Rev 6

David Johnson

Revelation • Sermon • Submitted a month ago • Presented a month ago

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Week 11: The Lamb, where real security comes from

Rev 6:1-8

Welcome to REC today, I wanted to start with something from a couple of teaching series ago…It was an idea…and many of you were here and some of you were not…

But I wanted to just give you the idea…

What does God’s Judgment look like?

In Egypt, when Moses was working to release the Hebrew people. one of the things I talked about was the judgment of Egypt

One of the things we talked about in our moses series was this question as to why would God do all of these plagues to the Egyptians?

And the answer is that what God is doing with Judgment is that he turns Pharaoh’s sin back on him

That the judgment of God is almost that he is letting all of creation fall apart in front of Pharoah Because Pharoah believed he was Lord over all creation and the biggest point that God is making is that Pharoah your lordship is just an illusion, it is a sham

It is just a parody of me and you dont have real power…See I have the power over creation

This is what Judgment of evil looks like!

Evil eventually implodes under its own weight…

All through the bible when you see God’s judgment really what it is is allowing the evil that people and empires do to come back on their own heads…

This is why we need redemption and salvation…God in many ways is saving us from the destructive nature of our own evil

Its almost like God’s judgment on evil is to just let it exist because evil eventually self distrusts

So remember that as we read not only the text today but all of the rest of Revelation

Disclamer

When I teach what I am about to teach it is all about the political situation of the day…

It would be impossible to teach these next segments without somehow talking about the politic of the empire vs the politic of the lamb…

….You will be tempted to try and figure me out politically today

I just know that one of you will leave here saying…See I told you he is a Biden guy or I knew it, he supports trump…

a. So I want to ask you all, can you just not do that? I mean for me, I am not trying to lay out a personal political agenda today, I am simply trying to show you what the early church heard when they heard this text…

b. And they were in a different position from us today.

For the first 300 years of the church, it was excluded from any form of power in the empire,

and in around 400AD there was an Emperor who became a Christian and all of the sudden allowed Christians to come to power…

So you have to understand today Christians are in a far different position than the early church than they are today…

You are all 21st century Americans

The church of Revelation was excluded from governing life…

we are a church that is included in governing life…

It was a church who was persecuted and now we enjoy freedoms

It was written to a church that was always on the brink of disaster…and we are not

It was written to a group of people that practiced a religion that was illegal and who regularly died for their involvement in it…

and ours is Legal and I am not sure if anyone dies in America for their faith in Jesus, in fact if they do it is a hate crime and there is punishment that will happen as a result

So church of today, we live and exist in a very different context than the first century churches…Thats all I am trying to get at:

Ok Lastly:

Structure

Ok so before we jump into this very odd text I just want you to know that the Book of Zechariah has both in chapters 1 and chapter 6 these stories of four horsemen with 4 different colors bringing judgment upon the earth…

And you’ll just have to trust me on the twitter version of this, because to unpack it all today would just take time that we dont have and its not the focus

This is done to communicate judgment against those nations who did Evil to Israel

So remember our structure in Revelation: Chapter’s 2-3 are divine lawsuits against the church. We get judged first, chapters 4-5 are the heavenly courtroom scene. This is where God holds judgment and hands off the scroll to the lamb, The lamb will cary out the judgments of the almighty God.

So starting in Chapter 6 God unleashes judgment against these earthly nations…And the Giant White whale of nations when John is writing is Rome

So it is kind of all in this motif of God holding court:

Lets jump right into Revelation 6:1-8

Revelation 6:1–8 ESV

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 denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and 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.

The Scroll:

Now keep in mind, the lamb is opening the scroll, from last week, the Lamb who is Jesus now sits on the throne with God and is the only one worthy to cary out the judgments of his father in heaven

Keep in mind that when we read about the four horsemen, we are not reading the scroll. We are just reading the effects of opening the scroll! If you think about it, in order to read the scroll you have to open all seven seals and just at the opening of each one something new happens…

Its like as God gets closer to the end…We have to ask ourselves really…What is it the end of?

