I'd like you to turn if you would to Matthew chapter 24 because as we're spending our time in the book of Revelation this year We have to reckon with the fact that Jesus Christ has not left us without instruction and guidance about the end of time On Tuesday of Holy Week the Tuesday before he was crucified Jesus Christ was preaching in the temple And as he left the temple and he and his disciples were going to go over to the Mount of Olives where thousands of Pilgrims were camping for the Passover The disciples were so impressed with the beauty of the temple that it says That as Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came along they pointed out to him the buildings of the temple But Jesus said to them you see all these things do you? Truly I say to you there will not be left here one stone upon another That will not be thrown down So later on that afternoon at anything as the sun was setting And they say in even in these days as the sun sets in the west on Jerusalem Jerusalem's white stones glow sometimes almost look golden These apostles troubled by Jesus statement That the temple would be destroyed Ask him a question Rabbi Tell us when these things will be And what will be the sign if you're coming in the end of the age it's actually three questions When will these things be when will this temple be destroyed as you just said And what will be the sign of your second coming your judgment And what will be the signs of the ends of the age that is the end of the world Jesus answers their questions, but in a different order And it begins with answering the question what will be the signs of the end of the age he said first The coming of Jesus Christ would be preceded by The coming of many false messabers Matthew chapter 24 verse 4 Jesus answered them See that no one leads you astray For many will come in my name saying I am the Christ and they will lead many astray Secondly, he said There will be a rising tide of wars all around the world 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 in earthquake so many places he says And then he says there'll be a great great persecution And all these are about the beginning of the birth pangs Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death And you will be hated by all nations for my name sake And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray And because lawlessness will be increased The love of many will grow cold But the one who endures to the end will be saved and this gospel of the kingdom Will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all the nations and then the end will come These Jesus said of the signs of the end of times False Christ of false religions and an apostasy of falling away To follow these bogus leaders wars and rumors of wars all over the world famines The economic abevil Earthquakes and other natural disasters hurricanes and tornadoes and plagues And then a great persecution in what he would later call in this passage the great tribulation In fact in the last week of his life Jesus spoke repeatedly about three things His cross his death and resurrection The persecution of the church And the end of the world the judgment of God upon the world And we know that this is coming
In fact We're told by the apostle Paul That behold Salvation is near to us That when we first believe Now if you turn to revelation chapter six you're going to see that Is Jesus unpacks the seal judgments all he's doing Is unleashing the very things Item for item in the same order That Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24 what I'm saying is this friends Matthew 24 interprets Revelation chapter six You remember what's happening to Johnny's been caught up in a vision to heaven He's been overwhelmed by God on the throne and then he finds the glory and the sweetness of that fellowship No pun intended to be absolutely heavenly And he notices that in the right hand of the one who sits on the throne is a scroll that's sealed up a seven Sealed seven wax Tablets like that press the thing closed and so he's wondering who will open up this great decree of God And in effect gods will for the whole world and he notices the lamb that was slain his friend the Lamb of God Jesus Christ Who takes the seal and as he breaks them All these things begin to happen Just as Jesus had foretold Anyone who's lived any amount of time on the earth Will tell you that judgment is coming I noticed in the life and ministry of our dear friend Billy Graham the older he got in his preaching The longer he was involved in this great mist of the church the more Billy Graham mentioned judgment In a book called Storm warnings that he wrote in 1990 when he was about 70 years old and then revised In 2010 when he was 90 He says this Is I reflect back on my childhood I think about the enormous changes I have seen in our country around the world The world I once knew as a boy has changed dramatically I don't even recognize the world we live in today The world we are experiencing in the first decade of the 21st century is vastly different From the security of my childhood when everyone including children Worked hard all day and had no difficulty falling asleep at night I have not seen such widespread anxiety and depression in people's hearts as I do today While battles rage around the world and storms gather in the human spirit Depression steals rest from each of our souls Depression today not only describes the hard economic state of affairs sweeping our world but a human state of mind I see the unfolding phenomenon as one of the many storm clouds hovering over a lost and a dying world Their thunderbolts can grip our hearts with indescribable fear Our society is caught up in a powerful windstorm That has already caused massive destruction With the full impact yet to come About the time the Billy Graham first wrote that President George H.W. Bush gave a state of the Union address