The First Six Seals by Woodrow Kroll

The First Six Seals by Woodrow Kroll Today s Radio Study: Woodrow Kroll: The judgment that comes on the earth during the Tribulation period is not the only judgment that will ever come upon the earth, and certainly not the only judgment that will come upon evil people. So what we re getting here is kind of a bird s-eye view of the wrath of God finally being unleashed on a planet that rebelled against God, sinned against Him and has deserved this since day one. But what we know, six places in the Bible it says that God is slow to anger and full of compassion and merciful. And everybody has been saying, Well, hurry up and get to it. Well, now we re getting to it. This is where God shows the world He means business with regard to judgment. And we need to take it seriously. When we get to Revelation 6, we re beginning now to see how God allows the judgment that the world deserves to kind of roll out of heaven and take place on this planet. Now, remember, yesterday, if you were with us, you know that we were talking about, in chapter 5, Jesus being the only One worthy to open the scroll and reveal what s happening in the future. As a result of Him being the only One worthy, the twenty-four elders, the four living creatures, all fall on their faces before Jesus; and they sing to Him this song in verse 9, You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth. Now, at that point the twenty-four elders, you ll notice in the very next verse, the creatures and elders are joined by ten thousand times ten thousand of others. Now, this is interesting. There is never an occasion in history future, never an occasion in heaven, where a person sings a solo to God, not one time is there just one voice singing to God. So, we have four joining the twenty-four. Now, we have an innumerable company singing to God. This is what they say; they re saying it with a loud voice, verse 12: Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing! And as if the twenty-four and the four and now ten thousand times ten thousand, as if that weren t enough, verse 13 says, Every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under 1 The First Six Seals

the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: Blessing and honor and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever! Do you remember in Philippians 2, when it describes the emptying of the Lord Jesus? He left heaven behind, left all the trappings of heaven behind, came to earth, became a man, was made in the likeness of flesh, took upon Himself our sin and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. When you get to the cross, you ve gotten to the lowest point in the history and career of the Lord Jesus. I made a point last week of saying that from the cross everything that relates to Jesus is up, up, up. For Satan, everything is down, down, down. From the period of the cross on, it is always up for Jesus. What we have here is these twenty-four elders and these beasts and these ten thousand times ten thousand others and every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth. I think this is the point that we absolutely know for sure that God means business with regards to Jesus because it says in Philippians 2 that every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. This is where it happens for sure. Now, that leads us to chapter 6 where we re going today. That is just the introduction. That s two-thirds of our program already, but that s the introduction. Look, what it says in verse 1 of chapter 6: Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals; and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder, Come and see. And I looked. Now, I ve always wanted to be John s sidekick when we did these things. First of all, he s caught up to heaven, not physically but spiritually caught up to heaven. God cracks heaven open so that John can actually see what s going on in heaven. Then, this angel says to him, one of these four creatures says to him, Jesus, the only One worthy to open the scroll has actually cracked open the first seal. You want to come and see. John says, Yeah. Well, that s not exactly what he said. But he said, I looked. What are you kidding? This is why I m here; let me take a look. So, he did. What did he see? He saw the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Look what it says in verse 2. And I looked, and behold, a white horse. And he who sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer. Now, who is this person riding a white horse? Well, let me start by saying to you we don t know. There are some commentators who look at this person and they say, Obviously, a white horse has to be Jesus. He s going out; He s conquering. But if you remember in Revelation 19, Jesus is riding a white horse; and He s going out to conquer the world. I don t think this is Jesus here because each of the other horsemen of the Apocalypse is bringing something wicked upon the earth. In fact, I think this is the person who would like to be Jesus. This is the person who spends his entire career acting as if he were Christ. I think this is the Antichrist himself. The first time we get any understanding of who this person is comes later in the story. But I don t think this is Jesus here because he s not doing the right thing. So, you have a white horse that comes riding out of heaven; this is the first of the four sealed judgments, comes against the earth, and it opposes the kingdom of God. Look at verse 4 as the second horse comes. It says, And another horse, fiery red, went out. And 2 The First Six Seals

it was granted to the one, who sat on it to take peace from the earth, and that people should kill one another; and there was given to him a great sword. Now, we re starting to see judgment come upon the earth. And, yes, all judgment has been committed to the Son. But these are the agents of judgment. These are evil things that are going on here. So, you have a white horse and the person sitting upon the white horse is bringing judgment. Then you have this red horse. I think the color red represents blood. This person goes out. I think this heightens the whole concept of judgment here. It s seen because, if the white horse represents victory, then the red horse represents war. And suddenly we re not talking about the throne room of God anymore. Suddenly, we re talking about the judgment of God on this earth. So, you have a white horse; secondly you have a red horse. Verse 5: When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. A black horse: white, red, black. White probably represents victory; red probably represents blood. Black, well, you know what black means. It represents death. It represents the scarcity. In fact, the scales in the hands of the person riding this horse may mean that there is a scarcity of food in the world at this time because every little bit of food has to be weighed out and balanced to the entire world. So, there s a whole scarcity of food source. Famine breaks out; famine generally comes after warfare. You ve seen it in Bosnia; you ve seen it in the Far East; you ve seen it in the Horn of Africa. You ve seen it everywhere. When war comes, famine is usually right behind. So, food is being doled out here, look at verse 6: I heard 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 the wine. All this sounds a little crazy; but let s think about what he s talking about. If food is that scarce, you get a quart of wheat for about a day s wages, a denarius. Now, that means then, that a lot of people are not going to be able to eat much when this famine breaks out. This is part of the judgment. The measure here, the famine that is rationed out, the word that is used there in the Greek language is the word that means the wages paid for one person for one day. So, you go to work at McDonalds or you go to work in the office or you drive truck or you re a farmer or whatever you do; you go and you work hard for a day and you get your wages for that one day. Then you go to the grocery store, and all it gets you is a quart of wheat. That s not very much. That can t sustain a family very long. This is clearly the judgment of God. Hurt not the oil or the wine what does that suggest? It may be suggesting that, just as things are today, there are going to be the haves and the have-nots. There are going to be people who are wealthy enough to have oil and wine and others who can only have a quart of wheat. What he is suggesting here is that the rich are still going to have enough to live on, but the poor are not. God will deal with that injustice, too, before He s done. Well, verse 8, And I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth. Now, this is not a very pretty picture; but it is a picture of what the world is going to be like absent the Spirit of God, absent the Church of God; absent the grace of God. The day will come when God s curtain of grace will fall. When He raises that curtain again, it will be the curtain 3 The First Six Seals

