Justice Unsealed

Justice Unsealed | Revelation 6

• Would you turn in your Bibles with me to the book of Revelation, chapter 6?

• We are continuing tonight with a chapter-by-chapter walk-through the book of Revelation, and tonight we are entering a new section of Revelation known as the Tribulation.

• The title of my message is “Justice Unsealed.”
• Let us begin with a word of prayer

PRAYER

• Chapter 6 marks a shift in the Revelation.
• When you mention the book of Revelation to someone, more than likely, they think of this section.
• Chapters 6-19, the largest section of this Revelation, are the hardest for some to deal with. It can be scary to hear about the destruction, the evil, and the imagery used to describe what will be the “worst time ever!”
• QUESTION: Why is this destruction given to us in such detail?
• You might say, “Why would God do that to the earth? Why would God allow so much pain and torment? Why would God be so destructive?”

• There is a really interesting paradox about how humans tend to view God. And I believe this paradox truly shows how disconnected we are from just how sinful humanity is.
• One side: We see in the Bible God bringing judgment, and we think to ourselves: Why would God do that?
• On the other side, we see the evil and injustices of our world and our lives, and we think: Why would God not do something?
• God did do something. He sent his Son, Jesus.
• The spotless Lamb of God. The one worthy to unseal the scroll.
• And God IS GOING to do something. He is coming again.
• And before he comes, there will be a period of testing.
• A.W. Tozer says, “Before God can restore the world, He must first purge it.”

As we move towards the full restoration of all things, God has allotted this 7-year period known as the Tribulation as a time of him pouring out judgment on the sin of the earth.

God’s plan for these seven years fulfills three things:
1. God’s Righteous Judgements– Does God take sin seriously? God shows how serious he takes it in the purifying of the earth during this period.
2. God’s Purification of Israel and Fulfillment of Promises—The tribulation is prophesied in the book of Daniel as the 70th week, which ushers in the rule of the Messiah King. The tribulation is known as a time of Jacob’s trouble. The focus in this period moves away from the church and on the nation of Israel. Many Jews will come to faith and become witnesses to Christ’s kingship on earth.
3. God’s Final Opportunity For Sinful People To Turn to Him— During the tribulation period, there is going to be a revival greater than any in the history of the world. These tribulation saints will be martyred for their faith. From God’s judgment of the earth, God will still draw many unto Himself.

So tonight we are going to begin this section of scripture by looking at what is called the “Seal judgements.”

Now, if you recall from the previous chapter, there was a dilemma in heaven. There was a scroll that no one was worthy enough to open. However, John is then given a vision of a Lamb, as if it were slain, who takes the scroll from the right hand of God and unseals it.

Jesus is the one in charge of these seals.
We talked about how this scroll/book that Jesus takes from the right hand of God is the deed to the earth. Ancient scrolls had seals on them that made it so the document was open in a chronological order. These seals, therefore, have to be opened in a particular order of events.

So we understand that these seals will occur during the tribulation period, specifically in the first 3 and a half years. They will be followed chronologically by the trumpet and bowl judgments.

Now apocalyptic/prophetic literature is full of many signs and symbols.
In the reading of this passage, we are going to read of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Remember that when we talk about apocalypse that that word simple means “unveiling or revealing.” Jesus is revealing to John through these signs and symbols the nature of his judgments.

John has a heavenly view of what is happening upon the earth as these heavenly creatures and signs reveal each seals judgement:

