Study of End Times - week 17
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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.
The Wrath of the Lamb and the Coming Tribulation
The Wrath of the Lamb and the Coming Tribulation
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 the Lamb open one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like 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, the nobles, the generals, the rich, the powerful, and every slave and free person hid 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 face of the one seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 because 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 at that time there will be great distress, the kind that hasn’t taken place from the beginning of the world until now and never will again. 22 Unless those days were cut short, no one would be saved. But those days will be cut short because of the elect.
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 should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.
14 “You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father 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 ensues. 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 the Lamb open one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, “Come!”
Who are these living creatures? we seen them around the throne in Revelation 4:7
7 The first living creature was like a lion; the second living creature was like an ox; the third living creature had a face like a man; and the fourth living 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, 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 one had a face like a man, which speaks of the humanity of the Lord Jesus.
The fourth 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 the majesty, ministry, humanity, and deity of the Lord Jesus.
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 there was a white horse. Its rider held a bow; a crown was given to him, and he went out as a conqueror in order 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 four horns that took the place of the broken horn represent four kingdoms. They will rise from that nation, but without its power.
23 Near the end of their kingdoms,
when the rebels have reached
the full measure of their sin,
a ruthless king, skilled in intrigue,
will come to the throne.
24 His power will be great,
but it will not be his own.
He will cause outrageous destruction
and succeed in whatever he does.
He will destroy the powerful
along with the holy people.
25 He will cause deceit to prosper
through his cunning and by his influence,
and in his own mind he will exalt himself.
He will destroy many in a time of peace;
he will even stand against the Prince of princes.
Yet he will be broken—not by human hands.
26 The vision of the evenings and the mornings
that has been told is true.
Now you are to seal up the vision
because it refers 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,
43 I have come in my Father’s name, and yet you don’t accept me. If someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him.
When the Antichrist begins to go forth, everyone will proclaim that a savior has come to bring world 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 Caesars, Napoleons, 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 opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 Then another horse went out, a fiery red one, and its rider was allowed to take peace from the earth, so that people would slaughter one another. And a large 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 are going to hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, because these things must take place, but the end is not yet.
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. Children will rise up against parents and have them 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—this is the declaration of the Lord God—and 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 behind the third seal?
5 When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and there was a black horse. Its rider held a set of scales in his hand. 6 Then I heard something like a voice among the four living creatures say, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, but do not harm 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 bake a loaf of bread. Another words you would work 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 Woe to pregnant women and nursing mothers 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 fourth seal in verses 7-8
7 When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” 8 And I looked, and there was a pale green horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following after him. They were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill by the sword, by famine, by plague, and by the wild animals of the earth.
The Greek word for the pale color of the horse is chloros. A famous bleach manufacturer has a product whose name closely resembles this. When you pour bleach on 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 rider 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 hell and the judgment.
There is often more death after a war than when the war was underway. This happens because of disease epidemics and famine that grow out of war.
8 And I looked, and there was a pale green horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following after him. They were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill by the sword, by famine, by plague, and by the wild animals 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 epidemic.
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 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 creature 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 he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered because of the word of God and the testimony they had given. 10 They cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, the one who is holy and true, how long until you judge those who live on the earth and avenge our blood?” 11 So they were each given a white robe, and they were told to rest a little while longer until the number would be completed of their fellow servants and their brothers and sisters, who were going to be killed just as they had been.
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 hand you over to be persecuted, and they will kill you. You will be hated by all nations because of my name.
Do you know the chief weapon Satan will use to kill the martyrs during the great tribulation:
4 Then I saw thrones, and people seated on them who were given authority to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and who had not accepted the mark on their foreheads or their hands. 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 Don’t fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; 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 need to be ready now. And right now you have the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and therefore, you need to make the decision are you going to accept it or reject it.
10 and with every wicked deception among those who are perishing. They perish because they did not accept the love of the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a strong delusion so that they will believe the lie, 12 so that all will be condemned—those who did not believe the truth but delighted in unrighteousness.
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 nature just a bit? Well the sixth seal tells us that a massive cataclysmic acts will happen on earth and in space.
12 Then I saw him open the sixth seal. A violent earthquake occurred; the sun turned black like sackcloth made of hair; the entire moon became like blood; 13 the stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its unripe figs when shaken by a high wind; 14 the sky was split apart like a scroll being rolled up; and every mountain and island was moved from its place.
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 everything was created by him,
in heaven and on earth,
the visible and the 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 by 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 may be 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,” indicates the removal of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what is not shaken might remain.
Also, Jesus said that before His coming in glory the power of the heavens will be shaken:
29 “Immediately after the distress of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not shed its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the peoples of the earth will mourn; and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
Whatever this shaking is - literal or figurative - there will be 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, the nobles, the generals, the rich, the powerful, and every slave and free person hid 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 face of the one seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 because 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!
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