second passage that we read from the Revelation and chapter 6. And in the chapter four times, John is invited to come and see. And when he looks he sees the advent of a horseman, four horsemen in succession, which have become known through history as the famous four horsemen of the apocalypse. So just as John was invited to come and see the four horsemen, so we'll see them too, and with God's help, understand their message. Now, I don't, need to tell anyone really that we live in perilous times. And I don't mean perilous times as the world sometimes speaks of perilous times. People will often say, well, the world's going to the dogs or something like that. I mean perilous times in the sense in which the Bible describes perilous times. And if you read the word of God in the New Testament and the letters to Timothy, you'll find a biblical description of what a perilous time is, and we are certainly in it. And I suppose it adds to the sense of uncertainty and insecurity when we lose a queen who has been a constant on the throne for 70 years. And even if people could justifiably say that there was much that she did not do, there was also possibly much evil that she did keep in check. We have a new king. And I suppose with the advent of a new monarch, people are always apprehensive. I was thinking in this connection of what was written in the Book of Exodus at the very beginning. when a new pharaoh arrived, a new dynasty, the 18th dynasty, were told very solemnly that a new king arose in Egypt who did not know Joseph. That is to say, he didn't remember the church of God, he didn't respect the church of God or the word of God. He turned Egypt in a completely different direction. So of course, these kinds of things always leave us apprehensive. Now, I'm sure most of you, many of you anyway, will have heard King Charles take oaths. I suppose a lot of people were surprised to hear reference to the Protestant religion and things of that kind and the liberties and the rights and privileges of the Scottish church and so on. And of course, we pray that he will keep these oaths, although it's one thing to make an oath, it's another thing to keep it. Although in fairness, we should pray that he would. But it's always worthwhile remembering the last Charles who sat on the throne, that's Charles II, who began his reign by pledging the covenants. and who proceeded pretty much the following day to tear them apart and trample them underfoot. These things remind us that we are not to trust in princes or in men's sons in whom there is no stay. And really our safety and security today has nothing to do with Charles III, just as it had nothing to do with Elizabeth II. We look to another king, the King of Kings, where real sovereignty lies. And unlike the Charles that's just about to be crowned, this one has been crowned already and invested with power. Unlike Charles III, who will rule over the Commonwealth, the King Jesus has all power in heaven and on earth. And again, unlike Charles III, who will at best reign for a brief time, we're told that he will reign forever and ever. And it follows from that, that just as King Charles III will in all likelihood have a successor, God willing, King Jesus will not. He is King Jesus the first and the last, because he reigns forever and ever. So it's to him we look. It's to him we must look as Christians. To him we must look as a church. It's to him we must look as a nation. If our trust is in a man or any king's council, then, well, woe betide us. So let's look at our Lord Jesus Christ and let's look at him as we find him in Revelation 5 and especially chapter 6. And we see him there really just after his own coronation. His coronation followed his resurrection. and his ascension into heaven. He was then formally in the courts of heaven, sat down, seated on the right hand of his father, crowned with glory and honor, and the rod of his authority was given to him, which he proceeded to stretch out, not just over the church, but over the nations. And we find him here in Revelation 5 and 6, just about to open the scroll, which contains, well, I suppose you could call it future world history. That's what's written on the scroll. In other words, the events which take place from his own coronation to the end point, which is his second advent in majesty and glory into this world. So the scroll covers the events from 2,000 years ago till wherever the Lord, or whenever the Lord Jesus Christ returns. Now, of course, this scroll that Christ takes and opens is a scroll that was written by God himself. In verse one of chapter five, we're told that this scroll was in the right hand of the father. I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll, and there are two things told us about it. First, that it was written inside and on the back, and second, it was sealed with seven seals. Now, the fact that it was written on both sides that tells us that this scroll is a comprehensive scroll. In fact, you could say that it contains everything that comes to pass. Whether good or bad, it is written by God in the scroll. There's no space for men or angels to add their own bits, Neither are there blank chapters because God is unsure what people will do at any given point in history, so it leaves it blank in order to fill it up later. Nothing like that. There are people who think of God like that, open theists, who essentially