I want us to begin reading in
verse 9 through verse 17. Revelation chapter 6 and verse
9, And when he had opened the fifth
seal, 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 abend 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 should be killed, as they were should be
fulfilled. And I beheld when he had opened
the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake, and the
sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became
as blood. And the stars of heaven fell
unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs
when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed
as a scroll when it is rolled together, and every mountain
and island moved out of their places. And 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 said unto
the mountains, And rocks, fall on us, and hide us from the face
of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.
For the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able? to stand. I've entitled our study
tonight, The Righteous and the Wicked. This fifth and sixth
seal that our Lord Jesus Christ has opened here gives us a view
of heaven. And what we see here is His redeemed
people under the altar pleading for vengeance upon their enemies. And the sixth seal reveals who
those enemies are. They're the ungodly, the unbelievers. The fifth seal reveals those
who have been persecuted and even killed because they profess
Christ and His gospel. And they're there in heaven,
and you notice they're resting. They're resting there. Their
labor is finished. And they're waiting for the resurrection,
the redemption of the body. and how tender Christ deals with
His martyrs there. He tells them to rest a little
longer, just a little while longer, until their fellow servants should
be killed as they are. What a vast difference we see
in the sixth seal, though. This reveals the day of judgment
that is yet to come on this ungodly world of unbelievers. And the
same Lord here that so tenderly dealt with the saints in heaven
under the altar. He now deals in wrath with those
that had rejected him and despised his gospel and despised his people. And the wicked, we are told here,
flee from his face and they cry for the rocks and the mountains
to fall on them. That is a strange prayer meeting,
isn't it? They cry for the rocks, they pray for the mountains to
fall on them. For they said, The great day
of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand? So this
fifth seal and the sixth seal reveals unto us the distinction
that's made between the righteous and the wicked. And it's always
been that way, hasn't it? Way back in Egypt, remember the
night that they put the blood over the post of the doors? And
God said, I'll show tonight that I have made a difference between
Egypt and Israel. And here's the righteous, and
the Lord Jesus comforts them. And here's the wicked, and his
wrath is ready to fall on them. As I was reading this the last
couple of days, I thought of Isaiah chapter 3. And here's
what it says. Say ye to the righteous, it shall
be well with him. He shall eat the fruit of his
doings." You know the righteous may suffer. They will suffer. We have no idea how much they
may suffer. Persecutions from their enemies,
sickness in body. Who knows what the righteous
may suffer? But isn't this comforting? That no matter what they suffer
and go through in this life, it can be said to them, it shall
be well with your soul. That's copper, isn't it? Say
ye to the righteous. That's not presumption. That's
the word of the Lord. Think of poor Joseph who suffered
at the hands of his brother. How he suffered. Or think of
Job who suffered at the hands of Satan. And Stephen and James
who suffered at the hands of their persecutors. For thy sake
we are killed. all the day long, but say ye
it to the righteous, it shall be well with him." This is where
our trials are experienced. This is where all the persecutions
that we endure is in this lifetime. When the righteous leave this
life, that's all over with. It's finished. They go there
unto the altar, and they'll be at rest. Say ye to the righteous,
it shall be well with them. But the next verse says this,
But woe to the wicked, it shall be ill with him, for the reward
of his hands shall be given unto him. Brothers and sisters, I
want to die a believer. Don't you? I want to live a believer. I want to live in Christ. I want
to serve Christ. I want to worship Christ. I want
to die in Christ. I want to die the death of the
righteous. Because I know and you know that
there's a difference between the righteous and the wicked.
Between those who are in Christ and those who are not in Him. The Lord puts a distinction.
The early church learned pretty quick what it meant to take the
Word of God as their rule of faith and practice. Because as
soon as they did, they began to suffer for it. The Lord Jesus
said this, Father, I have given them Thy Word. They have received
Your Word. They love Your Word. They read
Your Word. They meditate on your word. They hope in your word. They
walk in the light that your word gives them. And the world has
hated them. The world is offended at them.
