The Birth Pangs of the Kingdom

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Don Filcek; Revelation 6 The Birth Pangs of the Kingdom

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You're listening to the podcast of the Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week,
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Pastor Don Filsak preaches through his series, Thy Kingdom Come, taking us through the book of Revelation.
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Let's listen in. Good morning, welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here.
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We're going to get started. And I don't know if you knew this or not, but today is Mother's Day. Hopefully there's no panicked expressions out there, like, but you've still got time to call your mom, right?
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I would encourage all of you to show honor as, like, I don't know if you realize, like, it is a biblical concept to show honor to your mom.
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And so, if your mom is still around, I'd encourage you to give her a phone call, you know, maybe stop by to see her or whatever is possible for you to demonstrate honor toward your mom today.
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And here on Mother's Day, I'm going to be bringing you a really soft and gentle message about the ride of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
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So, you know, we're talking conquest, wars, murder, plague, pestilence, martyrdom, earthquakes, people begging for it to all end.
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Happy Mother's Day. But honestly, I think it's a reasonable question that you might wonder is, why would
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I preach this? Why would I preach it on Mother's Day? Why would I even maybe preach it at all?
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And the simple reason is this, I believe that this is true.
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I believe it's true and that it is given to us by God. And therefore, because it is given to us by God, it is beneficial to moms, dads, single individuals, those who are parents, those who are not, those whose parents have passed on before them, those who have not.
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It is pertinent and applies to all of us because it is indeed God's word and it is indeed true.
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And I believe that when we understand it correctly, it has the power to change and shape our understanding in a way that aligns us more closely with God's plan for us in the here and now.
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Some people have a tendency to read Revelation for like it's a manual for the end, like I'm not going to pull that out until the
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Antichrist shows up or I'm not going to pull that out until the rapture or whatever or things like that.
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And we do not study Revelation primarily so we can correctly navigate the end times and the great tribulation.
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But we are studying this today because understanding the book of Revelation and understanding particularly chapter six ought to impact the way we understand
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God in the here and now and also should impact the way that we live for him.
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And knowing all of these things throughout the book of Revelation, studying it to understand who he is and what he wants from us also equally gives us hope in the hardships that we face here and now as well as the hardships that we know we will face down the road.
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So let's open our Bibles to Revelation chapter six if you're not already there. Navigate in your app or whatever.
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If you don't have a Bible in front of you, just raise your hand and we've got some guys back here with some
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Bibles to hand out. But we do want everybody to have a copy of God's word so you can follow along and see that this craziness that I'm reading about comes straight from God's word and is indeed what he wants for us to hear today.
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And so Revelation chapter six, hold on tight. Now I, and remember this is written by the
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Apostle John, now 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.
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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.
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When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say come and out came another horse, bright red.
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Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth so that people should slay one another and he was given a great sword.
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When 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 hands.
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And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures say a quart of wheat for a denarius and three quarts of barley for a denarius and do not harm the oil and the wine.
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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
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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 beasts of the earth.
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When he had 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.
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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?
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Then they were given, each given a white robe and 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.
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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 it's shaken by a gale.
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The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up and every mountain and island was removed from its place.
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Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and 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 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 the great day of their wrath has come and who can stand.
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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, we encounter here this morning certainly a dichotomy and I recognize it that we are celebrating moms and we are grateful for birth into this world and the sacrifices that our mom has made for us to be here and we want to honor that and we want to rejoice in that and at the same time we recognize that here in this text is gravity, there is a heaviness, there is a weight about the way that all of this is going to end and so Father, I pray that you would help us in that tension to be both joyful and grateful this morning and equally to recognize the severity of sin and the awesome judgment that it requires and the wrath that you have towards sin and rebellion against you.
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And so Father, I thank you that you have placed us away from the side of rebellion and towards the side of your children and that you by your great sacrifice of your son
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Jesus on the cross for us have brought us into your family. You have called us heirs that we recognize that these things are not our destiny for those who are in you and so I pray that from the backdrop of this judgment that is coming, we ought to rejoice all the more this morning.
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Our song should be fueled, Father, with a recognition that there is therefore now no condemnation, there is no wrath reserved for us because of what you have done for us through your son
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Jesus and so let our voices be raised in joyful exaltation of you and the lamb because our hope is in you.
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We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Big thanks to Dave and Rob for leading us, for Rob stepping in at the last minute to help
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Dave with his voice and Dave's still up there playing even though he's not feeling great, so just grateful for that. And I encourage you to get comfortable as much as possible because here comes the apocalypse, right?
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So try to get comfortable, but really, seriously, there's more coffee and more donuts and juice over there, so take advantage of those.
