This morning we continue our study in the book of Revelation by coming to a new aspect of this vision that John was given. You'll recall this is the second vision he's been given, began in chapter 4. But now we we really move into a new phase of revelation, I guess you could say, as what really comes to the forefront from this point forward is in many ways the theme of judgment. And that's something that it's never a topic. Judgment is never a topic that anyone needs to apologize for. Because God's judgment is just. God's not arbitrary in his judgment. He doesn't just say, well, I don't like that guy, so, you know, poof. But his judgments are just. His judgments are righteous. And yet at the same time, I think I probably feel the same way that a lot of you feel, that judgment isn't a fun thing to look at. And even God himself, you know, the Bible tells us that God takes no pleasure in the destruction of the wicked. It's not like he's just licking his chops waiting, you know, but judgment is something that is painful. And it's painful because it affects real people. The things that we read here, the things that we study here, you know, we read them and we're kind of like from afar. We're gathered in a congregation. We just kind of see these things, you know, here on the pages of the Bible. But these events here, they're played out in history. They're played out in real history. in real nations, in real communities, on real people. It's not just something that we read about and say, oh, that's, but that doesn't affect them. This is real life stuff. And I think anytime we encounter judgment, I think it's important that we remember that. I think we kind of want to check ourselves and, you know, bring ourselves back to reality because as you go through this, it raises all kinds of questions. It just, because the things that are spoken of here are things that affect us and people we know. So let us remember that as we come to this and let us approach it with humility and with grace as we seek to understand what our Lord is showing to John and by extension to all of us. So with that in mind, our text for this morning is Revelation chapter six, and we'll be looking at verses one through eight. Let us give honor to the reading of God's word. Now I watched when the lamb opened one of the seven seals and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, come. And I looked and behold a white horse and its rider had a bow and a crown was given to him. And he came out conquering and to conquer. When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, come. And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword. When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, come. And I looked, and behold, a black horse. and its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard what seemed to be 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 wine. When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, come. And I looked and behold a pale horse and its rider's name was death and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Oh, Father in heaven, we are humbled and grateful that you would allow us into your presence to see these things. And in doing so, I pray that you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts and minds to understand. So that Lord, as we encounter this scene, we would We would see it with eyes of faith. For Lord, it is a vision to be seen. And yet we know that the only way we can see it is with spiritual eyes. The only way we can see it is with eyes of faith. And so please give us these eyes so that we would see as it really is. as life really is, as this world really is, that we would see it this way in accordance with all that you show it to be here. Help us to see this, and Lord, brand this vision firmly into our minds, that it wouldn't again recede into the background. It'd be something that we would forget and instead get caught up in so much of the minutia when instead there is a big and a grand and ultimately a glorious plan at work. So Father, please grant this, I pray, and please help me. with a weakness of words, to be able to communicate this vision in a way that would help these people whom you love so much, you gave your son for, so that they would see and understand. And I ask this in Christ's name. Amen. Any time we read a passage such as this, anything that pertains kind of to, you know, last days, end times, scenarios, what's the one question that typically we want to have answered? I think it's the question when. We want to know when will these things take place. And, and what we want is we want like a calendar and we want to be able to open up the current events and we want to be able to say, see, look here and make these, you know, kind of just direct correlations between the two. We want answers to the when. And that's always the way it's been. You know, you remember in the gospel of Matthew, there's a really well-known passage there in chapter 24. where Jesus is with his disciples and he's walking with them through Jerusalem and he's passing by Herod, the temple that Herod built, the magnificent temple in Jerusalem. And as he's passing by, he says to his disciples, you know, not one stone of those there will be left among