Revelation chapter 7, verse 13, then one of the elders addressed me saying, Who are these clothed in white robes? And whence have they come? I said to him, Sir, you know. And he said to me, These are they who have come out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore there before the throne of God, and serve him day and night within his temple. And he who sits upon the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore. The sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd. He will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Let's pray. Lord Almighty God, we give you thanks this morning for your justice and for your mercy. We thank you for your great and all wise justice that you are a just God, for without that we could not entrust our souls to a faithful and just judge. But we thank you so much for your mercy, which has been shed abroad in our hearts through the work of the slain lamb on our behalf. Lord, what sweet sounding words these are that we have read this morning, what great comfort they give to the depths of our souls. You know, Lord, the many tears that we have shed in this veil of tears, and how we look forward to that time when you will wipe them all away. When we may follow our shepherd even to streams of living waters, we thank you for this glorious promise, and we pray that your spirit would attend us this morning and grant us understanding of things that are hard to peer into and understand. Grant, O Lord, your spirit to your church. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. All right. This morning we want to look at chapters six, hopefully chapter six and seven of John's Revelation. If you still have your outlines of the book, it might be helpful for you to glance at that. As I've suggested we look at Revelation, this would be another one, starting one of those aftermath sections, aftermath, I've called it that just lack of a better term, which follows on one of the major visions that John sees. Remember in chapter one we had a major vision of the Son of Man in his glory, appearing to John, and then after that John receives the letters to write to the seven churches. And then I suggest we've got another major vision of the book, which encompasses chapters four and five, and that's when John himself is taken up in some fashion. We don't understand. Taken up to heaven and is privileged to view this this awesome worship scene in the heavenly throne room. We have the 24 elders and four living creatures and so forth. And chapter five, a very climactic scene, when the lamb appears as though slain and he has given a scroll. Here, remember, and that scroll is sealed with seven seals. And then we have a number of praises of the lamb and of the father at the end of chapter five. But chapter six then opens with what naturally follows and that is the lamb doing what? Certainly judging. And how do those judgments come about, or at least how are they depicted? Right, the lamb opens the seal. So we have the lamb, the scroll that's been given into the hands of the lamb. And now we, now the lamb proceeds to open, to break each one of these seals. And remember again, I think the image picture a scroll that's rolled up and is sealed with seven, probably, you know, wax seals is how they did it in the ancient world. And as he opens or breaks each one of those seals, John sees something happening. So we have the seven seals are what follow. The first four of those seals are attended by some action on the part of the four living creatures. Right, if you've looked at those, the first four. And what does each living creature, remember, there were four of them. What do they do? Each time the lamb breaks the seal, one of the living creatures says, come, says come. And then something happens, someone comes. And then follow the four horsemen, four horsemen of the apocalypse. Some of you probably that conjures up images of, what was it, an army team, football team back in the 40s, the four horsemen of the, what's that? Was it Notre Dame? Oh, I've got a bit of race that from the tape. I should, people will know I've faltered in my football trivia, but the four horsemen of the apocalypse, Albert Durer is famous. He's a great Reformation artist. And he did a woodcut series of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. So this is where that whole image comes from. These are the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Who are they? What are the four? You mean on the Notre Dame team, or do you mean Doc Blanchard was one, yeah. Who are they in, in Revelation? Yes, well that's what we're, that's what we're going to talk about. Yeah, do you have, one is on a white horse, one is on a red horse, one is on a black horse, and one is on a pale, what did your translation say, pale horse? Ashen. I wonder if that's, that's the, that might be the black one. Verse eight, pale green lack of corpse, that's an expanded translation. That's, that's, the word is like a chloron, it's, you know, we get words like chloroform and chlorine and chloroxid from, it's a pale, faded sort of bleached, sickly, yellowy green sort of, pale horse. Okay, that's the last one. Then of course, that only gets us to four of the seals. We got three left, and we'll, we'll see, hopefully we'll get all the way to the seventh seal today. All right. The, a couple of, a couple were just preliminary things before we look at them individually. Many scholars have noticed a parallel, a number of parallels between these seals, what happens when these seals are broken, particularly the first four, and some things that Jesus said in what's called the Olivette discourse. Now you may not recognize that name, but you remember there was a speech, a talk, Jesus gave some of his disciples on the Mount of Olives, that's what they call it, Olivette discourse. It was that time when, remember the disciples are remarking about the beauty of the temple, and Jesus says to them, you know, just in a bomb, lays a bomb show on them and says, do you see these beautiful stones? There's not one that won't be thrown down. This whole thing is going to be destroyed. So then they walk across the valley of Kidren and up the hill from the temple, up the Mount of Olives, as the hill opposite the temple, and