teach that God is changing things depending on how people respond, as though the future is uncertain or contingent. Well, this scroll reminds us that that's not so. It is full up. on one side and on the other. So God's works, as the Bible says, are known to him from the beginning. That's a very solemn thought, as people speak about uncertainties and what does the future hold? Well, God knows exactly, and he has foreordained it, so it will come to pass. So as well as being full up on both sides, this book is also sealed. and obviously sealed with God's seal, the royal seal. And a lot of the pronouncements that were made yesterday, a lot of them refer to the great seal of the king. Well, here is the royal seal on this book of the future. The seal itself, I think, conveys three things. First of all, the genuineness of what's written. Anything that was closed with the king's seal was authentic. It was his. his document. And of course, the book that the Lord Jesus opens is written by the God who cannot lie. So the book doesn't contain the speculations and the predictions of people or of angels. It actually contains what is to happen from God. It's authentic, it's his. And what follows from that is when you read the book of Revelation here, you're not reading a prophecy from somebody who's taking a shot at it or taking a best guess based on the movements of nations and their rise and fall and political machinations and the economy and so on. You are reading here in the Revelation a scroll that has been written and sealed by God. It's absolutely authentic. It's his word from beginning to end. The second thing the seal reminds us of is the unchangeableness of what is written. because the God who writes this book of future world history and past world history is the God who changes not, the God who cannot lie. And so what he ordains is a bit like the law of the Medes and the Persians under which Daniel lived long ago in the days of the Medo-Persian empire. The law of the Medes and the Persians could not be revoked. Once it was on statute, it remained on statute. And that reminds us here that what God has sealed cannot be changed. The future is absolutely unchangeable. Third, the seal tells us that future events, of course, are hidden. They're known to God and they're known only unto God, and we can't pry into them. The only way of knowing them is unless God himself makes them known. And of course, God doesn't close the book of the Bible without unveiling the future. That's his choice. He wants the church, particularly in a day of trouble, which he had at the time the book of the Revelation was written, the time of the first Roman persecution under Nero, he wants the church to know, especially in times of trouble, what he's doing with that trouble and what he's doing for the church. So he wants to unveil or to reveal, to give a revelation of what lies ahead. And that's why in verse one, when it says here that I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne, the Greek is a little unusual because it says, I saw upon the right hand of him who sat on the throne, a scroll. It's as though the right hand is holding it out, saying, take it, open it, Read it. Now, there's no one in heaven willing or able to step forward and open this scroll. It's a divine thing. I mean, to open the scroll of the future, to read it, and in fact, to set in motion the events that are contained in it, well, that belongs to the person who opens it. It's a prerogative that belongs to God alone. And then suddenly, from the midst of the throne itself comes the Lamb. And he is proclaimed worthy to open the scroll. And he's proclaimed worthy to open it because he has done what God required of him to do as the God-man, given himself as a sacrifice. On account of that, God has raised him to a position of glory so that all power in heaven and earth has been put into his hand. And so he is worthy to take the scroll, to unseal it, and not just to tell what the future holds, but to set these events in motion. That is a reminder to us of what this church has always believed, that Christ is head of the nations as well as head of the church. and that it is a great comfort for us in the church to know that Christ is our head, and that he is said of the United Kingdom, he is said of the Commonwealth, and he is said of all the nations of the earth. Whether they recognize it or not, that's actually a moot point. It's their duty to recognize it, but recognize it or not, he reigns over them. There's a sense, of course, in which that's true of all of ourselves individually. You may not like the thought that Christ is your king, but one way or another, he is. He will determine your destiny. He's the one who has your future in his hand. Your heart may say, well, I don't want this king to reign over me. Well, he will. He does, and he will. Either that will be for your good or for your everlasting destruction. that here comes the Lord Jesus with a scroll containing the future, and for the sake of the church, for your sake and mine, he unseals it, and he opens the scroll. He is worthy to do that. Now, as he opens the scrolls, they contain, I suppose, what you could call a mixture of judgment and salvation. That doesn't surprise us. a mixture of judgment and salvation. And this mixture of judgment and salvation keeps on working itself out through history until the end time. And in the