All right, Christ going forth
to conquer. Revelation chapter 6 picks up
where the Lamb, the Lamb of God, and as you know that's none other
than our Savior, Christ the Lamb of God, the Lamb slain, who is
worthy to open the book, And this is that seven seal book,
remember, that book of the purpose and the plan of God. The opening
of these seals is a revelation of truth. And it's a truth that
only God reveals. And again, what he's showing
us from the view of the throne of God, in this second vision,
that's what this is. is what it's going to be like
during the last days. The days from Christ's death,
burial, resurrection, and ascension up to his second coming. And this is what it's going to
be like. And that's what these seven seals reveal. And so let's look
at it. Verse 1, he says, I saw when
the Lamb opened one of the seals, this is the first seal, and I
heard as it were, the noise of thunder. Thunder means power. Thunder represents the power
of God, the authority of God. In other words, there's nothing
above this. There's nothing that can stop
this. This is the invincible authority. Man could not stop
the power, authority, word, and providence of God no more than
he can stop the thunder from sounding. And that's what this
is. And in this noise of thunder,
one of the four beasts, one of the four living creatures, these
messengers, sang, Come and see. So here is the command of the
messengers of God in the four corners of the earth for every
every true believer, every child of God, every sinner saved by
grace to look at this, come and see this. Here's what it's going
to be like. In verse 2, he starts off with
the first seal. He said, I saw and behold a white
horse. Now you know white in the scripture
represents purity, holiness, sinlessness, righteousness. That's what white represents.
It's the It's that which symbolizes Christ as the righteousness of
his people. We'll see later on that the people
of God, true believers, they wear white robes back in the
Old Testament. The priest garments were white
linen. And all that represents Christ's
righteousness imputed to us whereby we stand before God with a perfection
that was given to us by a divine act of imputation so that we
can say that God will not charge us with sin. Well, here's Christ
himself. I believe this represents Christ
himself on this white horse. It says, and he that sat on him
had a bow, like a bow and arrow, and a crown was given to him.
Now, we'll talk about this bow in just a minute, but this crown
is his mediatorial crown. Now, what I mean by that, you
know, when we think about the Godhead, the Father, Son, and
the Holy Spirit, think about the second person of the Trinity,
God the Son. Now, as God, we used to say it
this way, and it's fine, as God absolutely considered, he has
always had all authority and all power, he never lost that,
but as God-man, which is His person as the Savior of His people. He had to become a man. The Word
had to be made flesh to dwell among us. He had to be made like
unto His people, God's elect, given to Him before the foundation
of the world. He had to be like us in every
way in His humanity without sin. So this is the crown of glory
that's given to Him on the basis and as the result of his doing
the work that he was given to do to redeem us from our sins. So understand that, you know,
somebody, there used to be a, I'll say a minor controversy,
because there wasn't too many people involved in it, talking
about, well, Christ wasn't Lord until he was raised from the
dead, and people got all upset about that, thinking, well, now
wait a minute, he's God, the second person of the Trinity.
And that's true, but you have to make a distinction here. You
remember in John 17 when he prays, you know, he talked about the
glory. He said, give unto me the glory
which I had with thee before the world began. In other words,
he set aside that glory for a while in the person of his humanity.
And it was hidden from view. And he had to do a work to earn
that glory as God-man. And that's what it's talking
about here. This crown was given to him. Now, why was it given
to him? Because he's the king. Because he did the work. He established
righteousness. The scepter of righteousness,
it's his scepter. He obeyed the law perfectly and
suffered unto death for our sins imputed, charged, accounted to
him. And he drank damnation dry. Daniel said it. He made an end
of sin. He finished the transgression. He brought in everlasting righteousness.
Hebrews 2 talks about how the captain of our salvation was
made perfect through suffering. It doesn't mean he was made morally
perfect because he was always morally perfect. It means he
finished the work. Remember there in John 17 when
he talked about the authority that the Father would give him,
it was based on the fact that he said, I have finished the
work which you gave me to do. So understand that. A lot of
people say, well, this isn't Christ because Christ already
had the crown. It wasn't given to him. No, this
is his mediatorial kingship, lordship, his glory upon the
finishing of his work. So here he comes on the white
horse. He's coming in righteousness. He's coming in holiness. He's
coming in justice. Everything that this world is
not, this is what he is. This world full of sin. So what
is he doing here? Well, he has a bow. That's a
weapon. And the crown was given unto him. He has the right. He
has the right to do this. He has the authority to do this.