from there they have a, they have a panoramic view of the temple, and they ask him, what he meant, and what will be the sign of his coming in the end of the age? And then he gives them this, this enigmatic, but, but wonderful prediction about both the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world, or when he returns, his second coming. And it's very challenging to sort out just when he's talking about what there. But anyway, this speech about, the Olivette discourse has a lot of parallels with what we read in this section. Many scholars have pointed those out, and I think that is a bit enlightening for us. We'll point those out as we go. Another interesting thing to notice, or another interesting thing to consider is just exactly the interpretation that we should approach this with. In other words, thinking of these seals, and particularly the judgments of the four horsemen, do these judgments have to do with what happens, I think you maybe brought this up last week. Are these things happening right at the end of history in a seven-year period called the great tribulation, or perhaps have they already happened? They're all in the past, or what's that? Or are they happening? Thanks. Are they happening now? You see three major different approaches, right? The first one that happened all in the future at a seven-year period, yet to come, that's, now think of our approaches to Revelation, we started the class with. That would be the futurist approach identified mostly with pre-millennialists today, various kinds. The other one, have they already happened? That would be the approach of something called, anybody? Preterism, Preterism. This all happened because it had to do with the destruction of Jerusalem and what leads up to that in 8070. Or do they have to do with, well, conditions that pertain to the whole inner-advent age? That would tend to be associated with more with omelennialists today, maybe some post-millennialists, and identified somewhat with the idealist approach, not a little bit more loosely, but anyway, those are three major and different ways of looking at this, right? We're going to have that in mind as we go through and see if one approach makes more sense than the other, and I will tell you which one does. Now, you will be able to see for yourselves, of course, the first seal. John says, I saw when the lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say as with a voice of a thunder come, and I saw him behold a white horse and its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer. This one, very enigmatic, because interpreters are basically divided over whether this rider is a good or an evil force, really. The rest of the four horsemen easily evil. We've got famine, pestilence, death, and all that, evil. But what about this one? He comes out on a white horse, right, and even, you know, apart from what you know about Westerns, there is a connection with the white horse, and Jesus Christ, because in chapter 19, where we have a picture of the second coming, chapter 19, 11, and following, we see the word of God Christ depicted as coming back on a white horse. So there is a positive association here, and yet because it's associated with the four horsemen, or the other three horsemen, many commentators think this is a negative and evil force. He goes out conquering and to conquer, and he's given a crown. Some think it's even a sort of anti-Christ motif. He's an imitating Christ, and it goes back to the prediction of Jesus about false Christ will come and to see of many. I think that's, you know, this one is a bit puzzling, and I tend to think that this is actually a positive force. Back in the Olivet Discourse, Jesus, one of the things he said in Matthew 24, 14, was this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. And that is, of course, a very positive promise. It's given, though, in the context of some very negative and frightful things that are going to happen, wars and rumors of wars, famine, pestilence, and earthquakes, and so forth. But there is that promise that the gospel will go forth to every nation, and it's a gospel of the kingdom. So a connection with a crown would be appropriate. So that's how I tend to see it, that it's in the midst of all these destructive forces that will follow. There is the constant and the glorious promise of the advance of the gospel. Now, you know, if you may, I may be wrong on that, because there is very respected interpreters who disagree, but that's how I would tend to read that. Anybody got any better ideas? Okay, good. Well, then we'll move on. When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, come, and out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth so that men should slay one another, and he was given a great sword. First rider was given a crown. This one is given a sword, and his horse is red, very appropriate for the blood that is bound to follow. He's carrying a sword, and he is permitted to take peace from the earth. This too might remind you of some part of that, all of that discourse. Do you remember, you probably remember the passage, even if you don't remember where it is, Matthew has it in chapter 24 of his gospel. Mark has it in chapter 13. Luke has it in chapter 21. If you go back to Matthew, you know, we have the statement that wars and rumors of wars will come. Nation shall rise up against nations. It's very familiar to us. That's where it comes from, and I think they're right, the interpreters who relate this back to that prediction. Now, as I see it, this can help us to get a hand on the approach we should take here. Contrary to what we probably hear a lot, I think that these signs, if you want to call them that, of wars and rumors of wars, nation rising up against nation, earthquakes in various places, we tend to hear those as signs that the end is very imminent, right? Is that Turingabell? And you hear it statistics sometimes about earthquakes, you know, that there are more earthquakes today than ever were. Of course, we had a devastating ones. We've just heard about very recently that have been horrifying, but if you turn back to Matthew 24, verses 6 through 8,
I think Jesus is giving us quite a different perspective, really, on that. Exactly, exactly.