another, but the whole thing's gonna be torn down. And Jesus' disciples, you know, I mean, they're obviously like freaked out by this. And so they eventually get to the place where they're going. They're going to this another spot called the Mount of Olives. And when they get there, the disciples, they asked Jesus, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? So they wanted to know when, they wanted to be able to mark it down and have their timeline and kind of put everything in these nice, neat time slots. But Jesus doesn't give them the answer to the question when. I mean, his answer probably frustrated them. because instead of telling them when and answering the question that they had, he instead tells them about these terrifying trends that are gonna occupy this entire period of time until he comes again. So instead of saying when, he's gonna say, here's what it's gonna be like. And then he follows it up by telling them just to kind of rub a little salt in the wounds of the day and the hour, no one even knows, only the father, not the angels of heaven, not the son, only the father. So they never had the question of when answered. But that didn't stop them from trying to get that question answered again. Because 40 days later, the Ascension, Acts 1, Jesus is there with them again when he appears. Disciples, what do they say? Is it now? Is it now that you're gonna restore the kingdom of Israel? Is this when everything's gonna happen? Everything's gonna culminate, the consummation, it all comes in now? But again, Jesus didn't answer them. but instead he rebuked them for trying to get into this whole date setting thing. And he says, it is not for you to know times or epochs which the father has set by his own authority. So he revealed things belong to you, secret things belong to him. When is not a question that is for you or for me to know, or even to try to answer. It's not for us to know. Well, it's with that in mind that we come to this scene here. Because in opening these seals, our Lord, he doesn't give us a timeline that we can, again, set up next to our daily newsfeed. He doesn't give us that daily timeline, but instead what he does is he tells us what these last days will be like. He describes them, events. And in doing so, he also helps us, at least in a broad sense, to understand why it is that if he is ruling and reigning over all, why it is that evil, and corruption and calamity and violence and wars continue to abound and even increase. See, these are the things that we begin to at least find out this morning in the opening of these first four seals. And so, With that in mind, before we dive into these seals, it's important for us to understand something about visions. Because from this point on, we're really stepping into a series of judgments that will occur in cyclical fashion. In chapters six through eight, we're at chapter six, verse one now, we have the seven seals that are being opened. Then partway through chapter eight, up through chapter 11, we have the seven trumpets that are blown. And then later on in chapter 16, we have the seven bowls that are poured out. And for our part, it's important to understand that these cycles of judgment, that they aren't necessarily chronological. So that it's not as though it's like we're marching down this timeline of history. And okay, now one, two, three, four, five, six, seven seals are opened. And then we go a little further than, okay, now the trumpets, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven trumpets. And then we keep going down and then another seven bowls are poured out after that. See, that's not the way these visions work, but rather the events in each of these cycles of judgment overlap one another throughout this extended period of time that we live in between the Ascension and the return of Christ that the scriptures refer to as the last days. So that throughout it all, throughout this entire period of time, we find many of the same calamities taking place in the opening of the seals, that we find in the blowing of the trumpets, that we find in the pouring out of the bowls. We find in each of them, we find things like wars and violence and famine and plagues and all of these different things. We see many of the same things taking place because they're overlapping. See, these judgments are the judgments that will mark this entire era. And yet the thing is, is that, and you know, Dennis Johnson, he wrote this book, The Triumph of the Lamb. He does a great job of showing this in this book. What he does is he shows how how each of these judgments and each of these events that are, you know, seen in the seals, in the trumpets, in the bulls, they're oftentimes viewing similar events through different camera angles. so that they're viewing it from a different perspective, or they're focusing on a different sort of, perhaps a different character throughout it all. It's kind of, to help you kind of think about this, it's kind of like, in my mind, like watching a football game. If you watch a football game on TV, you got this, you know, the, you know, executive producer and he's up there and you're watching the game and there's maybe like an end zone camera and you're seeing everything here. But