The Opening of the Sixth Seal

by Larry Hodges

"And I beheld when He had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood" --Revelation 6:12.

    We sometimes do not realize the damage we do to ourselves, our walk with the Lord or our prospects of attaining to the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus when we judge ourselves among ourselves or when we set for ourselves the same standard by which those in the world walk. Within the body of Christ, that is not expected of the hand which is expected of the foot, nor is that accepted in the member of the body which is perfectly alright for the non-member.

    The Church has for so long walked in lock-step with the world while holding the world at arm's length that the Church does not realize its true position due to the fact that the world has gotten progressively farther and farther away from God. Rather than the Church setting the standard for the world, the world has set the standard for the Church. "Everybody does it" has become the licensing authority, rather than the Spirit of Christ. After this has continued for some time and precedents have been set, recognized and accepted, it is almost impossible to overturn them.

    This phenomenon is not original. In the days of the prophet Zephaniah, the people had begun to worship the host of heaven upon the housetops and to swear by the Ammorite god Malcham and also to swear by the Lord. The prophet charged them with having turned their backs to the Lord in not seeking the Lord nor inquiring of Him. This god Malcham had never caused the Red Sea to part before them. He had not delivered them from the hand of Pharaoh or led them through a swollen Jordan to defeat their enemies. What was it that so enticed them to give worth-ship to a god that had not even proven itself to them?

    It was the same thing that caused them to ask for a king to rule over them in place of God. They wanted to be like the nations around them! They did not like being different from everyone else. They did not like being the odd-man out on every occasion. They did not like the price attached to truly being a child of the true and living God. So they compromised. At first, they called upon this strange god, Malcham and continued to call upon the true God, Jehovah. It mattered little that He paid them no attention under the circumstances. The main thing was, they were being religious and that was what was important to them.

    This was not the only time God's people deserted Him for that which was not God. It is written of Amaziah that "He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart" --II Chronicles 25:2. Concerning Asa we read that he was a righteous king and that he did much in the way of righteousness, which is listed in II Chronicles, but he did not serve the Lord with a whole heart and became diseased in his feet. "And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians. And Asa slept with his fathers. . ." --II Chronicles 16:12,13.

    Why? What had turned the heart of this righteous man away from being willing to wholly trust the Lord? Was there no balm in Gilead? Was there no physician there? If there was, then why was not the health of the daughter of His people recovered?

    He is thought to be a cruel and heartless man indeed who will visit one in the midst of his sufferings only to pour upon him the scalding waters of condemnation--unless it will bring about his full and complete recovery, but scalding water seldom does. The world has an abundance of Job's comforters and needs no more of them, and no man in his right mind would apply for such employment.

    Not many days ago Betty, my wife, was going through deep waters where her natural family was concerned and she said to the Lord, "I feel so bad that what I have said has caused them to feel hurt and anger." He said to her, "Are you willing to speak the truth only if the response to you is favorable?" It is very seldom that the truth is not costly at both ends--at the receiving end as well as the giving end.

    Much of the remnant in this hour lies in a physical mess. Years ago a woman named Sawyer was sent from Australia to America with the message, "Revival or Ichabod." She had a prophetic anointing upon her and saw the word of the Lord to her in vision. She tells of one such vision in which she looked and saw a multitude of people laying about in all manner of disease and broken physical condition. She asked the Lord, "Lord, who are these people?" The Lord said to her, "This is my army." She said to Him, "My God! It looks like an emergency ward!" Then the Lord said, "Look what I do." Suddenly an angel moved with lightning speed through this host of broken humanity and placed upon the foreheads of each, a mirror. Then as they looked toward the Lord, His glory was reflected off them into the dark cloud which hovered over them keeping them down, and completely dispelled it.

