I invite your attention to the
last book in the Bible. The name of this book is The
Revelation of Jesus Christ. This morning's lesson or message
will come from chapter 6, verses 1 through 8. Before I read this
passage, let me set the background for you. In chapter one, in the
introduction to this book, we find Jesus Christ introducing
himself to John the Apostle on the Isle of Patmos. John was
sent there in exile for preaching the gospel. And while he's there,
he sees a vision, and it is a vision of Jesus Christ walking in the
midst of his churches. And then there are epistles to
seven churches in Asia Minor. That's what we call the country
of Turkey today, seven churches. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with those
epistles to those seven churches in Asia Minor. We come to chapter
4 and chapter 5. You must read them together.
If you will, locate Revelation chapter 4, verse 1. John says, after these things,
and that would be the letters to the seven churches in Asia
Minor. After these things I looked,
and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice
which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, Come
up here, and I will show you things which must take place
after this. Immediately I was in the spirit
and behold a throne Set in heaven and one sat on the throne now
I'm not going to read the rest of that chapter, but I am of
necessity going to describe for you what all John saw. We dealt with this last Lord's
Day morning because we introduced the subject of the Four Horsemen
of the Apocalypse, but let me repeat just some of that introduction. John saw heaven opened, he was
taken to heaven, and there he saw a scene. Now, We repeat,
as I did last Lord's Day, he saw what's seen in heaven, but
it was not a scene of heaven. By that I mean, if you go to
heaven, what is described in Revelation chapters 4 and 5 is
not necessarily what you're going to see. There are some things
described in Revelation chapters 4 and 5 that are not in heaven.
Rather, what we see in Revelation chapters 4 and 5 is a view of
the entire universe as seen from God's throne. Now, God's throne
is in the middle of heaven, and so John says, the first thing
I saw was that throne. He saw a throne set in heaven,
and one sat on the throne. That one sitting on the throne
was God the Father. Around the throne were four living
creatures. These are of an order of angels,
and they stand at God's throne, four of them, one on each of
the four sides. north, east, south, and west. And they are attendants at God's
throne to do his bidding and his will. And they stand before
God's throne and they say, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. Now, they do this incessantly
in the vision, day and night, they never stop. Around them,
are 24 thrones around God's throne. 24 thrones, and on them sit the
elders, and they represent the entire Church of Jesus Christ
from both the Old and the New Testament. They are there in
white robes and crowns on their heads, and they're going to give
praise and glory to Jesus Christ. Around them now you see what
we're going. We keep going out further God's
throne in the middle the four living creatures or the cherubs
around him the 24 elders around God's throne and John says then
beyond them I saw a Angels, you could not count the number. Thousands
and thousands and thousands times thousands of angels. And they
are in a circle around the 24 thrones of the elders of the
church. Now, beyond them, John saw everyone else that is on earth
and under the earth. Now, God is given praise by the cherubs,
they praising, the 24 elders, the church, and if you're in
the church, you're on one of those thrones. We who are the
church, we praise Him. The angels praise Him. Then John
said, I saw in the hand of Him who sat on the throne. He says, I saw a scroll. Now a scroll is going to look
like this. And they did not have books in
those days like we do with covers and spines. You had a scroll
and you read the scriptures or whatever by means of a scroll. And this scroll might be as long
as from you to me. Might even be longer than that.
And so here is a scroll and it is written on the inside and
on the outside. Usually you did not write on
the outside of a scroll, but there is so much in this scroll
that the inside could not hold it all, so it was written both
on the inside and the outside. And on the scroll were seven
seals, and these seals kept it shut. And no one could open the
scroll. Who is worthy to open the scroll
and tell us what's in this? And no one in heaven could, no
one, no one. And John wept and someone said,
wait a minute, don't we behold the line of the tribe of Judah? the offspring of David has prevailed
to open the book and to disclose its contents. And behold the
Lion of Judah." And John looked and he did not see a Lion of
Judah. Where is he? There he is, I told
you there he is. And John saw in the direction
of the line of the tribe of Judah, he saw instead a lamb as though
it had been slain or slaughtered. And this lamb that was slaughtered,
as you probably well know by now, is our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. They slaughtered him like a lamb
there on Calvary, but he's now in glory. He has left earth. He has gone to heaven. And God
the Father is on the throne. And said, who can open a scroll? And no one in heaven could. But
here comes the slain Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. And He walks
up those steps to God's throne. And He takes the scroll out of
His hand. And he begins to open it. And
all heaven rejoices. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain
to receive glory and honor and praise and everything else that
men could give Him. While those elders on their thrones,
they got off their thrones and took their crowns and threw them
at His feet and said, You are worthy of these crowns, not us.
