War, thoughts
of war, and the economic and social conditions that precede and follow war are
the primary fuel of speculation about the Antichrist, the end of the world, and
the second coming of Christ. In 1981 a
prominent economist alluded to the coming depression, brought on by high
interest rates and speculative investment-mentality. He stated that the last time such conditions
existed was 1928 and 1929. He encouraged
us to watch the government begin to print massive amounts of money to head off
another Great Depression. Then he made the statement that relates to
our text:
As in Germany in the 1920's, recourse to the
money printing process in the 1980's will set the stage in this country for the
second coming of a Hitler.[1]
Chicago's
Rabbi Eckstein said that
...all of
this climatic ferment epicentered in the middle east, seems to him to be
messianic times. And if this is it, if
the messiah appears, rabbi Eckstein says that he can't wait to ask him one
question: Is this your second visit or your first?[2]
I have an
answer for the venerate Rabbi -- it's the second! The first was when He came as a child; this
next time it will be as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And this time instead of a crown of thorns on
His head, there will be a sword of judgment in His mouth.
Today’s text
is the beginning of judgment on the earth.
Chapter 5 dealt with the worship scene in heaven, a seven-sealed book,
held in the right hand of God. Only
Jesus is worthy to open the book, and, as he begins to break the seals, we
discover that it is closely connected with the Olivet Discourse (found in the 24th chapter of
Matthew’s Gospel), Jesus
"other sermon."
Later, Jesus
sat on the Mount of Olives. His disciples came to him privately and said, “Tell
us, when will all this happen? What sign will signal your return and the end of
the world?” Mathew 24:3
It is
important to remember (for perspective, and our sanity), that Revelation is not
strictly chronological. The events we will look at today are after the church has departed
earth. Those who have received Jesus
Christ are taken out (raptured, caught away) from this earth before the beginning
of God's wrath.
For God chose
to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us. 1 Thessalonians 5:9
The unfolding
of the wrath of God happens in three series of judgments: seals,
trumpets and vials. They are like scenes of a play. Each series has seven movements. One expositor put it this way: The
action of [Revelation] is carried forward, for the most part, by these series.[3]
(I am
indebted to that author, Dr. John Phillips, at least for the outline titles, as
he has identified
·
the seals movement as: The
world ruined by man
·
the trumpets movement as: The
world ruled by Satan
·
the vials movement as: The
world rescued by God.
The
Troubling Question in Your Mind
There is one
big question about this judgment we all want answered with certainty. And we want it answered before we start to
hear about beasts, wars, and plagues.
The question, preacher, is...
Are you absolutely certain Christians won't be here to suffer
along with unbelievers during this great tribulation?
The answer to
that is YES! The proof is the context
of this whole chapter, coupled with what we know about God's nature:
For this
lawlessness is already at work secretly, and it will remain secret until the
one who is holding it back steps out of the way. 2 Thessalonians 2:7
Throughout
this series of judgment movements God's Holy Spirit is not seen on the
earth. He is the One who is holding it
(lawlessness) back (restraining it).
The church,
indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, is the great restrainer of evil on the
earth.
·
It is the church that first built hospitals.
·
It is the church that has pushed for education and
human rights in all ages.
·
It is the church that exposes evil and wrong in
society.
·
It was, as France's deTocqueville stated, it ... goodness that made America great, and it
was the flaming pulpits of America, ablaze with righteousness that made America
good.
It was the
Spirit of God that made those pulpits burn.
And when the Spirit is withdrawn, the church leaves this earth also; and
with her go the restraining influence for good.
Evil will have its heyday, so that judgment may fall properly on the
earth and all its evil!
So this
morning we study God’s judgment unfolding as the impeccable and infallible
power of God’s judgment begins to pour out judgment on the earth.
The
White Horse (Man's Philosophy without God)
I looked up
and saw a white horse standing there. Its rider carried a bow, and a crown was
placed on his head. He rode out to win many battles and gain the victory. Revelation 6:2
And the connection with
Jesus’ other sermon:
for many will
come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah.’ They will deceive many. Matthew 24:5
The
"beginning of the end" is opened with a look into what is already
happening, a world that thinks it can get along without God. The technical name is humanism. William Henley's famous poem, Invictus describes the condition,
Out of the
night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank
whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul.
In the fell
clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud;
Under the bludgeoning
of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed.
It matters
not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the
master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.
The problem
with humanism is it makes no allowance for God.
Some humanists even believe in God.
However, they assume the position that God may have been back of the
creation, but now takes no interest or part in the affairs of man. In short, we are left to our own devices; we
must create our own destiny.
·
The Communist debacle was anti-god in ideology.
·
The evolutionist group reduces man to blobs of
protoplasm, absent of moral ability or responsibility.
·
The New Age fruitcakes are humanistic, because it is
an eclectic mish-mosh of religions
that have as their center, man alone.
The New Age movement is all about what can be done to make one feel
better about oneself! It has no object
of worship except self.
·
The peace movements have no peace.
·
The sexual revolution backfired, and became the sexual
nightmare of AIDS, abortion on demand, and Homosexual confusion.