Revelation 6:1-8—Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, “Come.” 2 I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer. 3 When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come.” 4 And another, a red horse, went out; and to him who sat on it, it was granted to take peace from the earth, and that men would slay one another; and a great sword was given to him. 5 When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. 6 And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.”7 When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come.” 8 I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.
• So galloping onto the earth are these four horsemen.
• Each of them was released by the Lamb of God from the first four seals’ judgments.
• Each of them is a sign of something to come at the beginning of this tribulation period.
1. A white horse of deception and conquest
• The first seal brings the arrival of a rider on a white horse.
• You might think that this could be Jesus. When we read later of Christ coming in Revelation 19, he does arrive on a white horse.
• However, Jesus does not come at the beginning of the tribulation and there are some clear points about this white horse that separate it from the coming Jesus.
• This rider upon the white horse is the Anti-Christ. We can know this by the description given.
• First, when Jesus comes in Revelation 19, what follows is a kingdom of peace. The Anti-Christ comes on a white horse, but what follows after the white horse is going to be destruction and war.
• The marking point of the beginning of the tribulation is not actually the moment of the rapture. The beginning of the rapture is marked by the Anti-Christ’s making a covenant of peace with Israel and the world.
• Now, who is the Anti-Christ? He will be a world leader who truly is a leader of all leaders.
• One theologian writes: “The Antichrist will have the oratorical skill of a John Kennedy, the inspirational power of a Winston Churchill, the determination of a Joseph Stalin, and the vision of a Karl Marx. He will have the respectability of a Gandhi, the military prowess of a Douglas MacArthur, the charm of a Will Rogers, and the genius of a King Solomon.”
• So the Anti-Christ will mark the beginning of the Tribulation with something that has never been succeeded by any leader ever… world peace. This will, of course, be a deception.
• How will he gain this peace? By diplomacy and false promises. He will make peace in the Middle East. He will make a way for the temple’s rebuilding. And the world will recognize him as a savior. They will think we finally have someone in leadership who gets everyone’s vote.
• Jesus made a frightening prediction. He said to the Jews of His time, “
• John 5:43—I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.
• Paul warns about the deception of the world regarding the Anti-Christ
• 1 Thessalonians 5:3—When they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape.
• This is not Jesus. But he will be looked at with great honor and will do many signs that will wow and shock the people into believing in him. He will eventually desire to be worshiped.
• A theme in the book of Revelation is that wherever God does something miraculous… Satan always develops a counterfeit.
• We see this in the Antichrist’s attire compared to Jesus’s in chapter 19.
• In Revelation 19, Jesus is holding a sword, and many crowns are on his head. The word for crown in Greek is specifically the word used for a king’s crown or a royal crown. This symbolizes authority and sovereignty.
• The horseman in Revelation 6 is carrying a bow (not a sword), and it says a crown was given to him. The crown is a “Stefanos” in Greek; it is a temporary award that will fade and break apart.
• This rider’s crown will not last as his peace will not last. He will be rewarded and praised by the world but it is all a deception.
• Now the bow is very curious. In the Bible a bow is a symbol of a hunt. If you can remember all the way back to the beginning of the Bible, the very first evil dictator of a man in scripture we have is a warior named Nimrod.
• Nimrod is called in scripture a “bowsman.” The Anti-Christ comes in this same terrible spirit of destruction and deception.
• Ephesians 6:16—In addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
• The enemy carries a bow that bring chaos. The savior will carry a sword dipped in the blood of his enemy to end chaos!
2. The Red Horse of Warfare
• In Revelation, the color red is associated with terror and carnage. We see a red horse here, a red dragon in chapter 12, and a red beast in chapter 17. This red horse and its lethal rider will engulf the world in global warfare.
• Since recorded history, we have always had war. Historians estimate that in human history there have only been potentially 296 combined years of actual peace upon the earth.
• Jesus warned that the marker the end of times will be warfare upon the earth.
• Matthew 24:6-8— You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes.
• The devastation of these tribulation wars is going to be greater than any war in human history. And I believe our world is currently a grenade with the pin pulled… just waiting.
• The United States alone has an arsenal of 35,000 nuclear weapons, nuclear warheads. Each warhead is equivalent to the capacity of 460 million tons of TNT, which is 35,000 times greater than the bomb that went off at Hiroshima.
• This doesn’t even mention the many other military powers in our world that have nuclear weapons.
• This red rider has a sword in his hand, and the Lord will allow for a time of great conflict to occur. And this conflict will destabilize the world’s economies and disrupt food supplies.
3. The Black Horse of Famine
• Analysts estimate that a majority of deaths from worldwide nuclear war would be from the aftermath. With crops, supplies, and the electronic grid being severely harmed in the conflicts around the world… the planet will suddenly experience a shortage of food.
• The living creature in verse 6 says: “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.”
• A denarius amounted to a day’s wage in John’s time, so at this point in the Tribulation, it will take a working man a full day’s wage to buy a little more than a loaf of bread.
• Interestingly enough, the measurements given were commonly known in John’s day as military rations. This means that much of the food supply could be diverted to the constant need for military rations.
• But notice that there will be no scarcity of oil and wine—typically goods consumed by the rich. The rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer, and the middle class will become impoverished.
4. The Pale Horse of Death
• Ashen means “sickly green.”
• This pale horse has a name: Death.
• And this rider has a companion: Hades.
• What does it mean that Death is riding with Hades?
• Well, Hades is the holding place for unrepentant people who die and are later judged. Death and Hades have a final resting place in the lake of fire.
• So God has given authority to horsemen to go and kill a fourth of the earth and to take these unrepentant people to Hades, where they will await an eternal judgment.
• Death is not the end of the story for anyone. For a believer in Christ we know that after death we will be with the Lord. For a non-believer, the population of the earth at this time means eternal judgment and wrath.
• Death and Hades have four ways that they kill a fourth of the earth and all of this connects to each of the other horsemen.
• Sword (red), famine (black), pestilence (pale/result), and wild beasts.
• Now you might wonder what it means by wild beast. I believe that in this time of history, there will be such great poverty, malnutrition, war, and destruction of the earth’s resources… that wild animals will have to resort to eating people for survival.
• Where there is war there is always vermin and where there is vermin there is always disease. These things all go together as a fourth of the earth is killed by these judgements.
• So a fourth of the population…. That would be an estimated two billion people dead.
• If a fourth of the earth died today, it would be more deaths than the Black Death, both World Wars, every genocide, and every major famine combined.”
• History has never experienced this level of death and destruction. This is also why we know that these events are futuristic… how else would you explain this passage?
• So now as we continue the unsealing of God’s justice upon the earth we have the fifth seal that changes from looking at the earth and has John seeing something in heaven again:
• Revelation 6:9-11— When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; 10 and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” 11 And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.
• So John’s perspective comes back to the heavenly vantage point as he sees these souls of those who had been slain for maintaining their faith in Jesus during the tribulation.
• Before the Tribulation occurs, all those on the earth who are part of the church will be raptured. During the Tribulation, many more people will come to faith in Christ.
• Now, there are some who ask, “But how could anyone come to faith in Christ during the Tribulation if all the Christians have left the earth? How will those who are lost hear the gospel?”
• God has many ways to deliver His message! In chapter 7, we’ll read about 144,000 Jewish evangelists who spread the gospel; in chapter 11, we’ll read about two witnesses who will gain a worldwide audience; in chapter 14, we’ll even read about an angel tasked with delivering the “everlasting gospel” to every person on earth.
• These martyrs are dear to the Lord, and he clothes them in white.
• These are known as Tribulation saints, and we should see them as distinct from the church in scripture.
• Why are these martyrs not the church? The seals occur in chronological order, and the events preceding this have not yet happened.
• They are asking the Lord to avenge them, but the Lord’s response is that the full number of them have not come in yet.
• I find this amazing because, despite the tribulation being a time of judgment and wrath on the earth, it is also a time that God is purifying and bringing people unto himself.
• Many of us are probably hear in church today because something in life shook us up enough to finally realize that we needed Jesus.
• Great persecution leads to great revival. We will look at that more in chapter 7 of this book.
• So what is the Lord’s response? A great display of his powerful judgements to those upon the earth:
• Revelation 6:12-17 I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. 14 The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. 15 Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; 16 and they *said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”
• The sixth seal reveals something very important:
1. God has authority over all creation.
• These cosmic events of the heavens and earth being shaken up show that God, the Lord of heaven and earth, is the one who is in power.
2. God’s judgements to not discriminate
• This Tribulation time is a time of judgment upon an unrepentant world that has rejected him. The rich and the poor, kings and commanders, master and slave, all are effected by the judgement.
3. This is not symbolic of the churches struggles.
• What do the people of the earth do?
• They hide in caves, and they want the mountains to fall on them so they do not have to see the great day of the wrath of the Lamb.
• “Hide us from the wrath of the Lamb” (Rev 6:16)
• This one line shows that this is not merely Satan’s wrath or symbolic of the church’s suffering over time. God has not appointed his people for wrath.
• 1 Thessalonians 5:9—“For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
So what do we do with these judgements?

