Forecasting Hope 5: Revelation's Seven Seals (Pastor Greg Hudson, 10/17/24)

And so in our last session, we did talk about a portion of the Bible that Antichrist has

wanted to do away with, wanting to do away with God's law, because if you remember, God's

law points us to the character of Jesus, and it tells us about who Jesus is, and if we

look at the law, we see our sinfulness, and if we see our sinfulness, then we're reminded

of our need of a Savior, and so it drives us to the foot of the cross.

And so a question was asked about, what about the statement that says, we're not under law,

we're under grace?

So that is actually in Romans chapter 6.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 6 is where Paul writes about that, in Romans chapter 6, and that chapter

Romans 6 · chapter mention Romans 6 · chapter mention

ends in verse 23, where it says, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal

life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So that's a very famous verse.

But the verse under question is verse 15, verse 14, it says, for sin shall not have

dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

So Romans 6, 14, you are not under law, but under grace.

And so some would say, well, that means that we don't need to keep the law.

The law's done away with, it's not relevant anymore because we're under grace now, we're

not under the law.

But notice the very next verse, what does Paul say?

He says, what then?

Shall we sin because we're not under the law, but under grace?

And then the very next phrase, he says, certainly not.

Or in the King James Version, it actually says, God forbid.

So no, that's not what it's saying at all.

And sin, according to the Bible in James, it says sin is the transgression.

I think I'm dropping out again, am I?

No?

Okay.

So Paul is not saying that the law's done away with, but he's saying that it's not

the thing that is most powerful, the thing that is most important in our life.

Because if we're under the law, that means we are trying to save ourself.

And that would be the mindset that if I can just live my life perfectly, then I can save

myself.

So are we under the law as a means of salvation?

No, we're under grace as a means of salvation.

Shall we sin?

Shall we break the law?

By no means, God forbid.

And then it says, do you not know that to whom you present yourself, slaves to obey,

you are that one slave whom you obey?

Whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness.

And so we are supposed to be not a slave to the law because we're living under grace.

But that doesn't mean that we're to forget God's law because God's law, as we saw, is

simply a mirror.

And as we look at the Ten Commandments, I see times that I have fallen short, as it

says in Romans 3 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

And if I recognize that I fall short of God's glory, then I recognize that I am in need

of a Savior.

And if I see I'm in need of a Savior, then I'm going to go to the cross and I'm going

to recognize and confess my sins.

And like it says in 1 John 1 9, if we confess our sins, God, He is faithful and just to

forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So thank you for that question.

Did you pass out the ones?

Okay, you've already got the response cards.

If you have any more questions, please fill those out.

If you have any prayer requests, please write those on the back as well.

And I do have an announcement for scheduling.

So we are meeting tonight, Revelation 7 seals, tomorrow night, Revelations worship war, and

then we're meeting Saturday night, the keys to death, and then Sunday night, we're going

to look at the characteristics of the mark of the beast.

Excuse me, not the mark of the beast, but the beast.

And then the one after that, we'll look at the mark of the beast.

But we are going to add a session just because our meetings are short.

And so Saturday morning, this church meets for church on Saturday morning, and we're

going to have a session.

We're going to do part of this series Saturday morning at 11.

So if you can make it Saturday morning at 11, we would love for you to join us as we

want to fit in another topic in our Forecasting Hope series.

But we're going to get started now on Revelations 7 seals.

So let's bow our heads for a prayer.

Dear God, we thank you so much that you have promised us grace.

You have given us an incredible gift, and Jesus died for our sins.

And Lord, as we gather here tonight, we recognize that we are sinners, and we're desperately

in need of the blood of Jesus that was shed on the cross.

We thank you for that and that law that points us to you.

And Lord, as we open up your Word tonight, as we dig into Revelation, just help us to

see again a new picture of Jesus and of all that you have in store for us.

In your name we pray, amen.

So they've done studies, and they've tried to figure out what people worry about.

Because if you're like most people, we tend to worry about lots of different things.

And so as they studied what people worry about, they found out that about 40% of the things

that people worry about never end up happening.

We may worry about it, but it doesn't happen.

And then another 30% of things that we worry about are things that happened in the past.

They've already occurred.

And then 12% of the things we worry about actually involve we worry about what other

people think about us or say about us.

And so if you add that up, that comes to about 82% of the things that we worry about are

actually out of our control.

We can't change something.

We can't do anything about something that's not going to happen.

We can't change something that has already happened.

And whether we like it or not, we really can't change what other people say about us or think

about us.

So 82% of the things that we worry about, we can't control.

They're out of our hands.

It's something else that's causing those things.

And so tonight we're going to look at Revelation's seven seals.

And the Bible gives us some good news because we're going to see in Revelation that even

though so many things are out of our control, that things often are always in God's control.

And God can foresee and know what's going to happen.

And even when bad things happen in our life, we know that God says He's never going to

leave us and He's never going to forsake us.

So we don't have to worry because we can recognize that God is in control and we can have assurance

and confidence that no matter what happens, we know that God is with us.

So I invite you to take your Bible.

We're going to go to Revelation chapter five.

Revelation chapter five.

Most of our time tonight is going to be in Revelation chapter six, but we have to start

in chapter five in order to get a context, in order to set the scene and recognize what

is going on.

And just a reminder, the very first verse of Revelation, Revelation one, one, it begins

with the words, the revelation of Jesus Christ.

And so all that we're looking at is really pointing us to Jesus.

And so in Revelation five, it's a picture of a throne room.

Revelation four and Revelation five is this throne room of heaven.

And we're going to see God here taking a scroll and this is what John sees in vision.

So I want you to kind of just maybe try to picture this.

Imagine what John saw.

So we're going to pick up the story in Revelation five and verse one.

The Bible says, and I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne, a scroll written

inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals.