·
A governmental love-affair with liberalistic socialism
masquerades as love and kindness, but will ring empty when it bankrupts the
hand that feeds the handouts.
·
The next battle ground, euthanasia, is already heating
up.
What is the
tie that binds all these? They are all
products of secular humanism. They all
replace God with man on the throne of the universe. In this nightmare TRUE Christianity
is reduced to laughable anti-intellectualism. (You
really believe a man was God, died and rose again? Hey, I believe in spiritual things -- but
don't get spooky on me here!
The white
horse of philosophy is ridden by none other than the Antichrist. We can say that with authority, even though
some interpret this to be Jesus. The
rationale is that this crowned conqueror, riding on a white horse is an imitator
of the real peace-bringer, Jesus.
Note how in
Revelation 6:3-4, the next event is war.
Jesus' peace will be everlasting.
This peace is an imitation, and comes from the chief counterfeiter:
“Then if
anyone tells you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah,’ or ‘There he is,’ don’t believe
it. For
false messiahs and false prophets will rise up and perform great signs and
wonders so as to deceive, if possible, even God’s chosen ones. Matthew 24:23-24
False
prophets use feel good religious
tactics, which is the philosophy of man without God; these are attractive,
inoffensive, and totally ineffective!
In the end,
when Holy God judges this world, humanism will just not be enough!
The Red
Horse (Policies of Men's Government)
When the Lamb
broke the second seal, I heard the second living being say, “Come!” Then another horse
appeared, a red one. Its rider was given
a mighty sword and the authority to take peace from the earth. And there was war and slaughter everywhere. Revelation 6:3-4
And you will
hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end
won’t follow immediately. Nation
will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. Matthew 24:6,
7a
The
"policies" of government have always seemed to lean toward war, while
talking about lasting peace. Actually,
there is such an economic advantage to war, free societies cannot last
indefinitely without it! In the realm of
control, our so-called free societies
are not any different from the Communists or Socialists. The Evil
Iron Red Curtain used armies to control their own people. But the players in "first world"
countries use emotional patriotic appeals to get their young men into
the armies. And it is only a matter of
time till those armies claim the valuable oil rights, control the population,
and configure the world map the way it ought to be!
The Anitichrist
will use the same tactics, only on a grander scale! In earlier translations the word “kill” is
used, but the NLT is better as it uses the stronger word, slaughter! Politics is
all about power; politicians exert power; the process claims power; it is never
about peace, it’s always about the slaughter of life.
and the way
of peace they do not know." Romans
3:17
The
Black Horse (Prosperity
of Men's Greed)
When the Lamb
broke the third seal, I heard the third living being say, “Come!” I looked up
and saw a black horse, and its rider was holding a pair of scales in his
hand. And
I heard a voice from among the four living beings say, “A loaf of wheat bread
or three loaves of barley will cost a day’s pay. And don’t waste the
olive oil and wine.” Revelation 6:5-6
There will be
famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. Matthew 24:7b
The black
horse with its rider's scales is a symbol of economic disaster for the
poor. You might say, economic disaster for the poor? Well, in times of economic tightening, it is
the poor who suffer most. The Great
Depression did not touch the very wealthy.
Many of the wealthiest families increased their fortunes due to the lost
property of the middle – and lower-class families. There is a pronounced widening of the gap
between the rich and poor these days.
Never have
famines around the world been more devastating than at present. As they worsen, they will become more
frequent. When starving people in
Ethiopia cut down every tree and brush to make fuel for fires – or to sell for
food – there springs up a desert.
Deserts do not produce food for the future! The average American dog eats better than the
average child in Africa.
Famine always
follows or accompanies war, and it is getting worse. Now, according to the latest statistics, 821 million
in the world (nearly one-quarter of the world's people) live in abject poverty,
only a day or two from starvation. That
will seem like heaven, compared to the black horse of famine during the
tribulation. A day's wages will not even
buy a day's food for one person, much less that family.
The
Pale Horse (Pestilence
of Man's Blood)
When the Lamb
opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say,
"Come!" I looked, and there
before me was a pale horse! Its rider
was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the
earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the
earth. Revelation 6:7-8
Just as the
gathering of vultures shows there is a carcass nearby, so these signs indicate
that the end is near. Matthew 24:28
Plagues and
diseases have always followed war and famine.
In the 14th century the Bubonic Plague wiped out one-third of
the European population. During and
after World War I, typhus and influenza killed 26 million. Typhus alone killed 200 million over a four-century
span. In World War II, Korea, and
Vietnam, nerve gases began the chemical warfare that (if truth be known) paved
the way for the deadly strains of viruses such as polio, AIDS, and a myriad of
yet unknown enemies (probably including Covid) that will devastate the world
population during the Great Tribulation.
Fully one-fourth of all living (11/2 billion if it were
today), will die within a few months.
How will all
this happen? Perhaps as did the bubonic
epidemic, with infected rats, and stockpiled viruses. All that is required is the right
circumstance, the right motivation, the right madman. It is not how, but when...for
it will
be a reality!
