So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy. [1 Peter 1:13-16]
So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy. [1 Peter 1:13-16]
I, um, I need to do a pull out my tool chest again, but I need to ask you a question and we'll see if I can convert any of you to what I think is the most important tool in your tool chest. What is your most important tool, Lloyd? You don't get to answer. He was in the first service. That's the most important tool in your toolbox. Do you know? Screwdriver pliers. What about, uh, what about this thing? A pencil and some paper, right? What's the difference between I cut it twice and it's still too short or mark twice and cut once. That's the stuff. Work Smarter, not harder. All of that. I want you to, I want you to jot it down in your, in your notes and in your brain and your little notebook here. Last two weeks we covered revelation four and five. Revelation four as there's a throne in heaven and it's occupied and everything else is located out of that revelation five as the lamb, the worthy is the lamb. And I said that last week. Remember if you were here, I said, that's the end of the story. Except for how it's done. So everything after revelation five, his explanation appendices, that sort of thing. More information than you ever needed to know. No, it's not. But we're going to do revelation six today at the beginning of the dependency, and I want to take you back into this. If you want to know the whole story and you want to do it in your, in your Pew Bible, you can go to page 11 right back in the beginning, God is talking to Abraham and he's making a covenant with him. And, and, and that's a fairly famous story, but in the ancient world, when you made a covenant with Abraham, God made a covenant. He show how they made covenants in there and they took a lamb and a goat and some other things and they cut them in half and they set them on the side of the path. And what would happen is both parties in the covenant within walk through the middle of the path, essentially saying, if I break this covenant, you can do what we just did these animals. To me that's, that's kind of the more important than a pinky swear, right? Just it was just hook on here and we'll just do that. But, but in that image, there's some language in there that becomes important and it, and it goes like this, cause Abraham's essentially saying, how will, how will I know that this promise land is going to be hours and God says patients and in the Covenant language he does this patients. And there's something that happens in verse 12 it says, as the sun's going down, a deep sleep fell over a ram and a dread and a great darkness fell upon him. And later on it talks about that, that it was like a smoking fire pot or a flaming torch passed in through there. There's this language, but why doesn't Abraham get the land right now it says in this first, the sin of the Amorites is not filled to overflowing yet. Or if I'm going to give you just the cliff notes version of this, it's not time yet to judge them. They've been doing stuff that's bad, but they haven't gone so far. And it's not time. How many of you want to be judged before you do something? I know the police can just come by your house and pick you up for the shoplifting you haven't done yet. No. God's being patient in this spot. Now, as we go to another verse, I'm just still framing the arguments that you can begin to see these things. This is from second Peter Three nine this is a very famous verse. It has the same thing. It has patients, a sky, some phenomenon, and the sky. It's almost like a smudge pot. If you've been around smudge potting, does anybody, do you know what's what fruit? What happens when frost comes near fruit trees? It looks like the sky is filled with with black smoke. Here it is, but it starts with this. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient on account of view. Before we get into any more of that, did you notice that he's patient and not judging you until it's time to do it? He's also doing that with the Amorites way back in genesis and all that. Here it goes. Not wishing that any should perish, but all should reach repentance for the day of the Lord will then come like a thief and they have only bodies will roar and pass away. That's that image of the skies get dark and all that. So when I read that today in revelation, I want you to recognize the patient's language. It's not time. We're waiting. He's being patient. He's not judging until it's time, but that's an amazing thought isn't it? There's some other stuff we'll talk about today, but I wanted to make sure that you've got this, that when we read, I just clicked on the wrong Bible. Some of you might know that this, I don't hook this up to the Internet because it bleeds the battery down too fast, but it has six bibles in it so I can go between them really fast. That's what it's for. Here we are. I'm going to start with just the very end of revelation five verse 14 and the four living beings, remember, those are the ones that are surround the throne, that are all amazing and scary looking and with all the detail, and they said a man. And what does the amen mean in the book of revelation? That's the way it is. And the 24 elders fell down and worshiped the lamb. And as I watched the lamb broke the first of the seven seals on the scroll. Now what's the scroll? The deed of the world, the mission of God, all that stuff. He broke the first gay scroll. Now I know this is going to be a little, this is what most people in the book of revelation are afraid of is this stuff. It's okay. We're going to