The opening of the first four seals reveal the thundering vision of the famous "four horsemen: conquest, war, famine, and death. The opening of the fifth seal rang with the cry of martyrs. With the sixth seal the overthrow of earth and sky was revealed, and all the people of earth, even the most powerful, were reduced to scurrying among the rocks like rodents before "the wrath of the Lamb."

At this point, John paused to reveal "the seal of the living God," a vision that depicts the salvation of the faithful.

The opening of the seventh seal brings visions of the Roman state as the enemy of God and his people. Forces of evil are judged and punished and God and Christ triumph.

Central to one of the notions represented in the tapestry is the description of how John saw a woman in heaven, who evidently represented the people of God. She was "clothed with the sun" and about to bear a child. A "great red dragon" identified as "that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan" pursued her, ready to devour her child at birth. When she bore a son, "who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron," he was caught up to God, but she fled to the wilderness of earth, still pursued by the dragon.

This is represented in the tapestry by the, cup or chalice containing the snake-like dragon. The shed blood of the Lamb is usually depicted as flowing into a cup, which in the tapestry is overwhelming the dragon who is Satan.

The dragon then empowered two beasts: one that rose from the sea and a second that rose from the earth. The sea beast represented the anti-Christian evils of the contemporary Roman State, and the second beast represented evils of the Emperor, and the Emperor worship, that was common throughout the Empire. John evidently saw the rebirth of the evil embodied in the late emperor Nero, who is represented by the number of the beast, 666 (13:1-18), also described as Anti-Christ.

John's vision describes a total conflict between a new church and the Roman Empire and its ruler cult. The vision of seven plagues shows God's punishment of this "great Babylon" just as he had sent plagues on Egypt long ago. John portrays opposition to God as the dragon and beast gather "the kings of the whole world" for battle "at the place which is called in Hebrew Armageddon" (16:13-16). This site has been identified with the fertile valley below the ruined Hebrew mountain-top city of Megiddo, where many battles described in the old testament were fought, and where the prophet Zechariah predicted the place of the 'last battle'