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And again, like I say most Sundays, if you need to get up and stretch out in the back, do so. I know that the chairs aren't super comfortable, but I do also want to encourage you to keep your
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Bibles open to Revelation chapter 6. We're going to walk through this text and hold on tight. So when we come to a text like this and really throughout
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Revelation, we're looking at a type of writing that you and I do not encounter anywhere else in our lives.
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We don't, we are not used to the genre. So when you think of the word genre, it sounds like a really highfalutin word, but genre is just a type of writing.
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And we encounter all kinds of writing, and you may be well aware, any of you ever been to Barnes & Noble before? And they've got those headings over the top of the book racks that tell you what genre you're looking at, what is this type of writing that we are looking at.
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We encounter email now, a different type of writing. We encounter text messages, another type of writing.
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We encounter poetry, essays, novels, technical manuals, all types of writing.
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And our expectations for each style of writing is a little bit different. And what we are looking at in chapter 6 through the end of the book of Revelation is a specific known type of writing called apocalyptic literature.
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It was a well -known form of writing in the ancient world. It was really common. And it had similar features from one writer to the next.
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So if you had one guy writing an apocalyptic type of writing, and another guy, there would be some common features that would be, that would tie those two writings together in a sense.
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And here now we see the Apostle John, guided by the Holy Spirit, record a divine apocalypse, complete with the very features of that type of literature.
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There's deep symbolism. There are cycles of judgment that were common to that type of literature.
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And the major theme being, the thing, one of the major things that held all of that type of writing together was the end of the world.
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All apocalyptic literature has to do with this concept of the end of the world.
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But the beautiful twist of what God brings to this in this last book of apocalypse, in our, in the canon of scripture, is that it is indeed about the end of the world, but it's so much more than that, isn't it?
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Because what's the title of the, the title of the book is not apocalypse. What is the title of the book?
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Revelation. Why? Because the end of the world is wrapped up in an individual who is being revealed to us through this book.
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And who is that individual? Jesus Christ. He is the one who has the keys, who has the authority, who has the right to open the scrolls of the final judgments.
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He is the one who initiates all of this, and that is because of his authority, because of his high standing in his position.
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And not only is it the end of the world as we know it, but it is the in -breaking of a new kingdom in which he will indeed be the king.
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And so, remember that last week we saw that he alone is worthy to open the scroll and to break the seven seals of judgment.
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Jesus is the rightful king, and therefore he was the only one with the clearance to bring everything to its conclusion.
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But one other thing needs to be said before we jump into the opening of these seals, and that is that we are part of a select few of people in the scope of all of human history to read about these seals being broken and be shocked.
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We are some of the only people on the face, that have lived on the face of this planet, to be shocked when we read this.
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Why do I say that? Well, when we read about conquest, have you lived that? Have you lived through a conquest?
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I guess you haven't. Maybe a hostile takeover from another company or something like that, but have you lived through a conquest?
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No, you haven't. When we read about drought and famine, we've only watched the effects of that on television commercials asking us for money, many of us.
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When we hear about pestilence and ravaging diseases, I think of how grateful I am that Ebola, Lassa fever, malaria,
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SARS, and Zika seem a long ways away. Do you agree with me on that? Have you ever thanked God that, I mean, have you ever considered that here in Michigan, there's just not,
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I mean, you get the influenza, and there's very few things, I mean, you'll hear about a weird case of West Nile or something like that, but it's just extremely rare that we would have some kind of an epidemic here.
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We think to ourselves, when we read about the ride of the four horsemen here, wow,
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Pastor Don, tell me, when are those gonna be released? When are those four horses gonna be unleashed and finally ride through the earth?
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But if I were to read Revelation chapter six, to most people down through the ages of history, and even in other parts of the world here today, they would say, those horses are already riding.
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Those horses rode through my neighborhood last week. They ride through my country every day of the year this past year.
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Think about some of those who live in the Middle East. Is war riding in their neighborhood? Is there murder riding in their neighborhood?
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Is there famine? Is there pestilence? Yes, there are. They're already riding to many.
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I bring that to your attention not to make you feel guilty for being Americans. There's nothing we could do about that, right? Other than to help and to use the privilege that God has given us to bless others as the trip is one of the main focuses and purposes of that is to be able to bring
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God's grace and mercy and ministry to others. But we need to read and understand this text from a perspective larger than our own.
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Many times we get so narrow in our understanding as Americans, in particular as American Christians, we get so narrow that we cease to recognize that we live in a sin -ravaged world.
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We have a lot of blessings and benefits, a lot of things that do not touch our lives that touch many around the world.
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And we've had, for some unknown reason, you and I, grace upon grace to be born in an oasis of time and space.
