All right, it's good to worship with you guys all this fine Advent season.
If you have your Bibles, let's open them up to Revelation chapter 6.
We are continuing on in the series.
We're doing a mini-series right now as we preach through the book of Revelation.
But right now for the Advent season, for the month of December,
we're doing this mini-series called Between the Advents.
And I think although our passage may not be, quote-unquote,
a very Christmassy passage, we think that it's going to be very relevant
for us to turn our eyes to God and wait for him for the second Advent of Christ.
If you don't have a Bible, please, you could just raise your hand
and we would be happy to gift one to you.
That's our Christmas gift to you, so you could keep it and use it for this time
and read it for yourself as well.
Let's pray for the reading and preaching of God's word
before we read Revelation chapter 6.
Oh, Holy Father, we come before you knowing that we are empty-handed,
we are poor, we are naked, we are exposed,
but it's only your grace that covers us so that we can stand on that final day.
God, I pray that you would speak through your word,
address us through your word, so that we would have a bigger vision of you and your glory.
God, that we would be transformed to see all that you are,
that you are completely, wholly sovereign over our entire lives,
and that we would trust you.
We would trust you with all of it, God.
So I pray you would show us the things that we don't see,
to the things that we don't see, show us.
To the things that we don't know, teach us.
To the things that we have yet to believe,
make us, Lord.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Let's stand, if you are able, for the reading of God's word.
I'm going to read the whole chapter together.
Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals,
and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder,
Come.
And I looked, and behold, a white horse,
and its rider had a bow,
and a crown was given to him,
and he came out conquering and to conquer.
When he opened the second seal,
I heard the second living creature say,
Come.
And out came another horse, bright red.
Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth
so that people should slay one another,
and he was given a great sword.
When he opened the third seal,
I heard the third living creature say,
Come.
And I looked, and behold, a black horse.
And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand,
and I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures
saying,
A quart of wheat for a Daenerys,
and three quarts of barley for a Daenerys,
and do not harm the oil and the wine.
When he opened the fourth seal,
I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say,
Come.
And I looked, and behold, a pale horse,
and its rider's name was 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 by wild beasts of the earth.
When he opened the fifth seal,
I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain
for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.
They cried out with a loud voice,
O sovereign Lord, holy and true,
how long before you will judge and avenge our blood
on those who dwell on the earth?
Then they were 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.
When he opened the sixth seal,
I 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 being rolled up,
and every mountain and island
was removed from its place.
Then the kings of the earth
and the great ones
and the generals
and the rich
and the 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 is seated on the throne
and from the wrath of the Lamb
for the great day of their wrath has come,
and who can stand?
This is God's holy
and authoritative word.
You may be seated.
In his early 20s,
famous author John Green,
before he went on to write
the young adult novel,
The Fault in Our Stars,
I'm sure many of you guys
have heard of it,
which would go on to sell
over 20 million copies,
have multiple movie adaptations,
he was preparing for himself
to devote his life to ministry.
Did you guys know that?
I didn't know that.
He was prepping for seminaries,
prepping to go into full-time ministry,
so he worked as a student chaplain
in a children's hospital.
And in one of the hardest nights
of his life,
on a night shift,
he suddenly had a three-year-old boy
who was shuttled into the emergency room
with severe third-degree burns.
He recounts the smell,
the sights,
the screams,
the sobbing.
He later recalls that
the doctor who was tasked with
help saving that boy's life,
he remembered meeting her
in the employee break room,
and she was throwing up
into the trash,
saying,
that boy is gonna die,
and I know his last words.
John would never forget that night.
He would never forget
how absent God felt to him that night.
So he not only left the track to ministry,
but he abandoned his faith altogether.
But that curiosity of the boy
never left him.
It bothered him,
nagged after him,
day after day after day.
He always thought of him.
And so one day,
20 years later,
he actually Googled him
and see what he could find.
And he actually found that
this boy,
he was alive.
And his name is Nick.
And so on a podcast
that I listened to,
he ends up on a video chat
with this same three-year-old boy
just 20 years later.
He finds out that
he's an MBA student.
He just finished his undergrad degree.
He's doing a live,
he's alive and well,
as much as someone could be
with severe third-degree burns
as that young of an age.
But the amazing thing
is that he found out
that Nick was a faithful Christian.
Despite being in chronic pain
from the accident,
Nick explains to John
the awesome truth
of Romans 8, 28,
how God used this
absolutely horrific incident
to drive him
and his nominally Christian family
finally to devote
their entire lives
to Christ.
