As I mentioned earlier, the Bible reading is not written in the bulletin today, it's a long reading. And so it's important for you to open the Bible today to Revelation chapter 6, beginning on page 1031 at the back of the pew Bible. Revelation chapter 6. I'm gonna read all of Revelation 6 and then skip over to Revelation 8, verses 1-5. We'll be skipping Revelation 7, which we'll deal with next Sunday. Please stand. A reading from the book of Revelation 6. 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 a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a 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. When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth. Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. When he opened the sixth seal, I looked And behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth. The full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth, and the great ones, and the generals, and the rich, and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling out to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand? When the lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer. And he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne. And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints rose before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth. And there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake. The word of the Lord. Gracious heavenly fathers, we open our Bibles to this mysterious passage that includes such dramatic imagery. We pray that you would send your gracious spirit upon us to Pry open our ears and hearts and give us grace, Father, that we might hear and see exactly what you want us to hear and see, that we would take away from this passage of your word a true and deeper understanding of all the world around us now and in the past and in the time to come. In Jesus's name, we humbly pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Please do keep the Bible open in front of you. I say that every Sunday and I really do mean it every Sunday because this is honestly my theory. I'm going to attempt to preach and teach what is here. But it'd be very helpful to me to know that you've got your Bible open in front of you because what I get wrong I want the Bible to teach you what is right. So we'll be looking at the Bible together. And that makes me have a great deal of hope and confidence, regardless of my limitations, that we will together hear God's voice. I'm a bit of a movie buff, and one of my favorite movies is a Swedish language film called The Seventh Seal. I forget how I first came in touch with the movie, but I've loved it for years and years. It was directed by Ingmar Bergman, came out around the year I was born in 1958, and it is a stunning movie. It is beautifully, beautifully filmed. It's in black and white in Swedish with subtitles, but it is so worth the trouble. It's called The Seventh Seal because it's Ingmar Bergman's reflection on the passage I just read. Ingmar Bergman was an interesting director who was raised in the home of a pastor. He was the son of a of a very distinguished Swedish pastor who actually became the chaplain to the King of Sweden. And he had raised his family in a very devout religious home, but apparently it was fairly legalistic and young Ingmar did not take away with him a living faith. He actually spent much of his life rebelling against the faith of the Christian church. Good news is that towards the end of his life, he had a bit of a change, and he embraced some of what he had long rejected. But this movie, early on in the late 50s, is this powerful depiction of some of the images and some of the ideas represented in Revelation 8. It's not a picture of what's described in Revelation 8, it's a reflection own life in light of Revelation 8. And it literally opens with the words of Revelation chapter 8. And so I've always admired this movie. I've always enjoyed looking at it. It's the story of a Swedish knight returning from the Crusades. So it's set in the medieval period. He was returning from the Crusades to Sweden and he finds his homeland, Sweden, enduring the Black Death plague. which killed about one-third of the population of Sweden. Can you imagine one-third of the whole country was killed? And so the movie opens with this crusader who's returned from the Holy Land fighting to liberate Jerusalem. He comes back and finds this terrible situation in his homeland and the rest of the movie is this unpacking of of him walking with his squire through medieval Sweden. It may not sound like an interesting movie, maybe it does to you, but it is actually beautifully done. And it's often listed as among the best, greatest movies ever made. So if you really have nothing else to do some weekend, rent The Seventh Seal and see what you think. I find it to be very interesting. But I did have some of that imagery in my head as I opened to Revelation 6 and 8. This picture, this very dramatic picture of judgment, this picture of the unfolding judgment, that's what is described here in Revelation chapter 6 and in chapter 8. Chapter 7 is a very, very important interlude, which has a complimentary but distinct message, and we'll deal with that next Sunday. And what we will find, actually, in the next several sections of Revelation, that's what John will do. He will give a series of six, there will be an interlude, and then a seventh. In fact, one of the headings in my sermon notes, you'll see, is sevens. There are a lot of sevens in Revelation. There are a lot of sevens in this middle section of Revelation, although it actually begins right at the opening of Revelation. If you remember, all the way back at the very beginning of