    It would be very painful for me indeed to have to say to God's people, "Because you have not sought the Lord, but rather the physicians, is this condition come upon you." I do not believe that is the case at all. But I certainly do believe that we, His people, do at this juncture stand in jeopardy of being found in just such a place. Because of the unusual nature of that into which the Lord is now taking us, we find ourselves in a position that has not presented itself to us before now. I find this a most difficult thing to explain, but at the root of any such explanation lies the understanding of the difference between Pentecost and Tabernacles. That difference is found in the meaning of the word, utterness. We cannot keep Tabernacles without it. We cannot come into our inheritance without coming into that utterness which wholly serves the Lord with a perfect heart. It is this very fundamental requisite which produces the "great earthquake" at the breaking of the sixth seal in us. And we must make no mistake about it; it is the sixth seal that God is now breaking within some.

    I am reminded once again of the dream that Lou Daigle shared with us in Houma, LA about a year and a half ago. She said she saw herself walking along a pathway when she came to a gate. As she reached the gate, it swung open and she went through. She watched it close behind her and then turned to continue her journey, but when she looked ahead she said that what she saw was so difficult that it really frightened her. She quickly turned back to the gate and tried to get through, but she could not since there was only about one inch between the gate and the gate-post. Then, practically shaking because of the difficulty she saw ahead, she said, "But God, I can't! I just can't! She said she then heard the Lord speak, saying, "I know daughter, but I can."

    "And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together: and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth and the great men and the rich men and the chief captains and the mighty men and every bondman and every free man hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand" --Revelation 6:12-17.

    Now come the realities we have asked for. Now come the very things we have long sought the Lord to provide in us! But it does indeed produce such a mighty upheaval in those in whom this seal is opened that one nature is entirely replaced by another. Here we find no waving of a magic wand for the renovation of nature, but instead, the destruction of one for the creation of another. If there is to be brought forth within a people new heavens and a new earth, what is to become of the old? Is the new to be built and founded upon the ruins of the old? Or is the first, the old, to be removed that the new might be established?

    We have for so long tossed around the terms, utterness and wholly and perfection that we seem to have to some extent lost their true significance. But God hasn't. He must have a people who wholly follow after Him. He must have a people who trust Him in utterness. If there is to be a people who really do come forth in the strength and restoration that Job received, then it must be a people who walk, live and serve Him in the spirit of, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." There shall be none in this final feast clothed in strange apparel.

    We have often spoken of and rejoiced over that people who are sealed in their foreheads with the mind of Christ; who are caught up unto God and to His throne; and who take the kingdom and rule and reign with Christ a thousand years, but we have said little about the stark, cold fact that none shall be sealed in their foreheads who have not known the breaking of the sixth seal in them! This is the standard set, not by a merely moral world (even that no longer exists), nor is it a standard set by most of our brethren in the Church. It is a standard set by God Himself, and that standard is Christ. He is the golden Reed by which all that is put into the temple is measured. He is the golden shekel of the temple by which all that goes into the temple of the Lord is weighed. There is no other standard.

    Let me here and now declare openly and as plainly as I know how to state it, that those who take counsel of Reason shall not enter into the opening of the sixth seal, for Reason's unseating and final destruction is accomplished in the opening of this seal. Whatever else Reason may be prone to, suicide is not one of them. And remember, the Moon of the sense-life is utterly dealt with in that it is delivered up to the Executioner of it and abandoned to Him. This, I believe, is the great and central cause of the great inner earthquake. These are admittedly things about which not much is universally known, the Lord having, in His unsearchable wisdom, placed it under the strict seal of secrecy until its time for unveiling had come. That time has now arrived and we, the dead in Christ, are hearing the voice of the Son of God and those who are hearing are coming forth from the tomb of the mortal body in a resurrection known as the "first resurrection." The following is a sounding forth of the voice of the Son of God from a former day.

    "I proceed now to the opening of the Sixth Seal where the first thing observable is the great earthquake representing the terrible shakings of the very foundation of the old earth in which is the original seed of sin (the hour of whose judgment is come) and the trumpet hath sounded for the dissolving this first earth and heavens that their place may be no more found. The wind of the mighty Spirit blows upon all flesh to make it die and wither. The sun of the outward reason is changed into blackness and the moon of the senses into blood, and all the starry imaginations drop like untimely fruit, and every island and mountain of strength melteth away. There can be no hiding in this day-- a consumption being determined upon the whole universe which hath been under the Beast's captivity. We may call this a blessed ruin and undoing to see a destruction come upon all that hath kept the Lamb and his kingdom out.