I think this story
is such a powerful example
of the importance
of interpreting
the suffering
that we have in our lives
through the lens
of Scripture.
Because the reality is,
suffering will either
drive us away
or to God.
It's very polarizing.
It's hard to stay neutral
about God
when you're experiencing suffering.
Both John and Nick
saw and experienced
the exact same incident
of tragedy,
but in the end,
they came to very
different conclusions.
Nick was able to see
that God was completely
sovereign over his life,
which didn't take away
the experience of his
chronic pain altogether,
of course,
but assured him
that his pain
is neither indiscriminate
or just by chance.
Instead,
it's all,
he had hope,
he had faith
that it was all
part of a greater plan
for good.
And we need to learn
to do the same,
brothers and sisters,
because Scripture teaches us,
it makes us very clear
that suffering
is part and parcel
of the Christian life
as we identify
with Christ,
the slain lamb.
without remembering
the one who is in control
over it all,
then suffering
and pain,
that's gonna swallow us up.
Our text in Revelation 6,
however,
shows us
the God who was,
the God who is,
and the God who is to come
is sovereign.
So that's the main point
of my sermon today.
We can,
we must endure
the suffering
of the tribulation
because God is sovereign
over it all.
We'll see how God
is sovereign
over the current woes
of the world
in the first
to the fourth seals,
how he's sovereign
in giving rest
to the resolute
in the fifth seal,
and he's sovereign
over the future judgment
of the wicked,
the future wrath
of the wicked.
That's the sixth seal.
As we remember last week,
Sean powerfully preached
on how the slain lamb
of Jesus Christ,
he alone is worthy
of opening up these seals.
So he begins to do
what only he has
the authority to do.
Each time the risen lamb
opens up
one of these first four seals,
there's a repeating pattern.
First,
one of the four living creatures
cries out
with a booming thunderous voice,
come.
And immediately,
a horse with a color
that's related
to its tribulation,
like blood, red,
and war,
and its rider,
so the horse
and its rider,
they come out
and afflict the earth.
So by opening
these first four seals,
Jesus unleashes
onto the world
the four horsemen
of the apocalypse,
who are God's
spiritual instruments
to unleash
onto the earth
conquest,
war,
famine,
and death
in that particular order.
And in that order,
you can see
just the natural
clear progression, right?
You can see
that conquest leads to war,
war,
and conquest,
they can lead
to famine,
and then all these
ultimately culminate
in death.
And while you might
be excited
or scared
to hear all about
the four horsemen
of the apocalypse,
as if this is
something new
in scripture,
this is some kind
of new doctrine
to comfort you
and maybe to burst
your bubble
a little bit,
this is not anything
new in scripture.
Because first,
any Hebrew familiar
with their Old Testament
would recognize
the influence
of the four horsemen
from Zechariah 1
and 6.
And on top of that,
more clearly,
Jesus,
when he was asked
about the end times,
signs of the end times,
he remarkably
spoke very similarly
about war,
famine,
and death
as things to expect.
That's Matthew 24,
and I encourage you
to read that on your own
because it's remarkable
how close
that chapter is,
that discourse is
with Revelation 6.
Therefore,
these four horsemen
are just a recapitulation
of Jesus'
end time predictions.
And it's helpful
to see this connection
to Matthew 24 as well
because both Jesus
and John,
they give us clues
that we're in the
end times already.
So how do we know that?
So in Matthew 24,
14,
Jesus clues us in
that these signs
of famine,
of death,
of war,
of persecution,
they come alongside
with the evangelization
of the entire world.
That's the fulfillment
of the Great Commission,
right?
And we know that
that's happening today.
The church,
it's on its mission
and we're evangelizing
the entire world.
So that means
we're in the end times now.
And as Sean explained
last week too,
the opening of these
first six seals
in our passage,
they've been inaugurated
by the death,
the resurrection,
and the ascension
of Christ.
So that means
that these four horsemen,
they're roaming
the four corners
of the earth today.
And we've seen
evidence of their work
for centuries
upon centuries.
And as we see
in the fifth seal
and as we observe
in our world today,
the church of Christ
is not immune
to the tribulation
of these four.
Later in the chapter,
we find a comparison,
a juxtaposition
between two groups
of people
in the fifth seal
and in the sixth seal.
In the fifth seal,
we encounter
dead Christian martyrs.
But in the sixth seal,
we witness
the living earth dwellers.
The Christian is dead,
the wicked alive.
Jesus himself predicts
this too
in Matthew 24 and 9.
They will deliver you
up to tribulation
and put you,
meaning his disciples,
put you to death.
