Good evening and welcome to eBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #2 of Revelation, chapter 5, and we are going to begin by reading the first few verses:

And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.  And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?  And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon.  And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.

I will stop reading there.  Here we find this vision into these amazing things that are going on in the kingdom of heaven – in God’s throne room – where He is seated upon the throne and He has a book in His right hand.  We saw in our last study that the book must be the Bible. It can only be the Bible.  The right hand of God is that which identifies with the Lord Jesus Christ and so, too, the Bible completely identifies with Christ.

And we read in Psalm 17:7:

Shew thy marvellous lovingkindness, O thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee from those that rise up against them.

And God saves by Christ.   But further than that, we know that how God saves by the Lord Jesus Christ is accomplished through his Word, the Bible: “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17)

So we are right on track.  We are very much understanding this correctly when we realize that the book in the right hand of God is a figure of the Bible.   Yes, but Jesus is the “Word made flesh,” and we really cannot separate the Word of God from the Lord Jesus Christ; they are inseparable.

And so, here, that Book is written within and on the backside and we understood that this points to the two edges of God’s Word.  It is able to cut both ways – to life or death, to judgment or salvation.

And then the verse says, at the end of verse 1, this mysterious book in God’s right hand was sealed with seven seals.  And we are not surprised to find the number seven, as we have already come across that number a few times in the study of the Book of Revelation and we will come across it several more times.   It is a number that identifies with perfection.

And this Book, the Bible, is sealed with seven seals and God is the one who has sealed it.  And what this sealing of the Book has done is that it has closed or shut the Book, as we read earlier in our study of Revelation, back in Revelation 3:7:

And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;

God shut up this Book by sealing it.  And He closed it.  He cut off mankind’s ability to read and understand it and that is what we saw in verses 3 and 4, where it said:

And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon.  And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.

God shut the Book and man could not open the Book.  Only God Himself – only Jesus, the one who possesses the key of David – can open what has been shut.  Only He can shut and no man can open and, so, we find that the Bible was shut up.  It was sealed with a perfect seal, with seven seals.

Now do we read anything else in the Bible about this sealing of the Scriptures? Well, the first thing…let us just look at the word sealed, and then we will look at a couple of places where the Word of God is in view.  It says in Matthew 27:66:

So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch.

I just wanted to read this to help us visualize something that is sealed, so that we get a good idea of exactly what God is talking about when He says that He uses seven seals or that He sealed this Book with seven seals.

When Jesus was in the tomb, the Jewish people were concerned and they came to the Roman authorities – to Pilot – and they desired a watch.  They got their request and they went and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone and setting a watch.

They made absolutely sure that the stone was in place; there were no cracks; there was no way out.   This is the only entrance to the tomb: “Let us seal the stone.”  They were trying to keep the Lord Jesus dead, which, of course, is an impossible thing for them to have done.  There is no way they could have done this.  This is man sealing something up, not God.  And God is the one that opened up the tomb and brought forth the Lord Jesus Christ.  He brought him forth from death and resurrected Him.

And so the sealing of the stone did not mean anything, as far as that was concerned.  But we do understand what sealing means.  It means to “keep it shut” or to “keep it closed up,”  and do not let anyone enter the sepulcher; or in the case of the Book, the Bible, to not be able to open it – that they might look thereon and read thereon – and see what it had to say.

Is that not really an incredible thought?   God has spent hundreds and hundreds of years, literally hundreds of years, as He began to bring revelation to Moses and have it recorded in written form.   He began that process with Moses and He used Moses to write the first five books of the Bible.  And then over, well, we know Moses would have accomplished that by 1407 B.C., during that 40-year wilderness sojourn because Moses died in 1407 A.D., and then God would complete the process of writing the Bible by the end of the first century A.D., so it was around fifteen hundred years (and that is a very long time) in which God moved “holy men of old” to record His word precisely, exactly as He wanted it written, without error or mistake; and He compiled the book, the Bible.

And, really, the Lord went to great lengths to have historical occurrences happen in the way that they were written about in Scripture, to move prophets, like Jeremiah, to prophesy and then write it all down.  And when someone would dare take that writing (as the king of Judah did) and destroy it and burn it in the fire, it was God that told Jeremiah to write it down again.

It was very important that it be recorded for the sake of God’s elect; for mankind.   And God went to painstaking lengths to complete this process, to safeguard this process and to make sure that His word was completed and not added to or subtracted from.  Then He watched over it, throughout the many hundreds of years of the church age, so no one could violate it or add something to it.  He preserved his word. 

The Word of the Lord is preserved by God and it is watched over.  We do not have to worry that it is lacking some Book or chapter or verse or even a single word.  We have the complete Word of God, which is watched over by God, so that we have exactly what He wants mankind to have.

