Our scripture reading this evening, first of all, is 1 Corinthians chapter 15, reading verses 50 through 58. 1 Corinthians 15, beginning at verse 50. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord's Now let's turn to Revelation chapter 6 to read the words of our text there. Revelation 6 verses 7 and 8. Revelation 6, 7 and 8. And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, come and see. And I looked, and behold, a pale horse And his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. Beloved in Christ, the first four seals of the scroll, the book that represents the counsel of God. concerning the things that must take place before the end of time comes, have an affinity with each other. And that affinity that they have with each other is indicated by the fact that these first four seals are horses, or they release horses. A horse in scripture, as we've noted before, is an animal that symbolizes great strength, a mighty force. A horse is an animal that is unshakable, able to go forth in battle and to conquer, to gain a victory. And so these four horses represent powers that Christ sends into this world. that accomplish things, that accomplish great things. And these powers are present, therefore, in the world until the end of time. The first is the white horse, the white horse of the gospel, the gospel going forth in every land and the gospel going forth in every age. of world history and going forth victoriously, conquering and to conquer because it is by means of the gospel that the church of Christ is gathered, the elect are saved. Then follows the red horse that represents warfare, warfare between nations in the world and throughout history. Not world peace, but fighting and conflict and killing. And then there is also the black horse representing social inequality in this world. Disparity between the rich and the poor amongst mankind. The rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. Now we consider the fourth and the final of these four horses, the pale horse that points to Christ's sending and directing throughout the course of New Testament history the reality of death. Death is not a pleasant subject. because death is so difficult. Therefore, we need to keep in mind, and I trust we do this evening, the words we read in 1 Corinthians 15, especially the end of 54 and following that for us as believers, for us because of Christ, And as confirmed by the resurrection of Christ from the dead, for us, death is swallowed up in victory. And because through Christ death is swallowed up in victory, we, as we take upon our lips and into our hearts the words of 1 Corinthians 15, can, as it were, taunt death. and taunt the grave. O death, where is thy sting? The answer is, it is gone for us. O grave, where is thy victory? The answer is, the grave has no victory over us, and that because of Christ. Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory over death. and over the grave through our Lord Jesus Christ. Consider then with me tonight as we look at Revelation 6 verses 7 and 8, the pale horse of death. And we'll notice the power it represents, the extent of its destruction, and the purpose of its existence. Perhaps of all of the horses in Revelation 6, it is clearest with this one what it represents. It's very obvious that this horse and its rider represent the dreadful and the unpleasant reality of death. That's indicated by the color of the horse, pale in color. literally a pale green color, a yellowish green color, a color that is associated with death, the color of death, the color even of a decaying body. Then there is the name of the writer. His name is Death. There can be no disagreement, therefore, concerning what this writer will do. And then there is the statement in verse 8, and power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill, to kill. Christ sends forth this horse and its rider with the task of killing. They are given the authority, the right to kill, to end the lives. of men, women, and children. And then there is also the statement that follows, namely that hell follows the horse. Now that word hell translated here as hell in verse 8 can be translated in different ways in Scripture, sometimes hell, sometimes the grave. The context indicates the meaning, and so here it does not refer to hell as the place of eternal punishment where there is fire and brimstone, where the wrath of God is poured upon those whom he sends there, but is a reference here to the grave. The grave follows this horse and its rider. It refers to the place of the dead, and so the grave follows. to take in the victims of those who are killed by this horse and its rider, the grave gathering in the dead. This is the horse and rider that bring about death. This is the horse and rider under the direction of Christ that cause people to die. lead to them being buried in the grave and then with the result of their bodies decaying in the grave. This horse and its rider are the reason why we are always living and walking in the valley of the shadow of death in this world. Behind this horse and its rider is the will of God and the hand of Christ as He executes the counsel of God concerning the death of mankind. The text adds to all of this by pointing out the different ways in which this horse and its rider are able to cause death. They cause death by killing with a sword. That refers to any weapon that is used to kill someone else. Death that can take place through weapons that are used in war. and death that can result from weapons that are used by criminals, and death that comes about because there are drunk drivers who kill others, and there are terrorists who kill many others, and there are deranged people who go into public places and kill people with guns or even with vehicles. and the weapons that are used by abortionists to kill many children. Then the horse is