Revelation chapter 6. This is
the beginning of the Lamb of God opening that seven-sealed
book that He's spoken of in Revelation 5. You remember He talked about
the book that was written fully within and without. And it was
sealed with seven seals and no man on earth, remember, was found
to be worthy to open this book. No person. No man or woman. to open this book. What is this
book? It's the book of God's plan for the ages, for this creation
throughout this gospel age up until He comes again. And He's
going to reveal certain things about this gospel age that we
might be able to know and understand and especially that we might
be able to look to Christ more. Because He is our only hope.
This world is a dying world now. You know that. It's a cursed
world. But God has a plan. You know, you hear preachers
say, God has a plan for your life. Well, He has a plan for
everybody's life. This is His purpose. This is
His sovereign purpose. This is God working all things
after the counsel of His own will. And I know when we say
that, That people have a lot of questions, a lot of objections. There's a lot we don't understand.
You know, if we could understand everything about God's plan and
purpose and providence and all of that, we'd be God. Somebody
said, well, I just can't comprehend certain things. Well, join the
club. We'll make badges or something, you know. What we do understand,
mainly from this book, is God's plan for His people in salvation. Because He's revealed, He's given
us an understanding, the book of 1 John tells us. The Son of
God has come and given us an understanding. I can tell you
without doubt, without any confusion, how God saves sinners. And it's the only way. It's by
His grace, which means you don't earn it and you don't deserve
it, neither do I, and it's based upon the work of His Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, who is God manifest in the flesh, God-man,
without sin, who is my surety, meaning that my sins were charged,
the debt of my sins were charged to Him, and I believe that before
the foundation of the world, He is my substitute, having my
sins charged to Him. He came to this earth and united
His deity, His godly nature, to a sinless human nature. That's the body of Christ. We're
going to talk about that in the Lord's Supper. This is my body,
He said. That body was prepared for Him
by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. And He united
Himself with that human body. Every way about it is just like
us, except without sin. And in that capacity, as God
manifests in the flesh, He obeyed the law perfectly. Something
that you and I cannot do. Even at our best. He obeyed it
perfectly. Every jot and tittle, He said.
And He obeyed it unto death, even the death of the cross,
as the substitute. for the sins of his people, the
Lamb, that's why he's called the Lamb, see? The Lamb was sacrificed. Behold the Lamb of God, John
the Baptist said. And he died on that cross to
satisfy the justice of God for the sins of his people and to
bring forth everlasting righteousness which has been charged to the
account of his people whereby we stand before God not in our
works Not in our decisions, but we stand before God in Christ. And He is all my salvation and
all my desires, David said. That's how God saves sinners.
And He doesn't do it any other way. He died for His sheep. He laid down His life and purchased
as our Redeemer the church. Who is the church? It's not a
building on a corner somewhere. The church is His people, God's
elect. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? So we have that understanding
because God has taught us by the Spirit through His Word.
Now, I could stand up here for weeks telling you about what
we don't understand. But I know what God's revealed in His Word.
Sometimes we'll come to portions of scripture that we have to
say, well, you know, I'm not really dead sure about what this
is, but I've got an idea. I know what it's not, because
anything, any interpretation of any scripture that denies
the gospel is wrong. I can tell you that right now.
But we're gonna come to some things like that. But here's
the lamb. Nobody's worthy to open the book
except one person. And that's the Lamb of God, that's
Christ. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. And that's what chapter
five was about. And he comes to open the book.
Now, this is God's plan for the whole creation throughout the
new covenant age. And Revelation gives us the big
picture of future events by reminding us that God is sovereign. This is not a world out of control
for God. It's out of control for us. I'm
telling you, it's out of my control, and yours too. But it's not out
of God's control. He's sovereign over all the affairs
of men and women, and that whatever comes to pass does so because
God has decreed it. Now I know that's mind-boggling.
But think about it. Think about the greatest sin
that was ever committed. What would you say the greatest
sin that was ever committed is? It's human beings Taking the
Lord Jesus Christ, the only person who never sinned, and putting
him on a cross. Killing him. Murdering him. But do you know that was all
according to God's purpose and plan and decree? Read it in Acts
chapter 2, that's what Peter said. He said, you with wicked
hands have taken him and crucified him. But you did no more than
what God had determined to be done. I think about Joseph and
his brethren. You know, they sold him into
slavery. They did wrong. They actually murdered their
brother in their mind. And when Joseph met back up with
him, you know what he told them? He said, you meant it for evil.
