The Seven Seals Revealed

It’s Always Sunny in Northern Chile

We all like sunny days…especially during the summer…so much fun to be had…but if its always sunny…the environment suffers...

In the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...Clouds gather so seldom over the valley that one can say, "It almost never rains here!"

Protected by the high Andes Mountains to the East..preventing weather systems from moving it…and the cold ocean current on its west coast…keep the air cooler and not letting moisture to be absorbed...

The Atacama Desert is the direst warm desert in the world...

In fact…”in 2015, parts of the hyper-arid core received unexpected rainfall…and it is estimated to have been the first rain to land on those areas for at least 500 years!”

(source: https://pedalchile.com/blog/driest-desert)

That’s a whole different category of drought!

We often long for total sunshine and continuous joy in life...

Those who struggle with addiction…(in any of its forms)…and remember…some say that we are ALL addicted to something...

Those who struggle with addiction...are always chasing that next “high”…a never ending pursuit of pleasure and happiness...

…a never ending retreat from the more painful…frustrating…and difficult parts of life.

We of course ...all desire…to avoid heartache and pain...

Like that sunny, infertile part of Chile, however, life without clouds and even an occasional downpour would not be productive or challenging. Though showers do come, they will also end, and the sun will shine again.

Scripture puts it...

"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning." (Psalm 30:5).

The Seven Seals Revealed

I think that many people have this view of the life of faith. The life of being a Christian...

some think… “Hey...I believe in God…I’m now a Christian…therefore I will no longer struggle in life…it’s all sun and no rain…from this time forward.”

…uh…NO.

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The very first Christians…ONLY knew suffering…and came to faith anyway…s

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Today’s scripture reading…from from chapters 6 and 8 of the book of Revelation…are about “rainy days” if you will…days of God’s judgement on the earth…and the earth dwellers...

Often Christians struggle with the idea that God would send down his wrath on the people of the earth...

…because…some reason...as the scriptures attest…God came to humanity already…

only... not to condemn or pour out wrath…on sinful humanity...

but to call humanity to repentance and salvation

in Christ alone…

by grace alone…

through faith alone…

as found in scripture alone…

to the glory of God alone..

However…despite Jesus first advent…or appearing... being about salvation and not judgement…it was not without its warnings of future troubles...

.. Jesus’ offered his own words of warning about future suffering…

(Mark 13 / Matthew 24 / Luke 21)

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There will be an end…to the present age..

There will be false messiah’s (don’t believe in them)

Wars and rumors of wars

Ethnic group vs. Ethnic group (nation)

Kingdom against Kingdom...

You will face great tribulation and be brought before rulers for my sake...

You will be beaten and delivered up...

Family members will betray one another to the death...

You will be hated by all nations for my name sake

Many people’s love will grow cold due to multiplied wickedness

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…and if those days had not been shortened…no one would survive...

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Those are the words of Jesus…not mine...

I share that because…I want all to have...a healthy…biblical…and balanced understanding of the whole of the Christian faith…as found in scripture.

WE MUST UNDERSTAND…that... TRIALS / TRIBULATIONS / EVEN GOD’S WRATH AND JUDGEMENT are part of the equation...

As we said last week…grace as well as judgement/wrath… are God’s prerogative… God’s choice.

And even through… the judgement and wrath in the book of Revelation…we read of the mission and mercy of the LORD our God… calling people to repentance and faith...

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The Seal judgement that we heard read this morning sound eerily similar to those warnings Jesus made…some 60 years prior to John writing them down...

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So what are we to make of the Seal judgement we just read about today?

The Scroll

Remember…these judgments are preliminary…they are just breaking the seven seals of the document...

some say this scroll that has been sealed... is the same scroll of Daniel 8:26

Daniel 8:26 ESV

The vision of the evenings and the mornings that has been told is true, but seal up the vision, for it refers to many days from now.”

Then in Daniel 12:4…Daniel is told to seal up his prophesy until a future time...

Daniel 12:4 ESV

But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”

Isaiah 29:11 ESV

And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot, for it is sealed.”

A well known verse from the psalms declares God knows our deeds and our days in advance…and writes them in a book / scroll

Psalm 139:16 (ESV)

Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

The Horsemen

What are we to make of the infamous 4 horsemen of the apocalypse of the first 4 seals?

No doubt this imagery is taken from the Old Testament prophet Zechariah 1:7-11 and 6:1-8 that speak of 4 chariots drawn by 4 horses...

They go out as the four winds of the earth…not to destroy…but observe...

Some scholars see the 4 horsemen of Revelation 4 as not so much as bringing God’s judgement…but as “allowing their depravity to come full circle.” As Grant Osborne says “This is a common theme in this book…as sin turns upon itself and self-destructs.”