Revelation, John describes these seven churches, seven angels, who are described in Revelation chapter one. This number seven shows up in the very first chapter of the book, and he uses this number all through Revelation. I've mentioned before, I'll mention again, that seven in the Bible generally, and certainly in Revelation, is the number of completion. It's like the seven days of creation. It's the number of completion, so like a week is seven days, the creation. from the first day of creation through the seventh day is a period of seven, describing the completion, the completeness of creation. And in the book of Revelation, seven is meant to call to mind this idea of completeness. John is borrowing from the Old Testament, and that had shaped his understanding. And so, moved by the Spirit, John uses this image of seven communicate an idea of completeness. And the seven spirits are mentioned, representing not seven individual spirits, but the completeness of the spirit. The seven angels are mentioned. They do have distinct personalities and distinct things they do, but they're meant to represent the completeness of the angelic host. And what we discover is these seven seals represent the completeness of what is being described. It's a complete picture. Interestingly enough, the first seven in Revelation chapter 6, this image of the seals, there are seven seals which are described in chapter six and the first part of chapter eight. Then there are seven trumpets beginning at chapter eight, verse six. Then there are seven bowls that are mentioned also later on in Revelation, beginning at Revelation chapter 16, verse one. Seven, seven, seven, each representing completeness. Let's think about that for a moment. Three different sets that describe an idea of judgment. That's what all three of these particular sevens have to deal with. The seals, the trumpets, the bowls are describing judgment. And I said last week, it is the wrathful judgment, but it's also the the scroll, which represents the wrathful judgment of God, which Hayden touched on last week. It is also the scroll, the day of the end of injustice. It's the day, the scroll, when God makes everything right. It's the scroll, the day when Jesus appears in fullness. So it is judgment, but it's a very complex picture that is being described here, this idea of completeness, whether we're talking about seals or trumpets or bowls, completeness. And there are three of them. What I want to suggest to you is that those three are meant to be describing interconnected things. And I'll make more of this in a moment, but that I want to suggest to you is the idea here that we're not being given three sets of seven things, each disconnected from the other. They're actually describing the same things. It's sort of like the four gospels. The four gospels are each distinct. They have their own message that the Holy Spirit moved the writer to record in the writer's specific gospel, but it's describing the same thing. And it's like that with the three sets of seven here. They're describing interconnected, overlapping realities, sevens. Let's think about the seven seals, which is the section in front of us. We'll have opportunity to think about the trumpets and bowls a bit later, but let's think about the seven seals. Look on page 1031 at Revelation 6, verse 1. 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. The bow, by the way, was not the kind Eric uses on his cello. It was a bow as a bow and arrow, a weapon. First horse had a rider who had with him a weapon of war and it says a crown was given to him and he came out conquering and to conquer. This is the first of the four seals which are sometimes called the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Albrecht Dürer did a wonderful set of woodcuts showing his imagined depiction of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Maybe you've heard of that expression. It shows up in literature as it did in Ingmar Bergman's movie. It's a well-known image in Western literature, Western art, this idea of these four first Characters in Revelation chapter 6, the first seal, the second seal, third seal, fourth seal, a white horse in verses 1 and 2, a red horse in verses 3 and 4, a black horse in verses 5 and 6, and a pale horse in verses 7 and 8, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. By the way, John, again, moved by the Holy Spirit, is here displaying some of his own reading in the Old Testament. Most of us don't know our Old Testaments very well, but John did, and the Holy Spirit certainly did. And in describing what John sees here in Revelation 6, he actually finds the language, and I believe this is what he saw, but he had categories for what he saw because of the Old Testament. Look, if you would, for just a moment over at Zechariah 1. Keep your finger in Revelation 6, but flip over to Zechariah 1, page 793. I don't know if John had a scroll of the Old Testament with him. He might very well have had, or he might have just committed it to memory. But if you look at Zechariah 1, verses seven and eight, on the 24th day of the 11th month, which is the month of Shabbat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, son of Iddo, saying, I saw in the night and behold, a man riding on a red horse. He was standing among the myrtle trees in the glen and behind him were red sorrel and white horses. Zechariah has a similar vision in chapter six, but he has these four horses, and they have representative significance in the book of Zechariah. Here they're actually described as horses who, in a sense, are on patrol. They're patrolling the world. Flip back to Revelation chapter six. John takes that image, these four colored horses, and he gives them