given the ability to kill with hunger. able to send droughts and famines in this world so that there are people who die of starvation. Sometimes that's connected to the power that is represented by the red horse, the red horse of warfare that can cause and lead to starvation for some, as well as the black horse of inequality that can result in starvation and death through hunger. Then mentioned too is that they can kill with death. It refers to the regular what we might consider the more common ways in which people die. People dying of old age, people reaching the age of three score and 10 years, or if by reason of strength, four score years, or a little beyond, or people As we consider the normal common ways in which people die, people dying of sickness, diseases and epidemics and other illnesses being the means by which lives are ended. And even people dying on account of natural catastrophes that come, floods and typhoons and earthquakes and fires and volcanoes. And then they are also able to kill with the beasts of the earth. That brings us back all the way to Genesis chapter 9 when God, after the flood, said this concerning the relationship between man and animals. Genesis 9 verse 2, where God said to Noah after he and his sons and family came out of the ark, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea. Into your hand are they delivered. Up to that point in time, animals did not kill men and men did not kill animals. They were not really enemies of each other, but after the flood, God put enmity between man and animal so that now the animals can, in many instances, be the means by which men are killed. wild beasts, bears and crocodiles, snakes and sharks, but then also smaller animals, spiders and mosquitoes that can carry diseases that kill people, and even smaller still, the parasites and the germs that can kill. Many different ways in which God has ordained And Christ, through the sending forth of this pale horse, brings about the death of mankind. This is not, of course, an exhaustive list of the ways that that happens. The horse and its rider are not limited to just a few methods in causing men to die, but the text implies death and all the ways that death can possibly come upon mankind, every way that people can die. The horse represents, therefore, an awful reality, a frightening thing. This is the power sent forth by Christ that causes lives to be snuffed out each day, every minute of the day. And this is something that affects everyone, ungodly and believers alike. No one can escape death. Death enters into every home, into every family, and into every life. Most often, the elderly die today, but sometimes also the young, children, and even those in their teens. And we shouldn't be surprised by this. God said to Adam and Eve when he warned them, or when he commanded them concerning the eating of the trees in the Garden of Eden, and warned them concerning the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. They die. They are no longer living. And that's been happening ever since because the wages of sin is death. The soul that sinneth, it shall die, God says. We shouldn't be surprised by this because this is the will of God. This is in the scroll. This is in that which represents the counsel of God, and God is sovereign over life. He is the Lord that gives and the Lord that takes away. Our times are in His hands. And now Christ sends forth this reality, opens the seals of this scroll, and causes the reality of death in all of its forms to exist in this world. Death abounds. It is appointed unto man once to die, Hebrews 9.27. That's a divine appointment. that no one can avoid. Concerning the extent of that death, the text says that this horse and its rider have power over the fourth part of the earth, a quarter. Now, that a quarter is mentioned or a fourth part is mentioned does indicate, first of all, that the power of this horse to kill is limited. The horse is not given the right and the authority by God and through Christ to kill everyone at once. to wipe out the entire human race. Now the time is coming, near the end of time, as we will see later in the book of Revelation, that the number who are killed will increase. Here a quarter is mentioned, but the increase mentioned in Revelation 9 verse 18 is one-third, a greater amount. But for now, God's decree and the hand of Christ in executing the decree of God limits the power of death to one quarter. As regards that quarter, it is not to be understood literally. This is a vision that is full of symbolism, and it must therefore be the case that we interpret this quarter or this 25% And the point being made really by this one quarter or a fourth part is that a quarter really is a large amount. A sizable number of people die through the power of... Although the power of death is limited. limited to a quarter, death is still a great power and still extensive. Death in every nation of the earth and death in every family and household. Earthly lives ending everywhere in the world in large amounts. That's something that the facts of history bear out, too. occurs in an astounding number on account of warfare, one of the means by which this horse and its rider brings lives to an end. Civil wars and revolutions and world wars. In the 20th century alone, some 200 million people have been killed through warfare. And that continues. Wars continue to go on. as brought about by the red horse we noted earlier. And then you can add to that even the sword of abortion, millions being killed each year. The same is true of hunger and famine. Over 700 million people in the world living today are living in hunger, 700 million, who have little or no food. many of them starving to death, especially the children. It is estimated that some 10,000 children die each day because of hunger and its effects. And that's just the children. Then