    "This causes a great outcry and perplexity in the properties of degenerate nature where the king of Reason and the captains, the senses, do not know whither to flee from the face of Him who is come to make all things new, which could not be till all of the old building was broken down and taken to pieces where the fretting leprosy of sin did still rise.

    "The wisdom of God could no better way contrive for the laying of a sound and sinless foundation for the New Jerusalem according to this fore-contrived model, than by that express word which came unto me, that none could or ever should come to the opening of the Seventh Seal till all this was fully finished. And I must give witness that it is happening and it doth not seem grievous because of what is to succeed and follow when the next Seal shall be opened.

    "Thus I have been driven on according to experience and Revelation to open the mystical meaning of what is written in the Revelation according as it is to be fulfilled in holy and heaven-born Saints. I also well know that their opening will cause a terrible day of woe to the rebellious (in the Church) and unregenerate, for they who shall then be found in the beast's kingdom must look to fall and go into perdition with him, for as there are inward vials to be poured forth, so there are outward vials to be poured forth on the world, which I could enlarge upon but that it is not my commission, being otherwise prompted.

    "Besides, the Lord showed me that to every Seal there is an eye which opens within which is therefore called upon to look inward where the great mystery is to be opened. As every Seal hath its eye, so the ear hath its sounding horn which is filled with holy oil, which makes kings and priests in God's tabernacle. These are the trumpets that give the most certain sound for time to end and the everlasting Kingdom of the Alpha and Omega to begin in that soul where the sixth trumpet shall sound. Upon which follows the loosing of those angels that have been bound, who are to fight the Lamb's battle and revenge His quarrel. For the great and last war will be upon this Sixth Seal opening. The Lord did testify it would be such as had been known in no foregoing Seal.

    "But He said withal-- "I am the Lord, strong and mighty, who will prevail and wholly overturn the kingdom of the Dragon and Beast. Continue thou, while I am doing this, in the most holy secret of my being where the constant mediatorship and offerings may go on as the strength of an army that shall all overcome through the burning incense that is mingled by the angel whose place is to stand always at the altar. No hurt nor suffering by all this conflagration shall touch the jewel that lies hid in my Deity that would shine forth again the body of its native virginity as before time was. Wherefore suffer thou all this violence on thy elementary part (body) as knowing that it will not at all disturb the inward temple worship and communion of the pure Spirit."

    "But now, as of old time, in the first elect church and people, God was ministered to and worshipped in a dark, formal, mixed manner going up and down in a moveable tabernacle till Solomon's day where the typical temple, which was to be filled with the glory, was built--even so, since the time of the Son of Man's offering up Himself, the Holy One hath walked in clouds and hath been worshipped after an imperfect rate, and therefore He hath prepared a burning, flaming day for all His vessels to pass through to know whether they be sanctuary proof or not. For the Lord is carrying on a pure Jerusalem worship in truth and substantiality. Rejoice all ye who shall stand the trial of this Sixth Seal in order to receive the benefits of it.

    "Now, according to this divine interpretation of the Sixth Seal, we may know how near the end of the time and the passing away of the old heavens and earth in ourselves are. For that is what we are to look for at every Seal's opening. For from the first to the last there is a sounding trumpet (a message) to bring ruin and desolation to the first six days creation because of sin by which the curse which came in. Upon such a basis, the Beast hath erected his kingdom and corrupted the whole principle of time.

    "The Holy One hath suffered now so many thousand years during which all just men died, indeed, in the faith of this prophecy but attained not to that degree which is to usher in the heavenly New Jerusalem in her glory. But the Lord is now stirring and in good earnest is sounding His trumpets for battle. There is that in us which doth witness He is going on gradually to unmake and dissolve all of the first creation, for the Lamb will not much longer carry the weight and burden of a sinful creation. He hath in some already sounded to judgment and will set Himself free thereby, as well as the spirits and souls of those who are resolved to follow him through every Seal till they shall overcome.

