How Long, O Lord?

Lead Vocalist (Joel)

Welcome & Announcements (Mike L)

Good morning family!

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Announcements:

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Now please take a moment of silence to prepare your heart for worship.

Call to Worship (Psalm 90:1–2)

Prayer of Praise (Susana Donahue)

O God Our Help in Ages Past

Dear Refuge of My Weary Soul

Prayer of Confession (Jacob Worthan*), Failure to evangelize

Assurance of Pardon (Romans 8:31–32)

Hymn of Heaven

Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross

Scripture Reading (Revelation 6:9-17)—page 1222 in the black Bibles

Pastoral Prayer (Mike L)

Prayer for PBC—Faithfulness under pressure

Prayer for kingdom partner—Reaching & Teaching – Luke & Emily Waite

Prayer for US—For Fathers (Father’s Day)

Prayer for the world—Libya

Pray for the sermon

SERMON

START TIMER!!!

Dads, do you love Christ more than your kids?

That might seem a strange question, especially on Father’s Day. But it’s an important one.

Because your life will be shaped by whatever you love the most.

And you’ll love your kids best by loving them less than you love Jesus.

One man who understood that kind of love was a Baptist pastor in seventeenth-century England named John Bunyan.

He preached the same gospel that we still preach here today almost four hundred years later.

But he was also a father.

So imagine the dilemma when he was arrested for preaching the gospel and the authorities told him, “You can return home to your wife and children if you’ll only promise to stop preaching Christ.”

Bunyan refused, and he was thrown into prison.

The hardest part wasn’t the cold prison cell or the uncertainty of what might happen to him.

It was leaving behind his pregnant wife and four young children.

It was leaving behind his daughter Mary, who was blind.

It was learning that his wife had suffered a miscarriage due to the stress of caring for their children alone.

He said being separated from his family felt “like the pulling of the flesh from my bones.”

And yet he could not deny Christ.

When we hear stories like that, most of us instinctively think something like this: “Thank God I don’t live in a time like that.”

But the truth is, persecution is not merely something Christians faced in ancient Rome or seventeenth-century England.

Right now, all over the world, followers of Jesus are threatened, fired, driven from their homes, imprisoned, beaten, and killed because they belong to Christ.

And even in places like the United States where persecution is less severe, every faithful Christian will experience opposition for following Jesus.

Some lose relationships.

Some lose opportunities.

Some lose reputations.

Some lose comfort, security, or acceptance.

Jesus never promised that following Him would make life easy. In fact, He promised the exact opposite.

The clear and consistent message of the New Testament is that Followers of Jesus in every age will be persecuted, but it will not last forever.

That’s the Big idea I want to show you from God’s Word this morning.

Turn to Revelation 6:9

I realize persecution may not feel like a very “Father’s Day” topic. But suffering for Christ is central to what it means to follow Jesus.

And dads especially need the courage to say, “Christ is worth following, no matter the cost!”

And most importantly, this is the next passage in the book of Revelation, which we’ve been studying for the past few months.

Remember, Jesus has been opening the scroll that reveals God’s plan for human history.

In the first four seals, we saw four characteristics of life on earth in every generation, until Jesus returns.

Today we come to the fifth and sixth seals.

And here we see the sobering truth that Followers of Jesus in every age will be persecuted. And yet, thanks be to God, it will not last forever.

This idea is developed over Three Scenes in our text:

First, in verse 9, we’ll consider The Reality of Persecution.

Then, in verses 10-11, we’ll hear a Request for Justice.

And finally, in verses 12-17, we’ll observe the opening of the sixth seal and The Reckoning for the Wicked.

Let’s begin by considering…

1) The Reality of Persecution

Revelation 6:9—When he 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.

Remember, John is seeing a vision filled with symbolism. This doesn’t mean the words we’re reading here aren’t true, but it does mean we need to do a little digging to get to the meaning behind the symbols John sees.

For example, I don’t think we ought to imagine a literal altar in heaven with souls huddling underneath it.

After all, how do you see a soul?

So what do the images here represent?

The altar should certainly remind us of the altar of burnt offerings described in the book of Leviticus.

When an animal was sacrificed on that altar, the blood would run down the altar into a basin underneath.

Here John sees not the blood of animals, but the souls of those who have died for their faith.

The word in the original language translated as “witness” in verse 9 is the word from which we get our English word “martyr.”

Here’s the reality behind this vision: until Christ returns, heaven is being filled with men, women, boys, and girls who suffered for their faith.

