1. "We Christians act like we do in this fallen world, not because people don't really exist, but because they do, eternally. And for that matter, so does God, our Creator and Judge."

2. "Brothers and sisters, we are saved not from suffering in this life but through it."

3. "Suffering is part of this fallen world. So your life question is not how you can have the comfort you deserve, but how you can have the forgiveness you don't."

4. "Present suffering doesn't mean that God has forgotten His people any more than that the cross meant that God had forgotten Christ."

5. "Can your silence at work about the gospel be purchased just by a little fear of persecution? Maybe the concern you might miss a promotion or alienate someone. Friends, you have brothers and sisters today being disowned by their families, maybe even being hunted to death for confessing Jesus Christ as Lord. And do you quail at the thought of a little ostracism or missing a pay raise?"

6. "My non-Christian friend, what I'm saying to you is that you won't like God if you meet Him outside of Christ. The God of the Bible is completely good and we're all against Him."

7. "Friend, what you serve is what you worship. Look at your schedule. What are the immovable things in your schedule? How could you be said to serve those things, to worship those things?"

8. "The sufferings of this world are real. Perhaps even mortal. But they are passing. Eternal bliss is being. Being in the image of God forever and being in relationship with God."

9. "The Lamb has reversed the effects of the fall for all who will trust in Him. He has accepted the curse's fullest effects in Himself for us. And so He has brought us forgiveness and acceptance forever."

10. "On that day when you stand before God, will you try to hide your face from Him in fear? Or will you fall on your face in worship before Him, acknowledging His amazing mercy to you in Christ?"

Observation Questions

1. In Revelation 6:1-8, what are the four horses and their riders given power to do when the first four seals are opened?

2. According to Revelation 6:9-11, where does John see the souls of those who had been slain, and what reason is given for their deaths?

3. What do the martyrs under the altar cry out for in Revelation 6:10, and what are they told to do in verse 11?

4. In Revelation 6:15-17, how do the people of the earth respond when the sixth seal is opened, and what question do they ask?

5. According to Revelation 7:2-4, what does the angel coming from the east command the other angels to do before harming the land and sea, and how many are sealed?

6. In Revelation 7:14-17, how does the elder describe those wearing white robes, and what specific promises does God make to them?

Interpretation Questions

1. The sermon points out that the first five seals represent history from God's perspective while the sixth seal represents the end. How does understanding this structure help us see God's sovereignty over both present suffering and final judgment?

2. Why is it significant that even the martyrs in Revelation 6:11 had to be "given" white robes rather than earning them through their sacrifice? What does this teach about the basis of our acceptance before God?

3. The sermon notes that John "hears" 144,000 from the tribes of Israel (7:4-8) but then "sees" an innumerable multitude from every nation (7:9). How does this hearing-then-seeing pattern help interpret who the 144,000 represents?

4. What is the significance of the word "therefore" at the beginning of Revelation 7:15, and how does it connect the believers' eternal blessings to what is described in verse 14?

5. How does the question asked in Revelation 6:17—"Who can stand?"—set up the answer revealed in chapter 7, and what does this teach about the only way to survive God's judgment?

Application Questions

1. The sermon states that Christians are saved "not from suffering but through it." How does this truth challenge the way you typically respond when unexpected hardship enters your life, and what would it look like to rejoice through a current difficulty rather than grumble about it?

2. The preacher asked whether your silence about the gospel at work can be "purchased by a little fear of persecution" like missing a promotion or alienating someone. What specific situations this week might tempt you to stay silent about your faith, and how can the example of martyred believers encourage you to speak?

3. Given that God has ordained a specific number of faithful witnesses to be completed before Christ returns, how should this truth shape your sense of purpose and urgency in sharing the gospel with those around you?

4. The sermon emphasized that what you serve is what you worship, asking listeners to examine the "immovable things" in their schedules. What does your weekly calendar reveal about what you are truly serving, and what one change could you make to prioritize worshiping God more faithfully?

5. Revelation 7:17 promises that "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." How can holding this future hope close to your heart give you joy and perseverance in a specific area of your life where you currently feel frustrated, disappointed, or grieved?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Romans 5:1-11 — This passage explains how suffering produces perseverance, character, and hope for those justified by faith, directly supporting the sermon's teaching on rejoicing through trials.

2. Ezekiel 9:1-11 — This passage describes the marking of the faithful on their foreheads before judgment falls on Jerusalem, providing Old Testament background for the sealing imagery in Revelation 7.

3. Isaiah 49:8-13 — Here God promises that His people will neither hunger nor thirst and that He will lead them beside springs of water, a promise the sermon shows fulfilled in Revelation 7:16-17.

4. Psalm 116:1-19 — This psalm, quoted in the sermon, declares that "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints," affirming God's care for His suffering people.