And you will be hated
by all the nations
for my name's sake.
While the general world
is plagued
and judged
because the world
is evil
by these four,
God is using them.
Let us not forget
the church
is also not exempt
from the suffering
of the tribulation
for better purposes.
And we're gonna talk
about that.
A week before Christmas,
I'm sure you didn't expect
to hear a sermon like this,
but I assure you
that this isn't just
gonna be doom and gloom,
so let's turn to our text
to find out.
So in verses 1 to 2,
a white horse
with its rider
equipped with a bow
and crown
is given temporary authority
to conquer the world
through spiritual deception
and physical persecution.
Now there are some
who identify
the rider,
the identity of this rider
to be Christ,
mostly because
he's riding on
a white horse.
And this is a strong allusion
to Revelation 19.
And Revelation 19,
it's very clear,
for this is Jesus
who is called
faithful and true.
The word of God
equipped with a sharp sword
from his mouth
comes out from heaven
and conquers his enemies
on what?
On a white horse.
While that allusion
to the white horse
is strong,
the rider in our text today
I believe isn't Christ,
but is a satanic rider
used by God
for his purposes.
There are a lot
of different clues
in our text,
but I think
the most convincing reason
is that these four horsemen
are clearly grouped together.
There are clear literary parallels
that we've already talked about
between all four
that are consistent,
but it's also the grouping
of the four living creatures
that are calling
the grouping
of the four horsemen.
And how demeaning
it would be
to group Christ
with three other
satanic horsemen.
So this sheds light,
I think,
just on how crafty Satan is
by the very fact
that Christians
can be confused
by who this person is.
Back to Matthew 24
in Jesus' discourse,
he warns us,
see that nobody
leads you astray.
For many will come
in my name saying,
I am the Christ,
and they will lead
many astray.
I don't think
it's a coincidence
that one of these horses
is white
for that exact reason.
Therefore,
I think this horseman
is representative
of messianic pretenders.
There have been
many heroes,
world leaders
engaged in conquest,
promised utopia,
at least a glorious kingdom,
like Alexander the Great,
Napoleon Bonaparte,
Genghis Khan,
Cyrus the Great,
the list goes on and on.
But these so-called
great conquerors,
they're just mere pawns.
They're mere pawns.
They're mere pawns
in the hands
of our sovereign Lord.
So we need to hear
the words of the Lord
and see that nobody
leads us astray.
No matter how much power
or influence
or wealth
they may have,
there's only one
sovereign Lord.
That also means
that we need
not to be anxious
about the current
state of our worlds,
and we don't have to
take things
into our own control.
If rumors of wars
and pandemics
of nuclear weapons
or terrorist attacks
are swirling
all around us,
we need not to be anxious,
brothers and sisters,
because nothing falls
out of the scope
of our sovereign Lord.
Next is a second seal
with the blood red horse
and its rider.
Authority was given
to him to take away
peace from the earth,
given his release
onto the world
and his theft of peace
since Jesus' ascension.
It's no wonder
that there have been
just war after war,
upheaval after upheaval,
genocide after genocide
throughout history.
Keeping peace
is the most important task
for the United Nations.
And they reported
just one year ago
that globally
we're facing
the highest number
of violent conflicts
since 1945,
which is World War II.
and at least
a quarter
of the entire
global population,
that's two billion people,
live in conflict-afflicted areas
like Syria, Yemen,
South Sudan,
or Myanmar.
And global military expenditures,
it rose up to
two trillion dollars
in 2020.
You see, war,
conflict,
death,
these come with the times.
And we need not
to be surprised
by the world around us.
Even with the wars
in Ukraine
and in Palestine today,
that's evidence
of this horseman
galloping around.
We've seen him
for centuries now.
But all the while,
brothers and sisters,
I encourage you,
don't forget the words
of Paul
in Ephesians 6, 12.
He says this,
for our struggle
is not against flesh
and blood,
but against cosmic powers
of the present darkness,
against the spiritual forces
of evil
in the heavenly places.
We are bombarded daily
with news of conflict
and war.
And it's easy
to lose sight
of who our true enemy is.
Our text today
makes it clear
that we fight each other
because,
because spiritual forces
have stolen the peace.
Our text says
its rider was permitted
to take peace
so that,
so that people
should slay one another.
So we mustn't forget
our primary fight
as Christians.
It's not against
our fellow man,
even along ideological
or partisan lines,
but against a greater evil.
And I ask you,
if you are in conflict
in your life
with someone else today,
there's no peace
between you two.