You are worthy of these crowns. Thou art worthy. And then, Jesus
Christ began to open the seals. The seals kept it shut, and he
began to open the seals. Now, this scroll in God's hand,
now in Jesus Christ's hand, is God's decree for everything that
happens in this day and age in which you and I live. And it's
all recorded in the book of Revelation. People say the book of Revelation
is a hard book to understand. Oh, not if you have the key to
the book. And the key is Christ. And so,
we're going to look today at these four horsemen of the apocalypse. Let me read my passage for you
here. Revelation chapter 6. Now we started this message last
Lord's Day, did not finish it. Today we're going to continue. Revelation 6 verse 1. Now I saw
when the lamp opened one of the seals, that would be the first
seal, and I heard one of the four living
creatures saying with a loud voice like thunder, come and
see. And I looked and behold a white
horse. and he who sat on it had a bow. Now, I'll just go ahead and give
you a brief explanation of this first horse. This is Jesus Christ. This white horse, Jesus Christ
is the rider on this horse. He's gonna come back at the final
day on a white horse. You can read that in Revelation
chapter 19. He's gonna come back to earth
on a white horse and here he rides a white horse. White is
the color of purity and sinlessness. And he who sat on it had a bow. A bow is a symbol of victory,
and a crown was given to him, and this crown was not the diadem
that a king nowadays wears, but it was a garland. They would
take a limb of a tree, and they would make it so that it became
a garland, and they put it on the head. And when a runner in
the Olympics won an event back in those days, he was not given
a gold medal or a silver medal or a bronze. He was given this
crown, this garland. from a tree and it would be woven. And it was a great honor to receive
this. And it means you are the victor. You are the winner. You are the
conqueror. And so Jesus Christ has this
crown on his head. And he went out conquering and
to conquer. And we considered last week,
this is Jesus Christ on his white horse. He's got this crown of
a victor on his head, he's got a bow in his hand, and he's got
arrows in his quiver. And he's going out looking for
his enemies, who are God's elect, and they are in rebellion. And
so when he sees one, he saw me one day. When he saw me, he pulled
out one of those arrows. And this arrow is conviction. It is an arrow and it pierces
right into the heart. And it hit this old rebel, the
one standing before you right now, hit this rebel. And I said,
Lord, what would you have me to do? And he said, acknowledge
me as Lord. And I did. He became my Lord.
I acknowledged him as Lord. Fell on my knees prostrate and
acknowledged him as Lord. And that's what Jesus Christ
is doing. He's going out and gathering his people. He's pulling
out an arrow of conviction and aiming it into their hearts.
And they become His people. This is a glorious thing when
Jesus Christ comes. If He comes to you on His white
horse, it is a glorious thing. It means that He's going to win.
He won over me. I stopped my rebellion and I
became a servant of Jesus Christ. There are three more horses,
and they are not good. The first one is good. Now we
come to verse number three. When he opened the second seal,
I heard the second living creature say, Come and see. And another
horse, fiery red, went out. And it was granted to the one
who sat on it to take peace from the earth, and that people should
kill one another, and there was given to him a great sword. Now let's just take a look at
this. And by the way, you should have the synopsis inside your
bulletin, and you can follow along with me in your synopsis. It is in the form of a tract.
This is the second seal. Remember, there are seven seals
on the scroll. With the opening of the second
seal, here comes another horse. This horse is a red horse. And the lesson to be learned
here is that when Christ goes forth to savingly conquer His
people, He is followed by this persecutor of them. He comes
on a red horse, a fiery red horse. And if you know anything about
red, it is the color of blood. The color of blood. That's what
He came to do. He came to shed blood. Every
time Jesus Christ goes forth conquering in the conqueror,
behind him comes this one on the red horse and he comes to
shed their blood. It does not happen to every child
of God, but it has happened to many untold hundreds of thousands
if not millions of the Lord's people since the days of Jesus
Christ on this earth have been slaughtered like he was. They have paid the price with
their own blood. He rides on a horse that is red,
the color of the blood he sheds, and he will take peace from Christians
in his warfare against them. That's what he comes to do. He
comes to find the Christians and makes warfare against them. Now you may say, well, it's not
happening to us today, Well, no, it may not be happening to
you, but it's happening. Do you realize that many professing
Christians died for their faith last year? Every year it's been
that way since the dawn of creation. You're probably aware that There
is, in the Muslim religion, certain men of ISIS, and they take great
delight. If they can find somebody who
claims to be a Christian, they kill him. They shed his blood.
