We're going to read where even the saints of heaven are a part of the advancement of the victory of Christ's kingdom, Revelation chapter 6 verses 9 through 11. And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar, the souls of the people who had been slaughtered on account of the word of God and on account of the testimony of the lamb, which they held. And they cried out with a loud voice saying, how long Oh, sovereign, holy, and true until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the land. So a white robe was given to each of them and they were told that they should rest a while longer until both their fellow slaves and their brothers who were about to be killed, just like they were, should complete the number. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. It is our joy to study it, to try to understand it, to try to live it out. And we pray that you would bless the Church of Jesus Christ worldwide with increased understanding of your word, increased desire to practice it, and a holy passion to seek first your kingdom and your righteousness. We pray for your blessing with us. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. Well, this passage gives us an incredible theology for the persecuted church, and we're going to definitely spend some time on that later on in the sermon. But before we even get to that subject, I want to explain four things that I believe will help to make the rest of the book more understandable. It'll take about 25 minutes to go through the introduction, so don't worry. It's not going to be that long of a sermon. But, probably about 45 to 50 minute sermon, but I'm going to spend a lot of time in the introduction because if you can clearly understand the stuff we're going to go through, there's four points but two of them especially major points, I think a lot of the rest of the next few chapters will fall into place. So let me outline why we're going through each of these. The first part of the introduction is going to be dealing with timing. First two words in the Greek of verse 9 are literally, and then. Not and when, as our translation has it, but and then. And they indicate an immediate sequence So I'll start this morning by giving a three-minute review of where we have been up to this point, first eight verses, and I'm doing that so that you can be convinced again that the dating of this is precise when we say when verse nine is beginning. Second, since the Great Tribulation begins in these verses, I want to give an overview of how this passage relates to the rest of the book, and that's going to be the chart that's on the back of your outline. And then third, since these verses imply that the land, and that's a reference to the land of Israel, brought the persecution And because he's going to be dealing with so many references that make that connection very, very explicit, I want to show this Jewish connection to the tribulation. I mean, later on he's going to be showing Harlot Israel riding the beast, basically directing the beast, Nero, where he should go and persecuting Christians. But their control of Nero begins in the year that this verse begins, verse 9. And that's why I'm really wanting to set the groundwork by giving a much more lengthy introduction. There's a convergence of a large number of factors that result in the Great Tribulation. And then fourthly, I'll take a minute or two to talk about imminency. So first let's look at the connection of this paragraph to what we have already been through. Now we saw in chapters four through five that it is relating to the ascension of Jesus Christ to the right hand of the Father in 30 AD, so you would expect that the next historical event is going to take place in that year, and it does. In 30 AD we see that this demon is unleashed upon Tiberius and it's not unleashed upon him in his earlier reign, but there was a major change, a switch in his personality that occurred in 30 AD. So that goes 30 through 37. The next demonic writer of verses 3 through 4 was allowed to afflict Caligula during his reign of 37 through 39. And we saw how perfectly the symbols and the details line up with the life of Caligula. Now some have wondered, Phil, when you give these dates, there seems like there's a gap that occurs between verse 4 and verse 5. Why does verse 4 end in 37 and verse 5 begins in AD 41? And the reason for that is even though Caligula was celebrated in his early part of his reign, he was so hated by the end of his reign that the Senate decided they weren't going to have emperors anymore. They're going to return back to the way it was under the Republic. And yet the army wanted to put Claudius into power. And so there was this power play going on between them. And finally the army succeeded in persuading the Senate that it would be a good thing to put Claudius on the throne. So there is this gap that happens. and it's 41. Did I say 37 earlier? I meant 39. So there's this gap between 39 and 41. Well, Caligula Then, I mean, Claudius begins reigning in 41. He's installed as emperor and he reigns until 54. And he is the emperor that we showed on all of these different coins that show him holding those pair of balances in his hand that this verse refers to. It's a symbol of economic justice, but we saw that it was actually economic fascism and it was a form of judgment. All of these four horsemen Even though they impact Israel, they are primarily judgments upon Rome. We need to understand them as that. Then the fourth demonic horseman actually had another demon riding with him. And both of those demonic leaders infected the heart of Nero in 54 AD. And we saw that the language of verses 7 through 8 very clearly ties that section to the early part of his reign, 80, 54 through 61. And you might wonder, Phil, how do you know it can be so precise? Well, it's because of the language related to this description of Nero. 8054 through 61 was the time when those horse coins were being developed that were debased with copper and they turned green very, very quickly. So it was the period, they were not minted later, this was the