-Have you ever eaten the wrong thing, and then you end up with a stomachache?

-Growing up one of my favorite candies was Starbursts (still is, just can’t do this anymore). A friend and I would go buy a bag of them and eat the whole thing that night. And when I say a bag, I’m not talking about one of those cute little ones you buy at a gas station, I’m talking about a BAG. Quick gourmet tip for those of you that like to spice your culinary delights up a bit – mix and match the different colors to create some new flavor profiles, really takes the Starburst experience to a whole new level! The only bad thing about this culinary delight is when you eat in large quantities there are consequences. And they’re not very fun. Usually starts with aches and pains in the belly, and just progresses from there.

-But the crazy thing is, when I was 17 that didn’t bother me! I’d weigh the consequences of eating the whole bag and still thought it was worth it for my starburst sandwiches.

-Today’s text has a similar story and experience that I had with Starbursts. But instead of eating candy, John is commanded to eat a scroll, but the consequences are the same. 

READ/PRAY

1. A Hidden Word (1-4)

-Another mighty angel, with some interesting descriptions about him, leading some to argue that it’s Jesus. But Jesus is never called an angel in this book, and there’s many other places where servants of God are described with similar characteristics to God. Right out of the gate, one of the things for us to take away is: do, or can, people use the descriptions of God to describe you? The name Christian means “little Christ,” part of the reason Jesus left the earth is so that He could be multiplied in His church.

-Wrapped in a cloud: Ex. 13:21 – signifying God’s protection and provision

-Rainbow over his head: Rev. 4:3, Gen. 9 – connected to God’s judgment, and that He always keeps His commitments

-Face like the sun: Rev. 1:16; Matt. 17:2 – the transfiguration was a glimpse of Jesus’ true nature that was concealed in His humanity. Also points back to Moses whose face would glow after spending time with God so he had to put a veil over his face so people wouldn’t be scared of him.

-Legs like pillars of fire: Rev. 1:15; Ex. 13:21 – again, back to the Exodus, which serves as a theme for God’s people throughout history.

-You can tell this person is sent from God because he looks similar to God. That should be true of us! Just like Moses’ face would glow because of his time with God, our faces should glow because of our time with Him. Does yours?

-This angel who has been spending time with God has something in his hand: a little scroll: different than the large scroll Jesus holds. Remember back in 5 where John saw the one on the throne holding a scroll with 7 seals, and then the Lamb opened those seals 1 by 1. This time, it’s a different scroll serving a different purpose, as we’ll see when we continue through this text.

-This angel is HUGE! Notice where he stands: feet on the sea and land. Historically, would have brought to mind the Colossus of Rhodes: one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, a 100’ statue straddling the harbor. About the same size as the Statue of Liberty. Ships had to sail under his legs to get the Rhodes. What is the significance of the angel in these places? 2 things:

-God’s sovereignty over everything. What’s left out? He came from heaven, he stands on the sea, and on the land. Nothing! God’s rule extends to every sphere of existence.

-But the second is needing to know the context of the rest of this book. Coming up in Rev. 13, 2 unholy beasts will come to work with the dragon out of 2 places: the land and the sea. This is setting the stage for that vision and demonstrating God’s complete rule, even over these beasts that will be coming.

-He calls out, yet another loud voice like we’ve seen a couple times before! But this time he gets a response from 7 thunders. What are these?

-Most scholars believe this is referring to Psalm 29 (which I preached on last Aug, so if you have questions go listen to that) but what’s fascinating about that Psalm is it describes “the voice of the Lord” 7 times. Anyone remember the significance of 7 times? And anyone want to question whether or not God was inspiring the writing of this book? It’s incredibly how He oversaw the writing and preserving of His Word! Psalm 29 begins by saying “The voice of the Lord is above the waters, the God of glory thunders.”

-Something very interesting about these thunders, we don’t know what they said! Throughout this book John recounts what he hears and sees until he gets to these thunders, and this time he’s told NOT to write it down! 

-I hope as we’ve been walking through this book week by week it’s giving you a better way to understand, interpret, and apply this book. I think the way people tend to approach the whole book is like a divine conspiracy theory, and there are things that are confusing (this is one of them!) but most of it makes sense if you dig in a little bit, and it’s for our encouragement and blessing. Even when something like this isn’t revealed, it’s meant to teach us something:

-Osborne quote. 

• A Present Word (5-7)

-This angel had been signified as God’s emissary, then promises by raising his hand. This is a common way of swearing to heaven, and he’s swearing that there won’t be any more delays.

-This is picking up a theme from Dan. 12:6-7. See here the angels are promising that there will be a delay. Even though God’s people are scattered from their homeland, even though their oppressed and insignificant, they still need to wait.

