I want to thank those who were involved in preparing the lobby area for the reception
this afternoon.
It looks like some kind of a high school event out there, doesn't it, with all the streamers
and the balloons?
Well, there's a reason for that.
It was the high schoolers, basically, who did the decorating.
And so we want to say thank you to them.
And it was a great opportunity to say thanks to all the many volunteers who are part of
the ministry here at Grace Church.
Tonight in our study of the book of Revelation, we come to the sixth chapter of the book.
It might be helpful just to briefly look back where we've been as we have studied.
We've covered chapters one through five.
You will notice that chapter one was a vision on the Isle of Patmos, followed by chapters
two and three, letters to the seven churches.
We saw Jesus Christ in the midst of the churches, the seven golden lampstands.
And then John was told, come up here at the beginning of chapter four, and the scene changes,
and we enter into the meat, the heart of the book, as we think about things that must yet
come to pass.
And we begin in heaven with a scene before the throne of God, and in the hand of him
who sits on the throne, there is a scroll.
A search is made for someone to take that scroll, which we call the title Deed to the
Earth, and to reclaim the earth for its rightful owners.
And none was found worthy except one, and that's the Lamb of God, who is standing before
the throne and reaches up to take that scroll.
And there is let loose in heaven hymns of praise and doxology, praising God for the
Lamb and for his victory.
That brings us then to the next section of the book, as it begins with chapter six.
You remember the scroll was marked, was distinct, because it had seven seals on it.
These seals need to be broken in order for the scroll to be opened, and that is what
we come to in this section.
How far back can you see the overheads?
I can see it very well where I am.
John, can you see it?
Not overhead, yeah, okay.
Here you go.
Is it that bad?
Kind of blurry, huh?
Okay.
We'll not use this a great deal except to point out that chapter six deals with the
opening of six seals.
Chapter six, six seals.
And we'll see in a moment what takes place because of the opening of those seals.
Then chapter seven is a view of something in heaven that's very wonderful.
And then as we get into chapters eight and nine, we come to the next series of judgments
in the book of the Revelation called the judgments of the trumpets.
This may be a little tough to see too, but I think it may be helpful to some to be able
to get an overview of the period of time that we call the tribulation.
Because as we come to chapter six, the scene shifts basically from a focus on heaven to
earth, because now the stage has been set in heaven for the pouring out upon the earth
of judgment.
That initiates and brings in a time of tribulation or trial or judgment upon the earth.
The tribulation period is a specified time prophesied in the Bible.
It is said to be a time that will end this age in which we are currently living.
It will be a time of unprecedented trouble upon the earth.
Jeremiah 30 and verse seven says it will be a time of Jacob's trouble.
Jacob, of course, referring to the grandson of Abraham and the father of the tribes of
Israel.
And so it will be a time of great trouble for the people of Israel.
We don't like to think of it in those terms because we love the Jewish people.
But the tribulation will be a time that will even surpass their tribulation, their hardship,
their heartbreak during the reign of Hitler and the Nazis in Germany.
It will be an awful time for the Jewish people because of persecution.
It will be a time of unparalleled trouble, Daniel 12.1.
Never has there been a time of trouble like this before, nor will there ever be again.
It is a period that is seven years in its total length.
We get this from a passage in Daniel chapter nine, verses 24 to 27.
We're not going to take time to turn back there and read it because we want to get to
Revelation.
But in Daniel 9, 24, we are told that there is laid out for the people of Israel a future
history that has a certain point of commencement and a certain point of termination.
And that which terminates this period that's prophesied is the anointing of the Most High,
the coming of the Messiah to reign upon the earth.
This period is said to be 490 weeks, seven times 70, a total of 490 weeks, excuse me,
70 weeks, a total of 490 years, there we go.
So that the total period that begins with the decree to rebuild Jerusalem until the
time the Messiah will come to reign is said to be 490 years.
Except that, it's not quite that simple because 483 years will pass and it says Messiah will
be cut off.
And then the seven years will go on, the final seven years will be completed to bring up
to a total of 490.
And it sounds in Daniel as though that is a continuing period, but we know now that
the clock stopped for Israel's history when the 483 years were up.
God set aside the nation of Israel and during this period of time is calling out from Jew
and Gentile alike a new people, separate from the nation of Israel called the church.
And when the church has been completed and the times of the Gentiles has been fulfilled,
it's called in Romans 11, then God is going to bring Israel back to center stage and the
final seven years of Israel's history will still be fulfilled for her.