period when you had the green horsemen of Nero and you had it on coins everywhere. And this was also the time when he minted coins, where he identified himself with the god Thanatos, which is the Greek word for the name Death here, as well as the god Hades. And this verse indicates that Death and Hades were the names of the two demons who infected Nero. So there is a perfect match with the fourth horseman and Nero via the coins that they had in their pockets at that time. I think they would have picked up on these identifications very, very quickly. But the important point is that these particular coins represent the early part of his reign, 54 through 61. If you read up on the antiquities experts, it is very precise techniques. And we looked at some of the techniques that they used to measure the dates of these coins. And so the symbols, I think, give us a real precision for the dating of each of these seals. So that makes the fifth seal of verse 9 start in AD 62. And that's a very important date for understanding the book of Revelation. That year started the Great Tribulation. Now the church has always had persecution. but never on the level that it had in year AD 62 and following. Now John is gonna continue describing the Great Tribulation all the way through to the end of chapter seven, which is partway through AD 66. So if you're keeping track of these dates, AD 66, partway through that is at the end of chapter seven. So it was no longer, I think both Israel, maybe I should say it this way, both Israel and Rome had intended the persecution to last longer, but as Jesus words it in Matthew 24, it was cut short for the sake of the elect. Now I put a chart in the back of your outlines that I may regret having given you this early because it does raise a level of complexity that could be confusing this early on in the book. But if you get confused, just anchor your eyes on the green shaded box, okay, which represents a seven year covenant that Rome made with Israel that was supposed to have lasted from 62 through 70. I think that's probably the most relevant section of this chart going all the way through to the end of chapter seven. But for those of you who like the big picture, let me try to explain some oddities that have led to different views on the relationship between the Great Tribulation and the Great Wrath. And I think it'll help you to be sympathetic to some of the differences of opinion out there, but I think it'll also help you to see, wow, all of the little pieces do fit together rather beautifully. Some commentators confuse the Great Tribulation with the Great Wrath. In other words, they confuse the green box with the yellow box. And you can see why. They overlap. Others distinguish the Great Tribulation from the Great Wrath properly, but they see the whole period as going concurrently at the same time. So they do understand that the Great Tribulation is only against Christians, and the Great Wrath is only against the unbelieving Jews in Israel. They understand that, but they see them as happening at the same time, and that's understandable too, especially given some of the numbers that we see at the bottom of the chart. Others have Daniel's 70th week only in the green box of the Great Tribulation. Others, like myself, have Daniel's 70th week starting three and a half years later, three and a half years into the Great Tribulation, and being only the yellow box. So this is one of the most confusing topics when trying to harmonize Daniel and Revelation. I believe Daniel and Revelation are quite precise in their use of timing, sequences, and language, but you do have to pay attention to all of the little time markers that are given in those passages. Now if you go to the bottom of the chart, you'll notice some remarkable coincidences in history that have made people jump to the wrong conclusions. At least in my opinion, they've jumped to the wrong conclusions. You'll notice that there is a 1290 day period that some have referenced that goes all the way up to the Roman general Titus entering the land, not yet fighting, but entering the land of Israel. And so that's made some people interpret all references to 1290 days as that period of time. But there's also a 1290 days that goes from the burning of the temple up until hostilities against Jews ceased throughout the empire worldwide. Then there's a 1,335-day period that begins in the month of Av in AD 62 and ends the day that Titus begins his siege against Jerusalem. Well, some people interpret that as being the 1,335 days that Daniel 12 talks about, and you can see why. Now, the problem is if you look at history, the history books you'll see that there is exactly a 1,335 day period from the day that the temple was burned up until the fall of Masada, the last stronghold in Israel that Rome took down. I think that, by the way, is the only 1,335 days that the scripture had in mind. But the temple was burned on August 3, 70 A.D., and Masada fell 1,335 days later on March 30 of 74 A.D. And then there's two 1260-day periods, and I also want you to notice that there's two periods of time exactly seven years long. And that has led some people to put all of their eggs into one basket or the other, and understandably so. When you see that there is some historical evidence that fits what the scripture talks about, then it's very easy to try to force all of the rest of the evidence into that box, either the green box or fit it all into the yellow box. Now let me focus first of all on the view of several early church fathers. They saw everything as being fulfilled in that green box. The green box represents a seven-year covenant between Rome and Israel. That's referenced by the church fathers, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Ambrosiaster, Isidore of Seville, Ishidad of Merv, Andrew of St. Victor, Peter of Blois. Those are some of the church fathers who have said that this was Daniel's 70th week. In other words, this was the last seven-year period of prophetic history that Daniel had referred to, and some modern writers see it that way as well, and it is true that Rome's covenant with Israel gets broken smack dab in the middle of that period. 