05 The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
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Good evening - and welcome back! This is already our fifth night together, and that means we’re going to be digging a little bit deeper into our subject material.
Before we dive into our subject for tonight, we’ve got a couple fun things to do. In a moment we’ll answer some questions, but before we do that, I have something to give away.
We did a quick selection based on the people who checked in tonight, and ________ is going to receive a DVD and study guide called “Shadow Empire” by Sean Boonstra, speaker and director for Voice of Prophecy, and the author of the presentations we’re going through in this seminar. I think you’re going to really enjoy watching these.
If you’d like a copy of this series, we have a couple extra that we’ve got on the back table. We would just ask for a donation of $20 or so to cover our costs on that. Just put the donation in the questions box.
Questions
Questions
Question 1
Question 2
Our subject tonight will be “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” a subject I know that some of you have been waiting for. Tonight, we’re going to look at Revelation chapter six, and I guarantee that I’m going to have some surprises for some of you.
Then on Friday night, we’re going to look at “The Time of the End, Part One.” There’s a prophecy in the Bible that points to the final phase of earth’s history, and it spans more time than every other prophecy in the books of Daniel or Revelation. Of course, we know that you and I will never know the day or hour when Jesus will come, but we CAN know when time is running out, and this prophecy gives us a clear indication of when we’re getting close.
And it’s going to be a BIG study - big enough that we’re going to break it into two nights.
So on Saturday night, we’ll look at “The Time of the End part two”.
On Sunday night, we’re going to look at “The Appearing”, and we’re going to look at the five things we know for sure about Christ’s return. Maybe you’ve noticed: when you walk into a Christian bookstore and you look through all the books about the second coming of Jesus, you’re bound to get a dozen different versions of what to expect.
So on Sunday night, we’re not going to guess - we’re not going to speculate - we’re just going to go to the Bible and deal with certainties - and we’ll study five things we can know for sure.
Then on Tuesday night, we’re going to begin to unpack the central chapters of the book of Revelation and I’m titling that night, “The Anatomy of Evil”. In the modern western world, when we read a book, we usually expect the climax at the end of the story - but in the ancient biblical world, they usually put the biggest ideas somewhere near the middle.
Bible scholars would call that “chiastic” structure, and it’s named after the Greek letter CHI, which kind of looks like our “X”. The point of a letter X is in the middle, and the biggest point of Bible prophecy is also sometimes found in the middle.
In the book of Revelation, the biggest themes are found in the middle of the book - roughly in chapters 12, 13, and 14. So on Tuesday night, we’ll start digging into those chapters, and we’ll look at chapter 12, where we’ll study The Anatomy of Evil.
If God is good, the way the Bible says - and if God is love, the way the Bible says - then how did we end up with pain and suffering? Why is there so much evil in the world? It’s one of the most important questions ever asked, and you and I are going to start looking for the answer in Revelation 12.
Then on Wednesday night, we’ll touch down on Revelation 14. I’m calling that one “The Ultimate Mind Game”. We’ll look at a mysterious group of people who have the Father’s name written in their foreheads. Revelation says that they were “redeemed,” or in other words, they are sinners who are now considered pure in front of the throne of God.
This is an important night, especially if you’ve ever struggled with temptation, because we’re going to look at biblical keys to living a better life
And then on Friday night, our subject will be “The Coming of the Lawless One.” There’s a remarkable passage in Second Thessalonians that talks about someone who tries to sit on the throne of God, and it talks about “the mystery of iniquity” or the “mystery of lawlessness.”
We’re going to examine that a little more carefully and study one of the most important themes in Bible prophecy.
Announce special music, if any.
Our subject tonight: “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”
Tonight, we’re going to do something a little bit different. We’re going to look at Revelation chapter six, and we’re going to fly over the whole chapter very quickly because I want you to see how Bible prophecy is structured.
Revelation chapter six is a chapter that not many people study anymore, but there are important keys in this passage that pave the way to understanding the rest of the book. So I want you to see the whole thing.
And I know that tonight, we’re probably going to raise as many questions as we answer . . . so I’m going to ask that you be patient with me, because as we keep going deeper into the subject, the answers will come. But tonight, we’re going to look at the big picture of this chapter.
Prayer
Let’s pray: “Father in heaven, tonight, we’re excited to be able to open the pages of Bible prophecy and actually understand. We believe that when we read the Bible, we’re not just reading another book; we’re hearing the voice of Almighty God - our Savior and Creator. Tonight I ask that you would forgive my sins and make me fit to speak, and again we pledge that when Jesus speaks to our hearts, we will follow. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.”
Tonight, let’s start by going to the very beginning of the book of Revelation and looking at something we’ve already seen:
Read the passage, and emphasize the word “shortly.”
