Series: Revelation: The Best is Yet to Come

Title: “How to Live in this world of suffering” (Proclaim & Embody Jesus)

Scripture: Revelation 6:1-8

Main commentary help: 

• Exalting Jesus in Revelation by Daniel Akin

• Revelation by Jim Hamilton

• Seven Seals by Matt Chandler, 2021 sermon

 

Last week: Jesus worshipped as Redeemer

This week: Jesus worshipped as Righteous & Just Judge

Our need: Grace and truth from our creator-redeemer 

 

Bottom line: In light of our need for grace and truth in a world of hurt, let’s proclaim and embody Jesus where we live, work, and play.

So Hamilton focuses on the glory of God and how we take it too lightly. God’s judgment falls on those who take it too lightly. He then fleshes out how God judges humanity through humanity. God has a plan (though we have differing takes on how that will unfold) and that’s what matters. He has a plan and will sovereignly carry it out on earth and in heaven. 

Chandler focuses more on the persecution and how we should prepare and live in light of the four horsemen of the apocalypse and the natural catastrophes we’re enduring and that will accelerate and intensify like birth pangs. 

Both refer to Matthew 24 as Jesus’ commentary on this passage. 

I. Four Seals and Four Horsemen on the earth (6:1-8) - God judges humanity through humanity.

A. First Seal/horseman: White - Conqueror bent on conquest

1. False Christ—Looks like Christ but isn’t

2. False teacher

3. False hope

4. Deceiver

5. “Were given” - God is sovereign; they have nothing he hasn’t given to them

B. Second Seal/horseman: Fiery Red 

1. Takes away peace and

2. Incites mortal violence

C. Third Seal/horseman: Black

1. Severe famine (days wages for a small meal for a person or family)

2. None of what you need but all you don’t need - typical of what we tend to pursue too

D. Fourth Seal/horseman: Pale

1. Death and Hades (Hell)

2. Power to kill 25% of the world (about 2 billion or China + most of India)

II. Martyrs and Signs in the Heavens (6:9-17) - God continues judgment in the heavens

A. Fifth Seal: Martyrdom—wait a little longer

1. They were there because they proclaimed and embodied Jesus.

2. Are we willing to go there?

B. Sixth Seal: Natural disasters on increasingly frequent and more intense scale; heading towards or already in the tribulation

1. Already in in that we’re already experiencing these things; cannot mean for us what it didn’t mean for them

2. Also, as things increase in intensity and frequency, some yet unseen things will occur as a part of the tribulation (possibly)

3. Tribulation = Daniel’s 70th week; a 7-year period where global tribulation will climax with the Great Throne of Judgment

4. Great leveling of people; all our earthly hopes will crumble in this day of judgment

5. Only hope is in the one who can and did open the scroll—Jesus the Christ

C. Seventh Seal: 7 Trumpets of judgment 

III. How do we live, survive, and even thrive in light of this?

A. Proclaim Jesus Christ. 

1. They will hate us. Yes, they will. Oral Roberts U in sweet sixteen and USA Today article.

2. Ok for them to hate us for being Jesus (not for being unkind or obnoxious)

   1. When we major on doctrine, we become mean, legalistic and judgmental

   2. When we major on the Spirit but go soft on truth/doctrine, we become sentimental, inconsistent and discouraged.

   3. We must be scholarship on fire! We worship in Spirit and in truth. The Spirit of Christ and the Word made flesh. Potent combination.

3. Matthew 24:14

B. Embody Jesus Christ.

1. Not enough to talk Jesus. We must show them Jesus through our actions.

2. He is the head—we’re his body (hands and feet, etc.)

3. Luke 6:27-36

C. This is what it means to carry our cross daily and follow him.

IV. Conclusion

Therefore, let’s proclaim and embody Jesus today—every day—around the corner and around the world. Let’s “Always be ready to give to everyone who asks (us) the reason for the hope that we have (in Jesus).” And let the chips fall where they may. 

• We may see someone come to Christ.

• We may find ourselves under the altar in heaven awaiting for Jesus to avenge and vindicate our life on earth.