all of a sudden they'll like switch over to another camera and you're seeing just one matchup, you know, the wide receiver in the corner back. And then they'll, all of a sudden a new camera will show and the play is unfolding. You'll see a fan grimacing. And then suddenly there's a shot of the coach and then there's a shot of something else. And it's all one, one thing is going on. But you're seeing all these different things taking place while this one big thing is going on. And that's the way we find these seals, these trumpets, these bowls. They're all referring to these events of judgment throughout the last days, and yet we're getting a different perspective on them. And sometimes it's a more intense perspective or a less intense perspective. Sometimes we're focusing on kings and rulers. Other times we're focusing on someone else. There's different things we're seeing as these judgments are being poured out. Now in saying that, it's also important to note that as we move from the seals to the trumpets, especially to the bowls, that we'll see an intensification on God's judgment, and particularly upon Satan, upon the beast, upon the false prophet, so that even though they're covering, in general terms, the same period of time, As each new cycle unfolds, we're seeing greater intensity of God's judgment. It's giving us a picture of a, a growing intensity. And we see this even within the individual seals and trumpets and bowls. So that if you look at the first seal or trumpet or bowl versus say, for example, the fifth or the sixth, you see how much more intense it is as we move through them. I mean, it's later on, you get to suddenly the sixth seal, and what do you find? I mean, they're like cowering, saying, rocks fall on us. I mean, it is, they are now done with everything. It's just, it's, they're done. I mean, this is when the, you know, hundred million person army, again, those numbers, as we know, large numbers are meant to just refer to large numbers, not to specific numbers. But that's when they're gathered. That's when the battle of Armageddon takes place. It's there. It's under the sixth bowl. It's under the sixth trumpet. That's when things are really ramping up and we see the intensification growing as we are ultimately getting closer to the return of Christ. And so that's the expectation that we should have. we should expect as we do get closer to the return of Christ, there will be an intensification of judgment. And this is something that Jesus himself points out. You know, again, I refer to that passage in Matthew chapter 24, when they were asking about his return. Well, after describing what that period of time will be like, talking about the wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes, the same things Jesus says there are the exact same things we find in the seals, the trumpets and the bowls. They're saying the same thing. They're talking about the same period of time. But after that, Jesus said that these are the beginning of birth pangs. Now, pregnant women don't get, as we talk about labor, because that's what Jesus is talking about here. What he's saying is that it's like when a woman is pregnant and going into labor, and the contractions begin. When the contractions first begin, they're followed by brief periods of rest. But as you get closer and closer to delivery, Those periods of rest and relief essentially disappear until the contractions get so violent that you don't even know which one is ultimately the final one when the baby will be born. Well, that's the image that Christ is giving of the period of time between his departure and his return. It's a period of time which is like labor. so that the pain will intensify as we get closer to the time of Christ's return. And that's the picture revelation paints for us in these visions of the seals and the trumpets and the bowls. Things are going to get more intense. And it's not just on his enemies. But what we find, you really see this, Revelation 12, 13, they really ramp this up. As the heat is turned up on the dragon, the beast, the false prophet, you know, his henchmen. And upon all those who serve him, how do they respond towards God and his people? They respond with rage and hostility. And so what you find is that as the intensification turns up on them, the intensification turns up on the church. And you have the martyrs there in heaven crying out, how long Lord? How long until you avenge our blood? And so this is kind of the big picture of these visions that we should keep in mind as we sort of work our way through them and this morning step into the first four of these seals. And so with that being said, we come to these first four seals. And in doing so, I think the first thing we recognize is that these four seals, they belong together amongst the seven seals. The number seven, again, what does that number stand for? Completion, fulfillment, right? So why is there seven seals of judgment, seven trumpets of judgment, seven bowls of judgment? It's saying when you get to the seventh, God's judgment is complete. It's done. It's finished. It's fulfilled. But here, what we find is that the first four of these judgments the first four go together. And that's obvious as each of them involve a horse