This particular, after Christ
opened the seven seals, they go through these seals one at
a time and tell you what those seals are as they're opened.
Remember Christ took that book out of the hand of God Almighty
and he was the only one found worthy to open that book and
to loose the seals there. And the first seal is a white
horse, second seal is a red horse, third seal is a black horse,
and the fourth seal is a pale horse. You've heard the four
horses of the apocalypse, well that's what we're going to look
at tonight, just look at the first horse. But look, I'm just
going to look at these first two verses. And I saw when the
Lamb had opened one of the seals, When I saw the Lamb, and opened
one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder,
one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and
behold a white horse, and he that sat on him had a bow, and
a crown was given unto him, and he went forth conquering and
to conquer. John, I said, has seen the Lamb
as it had been slain, taken that book with the seven seals. And now you know, the Lamb loosens
those seals and we go through those seals one at a time. And
they reveal these horses, remember that these are symbols, these
are not actual horses. They represent something. They're symbols, they're pictures.
And their riders are pictures and symbols of something. And horses are often mentioned
in the scripture. And a horse signifies strength,
terror, warfare, victory. Now I want to show you some things
that Zechariah saw this same image, saw these same things.
Now you keep Revelation and look in Zechariah chapter 1. Malachi
is the last book in the Old Testament and Zechariah is right after
Malachi. Malachi is the last book, Zechariah
is the one right after Malachi. So very easy to find. And here
you have horses. He sees the four horses just
like John saw the four horses here. And he said here in Zechariah
1.8. And I saw by night and behold
a man riding upon a red horse. And he stood among the myrtle
trees that were in the bottom. And behind him were the red horses,
speckled horses, or bay horses and white horses. So he saw four
horses, the same thing. Then said, I owe my Lord, what
are these? And the angel talked with me
and said unto me, I will show thee what these be. And the men
that stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, these are
they whom the Lord has sent to walk to and fro through the earth. Now over in chapter eight, you've
got the four horses again. chapter eight you got the four
no excuse me chapter six you got the four horses again chapter
six and verse eight set one excuse me i'll get it right here in
a minute and it came to pass in the fourth year of king Darius
and i'm in six i'm in nope i'm in the wrong one verse six well
here it is i'm saying five and seven i couldn't see six I turned and lifted up my eyes
and looked, and behold, there came four chariots out from between
two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of brass. In the
first chariot were red horses, in the second chariot black horses,
in the third chariot white horses, and in the fourth chariot grizzled
or bay horses. Then I answered and said unto
the angel that talk with me, what are these my Lord? And the
angel answered and said unto me, these are the four spirits
of the heavens which go forth from standing before the Lord
to all the earths. The black horses which are there
go, the black horse They're going to the north country and the
white goeth after them and the grizzled goeth forth toward the
south country. And the bay went forth and sought
to go that they might walk to and fro through the earth. And
he said, get you hence, walk to and fro through the earth. So they walked to and fro through
the earth. So you know there's four horses
over there. And that's what he saw here.
He saw these four horses. And horses represent something.
And Job asked, where did the horse get his strength? Snuffs
out the wind. Covers the ground. Here it goes into battle. Who's
afraid of the spear? Who's afraid of The battle, who's
afraid of the horses? Talks about snuffing in the wind
and running real hard. Where do you get that strength?
Where do you get that ability? So the horses are very representative
of strength. They go into battle for warfare
and they also represent victory as we look at these things. And
the seals in John here in chapter 6 are symbolic of trouble and
persecution as we'll deal with them one at a time. And the beast
in turn, do you remember them four beasts that stood around
the throne with the heads? And these four beasts in turn,
they introduced these horses. First beast, second beast, third
beast, and they introduced these horses. And I'll tell you what,
and they reduced the horsemen. The horsemen said, on. And how
he announces that he wants these people to see as the first seal
is opened, he said, it's like thunder. He said, it's like the
noise of thunder. And you know, and thunder can
be really something. And he said, his voice was like
thunder. And it said, come and see. And I saw, and look what he said,
behold a white horse. a white horse and the one set
on that horse had a bow. And of course we know that the
rider of the white horse is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. We
know that. We know that. This is because
it says there that he went forth conquering and to conquer. And
this is the one who took the book This is the one who went
up there and took the book out of the right hand of God Almighty.
Who would dare go into the presence of God, into the throne of God,
where God is sitting on that throne, and He's crystal like
a diamond, and all the beasts around Him, and all the angels
around Him, and all the 2420 elders around him and he walks
up to the throne of God and that God's got a book in his hand
Who would dare to walk up and take something out of God's hand?
