The lesson in the opening of
the sixth seal comes down to basically this. We're going to
begin in verse 12 of Revelation 6. But the lesson is this. None other foundation can any
man lay than that which is laid. There's only one foundation upon
which our whole salvation is built. And that is Jesus Christ
and him crucified and raised from the dead. And that's what
equals out to his righteousness. There's no other foundation.
The church is built upon that foundation. Christ said upon
this rock, I will build my church. That's talking about Christ and
what he accomplished, the merits of his obedience unto death.
There's no other foundation. Now, man naturally looks to other
foundations. And what we have here in the
opening of the sixth seal is the destruction of the world
by the power and the glory of God. And I'll give you, I've
got written down here in your lesson, there's a parallel passage
that you can study this, it's second Peter chapter three, and
you can turn over there and read that. But you remember how in
second Peter chapter three, the apostle Peter talked about those
scoffers. who when the gospel ministers
and the church true believers would talk about the second coming
of Christ and the world ending, they'd say, well, we haven't
seen it yet. Everything's going on just like
it has been. And of course, Peter makes the
case. He said, well, first of all, that's a lie because everything
hasn't been going on just fine, you know, peaceful on earth and
all that. God sent a flood and destroyed
the world. That was a testimony of his wrath
against sin. And so he uses that. And he says
that you've got to understand that the very reason that Christ
has not come back yet and the world has not yet been destroyed
is that God has a people that he chose before the foundation
of the world that he determined to save and he sent Christ to
redeem them and he's sending his spirit throughout the world
in the preaching of the gospel to call them in. And so I've
often told people, I said, I can tell you exactly when the Lord's
coming back. And you don't know what I'm talking
about. But they'll look at you in amazement. Surely you wouldn't try to predict
that. Men have. We've had that in the past several
years, haven't we? People are even writing books
on it. Christ is coming back on May 11, 2000 something, all
that stuff. And it didn't happen. We're going to talk about the
moon turning to blood here in Revelation 6, 12. You may have
heard of the blood moon. Well, that was last Sunday night,
the blood moon was. And what that is, that's an eclipse
of the moon. And there's a fellow out there in Texas who wrote
a book on them, Four Blood Moons. And he said something devastating
happens on that fourth blood moon. And I don't know. Usually guys find a way to get
out of that stuff, because I know I think he said, well, it doesn't
have to happen that very night, but it'll happen somewhere around
there. I don't know. I mean, you know, there's nothing
in scripture that I can point you to that says, you know, about
the four blood moons, you know. But I can tell you what it represents.
So, but when I tell people I know when the Lord's coming back again,
what I mean by that is this, when the last one of Christ's
sheep is brought into the kingdom, I know that's when he's coming
again. And I don't know who that is or when it is. Well, our commission
is to go into all the world and preach the gospel. And that's
what we do. So let's look at this. These
are physical manifestations of God's wrath. They're physical
things that'll take place at that time. Peter talks about
them. He says, God's not slack concerning
his promise to usward, but he's long-suffering to usward, not
willing that any should perish. He's talking about his sheep,
the redeemed. And that's why there's the long-suffering
of God. That's why this world is not
destroyed yet. But then he says, but you need
to understand that there's coming a time when this world is going
to burn away. It's going to be destroyed. And
God's going to create a new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness. And you know what that is. That's
the people of God made righteous in Christ. And we'll inhabit
the new earth in a glorified body. So that's coming. So when
we go through this, we'll see physical manifestations of God's
wrath. But always remember this now,
when you see manifestations of God's wrath at any time, How
are we to think about that? Well, we're to think about it
and say, Lord, if you give me what I deserve, it would be worse
than that. Thank God for his grace in Christ
Jesus. So let's look at it. Look at
verse 12. Yeah, verse 12. He says, And I beheld when he
had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake. Earthquakes. You know what earthquakes
do? They shake the foundations, don't
they? And the physical significance
of this is obvious. You know, we've talked about
how people in Revelation who are unbelievers are sometimes
referred to with this phrase, them that dwell on the earth,
or what I call earth dwellers. And what he's talking about there
are people who are so connected to the physical universe, the
physical world, Those who are so connected to this world that
this world is their hope. This is all there is to them. And this is their foundation.