and a horseman. And this vision of four horses and four horsemen, it's something we read a moment ago in Zechariah chapter one. We read of it again in Zechariah chapter six. And what we find is that here in this passage, as well as in those other scenes, there are four of them. And again, if you remember the number four, it represents the whole earth. There are four corners of the earth. We looked at this when we saw the four living creatures back in chapter four. And so what this is saying is these four horsemen, they're going all throughout the earth. They're going to every corner of it, to every part of it. They're not leaving any place sort of unblanketed per se. But instead they are bringing judgment, upon the entire earth. Now, it doesn't mean they're bringing it upon the whole earth all at once or the whole earth collectively, but there isn't a corner of it that is not being touched by it. And so, in any case, it's with that in mind that John, he witnesses the lamb, and we know it to be the risen Lord. He witnesses him opening the first seal. And when he does, John hears a voice of one of the four living creatures around the throne. And this living creature, he cries out, come. And when he does, there comes forth a white horse. His rider has a bow and a crown was given to him. And he came out conquering and to conquer. So a white horse with a rider coming out to conquer. Now, a lot of people, they identify this rider as being the Lord, since we find him in Revelation 19, again, on a white horse coming out as well. But the thing is, and what they say is that he's coming out here, whereas there he's going out to conquer his enemies, here he's going out to conquer through the gospel. But the thing is that we have to understand and why, you know, I, along with many others, don't believe this is referring to the Lord, is because the vision of four horsemen throughout scripture is a vision of judgment coming. And we see that with the other three horsemen that come out afterwards. It's not as, okay, Christ comes out with the gospel and now here comes these three bad ones. No, there are all four of these horses and horsemen are, they are coming out to bring judgment upon the earth. And moreover, this writer is not identified as the Lord Jesus, whereas in chapter 19, he is identified as the Lord Jesus. Chapter 19, he has seven diadems. Speaking of his ultimate authority here, he just has one crown. There he has a sword, here he has a bow. So there's plenty of things that make us go the other way and say, this actually isn't talking about the Lord, but instead it's just an unidentified writer who was sent out to conquer. And what this ultimately speaks of here is the authority that he was given to allow people to conquer each other, to subdue each other, to oppress each other. And so he goes out throughout the earth in order to, with this authority, so that people would conquer one another and oppress and subdue one another. And oftentimes that happens in the context of war. Well, from here, the second seal is opened. And when it's open, John, here's the second living creature. He's around the throne and he says, come. And out comes now a red horse and its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth so that people should slay one another. And he was given a great sword. Now here, it's clear what this horse and rider represent. They represent war. They represent the ability to kill. They remove peace from the earth. And many commentators, they see a connection between the first and the second rider as they go forth. It's that, you know, these military forces going out throughout the earth, they've been given authority to do this, to kill one another, and so peace is removed from the earth. And this is something that, I mean, there is no peace on earth. There hasn't been peace on earth. As a matter of fact, if you look at the last century, and historians tell us this, there have been more people that were killed by wars and atrocities than in all other centuries combined before that. And when you think about it, you realize historians tell us it's not even close. I mean, you think about two world wars, and then you think about other wars like Korea and Vietnam, the war in the Balkans, the wars in the Middle East. You have the African tribal wars, the amount of wars that have taken place. And then along with this, you think about all of the atrocities that have taken place as well. as there has been an untold number of atrocities. You think of the Holocaust with upwards of 6 million Jews killed. And then along with that, millions more Christians and other ethnic minorities. And then you think of the genocide of millions of Armenians by the Turks in 1915. You think about the slaughter of millions by Pol Pot in Cambodia in the killing fields. You think about communism. I mean, just in China and the former Soviet Union alone under Mao Zedong and Lenin and Stalin, they say that at minimum, it's a hundred million people who were killed under those regimes. I mean, you see, and now look, I mean, you still have things just boiling everywhere. And what you see is that, again, there's an intensification When you can say that what's taken place in the last century is more than all the