Right, right. There's Ed stealing my thunder, but he's right on. I think that's, I mean, listen, listen to what it says, verses 6 through 8, Jesus says, and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars see that you are not alarmed. For this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places, all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs. It seems to me that Jesus is saying, okay, you will hear all these terrifying events, all these, all this commotion, but don't be alarmed, because the end is not yet. These are but the beginnings of the birth pangs. And later on, he'll say, you don't know the day or the hour. In other words, I think there's a difference in that discourse. He says about the destruction of Jerusalem, you will know when that's coming. He says, when you see the abomination of desolation, which Luke interpret says Jerusalem surrounded by armies, when you see that happen, flee. Get out of Jerusalem. That's a sign of the destruction of Jerusalem, but the signs of the end of the age are such that, well, there aren't any. And once they come, it's too late. So, he says, you know neither the day nor the hour of when the Son of Man comes. So, in other words, in Revelation then, these things seem to be not necessarily indicators that the end is imminent, but these are things that characterize the whole time between Jesus first and second coming. And all of the above, I mean that, yeah, that is, whatever I say on that, there'll be people respected people that would disagree, because it is difficult to interpret. But I would take the first part really down through verse 14 as pertaining mostly to, let's say, the whole era, the whole internet event era, where Christians and particularly the apostles will be persecuted and dragged to synagogues and so forth. And 15 through 28 or 26 or so is mostly talking about the Jerusalem, destruction of Jerusalem. And then, you know, so it's not straightforward. It's not necessarily an order now. There are other, there are indications where I think you see that where he's kind of switching, but I don't think we go into that this morning, yeah? After class. No. Well, that's a bad day and an hour, no one knows is verse 36. And not even the angels or the sun, but the father.
Well, yeah, I think that has to do with Jesus incarnation and his incarnational willing, emptying of himself, you might say, that he chose not to know. Well, I think I would tend to agree with that, Bob, yeah. Yeah. But that was a willing, a voluntary
emptying of himself, as Paul would put it, if he chose not to know that as son of man.
I wouldn't make an exception to the statement fully God and fully man. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think that is pertaining to the second coming. Yeah, just very quickly. But all right, let's get back then to the third seal. Third seal, verse 5, I think we covered the second seal. Well, it just, maybe what I didn't say was, of course, this rider, the second rider is given to take peace from the earth and that indicates war, nations rising against nation. But remember once again, and some of the better commentators point this out, all this is happening as the result of the Lamb's action. So we have to keep in mind that even wars, as terrible as they are, we don't like to think about this, but it is comforting to know that these horses are on a tether. They're only able to do what Christ has allowed them to do. And they ride forth at his behest, at his prompting. So that, again, is another thing about Revelation. It gives us a fundamental Christian view on history. But all these judgments are, in a sense, fundamentally, the result of his judging prerogative.
