Click here for a .pdf file with original formatting.  Easier to read.

Rev. 6:1-8 Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, “Come.” 2I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.3When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come.” 4And another, a red horse, went out; and to him who sat on it, it was granted to take peace from the earth, and that men would slay one another; and a great sword was given to him.5When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. 6And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.”7When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come.” 8I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.

Eschatology; Future things study

eschatology ~ from Greek eskhatos "last, furthest, uttermost, extreme, most remote" + -ology. Originally in theology, the study of the four last things: death, judgment, heaven, hell. Related: Eschatological; eschatologically.

I listened to a terrific message this week. Alistair Begg on Pilgrim Radio.

But I was working so I was only getting bits and pieces. It was so excellent I waited until I was less busy and downloaded it so I could listen in the car.

Alistair makes the point that we are, most of us, to one degree or another, charletans in our interpretation of Revelation.

He's my age, almost exactly, and he points to Hal Lindsey's book, Late Great Planet Earth.

And if we did some background work do we not find a lot of parallels between Hal Lindseys book and the more scholarly "Things to Come" by Dwight Pentecost?

I admit that I cut my eschatological teeth (you didn't know I had eschatological teeth did you?) on Hal Lindsey's book. But how's it holding up?

Even MacArthur did a series in that exact time frame 40 years ago that has vanished.

We were all chomping at the bit waiting for the European Union to become the 10 nation confederacy. Did it ever have 10? Or did it go from 9 to 11 in one day. Then it was 13. We said, no problem, some of them will drop out. What is it now, 30? something? 27 with at least 3 eastern European countries about to be absorbed.

And we just knew Russia, that mighty world power that offset the US would march down into Israel at any moment. We waited. Waited. Waited.

I got married in 1975. We had Heather in '80. Tina in '82. Megan in '83. Waiting, waiting, waiting. I never expected my children to reach the age of accountability.

Meanwhile Russia and the eastern bloc countries crumbled. Some of them eventually joined the EU. China with it's 200 million damned the Yangtze River so they could march across and squash Israel, but so far they're only interested in making stuff for Walmart.

So how is Hal's book holding up? I just checked on 1/2 dot com and you can get a copy for 75 cents.

The point is this; We evangelicals love to pour over the pages of Revelation and mold it to fit whatever is going on in the world at the moment.

Preachers had a field day in the late 1930's making Hitler into the anti-christ! That scared Pam's dad silly, and to this day he denigrates anything to do with Bible prophecy. That's the end result sometimes of our careless loose interpretation.

We love to get a case of the 'tingles' in these pages, making them seem to fit whatever the current picture is, and we swoon in the urgency.

Hey! I'm right there with you! It's like we've had the phone call from Publisher's Clearing House to please be home on a certain day, so we're standing at the window waiting for that van to drive down the street with our check for $15,000,000 dollars.

Alistair says we're no better than the Jehovah's Witnesses!

Now I think Mr. Begg is perhaps a little too austere, making his point. But the point is well taken, and I plan to take a somewhat conservative approach as we wade through these pages.

So what is this book about then?

Let me take you to a single verse that we could say is an overview of the whole book. In Romans 12:19, you find a quote of Deuteronomy 32:35. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay.

(Now listen to me, because I think I'm about to say something important.)Vengeance is the flip side of Holiness. It's the reciprocal. Equal to, but other side of the polar equation.

We have little in our makeup to guage holiness against. We don't know how to do that. How Holy is our God. How do we measure that?

Here is one way for us. Holiness is the reciprocal of vengeance. We can see and understand vengeance. We can read this book and be amazed at the vengeance! Eye hath never seen, neither hath ear heard the amount of vengeance that is about to be poured out on this world.

We struggle to even understand it! We say, no, no, these things are just figurative language. This is poetry.

NO! This is vengeance from a Holy God! And the amount of vengeance is in some way equal to the amount of Holiness insulted!

3When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come.” 4And another, a red horse, went out; and to him who sat on it, it was granted to take peace from the earth, and that men would slaughter one another; and a great sword was given to him.

Here's an interesting comparison. The Moslem hoard's. The wave's of moslems in their black uniforms with their black flags, marching, for what? Jihad! Holy War!