of His wrath. What you re seeing now is the second act. Act 1, God s grace. He s been dealing with us in grace for so long we don t even know how to act. But Act 2 is the curtain of God s wrath. As a result of the curtain of God s wrath, what you re seeing here is a whole world being plagued by white horse, red horse, black horse, the pale horse of famine and, ultimately, death. Judgment has clearly come to the earth, but it did not come at the hands of God. It came at the hands of evil because judgment always comes as a result of evil, not as a result of God s need to judge us. God needs to judge us because He s holy. But the only reason judgment is even a potential is because we are not holy. If you ve waited a long time for God to bring judgment upon the earth, you don t have to wait any longer. With the opening of these seals, the world is going to see judgment like this world has never seen before. Tami Weissert: So, let s clarify here. When we get to Revelation, to the Rapture of the church and beyond, this is what you re referring to as Act 2 where God unleashes His judgment, right? WK: Correct. TW: And it s at this point that the period of grace is over? WK: Yes. TW: So that means that, right now, we re living under God s grace even though we don t always live that way. So how do we not take God s grace for granted? WK: Unfortunately, we often do take God s grace for granted. God extends His grace and His goodness to the world today and instead, people take His name in vain. They deny His existence, they even curse Him. To understand grace, we have to understand that we don t deserve it. Grace is a free gift of God to people who deserve God s wrath. So we can keep from taking it for granted by not treading on it or not trading on it. We can spend a lot of time thanking God for His grace on our behalf. That s a good way not to take it for granted. TW: Now what we see happening in Revelation is the world absent God s grace. So does it follow then that God s grace today is shielding us from the full brunt of evil? WK: Without question. And besides, that s God s promise. Paul was writing to the Thessalonian believers about how God is restraining His wrath today, but the day will come when the restraint will be taken away. Second Thessalonians 2 says, Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day [he s talking about the day of wrath, the day of judgment] will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition [that s the antichrist] who opposes and exalts himself against every so called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple proclaiming himself to be God. And you know what is restraining him now that he may not be revealed in his time for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, only He who now restrains will do so until he is out of the way. Now he s talking about the Spirit of God restraining this lawlessness while the church is here, but once the church is gone, the Spirit of God is gone as well. 4 The First Six Seals

There are seven seals total but just two more in Revelation 6, the fifth and the sixth seals. The fifth seal according to verses 9-11 depicts the souls of those (I m quoting now), slain for the word of God and the testimony which they held. It s evident that, since we re in the midst of God s judgment during the Tribulation period, these cannot be the martyrs of the Church Age. These are not Christians suffering for their faith today in countries around the world. The church has already been taken out of this earth, taken up to heaven. So it must be those martyred for their faith during the first months of the Tribulation. So these people are those who have trusted Jesus Christ as Savior while they are watching the judgment of God right before their eyes. They are said to be under the altar of God. That probably is a symbolic way of saying they are covered by the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ. When they inquire how long it will be until the Lord avenges their blood, well, there s bad news. They re told that there are many more who will join their ranks as martyrs before the Antichrist is defeated. And with the breaking open of the sixth seal, havoc is unleashed on the earth. This is where the Lord s wrath really becomes cataclysmic judgment. Six catastrophic events are recorded and I believe all six of these are literal events; they will actually take place. 1) A great earthquake. 2) The sun becomes black. 3) The moon becomes reddened like blood. 4) A universal meteor shower of stars falls to the earth. 5) The heavens part as a scroll revealing God on His awesome throne. 6) Every mountain and island is moved when the heavens are rolled back. You can guess the result of all this. It will be panic. It will be fear. Verses 15 and 16 describe people trying to hide themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains but there will be no hiding from the judgment of God. They even plead for the rocks and the mountains to fall on them to kill them so they won t have to face the wrath of God a wrath that we have never yet seen the likes of before nor will anyone see the likes of again after the Great Tribulation. Unless otherwise indicated, scripture references are from the New King James Version of the Bible. Copyright 2012 The Good News Broadcasting Association, Inc. All rights reserved. Back to the Bible P.O. Box 82808 Lincoln, NE 68501 1-800-759-2425 backtothebible.org 5 The First Six Seals