You're without excuse now. But God meant it for good. To
save much people alive. That's a type of Christ. That's
what the book of Revelation is telling us. It's a book of Christ.
It's not a book of Antichrist. There's the Antichrist in there.
But most people look more for Antichrist than they do the true
Christ. Who is the Antichrist? Anybody
who's against Christ. That's what that means. People get crazy about this stuff. And this book of Revelation reminds
us that this earth is cursed and condemned. Because of sin. And the only remedy of sin is
found in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb that was slain. He's
the only remedy for sin. Why are there wars? Why are there
murders? Why is there sickness? Why is
there death? It's because of sin. That's what
we need to be saved from. We need to be saved from sin.
Somebody said, well, I need to be saved from cancer. Well, I'm
all for a cure if they can find it, but we don't need to be saved
from cancer, we need to be saved from sin. And throughout this book, Christ's
church, His people, we're reminded that God is bringing all of human
history to a great and glorious goal, and that's the second coming
of Christ to judge the world, raise the dead, make all things
new, And here we are in the midst of John's second vision. The
unsealing of this scroll brings a pattern in which God will reveal
dramatic information about the future course of redemptive history.
And there's some drama here. There's seven seals. The first
four seals go together. That's what we call, people normally
call the four horsemen of the apocalypse. And that's what I
want to just briefly cover today. But John does not intend for
us to understand these things literally. And I know when you
read this you get pictures in your mind and then you have these
fools who draw these pictures and put them up and all of that. John paints vivid word pictures
depicting the course of redemptive history. The ongoing struggle
between Christ and His already defeated foe, the devil, who
like a wounded animal is all the more vicious before his final
destruction. Over in Revelation 12, in verse
12, let me just read this to you. Listen to this. The devil
is come down unto you having great wrath, anger, because he
knoweth that his time is short. And the key to understanding
this book is not to look for particular verses that explain
particular current events. We understand that the symbolic
language is only in light of the Old Testament. That's where
you find the meaning of it. John's visions are intended to
explain how Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, fulfills Old Testament
prophecy and how God will bring all things into submission to
the Lordship of Christ. Every knee will bow, every tongue
will confess. was especially, that fact was especially important
to those believers to whom John was writing in this day, in his
day, because they faced the sword of a satanically empowered beast,
the Roman Empire, the state. They were forced to acknowledge
that Caesar is Lord, or else they risked their life or their
livelihood. They faced the full power of
Greek and Roman paganism, the Roman gods, the Greek gods, Paul
went into a Gentile city and there was a great cathedral to
some Greek or Roman God, people worshiping in droves. And then
the church faced false apostles, false prophets who sought to
undermine the purity of the gospel by introducing destructive heresies.
We've experienced that in our day. And since they were forced to
confront all of these issues, God gives his struggling people
a heavenly perspective. Here's how it looks from God's
throne. I know how it looks from our
view. Looks bad, doesn't it? Looks terrible. Looks like we're
all defeated. But not from God's throne, not
from God's view. God's view is the real view.
Our struggles are not in vain, and when all is said and done,
God will be glorified, Christ will be exalted, and we, the
people of God, will be vindicated. Mark it down. And when the lamb
opens the scroll, God will reveal a great deal about the final
stage of human existence, human history, in those days before
God brings redemptive history to its close. Second coming of
Christ. And from here on out, we'll find
a series of judgments. They occur in cycles. From here
on out and throughout the book of Revelation, we find the seal
judgments. That's what we're into now. The
seals. Seal judgments. And then we come to seven trumpets.