Who is your true enemy?
Next,
from the summons
of the third living creature
comes the rider
on the black horse.
He comes with a pair
of scales in his hand.
And I used to think
that this was
the prototypical scale
of justice
held high by Lady Justice.
You guys are all familiar.
But,
actually,
this scale
is a symbol
of scarcity
and famine
because when
you're in famine,
a scale is used
to carefully
measure out
the ration portions
of food.
So that's exactly
what the rider brings.
It's a famine
so severe
it nearly breaks
the economic system.
And I'm definitely
no expert
in macroeconomics,
but I know enough
that the less supply
that you have,
the price of stuff
just drives up,
right?
Because of the famine,
a voice in the midst
of the four living creature
cries out
a quart of wheat
for a Daenerys
and three quarts
of barley
for a Daenerys.
Now,
to make that
a little bit more digestible,
a Daenerys
was around
the price
of one day's wage
for a common laborer.
And a quart of wheat
is enough food
to sustain
one man
for one day.
So if you do the math,
talk about
living hand to mouth.
If you had a family,
then you likely
had to turn
to the cheaper stuff,
the barley,
which would then
feed a couple mouths
for one day,
but still talk about
living paycheck
to paycheck.
Historians say
that this was
about 10
to 12 times
the cost
of normal food.
That's like
our dozen eggs
costing 50 bucks.
50 bucks.
If you know anything
about me,
if you know anything
about, you know,
our brother
Josh Henderson
over there,
if you know
how frugal we are,
we would never
touch an egg again.
Yet still
a voice
from the midst
of the four
living creatures,
who is Jesus?
He's calling out,
do not harm
the oil
and the wine.
This honestly
is a tough
phrase to decipher,
but I think
the best interpretation
is that agriculturally,
the grapevine
and the olive tree,
they're more resistant
to famine
than barley
or wheat.
But I think
the main point,
the main idea
is that Jesus
is establishing
a limitation
on this famine.
This horseman
could do
no more
than the exact
limitations
that Jesus
placed on him.
Just as God
says to the seas
in Job 38,
thus far
you shall come
and no further
and here
shall your proud
ways be stayed.
The apostle John,
he tends
to be cyclical
in his writing
and the book
of Revelation
is a really
good example
of that.
First,
we have
the seven seals
that steadily
ramp up
in the intensity
and severity
until the sixth seal
which is the apex.
It's the culmination.
It's the judgment day.
But later on,
this same pattern
is just recapitulated.
It's repeated
with the seven bulls
and then the seven,
or the seven trumpets
and then the seven bulls.
So,
I think this pattern
is much like
a recurring
intensifying theme,
a musical theme
in a movie soundtrack.
Each time it's played,
you recognize it.
But as you progress
on in the movie,
it becomes
more and more intense.
Maybe it speeds up
a little.
Maybe more instruments
are being added
until it reaches
its final climax.
As we go on
in Revelation,
tune your ear
just to hear
how this theme
is repeated
but intensified
because, frankly,
this is just
the first go-around.
This is the tamest.
There are limitations
placed.
Finally,
we get to
the fourth seal
where a personified death,
inseparable
from his grim
companion,
Hades,
mounts a pale
green horse
as a fitting
color for death,
I think,
as the CSB
translation
rightly has it.
And in the OT,
in the Old Testament,
Hades would be
most closely
aligned with
Sheol,
the idea of Sheol,
the Hebrew
understanding
of the realm
of the dead.
The Lord
then bestows
upon these two
the horrifying
power to afflict
the whole earth
with sword,
famine,
pestilence,
and wild beasts,
summarizing,
I think,
all these first
four seals.
So these
first four
horsemen,
they're meant
to be taken
together as a
holistic unit,
representing the
suffering of the
entire world
of the times.
just as the
four living
creatures,
as we heard
about in
Revelation 4
and 5,
they symbolize
the praise
of all
redeemed
creation.
But while
these four
horsemen are
given authority
over the
entire earth,
their power,
again,
is constrained
to put to
death only
one-fourth.
This isn't
meant to be
an exact number,
it's not meant
to be a
precise,
particular group
of people,
but this is
just a
qualitative measure
of understanding
how much power
has been given
to them.
If there are,
I don't know,
60 of us
here today,
that's 15
people.
That's not
little power.
That's,
I'd consider
that a
decimation.
This,
frankly,
is a
frightening
passage.
It's a
hard passage,
especially
keeping in
mind that
many faithful
Christians
would be
the target
of these
afflictions.