end time, there will be this great division. There will be the final judgment of the lost and the final deliverance of the righteous. And you see in these chapters, a glimpse of both. You see at the end of chapter six, if you just look at it briefly, in verse 12, and with the opening of the sixth seal, there's the earthquake, the sun turning black, the stars of heaven falling to the earth. Verse 14, the sky receding like a scroll. Kings of the earth in verse 15, all the way down even to the slaves are hiding in rocks and caves. because the last judgment has come. And then if you skip forward to chapter seven and verse nine, you have the wonderful vision of the final deliverance of the saved. After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and with palm branches in their hands." So you've got this mixture of judgment and deliverance until the end of the world comes. Now, I want to look with you at this judgment and salvation. This morning, in our remaining time, we'll look at the judgment that comes on the unbeliever, and tonight, God willing, the deliverance for the Lord's people. So let's turn to the judgment first. Now, we see these judgments in the seals that the lamb opens successively, one after the other. And as he opens the first four of these seals, four horsemen are sent from heaven down into the earth, white, red, black, and pale, pale greens. It's like a sickly green color. That's what the Greek conveys. So the white, red, black, and pale horsemen. Now, I was going to say there are four horsemen of justice or judgment, but strictly speaking, that would not be right. There's a difference between the first horseman and the rest. We'll see in more detail tonight that the white horse that comes, and you have that in chapter six, in verse one, when the lamb opens seal number one, There's a voice saying, come and see. And I looked, and behold, a white horse. Now this horse is carrying our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one who sits on it with a bow. There's a crown given to him, and he goes out conquering and to conquer. As we'll see tonight, this is a vision of our Lord Jesus Christ coming, as it were, in his glory and power through the gospel, bringing the nations into subjection to himself. That's what we call a work in progress. It's a work in progress. Sometimes you may think it's a slow progress. It may appear like that to us, but remember that with the Lord, a thousand years is like a day, and a day is like a thousand years. It's been 2,000 years since this white horse came out on a conquest. That conquest is still going on. And in time, the conquest will be complete. But the Lord's work on the white horse is not just one of grace turning sinners to himself. It's also one of constant judgment that he brings to bear in the world. And we see these judgments in the three horses that follow him. Let's look at them, the red horse, the black horse, and the pale horse sent to the earth and sent by Christ. The first horse is red. The rider has a sword. And with that sword, he takes peace away from the earth. That obviously is a horseman of war. He brings war and bloodshed. Now, in a way, it's a surprise to find that horseman coming because we would expect once Christ is enthroned and starts his conquest of the world through the gospel, you would expect these kinds of things to cease. No, they don't cease. In fact, Christ sends him. This horseman comes from the throne and he is sent from heaven to the earth to do war, bloodshed. God sends that. He's followed by a second horseman. When the Lord Jesus Christ opens the second seal on the book, another horse is unleashed and he comes down from heaven and he is black. Now, this one's, in some ways, a more interesting horse. we're told in verse five, that when he opened the third seal, the third living creature said, come and see. And I looked and behold a black horse. And he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And then a voice comes out of the midst of the four living creatures who are around the throne of God saying, a court of wheat for a denarius, three quarts of barley for a denarius, but do not harm the oil and the wine." Now, this black horse is ominous. Black is also always ominous in one way or another, but he's carrying scales. And with these scales, he's weighing the produce of the land. Clearly, after the war, there's economic hardship of some kind and scarcity on the earth. Now, not necessarily famine. The scarcity can be so bad that it produces famine. But right at this point in time, it's simply scarcity. There's been a 1,000% increase in the price of wheat. So wheat is 10 times its normal price. One quart of wheat, which is spoken of here, is just the daily ration that a person would expect to have. Bread for the day. But it actually costs a denarius, which is actually a day's wage. A quart of wheat for a denarius. So enough wheat just to give you a basic diet for the day costs you a whole day's wages. Now, we've been very used to food not taking up an awful lot of our money. There's a lot of what people call disposable income. over the last, I don't know, lot of years. I mean, I still remember in my own very early days when a lot of the budget went into food. In fact, there wasn't much left over. People haven't been used to that, but it certainly is creeping back. So here, 1,000% increase in the price of wheat, a day's