Bible Talks - Sunday Night Church

Letters from heavenSeries: Letters from heaven · Talk No. 4

Riding through history

Sunday, 10 July 2005

Neil Atwood

Revelation 6 ESV or NIV, Revelation 8-9 ESV or NIV

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Ground Hog Day

I wonder if you have seen the movie Ground Hog Day?
It is a movie about a news reporter played by Bill Murray - he keeps re-living the same day – over and over again.
He has gone to a small town in middle America - Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania - to do a piece for the news. They have an annual ritual in this town called Ground Hog Day.
He covers the story and the day happens and everything is ok.
But he wakes up the next morning and it is Ground Hog Day again. He is re-living exactly the same day.
At first he doesn’t know what is happening.
But then he wakes up the next morning and it is Ground Hog Day all over again.
Gradually he starts to figure out what is happening.
Well I think we can get the Ground Hog Day feeling when it comes to reading through the book of Revelation – and especially the passage we are looking at tonight.

We read through a section that talks about 7 seals being broken.
We see these terrible events taking place on the earth.
Then we read about 7 trumpets being sounded.
And again we read about terrible events on the earth.
I think what we are seeing in this section is essentially the same thing being repeated.
It may feel a bit like ground hog day, but I think there is a point to it.
The sections are almost the same – but different. But I think John wants to show us something about what the what the world is like and what we can look forward, to living in it.
I remember hearing John Chapman say that he thinks the book of Revelation was written for stupid people and for old people.
It was written for stupid people because the message of the book is repeated over and over again. And he thinks that it is written for old people because everyone is speaking in a loud voice!
Remember our tips for reading Revelation:
Step back – get the big picture – don’t worry too much about small details.
Keep your old testament in mind – it will help you see what is happening.

7 Seals
Well lets start with chapter 6.
Jesus has taken the scroll from God’s hand – the plan for the world. And he begins to open the 7 seals.
The events written on the scroll now start happening.
The first part of Revelation 6 probably one of the best known parts of the book of Revelation – but that is not to say that it is understood that well.
I think everyone has heard of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse.
And with it, the idea of some kind of judgement.
It is the idea of trouble and hardship coming on the world.
These 4 horsemen come riding out as the first 4 seals are broken.

These horsemen are:
1st - A conqueror bent on conquest.
2nd - Takes peace from the earth and makes men slay each other.
3rd - The 3rd horseman is a little more cryptic – it seems to be economic hardship or famine. The prices quoted indicate a days wages for a man would hardly be enough to feed himself let alone a family.
4th - Finally we see death – the pale rider and Hades is following him. These 4 horsemen bring unimaginable horror to the earth.

When we reach the 5th seal, the scene changes.
We are now looking at those who have been slain because of the word of god and the testimony they maintained.
Here are those Christians who have been faithful.
Here are those Christians who have sought to bear witness to Jesus.
Here are those Christians who suffered and died because of their faith in Jesus.
They ask a question:
Read Revelation 6: 10: 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?”

They want to know how long it will be before the suffering of God’s people comes to an end.
They are asking when God will bring his final judgement.
So while there may be an element of judgement to what we see in the 4 horsemen, we are not supposed to see it as God’s final judgement of this world.
And the answer they get is not the one you are expecting.
And I am not sure it is the most comforting answer they could hear:
Read Revelation 6:11 “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.”
There will be more who will die because of the word of God and the testimony they give. A sombre thought...
Then we come to the sixth seal.
This one has some very strong old testament ideas attached to it.
This is drawing on a whole lot of Day Of The Lord passages in the OT – like our recent time in Joel.
And look at the response of the people – hiding, the ones who want the rocks to cover them so they don’t have to face God (v15-17): They don’t want to face God’s judgement.

If you remember our time in Joel, the Day Of The Lord passages we find in the old testament are also the passages that talk about God coming to rescue his people. It is also the day of God’s salvation.
So we are not supposed to see this as the end of the world.
The Day Of The Lord language that we see in the old testament gets picked up in the new testament.
And what event in the new testament do we associate with sky being darkened and the earth being shaken?
What event in the NT do we associate with God’s judgement being experienced?
The death of Jesus on the cross.
It makes sense to see this image relating to the death of Jesus, rather than some end time event.
But remember from Joel - there is a sense in which the Day Of The Lord is not simply one day but a way of describing the events that span the death of Jesus on the cross to the final judgement that will take place.
But the big event connected to the day of the lord is death of Jesus.
Because this is where the sin of the world was being dealt with.
This is where the punishment for our sin was poured out .
So it is no surprise that in the next chapter we see people singing about the salvation that God has given us in his son – through the death of the lamb.