Yeah, good question. Eileen has about the four horse men or horses in Zechariah. Is there a relation? There's certainly, at least a literary, our minds are supposed to go back there and think of them, and they patrol the earth and evidently bring reports back to the throne. That's how they're pictured. And whether, let's say they're the same ones, I'm more doubtful about that. But it's certainly meant to, I think, recall things like that from the prophetic heritage of Israel. God, the idea of God, knowing all things. And he sends his sentinels, his reporters in a way out to the ends of the earth. So he knows what's going on everywhere. And here it seems there's a more active judging function that's going on as well as that. Right? Okay, well, the third seal is broken. And a living creature says, come and John sees a black horse whose writer has a balance in his hand. And he hears a voice coming from the midst of the four living creatures. Now that, you think where the four living creatures were, they were around the throne. So this must be coming from the throne, saying a court of wheat for Daenerys and three courts of barley for Daenerys, but do not harm oil and wine. Food in the ancient world was, you're customarily rationed out in with, with weights, with scales, balance, balance here. And this would be like the weight of, for certain foodstuffs in this case, barley and wheat. A Daenerys was about a day's wage for a laborer. So you can see that day's labor does not buy very much in these conditions. So this has been related to famine, famine which causes great inflation and results in a lot of economic oppression for the poor. For those who are disenfranchised, certainly Christians would have been, many Christians in Asia Minor would have been on the receiving end of something like this. We've already heard in a couple of the letters of churches. You tell, you know, Smyrna, you're poor, but you're really rich. And Sardis, I think it is, or Laosia, you think you're rich, but you're really poor. So most, many Christians at least would have felt the blow particularly with this kind of great inflation and famine. This goes back as well to Matthew 24, verse 7, where there is mention of famines and all of it discourse. But again, this I would argue relates to the entire inner advent era. It's put in terms that are understandable to the immediate situation. You know, we don't have denarius anymore. They understood that it's put in terms for them. But I think it relates to all famines and all poverty and economic oppression throughout the ages until Christ comes. It's pointed out that the prices here reflect about eight to 16 times the normal price in the Roman Empire at that time. Do not harm oil and wine. interpreters take that a little bit differently. Some say, well, these are luxury items that the rich will still be able to afford. Others say, well, no, these were really pretty staple items too, oil and wine. And so it just means that there will be enough, but it will be hard to obtain. Whatever the precise meaning, I think the overall message is clear that this great famine and this great inflation occurs as the result of the black horse riding forth. Now, the fourth horseman comes out on a pale horse and its rider's name was death and Hades followed him and they were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth. Again, some of these elements relate back to the all of it discourse, so famines, pestilence. We've already been introduced to death and Hades once in the book of Revelation where we're told that somebody holds their keys. Who would that be? Christ in chapter 1 in the vision that he gives to John. He says, I was dead and behold, I am alive forevermore. I hold the keys of death and Hades. So once again, we already know that death and Hades are only able to do what Jesus allows them to do. He holds their keys. They're not able to exceed his bounds, but here they're said to be able to kill by these these violent and let's say just unnatural means, pestilence, you know, disease, plague, famine, and the sword and wild beasts. It says a quarter of the earth, I would take that to mean that this is not this is not these are not depictions of the last judgment itself. It's not that the total world population is killed, but throughout history there is always a portion of mankind that is killed by these violent and the natural means and death and Hades seem to have a heyday. They seem to have their their day. Robert. I have a quick theological implications sort of question. I'm glad Dr. James is here then. Yes, go ahead.
Are we going to take these as actual angles or just more robust representations of the Christ judgments? And it's so you can work with them as being evil. Are they a demonic element or is is Christ actually just utilizing his angels to enact this evil in a certain sense of judgment? Well, that's a that's an excellent question. Robert, whether these are actual angelic beings, persons and angelic persons, or are they more symbols of Christ's control and so forth? And I don't know if I've got a clear answer on that. Is death? Is there an angel called death? There is sometimes we hear of an angel of death. As possible, is there an angel called Hades? I don't know. I don't know. That's that's a good question. There I would say that's possible.
And because these are symbolic because they're envisions and they're definitely, you know, is symbolism involved? I'm not sure exactly what to say. Sorry.
I think we can affirm that. Yeah. Yeah. Satan is on a leash. We can say the same thing about Satan. We think of the book of Job and what Satan was allowed to do before the presence of God and what he's able to do in Job's life. So I think yeah, that is a theological affirmation that we have to make. And whether these are actual angelic persons or whether they're forces that let's say the angelic hosts have a part in. We have to affirm that this is all happening at the behest of Christ as he opens the seals and even the four living creatures, you know, that are very close associated with the throne of God. They participate in this as well.