5. 2 Corinthians 4:7-18 — Paul describes present affliction as "light and momentary" compared to eternal glory, reinforcing the sermon's contrast between current suffering and future vindication.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Universal Reality of Suffering and Buddhist Response

II. Christians Suffer Now (Revelation 6:1-11)

III. Christians Will Be Vindicated (Revelation 6:12-7:17)

IV. The Day of the Lord Is Coming

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Detailed Sermon Outline

To live is to suffer.

All of us encounter this reality.

Everyone must come to some understanding of it.

I think one of the most profound attempts to cope with this has been that taught by Siddhartha Gautama, a Nepalese prince who lived in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. He's better known today as the Buddha. And I had an opportunity as an undergraduate to spend an entire semester studying with a Buddhist monk and reading Buddhist literature. The Buddha's Simple Message was summarized in what are called the Four Noble Truths. The first of these truths, the foundational one, is that life is suffering.

Pain, sickness, and disappointment are inevitable. Disillusion, decay, and death characterize life here? How are we to deal with the cold, hard facts of the unavoidable dissatisfaction and disappointment and rejection and failure and unfulfilled hopes and yearnings? And decrepitude and loss that we do experience in this world.

Physically and emotionally in this life suffering shows itself to be a pervasive condition.

Gautama analyzed the root of this problem as our attachment to the passing. And here's the crucial point. He taught that even we ourselves are passing.

It is our own minds, He taught, that create our suffering.

Therefore to deal with our suffering we should simply free ourselves from all attachments to ourselves most especially and to everyone and everything else in this world.

And we are to attain this freedom from attachment through following the eightfold path. That is, our speaking rightly, our acting rightly, our gaining our livelihood rightly, our concentrating rightly, our remembering rightly, our trying rightly, our understanding rightly, and our thinking rightly. You know, laying all that out, it strikes me how little difference there is really between such Buddhism and many other forms of thought. Yoga, Taoism, Tai Chi, and here in the West we could add some forms of Reformed Judaism, liberal Protestantism, Unitarianism, and Christian science. In fact, for that matter, what we hear from some so-called Christian TV preachers.

All various versions of mind over matter.

And yet so often suffering, whether it is the brutality of war, or the deprivations of poverty, or the certainty of death, just seems more real, more intractable and random.

Than anything that could be traced back to my own thoughts. Buddhism may help us describe the symptoms but its diagnosis is so unsatisfying that its prescription must be off. I mean what if we're real?

What if unlike what the Buddha taught We ourselves really exist.

And what's more to the point, what if God exists? Buddhism you know is an atheistic religion. The very idea of an eternally existing being would be an absolute contradiction to Buddhist teaching. Nirvana is non-being. For all our moral similarities with Buddhists in terms of selfless action and compassion, this stark difference exists.

We Christians act like we do in in this fallen world, not because people don't really exist, but because they do, eternally. And for that matter, so does God, our Creator and Judge.

But if that's the case, then don't we get right back to where we started a moment ago?

To live is to suffer. Surely that observation of Gautama is correct.

But if God is all powerful and all good, then how do we account for the suffering in the world in our own lives? And to sharpen the question, if Christianity is true, Then why doesn't becoming a Christian end our suffering? Why does it in fact often even seem to increase it?

This morning in our study of Revelation, we come to a profoundly Christian understanding of history and its end. History and its end. If you want a forward summary of Revelation chapter 6 and 7, that's the best I can do for you. History and its end. That's what it's about.

And we find that John is especially shown how Christians fit into it. We're in Revelation chapters 6 and 7, Revelation chapters 6 and 7. You'll find them on page 1290 in the Bible's provided here on the floor in the main hall, 1290, and on page 219. In the Bibles provided in the balconies and in the West Hall.

If you're visiting, let me encourage you to turn to them, to take out a Bible and turn there. It's right at the end, should be easy to find, and you'll find the next hour more understandable.

As you turn there, let me remind you of what we've already seen in the book. Chapter 1 contains John's initial vision of the risen Christ. Chapters 2 and 3 are Christ's messages to seven churches and really to all of us. And then in chapters 4 and 5, John is given a vision of God's throne in heaven and the Lamb who takes a sealed scroll, which is presumably all the events of history, which God has declared will happen. And this scroll has now been taken by the Lamb to be opened and so revealed.

And that's where we stopped last time. We left it right at the point where the Lamb appeared, was about to break open the seals on the scroll and so begin to reveal what God was doing in history and what He would do at the very end. So now we come to these chapters 6 and 7 in which we find the Great Tribulation, the 144,000, the clouds rolled back as a scroll, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

It's all in our passage this morning and it has been a joy to meditate on this week. I pray that as we consider these two chapters, you will come to understand your own suffering better and to see whether it is at least in part coming to you because you're hiding from God or because you are faithfully serving Him.

Revelation, chapter 6.

I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, Come! I looked, and there before me was a white horse. Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest. When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, Come!

Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword. When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, Come. I looked and there before me was a black horse.

Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like the voice of four living creatures saying, A quart of wheat for a day's wages and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine. And the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, Come. I looked and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him.

They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine, and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth. When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, How long, Sovereign Lord, how holy and true until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood. Then each of them was given a white robe and they were told to wait a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been, was completed.

I watched as He opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair. The whole moon turned blood red. And the stars in the sky fell to earth as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind.

The sky receded like a scroll rolling up and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come. And who can stand?

After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or the sea or on any tree. Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea, Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God. And then I heard the number of those who were sealed, 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel. From the tribe of Judah 12,000 were sealed, from the tribe of Reuben 12,000, from the tribe of Gad 12,000, from the tribe of Asher 12,000, from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000, from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000, From the tribe of Simeon 12,000, from the tribe of Levi 12,000, from the tribe of Issachar 12,000, from the tribe of Zebulun 12,000, from the tribe of Joseph 12,000, from the tribe of Benjamin 12,000.

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language. Standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures.

They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen! Then one of the elders asked me, these in white robes, who are they and where did they come from? I answered, Sir, you know.

And he said, these are they who have come out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple. And he who sits on the throne will spread His tent over them. Never again will they hunger, never again will they thirst.

The sun will not beat upon them nor any scorching heat, for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd. He will lead them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Amen.

What we find first is, number one, that Christians suffer now.

The Christian suffers now. Now some of our suffering is common to humanity. Look again at chapter 6 at the beginning, verse 1.

I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, Come. I looked, and there before me was a white horse. Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest. When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, Come.

Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword. When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, Come. I looked and there before me was a black horse.

Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures saying, A quart of wheat for a day's wages and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine. When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, Come. I looked and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named Death.

And Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague and by the wild beasts of the earth. So here we have the Lamb breaking open the seals that are on the scroll that have kept hidden God's decrees about history. Over in Revelation 22 at the end, in verse 10, we find an angel warning John, Do not seal up the words of this prophecy of this book. Because the time is near.

So these visions have been given to reveal God's plans to us. This is the day for revelation, revealing God's purposes and plans in the gospel. So here there are seven seals, even as we had seen seven messages to the seven churches in chapters 2 and 3. Now there are these seven seals that are broken open. And as the Lamb breaks open these seals, we see conquest and war and famine and death unleashed on the world.

And notice the pattern that we've already noted in this book of hearing, then seeing. Look at chapter 6 in the first couple of verses. You see hearing in verse 1 and then seeing in verse 2. And again in verse 5 you see the hearing and then the seeing. And in verse 7 the hearing and 8 the seeing.

The first four of these seals are the famed Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

But they're only of the apocalypse in the sense that they're in this book of Revelation and it's sometimes called the Apocalypse. What they depict is the history of this fallen world before the great day of God's wrath comes. We see God's wrath coming a little later and it says so. But here what they depict is our own history. In response to our fall from God in the Garden of Eden, God has sent or allowed in a world that would try to persist in resisting its benevolent Creator conquest and war and famine and death along with countless other trials and tragedies.

Friend, if you're here and you're not a Christian, why do you think we suffer?

I assume you grant that we do suffer. Why do you think that is?

Is there a purpose in our lives?

If so, who determined it?

And what is it?

My Christian brothers and sisters, we should neither idolize this world Living in it as if we can bring it to perfection by our efforts, as if we can finally solve all our problems nor ignore it as if everything in it is an irrelevance to us because we're heavenly minded. Now in this world it is true that to live is to suffer. And that's what's being shown in these seals opened here. Some people may object to this picture of the inevitability of suffering as having the bad effect of causing us to despair of doing good works in this world. They think that such a dim view of the world presents this world as if it's merely a sinking ship we need to escape from or a trash heap we're waiting to abandon.

Therefore, if we're not going to view it that way, we must be able to perfect our neighborhood, to perfect our community.

But friends, we don't have to believe this world is finally fixable by our efforts in order to work to bring about peace or feed the hungry or advance medicine any more than we have to believe that we are perfectible in this life in order to fight sin. Now what this passage shows us is that though we may end one war, There will be another.

But the ending of that war is still good in and of itself and many goods flow from that.

But so deep is the curse of our alienation from God that we know that in this world there will be still more wars until he returns.

There is suffering for everyone in this fallen world from seemingly pointless job searches to seemingly intractable challenges in marriage to friends that reject you.

Brothers and sisters, we are saved not from suffering in this life but through it. We Christians understand this. We as a church should be characterized not by grumbling, being surprised at a trial that we suffer, not by complaining, but by rejoicing through our suffering, even as we continue to work to do good. God has ordained that Christians share in the common suffering of people in this fallen world.

But as we continue on in the chapter, we do find that some of our suffering is unique to Christians. Let's look again at the fifth seal there in chapter 6 verse 9. When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the Word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you Judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood. Then each of them was given a white robe and they were told to wait a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were killed to be killed as they had been was completed.