-Which is where we are today! God’s final judgment hasn’t come, but it’s close:

-“In the days when the last trumpet.” God’s plans are coming to completion. Everything that God wanted to happen in the past would happen exactly as He planned. We get this interesting phrase here “the mystery of God.” What does that mean?

-Remember we just saw an aspect of this with the thunder: we don’t know what the 7 thunders said, John heard it but didn’t share. As Osborne said there “God is in control, and the saints (that’s us) do not need to know all the details.” But I think there’s a couple passages that help us understand what’s meant here by mystery. When we hear that word I minds go to something no one can possibly know. When the Bible talks about God’s mystery, that’s not what it’s talking about, it’s saying something hidden by God in the past, but now revealed today. And in some cases, the mystery is prophesied in the past and then fulfilled today. So how can it be hidden AND prophesied? Have you ever considered that?

–Rom. 16:25-27 – Notice Paul says that the mystery is centered on Jesus, who has now been revealed through the Scriptures. This is saying that all those prophecies in the past were about Jesus, and anything else people say they’re focusing on misses the point. But it’s also very easy to miss that point! We get another glimpse of this shortly after the resurrection

-Jesus appears to 2 disciples on the road who can’t tell it’s Jesus, so they essentially call him a dumb dumb (are you the only one who hasn’t heard???) Then Jesus replies: Luke 24:25-27. This is the spot I most wish I could have been a witness to in all of stories of the Bible! He literally gives these 2 disciples the proper interpretive key to understand the Bible! And notice what it centers on: “concerning himself.” If you miss that focus, you risk misinterpreting the whole Bible, including Revelation! 

-Have you ever asked why God wasn’t more explicit in His prophecies? Why do you think He operated with themes and ideas instead of coming out and sharing exactly what was going to happen. 

-Let’s take Isa. 11. First you need to know who Jesse was (father of King David) so this Messiah will come who will be from the genealogical line of Jesse/David (we saw that at least alluded to back in Rev. 7), then you need to see wisdom manifested in Him, similar to King Solomon who was called the wisest man who ever lived (continuing in the line of David). There’s also a reference to a stump, why a stump? Because David’s line wasn’t on the throne at this time. It only lasted 2 generations after David, and David was promised to have a descendent on the throne forever. Why didn’t God just tell Isaiah to write “during the time when Quirinius is governor of Syria, Mary is going to give birth to a child named Jesus who is the Savior of the world.” He could have! Why didn’t he? And I think part of the reason is because humans have the responsibility to be obedient to pursue that which is good, right, and true, or not. If Pilate had read the Scriptures and seen that prophecy how do you think he would have responded? Would he have gone along just because it was prophesied? Or would he have refused to go along in order to break the prophesy? Friends, this is where we get to mystery. God is in complete control in ways we’ll never fully understand, and at the same time we are responsible for our choices and actions, and each choice and action we take moves us either closer to God or further away from God. He’s given us everything we need to know how to move closer to Him, do we take advantage of them or not?

-But it wasn’t just in prophecies that I think we see this mystery, I think it continued in Jesus’ ministry. In Mark 4, Jesus tells a parable of some seeds (seeds sown indiscriminately, God’s Word should be sown indiscriminately regardless of the outcome) but then look at the reason He says He does this. Because those outside won’t understand. The mystery that God is doing won’t be in wisdom or strength (like the world wants it to be), it will come through the message of a crucified Savior, who died in our place, and rose again to offer us the freedom to be truly human: united to Him through the gospel message.

-Paul summarizes this well in Rom. 10– the way to not be left on the outside is through faith in Jesus Christ. This is why it’s a mystery that is both prophesied and hidden. It’s fulfilled in Jesus and revealed to His followers.

-With all that, what we see in this section is that when the dawning of the new age, where God’s kingdom is made visible (Rev. 11), the mystery is fully seen. The prophesies are done because they’re being completed, God’s full revelation is finished, now there is new life, just like He has been promising this whole time.

-If this helps you think about it, think back to the way a mystery story works. All these hints and clues throughout the book lead to the final resolution at the end where you go “Now I get it!” When Jesus returns, we’ll be able to look back at His Word and His plan in history and say “Now I get it!” But until that day, we see a job for God’s people in this last section.

• A Bitter Word (8-11)

-Prophets had an interesting job in the OT – speaking on behalf of God, which at times including some not fun things. These not fun things were acts God commanded them to pursue that carried a deeper meaning.

-Jeremiah was commanded to bury his undies then dig them back up in Jer. 13, Hosea was commanded to marry a prostitute which included buying her back out of prostitution on multiple occasions. Carrying in that prophetic line, John here is commanded to eat a scroll. But he’s not the only prophet to do that:

–Ezek. 2:8-3:3

-Since God is in control even of history, He can repeat Himself to make a point. And the original audience who read Revelation would have had their minds immediately go to this passage in the OT. 