He himself is qualified to do this. and then he's given the
weapons to do this and the crown was given to him and he went
forth conquering and to conquer. Now that's what he's doing. Right
now as we sit and as I stand here that's what Christ is doing
in this last stage. He's conquering. Right now he's
in that process of conquering. That's what this first seal is
all about. Now what does that tell us? It tells us this. It tells us that we don't operate
as believers as sinners saved by grace as true children of
god as citizens of the kingdom we don't operate like the world
we don't judge or assess or evaluate things as we look around and
see them because how many times have we seen scripture in different
passages you know we when we look around when you read the
newspaper you go on the internet or watch that uh... the evening
news it looks like this world's being turned upside down looks
like it's it's chaos anarchy you might say Every man's doing
that which is right in his own eyes, you know. And we all talk
about that, especially growing up the way we did in America
in the 50s and around that time in the 60s. You know, I mean,
we had it pretty good, you know, providentially. You know, our
life was, I think just about all of you remember, our life
was father knows best, that kind of thing. But it's not like that
now, is it? Things have gotten worse, even
in our little corner of the world. I always tell people, I say,
now look, this isn't the center of the universe here now. I mean,
life was always bad in other parts of the world. We just didn't
know a lot about it. But life's gotten worse. And
we think, well, man, what's going on? Christ is still in the process
of going forth to conquer and conquering. Now, how's he doing
that, this conquering? We know that he conquers his
people in the preaching of the gospel. And I think that's one
of the main issues here. When God the Holy Spirit, under
the providence of the King of Kings, brought me and you under
the preaching of the gospel, that's the arrow, the gospel
you might say, And by his power gave us life in the new birth
and brought us to see his glory, to see our sinfulness and his
glory and bring us to faith in Christ and repentance of dead
works and idolatry. What was that? He conquered us. He's doing it. So here's the
first thing about this conqueror. Is that, out of all this, and
you think about this now, because we're all disappointed. We say,
well, we wish there were more who believe the gospel, and we
do. And we're told to go out and preach the gospel everywhere.
Everywhere we have an opportunity. I'm gonna preach on that in the
11 o'clock hour. On the mystery of the preaching
of the gospel. Do you know the preaching of
the gospel is a mystery? But he's gonna uncover the mystery
for us. And so, here's what we need to be assured of. Even though
there's few of us, few people who really believe the true gospel,
Christ is still bringing his people into the kingdom. He's
still conquering. The gospel's still there. It's
still being preached. You might not have a stadium
full of people, but God is still finding his elect people. Christ
is still bringing his sheep into the kingdom, and he does that
by conquering us. Because what are we by nature?
We're enemies of God. We're rebels. And so in essence,
that's the conquering. What does he do? The Holy Spirit
in the new birth gives us a new heart, doesn't he? A new spirit. New knowledge. And what does
he do? He makes us willing in the day
of his power to come to Christ and to submit to his righteousness
as that which alone saves us, justifies us, and brings us to
God. That's a conquering. So he's going forth to conquer
with that bow, shooting the arrows of his gospel in the power of
the Holy Spirit. And what happens in that process,
it is the savor of life unto life to his people. But he's
conquering in another way, too. Not only is it the savor of life
unto life, as Paul wrote, to his people, his sheep, it's the
savor of death unto death to some. And he's conquering them. He's still in control. And that
conquering will not be finished until the end time when every
knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.
Now he brings his people to that under the preaching of the gospel
for their salvation. But the enemies of God at the
end will be forced to bow in damnation. And so there's the
conqueror, going forth to conquer. And I love that analogy. I think
about this, that gospel preaching In the power of the Holy Spirit
is like a bow with arrows, shooting right to the heart. We preach
to the hearts of God's people. And again, when we talk about
the white again, what does the gospel reveal? It's the revelation
of the righteousness of God. So here he is, the conqueror,
going forth to conquer. And that's the first seal. And
the significance of that seal to us as his people is that,
look, no matter what we see going on in this life and in the general
rebellion of the world, no matter what the other religions do,
the Muslims or whatever, Christ is still in control. He's on
this white horse. He's got his bow and his arrows.
