Well, turn back with me, if you
would please, to Revelation chapter 6, and I want to look at the
fifth of the seven seals being opened this morning. But let
me remind you Creation, in the beginning, was God's kingdom.
That's what he created, his kingdom. And in the fall, when Satan came
and deceived Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but for love of
Eve, he fell, he fell into the same sin knowing what he was
doing. Adam was not deceived. That fall captured the kingdom
of God for Satan. You see, God had delegated rule
of that kingdom to Adam, and Adam handed it over to Satan
in the fall. And ever since, there has been
war of Satan trying to completely take over the kingdom of God
and stop all influence from God and his gospel and his justice
and his righteousness. But God has continued to reign
supreme. And the end of this all, the
end of the outworking of world history, will be God's triumph. The kingdom of Satan will be
utterly forever destroyed. The kingdom of God will be utterly
forever established and triumphant. And ever since the fall there
has been enmity, that word is there in Genesis 3.15, enmity,
strife, conflict between the seed of the woman, the line of
belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, the lamb, you say he wasn't there,
yes he was, he was there in pictures. That line, from the moment that
Adam and Eve were regenerated, God regenerated them. God saved
them. He killed an animal. He clothed
them with the skins of an animal whose blood was shed, picturing
Christ, the Lamb of God, who would come. Ever since there
has been enmity between that line from God and all the rest
that are in Satan. All the rest of the reprobate.
We have two kingdoms in opposition. That's my title this morning,
Two Kingdoms in Opposition. In Matthew chapter 10, we read
chapter 24 earlier, but Matthew chapter 10 and verse 34, Jesus
said this, Think not that I am come to send peace on earth.
Sorry, I thought that's what the whole of Christian religion
said, that he came to send peace on the earth. What did he say?
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to
send peace, but a sword. Those are the words of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Religion out there, you who say
you're Christians but you don't read your Bibles. Jesus said,
I came not to send peace but a sword. For I am come to set
a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against
her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and
a man's foes shall be they of his own household. And then he
goes on to expand on this. The gospel brings conflict with
the world. There's strife and enmity. It isn't as nominal Christianity
portrays it, which is peace. Let's pursue worldwide peace.
You know, you listen to the news at Easter. The news must bring
you the Pope's sermon from St. Peter's Square in Vatican City
in Rome. And what does he always talk
about? Oh, I wish they'd stop fighting in this country, and oh, I wish
they'd stop fighting in that country. But it's peace without
justice. It's peace without the justice
of God, because this world doesn't acknowledge the justice of God,
the holiness of God. Satan is constantly striving
for supremacy in this creation, but God reigns supreme, and God
frustrates Satan's schemes for supremacy. He saves his world. God saves his world. It's why
God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son. It's
his creation, it's his kingdom, he's going to restore it, he's
going to recover it. He's going to save it in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Recovering that kingdom, destroying
Satan and his forces of evil, until the pinnacle of it, which
is the triumph, the final triumph of the kingdom of God, which
we'll get to before the end of this book of Revelation. So understanding
the unfolding of world history that we see and how rapidly things
are developing in these last few years, the evil developments
of our day, it's all in terms of the war between two kingdoms. Satan fights, but God rules undeterred. God rules. His plan, His purpose,
cannot be thwarted. Who can stay His hand? Who can say unto Him, what are
you doing? He is God. So then, let me remind
you about the Seven Sealed Book. And of course, I'm not going
to repeat material at great length. You can always go back. All the
sermons are there on Sermon Audio. You can find it via freegraceradio.com. There you'll find the previous
ones if you want to catch up. But the seven-sealed book that
we saw at the start of chapter 5 is God's plan for the triumphal
recovery of his kingdom from the clutches of Satan, which
he grasped at the fall. He sends forth four horses. The opening of the seals is the
implementation of God's plan. And he opens four seals, which
we looked at last week. He opens, he implements four
aspects of his plan. A white horse with its rider
goes forth, then a red horse, then a black horse, then a pale
horse. What are they about? The gospel of God's grace, the
truth of God goes into this world and speaks to men and women in
this world. the red horse of conflict between
nations because Satan's desire is that there be one worldwide
unified kingdom. of His brand of peace, of His
brand of goodness, but it's without the goodness and the righteousness
and the holiness of God. So God frustrates it. How? He
causes wars between nations. You say, are you honestly telling
me that God causes wars? Yes, that's exactly what God's
Word says. He brings war into this kingdom
of Satan to frustrate the kingdom of Satan because the kingdom
of Satan cannot triumph. It must be the kingdom of God
that triumphs. And another aspect is he sends
a black horse with his rider. And the black horse brings into
this world enormous polarization of poverty and riches. Enormous
polarization. You know that statistic that
something like less than 1% of the world's population owns over
50% of the world's wealth. Enormous. There's hand-to-mouth
living for the majority, a measure of wheat for a penny, three measures
of barley for a penny, but see thou hurt not the oil and the
wine. Oh, don't touch the riches. You see, that's the black horse.