wages just for bread to feed yourself, minimum. Three quarts of barley for a denarius. Now, barley was the poor man's bread. cheaper bread, and three quarts again for a day's wage. It's pretty much, well, it's difficult to feed yourself and your family. So there's scarcity on the earth. Now, it's not unusual for scarcity and famine to follow war. In God's providence, we've had an unusual series of events. We've had, of course, a pandemic. That was followed by the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, which in God's providence has set the breadbasket of Europe, no one can deny that, where the cereals are affected and it's led, it's leading to scarcity and to rising prices. Now, God has this in control. In fact, this famine is so controlled that the voice that comes out which says, well, I'll set the price, God sets the price. I'm not allowing you to starve, he says, but I'm going to allow a squeeze. A quart of wheat for a denarius, three quarts of wheat for a barley, he says, of barley for a denarius. And he says, don't harm the oil and the wine. That's God's command. Don't touch the oil. And of course, the oil here is not a reference to the oil that we use for fuel. It's a reference to the oil that we use to cook. But what God is doing here essentially is hitting what matters. Oil and wine were luxuries. They're not affected. God says, just leave them alone. I'm touching the basic necessities. reminded me of what happened just very, very briefly. I mean, these things have only touched us recently. They just touched us and the nation panicked. But you sometimes went into a supermarket during lockdown there and it was basics that were missing. Things like bread and pasta and things like that. I mean, who needs to buy jewellery and perfume when you can't have food to eat? But here God says, leave the luxuries alone. Just start to remove the necessities. That's what the second horseman does. And then after that, the Lord Jesus Christ opens the third seal. And with the third seal, there is a pale, sickly green horse. And he, of course, brings something more ominous still. In verse seven, When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, come and see. And I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat in it was Death. And Hades followed with him. Now, it doesn't help here that we need to be careful about the translation of both these words, death and hell. When things like this come, it's always a little bit complicated and a little bit difficult, but we have no choice. We've just got to look at what the Bible is actually saying. You may think that death and hate are easy words to translate or to understand, but it's not quite like that. Let me step back a little bit and Let's begin with a very important and interesting fact. Long before this book was written, you have, of course, the Old Testament. And God spoke in the Old Testament about the three great judgments that he was going to bring on the land. That's on Judea and on Jerusalem. These were the sword, famine, well death in other words, the sword is death. Death, famine, and disease. Sorry, I should say that the sword is war. War, famine, and disease. Sometimes there's a fourth judgment added in there. When Ezekiel speaks about it, he adds in the wild beasts that God would unleash. But normally in the Bible, Jeremiah and Ezekiel speak about war, famine, and disease. Now, before Christ came, a few hundred years before Christ came, the Jews took the Old Testament and they translated it into Greek. It's known as the Septuagint Bible. The reason for that is that a lot of the Jews were just spreading out into the world, and the Greek language was the language. So they considered it important to translate their sacred Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek long before Christ's day. In fact, Christ and the apostles used that Bible, and they referred to it very often in their writings. Now, the interesting thing is this. When these translators took these Old Testament passages that spoke about war and famine and disease, when they looked at the word disease, they used the Greek word death to translate it. Now, why exactly they did that, I'm not sure. My own judgment on it is because the disease that was spoken of was fatal. Something like the Black Death, you know, the Black Death that ravaged Europe in the early Middle Ages, killing about a third of the European population. That's referred to as the Black Death because it was fatal. I think that's the reason they took this Greek word death and used it to translate the word pestilence or disease. Now, when you have the word used here in the New Testament, in the Book of Revelation, death, I'm quite sure that they're meaning it in the sense of fatal or terminal disease. A pestilence, in other words. And that's so we're to understand it here. The rider is bringing a deadly disease. And again, following with him or along with him is Hades. sometimes translated grave, usually translated hell. Fact is it can mean both. There are some times when it definitely means the grave, other times when it definitely means the place of the lost. I think one of the reasons for that is because when you consider the wicked solemnly, for them the grave is a kind of antechamber. to the lost eternity. It's a kind of receptacle. It's where you go first. And if I was to look just now at the grave of a