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Bro. Bill Nichols
We are going to begin this morning with Revelation chapter 6, verse 1.
And I'm going to begin by reading it, a little bit of it, in fact some of 1 and 2. And I saw when the
Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard as it were the noise of thunder, and one of the beasts saying,
Come and see. And I saw, and behold a white horse, and he that sat on him.
Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us this place to come to, to meet together so that we can study your holy word.
Thank you for providing your holy word to us in a form that we can understand it.
And thank you for giving us your holy spirit to guide us and illuminate the way.
Protect us and keep us, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Well that was what in the news media they call a tease. You lay something out there and you say, we're going to get to it.
And this morning we're going to begin our study of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
We will not finish all four. In fact, we'll barely get started with the first one.
You notice I left off in the middle of a sentence. I did that on purpose because the next phrase talks about something in the possession of the rider.
Well, what I want to do is to first of all determine who the rider is and how we know that and then determine what this is that he is in possession of and what its value is.
But before we begin any of that, I want to review some in chapters 4 and 5.
We're going to start with Revelation 4 verse 1. So let's go there. Revelation 4 verse 1.
And I will show thee things which must be hereafter. What does hereafter mean?
Things in the future, some of which deal with the behavior of unrepentant man and others with the wrath of God and his judgment on men, both the repentant and unrepentant.
Every man is judged. Every man, every woman, every person that has ever lived eventually will be judged.
Both the repentant and the unrepentant. Hebrews 9 verse 24.
You want to go there? Hebrews 9 verse 24 is talking about the
Redeemer. Let's just read it. For Christ is not entered into holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.
Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with the blood of others.
For then must he have often suffered since the foundation of the world.
But now once in the end of the world has he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, and as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.
Every man is appointed to die and be judged.
Some will be judged and their sins will not be seen. Some will die and their sins will be seen, and they will be accounted, accountable for their sins, whose sins are not seen.
Anyone whose sins are hidden by the blood of Christ, or not even hidden by the blood of Christ, but paid for by the blood of Christ.
In the Old Testament it was kind of hidden from, and it's kind of rolled back and he puts new blood on it, but now once and for all it is paid for.
Some of our sins are paid for, and when the judgment comes, that sin will be paid for by the blood of Jesus.
And if the blood of Jesus doesn't pay for your sins, you pay for your own. Yes sir.
The sins, insofar as we're concerned, removed from us. Insofar as Jesus is concerned, they're put on him, and as far as God is concerned, they are paid for and he is satisfied.
And that's what it's all about, the satisfaction of God. He can't be just and allow us to sin, and have no consequence, otherwise he would have told a lie when he said, if you sin, you die.
Old Testament prophets spoke of this time of future judgment. Did anybody else have a question?
I didn't mean to shut you off. It really doesn't matter to me how many questions we have or how far we get.
The Lord will take us to the point he wants us to stop at anyhow. In describing
Israel's suffering during that time, Jeremiah wrote in Jeremiah 30, verse 7,
Alas, for that day is great, so that none is like it.
It is even the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it.
This he that Jeremiah talked about is Israel. And what he's prophesying is the coming salvation of an entire people.
Not bits and drabbles, not a remnant, but every last one of them, the entire nation.
That seems incredible, doesn't it? If you think it's impossible, that that's impossible, you need to consider what
Jesus said to the rich young ruler. And we're going to go there and read that. That will be in Matthew 19, verse 16.
Matthew 19, verse 16. And we'll begin by the rich young ruler approaching
Jesus and saying to him, Good Master, what good thing shall
I do that I may have eternal life? And Jesus didn't answer that question.
Jesus said, Why callest thou me good? There is none good.
There is none good but one, that is God. But if thou will enter into life, keep the commandments.
And he says, Which? And Jesus said, It's interesting to me that he didn't say the one
I would have thought he would have said. I would have thought that or thou shalt have no other
God before me. Is what I would have thought he would have said. But what he said was,
Thou shalt do no murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honor thy father and thy mother. And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Yes. You may be right.
I thought that he didn't ask him the question that he knew he would not have the answer to. This one he says,
I've done all those. Now I don't believe that. I'm with Marianne on that.
I don't believe that. But he says, All these I have kept from my youth.