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America is not the promised land, hear me carefully, but these horsemen don't seem to ride through my neighborhood yet.
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But most of the world experiences them to some degree daily. And down through history, most people have experienced them as a regular routine part of their lives.
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So the lamb, the lamb opens the first seal. Don't lose sight of who is opening these seals as we walk through this book.
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Jesus is in charge. And the opening of these seals is the beginning of the birth process.
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In Revelation, the old kingdoms of this world are beginning to lose their grip and the kingdom of God is being born.
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And it will come through a lot of birth pangs. It's like the birth of a new kingdom and there's a lot of travail and hard labor that comes in the bringing of this kingdom.
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Each of the four seals is opened by Jesus. One of the four living creatures, remember those four living creatures with eyes all over themselves and kind of creeped us out a little bit a couple weeks ago in that chapter and one had the appearance of an ox and one like an eagle and one like a man.
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Remember those? Well, those four living creatures who are constantly before the throne singing, holy, holy, holy is the
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Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come. Those four living creatures now in our text here, each one takes a role and when the seal is broken, one says, come forth.
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And they call forth a rider on a horse. Again, a symbol. The first is a rider on a white horse and the white horse is a horse of royalty showing that the one who sits on that particular horse is symbolized as a leader amongst humanity.
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Some have identified this rider with the Antichrist or tried to specifically identify who is this individual sitting on this horse and I would suggest to you that he is just conquest.
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That's who he is. Think in terms of a picture of what happens on the face of the planet.
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You're going to find this about me pretty quickly through this series and it may disappoint some of you but I'm not going to be quick or confident with identifying the symbols with modern day equivalents.
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We're not looking for helicopters in the book of Revelation. Particularly, I mean, some people have, do you know what
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I'm talking about? Have you ever, have you had or listened to those guys on the radio who are willing to tell you that's an
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Apache helicopter? Look right here. I mean, you could see there's something whirling above something else this way. You know, it's like, I'm not going to be that guy who,
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I really think that speculating over who is the Antichrist or trying to identify which nation is Gog and which nation is
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Magog, I don't know, the world scene today. I think that that pulls us away from an understanding of what the text wants to drive home for you and me.
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I don't think that the original audience was sitting there reading those things going, well, there's probably some future nation that's going to be a lot like America that's going to do that, that, that.
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There's other points that we're going to get at and we'll see that. We're going to just try to take the content that is given us and we have enough to wrestle with right here than trying to speculate over what these things represent.
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But the rider here carries a bow symbolizing conquest. He was given a crown, which to that day and age would have obviously demonstrated his rule.
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He's a ruler. And his only thought is to conquer. The text goes overboard trying to communicate to you that this first rider is bent on conquest.
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He's not mentioned for any interest in economics, civics, law, foreign relations don't seem to be his thing unless the foreign relations involve conquering someone else.
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And so it's stated with all of the force of the Greek language to make it clear that this rider is hell bent on conquest.
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He eats conquest. He drinks conquest. When he tucks himself into bed at night, what does he dream about? Conquest. Okay.
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It is over the top in the Greek to try to communicate that that's all that this rider ever thinks about.
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That's his life. That's what he exists to do. And as we think about applying these visions, think about this first horse.
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Should we be looking for a specific individual who's gonna come riding on a white horse, carrying a compound bow, wearing a
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Burger King crown on his head, dead set on conquest? Is that what we're looking for? And then we'll know like when the guy riding the white horse, then we're like, oh, the first seal must be broken because a dude came with a crown riding a white horse.
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Is that, do you see what I'm saying? I mean, we could take this so literal that we would miss the point.
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And I do not believe that this is intended to be a literal rider on a white horse. Rather, consider how the early church would have understood this.
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The concept is that conquest will be unleashed. Conquest will indeed grow and increase.
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This is not a specific person who we should be watching out for, but a symbol of a world system that is already at work in our sinful hearts.
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It's at work in us. If we allow it to have its way in us, we will indeed be a part of that.
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I believe that a time is coming, however, when conquest will be kind of released it will be let off the chain, if you will.
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And John's readers also recognize that a future time was coming because of this revelation when conquest will drive world politics even more than it did in Roman times, even more than it does today, even more than it did in World War II.
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The second seal was broken open by Jesus and a rider on a red horse then is brought forward.
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The second of the living creatures shouts come and this guy comes out riding a red horse.
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The red represents blood. He is permitted to remove peace from this world. He is given a huge sword and is given the right to incite people to slay one another.
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Pleasant. The removal of peace from this earth is already a reality for many and as I mentioned, it's already been the case down through the ages for many.
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But a day is coming and the church should be made aware of this through the reading and the teaching of revelation that there's a time coming when peace will be taken away.