Our attention is drawn especially to the seal in part by the different way John reports it, perhaps by how he experienced it. In the first four, of course, John saw these differently colored horses. Now there's no horse. Furthermore, in the first four, John was seeing things that had to do with all the world, it seemed. And now it's simply with Christians.

And still more, in the first four you'll note that John heard and then saw a typical pattern in Revelation. But here he first sees these altars under the salt, and then he hears what they cry there in verse 10. Now of course, John's first hearers would have been especially interested in this seal. John's first hearers were Christians and they were undergoing persecution. So here they find themselves in the story of God's history.

So John had been exiled to Patmos. But what we also find here that may surprise some is that part of the suffering in this world that God is sovereign over is not merely death in general, but it is the death of Christians in particular. You remember what the psalmist said in Psalm 116, very sweet verse, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. These souls, sounding like some other Psalms, call out for God to revenge their deaths. They call out for justice.

And God implies that He will bring justice, but He tells them, that they must wait, which shows that here in the fifth seal we're not yet at the end.

This is another seal about history. Opposition to Christians characterizes life and history in this fallen world. Friends, the suffering of our world, even of Christians, does not take God by surprise.

These martyrs here stand, I think, for all of those who are given white robes that stands for the righteousness of Christ. That is all Christians who remain faithful to the end in their profession of the gospel. In this fallen world until Christ returns, some of God's children will be killed for the faith, but all of us must profess it till we die, till we are taken by the consequences of the curse. Though all Christians don't die for the truth, all die maintaining it in a fallen world, having suffered opposition for the gospel in this life. And God will sustain us suffering for the gospel in this life, suffering for Christ.

Remember what Paul said in Romans 5, We rejoice in our sufferings. Because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given. Suffering is part of this fallen world. So your life question is not how you can have the comfort you deserve, but how you can have the forgiveness you don't.

In Christ we are delivered not from all the tribulations of the world, but from the final and much greater tribulation of enduring God's wrath forever. Present suffering doesn't mean that God has forgotten His people any more than that the cross meant that God had forgotten Christ.

Brothers and sisters, hold on. Keep reading here down into chapter 7. Gain hope and encouragement. We do not suffer in vain. God will vindicate Himself and this will include the vindication of all of His servants.

It's interesting to note that in verse 11 there, even these martyrs had to be given white robes. Even their laying down their lives for the gospel did not cleanse them of their own sins. And friends, we must be purged, purified, cleansed to stand in the presence of our holy God. And this happens only through the sacrifice of Christ for us. So this is the world we live in.

The world God is sovereign over, even in terms of war and famine and persecution and death. All of these are in God's sovereign control. And isn't that last phrase in verse 11 especially striking? Until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were killed to be killed as they had been was completed. There's obviously some number that's to be fully reached, that number established by God of how many would give witness in this way.

Of course, the uniqueness of this suffering is not in people simply suffering for religion. Hindus and Muslims in India die for their religion. In Northern Ireland in the past, Protestants and Catholics have died not so much in a religious tangle as in an almost ethnic and social one, but rather it is the suffering for what is in fact God's own truth, His Word. Now if you're not a Christian, you may be surprised and disturbed by our Christian claim to have here in the Bible God's Word. You may think that gives us a rather destabilizing certainty of how we should regard you if you disagree with us.

Threatening, perhaps even. Eugene Genovese in his 1992 Massey Lectures at Harvard comments that religious minorities in 19th century America, especially Catholics and Jews, often reported feeling more accepted and better treated in societies dominated by conservative Protestant Christians than they did among their liberal progressive friends. Now why was that? How could it be that people who think you will go to hell eternally would actually be safer neighbors, safer people to be around than those who are more accepting in their theology and worldview? Well, it was because they knew that it was these theologically conservative Christians who believed not merely in absolute truth, that belief alone gets you nothing.

It's all important what you believe is absolutely true. They believed in the absolute truth that everyone is made in the image of God, regardless of what we understand to be their eternity, their eternal fate, and that everyone, therefore, is to be treated with dignity and respect. In fact, it's from this conviction that toleration grows.

Genovese humorously characterized the foundations of tolerance according to liberal progressives as, you, worship God in your way and I'll worship Him in mine. We can all get along because religion is just opinion anyway, whether it's mine or yours. Who's right doesn't really matter much. But strangely, this laissez-faire approach didn't produce the warm welcome for religious minorities. Meanwhile, Genovese says the basis for toleration in conservative Protestant communities was, you, worship God in your way and I'll worship Him in His.

In other words, they were not about to build a basis for mutual life and toleration on the denial of absolute truth or the admission that truth was relative, but rather on the very foundation of the transcendent truth they find in the Bible. They were going to respect the image of God in people who differed from them about things that mattered eternally. No, it's we Christians who must be used to being persecuted according to the Bible. Brothers and sisters, if we find that the state is persecuting us here, we should first be faithful to the gospel.