What lack I yet? And then Jesus tells him the one. If thou would be perfect, go sell that thou hast, and give it to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.
And come and follow me. You know what he really said there? You have a
God before me. You have a God that's more important to you than I am.
Get rid of that God. Don't have that God before me. Not your money. You see, it wouldn't be money for me.
It would be something else for me. But for every one of us, we've got something that if we're not careful, we put before God.
And when we do, we are having a God more important than we are. I came to terms with that years ago when
I took my nephew fishing. We hiked into the
Beartooth Range at the edge of Yellowstone a day up a steep mountain to a mountain lake.
And I had a little breakdown backpack fly rod that had about six pieces to it.
And the intent was to fly fish when we were up there. See the scenery and fly fish.
So we got up there, and I'm setting up the tent. And so I tell my nephew, he's about 13, 14 years old.
I said, well, why don't you fish a while, and I'll set up the tent. And so he did. Now, what
I assumed he would do was put the rod pole together, take the reel, run it through the guides, tie the fly on, and fish.
He had never done that before. All he had ever done was fish with a cane pole with a string tied on the end.
So he took the line out of the reel, tied it onto the end of the rod, threw it out, and the weight of the line pulled the tip of the rod off.
And out in the middle of the lake it went. All I heard was the splash.
And I was furious. But this was my little nephew, and I didn't want to say anything, so I didn't.
I just kind of bit my tongue, and I wanted to say, what's the matter, son? Did you never go fishing before?
And he would have said, yes, but not with this. But I didn't say that, and I was as pleasant as I could be.
But I was angry. So we spent the night.
Well, there's no reason to stay anymore, right? We've walked up, and we've seen the lake, and we've thrown our fishing gear into the river.
And so it's over and done. And we're heading back down, and I'm mad, and I'm not even seeing the scenery because I'm still worried about that fly rod.
And about a third of the way down, I say, you know what? You're crazy. You spent $3 ,000 or $4 ,000 on this trip.
And you're letting a little $200 fly rod stand in the way of you having any enjoyment.
The greater good that I might have had, I'm losing because of the $200 fly rod.
And I said to myself, if you can't afford to throw it away, you can't afford to have it.
If something is so dear to you that you can't give it up and be happy without it, then you are not capable.
You're not at the point where you're able to have it. Well, by the time we got down to the bottom of the mountain,
I was cured. I was happy, and we were on the rest of our journey. And my nephew,
I only told him this year how angry I was that year, and that was 50 years ago.
No! No, absolutely not.
But what I didn't want him to do, I didn't want to spoil his vacation for him. And I didn't do that.
He never knew how angry I was. I was over my anger before I got to the bottom of the hill. But for me, for that time,
I'm not relating to that, that fly rod was too important for me to have.
Make sense? Now, that's what this young man did.
He had something more important to him than God. He wanted to follow God. He wanted to follow
Jesus, but he wasn't willing to give up the things he had to give up. He had to have another
God before him, more important than God. And so what did he say?
But the young man... But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
Did he want the benefits of... He wanted the benefits of following the
Lord more than he wanted to follow the Lord? Yes, indeed, I think so. So he wanted to go to heaven, but he wanted it his way.
Yes. What can I do? What do
I have to do? And we're going to get the answer to that today. What can I do? Nothing.
So let's go ahead and get the rest of the story. Then Jesus said to his disciples,
Verily I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again
I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
And when the disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved?
But Jesus beheld them and said unto them, With men it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.
Now what is it that Jesus just said to these men? The same thing we were talking about yesterday after breakfast?
It's impossible that through their own efforts, even one man might be saved.
It is impossible through their own efforts that even one man might be saved.
But through the efforts of God, all things are possible. The salvation of one man is hard enough.
And we talk about just all the things the Lord has to do. This is kind of what this piece got in today.
We're talking about all the things, not all the works. Are you saved by works? We were talking about this yesterday.
Maybe we ought to change the name of this church to the Church of the Salvation by Works.
But the question is, whose works? Not mine. Through my works, not one person, not me, not anybody can be saved by anything that I can do.
And that's what Jesus told the rich young ruler. There's nothing that you can do to earn your salvation.
But works are done. Works are done by the only one that has the ability to do all the works that need to be done.