-He’s supposed to eat the scroll (God’s words) and then spit them out to God’s people. And notice the description of the scroll: As sweet as honey. This picks up another theme from the OT in the Psalms (Psalm 119:103, Psalm 19) With those ideas in mind, go back to Rev.

-Do you see any differences between John’s experience and Ezekiel’s experience? It’s going to taste sweet, but the sweetness stops in his mouth and will be bitter in his stomach. 

-John’s given a warning, this isn’t going to be a pleasurable experience for him. Just as many of the other prophets were warned. Sometimes speaking on behalf of God isn’t the most enjoyable thing to do, at least on this side of heaven. But sometimes it’s what God commands, as we’ll see.

-This also connects John to Isaiah 6. Isaiah sees a vision of God (similar to John in Rev.), and Isaiah comes undone. WOE is me! Not woes for other people (like we saw last week) woe for HIM! He’s a sinner coming into God’s presence, it’s unbearable! But an angel is sent to purify him, and as soon as his sin is dealt with God asks a question. Look at Isaiah’s response. We tend to read this with some unction behind it, but Isaiah is meekly saying “only if there’s no one else, send me. If you’ll allow me I’ll do it, but only for a bit.” Because as soon as he’s given the message, he asks how long. God answers. 

-Do you think Isaiah will have a popular ministry? Do you think he’ll attract great crowds and be sought out by those in authority? Nope. But he’s still commissioned by God to carry this out. And a few chapters later, God tells him how long this destruction will be. We looked at this earlier in Isa. 11 – it’s until Jesus comes. When Jesus comes everything changes! We now have hope, we have a future, we have a life with a job to do, which is what the last verses show us.

-Despite the warning, John’s obedient, and just as he was promised he gets an upset stomach.

-Just like me with the Starbursts, John figures obedience to God is worth it. And the picture this is painting is the need to ingest and digest God’s Word. All of it. We don’t get to pick and choose the passages we like and leave out the rest, we MUST ingest it, even when it’s bitter and feels harmful to us.

-Which gets to the content of the scroll. The outcome of the scroll is “prophesy AGAIN” that second word is important. I think the best way to interpret that is that this prophesy is setting the stage for the next 2 chapters. He prophesies to the church in 11 and then to the kings in 12 (which we’ll see over the next 2 weeks, so don’t miss that!)

-The question ahead of us today though us: are you willing to trust God’s Word even if/when it’s bitter? And further than that, are you willing to speak God’s Word even if it’s bitter?

-What John would experience because of speaking God’s word was persecution (he was on Patmos because he had been exiled, kicked out of his home) Are you willing to be like John and trust and obey God’s Word regardless of the outcome?

-There are things that God commands in His Word that I don’t like, that don’t come naturally to me, and sometimes run contrary to the way our culture trains us to think. Think of something like “turn the other cheek.” I don’t like doing that! When someone badmouths me I REALLY want to get them back! But that’s not the way God has commanded me to live. So I die to my preferences, I die to my desires, and I obey, even though it’s bitter in my stomach.

-Or think of what the Bible says about gender and sexuality! It lays out the parameters that sex is for 1 biological man and 1 biological woman in the monogamous covenant of marriage. Do you think people today view that as bitter?

-Or take politics! Jesus isn’t afraid to talk about politics, but when He does, He doesn’t pick sides! He says both of you are right in some areas and wrong in others. That’s a stomachache just waiting to happen when you enter into that conversation!

-I’m not going to pretend this is easy, not going to pretend it’s always fun. But I can promise you that it’s good and will lead to a much better outcome than if you aren’t obedient to God’s Word. This is part of the blessing John talks about in the Rev. 1. If you are obedient to God’s Word, then we don’t have to be afraid of anything, we proclaim God’s Word regardless of whether it’s bitter or sweet, regardless of how much of a stomachache it brings, and we trust that God is working in the midst of all these things.

Woe to the World

Revelation 9:1-21

-One of my favorite bands (first concert I took Cara to) has a song called “One of Those Days” 

I’m just having one of those days
Where I wake up to the sound of rain
With this pressure on my chest that I can’t make go away
Every minute’s gettin’ longer
Waves are hittin’ harder
Wish that I was stronger than the pain

-I don’t know about you, but I sure wish this world was an easier place! The dollar doesn’t seem to go as far, houses fall apart around you, sickness descends on your house like a plague (and when you have as many kids as I do it doesn’t leave for months!) On top of that, when you have good times planned (like a wedding for one of my cousins yesterday in Rochester) your accident-prone middle child ends up needing stitches. Don’t worry, she’s just fine, just a little traumatized. But there are always things going on that work to bring us down, discourage us, distract us from what’s true and even at times outright attack us. 