1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,
Now this is a very important concept, and it’s something that a lot of modern readers miss. In the book of Revelation, God is showing John things that are going to happen in the future . . . but according to THIS verse, when are those future events going to start taking place?
Shortly!
This is really important: the prophecies of Revelation were already being fulfilled back in John’s day. This book is not just about OUR future; it was about John’s future, too. Revelation isn’t just about the last few years of earth’s history; it’s about the whole expanse of time from John’s day down to the Second Coming of Christ.
The fulfillment began almost two thousand years ago, when John wrote the book, and it continues until the end.
That’s the way that most of Daniel and Revelation are structured - the predictions are fulfilled historically. More often than not, the fulfillment of prophecy begins in the day of the prophet, and continues down through time until the end.
So, for example, when we saw the statue in Daniel 2, the head of gold symbolized Daniel’s own time, and then it continued until the stone smashed the image, and the Kingdom of Christ is established. It started in Daniel’s time and progressed through history until the end of the story when God ultimately wins.
Understanding this, we realize that SOME of Revelation has already happened. In fact, we already have nearly two thousand years of fulfillment under our belt.
And maybe one of the clearest places you can see this principle at work is in the prophecy of the seven churches, in Revelation 2 and 3:
Now this is probably going to frustrate you, because we’re going to skip through two whole chapters in about three minutes, but what I really want to do is establish the structure of prophecy.
In Revelation 2 and 3, there are seven letters addressed to seven churches: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.
These were seven REAL cities in Asia Minor, or modern-day Turkey - and the seven letters are addressed to seven literal Christian congregations that lived in those cities.
But over the centuries, serious Bible students have noticed something really amazing: these seven letters also seem to describe the entire history of Christianity - from the first century to the Second Coming - and the descriptions are absolutely perfect.
So, for example, you’ve got:
Ephesus, which describes the early apostolic church of the first century - a “desirable,” pure church.
Then you’ve got Smyrna, which is the crushed or persecuted church, and it represents the Christians who lived through the persecutions of the Roman Empire. The word “Smyrna” is actually related to the word “myrrh,” which is a sweet-smelling spice that you get from crushing the myrrh plant.
Then comes Pergamos, a church that begins to fragment and become weaker, because many years have gone by, and people begin to compromise on the original teachings of Christ.
Then comes Thyatira, a period of history when Christians REALLY start to misbehave, and most students of Bible prophecy understand this to be the Dark Ages, a time when Christian behavior was anything but biblical.
Then comes Sardis, a period of history when Christians start to open their Bibles again and return to the plain teachings of Scripture. This roughly begins in the 1500s, when you suddenly get Christian scholars from every conceivable background calling people back to the Bible.
Then comes the church of Philadelphia, a church that launches a global missionary movement and begins to share Jesus with the whole world. And at the same time, during the first and second Great Awakenings, they begin to teach that Jesus is coming soon. The name Philadelphia literally means “brotherly love,” and that’s a pretty good description of the state of Christianity as we move into the 1800s.
And then comes Laodicea, the unfortunate description of last-day Christianity - a time when people will profess to be godly but deny the real power of the Christian faith. This is the moment we’re living in right now, and the Bible describes it as lukewarm Christianity.
Now what’s amazing about the seven churches is the fact that MOST Christians agree on what they represent. They were real, literal churches in the first century, and the messages absolutely applied to them - but these churches also describe the state of Christianity as a whole over the past two thousand years.
Christians disagree about just about everything in prophecy, but on these two chapters - Revelation 2 and 3 - there is widespread agreement.
These are seven churches, showing the complete span of Christian history - in advance!
The descriptions fit perfectly - and the seven churches show us how the book of Revelation works: the prophecies begin their fulfillment SHORTLY - all the way back in John’s day - and they cover the history of the world down to the end.
Generally speaking, that’s how the big prophecies of Daniel and Revelation work.
And when you see the number seven, that’s also very important. In Bible prophecy, SEVEN is the number of completeness and perfection.
It’s considered God’s number. He created the world in six days, and rested on the seventh - which made a perfect week, and symbolized a perfect creation.
You’ve got seven churches, which represent the complete story of church history from John’s time to the end. There are seven seals, seven trumpets, seven thunders, and seven plagues.
Seven is the number of completeness and perfection, and it’s the number of God. This is a very important principle.
Another principle you’re going to need is that Bible prophecy often repeats itself and expands on what you’ve already studied. This is something you’re really going to notice when we get into Daniel chapter 8: it repeats the same history as Daniel 2, but from a slightly different perspective.
It turns out that God is a master Teacher. He teaches a subject one step at a time, and like any good teacher, He repeats the material several times, and adds a few more details each time He covers it.
And tonight, you’ll see that’s how Revelation 6 works: it covers the same territory as the seven churches, but it shows us that same history from a different perspective.