I believe there are some key things we can’t miss from this

1. History is in God’s control
• If Jesus holds the scroll, then he also holds your future.
• God is the author of all things, and he is the one who holds all things together.
• There is nothing that has happened to you, good or bad, that hasn’t passed through the hands of God.
• That might frustrate us because we think, “Why would God allow this awful thing to happen?”
• It is that very cry that God answers with his judgements! No wrong deed will go unpunished. No hurt will not be healed.
• And the end of all things we worship the Lord for his judgements.

2. God’s justice will cause us to worship in the end!
• Sometimes when we hear about the way that God is going to judge the earth it is hard for us to understand it fully.
• However, Revelation 19 gives us an idea of what our response will be:

Revelation 19:1—Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, because His judgments are true and righteous.

• In the sight of Christ coming and the end of the Tribulation period the response of the multitude of heaven will be worship.
• Our response as his church will be to glorify him because his judgments are always good.
• You might hear someone say: How can a loving God judge? And the response should be: How could a loving God not judge? Would he truly be loving if he allowed evil to persist without judgment or condemnation?
• The good news is that judgment can be dealt with for you today

3. Jesus took our punishment so we can be free now!

Isaiah 53:5—But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.

• Why would we study this if we aren’t going to be there? If we are going to be raptured, why would it matter!
• It shows us what he has saved us from and what others need to be warned about.
• Jesus has made a way for all sinners to be made right with him.
• If judgment is real, then evangelism is urgent.
• The window of repentance is now, and the opportunity of a lifetime only exists in your lifetime.

I pray we would live with urgency, assurance, and greater faith against the growing evil in our world as we await Christ to bring us home.