spirit-inspired significance. In some ways, they're distinct from what Zechariah said. Same image, but the interpretation is different, related but different. Here, the first is not a red horse, but it is a white horse. And this white horse turns out to be one of the most controversial figures in Revelation, and certainly in Revelation 6, the rider of the white horse, who has a bow and a crown, and he comes forth to conquer and conquering. Some people look at Revelation 6, verses 1 and 2, and what they see here is Christ. You might know a famous song, The Man Comes Around by Johnny Cash. It's one of my favorite songs. He's basing it on Revelation chapter six. And he actually, in the beginning of the song, reads from Revelation chapter six, verses one and two. And as Johnny Cash envisioned it, as he was singing this beautiful song that became quite a hit in the end of his life, he describes this horse and this rider in terms of Christ coming around. And here at the beginning of Revelation 6, there are those who say, this is a picture of the conquering king, the crown on his head, and with the instrument of war in his hands, he's coming to bring victory and conquest to God's people. I love Johnny Cash. I think he got it wrong. The better understanding, I think, keeps with the imagery from Zechariah, and also keeps with some of the imagery here. It's hard to picture one of the four living creatures commanding Christ to come. That's not the way one of the four living creatures would address the lamb from the throne with an order, an instruction, come. And I've read some arguments about that, that that's not really true to the tone of what we read about in relationship between the four living creatures and the lamb who was slain, the Lion of Judah. That seems a little problematic. It's also problematic because each of the four horsemen are addressed in the same way, come. There's no differentiation between the first, second, third, and fourth. Come, that's what each of these four living creatures say. The better understanding, I think, is that this first horseman represents that which looks in some ways like the lamb, that which looks in some ways like Christ, dressed in white, a color which is used very often in the book of Revelation to describe purity. He comes appearing like the Lion of Judah, the lamb that was slain, but actually has a very different function. The conquest and the conquering, which he is coming to bring, as it's described in the second and third and fourth of the horsemen, describes not a period of victory for God's people, but actually a period of suffering. This first horseman is part of this unrolling, this revealing as the scroll is unrolled of this coming judgment where God makes everything right. But in the meantime, it involves suffering. What John earlier in the book of Revelation calls tribulation. not the tribulation, which you hear about sometimes, but tribulation, the struggles of life in this fallen, sin-infected world. So that's the interpretation I take. By the way, I take that also from Greg Beal, and I think Dr. Beal is, again, right on this, that that is what's described here in the very first. It is true that it is the least objectionable. The first rider, the white horse, is not described specifically in terms of some sort of suffering, but it's as though this first rider introduces this into the picture of Revelation 6. He begins it. He opens the door to it. He's the first to come through and he comes out to conquer. It's worth noticing, though, that he has a bow, but a crown was given to him. In other words, what he's doing here involves, in some sense, God having allowed him to do it. We'll see that again in some of the other descriptions of the other horses, the horsemen. They were given authority to do what they're doing. Doesn't mean that God stands behind it, but they come with the authority that he has allowed them to have. In fact, that's the theme throughout Revelation, that there's a God who sovereignly reigns over everything. And he's using everything for good. And this white horseman, the very first of the seals, is a picture of that. But he's not the only rider. Look at verse three. When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, come. And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider, notice this, was permitted. to take peace from the earth so that people should slay one another and he was given a great sword. So the white horseman who is given a throne makes way for the red horse who comes through and he is being permitted to take peace from the earth. It's sometimes said that he represents war, he represents this violence. This is the red horse, the second seal. Verse five, 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 a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine." So the horseman doesn't say these words. The angel doesn't say these words. Actually, these instructions, what's being described and what describes the purpose of this third horseman is given voice by one who is in the midst of the living creatures. And, of course, the living creatures are around the throne. The one who's in the midst of the living creatures is there on the throne. This is the voice from the throne describing the purpose of this third horseman who's bringing this unfolding judgment. White horse, the red horse. The black horse. And then finally in verse seven, 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 I've seen some translations describing a pale green horse. The idea is sort of a sickly horse. Pale horse. and its writer's name was Death, and Hades followed him. And then notice, they were given authority. over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and wild beasts of