62 to 66, 66 to 70, so they break it up into two periods of time. Now that coincidence just seems too strong to just be a coincidence in the minds of some people, and so they tied Daniel's 70th week with the Treaty of Rome from 62 through 70. And I respect that opinion. I think it's wrong, but I definitely respect it. At least it understands that we have to account for a seven-year period in Daniel 11 through 12, as well as in Revelation. Many modern preterists completely fail to see that. They've only got one three-and-a-half-year period. And what is particularly attractive about the viewpoint of those early church fathers is that there is a perfect and uncomplicated symmetry. Much more simple than my view. That's what makes it so attractive. Very, very attractive. On their view, the first half of the seven years is the great tribulation against Christians. The second half of that seven year period is the great tribulation against, I mean the great wrath against Jerusalem. And honestly, I wish that they're mapping out of this woodwork because it is so much easier to explain. It's a very simple, straightforward approach. Now, I do not at all question the historical covenant that Rome and Israel made with each other in 62 AD. And I don't question that Israel was authorized by Rome to persecute Christians and to to kill Christians for a period of seven years. I've got several in my footnotes, I've got several lines of historical evidence that show Rome taking away Israel's right to the death penalty in 30 AD, then reinstituting their right to engage in it in 62, and then taking it away again in 70 AD. So there clearly was a seven-year agreement between Rome and Israel. I think those church fathers were right on that. The only thing I question is whether that was Daniel's 70th week. I see Daniel's 70th week as lasting from 66 to 73, that's the yellow box, and the 1,335 days extending a few days beyond that to March 30 of 74. And as I pointed out in the Daniel series, I think the facts perfectly mesh with the facts of Daniel. So if you understand some of the historical background, you might wonder how on earth I am going to explain the fact that there are two 1,290-day periods, there's two 1,260-day periods, two 1,335-day periods, and two seven-year historical periods. And we're not talking about exegesis here. We're just talking about some amazing coincidences in history And how do I deal with those coincidences? I've seen commentators who try to fit everything into the green box, and others who try to fit everything into the yellow box. But really, both of those boxes are addressed in Scripture, and all of those dates, I think, fit the facts very well. Here's what I think is going on. The yellow box represents the seven years that Daniel predicted that Rome would fight against Israel. But the green boxes show how Satan came up with his own seven year plan to exterminate the church, only he started it three and a half years early. So the green box shows the diabolical treaty between Rome and Israel that allowed the Jews to do two things. For the first time in over 30 years, Jews were once again allowed to exercise the death penalty for blasphemy, apostasy, and all of the capital crimes that are listed in the Old Testament that they had been prohibited from 30 AD and on. It was given to them. The historical record, I think, clearly shows Israel exercised that right from 62 through 70, and the church fathers attribute that to a treaty with Rome. The second thing that Rome allowed the Jewish leaders to do was to use those laws to exterminate the church. This was no longer a persecution of Christians, this was an authorized attempt at the genocide of the church. And that leads me to the next part of the introduction. That treaty explains why the early church fathers blamed Nero's persecution on the leadership of the Jews. A lot of people have been puzzled by that. They say, that's Rome. Why would they be blaming that on the Jews? It also explains why both the reference to the altar and the reference to the land are two of numerous references in this book to Jewish persecution. Now Chilton says of the altar, If the martyr's blood is flowing around the base of the altar, it must be the priests of Jerusalem who have spilled it. The officers of the covenant have slain the righteous. As Jesus and the apostles testified, Jerusalem was the murderer of the prophets, and he gives several verses. The connection with the blood of Abel crying out from the ground near the altar is another indication that this passage as a whole refers to a judgment upon Jerusalem. And John's use of the temple term for slaughter, it's used for the sacrifices. The slaughter of the sacrifices, I think, would tend to support Shulton's conclusions. But what is more explicit is the expression, the land, in verse 10. That phrase is used throughout this book to refer to the land of Israel. So even though in chapter six he's been dealing with judgments upon Rome, even though he's gonna deal with more judgments upon Rome later on, there is a great deal of the book that deals with judgment upon Israel. And so the question arises, did Israel really deserve the kind of punishments that are described in such brutal detail later on in this book? Was Israel really guilty of the blood of all the saints who died during this period? And the answer is yes. The book of Acts shows the Jews fighting against the Christians and Rome actually initially defending them. And even when Rome began its persecutions in AD 62, this book shows the harlot Israel riding the beast, directing the beast in its persecutions of Christians. It was Babylon Israel who sat upon the seven hills of Rome. It is Babylon Israel who becomes Rome's prophet. Now, I'm not going to develop this theme fully today, but I do want to at least introduce you to some of the ideas that are going to become much more clear later on in the book. Jewish alignment with Rome had started much, much earlier in the empire. And there's