Why? They're avenging Ullah! The world, especially us whores in the USA, and the pigs and rodents living in Israel, have insulted Ullah! Jihad is holy revenge against that insult.

Hmmmm. Let's use that same equation. Holiness is the reciprocal of revenge? Ullah has some arab boys throwing dust in the air, burning effigy's, shooting each other idiotically. Gonna blow up a bus, Ullah? wow.

I'm not impressed!

Our God, by comparison, says; Vengeance is mine. I will repay.

He doesn't need me to wage His war. And when He does wage His war, the world goes reeling and the stars from a heaven that is breaking up bombard it. The sun goes dark. People are as scarce as fine gold (Is. 13:12) And Jesus says if those days hadn't been shortened, nothing would have survived.

3When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come.”

Who broke the second seal? The lamb who is worthy.

Ullah wishes he could break the seals, but all he's got is arab boys.

I heard the second living creature saying, “Come.”

Some of the tranlations have, 'come and see' but the greek is explicit. It just says "come". I prefer to interpret this as God, by virtue of the Lamb opening the seal, delegating authority to the second living creature, at the appointed time, to say to this second horseman, 'Come'.

It's time in the plan of God, for the false peace to be over.

The world has worshipped the bringer of the false peace. But they are helpless to keep it one extra minute when God and the Lamb and the living creature order this second horseman to 'come'. Helpless.

Vs. 4 And another, a red horse, went out; and to him who sat on it, it was granted to take peace from the earth, and that men would slay one another; and a great sword was given to him.

Couple of things. And I don't want to make you all tingly with urgency. Just interest.

machaira megalÄ"

Machaira is a sword for battle. One intent. Kill people. Megale means BIG. HUGE! Word etymology's are fun. We get our word machete from the greek machaira.

I also think it's interesting that the black flag with the Shahada, “There is no god, but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet” and the swords (machaira's) goes back to the Golden Age of Islam in Baghdad in the 9th century. This jihad flag is ancient.

This is the flag that was hung over the embassy in Libya. Did you know that Sunna doctrine is to rape the infidels before they are murdered. There is evidence that ambassador Stevens was raped before he was murdered. Hillary forgot to tell you that.

It says a great machaira was given. A great machete. A weapon for murder, and when this second horseman unleashes God's vengeance, murder is what takes place. People killing people. One on One.

I'm sure modern warfare is a component, but what I see here is people murdering other people.

Rev. 9:21 says and they did not repent of their murders . . . among a long list of other atrocities. Murder is a component.

So the false peace breaks apart and murder ensues. Hey, the muslims would like to begin tomorrow. But God's time clock is in control.

What comes next is perfectly logical, as is rider number 4.

5When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. 6And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.”

Famine. Everything starts crumbling. World order is gone. World economics, gone. It's fragile now! This is a no-brainer.

A quart of wheat for a denarius. A denarius is one days wage. Now mind you, the economy is dead. There are no jobs to be had. Still, for those lucky enough to have a days wage, there is half a loaf of bread.

That makes it tough on your wife, and your children. Half a loaf of bread for a days labor. This is near starvation rations.

So if you have a family, perhaps barley is your choice. We think of beef with barley soup and we think, barley is OK. This is the barley they make kibble for dog food from. It doesn't have the food value for humans that wheat does, but still, your babies need something in their little bellies!

oil? wine? off limits. Don't even think about touching the oil or the wine.

So if you're lucky enough to find a days work, you have choices. Wheat or barley. But most of the population of the world is going hungry.

What follows next is a no-brainer. Worldwide murders. Worldwide famine.

7When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come.” 8 I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.

an ashen horse. The color of death. Sort of a pale green-gray.

1/4 of the worlds population will succomb to war, starvation, pestilence, and beasts. I checked the world population clock as of 12:21 on Friday the 25th. 1,765,496,960 dead. Over, what, an 18 month period. This happens in the first 3 1/2 years. This is just the beginning of birth pangs.

Do you know which animal is attributed with the most human deaths? Which wild beast? The common rat.

Jesus, in His olivet discourse, covers this same ground, in exactly the same order;

Mt.24:4 And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one misleads you.5“For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many. (There's rider no. 1, false peace)6“You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.7“For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, (there's horseman #2) and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. (there's horseman no. 3. Luke adds pestilence, and worldwide death is assumed) 8“But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.