the earth." So here are these four horsemen of the apocalypse. No wonder they've got such a reputation. They represent the conquering introduction of this judgment, the red horse of war and violence, the black horse of pestilence and plague like in the movie. The plague, the bubonic plague, pestilence, sickness, famine, all sorts of need. Those are the images related to the black horse. And then finally, the sickly horse who actually has on it the rider named Death with Hades personified following him. And they were given authority. So you see, all four of these four horsemen They represent an unfolding judgment which God allows. God allows it. As a matter of fact, it's in the scroll. Remember, the scroll represents God's unfolding will. It includes judgment. All of this, according to John, as he sees it in Revelation, is according to God's holy will. Now why would John record this in a book that's meant to encourage? Remember, that's what Revelation's meant to do. It's not actually meant to terrify us. It has that effect sometimes, especially if we don't pay attention to where the book opens. So why is John moved by the Holy Spirit writing this description of these four horsemen, which sound like a complete collapse of God's plan, right? These are the worst things that can happen. They must run contrary to God's will. That might be what we would think without the help of the scriptures, specifically without the help of the book of Revelation. Because what Revelation tells us, what John is telling us, is that there is a God who reigns over all of this. He is permitting it. He has a purpose. He has a gospel purpose in it. So that's why it's here. In a world full of suffering, in a world full of so much suffering, it is extremely helpful, it's extremely important to remember that we have a God who reigns over it all and has actually good intentions related to all of it. Just like Good Friday is good, the unfolding scroll is good. We have to remember that, we have to understand that. I appreciated Vianney's leading us in our prayers. If you look at the prayers on page 11, it goes for the world, for our nation, for our church's mission and ministry, for one another. And we follow that pattern every week, and we have for a couple of years now. The idea is we move from the macro closer and closer to each of our individual lives, and we finish up by praying for one another. What Revelation 6 is actually doing is the reverse. It's taking us from our own experience of hardship and suffering, which is very real. There are people in this room right now who are going through hard times. There are Christians in the world today who are suffering for the sake of Jesus. And what Revelation 6 is doing is it's taking us from our own personal experience and projecting outwards showing how all of our individual experience of hardship and suffering is actually part of a cosmic plan, a cosmic plan of good for God's people. Have you heard about this Tesla character named Starman? I've been interested in Starman. He went out to space in 2017. Have you heard about this? It's a Tesla car. that was launched into outer space in 2017 and sent back over time pictures of the car as it was shown. And these are real pictures. People think they're doctored. They're not doctored pictures. They're pictures of a Tesla in space. And there's a mannequin wearing a space suit sitting at the wheel of the car. And as the Tesla goes further and further out in space, apparently there is positioned in front of the car a camera. And it takes pictures of the Starman, which is what they call this Tesla driver, Starman. And in the background is this increasingly wide picture of the Earth as it gets smaller and smaller. And you see more and more and more of the background. Well, putting aside the Elon Musk sense of humor, there's a little bit of that here. It's as though in Christ, John is allowed to see the big picture. The big picture. Well, picture I can't imagine. John is moved by the Spirit and given this vision, and he records it here to help you and me to understand that as we back up, as we begin to see the forest for the trees, we begin to see, oh, God's in charge. God knows exactly what he's doing. And that's where he goes from here. Look at what happens in verse nine. When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne." Let's pause for a moment. John has already said he's suffering with them. He is living through the tribulation with them. There was active persecution going on in the world when John wrote these words. He wrote these words to encourage suffering Christians. But he's allowed to see the suffering from 38,000 feet, from a cosmic angle. And he's allowed to see that the suffering, the hardship, the death, the pestilence, the economic hardship, all the things that are being described in verses one to eight, he's allowed to see that in the midst of it, He's able to see into the throne room, which he has been allowed to view. There's an altar there before the throne. And under the altar, what does he see? He sees the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God. And in verse 10, they're calling out, they're crying out with a loud voice. And notice what they say. Oh, sovereign Lord. Oh, sovereign Lord. I mean, don't say, oh Lord, why'd you take your hands off the reins? Or why did you let go? Why do you not care about us? Why do you not care about your suffering people in the first century or the 21st century? Isn't that a perennial question? I think that was the question that Ingmar Bergman had in his head. Why, why, why, why? He didn't read enough of Revelation. Oh, sovereign Lord. See, that's the answer to these mysteries, the mystery of suffering, the mystery of