I was going to type this up but found it already online so I'll quote it instead.
Quote:
The step-by-step chronology in Matthew 24 of the signs leading up to the rapture and the wrath of God are the exact same signs we see in Revelation chapters 6-8, which are speaking of the 7 seals that need to be opened before the scroll (the wrath of God) can be read; Matthew 24:5; Revelation 6:1-2; The 1st seal corresponds to the first events in Matthew 24 – false christ’s; Matthew 24:6; The 2nd seal in Revelation 6:3-4 – wars; Matthew 24:7; The 3rd seal in Revelation 6:5-6 – famines.
Matthew 24:9; Revelation 6:7-8; The 4th seal – death; “by the wild beasts of the earth”; The word for “by” is a different Greek word than the other “with’s” in the verse; Indicates more definitely the actual agent of destruction; The meaning is defined as “under”, often meaning “under authority” of something working directly as a subordinate; It seems that the other things in this verse–the killing with sword and famine–are “by”, or “under authority”, of the “wild beasts”; The term “wild beasts” has led to some false interpretations; “Wild beast” is not the correct translation of the Greek in Revelation 6:8; The word is “therion” and it basically means “beast”, and it can be translated as “beast” (Titus 1:12), or “wild beast” (Acts 11:6)–context determines which translation is best; It’s used 39 times in the book of Revelation, and 38 times the term refers to either the beast (as in the Antichrist), or the false prophet (the second beast), or the image of the beast, and it correctly is translated there as “beast”; However the translators, attempting to clarify the meaning in Revelation 6:8 incorrectly translated the text as “wild beast”–the only time it is not translated simply as “beast” in Revelation; There is no grounds for the translation “wild beasts” in Revelation 6:8; Both famine and plague are here attributed to the methods in which these “beasts” kill, that is in addition to the sword.
Matthew 24:15, 21-22; Verse 15 is the first time in Matthew 24 that we can put a time as to where we are in the scheme of things; The abomination of desolation is the midpoint of the last 7-year period; Daniel’s 70 Weeks; Final 7-year period begins when the Antichrist makes a peace agreement with Israel; At the midpoint (3 1/2 years in), he will declare himself to be God in the temple; We know more about the midpoint of the final 7-year period than any other time in prophetic history; It’s the beginning of a great persecution of the elect–the entire section here is telling people to flee because of the persecution that will start at that point; Daniel 11:31-35; God has a particular plan in the deaths of these martyrs, which is also exactly what we see in the next seal in Revelation 6:9-11; This seal is entirely about martyrs, and that’s exactly what we see happening in our Matthew 24 verse; The most interesting part of the 5th seal is that the martyrs are asking God how long it will be until He judges those that are killing them; This would seem to indicate that all that has happened so far in the seals (wars, famines, etc.), are not part of God’s judgment; Matthew 24:22; These souls are not going to have to wait very much longer for God to avenge them–in fact, it will happen in the very next seal; Death and the 5th seal martyrs are a match.
Matthew 24:29; If we continue to use Matthew 24 as a guideline for the book of Revelation, we would expect to see this exact same sign there too–the sign that the Day of the Lord and the wrath of God is about to begin; In fact, that’s what we see in Revelation 6:12-17; Luke 21:25-28; He talks about this idea of men who are terrified for what is about to happen, just like in Revelation 6; Believers will take a totally different view of this event, and will not hide, but look up in expectation; That is because the rapture will happen just before the Day of the Lord begins; The very next seal (the 7th seal) is the introduction to the 7 trumpets, which proves that they are chronologically linked to the seals; The rapture will be an event that everyone will know about–the idea of a secret rapture is not biblical at all; This event–the Son of Man coming on the clouds with power and great glory–is an event that everyone will see; All the other lights in the sky have been darkened… people will definitely know when the rapture happens.
The wrath of God starting at the 6th seal causes many problems for the pretribulational idea, because for them, the wrath of God was supposed to start before any of the 6 seals began; Revelation 6:17; Mark 14:41-43; The context in the Revelation passage is obvious–the men are hiding themselves because the day of the Wrath of the Lamb has come, and it’s about to begin; The sign they saw was what Joel said would happen before the Day of the Lord; Also, we see in Luke that the reason why these men were hiding was that they were in expectation of what was about to come; So if this parallel exists, we should now see the rapture at this point; Matthew 24:30-31; This happens immediately after the sun, moon, and star sign that we just saw in Matthew 24; One of the simultaneous events in Revelation chapter 7 is that a multitude of people from every tribe, peoples, and language, which could not be counted by man, appears in heaven; We see this same terminology in chapter 5 about people from every nation, tribe, and language are the ones who are redeemed by Christ from the beginning of time
Source
What do y'all think? I've noticed this connection before as it is often used reference in study Bibles so I keep coming back to it.
Assuming these two passages are linked how does this affect your understanding of the millennial reign of Christ?
Yours in the Lord,
jm