So now we’re ready to dive into Revelation chapter 6. Ready to go?
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Last time, we looked at Revelation chapters 4 and 5, and we followed John into the throne room of heaven. It was an incredible scene:
• God was on the throne with a scroll or a book in His hand.
• and it’s a very important book, because the angels wanted it to be opened.
• but, if you remember, they couldn’t find anybody worthy to open the book. Not one person.
• and the Lamb appears - the SLAIN Lamb - and HE IS worthy. And who was the Lamb? Jesus.
Now, tonight, in Revelation chapter 6, that same Lamb takes the scroll and begins to open the seals, one by one. And as He opens the seals, He reveals what is now possible for His people BECAUSE of what He accomplished on the cross.
Now, I’ve got to warn you: as Jesus opens the seals, He’s going to show us a very honest picture of the future, and that includes a very honest assessment of the Christian church. He’s going to predict our very BEST moments, and unfortunately, He’s also going to predict some of our WORST moments.
But honestly, I wouldn’t want it any other way. I love the fact that God is open and honest. He doesn’t sugarcoat the situation; He loves us enough to tell us the truth. Maybe you’ve noticed: when God tells the story of Old Testament Israel, He tells the WHOLE story - both the happy parts, and the parts where Israel went astray.
And that’s the same thing with His New Testament people. God is going to show us a very accurate picture of the church. He’s going to show us both sides: when the church is getting it right, God’s going to say so, and when the church is getting it wrong, God’s going to say that, too.
So, knowing that, are you ready to look?
1 Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals; and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder, “Come and see.”
Now, I want you to notice the invitation: God says “come and see.” That’s why the book is called “Revelation,” - God is not afraid to have you look. It’s not a mystery, it’s an unveiling, and it’s something God is eager to show us.
2 And I looked, and behold, a white horse. He who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.
So you’ve got a man riding a white horse, and he’s busy conquering something. So what is he conquering? And why is the horse white?
Well, if you read through the rest of Revelation, you’ll find the color white all over the place:
In chapter 1, Jesus has hair as white as wool.
In chapter 2, the faithful are promised a white stone.
In chapter 3, the faithful are wearing white garments.
In chapter 4, the elders in heaven are dressed in white.
In chapter 6, the martyrs are given white robes.
In chapter 7, a huge, numberless crowd is dressed in white.
In chapter 14 - Jesus returns on a white cloud.
In chapter 19 - Jesus rides a white horse.
In chapter 20 - God is seated on a white throne.
It’s a symbol you find all over the place! So what does it mean?
Well, remember that John borrows roughly two-thirds of his language from the rest of the Bible - so let’s see how the color white is used elsewhere. Let me show you something from the book of Isaiah:
18 “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.
I want you to notice that scarlet (or red) is the color of blood - it’s the color of death - and it’s the color of sin, or impurity.
But white is the color of forgiveness and purity. It’s the color of holiness.
White represents purity
That’s why, to this day, a bride still wears a white dress.
That’s why, in Revelation chapter 12, you see a woman dressed in white as a symbol of God’s perfect, forgiven church.
And how do I know that a woman symbolizes God’s church? It’s really pretty simple: all through the Bible, God’s people are described as the “Bride of Christ.”
In Ezekiel 16, God describes Israel as His bride. In Jeremiah 6:2, the Bible says, “I have likened the daughter of Zion to a lovely and delicate woman.”
A pure woman dressed in white is the pure church of God. And of course, a woman dressed in scarlet would be the impure church of God.
White is the color of forgiveness and purity - and that’s why the first horse is white:
This is a picture of the early apostolic church - the church of the first century. The fire of the gospel message was alive in their hearts.
These were the people who had actually TALKED to Jesus. They KNEW the disciples - and they knew the gospel message firsthand.
They knew their mission - their purpose - their calling. And they were so passionate about Jesus that they went out to conquer the world with the gospel message. Jesus told them, “Go to the uttermost parts of the earth,” and they took that seriously.
And they did it without email, or Twitter, or Facebook, or youtube or satellite TV. They did it on foot - and they were so successful . . .
. . . that Paul could talk about the gospel which had already been preached to “every creature under heaven.”
Imagine: the whole Roman Empire in one lifetime.
So how do you think the devil felt about THAT? He had already failed to conquer Jesus at the cross. Revelation 12 tells us that because Jesus rose from the dead and went back to heaven, the devil turned his wrath against the Christian church, and he tried to stop them from teaching the truth.
He created all KINDS of trouble for the church - and eventually, another horse rides onto the scene:
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3 When He opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come and see.” 4 Another horse, fiery red, went out. And it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth, and that people should kill one another; and there was given to him a great sword.
White was the color of purity, but red is the color of sin and bloodshed.