other centuries combined, that's saying there is an intensification. And thus the white and the red horse, they have gone forth. They have gone forth. They have taken peace from the earth. There is no peace on earth and there won't be peace on earth until Christ returns. There will not be. That is our only hope for peace. It is the return of Christ, as that's when his judgment is complete. From here, the third seal is opened. John hears the third living creature say, come. And a black horse comes forth. And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. There was a voice saying, a quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil in the wine. Now it's worth noting that in John's day, where he's writing here, wheat was, that was the grain for the, not necessarily wealthy, but those who weren't poor. Barley was for the poor, a lot less nutritious. A denarius was a soldier's day's wage. That's what he would get paid. And a quart of wheat at the time would be one-eighth of that. So he would take one-eighth of his salary, and he could feed himself off of that one-eighth. Well, now he's saying here, this rider is going throughout, saying, it's now gonna take a full day's wage. So there's 800% inflation upon this. He's got to pay eight times what he was paying before. And now also you look at what it's going to take to take barley as well. And so it's going to take a full day's wage. And so when you see prices rise like that, what is it saying? It's saying there's a food shortage. And so what this writer is sent out, what he symbolizes is famine, the resulting economic turmoil that it brings. And yet the thing is, as we see here, he also says, don't harm the oil and the wine. And why does he say that? Well, he says that because this judgment isn't total. There's still common grace. So even as There are certain parts of creation that are gonna be impacted by famine and by this economic turmoil. There's other parts that won't be. So the wheat's gone up, the barley's gone up, but the oil and the wine is not to be touched. So judgment isn't hitting everything in this time, and it won't until the time when Christ returns. That's when it hits everything. And then the fourth seal is broken. And John, here's the four living creatures, the fourth living creature. And again, this creature says come and out comes, I think our Bible says a pale horse. It might say an ashen horse, but in reality, the word that's used here in Greek, chloros, actually speaks of a greenish gray color. My lexicon, it describes it as a leaf, how the top side is really green and you turn it over and it's kind of greenish gray, lightish greenish color. That's the color it refers to. And in first century Greek culture, this is the color that was used to describe someone who was sick. If you were this color, you were really sick. You were really plagued. And so this rider of this horse was not surprisingly named Death. And Hades, which is the place of the dead, followed him. Now, if you recall back in chapter one, we saw in the vision of our glorified Lord, we saw that he held the keys of death and Hades, which symbolized his power to liberate people from sickness and from death and all of its consequences. But here we see that the rider on this greenish gray horse, he's been given power. power to bring war, to bring famine, to bring disease, to bring wild beasts upon again, not the whole earth, but a fourth of the earth. So this is talking about these outbreaks. This is talking about these things that are going to be sprinkled all throughout a portion of creation all throughout this time. There is going to be this constant unrest that these things bring. But at this point, God still places limits on his judgment. And so these are the four horses, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. And they're sent out throughout the whole earth, every corner of it, bringing famine, violence, wars, plagues, economic turmoil, as divine judgment upon a sinful and rebellious world. Now, With all that being said, question is what do we do with this? Well, the first thing we should do with it is understand that every judgment here is portending to, it's pointing to, foreshadowing, a greater and ultimate climactic judgment. Every one of them is. And that's really what this is telling us, is again, as Jesus said, all of these judgments are birth pangs, remember? All of them, they are. They're all pointing to the fact that one day, you know, those contractions, they're all pointing to the fact one day baby's gonna be born. What every one of these judgments are pointing to the fact that one day Christ will return and judgment will be complete. Every one of them is pointing to that. And that's, that's one of the things that we should always keep in mind whenever we see these things taking place. And this is what Jesus himself tells us. You know, in Luke chapter 13, there's a story, it doesn't get a lot of attention, but it's always stuck with me. In Luke 13, Jesus is there and there's some people, it doesn't mention there's disciples or whatever, but apparently in the place they were in, a tower named Siloam had fallen over. And when it fell over, it collapsed on and killed 13 people. And so Jesus, these people that are