Revelation will tell us that it is the end of evil as we know it and there will be a new creation, a new heaven and a new earth…So as we move ever closer to that end of evil it should actually be a great day of anticipation for us but for the forces of Evil it is a great time of dread and fear….

Evil freaks out because it knows that its days are numbered.

Evil knows the outcome and knows it will be banished…

So lets jump into these horses

Empire: Empires are all about control and power.

Military control, economic control and food control. Rome was one of these Empires,

Revelation was written to a church in the Roman Empire

A picture that the early church would have had in their mind was Egypt…

Because much of their texts would have included Exodus and an understanding of Pharaoh

So the story of Pharaoh is this mythology of control…

Where he is in control over the military might

Over the food production

Over the people and all things

And when Pharaoh is in control over all things then he literally puts himself in place of God of his people

But Moses comes in and disassembles Pharaoh’s sense of power and control…

It’s a lie, you are not in control and then God sends plagues to show Pharaoh that he is not in control…

Over his water supply

Over his food and food production

Over the economy

Even toward the very end, he is not even in control of the life and death in his own household

So I would argue that this story is not there for Pharaoh…

It is there to ask the Israelites that when it comes down to it, who will you identify with…

To understand the central question of Exodus is to help us to find meaning in Revelation 6 and really the rest of revelation

Central Question of Exodus: Will you identify with Pharaoh and his false power or the Passover lamb that is at the center of salvation?

Who will you identify with?

Pick the lamb! The lamb is the one who is really in charge!

So The Christians living in Rome would have know this story

White Horse

Rider with a bow and a crown

So the Politics of the empire are left and right and all that goes in the middle…and then there is the politics of a different kind all-together, the politic of the lamb!

So Lastly before I break this down for us all…My fear is that we will hear what I am about to say as Americans and not the church….

There is an awful lot of what I am about to say that you might think I am talking about America…

The Goal of this text and of even preaching this morning is not to fix America…But for the church to learn the politic of the lamb!

And when we learn the politic of the lamb then we are able to be a witness of that to the rest of the world!

Revelation 6:1–2 ESV

So I think the best way to see the horses and their riders are cosmic agents of evil. Now Jesus will show up later on a white horse but that is a very different scene than this one.

Now there are a number of interpretations of this text, but if we are going to go on the idea that the original reader would have understood…

On the Eastern boarder of Rome there was this other massive Empire called the Parthians. They held the Arab peninsula…and they were a constant threat to Rome..

They were famous for the white horses that they bread…and they were famous for being able to shoot a bow and arrow while on their horse. They were the only group of mounted archers that were well known in the ancient world…

So the point of this text is that one-day the empire will collapse, not to an eternal rule by Paratha but an eternal rule from God

So the problem is that Rome wants to expand east…and the way that Rome does war is big guys in armor, all lined up marching into battle…with swords and speed and chariots

Rome was big and mighty enough that they could overwhelm anyone…In fact most people just surrendered when they saw Rome coming

But here is what the Parthians’ did…They did not fight war in conventional ways…

They fought non traditional warfare that the Romans could never control..

They got around their lines…they killed a lot of romans…they were effective

Can you imagine that? I mean always having this power and might and always being able to overwhelm enemies, having the largest most fierce military in the world and then all of the sudden having enemies that do not fight back in traditional ways and so they scare us to death?

So what was John saying? Cesar thinks that he has full power and authority but the reality is that he knows full and well that there is a power coming on his eastern boarder that he can not control

There will always be enemies at the gates…

When you build empire there will always be enemies at the boarder

And because of that, here is the politics that the empire learns

What we need are cooler weapons…

More chariots…

more spears,

more bows…

In order to feel safe we need to raise the death toll of our enemies

that is the politics of empire, Crazy right?