And that's Jesus. It is through Jesus' works that you're saved. And Jesus can do enough work to save you and me, and also to save the entire nation of Israel at the proper time without a single one being left out.
That is incredible. Paul confirms that salvation of the entirety of the nation when he says,
So all of Israel shall be saved. As it is written, there shall come out of Zion a
Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.
Now, in describing the judgment of the Gentile nations, Isaiah said,
Come near ye nations to hear, this is Isaiah 34 verse 1,
Come near ye nations to hear and hearken, ye people. Let the earth hear and all that is therein, the world and all things that come forth of it.
For the indignation of the
Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon their armies.
He hath utterly destroyed them. He hath delivered them to the slaughter, and their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcasses, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood, and all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, and all their host shall fall down, as a leaf falleth off the vine, as a falling fig from a fig tree.
Now you would think with all this prophecy going on, that man would realize the dire situation that he is in.
But in spite of all of this prophecy, man does not realize how much he deserves the wrath that he is about to experience.
How many deserve that wrath? All of us. All of us deserve the wrath.
Some of us are preserved from that, but not through anything that we can do, just what the
Lord can do. Man has a serious lack of perspective.
Man thinks the world is getting better. That was really a dominant theme in the theological world prior to World War II.
We said the world is getting better and better and better. The church is in the world to make the world get better, and it will get better and better and better and better until we finally have heaven on earth.
There are people who believe that. Then World War II came along, and they said, well, we must have miscalibrated somewhere. It wasn't getting better.
It got worse for a while. Man thinks the world is getting better. God knows the world is becoming worse.
Man says that there is peace among the nations close at hand. What does
God tell us? That there will be wars and rumors of the wars. Wars and rumors of the world.
Wars and rumors of wars all the way to the end. We think we secure peace, and every time we think we secure peace, some rogue nation appears to steal it away.
Man expects to win the battle against disease, famine, and hardship. God knows that fearful judgment of disease, famine, and hardship lie in our future.
We have doctors, and we cure diseases, and for every disease we cure, we find two new ones, it seems like.
And then the old one reemerges in a more virulent form. That is our lack of perspective.
We don't view things from the same perspective God does, so we can't see them the same way He does.
Yes, sir? There's always war going on somewhere.
And the last peace prize was given to a man that hadn't done anything yet. Well, that's beside the point.
That's beside the point. When it was delivered, he hadn't done anything. He wasn't even in power. That was really weird.
Last week, in our study of Revelation 5, we saw that Christ was the only one found worthy to open the scroll.
Look through heaven and earth looking for a man worthy to open the scroll. No one was worthy to open the scroll except Jesus Christ.
That scroll was the title deed to the universe. But this is no ordinary deed.
No ordinary document of inheritance. The ordinary document spells out what the heir will possess.
We already know that. What will the heir possess, Ron? Everything that there is.
Eternal life and everything forever. That's what we'll possess. What this document, the one that's about to be opened, the scroll that's about to be opened, what it's going to detail is not what we will inherit, that's everything, but how we will inherit it.
What goes on in the inheritance process. There's one other thing we need to understand before we go on, and that is that the first four seals that are going to be opened in this book covers what
Jesus referred to as the beginning of sorrows. That's mentioned in Matthew 24.
We're going to begin that at Matthew 24, verse 1, and the mention will be in verse 8. The beginning of sorrows.
And when Jesus went out and departed from the temple, this is verse 1, and his disciples came to him to show him the building of the temple, and Jesus said unto them,
See ye not these things? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.
And he set upon the mountain of olives, and the disciples came unto him privately, saying,
Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming and the end of the world?
Now they ask him three questions. When will this happen? What will be the sign of thy coming?
And what will be the sign of the end of the world? And Jesus answered and said,
Take heed that no man deceive you, for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many.
And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that ye not be troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
For nations shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in diverse places.
All these are the beginning of sorrows. I think that's happening now, and it will continue to happen for a little bit longer.
As terrible as these four judgments are, they are but preliminary to the outpouring of God's final wrath in the last three seals.
All right. We're ready. I'm going to pick up right now at verse 5 and read a little bit and then jump right into 6.
Revelation 5, verse 5. And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not.
Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.