Now all of that is portrayed on a chart that I'm putting up here now.
The command to restore and to build Jerusalem is what initiates this period of 490 years.
It is a decree of art exerxes and it took place in about 445 BC.
A total of 69 of these weeks is fulfilled, 483 years in total, and they end with Messiah
being cut off just like was prophesied in the book of Daniel.
That's about 30 AD.
These are lunar years by the way and we don't have time to go into the calculation of them.
But following this time of Messiah being cut off, there is what is termed here a gap.
And we know now it's about 2,000 years at least in length.
I believe this time is coming very close to an end.
But Daniel says that the final week of years, the final period of seven years will be kicked
off by a specific event.
The prince of the people who will come, whom we identify as the antichrist, is going to
sign a covenant or an agreement or a treaty with Israel.
When that treaty is signed, God's great clock will begin ticking again for this period prophesied
for the nation of Israel.
And here is where we have the tribulation.
It is this final week of years or final period of seven years which will bring the climax
of Jewish history and will end with the second coming of Jesus Christ.
You will notice on this chart this seven year period is broken up into two periods of three
and one half years.
It's also put this way in both Daniel and Revelation.
A time, a times, and half a time, which again is a total of three and a half.
Time being one, times being two, and a half a time being one half.
Or it's put this way in the book of Revelation, 42 months, same one half of the tribulation
is in view.
Or it's put this way, 1,260 days, again which calculates out in lunar months to 42 months
or to three and one half years.
So this tribulation period is divided really in half.
The first half is bad, the last half is the great tribulation, when there will be an intense
period of suffering on the earth unlike has ever happened before.
And what is it that causes this period to be broken in half?
Well we would understand it most likely to be the covenant that was made with the Jews
here is broken after three and one half years.
And the true nature of Antichrist at that point is exposed.
Now I think you have before you an outline of the sixth chapter of Revelation.
You may want to pull that out.
Chapter six through chapter 19 is a prophetic vision of what will take place during the
seven years that we've just talked about.
So what happens in chapter six is what begins behind the scenes, what begins the seven year
period.
We've already said in history it's Antichrist signing a covenant.
But behind the scenes, invisible to the eyes of man, there are things taking place which
John sees.
It is the opening of the seven seals.
I think that your chart looks something like this.
I'm going to throw it up here on a different kind of a chart that looks like this.
Let's talk about the first seal which is recorded in verses one and two.
Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals and I heard one of the four living creatures,
I remember those were those angelic beings, those very powerful specialized angelic beings
before the throne of God crying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty.
I heard one of these four living creatures saying with a loud voice or with a voice like
thunder, come and see.
And so John was invited to come and see.
Now where did he come to?
I don't know.
Perhaps he was invited to come forward toward the throne.
Perhaps he was invited to come to the edge of a great panorama on which he looked down
upon this laying out of human history and what was to take place.
Maybe it was a big video screen sort of a thing to put it in our vernacular today that
he came and looked at but behold, he says, a white horse and he who sat on it had a bow
and a crown was given to him and he went out conquering and to conquer.
Now there are some people who see the rider on the white horse as being Christ.
Probably the only similarity between Christ and this individual is the fact that they
each are seen riding on white horses.
Christ comes riding on a white horse in Revelation chapter 19.
But this is not Jesus Christ.
This is the great imposter, Satan's counterfeit, the anti-Christ.
He is riding on a white horse.
Christ seems to symbolize in this part of Revelation victory, authority, one who is
supreme coming forward.
And that will be anti-Christ's appearance.
Revelation and Daniel picture him as a mighty conqueror.
However, here in this context, it says a crown was given to him and the emphasis is upon
given.
And so it seems that at least initially his conquering is by treaty and by agreement politically,
by maneuvering and manipulating the world situation so that he is not portrayed at this
point as the very cruel death spot that he actually is and will later be revealed as.
At this point, a crown is given to him and he went out conquering and to conquer, which
is a rather curious phrase.
And it may mean that he went out conquering in the sense that his ability to pull off
political deals enabled him to conquer and later he will conquer in yet a different way,
which will be in a military sense.
It's a good guess.
That is the first seal.
Anti-Christ is unleashed.
You say, well, is anti-Christ alive in the world today?
It's very possible that he is.
We don't know that.
He is being restrained if he is alive today.
Second Thessalonians chapter 2 says that he is hindered from coming as the man of lawlessness
until that point when what is hindering him is taken out of the way.