He said in the past 12 months Our world has known changes of almost Biblical proportions The world is still a very dangerous place Only the dead had seen the end of conflict And though yesterday's challenges are behind us Tomorrow's are being born Before our very eyes I'm told that our Center for Disease and Control Uh in in Atlanta Has announced that Anti-depressants are now the most prescribed medication in America Prozac and all of its sister drugs they're being taken by Millions of men and women and children Is high one doctor estimates Is 28% of Americans are on some kind of anti-depressant Robert Samuelson who is a journalist wrote for the Newsweek magazine every age has its illusions And our big illusion is the fervent belief in the power of prosperity Our pillars of faith are now crashing about us We are discovering that we cannot as we once supposed Create prosperity at will Worse yet we are learning that even great amounts of prosperity Will not solve our social problems Our good society is disfigured by huge blemishes entrenched poverty persistent racial tension The breakdown of the family The staggering budget deficits We are being rudely disabused of our vision of the future The result is a deep crisis of spirit That fuels the American soul Our growing self-doubts Our cynicism with politics And our confusion about our global role Is simply an indication That something is desperately wrong At home
When we come to Revelation And Revelation chapter 6 Four very famous people ride on to the scene The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse They are depicted in art More than any other scene in the Bible except the cross The crucifixion The nativity And Noah's Ark They are a world famous I went to a famous German Museums called the Deutsche Museum The German Museum in downtown Berlin And they had these wood cuttings from medieval period of the Four Horsemen Not that huge but they're Exquisitely done And the detail of these wood cuttings Is amazing And on several occasions I've stood before them and looked And been reminded of this passage A reminder That judgment Is coming Let's do this What we do each morning in Revelation Let's look at what the vision means And how it applies to us What is the meaning of these seal judgments Well first of all They are judgments And they begin with the Four Horsemen Now I watch when the land opened one of the seven seals And I heard one of the four living creatures That is one of the cherubans say With a voice like thunder cub With a great command
And I behold I saw a white horse And a rider on it had a bow And a crown was given him And he came out Conquering into conquer Here's the first horseman on a white horse He's the one that is the most debated among biblical scholars Because there's a fair number of people who think that this is Jesus Christ Who appears in Revelation chapter 19 on a white horse Not with a bow but with a sword But I don't believe this is Jesus Christ I don't believe it can be One commentator said the rider on the white horse Is often identified with Christ Or the progress of the gospel in the world But the lamb who opens a seal cannot expect To summon himself And to reappear As the rider that goes forth The fact is that there is a similarity between the two riders That they both carry a weapon of war and ride on a white horse And that's the point Of the first rider He is what Jesus Christ said would come False Christ Jesus said
See that no one misleads you For many will come in my name saying I am the Christ And will lead many astray Here is a false Christ Another Christ which in Greek means Antichrist Who comes forth to deceive the nations And lead many astray This first horseman Is perhaps the most deadly of them all Whereas the others kill the body This one with his bow slays the soul By driving men and women in their minds and soul in the arms of a savior who cannot redeem them A religion that cannot get them to heaven And that's why he rides first He prepares the hearts and minds Of the people of the world for the other riders yet to come When he opened the second seal I heard a second living creature say come And out came another horse Bright red It's right who is feminine to take peace from the earth So that people should slay one another and he was given a great sword Here comes a rider on the horse of the color of blood And he is known as war And he will hear of wars and rumors of wars For nations who rise against nation but this is not yet the end This great sword that he carries is the sword of military power Of national pride of patriotism That leads people group against people group and and country against country to engage in the most awful Devastations of human life Million people And 80 years Killed by communists 65 million men women and children dead After World War 2 there is no way for us friends Evil with computer modeling to estimate the billions of people Killed in wars Since came slew able But he rides to the earth again and again and again On his blood red horse
When he opened the third seal I heard the third Cherubim say come And I looked and behold a black horse And it's rider had a pair of scales in his hand And I heard what seemed to be voices in the middle of the four living creatures saying a court Of wheat for a denarius and three courts of barley for a denarius but do not harm the oil and the wine This rider comes on a black horse Black is often associated with catastrophic plagues like the black plague And this one carries the scales he's doing business He's a businessman He's an economist He's one involved with the The distribution or redistribution of wealth in the world And the voice from the throne god says you can harm the wheat and the barley the elements of every day life But do not harm the oil and the wine In other words Cause a famine on the world So that the things that the poor people need to stay alive Wheaton barley or scarce drive those prices up But do not harm the oil and the wine for the rich people Let the gap between the rich and the poor get wider and wider Because that will prepare the way for other conflict and more death This is the power Of the potato famine in Russia Or the great shortages in China or the increasing gap between those on welfare And those who are billionaires in Europe and America This is economic disruptive and And economic injustice