And God did all this, and yet at the same time He seals it up. (Repeat) He seals it up.   It is almost working against Himself, we might think.   Why would he go to such trouble and to such lengths to have this great work, this wonderful declaration that comes forth from the very mouth of God, and why would God have men give up their lives and sacrifice their lives for His Word, only to then seal it up with seven seals so that no man could look upon it?

Well, let us first see where the Bible does tell us this.  In Daniel chapter 12, in verse 4…and this is a Book in which God gave that man a great deal of end time information; there is no question about that.   The time of the end is referred to in the Book of Daniel.  It says in Daniel 12:4:

But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

So, there it is.  There it is.  And to make sure we did not miss it, it says in verse Daniel 12:8:

And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.  Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.

Once again, God instructs Daniel to go his way, “for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.”

Now this lets us know that the writing of the Bible was sealed even in the Old Testament days.  It was sealed even as it was being compiled, even as God was filling it out and completing His word.  And, here, He is using Daniel as a figure of the Lord Jesus Christ; He is using Daniel as a figure and He is using this prophesy – the revelation given to Daniel – as a figure of the whole Book, the Bible.

And God’s instructions are to: “Go they way, for the words are closed up and sealed till (until  a point in time) the time of the end.”   And it is not directly stated, but it is definitely implied that once you do reach the time of the end, then the Word, this Book, will be opened.  And that is why back in verse 4, it said, “seal the book even to the time of the end: Many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased,” because at the time of the end, it was God’s plan to open the Book.

That is why the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, at the very end of divine revelation that God had put together and brought together in this volume of the Bible, that God speaks of a Book in the right hand of God that is sealed with seven seals and unable to be opened.  No man, it says there, could open the book.  The Bible was a sealed Book.

And is it not just incredible?  It really is amazing for us to consider that God did this.  Why would He work things out this way?  Why would He trouble Himself in recording His own words and then prevent men from properly understanding them?

Well, let us go to another few verses in the book of Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter 29, where we also will read this idea of the Bible being sealed.  It says in Isaiah 29:10:

For JEHOVAH hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered.  And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed: And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.

Now, here, we find that God has indicated that it is as though men are asleep when the “vision of all”…and the word of God is likened with visions in many places; the Book of Isaiah itself begins with God stating that He is giving a vision to Isaiah, the prophet, so the word vision identifies with the Bible.  So “the vision of all,” the Book of the Bible, is sealed and that means it is as though men are asleep and their eyes are closed and they cannot read and understand; they cannot comprehend.

And this is the figure the Lord Jesus Christ picks up in the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew 13:24:

Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

Notice that it says “while men slept”?   The picture here, when we put it all together, is that the Bible was sealed and that is the equivalent of men sleeping all throughout the New Testament church age.   And yet the gospel was going forth; Christ is the sower, sowing good seed; the enemy is Satan sowing tares amongst the wheat, and this was happening within the churches and congregations; and it is not until the time of the end, in the harvest, that anything was done about this.  And it was at the time of the end that God said to Daniel, in Daniel 12:4:

But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

Up until that point when the church age ended and the great tribulation began in May of 1988 – and 1988 was the 13,000 year of earth’s history – it became the time of the end.    Judgment began at the house of God upon the churches and congregations of the world.  At that same time, God determined to open up the Book, the Bible – to open up the Scriptures – to begin revealing truth that had been sealed from all time.

No man had ever known the things that God had recorded in His Word.  As it says in Revelation 5: “No man is able to look thereon,” and to read and to understand.”  Who can take a bound book, a book that is sealed, and tell you its contents?  Oh, obviously, Isaiah told us, no one can do that – not the learned or unlearned; no one can understand a book that they cannot open.  It must be opened, then (it must be) read and then you can understand.

But God worked it out so that no man could open it until the end time of the great tribulation, which means that all seven seals had to have come off at the very beginning of the great tribulation.  Well, why does it mean that? Why could not one or two of the seals come off?  And then in 1994, a couple more are taken off?  And then on May 21, 2011, a couple more seals?

No, because seven seals were around the Bible.  And if you take off six of the seals, but one seal remains, that means the Book is still sealed, and you cannot open it.  In order to open it, you have to take off all the seals that have been binding it and sealing it.  You can remove just one seal, but it is still sealed; you can take six seals off and it is still sealed.  It takes all the seals to come off before the Book is open.

That information will be very helpful to us as we move further into our study of Revelation, as we will not be deceived into thinking that certain things are happening at various points in time.  No, what God is saying is that the Bible became unsealed all at once at the beginning of the great tribulation, when the world reached the point known as the time of the end.  We have been living in the time of the end for many years now, since 1988.