It frustrates Satan's attempt to build a worldwide kingdom. This is why globalism is so evil. This is why all these pan...
national organizations that seek to control us, like the World
Health Organization, telling us everything that we ought to
do in each nation, irrespective. It's why these things are so
wrong, and God frustrates it. And then there's the pale horse.
which is undeniable. You know what they said, that
there's only two things that are certain in this life, that's
death and taxes. We all must pay our taxes, but
death, it is appointed to man to die once and then the judgment.
All of these things frustrate Satan's progress, to worldwide
dominion. He tried with empires down history,
and every one of them got so far and then failed, because
one of these horses rode into the situation. Either the white
horse of his truth, or the red horse of wars, or the black horse
of scarcity, or the pale horse of death. I mentioned Alexander
the Great, the greatest general, the greatest military tactician
that there ever was at the height of his powers in his thirties,
He was struck down by disease. The pale horse came along. The
pale horse came along and took away just in a moment how we
see it all around us every day. Ones that look like they're so
prominent and so respected and so revered and taken away in
a moment because the pale horse rides into this world. So the
opening of the seals then is the implementation of the plan
but there was only one qualified to open the seals. Because you
see, this plan can only be implemented if the justice of God and the
righteousness of God is upheld. Sin must be punished. For sinners,
and that's his elect multitude, to be made meat, to be made qualified
for his triumphant kingdom, they must be justified. They must
have their sins removed. And there's only one that can
do that, and that's the Lion of the tribe of Judah, prophesied
by Jacob back in Genesis 49. The Lion of the tribe of Judah,
look John, who is weeping, look John in the middle of the throne,
and he doesn't see a lion, He sees a lamb as it had been slain. I know I stress it over and over
again, but the significance of this picture is so powerful. It's the lamb who was slain because
in his shed blood. We're going to remember it in
communion at the end. and our union with Him and His flesh,
His broken body and His shed blood. In that He is qualified
to implement these seals. Divine justice is satisfied. The sinful world which is all
under the curse, the sinful world which is the captured kingdom
of God under the thrall of Satan, that sinful world under the curse
is recovered in the redemption that Christ accomplished at the
cross of Calvary. when He bore the sins of His
people in His own body on that cursed tree. He redeemed His
elect multitude, a multitude that no man can number. And so
the Kingdom of God is populated with redeemed, justified people. They are made the righteousness
of God in Him. They are made it by God, by His
decree. Are we perplexed at the situation
in the world? Look at it. The conflicts that
there are. There always have been wars and
rumors of wars and earthquakes and all the things that Matthew
24 spoke about. Conflicts. The war in Ukraine
and Russia and all around the globe. Different conflicts. Conflicts. The dystopian control that we
have experienced in the last few years in pursuit of imagined
peace and happiness. The widening gulfs, because they
are widening, of poverty and prosperity. You know, it's absolutely
true that one of the biggest effects of the last three years
of the so-called pandemic was that the rich got monstrously
richer. That was the result of it, not the other way around.
This global control of health. of people, of the planet, all
this net zero stuff, all this extinction rebellion and so on.