So you can picture a scroll, you know, a rolled up piece of paper or perhaps parchment or

skin or something like that, that they would use to communicate, that they would write

messages.

And then this particular scroll has seven seals.

Now perhaps at some time you have received something in the mail that was fancy or important,

maybe a wedding invitation or a Christmas card sometimes.

And sometimes those are sealed with a little bit of wax and perhaps somebody has stamped

their initial into it.

Mine would be an H, you know, for Hudson.

And it's stamped into that sealing that envelope.

And so this particular scroll, it says it has seven seals.

And then it says, I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the

scroll and to loose its seals?

And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to

look at it.

And so this is John writing and it says, so I wept much because no one was found worthy

to open or read the scroll or look at it.

But one of the elders said to me, do not weep.

Behold the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David has prevailed to open the scroll

and to loose its seven seals.

So there's a lot of symbols here.

So we've got to take a moment and try to unpack what's going on here.

We've got God the Father, he's sitting on the throne and in his hand he's got this scroll

and it's got these fancy seals on it, seven different seals.

And the focus of this vision seems to be on the scroll.

And there's a concern here because it says no one in heaven or on earth or under the

earth.

No one is able to open the scroll and this really upsets John.

And in fact, as we read, it says that he wept about it.

He wept much.

We're in Revelation chapter five, because no one is able to open this scroll.

So it seems as if this scroll is important thing for God's people, for the church.

And it upset John that they were unable to open it.

As I said, he wept much, so it must be something important.

But then finally, someone realizes that there is someone who is able to open the scroll.

Verse five, as we read, it says, the lion of the tribe of Judah or the root of David.

What are these?

What is this about?

Who do you think this is?

Who is the lion of the tribe of Judah or the root of David?

Now we're going to find out tonight as we've done night by night that in Revelation, at

least 50% of the verses, 50% of the passages actually reflect the Old Testament and they're

drawn from the Old Testament.

And so these two phrases, the lion of the tribe of Judah and the root of David, these

are both Old Testament phrases which point forward to the Messiah that was to come.

So they point forward to Jesus.

So in John's day, of course, Jesus has already walked on this earth.

He's already lived.

He's already died on the cross.

He's already ascended back to heaven.

So these Old Testament phrases point John and point us to show us that there is someone

who is worthy to open the scroll and that someone is Jesus.

Why is Jesus worthy to open the scroll?

Most of this chapter tells us why.

We're not going to read it all, but you can just kind of scan down through there and it

says in verse 9, you were worthy to take the scroll to open its seals for you were slain

and have redeemed us to God by your blood.

Seem in verse 12, worthy is the lamb who was slain.

Jesus is worthy because he died for our sins on the cross of Calvary.

That's good news here.

And so John sees this lion of the tribe of Judah and he also sees him as a lamb.

So this is an interesting concept that we see here and we see it several times in the

book of Revelation.

Several times John hears one thing and it says he turns and looks and he sees something

else, but it's the same thing even though it's given a different name or a different

title.

For instance, here in verse 5, it says, I heard and they said the lion of the tribe

of Judah, the root of David.

And then in verse 6, he says, I looked and behold, there stood a lamb.

So this lion of the tribe of Judah and this lamb, well, they're both talking about Jesus.

He heard the name one way and he turned and saw something else, but in essence, they're

the same thing.

And as I said, the rest of this chapter shows us why Jesus, the lamb of God, the lamb who

was slain is worthy to open the scroll because he died for our sins, because he came to this

earth to save fallen humankind.

Jesus is worthy to open the scroll and that is good news.

And that's why we can carry on and see in Revelation chapter 6 that these seals begin

Revelation 6 · chapter mention

to be open.

Now, in Revelation 1, it tells us several times that the visions that John receives

are to tell him things that must shortly take place.

And we're going to see in this vision of these seals that God is proclaiming ahead of time

a prophecy in advance, history in advance.

We saw it the other night as we looked at Daniel chapter 2.

Daniel 2 · chapter mention

In our very first night, I believe it was.

And it started in the days of Babylon.

And Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar, you are that head of gold.

And then we saw the different kingdoms, the Medes and the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans,

and then the divided kingdoms.

And then this rock came symbolizing the return of Jesus.

And that prophecy foretold history.

And many of the prophecies in Revelation do the same thing.

They describe history in advance.

And we're going to see in Revelation chapter 6 that these seven seals foretell the history

Revelation 6 · chapter mention

of the Christian church.

So from our day, it's going to reveal things that have already taken place.

It's going to reveal some things that are yet to take place.

And then it's going to kind of show us where we are in this prophetic history.

So just a preview of what's to come.

The first four seals are going to talk about the early church.

Church from the first century down through the Middle Ages.

And then the fifth seal is kind of going to focus on persecution that took place in the

Middle Ages.

And then the last two, six and seven, are going to look at some signs of Jesus' coming.

And then finally, the last one at the end of six and seven is actually the coming of

Jesus himself.

And so that's the background.

So turn over maybe just one page or look to the next column.

And we're going to jump into Revelation chapter 6 as we're going to begin to look at these

Revelation 6 · chapter mention

seven seals.

We're going to go to Revelation 6 and verse 1.

And the Bible says, Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard one of

the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder, Come and see.

And then verse 2 says, And I looked and behold a, what do we see here?

A white horse.

He who sat on it had a bow and a crown given to him, and he went conquering and to conquer.

So perhaps you have heard people talk about the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Anybody ever heard that phrase before?

The four horsemen of the apocalypse.

That phrase comes from the first four seals here in Revelation chapter 6, because we're

Revelation 6 · chapter mention

going to see four riders on different horses.

And each one of these horses we're going to see is actually a different color.

So what do we have here in this first seal?

So we've got a horse.

What color is the horse?

It's white.

And then somebody sitting on it.

And what did he have in his hand?

He's got a bow and probably an arrow as well.

And he's wearing on his head or he was given a crown there.