The question is what is hindering him?
And it seems to me that the best answer to that is he's being hindered by the Holy Spirit
working in the church.
But once the Holy Spirit as he is resident in the church is removed through the rapture,
then the hindrance is gone.
And anti-Christ then will be unleashed.
It will allow him then to move as he desires to move to conquer nations and peoples, as
I say first by treaty and then later by force.
Anti-Christ may be in the world today.
If he is in the world, he is a man who will deceive many, including the Jewish people.
He is a man who will arise out of a revived form of the Roman Empire.
We thought we had all of this very neatly put together until things in Europe started
falling apart here in the last year or so, and it ruined some theories, or at least it
may have delayed some theories.
I don't know whether Europe is going to pull off the common market and the common currency
and all of that or not.
Time will tell.
But I'll tell you, it is very interesting to see the resurgence of power in Germany and
the kind of power that is seething underneath the surface in that nation.
And I'm not in any way saying that's the fault of the German people.
I'm simply saying that it's very interesting to see that kind of hatred and that kind of
anti-Semitism, et cetera, in the German nation.
And it aligns with some of the same feelings that are found in Russia and that heart of
Europe.
And we see the heart of Europe right now being volatile, like a stick of dynamite that's
being played with in the war in Yugoslavia and so on.
And so a lot could happen in Europe.
That whole situation could erupt, if not in a military sense, in a racial or ethnic sense,
so that they will need somebody who's very powerful to deal with all of these various
entities.
And it would be a perfect setting for a powerful political figure to arise who could say to
all of those nations in Europe, here's your solution.
And I would like to present it to you.
And it may be that in a few years, and maybe less than that, the situation throughout Europe
will be so critical that they will immediately follow this one who has the answers.
Well, he will be a Christ-like figure, but in fact would be the anti-Christ.
Well then there is another seal that is opened.
When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, come and see.
And another horse, fiery red, went out.
And 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.
Nearly all Bible commentators say that if the white horse represents victory and conquering,
then the red horse with a rider upon it represents war and bloodshed.
That will be unleashed upon the earth.
Notice that it says that there was given to him a great sword, and it was granted to him
to take peace from the earth.
Who gives him this sword, and who grants him the ability to take peace from the earth?
The answer is that God does it in the sense that God simply takes his hands off the situation
and lets man begin to fulfill the imaginations of his own heart.
The war that begins here in some kind of intensified way will culminate with that final battle
of Armageddon, which we will study about later in the book of the Revelation.
And so there will be great talk of peace in the world, peace, peace, when there is no
peace, and the reality will be war.
It says they will kill one another, a very strong term meaning they will slaughter one
another.
They will butcher one another.
This is not the kind of civilized war, if there is such a thing, that has been fought
in some years past.
But this will be a brutal, fierce war with a great deal of bloodshed that will begin
to be unleashed upon the earth with this second seal.
The third seal is a rider on a black horse.
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.
And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, a quart of wheat
for denarius and three quarts of barley for denarius, and do not harm the oil and the
wine.
The rider on the black horse represents famine that will arise in the world.
Today we talk about Somalia and the terrible conditions of starvation in that nation.
But imagine, famine not in one nation in Africa, but famine like that in many parts of the
world.
Of course, famine always follows war because of the disruption, not only in food production
but in food delivery.
And indeed that's the problem now in Somalia as you know.
Because of the outbreak of terribly fierce war in various parts of the world, there will
be famine that will accompany it.
The balance here indicates the scarcity of food.
There will be careful rationing.
People will have to spend the equivalent of a day's wage for basic food.
The figures here suggest that only an eighth of the normal supply of food will be available
at least in parts of the world.
And yet alongside of that, there will be oil and wine, which in that day were luxurious
items.
And it may be that along with the terrible famine, there will be luxuries available to
those who are very wealthy.
It may be difficult for us to conceive of that, but it's not hard at all for those who
are in many third world countries.
Not hard for those who lived in Moscow, where most people had very little but there were
a few who could afford and who had luxuries that were out of reach for most of the common
people.
That seems to be the sense here in a broad and worldwide sense.
The fourth seal brings on the scene a pale horse and rider.
I heard a voice of the fourth living creature saying, come and see, 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.
This pale horse, the word pale literally is chloros and it is the word from which we get
chlorox or chlorine and the color of it really is a yellowish green.
It was the color of leprosy.
And on this horse we see what seems to be two riders.
Death is the main rider and piggybacking with death is Hades, the place of the dead.