sin. There's a sovereign God. Who is reigning over it all, but notice how they call it to a sovereign Lord. Holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? Their question isn't why, why, why, why, why, why? Their question is, how long, Lord? How long? And when John wrote these words, it was something like 30, 40 years of hardship and suffering. In some ways, the most intense persecution of the church. In some ways, although the scholars say there are more people suffering for Christ today than at any point in human history. So whether it's the first century or the 21st century, We might very much relate with the question, how long, oh sovereign Lord? Holy and true. We believe it. We believe you're sovereign. We believe you're holy. We believe you're true. How long, oh Lord? That's a sensible question. It is worth asking. But I think it's very important that we listen to their answer. Look at verse 11. They were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer. You know, time is, as James Woods has taught me, is a relative thing. Einstein made that plain, time is relative. It's a relative thing. A little longer to God is very different from a little longer to me and you. But they're given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, and then notice why. until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete who were to be killed as they themselves had been. The reason why it's continued for 2,000 years is not because God has his hands off the reins. It's not because God doesn't care. It's because God cares intensely and he has a plan And it involves more people than you and I can imagine as chapter seven is going to make plain. And God is waiting intentionally until that full number known only to him has been reached. And I am so glad he is waiting until the full number of his sovereign purpose is complete. And it's interesting that it's in this period of suffering that God is actually permitting that our suffering becomes a tool in God accomplishing his purpose. You see, it says the world sees the way you and I suffer, whether it's persecution or whether it's the suffering of life. How do we endure it? How do we live it out? Are we like the rest of the world? If somebody crosses us, we pull out our sword or our gun and we're going to stand up for our rights. We're going to build bigger forts and bigger bombs. Is that the way we respond to suffering and hardship, whether it's Pestilence or economic hardship, whatever it may be, is that how we will respond? Well, the good news is that God's people, by the power of the Holy Spirit, have over the millennia been God's witnesses, have been Christ's witnesses. Imperfectly, sinners, we're all sinners. But God has used his people and their hardship for good. It's not relentless hardship. There's moments of light. There are lots of chapter sevens in the book of Revelation where we'll be reminded of God's goodness and faithfulness in the midst of suffering, specifically his love and mercy towards his people. But how do his people handle the suffering? God uses that. I'll give you an example of that. I've mentioned several times a book called The Triumph of Christianity. And it's a very helpful book. It's written by a sort of a liberal Christian, but he makes a wonderful point. And that is that the Christian faith has triumphed in history. because of the hardship the church has endured. It's actually through the suffering that the church grew. It's a well-known quote, the suffering of the martyrs, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. And that's exactly what happened as the church suffered, as the martyrs bore witness, just like John describes, as they bore witness. And John himself knew people like this. As they were faithful witnesses in the midst of hardship, God used them to bring other people to Jesus. And that's a word of encouragement and hope to you and me, that in the midst of our hardship, in the midst of our suffering, we are to stand together. We're to be witnesses together, whether our suffering involves active persecution or economic hardship or being judged by non-Christians, and brothers and sisters, I think we have some of all the above in our future at some point. I think there are indications some of that is in our future as well, certainly in the world, maybe here at home. But to each of us in the midst of our suffering, as we experience it, Revelation 6 reminds us that it is in our endurance, in our faithful witness, That as God gives us strength, he will use that to accomplish his loving purposes. That brings us to the fifth seal. Look at verse 12. When he opened the sixth seal, I looked and behold, there was a great earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth. The full moon became like blood and the stars of the sky fell to the earth. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island is removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains, and the rocks fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne. The sixth seal. is one of the fixed points in this unfolding revelation of God's sovereign will, the sixth and the seventh seal. In Revelation, the sixth thing describes something like this. It describes something like this cosmic display of judgment, the sky, the stars, these very dramatic images of cosmic judgment. You really have to get way, way out there to see this point in history. And then the seventh seal over in chapter eight, at which there's a silence, is culminated in the midst of all this unfolding judgment, there is a picture of a serene heaven where the saints and their prayers are in the presence of God, safe and secure, calling out to him in the midst of the thunder, in the midst of the rumblings, in