Revelation 6 (Con't)

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Andy, will you open this up? Sure. Our fallen God, again, we thank you for our time together.
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We thank you for who you are and who we are because of Christ. We pray, Lord, be a brother to Mike.
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Guide his thoughts, guide his words, guide our hearts, Lord. Help us to be more like the
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Son of God who so loved us that he gave himself for us. In his name, amen. Revelation chapter 6, beginning in verse 1.
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And then I saw when the lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying, as with a voice of thunder,
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Come. And I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.
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And when he broke the second seal, I heard a second living creature saying, Come. And another, a red horse, went out, and to him who sat on it, it was granted to take peace from the earth, and that men would slay one another, and a great sword was given to him.
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And when he broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, Come. And I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand.
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And I heard something like the voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius.
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And do not damage the oil and the wine. And when the lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the four living creatures saying,
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Come. And I looked, and behold, an ashen horse, and he who sat on it had a name.
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Death and Hades was following with him, and authority was given to him over a fourth of the earth to kill with the sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, and by the wild beast of the earth.
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And when the lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained.
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And they cried with a loud voice saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, will you refrain from judging and avenging our blood from those who dwell on the earth?
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And there was given to each one of them a white robe, and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed, even as they had been, would be completed also.
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And I looked, and he broke a sixth seal. And there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood.
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And the stars of the sky fell to the earth as a fig tree casts its own bright figs when it is shaken by a great wind.
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And the sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up. And every mountain and island were moved out of its place.
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Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains.
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And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the presence of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the
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Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand? We didn't finish.
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I thought I put my pen somewhere. I found the right one.
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We didn't finish. So what was the, we're going to work our way up.
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What was the fourth seal? What did it stand for?
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What was the third?
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And what did it stand for? Put inflation.
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And what was the second? Red. Just a second.
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Because if you remember when we started, I said, hey, if you're unsure about what this is, and we didn't get this far, so I'm going to try to finish it up last week.
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If we don't understand who this, exactly what the white horse was, because I know you're going to have commentaries all over the place.
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We all agreed that, didn't we all agree, or nobody in here believed it was anti -Christ, right?
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When we started from the bottom and then went to the top, I would have, you know. If you remember, three weeks or two weeks ago, whatever it was when we started,
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I said, look, if we look how the top one fits within the paradigm of this, the best part of biblical interpretation, keep reading.
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When you don't understand right here, just keep reading. Because if you immediately jump to, well,
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I know what this is, and then you go, this could make it confusing. So we know that, okay, with what are all of these?
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What did we come through each text last week in Ezekiel, the week before that in Deuteronomy?
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What were all of these? Judgments. There you go. Judgments. And what were they judgments of?
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The specific, and this will help us understand too when we go to the seals. Judgments specifically connected to what?
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The breaking of the covenant, the covenant people of God. Covenant people. So actually, we could just, in short, we could say they were
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Mosaic curses. Didn't we see that? And how do we see that? We see it in Leviticus 26.
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We see it in Deuteronomy 27, 28. Remember, they were from Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal.
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They went back and forth and hollered. I didn't go to Deuteronomy 28 because when we get to the seals, there's a specific one in the seals.
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I want to use that, Deuteronomy 28, so I'm not too redundant because I'm redundant every week. Can't you see?
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All right. So, well, you see that all of these are a judgment of God on the
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Mosaic. They were Mosaic curses. If you do this, you'll live. You do what
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I tell you to do. You'll never have bitter water. You'll never have civil unrest.
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In the times that you have the feast, for however it was, six, seven weeks, I will make sure your enemies don't come in if you just obey what
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I'm saying. Well, what happens if they did not obey? What did he say he was going to send? There were going to be civil unrest within the land.
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There was going to all, remember, famine always against the people of God was a judgment of God.
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Andy was teaching through Ruth. Brought that up last week. And what is death? Death is always a judgment of God for something.