Just imagine
what the
seven churches
in Asia Minor
would have
felt
reading this
letter.
Because remember,
Revelation,
it's a letter,
it's not an
end-time
encyclopedia.
But,
I think there's
a big but here,
the line of hope
is that while
we see evidence
of these
four horsemen
galloping around,
terrorizing the
earth,
the text
makes it
clear that
these belong
to God.
God is the
one who's
called them
to action.
God is the
one who's
put chains
around the
necks of
death and
Hades,
limiting how
far they can
go.
I want you to
look down with
me,
because I want
you to see
all these
divine passives
in the
scriptures for
yourselves.
A divine
passive is a
common literary
feature where a
verb is written
in the passive
form with the
implied doer of
said action as
God.
So see,
a crown was
given to him
in verse 2.
A rider was
permitted to
take peace,
and he was
given a sword
in verse 4,
and they were
given authority
over a fourth
of the earth
in verse 8.
Even for the
third seal,
you hear not
the voice of
just a living
creature,
but this is
the voice of
Jesus who
stands in the
midst of the
four living
creatures,
calling out the
limitations of
that famine.
And we know,
we know that
scripture is
absolutely clear.
God cannot
commit any
evil.
He is never
responsible for
any evil.
He tempts no
one, and he is
light without
any darkness.
But John makes
it clear that
this evil still
is under his
sovereignty and
control.
But why?
Why would
God authorize
such suffering
upon the
world, and
especially upon
his children
whom he loves?
Why do bad
things happen
to good people?
These are hard
questions, but we
can find our
answers in
scripture.
Well, first, I
think, I think it's
really important to
establish this.
The Bible does
affirm that bad
things happen to
good people.
people.
And thank God
it does.
That sounds
odd and sounds
hard, but hear
me out.
You're all
familiar with the
story of Job,
right?
Rich and
righteous Job, he
has everything
that he wants, but
because Satan was
permitted, right,
hear that sound
familiar, he was
permitted to
afflict Job and
take away
everything from
him in a short
span of time.
Job is
mourning, he's
lamenting, and
pretty much the
rest of the
book is Job
going back and
forth with his
three friends.
And while they're
arguing about Job's
circumstances, they're
actually agreeing upon
base presuppositions
that a just God
should treat people
with what they
deserve.
So therefore, his
friends, they come to
this conclusion that
Job must have done
absolutely something
horrifically wrong to
be able to deserve
this.
Whereas Job, his
response, he
maintains his
innocence and
demands a fair
trial before a
judge who
should be fair.
But then, at the
end of the book, a
fourth friend, Elihu,
he kind of pops out
really out of
nowhere, but he
gives this profound
answer that I think
is so important for
us to understand, that
he says that God can
bring hard things, not
as a direct result of
someone's actions, but
to ultimately save
them from sin.
This conclusion is
extremely important to
understand, because if
we don't, then we end
up with a theological
system no different
than karma or even
the prosperity gospel.
Every time we suffer, it's
because we would have
deserved it.
Every time we aren't
healthy or wealthy, it's
because we didn't name it
or claim it or we didn't
give enough money to our
church.
How painful is that truth
instead, when you suffer
loss, death, tragedy, it's
because the only right
theological conclusion is
that you deserved it.
The book of Job flips all
of that on its head.
Good things can happen to
good people, or bad things
can happen to good people
for good reasons.
And that's good news, because
God can and does wield the
tool of suffering for good.
In the hands of our good
God, suffering is the
blaring microphone for those
who are slumbering in
contented worldliness, for
them to wake up.
Suffering is the glassy
mirror that reflects our
true spiritual makeup, warts
and all, leading us to
repentance.
Suffering is the surgeon's
scalpel, cutting out heart
diseases of idolatry and
sin.
Suffering is the great pride
crusher, the loving rod of
discipline, steering us back
onto the right path of
humility and righteousness.
Suffering is God's gymnasium,
his classroom, where we learn
probably more about God in
that setting than in any
other in our lives.
And there's one last good
that comes with suffering.
We can experience just a
taste, just a taste of how
much Jesus, our Lord and
Savior, suffered for our sin
on the cross.
This Advent season, we
remember that the infinite,
the infinite God, he became
an infant for our sake.
He became the one not to be
served.
He didn't come to be served, but
to serve and to give his life
as a ransom for many.
And for as much as we suffer,
we will never know how much it
cost for Jesus to bear all our
sin, bear all the wrath of the
Father on him.
And while terrible things can
happen to righteous Christians,
we can trust that we are not
alone.
Jesus can empathize with us.