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Civil war strife and murder will increase. And fundamentally, this text is answering a question that many people wonder today.
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Just last night, we sat down and watched the second half of Mockingjay. Any of you ever read those? And any of you read any of the dystopian literature that is out there today?
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I would say that preaching on revelation would have been different even 10 years ago, but dystopia, utopia, dystopia, a bad future, utopia, a good or paradise type future.
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And the question that I think fundamentally many people want an answer to is what direction is this thing going?
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And you can ask two pundits the same question and some see it getting better and some think it's getting worse, right?
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Have you encountered that? You might even, on the political sphere in America, we could be so divided on that that there could be an entire group of people who go, it's just kept getting better and better.
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And here's the data, right? Have any of you seen those? It's been posted on your Facebook wall too, okay?
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Your friends saying that. And then others are saying, man, it's just gone. I mean, we're going to hell in a handbasket is the mindset and it's just getting worse and worse and we need change, we need that.
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And so, do you see how we could have just very different views of the direction, the trajectory of this world and yet, where do we get that from?
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Do you get the trajectory of this world from the newspaper? Do you get it from watching
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Fox News? Do you get it from CNN? Where do you get, or is it just from kind of hanging out with your friends and kind of thinking about these things?
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Where do you get your view of the trajectory of the future? Well, I would suggest to you that you should go to the word of God if you have a desire and an interest in knowing how is all of this going to go?
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Where is it all heading? Are we on the road to a utopian society where everyone lives together in peace and harmony?
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Will technology bring us all together and crush the boundaries and divisions that have separated humanity?
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God says, ultimately, no, that's not where it's going.
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As time progresses, it could get better for periods of time. You recognize that there's this cycle and this movement to history, but we are trending downward.
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And there's coming a time where it just drops off. As time progresses, it will continue to get worse.
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These seals, the trumpets of wrath, the bowls of wrath that we're going to get to later in the book of Revelation are all woven into an apocalyptic tapestry that demonstrates what to expect.
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And it's grim. It's like a woman who has started labor. It's not a joking matter, right?
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I mean, don't tell jokes to women in labor, right? That's not going to go well for you. Is that a grim experience to see?
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Those of you who have taken part in it, it's a pretty serious thing. And that's what I'm likening this to.
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That's what Paul likened it to, that the world is giving, it's kind of like going through the movement of birth process here.
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And it is like a woman who started labor. But all of these judgments, in all of these judgments, brothers and sisters, do not lose heart.
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For our king is on his way. Our king is on his way. So when we read these things, we look at it and we just say, wow, this is some heavy, heavy stuff, but heavy, but joyous.
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And that as we experience these things, as we, as the world experiences earthquakes, when you read about an earthquake in the newspaper, there've been some pretty big ones recently and they seem to be more frequently.
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I don't know if that's the case or not, but you hear about these big ones. What runs through your mind?
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Glad I wasn't in Japan. To what extent do you go? Or do you take it a step further and say, just one more step.
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One more reminder that this world is not stable. I mean that figuratively, literally it isn't, but figuratively.
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This world is not what there is. And these are signs. When you hear about conquest, when you hear about wars, when you hear about these things,
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Jesus said these are just signs of the end. Not that the end is near, not that we can then dictate, well, the frequency of earthquakes is da -da -da -da, and then
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Jesus is coming back, you know. It's not to predict that. It's just reminders that this world is not our ultimate.
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Well, the world, a renovated world without sin is our ultimate destination. But this is not as it should be yet.
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Don't lose heart for our King is on the way. Let those things that you read about in the news be a reminder. And maybe even offer those as a prayer.
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As you hear about devastation, as you experience hardship in your life to say, come quickly,
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Lord. Come quickly, Lord. I think it might be as you get older, it might be easier to say that.
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I think it has been for me. There's more waiting for me there. Some of you experience that.
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As you age and as you get older, there's more waiting for you there than here, right? Some of the glory of humanity and the glory of running fast or shooting hoops awesome or just being able to just excel at certain areas.
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And as that declines, you go, wait, what was my hope in again? Come quickly, Lord. The third seal is broken.
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The third living creature calls, come, and out steps a rider on a jet black horse. He holds scales in his hand for measuring out dry goods.
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And a voice that John cannot identify, doesn't know quite where it comes from, somewhere near in the vicinity of the four living creatures, doesn't know who says it, but gives clarity to the meaning of the scales.
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Why scales here for the black rider? Why is he carrying those? And this rider is carrying scales because he is famine and he will bring the economy and climate to a place where a whole day's wages would be required for enough bread to feed one person or enough to feed them well or to feed three people poorly for a day.
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And so you kind of go, well, they'd have food, right? Not, I mean, would you like to just have one quart of wheat for the day and that's all you can afford?
