Who is Able to Stand? Revelation 6

Scripture:

Pray for Toby

Intro: Beginning of the End

Have you noticed how much of popular culture is obsessed with the apocalypse?

Zombie shows, dystopian movies, billionaires building bunkers in New Zealand — everybody senses that something big is coming.

The book of Revelation isn't Hollywood. It's the real thing. And Revelation 6 pulls back the curtain on the future of planet Earth.

From the previous chapter, we understand this scroll is the history and destiny of mankind and creation, and only Jesus – the Lamb – had the right to loosen the seals on this scroll of the culmination of history.

Notice it is the Lamb who opens the seals!

Not the lion in his fury, not the eagle in his height, but the Lamb — the meek, the slain, the gentle one — whose pierced hand loosens the scroll of destiny.

The world imagines that if there be a God at all, He must be a tyrant with a whip. But the hand that holds the terrors of history is the hand that was nailed to a cross for sinners.

And yet the same Lamb whose blood cleanses is the Lamb whose wrath makes kings crawl into caves.

The great men, the rich men, the mighty commanders, the men who bought and sold nations — and now they beg the very rocks to bury them!

Four times a living creature says "Come and see," and four times John looks.

The believer is invited not to flinch from these realities but to see them — because the One holding the scroll is trustworthy.

The chapter closes with a terrifying question, "Who is able to stand?" And the whole rest of the New Testament answers it: the one justified by faith in Jesus

That is the good news buried in a chapter about wrath.

Six seals, in two movements.

The first four (the horsemen) form a tight unit — each introduced by a living creature, each a rider granted authority.

The fifth and sixth break the pattern and shift the camera: from earth's calamities to heaven's altar (the martyrs) and then to earth's collapse (the day of wrath).

The seam is the message: history's horrors provoke the cry "How long?" — and the sixth seal begins to answer it.

The chapter asks “Who is able to stand?”

I want to answer that by showing you three things make you steady in the face of uncertainty

Be steady because the Lamb is in control vs. 1-8

The first reason we can stand is because the Lamb is in control

Here come the four horsemen — conquest, war, famine, death. It is a terrifying parade.

But look who starts the parade: the Lamb opens the seals.

The riders do not seize authority; it is granted to them.

A cynical age reads the newspaper and concludes the world is a runaway train.

Think about the person in Lompoc who scrolls the news at midnight and can't sleep because of war, inflation, and the sense that everything's coming apart. 

Revelation 6 speaks directly to that anxiety.

The four horsemen are basically every headline you've ever read:

political upheaval (white horse),

war (red horse),

economic scarcity (black horse),

and death (pale horse).

The Bible predicted the anxiety of your news feed 2,000 years ago. 

Faith reads Revelation 6 and sees the Engineer's hand still on the throttle.

That changes how you read tomorrow's headlines.

Notice how many times the text says authority was given or granted to these riders.

Nothing happens on this planet that Jesus didn't allow.

Methods change, headlines change, but that principle never does.

White Horse

Some commentators say the rider on the white horse is Christ, because Jesus rides a white horse in Revelation 19.

But it is better to understand this as a satanic counterfeit — an antichrist figure who imitates the true Messiah.

Note the details:

he carries a bow, not a sword;

a crown is given to him;

and what follows in his wake is war, famine, and death. Christ's reign does not produce those things.

Red Horse

This rider didn’t need to bring war and destruction. All he needed to do was take peace from the earth.

Once this peace – God’s gift to man – was taken, men quickly rush in with war and destruction.

Black Horse

The scales symbolized the need to carefully measure and ration food. This speaks of a time of scarcity.

These prices are about twelve times higher than normal.

It means that it would cost a day’s wage to buy the ingredients for a loaf of bread.

This describes “a time of famine when life will be reduced to the barest necessities.” 

Do not harm the oil and the wine: Yet, the nicer things will be available for those who can afford them.

Pale Horse

This last rider shows that there will be a tremendous death toll from the dictatorship, war, famine and other calamities described by the previous three horsemen.

Our modern age has seen hundreds of millions killed by dictators, war, and famine. Yet all that will pale in comparison to the death toll coming in the wake of this ultimate dictator.

Matthew 24:21 ESV

For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.

Power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill:

Power was given to the horseman, and given by God. Though all hell breaks loose on the earth, God is very much in control. He still holds the scroll and opens the seals.

Be steady because your suffering is seen vs. 9-11

The second reason we can stand is because our suffering in seen

The fifth seal returns the focus back to heaven the saints who have been slain for Preaching & Witnessing

These are people who come to know Jesus or return to following Him during the tribulation

The martyrs under the altar are not forgotten; they are heard, they are robed, they are told to rest.

I think of the persecuted church — believers in places where following Jesus can still cost you everything.

Pastor Raju in India

The message of the fifth seal is that heaven keeps records. No tear, no cell, no unmarked grave escapes God's ledger.

That these souls were under the altar emphasizes that their life blood was poured out as an offering to God. 

And they cried with a loud voice: These souls in heaven cried out for vengeance (until You judge and avenge our blood).

We usually don’t think of God’s people crying out for vengeance, but here they made their cry to God, and leave the matter with Him.

These saints were instructed to wait. How long must they wait? Until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.

This may mean that they should wait until all God’s appointed martyrs are killed.

Be steady because judgment is certain vs. 12-17

The final reason we can stand is because judgment is certain

In the Bible, celestial disturbances are often connected with the coming of the Messiah.

It is best to regard these pictures as real, but poetic.

The great day comes, and the question rings out: "Who is able to stand?"

Now here is the application, starting tomorrow morning: the only people who can stand are those who have already knelt at the cross.

The kings and the rich and the powerful — the people we spend our whole lives envying — end up screaming for a mountain to fall on them.

Money couldn't save them.

Power couldn't save them.

Fame couldn't save them.

They cry out to be hidden "from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb."

The kings of the earth run to the mountains; the children of God run to the Lamb.

Which direction will your feet carry you when the ground shakes?

An outline is a scaffold, not a cage — but the point of the scaffold is that you build something you can live in.

Live steady, because the Lamb reigns.

We can trace a Scripture-interpreting-Scripture pattern here.

The celestial upheaval of verses 12–14 echoes Joel 2:10-11, Isaiah 13:10, and our Lord's own words in Matthew 24:29.

When John describes the sun becoming black as sackcloth, he is not writing a scientific report — he is describing, in real but poetic language, what he saw.

Think about that phrase — the wrath of the Lamb. A lamb isn't scary.

But this is the Lamb who was slain for you, and if you spend your life rejecting His love, one day you'll face His justice.

God did everything to save you. He sent His Son to die in your place, to take the wrath you deserved.

That's why verse 17 asks, "Who is able to stand?"

And the answer is: anyone who has run to the cross instead of the caves.