Revelation 6
Revelation chapter six, beginning
at verse one says, now, this is John, I watched when the lamb
opened one of the seven seals. And I heard one of the four living
creatures say with a voice like thunder, come. And I looked and
behold a white horse and its rider had a bow and a crown was
given to him. And he came out conquering and
to conquer. When he opened the second seal,
I heard the second living creature say, come. And out came another
horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take
the peace from the earth so that men should slay one another. And he was given a great sword.
He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say,
Come. And I looked, and behold, a black
horse, and its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. And I
heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living
creatures saying, A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three
quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and the
wine. When he opened the fourth seal,
I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, Come. And
I looked, and behold, a pale horse, and its rider’s name was
Death. And Hades followed him. And they
were given authority over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword,
and with famine, and with pestilence, and by wild beast of the earth.
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls
of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness
they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice,
O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge
and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? And they
were each given a white robe. They were told to rest a little
longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers
should be complete. were to be killed as they themselves
had been. When he opened the sixth seal,
I looked and behold there was a great earthquake and the sun
became black as sackcloth. The full moon became like blood
and the stars of the sky fell to the earth. as the fig tree
sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like
a scroll that is being rolled up and every mountain and island
was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and
the great ones, the generals and the rich and the powerful,
and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and
among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and
the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is
seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for great
is the day of their wrath, and it has come, and who can stand? Amen. This is God’s holy and
inspired and inerrant word. How does a Christian interpret
history? That’s an important question.
In fact, I remember several years back reading a book about how
to develop a good Christian worldview. And every worldview asks a series
of questions, like what happens to a person when they die? But
one of the big questions in developing a worldview is what is the meaning
of it all? What is the meaning of human
history? How should we look at human history and interpret it? Well, how does a Christian interpret
history? Well, first we have to realize
that history is not a series of events isolated from a greater
reality. That’s what we would call a secular
worldview. History, they would say, in a
secular worldview is that history are a bunch of events strung
together and they are detached from some higher meaning or religious
meaning. interpretation. We would believe
otherwise. We would say that history is
under God’s sovereign power and providence. In fact, our book,
our Bible, our sacred text begins this way. In the beginning, in
the beginning of human history, God made the heavens and the
earth. And so we as Christians cannot
interpret human history without without acknowledging God and
His sovereign power and providence. And so a Christian interpreting
history through this lens of there being a higher power, God
Almighty, the creator and sustainer and redeemer, it helps Christians
in hard eras, in hard periods of human history, to see clearly. And remember that the book of
Revelation is meant to encourage saints living in dangerous times,
in the last days. Revelation was meant to encourage
John the Apostle, as he was on the Isle of Patmos and saw into
heaven. Revelation was written by John, it was put down on pages
to encourage the early church under a wicked Roman emperor. It was meant to encourage the
church throughout the successive ages that would run, even today
until 2019 and until the Lord tarries and returns. And human
history culminates in the second coming of the Lord Jesus and
his wonderful new heavens and new earth. Well, the picture
we’ve been given in Revelation thus far is that Jesus Christ
is in charge. Jesus Christ, the victorious
Lamb of God, is at the helm of human history. And we’ve seen
a glimpse into Heaven. Chapter four was a picture of
the sovereign reign of God on His throne. Then chapter five,
which we considered last week, was a picture of the Lamb who
is worthy and able to open the seals of the scroll. and therefore
redemptive history could unfold before our very eyes. And so
now as we get into these second and third and fourth and fifth
and sixth and seventh visions of the book of Revelation, progressively
we will see pictures or cycles or visions of what human history
looks like under evil dominion of Satan, but with God sovereign
over it. And as we get through each vision,
you’ll see the end is nearer and nearer and nearer and the
tribulation and the hardship and the intensity of life in
this cursed world is more intense until we reach the end, heaven
coming down and earth passing away and a new heaven and a new
earth being ushered in and God bringing his people to live with
him forever and ever in the new Jerusalem. We see in chapter
six, something like maybe the divine throne room in the book
of Job. Remember in the book of Job when