And I beheld, and lo in the midst of the throne and the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders stood a lamb, as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, sent forth unto all the earth.
And he came, that's the lamb, and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat on the throne.
Now to chapter 6, verse 1.
He's taken the book out of the right hand of him that opened it.
And now John begins. And I saw, when the lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder, one of the beasts saying,
Come and see. As he breaks each of the seven seals that secures the scroll, a new demonstration of God's judgment on the earth in the future tribulation period is unleashed.
The one thing to notice, and I don't know the significance of this, maybe some of you do, the guide has changed.
When John was being instructed on the developments in heaven, who was his guide? One of the 24 elders.
Now he's viewing things developing on earth. His guide is now one of the beasts, one of the angelic beings.
Again, I don't know what that means. I don't know if it means anything or not, but it was something that piqued my curiosity, and I am continuing to look at that, but I don't have any answer for you yet.
And I may never have one. After all, that's what heaven's for, right?
To give us time to figure all this out. And I saw and behold a white horse, and he that sat on him.
Now, when this seal is opened, it begins the first three and a half years in what is sometimes called the
Great Tribulation. Now, I don't personally think the Great Tribulation is all seven years.
I think the Great Tribulation is only the last three and a half years of the seven years of Daniel.
So I think this is in the first part of that. It's not really the Great Tribulation, but it's the opening of the seals.
It is the seven years. And what it's going to do, it will unveil the ultimate
Satan -possessed rebel. And who is that?
That's the Antichrist. So I think what's happening on this white horse, he that sits on the white horse is,
I believe, the Antichrist. Kind of weird that he'd be a white horse. You're thinking black horse or green horse or some other color horse.
Why a white horse? Because he poses as God.
Because he's a cheater. He's a deceiver. Is that what you said, a deceiver? I didn't hear that. But yes, he's a deceiver.
He's a liar. Throughout history, there have been many rebels who sought to conquer and rule the world.
Who was the first and most powerful and most notorious usurper?
I'm sorry? Satan. Satan himself. We're given two passages, easy to remember.
If you link these two together, you can remember them always. You may have to look twice. One is in Isaiah.
The other is in Ezekiel. One is chapter 14. And the other is chapter 28. You know, you've got 2 times 7 and 4 times 7.
We're going to start with Ezekiel. We're just going to read it. And it begins with the word Ezekiel 28.
We're going to begin at 11. Ezekiel 28, 11. And it's going to begin with the word moreover.
Now, I'm starting here because here's where there's a change. There's a change from verse 10 to verse 11.
You'll see the change as we go, even though we're not looking at the first part. Moreover implies extra information.
Up until now, the object of the lamentation was the king of Tyre. Now, that changes.
So let's read it. Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, take up lamentation against the king of Tyre.
Tyre is in the King James Version. And say unto him.
Now, who's he talking to? He's identified him as the king of Tyre. But look at the way he describes him and tell me if you think it's a king.
And what kind of king it would be. It won't even be King David or King Solomon. Let's look and see.
Thus saith the Lord God, thou sillest up the sun. We'd say, you're everything.
Full of wisdom. Not smart. Full of wisdom. Perfect in beauty.
Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was thy covering.
The Sardinius. Topaz. The diamond. The beryl. The onyx. The jasper.
The sapphire. The emerald. The carbuncle. And gold. The workmanship of thy tablets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
Now, whoever this is, he's clearly not a man anymore. We get a hint of that in verse 13.
Thou hast been in Eden. But in verse 14, it's much clearer. He tells us exactly who this guy was.
Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth. So who was this anointed cherub?
It was Satan. And Satan was what? Thou wast created.
So who created Satan? God. In what form was
God when he created Satan? Was he God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit? Okay.
He was all in all. I'm kind of leaning toward Jesus the creator of all that was created.
Jesus the creator. Not God the Father, but God in his role as Jesus the creator.
And what did he create? He created the heavens and the earth and all that's in them. And he created
Satan. But see,
Satan is Satan. And he just came into being, and he looked around, and he saw
Jesus, and he assumed Jesus was just his older brother.
Like the Mormons. The rider of the white horse is
Satan, I believe. I believe. Now, again, you take all of this. If I tell you something, this is that.