And they make videos of it and put it on the news. Now, they
are an instance of the rider on the red horse. He comes to
kill the Lord's people. It's been that way since Jesus
Christ ascended into glory and even before that. But we're looking
at what happens after Jesus Christ comes on his white horse. He comes to slaughter them. Slaughter
is the meaning of the word translated kill in your text. He slaughtered,
or as Jesus Christ was slaughtered, so will his people be slaughtered. They are identified in the fifth
seal as those who gave their blood for Jesus Christ, and they're
called the martyrs. The martyrs. Oh, there have been
so many of them. Because this red horse comes,
he comes with his sword, he comes to kill them and to slaughter
them. And they are slaughtered by his sword. Now, the book of
Revelation speaks of two different kinds of a sword. One is a short
sword. It is one that a man might wear
on his side. The other is a long sword. It
was probably something more like a javelin that one could throw. It is this short sword that the
Lord gives to government in order that government may be a minister
of righteousness. The purpose of government that
God gave is to defend the people and to punish the wicked. And
the sword is given for that purpose, to punish the wicked. Unhappily, garroments, many of them use
their sword against the Lord's people. And notice it is called
a great sword. There is much authority behind
it. Whole nations have done their
best to persecute and to slaughter and to rid this earth of the
Lord's people. Many governments have done so.
You can read in Acts 12 verse 2 that Herod the king killed
James the brother of John with the sword. It was the same sword. The sword that God gave the government
to punish the wicked, they have turned around and used it against
the Lord's people. It's been that way. all through history, all through
history. The devil and his people have
tried to do to the Lord's people what was done to Jesus Christ. In the first two centuries of
the church, There were 10 different persecutions
by the Roman government. And the persecutions of that
government was to wipe out the church. Every Christian. They fed them to the lions in
the Colosseum. They crucified them on trees.
When they had parties in Rome, they would take Christians, wrap
them up in skins, pour oil on them and set them on fire to
provide lights for the party. They've been drowned. Mothers had their infants snatched
from their wombs and killed in front of them. Folks, there were
thousands and thousands and thousands of these Christians slain in
that way. The Roman government had 10 different
persecutions. Rome fell. You might think the
persecution might stop. No, it didn't. Then, a Roman
church arose. You've heard about the Crusades
that have been mounted by that church against Muslims. It was not only Muslims, they
mounted the same kinds of persecutions against our Christian forefathers,
particularly those in northern Italy and in Spain and France
and in North Africa. They killed so many of them.
They burned them at the stake. They killed them in all kinds
of terrible ways. They mounted crusades against
them. Many of our spiritual forefathers
lived in communities, in churches, and here came soldiers, religious
soldiers, representing the Church of Rome, and killed them by the
thousands and by the thousands. They called themselves the Holy
Roman Empire, or names like that. In reality, they were riders
on the red horse. In the Soviet Union, in later
times, you recall how that many Christians were just slaughtered,
were killed. In China, the same thing. I told
you a while ago, Muslim countries are doing the very same thing.
They're killing Christians. If you call yourself a Christian,
slaughter them. Slaughter them. What's going
on folks? It's the rider on the red horse. Been riding ever since the day
Jesus Christ went out on the white horse conquering and to
conquer. Right behind him has come this
rider on the red horse and he has come to slaughter. And he's
slaughtered thousands if not millions. Verse number 5. When he opened the third seal,
I heard the third living creature say, Come and see! And I looked,
and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of
stails in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst
of the four living creatures saying, a quart of wheat for
a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and
do not harm the oil and the wine. All right, third horse. First horse, It's white, that's
Christ going forth conquering and to conquer his people and
to save their souls. Behind him necessarily comes
the rider on the red horse to slaughter the Lord's people.
But he does not slaughter them all. He cannot get them all. The ones that remain have life
made to be very difficult. for them. Observe that he comes
on a black horse. Black is the color of mourning
and darkness. Mourning is spelled M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G. He comes to cause people to mourn
and he comes to bring darkness into their lives. This black
core suggests that dark days filled with mourning are in store
for those disciples who have not been slaughtered. Now observe
that he's got a scales or a balance in his hand. This is somewhat
of a balance. Maybe do not see them much nowadays. Younger people may not, but some
of us older people know quite well what a balance is. You would
go to buy something and you could weigh it out and you know it
had to balance out. Well, that's what this one is
doing. He has got a pair of scales in
his hands and food is going to be very precious. Notice what
he says. He says, a quart of wheat for
a denarius. A denarius was a day's wage. A day's wage. Brother Anthony goes to work
every day, and he works by the hour he knows. He knows how much
he's going to make. He could tell you probably how
much he makes every day. Sister, you can do the same thing.