The Lord Jesus Christ did, and only the Lord Jesus Christ can.
And then he said, who's worthy not to only take it, but to look
there on. And then he said, who can open
those seals? And that book represents the
decrees of God, the will of God, the purpose of God. And as you
read tonight, you know he declared the end from the beginning and
from ancient times the things that are not yet done saying
all my counsel shall stand and I'll do all my pleasure and so
we know this is the Lord Jesus Christ he's the one that come
and took God's book and he's the lion of the tribe of Judah
and wherever the Lord Jesus Christ appears Satan is right pursuing
right behind him you know he hates Christ And he hates Christ's
people. And he becomes busy. When Christ
begins to work, Satan begins to work. Trials will come. As Satan's Christ's enemy, and
he's our enemy. And that's why it says he went
forth conquering and to conquer. Now this horse is white. Why
is the horse white? Why it's always associated with
holiness, righteousness, purity. You know how many white things
are mentioned in the book of Revelation? There's the white
garments. There's a white cloud. Our Lord Jesus Christ's hair
is white as snow. And the saints will be clothed
in white raiment. It tells us that we shall walk
in Him with Him in white. And then there's the great white
throne that's mentioned. And then there's that white stone
that's given to us with a new name written on it. And with
our name written on it that God gives us. A new name written
on a white stone. And so this white always represents
holiness, righteousness, purity, perfection. And you know here's,
excuse me, white horses were not very used in war very generally. You know why? Because they made
the fellow that was riding it conspicuous. You know, if everybody's
got dark horses and you're on the white one, they say, that's
the fellow to give. They see him standing out real
close. But our Lord Jesus Christ, there's no danger of Him being
hurt. There's no danger of Him being
defeated. There's no danger of Him, anything
going to Him. I'll tell you why, because our
Lord Jesus Christ cannot lose, did not lose, and will never
lose. He didn't lose any battle he
fought. He didn't lose any soul that
he died for. And he never will lose anything
that belongs to him. Nothing. In fact, he's going
to take this world and everything that's in it, when he gets done,
and he's going to deliver it up and say, Father, here it is. And then that's when we'll be
walking with him in white. And then it says this rider,
not only is this horse white, but this rider has a bow. And
he that sat on him, sat on this white horse, had a bow. Had a
bow. And you know a bow has arrows.
He has arrows. A bow. He has a bow and he has
arrows to shoot. Over in Psalm 7, I could take
you over and show you, but it says, God hath wed his sword
and he draw back his bow and he said he aimed it at the
wicked and he lets it fly and you know our Lord Jesus Christ
when he shoots an arrow he don't shoot at him he's not like me
or you just shooting a bow just to try to hope you hit the target
our Lord Jesus Christ when he shoots the bow and shoots the
arrow one or two things going to happen he's going to pierce
your heart and make you bow to Him and rejoice and bow to Him
or He's going to pierce your soul and that will be the hour
of judgment or the hour of grace. And I tell you what, I thank
God that He drew back that bow and over in Zechariah again,
let me tell you this. Zechariah 10 it says this, out
of him comes a corner, out of him comes a battle bow, out of
him comes a nail, and out of him comes a battle bow. So our
Lord Jesus Christ, you know we need to pray Lord draw back your
bow and you shoot into the hearts of our loved ones and shoot that
arrow of grace in there and when that arrow of grace pierces that
heart And it makes that heart to bow down and rejoice that
he's been shot. And I tell you what, when he
shoots an arrow, he's going to hit what he's shooting at. He's
going to hit what he's shooting at. And I tell you what, I'm
so thankful that our Lord Jesus Christ is the one on this horse.
and he's holy and he's righteous what you read tonight about the
righteousness of Christ the righteousness of God in Christ I'll tell you
it brings tears to my eyes to understand thank God that we
understand that we do not have a righteousness never had had
one The only righteousness we have is the righteousness that
our Lord Jesus Christ gives us. And it's the very righteousness
of God. And oh listen, not only did he
have a bow, look what else it said about him. He had a crown.
And a crown was given unto him. Given unto him a royal diadem. A royal diadem. Oh my, I remember hearing a story
one time. This woman was dying. And somebody was standing there
with her and she kept saying, brain, brain. They couldn't understand what
she was saying. They thought maybe she wanted
some water brought to her. Needed something. He leaned down
to her and she said, brain. Bring forth the riled diadem
and crown him Lord of all. That's a good way to do it. Bring forth a round and crown
Him Lord of all. Oh my, our Lord Jesus Christ,
on Him as a crown was given unto Him. You know why a crown was
given unto Him? He's the only one worthy of a
crown. You remember over there in Revelations, four of those
fellows all had crowns? The four twenty elders all had
crowns? And before it was all said and
done, everyone took off their crowns and laid them at His feet
and gave them to Him. Oh my! I'll tell you what, if
we have a crown, we're going to give it right back to Him.