The world is angry with them. The world persecutes them. Why? Simply because they believe God's
word. Simply because they profess that
Jesus Christ is the Lord and the Savior and Him only. The
Lord Jesus told those persecuting Jews, He said, Behold, I send
unto you prophets, I send you wise men and scribes, and some
of them you shall kill, and you shall crucify, and some of them
you shall scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city
to city. And why did they do that? Because
they said the Word of God is infallible. The Word of God is
real. And I believe it. And I'm taking
it as my rule of faith and my rule of practice. And the world
hated them because of that. Ain't that amazing? Don't that
say something about this world? It wasn't said here that these
souls under the altar were killed because they were murderers.
Or they were robbers. Or they were hateful people.
They killed them because of the Word of God. And they killed
them because they had the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the only reason they killed them. And yet the Bible calls the church
a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and
a peculiar or purchased people. And these martyrs under the altar,
they had helped fast the Word of God. They embraced it. They
held it close to their hearts. They had it in their affections.
They loved it. They counted it their treasure.
And they went about bragging on the Lord Jesus Christ. He
was truly the Son of God, the real Messiah. And He is my righteousness. He is all my salvation. All my
desire and all my hope of heaven is the Lord Jesus Christ. And
I'm saved by His free and sovereign grace." And boy, the world said,
we hate you. We're going to kill you if we
can. And that's what they did. He saw the souls of them that
were under the altar that they had been slain for the Word of
God and for the testimony. And that's the only reason that's
given why they killed them. And he says here that they are
under the altar. In the Old Testament, they had
two altars in the ceremonial wall. They had one altar that
was called the burnt offering. You remember that. They put the
burnt offerings on this altar and burn it. And they took the
blood and they poured it out. There at the foot of the altar,
I imagine they had a big basin they poured it in. And then they
had another altar inside the holy place in the tabernacle.
And it was called the altar of incense. They burned incense
on that altar continually. We don't know which one of these
altars this is. Maybe it represents both those
altars. The Lord Jesus Christ died as a sacrifice for our sins. So there's the altar of burnt
offerings. And He is to God and He is to us a sweet savor of
life, isn't He? And now you see under the altar,
His saints, He died as an offering for their sins, and now they
died for His glory, for His service. And you know something? I think,
I really believe, that their death is a sweet incense to God
and to Christ. Because they offered themselves
a sacrifice for His glory and for His honor. under the altar. And notice verse 10. 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? How do we understand this? Especially
in the light of the cross, when the Lord Jesus said, Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do. Or when Stephen
prayed for his persecutors and said, lay not this sin to their
charge. Or when Christ said this, when
He instructed us to love our enemies, bless them that curse
you and pray for them which despitefully use and persecute you. Well,
all of that is true, isn't it? In this lifetime we do pray for
our enemies. We pray God bless them and forgive
them and save them. Don't lay this sin to their charge.
But you know, that's just one side of it, isn't there? There's
another side too. There is coming a day when God
will take vengeance on a wicked world that has persecuted His
people. And that's what this is about
here. They had been killed by the wicked people of this world.
And all they were saying, Lord, avenge our blood. Bring about
the day that you will take vengeance on those that persecuted us for
your namesake. And that is the only reason they
did it, for Christ's sake. And that is what these saints
were justly praying for. And notice here in verse 11,
the Lord responds to this request. First of all, he said white robes
were given unto every one of them. This white robe is the
robe of salvation. We know that from other places
in the scripture. It's the spotless white garments
of Christ's righteousness. That's what that is. Paul talked
about a crown of righteousness being laid up for him. Remember
that? Well, here we find out a white robe is laid up for them. You say, Bruce, don't the saints
have this robe now? In this lifetime? Well, of course
they do, don't they? The righteousness of Christ is
imputed to every believer right now. But boy, in this lifetime,
you can hardly see the robe, can you? I mean, it's a robe
of righteousness that we have by faith. And it's in this body of sin
and death. And we lose sight of it, don't
we? Because of this struggle in our
flesh. It's difficult to keep sight
of that beautiful robe when you're living in an ungodly body. But there's coming a day, brothers
and sisters, when you will be in a place where there is no
sin, there is no body of death, and what you will see plainly
in that day is that you have been given this white robe of
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. That will be all
your dress in heaven. What we have a difficult time
here seeing, it will be very plain there. White robes were
given unto them. How many of them? All of them. It said everyone, didn't it?