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Look, I don't care who you are, whether you're the holiest person to ever live, when you die, it's an act of the sinner.
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The soul that sins will surely die. Now, don't say, hey, Mike, when God comes, there'll be a whole generation of people that don't die.
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That's not going to be you, okay? We can just get that out of the way. That's probably not going to be you. The soul that sins surely dies.
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Because we sin, we die. Therefore, everybody will, at some point, die.
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And why? Because death is an intruder. That's why death in Hades, at the end of the book of Revelation, ends up being thrown into the lake of fire.
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Why? Because death is an enemy. Hades, Hades, everybody's resurrected.
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Who's left in Hades? Didn't we say last week? Only those who are the unconverted.
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And where do they go? Eternal punishment, weeping, gnashing of teeth, thrown into the lake of fire, at the end of the book, with the beast, the false prophet, and whatever else is unclean.
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So now that gets us to here. So if we're still unclear of what this is, this is how
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I believe it's the armies. It's the armies of God against Jerusalem that he used that caused the civil unrest, that caused the famine, that then ultimately leads to death.
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Now, if you want to say it's false Christs, the false
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Christ actually did, too, did, too, lead to the armies being surrounding of Jerusalem, which then led to civil unrest, because false
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Christ always did. Yes, sir? I'm sorry?
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They have a bow, but they don't have arrows. A bow is just a weapon of war.
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You can read in the Psalms, when it even says that God will bend his bow, it don't say he has an arrow either. It's just used as a weapon.
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That's all. Yes? No, when he was talking about the bow, because I was just thinking about it, and it makes really good sense it's a false
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Christ, because when something's counterfeit, it looks exactly like the real thing.
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He's coming, I'm going to liberate you. Hey, and I held this position for a while, and I think it was a pre -determinative interpretation.
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I said this, I think, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, I believe that John's vision is an expanded, more apocalyptic, obviously, apocalyptic vision of the
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Olivet Discourse. Because the Olivet Discourse from chapter 24 of Matthew through verse 35, there makes a shift in 36, he is primarily speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem.
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Okay? And I think I read it, what was the first thing he says when Jesus says, hey, all these stones will be tumbled, one of these left upon another, and he says, hey, many will come in my name, saying what?
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I am the Christ, and he said, don't believe them. So, I held that position because I believe the model that was set out, and if you go through and you look at the
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Olivet Discourse, he uses this, he uses this, he uses this, which ultimately leads to death.
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It's the same. But that's not how we should interpret everything and make a, basically a system from another discourse and say, hey,
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I'm going to interpret everything else in light of this. I still need to interpret the book in light in the way it was written.
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And what we know happened when the fulfillment of the prophecy's false Christs, yes, were they the catalyst that led to the civil unrest, which certainly led to famine.
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But ultimately, it was the armies of Rome that Jesus said, when you see the armies surrounding, run to the hills, because the days of vengeance are coming.
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Matter of fact, as Jesus was leaving Jerusalem with a cross on his back, I think it's in 20 or 21 of Luke, and there's a multitude of people following him out as he's going to be, and they're weeping.
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Once again, we think that everybody in the city was saying crucify
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Jesus on that day and they were not. There were multitudes of people following him outside the city, weeping and crying because a just man was fixing to be crucified.
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People that really did believe that Jesus was the Messiah. They were following him out. And as Jesus was going out, he told them women, if you remember, you go ahead and read, he says, no, no, no, pray for those women who are nursing in those days.
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Because, hey, if they'll do to a green tree, what do you think they're going to do to a dead tree?
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He was making an allegation, look, if I'm good and I'm green and I'm bringing forth fruit, what's he going to do to a people who are rotten and corrupt?
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He said, so you need to be praying for those people in that day because that day will be a day of vengeance.
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That's what he said. Speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem. So, now, this being
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Christ, and that was brought up first, absolutely does not fit the paradigm.