It belongs to Him. And I'll tell you, bring forth
that royal down to Him. And look what it says. And He
went forth conquering and to conquer. And when you talk about
conquering and to conquer, and the word here conquer refers
to Christ and to believers. You know when He talks about
overcometh, that same word, you know, He that overcometh, He
that conquers. And when He talked about the
Lamb prevailed to open that book. That word prevail means to conquer. And Christ goes forth to conquer.
Our Lord Jesus told His disciples, He says, be of good cheer. He
said, I've overcome the world. I've overcome it. You know, in
the world you're going to have tribulation. But He says, I've
overcome the world. And that word overcome means
I've conquered the world. He has said, I've already conquered.
Now, if you keep Revelation 6 and look in Revelation 19-11, it's
the same horse, same person and the same rider. It's the same horse and the same
rider. Look down here in verse 11. And again, John, you know, he's
looking and seeing this white horse. He said, I saw heaven
opened, and behold, a white horse. And he that sat upon him. It's
still Christ, but now look what it says about him. Look how these
are all capitalized. Every one of these things are
capitalized, it says about him. First of all, he's faithful.
He's faithful. Thank God He's faithful. And
He's true. And He's faithful and He's true.
Oh how faithful, great is thy faithfulness. He is faithful
to His Father. Faithful to the Scriptures. Faithful
to His saints. Faithful, faithful, faithful.
He's true. And look what it says here. And
in righteousness he doeth judge and make war. Everything our
Lord Jesus Christ does, he does it in righteousness. Everything
he does, he does it in righteousness. Since he's faithful and true,
everything he does, he does it in righteousness. If he does
it, it's right. And I mean because he's righteous,
all of his acts have to be righteous. Everything, even if he makes
war, it's a righteous war. But if he makes judgments, it's
a righteous judgment. And then look what it says here.
His eyes were as a flame of fire. And listen to this now. And on
his head were many crowns. A person can only wear one crown
at a time. You can't unless you're the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he had a name written that
no man knew but himself. And look what it says now. And
he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood. That means,
beloved, that's the blood of his enemies. That's the blood
of his enemies. His vesture dipped in blood and
he's making this war and that's his enemies. His vesture's dipped
in blood. And then he's got a name. What
is that name? Again, it's capitalized. He's
the Word of God. When God speaks, He speaks by
Christ. If God's got anything to say,
He says it by Christ. God, He's the Word of God that
went forth, and He went forth by the Word, and He conquers,
and He conquers, and He conquers. And look at the armies which
were in heaven. They followed Him, and they were on white horses,
clothed and in fine and white linen. And oh my! And look what it says down here
now, in verse 16. This is what I was trying to
get to. And on his vesture, and on his thigh, a name written. While he's on that big old white
horse now, he has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Oh my. Our Lord Jesus Christ. My, my. He is. Oh, we just. He wears
many diadems. Conquered many. Conquered many. That's why He wears all those
crowns. Because He conquered so many. And the whole theme
of Revelation. And what I told you at the beginning
is the Revelation of Jesus Christ. The whole of the theme of Revelation
in all of Scripture. is the victory of our Lord Jesus
Christ and His people on this earth. No wonder the Apostle
asked this question. Who shall separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ? Who's going to do it? Who in
the world is going to separate us from the love of God which
is in Christ? Will tribulation do it? Will
having a great trial do it? Will persecution do it? Will famine do it? Will peril
do it? Would a sword do it? Would life do it? Or would death
separate us from the love of Christ? Somebody we love die. Or if somebody comes into your
life and that person has life and they separate you from Christ.
Can that happen? He said, I'm persuaded that neither
life or death or angels or principalities nor any other creature shall
be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus. You know why? We're more than
conquerors. We're added to Him. That's what he's talking about.
I tell you, he said, you know, that we're going to conquer Christ. And he said, the gates of hell
shall not prevail against us. And you know, when he talks about
the gates of hell, he's talking about hell itself is always right
there with its gates. And them gates of hell, they
come there, and them demons come out of it, and they come out
of that place, and they come fight. We're not fighting flesh
and blood. We're not warring against flesh
and blood. Old Billy Sunday, I don't know if any of y'all
ever heard of him. He was a big shot evangelist way back in the
early. And all this, and he was really a showman. And every once
in a while he'd get a chair. And he'd say, I'm going to show
you, I'm going to beat the devil to death. And he'd just beat and
beat and beat with that chair and said, I'm killing the devil.