And that is a Stephanos crown.

So in the Bible, there's kind of two different crowns.

If we usually think of a crown that a king would wear, we would think of a golden crown.

And that word is diadem.

That's a diadem.

That's what kind of crown that is.

A Stephanos crown is typically made of like branches, perhaps olive branches.

If you recently watched the Olympics, I enjoy watching the Olympics.

In the ancient Olympics, when the people won the event, they did not get a gold medal.

They got a Stephanos crown.

They got a laurel wreath made out of olive branches.

And that symbolized the victory that they had.

And so here we have this rider on a white horse with a bow wearing this crown of victory.

And it ends by saying he went out conquering and to conquer.

Everywhere he went, this rider on the white horse was being victorious.

This rider was winning.

And so we have to ask ourselves, what is this?

What's going on here?

Who is this rider?

Is this real?

Is this symbolic?

Well most of the things, most of the prophecies in Revelation represent something.

Most of them are symbolic.

So we would need to figure out who is this rider on the horse.

And we could all probably throw something out, throw out ideas.

But as we've been wanting to do night by night, we want to let Scripture interpret itself.

We want to let the Bible interpret itself.

Now there's some who would say that this rider is the Antichrist power.

But I would have some challenges with that because nowhere in Scripture is Antichrist

represented with anything white, clothes or horse or whatever.

In the Bible, the color white represents purity and truthfulness and righteousness.

So I would suggest that this rider actually represents not the Antichrist, but represents

Jesus Christ.

Now I don't want to just say that.

I want to explore that.

So let's turn over to Revelation chapter 19.

Revelation 19 · chapter mention

We're going to look at verse 11, Revelation 19 and verse 11.

Notice what it says in Revelation 19 and verse 11.

It says, Now I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse.

And he who sat on him was called faithful and true.

Does that sound like an Antichrist power?

Faithful and true?

And then it says, In righteousness he judges and makes war.

So a righteous judge who's called faithful and true, it goes on and says his eyes were

like a flame of fire and on his head were many crowns.

So this seems very much like the same rider.

A difference though we must point out is the crowns that this rider is wearing are the

diadems, the golden crown, whereas the other rider was wearing the victory crown.

But you can see in verse 16 that this rider in Revelation 19, he's actually named.

He's called the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

So I think that pretty clearly shows who this rider is.

And I think that it's the same rider that we see back in the end of the first seal in

Revelation chapter six.

And so what we have is a picture of Jesus leading the early church, the New Testament

church when the disciples were still alive, those who had spent time with Jesus, those

who had ministered with Jesus, those who had listened to the messages of Jesus, those who

Jesus had sent out and had actually worked miracles in the name of Jesus.

And as later in the book of Acts, they were beginning the New Testament church, they were

following the pure word of God.

They were accepting the righteousness of Jesus.

And in fact, in the book of Acts, they're described as saying that they turned the world

upside down.

And it even says that the entire world had heard the message of Jesus.

Now we know that's talking about the entire world there in that Mediterranean region.

But even in those early days, they were turning the world upside down, being victorious, not

with swords, not with battle, but with the gospel of Jesus.

And so in that case, this first seal in Revelation six would represent this pure church, this

victorious church that's sticking with the word of God, the pure word of God.

And it would go from about approximately 31 AD when Jesus was on this earth, when about

the time Jesus died on the cross, down to about 100 AD.

And that's about the time that the last living disciple or apostle died.

Does anyone remember who was the last living apostle, the last living disciple?

It was John, the one who wrote this book of Revelation.

He's the only one of the 12, the only one of the 11 of Jesus's disciples that died a

natural death.

All of the other disciples laid down their life and died as a martyr.

But John, the revelator, died about 100 AD after he had written Revelation, after he

had written the gospel of John, after he had written the letters, first and second and

third John.

And so he died about 100 AD, the last of those who led the church victorious as it went proclaiming

the gospel of Jesus.

So this is a really awesome seal here.

But let me just warn you that it's kind of all downhill from here.

This is kind of the high point.

It begins a slide from this time as the church begins to fall away, the pure word of God.

And so we're going to see that as we jump into the second seal.

That's going to be in verse three, Revelation chapter six and verse three.

So it says, when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying,

come and see.

And another horse, what color is this one?

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.

So before we even take the time to try to interpret this, reading that, does that seem

like a positive thing or a negative thing?

It seems a little bit on the negative side because peace is taken from the earth and

people are killing each other and there's a great sword.

It doesn't sound like a good situation.

And so here we have a rider on a red horse.

He's got a sword.

He's taking peace away from people and because of that people are killing, slaying one another.

So that word, slay or kill, is actually kind of talking about the idea of butchering or

sacrificing, kind of a sacrificial killing, almost like a martyrdom is taking place.

And what we're going to discover is that the next time period of the church as they were,

as those early disciples and apostles had passed away, it was a time of great violence,

of great persecution.

So this horse is red.

And in the Bible, red often represents or symbolizes blood.

And so this is a time period when the church of Jesus is going to enter a time of bloody

persecution, when the sword will be used against those who are standing for Jesus and there'll

be many martyrs who give their life for Jesus.

And if you were looking at historical time periods, this would go from approximately

100, 100 AD down to about 313 AD.

And this was an era of great persecutions.

Do you remember who was ruling the land during this time, the second and third centuries?

If you look on this one, it would be the legs of iron.

So it would be the Roman Empire.

And at that time in the Roman Empire, it was illegal to even be a Christian.

If you were a Christian, you were the enemy of the state.

You were the enemy within.

You would be considered a criminal and you could lose everything.

You could even lose your life.

It was during this time that the Roman Empire determined that they were going to try to

stamp out Christianity forever, no matter what the cost.

And so it began to usher in a time of bloody persecution.

Anybody know what this structure is?

This is the Colosseum in Rome.

