Study of Revelation and End Times wk 18
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The Wrath of the Lamb and the Coming Tribulation wk 18
The Wrath of the Lamb and the Coming Tribulation wk 18
Last week we looked at how Jesus was the only one worthy to open the seals of the scroll, and how the scroll was in a sense a deed to the earth, the deed that Adam lost when he sinned in the Garden of Eden, turning dominion or control of the earth over to Satan.
Tonight we will look at chapter 6 of Revelation and the first six seals of the scroll and what happens when those seals are opened.
Revelation 6 involves the third phase of the prophecy of God in the book of Revelation.
In Revelation 1-3, John had a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ and delivered a message to seven churches, which was the period called the church age.
In Revelation 4-5, God prophesied about the return of His Son, the rapture of His church, and tells us about the great scroll with seven seals that the Lamb of God has been deemed worthy to open.
At the close of Revelation 5, the elders have dropped down to worship the Lamb as He takes the scroll to open it and reveal its contents.
As we come to the opening of these seven seals, there is a feeling of great humility and a spirit of anticipation and awe.
1 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, “Come.”
Come and see.
Some people think they already know what the future holds.
But no one knows.
I do not know what tomorrow holds.
Neither do you.
Nor does Satan.
Only God knows the future.
All we know is what God has revealed in His Word.
Tonight we want to look at the things God has revealed about the world being on a collision course with judgment.
I know that is not a popular subject, but it is certainly true.
Many people think judgment only involves the active stance a judge takes when he delivers a sentence to the guilty party.
But the judge can just as easily take a passive stance, letting the chips fall where they may and allowing the consequences of one’s behavior to serve as the judgment.
The latter is how God will judge the world.
He will simply let the world have its own way.
And ironically, when the world gets what it wants, it will not want what it gets.
15 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;
16 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 Lamb;
17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”
Most people probably do not think of a lamb as having wrath.
But this isn’t just any lamb; this is the Lamb of God.
When Jesus was on earth, He warned about a time known as the Great Tribulation.
21 “For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will.
22 “Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.
What will happen to the world when the church is removed?
First, we need to describe the church.
Jesus described it like this in Matthew 5:13-16
13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.
14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;
15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.
16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
Salt preserves, and light gives warmth and illumination.
What happens when you take away the salt?
Putrefaction sets in.
What happens when you remove the light?
Darkness ensures, this is the time of the Great Tribulation.
Are you ready to open the scroll?
Let’s begin with what is behind the first seal.
The Four Beast
The Four Beast
A storm is brewing as John’s vision continues:
1 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, “Come.”
Who are these living creatures?
We seen them around the throne in Revelation 4:7
7 The first creature was like a lion, and the second creature like a calf, and the third creature had a face like that of a man, and the fourth creature was like a flying eagle.
Notice that God’s Word prefaces each description of the creatures with the word like.
This is comparative symbolism to describe four living creatures around the throne of God.
I believe these living creatures are the highest class of angels that praise the grace and glory of God.
What does this comparative symbolism mean?
The first one has a face like a lion.
What do you think of when you envision a lion?
I think of authority and power.
I call this the majesty of the Lord Jesus.
The second has a face like a ox/calf, which reminds me of servitude and sacrifice.
This speaks of the ministry of the Lord Jesus.
The third had a face like a man, which speaks of the humanity of the Lord Jesus.
The forth and final one had a face like an eagle.
What comes to mind when you think of an eagle at the throne of God?
I think of the deity of the Lord Jesus.
These living creatures reflect, majesty, ministry, humanity, and deity of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Furthermore, the four living creatures are symbolized in the four Gospels.
Matthew deals with the majesty of the lion - depicting Jesus Christ as the King of the Jews.
Mark deals with the ministry of the Suffering Servant who was crucified for our sins.
The Gospel of Luke shares much about the humanity of Jesus Christ - for one reason.
Luke goes into the greatest detail about the virgin birth of our Lord.
John shares much about the deity of the Lord Jesus.
Militant Conquest.
Militant Conquest.
We have heard of the four horseman of the Apocalypse.
Here they are, riding forth after the rapture.
We can almost here their distant hoofbeats.
As these seals are broken, the first vision that appears is of someone who comes in power to rule.
2 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.
Look at the symbolism here.
The white horse symbolizes a conqueror, the bow symbolizes power, and the crown symbolizes dominion.
Could this be the Lord Jesus?
No.
Although Jesus Christ is shown in Revelation 19 as coming on a white horse to rule and to reign, this is the Antichrist - the one who imitates the Lord Jesus Christ.
The prefix anti means against and instead of.