A quarter of the population of the earth is just the beginning of birth pangs. Birth is still far off. We're just getting started and there's so many corpses they can't be buried.

Remember that wrath is just the other side of the same coin of Holiness. God has stored up this wrath through all the centuries. Waiting, waiting, calling a people out for His own. How Holy is our God. Read and understand!

What about us. We deserved this kind of wrath! We're no different than the rest! No better! We deserve THIS wrath.

Jesus! Absorbed THIS level of wrath, for every one of us. God threw THIS kind of wrath, at His own Son, in order to purchase us.

Next time we take communion, think of Revelation chapter 6 and the fierce wrath that God has saved up for the people who have insulted Him. You are part of that group. Purchased, indeed, but not without wrath being expended on the sacrificial Lamb of God.

9When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained;

Chapter 7 gives us another look at this group of saints. Who are they? That's the question asked of John in chapter 7 and answered for him by the angel who is talking with him. "These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

These are martyr's. Tribulation saints who have been murdered. Why were they murdered. It tells us that too. because * of * the * word * of * God

The reason they are murdered is because of a stand they take regarding the 'word of God'. and because of the testimony which they had maintained

They take a stand and maintain a testimony about the truths in this book . . . and it costs them their lives.

Let me take you to a couple of passages that, I think, are probably a direct reference to this time frame.

Micah saw this day, I believe, Micah 7:6 For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law--a man's enemies are the members of his own household.

And Jesus saw it; Matthew 10:21 "Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.

Luke 12:51“Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division;52for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three.53“They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

There is a sense in which that has always been true. We know little of this in America, but we're the exception. In most places throughout history, it cost something to turn from your families religion and follow Jesus. This has always been true, and it's true today.

What if you're a 12 year old girl in Afghanistan and hear the gospel and give your heart to Jesus. It might cost you your life.

Or think about Nicodemus in John 3. He heard the gospel. He understood the gospel. From the questions he asked we know he "got it". Think about the cost for him to divorce the Sanhedrin and follow Jesus! So this has always been true.

But during the tribulation, this is an automatic death sentence. Jesus puts this in a timeframe for us that is immediately helpful to this passage.

Olivet discourse; ......and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.
12“But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for My name’s sake.13“It will lead to an opportunity for your testimony.14“So make up your minds not to prepare beforehand to defend yourselves;15for I will give you utterance and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute.16“But you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death,17and you will be hated by all because of My name.18“Yet not a hair of your head will perish.19“By your endurance you will gain your lives.

This is directed to a specific group of saints during the tribulation. It is the passage that marries what is going to happen to the other passage about family members betraying each other.

In Revelation 7 we'll see that 144,000 choice jewish witnesses are going to be unleashed on the world and the result is going to be an army of tribulation saints. Thousands will be saved. Thousands of thousands.

Many? Most? will perish as martyr's. Yet, over all of this, look at the sovereignty of God in this! The world is going to be crazed with the desire to kill the christians . . . yet, “Yet not a hair of your head will perish.

Soveriegn God decides when one hair from your head will perish.

9When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; 10and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

Do you see the vengeance again. These saints aren't asking for vengeance for themselves. How long before you punish the world who hates You and murders those who belongs to You! How long!

This is an imprecation (means a pronounced judgement) against the world and for the Glory of God! How long before you Glorify Yourself in judgement over our blood that was spilled? We belonged to you. They killed us because they hate You.

I confess that every time Mike Baca asks us to spend a minute in prayer at 6 PM for the USA, my thoughts immediately go here. How long, O Lord, before you judge this land for the millions of murders of helpless little ones. How long O Lord before you judge this land that laughs in your face, that boo's you off the platform at just the mere mention of your existence, that celebrates gross immorality as a virtue, that turns wrong into right and right into wrong, that laughs at justice.

I long for God to glorify Himself in judgement! Meanwhile, like Christian in Pilgrims Progress, we need to beg people to RUN from the flames that are coming on the City of Destruction. How long Oh Lord, Holy and True!

11And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.

Revelation 7 (if we ever get there) is perhaps the completion of this final verse in this section about the martyrs. There we see a celebration in heaven and the story revolves around these saints.