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Where's your housing? Where is anything else in that? Nothing. You're not going to be buying meat. You're not going to be buying anything to drink.
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It's all just bread. A quart of wheat, by the way, we're talking a quart of wheat, not a quart of flour.
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So that has to be ground down and produced into flour and it produces less quantity than obviously you have in wheat and it's basically estimated that that's enough to feed one person for a day.
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And then a denarius is a day's wage. So just barely able to get by.
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By the way, the mention of barley flour, barley is less nutritious in its value to our needs.
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And so to be able to buy three quarts, you go, okay, well, maybe you could skimp and get better, but it actually is less nutritional.
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Either way, it's a losing battle in this economic scenario that is lined out here.
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By the way, the trade of one quart for a denarius, we have different historians that have wrote during Roman times to talk about the economy.
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That's about 10 to 12 times the normal exchange showing the severity of this famine. It's a major, major blow to the economy.
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But the oil and the wine will remain untouched. Oh, goody, right? The oil and the wine, and what is meant by that, it clarifies that the change will be caused by scarcity of wheat and barley, which are more easily impacted by drought.
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Usually the olive trees, which would produce the oil in this era, would run down deeper with their roots.
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The grapevines would run down deeper with their roots. So they might still be able to survive a drought that would destroy or hamper the wheat and the barley.
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But the irony is, think about it, wine and oil are still around, but who can afford it if they're spending all their money to buy bread?
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And the answer is only the most wealthy could. So what many commentaries see, and I think might be accurate, as many scholars are kind of saying, what we're seeing here is an indication that in the end, at this time, there's going to be a wider disparity between those with and those without.
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It's gonna increase, it's gonna get even worse than it is. Now there's gonna be an increased, there will be people who are buying plenty of bread for themselves, and wine and oil on top of that, and there will be some who don't even have hardly enough to, don't have enough to feed their families for the day.
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A tough thing when famine hits. And the last rider, the last of the four living creatures, shouts, come!
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And the last rider on a pale horse shows up, and he is called Death. And walking closely behind this horse is
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Hades. Now these are not demigods, they're not Greek, they're not the Greek gods,
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Hades. Hades is a straight up Greek word, it's a personification of the grave, but Hades is the word that would be translated shale in the
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Old Testament. Have you ever heard the word shale? It just means grave. And in the New Testament, the word is Hades, which is grave.
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And so it's just basically a word picture that's being used there. All of these are personifications, there's conquest, as personified as somebody riding a horse, there's war, there's famine that we just saw, and now there is
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Death and Hades. Don't let the names confuse you. Does the Bible teach that the
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Greek gods are real? Not at all. But the picture is a grim picture of Death riding throughout the world, taking a fourth of its inhabitants, and Hades the grave is walking behind him, collecting the bodies.
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Death is less limited, by the way, in his resources. Conquest, remember, was given a bow. Murder was given a sword.
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Famine, the scales. But Death here has multiple avenues and tools at his disposal.
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He has swords, famines, diseases, and even wild beasts at his disposal. Don't think of this as a one -time culling.
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Like, I mean, a lot of times in our minds, because we've been literal, we've read the Left Behind series or something like that, we're picturing, like, on one day, a quarter of the world died.
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Well, it's not necessarily what's happening here. This is probably over the expanse of time, but he is being given the right during an era to bring significant death and destruction to the world.
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Now, some of you may be confused and wondering, Don, is all of this just future? Is this some particular day that this all happens on?
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What's all of that look like? And I want to clarify that I think God intentionally wants you to ask that question, and then equally, he intentionally leaves it open -ended.
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Because I really believe that these horsemen are nothing new. Conquest, murder, famines, plagues, and death have all been a part of the world since the
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Fall. Remember that murder was there on that day when Cain killed Abel, very early on.
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And so, have these things been a part and parcel of our lives? It has been, unfortunately, since we busted it.
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Conquest, all of those things are a part of it. So, why is God identifying these riders in our text now?
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Why highlight them? Why bring them up? And aren't they a foregone conclusion? Isn't that just the way of life on a fallen world?
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But I think he wants us to know two things as we move forward. First, he is in control of these riders.
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These riders are not outside of the hand of God. I also think he includes these seals here to show that there's a time coming when these things will indeed multiply, when they'll be more prevalent on the world.
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And we need to have hearts ready for this type of difficulty. You may say to me, but wait, Don. Aren't we gone when these trials take place on the earth?
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Are we gone then? I mean, so raise your hand if you've read the Left Behind series. So, a lot of us have a lot of things to unlearn and to work through and some baggage that we've got to handle.
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But let me just say this. If you read it, then you know that we're supposed to be gone before bad things happen, right?