Anybody have been there?

I've never been there.

A few people have.

So this was an incredible structure and they say it seats about 60 or 70,000.

So if you think of a NFL stadium or a major league stadium with the World Series starting

soon, it would be about that size, except on the field of play, on the arena floor,

they were not trying to hit home runs or score touchdowns, but they were actually trying

to take people's lives.

Maybe it was gladiators fighting each other, but oftentimes it was ending the life of criminals.

Ending criminals out there to be killed by gladiators or by a ferocious beast, by lions.

And who did I say were considered criminals?

Those Christians, those followers of Jesus.

And so Rome would throw the criminals down onto the floor of this arena and 60,000, 70,000

people would cheer for some gladiators to strike them down, for some lions or leopards

or other beasts to come and devour them.

And that was the entertainment as these fans, as this crowd screamed out to see the blood

of Christians shed.

And yet so many of these Christians stood their ground in the face of death, in the

face of a sword, in the face of a lion.

They remained faithful to Jesus.

One ancient church historian, Yatsubius, notes what he says.

He writes, we saw the most marvelous inspiration, a force which was truly divine and the readiness

of those who had faith in the Christ of God.

Immediately, when sentence had been pronounced on one group, another group came before the

tribunal acknowledging themselves to be Christian and remaining unmoved before dangers and torments

of all kinds.

Indeed, they reasoned with joy the final sentence of death.

And they sang hymns and offered thanksgiving to God of all until their last breath.

So it's as if when they took off one group to be killed, the next group said, yes, we're

Christians as well.

And we will go to our death with joy as we sing hymns and offer thanksgiving to God.

They looked the swords down, they stared down the gladiators, the lions, whatever it was,

and they stayed faithful to Jesus.

They chose not to deny him, not to deny his teachings.

Do you think we need Christians like that in the world today?

They're willing to stand for God no matter what?

So often in our world today, if we face any kind of persecution, oh, somebody might laugh

at us.

They might say, why do you believe those fairy tales, whatever it is?

We're like, God, why is this happening to me?

Just because somebody's snickering at us or making fun of us.

We make excuses.

We make reasons to straddle the fence.

We make reasons to not believe.

But what if we could be like those early Christians?

No matter what, they were willing to stand for God.

I think we need to be willing to say that in our world today.

It doesn't matter if I'm in the minority.

It doesn't matter what people say about me.

It doesn't matter if it's inconvenient.

Jesus, I want to follow you.

I want to trust in you no matter what, in good times and in bad times.

What if we could all say that?

So this second seal perhaps makes us ask a question about ourself.

Am I a fair-weather Christian?

Have mercy.

Am I only following Jesus because it's easy right now?

What if following Jesus were to cost me something?

Do I truly love Jesus with all of my heart and all of my soul and all of my mind?

Is Jesus first in my life?

And so that's kind of the thought, the idea of this second seal that represents this time

of bloody persecution during the second and third centuries.

So let's move on to the third seal here in verse 5, Revelation 6 and verse 5.

It says, When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, Come

and see.

So I looked and behold, now what do we see?

A black horse.

And he who sat on it had a pair of scales 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 oil and the

wine.

Okay, this one's got some quite a few little symbolisms here.

We've got to unpack some of the imagery.

So we see this rider, this third rider in the third seal.

He's on a black horse.

What does he have in his hands?

Some scales.

So what do you do with scales?

You weigh things, you measure something, you're comparing something.

So if we think this through, the first seal was on what color horse?

A white horse, and it represented truth and purity.

So now we've got a rider on the opposite color horse, a black horse, a dark horse.

So if the white represented truth and purity, what do you think this black horse might represent?

Not truth, but air, not purity, but impurity, darkness.

And so in this third seal time period, we're going to see that the church, believe it or

not, the church is going to enter an age of darkness and compromise as they begin to slide

away from God's Word.

But before we look and see what happened, there's a couple other symbols we've got to

look at here.

Because it talks about some weights and some monetary things.

Verse 6, a quart of wheat for a denarius and three quarts of barley for a denarius.

What is this talking about?

A denarius in the Bible is a monetary unit.

And so it would be how much money you got when you went and worked a day.

So that would be your wages for one day.

If you went and worked for someone, you could expect to receive one denarius.

And so for that one denarius, for one day's work, you're going to get a little bit of

wheat, a little bit more barley.

So that's about enough to make bread for one person.

So you're going to work the whole day and you're going to have just enough to buy food

for one person for that day.

Not for your family, not for any other expenses of life, just enough to make enough for one

day.

And by the way, this is almost like famine time because the wheat and the barley, there's

inflation going on.

They cost more than they usually do.

And so this seems to be referencing some kind of famine taking place here.

Now in the Bible there were actual famines where there wasn't enough food.

But as we've been seeing, this is symbolic here.

So I think that again, Revelation is drawing from another part of the Old Testament.

Like I said, 50% of the verses are referencing some other part.

So we're going to go to the book of Amos.

Amos, I'm going to give you a little bit of time to get there.

So Amos is after the book of Daniel, between the book of Daniel and the beginning of the

New Testament.

You're going to find Daniel, Hosea, Joel, and then Amos.

It's about four little books right after Daniel, which we've been to before.

So Amos chapter 8 is what we're going to look at.

Amos 8 · chapter mention

So Amos is actually a prophet and he was a farmer.

So he would have known about planting, he would have known about famine and different

things like that.

So we're going to look at Amos chapter 8 and we're going to read in verse 11.

Amos 8 · chapter mention

Notice what's going on here.

God is talking to his people of Israel.

This is actually one of the time periods where they are moving in the wrong direction.

They're neglecting following God.

And notice Amos 8, 11.

The Bible says, behold the days are coming says the Lord, that I will send a famine on

the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the

Lord.

So there's going to be a famine, but it's going to be a famine for the words of the

Lord.

