Well, you've got the full context of the first eight verses on page 17 of your bulletins. I'm just gonna read the last seal, verses seven and eight. And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard a voice from the fourth living being saying, come. And I looked, and behold, a sickly, pale horse, and as for the one sitting upon it, his name is Death. And Hades follows with him. And authority was given to him over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword and by famine and by death, even by the wild animals of the earth. Father, we thank you for this, your word. It is our desire to not only grow in understanding, but grow in our faithfulness to it. And so I pray that your Holy Spirit would quicken the word to our hearts, that you would anoint my preaching, that you would be glorified in our responses. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You may be seated. Well, today we're going to be finishing off the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and it's probably a good place to break. So we, the elders have decided I'm going to take three weeks break from Revelation while Rodney preaches and hopefully this will enable me to get some writing accomplished. And this is the horseman that introduces us for the first time to the Emperor Nero. And let me give you a little bit of a review of where we have come so far. By analyzing each phrase in the verses, we've seen that these horsemen are first and foremost demonic generals who lead demonic armies. When confronted with a ruler like Nero, the early church did not naively think that they were fighting with flesh and blood. They realized there's a whole lot more to it than that. And each of these demons was unleashed upon a particular emperor. So you don't just deal with demons and ignore the men. This book deals with both. And I won't review all of the hints of the first 11 chapters that force us to say that all four horsemen have to exist before 66 AD. If you weren't here you'll have to listen to the introductory sermon to chapter 6 to get those details. But we saw that even the immediate context gives us hints of which emperor the demon influenced. And just in terms of timetable We realize that the first emperor had to emerge at 30 AD because that's where chapter 5 ends, right? Chapters 4 through 5 are the courtroom of heaven that were opened up. Jesus has just ascended to the right hand of the Father. He opens the seals and the first horseman emerges from that seal. So in verses 1 through 2, The white horse was the bold claim to deity by Tiberius. Generals had never dared to have a white horse prior to Julius Caesar, Augustus, and Tiberius. And we saw that there was a change after him, but a claim that the wars that he engaged in were a claim to bringing peace to the world. You know, we're bringing peace. They're bringing war everywhere, but they called it the Pax Romana, and the white horse was also a symbol of that. the counterfeit piece. He was a man who did most of Rome's expansion during the period of the emperors and the coins that represent him show that he was the emperor of the Stephanus crown, the victor's crown. In fact, we pointed out that he almost never took that off because he had a superstition that that would protect him from lightning strikes. So he was always wearing the Stephanus crown and the coins represent him with that. He is the emperor of that crown. He is the emperor of the bow. And huge changes took over Tiberius's personality the moment that this demon was unleashed upon him in 30 AD. Now he gave evidence of being demonized prior to that, but something new happened. And so verses one through two go from 30 AD to 37 when Tiberius was murdered by Caligula. Of course, Caligula was the next emperor who reigned from 37 to 39. So that would be verses three through four. And we saw how the Senate very enthusiastically gave to Caligula this huge sword. He just seemed like the perfect emperor. And so they wanted him to deal with the problems of Tiberius, but he used that big sword to destroy the Pax Romana. He also used it to kill off a whole bunch of opponents and a lot of rich and powerful people. So it's not as if the rich get off from judgment, they did not escape. But the symbol of Caligula was a red flying horse. That was the brand new signal that he gave for his brand new legion in Germanica. It was on his coins. It was something that characterized his administration. So where the first seal dealt with the judgment of imperialistic expansionism, the second seal dealt with the judgment of conflict and death. The third horseman was a demon who characterized the reign of Claudius. Now his reign was from 51 through 54. It took him a while to convince the Senate to elect him as the emperor. That's why there was a little bit of a gap there. So verses 5 through 6 I've got written in my margin 80 41 to 54 and Claudius was a very gifted administrator in many ways he promised to be a conservative promoter of Liberty and thus the black horse and he promised to enforce fairness in the marketplace and that's why the scales in his hand all of his coins are coins that have his hand holding scales and It's commercial scales, but we saw that he was promising, I'm gonna bring fairness in the economy. The state has gotta get involved. But we saw that he was also a war hawk, of course, in the name of peace. He was also one who centralized government under bureaucracies to force the free market to be just. So those scales of commerce are symbols of status control of the marketplace. Now they thought that was a good thing. But God says it's a judgment. It's a bad thing. It led to economic problems all over the empire, including manmade famines. Now, I forgot to mention the dates of the famines last week that characterized his rule. So