And then I heard another voice As he opened the four-seal say come And I looked and behold a pale or a gray horse And this rider was named death and Hades followed him And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword and with famine And with pestilence and wild beast on the earth Here's the fourth rater on a gray horse, the fourth rider on a gray horse, gray being the color Of a cadaver But he has a partner with him Riding on the back of the horse He is death and his friend is called the grave Shio Hades Hell as the English has it This rider follows the others He brings with him all kinds of Of weapons Sword and famine and pestilence and wild beasts And he gathers up all those killed By the persecution of the first rider And the war of the second and the starvation and plagues of the third He gathers them up and gives them to his friend the grave He is perhaps the final rider In the destruction of the world John is using by the way Images both from Zechariah and Ezekiel You remember in the Old Testament that the prophet Zechariah said that there were four horses of the same color as these horses Who patrolled the earth every night He changes the imagery These are not just patrolling the world every night They're riding forth in destruction every day And what they bring with them are the things that Ezekiel said God had brought upon the unbelieving Thus shall my anger spend itself and I will vent my fury upon them and satisfy myself And they shall know that I am the Lord That I have spoken in my jealousy when I spend my fury upon them I will send you the deadly arrows of famine Arrows of destruction which I was sent to destroy you And when I bring more and more famine upon you and break your supply of bread I will then send famine and wild beasts against you And they will rob you of your children pestilence and blood shall pass through you and I will bring the sword upon you I am the Lord I have spoken Who are these writers? Will they are to use a trite phrase but true They are man's inhumanity to man They'll greed and violence and war and unbelief And they ravage the world And while that is happening The church is going through a great tribulation John sees Jesus Christ break a fifth seal And that begins the great persecution of the church When he opened the fifth seal I saw under the altar of the souls Of those who have enslaved for the word of God and for the witness they had born They cried out with a loud voice Oh sovereign Lord Holy and true how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth Then they're each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer Until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete who were to be killed As they themselves had been Isn't this exactly what Jesus prophesied Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death And you would be hated by all nations for a nimb ain't sake And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray And because lawlessness is increased The love of many will grow cold but here's the great but This gospel shall be preached to the ends of the earth And then The end will come You know as well as I do loved ones that with each passing year More and more people are put to death for Jesus Christ than the year before In his book killing Christians Tom Doyle begins with this statement 40 Egyptian churches burned to the ground House church leaders sentenced to Iran's infamous Evan prison 80 Christians murdered in North Korea simply for only a Bible Believers nailed to crosses in Syria And that's the news from just one month in 2014 After that, it got really bad For in the summer of 2014 a shocked world witnessed the phenomenal rise of ISIS now known as the Islamic state And within weeks of path of destruction swept through Syria and Iraq leaving unimaginable carnage in its wake The brutality of ISIS and its global jihadist agenda Is reminiscent of the Syrian invasion in the old times of the prophets Millions of martyrs Under this throne saying How long was sovereign lord We allow this to go on when we you finally judge us But they are given a white robe The robe of the righteousness of Christ the glory of heaven And they are told to rest for a little longer until the rest of the martyred in the earth will join them in glory And then the end will come for there will be a great tribulation Jesus said Such as not been from the beginning of the world until now and that will never be again And if those days had not been cut short Not one human being would be saved but for the sake of the elect Those days will be cut short there is an ending point And when Jesus breaks that sixth seal The end of the world comes When he opened the sixth the ally looked and behold There was a great earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth The full moon became like blood and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit When shaken by a gale The sky vanished like a scroll that is rolled up and every mountain and island was removed from its place Then the kings of the earth and the great ones the generals and the rich and powerful and everyone slave and free hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains calling to the mountains and rocks fall on us And hide us from the face of him who was seated on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb for the great day of the wrath has come And who can stand John goes directly back To Jesus Christ all of that discourse on Matthew 24 he borrows the same words about a black in sun and a moon going out in the sky Going away and the earth crumbling and falling To describe the end of the world And to all these people Who were involved with the four horsemen the great generals john says who waged the war And the kings who persecuted the church and the powerful