talk about it. He broke the first seal on the scroll and then I heard one of the four living beings say, we're the voice like thunder come. And I looked up and I saw white horse standing there and it carried a writer and a bow and a crown was placed on his head and he rode out to win many battles and gain the victory. I need to say right off that, there's quite a bit of debate about who this white writer is. There's not much debate about the ones we're going to talk about in a second. Everybody knows it's not that. But later in Vr, in chapter 19 the white writer has definitely Christ here. There's some debate. It could be, it could be the Scythians and their bows, which the Romans were terribly afraid of. And, and you imagine that, can you imagine the world power being terribly afraid of some marauding tribes? But this is why they were afraid the Roman armaments had this special thing that they just sort of moved and they formed a Phalanx and they, they would lock their shields and they would just sort of grind you out.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:But the Scythians wouldn't fight by the right rules. They would write up on their horse and get almost within, almost within the Roman shot. And then they turn and they'd fire arrows over your, over the backs really accurately. It is terrifying for the Romans Scythians scary invaders from that. It could be that the white writer could be that or in the coliseum games halftime, June and a halftime is in the football game, right? It's when the famous person comes out and sings and some other stuff happens that you're not noticing behind the scenes. That's what would happen in the coliseum. These four writers, these were set pieces on the board at the, at the intermission, the white writer, the red rider, the black writer, and the Pale rider would come out and parade around the grounds and while you were paying attention to that, the slaves would come out and get the spoils of war off the field and then they'd start, the game's over. It's just like half time, just like the Super Bowl, just distracted. Just pay attention to the commercials. Nothing else has got nothing to see here. Pay No attention to the man behind the curtain or it could be Christ, so it's Christ. I want to make sure you know that the victory, we talked about that last week, the victory is won and he's already got the crown on his head. Now let's go into the next riders. Okay, and we'll, we'll talk about this. Just talk our way through it. Hold on. It's okay. When the lamb broke the second seal, I heard the second living beings say come. And then another horse appeared. Our Red One. Its rider was given a mighty sword and the authority to take peace from the earth and there was war and slaughter everywhere. One thing I want you to make sure that you know is this, Christ never rides the red horse. Why doesn't he write the Red Horse? Because the red horse is the human way to get dominion over the world. We're going to fight it out and he with the big stick wins and that is not the way Jesus acts. Now come on top of that comes the next rider. We're not. Lamb broke the third seal. I heard the living beings say com and I looked up and I saw a black horse and its rider was Harry was holding a pair of scales in his hand and I heard a voice from among the four living being, say a loaf of wheat bread or three loaves of barley will cost a day's pay and don't waste the olive oil and wine famine, the black horses, Fam and Christ also doesn't ride the black horse. But famine. Famine is one thing that we don't think about much in our day, except if you know the language of the, we'll have a famine for hearing the word of the Lord. It means it means famine means you have everything you don't need and nothing that you actually need. That's essentially what it is. And, and by the way, this price of wheat and barley in a day's pay, that's starvation. Famine rates on stuff in their day. If all you could afford for one day's pay is that amount of Brad, your going to be thinner at the end of the process. That's what that means. Famine. As we keep going, we keep going. See, I want to make sure we do this. When the lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the fourth living beings say come and I looked up and saw a horse whose color was pale. Green is the writer's name was death and the companion was the grave and the two were given authority over a fourth of the earth to kill with a sword and famine and disease and wild animals, pestilence, something you can't control. In our day and age, we sort of worship at the hospital because we got these, we've got these habits that cause damage to us and then we'd go to the hospital and get fixed or we just, or we worship being young and we just try to do whatever we can medically to stay young but kind of a pestilence in our world, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah cause I keep going. When the lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw under the alter the souls all who had been martyred for the word of God and for being faithful in their testimony, they shouted to the Lord and said, oh Lord, holy and true. Here it comes. How long, how long before you judge the people who belong to this world and avenge our blood for what they have done to us, and a white robe was given to each of them and they were told to rest a while longer be patient until the number of your brothers and sisters, their fellow servants of Jesus, we're all so martyred had joined them. Do you remember why did I go back to genesis and and in second Peter was, there was a promise coming and God said, it's not time yet. It's not time for what? It's not time. Not all the people are saved. But in the second Peter verse, there was this little twist on it and it was that the god wasn't willing that any should perish. So I'm going to twist our understanding of revelation just a little bit and I'm going to take a parental side of viewpoint of this. Okay? How many of you have raised more than one kid? Did you punish them the same when they did wrong things? Did you punish them the same or exactly the same? Or did you have to sort of do what you took to get the attention of the one in front of you to stop them down the road that they were headed because you can't have that.