Sermon Tone Analysis

Textual Idea – John sees an overview of the Great Tribulation as the Lamb of God unleashes His wrath & judgments upon the world.

Transition w/ Key Word – Our text presents 3 observations about the Great Tribulation and the wrath of the Lamb of God & His judgments upon the world.

I.

The Sobering Reality of the 7 Seals – vs. 1-8, 12-14

II.

The Sorrowful Request in the 7 Seals – vs. 9-11

III.

The Shocking Response to the 7 Seals – 15-17, 8:1

Introduction – Suppose you knew I had the ability to foretell the future and this ability as a prophet and a prognosticator was well documented by things that I had predicted that had actually come true.

As a matter of fact, suppose my record of predictions was 100% accurate.

What if I told you God had given me a vision of something terrible that was going to happen to your family this next week unless you took steps to prepare for it to prevent it.

Suppose I told you your home was going to be invaded by a group of heavily armed men who planned to overwhelm your home in a ferocious manner, with military-like precision.

They would kidnap and separate the members of your family and you very likely would never see them again unless you took prudent actions ahead of time.

Suppose I shared with you this home invasion would take place this Tuesday night/Wednesday morning at 0330.

How would you prepare?

How would you respond if the warning was moved back to sometime in the next 6 weeks and I added that they planned to blow up and burn your house as well so there would be nothing left.

Preventing the invasion and destruction of your home was not an option and you could only carry from your home what you could fit in your vehicles.

What if the warning was more general as to the time frame – it was simply that this would happen “soon.”

How would that change your plans?

Would you still take the warning seriously?

If I received this news, I would be booking a reservation in a hotel a long way from here, I’d give the keys to my home to the appropriate law enforcement agency and leave it in their hands to deal with, but I’d not be sticking around!

Sometimes we get warnings that hurricane is coming, or a major snow storm and we prepare ahead of time.

Sadly, sometimes people don’t pay attention to the warnings to their own detriment, especially if they haven’t witnessed the destruction of the storm – IE a hurricane.

With our experience with Ike in Houston, I always take hurricane warnings seriously now and act appropriately.

Transition – In our text this morning, we have a series of warnings related to the wrath of the Lamb of God and His future judgments that is more certain than yesterday’s newspaper headline.

God’s track record with accuracy in His prophecies & predictions of future events is 100% accurate.

In rapid fire succession, the Apostle John recorded an overview of the wrath of the Lamb of God and His judgments upon the earth.

Review what John has witnessed so far in his vision.

(Slides)

As we look at the wrath of the Lamb of God today, I want us to make 3 observations from the text in this preview of the Great Tribulation.

For the sake of time, I’ll be reading our text by section

I.

The Sobering Reality of the 7 Seals – vs. 1-8, 12-14

Explanation – What we have beginning in chapter 6 is really the main message of the Book of Revelation.

It is the prophetic word and warning from Almighty God of what will become of the planet earth.

It is God’s message of warning to the inhabitants of the earth to be ready.

The wrath of God is not intended for humans to endure and this is why God warns us ahead of time of what will take place.

His warning is to give us time to prepare beforehand so we will not have to endure His wrath and fury upon Satan and his evil forces.

Unfortunately, people will ignore this warning and will be caught in what I call the sobering reality of the 7 seals of judgment that are about to unfold upon the earth.

What strikes me as we read chapter 6 is the speed of these events that quite frankly are overwhelming to read.

The cadence is crisp and moves quickly.

Before you can process the meanings and symbolism in just a couple of brief verses, the vision changes and a new seal is broken by the Lamb of God and more bad stuff happens.

It is ironic for a lamb to exhibit wrath is it not?

Make no mistake, it is Jesus who is breaking open these seals to unleash the torrent of judgment upon a sin filled world (Matt.

28:18 “All authority has been given to Me in Heaven & on Earth...”)

It is so overwhelming to the reader – it’s a sudden, sobering reality that hits the reader square in the face – much like a bitter cold north wind stings your skin when a cold front rolls in unexpectedly and you realize you forgot your jacket.

John is standing on the launching deck from the throne room of Heaven, as the Lamb of God, the only one found worthy to open the scroll with 7 seals, breaks each seal, a command from one of the 4 creatures before the throne is barked out and in a flash, the activity recorded on the scroll begins immediately.

What is recorded on the scroll is not read, but is acted out.

For proper interpretation, we should understand the judgments recorded from chapter 6 through chapter 19 describe many overlapping events.

John is presented first with an overview and then the details follow in smaller snapshots, like a photo album with a cover picture of the overall event, and the inside of the album shows the specific snapshots of the event.

Altogether in Revelation, there are three series of judgments: 7 seals, 7 trumpets and 7 bowls.

We should understand the 7 seal judgments are nearly identical to Jesus’ prediction of this in His Olivet discourse in Matt.