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Isn't that the gist of the book? There's a rapture and the bad things don't happen to the good
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Christians, right? And is that real? Is that the way that happens in life today?
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You know, cancer skips over the people who are good. No, no, not at all. We know that that's not the case.
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Is there suffering? Is there devastation now? There is, absolutely. And so we've got to wrestle with this.
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If you start to try to figure out a timeline using the book of Revelation, if that's what you think it's there for, you're going to struggle.
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You're going to struggle to get through this book. As a matter of fact, I'd suggest that you'll probably give up because it doesn't read like a timeline.
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It doesn't read to give you the detail that you want. I think there's intention behind that.
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For years, we've been caught up in the effects of conquest, strife, murder, famine, and plague all down through the ages.
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And I want to be careful that as we read through this, that we don't get so caught up in trying to figure out the timeline that we get lost in the weeds and don't really see the heart of God in the book of Revelation.
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I do believe, by the way, I do believe in rapture. I do believe that he's going to come back for his church.
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But I'll confess that I don't know how it fits into chapter six, into this current text.
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These seals possibly occupy a large stretch of time. But when we come to the fifth seal, we're reminded that God is working out his plan for redemption and that followers of Christ are not immune to the effects of sin in this world.
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I think it's there with that purpose in mind. When Jesus opens the fifth seal, John saw the souls of martyrs under the altar of God.
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The image is that they have been offered up as a sacrifice to God and they are in heaven awaiting a final vindication.
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They've been slain because they would not reject the word of God and because they would not stop telling the good news of Jesus Christ.
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I think it's interesting to think of those martyrs that are there and to think of some of the stories that I've heard even recently about men who were killed at the stake during the, in England, all over owning a
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Bible. So they owned a Bible and they were burned at the stake because they owned a Bible. And this is just mind -boggling to think.
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It is in terms of what this text actually says to us. People have died because they would not let go of the word of God.
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People have died because they would not stop testifying to Jesus Christ as their
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Lord and King. And they are there in this fifth seal under the altar of God.
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And the image there of them being under the altar of God is that they've been offered up as a sacrifice to God and they are in heaven awaiting a final vindication.
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They've been slain, particularly as the text says, because they would not reject the word of God. Because they would not stop telling the good news of Jesus.
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And they cry out with a loud voice asking for Him to roll it all up and finish it. They want justice and they want
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Him to avenge their blood on those who are guilty of taking their lives. This might sound a bit harsh to our ears, but they're turning to God and asking for Him to bring justice to completion.
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Roll it all up, God, they're saying. And although, does that sound like Jesus said love your enemies and then here is a cry in His very throne room.
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Does that seem inconsistent to some of us? And yet some of us who see that as inconsistent are like, when
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Goliath steps out and screams at the masses of the army of Israel and defies
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God to his face, we celebrate when the sling releases the stone, right?
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Is anybody like, yes? Are there cheers that rise up from Israel as the giant falls?
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Yeah. There is a sense of justice and vindication and a right way that things go.
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And these souls are crying out saying, please wrap it up, God. Please finish it.
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Bring it to justice and usher in the kingdom of the Lamb. Bring it now.
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Do you want it? Do you hunger for that day? Are you excited that that's real, that's really going to happen?
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These souls are in heaven now. Saying, soon?
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Soon? And what he does is he comforts them. Their father.
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Their father comforts them. And these souls are given white robes. Their souls given white robes.
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Souls usually don't wear robes. Now we're like, ghost. I think this is like, and this is not going to happen in my household.
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So I'm glad that my two sons are here to hear this. But I've heard said that occasionally a kid will turn 16 and they get a little box and then when they open that box, what might be in there?
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What do they want to have in there? Keys to a car. Now, if you were a 16 year old and you opened up on your birthday a little box and there were keys in there, would you be like, thanks for the keys?
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I just wanted a set of keys. What would be the first thing you'd probably do? Run to the driveway?
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Anybody, anybody know? Would you want to run to the driveway and see what are my new wheels? That's your thought.
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And I think that's like the giving of this robe. It can't quite wear it yet.
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But God is saying, pretty soon, you're going to be in that. Giving that to you.
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Just a little while longer and you will be raised again.
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It's just souls. And some people have argued, by the way, about is there time in heaven?
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Well, they're talking about time. How long? They're using the language of time to communicate their longing and their hunger for something.
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And they want it all to go to the end of time. Remember, by the way, that heaven is not your final destination.
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It is not the destination of these martyrs. This isn't where they end up. They're not living for eternity in the future under this altar.
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Kind of saying, what's next? What's next? But they're told just a little while longer.