And then in verse 12, it says, they shall run to and fro seeking the word of the Lord,

but they shall not find it.

So there's going to be a famine, not about food, but a famine from the word of God.

And so Amos here is saying that if the people weren't following the words of God, that he

was going to stop sending those words through the prophets.

So there's a spiritual famine taking place and that seems to be what's happening back

in Revelation, that the church is going to enter into a period where it's not truly following

the word of God anymore.

There's going to be a famine for truth because the church begins to follow errors instead

of truth.

Remember, we said that for every truth that Jesus has, Satan has some sort of counterfeit.

And we see this time of spiritual darkness.

And this third seal goes from about 313 down to 538 when this church becomes compromised

and kind of begins to stop following the word of God.

So let's examine some history and see if that's what really happened.

So in 313, a gentleman by the name of Constantine, he's the emperor of Rome.

And in 313, Constantine becomes a Christian.

So before that, Christianity had been illegal and Christians had been considered criminals.

So you might think, well, that's the best thing that could ever happen.

Now the emperor's a Christian.

Not necessarily.

Before this, Constantine had been a pagan.

He participated in the pagan ceremonies, the pagan rituals, he followed the pagan religious

teachings.

And so when he becomes a Christian, suddenly Christianity is no longer illegal, but now

it's an accepted religion.

And in fact, it wasn't long before Christianity became the official religion of Rome.

So you would say, great.

Well, not necessarily.

Because Constantine wanted to unite his empire.

So he had Christians, he had pagans, and he wanted to bring them all together so they

could be a happy nation with him as the all-important emperor that everybody loved.

And so Constantine began to take some of the pagan teachings, the pagan philosophies, and

began to bring them into the Christian church.

For every truth that God has, there's some sort of error, there's some sort of counterfeit.

So let's look at an example here.

Eusebius, we already read him, the church historian.

Notice what he says about Constantine.

We are told by Eusebius that Constantine, in order to recommend the new religion to

the heathen, Christianity to the heathen, he transferred into it the outward ornaments

to which they had been accustomed in their own.

So in order to win, to convince, to woo these heathen, he put in it into Christianity many

of these concepts of the pagan religion.

He brought many of these things in, not to be evil, not to be wicked, but because he

wanted people to be united.

So it seemed like a good thing, but slowly but surely these teachings and traditions

of men began to be mixed with the word of God.

So let's look at an example, just so it's not just me talking up here.

So Sunday night we talked about the Ten Commandments.

Remember, we read those, we saw, yes, they're relevant.

They're in Exodus chapter 20, Deuteronomy chapter 5.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention Deuteronomy 5 · chapter mention

So the second commandment, for instance, let's just look at that one tonight.

The second commandment in Exodus 20, verses 4 and 5, you can turn there if you want to,

Exodus 20:4

that's where the Ten Commandments are found in Exodus 20.

The first commandment says, you shall have no other gods before me.

And the second commandment in Exodus 20, verse 4, the Bible says, you shall not make for

Exodus 20:4

yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in earth

beneath, or that is in the water under the earth, you shall not bow down to them, nor

serve them.

So we've heard that before in God's Holy Ten Commandment law, God clearly forbids graven

images, statues, and different things like that.

Why would you want to worship something that you've made when you can worship the Creator?

In fact, Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah, kind of has a humorous way of looking at it.

He says, you know, you go to the woods and you chop down a tree, and you take half of

the tree and you chop it up into firewood and you cook your bread, and then the other

half of the tree, you carve it into an idol and you worship it.

So half the tree you're using to cook your food, and the other half you're worshiping.

God says, don't do that.

But it was during this third seal time, this black horse period, that images and statues

begin to make their way into places of worship.

Now I'm going to show a picture here, and I want to be sensitive because I'm not trying

to talk about people, about individuals, but what we're looking at is through history,

and we're seeing how history fulfilled different Bible prophecies and how these compromises

came in.

So this is in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

So if you were to go to St. Peter's Basilica, there's a massive statue there, a massive

image, and they would say that that was designed as Peter.

That's Peter, St. Peter.

You can go, if you were to go there, you might see that the toe, one of the toes is almost

rubbed off because when people walk by, they want to rub that toe and receive the grace

or blessings or they kiss that toe of Peter.

Except if you were to research a little bit more, you would find that this statue was

not originally designed as Peter, but it was originally designed as the pagan god Jupiter.

And at a time down in history, they took that pagan god Jupiter, they put it into the church,

into the Basilica, and they said, well, we'll just use this same statue, this same image,

and we'll call him Peter.

And so this pagan god Jupiter has literally been placed in St. Peter's Basilica and renamed.

That's one example of paganism creeping into Christianity.

So we could say, well, how did this happen?

If that commandment says don't have any graven images, then why, if you go to different places,

why do they have these images?

So this is again something that happened through history.

There's some different versions of the Ten Commandments.

Let me show you an example here.

You can see that.

It's kind of small, I know, but on the left-hand side, the left-hand side is what it would

say in Exodus 20.

You shall have no other gods before me.

The second commandment says you shall not make for yourself a graven image.

The right-hand side has the Church of Rome, their version of the Ten Commandments.

You could find this in catechism or different places where they teach.

And notice it says you shall have no other gods before me.

But if you read the second, it says you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in

vain.

Well, that's not the second commandment.

The second commandment is don't make a graven image.

That's the third commandment.

So what happened?

Well, they took that second commandment and they just hit the delete button.

They erased that one.

They wiped it out.

But you've got to have ten commandments, right?

Well, so the tenth commandment, the ninth and tenth commandment, in the Bible it says

you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, your neighbor's house, donkeys, and so forth.

But in the version from Rome, they divided that out.

The ninth commandment says don't covet your neighbor's wife.

And then the tenth commandment says don't covet anything that is your neighbor's.

So that's just one example of changing, allowing these different compromises to come in.