there are the many deaths because of natural disasters, because of earthquakes, and because of floods, and because of storms, and tsunamis. And then the countless numbers of deaths through infectious diseases, epidemics that come. The epidemic that came recently is really nothing in comparison to those that have occurred in the past. The Black Plague in the 1300s killed between 30 to 50% of the population in Europe. It's just an estimate, but between 75 to 200 million people were killed by the Black Death. Death and dying is a reality. Death and dying takes place in great numbers. The average is that 60 million people of the world's population die every year, 60 million a year. That's the reality of death. Death from the hand of God through the direction of Christ. Because of that reality, mankind tries to circumvent or overcome the power of death. Man tries to do that by eradicating or eliminating the causes of death, tries to do that by establishing world peace and eliminating warfare, tries to do that by discovering and using new medicines and new cures for sicknesses and disease so that they will no longer kill as many as they did. Man does that also by predicting and trying to avoid or even reverse the natural catastrophes that come and that God sends. And man tries to overcome death also through his efforts to feed all of the hungry in this world. And we no doubt are interested in those things too. And that's not per se wrong, not necessarily wrong, depending, of course, upon what one's motivation is to try to deal with those things. But this is clear. The text points out to us that no one is able to stop the power of death, and no one can avoid the reality of death. And any achievement that mankind might make to restrain the power of death, to hold back the power of death, simply postpones the inevitable. Death will come. And death will come for everyone. And death will come for you and me as well. God has willed it, and Christ directs it, and it is appointed unto man once to die. For the ungodly, death is a very fearsome and fearful reality. And it is a fearful reality for the ungodly because death for them is punishment. The hand of God is in death to bring upon them the wrath of God. Death is for the ungodly a fearful thing because they will, through death, come face to face with God, their maker and their judge. They fear death. And death is a very fearful thing for the ungodly also because death not only brings them to the grave and to the end of earthly life and to the end of all that they set their hope upon and that they put their trust in, but the reality is that death brings them beyond the grave to hell. Even if they deny that hell exists, that is the reality for them. And that makes death a fearful thing for the ungodly, total hopelessness for them as regards death. But who can deny that we also fear death at times? or even often. We fear death perhaps because death will separate us from everything earthly, earthly relations and earthly family and earthly goals and earthly hopes and earthly experiences and earthly joy. We perhaps fear death because we understand that death will be a violent separation and tearing apart, as it were, of body and soul. We perhaps fear death because we don't really know what death will be like. There are unknowns concerning it. But we also fear death because of what we observe. It's an awful thing to see children starving. It's an awful thing to see so many victims of crime and war and disasters and disease and all the suffering that they experience as death becomes all the more clearly inevitable for them. And it's certainly painful to us to hear of the numbers of murdered children every day through abortion. And death is to be feared from a natural point of view because of the suffering that leads up to death. The sickness, the pain, and the slow process sometimes of dying. Death is a difficult thing. It's difficult to lose someone in death. The grief can be immense and long-lasting. And we may ask, why? Why all this death? What is God's purpose? What is the purpose of Christ through death? Why does he send it? Well, first of all, as regards the purpose, the purpose of death is to allow the gospel to advance. That's the main thing, the white horse of the gospel, and this horse and the power it represents is subservient to the running of the white horse. And it's subservient to it and serves it in the same way that the red horse and the black horse serve it, namely that it prevents the Antichrist from establishing his kingdom already. Death means this, death means that every person and every generation in this world really has only a brief, short time to live on this earth, a short time and a brief time for the wicked to do their evil work. a brief and a short time for the ungodly to be instrumental in preparing things for the coming of the Antichrist. And what makes that clear is when we think of the times before the Flood. Then men lived into their six and seven and eight and 900 years of age, and that explains in part if not in the largest part, why we read in Genesis chapter six that there were giants in the earth in that time. And we're not speaking there in Genesis six of physical giants, but men who were giants in their wickedness and their ungodliness. Men like Lamech who married three wives and who boasted of his murder of others, and others who were like him, men great in wickedness and ungodliness, living hundreds and hundreds of years, having much, much time in their lifetime to develop their attacks against the church and the people of God, and to be instrumental in the hands of the devil to try to destroy the church. And that's almost what happened. There were only eight souls left, saved by God in the flood. And that really forms the background for what God says about the age of men in Genesis chapter 6 verse 