Seven trumpet judgments. And then seven vial or bowl judgments. And these are not chronological
occurrences. They don't happen one after the
other. They're all concurrent. They all overlap, they're all
covering the entire period of the New Covenant age. And each
of these judgments intensifies as we get closer to the end of
time. The second coming of Christ. They reveal God's judgments upon
three great enemies of Christ and his church. The dragon. I'm gonna read about the red
dragon, that's Satan. The beast. Who is the beast? That's ungodly governments. Do
we have any ungodly governments today? You bet we do. Even our own. And then the false
prophet, that's false religion. And all of their followers. And all of this we see God's
judgments upon earth from different perspectives, like different
camera angles. Seeing it from different angles. Let me show you this before we
get in. I'm not going to go too long today now, but I want you
to see this. Look at Matthew 24. You know,
it's Christ is talking about the end of time here. In Matthew 24, he talks about
two things. He talks about the destruction
of Jerusalem. That occurred in A.D. 70. But he also talks about the
end of time. The end of time completely. And
I want you to see something he says here, because this is important
as you look through and read the book of Revelation. Look
at verse 3 of Matthew 24. As he sat upon the Mount of Olives,
the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these
things be, and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of
the end of the world? Jesus answered and said unto
them, Take heed that no man deceive you, For many shall come in my
name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many. That's false
Christ. False preachers. You shall hear
wars and rumors of wars. Aren't we hearing that? Wars
and rumors of wars. See that you be not troubled,
for all these things must, you see that? They must come to pass,
but the end is not yet. Now man thinks he can thwart
it. Natural man thinks he can cure
it. The earth is dying. Climate change. Heck, oh Pete,
the climate's been changing since the fall. Yeah, it changes. Last week it
was cold. Today it's hot. Man thinks he can cure it. He
thinks he can save it. That's arrogance. But he said,
the end is not yet. Verse seven, for nation shall
rise against nation. Aren't we seeing that? Kingdom
against kingdom. There shall be famines, pestilences,
earthquakes in various places. Now look at verse eight. All
these are the beginning of sorrows. Now that word sorrows is the
same word that we would use for a woman who's having a baby and
having birth pains. Contractions. You have contractions. I don't know anything about contractions
except watching my wife when she was having our children. But as believers, and what that
is, it's labor that leads to a birth, to a final end. And as believers who view these
matters through the eyes of faith, that means looking to the word
of God. When we say we're looking by faith, we're looking to what
God says. We should not be alarmed at these things, these events
when they occur. In fact, we ought to expect them. Because that's what the Word
of God says. These things remind us that creation has been corrupted
by sin and that the world groans under our feet until the day
of redemption, the day of Christ. Christ will return to remove
the curse. Renew the heavens and the earth,
it's all gonna be made new. And there's no solution to human
suffering and the trouble of the nations except God's direct
and final intervention in the person of his son, the very things
to which all these signs and all these cycles point us. And
so as we go throughout life, We're going to see different
things. We're going to see an earthquake. We're going to see a tornado.
We're going to see wars, rumors of wars. We're going to see pestilence.
We're going to see COVID-19. We're going to see all these
things. And they're like birth pangs. Now, is that the final contraction
that's going to bring Christ in? We don't know. There's a
labor pain over in Israel right now. Is that gonna bring it all
to the close? A lot of people think it is.
I don't know. It may be just like our daughter-in-law,
she went to the hospital thinking she's have a baby, they sent
her home. It wasn't false labor, it was
just a labor pain. But then finally there came that
labor pain that brought a new baby. Is that what this is over
in Israel? I don't know, you don't either.
And these false preachers, they certainly don't know. They don't
even know who the true Israel is. Because the true Israel is
sitting right here in this building of those who know the Lord. And
in other places in the world where there are true believers.
The spiritual Israel of God. And so the Lamb begins to open
up the seals. Look at verse 1 of chapter 6.
He says, And I saw the Lamb open one of the seals, and I heard,
as it were, the noise of thunder. This is something that's going
to get God's people's attention. Thunder. When you hear the thunder,
you listen. And one of the four beasts saying,
come and see. Now these four beasts, remember,
they are the ministers of the gospel that go out throughout
the earth, north, south, east, west, preaching the gospel, declaring
the word of God. That's what the four beasts are.
That word beast is not a wild animal, it's a living creature.
Later on, we're gonna confront some beasts that are wild animals.
But these are living creatures. They have life, and they have
words of life. And so they say, come and see.