Satan had been going to and fro among the earth and maybe some
of you told your kids when they were growing up you know, idle
hands or the devil’s workshop. You know, to be out past 10 o’clock
at night, nothing good is going to happen. Well, what does the
devil say when God says, Satan, where you been? What you been
up to? He says, hmm, well, I’ve been going to and fro, looking
for trouble, basically. And what does God say? Have you
considered my servant, Job? And then we see for 39 more chapters,
all this trouble falls on Job and Job is trying to make sense
of who the sovereign God is and who’s really in charge of evil
and good and who is at the helm. And that’s a zero in view of
God dealing with Job and his family. But you might zoom out
a little bit and think that chapter six of Revelation is God’s dealing
with all humanity, not just Job, like in the prologue to the book
of Job, but this is God dealing with all humanity. Those who
dwell on the earth and do not fear God, but those who temporarily
are sojourning on the earth and do fear God and are making their
way to the new Jerusalem. It’s reminding us that the days
are evil and we have to interpret history. We have to understand
our present difficulties and cope with our present difficulties
in light of the fact that there is order in heaven with God on
his throne and Jesus at his side and that there is evil chaos
on earth until Christ comes and makes all things new. I want
to look at this passage in a couple of sections. The first is the
four horsemen. And you’ll find the four horsemen
along through the opening of the first four seals. When I
was a kid, we were dragged about to various historic sites. And
we were also dragged about to various colleges. My dad had
too many colleges in mind that he wanted a lot of us to go to.
Two went to the Heathen University in North Carolina, which he was
glad for, I think, because it was cheap. but he wanted one
of us to go to Washington and Lee University. So along the
way we got dragged to Lexington, Virginia and lo and behold at
the end of a sidewalk, I believe outside the chapel at Washington
and Lee University, there is the grave of not a famous general,
not a famous Civil War leader whose statue we would probably
take down now, But there was the grave of Traveler, Robert
E. Lee’s horse, buried at the end
of the sidewalk there on the campus of Washington and Lee
University. A horse was essential for battle. And so when we look at Revelation
and see these four horsemen, we may not think about horses
in battle. I remember maybe about 10 years
or so ago hearing from a man, Some of you would know his name
if I mentioned him. He’s a minister in the Presbyterian Church in
America. He was a tank commander in the army, but his father was
one of the last leaders in the U.S. Army’s cavalry division. And so it’s not been very long
since horses were used in battle. Horses have always been essential
for war, though not so today with our armored vehicles and
tanks and other sorts of things. But a scout could ride a horse
to the top of a mountain and see what was taking place. A
commander could ride among his troops and encourage them and
rouse them to battle. It could pull weight. It could
ease traveling great distances in times of war and troop movement. And so here we have four horsemen,
four horses that wage war or unleash tribulation on the earth. They unleash evil on the earth. Now, Before we look at these
four horsemen, I want to remind you that in Mark’s gospel, in
Mark’s gospel in chapter 13, you can flip back there if you
like, Mark’s gospel, chapter 13, we have Jesus giving what
is called the Olivet Discourse. And in Mark chapter 13, Jesus
is explaining to his disciples what will take place in the last
days. He’s telling about the future
destruction of the temple. He talks about the signs of the
close. of the ages. He talks about the
coming of the Son of Man. He talks about Christ and false
prophets arising. He talks about in verse 19, in
those days, there will be such tribulation as has not been seen
from the beginning of the creation that God created until now and
never will be. And if the Lord had not cut short
the days, no human being would ever be saved. But for the sake
of the elect whom he chose, he shortened the days. And if anyone
says to you, look, here is the Christ, or look, there he is,
do not believe it, for there are false prophets that will
arise and perform signs and wonders to lead astray, if possible,
the elect. But be on your guard. I have
told you all things beforehand. Then he goes on to speak about
not knowing the day or the hour in verse 32, not even the angels
in heaven, nor the son himself, but only the father. And he says,
be on guard, keep awake for you do not know when the time will
come. It is like a man going on a journey when he leaves home
and puts his servants in charge, each one with his work and his
commands. He commands the doorkeeper to
stay awake. Therefore, He says to us, the church, stay awake
for you do not know when the master of the house will come
in the evening or at midnight or when the cock crows or in
the morning, lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. What I say
to you, I say to all, stay awake. But he gives us this picture
in Revelation of what those last days will look like because of
the work of the four horsemen. The first horse comes in verse
two. He’s a white horse. The second horse in verse four,
the third horse in verse five is a black horse, and the fourth
horse, verse eight, the pale horse. So what of the white,
the red, the black, and the pale horse? I’m gonna not be able
to say the word horse, but the white horse is a war horse, one
of conquering. And it is not Jesus, the conqueror
on that horse, but it is one who appears like Jesus and Antichrist. giving the appearance that he
is the Christ himself and coming to conquer, but he deceives those
who do not know the true Christ. The red horse is one of war.