Christian, when is the last time you seriously thought about this reality? That you have brothers and sisters all over the world who are suffering for Jesus?

More than 388 million Christians worldwide live in places where they experience “high levels of persecution and discrimination” for their faith. [1]

One in seven Christians globally faces significant persecution for following Jesus.

In 2025 alone, 4,849 Christians were murdered for their faith, 4,712 Christians were detained, 3,632 churches and Christian properties were attacked, and 224,129 Christians were forced from their homes.

I realize these statistics seem almost unreal to Americans who have grown so accustomed to religious liberty, but this is reality for much of the world.

Persecution is not merely an ancient problem or a future problem, it is a present problem. Christians in every age are persecuted!

In fact, some researchers argue that more Christians have been martyred for their faith in the past century than in the previous nineteen centuries combined. [2]

But before we move on from this first scene, let’s ask ourselves: are we willing to face persecution for the sake of the gospel? Do we love Jesus THAT much?

It’s important to understand that in Revelation, martyrdom is presented as the normal posture of faithful Christianity.

Richard Bauckham puts it this way: “Revelation portrays the future as though all faithful Christians will be martyred. . . . It is not a literal prediction that every faithful Christian will in fact be put to death. But it does require that every faithful Christian must be prepared to die. . . . Not every faithful witness will actually be put to death, but all faithful witness requires the endurance and the faithfulness that will accept martyrdom if it comes.” [3]

In other words, if you’re a Christian you are signing up for martyrdom.

You may never literally give your life for the sake of Christ. But make no mistake, you are signing over control of your life to King Jesus. And if He calls you to die for His name, that’s what you will do.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was right: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.” [4]

Have you died to yourself, friend? If you haven’t, you don’t belong to Jesus. And if you have, that means you’ve signed up to follow Him even into suffering and death.

As the Apostle Paul put it...

2 Timothy 3:12—Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted

You and I may never be physically killed for our faith. But if we’re living faithfully for Christ, we will sometimes find that others will revile us and utter all kinds of evil against us falsely on Christ’s account. [5]

Are you prepared to suffer for the sake of Jesus? Even if that simply means the suffering of missing out on certain experiences that captivate the culture? Or the suffering of losing a friend because they think you’re a bigot? Or missing out on a promotion because you’re more committed to your church than your company?

This is the reality John wants us to see: Followers of Jesus in every age will be persecuted.

If that bothers you, Christian, you’re not alone.

Look with me at the next scene in John’s vision…

2) The Request for Justice

Revelation 6:10—They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

Some have looked at this prayer and argued that it’s a sinful, sub-Christian prayer.

After all, Jesus prayed for the Father to forgive His persecutors. So too did Stephen, the first martyr.

How can it be right to pray for God to avenge our persecutors?

Honestly, that question only makes sense if you’re completely sheltered from the harsh realities of persecution.

It’s really easy to judge this prayer if you’ve never seen someone imprisoned because they’re a Christian, or had your church set on fire because you preach the gospel, or seen your children taken away because you teach them a biblical sexual ethic.

And to the person who says, “Well we’re supposed to leave vengeance in the hands of God!”—isn’t that exactly what these souls are doing? They’re not trying to avenge themselves. They’re coming to God with their pleas for justice!

So what can we learn from the prayers of these martyrs?

First, don’t ignore the reality of persecution.

It’s easy to judge a prayer like this when you’re oblivious to the reality of persecution.

You can visit websites like Open Doors and The Voice of the Martyrs to learn more about the persecution facing believers around the world.

We should not bury our heads in the sand while our brothers and sisters suffer.

And once you become aware of the suffering of the church, you should pray.

One reason we pray for the nations every Sunday at PBC is because many of those nations are places where following Jesus is dangerous.

SHOW PERSECUTION MAP

When we pray for a country like Libya, we are praying for believers who worship Christ at enormous personal cost.

Six months ago, 11 Christians in Libya were given prison sentences up to 15 years. Their crime? “Insulting Islam” by converting to Christianity. [6] This is reality for many of our brothers and sisters all over the world. We must pray.

And finally, support the spread of the gospel.

Through faithful giving to things like our Pray/Send/Go offering, PBC is able to support missionaries all over the world. And some of our missionaries are working to strengthen and serve believers from some of the most persecuted places on earth.