The Bible predicted that peace would be taken from the earth, and that’s exactly what happened. The wrath of the pagan Roman Empire suddenly fell on the Christians, and the Romans grew to hate the followers of Jesus, and our history books are FULL of what the Romans did.
On one occasion, a huge portion of the city of Rome caught fire and burned to the ground, and many historians think that the Emperor Nero actually did it himself in order to make room for some of his projects. But of course, he wasn’t about to take the blame for burning the eternal city, so instead he blamed the Christians.
He had them thrown into the arena, to be torn apart by wild beasts. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, on one occasion, he actually had Christians sewn into animal skins, and then he tossed them out in front of wild dogs who ripped them to shreds.
On another occasion, he dipped Christians in tar, crucified them, and then lit them on fire so they could be a nightlight in the circus.
Peter was crucified upside down. John the Revelator was dipped in boiling oil.
It was a horrible time to be a Christian, because the Roman Empire suddenly hated the church. But it’s also from this historical period that we find some of the most remarkable stories of faith.
Maybe you’ve heard of Polycarp - the bishop of Smyrna who was actually a disciple of John’s. At one point, the authorities took him to be burned alive, because he refused to acknowledge the Roman emperor as a god.
There was a Roman official present at his execution who couldn’t make sense of what Polycarp was doing. “Old man, why do you want to die? Just renounce Christ, and you can live! What’s the point of this?”
But the old man stood up straight and said this:
“Eighty-six years I have served Him, and He has done me no wrong: how can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”
You see, once you know Jesus, you’re really not afraid of much. You already know the future - you understand that God’s going to win, and He’s ultimately going to take care of everything.
Even if you die, you’re still going to be OK.
So the authorities lit the fire, and Polycarp died. It was the period of the Red Horse. Peace was taken from the earth, and the bloodshed was unbelievable.
But you and I should understand this: those people were willing to die so that you and I would have a chance to read this Book.
In 325 AD, at the council of Nicaea, it is said that every delegate had been maimed by persecution. Some were missing eyes, or hands, or feet - and some were covered with scars. Every last one of them.
It was one of the bloodiest periods in history . . . but persecution failed to conquer Christianity, because the love of God will always be stronger than the force of the devil.
And that’s the difference between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of darkness. One of them woos us, calling us with love, and the other one uses force and deception. And in the end, force always loses.
The authorities tried to stamp out the Christian church, but they couldn’t extinguish the light of the gospel.
An early church father by the name of Tertullian pointed out that the harder the Romans tried to wipe out the church, the faster the message of Jesus spread.
He wrote, “The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church,” and he compared the persecution to mowing grass: you cut it down, but it comes back thicker and stronger. Every time you kill one Christian, twenty more pop up to take his place.
The gospel is undefeatable.
But of course, the big question is WHY.
Why did the Roman Empire HATE the Christian church? It wasn’t like the Romans were intolerant of other religions. In the Roman Empire, you could practice any religion you wanted - except for Christianity.
Why?
It’s because every other religion was willing to add the Caesar to its list of gods - but the Christians wouldn’t do it. They COULDN’T acknowledge Caesar as a god, because they only worshipped ONE God, and that God said, “You shall have no other gods.”
So Christians stood out like a sore thumb.
Now, in truth, nobody really believed that the Caesar was a god, especially the people who grew up with him - but the Caesar was considered the embodiment of the empire - he was a potent symbol of national unity. So you could do and believe what you wanted, but the Romans would not tolerate anything that seemed to compromise the unity of the Empire.
So even if you didn’t ACTUALLY believe that the Caesar was God, you still had to offer a pinch of incense - just once in a blue moon - to prove that you were loyal. And under the Emperor Diocletian, they actually issued a certificate to prove that you had done it.
Only one group was exempt, and that was the Jews. And THEY were exempt because way back when, they helped Julius Caesar win, and he gave them special privileges. They were considered a “national religion.”
Now at first, the Christians enjoyed the same exemption, because the Romans considered them as part of the Jewish nation - but after a while, it became obvious they weren’t - so they didn’t have the exemption.
And that created a problem.
The Christians just didn’t fit in.
For example: Christians weren’t comfortable using Roman hospitals, because in some places, the priest of Aesculapius - the serpent god - would come in and perform religious rituals.
The Christians weren’t comfortable with Roman education, either, because the Romans taught that there were many gods, and they offered an alternate theory of where the world comes from.
The Christians weren’t comfortable with Roman entertainment because condemned men were forced to fight to the death for the amusement of the crowd, and occasionally, when a play called for a death scene, they actually killed a condemned criminal on stage to make it seem more realistic.
Not only did the Christians have a different religion, but they also had a different culture. They were counter-cultural … they were different. So they stuck out like a sore thumb, and rumors started to spread.