Everyone. Me? I have a white robe given
to me by the Lord of Glory. That's what He said. And to you
too, if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, look what He said to
them. It was said unto them that they
should rest for a little season. Rest. We have rest here, don't we? We have come to the Lord Jesus
Christ and He has given rest for our souls. But that rest
is difficult to retain, isn't it? We get in a place where our
faith is weak and we lose our rest. We get in a dark place
in our life or an awful trial and we lose our rest. It's difficult
to maintain this rest. We're always coming back to Christ. Lord, give me rest. Give me rest
for my soul. But you know something? There's
coming a day when you'll get a greater rest. Here is where
we rest in Christ. But there's coming a Sabbath
day. A Sabbath of rest. And that's what the saints will
experience in heaven. Rest a little longer. Rest. Look here how he says it in the
14th chapter of Revelation. In the 14th chapter of Revelation,
this verse 13 has been preached so many times at so many funerals. And it's such a blessed verse.
And look how he says it. Verse 13 of chapter 14. And I heard a voice from heaven
saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the
Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they
may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them. There
is a great rest coming for God's children, and they won't be disturbed
by anything in heaven. Rest, rest, rest. When those angels come down and
bundle poor Lazarus up, and he left all of his sores behind,
you know where he went to? He went to rest. Never rested. He was in too much pain. Dogs
are licking his sores, but he's got rest now. Rest. Rest a little longer. Back here in our text again,
And look at this. This is very interesting. He
told them how long they should rest. Here in verse 11, And white
robes were given unto them, and it was said unto them that they
should rest a little season, until their fellow servants also
and their brethren should be killed, as they were should be
fulfilled. There's some more saints that
was going to die. That's what he's saying. You've died for
my glory and my cause. And now I'm telling you rest
for a little season because there's some more of my saints, your
brethren and fellow laborers, that they're going to die as
well. And we can learn something from this, brothers and sisters.
There are saints probably from every age in different locations
in this world that are selected out They're chosen out from the
church to die for the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ. We learn
that from this, don't we? Remember John the Baptist? I
think he knew that he's going to die. That he was chosen out
for death, for the glory of Christ. He said, Christ must increase,
but I must decrease. And boy, decrease he did. quickly
and gave his head, didn't he? And went off the stage. And Peter,
the Lord Jesus told Peter, he said, Peter, when you're young,
like you are now, you're somewhat arrogant, you pretty much come
and go as you please. But he said, when you're old,
they're going to lead you by your hand and take you to a place
that you don't want to go. And the Bible tells us that the
Lord predicted his death when He told him that. He was one
of those selected out. And Paul said himself that the
time of my departure is at hand. I'm ready to be offered. I'm
ready to be poured out. And he died a martyr. He was
selected for that very cause to die. So there are people right
now, I doubt that it's any of us, But who can tell? The Lord has selected them out
to suffer martyrs for His sake and for His glory. One reason the wrath of God hasn't
come on this cruel world already is because there are other things
that have to be fulfilled. The Lord said, I can't, I can't,
I won't avenge your blood now because there's other things
that has to happen. And brothers and sisters, the
Lord hasn't come in judgment up to this very day because other
things has to happen. One thing that has to happen,
he hasn't saved all his elect yet. That's why God is so long-suffering
to usward. He has elect people out there
that He's yet to call and give them life and forgive their sin. Learn something else from this
portion of this verse, too. Those wicked people who persecuted
and mistreated and killed the saints, have also been selected
out to that end. Now this is a fearful thing.
It's a fearful thing. It's one thing for the saints
to be set aside and chosen to be killed. But what about those
who do the killing? Is there a man who have been
selected for that cause to persecute the church of God? I think so. Remember what the Lord told Pharaoh? Pharaoh had brought the children
of Israel into bondage and made slaves out of them, wouldn't
let them go. And when Moses went and confronted
him, said, the Lord said, let them go. He said, who's the Lord?