more and more scholarship that is drawing this out. For example, I've got a picture of a coin, and actually there were more than one coin minted, that shows Herod Achalcus and Herod Agrippa crowning the emperor Claudius. That is absolutely remarkable that two Jewish kings are putting a crown on Claudius' head. I mean, it just gives you a little bit of a hint of a lot, just a whole body of literature of the enormous influence that had already been happening earlier. So the influence was happening in the empire earlier, but this is something different. This is something much more that's going on. In any case, a large number of events converged in that year to turn this into the Great Tribulation, and let me list out six of them for you. Nero had fallen in love with the Jewish wife of another man. Her name was Papaea. She actually seduced him, was trying to manipulate her way into influence in the court, and she talked Nero into divorcing his wife Octavia and eventually murdering her. Poppea married Nero in AD 62. Now this marriage was a turning point in Roman-Jewish relations, absolutely filling the court of Nero with Jewish advisors and even entertainers like the Jewish actor Alatarius, who had a huge influence upon Nero. Josephus mentions an example of how he got his way with Nero using that Jewish actor. But before Jewish advisors were able to become this influential over Nero, he had to get rid of his mother. because his mother was an opposite influence, and he had to get rid of two of the advisors from his youth who had been used by God to restrain some of Nero's worse aspects. He'd already murdered his mother. The two men who had such influence upon him were the Stoic philosophers, Burrus, who was poisoned by Nero in 8062, and Seneca, who was allowed to retire to the countryside rather than dying in AD 62. And both of these men had resisted Jews prior to this time. With their opposition gone, with his mother gone, the Jewish portion of the imperial court had a free hand. So in AD 62, we have the death of Burrus, the retirement of Seneca, the marriage to Poppea, a flooding of influential Jewish people into his court, Nero granting Israel the right to the death penalty for blasphemy and for apostasy, and Rome coming into a seven-year pact with the Jews for the extermination of the Christians. Now if you had lived in 66 AD when John wrote that book, I think you'd been quite familiar with these convergence of events that had happened four years earlier. I think it was common knowledge. But I've needed to take these 20 minutes or so to fill you in on this because I think for the most part, people nowadays are not as familiar with that. Now in any case, Josephus speaks highly of Poppaea's influence over Nero. as does the Talmud. In fact, the Talmud claims that Nero converted to Judaism and became the father of one of their most famous rabbis. I mean, this is just in their own documents that you see this. Now, I'm very skeptical that he actually converted. Some people say he couldn't possibly become a Jew. Maybe he became a God-fearer and became the father, but there was a huge influence there. Now, the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 says Jews were well-received at court And Poppea was always ready to second Jewish petitions before the emperor. And it goes on to give several examples. The more recent Jewish Virtual Library gives several examples of the influence of Jewish advisors over Nero on Israel's legal disputes. So, in any case, the more you delve into the Jewish influence in Nero's court, the more you begin to realize why it was that the church fathers, all of them, blame Nero's persecutions upon the Jews. A lot of people read that and they think they must have been anti-Semitic or something. They were not. They were simply appealing to very well-known facts. They're appealing to the fact that Jewish bankers, philosophers, rabbis, counselors had gotten Nero to approve of their persecution of the church. They'd convinced Nero that Christians were an incredibly dangerous cult. And if you want to do some introductory reading, I recommend Ken Gentry's book. navigating the book of Revelation. He doesn't bring up some of the stuff I've brought up here, but he does give some other very, very interesting stuff. Now, the last thing I want to point out is that this Great Tribulation was not at the end of history, like many people say, but was imminent. We've already seen numerous indications of imminency in this book, but take a look at verse 11. So a white robe was given to each of them, and they were told that they should rest a while longer until both their fellow slaves and their brothers who were about to be killed, just like they were, should complete the number. So from John's perspective, this is not at the end of history. They're already undergoing the Great Tribulation. They've already had martyrdoms, and there are more martyrdoms that are about to happen. So the last martyrdoms of the Great Tribulation was imminent. And they're going to be described in the second half of chapter 7. So with all that as a background, I want to look at the persecution in verses 9 through 11. And I want to ask the question, was the cry of the martyrs heard by God? And I think the answer is a resounding yes. And that answer gives comfort and motivation to the Church of Jesus Christ of any age to ask for vengeance and to expect a positive answer in history. Let's take a look, first of all, at the comfort that God's sovereignty would bring. The first words say, and when he opened the fifth seal. The he is a reference to Jesus. Jesus is the one who's been opening up every one of these seals, which means Jesus is the one who's in charge of the events of history, the movements of history that are here. He is the sovereign over history, and this section indicates He's the sovereign over persecution of believers. And you might say, why would that bring me comfort? Well, it brings you comfort because it means that life is not out of control. It is not meaningless. It is not controlled by Satan. It is not controlled by the