We should second use all legal means to defend ourselves. Paul appeals to Caesar. In the book of Acts. And we should third realize that there are a lot worse things than persecution in this world.

We needn't be like Chicken Little running around thinking the sky is falling because persecution may be coming. Because we've already been told in the Word that all who live godly lives in Christ Jesus shall be persecuted. Friends, it's not a surprise to us.

Besides the one we follow walked the way of faithfulness to His Father's will until He was finally persecuted to death. I wonder, can your silence at work about the gospel be purchased just by a little fear of persecution?

Maybe the concern you might miss a promotion or alienate someone.

Friends, you have brothers and sisters today being disowned by their families, maybe even being hunted to death for confessing Jesus Christ as Lord. And do you quail at the thought of a little ostracism or missing a pay raise?

Should we not go places where we may be killed for preaching the gospel?

What was it Baxter said? It is too soon to go to hell at 100 years old and not too soon to go to heaven at 20.

God has ordained that Christians would suffer uniquely in this world.

So far everything we've seen has been the vision of God's edicts through the history of this fallen world. And the Christians that first read this could relate to the vision that many of them would be persecuted. They were experiencing suffering and they knew martyrs and many of them would become martyrs and many more like John suffered exile and other forms of persecution. But God had more to show John. And that's the other part of our passage this morning, the other part of what's revealed.

So in these first five seals, chapter 6, verses 1 to 11, we have had history shown to us as it were from God's perspective.

Now, starting in chapter 6, verse 12, running through the end of verse 17, we get the sixth seal, and this is the end, what God is about, what He's doing. And the news here is that the Christian who has suffered in this life, now, number two, the Christian will be Vindicated. Vindicated. That's what we're really seeing here in the rest of our passage this morning. We see the eternal dichotomy between the lost and the saved.

We see here first that part of our vindication is the unbeliever being judged. Look there in chapter 6 verse 12.

I watched as He opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair. The whole moon turned blood red and the stars and the sky fell to earth as late figs dropped from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The sky receded like a scroll rolling up and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come. And who can stand? The breaking of this seal reveals the ultimate outworking of the curse into a kind of de-creating judgment. You remember God completed His creation on the sixth day.

Here with the sixth seal, we see the completion of what God is about. And again in these verses we see there's no exact sequence. People misread this all the time. So for example, if you look at verse 15, Look in verse 15, the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals. That must take place before verse 14, or else they wouldn't have any place to stand.

There'd be no mountains to talk to. We're being given these visions kind of topically. A topic is shown, John, a particular scene. And they're in logical order, but not necessarily chronological order. So first you have the destruction in general presented there in 12 to 14, sort of summary fashion.

But then you kind of have, if you want to try to think of it sequentially, though this is not helpful, if you want to think of it that way, you rewind the tape and you zoom in, you know, particularly on the unbelievers. And you see here in verses 15 to 17 them, and chapter 7 will then give the final deliverance of the believers. Which is the emphasis of this passage and of this vision. The last few verses of verses 15 to 17 are especially poignant.

If you have ever read C.S. Lewis's the Great Divorce, you have been treated to a well-written, insightful look about the vanity of sin and the irony of our valuing that which is finally worthless or worse. To God. But you've not been given a good look at the Bible's presentation of hell and damnation.

And it is verses like this one in our passage that show how inadequate is the idea of hell as simply where we choose to be, because we don't like God.

No. Look again at verse 16. Note the reluctance of the damned.

The great day of their wrath, as they call it in verse 17, is fearful to them and should be. It's like the day of the Lord in the Old Testament. We'll keep learning more about it as we keep going through this book. But it is a fearful day and our anticipation of it should affect our lives today.

In Romans 2 verse 5, Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath when His righteous judgment will be revealed. My non-Christian friend, what I'm saying to you is that you won't like God if you meet Him outside of Christ.

The God of the Bible is completely good And we're all against Him. We all are for ourselves first and have been since birth.

And God, because He is so good, will judge us all of us. And our only hope is that God Himself, the eternal Son of God, has come and lived the life that we should have lived in perfect reliance and trust of His heavenly Father. And He's died on the cross, a death that He didn't deserve, but that we have deserved. He died there taking the penalty from God for the sins, the rebellion, the distrust of all of us who would ever turn from our sins and trust in Him. And to prove that this is what He was doing, He not only taught it, but God then raised Him from the dead.

And gave Him the name that is above every name. He is the Supreme One now in heaven. The Lamb at the center of the throne we see here. Christ faced judgment for us. This judgment.

And if we repent of our sins and trust in Him, it will be for us. Friend, if you're here and you're not a Christian, please hear this. Please try to understand what this would mean for your life. Talk to me or somebody else at the door afterwards. Or someone that you came with.

Brothers and sisters, what I want you to consider from this is how much you should love your persecutors.