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You have to make the assumption if it's Christ being on that white horse, you're assuming, like we said earlier, there's a parallel in the latter part of the book.
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You're making a parallel. Parallels are not how you interpret. You have to say, is there anything else that fits in the paradigm?
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Hey, when the destruction of Jerusalem came, was the gospel being proclaimed within the city?
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Before? No, when the siege came. It's over. Matter of fact, because what did it say?
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Even Eusebius says this, they have no record of one Christian being slaughtered within the city or outside the city limits because they heeded the words of Christ.
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When you see the armies coming, get out of Dodge. That's in the Olivet Discourse, right? It is, correct. He says run to the hills.
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And we know this from Eusebius that he says there was a city of Pella, that's where they went, and they found refuge.
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Now, and who's opening the seals? Seems unlikely that the
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Lamb would open up a seal that would reveal himself. And later in the book, when it makes that parallel, does it ascribe any capital nouns or pronouns to that writer?
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Like as far as making the writer, later when it talks about the coming of the white horse. Writer? Writer.
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Writer. Okay. Like does it ascribe, you know how it says here it capitalizes
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Lamb, where it's very clear who the Lamb is. Later on when it talks about the ride on the white horse, is there any capitals given to that?
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No, but it says who's riding on it. His name is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So it makes it very clear. Yeah. Here it's not clear.
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But I understand how some make that connection. If you're making a parallel, you're going, okay, it's used here.
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It's used here. Because somebody said, well, this is what Doug Wilson says. I don't care what Doug Wilson says.
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Doug Wilson is going to stand before God. He's going to give an account for his interpretation just like me. But I don't care what those men say.
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I'm not responsible. Look, I think they're godly men. But I'm not responsible for how they come to their conclusion.
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And every one of them makes that conclusion based on Revelation 19. Well, here's a horse here.
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Here's a horse here. But it doesn't fit within the paradigm of judgment. With the paradigm of judgment,
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I get you. Hold on just a second. When all of this is going on, why is this going on? Because Jesus says,
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I am done. I'm out of here. You've rejected me. You've had 40 years or however long you think that was between the time of His resurrection, the giving of the
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Pentecost. Peter preaches a proclamation of the gospel out in the city streets.
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We see 3 ,000 people. They have from there all the way up to the time of the final, probably,
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I would say, last year of that siege. And then it's over. It's done.
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There is no one else in the city. Condemnation has come down. And God pulled their heads around.
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Yes? That's what he was saying. That's why I was wondering about the point of the counterfeit.
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That's why so many, you know, like how he said false Christ will come. You know? Yeah. And that's what they'll bring.
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And then the fruits that, you know, that precede the false Christ. Sure. Like I said, if you can go read, even in Josephus' time, you can read there was three that came.
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Actually, in the Scriptures, three come up that always cause a rebellion. One of them, 400 of them went out there outside near Egypt, and they were slaughtered.
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And even after one of the guys from the Sanhedrin, actually,
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I think it's Gamal. He says, hey, look, every time something like this rises up, the followings of those men die along with their leader.
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Remember, they were punishing the apostles. He says, leave it be. If this is real, it'll continue.
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If not, it'll be just like all the other ones. He's thinking about false Christ that raised themselves up. This isn't a book of Acts.
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Just leave it be. It'll fizzle out if it's not real. And obviously, we know it was real.
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Now, we'll draw some application before we go to the fifth seal. As I said, as we went through the book, we would draw some application.
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Now, I believe the idealist perspective is the best way of applying the book.
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If you read any of the idealist perspective, it's just straight up applying the book, primarily. It doesn't care about historical events.
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It doesn't have dates. It won't have times. It'll just be over the course of church history, these things will be taking place.
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Now, if we want to say, how should we apply? We're looking at these four seals. We're looking at how they have unfolded in the first century against the nation of Israel, primarily the destruction of Jerusalem.
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We're going to look at how can we apply this or how would it apply today. Every nation that rejects
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Christ will end up being overthrown by another country. It's without fail.