Who abused the weak and the poor And the Christian day They will suddenly realize That the end is come. I want you to listen to this It's enough to make a grown man weep They will run to the crumbling hills and save fall on us and hide us Hide us from him who sits on the throne and listen to this This this phrase doesn't belong in the Bible, but it's there Save us from the wrath of the lamb
Lams aren't wrathful Lams die for our sins Behold the lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world But Jesus doesn't Get angry He doesn't have the wrath of his father
He doesn't judge or so the world thinks Jesus said God so loved the world That he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him Should not perish but have everlasting life
But then john will on to say But he who does not obey the son The wrath of God Abides on him You know I'm glad we don't have to preach like this every Sunday In fact, I really wanted Gabe Sylvia to do this one
Because this is unsettling it a little humor helps
But Jesus said that judgment is coming
And he said it again and again and again he said You must flee The wrath that is to come
So how do we deal with this passage Well, first of all, let me let me encourage you to do this I mean encourage you to understand judgment From God's perspective. There are three kinds of judgment in the Bible There are remedial judgments Judgments that happen because they're the The results of sin the wages of sin death You smoke a whole lot you die of lung cancer You beat your wife she leaves you You're off the store you go to prison And they happen on massive scales Where societies and nations Experiences remedial over and over again judgments that are meant to break us To make us face ourselves To see that we do need The mercy of God before we experience the wrath of God anymore And that's why we see them in the book of Revelation repeated not once but twice but three times in sealed judgments And then trumpet judgments and then bold judgment So it's the same story over and over and over Until we get the message And we flee from the wrath to come And we run to Jesus Christ There's also purifying judgment for the church That's why this great persecution is slipped into the middle of all these judgments Peter would say don't be surprised that the fiery deal that comes among you Is this some strange thing we're happening for if judgment is first to begin with the household of God What will happen to those who do not believe Jesus Christ purifies his church He sends these persecution so that those who will fall away will leave But for the sake of the elect Those whom he has foreordained those who remain faithful he says those who persevere to the end will be saved So this purging this testing of the church is part of God's preparing us in the world For eternal life And then there is a final judgment With a Bible calls the great white throne judgment Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it And from him the presence of the earth and the sky fled away And no place was found for them And I saw the dead the great and the small standing for the throne and the books were open And then another book was open which is the book of life and the dead were judged by what was written in the books According to what they had done Seen on that throne in judgment is the lamb Jesus Christ That book of life by the way is mentions six different times In the book of Revelation To tell us that there is a day coming When Jesus Christ will no longer be the Savior But he will be the judge and now is the time To believe Now is the time Paul says For us to turn from darkness to light because Salvation is nearer to us than when we first believed Now what do you do with all this? I suggest these five things here's the first one That you and I begin to wean ourselves off of this world This world is passing away and it's dying My Successes of pastry your success in business the success of your students in school the success of our teams and sports Getting the right people elected Having this world be all that we wanted to be is simply a myth Why why my friends Would we load us on our family onto a sinking ship and put all of our hope in that leaking listing vessel Now is the time to flee to the arc of God the church of Jesus Christ the only thing that will remain forever for the world is passing away With all of its last John says but the one who does the will of God he lives forever Along with that secondly I think we've come to the point where we can't believe that America is the hope of the world anymore America can't be fixed Not by Hillary Clinton and not by Donald Trump and not by anything
It's hard it is to say America's dying
What America needs is the gospel We need once again to turn in mass To Jesus Christ and be rescued From the wrath that is to come upon us For all of the 50 million babies we killed
For all of our oppression of the poor For all of our sexual immorality Agreed and pride our anger And for all the wars that our country fought in and killed millions of people To preserve the American way thirdly
It's time for us to stop being cool. I know it's cool not to To get ruffled by these judgments
But I'll tell you what my friends You show me the coolest woman or man on the earth the coolest teenager that ever lived And I promise you that when they stand before that white throne they will not be cool
They will be dissolved to tears