He's conquering. And it's all going to end up
his way. He's the victor and his victory
is assured. There's no possibility that he
could be defeated in any one instance. Satan can't defeat
him. Satan's already really conquered.
I know God is still allowing Satan to do his business here
on earth among some. But the prince of this world's
being cast out. Christ talked about that in his
cross work. He's cast out. And that's one
of the things that the Holy Spirit brings us to when he convicts
us of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Our sins were
already judged on the cross. Christ was condemned in our stead.
He was made sin. Sin was literally, you know,
people today are talking about, well, sin's got to be literally
transferred to him. Well, it was by a divine act
of imputation. And he went under the wrath of
God for us. But he didn't stay dead, did
he? He conquered death. So Satan's
already conquered. The world, you know, he said,
he told his disciples, he said, I've overcome the world. Here
he is right here. He's overcome it. So trust in
him. Now look at verse three. Verses
three and four brings us to the second seal. Here's the second
seal. It says, when he'd opened the second seal, I heard the
second beast, the second living creature, say, come and see.
And there went out another horse that was red. Now here's the
white horse, and here's the red horse. You've heard this, you
know, the first four seals are the four horsemen of the apocalypse. There's a lot of mythology around
all that, but just take it as it is in the scripture. Here's
the red horse, and it says, And power was given to him that sat
thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill
one another. And there was given unto him
a great sword." So there's the red horse. And what does the
red horse symbolize? Well, he tells us it has to do
with war, has to do with conflict, has to do with death and slaughter.
That's what it has to do with. There's the sword, and it's coming
throughout this age. Now people say, well, there's
going to be wars and rumors of war. Have you all studied history? Have you? Any at all? Sure. When
has there ever been a time since the fall of man that there hadn't
been wars and rumors of war? Never. It's always been that
way. One of the things that Christ told his disciples when he was
speaking of the last age in Matthew 24, I think it's Mark 13, I can't
remember what the passage is in Luke, is that he wants them
to understand, look, the Messiah has come, Christ has come, he's speaking to the disciples now,
he's about to do his great work of redemption, he's in control,
But he wants them to understand that, look, now things are going
to be going along just like they always have been going on. It's
not going to change. The fact that Christ died on
the cross and redeemed us from our sins and established that
righteousness for us, it's not going to change this world as
far as the workings of Satan and the workings of evil men
and women. It's going to go on like it always
has gone on. But he says, and I believe that's some of the
essence of what he's talking about here in this red horse.
There are going to be wars. And somebody says, well, it's
going to get worse and worse. Well, maybe so. It might do that. You know, we hear about it today,
don't we? You know, you look at the Arab countries, the Muslim
countries, they're all the time talking about war against the
United States. They call us the great Satan
and all of that. North Korea, they're threatening
war, you know. They have nuclear weapons. So,
I mean, all that, you know, we hear about that every day, don't
we, some shape, form, or fashion. So it's there. Well, it's always
been that way. But here he's talking about how
throughout this age it will continue. And I believe one of the other
things that is really being taught here is not only wars and slaughters
and killings, like war between nations or conflicts between
individuals or groups, religious groups or whatever. I believe
he's also talking about the persecution of the true people of God throughout
this last age. I believe that's part of this
red horse. This great sword that was given him, you remember Christ
in the book of Matthew. He made the statement, he said,
I didn't come to bring peace on the earth, but a sword. You
know, when I was an unbeliever, and one of my goals in dealing
with religious people who called themselves Christian, one of
my goals was to prove the Bible wrong. I wanted to prove it wrong. And I would look for contradictions.
And one of the contradictions that I would bring up was that
right there. I think it's in Matthew chapter
10. You know, when the birth of Christ was coming about, the
angel came to the shepherds and said, peace on earth and goodwill
toward men. And you know even the King James
Version really didn't get that translation right. You know what
that means, it's peace on earth among men whom God is pleased
with. That's the essence of what it's
saying. Of course, God is not pleased with anybody outside
of Christ. I mean, if you're not standing before God dressed
in the righteousness of Christ, God's not pleased with you. That's
a biblical precedent that is set forth right after the fall
of man back in Genesis chapter 3. But anyway, he said, peace
on earth. Well, there hasn't been peace
on earth. But yes, there has. Peace between God and his people. And that's what he's talking
about in Luke. But I used to bring up that verse in Matthew
10 where Christ said, I didn't come to bring peace, but a sword. He said, a man's enemies will
be those of his own family, his own earthly family. I'll set
a mother against her daughter, a father against son. You see,
what is he talking about? He's talking about the gospel.