Illuminati. It means that the enemies of the church cannot do a single thing to you unless it serves Christ's purposes. By faith, we can take comfort in that fact. It is a foundation for hope that our labors in the Lord are not in vain. And the martyrs who were in heaven, they recognize that. They call him O Sovereign in verse 10. They don't question the fact that he's sovereign over their persecutors. They do not see Satan as sovereign like so many Christians do today. God is sovereign. In fact, it's precisely because they are confident that God is sovereign that they cry out to him in the first place. They ask God to crush their persecutors with his vengeance. Now we call that an imprecatory prayer And we'll deal with the prayer a little bit later on, but here I'm just going to mention that it shows the church's confidence in God's sovereignty in history. Psalm 2 shows that Jesus rules over the nations of the world, and when they resist him and rebel against him, he smashes them with his rod of iron. He is the sovereign. Okay, he is the king of kings and the Lord of lords. Now, of course, there's a timing for judgment and rescue and verse 11 says this. So a white robe was given to each of them and they were told that they should rest a while longer until both their fellow slaves and their brothers who were about to be killed just like they were should complete the number. Now that last phrase speaks about a quota for martyrs in God's plan. In the first century, there was a quota and the devil could not kill one more person than what that quota was. Not one more person. God is sovereign over persecution. He is sovereign over martyrdoms. And the sovereignty of God is actually an incredibly comforting doctrine once you embrace it. Charles Spurgeon said, there is no attribute of God more comforting to his children than the doctrine of divine sovereignty. On the other hand, there is no doctrine more hated by worldlings, no truth of which they have made such a football as the great, stupendous, but yet most certain doctrine of the sovereignty of the infinite Jehovah. One of the surest ways of becoming bitter under persecution is to ditch the doctrine of God's divine sovereignty because such unbelief makes your pain meaningless. Okay? It makes it without eternal significance. If God is not in control, then none of it has meaning, but when you believe that God is sovereign over all of history, including events like Joseph being sold down into Egypt in order to preserve his people alive, then you know that he is sovereign over your difficulties. Therefore, you're good as well, and for the good of his kingdom as well. And so with Joseph, you can say to your persecutors, you intended it for evil, In other words, you don't excuse their behavior at all. But at the same time, you say, but God intended it for good. And that's the next major point, that God loves you and he cares for you in the midst of your sufferings. The reason that you're going through your hot furnace is not because God doesn't care about you or he's forgotten you. In fact, in the book of Acts, he says, how could he forget you? He says that when you are pained, Jesus is pained. Remember when he said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? When his people are persecuted, he feels persecuted. And I want you to notice the honored place that he gives to these martyrs. In verse 9 John says, I saw underneath the altar the souls of the people who had been slaughtered. Now he uses the term slaughtered, sfadzo, in connection with the altar to raise the imagery in the people's minds that the same priests who slaughtered animals for sacrifice That same Jewish system had slaughtered these people. Those animals were supposed to be expressions of faith in the coming Messiah, but because they had rejected the Messiah of the altar, They ended up slaughtering the people of the Messiah by their temple system. You either embrace the Messiah, pictured in the altar, or you end up opposing the Messiah and his people. There can be no neutrality. But at the same time, the altar and slaughtering also represents Christ's sufferings on our behalf. So for them to be under the altar indicates they share in his sufferings and it also indicates Christ suffered on their behalf. This I think powerfully shows their identification with Jesus as well as their rejection by the temple. But notice too that the faithfulness of these martyrs was noticed by God. For all time God memorializes the fact that they were, quote, slaughtered on account of the Word of God and on account of the testimony of the Lamb which they held. They held fast to those two things and God notices. The fact He notices shows He cares. Now as a side note, I would say if you don't love the Old Testament, And if you don't bring the Bible to bear in culture, then yeah, theoretically you could escape from persecution, and that's what many Christians do. They want to escape from slander and being sidelined and being discriminated against. They want to be liked by the world, and so they never bring God's law to bear in society because it's just too controversial. You'd be shocked at the number of evangelicals who refuse. I'm not saying that they don't believe against homosexuality, but they refuse to preach against homosexuality. Why? They know the backlash they're gonna get from the homosexual community. It's just not worth it to them. You'd be shocked at who the chief opponents, you know, Rodney earlier mentioned the personhood bill in his prayer. You'd be shocked who the chief opponents of those personhood bills are, state after state after state. You know, in North Dakota years ago, it was because of the National Right to Life opposition to a bill that would abolish abortion that it failed. It failed by a very close margin. It would have passed without their opposition. And in every one of these states, it's the National Right to Life and their affiliates that are opposing that. You scratch your head and wonder, why would they be opposed to bills and other kinds of bills that would completely abolish abortion? Well, they