I think they're looking to come back to the promise that I never can ever be crowned on the throne. They're kind of bringing judgment against you at this point. And God and the boy is here. And part of the part of the comeback equation is you know, how can you employ Daniel and Godly to really judge the righteous? And so if you were doing that with that crown prince, you could do it all the way up to the end of the world to bring judgment against the spirit of who, finally the righteous. Right. It points out that at least many of these things that we read about here, and I'm necessarily the result of sin, you know, pestilence, wild beasts. Maybe war is a little bit different, but you also made a point that with Nebuchadnezzar God used a sinful person, a very violent person, to affect his will, to bring about his judgments. So, you know, this is very good theological. There's a lot of theology in the book of Revelation. And this is part of the important affirmation that we have in Revelation, the behind the scenes of whatever carnage and evil and good and evil mixed up on earth. We have the divine will behind it. And here it's depicted in very striking images.
Well, I mean, you're a sinner employed.
You know, because what we would call a clutch and evil, we would not call, and then we would find a double use of clutch in the book to, for the liberty to use his things. For it's sin, I can use sin as a catalyst for the spiritual element of God spending a lying spirit as much as he hates a liar. He employed that to accomplish his purpose. That's true. That's true. God sent the lying spirit in that case in the Old Testament. Yeah, well, well, before we come to Piscop, I think we'd have to affirm that God is using many forms of evil to his purposes, and maybe we can talk about another discussion topic. We can maybe bring up at another time about his use of actual sin to further his purposes. But we've pointed out that God, that these things are on a tether. They're at the behest of Christ. The parallels with the all of it discourse, I think, suggests that these are conditions that may characterize the whole of Christian history from first coming to the second coming. Various times, they're going to be more applicable than at others. Sometimes are peace times, sometimes are war times, sometimes there's famine, sometimes there's not. But these are not necessarily signs of the end. These are signs of Christ's in control. And if we write about the interpretation of the scroll, then you could see these judgments as the necessary things that must happen before the scroll is opened, before Christ can read the names, read them out publicly, the names of those enrolled in a Lamb's book of life. So in a sense, these are the things that must come to pass before that great event. Yes? Yes. Yeah. Well, if you say believed, I mean, I think that there are probably infants and people whose capacities were not such that allowed them to believe. But yeah, these are the ones that are saved. Well, that is another great theological question. And I'm glad, no, I'm not going to put this one on him. That's a tough one that's been debated down the ages. And I think that there's sufficient statement and inscripture that we're all deserving of eternal death, even if the word of the gospel doesn't come to us. So from that standpoint, we can't complain that it would be unfair for any to be judged. I think there's also evidence that you might say that there are greater and worse punishments depending upon the light that we've been given. But I take it, there, I would not debate that either. And God was preparing people for the gospel coming to them. And I would just leave leave the rest in God's hands and say that it is certainly his prerogative, absolutely his prerogative, and he's absolutely justified in, yeah, yeah. Well, it involves their choice. We're getting, this is great, systematics 101 today. That's what we're having. It certainly involves its choice. But God, I mean God is in ultimate control, I think of that decision as well. But once again, I think the picture in Revelation is so clear here that all of these things, even the negative, even war and pestilence as terrible as we think, they're tragic. You cannot experience any of these things and just feel cut in your own soul. And at times any, every Christian has said, how can God allow this? How can God do this? It is, it seems so unfair. Why are some people cut off as children without it, a chance in life and other people and maybe wicked people live long and healthy lives and are rich and famous? And that is always a problem. But here it's clear that even these things are happening as a result of the Lamb's control. He's sitting on the throne and he breaks the seals of the book and the four living creatures say, come and here, here they come. So that is one of the great mysteries of a humankind, but Revelation sets that in perspective for us. I sure hope so. I hope that's right. And that would be helpful, definitely helpful. All right, we come to the fifth seal. We're not finished with the seals here. So the fifth seal, now something different happens. He does not see any more writers on horses. He sees something else. He sees verse 9 under the altar, the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness, they had born. They cried out with a loud voice, O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before that will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth? Then they were each given a white robe and told the rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren should be complete who were to be killed as they themselves had been. Talk about, you know, seeming injustice. Here are the saints being killed all the day long. They're taken out of life before their time. Now, this is a very powerful image, I think.
The souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness that they had born. These are Christian martyrs. These are those who knew God and were slain for it. Now some interpreters think, and I think this is right too, that these are, this is actually not only martyrs, but this is martyrs stand here as a sort of emblem for all the saints. I think they're indications that's the case, but at any rate, at the very least we have Christian martyrs here whose souls are seen, how the souls are seen, we're not told, but the souls are seen under the altar in heaven, and this is a, this is one picture of many I think we've seen, sure, of the state of the souls of Christians after their death, after their death, and before the great day of resurrection. So it is a, it is a picture of blessing even though there is a longing here for judgment on their persecutors. That too is a question in and of itself. Here we're told not to seek vengeance, right? We're just told to leave that up to the Lord. But we also see that there are saints in heaven crying out for justice. Now I don't think that these are ultimately conflicting. We are not to seek, we're not to wreak vengeance ourselves here on earth. We're to leave that to the Lord, but we are to leave that to the Lord because the Lord will judge. The Lord will judge and he will have his day of judgment, and then all these saints are doing really is calling upon God to do what he's promised to do, to deliver and to bring about justice, bring about justice. And what are they told? They're told essentially to be patient. They're given white robes. We remember the white robes already from the Church of Sardis. Jesus says that those, you have some who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white for their worthy. Another promise to the conquerors, so those who overcome, and they're given white robes. White robes are also connected with the 24 elders back in chapter 4. These are heavenly. They stand for purity and being cleansed. The white robes. And they're told to wait a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and brethren should be complete, who are to be killed. And then another interesting concept is as if God again knows the number, not only of the elect, but the number of those who will be slain, and they're told, no, it's not time yet. It's so interesting, the way it's put, it's not there are more to be saved, but there are more to be killed. There are more to be killed like you have been.
Depicting again, the enmity and the hostility of the earth dwellers, those who put them to death against the Lamb, and remember, there is a connection in the words used between those who are slain here for their witness, and the Lamb who was slain, and he is called the faithful witness. We belong to the slain lamb, and that is an identity that we have that prays God, that identity sticks, and that identity covers us all. That like the slain lamb, we are slain, and we may be literally slain for his sake and for his witness. Well, again, I think this is a picture of the saints in the intermediate state, in the intermediate between death and resurrection. We've just seen in the last horsemen, death followed by Hades. And in sense, here we have death followed by heaven for the Christian. They are under the throne, under the altar of God in heaven, pictured as sacrifices that have been slain on the altar. There are numbers being killed, but you see what's beyond that. So it didn't give me anything. Well, if I say trial down the road, you know, all sorts of trials, but there's something beyond that. Amen. The funny thing about it, but good to see God's with you, and to set the same message, and to look for a solution, God's confidence goes from and brings to you whatever it is. And he's mentioned the great comfort to think of these in times of persecution, and yeah, it's interesting to me that so much of the martyr literature from the early church does have so many illusions to the book of Revelation and to many of these promises that it shows that they did just what you're talking about. They held on to these promises and these images of hope.
Yeah, that's very good. We're told that the judgment has to wait a little while. This is an interesting expression. It shows I think for those some people are kind of paying attention to this sort of thing. Time elements in Revelation, we have references to Jesus coming quickly. These things will quickly come to pass, and that to some people indicates, well, this has to have been fulfilled in the first century. Well, here's an indication, yet a little while until judgment is reached on these people, and yet that little while has continued for nearly 2000 years because Christians are still being killed for their faith. And then we come to the seventh, excuse me, the sixth seal, the sixth seal, and John sees a great earthquake, the sun becoming black, sackcloth, the moon full of blood, the full moon became like blood, the stars of the sky fall to the earth. The sky vanishes like a scroll that is rolled up every mountain and island removed from its place. The kings of the earth, the great man and the generals and the rich and the strong, and everyone slave and free, hid in the caves, and among the rocks of the mountains, calling the mountains and rocks fallen, that's the hiatus from the face of him who was seated on a throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb for the great day of their wrath has come and who can stand before it.