The black horse is one of famine. The pale horse is the horse of
death and Hades. And what can we say about these
four horses? Well, besides being interesting creatures, being
apocalyptic in nature besides being strange and maybe unexplainable,
they are coming to make a mess. They are coming not to bring
peace but chaos. They are coming to bring mayhem. Maybe some of you watch on your
televisions that mayhem insurance commercial. Mayhem comes and
destroys your house. It breaks the windows on your
car. It steals, it plunders. And mayhem is the reason you
need to buy nationwide insurance or whatever the commercial is
for. Well, that’s funny, right? But
this is spiritual mayhem. This is physical mayhem. This
is mayhem that affects your health. It affects politics. It affects
nations and peoples. It brings about wars. It brings
about famines. It brings about death. It brings
about all sorts of evil under the sun. So go back to the original
question. How do we interpret human history? We remember that
God, the creator, is the sovereign one on the throne, and he sinlessly
uses sin. He allows evil. It’s for our
chastisement. It’s to bring glory to his name.
And it’s also that Jesus might shine brightly as the savior
of sinners, but every corner, every sphere of the earth has
mayhem brought upon it by these four horsemen. Yet we need to
remember they are under God’s eternal and sovereign decree
that human history is never to be divorced from the sovereign
rule of Almighty God. And so you watch the news and
you think, are we going to go to war with Iran? Whatever we
do, it’s under God’s sovereignty. Some of you’ve lived through
Vietnam. Some of you lived through Korea. Some of you lived through,
maybe you remember World War II. You’ve sent soldiers overseas. You’ve dealt with pestilence.
You’ve dealt with famine. Maybe you’ve been overseas and
brought relief and aid to others. You’ve seen these things firsthand.
It’s all under the sovereignty of God and it’s in his plan.
This world is cursed by sin. And until Jesus comes and makes
all things new, under the sovereignty of God, there will be pain and
hardship. It’s why we love Christmas, isn’t it? It’s why we love, in
the Chronicles of Narnia, when it begins to be never always
winter and Christmas comes. The ice melts. The Narnians are
set free and evil is vanquished. It’s why we love stories. It’s
why Easter has brought about such good literature in our Western
civilization. It’s why people are intrigued,
even if they’re not Christians, with C.S. Lewis and with Tolkien
and these other Parallel universes where good always wins over evil. And so these are the four horses. The second way we want to look
at this passage is from the fifth seal’s perspective. And you find
that in verses 9 through 11 and it speaks of the saints who have
been martyred. This is something I think very
practical for us to consider. It says, when he opened the fifth
seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain
for the word of God. These are martyrs and for the
witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice,
Oh, sovereign Lord, holy and true. How long before you will
judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?