Sin turns upon itself and self-destructs.

by releasing the four horsemen…via the first 4 seals…God can essentially be heard as saying “Thy will be done” to all of humanity…as sin is set free and loose...

And the ends of that are death, destruction, famine, disease, insane inflation, difficult to survive, and the shaking of heaven and earth.

God simply removes the restraining power of the Spirit…and all hell…literally breaks loose.

Do we see some of this today? Well…we unfortunately…we ain’t seen nothin’ yet....

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The Fifth Seal

What about God’s own people who were slain and cried out to God in the breaking of the 5th seal...

In this seal we find in Revelation 6:9

Revelation 6:9 ESV

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.

v. 10

Revelation 6:10 ESV

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?”

These are similar to the prayers of the prophets and as found in the psalms…

The great cry of the Old Testament might well be summed up by the phrase… “How long O LORD?”

Meaning how long will our enemies win…will evil and wickedness prosper...

These are called “Imprecatory prayers” meaning a prayer for God’s vengeance to be realized against an enemy…but not vengeance as we think of it…its a call for God’s justice to reign…which means the defeat of sin…evil…death....

Our biggest enemy of course is sin…it resides within each of us…as the saying goes…when we see someone caught up in the web of their own sin… “but by the grace of God go I”

In Revelation 6 the imprecatory prayer is a cry against those who have killed God’s saints...

What’s God’s response? To give his people a white robe and wait....be patient…that’s God’s favorite answer to his people...

Why patient…well for 1: God’s victory is assured…so we all just need to chill…no matter how bad it gets...

and number 2: Because scripture states God’s heart…that God doesn't’ want anyone to parish…delay = grace / delay = love

Earthly and Cosmic Judgments

The earthly and cosmic judgement of the 6th and 7th seal?

They are God’s response to the prayers of the martyred saints...

The heavens and earth shake as a sign of the “end of history”…the so called “eschaton” …God coming in judgement at the end of time...

Osborne…Beale…and others see a “cyclical organization of the seals…trumpets…and bowls…with the second and third cycle repeating and elaborating the meaning of this first cycle.” (Osborne, 291)

Osborne adds “This shaking of the heavens is repeated at the 7th trumpet (11:13, 19) and the 7th bowl (16:18-21) and in each case the emphasis is on God coming in judgement (in answer to the prayers of the martyrs for justice).” (Osborne, 291)

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According to the book of Revelation…when the judgement of God begins…when the heavens and earth shake…when the see the consequences of sin unleashed…what is their response?

what would be your response?

Their response is continued defiance...

They continue to try to run away and hide (which is at the heart of addiction / at the heart of all idolatry)

they say in Revelation 6:16-17

Revelation 6:16–17 LEB

And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, because the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

7th seal

In response to humanity’s continued defiance…lack of repentance…insistent on their own...way...

The seventh seal is broken and there is silence in heaven for half an hour....that’s interesting isn’t it?

There is a Jewish tradition that the angels sing at night but are silent during the day so that god can hear the prayers of his people. “This tradition believed that when God’s people praised him or when incense was offered in the the temple…the hosts of heaven were silent.”

Others see the silence as an anticipation of further judgement…that we’ll discuss next week with the bowl judgments...

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Where’s the Good News?

Where it always is…in Christ.

Friends…God’s judgment is no joke…in some ways we experience some of these judgements as the natural consequence of our sinful / selfish choices…or the sinful choices of others...

We do not…and cannot put our faith in ourselves or that of other people…to solve the world’s problem...

Because the root of the world’s problems and tribulations…is sin…is lack of repentance and turning to God…through Christ alone...

When we put our faith and trust in him alone…as our savior…God becomes our refuge…our place of safety…even in the middle of the largest storms...

I exhort all of us…to do that today…

We’ve got a rough road ahead in the book of Revelation…dig into the word…come to worship with your questions and listen for God’s response...

Take refuge in God this day and always...

Thanks be to God…AMEN.

Let us all be reminded…of Jesus’ own words to his disciples…then and now… “in this world you will have tribulation / trials / persecution...”

So…avoid it as much as possible...

NO…Jesus does not say that…

he says in John 16:33

John 16:33 (ESV)

In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

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Up to this point in our summer series on the book of Revelation…Jesus has been making this very point!

…Particularly through dictating the letters to the seven churches…

...the main theme of those letters?

Trouble is not only already here…but more trouble is on the way…trouble/trials/tribulation…will be with you if you follow the Lord Jesus.

Jesus’ point... to his followers…then and now…is not to focus on trials…but to focus on the triumph...

It’s not the trials a tribulations in our lives that are ever…the main point…although we most often act as though they are the main point...

But the gospel of Jesus Christ…is based on the triumph of Christ…over sin and death…that they no longer have a hold on you and me…if we put our faith and trust in him...