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A little bit longer and it's going to be done. I also see the presence of this fifth seal as strategic in our understanding of the place of Christians in the light of suffering in this present world.
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These followers of Christ who have suffered are told to rest a little while until the number of their fellow servants is complete.
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What? It's explicitly stated here that there is a number of martyrs that will be reached before the end.
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Is that a little bit mind -blowing? The way that once in a while in Scripture, we get to, it's like God just peels back a little bit and shows us a window on the way that the universe works and it's like, like, he's got a number of martyrs that he's got, he's kept track of.
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And when that number is reached, then here we go. And that's the end. Another point on that is that Christians can and will suffer.
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We currently live in the last days, an era of suffering. And when I say that, did it get anybody's attention when
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I say we currently live in the last days? Does that mean, Pastor Don, that we're on the way out?
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Is it soon? Are you saying that you think, I'm confident and I can say in confidence that we live in the last days because all the way back in Peter's time,
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Peter said he lived in the last days. So if he lived in the last days, you and I certainly live in the last days.
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And the last days is a theological term, a word for the time between the resurrection of Christ and his second coming.
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And Peter actually quoted in Acts 2 .17 when he was preaching in Pentecost that he quoted
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Joel, the prophet Joel, and said, hey, you know, the spirit has come upon us just like Joel prophesied would happen in the last days.
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It's happening now in your midst. Men and women will prophesy and preach and speak and that's what's going on there.
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So the last day is a term that covers all that time. Some of these seals may already be opening.
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Some of the trumpets may be raised to the lips of the angels. Some of the bowls may be ready to be poured out.
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And I believe that Jesus will return for his children. At least, I can say this, I'm confident.
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I believe that the rapture of the church will happen at least before the sixth seal. And here's why.
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Because when the sixth seal is broken, we encounter a word that I believe that God will never apply to his own children.
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A word that you and I will never have applied to us. Now, we will all likely die, right?
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I hope that wasn't news to you. I hope that that's something you've come to grips with and you're working through and you're dealing with, but you will likely die.
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We will all likely suffer to a degree or another before we die. That's not meant to be encouraging, but it is a reality.
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We will all likely suffer before we die. But none of us who are in Christ will ever endure his wrath.
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That is a word that will never be applied to his children. Because our wrath, his wrath, has already been taken care of.
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Where? At the cross of Christ. No double jeopardy in God's economy.
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He is not going to pour his wrath out on someone who's already been covered by the wrath that Christ received.
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And when the sixth seal is opened, the wrath of God and the wrath of the Lamb are brought to bear on the kingdoms of this world in fury and devastation.
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Verses 12 through 17 describe the cataclysm and apocalyptic symbolism that is meant to dismay us, bring us to awe, and instill within us even a sense of mystery.
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Many have sought to describe this. They've tried to use science, technology, trying to figure out what this might all be.
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They've used nuclear war as a possible framework for what all of this is. And that indeed could be an avenue that God uses to judge.
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But speculating at this point, I don't believe is helpful. We need to let these figures of speech rest on us with the weight they're intended.
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It starts with an earthquake and then it's the end of the world as we know it. The description of this earthquake is not on the
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Richter scale, but the author and audience were acquainted with earthquakes and they say this is a huge one.
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Unreasonably huge. The geological upheaval causes the sun to become shrouded like a black bag has been pulled over it.
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The moon becomes blood red. The stars fall from the sky, which I believe indicates a meteor shower. Obviously the big huge balls of gas that are hundreds, if not thousands of times bigger than the earth are not going to fall on the earth.
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That's not what's indicated there. But the sky is rolled up like a scroll. What does that even mean? The mountains, the islands are all moved from their location.
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This is worldwide, global, cataclysmic end of everything. And yet all that mankind can do in the face of this final wrath is run for those very mountains that it says will be shaken from their foundations.
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They try to shelter themselves in the mountains that they've always known to be immovable.
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But in the face of the wrath of God, even the mountains cannot offer any permanence.
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Even the mountains can provide no shelter. All of humanity on this great day of the wrath of the one who sits on the throne and the lamb are equalized, the text tells us.
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Kings, military generals, the rich, the powerful, down to the slaves and the free, all run from the terror of this great day of judgment.
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And this is indeed the great day of the wrath of God. And the text here for us this morning concludes with one simple pointed question.
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In the face of the wrath of the one who sits on the throne and the lamb, who can stand?
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The implied answer, none can stand the day of his wrath.
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This, my friends, is what we call a heavy text. It has the weight and gravity that could possibly drive us to run back to the safety of the
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Proverbs or the Gospel of John and maybe not, you know, Don, do you want to go any further?
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Can we study something else? But in this text, we learn of God and we learn of ourselves. We must heed all of Scripture.