let me quickly give those dates to you right now. There were a number, but the four biggest ones that are mentioned in the histories, and you'll see in the Bible as well, are AD 41 through 42, AD 45, That was the one famine mentioned in Acts 11 verse 48, AD 50 and AD 52. And we looked at all of the economic policies that he instituted, and we saw that he was constantly trying to fix problems that the previous interventions in the market had created in the first place. That's the problem of looking to statism to fix statism. That's what our current election is all about. It's looking to statism to fix the problems of statism. Anyway, we saw that this demon of economic judgment has been at work in the systems of mercantilism, and socialism, fascism, and Keynesianism, and what all of those unbiblical economic systems have in common, they want the state to inject itself into the economy to fix things. That is demonic, according to the scripture. Now before I dig into verses 7 through 8, let me show you how the original audience would have immediately recognized Nero as the emperor controlled by this fourth demon. It'd be obvious, first of all, because he's the next emperor after Claudius, right? But take a look at the hints in these verses. First hint is the color of the horse. And to see what's going on here, I first of all have to contradict the translation of Pickering that I've given to you in the outline in the bulletin here. But commentators, most commentators will back me up in saying that the color of this horse has to be green. It is not pale. The Greek is not pale at all. Pickering translates it as sickly pale, probably because he thinks it has to be a literal horse, and there is no such thing as a green horse. But the Greek word that he translates as sickly pale is chloros, from which we get the word chlorophyll, and it's everywhere else translated as green. For example, Mark 6, 39, it's the word used for green in the phrase green grass. Revelation 8 verse 7 it's again in the phrase green grass. Revelation 9 verse 4 translated as green in the expression they were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth or here it is any green thing or any tree. In fact there isn't any place where it's not translated as green. And the two reasons that people tend to translate it as pale or sickly pale in this verse, as I mentioned, is first of all, well, you don't have any literal horses that are literally green. And secondly, most people see this horse as being a symbol of death. And they say, well, dead people aren't literally green, even though sometimes people speak of them as being green behind the gills a little bit, but they are pale. So that's why they tend to translate it as, mistranslate it as pale. Now, personally, rather than seeing the green horse as a symbol of death, though I respect that interpretation, I see it as an obvious reference to how Nero had been very quickly caught in the sin of debasing the currency. If you look at the back side of your outline you'll see ten photos of coins that show Nero riding on a horse and all but one of those coins is green. Now the one that's not green was cleaned so that you could see what it looked like. That's the way it would have looked when it was first minted. And Nero was the first Roman emperor to debase the coinage by putting in copper and other alloys. And it just so happens that all of his horse coins were debased with copper, and they very quickly turned their color. They turned green. He wasn't an expert yet at debasing the currency. He realized later that we needed to use different alloys. So he quickly found out that he was stealing value from the currency, what we call inflation. Now, if you were to ask just about any member of John's churches, OK, who's the emperor who rides on a green horse? They probably would have laughed. And they said, oh, yeah, yeah, we know who that is. That's Nero. Here, let me show you a coin. They'd pull a coin out of their pocket. This one's turned green. Now I've only shown you 10 green horse coins, but you can look on just about any numismatic website and you will see a whole bunch more mints of this coin. And one of the principles of interpretation that we looked at in chapter one is you don't look at what comes into our minds with these symbols. You immediately ask, what would have instantly come into the minds of the original readers of this? and I think they would have immediately thought of Nero. He's the only emperor riding on a green horse. Now the second hint is that verse 8 says, and as for the one sitting upon it, his name is Death and Hades follows with him. Now there are many artifacts that associate Nero with Thanatos, the god of death. And the Greek word here for death is Thanatos. Some of his coins had a theta on it, a symbol of Thanatos or death. Now he wasn't the only emperor who had that on his coin, but he was the first one to have it. If you look at the image that has him in armor at the bottom of the page there, you'll see that it has a very prominent Gorgon on the front. Now Gorgon was a monster of death associated with the underworld, with Hades. in the ancient Greek and Roman literature. In the Aenid it talks about gorgons living at the entrance of the underworld. In the Odyssey the gorgon was a monster or a beast of the underworld. For example, it says, and pale fear seized me lest Auguste Persephone, for your information she was the goddess of the dead, lest Auguste Persephone might send forth upon me from out of the house of Hades the head of the Gorgon, that awful monster." Now Gorgon had an ugly face and its hair was made up of serpents and supposedly according to their mythology if you looked at those serpents you would die. Now of course serpents were associated with Nero from the time that he was born, the