By the way, dads, you have an incredible opportunity to lead your families in this. To help them stay informed about the evils happening in our world, to teach them how to pray, and to show them what it looks like to sacrifice for the sake of the mission.

And if you need any more evidence that it’s right and good to do these things, look at God’s response to the martyrs’ prayer in…

Revelation 6:11—Then they were 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.

God does not rebuke the martyrs for crying out for justice. He comforts them.

The white robes these believers are given is the righteousness of Christ, freely given to all who turn from their sins and trust in Jesus.

I agree with Richard Phillips who says, “The martyrs in heaven are dressed in white not because they died for Christ but because Christ died for them, as he did for all his people.” [7]

Are you dressed in the righteousness of Christ, friend? Or are you trying to dress yourself for heaven? You can’t do it. Your only hope is to turn from your sins and trust in Jesus!

By the way, verses 10-11 are a good picture of what theologians call The Intermediate State.

When a believer dies, they are immediately in the presence of God. But it’s not the Final State that we typically call “heaven.”

It’s an incomplete resting place. Notice, John sees souls, not bodies.

If you die tonight, Christian, your soul will immediately wake up in the presence of God. But your body will remain here. Until the final resurrection when Christ returns to make all things new.

So the Intermediate State isn’t purgatory or anything like that. It’s not a place of suffering or pain. It’s a place of rest. But it’s still a place of waiting and longing. There is still evil on earth, our bodies have not been resurrected, and Christ has not remade the world.

How long will believers remain in this Intermediate State?

Verse 11 tells us that Jesus will not return “until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.”

As Dennis Johnson writes, “The days on God’s calendar are marked off, one by one, in the blood of the martyrs.” [8]

That means your suffering is not in vain, Christian. God sees. He cares. And one day, after the last Christian suffers, He will return to make all things new.

After the last tear falls After the last secret's told After the last bullet tears through flesh and bone After the last child starves And the last girl walks the boulevard After the last year that's just too hard. . . There is love

And in the end, the end is oceans and oceans of love and love again We'll see how the tears that have fallen were caught in the palms Of the Giver of love and the Lover of all [9]

Followers of Jesus in every age will be persecuted, but it will not last forever.

Now as beautiful and encouraging as that is for the people of God, this truth is a double-edged sword.

Because when our suffering ends, the eternal suffering of God’s enemies will just begin.

Look with me at the final scene in John’s vision…

3) The Reckoning for the Wicked

Revelation 6:12–17—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 shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. 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?

What are we seeing in these verses? Allow me to make a few observations.

First, these verses are describing the judgment poured out on the wicked when Christ returns.

All over the Bible this is called the “Day of the Lord.” It’s a day of rescue for God’s people, but also a day of judgment for God’s enemies.

Consider the words of the prophet Joel in…

Joel 2:31–32—The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.

Notice that Joel uses the exact same imagery John uses to describe this cataclysmic day of judgment. The sun is going to be turned to darkness and the moon to blood.

It’s undeniable that the Apostle John sees this day as a day of judgment for God’s enemies.

But, according to Joel, the Day of the Lord is also the day of salvation for God’s people. We will be saved, we will escape!

This means we should reject the relatively modern idea that Jesus comes once secretly to rapture the church and then again seven years later to judge the wicked.

There is only one “second coming” of Jesus, and when He returns it’s the end! The wicked will be judged and the righteous will be rescued on the same day!

By the way, this is one reason to interpret the book of Revelation as a series of replays, not a strict timeline of events. How can Jesus already be coming back if we’re only in chapter 6? Because much of what follows are just instant replays of the same events!

If you’re not convinced that these verses represent the end of the world, I’d suggest you look again at what they describe.

John mentions six effects on creation when the sixth seal is opened: [10]

(1) a great earthquake,

(2) the sun turns black,

(3) the moon turns red,

(4) the stars fall from the sky,

(5) the sky rolls up like a scroll, and

(6) the mountains and islands disappear.

What can this be but the end of the world?

Some have argued against what John prophesies here because there’s no way all the stars could fall to the earth. Most of the stars in our sky are bigger than the earth. But that completely misses the point.

This is symbolic language to illustrate realities we cannot even imagine. But this much is clear: It’s the end of the world as we know it.

And just in case you were wondering, nobody escapes the end of the world.

