I have a confession to make. That is when I was mapping out the series in the book of Revelation a few months ago.
It did not occur to me that we would be preaching on the four horsemen of the apocalypse on Mother's Day.
So I apologize for that. Happy Mother's Day, by the way.
I actually think it fits.
I do.
I do. Strife, famine, pestilence.
Sounds like being a mother of a preschooler.
Sounds like a typical day in the life.
We are looking at the book in Revelation.
We've been looking at it for a few weeks.
I want to start this week with a reference to somebody that some of you probably are familiar with.
Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist who was alive during World War II
and experienced firsthand the horrors of the concentration camp.
And being a psychiatrist, one of the things that he noticed during his time there
was that there was a vast disparity between how people responded to and handled the horror and the suffering of those camps.
He saw people who were smart and strong and tough crumble into dust.
And he saw other people, very unlikely people, actually not only survive but in a few cases thrive in inexplicably horrible conditions.
And one such young woman he talks about in his book, which is Man's Search for Meaning.
A young woman who was cut off from her family, had been taken, separated from them.
She had been subjected to all kinds of torture and horrible experiences.
And she knew that she would probably be dead within the week.
Nevertheless, she was cheerful.
And he realized that she was in her right mind.
And so he asked her, how could you possibly be cheerful?
And she said, well, it's because I've had what can only be described as a spiritual awakening.
I'm alive, spiritually alive in a way that I've never been before in my life.
I never even thought something like this was possible.
And she said, it's only possible because of the suffering that I've endured.
And it led to a great realization in Viktor Frankl's life.
And that is this, that suffering is inevitable.
But the thing that makes the difference between whether suffering crushes us
or leads to our not only surviving but possibly even thriving,
it doesn't matter how smart you are, how strong you are, how tough you are.
The thing that matters most is this, how do you answer the question of meaning?
When you look at the suffering that you're experiencing in your life, what does it mean?
Some religions say that suffering is divine punishment.
Some religions say that suffering is merely an illusion.
Secular humanism in the West says that there is no meaning.
It's all meaningless suffering.
Christianity says something very, very, very different.
Christianity says that it is only possible to make sense of our suffering,
it's only possible to make sense of our story,
by looking at God's story.
By seeing how our story and our experience fits into this much bigger story.
That's the only way we can do it.
And that's why we're looking at the book of Revelation,
because this is where we see the story laid out.
Revelation was written to people who were suffering.
They were facing persecution.
They really felt as though they were powerless in their society.
They felt as though the end was near, that there was really no hope for them.
And Revelation is written poetically, with vivid imagery,
because it's aimed at the imagination.
Revelation is, it's meant to help people who are suffering and struggling,
reimagine that suffering in light of God's story.
It's meant to reveal the truth about what is really going on,
despite appearances.
It's meant to help us make meaning out of the suffering that we experience.
And so that's why we're looking at it.
And this week we're going to be looking at Revelation 6, verse 1 through 8, verse 5.
We heard most of that read beautifully by Ellen a little while ago.
We had to omit some of it for the sake of time, but we'll cover all of it.
And this is the place in Revelation where the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ,
has taken the scroll, which is the purpose of God in the world, God's will,
and the Lamb has begun to break the seals open.
Seven seals.
And you know, in the book of Revelation, seven is a very important number.
It's structured all around multiple series of sevens,
just like the seven days of creation.
And so what we have here in the seals is the summation of the history of God's people.
This tells us the whole story.
Past, present, and future.
And this is a pattern that we look at, and we might think of it like this.
This is the life cycle of Christians.
It's the life cycle of the church, beginning, middle, and end.
And it's the life cycle that plays out all through history,
but it's also a cycle that plays out in the life of every Christian.
It's a cycle that was mirrored in the life and ministry of Jesus himself.
And so as we look at these seals being opened,
we're going to see six phases of the Christian life cycle.
First, there is victory.
It all begins with victory.
And then there is conflict.
Conflict ensues.
And then that leads to martyrdom and death.
And then that ultimately gives way to resurrection.
And then lastly, this all produces worship, Sabbath worship.
So those are the six phases of the Christian life cycle.
Let's pray, and then we'll open God's Word together.