time he was a baby in the crib. The empress supposedly according to the histories came to assassinate Nero And a huge snake came out from under the pillow where Nero was sleeping and protected Nero. So his mother took the skin of the snake, made an amulet, and he wore that. There are so many different symbols. He in coins has an aegis, which is another symbol of death. that he wore and this gorgas you know this is a symbol of death in effect what he was saying he loved it he was saying don't mess with me okay that's basically what that symbol was saying many many other symbols of death but perhaps the most significant artifact and one which the members of John's churches would have had in their pocket change was the coin of Nero and Hades. There were two mints of this coin that I'm aware of and I've given you one example on the bottom left side of the page. On one side of the coin is Nero, the human metaphor of death who was possessed by the demon of death and wore the symbols of death and on the other side of the coin was an image of the god Hades abducting the virgin Persephone. And of course that sordid tale of the rape of Persephone made her the goddess of the dead and Hades the lord of the underworld. So very literally you have a person nicknamed Death on one side and on the other side of the coin you have Hades and his sick abduction of Persephone. So the same rider of the green horse on another coin Is death followed by, if you flip the coin, followed by Hades? And just as a side note, everybody knew that Nero loved to dress up as gods and as goddesses. And as a teenage emperor, he would roam the streets with his teenage thugs, his friends. and rob people and rape women, many times pretending, imitating Hades' rape of Persephone. In any case, he loved that story and he loved it enough that he minted two coins with that horrible image. He quite self-consciously identified with death and Hades. But the British Museum and other numismatic authorities used the features of Nero on this coin to date it very, very early in his reign. And the reason for that is it shows a very thin Nero on the coin. See, the coin makers were very honest in their portrayals of what the emperors looked like. And some of those emperors were, wow, they were ugly on the coins, but they portrayed them just the way they looked. And I have put on the front side of your page images of Nero that they've taken, the British Museum has taken off of various coins to show the progression of obesity as he ages from a thin young teenager to a very stout and thick necked man. So this is yet another confirmation that during the time period when Nero associated himself with death and Hades on the coin, it was very early in his reign. And the rest of the seals deal with subsequent times in Nero's reign. There's no more horsemen after this fourth seal. All of the other seals are just later stages in his reign. So if you're putting dates down, verses 1 through 2 are Tiberius, relate to AD 30 through 37. Verses 3 through 4 are Caligula, relate to AD 37 to 39. Verses 5 through 6 are Claudius, relate to AD 41 to 54. And verses 7 through 8 deal with Nero, AD 54 to 61. Now he continued to reign after that, but that's the section right here, AD 54 to 61. And then verse 9 and following picks up the beginning of the tribulation against Christians in 62 AD. Okay, so I think I've clearly enough identified the emperor associated with this writer and the time period of his reign. And a lot of this book is going to be preoccupied with this horrible emperor Nero. So let's move on into this text. Even though he was a scary, scary emperor, the text indicates that Jesus is sovereign over even an emperor like Nero. Verse seven says, and when he opened the fourth seal, The new King James capitalizes the he, but the he refers back to Jesus. Jesus opened that seal. The demon could not emerge from wherever it was he was bound, whether he was bound in the pit or bound somewhere else on earth. He could not emerge from where he was bound unless Jesus opened that seal and allowed him to do so. Nero could not climb to his position on the throne unless Jesus enabled him to climb to that throne. Jesus is sovereign over all of history. Jesus is sovereign over who is going to win the elections here in America. He chastens nations with politicians and with bureaucracies and with their miserable policies and He saves nations. But not a thing can happen in history without His permission. And that doctrine of the sovereignty of God is a doctrine I think should comfort us, it should make us glory and rejoice. Charles Spurgeon once said, there is no attribute more comforting to his children than that of God's sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe trials, they believe that sovereignty has ordained their afflictions. that sovereignty overrules them, and that sovereignty will sanctify them all. There is nothing for which the children ought to more earnestly contend than the doctrine of their Master over all creation." And I say, Amen. Amen. This book is more about Christ than it is about Antichrist. It is more about the miraculous advancement of Christ's kingdom from nothing to finally at the end of the book completely taking over planet Earth than it is about Satan's attempts to thwart his kingdom. And since this demon emerges only at Christ's sovereign will, it logically follows that the demon is just a pawn in Christ's hands. despair at the successes of the demonic. Based on the knowledge that Christ rules go forth, do your duty, leave the results in God's hands. Don't try to play providence like so many do when they vote. And of course the angel models that they do not pit divine sovereignty against personal responsibility. They are very involved even though Jesus rules they model that