3. The Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that He also is flesh, yet His days shall be in 120 years." God lowered the age. God shortened the time that men and women would ordinarily live in this world, and God did that for the sake of the church. And so now, people die at a younger age than they used to. Wicked and powerful men are taken away by God out of this life. And therefore they are limited in what they can accomplish in their efforts against the church and against the people of God. They are limited in what they can do to prepare this world for the coming of the Antichrist. Limited in what they can accomplish to bring about the anti-Christian kingdom. The Antichrist, therefore, will not come before his time, which will be just before the end of time. Death is a means that God uses and that Christ uses to that end. Secondly, as far as purpose, death prepares the wicked and the ungodly in this world for the end. and for judgment, prepares the wicked world for the judgment day. And it prepares them for the judgment day because now they fill up the cup of iniquity, as they are so often the ones who are guilty of killing others, murdering others, through all the different ways in which they do that. filling up the cup of iniquity, making themselves ripe for judgment, even doing so by how they react to the reality of death, and try to defy God when the reality of death is faced by them. Death, a means to prepare the wicked for judgment day. But thirdly, death has a good purpose, a positive purpose for the people of God, especially in two ways. First of all, this, that the death of others is good for the people of God. The death of fellow believers is good for us. And it is good for us and is a blessing for us because it prepares us for glory. The death of others, as God uses that to put us before the reality of death and to put our minds on what comes for the child of God after death, is a means that God uses to make us long all the more for glory. The death of others has a sanctifying effect on the believer. That's described very specifically in Ecclesiastes 7. Ecclesiastes 7 verse 2, it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting. For that, namely death, is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better. I say again, a sanctifying effect. When others die, And when, as Ecclesiastes 7 touches on that, when we attend the funerals of other believers who have passed into glory, then by faith our eyes are lifted up to heavenly things and to the heavenly life. We consider the things that really matter for us. We ponder more and more the things that await us at the end of this earthly pilgrimage, and that increases our longing for the end. So that even this can be true, the child of God who lives by faith and in whom the Spirit works that longing can be jealous of those who have gone on before us. and who die in the Lord. That first of all, but then secondly, we understand and know that our own death is a blessing and will be a blessing. And that because on the basis of the work of Christ, our death will bring us to glory. Our own death in the end is for our benefit. Christ has changed what death is for his people. And death, while for the sinner, is ordinarily the way to face the judgment of God forever in hell, because Christ went to hell for us Death is the doorway to heaven for us. We're delivered from this valley of the shadow of death through death. We're delivered from all the suffering and evil of this life through death, and we're delivered through death from sin. Death is when we will be perfected and transferred to our home in the heavens and brought into the house of many mansions that Christ is preparing for us. Our own death will be a great blessing. Therefore, as we live by faith, We are delivered from the paralyzing fear of death that characterizes the ungodly. There's good news for us about death because of Jesus Christ, who experienced death and all of its horrors in our place. There's good news for us about death because Christ has conquered sin, our sin, and conquered death and the grave, our death and our grave for us. They have no power to destroy us anymore. And on account of Christ's victory, we confess death for us is swallowed up in victory. We confess with the Apostle Paul, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. And we understand the words of Psalm 23 when it speaks of our walking through the valley of the shadow of death that Psalm 23 is speaking of simply the shadow of death. Speaking of death that way, death as casting a shadow, to make clear to us that the shadow is not the same as the reality. The reality of death is that it is an awful thing. It is the punishment of God upon the sinner. It is an awful thing for the ungodly. The ungodly are not simply walking in the valley of the shadow of death. but the ungodly are walking in the valley of death. Because Christ has changed death, we walk in that which is merely only the valley of the shadow of death. And so we can taunt death as I mentioned earlier. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting is gone, And the victory of the grave over us is gone because we belong to Christ. Yes, death affects us. We suffer according to the flesh when death comes. We grieve and we mourn, but we are victorious through Christ. We have nothing to fear. We will be taken to glory, to our home, and to the place that is our hope. And then, in righteousness at last, we will see the glorious face of Christ, and we will be satisfied. Amen. Father in heaven, and our God and Savior through Christ, We are thankful for the salvation that we have, a salvation also from death and from the grave and from them being the doorway to hell. They, having become for us by thy grace instead the doorway to heaven. Give us that hope and let us live in light of that hope. In Christ's name, amen.