These two work together, the one claims the body, the other claims the soul.
In the tribulation period because of the war, because of the famine, there will be unprecedented
death.
Death on a massive scale so much so that even here early on in the tribulation period it
will result in one fourth of the population of the world dying.
Think of that.
Along with the war and with the famine there will of course be disease.
And we have on the horizon because of AIDS the potential of hundreds of thousands of
people on a worldwide basis dying.
Who was it recently that mentioned I think it was the nation of Uganda where more than
half of all the military people are infected with AIDS.
And there are terrible statistics not only in Africa, but statistics that are popping
up in other parts of the world and not just those who are in the third world.
We are facing a time of tremendous death as we enter the tribulation period.
It will happen by sword, by hunger, by pestilence and epidemics and it seems that the wild beasts
at least in places will roam as scavengers to help clean up the carnage that all of this
death brings.
We come now to the fifth seal that is loosened.
Remember that it is the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven with a scroll in His hand who is
popping these seals working His way along.
And as He does that in heaven there are results upon the earth.
He opened the fifth seal and I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain
for the word of God and for the testimony which they held and they cried with a loud
voice saying, how long O Lord, holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those
who dwell on the earth?
And a white robe was given to each of them and it was said to them that they should rest
a little while longer until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren
who would be killed as they were was completed.
So we have a scene here that's in heaven reflecting something that is taking place upon the earth
and what is it?
It is the persecution of the saints of God resulting in widespread martyrdom.
Now remember these are people who come to faith in Jesus Christ after the rapture of
the church has taken place because when Jesus comes for the church all believers will go
up.
But that is going to be followed by a time of unparalleled evangelism in the world.
And chapter 7 suggests that.
Preachers will go out especially from Jewish tribes to proclaim the gospel of Christ.
Their eyes will be opened.
They will go out.
They will be sealed.
They will preach.
And there will be many, many people who will come to faith in Christ in the tribulation
period and many of them will die for their faith.
Now the scene is in heaven as I said and these people, their souls are said to be under the
altar.
There is an altar in heaven.
What altar is this?
Is it the altar of incense?
Is it the altar of the offering?
It does say that the Lord Jesus Christ entered into heaven with His own blood and there offered
it before God.
Are we to take that literally?
Well we should think so.
There are others who say, well no this is the incense altar, the place of worship.
Well the point is that these people have been martyred.
Their souls are there in heaven under the altar which seems to suggest that they are
there in a place of protection.
That they have been killed upon the earth and now have been taken, their souls have
been taken to heaven and they are there in this place of protection.
But it is also for them a place of petition.
They have been slain for the word of God and for the testimony in Jesus Christ which they
held and now having been killed for their faith in the presence of God they are petitioning.
They are crying out to God and here we have a New Testament expression of the imprecatory
Psalms, those Psalms that cry out to God for judgment upon the enemies of Israel.
And here these people who have been martyred cry out for vengeance from God because of
their blood shed by those who dwell on the earth.
Notice that technical term in verse 10.
We see that a number of times here in the book of the Revelation.
It refers to those who have rejected heaven's rule and who choose to live for and in and
of this world.
They are the followers of the Antichrist.
They are called the earth dwellers and they are the ones who have taken the lives of God's
saints.
And now those saints are beneath the altar in heaven crying out to God, God bring vengeance
and bring judgment upon those who have taken our lives.
Well you'll notice God's response.
It says a white robe was given to each of them.
Now this is a little difficult for us to picture isn't it?
There's a soul that is given a white robe.
The white robe seems to suggest again victory on their part.
Though these saints gave their lives, they gave them in victory.
And now they are before the Lord and God gives to them a white robe to wear, a covering.
A covering suggesting the victory that is theirs.
And it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer.
In other words, the message is delivered, be patient.
God is doing something in the world.
What is God doing?
Well the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who would be killed as they
were had to be completed.
God is waiting for a certain portion of his people to lay down their lives in martyrdom.
Martyrdom is not accidental.
God's hand is on the whole situation.
And it will be then.
There is a number that God has.
You say why?
I don't know.
But as a testimony against those who dwell on the earth and to increase their judgment,
time is allotted for them to kill the people of the Lord.
And these people are released from their bodies in victory to go to be with Christ.
The suggestion of course is that there is a time when that number will be reached, whatever
it will be.
And when God has seen his purpose fulfilled for the death of his servants, then he will
deal with the earth dwellers very directly.