It's fine on the one hand that you rejoice like these altars under the soul in the vindication of God as judgment happens. That is not cool and cruel and wrong. But it is also right that you have compassion and empathy on those made in the image of God. Those who are no more sinful than you or I, and that you share the gospel with them. Now, if you're being persecuted, as I say, at the same time avail yourself of this world's justice, but always remember to leave ultimate vengeance to God.

You are personally to love those who persecute you. Our God is a God of justice. Now, in our homes, our discipline is to reflect this. So kids, when your parents discipline you, they are teaching you something deep and important about God in the way they show you right and wrong, in the way they teach you. You're not in Sunday school then, but you're being taught important things about God.

Parents, remember that as you discipline. Our God is not morally indifferent. And we need to teach our children that. We ourselves need to know this. We need to know that we can trust God for justice.

I have to say, one of the things that's been most amazing to me in the history that I've been alive to witness is about 20 years ago when there was not a bloodbath in South Africa. Now, Gustaf, I don't know where you are. You may have other comments on this, but I have to say, as I watched my TV screen and had known South Africans and then traveled to South Africa soon after that, I was amazed at that and I wonder how that could have happened when the repressions of apartheid were disassembled and the pressure kind of let loose. And I wonder could part of the answer be because of the high number of professing Christians in the land. People who knew themselves to be the objects of God's mercy and knew themselves to be called to show mercy.

And also knew God to be just and that He would punish every injustice far better than we could ever do in our tangled justice. Friends, it is not the great ones of this earth who assure us of justice. Such an assurance comes only from God Himself. You know, as a congregation, when we practice church discipline, unlike what some others claim, we don't understand that we can finally either withdraw God's grace from someone and if we could, we wouldn't do that. Or that we can infallibly determine where they'll spend eternity.

Now in our acts of exclusion of someone from our membership as an act of discipline, we're only saying that we lack sufficient evidence to give credibility to their claim to follow Christ. And indeed, there's too much positive evidence the other way. But even our acts of discipline are hoped meant to be only temporary, intended to provoke the person to find God's mercy and repent of their sins and trust Christ's sacrifice for them. But this passage reminds us that one day history will end. One day the God who has seen everything you have done to whom your excuses will mean nothing will speak the truth.

And on that day, my friend, you will need a Savior. And Jesus Christ has presented himself as that Savior. On that day, as the question is asked here in verse 17, When God comes in judgment, who can stand?

And that's what we see answered in chapter 7, that very question.

Just a note here, John didn't put these chapter divisions in. All the chapter divisions in the Bible were put in several centuries later to help us refer to specific parts of the books that we talk about, you know, just like a A publisher may put in numbers along a Shakespeare play so high school students can refer to very specific lines. That's the way chapters and verse numbers got in the Bible. I think chapter 7 is best understood as the rest of the sixth seal. History has been presented in the first five seals and now the sixth seal presents the end, the day of the Lord.

It's now time for God and His servants to be vindicated. Part of the judgment Part of that is the judgment of those who oppose God and oppress His servants, as we've just seen here in verses 12 to 17. But then what happens to Christians on that day? And that turns to the other part of our vindication, the vindication of Christians. That's being saved from God's wrath.

That salvation that we Christians know includes, first, the fact that all God's people are promised protection. All God's people are promised protection. Look there in chapter 7, verse 1. After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God.

He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea, Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the foreheads and servants of our God. Then I heard the number of those who were sealed, 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel. From the tribe of Judah 12,000 were sealed, from the tribe of Reuben 12,000, from the tribe of Gad 12,000, from the tribe of Asher 12,000, from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000, from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000, from the tribe of Simeon 12,000, from the tribe of Levi 12,000, from the tribe of Issachar 12,000, from the tribe of Zebulun 12,000, from the tribe of Joseph 12,000, and from the tribe of Benjamin 12,000. Now again to the sequence question. It's clear that in verses 1 to 3 of this chapter, we've clearly gone back again before what is represented at the beginning of the sixth seal.

Look back in chapter 6, verses 12 to 14, the whole world dissolves. Okay, here you've got angels standing preventing the wind from even blowing on trees. So again, if you're thinking of it sequentially, we go back. It's better if you just think of it topically. Now God is showing John, he's shown him generally there's going to be the destruction in the end.

Then he specialized, what's going to happen to the ungodly? Now he turns, what's going to happen to the believers? What's going to happen to the servants of God? And this is what we see. The land and trees here are unharmed as of yet.

This image in verse 1 shows God's servants holding back destruction. God will not permit His servants to be harmed in the destruction that's about to come. So He sends another of His servants, His angels, with a seal, we see there in verse 2, to mark them. So even as some seals of God are being opened, the events of history, others are being sealed, these servants of God, preserving safety. They are, we see in verse 3, sealed on their foreheads, reminiscent of what Ryan read to us earlier, isn't it, from Ezekiel 9, about those marks on the forehead of those who are to be preserved, or the Passover Lamb having His blood spread on the doorframes of those houses that are to be passed over when the wrath of God was to come on the Egyptians.