This is the world that we're living in. There's a complete
polarisation of views, you know, there's the transgender stuff
that's come to the fore just in the last few years. Whose
explanation is more credible? The world's? The mainstream media's? The explanation of religion,
even the multitude of Christian religion, I'll call it Christendom,
The politics of this world? Is their story credible? Or is
it God's account in this book, in the book of Revelation, to
his people? Why did he give it? It says in
verse 1, to show his servants things that must shortly come
to pass. And he signified it in visions
to John. So, let's look at the fifth seal
being opened. The fifth element of God's plan
for his kingdom to triumph over Satan. These seals are each one
elements of the plan of God for his kingdom to triumph and to
recover his captured kingdom from the thrall, from the domination,
of Satan. These seven seals are a high-level
overview of God's control of world history through to the
end. That's what they are. We've got seven seals, then we
get seven trumpets, then we get seven vials, and Armageddon,
and the end comes. They're increasing detail, from
a high-level overview in the seals, to a bit more detail in
the trumpets, to a bit more detail towards the end, and intensity
as the end comes. The seventh seal, when it's opened,
will reveal seven trumpets of further frustration. to Satan's
schemes. And then the seventh of the trumpets
opens, revealing seven vials. A vial is a little pot, a little
jar, a little jug, something like that. And these are symbolical
of something that is full of the wrath of God that the angels
have to pour out on this earth to bring about the end of time.
So what place does the fifth seal have in the plan? I think
most of you can see that the first four seals, the four horses,
were there for the purpose, God's purpose, of impeding the progress
of Satan's kingdom. But how long does it continue?
Does the white horse just keep on and on and on and on and on
down history? Does the red horse just keep
on and on? It seems like it, doesn't it?
Seems like it. The pale horse? Let's make poverty history. How
much progress do you think we've made? I don't think we've made
very much, have we? In fact, the very opposite. We've
made no progress whatsoever. Oh, what about the pale horse
of death? Does it just go on and on and on? Ah, they say,
no, no, we'll soon have a cure for cancer, and we'll soon have
a cure for this, and we'll soon have, there'll be no more disease,
we'll have a cure, we'll have a remedy for absolutely everything.
But it never gets any better, does it? It really doesn't. How
long does it continue? Does it go on and on and on?
Or is there any end in view? Does this world just go on indefinitely? What would shorten the time? The answer is the fifth seal
being opened. The fifth seal, let me read it
to you. And when he had opened the fifth seal, who had opened
the fifth seal? The Lamb of God. God in our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Lamb as it had been slain, when He had opened
the fifth seal, not a horse and its rider to come forth, but
a vision, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain
for the Word of God and for the testimony which they held. And
they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy
and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them
that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto
every one of them. And it was said unto them that
they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants
also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were,
should be fulfilled. This is what limits the time. to the coming again of Christ
and the triumph of his kingdom. This is the one that calls for
divine justice on this evil kingdom of Satan. You know what we read
in Matthew 24? Jesus said, except those days
should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved. If it just
went on and on and on, no flesh would be saved. But for the elect's
sake, those days shall be shortened. Praise God. The days shall be
shortened. And it's this fifth seal that
will bring about that shortening. In this world, which is Satan's
kingdom usurped from the control of God. God has ensured that
he will have a multitude rescued by his grace and the redemption
by blood in the Lord Jesus Christ. He will have a multitude rescued
from Satan's dominion. It's pictured in Bunyan's book,
The Holy War. If you haven't read it in a while,
read it again. It's so good. It shows the battle that there
is for the soul of man. God has redeemed a multitude,
his elect, from Satan's dominion. And he's redeemed them for the
purpose of, in this world, bearing testimony to the truth of God's
Word. That's what they're here for.
Jesus said in his prayer in John 17, I pray not, Father, that
you take them, his people, his believing people, I pray not
that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them
from the evil. That they live in this world,
and they testify of the truth of God, and that you keep them
there from the evil. that they witness to the gospel
of accomplished salvation from sin in Christ, the God-man, in
this world which tries to have a utopia of peace and happiness
without any reference to the justice of God. And these people
that God has, of which if you believe, if I believe we're part
of these people, they will stand against Satan and the principles
of his false kingdom, and they will live in conflict with it.
That's the way it is. They don't seek conflict. We
don't go out of our way for conflict. The gospel teaches us, as much
as in you is, says Paul, live at peace with all men. But when
they know what you believe, it will cause conflict. It will
cause division. Oh, but they're very nice people.