and they were each given a white robe. They were told to rest
a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and
their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they
themselves had been. Do you ever wonder how many have
lost their lives for the sake of Jesus? I mean, we know of
the early martyrs, we know of A handful through history, we
remember just 50 some years ago, Nate Saint and Roger Udarian. We remember Jim Elliott and the
other brothers who were killed in Ecuador, trying to take the
gospel to the tribes down that way. We remember maybe in recent
years, some other sufferings of Christians, but we go back
through history and we remember there were Christians who endured
much and lost their lives. Every one of them, the Bible
tells us, is under the altar. And you hear in that voice where
it says, O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you
judge and avenge our blood on those. Can you not hear in that
throng of people calling out the voice of John Huss? or the
voice of Jim Elliot or the voice of our Covenanter forebears who,
for the sake of crown and covenant, fought the king. They fought
the king in order that Christ may be the rightful leader of
his church. And so now we have here in America,
the associate reform Presbyterians. We have a Covenanters background. Many people lost their lives
through what’s called the killing times. And you hear their voices
in this call to almighty God. It’s a terrible way to die. It’s a terrible way, but God
says a full number at the last will die for the sake of the
kingdom. And so we read here of the persecution
of saints by earth dwellers. We read of the persecution of
the saints by those who follow Satan. and those who do not follow
Christ. I was encouraged by our prayer
time earlier that we take seriously the need to pray people into
the kingdom of God. It is a terrible thing to not
know Christ. And that’s not because simply
you’ll go to hell, right? It’s a terrible thing not to
know Christ. because that means you work for Satan. And that
means you are undoing the glory of God. You are trying to thwart
the kingdom. That means you are serving a
kingdom, not the kingdom of Christ. And yes, there’s punishment.
Yes, there’s judgment. There’s all that, and those are
terrible things, but to not serve the living and true God is such
a sad state of life. And these who do not serve God,
they persecute the saints. I think it’s very interesting.
It speaks of the souls of the martyrs under the throne. And
this encourages us, I believe, to remember what our shorter
catechism teaches us. That the souls of believers are
at their death, made perfect in holiness, and do immediately
pass into glory. And say you were to think of
that particular shorter catechism at the death of a martyr. You
could say something like this, the souls of believers who are
martyrs are at their death made perfect in holiness and do immediately
pass into glory and are now under the altar of Christ, the altar
of heaven, crying out, oh sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long
before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell
on the earth. Think of Stephen. in the book
of Acts, he was stoned to death. And as he was being stoned, he
saw a vision into heaven. But at his death, when the final
blow took his life, he was ushered into the presence of God under
the altar. And maybe he was the first fruits
of the martyrs. And the martyrs, we remember
it was said of them, it is the blood of the martyrs that are
the seed of the church. It’s a good reminder to us, dear
brothers and sisters, we do not sit here today as Christians
lightly. Some have died that we might
have copies of the word. Some have died that we might
worship in freedom. Some have died that we might
have a hymnal full of hymns. And you know, sometimes at church
we get a little nitpicky about the carpet or was the coffee
strong? Sometimes we get nitpicky about, did somebody speak to
me or did somebody, you know, stay on their schedule for a
volunteer service? How often do we think about the
real things? That our covenant, covenant or
forebears died that we might have church or that the Puritans
or the pilgrims died in order that a new and better way could
be lived and religious freedom here on this continent. And it
really makes the coffee a non-argument, doesn’t it? It really makes the
color of the carpet or or some preference at church, a very
tiny thing. You see, these are first world
problems. And sometimes I think we become first world Christians.