That when God brings a person to see the glory of the person
and work of Christ, that sets him apart from his earthly family
who are unbelievers. That puts them in conflict. That
doesn't bring them together. That sets them apart. And then
you have the persecution. He's going to mention this later
on here in chapter 6 about martyrs. You know, Christ told his disciples
in John chapter 15, he said, now you're going to go out into
the world and preach. The world's going to hate you. The world's going to be in conflict
with you. Now, why is that? Because you
tell the truth. And the last thing that the world
wants to hear is the truth. They want to hear religious lies
that'll make them feel good about themselves. And even the old
atheist Karl Marx recognized that. He said, religion's the
opiate of the world. It's like taking opium. It's
not good for you, but it makes you feel good. And that's why
false works, free will religion is. It's not good for anybody,
but it makes them feel good. So that when we come forth preaching
the light of the gospel, what happens? Men love darkness and
hate the light because what are we saying? Now you think about
this. Think about us when we first
come here. I mean, when I first heard the
gospel with the physical ear and I understood what the man
was really saying, I didn't like it at all. Because it wasn't
telling me what I thought was right. Wasn't telling me what
I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear that, you know,
Bill, you've been a good guy most of your life. You did this.
You got baptized. You joined the church. I didn't
know anything about the truth. All I knew is I was on the cradle
row and I guess I got up from there, you know. But I didn't
like it because we hate the light because our deeds are evil. And
so the persecution comes. Remember in the Sermon on the
Mount, Matthew chapter 5, blessed are you when men persecute you,
say all manner of evil against you, abuse you. Now that's part
of what this seal is revealing. That look, even when we're persecuted
for righteousness sake, that we're still protected, preserved,
and secure in the grace of God in Christ, here he is still conquering. Even in that, he's still going
forth to conquer. So think about that. There's
wars, there's conflict, and it's always going to be that way.
Somebody said, well, we want to pray for peace on earth. Well,
I would love to see peace on earth, but I do not believe it's
going to happen. I'm not just being pessimistic
there, because it's going to go on like it always has. All right. Look at verse five.
Here's the third one. We'll conclude today with this
one. The third seal. He said, and when he had opened
the third seal, I heard the third beast say, come and see. Third
living creature, the third messenger. And I beheld and lo, a black
horse. And he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his
hand. You know what that is, that's a scale. Verse six, I
heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, 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. Now, granted this
one may be a little more difficult to get to the specifics of, but
I believe the general application of this, this black horse symbolizes,
as most would say, and I agree, economic hardship, famine, famine
throughout the world it's sort of sort of indicates you know
that there'll be a lack of things that we need i believe the main
thrust of this is is this that throughout the world in the last
days there will be a great spiritual famine i'm not disregarding the
physical aspects of what's going on a famine economic hardship. I'm not disregarding it. That's
part of it. But I believe the Lord in His
sovereign providence uses things like that to put a reflection
on the condition of men and women spiritually. I really believe
that. And there will be a great spiritual
famine. Now, physical famine is bad. People going hungry. people going
through economic hardship. That's bad. But God's in control
still. He's still conquering. And the
people of God are safe and secure. So physical famine, physical
hardship is bad. But let me tell you something,
spiritual famine, spiritual hardship is even worse. Isn't it? Remember
back in the book of Amos? There was a famine in the land,
and what was he talking about? He wasn't talking about wheat
and corn and things like that. He was talking about a famine
of the Word of God. Today is marked that way. We
hear a lot of people reading Bibles. We see a lot of preachers
preaching to thousands of people, but here's what you've got to
ask. Are they preaching the Word of God? Are they preaching the
gospel of God's grace in Christ? Are they preaching righteousness
in Him or righteousness in man? There's a spiritual famine. And
notice here, and understand now, what he's showing is that the
people of God are going to be safe and secure even amongst
this, whether it's the physical famine or the spiritual famine.