I didn't mean to say that. In fact, I think I said my perception is that this is the
Antichrist. And I may be wrong. To me, it's pretty clear that it's
Satan. But there's a lot of stuff that indicates that this might be the
Antichrist. But we'll get to that as we get to it. But, yes, I think the rider of the white horse is
Antichrist. Dr. MacArthur says he thinks it's not probably profitable to identify the rider of the white horse as a man at all because none of the other riders are identified as a man.
Okay, maybe he's right. So that's a different perspective. I have no idea that it's a deceiving horse.
He's keeping a deceiving rider on a deceiving horse. The horse, even though it's white, is not a white horse like the one the
Lord rides. And the rider is not a rider like the Lord is either.
We'll see another white horse later. And it will be carrying
Jesus. So who is this anointed cherub?
Who created Satan and put him in this position of authority? I think it's
Jesus. And did Jesus make a mistake? The answer to that is always no.
If I think Jesus made a mistake, then I'm wrong. I told that to a fellow teacher of mine once.
We were discussing something, and he said,
Well, that's not so. And I said, Then you're wrong.
But now, this I do know. Jesus don't make mistakes.
I do. It may have been me that was wrong with regard to the other teacher. And I have set thee so.
Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth. And I have set thee so.
Thou walkest on the holy mountain of God. Thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created until iniquity was found in thee.
By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence. And thou hast sinned.
Therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God. I will destroy thee,
O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty.
Thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness. And I will cast thee to the ground.
And I will lay thee before kings that they may behold thee. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities and by the iniquity of thy traffic.
Therefore I will bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, and it shall devour thee. And I will bring thee to the ashes upon the earth in the sight of all of them that behold thee.
And all they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee.
Thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more. So Satan knows what's going to happen to him.
That's why he struggles so hard to slow it down. In Isaiah 14, picking up at verse 12,
I couldn't resist putting this one in too. How thou art fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations!
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.
I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north.
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most high.
Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell to the side of the pits. They that see thee shall narrowly look at thee and consider this thing.
Is this the man that made the earth to tremble and did shake the kingdoms?
That was the ultimate rebellion. The highest, most powerful angelic being was not satisfied with his beauty, power, wisdom given him by God, but aspired to be
God himself. So he rebelled. And after his rebellion was crushed, he and his angelic followers were thrown out of heaven.
Well, it does kind of imply that it's up into the north. You go up into the north and what do you see there?
You see the North Star. And so there are people that say it's out beyond the North Star. I wouldn't suggest getting a rocket ship and taking off to go there because even if it is off in that direction, it's way off further than you're going to go.
I think it's much more complicated than it's being up into the north. In fact, on the way in to church this morning,
I thought, it is so weird how things happen. I was listening to the guy from First Baptist, Jeffers, and his sermon this morning was a place called heaven.
And he was in this passage reading about where heaven was. And I don't think he came to the conclusion that heaven is up into the north, but he kind of hinted that way.
And then I got here and turned the radio off, and I don't know what his conclusion was. But I thought, that is interesting.
Up and kind of toward the north, a long way. Yeah. Okay.
Not only did Satan try his hand at rebellion, but he also inspired a host of humans to try their hand.
Men such as Nebuchadnezzar, Darius, Alexander the
Great, the emperors of Rome, all aspired to conquer the world. These were all men who aspired to conquer the world.
It doesn't end there. Attila the Hun. In fact, Attila the Hun conquered more of the world than any of these previous guys did.
And Genghis Khan captured more than Attila the Hun. We had
Napoleon, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler. All men that aspire to conquer the world.
This also can be taken with a grain of salt. How many of you think that the
Antichrist is living on the earth today? I think that.
But I think more than that. I think he has always been living on the earth.
And the man has been living, so that if the time comes, Satan will have a man ready to put into place.
He can't go take a baby and put it in there. He's got to have a 30 -something year old guy. So, I think there's an
Antichrist. Always has been. Ready to be plugged in.
A man ready to be plugged in. Possessed by Satan. Plugged in as the
Antichrist whenever Satan knows that that's going to happen. And when will he know?
He'll know when the seal is opened. And the white horse is revealed. That's when
Satan will know. And then he'll take his man and put...