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Hey, you can go back even how God used it in the Old Testament when one nation rejected the revelation of who
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God Yahweh was in the Old Testament. What did he do? How did he overthrow that next one?
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Another army. Another army. Look, when
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Moses goes in and he says, hey, you let my people go. Not you, but, yeah.
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He says, Pharaoh, you let my people go. Let's just entertain the thought.
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Let's say he said, okay, who is this Yahweh? And then
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Moses begins to tell him. And he says, I want to follow that Yahweh.
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Do you think the ten plagues would have come upon that nation? Do you think the firstborn would have been slayed? Do you think hailstones, 100 pounds, would have pounded the livestock to death?
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Do you think the water would have been turned to blood? Do you think they would have got lice and all that stuff all over them? No, they would not.
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So what did God do? Because they rejected the revelation of the proclamation of the prophet that went, he says, all right, here it comes.
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I'm going to give you nine times before I kill your firstborn, basically. And that's what happened. Then, they let him out.
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They let him go. They get to the Red Sea. They're crossing through the Red Sea. And they say, hey, we want him back.
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They've figured out that their slave labor is gone. We need him back.
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And what does God do to that army? He does it with a miraculous act, though.
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They weren't. They were no longer a force. They were the most powerful force.
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Pharaoh was the most powerful man at that time. God overthrew it with his own power.
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How did he do that? By actually watching the slaves that they released go through.
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So the power of God overthrew that army. Another one's going to rise up. Another one's going to rise up. Yes? Isn't it amazing how long -suffering
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God is? Well, we know this. I mean, only to a certain point, I understand. Sure. I mean, you're talking about 429 years.
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Depending on how you understand from the time of the fall to the time of the flood, look how patient God was.
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I mean, you're talking, well, it's debatable on time.
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If you do the total of notes, the generations, it's 1 ,500, 1 ,600 years.
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That's how it comes to Scripture. I think it could be longer, but let's just say based on what we have by the generations.
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Yes, very long -suffering and patient. And then he wipes them out. It always leads me back to Romans 1 .18.
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You know what I mean? Yes, the wrath of God is being revealed against all ungodliness because of their willful rejection of God.
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So every nation will fall to another nation. So we go on.
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What about the Assyrians? The Assyrians were probably the most ruthless army probably of ancient time.
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I mean, them jokers made war cleats so that they could stomp on their enemies and watch their blood and flesh come between their toes.
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Those men would then go into those cities. They would chop off men's heads, plug up where the fresh water was coming in, plug up the hole, and let that little bit of red water come through.
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And people wondered what was going on. And they'd get down there, and all the warriors' heads plugged up the hole where the water was coming in.
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They terrified people. How were they overthrown? They were overthrown by the
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Babylonian Empire, the Scythians, and maybe with some barbarians, depending on how you understand when they overthrew
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Nineveh in 612. Okay, overthrown by another power. Come now.
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How does Babylon get overthrown? World Empire. Not long.
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Maybe 70 years. And how were they overthrown? Nuked in the night. Basically. Actually, not hardly any were dead that night, mostly just Belshazzar.
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He died, and it was taken over by the Persians. How did the Persians get overtaken?
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By the Greeks. How did the Greeks get overtaken? Splintered, and then
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Rome comes along. Yeah. How does Rome get overtaken? Rome falls twice, one in 476
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A .D., and then falls again in 1453, I think. The Eastern Empire and Western Empire by another power.
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Civil unrest plays into that. How are between civil unrest and between armies overthrowing other countries, civil unrest becomes the catalyst, too, in other places.
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We'll just take, for instance, when the Eastern Bloc fell, and everybody in here is Lifetime.
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Remember when the Wall fell? Do you remember what happened with the Soviet Union? Between Serbia, Croatia, Lithuania, all of those
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Eastern Bloc small countries, Georgia, all those countries that were inside of the Soviet Union, do you remember what happened?
