SPEAKER_00 0:01

Today's July 11th, and today I'm sharing from Revelation chapter 6, verses 1 through 17. This passage is about the seven seals. Let's take a look at it. Now in Revelation 6, the Lamb begins to open the seven sealed scroll, each seal revealing a vision that reflects God's sovereign rule over history, even as judgment is poured out on the earth. Now the four uh four seals unleash the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and they symbolically represent the following. The white horse represents conquest or false peace. Red horse represents war and bloodshed. Black horse represents economic imbalance and famine, and pale horse death and Hades. Now these are symbolic representations. These horsemen represent the turmoil and tragedy that mark the fallen and broken world in which we live. Conflict, injustice, and mortality is what we expect. But these are all under God's sovereign permission. The fifth seal, verses nine through eleven, reveals the souls of the martyrs under the altar. They cry out, How long? And they long for justice, but they are told to rest a little longer until the full number of fellow servants are also martyred. This shows that God's justice is not forgotten, only delayed. Verses twelve through seventeen describe the sixth seal, which brings cosmic chaos, a great earthquake, the sun turns black, the moon like blood, stars fall, the sky vanishes, and the mountains and islands are moved. Kings and slaves are alike. They try to hide, crying out, Oh, mountains fall on us, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand? That's a very important question. Who can stand? Now the question at the end of this chapter, who can stand, sets up the answer that will come in chapter seven. But in the meantime, let's take a look at once again chapter six and ask the following questions: Who is God? What is our guilt? And how does the grace of God shine in this passage? Once again, uh, this repeated theme in Revelation, which is God is the sovereign Lord over history. Um, though the scroll is filled with trials and judgment, it is the Lamb who opens each seal. This means that nothing happens apart from his will. The horrors of conquest, uh, war, um, famine, and death are not random. They are under divine sovereign control of God. Even the martyrs are told to rest a little longer, not because justice is denied, but because God's redemptive timeline is still unfolding. So God is both just and patient, not willing that any should perish. Um Peter 3 9. So when the sixth seal is open, the whole cosmos responds, God is not only the Lord of nations and history, he is the Lord of creation itself. Amen. Um what is our guilt? We often live as if judgment will never come. Uh we think that, oh yeah, the Christ's second coming, uh, yeah, I know he'll come one day, but not in my lifetime, people say. Really. The four horsemen remind us of the realities of sin's consequence, and yet we act as if this broken world can still somehow save us. The martyrs under the altar are those who remained faithful, um, and their presence exposes our fear of sacrifice and our love of comfort. Are we willing to suffer for Christ or do we blend in with the world to avoid trouble? Let us ask that question. Uh, how well do we blend in with the world in order to avoid trouble? I would say that many of us do that really well. And when the world shakes uh through disasters, conflicts, or personal crises, what do we do? We panic instead of repenting. The people of Revelation 6 hide from the face of the Lamb, calling on rocks to fall on them rather than crying out for God's mercy in repentance. See, this is our guilt. Our guilt is not only that we are sinners, but we are unrepentant sinners. That even in calamities, in facing the great calamities, that we refuse to repent and ask God's forgiveness. And yet this passage shows us the grace of God. Even in this dark chapter, grace shines through. It is the Lamb who opens the seals, not the earthly tyrant, which means that judgment flows through pierced hands of our Lord, hands that died to save. The martyrs are seen and heard, their suffering is not forgotten or ignored by God, their blood is precious in God's sight. And so the question, who can stand, is not rhetorical, but it prepares us for chapter seven, where the answer is clear, though sealed by God's grace, clothed in white, and washed in the blood of the Lamb. Chapter 7, verse 14. Grace shines in the warning itself. These judgments are not final. When these things are happening, we still have time to repent and turn to God. These are preliminary wake-up calls, divine megaphones, so to speak, of mercy, calling the world to repentance before the final day arrives. Dearly beloved, let us remember that the final day approaches even now as we speak. We are one day closer to Christ's second coming than it was yesterday, one week closer, one month closer, one year closer than a year ago. How will we prepare ourselves from now until the second coming of Christ Jesus? Let us read the Word of God, meditate on it, reflect on it, and no matter what we face, let us remember while there is time, we have time to repent. Let us repent and turn to God and into the welcoming arms of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lived the life that you and I should have lived, and who died the death that you and I should have died. May God's grace be with you this day.

unknown 7:41

Amen.