the midst of the lightning and the earthquake. And we'll see this over and over again. I think the first through fifth seals describing an ongoing reality. The sixth and the seventh seals are meant to describe the end of all these things, the end of all things and the beginning of the new creation. That's what we're meant to take away, I think, from these series of sevens. You'll see it over and over again. They track each other very closely. They describe similar hardships, similar suffering, and similar peace, and similar security. And what that's meant to give us, I think, is this confidence that in the midst of all of this that is going on around us, it's true then, it's true today, just as true today as it was then, just as true then as it is today, this ongoing, complex unfolding of the reality of life that God is going to use for good, that in the midst of it all, you and I stand. That's how the passage ends, chapter 6, verse 17. The great day of their wrath has come. Who can stand? Who can stand? Well, chapter 7 is going to tell us. Chapter 7 is going to tell us. And it's us together. in the midst of all of this. Now I want to, just for a second, comment on the view on the scrolls as experienced in time. That's a very prosaic heading, but it's descriptive. Some people take the book of Revelation, in this passage as an example, as sort of a linear unfolding of historical dates, historical experiences. So the three different cycles of seven, 21, a long unfolding linear description of God's unfolding work in the world. And I heard a preacher in Houston, I went to David's baptism last Sunday, I listened to that. preacher's sermon on this same passage, he made the point that when looking at it that way, what you wind up with is something like 21 ends of the world. The world ends 21 times. If you look at it, it's this long, linear description of events because there's so many references to the end of the world. And if you insist on looking at it that way, what you wind up with is this very choppy sense of how God is at work with these constant endpoints happening repeatedly. But that is one way of looking at it. And there's a whole school of thought of theology that looks at Revelation as a linear description of a series of events. You try to figure out who is what and which modern technology equals which first century description of it. And you come up with some very clever answers. And that's nothing new. Christians have been engaging with the Book of Revelation for a long time, and so the Antichrist has been everyone from Nero to Hitler, and lots and lots of bad guys in between as they try to figure out who is the Antichrist. Well, it must be this bad guy, or this bad guy, or this bad guy. And there are those who look at the Book of Revelation that way. But I think it's more helpful, and I think it's more biblical to understand what's being described in Revelation chapter six, not as a linear progression of dates and names and historical events that we try to figure out, but if you look at the picture I have printed in the bulletin, it's this swirl, this interconnected spiral of reality. And I think what is being described in Revelation, well, it reminds me of what Ezekiel called wheels within wheels. Remember that from Ezekiel 1, another prophet that John makes a lot of use of, including the four living creatures. That comes from Ezekiel. Ezekiel, in his vision, described how God's work was accomplished in these wheels within wheels. And I looked that up, what does that mean? It's an image, what does it mean? It means this interconnected, complex, hard to discern series of things, events, identities, all kind of wheels within wheels that we can only understand as God reveals it to us. And I think what God here is doing is revealing to us the wheels within wheels of all of human life from the time John first experienced it, as it was revealed to him, to today and beyond. This ongoing spiral of all these experiences, all these things happening around us. Sometimes we're experiencing one, sometimes we're experiencing the other. Sometimes we're going through those periods of lightness, when the suffering is somewhere else for a season. We're going through this spiral, this interconnected, complex series of events and things going on in world history. And the further out you get, well, what you wind up with, I put a little picture of a scroll. Because if you look at the end of a scroll, what does it look like? It's that spiral. Spiral's a good way to remember this image. As you pull out, you actually begin to realize that there is a complexity to it, but from a distance, you can see the outlines of it. You can see what it's meant to do. And what it is meant to do, brothers and sisters, is Revelation 7, and then the end of Revelation. It has a purpose, and it is not to make us terrified. It is not to make us doubt God. It is not to make us cynical about God or skeptical about God. It's actually meant to give us hope and confidence and joy. And joy. That's why Revelation closes with a prayer, come Lord Jesus. Come Lord Jesus. And that's been the prayer of God's church For 2,000 years, come Lord Jesus. And the reason he hasn't come yet is because there's still one more, one more that he is determined to get that is part of his sovereign purpose. And you and I, we learn to wait on him and to trust his time, to trust that he knows exactly what he is doing. and we can be confident in Him, we can trust Him, even in suffering, even in the midst of the kind of suffering that leads to death, we can trust Him, we can depend on Him. Well, that's my prayer for all of us this Easter 2025, that we learn to trust the resurrected Christ, the Lamb who was slain for us.