People heard stories about Christians having these secret meetings where they ate human flesh and drank human blood. Of course, it was a complete misunderstanding - it was the communion service - but you know how rumors can spread. They also heard that Christians called each other “brother” and “sister” and went to “love feasts,” which again, was just the communion service - but the rumor mill said they were practicing incest.
And it didn’t take long before everybody hated Christians.
It was the period of the Red Horse, and it came to a head between the years 303 and 313 AD, when the emperor Diocletian was pressured to eliminate the Christian faith.
There was a fire in his palace, and the Christians got blamed. So Diocletian had them all dismissed from public office. He kicked them out of the government, and he removed them from the army, because he couldn’t be sure if they would be loyal.
And for ten years, the Christians suffered unbelievable persecution.
But it didn’t last forever. Eventually, the Red Horse rode off the scene:
5 When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come and see.” So I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand.
The rider on THIS horse has scales, which means he’s measuring something. What is he measuring?
Now, to be honest, this is one of those passages in Bible prophecy that really makes me squirm, because God is about to reveal the truth about our Christian history. Listen to the rest of this:
6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine.”
This rider moves us into the next period of earth’s history, and it’s a remarkable story. In the year 312 AD, something happens just outside the city of Rome:
The Emperor Diocletian had divided the empire into two halves, east and west. And in each half, he had two rulers - a senior ruler, called the Augustus, and a junior ruler, called the Caesar. So you had four rulers, and historians call it the Tetrarchy.
But after Diocletian retired in 305 AD, the four rulers started to fight for control, and before long, there was a FIFTH ruler in the city of Rome - a guy by the name of Maxentius, who was angry about getting passed over for a promotion. He managed to convince the Roman Senate to crown HIM the emperor, and before long, another ruler by the name of Constantine showed up to deal with him.
Inside the city of Rome, everybody got nervous. “Constantine is coming!”
Maxentius knew that he couldn’t beat Constantine in a fair fight, so he hid inside the city, knowing that Constantine’s men would feel uneasy about attacking the Mother City. And to make people feel more secure, he threw a party. He invited everybody to a chariot race.
But as soon as the race was over, someone shouted, “Hey, Maxentius, are you really afraid to go out and fight Constantine?” Before long, someone else shouted the same thing, and the whole crowd started chanting. It went viral, and now Maxentius had no choice.
He had to go out and fight. So he went to the Roman soothsayers and asked them if the old Roman prophecies had any predictions. They went and checked the books, and came back. “Tomorrow, the enemy of Rome will die!”
That was good news, because in HIS mind, Constantine WAS the enemy of Rome.
Outside the city, somebody told Constantine that Maxentius had a sign that he would be the winner - an old prophecy guaranteed it. That made Constantine’s men nervous, because they WERE, after all, attacking the eternal city!
So Constantine came up with his own sign:
an ancient pagan symbol known as the Chi-Rho (pronounced “kye-roe”). It’s the Greek letters “CHI”, which is a “CH” but looks like the letter “X”, and “Rho,” which is an “R” but kind of looks like a “P”. These are the first two letters in the word “Christ,” so a lot of people assume that Constantine was using a Christian symbol.
But it also happens to be the first two letters in the word “Chrestus” (with an “e”), which was the word for “good luck” or “victory.” It’s actually an ancient pagan symbol that predates Christianity.
Constantine had his men paint a “Chi-Rho” on their shields so that THEY would have a sign of victory, too.
And on the next day, October 28, the armies clashed at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. And to make a long story short, Constantine wins. Maxentius actually gets knocked off his horse and drowns in the river.
And when Constantine gets inside the city of Rome, he does something very unusual. Every other Roman ruler who won always climbed the Capitoline Hill and sacrificed to Jupiter, but Constantine didn’t. And we suspect that’s because his mother was a Christian.
About twelve years later, as Constantine is celebrating his empire, he suddenly embellishes the story. He tells a church historian by the name of Eusebius that he actually SAW the Chi-Rho up in the sky, and he heard a voice telling him, “Go conquer in THIS sign.”
In other words, more than a decade later, he said the Christian God told him to conquer Rome in the sign of the cross.
He was nominally accepting the Christian faith - even though he continued to kill his family members and he refused to get baptized until he was on his deathbed. But nominally, he accepts the Christian faith, and he even gives the Lateran Palace as a gift to the Bishop of Rome, and he builds a church in honor of Peter on the Vatican Mountain - the original St. Peter’s Basilica.
And from this point on, the persecution is over. Constantine officially ends it with the Edict of Milan, and Rome becomes a Christianized empire. Constantine may have not converted himself, but he absolutely favored the Christian religion. It became popular, and for the first time, people looked at joining the Christian church as a way to gain favor with the emperor.
If you wanted to climb the social ladder, you joined the Christian church. There’s even an old story where Constantine marched some of his army through the Tiber River and declared them all to be baptized Christians. There’s only one problem with that: what do you get when you march a thousand pagans through a river?