Who is the Lord that I should obey? Was that man chosen out to do
what he did? He was, wasn't he? For this purpose
have I raised you up to persecute my people, that I might show
forth my power in you." What about Judas? Was he chosen to
betray Christ? Of course he was. Have I not
chosen you twelve and one of you is the devil? He was chosen
to that end. King Herod was raised up to put
Peter in prison and to kill James with a sword. He's raised up
for that purpose. And listen to what Jude said.
There are certain men which have crept in unawares, unnoticed,
who were before ordained to this condemnation. Their names were
written down of old, and they have been selected to do horrible
things. But what kind of character do
they have? Jude said, the ungodly man. You can't blame God for
choosing them out to something that they wanted to do to begin
with, can you? They turned the grace of God
into lasciviousness, denying the only Lord and our Lord Jesus
Christ. So in the fifth seal, what do
we see? We see those saints in heaven.
And they are under the altar. Their sins have been atoned for.
They've given themselves a sacrifice laid down their necks for the
cause of Christ. And the Lord Jesus speaks so
tenderly to them and tells them to just rest a little longer.
until their brothers and their fellow servants be killed, and
then they would experience a glorious resurrection. So that's what's
taking place now in this fifth seal. Now let's look quickly
at verses 12 through verse 17, the wicked. And what does all
of this symbolize? When you're talking about the
sun being blackened, the moon being as blood, the stars from
heaven falling. What does all this symbolize?
And it is symbols, but it teaches us of a dreadful day that's coming. You can read commentaries on
this, and I think I've read just about all of them, but I have
anyway. And they searched through history, and they found that
some of these things are true literally. And I didn't know
this because I don't know that much about history, but if you
read Gill and Albarnes and some of the other people that were
somewhat historians, they've recorded days in the history
of this world in the last 2,000 years of the sun growing dark. I mean, it got dark not just
in an eclipse, but it went out. They said when you looked up
at the sun, it was just a black ball. And they've got it recorded
in different countries. Then they've also seen the moon
get so red, they said it looked like it was just pure blood.
Of course, earthquakes, we've experienced thousands and thousands
and thousands of earthquakes. The stars fall into the earth.
We have recorded in history that People have seen showers of stars
falling from heaven. They've described it as like
leaves in the fall falling from trees. Just multitudes and multitudes
of stars coming down from their orbits. And in a way, I can understand where they would get that this
is what that's talking about. But when we read this here, this
is not talking about things that people have experienced before.
No matter what they saw the sun look like, that's different than
what our text is saying. No matter how many stars they
saw falling out of their orbits, that's different than this. This
isn't something that People have experienced in the past. This
is something that will be experienced in the future. And it's sudden
and it's dreadful. It's the most awful catastrophe
that's ever come upon this world. And what is it? It's described
here in our text, the day of his wrath. That's never happened
before, has it? The day of his wrath. Not a day,
but the day of His wrath is come. I think if you and I were just
reading this honestly and reading it as a child, we would have
to say this is something that's really, really serious. This
has never been experienced in this world before. We would have
to say it's future and The destruction is coming on the atmosphere,
on the moon, on the sun, on the stars, on the mountains and the
islands, and it's coming upon mankind, the wicked mankind. I'm not saying there's never
been times and events that somewhat resemble these things, but I'm
saying that what these things symbolize Even the Bible everywhere
predicts this to be the last day of the history of this world.
Listen to Isaiah 2, 19 and 21. And they shall go into the holes
of the rocks and to the caves of the earth for the fear of
the Lord and for the glory of His majesty. That sounds just
a little bit like our text, doesn't it? They're hiding in the cliffs
and the mountains and the holes and the dens. Why? because of
the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake terribly the
earth. In that day shall a man cast
his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which he has made himself
to worship. He shall cast them to the moles
and to the bats. to go into the clefts of the
rocks, and to the tops of the jagged rocks, for the fear of
the Lord, and for the glory of His majesty, when the Lord arises
to shake terribly the earth." So there is the earthquake. I
beheld a great earthquake. What is that? The Lord is rising
to judge the earth. And what does He do? He shakes.