creatures have a role to play in His judgments on the earth. And I want you to notice that this demon doesn't question the power or the authority of the fourth demonic rider. The fourth good angel, I should say. As soon as the seal was opened, John says, I heard a voice from the fourth living being, that's a good being, saying, come. And what's the immediate result? The demon obeys. He has to obey. Demons are not omnipotent. Now let me tell you something. If demons have to obey angels, We can believe the scriptures that demons have to obey us. That is, if we are in right relationship with Christ, we're using his name, his authority, and his scriptures to resist those demons. You know, in Luke chapter 10, he sends forth the 70 disciples and he gives them authority to tread on demonic scorpions and serpents and over all the power of the enemy. We do not need to fear the enemy. And we can, even James, he says, if we resist Satan himself, again, with what? With the word of God and with the authority of Christ, what does Satan have to do? He has to flee, he has to flee. So we too have power to restrict the actions of demons, assuming that our Commands are done in authority the name of Christ according to the pattern found in the Bible Which is the school now notice second that there is a progression in these judgments each seal unleashes more demons upon The Empire and the miseries that were present under the previous Empire emperors continue to exist even though each Emperor is described with what is most characteristic of his reign. So as rebellion persists, God's judgment increased. Also notice that it's not just Israel who suffers. Rome suffers under Nero's brittle regime as well. God judges all nations as he prophesies in Psalm 2 that he would do, and America is no exception. And one other thing to notice about this judgment is that it emerges from the seal and the seal itself is affixed to the scroll and we already demonstrated before that the scroll is the Old Testament canon. So the Old Testament continues to be relevant in God's judgment of nations like Israel and like Rome. Do not say the Old Testament law is just a thing for the Old Testament. It continues to apply. Now let's take a look at the symbols a little bit more. The green horse was an embarrassing expose of Nero's wicked policies of inflation. You couldn't hide the fact that the copper alloy in the silver coins was there without constantly polishing them. And so Christ allows this demon to motivate a king to engage in inflationary policies as a judgment. That's critical to understand. This is clearly a judgment. There were already economic judgments under Claudius, the previous emperor. Claudius had centralized the government, had added bureaucracies and agencies that regulated the industries, that gave preferential treatments to some, tried to manage the economy with his propaganda of fairness. So that's what the scales represented. But Nero said, yeah, we're going to continue that. I'm on behalf of the little guy. I'm in favor of the poor, all the while robbing the poor through inflation. And if you don't think inflation is a robbery, I would encourage you to read Rushduni's book, Larceny in the Heart, or read his book. Yeah, what is his other book on inflation? The Roots of Inflation. very, very helpful books. Now the thing I find interesting about John's embarrassing expose of inflation is that this inflation is considered by Jesus to be a judgment even though Nero's inflation was very moderate, very, very moderate. He only debased the coins by 10%. That's not very much. In contrast, America has debased its money by 2,300% in the last 100 years. Since I was born in 1955, The dollar has been debased 784% according to USinflationcalculator.com. So if God was offended with Nero's inflation, what do you think his attitude is to America's inflation? If 10% is a judgment, what is 2,300%? I think the whole of chapter six would say that America has been Under God's judgment for quite some time. We've been under the judgment of imperialistic Expansionism with many many deaths as a result. We've been under the judgment of internal conflict You know the war between the states and there had been other many other conflicts. We've been under the judgment of experience experiments of mercantilism Keynesian ism fascism and We are not waiting for judgment. It has happened. The church just has failed to see that these statist things are judgments from God's hand. But if you don't see God's hand working in history, you don't learn from history and you needlessly repeat the same problems of history. Now the next symbol is the name of the writer. Nero was an emperor who was constantly associated with the demon of death. Is there any historical background to this? And I would say, yes, there is. Though his early reign was described as being golden by some, only by one contemporary, his propagandist, Seneca, but some modern writers have been saying, you know, that was really a golden era. Well, it was only golden when you compare the beginning of his reign to the murderous, insane rampage at the end of his reign. That's the only way that it is golden. Those who knew him said that he was a murderer, rapist, robber, transvestite, homosexual, a pedophile, a pervert, and a sadist from the earliest times. His mother and his tutors, especially Seneca and Burris, held him in check, but once he killed them and they were out of the way, The great neurotic killings began in earnest in AD 62, which is described in verses 9 through 11. But the evidence of this demon of death can be seen very, very early, long before he killed his mother, his tutors, his wives, and other close associates. And I'm just going to start with his torture and killing of animals. The number of animals that Nero killed or had his