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I mean, it was absolute chaos. Those countries, independence, it was countries fighting countries, and it was chaos, and we thought we could go over there and fix it, and we sent our soldiers over there, and it never fixed it.
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Okay? So now, armies are overthrowing other powers, seeking power, but one, you never kill your brother if you love him.
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Right? I don't know. When he wakes up and says, Man, I loved him so much, I killed him. No. We kill one another, when
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I say we, human beings, because we hate one another. That's why. That's why. Now, we're not talking about just war.
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We're just talking about when people go in, famine. When we see civil unrest, we know that's a judgment of God on a group of people.
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Hey, look, our civil unrest hasn't got to the point of killing one another, but our civil unrest in this country is getting there.
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Hey, we deserve the judgment of God in this country. I am praying as Habakkuk, Oh God, please, don't send the
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Chaldeans. That's what he said. Don't send the Chaldeans. They're more wicked than we are.
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And God says, Ha ha, I know. So yeah, God says, Yeah, I know. When we see famine all over the world, is that not, you go over to Sudan, and there are people just starving to death.
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And you know who's over there and overtaking the food? Wars. And they have captured all of the grain silos.
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They capture everything coming in. In Somalia, take places like that, where they catch the boats coming in, and those insurgents.
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Dude, they're doing it in Haiti. The drug lords are doing it down there now. Civil unrest. We see famine, that's a judgment of God on a group of people.
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And today, we can say that. We can literally say, Hey, when God sends famine, that leads to death, that's a judgment of God, in application.
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Okay? Alright. Questions, comments, outbursts of anger, before I go to the next seal. Okay. Chapter 6, verse 9.
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And when the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and because of the testimony which they had maintained.
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So this fifth seal is now opening up the scene in heaven.
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Remember, he's watching these horses gallop out of basically this scroll. Now, he opens up that fifth seal, and he's seeing in this vision, he sees an altar.
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And beneath that altar is the souls of those who have been what? Those who have been slain.
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It's interesting, the word slain there is the same one that's earlier in the book. When they saw the slain lamb.
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Same word. It's those souls that had been slain because of the word of God.
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So, if you remember, I believe that this is, the scroll is the unfolding of the judgment of God.
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And I said earlier that we would see who that plaintiff is. We don't know in the judgment scene of God in the throne room, who is the plaintiff.
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Now we know. The plaintiff's who? The martyr. The souls of the martyrs.
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These disembodied, now they are people, so let me clarify this. These are ethereal things. These are disembodied souls.
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When you die, your body is going to either be incinerated into dust, however they decide to get rid of you, or you'll be put into ground to later be eaten by worms.
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Let's just be honest. Where does your soul go? As a believer.
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Yes, ma 'am. As a believer, we're going to be in the presence of the Lord. That's where. So our bodies are now disconnected from our soul.
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But who we are because of Christ will be in the presence of Christ.
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And that's what we're seeing here. These people that were faithful witnesses of the
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Lord, faithful men and women of the Lord, are standing before this altar.
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Actually, they're standing in the throne room of God and saw underneath that the souls of those who have been sacrificed.
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Hey, why is there an altar in heaven? I don't know about y 'all, but when I read that,
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I go, man, that's weird. What is an altar for? Sacrifice.
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That's right. Do we think that there's sacrifices going on in heaven? Of course not.
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In the Old Covenant, where? When they would come to the brazen altar.
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Remember, when you would come into, whether it was in, let's say this was a temple complex or tabernacle, however you want to, we'll do this as a tabernacle, make it smaller.
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You would come through the curtain because when the temple came, this became bigger. This pretty much stayed the same because the
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Holy of Holies and all. You would come through, you would have the brazen altar. You would have butcher tables.
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And you would have the Holy of Holies here, here.
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Here's the altar. When they would come in, they would come through here. Hey, even when the tabernacle or tent of meeting was traveling around in the
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Old Covenant, who was the only people that could go through that curtain? What's that?