Listen to Hebrews 12. See then that ye refuse not him
that speaketh. For if they escape not who refuse
him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we
turn away from him that speaks from heaven, whose voice then
shut the earth. Remember when he gave the law
on Mount Sinai? The earth was shaken. But now
he has promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth
only, but also heaven. And this word yet once more signifying
the removing of those things that are shaken as of things
that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore, we receiving the kingdom
which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve
God acceptably with reverence and godly ear. Everything is
going to be shaken. And the only thing that will
not be shaken is that which cannot be shaken. That's the kingdom
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Cannot be shaken. And listen
to what Peter says about this day. In 2 Peter 3. The day of the Lord. That's what
he calls it. The day of the Lord shall come
as a thief in the night, and of which the heavens shall pass
away with a great noise. Don't that sound like this scroll
that's being rolled up? The heavens rolled as a scroll,
and it fled away. And the elements shall melt with
fervent heat, and the earth also, and the works that are therein
shall be burned up. Nevertheless, we, according to
His promise, look for a new heaven and a new earth." So we get a
picture of this symbol. We look at these symbols, and
what's happening? The earth is trembling, a violent
shaking of the whole earth. And then you look up in the sky
and the sun is black as sackcloth. The moon is dripping red with
blood. The stars are falling into the
earth as a fig tree shedding her figs in a mighty storm. The heaven itself is rolled together
like a scroll and all the mountains and islands are moved out of
their place. And what is this? It's symbols
that depict the dreadful day of the Lord, when He comes again
to judge the wicked. The great day of His wrath is
come, and who shall be able to stand? And look at who it affects in
verse 15. And the kings of the earth, and
the great men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men,
and every bondman, and every free man, slaves and free men. hid themselves in the rocks and
in the dens of the earth. It affects everybody outside
of Christ. They cried for the rocks and
the mountains. One man said this, he said, If men will not seek
the Lord to be saved by His grace, they will seek for the rocks
and mountains to hide them from His wrath. If men refuse to bow
and kiss the Son of God, they will be terrified to look upon
His face. And I think one of the most dreadful
words is found in verse 16. Hide us from the face of Him
that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. You and I read about the wrath
of God. To them that believe not, the wrath of God abides
on them. We read about the curse of the law. Cursed is everyone
who continues not in all things written in the book of the law
to do them. But you know men have been saved from the wrath
of God. And men have been saved from the curse of the law. But
whoever was saved from the wrath of the Lamb? Nobody. Nobody. We could say that's the
last straw. The wrath of the Lamb comes when
the gospel has been fully rejected, when mercy has been despised,
and there is no remedy. That is when the wrath of the
Lamb will come. What have we seen in this chapter
with the loosening of these seals? We saw in the first seal that
Christ was going forth conquering and to conquer. And you know
He's still doing that today. He's already conquered and He's
still conquering. And He'll conquer death someday.
That's His last enemy. In this second seal and third
seal and fourth seal, we see that things pretty much continue
as it's always done. Things hasn't changed that much,
has it? Those wicked men that denied the coming of the Lord,
that's one of the things that they said that's really true.
Everything continues as it was. And it pretty much has. You open
one of the seals and there was war. Peace was taken from the
earth. It's still taken from the earth.
We're still having wars. It opens another seal and you
see economic distress. Inflation, people having struggles
just getting by in this world, financially and so on. And then
we see death. One quarter of the people in
this world under this fourth seal, under the fifth seal, wasn't
it, died a violent death. Did you notice that? Diseases, pestilence, even from
the beast of the earth. But you know something? This
has been going on now ever since John wrote this book. All of
these things are still going on today. What haven't we seen in this
chapter? We went from Christ going forth
to conquer one aspect of life, and we'll get into chapter 7
and see another aspect of life. But one of the things we haven't
seen all the way up to the coming of our Lord, we haven't seen
these two things that I told you about you would not see.
One is a seven-year tribulation. Do we see that anywhere in this
chapter? We went through this aspect of life in the opening
of these seals all the way up to the judgment. We still haven't
seen seven years of tribulation. And I don't think anybody can
look at the opening of this sixth seal and say that's a secret
rapture. That's not a secret rapture.
There is no secret rapture, brothers and sisters, in the Bible. You say, Bruce, we'll see it
later on. Okay. Okay. We'll look for it
then. But I doubt we'll see it. May
the Lord bless His Word. Mr. Baker, would you dismiss
us in prayer?