give three reasons, and they're all pragmatic. First of all, they say it won't work. You can't abolish abortion, so you shouldn't try. They claim that our efforts should simply be to make abortions more rare, but that it will hurt our cause if we try to abolish abortion. I cynically wonder if it would hurt their pocketbook. They'd be out of a job if it abolished abortion, but whether that's the case or not, who knows? But second, They say that bills such as the personhood bills in various states would make abortion come under the laws, punishing murder. And they don't want that because it's too controversial to call abortion murder. If a fetus is defined as a person, then that person in the womb has all the same rights as other persons, which immediately leads to the complication. Well, it's not a complication for us, but in their minds, the complication that we have to start treating abortion as murder and punishing abortion as murder. They don't want to do that. I say don't give a dime to the National Right to Life or any of their affiliates. They have completely sold out. Third, they say that such bills will hurt the chances of pro-life congressmen and senators from getting elected. In other words, they're not standing for God's Word and for the testimony of Jesus. They are standing on pragmatics and standing for the testimony that works and trying to avoid persecution. Now that may be one of the ways of avoiding the persecution in this passage, but it is not the way of winning the victor's robe that Jesus gave to these martyrs. You can't get the victor's robe in history or in eternity when you abandon God's Word or you abandon the gospel. These saints were slaughtered on account of the Word of God and on account of the testimony of the Lamb which they held. But notice too that in these verses the martyrs trust God's loving care enough to cry out to them, to cry out to Him. They are Christ-centric, not centered on the state or pragmatism or the favor of man. Now why even bother crying out to God if you don't think God is for you? You cry out to God precisely because he is the God who collects all of your tears, as it were, in his bottle. That's the way David worded it. He knows every one of your tears and the pains that you go through. He does not leave his persecuted people alone. Indeed, his wrath is directed against the church's enemies when the church is faithful to him. Now, I would say the exact opposite is true when the church does not hold to the Word of God and is embarrassed by the Word of God. He's embarrassed by them. In fact, his wrath comes against the church of Jesus Christ when it says, we're not going to bring God's Word and we're not going to bring the gospel into the public arena. What they've engaged in there is spiritual adultery. And the church deserves to be stoned. Spiritual adultery. His wrath comes against them. I'd much rather have God's care and love and favor even if it means persecution from the world. Now notice too that he gave them white robes of victory in verse 11. Commentators generally say those are white robes representing victory in the righteousness of Jesus. And notice that he doesn't just single out certain ones to receive that honor. It says, so a white robe was given to each of them. This reward that comes from God's hand, I think, illustrates the fact God honors the martyrs. If you read in the Church Fathers, you realize God honors martyrdom so much that the early church fathers were grieved when they didn't get the privilege of getting martyred. Some of them were too eager. They just turned themselves over to the authorities, please martyr me. That's not what you're supposed to do, you know, biblically. But they recognized there is a special honor for dying for Jesus. And the last indication that God cares for those facing persecution and martyrdom is that God gives these martyrs a well-deserved Sabbath rest. The dictionary defines the word for rest as to give relief from toil. Now all of these are indicators that God's sovereignty and His love go hand in hand in the life of a believer. If God loves you and He's sovereign in every providence and His love allows persecution, you know it's for your good. It's for a good purpose, and that's the last point, that their labors were not in vain, that their faithfulness contributed to the victory of Christ's kingdom. And I've outlined five things that show this victory. Notice that there's no question, no question in these martyrs' minds about whether God is sovereign, holy, or true to His Word. Instead they ask God, how long, O sovereign, holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the land? Now think about that phrase. If God is sovereign, He is able to judge our persecutors. If he is holy, he is motivated to judge our persecutors. In fact, he hates their evil far more than we do. He's very motivated to do that. And if he is true, he is bound by his word as the God who cannot lie to answer our prayers when we claim His promises and we pray for judgment, for vengeance. I think that phrase is just incredibly comforting to a persecuted Christian. Let me repeat what I said. If God is sovereign, He is able to deal with ungodly rebels. If He is holy, He is motivated to deal with ungodly rebels. If He is true, He is bound by His promises to answer the prayers of His church for vengeance. And I think that ought to be enough to convince us that yes, God brings judgments in history in answer to the prayers of His people. And that brings us to the imprecatory prayer that they utter. How long, O Sovereign, holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the land? These saints are crying out for God to bring the punishment upon Israel that this book goes on to describe in brutal detail. And periodically throughout the book, the saints in heaven rejoice over God's seven-year war against Israel. They rejoice over God's judgments on Rome. They rejoice that they have a just judge, a holy king, and a true prophet. Now evangelicals, in contrast, are horrified by prayers like this. And if you're horrified by this one, you're