He'll possess his man. And his man will be the Antichrist. And his man will be riding the white horse,
I believe. But that's just me. I think I can say that because I know most of you.
And I'm not going to shatter anybody's understanding.
I think he's got to be a man. I think he's got to be a man. He's got to be possessed by Satan.
I think there are people throughout history that were available to Satan to be possessed at the time that it's revealed that he can possess them.
And when he can possess them, he will. And there may be 10 or 20 people out there right now any one of whom he can possess.
But when he possesses it, that will be the one it is, I believe. Is that what you're... Well, and if it's revealed today, then
George Soros may very well be the actual Antichrist. But if it doesn't happen, but if he passes on, there'll be another man that Satan can possess.
There's always been an Antichrist, I think. A potential Antichrist. There'll not be an Antichrist until Satan possesses him.
People thought the Pope of Rome for a long time, and then they began to lose their power.
No, he doesn't. All he knows is he wants to delay it as long as he can. I'm sorry?
Well, that's true. It's the leader of those who are against Christ.
So there will be a final Antichrist. And it is that Satan -possessed conqueror that we will see riding the first horse.
All of these men and a host of lesser lights all have one thing in common. They all have failed.
Or they will fail. You know how I know that? Because only one individual has the right, the power, and the authority to rule the earth.
And who's that? That's the Lord Jesus Christ. He will come back, take what is rightfully his from Satan and the
Antichrist, and all the demonic rebels, human, demonic.
No one else is worthy or capable of ruling the world. No evil man can rule the world.
No good man. No demon. No angel. That's just what we looked at last week throughout the world, in heaven, under heaven, in the seas, over the seas, in the skies.
No man was found worthy except Jesus Christ. No one, no thing is worthy except Jesus.
Makes you want to write a book. Why were they looking?
That was... They knew the answer. It was to ensure that everyone understood, in particular
John, that there was no one worthy of opening the book. Throughout history, throughout time, no one capable of opening the book and possessing the universe and ruling it all except Jesus.
That's what it's all about. If I didn't get that clear, I'm sorry. Jesus Christ is pictured as Earth's rightful ruler.
And he is getting ready to return to redeem the world from sin, from Satan, from death, and from the curse.
He's the central theme of John's second vision of heaven. And, in fact, he is the central theme of the entire
Scripture. John 5, 39, you don't need to go there, says, Search the
Scripture, for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me.
So what's the Scripture about? The Scripture is not about a way for you to find a way to eternal life. You won't find it there.
You won't find a way for you to find something to do that will get you eternal life.
That's what the richly ruler was looking for. He was looking for a way to get eternal life. You won't find eternal life in the
Scripture. Where will you find eternal life? In Jesus Christ. The Scripture is all about Jesus Christ.
Now, the white horse. Why is it white? With the white horse comes an unparalleled time of world peace.
Remember in the opening comment, mention was made of man's desire for peace and his belief that peace was near at hand?
God tells us this is a false hope, that there will be wars and rumors of wars until when?
Until this first seal is opened. And when this first seal is opened, and when this first seal is opened, and this white horse emerges with the rider on it, now, there will be a time, an unprecedented time of peace.
This will be a time like no other. The entire world will follow this ruler, this rider.
They are possessed, obsessed with pursuing peace. A peace that will turn out to be only an illusion.
A covenant of peace between Satan, the
Antichrist, and man. A covenant of peace relying on the integrity of Antichrist.
All the other covenants that we looked at were covenants between God and man.
Relying on the integrity of God and therefore were eternal. Is it any wonder that a covenant between man and the
Antichrist will last only as long as it is convenient to the
Antichrist for it to exist? And that will be three and a half years. And at the end of that three and a half years, the illusion of peace is over and the next horse will appear.
We'll see more about that next week, God willing. Well, here's what
I believe about that. I believe there can be peace between any two nations and it will last as long as it's convenient for both nations to exist.
But even if you resolve that warlike situation, there'll be another one over here somewhere that is just as bad or worse.
I think a bigger threat to us right now than North Korea is
Iran. I think the greatest threat to the world peace is
Iran because they not only have weapons to do it with, but I believe
I may be wrong on that, but they have a motivation. And they're a much more worrisome to me threat.
Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for all our many blessings. Keep us and protect us.