around, they asked Jesus if this happened to them because they were worse sinners than the other people in Jerusalem. Did this happen to them because they're really bad or they did bad things or because they've got some bad sin in their life or something like that? You know what Jesus says? He says, no. But I tell you, Unless you repent, you too will perish. The power fell on them. Why are you telling me I need to repent or I'm going to perish? Because it's a judgment that's pointing to a greater judgment. And anytime you see that happening, it should make you reflect on the reality of your own mortality and know I need to get right with God. Anytime you see that happen, you see these things and we see them and we shake our head and they're so painful to see these terrible calamities on earth. Terrible. And there's so many reactions that we have to them and can have to them. The tsunami throughout Asia, I mean, it was, there's so many thoughts go through your mind, but among them one should be is that, I need to make sure I'm right with God. Because there is a bigger tsunami of judgment coming. I need to make sure I'm right with him. And that's what Jesus is telling them here. They're like shots fired over the bow. Okay, make sure you're right with God. And when we see calamity, when we see these things that Jesus describes, that our Lord describes in Matthew 24, that we see described in the seven seals and the seven trumpets and the seven bowls, we see them. Instead of trying to dismiss them and, you know, It's just kind of a shell game with what God's doing and not doing and this and that. We should say, you know what? My life's going to come to an end one day and I'm going to stand before God at that time and I need to make sure I'm right with Him. I just need to. And that's the first thing we should take from this. But then along with this and certainly connected to it, we also need to see the practical implications of what Jesus is saying here upon our own lives as believers. Because throughout scripture, when we are confronted with the reality of calamity and judgment, it should have one very clear impact upon us. And that is it should cause us to live righteously. That's what it should do. And this is something that we see all over the Bible anytime where we are confronted with the end with the return of Christ with our own mortality anytime it is always going to be put in our just in our lap the reality that we need to make sure we are living in a state of readiness. And this is exactly what we find at the end of Jesus' dialogue in Matthew 24 again. As he gets to the end of this whole passage talking about what it's gonna be like in this period of time of the last days, as we get to the end, Jesus' entire point there with them is that what you should do with this, I'm not answering the question of when, but rather what I'm gonna focus on is the answer of how, as in how should you then live in light of my return? And what he tells them is that you should stay awake. Therefore, stay awake means be alert, be alert to these things. For you do not know what is the day or the hour that the Lord is coming. And then two verses later, he says, therefore, you must also be ready. For the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. And then he describes what being awake and living alertly entails, that it's living as a faithful and a wise servant. So in light of this, how then do you live? Faithful and wise is a servant who's ready to greet his master. And then he rolls into chapter 25 with a series of parables that are teaching on the same thing. the parable of the 10 virgins, five who are ready and waiting, five who are foolish, parable of the talents. Again, those who are using what God has given them for his glory, others who are just doing their own thing. We find these things rolling all throughout the rest of this entire discourse. What Jesus is saying is that when you see these things, And we all see them all the time. John saw them. I live in, in 180, 280, 380, 480, all the way up to our year today. We all see them. We all see them. But anytime we're confronted with the reality of these calamities, when we are confronted with the reality of the end and of the return of Christ, what it should always make us do. say, I need to make sure I'm living as a wise and faithful servant. I need to be, again, chapter 25, parable of the sheep and the goats. I need to be involved in works of love and good works, doing good instead of just sitting on my hands doing nothing. This is what he says, and this is the way that we should respond. So if we're going to be practical, that's what we do when we take this. And I'll tell you, little spoiler alert, over the rest of Revelation, you know how many times you're gonna hear this application? Man, can't he, he's not creative, can't he come up with any more application than that? I'm just coming up with what the Bible comes up with. And what the Bible says, in light of his return, in light of these calamities, be ready. So we're gonna hear it a lot, be ready, be ready. Live as a wise and faithful servant. And then lastly, along with this, As we consider the seals and the judgments, the calamities, it's important that we always keep our eyes where