God in prophecy was trying to warn His people that coming down at some point in history

there was going to be compromise, there was going to be error, there was going to be these

pagan teachings in the church.

We read a verse the other night from Daniel 725 talking about the anti-Christ power and

Sunday night we're going to study this chapter in much more detail.

But it talks about the anti-Christ power that they shall think to change times and laws.

And this is just one example here from God's commandment that one of those laws has been

pulled out, has been erased.

And so that third seal represents from 313 to 538 this period of compromise.

So it's kind of a summary there, the first seals, the pure church, the pure faith conquering

and going out to conquer.

And the second is this time of persecution that the church faced.

And then the third is this time of compromise as error begins to come into the church.

There's one more horseman here.

There's a couple more seals.

So let's look at the fourth seal in Revelation chapter 6.

Revelation 6 · chapter mention

Let's go back to Revelation chapter 6.

Revelation 6 · chapter mention

Let me find it here, Revelation chapter 6.

Revelation 6 · chapter mention

The fourth seal begins in verse 7 and the Bible says, 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 and the name who sat on him was Death and Hades or

the grave or hell 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 beasts of the earth.

So does this sound positive or negative?

Once again, it doesn't sound very good.

It does not sound very positive.

And so we can break this down and we see that the rider, he's given a name.

He's called Death.

One who sat on it was Death.

He's got a pale horse, the color of someone who's near death or who's dying.

And he's given power over the earth.

And there's violence that's involved with this.

And so the theme of this seal seems to be Death.

And I think it's describing a time in church history when there's physical death, but also

a time when there's spiritual death.

There's physical death for those who believed in different ways, but there's spiritual death

for the church.

This is the time period that we would refer to as the Middle Ages, or sometimes that time

period is referred to as the Dark Ages, because during this time period, the Bible was forbidden.

You and I couldn't have a Bible.

And if you believe what the Bible said, well, the church would not appreciate that.

If you believe that you should go by the Bible instead of tradition, well, you would be considered

a heretic.

And if you were a heretic, there's little things called like an inquisition.

You could be burned at the stake.

You could be tortured on the rack.

You could lose everything.

So during this time, the church not only suffered from an intensification of violence, but also

an intensification of spiritual death.

Because if you or I leave the Bible behind, if we set it aside, eventually we're going

to focus on ourself.

We're not going to focus on Jesus anymore, and we're going to begin to spiritually die.

And so this time period is from about 538 down about 1,260 years to 1798.

This was a time when church and government, church and state were united.

That's never a good thing when that happens.

And traditions were lifted up.

And if you wanted to follow the Bible, then you would be persecuted.

And so this is described as a time of death, a pale horse of death, as the traditions of

men became more prominent.

Well, what are some of those traditions?

Well, let's look and see.

One is something called appenance, appenances.

So appenance would be if you were to come to your spiritual leader and confess your

sins, then you would be told to do appenance, an act.

And if you did this action, then you would receive grace or you would receive forgiveness

because you did that action.

But that's not what the Bible says.

You don't need to come to any kind of spiritual leader, not a pastor, not a parson, not a

priest.

Where do we go to get forgiveness?

We go to Jesus.

We already read this verse, 1 John 1,9, if we confess our sins, he, Jesus, God is faithful

and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

I'm so glad you don't have to come to a religious leader, but that you can go straight to Jesus.

So something very similar to appenance is something called an indulgence.

So if you've ever read anything about the Reformation, individuals like Martin Luther,

these were some of the things that they opposed because they were priests and they opposed

appenances and indulgence.

An indulgence was like appenance except instead of doing an action for an indulgence, you

paid some money and you could get forgiveness or you could pay some money and get someone

else out of purgatory or out of hell or buy their way into heaven.

How could people believe that?

Well, during that time, they didn't have access to the Bible.

The Bible was often chained up to the church wall.

You couldn't read it for yourself.

You had to trust what someone else was telling you.

And so just in review of these, as we've traced down church history here, the pure church

down to about 100 and then that time of persecution during the second and third centuries and

then about 200 more years of compromise and then a longer period during the Middle Ages

or the Dark Ages where there was doctrine, bankrupt and spiritual death taking place.

God knew it and God prophesied about it.

But that's not the end.

There's a couple more seals.

So let's look at the fifth seal because the fifth seal kind of pauses here and it reflects

a little bit more on that persecution of the Middle Ages.

So notice the fifth seal starting in verse nine.

It says, when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who

had been 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 until you judge

and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth.

And then a white robe was given to each of them and it was said to them that they should

rest a little while longer until both the number of their fellow servants and their

brethren who would be killed as they were was completed.

Okay, so that's kind of a long scenario there.

Their souls under an altar crying out to God for justice, to avenge their blood, and they're

given white robes and then they're told to wait just a little bit longer because there

was going to be more martyrs on the way.

So again, we have to ask ourselves, is this literal or is this something symbolic?

Well, we're in this section, it's mostly symbolic here, and I think the imagery once again comes

from the Old Testament and this time from the Old Testament sanctuary.

That was the sanctuary or the temple where the animals would be brought, which pointed

forward to Jesus, and those animals would be sacrificed on the altar and the blood of

that sacrifice would trickle down under the altar.

And that the lamb pointed forward to Jesus and the blood of the lamb represented the

sacrificial death of Jesus.

And so I think when the Bible is talking about these souls under the altar, it's talking

about their sacrificial killing, that these martyrs, their blood would be shed during

this time of the Middle Ages, and these souls, these martyrs are saying, God, are you going

to let this happen?

Are you going to avenge us here?

So again, it's getting language from somewhere else.

The other night we looked at a story.

Anybody know what this story might be?

Cain and Abel, so two brothers, they both brought a sacrifice.

One brought a sacrifice of an animal, as God had instructed.

The other brought the work of their own hands, fruits and vegetables, and God accepted Abel's

sacrifice.