Listen, if you can whip the devil with a chair, you've really done
something. But we're not fighting flesh
and blood. A chair ain't going to hurt Satan. We're fighting
against physicality, spiritual weakness in dark places. Against
spirits. And I'll tell you what, if we're
fighting against flesh and blood, we could probably win. We could
probably wrestle somebody and do something and accomplish something.
But I'll tell you this, we cannot whip this spiritual warfare.
That's why Christ came to do the warfare on our behalf. That's
why He said no one can separate us from the love of God. Where's
it at? In Christ Jesus. Huh? Oh, everything we've got's
in Christ. Let me show you, look over here
in Revelation 7.14, look at this. I'm talking about God's people,
the whole theme of the Revelation and all the scriptures of the
victory of Christ in His church. And one of the elders answered
said unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes,
and where they come from? And I said unto him, Sir, thou
knowest. And he said to me, These are
they which came out of great tribulation. and have washed
their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Washed
them in red blood and they come out white. Perfectly white. So our Lord Jesus Christ, not
only does He bring a bow, but you know our Lord also brings
a sword. That next, that next, that red
horse, He comes with a sword. And our Lord Jesus Christ, He
told a bunch one day, He said, you think that I came to bring
peace on earth? No! I've come to bring a sword. What are you going to do with
a sword? I'm going to set a mother against her daughter-in-law.
I'm going to set a father against his son. I'm going to set brother
against brother, sister against sister. I'm going to make people,
they're going to have to get on one side or the other. You
know, if you think you're going to have peace in the house and
peace in your family when one of them hates Christ and the
other loves Christ, that ain't going to work. And that's why he said, I got
a sword. And I'm going to come in your
house, and I'm going to come among your family, and I'm going
to do something for you, and I'm not going to do something
for somebody else in your house. And I'll tell you what you do,
there's going to be a war right there. I remember one time, Brother
Henry Mayhem said, you know, he said, folks wouldn't come
to the service. He said, what? You know, he said,
well, Brother Henry wasn't there last week. We had company. Henry
said one day, he got up and said, has anybody ever had any company
that goes to church to hear the gospel? If that's all it takes, I've
got company, I'd rather not go tonight, oh my. Well listen,
I'll tell you what you tell company, there's the refrigerator, there's
where the water and this is what you got, you make yourself at
home and I'll be back in an hour and a half or so. Ain't that
right? That's what you do. That's what
you do. I'll tell you. And Lord, let
me show you this. Look in Psalm 40, 45, talking
about Christ going forth to conquer and conquer. Oh, our blessed
Savior. Oh, nobody like Him. What a blessed,
blessed Lord. That's why we, because we hear
about Him, And I understand some few things about him that just
thrills my heart and soul. But look what he said here. It
goes with Christ going forth to conquer and to conquer, the
faithful and true. And he said here in verse 3,
Psalm 45, Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with
thy glory and thy majesty, and in thy majesty ride prosperously. Oh my! Ride prosperously because of
truth, meekness, and righteousness. And thy right hand shall teach
thee terrible things. And then look what it said, Thine
arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies. Oh there
he goes shooting them arrows into the king's enemies. whereby
the people shall fall unto thee. And who's he talking about here?
Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the scepter of
thy kingdom is a right scepter. Now he's on his white horse going
forth to conquer, riding prosperously, riding prosperously. Our Lord
has conquered, and in conquering he shall conquer. You look in
the scriptures, all the people that he conquered. Oh, he conquered
so many men. So many people. Some notorious
people. Saul of Tarsus hated Christ with
a passion. But he conquered him. As Mary Magdalene had seven devils
in her. Seven! She's completely crazy. Perfectly
wicked. And you find her sitting at Christ's
feet. Washing his feet with her tears. Oh my. Then there's me and there's
you. Oh Lord, put your hand on my
neck if that's what it takes and put me down. Put me down. Put me down. Oh, don't let me
stand up against you. No way. And I tell you what,
He is conquering. His cause is going forward right
now. He's exercising His power and
authority in this world right now. And He's exercising His
power and authority among His people. Old Pilate, you know,
he stood before the Lord Jesus Christ and Christ wouldn't answer
him. He said, answer me. He said, don't you know I've
got the power to crucify you and I've got the power to let
you go? Our Lord opened his mouth and said, you ain't got no power. You ain't got no power at all.