The Antichrist will be the devil’s false messiah.
He was prophesied in the Old and New Testaments.
In the Old Testament, the book of Daniel spoke of the man of sin, the Antichrist:
22 “The broken horn and the four horns that arose in its place represent four kingdoms which will arise from his nation, although not with his power.
23 “In the latter period of their rule,
When the transgressors have run their course,
A king will arise,
Insolent and skilled in intrigue.
24 “His power will be mighty, but not by his own power,
And he will destroy to an extraordinary degree
And prosper and perform his will;
He will destroy mighty men and the holy people.
25 “And through his shrewdness
He will cause deceit to succeed by his influence;
And he will magnify himself in his heart,
And he will destroy many while they are at ease.
He will even oppose the Prince of princes,
But he will be broken without human agency.
26 “The vision of the evenings and mornings
Which has been told is true;
But keep the vision secret,
For it pertains to many days in the future.”
The Antichrist is described here as a man with cunning policies who is a consummate egotist.
In the New Testament, Jesus prophesied about this false messiah when He said, in John 5:43
43 “I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him.
When the Antichrist begins to go forth, everyone will proclaim that a savior has come to bring peace.
indeed, at that moment in time, the world will be ripe for the devil’s messiah.
And he will take full advantage of his hero status.
The world will worship at his feet.
Little children will speak his name with reverence.
Men will lay down their lives for this man, which we are told will be Satan’s superman.
He will personify all of the Caesar’s, Napoleon’s, Hitlers, and Stalin’s rolled into one, and he will have sinister plans for military conquest.
Murderous Conflicts
Murderous Conflicts
The second seal is opened, and it reveals that there will be murderous conflicts.
3 When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come.”
4 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.
When Satan’s superman appears on the world stage with ideas of world conquest infesting his evil brain, war will follow as night follows day.
That is the reason John has seen a horse that is red.
It is a symbol of the bloodthirsty plans of this evil man.
Indeed there will be worldwide havoc and destruction as Jesus prophesied.
6 “You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.
The Bible never prophesied that the world will get better but to the contrary - the world will become worse and worse.
One evidence of this is the frightening escalation of weaponry technology.
There are enough nuclear weapons in the world today to annihilate every human being on earth hundreds of times over, but we continue to build and stockpile more and more.
Why do i bring this up?
Because when the Antichrist comes, a spirit of hatred will inflame the depraved hearts of men.
According to God’s Word, Jesus prophesied that there would be wars between nations and also wars between classes of people, races, and religions.
Brothers will kill brother, and parents will gladly slay their children.
21 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.
In addition God spoke this prophecy to the prophet Ezekiel:
21 “I will call for a sword against him on all My mountains,” declares the Lord God. “Every man’s sword will be against his brother.
Without the Prince of Peace and the salt and light of the church, the restraint of hatred in the world will be removed.
Swords will drip with blood.
The stench of decaying human flesh will rise up from every corner of the globe.
Meager Crops
Meager Crops
What is the third seal?
5 When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand.
6 And I heard something like a 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; and do not damage the oil and the wine.”
This rider is on a black horse and is carrying old-fashioned scales and balances in his hands.
And the rider is calling out, a quart of wheat for a denarius, three quarts of barley for a denarius.
He is talking about food that is being carefully rationed.
A denarius was the pay for a day’s labor for the people in John’s day.
In addition, it took about a quart of milled wheat to baked a loaf of bread.
Another words you worked all day for one meal.
What does this prophecy tell us?
Well that there will be a time of limited productivity and economic deprivation.
This time the horse does not symbolize war but famine.
When people go to war, they no longer till the fields.
And the transportation that brings food to the needy is immobilized.
Can you imagine what it will be like to live where there is a worldwide famine?
A man will be fortunate to have a job for which he will be paid just enough for one meal.
What if he has a family?
Does he give a little bit to each member so they starve together?
Does he feed one and neglect another?
Will he succumb to the temptation to steal another person’s bread?
What a tragic picture this prophecy paints!
Even Jesus prophesied about this when He said:
19 “But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!
Little children with bloated bellies will die of malnutrition.
People will starve because of the meager crops.
Manifold Carnage
Manifold Carnage
We see the forth seal in Vs. 7-8
7 When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come.”
8 I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.
The Greek word for the ashen or pale color of the horse is Chloros.
A famous bleach manufacturer has a product whose name closely resembles this.
When you pour bleach on a colored fabric, the fabric will turn a pale, greenish yellow.
What happens to the color?
It dies.
There is a chain reaction happening.
The first seal ushers in the Antichrist upon a white horse.
The second seal brings war with a rider upon a red horse.