Lord, we thank you for your Word.
And we thank you that there are places in Scripture aimed not only at our intellect,
not only at our hearts,
but that there are entire sections of Scripture aimed squarely at the imagination.
Your Word tells us that you're a God who's able to do far more abundantly than we can ask or imagine.
And so we need bigger imaginations so that we will be able to fathom all that is possible with a God like you.
It's in your Son's name that we pray.
Amen.
So first we look at victory.
The first four seals that are opened, each of the first four seals releases one of the famous four horsemen,
so-called four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Now these are very well known in pop culture.
Sadly, I think that they're often misunderstood.
The key to understanding the four horsemen is to understand the context.
If you were here last week, we saw that all of this is taking place in a great heavenly worship service.
And previously, what we looked at last week in chapter 5,
the Lamb of God has just ascended to the throne.
Remember, all heaven was waiting and then the Lamb arrives and all heaven breaks out singing in worship.
And we said, this is the ascension of Christ from the perspective of heaven.
Jesus died, He rose, He appeared to His disciples, and He ascended into heaven.
But before He ascended, He made a promise.
He promised that after He departed, another would come.
The Comforter, the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit.
And so the key to understanding the four horsemen is to understand this.
If Revelation chapter 5 shows us the ascension from the perspective of heaven,
what comes after the ascension?
Pentecost.
The four horsemen are Pentecost.
This is the unleashing of the Holy Spirit.
These are heavenly warhorses of the Spirit-filled church going out into the world to proclaim the gospel.
And you say, well, that's an odd image.
But it's not if your mind is saturated with Old Testament imagery.
And you thought back perhaps to Zechariah, the prophet, who had a vision, a strange vision of God turning His people into His warhorse.
That's exactly what's happening here.
God's warhorse, His people, His Spirit-filled church going out into the world to proclaim and enact the victory of the gospel.
And we see that very clearly with the white horse.
It says in verse 2,
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.
You know, back in the days of Noah, after the flood, God promised that He would never bring that kind of judgment again.
And to give His people a symbol of His promise, He hung His warbow in the sky.
He's taken that warbow back down again.
He's taken the crown.
And He's gone out as a conquering king.
And the gospel will be proclaimed to the four corners of the earth.
And if there was any doubt that this white horse is not the victorious Christ, we see the white horse show up again in Revelation chapter 19.
This is the victorious Christ announcing the victory of the gospel.
And it's very important for us to remember this.
That the Christian life begins with victory.
I know some of you are struggling right now.
You feel hopeless.
The great battle has already been won.
Everything that we do as Christians,
everything that we face, everything that we experience,
is done in the light of a victory that has already been accomplished.
We're living between the victory and the culmination,
when the victory has been fully enacted in every corner of the universe.
It all begins with victory.
Everything we do is a response to that victory.
So that's the white horse.
This is the victory.
The beginning of the Christian life.
Now, what do we do with the remaining horses?
You say, well, it's easy to do that with the white horse.
But are you really going to say that these other three horses are the spirit-filled church going out into the world?
And I would say, absolutely.
If we look at the victory, the victory then leads to conflict.
All of God's people should expect conflict in our lives.
This is part of our story.
It's part of the story.
The red horse comes as the seal is broken and takes away peace and brings a sword to divide people.
Jesus himself said in Matthew 10,
Do not think that I've come to bring peace.
I've not come to bring peace.
I bring a sword.
Jesus divides people.
The gospel divides people.
The gospel divides friends.
It divides families.
It divides governments.
It divides institutions.
The gospel divides.
And that's good news.
Because Jesus is shaking up all the old alliances.
He's shaking up all the old loyalties.
He's turning families and racial groups and ethnic groups and socioeconomic classes and political alignments.
He's turning all of that upside down.
And the reason is what we see in the next chapter.
It's because his plan is to build one great worldwide global family.
And so those old loyalties and alliances, they have to give way to the new global family of God.
So the gospel brings division and strife between people.
Then the black horse is released.
And the black horse carries scales.
And there's a reference to wheat and barley prices.
And then there's a reference to oil and wine being left untouched.
And it seems kind of odd until you understand the context.
This is describing a kind of famine.
A partial famine.