going to have trouble reading through the rest of the book because, man, it gets punchier and punchier as you go along. Some of the prayers later on, they are tough prayers. You cannot say that imprecations are just for the Old Testament or just in the Psalter. Jesus took those imprecatory prayers upon his lips. In fact, he's the one who wrote those imprecatory prayers, right? The church of Acts in Acts chapter 4 took those prayers upon their lips. The book of Revelation is chock full of imprecatory prayers. They are the nuclear weapons. Or in World War II, what was the bomb called? H-bomb, atom bomb, something bomb. that was dropped on Japan. I think we'd see a quick end to our spiritual World War II if we dropped, unified the church of Jesus Christ as a whole, began dropping these nuclear bombs upon the world and say, Lord, bring Your judgments upon the earth. He is holy. He is sovereign. And he is true, and so he is committed to answering those inspired prayers if the church will pray them. Now the sad thing is that even the persecuted church fails to do so. Why do the enemies of the church continue to prosper? I think it's because the church's prayers are unbiblical. James says that you have not because you ask not. If you do not ask God to destroy His enemies, why should He? Why should He remove that persecution? Now, it's true God can destroy the enemies. We've mentioned this many times before. He can destroy the enemies by converting them, in which case Christ bears that curse on their behalf. But what about all of the people who are not elect? Okay? He can't convert them. So if we're not willing to ask God for judgments, He cannot fully fulfill our desires to be done with persecution. I think we need to... I'll take this doctrine of imprecatory prayers seriously. Now by calling upon God to handle vengeance, it frees us up to love our enemies and to suffer persecution without bitterness. And Rodney alluded to that earlier. Vengeance is mine, I will repay. We're never to have vengeance in our hearts. We say, Lord, I can't do this, but you do it. I'm leaving this over to you. You protect us, Lord. And then God calls us to be soldiers who use the Bible as our weapon, love as our motive, and God's armor as our shield. And that's exactly what David did when he wrote the inspired and he prayed the inspired imprecatory prayers. He gave judgment into God's hands and it freed him up to love those that he was praying against. You know, I think still that he hoped that they would be converted and Christ would bear that judgment on their behalf. But when he was a magistrate, obviously, he had to be God's instrument of justice, God's instrument of vengeance. That's what Romans 13 calls a magistrate. But apart from that, we can leave it completely in his hands. Vengeance is a key component of the book of Revelation, and evangelicals must once again come to grips with that doctrine. Now, do victors sometimes die? Of course they do. God ordains that everybody dies. And I love William Wallace's response to the queen in the Braveheart movie when she tearfully worried that he would die if he didn't compromise. And his response was, every man dies. Not every man really lives. It is appointed unto man once to die. It's just that some have the incredibly great privilege of dying on the spiritual battlefield as martyrs. Their lives count and their deaths count. You should not fear death. I would rather die on the job for Jesus rather than shamefully abandoning my job and dying anyway. You're going to die one way or the other. Why not die with honor? I do want you to notice that their labors in the Lord were not in vain. They did not lose to Nero or to the Jewish persecutors when they died. They received a white robe of victory in verse 11. That speaks of triumph. Christ's kingdom was advancing invincibly so that Paul could say, now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ and through us diffuses the fragrance of his knowledge in every place, 2 Corinthians 2.14. He always leads us in triumph. Paul was triumphant in life. He was triumphant under persecution. He was triumphant in death. And notice, too, that this trial was for a little while in verse 11. I think that helps to give us perspective. Tribulation is not characteristic of all history, and certainly the Great Tribulation is not. When amillennialists insist that all of history is characteristic by this Great Tribulation, they're ignoring large blocks of church history, and they're certainly ignoring the last few chapters of this book where it's describing in the future long periods where there will be no tribulation. This kind of tribulation is characteristic of the times when Satan is still in charge but he is losing. He's losing the battle. Take a look at chapter 12 and verse 12. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you having great wrath because he knows that he has a short time. He knows he's losing. And that was the reason for his greatest effort to destroy the church. And he couldn't do it. He couldn't do it. The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church. And the numbers of Christians today compared to back then is staggering. That's why persecution is heating up in our own time. Satan is losing big time. More Muslims are coming to Christ on a weekly basis than have ever come to Christ. And the more that come to Christ, the more the Islamic demons fight back. Now, perhaps you know, perhaps they know that they have a short time in those Muslim countries. And so they fight back while they have the power to do so. But for me, this is an indication that the faithful church is having victory. The church in America, I think, has done the opposite. We've avoided the battle and we are losing. We're not faithful to the Word of God in the controversies of our day. The church has become like the world on feminism, feel-goodism, statism, economics, counseling, and other issues. And I think it's time for the church to repent and to become once again a church that holds fast to the whole Bible, to the testimony of Jesus Christ in