Now God here is giving John a vision of the fulfillment of His promise that he made in Isaiah 54, Though the mountains be shaken and hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken, nor my covenant of peace be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you. Friends, the point of this is that all of God's children will be protected. All of God's children. That's the significance of the 12 times 12 times 1,000. 12 is complete.

12 times 12, I mean that's really complete. 12 times 12 times 1,000. Okay, that's like, that's really, really complete.

We're not missing any here. So this group of 144,000 is not a group of that number which have a special status among the saved, as some, including Jehovah's Witnesses, have so badly misunderstood and misread this. Rather the number stands for a comprehensive completion of the sustaining providence of God for all of His people. Every single last one will be protected. And we'll see this really when we get to chapter 14 and the same number is there.

After having gone through lots of trials, the exact same number, not missing one. That's the point. Brothers and sisters, this is where our protection is, in being sealed by the blood of Christ. This is the security that we need eternally. So we can have confidence and joy, regardless of threatening storms around us.

Each of us will be preserved. Congregation, our security is not in our elders, it's not in our membership. It is in God. And this protection through the trials that are to come, is part of our vindication. It's part of our salvation.

But we also find a second aspect of our salvation here. All of God's people are washed in the blood of the Lamb. Look again at verse 9. After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.

And they cried out in a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, Amen. Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen.

Then one of the elders asked me, these in white robes, who are they? And where did they come from? I answered, Sir, you know. And he said, these are they who have come out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Notice up in verse 4, John had merely heard these numbers, 144,000, 12,000 from each of the tribes. He hadn't seen anything, just heard.

As with chapter 5, when he heard of a lion, and he turns and he sees a lamb standing as if it had been slain, So here John hears of 144,000 from the tribes of Israel, and then he turns and sees an innumerable host from every nation and tribe and people and language. You see, this vision interprets what he'd heard. This vision shows the explanation of what John had heard before in verses 4 to 8.

And here were those whom the Lamb, back in chapter 5, verse 9, had been praised for purchasing. Here they all were. The redeemed throughout all the ages here in verse 10, praising God for the salvation that these same saints up in chapter 6 were wondering about. So that, the seals, 1 to 5, was history. Now this, the sixth seal, is the end.

It's the fulfillment of all God's promises. And then there in verse 7, chapter 7, verse 11, it seems as if the angels and the 24 elders and the four living creatures were provoked by the praise of the redeemed to worship God. Really, of course, it's that the redeemed have joined the course of heavenly praise that we know never stops. And our gatherings are just the dimmest previews of. That worship that will go on forever.

Notice there in verse 13, the elder's question shows us what's the point of this passage. That question is there like a catechetical question to teach us. It's drawing attention to it. He doesn't ask because he doesn't know. He asks because he does know, and he wants to make sure John knows, and John records it for us.

So he asks who these people are. And it's very clear these are the same people. That you'd seen up in chapter 6 in that fifth seal, verses 9 to 11. You see up there, it's those who have been slain. And then down here in verse 14, it's they who have come out of the great tribulation.

Up there in verse 11 of chapter 6, they were given a white robe. Well now down here in chapter 7, you see in verse 9 and 13 and 14, they're wearing white robes. Up there in chapter 6, verse 11, they're called God's servants. Here in 7, verse 15, they're called, they serve Him night and day, day and night. And don't fail to notice the crucial role of that last phrase in verse 14 as the redeemed are described.

They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Christians, we have been cleansed from our sin by continuing to trust the Lamb, continuing to trust Christ's sacrificial death for us. And all our suffering has simply refined this faith. So forgiveness comes to us through faith in Christ's death as the God-ordained sacrifice for us in our stead. The sacrifice of the Lamb removes the pollution of our sin.

We've taken up our cross and followed Him. We, like Him, endure suffering. And yet as true as all that is, the blood here is not the blood of martyrs. It's the blood of the Lamb. Fundamental to our being justified before God is not our right actions.

Contrary to what our Buddhist friends may maintain, it is not our right actions, but Christ's right actions. Not even the perfection of our trust in God, because we know we all falter, but Christ's life and death of trust on our behalf. We know from chapter 6 verse 10 that Christians too have had their blood spilt.

But our blood God would require of us anyway because of our sin. Jesus had no guilt and therefore on Him death had no claim. The Lamb laid down His own life for us. And so the sealed are all washed and the washed are all sealed. All God's people are washed in the blood of the Lamb.

And the final culmination of our salvation from God's wrath is found in the last few verses of chapter 7, where we find a third aspect of our salvation, of our vindication, that all God's people are forever in His presence. Look again at chapter 7:15, Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will spread His tent over them. Never again will they hunger, Never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them nor any scorching heat, for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd.