That's why the late pastor
Tim Keller explains God takes
our misery, our suffering, so
seriously that he is willing to
take it on himself.
And for those who suffer in this
life and they pattern their lives
after Christ, the sovereign Lord
bestows upon them rest in the
next life as we encounter the
fifth seal.
So moving on to the fifth seal,
when in verses 9 to 11, we get a
break in the pattern.
So no more evil horses, thank God.
But instead, we are transported
back to the heavenly realm.
And here we see the souls who have
been slain for the word of God and
for the witness they had borne.
Because Christians don't play by the
rules of the world, because we
refuse to scheme and bribe and
cheat and battle our way to victory,
because we turn the other cheek,
because we trust that God will
uphold justice so that we don't
have to.
Because we have conformed our lives
to the slain lamb in life and
death, we have suffered between the
two advents of Christ.
And their blood was spilt upon the
heavenly altar of God.
Even the great apostle Paul saw his
own death similarly, like a drink
offering to be poured out.
And while they are in the Sabbath rest
of God, this rest is not fully
consummated.
I think it's clear in our text, but
John hints that he uses a specific
word, souls.
He says souls, they're not, they're
still waiting for their final glorified
body.
But even more clearly, they're still
waiting for God to judge and avenge
their blood on those who dwell on the
earth.
But again, notice God's awesome
response to their plea.
He's not a military general that's
freaking out in his camp, wondering,
am I losing too many men?
Am I going to lose this battle?
But his answer shows that he is in
complete control of the situation.
He is, after all, what they call and
know him to be.
He is the sovereign Lord, holy and true.
So he gives them white robes, symbolizing
purity and blessedness, and he tells
them to rest a little longer.
Rest a little longer because their
number is still yet completed.
Under the reign of Nero, Domitian,
Shapur II, Adolf Hitler, Stalin, Kim
Irsung, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Boko
Haram, God is sovereign over the millions
and millions of saints' lives throughout
history that are to be added to their
number.
More and more are joining in this choir,
even to this very own day.
How long before you will judge and avenge
our blood on those dwelling on the
earth?
When you hear this, I understand if you
might feel a little uneasy about this
prayer because it sounds like something a
Christian shouldn't say.
After all, this seems like the polar
opposite of Jesus and Stephen's request
before they were martyred.
Forgive them for they know not what they
do.
But as faithful students of Scripture, as
we all are in this church, we must be
careful not to absolute ties, either
response of forgiveness only or justice
only when we experience injustice.
We find both responses in Scripture and
both can be appropriate means of glorifying
God.
Now, this isn't the case for everyone, but
I wonder if our main objection to this, please,
it's ultimately because we have a small view of
God and his glory and we have a large view of
people, even those who hate God.
We uphold the value of our fellow man, which is a
good Christian impulse, but it should never be
done at the expense of God's glory.
Our world, we've lost our nose.
We've lost the ability to smell how foul sin is
because we've just gotten so accustomed to living in
it.
That's why David rhetorically asks in Psalm 138,
do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And to an appropriate degree, do we have righteous
anger to preserve the glory of our Lord?
And moreover, in defense of these saints, the reality is
that the majority, the vast majority of martyrs to this
day are voiceless and their murders are done in secret.
So many, millions upon these killings don't make the
headlines.
We don't know anything about them.
And that's precisely the reason why Richard Wurmbrandt, a
Lutheran priest in the 1940s, he would go on to find the
organization, The Voice of the Martyrs.
I'm sure you've heard of it.
It's an organization that lives up to its name and gives a
voice to the voiceless.
In his book, Tortured for Christ, he goes on to write this.
I tremble because of the sufferings of those persecuted in
different lands.
I tremble thinking about the eternal destiny of their
torturers.
I tremble for Western Christians who don't help their
persecuted brethren.
In the depth of my heart, I would like to keep the beauty of my
own vineyard and not to be involved in such a huge fight.
I would like to so much to be somewhere in quietness and rest, but
it is not possible.
The quietness and rest for which I long would be an escape from
reality and dangerous for my soul.
The West sleeps and must be awakened to see the plight of the
captive nations.
So church, we shouldn't stifle the questions of how long, oh Lord, but
we should join in on this pleading with righteous anger, an anger that's
not primarily motivated by personal revenge, but an anger defending God's
glory.
So we must ask how long, oh Lord, will our brothers and sisters in
this world suffer?
We can't bear.
We can't bear to see it anymore.
We want you to come.
We want you to come, oh Lord, and make all that is wrong right.
