The Seals Part 1
Notes
Transcript
If you have your Bibles, we will begin the message in Revelation 6:1-2
I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.
We begin with the seals that will mark the start of the tribulation period. As we begin these next few chapters and they are tough. A couple of important things that we need to look at. First, as I have said many times people put a lot of effort into figuring out where we are on the Biblical model. These events happen in sequence. They have a certain order that they need to go in. This again why being a Biblical person is important. We must take everything and that includes the order as the Word of God. If you look back at history then, there are no sequence of events that match the sequence of the seals. So we can conclude that these events, are coming in the future.
This is why I said last week, that even though it may not always seem like it. We are in a moment of Grace and we need to not waste the time that God has given to us, because time is not unlimited. It is not unlimited for the world or for us individually.
However what I do want to do over the course the next few sermons is to show you that the ground work for a lot of these scriptures is being laid down. Jesus tells us that He is sending us out as sheep among wolves and that we need to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
We must first look at the words of Jesus because He does tell us about the end times.
Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
One area that I do believe is having a devestating effect on the American church is the deception that is going on in the church. There are so many people that are deceived and lead astray from God. It truly breaks my heart that this happens. People will use all sorts of reasons to change the Gospel but the truth is that this is the Word of God. Please do not be deceived. This is why we want this church to be a Biblical training center. This is why we do our best to offer the ability to study the Bible here so that when you go out into the world, you are not deceived but you are wise because God has given us the Bible and gives us wisdom.
Then Jesus lists other things, but these are not the time for the tribulation. There will be wars, nations will rise and fall. Even after WW2 there has been conflict after conflict ranging in large scale operations to smaller scale operations. There will be natural disasters in places all around the world. This is why the sequence of the seals is so important. It must be in the correct order.
“Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
Jesus tells us here that when you see all these things. He again referring to that it must be all of it. This generation that it happens in will see all of it. So Jesus here was speaking to the people that were listening to Him but He was speaking to the generation that would see the start of the tribulation, those will see all of it. That of course is for those that do not follow the Lord Jesus Christ. Heaven and Earth will pass away but His words are forever. Jesus is and always will be the same. His words have not changed , so please do not be deceieved but take hope that we have been saved by the Messiah
Now we can head back into Revelation
I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.
The first seal is opened and the rider came out to conquer the earth. The white horse was a symbol of victory. These would have meant something to everyone reading it in the ancient world. Roman Generals would ride a white horse with their captives following. So the interesting part is that the rider held a bow but we are not told of any arrows. So we can then conclude that this conquest is not a bloody conquest but one of peace. We know in later chapters that there must be a one world government. It gets interesting because as we look at the world as we know it today, it is more of a global world than it has ever been before. The dynamics both policital and societal also present interesting notes of groundwork. The ability to decieve , the ability to flood social media with different types of posts make things interesting on how a one world government can take power. other examples, taking prayer out of school, a fundamental misunderstanding of scriptures, the weakening of the church, a misunderstanding of the dangers of marxist governments. the rise of secularism, that has become it’s own religion. Being a secular person has become a religion, they have their own gods, they have their own leadership and they evanglize
When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other. To him was given a large sword.
Now in contrast to the first rider, this rider is given a weapon. Peace will be taken from the earth and war will break out again, violence has always been a part of the society dating all the way back to the very first murder of abel. To this day and until Jesus returns we still struggle with and feel the effects of Cain’s sin. However this will be a different kind of war and a different kind of violence.
When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “Two pounds of wheat for a day’s wages, and six pounds of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”
Famine and inflation will be the aftermath of the war. It will also be a major cause of death in the great Tribulation, this is why the color of the horse is black. A day’s wage was a silver coin, a Roman Denarius This was worth about 15 cents. So there will be a good shortage of food. A day’s worth of work will be enough to be either a quart of wheat or three quarts of barley. If a person were to buy the wheat that would be enough for one good meal. If one bought the barley it would be enough for three good meals but nothing would be left for buying oil or wine.
We all just lived in through some of the highest inflation rates this country has seen in decades. Again as Globalaztion happens food supplies are spread throughout the world instead of just one country. The urbanazation of the world has also lead to larger and larger cities. These cities need food.
“Global agricultural productivity growth has slowed from 1.9 percent annually during 2001-2010 to 0.7 percent annually during 2013-2022,” said Tom Thompson, the report’s executive editor, associate dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and director of CALS Global at Virginia Tech. “This dramatic slowdown will prevent us from reaching our agricultural production and sustainability goals by 2050, with potentially dire impacts on food and nutrition security, unless we reverse this trend.”
While the seals have not happened yet, you can see the world going through the birth pains as Paul called them. By 2050 unless things change, there will be issues with our food and nutrition security. So if you add this to a great war. Then you can see how these things come to be.
What I am trying to do with these tougher verses is to show you a couple things. That one this is the Word of God, and that these are the things that must come to pass. But 2nd is that the Word of God is living a breathing. We need to be wise as we look at the world and not be distracted and deceived. That this is a time of grace but that the world is moving in the direction of revelation. We need to recongize that and we need to lean into our faith. We need invest our time in living a Godly life and helping others to find Jesus.
As we conclude this morning, I want to make one more point. an article was sent to me and one area I want to make a comment one. In the article , it said that many churches and pastors do not cover the book of revelation because it does not effect the day to day lives of most Christians. I really do not agree with this. The book of Revelation must certaintly effects the your day to day life. Every single page of the Bible effects your day to day life. These passages effect our lives because as Jesus said
“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
We must keep watch, and work together to build a church that teaches and preaches the Bible. We must work together to build a place where people can come to ask tough question and can grow in Jesus.
let us pray.