believer and a non-believer, I would see these two graves very differently. I would see the grave of the believer and I would say, well, I would think of the words in the Bible, which says that you have ransomed me from the grave. I wouldn't think of that place so much as a cold and dark place, but a place where the body of the Lord's people lie, united to him, still united to the Lord Jesus Christ, until the time when he powerfully, mysteriously raises them again from the dead. I think of their grave like that. When I think of the grave of the wicked, although we're not the judge really of who the wicked and the righteous are, but when I think of the grave of the wicked as a thing in itself, I think of an antechamber. I think of a place where a person has started to go down. I think of a place from which a person will never really arise in the sense that it's leading to the place of absolute darkness, absolute loneliness, and no hope whatsoever. So you can easily understand why the grave of the wicked was sometimes translated Hades, just as hell was Hades. And I think what the scripture is telling us here is that this fourth man who's coming along, this fourth horseman here, is bringing deadly disease into the world. He's bringing pestilence that's got the grave with it. so much so that a quarter of the earth's population, in this case, are affected with it. Now, you may say, well, can we be absolutely sure that that's what revelation means here, that it means disease and the grave, or possibly hell? Well, yes, we can. If you look carefully at verse eight here, and if you notice what it says, I looked and behold a pale horse, And the name of him who sat in it was Death, and Hades followed with him." Now listen to this, and power was given to them over a quarter of the earth. Power was given to all the horsemen to kill with the sword, right? We can understand that. To kill with hunger, we can understand that. To kill with death, we don't understand that. How do you kill with death? Killing is death. Obviously, death here is disease. That's the proof that that's what the writer means here. So these horsemen, as they're unleashed, are going to unleash war, scarcity and famine, and disease, and also the beasts of the earth. Maybe they sometimes bring the disease. Who knows, but a lot of the diseases that will be unleashed may come through the beasts of the earth. Some parts of the world that people may be so reduced to savagery that the beasts of the earth begin to multiply and there's all kinds of dangers. You think these things can't happen. We always think that. In our foolish sense of security, we think that we can never go backwards. Of course we can go backwards, and we can go backwards pretty quickly. Now these horsemen are God's messengers. They're God's messengers. And they're still God's messengers. That again is, and amazingly, you find this kind of argument creeping up in the church itself, where people say, well, God doesn't send these messengers anymore. Messengers like war or scarcity or disease, those were ways God spoke in the past. He spoke like that in the Old Testament, but he doesn't deal like that with people now. We're not to recognize God's hand in disease or God's hand in war or God's hand in scarcity. You can't be interpreting these things as God's work. Well, let me just say a couple of things in connection with that. The first is that, and I made this point very strongly when we were looking at Joel and the locusts, if God doesn't speak like that in Providence, how does he speak? If you were to say that God doesn't use things like that to communicate, well, that means that God can't speak in any event at all. Unless you judge events and take events in the light of scripture and take events before God in prayer, then events mean nothing. So the Corinthian congregation, where people were dying because they were abusing the Lord's Supper, they were just to accept the fact that they had lots of deaths in the congregation and they were never supposed to ask why. God meant them to ask why. Why are there lots of deaths all of a sudden in the congregation? And if they had asked the question, God would say, because you're abusing the Lord's Supper. That's what I mean. we're supposed to interpret events. As for people who say that's an Old Testament thing, well, last time I looked, the book of Revelation was in the New Testament. These are horsemen that the Lord Jesus is releasing on the earth between his first advent and his second. So what right has anyone got to turn around and say, well, you mustn't interpret war as being from the Lord, or you mustn't interpret disease as the voice of God. And you say, well, Yes, but they're only the voice of God in the sense that everything is. I mean, the sun coming up in the morning is the voice of God, and the sun going down in the evening is the voice of God. You can't just take events like that as being significant. Well, yes, you can, and you're supposed to. The problem is with us if we don't. If we don't take events and say to God, what are you saying to us in these events? It's our problem. I think I might erase the other option with you in the past when Haman, of course, built his gallows. Remember when he built the gallows on which he had organized for Mordecai, the man of God, to be hanged? And that evening, God turned round events in such a way that Haman was hanged