A man who taught me always used to say this, the American church
needs a good outbreak of persecution and it will straighten up his
church. And I pray that that does not
happen to us, but it sure would straighten up the church, wouldn’t
it? But here, right under the altar,
right under the place of atonement and sacrifice, we find the persecuted,
the martyred. And they’re told two things,
rest up until the end, until the full number of martyrs come
into the place where you are. And then they’re clothed in robes
of white, robes of victory. but day and night they cry out
for justice, that the name of God might be vindicated and honored. There’s a third and final thing
for us to consider in this passage, and it’s judgment day. That’s
what the sixth seal is. You find it in verses 12 through
17, and you find in verses 12 through 17 echoes of some statements
in the gospel. You find in it echoes of little
pictures that we see in the Old Testament. I think I’ve mentioned
to you before, one of the most fascinating studies I think you
can do as a Christian, particularly as a pastor, is how does the
New Testament use the Old Testament? Well, here in Revelation, there
are not a lot of quotations from the Old Testament, but there
are a lot of allusions. For example, the passage from
Zechariah 6. We read earlier of the four chariots. It’s similar
to the four horses. But pictures of God’s awful judgment. sort of come into focus here,
and you may hear from time to time people say, oh, that’s so
Old Testament. God in the New Testament is the
Jesus God. He’s meek and mild and he’s,
you know, pale skinned and has his beard. And he walks around
in a flowing robe with long hair and he touches people and makes
them whole. Well, actually, verses 12 on tell us a bit differently. God is still a very judgy God,
as you might say. It talks about opening the sixth
seal. And he looked and behold, there
was a great earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth.
The full moon became like blood. The stars of the sky fell to
the earth and as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit, when
shaken by a gale, the sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled
up. Every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then
the kings of the earth, the great ones, the generals, the rich,
the powerful, and everyone slave and free, they hid themselves
in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. This is so
interesting. Calling to the mountains and
to the rocks, fall on us. Hide us from the face of him
who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For
the great day of their wrath has come and who can stand? The book of Hebrews says it is
a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Verse 16 says, before God’s wrath, who can stand? You know, God is a God of wrath.
He is a God of temporal or judgments while we live on earth, but he
is a God of ultimate judgment. And yes, he chastises us as Christians. Yes, he treats us as a father
treats his children, but there is Therefore now, no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. If we are in Christ, the question
is easily answered, for the great day of wrath has come. Who can
stand? Well, those who stand in Christ
will stand at the last day. But those who are not in Christ
will not stand. And boy, does that not urge us
to be preachers and to be evangelists and to share our faith. with
other. Here is a picture of creation
coming undone. Last week, we had straight line
winds. It knocked branches and limbs
down a tree in our neighborhood, went down on a house, and that
was a localized little thing. But can you imagine the whole
earth shaking and quaking, the sky rolling up? And periodically,
we see the moon do strange things, but these things it speaks of
here are permanent things. These are lasting things. This
is the end of this earth, and God is making way for the new
heavens, the new earth. And notice who is quaking in
their boots. It’s those who are confident
now. It’s the rulers. It’s the rich. And they are scared
out of their wits, so much so that they realize their checkbook
They realized their crown. They realized their cache of
weapons. They realized that whatever they
had in their portfolio, as it were, cannot save them from Almighty
God, and instead of facing Almighty God, they would rather the mountains
fall upon them and crush them and hide them from the wrath
of the Lamb of Almighty God fall on us so that he cannot get us. Well, the book of Revelation
is a book of visions, it’s a book of cycles. And as you make your
way through these cycles and the intensity of tribulation
comes, it always brings us back to chapter four and chapter five.
God is on his throne and Jesus is the lamb who is worthy and
he is able. And yes, dear friends, the prince
of the power of the air may seem to be winning, He may seem to
be making strides. He may seem to be making wars
and famines and trouble, but Jesus has conquered and he is
waiting to the appointed time to come and to make all things
new. And until then, we just need
to hold onto our hats and trust in the conquering lamb, Jesus
Christ. Let us pray together. Our Lord
and God, we thank you for this picture of what is taking place
and what will soon take place. And we pray, Lord, that you would
bless us with assurance, bless us with confidence, bless us
with hope, help us to interpret history, not in a futile way,
but help us to interpret it as you, the sovereign over history,
making every moment of every day meaningful for your kingdom
and your glory and you including us in it. And we pray it in Christ’s
name.