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The men. They would partake here and you had outer courts.
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This would have been women, Gentile, even they had proselytes in the time of, just remember they had proselytes at the time of when
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Moses left. You remember the mixed multitude that left with them? So when they set up this, the tabernacle, you would have these outer courts.
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Well, only the men could go through here and they could only go so far. You're right. Now, the
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Levites would be the ones helping in here, but the men would come through here. They would be partakers.
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Hey, you've got to remember when those men would come in there, it's not like, let's say you were the priest or Andy was the priest.
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I'd just go, here dude, I'll send. Take care of that for me. That's not how it went.
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You actually were a partaker of the butchering of that animal, which then makes you be one of the ones to shed the blood of that animal.
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Now, they would be the ones to place it on the altar, to sacrifice it, to then, whatever was left or whatever sacrifice, whether it was entrails or whatever, some of it would go, are you raising your hand?
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No, no. Stretching, yawning? Stretching? Yeah. Okay. They would then butcher that animal.
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Some of the skins would be kept for the clothing of the Levites.
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Remember the meat, some of it was burned, some of it was given to them to eat, all of that. But when that man came through there as a worshiper, he would be helping butcher that animal.
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Then he would give it to that priest, that priest would then put it on top of here. A full burn offering for sin would then come in here, it would go right here, it would be cut, its blood would be drained out.
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Where would the blood be drained out? Anybody remember the Old Testament? Underneath the altar.
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Underneath the altar. Full sacrifices would be poured out when they would burn the whole object, whether a burnt offering or a sin offering.
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Remember, a sin offering and a burnt offering sometimes can be used synonymous, but they specifically were the whole thing thrown up on there.
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Nothing was left to eat, nothing was left for the coverings, nothing, whole thing slit the throat, pour out the blood underneath the altar, set the whole thing on there.
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If you remember in the time when they dedicated the temple, well the first obviously dedication would have been with Solomon, if you remember the thousands of bulls and stuff that he had sacrificed, they had to stop sacrifice.
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One, the altar couldn't burn it fast enough and they couldn't get the blood out fast enough. They had a drainage system and certainly it was more integral in the
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Herod's Temple, it would come out, go down here, over this side here, would have been the
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Kidron Valley, and they began to drain that blood down into the
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Kidron Valley. And on the other side of the Kidron Valley would have been
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Mount of Olives. So all that blood would drain out. If they can't get the blood to go out fast enough, they have to stop.
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And that happened multiple times with Solomon when he sacrificed bulls, goats, lambs, whatever when he dedicated the temple as his offering to God.
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But, right here, in our vision, or in John's vision, he's saying at the altar, this is the altar
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I believe he is speaking of and I'm going to tell you why. It says that the souls had been poured at that altar.
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Who killed more people of God than anybody else in the first century? Sanhedrin and the priesthood.
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Yes, sir. Sanhedrin and the priesthood. Who wanted Peter, James, well, we'll just back up.
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Who wanted Jesus killed? Was it the people? Or was it the priesthood?
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Priesthood. And the Pharisees. And the Sadducees. Sadducees actually were most of the priests.
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Who set up the betrayal of Christ?
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The priest. Yeah. They knew that Judas was a lover of money.
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So, they set it up. Who wanted Christ dead and did not have the power to do it?
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The first person he went to. Annas. Annas was basically the godfather.
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He had been deposed because he had actually used the power of the sword to kill someone.
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Rome, instead of executing him and causing chaos, they lowered his position and put
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Caiaphas, there was two more, very short, but then put his son -in -law in his place. That's where Caiaphas comes in.
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Caiaphas is there. They send him to Annas. Annas says send him to Caiaphas because Caiaphas wasn't going to make any decision apart from hearing the godfather.
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Okay? He says send him to Caiaphas. Caiaphas then does a mock trial. They says he needs to be put to death.
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Could they put him to death? No. So they send him to Pilate. Pilate tries not to put him to death eight times.