And the empire will always be collecting more taxes to buy bigger and better weapons and the message is clear…Trust in us for your safety…

The politics of empire is that your military spending has to dwarf the other guy or else you will never be safe

So here is the question of the White Horse?

What does it mean to really be safe? Are we safe because we have a strong boarder? Are we safe because we have the beast weapons?

Are we safe because we have the biggest army? what makes us safe?

Who will you find your sense of safety in, the empire or the lamb?

It’s how the white horse gets lived out…

And here is the deal no matter how much you build up your white horse power…it never goes away…You just get more white horses coming after you

Bright Red Horse

Civil War

Revelation 6:3–4 ESV

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.

So if the white horse is the threat from outside that makes Rome freak out, then the red horse is the threat from within

If you read Roman history you will find that they had a history of killing insurgents

In AD 70 the Jews kept rising up in a revolt over taxes and Jerusalem was crushed by Rome

Rome was always crushing a little popular movement against them…

The politics of the red horse is that as Cesar builds more and more power there are constantly people who are at the bottom and left out who are mad and who feel left out and begin to rise up…They bond together

So imagine with me for a second…A system or a government is always worried about the threat from within…And for rome this is the biggest threat because if there is civil war then this makes the threat of invasion even higher!

and always trying to put down that threat….It is the politic of once you have your power you have to hold onto it at all costs…

I mean I think about regimes through history that practice that practice the politic of the red horse…

The Russians had the Gulag

Pol Pot just killed his enemies

North Korea has execution and work camps

The politic of the red-horse is to silence all discenters so we can create the illusion of unity

Or even more subtle than that….The politic of the red horse is that when you achieve power…you kind of always want to keep watch over your people…

You want to use everything in your might to listen in…You have to keep close tabs on your people because if not then you might lose power

See when empires consolidate power they are willing to do whatever to keep it

NOTE::::MAYBE SHARE MAYBE NOT

I know that there are end times systems out there that identify these horses and many of you have heard that the red horse is Russia…But one in the Bible the color red symbolized blood and not a political system and two I want to caution you against end times systems where the original reader could not have possibly understood the text they were reading.

Because when you begin going down the road of naming specifics to things then what you are saying is that the book of revelation wasn't useful to its original readers, you are saying that the original readers could not have possibly understood

and lastly this is so impotrant: Good theology is based on biblical evidence and not speculation

The politic of the red horse asks us where we will find true peace, in the empire or the lamb?

Black Horse

Revelation 6:5–6 ESV

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 denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!”

This is the horse of Famine…

So back to Pharaoh and his mythology…His mythology was that he is in control of the economy.. That from his hand he fed Egypt…

But it just took one good plague of locust…one good drought…one good famine to destroy the myth that he was in control

So here is what is interesting about famine…What happens is supply and demand drive the economy…doesn’t matter what kind of economy you live in..

When food is scarce…what this verse is saying is that it takes a full days wage to buy food for one person…

Just before WWII broke out there are stories in Germany about people taking wheelbarrows full of cash to buy a loaf of bread…because of inflation

But then there is this note about not touching the oil and the wine…Here is the strange thing about famine…The wealthy seem to always have plenty of oil and wine..

North Koreans live in abject poverty and there had been a famine in the land…Do you think the Royal family had a problem with their food supply? Nope!

So the politic of the black horse is this:

Imagine this with me…Empires like to give off the myth that they are in control of all the economy…

But bubbles burst…financial downturns happen, I mean we think we have control over these things but really we are not in control!

And when this kind of thing happens what is the result? All expenses go up…and the poor bears the burden

This horse breaks down the myth that somehow we are in control of the economy

The question of the Black Horse is who do you trust as your provider? The empire or the lamb?

Pale Horse

Death to 1/4 of the earth

Revelation 6:7–8 ESV

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.