24.

At the beginning of the 7 seals, we see the infamous 4 horsemen of the apocalypse.

1. (Slide) Rider on a white horse – A Dark Prince bringing false peace – vs. 1-2 – Because this rider is on a white horse, some have mistakenly understood this is Jesus but that cannot be the case.

Jesus is the Lamb of God with the 7 sealed scroll and He’s opening the seals so this cannot be Jesus.

The fact some believe this rider is the Lord on a white horse illustrates the deception of this rider – he is the persona of an imposter, a pretender, a want to be messiah.

This rider represents the Anti-Christ who responds instantly when summoned onto the scene of the pages of human history according to God’s timetable, not Satan’s.

This rider has a bow with no arrows symbolizing the false peace he will bring to earth.

“Come” – He is summoned to the world stage by order of Almighty God.

Satan counterfeits everything God does because he wants to be God.

This false christ, anti-Christ cannot do his evil work until God allows it.

He has a crown – the word is “stephanos” – a victor’s laurel wreath (temporary value) given to an athlete who wins an athletic competition.

Not a crown of royalty – GK word is “diadem” for the many crowns Jesus wears (CF Rev. 19:12).

The crown was given to him – as part of his props, and he leaves heaven conquering and to conquer.

He has no arrows so this rider will conquer without firing a shot.

This is a preview of the person known as the antichrist who will burst onto the world scene and will broker a peace deal no one has been able to do yet – between the Jews and Muslims.

In other places of Rev. the antichrist is referred to as the beast in Rev.13:1-18, 16:10-13, 17:3-14, 19:19-21, 20:10.

In other places of Scripture, he is referred to as the “son of perdition” (John 17:12), “the man of lawlessness (sin) & the son of perdition” (2nd Thess.

2:3), “the king who does as he pleases” (Daniel 11:36-45, and the “antichrist” (1st John 4:3).

Dr. David Jeremiah calls him the “Dark Prince on a white horse.”

The book of Daniel (9:24-27) teaches there will be a peace deal brokered with Israel that will last for 3 ½ years between Israel and her enemies.

This false messiah’s ability to broker a peace deal with Israel and the rest of the world without any warfare will catapult him onto the international stage as a world ruler.

But it doesn’t last long!

People have been trying to identify the identity of the Antichrist for years but so far all estimations have been wrong.

I believe in every generation, Satan has had someone in the wings waiting to take the world stage as the false messiah, but God is the one who will say “Come” (6:1) and the Antichrist will go out conquering and to conquer by deceiving the nations of the world with false peace.

Pieces of the puzzle are already in place as there continues to be international turmoil, revolution is in the air in quadrants of the earth, and concern for the global economy is the news talk daily.

Moral values are undermined in our educational systems and on television.

The ability to communicate with masses of people quickly via the internet, cell phones, twitter, facebook are unprecedented.

There is no doubt this antichrist will be the master of social network and media to deceive billions of people.

In the aftermath of the rapture of the church and the turmoil in the world at that time, this false Christ will be the savior riding in on a white horse, the international hero bringing some sort of sanity to the chaotic world.

Then John sees:

2. Rider on a red horse – War – vs. 3-4 – As the 2nd seal is broken; the next rider summoned on the scene by God rides a red horse symbolizing bloodshed from war and violence.

Notice the rider “was permitted to take peace from the earth so that people would slay one another, and he was given a great sword.”

There will be international wars breaking out but the bloodshed among individuals will be an epidemic.

In 2021, El Salvador led all countries in the world with 82 murders per 100,000 people.

Next closest was Honduras & Venezuela in a statistical tie with 56 murders per 100,000 people.

So far in 2022, in the US, St. Louis MO leads the country in murders at 69 per 100,000 people followed by Baltimore MD with 51 per 100K.

In the tribulation, when the red horseman makes his appearance on the scene, violent murder, war and bloodshed will become commonplace as the value of human life continues to lessened – especially since believers are not here in the world as a restraining force against evil.

3. Rider on a black horse – Famine – vs. 5-6 – Third seal – Famine and war often go together; see Matt.

24:7.

The color black makes one think of famine.

Lam.

5:10 in the King James says “Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.”

The rider holds a pair of balances, indicating that his government has established control of food.

A measure of wheat was about a quart; and a denarius was a day’s wages for a worker.

In other words, food will be so scarce it will take a person all day to earn enough wages for just a quart of grain!

We’ve already seen supply chain issues, food shortages and inflation is spiraling out of control!

But note that there is no scarcity of oil and wine for the rich.

The rich get richer and enjoy their luxuries, while the poor get poorer and can hardly get enough to eat.

In the last several months, there have been a number of fires, explosions & even plane crashes in almost 2 dozen food production, processing or storage facilities!

Have you heard wthe media talk about this at all? Me neither!