This must be a fearful vision of the last day. The universe collapses. This is another indication, I think, or this is another key that I think helps us get a grip on the approach that we have to take to the book of Revelation. If this is correct, and there are other things that are proposed, but I think this clearly, to most readers, when you first read this, and even after study, this looks like it's talking about the last day. The universe is being destroyed, the universal, the universalism of the judgment here, the kings of the earth, the great man, generals, the rich and the strong, everyone slave and free. This is not just talking about Jerusalem, or the judgment on Jerusalem. There is no indication of a nearly local significance. It seems to be universal, and so if this is a picture of the last day, bringing us right up to the last judgment, we're only in chapter six, and we've come to the end of the world. What's the rest of the book going to be about? That is a kind of a shocking thing because we're not necessarily expecting that from some approaches to the book. I think this is a key to us that we have to deal with this principle that we mentioned way back. The principle of recapitulation is what it's called. That is that in the book of Revelation, we don't have a strictly linear sequence of events. Everything that happens in chapter six is before what happens in chapter seven, that's before it happens in chapter eight and so forth, but we have sort of cycles of visions so that several visions will bring us to the last day and then we'll start over with another vision that will have its climax at the last day and then another vision that will have its climax at the last day. So each time the vision of the last day is depicted in a little bit different way. Sometimes a certain focus is in view, sometimes it's the judgment itself, sometimes it's the destruction, sometimes it's the destruction of a certain person or group of people, but that we have over and over the visions coming to a climax and it's the same thing. So in a sense you have circles or spirals or something going on in the book of Revelation. That's the interpreters call that recapitulation and again, that can be very important for how we approach this book. Remember some of the, particularly the issue of the millennium, turns to some degree on whether the things in chapter 20 follow sequentially after the things that happened chapter 19 or is there a change again, a change of the vision? Yes. You know, when you look at that, if you look at what you would be, when everybody denishes you would be amongst those that vanish, so you would be left with states and you would be left with states. Yeah. If you don't say that, you don't think that's nice, you don't think that's nice. What is it? Well, that is a very prominent belief. Well, I have an easy answer for that one. I think that Christians will be here throughout the whole time until Christ comes, so that's a point at which I would differ from that, but that is. That does represent a very prominent school thought that's all around us. We know it by the name of dispensationalism. Some of us, some of us have never heard that word, maybe, but that's a particular approach, and I don't go along with that approach, but this is one of the things that we're seeing right now that sort of tips me in the other direction to see that in the book of Revelation, you can't just go sequentially that there's recapitulation, and so there's no indication here. I don't see that there are no Christians around at this point.
Well, those that are alive, well, well, I mean, I guess you could ask, you could ask the people at Westwood Baptist in Texas that just had how many people killed for their faith just a couple weeks ago, or the Christian kids, or the Christians in Sudan who are being killed and enslaved now, because they're not Muslims. In other words, it may not be hitting us right now directly, but it's hitting Christians elsewhere, and it always has. That would seem to be a change of God's usual order if he took all Christians out for a time of tribulation. What he promises, I think, is that he will keep us through the tribulation and preserve us and give us grandest heaven.
That's a time for another study, another day. But these are all great questions and good to talk about, but I'm afraid our time is coming to a close. We've come to the sixth seal. We haven't even gotten to the seventh seal. We've gotten the end of the world, and we're going to have next time chapter 7, sort of an interlude. That is, something happens to John anyway, between the sixth and the seventh seal. Now you say, how can something happen after the sixth seal, after the judgment? Well, again, keep in mind that what we have are John's visions. John's visions. This is not happening in history yet. This is John's vision of things that will happen in history. In terms of his, in terms of John's experience, a lot of other things will happen to him after he sees a vision of the last day. We're going to see some of those next week, some things that are very pastoral, very comforting for Christians and during tribulation. Let's pray. Oh, yes.
I think so, yeah, I think it is. It's one picture of it. There are other aspects of that great day that are left out. Okay, let's pray. We do thank you, Lord, for your precious and very great promises through which we may escape the lust that is in the world and we may partake of your divine and holy and righteous nature. We thank you for this encouragement that you have provided for your people down through the centuries and we ask that you would encourage us in our trials, though they may not lead to our death directly. They are real and some of them are very serious. We pray that you would uphold us with your mighty hand and allow us the privilege of being comforted by your grace. In Jesus' name, amen.