“Now this is
what the Sovereign Lord says: How terrible it will be when all four
of these dreadful punishments fall upon Jerusalem—war, famine, wild animals,
and disease—destroying all her people and animals. Ezekiel 14:21
The
Martyrs (Persecution
of Believers)
When the Lamb
broke the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of all who had been
martyred for the word of God and for being faithful in their testimony. They shouted to the Lord
and said, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you judge the
people who belong to this world and avenge our blood for what they have done to
us?” Then
a white robe was given to each of them. And
they were told to rest a little longer until the full number of their brothers
and sisters—their fellow servants of Jesus who were to be martyred—had joined
them. Revelation 6:9-11
But all this
is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come. “Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and
killed. You will be hated all over the
world because you are my followers. And many will turn away from me and betray and hate
each other. Matthew 24:8-10
The Nazi
holocaust is a relatively fresh memory for our contemporary society. Eighty years is not quite long enough to
forget. However, the persecution of Jews
goes back to Abraham, Moses, and the time of Ruth.
In the
Christian Era, we must not forget that the church was comprised mainly of
converted Jews. Domitian, a Roman
emperor, put believers on poles in his gardens, covered them with oil-based
pitch, and set them on fire to be human lamps for his late evening
strolls. The arena floors ran blood-red
with the lives of saints who would not deny Christ.
The history
of the early church is written in blood.
Tertullian (c.AD160–220), was a Christian historian in the 3rd
century. It was he who said:
The more you mow us down, the more quickly we
grow;
the blood of Christians is fresh seed.
Wendell
Phillips, a preacher of the 19th century said,
Every step of progress the world has made has
been from scaffold to scaffold, and from stake to stake.
In the
contemporary world, some believers recognize that suffering for Christ ought to
be the norm. Radio preacher, John
Debrine said,
It took Acts 8.1 to fulfill Acts 1.8
But you will
receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people
about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends
of the earth.” Acts 1:8
A great wave
of persecution began that day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem; and all
the believers except the apostles were scattered through the regions of Judea
and Samaria. Acts 8:1
M. Scott Peck
is a believer who happens to be a psychiatrist.
He once wrote,
...as the time of the martyrs largely passed, so
did the life blood begin to flow out of Christianity and out of the
Church. Persecution should be an
omnipresent risk for every Christian.[5]
Beloved,
conditions now exist for these five horses to break-forth on the earth with
their horrible judgments. The peace
initiatives that will all fail, accompanied by power-grabbing governments, who
propel nations into war and the resultant famines, disease, and chaos will be
followed by self-proclaimed prophets who blame it all on the followers of
Jesus.
·
Persecution will reign.
·
Horror will be the norm.
·
Men will beg the hills to fall on them to end the
nightmare.
This is a
gruesome picture of a world in which the influence of a holy God has been
removed. It is a look at the prelude to
Hell, the total absence of God, altogether.
All these
judgments have their ancient parallels, as well as their contemporary
reminders. But what has happened in the
past, and what we see now, merely serve as faint shadows, or hints of the real
thing to come in the Great Tribulation.
And we all
know that a shadow, a model, a miniature, prelude, foothill, ad infinitum, is only a mild representation of the
true horror which is to come:
For there
will be greater anguish than at any time since the world began. And it will
never be so great again. Matthew 24:21
What, then shall I do?
I have a Warning and a What to offer:
THE
WARNING
Don't be
there! Make sure you are not in the
Great Tribulation. Be in the other
number of saints, taken in the rapture.
Call upon the name of the Lord today and be saved.
THE
WHAT
Warn
others! Help other people to know what's
coming.
In the southwest,
near Flagstaff, there is the Great Continental Divide. If you drop a cork in the stream that flows
towards the west, you can eventually pick up that cork in the Pacific
Ocean. If you drop the cork in the
stream on the other side, it will wind its way all the way to the Gulf of
Mexico, and finally to the Atlantic. It
makes a difference where you drop that cork.
There is
another Great Divide; it is the breaking of the first seal. When that white horse comes out of the gate,
it will already have happened.
·
Without Christ, you will be subject to travel through
the darkness of a world gone mad.
·
Without Christ you will see the white horse of man's
philosophy deceive an entire world.
·
Without Christ you will see the red horse of
government-sanctioned war for profit and fun.
·
Without Christ you will see the black horse of
economic ruin, and the resultant famine that will destroy the world's food
sources.
·
Without Christ you will see the pale horse of epidemic
claim one-fourth of the population, and you'll wish you were one of them.
And, without
Christ, you will not be a spectator in all this.
·
You will participate.
·
You will join the horses and their riders in
persecuting those Jews who do turn to Christ during this time.
·
You will help put them to death...and you will be
guilty again of murdering the Messiah, the only Son of the one, true
living God.
·
You will labor under a strong delusion that what you
are doing is perfectly right. God will
see to it!
It makes a
difference where you drop that cork, my friend.
Drop it in this world's banks, in this world's pleasures, in this
world's system, and watch it float towards the Great Tribulation. Talk about whitewater! You will not know what hit you.
No! Drop that cork in blood!
·
Drop it at the foot of the cross!
·
Come to the cross today and be saved, washed in
the blood…cleansed for all eternity – ready for the rapture, not the
rupture!
·
Decide -- the Great Divide is upon us!