-Spiritual war is a real thing, as we’ll continue seeing throughout this book! That’s why it’s so important to keep the end in mind.

READ/PRAY

1. The Woe of the Locusts (1-12)

-Ended last week with a warning to the “earth dwellers” because of the upcoming 3 trumpets, called 3 “Woes” Listening to Micah last week made me think of a Marvel movie. “Fine, I’ll do it myself.” All the evil and difficulty in the world is coming to a head.

-It also made me think of another thing I said a few weeks ago: increasing severity and judgment. As things get worse, God’s Word still continues spreading. That’s what can give us hope: evil doesn’t have the final word!

-Just as Micah did last week, I want to caution us as we approach this text. I had a prof at seminary who would regularly encourage us to “wrestle” with the text in front of us. It doesn’t always come easy, nor is it supposed to! Just as Jacob (father of the Israelite nation) wrestled with God, our job as His people today is to wrestle with His Word to us so that we know how to live in a way that pleases Him. But we’re in a section of the Bible that deals with judgment, and our culture has a tendency to gloss over that attribute of God today to focus on his goodness and love. 

-God is good and He is loving, but that also means that He will bring about perfect justice. And I think part of the reason we struggle to believe in God’s justice is because we live in a such a safe environment. Remember: the normal state of matters in the world is war and fighting. Just think: we don’t run for shelter every time we hear an airplane. I watched Masters of the Air recently and during WW2 planes had a very different connotation. 

-God’s love is also made visible in the fact that He will bring about perfect and lasting justice. I think this is something we often miss in our world today. Love requires justice, otherwise it’s not love it’s just a fleeting feeling.

-Think of the people John was writing this letter to. Persecuted, on the fringe of society, no influence or power in society. How do you think they endured? Why do you think it was important for them to know about God’s true justice? Because they needed the reminder that this world isn’t all there is. Just think of the importance of this message for our brothers and sisters in the faith around the world who meet in secret on Sundays because of the threat of death. Do you think they need the reminder that true and perfect justice is coming? Think of what the martyrs cried out back in 6:10 “how long until you judge those earth-dwellers?”

-We also need to remember that the judgments we’re reading about have the goal of people repenting of their sin and turning to God. I was reflecting last week on the biblical idea of “salvation” and the 2 aspects involved in it: saved FROM and saved TO. We are saved FROM sin, and now we’re saved TO DO good works. That’s God’s goal for all humanity: to be saved from their sin, and then turn around and do the good works that He’s prepared for them. So even as we read about judgment, it’s not like someone who flies off the handle at a moments notice. We’re reading about someone who is slow to anger and desires everyone to follow Him, so keep that in mind as we work through today’s text.

-“Star that had fallen”

-There is ALL SORTS of debate about this star! Basically 3 opinions: referring to Satan when he fell from heaven, referring to another demon who was allowed by God to inflict this punishment, or a good angel who was carrying out the same agenda. No major issues with any of them because the outcome is the same: they open up a shaft to “the abyss.” 

-What is the abyss? It seems to be different from hell, Hades and the lake of fire. Hades is the place of the dead, and the lake of fire is the place of final punishment. But there is a theme of evil coming out.

-It’s important to note that smoke not always bad, God descended in smoke in Ex. 19, but even there is the connotation of judgment coming (I would argue)

-So this “star” is given the keys for the abyss. Keys in the Bible signify authority and power over something. So Jesus says the keys of the kingdom are given to the church (which I don’t have time to get into today, come to the membership class if you want more info there!), here the keys are given to a giant pit and out of this giant pit come locusts.

-Locusts, power WAS GIVEN. Who’s in charge here? This is vital for us to remember as we read through this! It’s not an accident, it’s not 2 equal powers fighting it out. God is in complete control, and He’s allowing these judgments to come to pass.

-Another word to notice is “like” trying to make comparisons, doing the best he can, but he’s not saying this is exactly what it is.

-There’s something weird about these locusts, they’re commanded to not harm grass, what do locusts do? Eat grass! Signifying the demonic nature. Don’t read this and immediately jump to locust hordes swarming people. Remember: symbols and imagery to signify deeper realities.

-John is picking up an idea from the prophet Joel. These locusts are connected to God’s judgment for disobedience. 

-Now notice who’s affected by this: those who don’t have God’s seal. Who doesn’t have God’s seal? “earth dwellers” unbelievers. 

-The locusts are given specific parameters on what they’re allowed to do: not killing, but torment. And even the torment has a timeline! Only for 5 months. All sorts of debate around that time! It’s generally thought of as the lifespan of locusts. It could be a way of saying it’s limited, but no one knows.

-Notice again, it’s LIKE the torment caused by a scorpion, doesn’t say it is. 