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We must form an understanding of God from what all of the Scripture says. We cannot smorgasbord
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Scripture to fashion a God that fits our desires. We need all of it to factor in. And so as we seek to apply this text, let me offer three brief applications and conclusion.
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The first is sin is super serious. Sin is very serious.
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The four horsemen really are just kind of symbols of the results, a lot of human depravity, right?
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The result and the reality of our sin. God, by the way, needs not act for us to be destroyed.
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He does not have to take a proactive attack against us all he has to do is remove peace, the peace that he is currently sustaining.
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All he has to do is withdraw his hand of grace from us for us to destroy ourselves.
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Think of the horsemen as God leaving us to ourselves. Sin is messy and the rolling up of the sin -cursed kingdom at the end of the age is like a final flailing after power and resources that will result in even more sin.
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So let me just say to you definitively, do not play with sin. Don't play with it.
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We're honest, we see it in our hearts. Keep a little pet sin on the side, kind of nurse it, hide it once in a while, bring it out, play with it, put it back and it's destructive.
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It is the very reason that the wrath of God is coming. The cause of the wrath of God is sin.
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Don't play with it. It's a destructive force that is bringing his wrath ever closer and closer.
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Put it to death. When you see it. And when I say that, I mean in your heart. Man, a lot of times it would be very easy to preach, put it to death out there, but what about in ourselves?
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That's where you have to start. You must start here. And I want you to know that you've got a lifetime of work in your own heart.
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To be putting it to death, to be taking those old things off and putting on what God desires of you. The second thing, do not lose sight of a coming judgment.
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God will bring it all to justice. He is the rightful judge of mankind. And the
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Almighty, who has been patient with humanity, will send Jesus to wrap it all up. We saw last week where it said in Acts that God has appointed one man through whom the judgment will come.
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It is Jesus Christ, the God -man, God in flesh. And yet we can rejoice that those who are promised, as those who are promised, that in our judgment, there is therefore now no condemnation.
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For those who are in Jesus Christ. Those who have asked Jesus to be their king and to save them will live forever with him in an eternal kingdom.
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Where all others are running from this final day, notice that those under the throne, those under the altar rather, are longing for it.
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And that brings me to this conclusion that there are two types of people. And there are those who fear his coming.
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And there are those who are looking forward to it. And the difference is whether you've run to him for mercy or not.
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If you recognize the mercy and grace that you have in Christ, you have nothing to fear from any of this. Because his love for you is great.
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And that leads to my final application. Those under the altar of God testified unto death. They stood by God's word and witnessed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, even to the extent of the sacrifice of their very lives.
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So let me encourage you that the time is short. The judgment is real. And as one preacher, a highly respected, said about this very passage, he said, when he pictures his neighbors, his co -workers, his friends, those parents of other kids who share a sports team with his kids, when he pictures those in his community running for the hills and calling for the rocks to fall on them, that they might be saved from the wrath of God.
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He says, I think I can share the gospel. I think
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I can be moved in the face of a picture like that to step outside of myself and say,
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Jesus died for you. What would it take to move you to share with someone this week, to share the words of Christ?
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Or what about even invite them here? It's a small step, right?
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That's a pretty small step. That's a pretty small ask to say, hey, if you don't attend a church, why don't you come and check it out here?
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There is no hope outside of Jesus Christ. There's only his wrath. Jesus who opened the seals first opened his hands and received the nails and he was hung on that cross to be slaughtered as a sacrifice so that anyone who asks him to save them from the wrath that is coming will be saved.
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So as you come to communion this morning, consider with great gladness and relief that the wrath from the father has been averted from you through the sacrifice of his son.
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If you've asked Jesus to be your king and savior, then please go to one of the tables during this next song. Take the bread that reminds us of his body that was crushed for us.
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Take a cup of juice to remember that his blood was shed to cover our sins and that he was sacrificed that we might be those who look forward to the return of the lamb.
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Let's pray. Father, it's heavy to contemplate and consider the end.
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As we see this end of this first cycle of judgments ending in the cataclysm of the end.
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Father, I pray that you would move and motivate in our hearts to not out of fear but out of love of what we've been saved from to live for you and to honor you to shun sin and to push it away where we see it in our own hearts and in our own lives.
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And father, to be bold with our witness these martyrs who died for their witness that are under the throne even now or under the altar even now.
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Sacrifices who have sacrificed their lives for you. Father, I pray that we would be motivated with a like faith, a similar faith to theirs.
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Regardless of being mocked or made fun of or fear of rejection. Father, that we would be bold with our witness for you.
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And father, that some would be on the side of the favor of the lamb on that final day because some in this room have taken this call seriously to share their faith with neighbors, with co -workers, with family.