And Cain did not appreciate it, and Cain killed his brother Abel.

Now notice what it says in Genesis 4.

God says to Cain, what have you done?

The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.

The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.

Now do we imagine that this pool of blood suddenly gets a little mouth, and it says,

help me, God, avenge me.

I don't think that's what it's talking about.

God is saying, I know what happened.

I know that injustice was done.

And God's saying, I'm going to make things right.

And Cain, in that story, was punished.

And so God sees the martyrs that have died.

He sees those who gave their lives for the gospel.

He knows those who have been sacrificed because they stood for Jesus, no matter the cost,

that they were burned at the stake, that they died on the rack.

And God doesn't just, it's not just for the Middle Ages, but he sees everyone who has

sacrificed something for him.

Some give their life, others their family, or a job, or money, or whatever it might be.

And God recognizes that injustices have been done to his followers.

And God is telling these individuals, their families, I have not forgotten.

I one day am going to make all of these wrongs will be made right, and justice will be done.

So if you've ever suffered for Jesus, maybe you're suffering right now, God knows it.

If you've ever lost something important because you want to be faithful to God's Word, God

recognizes that God has made a record for that.

And we don't have to fight against our persecutors because God says, I'm going to do that for

you.

I'm going to take care of these issues.

He's going to avenge that in our place.

And did you notice what these martyrs received?

Verse 11, then a white robe was given to each of them.

A white robe in scripture represents eternity, represents salvation.

These martyrs are guaranteed, they have an assurance of salvation.

It represents the righteous, the perfect life of Jesus that covers our sins.

But then it says they're told to rest a little bit until the number of their fellow servants

who would be killed is completed.

That tells me that there's more that will give their lives for Jesus.

And we can recognize that even in our world today, there are places around this globe

where people are imprisoned and tortured and persecuted and even killed because of their

faith in Jesus.

And even though we live in a place where we can gather in freedom and talk about God,

we recognize that not every place in the world can do that.

So perhaps we need to ask ourselves the question, am I willing to die for Christ?

Am I willing to die for Jesus?

That question was asked of Dwight Moody, the famous preacher from a long time ago in Chicago

at the Moody Bible Institute.

And the story is told that when he was asked that question, do you have the faith to be

a martyr?

His answer was, I don't know.

But I do have trust in God that if I ever need that kind of faith, that in that moment

He'll give it to me.

And we could ask ourselves the question, how many times do you die for God?

Just once, you make that choice and horrifically your life is ended and you die for Jesus one

time.

But how many times do we have to make the decision to live for Jesus?

That's a choice, that's a decision we make every day, maybe multiple times a day.

So am I willing to die for Christ?

Am I willing to live for Christ?

Let's go on.

Let's look at the sixth seal here.

And this is actually the longest description, but it comes down to the time of the end here,

the coming of Jesus.

So Revelation 6, we'll start in verse 12.

It says, I looked when he opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake,

and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood, and the stars

of heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a

mighty wind, and then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain

and island was moved out of its place, and the kings of the earth, the great men, the

rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave, every free man, it's talking

about people from all economic levels, the important people, the seemingly less important

people.

They hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains and said to the rocks

on the mountains, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and

from the wrath of the lamb, for the great day of his wrath has come, and who is able

to stand?

So this time period, I'm going to step down and grab some water here.

The sixth time period describes this time right before the coming of Jesus, and there's

some signs.

Did you notice what those signs were?

It lists four different things, an earthquake, the sun turns black, the moon becomes like

blood, and then the stars fall.

So we have to once again ask that question.

Is this literal?

Is this symbolic?

Now so far, everything we've said so far has been symbolic, but I'm going to throw out

a twist here and suggest that this is literal.

Now why would I say that?

We're letting scripture interpret itself.

Let's go to Matthew chapter 24.

Matthew 24 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 24, because we're going to see Jesus in this chapter about the signs

Matthew 24 · chapter mention

of the times, he lists these exact same four different things.

Matthew chapter 24, we're going to pick up the story in verse 29.

Matthew 24 · chapter mention

Now notice, it says, the Bible says, immediately after the tribulation of those days, he's

talking about this time of the persecution, the middle ages, the dark ages.

After this time of persecution, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light,

the stars will fall from the heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Jesus is saying that these things will occur after this tribulation time, after this persecution

of the fourth and fifth seals of the middle ages.

So we looked at those numbers from 538 down to 1798, and it's at that time when church

and state were separated forcefully, that that persecution begun to end around that

time right before and after that time when that church of Rome lost its governmental

power and religious freedom became more prominent, such as, that's around the time that our own

nation was formed in the late 1700s, giving religious freedom.

So if these signs come after this time of persecution of the middle ages, then it would

be around this time of the late 1700s or early 1800s.

So let's look and see if we can find some things in history that match up to that.

We'll go through these kind of quickly here.

So 1755, there was something called the Lisbon earthquake.

Lisbon is in Portugal.

Most of us have not heard of the Lisbon earthquake, but at that time, it was the biggest earthquake

that had hit in modern times.

It was eight and a half or nine on the Richter scale.

Eighty-five percent of the city was destroyed.

Ninety thousand people died across Europe, across the Mediterranean into Africa.

Church bells rung for miles and miles around.

And so that is right around this time period as this time of the middle ages is coming

to an end.

And it's also a time when people were beginning to study Bible prophecy.

They were beginning to open up the books of Daniel and Revelation like they never had

before.

So what was the next one after an earthquake?

The sun would turn to darkness.

So this is around that same period in 1780 in New England, in our country.

You can look this up online, you can look this up on Wikipedia, wherever you want, and

you can find information about this dark day.

In the middle of the morning, darkness, when the day is supposed to be getting brighter,

the day became dark.

And the rest of the day, it was dark.

The chickens came into roost, the cows came back from the field, the people meeting in

their government houses.