    "It was given me to observe that there are six engagements to which six overcomings do answer, mentioned in the Revelation and to every conquest a most high and wonderful reward promised. All which is to encourage to follow Him cheerfully who is our leader, who hath sworn that delay shall be no longer than till He hath gotten the victory over the Beast and Whore and hath destroyed the Dragon's kingdom in every property within us who are elected to reign in His life with Him on His throne with a train of new created power in the properties of the redeemed earth in the soul's essence. Then we shall know how unconfined the lordly dominion over all outward things is, even over all the beasts of this visible earth who must be subjected to the Lamb who hath taken His victorious crown and put it on the heads of the holy warriors that have passed through all and are come to the last overcoming that gives entrance into the Seventh Seal." End of Quote by Jane Leade, The Visions of The New Jerusalem Part I.

    One simply cannot read the foregoing and not receive a sense of utterness about it all. It has been that utterness that has been so missing in our experience up until now, and if we do not agree, then it only reveals that we do not rightly perceive the true meaning of utterness.

    I do not believe that God's people this day lie sick and dying because they have sought after idols, though I do believe that there have been idols of various kinds and degrees after which we have unconsciously sought. It is my belief and hope that we lie in our present spoiled and humiliated state of disease and disorder because God means to bring us into a renewed state in Christ. I thought to say, "But, this is not a blanket statement to all who read this for we find ourselves in varied phases of growth and development in the Lord," but the Spirit reminded me that they were not all in the same stage of growth and development in the Lord in the Early Church, and yet they were all required to relinquish their lives, rather than their testimony in Christ.

    My attempt here to improve and ease the requirements upon us is but yet another evidence of the inherent tendency in man to compromise where the yardstick of God is concerned. I do not believe that any shall be allowed to continue to call upon the god Malcham and upon the Lord also. We shall not be allowed to continue trusting in the Lord and in the arm of flesh also.

    I think we can all appreciate what Elaine Cook has to say in one of her latest issues of The Gospel of The Kingdom. "In prayer this morning I heard the Spirit say, 'I have made you like a weaned child.' I thought of what David said about that: 'Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.' --Psalm 131:2.

    "To try to determine the mind of the Lord here, I checked "weaned" in the dictionary. It means: 1. to accustom (a child or young animal) to loss of mother's milk. 2. to detach the affections from anything long followed or desired.' Why, that seemed to go along with what He was asking of me in regard to my family." (The Lord had been dealing with her about breaking the soul-ties to her family.)

    This weaning is surely what the Lord is doing with us in our relationship with our children, but it extends to everything to which we have been attached besides the Lord. He alone must have us, and those things which before were allowed of Him are no longer to be allowed. The wilderness of divided affections, Pentecost, must be left on the other side of Jordan as we enter into our inheritance in Tabernacles. We must be weaned from the very idea that our life comes from the mortal body. It comes from Christ and He is the sentence of death in us.

    If we believe that we shall enter into the mind of Christ while yet relying upon the Reasoning mind, we ought to take into consideration upon what foundation all of Babylon is built. Modern technology has become almost openly a god in its own right today, along with sports and other things. We give near unrestrained value and worth-ship to the great advances in the multi-billion dollar medical industry. And many doctors (not all of them) these days think of themselves as gods, and not lesser gods either. They are often in such open competition with God that they will brook no interference from Him with their divine work.

    Anyone who can leave a doctor's office these days with even the slightest trace of faith in God intact is, in my estimation, a spiritual giant who ought to receive the overcomer's crown upon exiting his office. Yet, no sooner are we beset with an ailment or injury than we head directly for the nearest drugstore or hospital. Why? Because a quick glance around tells us that "everybody else is doing it." To do so also is only reasonable.

    Nor are we allowed to "But, what if" our way to a conclusion, for every imagination must be cast down as every thought is brought into captivity to Christ. There are constraints and restrictions placed upon us about which the rest of the world and even most of the Church know nothing. But there are rewards due to those who hear and heed the counsel of the Lord about which the rest of the world and most of the Church also know nothing.