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Six times he says the man's done nothing wrong. Okay? He sends him to Herod. Why do you think he's sending him to Herod?
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I know it says he's from Galilee, but why do you think he's sending him to Herod? You know who had the power to put
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Jesus to death? Herod. Herod could have said execute him because Herod had the power of the sword.
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How do we know that? Because just 30 years earlier, what did he do?
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Or 28 years, he went through Bethlehem and slaughtered the babies two years of age and younger and he was able to execute
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John the Baptist and nobody cared. Because he was appointed by Rome. He was appointed by Rome and when you get into Acts and you see where he puts
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James to death and he puts others to death, the media, I don't know about y 'all, okay, but if you're reading that for the first time and you're not familiar with the culture and what was going on, you go, well, then why didn't
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Rome then come in and do something to Herod when
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Herod began to actually put more, you know, try to have more Christians put to death?
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There was a little statement. The night in which Jesus' mock trials took place, Pilate and Herod became friends from that day forward.
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He then had more power to do what he wanted because Pilate was then going to be like, hey, dude, I don't care. He didn't like Jews anyway.
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Pilate didn't. He didn't care. They were all slaughtered. Now, he slaughtered how many in Galilee in that temple?
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Remember it says he mixed their blood with their sacrifice? Dude, he didn't care. He hated the Jews. He just wanted them not to revolt.
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So, he lets Herod have his way. Herod had the power of the sword. So, when they were putting
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Christians to death in the first century, who was doing it? It was the Sadducees and it was the
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Pharisees under the power of the Sanhedrin. And who else went about dragging people off under the compulsion of the
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Sanhedrin, putting them to death and putting them in prison? Saul of Tarsus. So, where were the souls of the martyrs?
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At the feet of the priesthood. That's why. Now, you can disagree with me.
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You can come up with some other fanciful thing. I'm open to that. But that's the conclusion that I come with. It says here, because the word of God.
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But why did they die? Why were they slain? Why were their souls under the altar? Because this is the place where primarily the guilt lies.
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Hey, the average Jew wasn't out there trying to slaughter
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Christians. They weren't out rounding them up. It was certainly the Sanhedrin. And why did the
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Sanhedrin want the Christians killed? Because it was a threat to their power. Look, the
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Sanhedrin was set up as the court of Israel under the
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Mosaic legislation. If the Mosaic legislation is over, then their power is gone.
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If there's no longer a need for the priesthood, because Christ has come, the true temple has come.
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The real temple is just a structure. Everything that they're doing in there is blasphemy.
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There's no need for the temple in that economy. I'm not saying the structure should have needed to go away, but what was taking place, the place of atonement where the day of atonement was taking place, was it needed anymore?
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No, on the day in which Jesus was crucified, the veil was torn from top to bottom. This place is no longer needed.
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Now, did they continue to go on for many years offering sacrifices and stuff in there?
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Yes, they did. But every one of them was a blasphemous act.
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Now, under the gracious kindness, loving kindness of God as we spoke earlier, when
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God, did He let them do that with long -suffering?
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Yes. Where did the disciples and where did
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Paul go when he would come into Jerusalem and proclaim the Word? Where did he go? Synagogue and the temple.
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Matter of fact, we even see where Paul wanting in the book of Acts, I can't remember if it was
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Andy or if it was Bert, where Paul actually makes a vow with two men.
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He's going to Jerusalem to pay that vow, so that he could show solidarity with his brothers.
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I don't think the vow was wrong. I mean, I don't think it was wrong. We don't know what that vow was.
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Was it a sacrifice? Was it money? That we don't know. But he wanted to show solidarity with his brothers and when he gets to the temple, because that's what he's there to do, it causes an absolute uproar.
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They try to kill Paul and they got to basically crowd -surf him through there to get him out of there.
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So, Paul was fully aware of the blasphemous acts that were going on in there, but he didn't go in there and go, hey, everything you're doing is blasphemy.