they should be kept. And that is on the daily newsfeed. Wrong. Don't worry about the newsfeed. Don't worry about the Middle East events should be on the Lord. And in kind of the bigger picture, that's what this is telling us. Because again, where did this second vision begin? Did John get caught up into heaven in chapter four and he sees four horsemen going all throughout the earth, bringing calamity? No, for two chapters. He has a vision of the Lord. First, the one seated upon his throne with glory and every living, all of creation, worshiping around him. And then in chapter five, the lamb there in the midst of the throne. And again, all of creation and all these angelic beings symbolizing all of creation, worshiping before him. He has this phenomenal vision of the Lord that so fills his mind. that this is what occupies it as now then he comes to this. And thus for our part, we need to avoid the temptation to try and get just drilled down into all of the minutia. Try and, you know, oh, now who exactly are the two witnesses and who, I mean, where we're just so wrapped up in 144,000 and who, where we're so in all, we're gonna look at these things, but never lose sight of the one who is seated on the throne. Because ultimately, revelation, I mean, who's the star of revelation? Our Lord is the star. He's the star of revelation. And he's the one who is working all things here towards its ultimate and glorious end. You see, this book is a vision of the greatness and glory of God. It's just that it's set in the context of the last days in which he's working out all of his ultimate redemptive purposes. That's just the context to show his glory and greatness. But it's about his glory and greatness. This is just kind of the theater, the stage upon which it's displayed. And we need to always remember that. I love what Vern Poythress, he said, he has a book, The Returning King. It's the same guy who wrote the book, men that we're reading on dispensationalism. But he said this, and I love what he said here. He said, God is at the center of revelation. We must start with him and with the contrast between him and his satanic opponents. If instead we try right away to puzzle out details, it is as if we tried to use a knife by grasping it by the blade instead of the handle. We are starting at the wrong end. I love this. Revelation is a picture book, not a puzzle book. Don't try to puzzle it out. Don't become preoccupied with isolated details. Rather become engrossed in the overall story. Praise the Lord, cheer for the saints, detest the beast, long for the final victory. That's the way to read Revelation. We're there cheering on our Lord, detesting the beast, yearning for final victory. That's how we read Revelation. It's with God at the center and not all the details. The details matter. We're looking at the details. You saw the first horseman, the second horseman, third horseman. But along the way, remember our application. Live as a wise and faithful servant and keep our minds in the right place. Not fretting over these details. Oh, what if that hits us? Oh, I just can't sleep. I'm a mess. Not fretting over the details and not getting wrapped up, caught up in all the weeds, the minutia, but the big picture. Chapter four, chapter five, the Lord on his throne for living creatures, representing all of creation. worshipping before him, 24 elders representing all of the people of God. Everything, heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, bowing before him, radiating with glory so that angels who have seen everything still after, who knows, millions of years maybe, just still in absolute awe of his splendor. That's what we need to keep in mind. as we work our way through this book of Revelation. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we do, we love you and we thank you that you love us and we thank you that you have rescued us from judgment As you have placed the judgment that was due upon us, you have placed it upon your son, our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, so that we need not fear that judgment, God. We thank you for this. And how even as these various calamities might afflict us or come upon us, they are signs ultimately of our salvation. We thank you, Lord, that in everything, Lord, the love that you have for us shines over it all. Oh, Father, we bless you. I pray that you would help us to Live in readiness to be wise and faithful always. Give us grace for we are often unwise and often very foolish. And I pray that you would help us, God, to live in a way that honors you. And at the same time, I pray that you would always keep just clear in our mind that wonderful vision of your greatness and glory so that we wouldn't be frightened by calamity or what might come, what might be. But Lord, instead we would always see you in your glory and your greatness, working all things towards their ultimate and glorious destiny in Christ Jesus. Help us grant us this I pray keep us just firm in the faith Continue to guard us from the evil one. We know that he is roaring Wandering about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour So guard us from his schemes and attacks Keep us always I pray in your peace and in your grace in Christ's name. Amen. I