Question
Gramps,
Where are we in the 6th seal? Multiple apostles have said that we are living at the end of the 6th Seal, and I believe that. So where at the end are we? I’ve encountered some problems with what other people think. The Overview to The Book of Revelation makes a basic outline on each Seal. The 7th Seal is supposed to be in 2000 AD. But that’s not quite right. Each seal is probably hundreds of years off or so. People think we’re in the 7th Seal because of the Overview’s small error. What say you?
Nikolay
Answer
Nikolay,
As we have not been given any list pertaining to the opening of the 7th seal, it would be literally impossible to know exactly where we are in the 6th seal. The only revelation we have is that we are in the eleventh hour of the 6th seal. In our Doctrine and Covenants we can read the following,
“For behold, the field is white already to harvest; and it is the eleventh hour, and the last time that I shall call laborers into my vineyard.” (Doctrine and Covenants 33:3)
The eleventh hour from our Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual specifies this,
“The phrase “the eleventh hour” seems to refer to the parable of the ten virgins (see Matthew 25:1–13). The bridegroom came at midnight, catching unaware half of those waiting. Thus, to say that it is the eleventh hour is to imply that the time of the coming of the Bridegroom is drawing near.” (Source)
From the same source manual we can read the following also, ‘President Joseph Fielding Smith showed how the phrase is also related to another parable given by the Master: “The time in which we live is compared to the eleventh hour, and so it is in the Lord’s reckoning, for we are in the closing scenes of the present world. Elder Orson F. Whitney referred to our dispensation as the ‘Saturday night’ of time. And, according to the parable of the men employed in the vineyard [Matthew 20:1–16], we who labor in this hour will be rewarded if we are faithful, with equal compensation with those who labored in the previous hours, or dispensations, in the history of mankind.” (Church History and Modern Revelation, 1:153.)”
As for me, I believe we are more wise to live as though Christ has already come, because the 7th seal will open as a “thief” in the night, “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.” (1 Thessalonians 5:2,4-5) Let us be ready, by living the gospel principles today, so that when the 7th seal does open we are not caught unprepared.
Gramps