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He used that as a place to evangelize. Now, it says in verse 10,
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And they cried out with a loud voice, How long, O Lord, holy and true, will you refrain from judging and of vending our blood on those who dwell on the earth?
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This question, there's going to be two questions.
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How long, here, and then, and who can stand?
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This will come later, okay? This will come later. How long?
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That's the question. The souls of those martyrs that are under the altar want to know, hey, they've been killing us.
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They've been killing all of our family members. How long before you judge them?
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Is that not a legitimate question? I think it is, okay? But what we don't hear them say is,
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God, why are they doing this? They know why. Because they've maintained faithful word, faithful proclamation, faithful testimony.
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They are being put to death because they're hated by their countrymen, by and large, okay? How long before, oh,
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I've got to wrap it up. How long, oh Lord, holy and true, will you refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?
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Next week, we'll pick up right here because I don't have time to get into judging and avenging. But we need to keep in mind, the souls of the martyrs just spoke specifically to who?
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The Lamb. The Lamb. Oh Lord. Who's the
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Lord? It's the Lamb. The very one that's opening up those seals on that scroll.
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They want to know, how long before you pour out your wrath on these people, and you judge them, and then avenge our blood?
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Look, we can't get away from the fact that when someone is wrongfully put to death, certainly the martyrs were wrongfully put to death, but in anyone that's wrongfully put to death, when
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I say innocent blood, I don't mean the person without sin, okay? I mean just someone who's not worthy of death by the magistrate.
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There's something that cries out that says, avenge their blood, right? If someone comes in and murders one of your family members, what's your immediate response?
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I want vengeance. Yeah. Or justice. Yeah. I want vengeance.
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If we can't, the state won't let us take that out. The state takes that out.
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In this case, they're wanting who to take vengeance for them. They're wanting
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God. Because ultimately, those people were killed because of their love of God, and ultimately, if you kill
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God's people, you're killing His bride, and how long will God continue on to let people molest
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His bride? If you're a man in here, and you're married, and you let another man molest your bride, you let him do that?
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You need to be taken out back and stomped on. And Christ will not have it.
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But here's the question. How long? And we'll get into that next week. Go pray for us.
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Heavenly Father, we thank You for this time we spend in Your Word, and we thank You for just the blessing of Your Word.
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Even as Brother Mike was talking this morning, application, Lord, we just ask that You would give us the courage and the witness to stand for You in our current day and time with love in our hearts,
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Lord, but with the truth and clarity of Your Gospel on our lips. I just ask that You would bless us as we head now into the worship service,
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Lord, that You would be with Brother Keith as he opens the Word. You'd be with Brother Adam as he leads us in worship, and it would all be done to Your glory.
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In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Yes, sir?
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Do you think they're separated just for the vision's sake from the other souls of the saints who died naturally?
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Or do you think that's... This is, you know, coincidence. It's totally just a general question.
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But do you think the souls of the martyrs are kept separate from the souls of those who died naturally? Yeah, but you're going to see something.
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For the vision's sake, there's a reason why the wrath of God is being poured out on that city. It's because of what
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Jesus said. You have now heaped up on you the blood of righteous
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Abel. He's basically saying Cain's your daddy.
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So he's going all the way back to Cain and saying, look, but Cain killed Abel and you're part of that group because Abel, his blood was righteous.
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Now you're going to get all of that up to Zachariah, the son of Berechiah. And when you kill me, you're going to get all that too.
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So you would say that those souls are just separated under the altar for the sake of the vision.
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For the vision. You don't think in heaven that there's really a separation. I think there's a reward to those that have died.
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The Bible's clear about that. Yeah, I don't think that there's a separation in heaven like that for the vision's sake.
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Right. Because they're going, okay, there's still people down there. And we know that because we're going to answer that question how long.
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Because he says how long. Now this is where you go, remember I told you, I have a shift in every one of those where it goes, okay, this is...