Don't tell me what my view of the 7th seal is without asking me first. I believe the reason that there is silence in heaven with the 7th seal is because, Christ, His angels, and the souls of the dead in Christ will have departed heaven at that point. The souls of the dead in Christ united with their changed, immortal bodies and meet Christ in the air at that point. And then Christ takes His vengeance on His enemies and destroys them all (Matt 24:37-39, 2 Thess 1:7-10, 2 Peter 3:3-13, Rev 19:18).
Man, you're all over the place. For one thing, I believe the 70th week was fulfilled long ago. Your understanding of the 70th week is flawed. There is no basis whatsoever for seeing a gap in the 70 week prophecy.
There is because we obviously have not seen the end of the world the final antichrist, the abomination of desolation, etc, all of it is 70th week of Daniel references. Until the fullness of the gentiles comes.
My position is that Christ doesn't return until His final wrath comes down on the day He returns. That can be easily seen from passages like Matthew 24:37-39, 2 Thess 1:7-10, 2 Peter 3:3-13 and Revelation 19:11-21. Is that what I just said here hard to understand?
The part where you don't recognize that God's wrath lasts longer than a single day.
5 months for 1 trumpet.
What we call "the rapture" will not happen until He returns. He is only descending from heaven once and it will be at the last trumpet (1 Cor 15:50-54). I see the last trumpet and seventh trumpet as being the same. Let me know if there's anything confusing about what I'm saying. You make everything convoluted, but it's not meant to be that way.
Your confusion comes from not recognizing that trumpets have different calls. The 7th trumpet judgement is not a call to convocation, it's a pronouncement of judgement. The last trump Paul is referring to is a call to convocation. It's a different trumpet blast for an entirely different purpose.
Realize that Revelation was not written until decades after Paul had been martyred, and Paul was communicating to people decades before Revelation was written. Paul wouldn't rely on people reading a book that wouldn't be written for 40 years to explain his letter to a church.
They are not the same thing.
Wait a minute. Hold on now. You were talking about the symbols being explained in the book of Revelation itself. Where does the book of Revelation indicate that the two witnesses refer to Elijah and Moses? It doesn't. Why are you not acknowledging that not every symbol in Revelation is explained as you tried to claim?
Because it is explained
Revelation 11:3-4
3 And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.
4 These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.
It is a direct reference to Zechariah 4.
11 Then answered I, and said unto him, What are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof?
12 And I answered again, and said unto him, What be these two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves?
13 And he answered me and said, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord.
14 Then said he, These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.
So it's two annointed ones who stood by Jesus.
The two annointed ones who stood by Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration were Elijah and Moses.
Revelation 11 continues to say that they have the power to call fire (Elijah) and call down plagues on the earth like turning the water into blood (Moses)
Malachi 4:5 also says Elijah will be sent before the day of the Lord.
now yes, Jesus said John the Baptist came in Elijah's spirit, so there is also that possibility that people will be sent in the spirit of Elijah and Moses rather than physically being Elijah and Moses.
Either way. The two witnesses are Elijah and Moses I'm convinced.
If it's explained then why can't you tell me exactly what city it is? You are embarrassing yourself here but not acknowledging my point which is that not all the symbols in the book of Revelation are spelled out for us as to what exactly they represent. The same is true regarding the temple of God in Revelation 11:1-2. It's not a physical temple. We can discern that similarly to how we discern the identity of other symbolic entities in the book of Revelation that are specifically identified.
The temple isn't a symbol because it's not explained to be a symbol. it's a temple. a temple that can be measured with a rod.
The City, if you want to interpret it literally, is Babylon. Yes I know Babylon is ruins now, but if God can make Israel a nation in a day, He can also raise up Babylon again. One thing is certain is that the US is no longer the dominant power in the world at the time of the end. we're under judgement and will probably collapse and be irrelevant.
So, tell me exactly who the beast is and exactly what the seven heads and ten horns represent. You apparently have all the answers about what all the symbols in Revelation mean and yet you can't tell me these things.
One thing first. When the symbol of the Beast was given it's not just in reference to a person, but an empire. An empire is treated synonymously with its Emperor. They don't say Ramses II, they just say Pharaoh. They don't just say Tiberius, they say Caesar. There have been well more than 8 gentile kings that have controlled Israel. But there have been 7 world empires that have had direct control over Israel. The Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks (the 5 that are fallen by John's time), Rome (the 1 that was current in John's time), and the Islamic Caliphate/Ottoman Empire (the one that was not yet in John's time) (Revelation 17:10). The 8th empire, the Antichrist's Empire is "of the seven", I take it to mean it's going to consist of the same land area as the 7 previous, and could either be a revived Roman Empire or Revived Ottoman Empire, or a combination "of the seven". Erdogan of Turkey certainly has plans to reestablish the Ottoman Empire after the "expiration" of the Treaty of Lausanne in 2023. He's been involved in Libya, Syria, Iraq, places that have been destabilized that could be taken over. Couldn't say Erdogan's the antichrist, but could be a predecessor.
But the angel explains that the 7 heads are 7 mountains and the woman is a city. A city that sits on seven mountains. It's not some mystery where you have to wonder what the heads represent. The angel says 7 mountains. There's a city famous for 7 mountains.
I just choose not to spell it out because there's a denomination that gets very upset about that.
Sometimes you just have to believe the bible means what it says, rather than analyzing everything to mean something else. In Zechariah it said that Messiah would be sold for 30 pieces of silver, cast at the potter. In the Gospel of Matthew we learn Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, and when he killed himself those 30 pieces of silver were used to buy the plot of land from a potter. They were cast at the potter.
You don't have to spiritually analyze what the 30 pieces of silver meant or who the potter represented or anything like... because of literal fulfillment.