So there is this scene in heaven, a cry of the martyrs.
You see the day of grace in one sense will have concluded by this time.
For we are now in Revelation 6 in the day of wrath as we're about to see.
And so they cry out to the Lord, the ruler, a very strong term here in verse 10.
For Lord it means a death spot.
And we use that term usually in some kind of a negative sense.
But here it's used in a wonderful sense of God as the absolute ruler.
It's the only time this word is found in the book of the Revelation, this name for God.
And God assures them that his purpose will be fulfilled, that he's in control.
And then we come to the sixth seal on the scroll that is opened.
I looked and when he opened the sixth seal, and behold there was a great earthquake, and
the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood.
And the stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its late figs when it
is shaken by a mighty wind.
Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was
moved out of its place.
The kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men,
every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains
and said to the mountains and 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 his wrath has come
and who is able to stand.
And so we have a sixth seal that is opened that immediately results in calamity in nature.
Now I take these things literally, although there are some who say that this is all symbolic,
and it represents some sort of great upheaval in the order on earth that the governments
and other institutions that hold humanity together will experience disruption and there
will be anarchy.
But I think that what he describes here are literal things, a great earthquake.
The word earthquake here in the Greek is the word seismos.
Of course you see where we get our word for the scale.
It means a shaking.
It's the same word as found in verse 13 about shaking of the fig tree.
This time in the tribulation period will be marked by a great earthquake.
Now there are people who say that earthquakes are increasing and that may well be true.
It's also true that we're able to measure more earthquakes than ever before.
There are earthquakes around the globe now we measure, at least one every 30 seconds,
although many of those cannot be felt.
These earthquakes that are taking place around the globe seem to be leading up to one great
earthquake that will take place at this point toward the beginning of the first three and
a half years of the tribulation period.
Where will this earthquake take place?
Well it suggests here that this earthquake will be of such magnitude that it will not
be localized in Southern California or in Turkey, but there may be a number of fault
lines that will all give at one time so that this earthquake will literally be felt in
every continent of the world.
They will all give at once.
You can only imagine the kind of destruction that that would bring.
And then the sun is blackened.
What does that mean?
I'm not sure what that means.
The moon turns red like blood and stars fall out of the heaven, perhaps a meteor shower
of some sort.
But what is the result of all of this?
Well there's a terrifying darkness that comes upon the earth.
Everyone will be in fear because of this supernatural darkness that has come.
We talk about a nuclear winter.
I suppose it's not impossible that God could use a nuclear weapon to accomplish some of
this stuff.
If it's not a nuclear weapon, perhaps the earthquakes that we've talked about will
unleash volcanoes throughout the world that will throw up dust into the atmosphere.
The result of that being that the sun will be darkened and the chemicals that are thrown
up into the air and the dust will cause the moon to appear to be red.
It doesn't really account for the stars falling out of the heavens.
But again the result of all of this is that light is diminished.
It is reduced.
There seems to be some kind of a disruption of all of the atmospheric heavens.
It says the sky receded as a scroll.
It was rolled up as a scroll.
Every island, every mountain was moved out of its place.
Again, this is why some people suggest that this is some sort of atomic war.
Now of course we all realize that we're well past any kind of atomic war today, aren't
we?
I mean there's no possibility anymore of that sort of thing.
I say that with tongue in cheek.
Rush Limbaugh will fill you in on the details on that if you want to tune him in.
Now we're not past nuclear war.
And for those people who believe that we are, I wish they were right, but it is entirely
possible that something is going to happen in Russia.
That there could still be a turning back toward some sort of dictatorship, if not communism,
and that those nuclear weapons which have not been destroyed in Russia could be used.
But there are other nations developing these weapons.
Pakistan, India, Israel, South Africa.
Iraq was very close.
Iran is about four years away, so we are told publicly.
There are nations all over the world developing these kinds of weapons.
It is not impossible that they could be used, and the result of that would be the kind of
disruption that is pictured here.
Now remember John didn't know how to describe a nuclear bomb.
And so he sees the sky just fleeing backwards.
And the topography of the earth undergoes tremendous change.
Whole mountains just crumble.
And islands of the sea disappear.
And all of this of course produces tremendous consternation among men.
There is calamity in nature, there is confusion in the population of men because of all that
is taking place.
And it seems that the confusion, at least as John sees it here and describes it, is
not caused so much by the earthquakes and the sun and the moon and the islands and the
mountains and all of that, as by something else that they've seen.