Famine is the result when the third rider on the black horse strides upon the scene.
Now the ride sits on a pale horse bringing death.
Sin causes hatred.
Hatred causes war and bloodshed.
War brings famine.
Famine produces death.
And after death comes judgment and hell.
There is often more death after war than when the war was underway.
This happens because of disease epidemic and famine that grow out of war.
8 I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.
The word for death in the Greek is Thanato, which means plagues.
I think of the thousands of men, women, and children who have lost their lives because of the AIDS and COVID epidemics.
The next way death will kill is by the beasts of the earth.
What kind of animal do you think of when you think of a beast?
A bear?
A tiger?
A rhino?
Bears come in many sizes.
If you look up the word in a dictionary, the definition may define a beast only as a four-footed mammal.
Do you know what beasts carried the Black Death?
Rats.
These tiny four-footed mammals carried a bubonic bacterium that killed more than twenty-five million people in a five-year period.
At that time that was the one-third of the population of Europe!
David Jeremiah said, “I have another theory about these beast since they accompany famine and plagues. The most destructive creature on the earth is the rat. He is a menace to human health and food supplies, and the nasty creatures comes in more than one hundred species. Rats are extremely prolific, producing five or more litters of eight to ten each year. It has been estimated that rats are responsible for the loss of more than one billion dollars’ worth of food each year in the U.S. alone. Typhus killed an estimated 200 million people in four centuries. The disease was transmitted by rat fleas.”
Martyred Christians
Martyred Christians
9 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;
10 and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”
11 And there was given to each 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.
If Jesus Christ came today and raptured His church, multiple millions would remain.
And many of these will come to Christ in the world’s great revival after the rapture.
But in doing so, these people will pay a great price.
They will refuse the mark of the beast and will not bow down and worship his image.
Because of this, they will become the object of Satan’s wrath.
It will be a time of great persecution for these saints.
9 “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.
Do you know the chief weapon that Satan will use to kill the martyrs during the Great Tribulation?
4 Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
Satan can take off their heads, but he cannot destroy their souls!!
28 “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
But, you may say, why do I have to get saved now if people will be saved in the Great Tribulation?
Can’t I just wait until then?
No, first you do not know that you will make it to the Great Tribulation, you may die before the Great Tribulation, and then would not have that chance in the Great Tribulation, and so you need to be ready now.
And right now you have the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and therefore, you need to make the decision if
are you going to accept it or reject it.
10 and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.
11 For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false,
12 in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.
If you openly, knowingly, willingly refuse to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior in this day and age, according to this Word from God, you will believe the devil’s lie when he comes as the Antichrist.
If we do not accept Him, then we have rejected Him by default.
Massive Cataclysms
Massive Cataclysms
What do you think would happen if the all-powerful Creator decided to relax His grip on the nature just a bit?
Well the sixth seal tells us that a massive cataclysmic acts will happen on earth and in space.
12 I looked when He broke the 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;
13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind.
14 The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
This will happen to millions who refused the Lord Jesus Christ and wanted nothing to do with the One of which the Bible says:
16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.
17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
A great earthquake of such magnitude will be felt around the world.
The light of the sun will die out, the moon will hang in the sky like a clot of blood, and the stars will fall to the earth.
This will not be a localized event like a tornado.
This will be an environmental catastrophe that has never been predicted or recorded on any radar screen before.
Revelation 6:14 speaks of the heavens parting like a scroll.
This Scripture is not as far-fetched as some people think.
Do you know what a nuclear blast does in the atmosphere?
It causes a vacuum - then the air rushes back in, and the heavens roll up on themselves.
There is another possibility here, however, God maybe speaking in symbolic terms of a great cataclysmic shaking of the entire fabric of society.
The writer of the Book of Hebrews talked about God’s shaking everything that can be shaken so that which cannot be shaken may remain.
27 This expression, “Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
Also, Jesus said that before His coming in glory the power of the heavens will be shaken:
29 “But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
30 “And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.
Whatever this shaking is - literal or figurative - there will be a cataclysm beyond compare during the tribulation.
A day is coming when everyone of these six seals will be opened, one by one.
And when all of that happens, there will be a colossal prayer meeting:
15 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;
16 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 Lamb;
17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”
Isn’t this amazing?
They reject the Rock of Ages and pray to the rocks.
You would think they would be praying to God.
But instead they are praying to the forces of nature.
The more sensible thing is not to be here when all this happens.
If you want to go through the Great Tribulation, help yourself, but I do not plan to be here.
I am counting on meeting the Lord in the air on that glorious reunion day!
Thank God, there is a way out - and it is the way up.
It is Jesus!