culture. Coexistence, you've seen that bumper sticker, coexistence. Coexistence is not the goal. The transformation of culture by God's law word and by Christ's grace is the goal and that kind of a goal is going to get you into trouble, guaranteed. That kind of a goal will also get you into victory. We've got to have victory, right? Now, the ultimate proof that their prayers were being answered, I think, is the rest of the book. After a little wait, perhaps weeks or months, the war against Jerusalem would start and persecution against Christians by Jews would end. Within two years, Rome would fall apart, receive its greatest judgment ever. And that would prove to be a redemptive judgment that would lead to millions of people becoming Christians. These martyrs ask God to pour out His judgments upon the land, and God pours out the seventh seal, which ushers in, what, the seven trumpets, and the seven plagues, and the seven bowls of judgment that are poured out. So yes, God answered their prayers for judgment because they were willing to ask God for judgment. The interpretation that says they had to wait till the second coming for their prayers to be answered is ludicrous. It ignores the short while that they are told to wait. Several thousand years is not a short while. And that viewpoint ignores the fact that the chapters after this really are God's answer. And interestingly, even though God makes them wait for two years for the persecution to stop, He almost immediately gives them a sign that He's going to answer in AD 66. And next week, Lord willing, we'll look at that amazing event when the heavens seem to rip apart like a scroll. And they describe it that way. And meteorite showers coming to the earth and the the ground and all of the mountains shaking on the earth so that both the Romans, who weren't even in the land of Palestine, and the Jews thought that the world was actually coming to an end in 66 AD. Now it was simply a sign, and Josephus says it was a sign of the calamities that were about to come upon upon Israel, but I think the sixth seal is the answer, one part of the answer, to the prayers in the fifth seal. Now just as a side note, I want you to notice that the saints in heaven are not playing on harps all the time. right? They too are joining the armies of earth in both cheering us on and praying for our earthly victory. They're not just satisfied with escaping from earth, they still are interested in planet earth. It's not escapism. They're interested in planet Earth. They want Jesus to take over planet Earth. And their continued prayers, which they no doubt are continuing to pray right now, is becoming an increasing, increasing volume in heaven that should be joined by us with prayers of faith as well. Now to give you a heads up of where else this book is headed, as a result of the prayers of the saints, chapter 7 verses 1 through 8 speaks of the rest of the Jewish Christians being spiritually sealed on the foreheads by angels so that they cannot be hurt by demons and so that they will not be hurt by the great wrath that's about to fall upon Israel. In fact, that's one of the chapters, 7, the first few verses there, I think is one of the greatest answers to anti-Semites who say Israel has no more place. No, he spends a long time talking about literal Israelites whom he has redeemed and whom he cherishes and whom he loves. Those 144,000 saints left Jerusalem just as Jesus commanded them to do in Matthew 24 and Luke 21. They found security in the city of Pella in the region of Perea. And the flood of plagues and diseases and famines and wars and other disasters that came upon Israel completely, 100% missed them, completely. Just remarkable. And then Even though chapter 7 verses 9 through 17 speaks of continued martyrdoms of Gentile Christians that was going to occur for another two years, just two more years, They too were given the strength to die in victory and Nero will be judged, Rome will fall apart within two years. But in chapters eight and following is that war against Jerusalem. So did God answer the prayers of these martyrs? Yes, he did. He did so in a spectacular way and I think it ought to stir up the church of Jesus Christ in our own day to pray these kinds of prayers against humanism and statism and idolatry and persecution that we see today. We must not just passively endure. We should petition the sovereign who is able to destroy our enemies, the holy one who is motivated, who wants to destroy our enemies, and the true one who is committed by his promises to do so if the church will ask. May we as a church join the saints of heaven in doing so. Amen. Father God, we thank you for your word, and we thank you for the perspective that it gives, not pie in the sky, by and by, but Father, a holy warfare that you have called us to, and yes, there are sacrifices, and yes, there is suffering, and yet, we do not deem our lives to be valuable unto ourselves, we just deem them to be tools to be used for the advancement of your kingdom, so take us, Father, use us, and we pray that you would stir up the Church of Jesus Christ to cry out to you. We thank you, O Sovereign, that you are able to take out the enemies here in America, those who have killed millions of babies, those who have advocated for every kind of perversion and economic evil and political evil, and we pray, O God, Holy One, True One, that you would judge those who afflict the earth and that you would cause your judgments to take out those preachers who are on the vanguard of opposing your law and opposing the testimony of Christ being brought into culture. Do not allow them to even occupy the pulpits any longer. Either bring them to repentance, Father, and open the eyes of their understanding to preach the whole counsel of God or remove them out of the pulpits. And we pray, Father, that You would bring revival and reformation to Your church in a renewed vigor such as we saw in the first centuries of the church. Please, Father, have mercy upon the church in America and cause Your Word to triumph. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.