And even in their religion it comes through. Their hope, their
blessedness, their salvation is all connected to the things
they see, not the word of God. The word of God leads sinners
to look to Christ alone as the author and finisher of our faith,
not to the world. Now, we thank God for the blessings
that we have here on earth, but we know this, they're not gonna
last, are they? They're gonna be wiped away.
This is what this great earthquake tells you, that if you put your
faith or your hope in this world, if that's your foundation, if
that's your hope, it's gonna be gone. God's gonna shake the
foundations. God will shake this earth apart.
And everything that man by nature thinks is forever, everything
that man thinks by nature is immovable and indestructible. How many times in the history
of mankind have men built things that they said was indestructible?
You know what we normally think of as an illustration of that
is the Titanic. That ship cannot be destroyed
and all it took is an iceberg, a big ice cube, somebody said,
to bring it down. Man can build nothing that lasts. Am I right? Man can build nothing
that's indestructible. And so the only hope for eternity
is what? That is to build on the foundation
of Jesus Christ and Him crucified and risen. That's why we're so
glad that God has revealed to us that our hope is built on
nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. And I dare
not trust the sweetest friend. Nothing on this earth. You know,
if you win the lottery tomorrow, boy, that's great, isn't it?
That's great. But you know something? It's
not going to last. Somebody said, well, I'm not
going to spend that much money in my lifetime. Well, that means
you won't last. Either it's going to outlast
you, or you're going So, you know, it's still fleeting. Everything on this earth, that's
what this earthquake means. It marks the destruction for
a world under God's just wrath. So, what's the lesson? Flee from
the wrath to come. Now, where are you going to flee
to? To the hills, and we're going to see that in just a minute.
To the rocks and the valley? No. Flee to Christ. Plead His righteousness. There's
your safety. There's your eternal life right
there. Now he says next in verse 12, he says there was a great
earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair and
the moon became as blood. There's the blood moon. Is there literally going to be
a blood moon? I don't know. In other words, an eclipse of
the moon? I don't know. If there is, that's
fine with me. I'm not going to argue with people
over that. Why? Here's the significance of that. Darkness prevails now. There is absolutely no light.
A couple weeks ago, I preached to you on about Revelation. Not the book of Revelation, but
how God reveals himself in different ways. And you remember Psalm
19, the heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament, His handiwork,
there is the light of nature. And Romans 1 talks about that,
how the things that are made The things that God created will
reveal things about God, his power, his glory, his majesty,
his wisdom. I mean, think about it. One of
the illustrations that the psalmist David used was our human bodies.
Look how wonderfully and fearfully we are made. The order of the
human body, how every little molecule works together. to form
a walking, talking human being, hopefully a thinking human being. But it's amazing, isn't it? And
what do we do? By nature, what do we do with
that revelation? Well, by nature, we turn it into
idolatry in some way, some form, or some fashion. That's what
Romans 1, verses 18 on teaches. He'll worship the sun instead
of seeing the sun as a creation of God who I must seek. They'll
worship man, make a god like unto themselves. There's the
light of nature. Well, that light of nature in
this end, the opening of the sixth seal, that light of nature
is going to be gone. The sun will turn black. The
moon will turn as blood. Blood equals death. That's what
blood means in the scripture. Without the shedding of blood,
No remission of sin. Without that, the wages of sin
is dead. That's why when we hear about
darkness, we know that the remedy is the light of Christ. The light
of the glory of God. God who commanded the light to
shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
That's why Christ is our, and I love that. I've got, I think
I've got it referenced in your, your lesson here. If I don't,
we'll, we'll be talking about it later. But you remember when
over in Revelation, what is it, 21 or 22, when he talks about
the New Jerusalem? And he says the city of the New
Jerusalem had no need of the sun or the moon or the stars
because the Lamb, the glory of God, and the Lamb was the light
thereof. Christ said, I'm the light of
the world. But in this day, in this destruction that he's describing
here, this sun becoming black, the moon turning to blood, there's
not going to be any light there. There'll be no light of nature.