Fourthly You're gonna ask me are you trying to scare me? You know, I'm really not But there are some things worth being scared over I'd be scared to go to war I'm scared that I might be persecuted to kill for being a preacher I don't mind death. I just am scared of the dying process and I'm scared of the judgment of God
Because I deserve to be punished for what I am And you know that better than I do There are some things worth being scared about And the judgment of God is one of them
And lastly The good news There was a place to go To escape the wrath of God You see these things are there under the altar of God you see that They're under that cross. There's the altar. They're under the blood of Christ Look over in chapter 7 and look at verse 3 Do not harm the earth or the sea of the trees until we have sealed the servants of my God on their forehead Sealed by the Holy Spirit washed in the blood so we have a white robe We are justified in Christ and adopted and and there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus Whoever believes in me Jesus said
shall move from judgment into life And shall escape the wrath of God This is a time This is why Jesus ascending these these judgments again and again and again not to be mean Jesus loves the world he died for it For you and for me and for all these evil people like us Jesus ascending these things on us so that they will slowly but surely Pull us to him to repentance and faith and refuge Jesus said I did not come to judge the world but that the world should be saved through me Now is the time To believe in Jesus Christ and sometimes We don't sense the need for Jesus Christ if our life is going well if we're successful and we're healthy and we're handsome and we're and we're popular and in the world is up You know is a red apple waiting for us to consume we don't feel the need for Christ until we see beyond that red apple The blood of Christ and the judgment of God and then we see why we do need Christ Even when things are going well
I'm not trying to scare you and you say well, this is a morbid servant I know but I didn't write it
But let me use this as a closing illustration. Let's say that That I said hey folks. I want to take you down to Charlottes Greatest restaurant and by you and your children and your grandchildren whole family bring everybody you want Bring all your friends and so you brought hundreds of people down the structure and I I bought you the feast of feasts But then imagine at midnight when we left that restaurant when it closed That we had to go down a long dark alley Half a mile and what if I knew you didn't but I knew that at the end of that alley Reband of thieves and murderers with wild dogs on leashes The ones that Jesus said came to steal and to kill and to destroy And I realized that the only way to get through our cars to get home was to go through that group of people Would you want me to tell you or let you be surprised and would you want me to take you by another way A safer way to get home and what if I had the power in my thumb To press on your forehead a seal that made you invisible to these people so that you could not be touched What if I could seal you with The grace of God That's what Jesus is offering us here He sees down to the end of this dark quarter of human history He sees the ones who come to Steal and to kill and destroy he said but I came that they might have life and have it abundantly He's willing to seal us in baptism To put a mark on us that says to the devil and all the men of the world this one belongs to God and Jesus Christ
Tamper with him only at the risk of your own life
And he will lead us by a different way Through the tribulation and through the darkness and right by these evil demons
He is the way the truth and the life and that's why we need Jesus Christ Because there's no other way home, but through that dark dark city And we either go alone And are destroyed We go with Christ And we are saved That's what Jesus wants to say to you this morning Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ And you will Be saved He doesn't want you to be afraid He wants you to abide in him And here is the proof of it There is a married supper coming The feast of the Lamb at the end of this great book of Revelation And Jesus is inviting all to come to this feast But only if his blood has washed them And his body has paid for their sins Only if they are sealed With the blood of the Lamb and robed in his righteousness Can they come to the table And live If you need to receive Christ today I'm going to pray with they usually call us sinners prayer I want you to pray with me. I mean that Because day today
Maybe the day before Jesus comes again
Now is the time of salvation This is the time that God has helped us So I beg you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God And pray with me Father in heaven We want to take seriously this morning the judgment to this coming The judgment on a world that has lived In a Christless humanity for so long A judgment that we all deserve We are part of that world and we are sinners And so we pray this morning from our hearts That we acknowledge our sin to you And we ask you to forgive us of our sins Not because we deserve it but because Christ has died for our sins In order that he might bring us to God We want to receive this day Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior We ask him to come into our life And descend into our hearts into our souls The gift of the Holy Spirit
More than that we want you now For whatever part of our life remains To make us into the kind of people you want us to be We want you to deliver us From the domain of darkness and transfer us to the kingdom of God The kingdom of your beloved son in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins We ask you now to give us assurance of that That we have been born from above born again And sealed in Jesus Christ So that we have passed out of judgment and into life For we ask this In Jesus name Amen