Wet pagans. The thing about Christianity? You can’t make the decision for someone else. You HAVE to choose Jesus yourself.
Now, the story might be apocryphal, but it DOES illustrate the complete reversal of Rome’s attitude. Christianity was now the favored religion.
And that led to big problems, because now you had this uncomfortable mix of different people in the church. Some were sincere Christians - they were there because they believed that Jesus is the Son of God, and that He died for their sins. But others were there for the social and political benefits.
The church became a blended institution, and some of the passion that made the early church conquer the world began to disappear, because Christians got comfortable. They didn’t HAVE to stand for anything, because calling yourself a Christian became easy.
And then, as the years went by, something terrible started to happen.
Those two groups inside the church started to clash with each other.
Those who were part of the new, comfortable Christianity - but were really still pagans at heart - they started to resent the people who were practicing biblical Christianity, and they pushed them to the margins of the church.
And eventually, if you differed with the Empire’s OFFICIAL version of Christianity - a politicized version of Christianity - that led to huge problems.
And at this point in history, the church stopped changing the world, and the world started changing the church. And even worse:
. . . when Rome stopped persecuting Christians, Christians eventually started persecuting each other. We actually starting killing each other over differences of opinion.
So let me ask you: where did we learn THAT? Did we get it from Jesus? Can you see Jesus running a torture chamber?
We didn’t learn it from the Bible; we learned it from the Romans. We brought Roman-style politics right through the doors of the church. And we did it even though God warned us, in more than one prophecy, that it was going to happen.
And then - as the years went by - we started doing something else that is still happening to this day, and I’m embarrassed to admit that it’s still happening right here in North America:
We started selling the gospel. Instead of preaching it, we started selling it.
The Bible said that THIS rider would have something for sale. What was he selling? Food?
And what is food? Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” “I am the living water.” “I have food to eat of which you do not know” (John 6:32).
In the Bible, food is the gospel - it’s the truth about Jesus. You and I started to sell religion.
Even though the gospel is free, and Jesus PAID for your salvation, you and I started to sell it instead, and that’s still going on to this day. Just turn on the TV and listen to how Christian preachers are STILL trying to earn a buck on the gospel of Christ.
It’s not right - because Jesus is NOT for sale.
And of course, churches have to pay the bills, and of course, not everything can just be given away - but Christians have no business getting rich on the gospel.
As the Christian church started lurching toward the Dark Ages, we began to cut off access to the Bible. A measure of wheat is barely enough to stay alive - you couldn’t even feed a family with it.
And a denarius? That’s like a penny - and back then, it was a whole day’s pay.
A day’s wages for a starvation diet. That’s our church after we began to compromise.
But it wasn’t the last horse:
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7 When He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come and see.”
8 So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.
The black horse was bad news, but the pale horse is worse. Pale is the color of death. Pale is the color you get when the lifeblood actually drains out of the body - and as the church moved into the Dark Ages, that’s exactly what happened.
People stopped reading the Bible. We lost track of the message. The mission of the church came to a grinding halt - we actually replaced missions with wars. Our passion for Christ became all but extinct.
It was a terrible time, and if you’ve read your European history, you know what I’m talking about.
Of course, there were always a few faithful Christians - people who stayed true to the faith - people like the Waldenses in the north of Italy:
They spent their lives hidden away in the mountains, copying the Scriptures by hand and smuggling them all over Europe - that is, until the organized church found out about it and started to kill them off.
There were always a few groups keeping the light of the gospel alive, but most of Christianity was tragically dead.
Bible prophecy is completely honest about what you and I would do. We persecuted each other, and our church was dead. God holds up a mirror and shows us the painful truth.
But you’ll notice that the pale horse doesn’t last forever. There IS another seal. It’s not another HORSE, but it IS another seal. Unfortunately, a lot of people come to the end of the horses, and they assume the prophecy is finished, but the four horses are the first four seals, and there IS a fifth one - a seal that shows us how desperate the situation would become:
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 testimony which they held.
10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”
God sees how bad the situation is. He hears the cries of His people - the ones who were trying to stay faithful. “How much longer, God? How much longer?”
Have you ever wondered: doesn’t God SEE our pain and suffering? Doesn’t He KNOW when I’m hurting?
Yes, He does. He sees everything - every single tear you shed.
Listen to the words of Psalm 56:
8 You number my wanderings; Put my tears into Your bottle; Are they not in Your book?
The truth is that God keeps track of EVERYTHING, and He sees you.
He sees every tear, every sleepless night. And He has a promise for you: His Kingdom is coming, and He’s going to make it right.
And under the fifth seal, God starts making things right. People start to stand up for the truth of the Bible.