He will lead them to springs of living water and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Isn't this a wonderful description of heaven?

Here we see the curse reversed.

Here we are in the presence of God again and this time forever. And with Him as our very own shepherd. So what the Exodus had been a mere shadow of in a sort of multitude exiting from tribulation, washing their garments and being sprinkled by blood, and God's tabernacle among them and feeding and watering and protecting and comforting them in passing ways now becomes glorious and complete reality.

Fixed and forever. Friends, our life together as a congregation should point toward this hope. You should experience little shards of the truth of this love and care of God, even as we deal with each other in love and care and faithfulness.

God fulfills here His ancient promises to His people. So in Isaiah 49, God promises they will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat upon them. He who has compassion will lead them beside springs of water. God fulfills those promises in Christ. The one who promised, I am the bread of life, he who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

And now here in this passage we see God's provision in its final fullness. The Christian is presented as serving here in verse 15, night and day before God's throne. This word serve could be translated worship. Really the two ideas are very similar. Paul in Romans 1 could speak of those who worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.

Friend, what you serve is what you worship. Look at your schedule. What are the immovable things in your schedule? How could you be said to serve those things, to worship those things? The believers here are worshiping or serving in God's simple.

They are being presented as eternal priests of God. This is a description of the glorification awaiting all of those who are justified. And it is intended to encourage these first readers and us during days of sanctification. I mean, here we have these wonderful promises. Verse 15, God promises to spread His tent over us.

Remember as Boaz spread his garment over Ruth, this expression means to accept, to own, to protect. And it's worked out in verse 16 with the promise that suffering would no longer be our lot as God promises that our hungering and our thirsting are over. Of course, as Christians even in this world, we've heard the invitation held out later in the book. Whoever is thirsty, let him come. Whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.

And we Christians have come. We have come and we have taken this free gift of the water of life and we are drinking of this even now in our fellowship with God through Christ. But one day that fellowship will be perfect and we will be forever with the Lamb. And the Lamb, the Lord, will be our shepherd and we shall lack nothing.

Friends, you see how by understanding God's sovereignty, as this passage does, all of the trials up in chapter 6 are for the believer in one sense simply as it were the outermost servants of God beckoning us to come to Him, to come into His presence forever. Keep this hope close to your heart. Follow the example of Christ who we read, For the joy set before Him endured the cross. Friends, confidence of our ultimate salvation can give us this week joy in our workplaces. Regardless of how futile some things may seem, how frustrated we may get, because our hopes aren't in this world.

Our hopes are elsewhere and they're certain. The sufferings of this world are real. Perhaps even mortal. But they are passing. That far Gautama, the Buddha, was right.

But eternal bliss? Is it nothing? It's being. Being in the image of God forever and being in relationship with God.

One more thing. Don't miss the importance of that first word of verse 15. You see it? Therefore. Therefore.

The only reason any are brought into heaven that's described here in verses 15 to 17 is because of what we see here in verse 14, that they have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. This and this alone is the basis of our being accepted by God. The Lamb has reversed the effects of the fall for all who will trust in Him. He has accepted the curse's fullest effects in Himself for us. And so He has brought us forgiveness and acceptance forever.

I shared with you before that quote of Marcus Loane, the former Archbishop of Sydney, who said, the voice that spells forgiveness will say, you, may go. You have been let off the penalty which your sins deserve.

But the verdict which means acceptance will say, you, may come. You are welcome to all my love and my presence. Christian friend, our foes are judged. We are protected from harm, cleansed from our sins, invited into God's presence forever. As the hymn writer said, this is a ravishing promise even if seven deaths lay between us and it.

God will vindicate His suffering people. And welcome us into his love and presence forever. We should conclude, the day of the Lord is coming.

Friend, on that day either your suffering will be so great in magnitude and duration that it will make all the suffering you've known in this life seem as nothing, or You will find, as Timothy Dwight put it, when Christians are redeemed from the power of the grave, they shall see all these enemies retiring behind them and speedily vanishing with the flight of ages to a distance immeasurable by the power of the imagination. All around them then will be friends. God will then be their Father. Angels, their brethren. Happiness, their portion.

Heaven, their everlasting home.

Oh friend, on that day when you stand before God, will you try to hide your face from Him in fear?

Or will you fall on your face in worship before Him?

Acknowledging His amazing mercy to you in Christ.

Let go of holding on to your hopes in this passing world, not because you're passing, but because you're not. Richard Baxter, the Puritan pastor, used to say, why should my heart be fixed where my home is not?

Let's pray. Lord God, we thank youk for the great promises yous give us in Christ. We thank youk for how youw help us to see even our sufferings now as part of the common lot of humanity and part of youf special dealings with us. But Lord, how you teach us to view all in light of the end. Help us to do that.

And so bring you honor by trusting in you as the good and faithful God you are. We ask in Jesus' name, Amen.