-Torment so bad people want to die but they can’t

-Can you imagine becoming so discouraged about life that you want to die? Once again, I would make the argument that John’s referring to the events that have been going on for thousands of years, in between Jesus’ 2 comings. 

-I think what we see here is people who have lost all hope in life and succumb to the despair that comes from that. Friends – don’t miss this: for some people, life on earth is the closest to heaven they’ll ever be. Can you imagine if that were true for you? This broken world with sickness, death, Satan running rampant being the best you’ll ever experience. I just read this week that suicide is the second leading cause of death for people between 10-34, second only to “unintentional injury.” I really think that’s a glimpse of the influence of these locusts. And there is some irony to this, because it shows us that following Satan always leads to death! He promises life, he has since the very beginning, but following him only leads to torment. We’ll talk about this more at the end, but this is demonstrating a lack of hope in the future, a lack of hope in God’s promises, and is the work of the evil one. 

-Description is meant to be grotesque. See all the “likes” in here? I don’t think there’s anything significant to these descriptions for us today, but here’s a picture of an artistic rendering someone tried to make of these creatures. Disgusting! Demonic! Not the way God has created things. 

-The final reason I don’t believe these are real locusts is it says “Their king” (Prov. 30:27) Apollyon = destroyer. 

-Personification of death. Where he promises life and flourishing, the only thing he can offer is torment and destruction. This is showing us just how insane it is to follow after him! “Everyone in hell is insane, for there is nothing more insane than the worship of self and the hatred of God. This too is part of God’s judgment on the human race.” Thomas Schreiner

-But this is only the first woe, there’s still 2 more to come

• The Woe of the Horses (13-19)

-From the four horns: which altar? Place where the martyrs were (6:9) in response to the way His people were treated. 

-Four angels

-The Euphrates is another theme throughout the Bible. It’s place of origin was the garden of Eden, was the border of the land promised to Abraham, but in the 1^st century was the place where the enemies were. In fact, a group known as the Parthians (keep them in mind!) invaded from across the Euphrates in 53 BC and 62 AD.

-God’s perfect plan designated to the hour. Again, please don’t miss this point in the midst of all this terrifying imagery. God isn’t caught off guard by what’s going on! Even when it feels like you’re facing an army of 200 hundred million, God’s in control. 

-These mounted troops number 200 million (twenty thousand, ten thousand), but notice that John hears their number, he doesn’t count them. When we’ve seen that throughout this book it doesn’t always match the reality (hearing a lion and sees a lamb, hears 144K and sees countless multitude) Numbers are symbols, not statistics.

-Who’s wearing a breastplate? Why these colors? What about smoke, sulfur, and fire as plagues?

-Referencing back to the Exodus where plagues killed God’s enemies, but once again it’s 1/3, not the full number of the earth. Even in judgment, God is showing His mercy to the world.

-Interesting description of these riders, they can kill from all sides. This is similar to the way the Parthian enemies were described, the ones that had invaded Roman territory before from across the Euphrates. They were masters of riding horses and shooting arrows all around. FEARED by the Romans. Here’s another artistic rendering of this one. Again, terrifying!

-But then we get to the real crux of this chapter with the last 2 verses.

• The Woe of the People (20-21)

-The remaining earth dwellers: these judgments are meant to lead to repentance. After all these judgments, after wanting to die, after seeing loved ones die there’s still no repentance. This is why I started with the reminders about who God is today. God is not vindictive, God does not repay evil with evil, instead He is the perfect righteous judge.

-There is a day coming where we will actually praise God for his judgments. Rev. 19 tells us that one of the last things the saints will do it praise God because his judgments are true and righteous. I also think we see that a couple other places in the Bible:

–Rom. 2:3-5: God is kind, but up to a point. He’s kind because he wants people to repent and turn to Him, but if not you’re only heaping judgment!

–2 Peter 3:9: Similarly here, God is patient, but up to a point! Friends, don’t miss this again! The fact that Jesus hasn’t returned yet means there’s STILL time! Don’t let this time pass you by! Even evil in God’s cosmic plan of redemption, is meant to lead us to put our complete trust in Him.

-The works of their hands: building idols, which is serving demons. This is the irony of idolatry, because people end up worshipping created things instead of the creator. And that’s also true spiritually! Demons are created beings that coerce worship of them instead of the worship of God. And this isn’t a new problem:

–Isa. 2:8. People have always been tempted towards idolatry, which is the original sin. Look at the list John gives us:

-Murders, sorceries, sexual immorality, thefts: all explicitly prohibited by the 10 commandments. Murders (how often do we mentally murder someone?), sorceries (rise in “spirituality” or “manifesting” or “energies”), I don’t think I need to expand on sexual immorality, and thefts (stealing time from your work, coveting what someone else has). These things continue to ring true today! But the end is the same consequence as being affected by the locusts: death and torment.