This Advent season, as we remember the first coming of Christ, we must also
remember to wait for his coming.
When his name will finally stop being besmirched.
His glory will fully be known.
His enemies crushed under his feet and the slain will rise to reign.
And when we pray like that, we don't pray as if we don't know what's going to
happen.
We know what's going to happen.
God is, but God is going to answer.
This suffering and these deaths are never meaningless because they are, they're
gas, they're gasoline to spark the advancement of God's kingdom, just like
Christ's suffering was.
And these deaths are victories.
They're never losses.
And that's why we can and we must endure the suffering of this tribulation because
God is sovereignly using all of it to launch into the sixth seal to bring about his
kingdom, the consummation of his kingdom.
Finally, the lamb opens up the sixth seal.
And you could tell that things are really ramping up here.
Once the seal is opened, there is a great earthquake.
Sun turns black, moon turns red, falls, the stars fall to the earth when overripe, like
overripe figs when shaken.
And these signs are all taken from a smattering of different places in scripture, but really
all of them are signaling to you something on the cosmic, on the earth shattering, sky
splitting level is about to happen.
These are all clear signs in the Bible that the foretold day of the Lord has come.
An answer to, this is an answer to the martyr's prayer.
Those who killed and abused Christians will await their final judgment that day.
And while John does include everyone, including the poor, the majority of these descriptors
in our text, they're the high and the mighty.
He says they're kings, great ones, generals, rich and powerful, yet they will find out that
final day that they are poor, they're weak, and they're naked.
When I was a kid in high school, in my idolatry to try to prove myself by my grades, there was
a situation that I decided that I needed to cheat on one of my exams.
It was a history exam.
And so what I decided to do, and thought this was a really smart plan at that point, but
I wrote all the information on a little cheat sheet.
It was like a little cheat sheet this big, but I quickly found out that there was a lot
of information on the test, and so I had to write it super, super small, probably like
font size two or three.
And so I realized I could only read it when I was like holding it up like this, but I
didn't take that into account when I was actually taking my exam.
I needed a place to hide it, right?
So I was just sitting there, and I decided to put this little cheat sheet in between my legs.
And so at that distance, I couldn't read a single thing that I wrote.
And so it was for, I don't know, a good 10 minutes.
I was just staring in between my legs, not writing anything.
And so I decided to abandon that plan, ditch plan A, go to plan B, which I whipped out my
iPod Touch, which maybe you guys remember those.
And I thought that I could furiously type it into Google, all the information that I needed.
So I also decided to put that in between my legs.
So I was just sitting there, looking in between my legs, trying to furiously type and look
up things.
Anyone could tell that I was acting super strangely.
And so it didn't take long for my professor to ask me, Ed, what are you doing?
What are you doing?
And I looked up after looking in between my legs for like a good 20 minutes, and I saw
everybody in the classroom staring at me.
Every single person was looking at me, and he confiscated my device, my little cheat sheet,
and he told me to meet me after class.
And I felt, that's probably the most, the moment in my life where I felt the most exposed,
the most naked I've ever felt.
I wanted to hide.
I wanted to run.
But I just had to sit there waiting for these kids to finish their exam.
But that was just a high school exam.
That's just a high school exam.
How can you imagine just how naked and exposed these people feel on that day of the Lord?
I want you to hear the absolute fear in their voices when they cry, fall on us, hide us.
What do we do?
Where can we run?
Who can stand on this day?
But the earth dwellers in verse 17, they're right.
Who can stand?
For we were all part of this adulterous and sinful generation.
No one can stand before God that day, not from their own obedience.
When we have suffered, we have all turned to our own ways to cope.
We have turned to substances, sexual sin, food, self-reliance, relationships, money,
and a plethora of other idols just to cope with the suffering of this world.
We did not submit nor trust the sovereignty of our God.
We have even accused God of evil and blamed him and hated him.
But there is one.
There is one who did submit perfectly.
There is one who submitted to his father's plan, even when it cost him everything.
And it's only by Jesus' perfect submission to death on a cross that we could stand on that day.
Only because of Jesus' obedience do we observe the great reversal of fate between those two groups that I mentioned earlier,
between the Christian martyr and the earth dweller.
Before, we noticed that the Christian martyr was dead, but the earth dweller was alive.
But now it's all upside down.
It's the faithful martyr at rest.
But the earth dweller in complete panic and fear.
The wicked plead for the mountains to cover them,
but the Christian rests secure that they are covered by the perfect righteousness of Christ.
The Christian is justified.
The wicked receive wrath.
The wrath of the Lamb for eternal punishment in hell.