You don't have any power. And I tell you, people talk about
having the power in this world and this power and that power.
I tell you what, they're just pawns in Christ's hands. Christ
is playing out the drama of redemption on the stage of history and we
watch it play out in front of our eyes. We'll watch somebody
get up and brag and boast and everybody pay attention to them
and go on and on about how great they are and we'll say that's
just a person that won't even be existed. They won't even remember
them in 40, 50 years. And I tell you his cause is going
on and you know what means he used to carry his cause forward? is He uses His Word. He uses
the Holy Spirit. He uses the witness of His people.
And He's got armies in heaven. And those armies in heaven are
down here working right now. You know that? Do you know the
Scriptures tells us, and I can prove this, I can show it to
you, I can tell you with that, two places. But every single
saint of God's got an angel. Do you know that? Yeah. That's one of our Lord's armies. He assigned somebody to us. You
know a big general, he was in the army, and them big generals
had aides everywhere, didn't they? This fellow is going to
do that, and this guy's got... There are people following them
big generals around, following these big COOs around, just waiting
for them to say, do this, and do that, and do this other thing.
Well, Christ has got an army down here. Hebrews 11 14 says
their ministries their angels are ministering spirits to be
that to the heirs of salvation Somebody just you know say well
you need to go this way When you intend to go that way, you
know, I went that way. That's where you angels And I'll
tell you his providence is going for his intercession He's victorious. He's conquering. And one of these
blessed days when the last enemy is conquered and destroyed, this
ain't gonna wind up. And then let me say this in winding
this up. Remember the symbolism here.
This horse represents purity and whiteness and glory, strength
and power. And our Lord's on that white
horse, holy and righteous and pure. And He's out on that white
horse, He's got a bow, a bow symbolic of His ability to shoot
arrows. He's got crowns on His head,
showing that He's the rightful heir. And they're pictures and
they're telling stories. Now let me, you know, how could
Christ in Revelations 1, how could Christ hold seven stars
in one hand and at the same time take his right hand and touch
John when he fell as a dead man. How can that happen? That's a
picture. That shows that Christ, that's
the authority and power and glory that he has. And that's why we'll
never be able to fully understand what he does. Seven stars in
his hand, John falls as a dead man. Touches him. Says, Oh John,
fear not. And then you got a lamb with
seven horns and seven eyes. One lamb got seven horns and
got seven eyes. That would be a strange looking
lamb. But them seven horns and seven
eyes means he rules perfectly and sees everything perfectly.
But because he had that power, he took the hand out of the book
of God. The book out of the hand of God.
And over in Revelation it talks about a star that fell from heaven
and with that star, that star had a key. Stars don't have keys,
but that star did. So those are all pictures. I'm
just trying to tell you pictures. John's told to look at a lion
and he sees a lamb. And over in Revelation 22 he
expects to see a bride and you know what he sees? He sees a
city. And when you look at the symbol, you say, boy, what in
the world could that possibly mean? But when you look at it
in respect to Christ, and what He's done, and what He's doing,
and what He's doing for His people, and what He's doing in this world,
and you look at it in respect to the reality, they become clear.
And when you look and see that Christ, this is about Christ,
all of it just disappears and you see it clearly. Huh? Yeah,
see it clearly. See it clearly. White horse, showing our Lord
Jesus Christ. He's got all the power and all
the glory. Crown's on His head. Bow in His hand. Oh, what a Savior. Our Savior, oh our great God,
our great glorious Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, we bow
our hearts before you. Oh Lord, I'm filled with wonder
at you. Just filled with absolute wonder. Lost for words. to describe you. But every believer in this building
gets taken up with Christ. Sometimes more, sometimes less. But we do know that He's our
everything. He is our all. He's all we need
and He's all we want. We want no more. We want no more
but Him. And Lord Jesus, we're so thankful,
and bless your holy name, that you conquered us. Oh, you conquered
me. I was such a rebel. Such a stout-hearted,
smart-mouthed, smart-aleck, proud, self-righteous rebel. But, oh
Lord, you come and conquered me. You conquered me with love. You conquered me with your cross.
You conquered me with Your pity for me. Your compassion for me. And Your great love wherewith
You loved me. You conquered me. And Lord, I want to stay conquered.
I want to stay conquered. I want to stay submissive. Lord, bless these dear saints
and those that we have prayed for. Seth and Kaylee. Jim and Debbie, others among us, God forgive
us of everything that's unlike you and meet our needs and protect
and preserve your people for Christ's sake. Amen. Amen. There's a song that I want to
sing tonight.