Now these, as I said, there's seven seals, but these first
four seals go together. That's the four horsemen of the
apocalypse. So let's deal with them. He said,
I saw and behold a white horse. And he that sat on him had a
bow and a crown was given in him. Now the crown there is not
the diadem of a king. It's the word in the Greek, Stephanos,
which means the wreath of a victor, like in the Olympic games. So
that's the kind of crown here, this is a victor. And it was
given unto him and he went forth conquering and to conquer. Now who is this on the white
horse? Well, there's a lot of different ideas floating out
there, folks, if you go reading in the internet about it. Some say it's Christ himself
going forth throughout the world. Some say it's just an agent of
Christ. going forth throughout there.
But do you know some people say this is the devil? And they say it's the devil in
disguise. Well, are you interested to hear what I think? I believe
this is Christ. The white horse. Purity, righteousness, holiness, He has a bow and an arrow. What
is the bow and the arrow? That's the gospel. He aims his
bow at the hearts of his people and he always hits where he aims. I think I should have written
this down but over in the Old Testament, I think it was King
Ahab who was an evil king. He got through a battle. And
one of the enemies said he was going to draw a bow at a venture.
You know, I shot an arrow into the air. Where it landed, I know
not where. That kind of thing. And he shot that bow and it went
right into the heart of King Ahab. But he shot it at a venture. He wasn't aiming at Ahab. Well,
that's not the kind of bow our Lord has. He knows His sheep. He knows His elect. He's going
to find His sheep. It's God's purpose and will that
they all come to repentance. And He's going to shoot that
bow of the gospel and the power of the Spirit and hit us right
in the heart. Convict us of sin and of righteousness
and of judgment, and make that gospel the power of God and the
salvation. And what he's saying here in
this first seal, that the Lord is going out throughout the earth
all this time during the new covenant, God's going to be calling
his people into the fold. Christ said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh me I will in
no wise cast out. Now here's something you need
to understand. about Revelation. Now this is
symbolic. It's not talking about geography
and space and all of that. And I wanted to bring this out
to you because it'll help you. Because the ones who claim that
this is the devil, they ask this question. They say, well how
can Christ send out Christ? And if you ask that question,
you're not looking at it right. You're not looking at it right.
These are symbols. For example, think about the
throne. And we read about the throne in Revelation 5 and Revelation
4. Who's seated upon the throne?
Is it the Father? Is it the Son? Is it the Holy
Spirit? It's the Godhead. Represented
through the Son. We have no, listen, we have no
connection to the Father without the Son. Did you know that? You don't have any connection
with God as your Heavenly Father apart from Christ. Go before
God without Christ and what are you going to find? A consuming
fire. And so Christ, who is the fullness
of the Godhead, He's on the throne and that's His kingly office.
That's what that throne represents. Christ our King, he's the King
of Kings. He earned that right by what
he accomplished on Calvary to save his people from their sins.
And that's why not one for whom he died can perish. If one person
for whom Christ died could perish in hell, his royal authority
and power would be obliterated. In other words, if you're in
Christ, you can no more perish than he could perish. And so
the throne represents his office. It's not a literal throne that
he's sitting on up there. And if some fool draws a picture
of it, okay, that's not, but don't think of it that way. It's
a symbol of his kingly office. But now the Bible, doesn't the
Bible say that he's seated at the right hand of the Father?
Yes. Well, how can he be in two places
at one time? Well, first of all, he's Christ. He's God manifest
in the flesh. He's omnipresent. But don't think
of it that way. He is being seated at the right
hand of the Father. That's his priestly office, never
living to make intercession for us, pleading the merits of his
blood and righteousness continually on our behalf. He's our king
and he's our high priest. That's what that represents.
He's all, he's both. Well, what about him riding on
the white horse? He's our prophet, spreading the
word of God. He's our prophet, priest, and
our king. And here He goes forth on this white horse, and how
does He do it? By His Spirit and by His Word. Didn't Christ say to His disciples,
where two or three are gathered in my name, there I'm also? Well,
we've got two or three gathered in His name right here. He's
here. Over in Ruston, Louisiana, there's a fellowship church there. They've got two or three gathered
over there. He's there too. How can He be both places? Well,
He's God. Manifest in the flesh. He's in
us. He's in them. By His Spirit and
by His Word. And that's what's happening here.