No, when it really comes down to it, I mean it, honestly. If
you really testify to the truth of the gospel of grace, you will
come into conflict with this world. You won't seek the conflict,
but they will dislike what you say. They will even hate what
you say. They will hate the gospel of
God's grace. They will hate the gospel that
says their self-righteousness is not righteousness enough for
God. They will hate it, and they will persecute the people of
God for it. And it's been thus ever since the fall. The vision
of verses 9 to 11 shows the souls under the altar. And these are
believers, God's people, who've been martyred for their allegiance
to God's kingdom. They've been martyred, they've
been persecuted to the point of death. People out of all humanity,
touched by the white horse, converted to Christ. You know it says in
Colossians chapter 1 and verse 13, that God has delivered his
people, his believing people, he has delivered us from the
power of darkness, that's Satan, and hath translated us into the
kingdom of his dear son. Once, along with everybody else,
we were rebels. As we're born in the flesh, we're
rebels against God. Whereas Ephesians chapter two,
verse four says, children of wrath even as others. But God
converted us, God called us, God arrested us by grace. Think
of Saul of Tarsus, a man venomously opposed to the Church of Christ,
venomously opposed to the cause of Jesus of Nazareth. On his
way to Damascus to have it stamped out once and for all with authority
from the leaders. And on that road, he said later,
when it pleased God. Not when it pleased Saul to decide,
when it pleased God. A man who was venomously opposed
to the kingdom of God, when it pleased God, he arrested him
by his grace. And he called him, and a man
who was determined to go and kill any he could find, naming
the name of Jesus, when God stopped him in his tracks, immediately,
immediately, who art thou Lord? What would you have me to do?
And immediately, within days, he's preaching the very one he
persecuted. These people are transformed,
as it says, by the renewing of their minds, Romans 12 verse
1 or so. Transformed by the renewing of
their minds, captured by God's truth in his word. Have you been
converted? Utterly, utterly captivated.
You see in the Word of God the truth of God. You see the truth
of what I am. What is this conscious soul?
What is this person that is me? What am I? What is my life? What
is it? And God reveals to you that you're his creation, that
he has made you. and that you're a sinner before
Him, and that you must have God but you can't have God because
you're a sinner. And then He shows you by His
grace, revealing the mystery of the Gospel. He shows you how
in Christ, in the blood of a perfect substitute, a Lamb, He has redeemed
you from the curse of the law. That that sin that would drag
you down to hell, my sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought,
my sin not in part but the whole, is nailed to His cross and I
bear it no more. It's paid for! I am crucified
with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in
me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by
the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself
for me, blessed of God, shown their sin before God, shown that
their sin is removed in the precious blood of Christ, and the result
You know it. If it's happened to you, you
can't keep silent. It's difficult so often, but you cannot ultimately
keep silent. Whosoever, said Jesus, therefore
shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my
Father which is in heaven. And so we must testify in every
sphere of life that Christ is Lord and Christ is King and His
people always do. That He alone is the way, the
truth and the life. That no man comes to the Father
any other way. There is no religion, there is
no morals, there is no philosophy that will bring you to the truth
of life other than the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
the world hates these people, these believers, you and me if
you believe with me. It hates them for it, especially
the religious world, especially the Christendom. It hates the
doctrine of particular blood redemption. Oh, it loves the
doctrine of universal blood redemption because then it puts the sinner
on the throne of eternity for him to decide, but it hates the
doctrine that God in Christ didn't die for everybody. God in Christ
died for the people whom he loved from before the foundation of
the world. He shed his precious blood. He who knew no sin was made sin,
made the sin of his people. He who is the united representative
with his people, he was made their sin. He bore their sin.
He was found guilty of their sin, though he never committed
any of it. He was found guilty of it and he bore the wrath and
the curse of God for that sin. And he bore it and he paid for
it in full on the cross of Calvary until the law cried out, it is
finished, it is enough, nothing more needs to be paid. And so
he made his people the righteousness of God in him. He made his people
the righteousness of God without which no man shall see God. and the world's false religion,
the world's false religion that sounds like it. You remember
what Jesus said in Matthew 24? People will say here is Christ
and there is Christ and what did Jesus say to them? Don't
believe them. Don't believe them. It's a lie.