John mentions six groups of people who are unable to escape:

(1) kings,

(2) “great ones” (probably a reference to powerful government officials who serve presidents and kings),

(3) generals (these are the military leaders),

(4) the rich (in our day this would be your superstar athletes, Hollywood celebrities, and social media influencers),

(5) and powerful (CEOs, tech giants, and powerful lobbyists you’ve never even heard of),

and just in case you’re thinking you’re safe, John adds…

(6) everyone slave and free. That’s everybody, from the richest to the poorest.

James Boice writes that when disaster strikes a country, “dictators will have deposited fortunes in Swiss bank accounts. Generals will have planes waiting to whisk them to a safe haven in South America. Even common people will have ways of avoiding the disaster. But not when God comes to execute his judgments.” [11]

Dear friend, there is nothing you can do that will save you when the sun turns black and the sky rolls up like a scroll. Investing in gold won’t help you. Guns and ammunition won’t help you. A safe room won’t help you. Your good works won’t help you.

Look again at the question that the wicked ask on that day: Who can stand before the wrath of the Lamb?

We’ll look at chapter 7 next week, but it gives us the answer to that question.

Who can stand before the wrath of the Lamb? Only those who belong to Jesus.

A prairie fire was whipped along by the wind so fast that it overtook all creatures in its path. One family, seeing the impossibility of outrunning the blaze, began a backfire and then covered themselves with earth as they lay in the midst of the already burned-out circle. The roaring fire met the backfire and it burned only up to the edge of that burned-over area, then went right around it, continuing its hungry race. That family was saved. They knew the only safe place was where the fire had already burned.

Dear friend, the fire of God’s wrath has already burned once on this earth. When Jesus—the Lamb of God—died on the cross He was dying as our substitute. He was enduring the wrath of God we deserved.

If you turn from your sins and put your trust in the cross—where the fire has already burned—you can stand when the wrath of God is poured out on this earth a second time. Not because you’re a good person, but because you’ve put your faith in the only One who is truly good.

The Puritan pastor William Secker put it like this: “There will be no possibility of standing before Christ but by standing in Christ.” [12]

Would you turn from your sins and trust Him today, before it’s too late?

Christian, the reason believers throughout history have been willing to suffer for Christ is because they understood something the world does not understand: Jesus is worth it.

He is worth it, even if it means losing our comfort, our reputations, or opportunities at work.

He is worth it, even if it means suffering and dying.

John Bunyan understood that.

After spending years in prison for preaching the gospel, Bunyan published one of the best-selling books of all time, The Pilgrim's Progress.

Near the end of the story, Christian and Hopeful must cross the Jordan River before they can enter the Celestial City.

The river represents death—the final enemy every one of us must cross before we see Jesus face to face.

I love the way Helen Taylor retells the story in her version for children:

As Christian began to cross that river, he cried out, “I am sinking! The water is all going over me!”

“No, it is only rough,” said Hopeful. “Do not be so frightened. I can feel the ground at the bottom of the river, and it is quite firm. We shall cross safely, and then we shall have no more trouble.”

“Perhaps you will cross,” whispered Christian faintly, “but I am sure I cannot. I shall never see the King.…”

“You will live with Him. Look up, Christian, and don’t think about the water. We can see everything quite clearly now. The City is full of light, and the Shining Ones are waiting for us at the gates.”

“They are waiting for you,” said Christian, “not for me.” And then his head sank down on Hopeful’s shoulders. For a little while he did not seem to hear anything that his companion said. But Hopeful held him tightly in his arms and prayed very earnestly to the King to help them both in this last trouble.

Presently little Christian opened his eyes, and as the light from the Celestial City fell upon his face, he cried out suddenly, “Oh, I can see it all now! It shines like the sun, and I heard the voice of the Good Prince. He said, “I will be with you in the waters.”

“Then I am sure we need not be frightened,” said Hopeful. “Take hold of my hand again. The Good Prince will never break His promise.” [13]

Christian: there may come a day when your faith feels weak, your suffering feels overwhelming, and the waters seem deeper than you can bear.

In those moments, you need brothers and sisters who will take hold of your hand and remind you that the King has not abandoned you.

To remind you that the cries of the martyrs are not falling on deaf ears.

To remind you that God sees. God knows. God remembers. And God will judge.

To remind you that He promised our suffering will not last forever.

So whatever trials you're facing today, Christian, do not let them drive you away from Christ. Run to Him. Cling to His promises. And cling to His people.

The Good Prince will never break His promise.

And soon enough, every believer will stand safely on Jordan's farther shore.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

On Jordan’s Stormy Banks

Benediction (Galatians 1:3–4)

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father