Jump over chapter 7 – we will come back to it in a moment.
Go to the beginning of chapter 8.
The 7th seal is broken and so this lot of 7 is complete.
There is silence in heaven for half an hour.
But it’s not the end.

7 Trumpets
Starting in v8 we see the seven trumpets.
And it’s Ground Hog Day again!
As this chapter starts we can feel like we are looking at the same thing – but from a different angle.
There are 7 trumpets sounded and following each trumpet is more suffering & hardship on the earth.
Again – they look like judgement of some kind.
But this time the hardship is of Exodus proportions – in fact even worse. They sound like the plagues sent on the Egyptians – but more horrific. Compare them sometime...
I think again what we see is judgement happening here in these verses. God is judging and will judge those who oppose him - just as he always does.
And the sad thing is this: look at the effect that the suffering has on a world that is hardened toward God.
Read Revelation 9:20-21 20 The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. 21 Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.

Jump over to the 7th trumpet. You find it at chapter 11:15.
With this trumpet there is some finality. The kingdom of the world is now taken over by Christ. There is rejoicing in heaven.
Read Revelation 11:15 The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.” And the twenty-four elders, who were seated on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying: “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign. The nations were angry; and your wrath has come.
The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great— and for destroying those who destroy the earth.” Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a great hailstorm.

What Do We Make of All This?
Well what are we supposed to make of all this?
Can I say that at the most simple level the message here is very clear.
We are supposed to see that all the events that take place in this world are under God’s control.

Go back to the ideas in chapter 4 & 5.
God is on his throne. Jesus is on the throne with him.
Jesus starts opening the seals.
These things happen because Jesus has allowed them to happen.
For all the doom and gloom, we see it’s still God who is in control. Jesus is the one opening the seals. The directions for the angels and the horsemen come from heaven.
But what is it that is happening?
What are all these plagues and horsemen about?
This is one of the places in the book of Revelation where people want to make direct identifications.
They see 7 seals and 7 trumpets and they think you have to find 14 events in the history of the world to coincide with them.
Or look forward to 14 events that will come.
They want to put dates and times on these events.
They look at the people dying and say that this must be a terrible time of judgement on the earth.
But I have to say that I don’t have much sympathy for those ideas.
You can go back to almost any time in history and find events that will fit what is happening here.
Think about the events that you could see in here:

· 2 world wars in the 20th Century. They managed to account for the deaths of probably about 50 million people.
· Or what about the flu epidemic in 1918-19. Did you know that this pandemic claimed the lives of between 25 and 40 million people –3 & 5 times the casualties of the first world war.
· But lets not think that it just happens in recent history. What about the plague. Between 1347 and 1351 (a period of 5 years) it claimed the lives of about 75,000,000 people. 1/3 of the population of Europe was killed.

You could find events at any time in history that would fit this.

Do you know what is happening with the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse?
Do you know what we are seeing when the trumpets are sounded?
This is the Channel Nine Evening News.
This is just life in the world we live in.
This kind of thing is happening all the time.

What we are seeing in these seals and trumpets isn’t so much specific events that we need to name and date.
This isn’t so much events as an idea.
Horrible things have been happening in this world for centuries.
Horrible things happen and even Christians are caught up in it.
There is a sense in which some of it is God’s judgement.
But there is another sense in which this is just the horrible stuff that happens in our sinful world.
But one of the other crucial things that we need to notice is that it is leading somewhere.
With the 7 seals it seems to be a bit anticlimactic. But with the 7 trumpets we see God’s judgement finally come.
And it is unfolding that way because God said it would.
With the 7th trumpet being sounded things come to a close.
We are going to see 7 bowls of God’s wrath poured out when we reach chapter 16 and you may get the feeling that it is Ground Hog Day … again.