And how they see it we are not really told.
Maybe as the sky is opened up as described here, it opens up to reveal the dimension
of the heavenlies.
I was talking to somebody just a couple of days ago, in fact who was that, about the
possibility that heaven is not way out there beyond the Milky Way somewhere, but heaven
is really a dimension that is up above the earth.
And if we could but see into that dimension we could actually see heaven.
After all, John looks up, he sees a door opened in the sky into that dimension.
He said, come up here.
And so as the sky is said to be rolled back like a scroll, perhaps God in some way just
opens up heaven.
Maybe that's what's described here.
As people are able to look into heaven and what do they see?
They see the throne of God.
And they see the lamb of God.
And the result of that is that all classes of people, whether they're rulers and mighty
people or slaves or entrepreneurs, they all seek to hide themselves in caves and in rocks
trying that the earth would just cover them up and swallow them to hide them from the
face of the one who sits on the throne.
And they say, for the great day of his wrath has come and who is able to stand?
This is a paradoxical expression, isn't it?
The wrath of the lamb.
A lamb is a meek and gentle creature.
A lamb is a pet.
But here the lamb is filled with wrath and with indignation upon his enemies.
We do not see the lamb here acting in grace.
He is acting in judgment.
It is worthy of note that there is no repentance on the part of the earth dwellers.
It doesn't say, oh, we repent of our wickedness.
No, they say just hide us from him.
They don't want to give up their sin.
Notice they don't pray to Christ on the throne.
They pray to the rocks and to the mountains.
They would rather have death than to have to face the lamb.
They would rather die than prolong life.
Why?
Because judgment time has come.
Well the rocks cannot save them.
Only the lamb can save.
We are living in a time when the lamb extends his hand, inviting people to come and to be
saved.
But there is a time when he will extend his judgment upon those who reject him.
We'll go on to chapter 7 in January as we resume our study in the book of the Revelation.
And we'll come eventually to the seventh seal and see what lies beyond that because
it really opens up to the rest of the book.
But this evening as we think about the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, I'd like for us
to sing a song.
These people cry out and ask the rocks to hide them, but we can sing that there is a
Redeemer, a Redeemer who is Jesus, God's own Son.
The Lamb of God, Messiah, Holy One, 206 is the number in your hymnal.
Let's sing about our Redeemer and realize tonight that there are people who need to
hear what we're singing about, lest they come to that awful day of judgment that may
be indeed very close for those who dwell on the earth.
Let's stand together and sing about the Redeemer, the Lamb of God.
There is a Redeemer, Jesus, God's own Son, Precious Lamb of God, Messiah, Holy One.
Thank you, O my Father, for giving us your Son, and leaving your spirit till the work
on earth is done.
Jesus, my Redeemer, name above all names, Precious Lamb of God, Messiah, Lord, sinner,
saint.
God's Spirit is here, His work is still being done.
It's being done in your life and in mine and through us in the world.
The first writer that we studied about tonight cannot come until that work that God's doing
now in the church is finished.
The Spirit is working today.
We want to be where He's working.
We want to be a part of His work.
But there is a time when His work will cease as He's doing it now through the church, and
we will stand in glory, caught up to be with our Lord.
That's where John was as he viewed these things that we read about tonight.
Let's sing that third verse about when we stand in glory and see His face together.
When I stand in glory, I will see His face.
There I'll serve my King forever in the holy place.
I call my Father, forgiving us your Son, And leaving our spirit till the world ends.
Our work on earth is done.
Let's pray together.
Father, we thank you that we can look upon the face of the Lamb and not be afraid, because
this precious Lamb is our Redeemer.
Thank you that each day, each hour, we may look to the Lamb and find in Him all that
we need for our life and our service in this world.
Thank you for the presence of the Holy Spirit working in us, that which is well pleasing
in your sight, working through us to advance the gospel.
We live in a world, Lord, that is moving toward the scene that we've looked at here in Revelation
6.
Father, I pray that you will fill us with great courage in these days to be the faithful
people of God.
In our faithfulness, we pray that you will make us fruitful as well.
We may see others come to faith in the Lord Jesus.
Even next Saturday night, next Sunday night, through these holidays, as we witness and
share our faith with others, as we invite them to come here, we pray that there will
be fruit, that you will call out to those whom you've given to the Son, for whom Jesus
died.
And Lord, we pray for that day.
We pray for that day when Jesus will come.
May it be soon.
In His name we pray, amen.
Good night.