They had to make a choice.

They could either bring in candles and continue working, or they could go home.

They had to decide, where do we want to be if we think the world's about to end?

And so this was in New England, Canada, throughout that part of the nation.

And notice, shortly after that, there's another sign about the stars falling.

Actually, I forgot to mention that dark day when the sun was gone, but when the moon came

up that night, the moon was red, like blood.

That was the next thing.

It was supposed to be an awesome full moon over the next few nights, so check that out.

But that particular night, it was a blood-red moon.

And then in 1833, the sixth seal said that the stars would fall.

And in 1833, there was a meteor shower, such as had never been and has never been since

in recorded history.

I enjoy looking out at the night sky and seeing different things.

There's a comet you can see if you look to the west.

I don't know if anybody has seen that.

But sometimes you'll say, oh, there's going to be a meteor shower.

And you'll go out, and they'll be like, it's going to be a good one.

There's going to be 10.

You'll see 10 meteors in an hour.

And you go out, and maybe you'll see two or three.

And like, wow, that's pretty neat.

But in this particular one, in 1833, notice what was written about it.

Only no celestial phenomenon has ever occurred in this country since its first settlement,

which was viewed with so much admiration and delight by one class of spectators or with

so much astonishment and fear by another class.

The reader may imagine a constant succession of fireballs resembling skyrockets radiating

in all directions from a point in the heavens.

The fireballs, as they traveled down the vault, usually left after them a vivid streak of

light.

And just before they disappeared, they exploded or suddenly resolved themselves into smoke.

You couldn't miss it.

Millions of stars fell.

And so right around that time period, there was earthquakes.

The sky turned black.

The moon became like blood.

And in 1833, the stars fell from the heavens.

And so there's one more part of this sixth seal, and that's verse 14, where it says,

the sky receded as a scroll and every mountain and island was moved.

That's talking about the second coming.

That's the next thing in this time prophecy.

So you could say in essence that in verse 13, we are living in that punctuation of the

period at the end of that verse 13.

But notice what happens in verse 15.

It says there's a group of people, rich, poor, generals, slaves, and it says they all flee

to the mountains.

They hide in the caves and they say, fall on us and hide us from the Lamb.

Jesus is coming, and yet there's a group of people that don't have anything to do with

it.

They don't want to see their Savior coming.

Think how awful that would be to look up and see Jesus returning in the clouds of glory

and to know that my heart is not ready.

And instead of being excited about it, I'm running in the opposite direction.

And so this sixth seal calls me to ask myself, am I living for Christ today?

Because if I'm not living for Christ today, there's a good chance I'm not going to be

living for Him tomorrow, unless I make a choice, unless I do something different.

So there's one more seal, the seventh seal, and that is in Revelation 8 and verse 1.

Now notice there's a whole chapter in between there, Revelation 7.

What's going on?

Well, Revelation 6 ends with a question, for the great day of His wrath has come, and who

is able to stand?

And Revelation 7 answers that question.

Revelation 7 describes a group of people who are excited about Jesus coming.

It gives them a couple different titles.

Just like we said, He heard one thing, He heard 144,000, and He turns and looks in verse

9, and He sees a great multitude which no one can number.

And it says they're clothed in white robes, and they say salvation belongs to our God

who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.

We don't have time to get into all that, but chapter 7 answers that question of who is

able to stand, who is ready to see Jesus when He comes.

And then we look at chapter 8 and verse 1.

It's just one verse for this seventh seal, but notice what the Bible says, when He opened

the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about a half an hour.

That's it.

What is going on?

Now there's many different potential things that people have said, but the one that I

think reflects the best is that there's silence in heaven because all of heaven has come to

earth to rescue God's people.

We saw the other night, Saturday night, that when Jesus comes, there's going to be the

voice of the archangel, there's going to be the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ

will rise first.

And I think there's silence in heaven because all the heavenly hosts have come to rescue

God's people, to come to this planet to bring us home.

And so for a short time, heaven is empty because Jesus has come to bring us home.

So these seven seals describe what the church would go through from the time of the cross

all the way down to the time when Jesus would come.

And so it's not enough to say, oh, that's some interesting information.

I now know what the seals represent, but we need to learn some lessons.

So four lessons very briefly as we close here.

The first lesson we can see is that God is in control.

God has the future in control.

Jesus says He had all of history in mind, He knew it, He has our future in control.

A second thing we can see that God loves and cares for all of His people, those martyrs,

those standing for Him, those who were persecuted, those who were at risk of compromising their

faith, God loves His people, and He's not going to leave them.

Then we see that one day all of the wrongs of this world are going to be made right.

God is going to bring justice.

God is going to make things right in this world.

And finally, I think we can see that each one of us need to make a decision for Jesus

today.

Because after Jesus comes, after that seventh seal, there's no more time, there's no more

opportunity.

The choice that we make up to that point is the choice that we make for eternity.

So we need to make a choice today.

I don't know where you are with God.

I don't know what God is calling you to do, but if there's anything that comes between

you and God, you need to say, Jesus, let me walk with you.

Jesus gives us an invitation in Hebrews chapter 3 verse 7, the Bible says, today if you hear

Hebrews 3:7

my voice, do not harden your heart.

We need to make sure that we're listening to Jesus' voice.

We need to make sure that we can say, Lord, I love you with all of my heart, with all

of my soul, and with all of my mind.

And I want to surrender to you.

And I hope each one of us can say, Jesus, I want to surrender to you tonight.

Let's bow our heads for a prayer.

Dear God, what a passage here.

We've seen you at work throughout the years of history.

We've seen you guiding your people, protecting your people, avenging your people.

And we see you coming soon to take your people home.

And God, I want to pray for each one of us here.

And may we all in our heart say, Jesus, I want to follow you today.

I want to follow you tomorrow.

I want to follow you for all eternity.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.