He's given the crown that He earned because He died and was
buried and rose again the third day. He made an end of sin. He
finished the transgression. He brought in righteousness.
He saved His people from their sins. They cannot perish. And
he has that Stephanos on his head, that crown of victory.
And he goes forth to conquer. Thank God he conquered me. Thank God he conquered you. Because
that's exactly what he does when he saves us. And to conquer. Look at verse three. Now that's
the horse, the white horse, the rider on the white horse. It's
Christ going forth throughout the new covenant age in the preaching
of the gospel. Now somebody said, now these
next three are negative. So if you've got three negatives,
the first one's gotta be negative. Why? Where'd you get that rule of
interpretation from? Out of your head? No, throughout this new covenant
age, you're gonna see a lot of negatives There's a positive. God's still saving his people.
Remember, he said over Matthew 24, he said, if things are going
to get so bad that if it were possible, they could deceive
the very elect, but it's not possible. His chosen people are
going to be saved. That's a positive. Well, look
at verse 3. Verse 3 says, When he had opened
the second seal, I heard the beast say, Come and see. And
there went out another horse that was red, flaming red. Power
was given him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth,
that they should kill one another. And there was given unto him
a great sword. That's the red horse. That's the color of judgment. That's the color of blood. Wars
and rumors of wars, we're seeing them. The peace that Christ brought
on earth is not peace between nations or men and women. It's
peace between God and His people. He said, My peace I leave with
you. Peace through the blood of the
cross. But on this world there's no peace. There's no peace. And I believe this red horse
is everywhere over this earth. You'll see conflict like we're
seeing today in Israel. Hamas and all of that. Wars and
rumors. Is that going to bring the end?
Is that the last birth pang? Is that the last labor? I don't
know. It may be. Things may settle
down over there eventually and there'll be a time of rest, but
it's coming again. Trouble, that's going to be throughout
the new covenant age until Christ comes again. He's given a great
sword. Even division in the church.
That's part of it. There'll be divisions. There
must be divisions. And then look at verse 5. I'll
give you some more details about this later on, but I'm just trying
to cover it all. When he had opened the third seal, I heard
the third beast say, Come and see, and I beheld, and lo, a
black horse. And he that sat on him had a
pair of balances in his hands, balance of justice or economics. I heard a voice say in the midst
of the four beasts, a measure of wheat for a penny and three
measures of barley for a penny, and see thou hurt not the oil
and the wine." That's economic disaster. Things are going to
get out of hand. The oil and the wine, you know,
I think about oil always being the work of the Spirit and wine
being the gospel. And this could be saying that
as things get worse and worse, still the people of God, they're
going to steal. Possess the riches that are in
Christ and cannot be taken away But also it could be in a very
natural sense talking about how it's going to be you know how
you know how socialism works You have the filthy rich and
then you have the poor and nobody in between Things are going to
get so expensive Economically bad And then look at verse seven. And when he had opened the fourth
seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, come, come
and see. And I looked and behold a pale horse, a yellowish or
greenish yellow, the color of death. And his name that sat
on him was death and hell. That word hell is Hades, the
grave followed with him and power was given unto them over the
fourth part of the earth to kill with sword and with hunger, with
death and with the beast of the earth. Well, that's speaking
of death. Now, this issue about the fourth
part of the earth, to be honest with you, I am not 100% sure
what that means. It could just mean a great number
of people killed on earth. But I know this, it's appointed
for all of us to die. That's coming. One idea is talking
about the four spheres of the Earth. You've got the atmosphere,
which is the air. You've got the hydrosphere, which
is the water. You've got the lithospheres,
which is the ground we stand on. And then you've got the biosphere.
That's us. That's animals and all living
creatures. And so what he might be saying
is that all living creatures will die. But here's the point. There's only one remedy for all
of this, isn't there? And that's Christ and Him crucified
and risen from the dead. There's no other remedy at all.
Turn to Christ. That's the answer. That's what
the book of Revelation is really about. Turn to Christ and lean
upon Him and trust Him for all salvation.