-I want us to spend some time on this now, because I think we need to be willing to engage the difficult topics that our world is facing. And what I think these 2 woes (and trumpets) are pointing to is rising despair among people. See, what we need is hope, and that’s the reason we have this letter! If God is in control, if Jesus does really win, then we have every reason to hope!

-Think of what Paul tells us in Rom. 5. What do we boast in? Hope. Not in ourselves, but in God. Even in the midst of afflictions we can hope! 

-There’s a psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor named Viktor Frankl who wrote Man’s Search for Meaning shared a story of the difference in longevity to those subjected to the horrors of the holocaust was directly connected to whether or not they had hope. There was a significant rise in death rates between Christmas 1944 and New Year’s 1945 because so many people had believed they would be freed by Christmas. When Christmas came and went they lost hope. Church, we can hope! This isn’t being Pollyanna and pretending everything is good when you’re struggling, this is setting our minds and directions in the right place.

-And today we see a lack of hope in people. Despair is rampant, mental health issues are out of control (Micah has preached on that before, not everything is mental health, but there are enough legitimate mental health issues that we can’t pretend they’re not real)

-There was a well-known pastor this past week who went viral for speaking out against this. “Psychiatry and psychology is finally admitting the noble lies that they’ve been telling for the last 100 years. The major noble lie is there is such a thing as mental illness…There’s no such thing as PTSD, OCD, ADHD. Those are noble lies.” I’m sorry, but this is just wrong, and the wrong way for a Christian to engage a crisis in our world. Sin has broken everything, including the way our minds work! People can have legitimate chemical imbalances, or even have neurological links that are moving down the wrong pathways. We are SUCH complex beings that we can’t just provide simple solutions to these major issues in our world today.

-The solution is Jesus, but even with Jesus that doesn’t mean all our issues will just go away – that’s prosperity gospel which is the opposite of what Jesus actually tells us. Sometimes the only hope we have is that this world isn’t all there is. We were made for a different world, a world without sickness, without fear, without death, without crying. But until we’re in that world, (or until that world comes here) the locusts will continue running rampant, continue influencing people, and continuing to bring despair. So what’s our response?

-First: cry out to Jesus. Just as the martyrs under the altar plead with God “how long?” we can come before His throne and ask the same question. His answer will probably be “Just a little while longer.”

-Second: live in authentic community. I somewhat hate that term “authentic” because it tends to mean you need to be accepting of anything I want, so when I use that word I’m saying it means you being open with people about your joys and your struggles. The reason God has given us a community called the church is to help us as we navigate the challenges of life before heaven.

-Finally: don’t lose hope! Even when things feel like they’re falling apart, we can trust that God is with us. He’s promises that He will never leave us, and He’s showing us that in this book! The one thing we can do in the meantime is remain faithful. Faithfully pray, faithfully serve God with your whole life, faithfully love other people.

-Jumping right in today! But I want to try something different. The Bible is meant to be heard, so I want you to just listen to the words. You’ll have plenty of time to follow along during the sermon, but this morning just listen as I read it.

-I’ve been listening to the Bible this year instead of reading it, different things will stand out.

READ/PRAY

1. The 4 Horsemen (1-8)

-First thing for us to remember is this is connected to where we’ve seen 4 other creatures come up.

-Those 4 represent all of creation, think of the way we describe the “4 corners of the world” Text explicitly makes this connection for us, as it’s the living creatures that speak to the horsemen.

-This is also (once again) picking up an OT theme (make sure you know your Bible!)

–Zech. 1:8-11; 6:1-8. 4 horsemen sent out to patrol the earth and report back to God about what’s taking place on the earth. 

-It’s a bit like the story of the tower of Babel in Gen. 11. Do you think God is unaware of what’s going on here? Do you think things surprise God or catch Him off guard? No! But He uses different means to communicate the way He engages with His creation. Tower of Babel: “Let’s build a tower, make a name for ourselves, reach the sky” (the realm of the gods). Then there’s a significant level of irony in vs. 5“Then the Lord came down to look over the city and the tower that the humans were building.” 

-First: a white horse with a bow, a crown, and conquering. Most debated of the horses.

-I shared last week that many interpreters think this is referring to Jesus. Why? White generally stands for purity in Revelation (look down at vs. 11) We also see Jesus riding a white horse in Rev. 19. If that is the case, the significance of this horse is the spread of the gospel message conquering the world. This would connect back to what Jesus said is Matt. 24:14 “This good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed in all the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

-But others say this can’t be Jesus because the rest of the horses bring terrible judgments and persecutions. Clearly we’re supposed to see these horses as connected somehow – they’re all seals, the same wording is used for each one. If that were the case, this would refer to the ways nations rise and fall and continually fight against each other. This would connect to something else Jesus said in Matt. 24:6 “You are going to hear of wars and rumors of wars.”