Don't believe them. The truth is here. To the law
and the testimony if they speak not according to this word there
is no light in them. Their self-righteous goodness,
the self-righteous goodness of the religion of this world, of
Christendom, cannot bring eternal bliss, and therefore they persecute
the true people of God to the extent that many Ever since the
fall were sacrificed on the altar of their consecration to God.
There's a record of two opposing kingdoms given in scripture.
Large parts of this world, large parts of it, large parts of Satan's
kingdom, because that's what this world is in its current
state, are touched by the white horse. But although they're touched
by the white horse, it's without the conviction of sin. Because
you know, that's the Holy Ghost's work alone, the Holy Spirit's
work. A sinner is a sacred thing, the Holy Ghost has made him so,
says that hymn. Because without that conviction
from God, people who are sinners, for all have sinned and fall
short, do not see that they're sinners and do not see their
need for redemption. They're without guilt before
God. They're aiming for worldwide peace and bliss and happiness,
but without the maintenance of divine justice. There is no place
for Christ's blood and the propitiation that that blood procures. Do
you know what propitiation means? It means the turning away of
the anger of God, the soothing of the anger of God against sin.
I remember A man whose poetry I love, John Betjeman, was the
Poet Laureate for many years back in my much younger days,
and I used to love his... I've got books of his poetry,
I really like it, but nevertheless, I remember him saying in some
TV documentary how he loved the Church of England and the tradition
and all that sort of thing, but he hated the hymns that had blood
in them. He hated the hymns that had blood
in them. I'm telling you, we sing hymns
that have got blood in them because it's only the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ that cleanses us from all sin. And hence, these
religious folk oppose God's true people. You read about it in
Hebrews 11. Just turn there with me, just
for a moment. We won't be long here, but it needs to be looked
at. You know, I said it was right from the beginning. Look at verse
4. By faith, Abel, Cain and Abel,
the sons of Adam and Eve, the first people born in this creation,
in this kingdom that by then had been handed over to Satan.
But Adam and Eve had been redeemed, and Adam and Eve had tried to
teach their sons the truth of redemption. And Abel had heard,
and God had given him sight to see. And Abel offered unto God
a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, who came with his own self-righteousness,
with his own with his own works, the works of his hands. And so
there was enmity between the line of those who were the elect
of God, the true people of God, and those who were the reprobate.
And so it goes on down the years. Enoch was separate. Noah, Noah
wasn't martyred, but Noah suffered persecution for years and years
as he was building the ark. 120 years, apparently, he preached
the righteousness of God. He was a preacher of righteousness,
building that ark as God instructed him, with the whole world against
him. Abraham called out, well you remember why God brought
the flood, it was to save his kingdom from the clutches of
Satan. It was to save his kingdom from being swamped and subsumed
into the kingdom of Satan. And then he calls Abraham and
establishes Israel, a people. And then we read about Abraham
sought a city, looked for a city that has foundations, it says
there in verse 10, whose builder and maker is God. And then we
go on, we could go in detail through all of this, but I'm
not going to do. We got to Moses, who by faith, verse 24, when
he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's
daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people
of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming
the reproach of Christ. This is the world's reproach
of Christ, enmity, two kingdoms in opposition. He esteemed that
reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures in Egypt,
which were immense, for he had respect unto the recompense of
the reward, eternity, the kingdom of God triumphant. And he forsook
Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as
seeing him who is invisible. Look then quickly down to verse
33. talking about many, many others. Verse 32 talks about
Gideon and Barak and Jephthah and David and Samuel and Samson,
who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained
promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence
of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were
made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies
of the aliens, women received their dead, raised to life again,
And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they
might obtain a better resurrection. You see, these are the martyrs.