Whatever you make for a day, that is your denarius. That's
your day's wage. All right? A quart of wheat.
That's what you can buy with a denarius. You work all day
long and you can afford a quart of wheat. Now, that'll make enough
bread for you, but what about your daughter? You know? What
about your son? What about your grandson? All
right? or three quarts of barley for
Denarius. Barley was a much coarser grain. Wheat makes good bread. Barley
bread was not all that great. But you could buy more barley
than you could wheat. All right. So you go and you
use everything you make for the whole day. It gets you enough
barley to feed maybe your family. But now wait a minute. You got
to have clothing. You got to pay the rent or make
the house payment. You got to buy electricity and
all of these things. And what this rider is telling
you is this, if the rider on the red horse did not slaughter
you, I'm going to make life very difficult for you. and do not
harm the oil and the wine. You Christians can't afford that. Just leave it alone. Now, it's
there. Listen, folks, there is food
aplenty if you have the money. But Christians would not have
the money. Why? They've been put out of their
jobs. Many of our forefathers, our spiritual forefathers, And
you can read about it in the seven churches of Asia Minor.
Many of them were members of craft guilds or a union. And each union or craft guild
had its tutelary god, that is, or what you might call today
a patron saint. and they had parties and festivals
for their patron saint, all right? And they worshipped that patron
saint or that little god that they had. Now here you are, you
are a Christian and you are a member of the union or the guild, and
when it comes time for you to put incense on that altar, you
say, oh, I can't do that. That would be idolatry. I can't
worship. You're God. You know what they
do? They kick you out of the union. They kick you out of the
guild, and then you can't get a job. Now, how are you going
to provide for your family if you cannot find a job, or you
have to find a job doing something that nobody else wants to do?
That's what this writer has come to do. He's on his black horse,
and he's going to make life very difficult for you. Many Christians have been fired
from jobs simply because they told a co-worker about Jesus
Christ. In the United States of America
right now, if you are a school teacher in a government school
and they find a Bible on your desk, you're going to lose your
job. You're going to lose your job. That's the rider on the
black horse. This rider on the black horse
comes and if you witness for Jesus or if you will not worship
the God or the gods of the government, they put you out of your job.
And the rider on the black horse is going to make life very difficult
for you. He has come to do so. This is
that rider on the black horse. All right. By the way, before
I leave that point, you can get a good job and you can make more than a
denarius if you'll do this. Take the mark of the beast and
wear it on your forehead. the infamous 666. Now let me say this about that
666. If you are a child of God, do
not be afraid of it. Do not be afraid of it. Because
God comes and puts his mark on your forehead. You can read this
also in the book of Revelation. You may not be able to see it,
God does. When angels come to destroy parts
of the earth, God's wrath will not fall on his children. They've
got his mark on their forehead. But if you do not take the mark
of God, then you take the mark of the beast, 666. And if you
have the 666, why, you can buy, you can get a good job, you can
live life easily. Now, you're going to find some
people who are going to try to scare you and say, now, don't
take the 666. Some say it's in the credit card,
okay? Well, if you get a credit card, that's 666, the mark of
the beast. No, it's not. If you are a child
of God, don't you worry about the mark of the beast. It is
impossible for you to take it. If God's mark is on you forward,
the mark of the beast cannot be there. Now, if you got the
mark of the beast, well, you don't have to worry. You got
plenty of money. You can eat. You can wine and dine and live
luxuriously. But if you're a child of God
and taking a stand for Christ, watch out. You're liable to lose
your job. Life is liable to become very
rough for you. And though you may not be slain,
Your life will be full of blackness by the rider on this black horse.