There'll be no light of the word of God. It'll be gone for the
fallen world now, for the world that's destroyed, for those who
are literally under the wrath of God. They won't have Bibles
then. You know, we're talking about
everybody's got a Bible, but nobody, they either read it,
or if they read it, they read it like the Pharisees. Remember
Christ said, in them you think you have eternal life, but there
they wish to testify. I mean, they read it without
knowing the reality of it. There'll be no Bibles, there'll
be no light of the word, there'll be no gospel preaching after
this. The day of salvation's over. The day of repentance is
gone. That's why he said, you know,
now is the day of salvation. There's an urgency. You know,
we know, we know that God's gonna save his people. We're confident
of that, aren't we? Because God chose them, Christ
died for them, the Spirit's gonna give them life. But there's still
in the Bible an urgency that's put upon our minds to preach
the gospel. to witness the gospel to people.
Don't delay. Don't act like you've got plenty
of time. And you can look at that in one
of two ways. Either the Lord's gonna come back soon, and we
don't know when, or you're gonna go to meet him soon. Isn't that
right? So there's an urgency about this.
And that's what he's talking about. There'll be no light then.
There'll be no gospel preaching. The day of repentance is over. But now look at verse 13, he
says, the stars of heaven fell unto the earth. This is Revelation
6, 13. The stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig
tree casteth her untimely. I think the word there you have
it in your concordance would be like green. In other words,
they're not ripe, they're not ready to pick, like figs on a
fig tree, they're not ready to pick. So it's untimely, untimely
figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind. Now, there's several different
interpretations of this that can do no damage to the gospel. Some people think that this is
talking about ungodly kings or political leaders or men and
women who people look up to, they shine as the stars, you
know, they talk about movie stars and all that stuff. And they
shine forth with an earthly, ungodly glory. And that could
be talking about that. Well, one thing I can tell you
for sure, they're included in this destruction, aren't they?
Any of the ungodly kings and presidents or premiers or whatever,
prime ministers, they're all included. I mean, this is God's
wrath falling on an ungodly world. And that's why I always try to
remember as I read these passages, That it is a miracle of God's
grace that when we read such things, we don't have to fear.
Because we have Christ. We stand in him, washed in his
blood, clothed in his righteousness. So we don't have to fear. That
blood, what does the blood mean to us? The blood of Jesus Christ
cleanses us from all sins. The righteous wrath of God, what
does that mean to us? Well, it fell on Christ, our
substitute at the cross. having our sins imputed to him.
And he drank damnation dry. He suffered the full measure
of God's wrath against our sins. That full measure is coming down
on the world here. So it could include ungodly kings
and ungodly political leaders. Others claim it just signifies
religious leaders, like false preachers, who were stars in
the eyes of religious unbelievers. Well, that could be, too. What
I'm saying is, I can't tell you that that's what this specifically
applies to, but I certainly know those people are included under
the wrath of God. And he says, either way, they're
all gonna fall, and they're gonna fall like green figs that have
not ripened. The only thing they're ripening
to is judgment, the scripture says. They're green, and what
that means is they're incomplete. You see, we're not incomplete.
We who believe the gospel, rather. We're not incomplete. How do
we know that? Well, in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of
the Godhead bodily, and ye are what? Complete in him. This bunch
here, they're incomplete. There's no completeness about
them. They're like green figs falling off a tree. They're not
ripe and ready to nourish anything. And really, it's a good picture
of death. But I look at it this way. Here's
the way I think that what's being taught here is this. As you look, we've seen that
all the foundations that natural man has are destroyed. All the
light that natural man has is gone. It's now darkness prevails.
Everyone that the natural man looks to for salvation, for guidance,
For spiritual help, they're gone now. What do people do when,
how many times have you tried to tell somebody the gospel?