horse guard kill is absolutely astounding. These killings were continuous. Michael Speedle said of just one such slaughter, in what to us seems an appalling slaughter His horse guard in one show alone, remember these shows are continuous occurrences, in one show alone speared to death 400 bears and 300 lions. And you might wonder where in the world would they get 300 bears and lions you know from? Mean 400 bears and 300 lions. Well, they had this whole industry of importing dangerous animals into Rome in order to be killed and there was a constant change out of various kinds of dangerous animals like in one show it was hippos, you know and and They had all kinds of animals that were coming in to satisfy Nero's lust for death. And the scripture indicates that there is something very, very demonic about that. Satan was not only a murderer from the beginning, he delighted in death from the beginning. Proverbs 12, verse 10 says, the just man takes care of his beast, But the heart of the wicked is merciless. And the records seem to indicate that Nero would get an adrenaline rush from torturing and killing an animal. But it didn't stop there. It's like pornography. It always required more to gain the same effect. So in addition to killing animals, he would get his kicks by doing dangerous stunts, like going out into the streets after dark with his gang of teenage friends to beat up, rape, and abuse. One senator who defended himself too vigorously was commanded by Nero later to commit suicide. And he didn't even know it was Nero he was fighting against. He just thought he was defending himself against a gang of thugs, a gang of teenagers. So Nero was a menace, even as a teenager. In fact, his mother, who was no saint herself, she was a murderer herself, was so offended with the cruelty of his gang of teenage friends that she got furious with him, scolded him, tried to stop his behavior, even threatened to have him deposed and to have his stepbrother, Britannicus, put onto the throne. So he immediately had him killed. so he wouldn't be a threat. And she continued her harassment of him, so he had his mother killed. But in any case, he was an embarrassment to her. By the way, she was one of three influences that remained to restrain his wickedness. Claudius, he restrained Nero. But once he was put away, it was his mother, Seneca, and Boris, and when the last of them was killed by Nero in AD 62, there was no more restraint. In 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul speaks of the demonic as being at work in Nero already in the early 50s, but said that someone was restraining the unleashing of Nero's full evil. Now it's true Claudius was a part of that, but so was Burrus. But ultimately it was probably referring to the fourth living being assigned to this fourth horseman to restrain him and to make sure that he did not go beyond his bounds because in the ultimate sense Humans, apart from the help of angels, we don't really have power over angels. And certainly unregenerate men do not have power to restrain demons. But in any case, Paul said that the mystery of iniquity was already at work in Nero long before AD 62, which is where verses 9 through 11 begin. I've mentioned Nero's preoccupation with the death of animals. his early escapades in the streets. He also seemed to get a sick delight in killing gladiators in the Colosseum. One author said, the teenage Nero started to run wild, wearing a cunning disguise. He would venture out on the streets of Rome as part of a violent gang, attacking and robbing. Passers-by, he developed sadistic tendencies, boiling some victims in hot oil and ordering executions, often for no more heinous a crime than possessing a funny walk or a strange expression. As an alternative entertainment, he enjoyed watching women fight dwarfs. I've already mentioned the explicit connection that Nero himself made with the angel of death, but he used, obviously, Roman mythology to describe these demons. And to see how he was characterized by death in his early reigns, all you have to do is read, which I've done, read the early Roman historians, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio. I won't describe all the killings that he did but the fact that he killed his brother, his mother, his two wives, his tutor, anyone else that he saw as a threat shows the demonic at work. Later I'm going to read about hundreds of thousands being killed during this period. It was anything but a golden age that Seneca his propagandist described. Now verse 8 goes on to say, his name is death and Hades follows with him. Now the Greek word for death is Thanatos. I've already mentioned that's the name of a Greek and a Roman god of death. And the name Hades, sometimes translated as hell, is the name of another Greek and Roman god associated with the underworld. And interestingly, the Roman writers, they spoke of these gods as being demons. Well, they were. They were demons. And the Roman demons, Thanatos and Hades, were very closely associated with Nero. He proudly displayed them on his person, connected them with his reign, as I've already demonstrated from the coins and images reproduced for you in your outline. But let me try to drill into this a little bit more deeply. Thanatos seems to take the lead, and in the majority text, you don't find it in the NIV or ESV, but in the majority text, authority was given to him singular. They both ride, but the authority is given to Thanatos. So Hades seems to be under his authority, and there are a lot of implications to this clause. The first implication is that demons operate in a chain of command. Now we know that obviously from other scriptures, but I think it's hinted at here. If you bind the head demon, you can many times bind all of the demons. Jesus talked about binding the