Where it costs so much to buy wheat or barley that an entire day's wages will only buy enough food for that day.
So this is describing a kind of subsistence, hand-to-mouth existence of just scraping by, barely having enough to eat.
And yet the stores of wine and oil remain untouched.
This is describing the situation that we're in now that God has released the Spirit-filled church into the world.
There is a choice that every human being has to make.
Do I live apart from that reality and subsist and scrape by, hand-to-mouth, hoping just to break even?
Or do I come into the church, the place of anointing, the place where God's people are anointed with the oil of the Holy Spirit?
Because in the church, at God's table, the Lord's table, there is plenty to go around.
There's plenty of wine.
There's plenty of subsistence for people who come hungry.
There's a place for you at the table.
And so the choice that we're given with this horse is famine or feast.
Which will it be?
Famine outside on your own or come into the church and feast at the Eucharistic table.
And then, of course, after that, there is a pale horse who comes.
The pale horse named, the rider's name is Death and Hades.
In chapter 1, we see that the risen Christ holds the keys of Death and Hades.
They are under His control.
And the hard truth that we need to face, Christian or not,
is that the gospel is not simply a set of propositions, a belief system, a way of making sense of life.
The gospel and how we respond to the gospel is life or death.
People who respond by accepting Christ awaken to new life.
The people who reject Christ and the message of the gospel face only death.
It's life or death.
And so in all of these ways, these first four seals, the four horsemen,
show us that wherever the church proclaims the gospel,
wherever the gospel is announced,
conflict inevitably follows.
You know, I remember when I first became a Christian when I was 22,
I actually thought it would make my life easier.
I actually thought it would be easier.
I thought, well, now that I have a church,
and now that I have Christian friends,
and now that I can pray,
and now that I am reading the Bible and doing all of this,
and now that I know that I belong to God,
certainly my life's going to get easier.
And it's been the exact opposite.
From the moment, I would say from the moment that I became a Christian,
my life has been significantly harder.
And it's remained harder.
It disrupted many of my friendships.
It disrupted my whole plan that I had worked out for my life.
It disrupted my sense of identity.
It brought an enormous amount of disruption.
And anybody who says that when you follow and obey Jesus,
that brings peace into your heart is misreading that Bible verse.
Following Jesus is extraordinarily challenging most of the time.
It requires painful sacrifice.
It makes our life harder.
It brings conflict because Jesus doesn't brook competition.
Jesus brings conflict into our lives because we have to choose.
Am I aligned with Him or not?
Do I want feast or famine?
Do I want to choose resurrection life or death?
That's the kind of conflict that follows the gospel.
And there's great opposition outside and within our own hearts
to the message of the kingdom
because it means our kingdom has to crumble
to make way for His.
So the gospel brings conflict,
but it doesn't stop there.
The next phase of the Christian life cycle is martyrdom.
And the fifth seal, as it is cracked open,
reveals the souls of martyrs.
And they begin to cry out the souls of the martyrs.
And it says that these are people, quote,
who had been slain for the word of God
and for the witness they had borne.
The martyrs cry out for justice and vindication.
When will you come?
When will you bring us justice?
And look how God responds.
Verse 11,
Then they were each given a white robe,
or you could translate it stole, white stole,
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.
You know what this is saying?
Vindication has to wait
because there are more martyrs.
More people are going to be martyred.
And you must wait
until everyone who is going to be martyred
has been martyred.
Who's this talking about?
It's talking about us.
Jesus Himself said in John 12,
Truly, truly, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth
and dies, it remains alone.
But if it dies, it bears much fruit.
And listen, He was not just talking about Himself.
He was talking about His people.
He was talking about all of His people.
You know, martyrdom,
which means dying for your faith
and for your witness,
martyrdom is not just one possible fate
of Christians.
It is the only possible fate
of Christians
because to follow Jesus
is to walk the road to Calvary.
And there is no other way.
There is no fork in that road.
There's one road
and it leads to the cross.
So that's why He said,
if you want to follow Me,
you need to count the cost
and you need to be willing
to take up your cross
because I'm going to Calvary.
So it may be, in your life,
a physical death.
That's not totally out of the question,
like the innumerable countless people
over the centuries
who have been killed for their faith.