    The Early Church was faced with a time in which they, as the suffering servant, must lay down their lives in a most literal manner. The Latter House, which is to bear even more glory, is faced with that time in which the obedient son must decide whether he is willing to drink the cup the Father has given him. There is a glory that is to be revealed in us if so be that we also suffer with Him. And we ought to keep in mind that even as those in the Early Church were (even as we find the case in this day), in various stages of growth and development in Christ, all were expected to give up their lives rather than recant their testimony.

    We are quickly able to see in the light of such requirements of the Lord that, "And they loved not their lives unto death.", takes on an altogether new and wholesome meaning for us. We realize that if Christ is actually to be all, then He must replace all. The enthronement of Christ is not the hit-or-miss, take-what-you-can-get affair that we have sought to make it. It is not merely adding Christ to our life. T. A. Sparks describes it in a most admirable way. "The enthronement of Christ is the enthronement of the Lord Jesus as absolute Sovereign, without reservation or rival, in the entire life, in all its interests and activities." This is the description of the putting down in us of all rule, authority and power that Christ's royal ensign may be planted in the soil of our heart as our entire inner universe bows and submits unreservedly to Him alone.

    What we are here speaking of is "the eye of the needle" shown in all its exacting, requiring properties. But this needle's eye is requiring more than the laying down of instruments and abilities; things self can lay down. This needle's eye calls for the loss of self! It is a reiteration of, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you" --John 6:53. And we are told that many of His own disciples were offended; that they stumbled at this saying and that from that time, many of them walked with Him no more! Here the half-hearted--the flesh, cannot follow. It is here that virgins, those not defiled with the woman, are brought forth. These follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.

    Jesus asked His remaining followers, and asks us, "Will ye also go away?" Whether we do or don't, the message and its requirements will not change. We really ought not think these things to be altogether strange, for we have long known that it was at the end of the age that the tares (tares are religious people) were to be separated from among the wheat. We are told that the reapers are angels (messengers), and messengers bring a message. That which separates the tares from among the wheat, the goats from among the sheep, the good fish from the bad fish is a message to which the tares, the goats, the bad fish cannot yield their hearts. It is the time for the removal of all things that offend. But it is also here that "authority shall be given by Christ to the putting an end to all controversies concerning the true church that is born of the New Jerusalem mother." --1619/1679 Prophecy by Jane Leade.

    Such a message must be as a sound of alarm to all the nations of professed Christendom as well as to all the nations within us. Everything in us cries out against it, every captain of our flesh; every king and would-be ruler; all great men and giants which have asserted their will within, seek to hide themselves from the face of the Lamb; from His wrath against them and that entire fallen creation and from the requirements of His message. They seek to hide in dens and mountains--within. But even the mountains, everything which exalts itself against the name of the Lord, must be brought low.

    We have spoken of these things for some time and have rejoiced over their prospect with great joy as one would rejoice over a treasure hid in a field. Now the time has come when we must go and sell all that we have and are that we may purchase that treasure and possess it. The doing of this causes the words that before were so sweet in the mouth to become so bitter in the belly, yet it is in the belly that a thing is assimilated and becomes a part of us.

    It is for this reason that our physical condition is in such a chaotic state--that out of it God may bring forth a people who count not their lives dear unto them; who count Christ dear unto them, for to them to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Out of this crippled and ruined army the strength of God is to be perfected. We have not grasped the full implication in the statement, "For when I am weak then am I strong." I say that we have not fully grasped its meaning because Paul would therefore ". . . rather glory in [his] my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon [him] me! --II Corinthians 12:9. And he said that he did it most gladly.

    Paul said he took pleasure in infirmities! Folks, this is sowing or being sown of the Lord. That life which must literally be wrenched from us is not an acceptable sacrifice unto God. It is more like offering the Lord "road kill." We are not those who would do such a thing, for we are not those who draw back from the saving of our souls, to a further purification in the lake of fire.

    It is to be kept in mind that the things which are taught herein are not at all true--in Pentecost. But unless we are found walking in them, we are not walking in Tabernacles, for Tabernacles is about utterness. In Tabernacles there are no lines drawn beyond which we are exempt from following the Lamb. Anything less is but a return to Pentecost. But as we have not brought ourselves thus far, we do not have to bring ourselves to the finish line. "For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" --Ephesians 2:10.

END OF MESSAGE