And on that final day, what we knew of the power and the sovereignty of the Lord,
only by faith and not by sight,
it'll all be fully revealed for the whole world to see and tremble.
Therefore, today, with the four horsemen wreaking havoc on this world and discouraging Christians,
brothers and sisters, I urge you, I plead with you,
hold the line.
Keep the faith.
Fight the good fight.
Trust in the good plan of our Lord by remembering that God is sovereign over the totality of our lives now,
and he is sovereign over the rest that you will receive in the next.
Richard Wurmbrandt and his wife Sabina, they're faithful examples of this.
Again, in his book, Richard writes back in 1945, when the Soviet Union was still around.
It took over Romania.
This is Richard's country.
And the leaders of the Union forced Christian leaders to all gather together.
And they forced them to hail the atheistic state and pledge their allegiance to the Soviet Union.
And Richard and Sabina, his wife, they attended and they witnessed one church leader after another compromise their faith.
So, Sabina, being the faithful helper that she is, she whispered to her husband,
Richard, stand up.
Wash away the shame from the face of Christ.
They're spitting in his face.
And he replied, if I do so,
you lose your husband.
And she faithfully and boldly said,
I don't wish to have a coward for a husband.
Now, with a wife like Sabina, no wonder he obeyed God.
But it's also because he trusted, Richard trusted,
that God is in control of everything.
God would never leave him.
So he bravely stood up in front of 4,000 delegates
and declared that the church must glorify God in Christ alone.
And he would go on to pay the price for that.
He was kidnapped by the secret police.
He was thrown into a sensory deprived jail for three years.
That means no light, no sound.
The prisoner guards, they even wore felt on the bottom of their boots
so that they wouldn't make any sounds.
But he lived to tell the tale.
He survived the jail time and he claimed that it was worth it.
Richard and Sabina are faithful examples of those
who trusted in God with their lives
and that spurred them on to obedience,
even through suffering.
While not all of us are going to be martyrs
and suffer physical persecution,
we are all called to have the same spirit of endurance,
of perseverance, and self-sacrifice.
Again, we can only do this by trusting that God is with us now
and will give us rest for the future.
Remember, when you feel like you're losing in life
because of your faith, you are not.
But your devotion to Christ is a humble investment that explodes,
that'll explode on its return.
There's no better investment in your life
more than a graduate degree,
more than a relationship,
more than a house,
more than your own health.
If you think that you're losing
because your friends think you're weird
because of your faith,
because you tithe
so you can't save up money as quickly,
because you faithfully support your family
and give up opportunities
to launch into a lucrative and successful career,
because you speak up to defend Christ
and the Christian faith,
because you give up your own life.
Fear not.
Because God has promised that the last will be first.
He never reneges on his promises.
When we go through tragedy and suffering,
and I know that some of you guys
are going through really hard things right now.
We wrestle with God by learning the language of lamentation
as these saints had done
and which we learned not too long ago
from this very pulpit.
We invite brothers and sisters into our lives,
into our pain,
and we pray and we weep with them.
And we do ultimately what Nick did
by interpreting our suffering
through the lens and the truths of scripture,
seeing that God is still sovereign for our good.
Finally, let me close with a plea.
This tension of waiting for God's deliverance
can be extremely long.
And I know that it feels long for a lot of you.
So why is he seeming to wait so long?
If you turn to 2 Peter 3,
he tells us,
Peter tells us in verse 9,
the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise
as some count slowness,
but is patient towards you,
not wishing that any should perish,
but that all should reach repentance.
Now, if you are here today
and you haven't put your faith in Christ,
the message is clear.
God is waiting for you.
The Lord's patience endures
because of amazing grace,
even when his glorious name
is temporary defiled,
which, by the way,
he hates far more than any of us could,
but he wants all sinners
to come and find life in him.
The reality is the opportunity
to repent will not always be here.
We do not know when this day will come.
Today is the day to come
and put your faith in him.
God is waiting for you.
Let's pray.
God, we thank you.
We thank you.
We thank you for the grace
of our Lord Jesus
because we know that we do not
deserve to stand on that day.
Thank you, Lord Jesus,
for the perfect obedience
that you endured temptations from Satan
for the joy that was set before you,
despising the shame.
You died a death you did not deserve.
Thank you, God,
in that you display your sovereignty
and using all the bad in our lives
to use it for good.
Help us to see that.
Whatever is going on in our lives,
each one of us,
speak to us and help us to see
that this is truly for your glory
and for our good.
Help us to see this, Lord.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.