Or it may be, as Paul says,
living your life as a living sacrifice,
a living martyr.
It may be the kind of death
that the first disciples had to die
when they left their job
and their friends
and their family
to follow Jesus
wherever He took them.
It could be the kind of death
of being disowned by your family
because you've become a Christian.
Some people in our church
have experienced that.
It could be the kind of death
of giving up the possibility
of ever having a family.
Some people in our church
have experienced that.
It may be the kind of death
of losing your social standing
or your reputation,
which some people in our church
have experienced.
It may be the death
of passing up
a professional opportunity
because it would call you
to compromise
your faith and your values,
as some people in our community
have experienced.
But one way or another,
the Christian life
is a path of martyrdom.
And I think perhaps
maybe one of our biggest needs
as Christians in this country,
specifically at this point in history,
is to recover a theology of martyrdom.
You know,
between our prosperity gospel
and our persecution complex,
we simply assume
that everything should be great,
that we should live lives
that are largely pain-free.
We're woefully out of touch
with the vast majority of Christians
who have lived across the centuries
when we think that,
when we think that
that should be normative.
I think we've lost sight, perhaps,
of what discipleship really means.
You know,
it reminds me of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
who was a martyr.
He was hung.
And he said,
when Christ calls a man
or a woman,
he bids him come and die.
So if you're a Christian
and you're here
and your faith feels flat
or fruitless
or uninspired
or empty,
if you feel like it's waning,
if you're feeling a sense
of disconnection from church
or from your Christian life
and you're just kind of
not quite sure
what you believe,
I want to suggest,
and this may not be true,
but I want to suggest
that the problem
may not be intellectual.
It may not necessarily be
the church that you go to.
It may not necessarily be
anything that you're doing
or not doing.
The problem could be
your self-preservation instinct.
Is it possible
that you're trying
to have your cake
and eat it too?
Is it possible
that you're trying
to buffer yourself
against the cost
of discipleship?
Is it possible
that you're that grain of wheat
that has not yet
fallen to the ground
that is safe
and not vulnerable
and well-protected,
but it's alone
and it's fruitless?
Is it possible
that you need to fall
to the ground
and die in your faith?
Allow yourself
to be martyred for Christ.
If your faith
has not cost you anything,
how could it be worth
anything to you?
The good news is
that the road leads
to Calvary,
but it doesn't end
at Calvary.
The road goes
through Calvary
and it keeps
right on going
because after martyrdom,
the next phase
in the Christian life cycle
is the glorious resurrection.
And this is what we see
during the opening
of the sixth seal.
At first,
it doesn't seem like
good news.
It seems like
the entire world
is falling apart.
The stars are falling
out of the sky,
earthquakes,
the sky being rolled up
like a scroll.
This is the famous
apocalyptic language
from Revelation.
But we know
that even though
it seems like
the end of the world,
it is not the end
of the world.
And the reason we know that
is because this language
exactly parallels
Jesus' own teaching.
What we heard
in our gospel lesson,
what we call
the Olivet Discourse.
Jesus talks about
the stars falling.
He talks about wars
and rumors of wars.
And here's what he says.
Verse 6,
You will hear of wars
and rumors of wars.
See that you're not alarmed.
The end is not yet.
Verse 8,
All of these
are but the beginning
of the birth pains.
He says,
It seems like
the end of the world.
What's going to happen
will seem like the end,
but it's not the end.
It's the beginning.
It's the beginning
of something new.
And so what seems
like the end of the world
is simply the end
of a world.
It's the end
of the old world order.
It's the end
of the old way
of doing things.
It's the end
of the old covenant.
It's the end
of the temple
sacrificial system.
The priests,
as the author
of Hebrews tells us,
serving day in
and day out,
offering sacrifices
that never atone
for the sin
they claim to atone for.
The ineffectual
way of religion.
That's crumbling
to the ground.
And of course,
in the Olivet Discourse,
Jesus is specifically
talking about
the cataclysmic,
earth-shaking event
of A.D. 70,
the destruction
of the temple
in Jerusalem.
Which, if you were
a Jewish person,
that was the end
of the world.
It was the end
of everything you knew.
That was it.
The temple comes
crashing down.