And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings. Yea,
moreover, of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn
asunder. They were tempted. They were
slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins
and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom
the world was not worthy. They wandered. in deserts and
in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. All these,
having obtained a good report through faith, received not the
promise." They lived before Christ, basically, is what that's saying,
and then He came. God having provided some better
thing for us to look back on, that they without us should not
be made perfect. They have been made perfect,
but not without us, who look back at what they looked forward
to. So many were martyred. The prophets were killed. Jesus
said a number of times to the Jews, your fathers killed the
prophets and you're going to kill me. They were treated, as
Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians chapter 4, he said, we're persecuted,
we suffer, we're defamed, we entreat, we plead with people,
we're made as the filth of the world and are the offscouring
of all things unto this day. This is how the world, especially
the religious world, treats those who uphold the principles of
the truth of the kingdom of God. The apostles, think of them,
the 12, He said, weren't there only 11? No, Paul was added to
them. There were 12. Mostly martyred for their faith. They were hated and killed for
their testimony of the truth. They were tortured under Roman
emperors and their followers with them. They were exiled as
the Apostle John to the island of Patmos. The first century
churches like Smyrna and Pergamos, if you go back there to Revelation,
we read about them. We read about Smyrna and the Where does it say? I'm in the
wrong chapter. Chapter 2. Yeah. Smyrna was suffering. They were
suffering. They were under tribulation and
poverty. And they were persecuted by the
Jews. And at Pergamos there was this
man Antipas who was a faithful martyr. He was killed for his
faith. He was killed for his faith there.
All of these were All of this was done because
of the conflict that there is between the Kingdom of Satan
and the Kingdom of God in Christ. The Reformation martyrs of the
16th century who were opposed and hated by the harlot church. Who do I mean? Obviously I mean
the Roman Catholic Church and everything that looks like it.
Where do I get that slur from, as some would call it? I get
it from Revelation 17. As Spurgeon said, if a detective, a good
detective, read Revelation 17, he'd go and arrest the Pope.
It's as simple as that. All standing firm, the people
of God, that divine justice was inviolable and only satisfied
in redeeming blood. And because they said it and
wouldn't agree to those who had that false doctrine of the kingdom
of Satan, whether they called it religious, Christian or whatever,
They were persecuted for it. Now look at the martyr's prayer,
and I'll be quick. Verse 10, they cried with a loud
voice, saying, how long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not
judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
In this kingdom of Satan, the evil done to the saints of God
has largely, down the years, gone unavenged. Really, it has. It's gone unavenged. What will
hasten the triumph of God's kingdom? What will hasten it? We see so
much gross injustice in our day, in recent years, financial injustice
on a colossal scale. It's gone unavenged. How long is it going to go on?
How long before God's kingdom will come and Satan's will be
overcome? What is it that will cause that
to happen? The answer is this. The need for divine justice to
be upheld. For divine truth to be vindicated. This is what God's saints testified
to. His elect testify to the word
of God. And their testimony is to the
truth of that word. And that must be vindicated.
And that pressure for divine justice to be upheld... is what
is bringing on the kingdom of God. This fifth seal advances
the triumph of God's kingdom because divine justice must complete
it. How long, I said earlier, will
it go on with just the first four horses? It's got an end
in view because divine justice must be upheld. The martyred
saints pray. How did Jesus teach his disciples
to pray? In accordance with God's word.
What was God's word? That divine justice must be upheld.
So they pray. How long? It's not out of vindictive
revenge, not out of vindictive retribution for their martyrdom
and their suffering, but out of divine justice. All the seals,
one to four, the horses, bring pressure to restrain Satan's
kingdom. But the fifth seal assures triumph
by virtue of the pressure that comes from The fact that divine
justice must be upheld. But it isn't a gradual effect
like the others. The fifth seal isn't a gradual
effect. It's focused on one climactic
day. One final day. That final day
of judgment. That day that the scriptures
speak of from start to finish. That day when all things will
be called to an end. And so their prayer is answered. Look in verse 11. White robes
were given unto every one of them and it was said unto them
that they should rest yet for a little season until their fellow
servants also and their brethren that should be killed as they
were should be fulfilled. White robes speaks of a glorified
nature, speaks of justification, qualification for heaven. No
man, Pursue holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.
They're justified. They've got white robes. They're
sanctified. They're victorious. White is the color of victory.
They're vindicated in their allegiance to Christ in the face of this
world's persecution. But they're required to be patient
until the full number is complete. But that full number will be
complete. That full number will be complete.
Divine justice and the honor of God's Christ and his gospel
of grace will assure the triumph of God's kingdom. Will you be
among his followers when that final day comes? That's the question,
isn't it? Isn't that the key question?
Will you be among his followers when that final climactic day
of judgment comes? What would stop you other than
your own stubborn unbelief? What would stop you?