And you tell them now, go to the scriptures. I always tell
people, don't just listen to it because I say it. Because
that's not a good thing. Even if I'm telling you the truth,
don't listen to it just because I say it. Go to the word of God
and test it. That's what, my foundation, my
scriptural, my authority is the scripture. It's not who I am
or how long I've been in the ministry. Now I'm not saying
those things don't mean anything at all because how long a man's
been in the ministry, if he's been preaching the gospel, hopefully
he's learned some things. Hopefully he's got a little more
wisdom than he had when he first started, and that's fine. But
it's still, you're never, you're never to just take him at his
word. look at the word of god and that's
what that's what we say how many times if we talk to people about
the gospel what do they do they instead of going to the word
of god and studying it prayerfully and uh... with meekness that
is submissively they go get a second opinion from some preacher or
spiritual guide that they respect who may not necessarily tell
them the truth all their respected spiritual
guides then will be gone. Whether it's a political leader,
whether it's a religious leader, whether it's a movie star, whatever.
These are the stars that fall from heaven. Because they were
held in high esteem at one time. That means fell from heaven.
Not talking about the heavenly existence of Christ and his people. Talking about how men looked
up to them. How men looked up to him. We
look up to him. Well, you know, it's like, you
remember that commercial back in the 70s about E.F. Hutton? I remember one of them, there
was a bunch of people on an airplane. E.F. Hutton was a brokerage firm.
And E.F. Hutton was wanting to advertise
how right they are in their guidance of economic matters, financial
matters. One guy on the plane, they'd
be talking about where they're going to invest their money,
and one guy on the plane said, well, my broker is E.F. Hutton, and
everybody stopped and turned and listened. When E.F. Hutton
speaks, everybody listens. Well, you know, there are people
like that in religion and in politics and in economics. There
are certain people, when they speak, everybody stops and listens.
Well, you know what's going to happen? That star is going to
fall from heaven, and it's going to be gone, especially in the
religious area, especially in false gospels. The ones they
look up to, they're spiritual gurus. They're gonna fall like
an untimely fig, taken, shaken by a mighty wind. And what is
the mighty wind? It's the judgment and wrath of
God. Look at verse 14 now. All right, he says, and the heaven
departed as a scroll when it is rolled together, and every
mountain and island were moved out of their places. What's this
talking about? Well, first of all, the heaven
departed as a scroll when it's rolled together. What is that? It's a shut book. It's a shut book. And what is
he saying? The way to heaven, the way to
God will be shut forever. That's what he's saying. Shut
like a closed book. Christ is the way to heaven. None other foundation, all of
that. None other name given among men whereby we must be saved.
His death is our passage through heaven, through to heaven. Heaven
meaning the spiritual existence of glory with God forever and
ever. Remember in Hebrews chapter four,
we have a great high priest who's passed into the heavens. That
literally would read passed through into the heavens. What did he
pass through? Well, our sins were charged to
him and he passed through them. He took our death, he passed
through death. And what did he do? He was resurrected
from the dead and he ascended unto the Father. He's passed
through. He's our passage. Now that way is shut. in this
day and age, the day and age that he's talking about here.
There is absolutely no way and no possibility for sinners at
this time to pass through into heaven. It's like a shut book,
can't read it again. And then the physical order will
be put out of existence. Look at it again, verse 14, every
mountain Every island were moved out of their place. Now, who
placed them there? God did. And what he's saying is, in man's
view, it'll all be like chaos. Nothing in its proper place.
And why is this judgment coming down in this form? Well, because
man refuses to take his proper place before a holy God. What is my proper place before
God? Is it exalting myself? Coming
to God, pleading my works and my efforts? Is that my proper
place? Absolutely not. My proper place is at the feet
of Christ Jesus, pleading his righteousness, his merits alone.
And so that order, everything man sees in such order, it'll
be gone then. and this is a testimony that
apart from the glory of God in Christ, the whole created universe
is not in its proper order. The proper order, you remember
over 1 Corinthians 15, I didn't put this in your lesson but I
thought about it last night as I was reading over this again.
You know he talks about how Christ earned the kingdom and then in
the end he'll deliver it up unto the Father. What he's talking
about is at that time When this world is destroyed, everything
will be in its proper order. Everything will be in its proper
place, set there by God through the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what he's talking
about. Of him, through him, and to him are all things to whom
be glory forever and ever. That's the proper order. And
then look at verse 15 and 16. He says, and of the kings of
the earth, And the great men and the rich men and the chief
captains and the mighty men and every bondman and every free
man hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains. And they said to the mountains
and rocks, fall on us. Think about this. Fall on us. Could you imagine yourself ever
being put in a place that you would say to the mountains and
the rock, fall on me. He says, fall on us and hide
us. Now, here's what they want. Hide us from the face of him,
from the glory. See, this is God's glory. This
wrath, it's not God throwing a temper tantrum. It's not God
just going on, you know, I had an old buddy up in West Virginia.