Not one stone
left on the other.
These are all
birth pangs,
however,
because they're signs
that God is bringing
something new
into the world.
So even though
it seems like the end,
it's not.
And here's what
we discover.
The angel cries out,
do not harm the earth
or the sea
or the trees.
So it seems like
everything is going
to be swept away
and the angel says,
stop!
We have to seal
the servants
of our God.
We have to seal them
on their foreheads.
And then something
amazing happens.
John hears
one thing
and then he sees
something else.
Remember,
for those of you
who were here
last week
in chapter 5,
John heard
the announcement
that the conquering
lion had arrived
and when he turned,
what he saw
was not a lion
but a lamb
standing as though
it had been slain.
And we are meant
to surmise
that the lion
and the lamb
are the same thing.
The exact same thing
happens here.
John hears
144,000 Israelites
have been sealed.
Right?
That's the complete number
from all of the 12 tribes.
They've all been sealed.
All of Israel
is here.
So he hears
and then he expects
that when he turns
he's going to see
Israelites,
old covenant Israelites.
And then he turns
and he looks
and what does he see?
Not Israelites,
not only 144,000,
he sees
an innumerable
multitude
of people
from every tribe,
tongue,
and nation.
And what are we meant
to surmise from this?
They're the same thing.
Israel,
the true Israel,
has now gathered.
They've been sealed.
And it's not just Israelites,
it's everybody.
It's people
from every country,
every language,
every tribe,
every religious background.
They're all here.
This is the true Israel.
The true children
of Abraham
by faith.
faith.
They've all come.
And it says
of these people
that they have washed
their robes
and made them white
in the blood
of the Lamb.
This is an army
of martyrs
wearing white robes
that have been washed
in the blood
of the Lamb.
Anyone who wants
to be a part
of God's great
global family,
there's only one thing
that matters.
The old covenant
has been done away with.
The covenant of works.
The covenant of sacrifice.
It's been done away with.
There's only one thing
that matters.
Have you been washed
by the blood
of the Lamb?
Have you been washed
by the blood
of the Lamb?
There was a thread
on Reddit recently
that got attention
and was actually
written about
in the Washington Post.
Somebody posted
in D.C.,
where are good places
to cry
in D.C.?
And what's interesting
and kind of touching
is that this was
a question
just kind of put up there
like a lot of things are
on a site like Reddit,
but it got a lot
of very poignant responses.
People actually
had a lot of thoughts
about the best
public places
to cry
in Washington, D.C.
But what,
if you began
to read the posts,
you realize
that this got
a big response
because a lot of people
live a lot of their life
in this city
feeling like
they want to cry
and needing a place
to go
where they can cry
because people posted
about the difficulty
and the pressure
of living
in Washington, D.C.
And a lot of it
is connected
to the kind
of drivenness,
the success-oriented
meritocracy,
the achievement culture
where you're only
as good
as your last accomplishment,
where you always feel
like everyone around you
is smarter
and more successful,
where you feel like
your job doesn't matter,
where you feel like
you don't matter,
where you're constantly
having to produce
and it's a kind
of never-ending
hamster wheel
of achievement.
And that makes people
want to cry.
And so there are a lot
of people who cry
in parks
and in open,
empty churches
and on street corners
and in the basement
of Macy's
and all kinds of things.
There are people
who go
and they cry
because of the hopelessness
of living
in such a culture.
And what we need
to see here
is that when the angel
opened the sixth seal,
when all the world
seemed to be crashing down,
that was the world
that was crumbling.
It's the world
that says you were
only worth
what you can accomplish.
It's the world
that says you're
only worth
what you've achieved
or what your resume
says you're worth.
That world
came crumbling down.
The world
of earning
and striving
and proving ourselves
to God,
to other people,
is no more,
not one stone
left upon another.
In God's kingdom
only one thing matters.
Have you been washed
in the blood
of the Lamb?
In our baptismal liturgy
we say to kids
who have been baptized,
we baptized some kids
this morning,
you've been marked,
you've been sealed,
you've been sealed
with the Holy Spirit
and you're marked
as one of Christ's own
forever.
What we're saying is
you will be standing
in that great multitude,
not because of
what you've done
but because of
what Jesus Christ
the Lamb
has done for you.