-Honestly, I’ve gone back and forth between these 2 all week! As of now I’m leaning towards the latter, but could easily see how it could be referring to Jesus! The immediate context seems to be more negative than the gospel going out, BUT one explanation that I thought made sense of it being Jesus is that as the gospel message is spread, the response of the evil one is death and destruction. You can decide which one you prefer either one works!

-Second: fiery red horse that removed peace.

-This rider fosters division and discord among people. One of the supposed benefits of the Roman empire was what is called “Pax Romana” the peace of Rome. But this horse is here to show that it’s a fake peace that can’t actually accomplish what it claims to. And as we know history will go on to demonstrate, that peace wouldn’t even last much longer than this! 

-The normal state of human affairs is war. I read an article this week that’s a little old now, but stated that in the past 3,400 years, humans have been at peace for 268 of them, 8%. I think we can at times struggle to understand what some of our fellow Christians across the globe experience on a regular basis. It has been estimated that over the 20^th century, 231 million people died in wars. That’s only 1 million shy of the entire population of the US (MN has 5.7 million, meaning that’s 40.5 MN) Dear friends, until Christ returns we won’t have peace.

-Third: black horse, rider has scales.

-The amount of foods don’t make sense to us because it’s using antiquated systems. But what they’re communicating is the minimum amount of food required for a person to survive. And it requires an entire days wages. This is saying that there’s a famine. The high inflation we’ve seen (or shrinkflation!) has nothing on this! Can you imagine if the bare minimum of food you needed cost every penny you made? Not to mention the food that the rest of your family would need! How destructive would this event be?

-But notice what’s not harmed: oil and wine. These are the extravagant foods that aren’t getting inflated. But if people are spending every penny they own to get the bare minimum, do you think oil or wine being cheap is going to help them? The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. 

-Fourth is a pale green horse ridden by Death and Hades (place of the dead, think hell)

-The color here stood out to me: why pale green? What helped me understand the significance was when I used to watch Scooby Doo growing up. Think of it like a zombie: the walking dead. It fits perfectly with its rider.

-This one means death is inevitable. So many people will die in horrible ways. It’s almost as if things just keep getting worse with each horse. Where God originally created and designed everything to be at peace with each other, now there’s only fighting against each other (plague, wild animals)

-Let’s summarize all of these horses. I love the way Eugene Peterson says it.

-“War is social evil; famine is ecological evil; sickness is biological evil. War attacks the goodness of community; famine violates and ravages God’s bounty; sickness destroys and wastes God-give bodies.” Do you think any of these things are taking place today? What’s even more difficult is the way we talk about them:

“War is disguised as patriotism and a glorious struggle for freedom. Famine is disguised as a higher standard of living. Sickness is disguised by technology.” (Reversed Thunder, 76)

-We have so sanitized sickness today that we hardly think about it, until we’re the ones affected. In 2022, our country spent $4.5 trillion on healthcare, which means an average of $13,493 per person, which accounts for 17.3 percent of our country’s gross domestic product. How healthy do you think our country is if that much of our money is spent on healthcare?

-That should get us to an even bigger existential question: How can Jesus be reigning on His throne is there’s so much war and destruction and death and evil in the world? You’ve probably heard that question before, or asked that question before, or maybe you’re asking it now because of something that’s happening in your life! That’s a real, legitimate question that we all have to wrestle with at some point in our lives, and I don’t think I have enough time to completely answer that question today, but I do want to propose a way of framing it that I think shifts our perspective on the evil we see in the world around us today.

-There’s some words that I glossed over as we were looking at the horses that I want us to go back and look through. First, who’s the one opening the seals?

-Sunday school answer: Jesus! He’s in charge, even in allowing these horrendous events to take place (I’m not saying He’s responsible for them, I’m saying He has a bigger plan than we do, He sees more than we do, and responds in a better way than we could).

-Second, we need to pay attention to the verbs in connection to the riders. First “a crown WAS GIVEN,” second “WAS ALLOWED TO,” third doesn’t say anything the living creature is the one who says what will take place, fourth “THEY WERE GIVEN.” Remember, none of this catches God off guard or by surprise. Because Jesus is worthy, because He’s reigning on His throne, He’s ultimately in charge of what’s taking place. He’s allowing evil to have its day. Not completely, and not without reason, but evil does still have some level of authority in the world today. Does that make God unloving or not good? I don’t think so. We need to acknowledge that we don’t know everything, including the mind of God! 