The Pattern & The Interludes
Now I have jumped over chapter 7 and chapters 10 and the 1st part of 11.
But let me go back to have a quick look at those sections.
One thing that you notice when you read through this whole section is that there are a lot of overlaps – things that bind it together as one unit.
Let me point out a few:

· 4 angels at the beginning of chap 7 appear again as the trumpeters.
· 4 horsemen (1st 4 seals) appear again in trumpet 6.
· Pattern of 4 and then 3 with both lots of 7
· The FIRST 4 in each series of 7 are SIMILAR
· Both lots of 7 finish with rumblings & thunder, etc

(See the table in your outline)
There are 7 seals and 7 trumpets – but there is a break after the 6th seal and the 6th trumpet.
We have this interlude before we get to the 7th event.
But what is it that the interludes do?
What purpose do they serve?
Well lets look quickly at what we are shown in these interludes.

Lets start with Revelation 7.
We have the vision of the 144 000 and the multitude.
I can remember a nightmare that I used to have when I was at primary school. I had this dream where I was on a school excursion and everyone was getting back on the bus to go home.
I was left outside when the bus doors closed. I could see the teacher doing the count – counting the heads to make sure that everyone was there, and then signalling to the driver that everyone was on board and the bus drove away while I was standing outside.
Now in a sense I think that the vision we see in chapter 7 is almost the opposite of that nightmare.

What does John see?
Before the 4 angels can go out and harm the earth (which is what they do in Chap 8) God’s people must receive the mark of protection on their forehead.
John sees that there are 144 000 people – all of God’s people. Now we are not supposed to see it as a literal number. It is just a complete number, as Philip mentioned last week.
This says to us: God knows those who are his. They are marked out as his people. They are protected by him. Not one of them will be lost. Not one of them will be left behind.
And look at what he see next:
Revelation 7:9 “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. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
Are we supposed to imagine that this vast multitude is a different group to the 144 000? I don’t think so.
These are God’s people! They are wearing the white robes that were mentioned in the 5th seal. They are singing praises to God because of the salvation they have.
In the midst of the seals being broken we have a vision of great comfort to God’s people.
They need not fear.
They have been marked by God.
They will not be lost.
They will not be left behind.
They will not miss out.

The second interlude is a little more complex – but it’s seeking to do the same thing. It is seeking to re-assure and comfort God’s people.
These 7 churches knew that if they were going to be faithful – if they were going to stand up for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus then they were going to suffer.
This vision is encouraging them to keep testifying.
They are to maintain the testimony about Jesus.
They are to keep preaching the gospel.

Conclusion
Now I think there is a very direct application between this passage and our situation today.
When you listen to the radio in the morning and hear that bombs have exploded in the middle of London, or planes have been flown into the world trade centre... Or a tsunami has occurred.
When you watch the TV at night and see that 200 people have been killed in a terrorist bombing in a nightclub in Bali…
Don’t be surprised!
That is what the world we live in is like.
And Christians shouldn’t be surprised by it.
And the encouragement of this passage to the original readers is the same encouragement that we should draw from it. Two pieces of advise:

1. Don’t Worry
Firstly: don’t worry.
It is easy for us to look at the trouble in the world and feel overwhelmed by it.
It is easy to look at the horror in this world and throw your arms up in despair. But think about the image that we have in chapter 7.
All god’s people are safe. God has placed his mark of protection on them. None of them will miss the bus!
That is not to say that bad things wont happen to God’s people.
You only need to look a few verses before chapter 7 to see the souls of those who have died because of the word of God and the testimony.
But it does mean that our eternity is secure.
The day will come when we will be among that multitude.
The day will come when we will stand among those people from every tribe and nation and sing god’s praises and sing the praises of the Lamb because they have saved us!
But until then it may be that is the only thing we can take confidence in.

This letter was written to a group of people who would have been able to put names to those dead souls under the altar that are calling our “how long oh Lord”.
I am sure that their hearts would have sunk to hear that there will be more who will join them.
But that picture of heaven – the picture that shows every one of god’s people standing with him – must have been a great re-assurance to them.

2. Keep Testifying
But the other message to them and to us is this: keep testifying.
We live in a world that doesn’t know what to do when bombs go off in London or Bali.
They throw their hands in the air and desperately look for hope somewhere.
Well we are the ones who have the hope.
We are the ones who can testify about Jesus.
Next time your friends talk to you about the problems in the world you have something to say.
We need to make sure that we keep testifying.
Lets not be put off by the problems in the world.
Lets use them as a gospel opportunity.
Lets not be put off by what might happen to us if we do testify.
Lets continue to trust God and be secure in the hope we have.