that morning and Mordecai was released. Now, are you supposed to say, oh, well, the fact that Haman died, you know, we mustn't read that, you know, we mustn't read God's providence into that. But yes, we must. Nowhere in the book of Esther does God say that he organized that. In fact, God's name is not mentioned in the book of Esther, not once. And the lesson there is that you don't always need an express command from Scripture to say that God sent the war or that God is teaching the famine. You discern it, you pray over it, and you hear and understand God's voice in it. God organized Haman's execution, and it was a judgment for his abuse of God's people. And the exaltation of Mordecai was a reward to Mordecai for his faithfulness in God's service. Read that, discern it, recognize it as God speaking in events, events. And that's why we need to watch God's providence. God has afflicted the Western democracies, has he not, over the last two years in a most amazing way. Grounded every aircraft, stopped every train, shut the shops closed, shut the churches. No other event did that over the last 2,000 years. especially shut in the churches. What right has anyone got to say that that's not God's special voice? Really? If not, what is? Whatever is, whatever is, if that is not God's special voice. The pestilence was his horseman. His mercy was in it. You know, I refer to his mercy in the, In the scarcity, don't touch the oil and the wine, and keep enough of the necessities just to do daily bread, just daily bread. How sincere that prayer would be every morning, give us this day our daily bread, if you knew that that's all you were likely to get. There's been mercy in this too. God basically shut the world down, but took away few lives. And if you were going to look at the particular epidemic that God chose to send, hardly a child was lost anywhere. Hardly a child was lost anywhere. That's mercy. That's grace. But that's God's horseman. And when the war that's just been released on its tail has affected the breadbasket of Europe and is moving up prices and moving up inflation, that's a horseman. It's not an event. It's not just the way things are. That's a horseman sent from God. And we really need to understand these things and to recognize what God is saying. And in that connection, I was thinking of the way the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 107, when he was talking about the way that God was dealing with his people, with their ups and their downs, the way that he was using heathen people to deal with them and how the action of the heathen affected the church and so on. God says, he pours content upon kings, princes, makes them stray and wander in the wilderness, but he will set the poor on high from his miseries. Now we'll look at that tonight, how God deals with the church. They that are righteous shall rejoice when they the same shall see. Who so is wise and will these things observe and then record Even they will understand the love and kindness of the Lord. So you can look at your television and learn nothing, or you can look at it and learn a lot. What you learn won't be from the commentators who are endlessly commentating on the events with no sense of perspective, historical understanding, people who have never visited the throne room of heaven and haven't got a clue what the Lord is doing. They won't inform your judgment, but the events will. When you take the events to God and when you take them to his word, when you take them for the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, who so is wise will these things observe and then record. even they shall understand the love and the kindness of the Lord." Now, how do people respond to these events? Well, we'll see tonight how the church responds, but let me just say a word briefly on how the world responded. Very often when the Lord sends his horsemen, the world just doesn't notice. Just doesn't notice. Like Pharaoh, people just harden their hearts, deaf to God's voice and blind to his horsemen. That's what Isaiah said in his prophecy. He said this, Lord, when your hand is lifted up, they will not see it, but they will see it. What Isaiah means there is they'll see it too late, but they won't see it at the time. When your hand is lifted up, and that means lifted up in judgment, they will not see it, but they will see it. Or again, Isaiah says that the stork and the dove and the crane know their migration times, but my people don't know the judgment of the Lord. It's one of the many occasions in the scripture where animals are more sensible than people. God builds an ark for the salvation of the world. Nobody goes in, except his own family and the animal kingdom, two by two. Everybody else stays outside. Isaiah says, the ox knows its owner, the donkey knows its master's crib, but my people don't know me. It's astonishing, really, that. It's astonishing. The ox knows who owns it, the donkey knows who feeds it, but my people don't know me. That's precisely what Isaiah is saying here, that the stork and the dove and the crane know God's time and God's seasons, but my people don't know the Lord's judgment. One of the saddest things is in all the convulsions that we're going through, and there's been a lot of convulsions, and there are convulsions to come, but the church largely has nothing to say. Nothing to say, business as usual, And again, even