But notice the pair of balances. Now, in the Bible, scales signify
what? Equity, justice. That's what
scales mean, the scales of justice. I've got some a couple of references
there for you. We know, for example, that we
don't have to fear this black horse with the scales of justice
because our salvation and security is based on God's justice, isn't
it? Whenever we are measured, by the scales of God's justice,
what are we? We come out equitable because
why? Because we have Christ. That's
right. If we come to God with our works
and efforts, what will we hear him say? Depart from me you that
work in equity, iniquity, I never knew you. But we have a righteousness
that answers the demands of God's law and justice. We equal out. to the measure of God's standard. Why? Because we're so good? No. Has nothing to do with that.
Why? Because we have Christ. He is
our equity. He is our justice. He is our
righteousness. In Christ, righteousness and
peace have kissed each other. Mercy and justice have come together. God is just to justify us. And
so anytime I see scales in the scripture, I think about that.
These balances. But also, these balances show
that during times of economic hardship, for example, and during
times of famine, that things just are not equal, not just,
especially with the poor and the downtrodden, but he's showing
that the Lord's gonna make all things equal. In the end, everything
is going to equal out to justice. And it will either be in the
damnation of those who are found without Christ, or in the final
glory of those who are found in Christ. Now, he says a measure
of wheat, or a penny. That word penny there signifies,
I think it's a denarius, literally. What that would represent is
what would be a day's wage in that time. That would be a day's
wage. And what he's saying is that
a measure of wheat, three measures of barley, you know they use
that to make bread, the symbol there is that that's what it
would take for a person to live physically. This is just enough. You see, this is the bare minimum. The bare necessities. Now, none
of us would would rejoice at the prospect of just having the
bare necessities, would we? So that's how hard it's going
to get in the last days, it says. It doesn't say that everybody
is going to end up this way, but that's the way it's going
to be in general across the world. But here's the thing about it
is, when When we see this in spiritual terms, and I'm not
spiritualizing the scripture, I'm just taking these things
as they are symbolized in scripture. Whenever we have Christ, we know
we have more than enough, but here's the point, He's all we
need. He's the bread of life. Anything less than Him falls
short. It's death. So, we could talk
about how in Christ we have more than enough, you know. Where
sin abounded, grace did much more abound. We're blessed with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We have
an inheritance that's a treasure. But the point is this, that it
may come to a point where the general population of the world
physically may have to exist on the bare necessities. It may
come to that. I don't know, to be honest with you. And I'm not
going to try to speculate on that. But I know in the spiritual
realm, that every true believer has everything he or she needs
in Christ. He's all we need. He's just enough. He's even more, but he is the
bread of life. And when it says, see thou hurt
not the oil and the wine, you know what that literally means?
If you translated it literally, it means don't do any injustice
to the oil and wine. And there are different interpretations
of that. As I put in your lesson here, some people believe that
this refers to the remaining availability of the most expensive
luxuries of the rich. And so what he's doing is saying
there, well, the world's going to get in such a bad shape that
the general population of people, especially the poor and the downtrodden,
they'll have to live off the bare existence, but the rich,
they'll still be abundant in the luxuries of this world. And
if that's the case, I'll tell you exactly what it is. It's
in 2 Thessalonians 2. It's part of that strong delusion
that they would believe a lie. You know, in the parable of the
sower and the seed, he talks about those who the love of the
world, the love of riches, chokes out the word. And so that may
be a good interpretation of this. But you know, in the Bible, oil
and wine is normally a symbol of what? The Holy Spirit. and the gospel and I believe
that's really what the main lesson here is in other words he's showing
that as we're going through all these hardships in the last days
the Holy Spirit is still at work in power applying the gospel
to the people of God feeding them with the bread of life and
that is a condemnation to the world that is a hardship on the
world that's why it's a it's a black horse So that which is
a condemnation to the world, in essence, is a salvation for
God's people. So when you look at these things,
you can see some physical applications to that, and it's okay. And I
don't know how all that's going to work out in its specifics.
Nobody does. And don't let anybody tell you
they do. But look at the spiritual lessons that come from that.
And as I said, that's not spiritualizing scripture. That's just taking,
like I said, oil and wine. What is it in the scripture?
It's the Holy Spirit and the gospel and the joy and the peace
that he gives through the preaching of the gospel. Okay.