He'd always say, anybody would lose their temper or something,
he'd say, well, he's running a wheel off. And it's not God running
a wheel off. This is the glory of God right
here. It's not, let me put it to you
this way. It's not God's greatest glory. Because God's greatest glory
is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. That's where every attribute
of God is honored. Working consistently together,
but this is God's judgment and it is his glory So they're hiding
they want to hide from the face of him that sitteth on the throne
and notice this phrase now don't let this get by you and from
the wrath of the lamb Now what's that telling you?
Well the the issue here is no hiding place for anybody The
reason he mentions kings, great men, rich men, chief captains,
mighty men, every bondman, every free man. In other words, he's
talking about there's no class of people, there's no race of
people that will avoid this judgment. It comes equally to all, this
devastation. And they get so frightened that
they ask the rocks and the mountains to fall on them because they
think that that would be better than facing the wrath of God. That's amazing, isn't it? Crying
for death, thinking it'd be better than facing a holy God without
a mediator, without a substitute. You see, the wrath of the Lamb
is indicative of this. that the only way of salvation
is the blood of the Lamb, the righteousness of the Lamb. Every
judgment that God brings down upon this fallen world in the
end is a measure of judgment based upon the standard of what
Christ accomplished on Calvary as the Lamb of God. Acts 1731. How many times you hear me quote
that verse? You all can probably quote it
with me, can't you? I won't test you. But you know there in verse
30 where he says he's commanded all men everywhere to repent,
because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the
world in righteousness. Now that righteousness, which
is the standard of judgment, is the same thing as the wrath
of the Lamb here. In righteousness by that man
whom he hath ordained and that he hath given assurance unto
all men and that he hath raised him from the dead. And this also puts some things
in perspective, doesn't it? Should for this world. You know,
these people go around talking about, well, God is nothing but
love, and, you know, He just loves everybody, and He's trying
to... And when they picture Christ as the Lamb, they almost picture
Him as some type of weakling. Now, let me tell you something.
Christ as the Lamb was no weakling. As the Lamb, suffering for our
sins charged to Him, He opened not his mouth, but it wasn't
because he was powerless to open his mouth. He told Peter and
the disciples, I could call 10,000 leagues of angels. All he had
to do was just look at a group of Roman soldiers representing
the most powerful human being in the world, Caesar. All he
had to do was open his mouth and say two words, I am. And what happened? Boom, they
fell back. So, he opened not his mouth,
Isaiah said, but it wasn't because he was weak, because he was guilty. That's right, he was guilty.
What was he guilty of? Of our sins imputed to him. He was made a curse for us. He
was led as a sheep to the slaughter. That means he did it willingly.
You know those sheep that are led to slaughter, they don't
know they're going to slaughter, but now he knew he was going to slaughter. But he did it willingly. Now
why did he do it? Because he loved his own until the end,
John 13, 1, to the finishing of the work. But here is not
love. This is the wrath of the Lamb.
And my friend, there is absolutely no love from God apart from Christ. Look at verse 17. So there's
no hiding place now for anybody. The kings of the earth, they've
got the wherewithal to buy them some place where they could hide.
No, no hiding place for them. No hiding place for anybody.
Christ is our hiding place. We're hid in the cleft of the
rock, the scripture. Verse 17, for the great day of
His wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand? Well, that's
the question, isn't it? Now, who's going to be able to
stand? What is it? Psalm 24 talks about the king. Psalm 22 talks about Christ the
high priest dying for our sins. Psalm 23 talks about Christ the
shepherd. Psalm 24 talks about the king
and it says who can ascend into his holy hill? Who's able to
stand? I'll tell you who, those who
stand in Christ, washed in his blood and clothed in his righteousness,
nobody else. Either have clean hands and a
pure heart. And the only way any of us can even say that is
in Christ. Okay, all right.