Suddenly, the printing press is invented, and now everybody can have access to a copy of the Bible - and brave people start to recapture the spirit of the early church - people like Wycliffe, and Huss, and Luther, and Zwingli, and Calvin, and Tyndale.
The embers of the gospel are fanned into a flame that takes Europe by storm - and it sets the stage for the sixth seal.
Now follow me carefully. So far, we’ve come down through time to the end of the Dark Ages, and we’ve come to about the 1700s. Pay attention carefully:
12 I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood.
13 And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind.
Now pay attention to the events listed under the sixth seal - they’re listed in a very specific order:
You’ve got a great earthquake, then the sun goes dark and the moon turns red, and then the stars fall from heaven. That order is very important - and you find these same events in the same order several times in the Bible:
That’s how they’re listed in Matthew 24, in Mark 13, in Luke 21, and in Joel chapter 2. It’s always in the same order, every time.
Why?
It’s because that’s EXACTLY how it happened.
I’m about to show you something that our great-great-grandparents in the Christian faith knew. This is something that all Christians used to know - but for some reason, now that we’re down to the final generations living on the planet, people have just stopped talking about it.
In the year 1755, the city of Lisbon suddenly experienced one of the most devastating earthquakes in history. This was the Haiti or the Fukushima of its day. The city was utterly destroyed, and the whole world was talking about it.
Even though it happened in Europe, there were cities in North Africa that were leveled. People felt it in the city of Strasbourg, more than a thousand miles away. It disturbed the rivers and lakes up in Scandinavia, and it produced tidal waves in the Caribbean, on the other side of the Atlantic.
This was a VERY BIG DEAL. It wiped out the city of Lisbon, and it was the talk of the whole world. And when you go back and read what people said about this earthquake, you discover they understood that it was a prophetic sign. They actually recognized it as the earthquake of Revelation 6, and that’s because our forefathers in the faith were completely conversant in the language of prophecy.
If you go to Lisbon, you can still see the damage to this day. This is a church that was destroyed in 1755, and they have never fixed it. They just turned it into an open-air auditorium, and you’ll find LOTS of this kind of damage all over the city, even though it’s 250 years later.
An old preacher went to the Gosling Memorial Library in Newfoundland a few years ago, and he found THIS record of the Lisbon earthquake in Canada:
"I have been informed by several respectable individuals that at the time of the great earthquake in Lisbon, in 1755, the effects were felt at Bonavista. The sea retired, and left the bed of the harbour dry for the space of ten minutes.” Gosling Memorial Library
This earthquake was huge - the whole world noticed it - and if you go back and read what the preachers were saying, you’ll discover they all knew what it was - a fulfillment of Revelation 6 . . . and they also knew what to expect next.
Do you remember what comes next? The sun goes dark - and sure enough, that’s exactly what happened.
In May of 1780, the sky suddenly went dark in the middle of the day. Animals started coming home, and they say it was so dark you couldn’t see a sheet of paper at arm’s length. To this day, we still don’t really know what caused it. Some people say it was a huge forest fire in Canada; other people say it was something else.
The truth is, we don’t really know - but we DO know it happened. It was suddenly so dark that the state assembly in Connecticut actually stopped conducting business, and people started to shout, “It’s the end of the world!”
Why? Because they had read Bible prophecy, and they were expecting it.
"The low hung sky was black with ominous clouds. Birds ceased to sing and all the barn-yard fowls roosted. The cattle at the pasture bars lowed and looked homeward: Bats on leathern wings flitted abroad;
The sounds of labour died; Men prayed and women wept: All ears grew sharp to hear the doom-blast of the trumpet Shatter the black sky.
Meanwhile in the old State House, dim as ghosts sat the lawgivers of Connecticut, Trembling beneath their legislative robes. ‘It is the Lord’s Great Day! Let us adjourn,’ someone said;
And then, as if with one accord, all eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport. He rose, slowly cleaving with his steady voice the intolerable hush.
This well may be the day of judgment which the world awaits; Be it so or not, I only know my present duty, and my Lord’s Command to occupy till He come.
So at the post where He hath set me in His providence, I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face, No faithless servant frightened from my task, But ready when the Lord of harvest calls;
And therefore, with all reverence, I would say, let God do His work, we will se to ours. Bring in the candles.’”
This was NOT a small event. Even the famous astronomer Sir William Herschel talked about it:
"The Dark Day in Northern America is one of those wonderful phenomena which will always be read of with interest, but which philosophy is at a loss to explain.”
Philosophy might be at a loss to explain it, but the Bible isn’t. Centuries before it happened, the disciple John saw it, and it happened exactly the way he predicted.
The first sign - the great earthquake - happened in the Old World, and this sign happened in the New World. And it had such impact that people were panicking, because they assumed that the end of the world had come.