-Think of what Paul says in Romans 11. We need to trust that God does have a plan that He is working out in our lives for our good and His glory. That doesn’t make the pain and suffering of this world any easier, but it gives a purpose and a direction to it, because He promises that He’s still in control and walking with us in the middle of it. And that’s exactly where the next seal goes:

• The Martyrs (9-11)

-“Under the altar” – the place where the blood would pool. These saints who had been slaughtered (gross injustice) because of their faith and trust in God.

-Think of where else we’ve seen a loud voice in our study through this book so far. At the beginning, John hears a loud voice behind him, Rev. 5 the angel asks all creation who is worthy? And finally the response of all creation to Jesus being worthy is LOUD. This time, God’s people are crying out begging God for justice. Questioning how long God will allow evil to continue, how long will sin continue affecting creation, how long until everything broken will be fixed?

-Do you ever feel that way? The world isn’t fair so you ask God how long He’ll allow these terrible things to take place? This is one of the reasons I love the Bible is it allows for questions, it describes doubts in great detail, and it understands the breadth of human emotion. 

-Think of what David says in Psalm 13. Do you ever feel like you can ask God these kinds of questions, or do you feel guilty making demands of Him? Dear friends, please don’t put on a front around God, He actually knows what you’re going through better than you do. Passages like this are in the Bible to remind us that God isn’t distant or removed from you, He’s intimately and actively involved in your life. And sometimes He demonstrates that through the people sitting by you right now. God has given us a community (called the church) to help remind you that you don’t suffer alone. Even here it’s the soulS, plural. Church you will never ever be alone. God will be with you, and so will His people.

-They’re also not condemned for asking for God to respond and judge people! (I know that goes against the way most people think today) Romans 12:19, God will execute perfect justice someday, even thought we don’t see it today.

-Just as the 4 riders were given permission, here the saints are given a white robe and told to rest.

-The white robe signifies purity and righteousness (that will come up again next week), and the rest comes about because of Jesus’ work on their behalf. This is important because any time there is suffering or difficulty it’s tempting to ask if this is because of something we did wrong. (story of the man born blind in the Gospels He was born blind to demonstrate the goodness of God, Fanny Crosby who was made blind by a doctor but made her more excited to see Jesus’ face)

–The Magician’s Nephew quote

-It’s fine to ask, but then when we ask for God to work, we also need to be content to trust in His plan. Notice that He answers the saints, but the answer is “wait,” and not only wait, but in the waiting, the 4 horsemen will continue wreaking havoc on the earth. More death, more destruction. But God is still there, still guiding, still waiting, until the next seal:

• The Wrath of the Lamb (12-17)

-I liked the way I read one person describe these events as an earthquake and a heavenquake. It describes creation coming undone! The injustice that God allows extends to all of His creation. 

-Strong language used often in apocalyptic literature to signify the ending of all things. We know this is used to signify the ending of all things because it’s not the end of the book! 

-Look back at vs. 10. Remember the phrase I’ve shared a couple times now about “earth dwellers”? That’s who the saints are asking to be judged, the people who, even in the midst of suffering and difficulty refuse to believe in Jesus.

-Now jump down to vs. 15 and see the way they’re described: how many descriptions? 7. Do you think that’s significant? Who’s left out of the eventual judgment of God? NO ONE! They’re scrambling to hide, trying to find some way to escape this coming judgment from God.

-Can you imagine being so scared of something coming that you’d rather die in a landslide than face it? I don’t like scary movies, so I haven’t seen too many of them, but I can’t imagine begging to be killed by a mountain. 

-This is here to remind us that there is something far worse than death to be afraid of, which is what these “earth-dwellers” are now realizing. Jesus is already on His throne, He’s already working and ruling, but they haven’t admitted it until now. And now it’s too late for them, but not for us.

-Look at vs. 17: someday, Jesus will return, but not quietly, not in Bethlehem, and definitely not as a little baby. This time He comes with wrath as a conquering lamb. But because we’re still here today, that means that day hasn’t yet come. So what choices are you making now to make that day a cause for celebration instead of begging for destruction?

-I’ve said this before, but part of the reason you’re here today is to respond to what God is doing in your life. Don’t let this moment pass you by! God is telling you exactly what’s going to happen someday. His wrath is going to fall to the earth, and it’s either going to fall on you, or it’s going to have fallen on His Son.

-That’s where the “earth-dwellers” ask 1 last question: who is able to stand? That’s a rhetorical question, the answer is no one. No one except one. And you can either be covered by the blood of that one, or face the wrath on your own where you won’t be able to stand. I beg you: be saved from the wrath of the lamb today. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Confess and believe. That’s all it takes! 

-And for those of you who have believed, the Lord tells us: just a little while longer. Remain faithful, continue trusting in God’s good plan for your life (even unto death), and continue taking one step closer to Him each and every day.