And this leads finally
to the seventh seal
because of course
this gives way
and gives rise
to the seal of worship,
the culmination
of the Christian life cycle,
what it is all for.
Everything stops
in the heavenly worship service,
the liturgy pauses
and there's this period
of silent reflection
in chapter 8
on the awe
and the grandeur of God
and then get this,
the prayers of the saints
are mingled
with incense
and they're lifted up
before the Lord
and this shows us
that the Holy Spirit
intercedes for us,
gathers our prayers
and brings them
into the heavenly throne room
before the Lord.
The Spirit,
knowing what we know,
praying what we need to pray
even when we don't know
what to pray,
that the Spirit intercedes
for us,
guarantees
that our prayers
are heard
by the Lord.
This is one of the reasons
we like to have
incense from time to time
in our service.
It's one of the things
this does.
It reminds us
that as we are gathered here
praying and singing
and confessing
that the Holy Spirit
is interceding,
that our prayers
are being heard,
they're going to heaven,
right?
It's a symbol.
And then something
even more amazing happens.
The censer,
all of the prayers,
the censer is filled
with fire
and then that fire
in response
to the saints' prayers,
that fire is cast down
on the earth.
God answers the prayer.
The prayers of the saints
are effectual.
They are powerful.
The prayer of God's people,
when we gather together
and when we pray,
all hell trembles.
All hell trembles.
The most important thing
that we do as God's people,
our greatest resource,
is prayer.
And when we pray,
this shows us
we should be bold.
Bold in our prayer.
We should know
that God hears us.
We should know
the truth of James 5.16.
The prayer of a righteous person
has great power
as it is working.
And by the way,
Revelation as a whole,
this entire book,
is about the Lord's prayer
being answered.
We pray it every week.
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
That's Revelation.
God's kingdom coming.
God's will being done
here as it has eternally been done
in the heavenly realm.
So this is the life cycle
of the church.
It's the life cycle
of every Christian.
This is something
that is not only enacted
throughout history
across the centuries,
but it's something
that we experience
in our own walk of faith.
In some of us,
it's a cycle
that plays out again
and again
and again.
It begins with victory.
The victory that Jesus Christ
has accomplished
and our willingness
to accept that.
it leads to conflict.
It leads to the kind of conflict
that forces us to choose
where our loyalties really lie.
That gives way
to the call for martyrdom.
It's not enough
just to acknowledge Jesus.
He calls us to Calvary
to be that grain
that falls to the ground
and dies
so that it can bear much fruit.
Ultimately,
martyrdom is not the end.
We have the resurrection promise.
Out of death,
God brings resurrection life,
renewal,
and then that new life
produces worship
and effectual prayer.
This is the shape
that Jesus' ministry takes
and it's the shape
that His church
in her ministry will take
and it's the shape
that our lives
in our ministry will take.
So it's worth asking yourself
as we prepare to move on
in our service,
where do you find yourself
in this cycle?
If you're somebody
who's here
and you're not sure
what you believe,
you wouldn't consider yourself
to be a Christian,
perhaps you're considering
whether or not
this is a victory
that has been accomplished
on your behalf.
That Jesus Christ
has overcome sin and death
and desires to overcome
sin and death
in your life.
Maybe you're a Christian
but you're facing
massive conflict.
Don't think that God
has abandoned you.
Don't think that God
doesn't hear your prayer.
Don't think that all of this
is for naught.
If you're experiencing
conflict as a Christian,
it means you're right
where you belong.
This is exactly what
the story tells us
is going to happen.
That's what it means.
That's all it means.
Are you in a place
of martyrdom
where God is trying
to put something
in your life to death?
He's trying to kill
something in your life.
Are you holding on to it,
protecting it,
or will you let him take it?
Because one of the things
that we recognize
as we see this story unfold,
here's what the story shows us.
We all want resurrection life.
We all want effectual prayer.
We all want authentic worship.
We all want the joy
that comes with that.
But resurrection life
and worship,
effectual prayer,
those are things
that are only found
on the far side
of conflict
and martyrdom.
That's the road
that we're called
to walk.
Let's pray.
Amen.
Let's pray.