And what was supposed to go with the dark sky? The moon turning to blood. That same week, this report came out in a New York newspaper:
“We have seen the dark day, and though I didn’t see it, I was informed that the moon looked like blood the following night.”
Now listen to what else it said, because it proves that people were following along in their Bibles:
“It seems to me that the next sign should be the falling of the stars.”
Now why would he say that? It’s because he knew about Revelation 6. Our great-grandparents used to study this passage, and they KNEW what to expect.
So did it happen? Did the stars start falling? The answer is YES.
On November 13, 1833, the Leonid meteor shower suddenly passed through our atmosphere. Now, the Leonid shower happens every year, and if you go outside in November, you can still see it. You might see as many as 30 or 40 falling stars in an hour.
But in 1833, the sky came unglued. There were 250,000 falling stars per hour - 4,166 a minute - 70 every single SECOND.
It was so bright that people started waking up at two o’clock in the morning from the light. Listen to an eyewitness account:
"Some one, on looking out of the window, observed that it was almost broad daylight. ‘That can not be.’ another answered, ‘for it is scarecely three o’clock.’ ‘I can’t help what the clock says,’ replied the first speaker,
‘my eyes can not deceive me; it is almost broad daylight—look for yourselves.’ I heard one of the children cry out, in a voice expressive of alarm: ‘Come to the door, father, the world is surely coming to an end.’
Another exclaimed: ‘See! The whole heavens are on fire! All the stars are falling!’ These cries brought us all into the open yard, to gaze upon the grandest and most beautiful scene my eyes have ever beheld.
It did appear as if every star had left its moorings, and was drifting rapidly in a westerly direction, leaving behind a track of light which remained visible for several seconds.”
Do you know who else saw this happen? Abraham Lincoln - he was a young man staying at the deacon’s house.
"One night I was roused from my sleep by a rap at the door and I heard the [deacon’s] voice exclaiming ‘Arise, Abraham, the day of judgment has come!”
I sprang from my bed and rushed to the window and saw the stars falling in great showers!”
The impact was huge - and most important, the public interest in prophecy began to swell.
All these events - the earthquake - the dark day - the falling of the stars - they all happened on a MASSIVE SCALE that got global attention.
They happened in exactly the RIGHT PLACE - in exactly the places where people were studying Bible prophecy after the Dark Ages were over.
And they all happened in the right order, RIGHT ON SCHEDULE.
Everybody knew what was going on . . . and that means, folks, that seals 1 through 6 have already happened. It’s already in the past.
And that means that you and I are bumping up against seal number seven, right now:
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14 Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. 15 And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, 16 and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”
Imagine that - afraid of a Lamb! They’re not afraid of a lion, they’re afraid of a Lamb! That shows you how senseless it is to be lost when Jesus comes. Nobody’s afraid of a Lamb - unless you’ve rejected Him.
You know, it all really DOES come to an end some day, and some people will never make up their minds. They keep putting it off, telling themselves there’s more time to make things right with God - but then suddenly, Jesus comes, and they don’t know Him.
And they’re terrified.
What is the next event? What’s the next thing that you and I should expect in this prophecy? The second coming of Jesus. Listen to this:
1 When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
Let me ask you a question: why would there be silence in heaven? It’s because heaven is empty:
31 “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.
When Jesus comes, everybody joins Him. All the holy angels come with Him, because it’s the biggest, most exciting event in the history of the universe. Nobody stays behind.
It’s really going to happen.
Do you know WHY God gives us Bible prophecy? Some people seem to think it’s to scare us - but that’s not the case at all. God shows us the future to give us hope.
Have you ever driven in a blizzard? Sometimes, the snow gets so bad, you can hardly see the road right in front of you, and you can’t tell where the road ends and the ditch begins.
So you drive slowly, your heart pounding, your knuckles white with fear.
And then, suddenly, you see it - the glow of your hometown just over the next hill. And you know that in mere minutes, you’re going to be home, and warm, and with the people you love.
If you take your kids on a long ride, they have only one question: “How much farther, Dad? How much farther, Mom?”
And right now, you and I are those kids in the car, and God knows that we NEED to know how much longer. So He goes down through the corridors of time and turns on a few lights so we’ll know when Jesus is close.
That’s why we have Bible prophecy.
Let’s pray: “Father in heaven, tonight, we believe that You care. It’s obvious from the way You’ve illuminated history even before it happened. It’s obvious from the way You sometimes even lovingly show us the way we really are. Tonight, we can see it: we’re getting close, and we LONG to see Jesus face to face. Tonight, we choose to believe: Jesus is coming, and the reason He’s coming is that He loves us.
We want to be ready. Tonight, we CHOOSE to be ready, and we pray these things in Jesus’ Name, Amen.”
Good night, folks, and remember: tomorrow night, “The Time of the End, Part One.”