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Am I right? Okay. Why did you do that? You didn't, you didn't do it because you liked punishing them different and then having them come up later and say, well, you love this one more than than you love me. You love them more because you punish me harder and all this because, because literally sometimes you have one that's more tender than the other and if you punish the, the more tender one, the way that it takes to get the attention of the less tender one. What happens? Nothing. Right? If you have a headstrong kid and you punish them for the Tinder one, what happens? The headstrong kid doesn't notice. But if you punish the Tinder kid the way it takes to punish the headstrong kid, you break the Tinder one. So you have to be aware of what's going on. But all punishment is, is aimed at one thing. I have to get your attention and stop full, stop what's going on so that you can change. Am I wrong? I don't think I'm wrong about that unless, unless of course you enjoyed punishing your kids, in which case I've got some time that I need to schedule with you in my office later. But that's what punishment is about. So I want you to hear what's going on. This thing going on with the riders and pestilence and all this. I'm no this guys, God isn't willing that any should perish and he's not judging before its time. So he's looking for a response. What happens to you as a parent? If you punish a kid and nothing happens, nothing changes. Well, you have to do, I got this answer in the first from the first service. I'm going to share it with you. What we're one of the parents said, you have to up the ante, right? The cost of admission, it gets higher and higher. The more the bad behavior we get, it's exactly like that in our court system, right? The first time you might get off the second time there's a fine. The third time you might do jail time a fine. It keeps going. Here he goes. I watched the lamb break the sixth seal and there was a great earthquake and the sun became as dark as black cloth and the moon became Rad as blood and the stars felt. You see this, the skies imagery happening from the other two verses as well. There's a promise coming. Then the stars and the sky fell from the earth like a green figs fall from the tree shaken by a strong wind. The Sky was rolled up like a scroll and all the mountains and islands were removed from their places. That is up the ante from, by the way, change your path. You're on the wrong path. Then everyone, the kings of the earth and the rulers and the generals and the wealthy and the powerful and every slave and every fruit person all hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains and they cried to the mountains in the rocks fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne. Is that the desired result? Is that what God was after? No. What is it gonna take to get their attention to recognize that there is a throne in the universe and it's occupied and there's not a throne in your heart that you made up that you get to sit on. That's what's going on here. They're about to up the ante. This is a quarter, right? There was a very limited scope here of destruction. I know it feels like a quarter of the earth is not limited scope though. Don't we live in a post apocalyptic world where we're literally nuclear annihilation was just, I mean I grew up in that world duck and cover. That's what we were taught in school. Like that's going to help in a thermonuclear war and I grew up near Hanford so they taught us that as we were getting under the desk near a bank of glass windows cause that was going to help. How much is it going to take God to do to get the attention of the world.
Speaker 2:Okay,
Speaker 1:I'm gonna, I'm gonna wrap it up right here with this question. How much is it going to take for him to get our attention or my attention? Am I going to make him move mountains and an islands out of their places and bring pestilence into my life and family? How much is it gonna take to get my attention to get our attention? Cause he's not willing that any should perish. He really wants everybody in and he's not judging until it's time to judge, but he's being patient not as the way we recognize patients, but in the way that it actually is. And he has full understanding. Any judges when the time is right, not beforehand. I'm gonna make you wait for the pause and heaven. That's the next, next time I preach, but here it is. As you leave today, ask yourself, what road am I on and what will it take me to, to get to the right road? Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I thank you for today. I thank you that as you upped the ante and my life, are you up the ante in anybody's life that we might be able to say to ourselves, Lord, do a new work in my life that I might be changed, that I won't have to be scared out of my wits in order to make it happen. In your precious name. Amen.