This 4th horse is this symbol of things like plagues…and these things happen through out human history…

The black plague for instance in the middle ages, conservative estimates say it took out ¼ of the population…

But look back to Pharaoh…the guy who put out the myth that he was in control was unable to control the life and death of his first born son…and all of Egypt’s with him…

Plagues just highlight that we do not have control

Even in our recent history with COVID…Once the vaccine came out the official line was hey we have herd immunity once everyone was vaccinated we can return to life as normal…It was the illusion that we have sickness under control

and we learned really quick that even if you were vaccinated you could still get it and spread it…

But my point is that the narative is that, trust the empire…We have sickness and disease under control!

So John says, all Rome needs is one good plague and Rome would realize it is not in control

And the politic of the green horse says that man when people are sick, we have to quarantine them…put them on an island and let them infect each other…

The first 4 horses dismantle the myth of power that Cesar has any real power at all

But what is John trying to teach us? The politics of the lamb…

Do we live in fear of sickness and death or in the power of the one who has overcome death?

White horse vs the lamb

Where the White horse and the politic of Cesar says, be fearful of outsiders…exclude people…some people are better than others

The Politic of The lamb says:

We are all one in Christ Jesus

The Counter Politic of the Lamb:

The Lamb vs The Horse: We have no outsiders there are only insiders (Gal 3:26-28)

Galatians 3:26–28 ESV

for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Red horse vs the lamb

The politic of Cesar is crush those who would rise up against me!

A constant recognition that God hears the cry of the oppressed….The last is first…those people who get overlooked we need to give them places of honor

The Lamb vs the Red Horse: The parts of the body that seem weak are really indispensable ( 1 Cor 12:21-26)

1 Corinthians 12:21–26 ESV

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

The red horse wants to get rid of those who dont fall in line

But the lamb welcomes all

The lamb invites everyone for redemption

The black horse vs the lamb

Famine…I am not sure that we are famine proof… or even hurricane or tornado proof

People who are shaped by this are constantly worried about how to keep stuff

The politic of the lamb is to say hey we can’t control when the black horse shows up…we are not in control…we are generous even with the last of what we have!

Then politic of the lamb says, how do we make sure people get fed…

I saw this most powerful as I was a relief worker in Hurricane Katrina… I got into the shelter before the red cross was able to supply food..and the local Baptist church emptied their reserves to the last penny, to feed 425 people until help could come…

The Lamb vs The Black HorseThe politic of the lamb is radical generosity in every situation

Pale horse vs the lamb

This fear of sickness and death….

Even in Jesus’ ministry there was this group of people that fit…the Leapers and the thought was seclude them over there and let them die…

But the early church was shaped by the politic of the lamb that said hey Jesus was unafraid to touch Leapers!

Further in Revelation, chapter 18, John tells the church…Stop participating in the empire for when you share in her sin, you will share in her disease as well!

For the Pale horse…It really summarizes the first three horses…It is a graphic reminder of the consequences of sin

The politic of the lamb is to not share in the sins of the empire

When we watch the news we should not be surprised when a empire acts like an empire

And you are not shaped by Cesar’s politic, but by the politic of the lamb who was slain

I want to read the best statement I could find about the politic of the lamb…

Romans 12:3–5 ESV

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

Romans 12:9–21 ESV

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

When you learn the politics of the lamb you are not defeated by evil, but you defeat evil with Good!

what can be more counter culture than a community of people that Rejects the Cesar’s of this world and lives by the politic of the lamb and returns good for evil?!

This morning, When I say politic the way that is really defined is by your actions…

Do you buy into the politic of the white horse… Or the Lamb?

Do you buy into the politic of the red horse…Or the lamb?

Do you buy into the politic of the black horse…or will you live by the lamb

Do you succumb to the fear of the pale horse…Or do you live in the confidence of the lamb…

Communion, the Cup of the Lamb:

Today as we take communion, which cup will you choose..The cup of the Lamb or the cup of the empire?

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