if God does mingle kindness with the judgment, as he often does, Isaiah says this, let grace be shown to the wicked, yet he still won't learn righteousness. And so it goes on until the sixth seal opens. Now, sometimes with a thing like the sixth seal here, honestly, the best thing for me to do is just simply read it. It speaks for itself. This is God's, a final word to the world, and it's not really a word at all. It's the closure of all things. Verse 12 of chapter six, I looked when he opened the sixth seal. No more messengers. Behold, a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood, and the stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its late figs shaken by a mighty wind. The sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island moved out of its place. These things are decreation, collapsing universe, governments, nations, everything in complete disarray because God is actually winding the whole process up. And suddenly it becomes clear that it's not just a governmental collapse, but an actual closure on world history. And at that point, when people become plain that there's a meltdown, a genuine, literal meltdown, 2 Peter, the elements themselves beginning to melt with a fervent heat. The kings of the earth, verse 15, the top men, the great men, the rich, the commanders, the mighty, and right down to the lower classes, every slave and every free man, they're all hiding themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains. And they're looking to the mountains and the rocks for some kind of deliverance to fall on us and hide us. From a twofold wrath, the wrath of the one who sits on the throne, that is the one who had the book in the first place, and also the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of his wrath has come, and who is able to stand? This final judgment isn't local, it's not a quarter of the earth or a third of the earth. Neither is it partial, because there's no grace mingled with it. Neither is it temporary, because it doesn't come to a close. It's a universal judgment. It's complete. And it's absolutely final. It's God saying, well, that is it. And it's closure. It's closure. Now, in the light of all that, seeing that these things are about to be. I spoke to the children at the beginning about the importance of our new king being wise. And wisdom begins with the fear of God. Wisdom begins with recognizing who really is on the throne. I don't want a king or a queen who isn't accountable to a higher power. We want a king or a queen that understands their subjection to the one who sits on the throne, who unleashes the horsemen, who has the power of all judgment, including the last judgment that comes upon the earth. And in the light of that, in the light of that, there is only one way to pray for them, as the psalmist does. Therefore, kings, be wise. Be taught ye judges of the earth. You've got your executive, your judiciary. Serve God in fear, and see that you join trembling with your mirth. And kiss ye the sun. Now, that's the kiss of allegiance. People will be giving the king a kiss of allegiance, not the kiss of affection. Of course, those who know the Lord love the Lord too, but this kiss is not affection. This is allegiance. Kiss the son, King Charles, kiss the son, lest in his ire you perish from the way, because if once his wrath begins to burn, blessed all that on him stay. Tonight we'll turn to the way that these horsemen affect the church and affect you and me. Let's pray. Lord, our God, who rules in heaven and upon the earth, enable us in this day of rebellion and confusion and autonomy When people only wish to rule themselves, enable us to recognize your kingship and enable us to come and to bow before it through subjection and humility of soul. When you judge the earth and you judge the unbeliever, you also deliver and you bless those who cleave to you and who recognize the son who is our king and our head. So teach us to pray for ourselves and for others and for our new king, that he would be wise and that he would be taught. Many people don't begin to learn important things in their mid-70s, in the eighth decade of their lives, but we ask, Lord, that he would learn from the great head and king of the church. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Let's just sing in closing these last verses of Psalm 2 that I just referred to there a minute ago. And in Psalm 2, the Lord, that is God the Father, has crowned his son And he's put a rod in his hand, a rod of authority. He wields it from heaven. And with this rod in verse nine, with that weighty rod of iron, he shall break the nations. And as a potter's share, that's just a piece of pottery, thou shalt them dash in pieces small. Now with that kind of authority, therefore kings, be wise, be taught, ye judges of the earth. The last three stanzas, let's stand and sing them. Thou shalt us with a witty rock of iron break them all, and as a potter's shirt thou shalt and a ten pieces small. Now therefore kings be wise, be taught, be judges all, be a man, Circled in fear, Banshee, Banshee, Joined them, playing with murmur. Kissed Jesus, ♪ In His eye He vanished from the grave ♪ ♪ If once His wrath began to burn ♪ ♪ Blessed all that on Him stood ♪ Now, just remember there's tea and coffee upstairs afterwards. Let's close by receiving God's blessing. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.