Now there's one more horse. Verse 5. When he opened the fourth
seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying,
Come and see. So I looked and behold a pale
horse. Under the name who sat on it
was death, and Hades followed with him. And power was given
to them over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword, with
hunger, with death, and by the bees of the earth." Now, he's
got a sword. It's not the sword, the little
sword. It's the javelin, a longer sword. It's the sword that you
come close to somebody and drive it through them. It is not the
sword necessarily of the government, but it is the sword of this one
called death riding on his pale horse. Now consider his horse. His horse is pale. It's probably
a sickish looking green. This word came to signify the
color of a white person's skin after he dies. After he dies,
if he's not embalmed or whatever, leave it there. And the skin
takes on a sickly, pale, greenish-looking, yellowish-green. Alright? That's
the color of this horse. And he is signifying death. Meaning that if the rider on
the red horse did not slaughter you, if the rider on the black
horse has not starved you to death, then we'll find some other
way. We'll find some other way. And
this is that rider on the pale horse. His name is Death because
that's what he inflicts. His inseparable companion is
Hades, the place where the wicked go. And death comes and kills
people in various ways, four different ways, and Hades gathers
them all up. These are the only two names
given to anyone associated with these four horses. Death and
Hades are given power over a fourth of the earth. God lets them have
power over a fourth of the earth, meaning not all the earth, but
much of it. And since Christians are on the
earth, they have to suffer along with those who suffer the things
that are inflected by this rider on the pale horse and his inseparable
companion, Hades. They're killed. in four ways. First is with sword, as in wars
between nations. Second is with hunger, as in
famines. Third is with death, as in outbreaks
of pestilences, such as black death, bubonic plague, measles,
smallpox, influenza, and others. And fourth is with wild beasts,
as when feeding people to wild animals. Now notice those four
things. Listen, folks, I hope, I hope that when I finish this
message, when you read the newspaper, when you see the news on TV or
hear it on the radio, I hope that from now on, at least in
some stories, you can say, that's the red horse rider, or that's
the black horse rider, or that's the pale horse rider. Now what
are these four means by which he is given power to inflict
death? All right, first is with sword,
as in wars between nations. Wars between nations, you know, If a war involved only this army
against this army, I mean, okay, that's bad enough, but armies
don't do that. If some country decided to make
war with the government of St. Croix, they're not gonna just
go get government house. No, no, no. They're gonna get
everybody. Get everybody, all right? Dropping
bombs all over, killing civilians as well. And since we Christians
are among the civilians, we suffer as well. When you read about
world wars, there was a world war fought in the early 1900s.
They say, this is the war to end all wars. It didn't stop
it. There was a second world war. There was, after that, a Korean
War. There was a Vietnam War. I had
to go to the military because of it. Or I should say I volunteered
when I got drafted, but it was because of a war. War going on today. Afghanistan. War has been going on every day. Probably since the dawn of creation. But from now on, when you read
about war, I want you to remember this. Christians are suffering
along with other people who are afflicted in war. It's the rider
on the pale horse. What else is he doing? Famine,
hunger. When a famine hits, if a famine
hits St. Croix, everybody suffers. You suffer along with the most
wicked person on the island. What else is it? Pestilence.
You realize there have been pestilences such as death, bubonic plague. And black death, the black plague,
wiped out almost entire parts of Europe and Africa. There are
plagues in Africa right now that are wiping out much of the population,
just like it did in Europe a few years ago, like it did in London
a couple centuries ago. Now, Do you think that just because
you're a Christian, you're not going to get the plague? No,
no. No, no, no. No, it's indiscriminatory. This
is the rider on the pale horse feeding people to the lions. Do you see what I'm talking about
now? When you read your newspaper, hear the news on the radio, see
it on the TV, You can say, wait a minute, the book of Revelation
talks about this. And it does. It does. When you
read about people hearing the gospel and a lot of people being
saved at one time, that's the rider on the white horse. Jesus
Christ. When you read about people being
slaughtered because they're Christians, that's the rider on the red horse.
When you read about Christians losing their jobs because of
their testimony for Jesus Christ and because they will not worship
another, that's the rider on the black horse. When you're
hearing about war and famine and pestilence and disease, that's
the rider on the pale horse. It's happening every day, folks,
all around us. It's not something just in the
future. It's today. It's been going on
ever since John heard these words, I will show you things which
must shortly take place. And they started. And they started. I want you to know this. I want you to pray with me. Pray
with me that Jesus Christ might get on his white horse and come
to St. Croix. Come to St. Croix. Pray that he might come
to St. Croix and start saving his people. Would that not be a glorious
thing? But remember this, if he does, you may have to lose
your life for Christ. Count the cost. You may have
to lose your job. Count the cost. And there may
be other things as well that happen. But these are the riders
on the white horse happening every day all around us. Let's
be ready. Oh God our Father, bless your
people we pray. May that white horse come into
our presence today with the arrows of conviction and save us in
Jesus' name. Amen.