the Day of the LORD is coming—cruel, with fury and burning anger—to make the earth a desolation and to destroy the sinners within it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light. The rising sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light. I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity.”

Now, with the wording in Revelation 6:12 telling us that the moon is like blood, or as the BSB makes clear, that the moon turned blood red, it seems that the moon is not going to turn into blood as we might think Joel is saying. It’s not. It’s just going to be the color of blood. Most of us have probably seen a blood red moon before and seen the sun turn to darkness before, too. It happens when there are eclipses.

So, knowing that John is using figurative language, I think that should affect how we interpret verse 14, which says, “The sky receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place.”

We see very similar language being used in Isaiah 34:2-4, too. It says, “The LORD is angry with all the nations and furious with all their armies. He will devote them to destruction; He will give them over to slaughter. Their slain will be left unburied, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains will flow with their blood. All the stars of heaven will be dissolved. The skies will be rolled up like a scroll, and all their stars will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like foliage from the fig tree.”

Most people interpret that passage in Isaiah to have been speaking about God’s anger against the many faithless nations who were warring against His people. But I don’t think all those things described literally happened during any of the wars. It seems to be poetic in form. So, I’m not sure that we should interpret everything in this passage of Revelation literally either. To be sure, warfare and devastation are terrifying. Regular earthquakes, deaths on battlefields, and the like are terrifying. I’m not sure the skies will literally be rolled up, though, or every mountain and island will be gone. I think it might seem that way to those present though.

We know what John is seeing is terrifying because he describes one of the effects of this, but we also see that not every mountain was literally gone. Verse 15 says, “Then the kings of the earth, the nobles, the commanders, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and free man hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains.” 

Some people seem to think this is saying that all the rich will go and hide in the caves and among the rocks of mountains. But John’s list of people seems to include all people, from the richest to the poorest. All people will try to escape the destruction. It is so terrifying, as verses 16-17 tell us, they tried to hide, “And they said to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of Their wrath has come, and who is able to withstand it?’”

That statement could certainly be more proof that this seal is showing us a vision of what happens just before Jesus returns. But I don’t know if we can say that conclusively, because, just like some of those other passages we looked at, look at what Luke 23:28-30 says: As Jesus was being led to the Cross, there were women who were following behind, weeping. “But Jesus turned to them and said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. Look, the days are coming when people will say, “Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore, and breasts that never nursed!” At that time they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’”

Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, as well as many other scholars, think Jesus was speaking about “the calamities that were about to come upon them in the desolation of their city by the Romans,” and not about His return.

So, given those other Bible passages which repeat these same words in Revelation, I think you can see why it is so difficult to place when this event of terror is to happen, if it even is one specific moment of terror. It fits that it could have already happened in A.D. 70, or it could have already happened during some other horrific event in history, or it is still yet to occur. As we can see by looking at those similarly phrased prophecies in the Bible, these terms and phrases don’t always mean the “end of the world” as we’ve come to think of it. Sometimes these phrases mean the “end of the world” for a particular group of people, at a particular time in history.

I’ve, thankfully, never fought in a war or lived in an area being bombed—but I can imagine for those who have been in the center of warfare, it would feel like the end of the world. I’ve seen pictures of war. Trees are blown apart. Mountainsides are on fire. The sky is so filled with smoke that the sun and stars are obscured by it. Ash and sparks rain down, covering everything. People run and hide, trying to find shelter. But it’s as if the mountains have moved, and there is no shelter. Every mountain and island a person could swim to and escape to have seemingly vanished. There is no place of safety.

But what if this sixth seal isn’t even speaking about warfare? The people John sees are trying to run and hide and as they do so, they’re basically crying out to the mountains: “Put us out of our misery because it’s the day of God’s wrath.” What if the terror they are experiencing—the devastation John is describing in his vision—is God’s judgement through the power of nature? After all, the text only mentions a powerful earthquake as the thing that causes all those effects.

Humanity can bring about untold devastation and terror, just as we saw in the first four seals. But how much more terrible is the power of nature? And even today, in our modern Godless society, natural disasters are still classified as “Acts of God.” They are right to do so. God is the one who created all things, just as the worship being sung in Heaven declares. 

And despite what the world might think, against the mighty power of nature, there is nowhere for people to hide, nowhere they can go to escape. In a truly devastating earthquake, try as they might, no one will be able to withstand it. Rich people’s wealth won’t save them. No one will be able to hide.

But the fifth seal showed us a picture of martyrs under an altar in the presence of God’s throne room, and I can’t help but see it as a symbol to us. Those faithful people are pictured as hidden, safely under the altar. They will not experience the wrath of God. The sixth seal showed us a vision of people who, rightly believing that the terror they were experiencing was God’s wrath being poured out, didn’t cry out to God for help or deliverance. They cried out to the rocks to fall on them. They just wanted their suffering to end. They didn’t want God to help them. I think that is a key to understanding these two seals.

For those of us who know that the Lamb is the same Lamb who went to the Cross for us, we do not have to fear His wrath. And in fact, we see this same sort of language being used here in Revelation being used other places in Scripture but used in the inverse. We see that God is our mountain shelter; He’s the one we can run to and seek refuge in. As Psalm 18:2 says, “The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer. My God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those terms match each other. All throughout the Psalms, we see this same sort of language being deployed to communicate a larger idea. I don’t think anyone reads a verse like that and thinks God is literally a rock. Instead, we know that when trouble comes, if we stand on the Word of God and we go to Him for help, He becomes to us a place of safety and help. He becomes to us a rock of help.

As I was praying about this sermon, another well-known Psalm came to my mind, and I believe it is what the Lord would want us to know. Look at what Psalm 46:1-11 tells us: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth is transformed and the mountains are toppled into the depths of the seas, though their waters roar and foam and the mountains quake in the surge. There is a river whose streams delight the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her; she will not be moved. God will help her when morning dawns. Nations rage, kingdoms crumble; the earth melts when He lifts His voice. The LORD of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Come, see the works of the LORD, who brings devastation upon the earth. He makes wars to cease throughout the earth; He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; He burns the shields in the fire. ‘Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted over the earth.’ The LORD of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.”

When our world is crumbling before our very eyes, we can find shelter in the fortress of our God and Savior. And one day, when Jesus does finally return, those of us who hope in His return will continue to find shelter in Him. Even if the stars literally drop from the sky or even if the sun literally turns black, He will still be our shelter if we look to the Lamb.

But that hope is not just for the end of the world. We can shelter in Him each day as we face any and all things that threaten our safety and peace. As we face trials of injustice and persecution, or trials of physical pain and suffering, or trials from nature that threaten our comfort and peace, we can see from this text that it’s okay to ask God, “How long?” We can cry out to Him to help us and to bring an end to our trials. And we can also see that sometimes His word to us is that we need to wait a while longer; it’s not time yet. But we can always have faith, knowing that at the right time, He will come and save us.

And that leads us to what happens next. But the seventh seal is not opened in the seventh chapter. We will have to wait.

Let us pray that we can wait on Him, and trust that in the waiting, He is working on our behalf. We may not know how long it will be before He rescues us or brings justice for us but let us trust in Him that at the right time He will respond. He is still the One who is opening these seals. The One who terrifies the world is the One who shelters His people. The question is: when the world shakes, will we run away from God or run to Him?

Pray: Heavenly Father, we don’t want to be like the world. We want to have faith and trust in You. When the world shakes and troubles come, we want to run to You, our rock. Please help us to trust in You. Please help us to wait for Your deliverance and help. Thank You for loving us and sheltering us under Your grace. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.