strong man so that you can plunder all of his goods. And the church, I think, needs to learn how to do this. We need to learn how to bind the strong man, you know, over cities and over capitals, if we're to have a large effect. This was, as I pointed out in the book of Acts, one of the strategies that the apostle Paul used. But this clause also hints at something you see in other scriptures, and that is that demons tend to operate in groupings. This verse clearly indicates there's more than one demon involved in Nero's life, but those demons are related. In fact, speaking of bringing up more than one demon, I'm going to be showing later on in the book. that Nero was an actual beehive of activities as underling demons traveled back and forth to receive orders from these two head demons. Later in the book, God will make clear that there were millions of demons involved with these two, and there were even more under the leadership of the horrific demon that God unleashes from the bottomless pit in 66 AD. He calls that demon the beast. And all of the evidence seems to indicate that the beast had greater authority than Thanatos or Hades did. Okay? And when you start digging into the nature of the spiritual kingdom of Satan in this book, and at some point I'm probably going to do a whole sermon devoted to pulling together the strands of spiritual warfare in this book. What it does is it explains the deception that comes upon politicians when they get elected and they go to Washington, D.C. A lot of people are mystified by it. It doesn't make any sense to them. But it is what Paul calls the mystery of iniquity. The demonic makes people act in mysterious ways. It explains why so many can go into politics dead set against abortion and homosexuality. Within months, they're soft on it or they are in favor of it. Demons always go after the leverage points of a society to control them and the leverage points in politics Would be things like City Hall County commissioners legislatures the three branches of the national government And if you haven't voted for a Christian your conservative candidate is easy pickings for the demonic very easy pickings now in religion The leverage point would be the leadership of denominations. Do demons go after the leadership of denominations? Absolutely. We've got a long history of that. That's why so many denominations have become rankly liberal, pro-homosexual, pro-abortion. I mean, they're just crazy. Zechariah 3 verse 1 showed Satan standing at the right hand of Joshua the high priest trying to oppose his work. Now, because Joshua engaged in spiritual warfare, Satan was not successful in gaining control of that leverage point, but he tried. Even with Joshua, he tried. And if pastors are not aware of the principles of spiritual warfare, they can easily be used and manipulated by demons without their even realizing it. Since business is a leverage point, Satan tries to control the executives of the Fortune 500 companies and other companies. And if they are not governed by Christians, they are easy pickings. Demons love to control these multinational corporations because they have a huge impact upon society. When we get to later chapters in Revelation, we're going to be seeing how the demons use international corporations and even banking to leverage their control of the empire. I think they've been pretty successful at that in America. Now, you might not have even thought of banking as being a leverage point, but it really is. So is education. So is entertainment. It's one of the reasons why I'm so grateful that there's an organization like MovieGuide that is trying to penetrate the lion's dare, lair, I should say, of the entertainment industry and be a missionary there. For too long Christians have backed away from these leverage points and Satan has had unfettered access. It should be no surprise to see the evil insanity being promoted by the National Education Association in America. They too are a beehive of demonic activity and their success in controlling the population I think has just been absolutely phenomenal. So at some point I may try to show the whole demonic kingdom that was at work under the leadership of demons like Thanatos and Hades. But in any case, this verse shows that there is more than one demon. Thanatos has greater authority than Hades, that they both cooperate in their work of destruction. Now there is controversy in these verses, and that is in the phrase, over a fourth of the earth. How in the world does that fit into the timing that we have established here? I think we've already demonstrated the death and Hades coins, the green horse coins clearly tie this section to the early part, not the later part of Nero's reign, but the early part, 54 to 61. And we've been forced to a first century interpretation by all of the sequence of seals and trumpets. One historically has to follow after the other. So you clearly identify this back here where you're forced to move backwards to the early part of Nero's reign. So identifying these four horsemen with the demonized Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero I think is pretty solidly rooted. Now here's the problem. There is no historical evidence that one fourth of the population of Rome, one fourth of the population of planet earth, or even one fourth of the population of Israel, if you take the word the earth or the land as referring to Israel, that they died during this period of time. Okay, that's 54 to 61. Doesn't matter how you interpret the phrase earth, it doesn't seem like that many people die. So I think that would be a good argument. in opposition to my view and in favor of the typical partial preterist view that tends to mix up and not have sequence in the seals, the trumpets, the seven plagues, and the seven bulls. They kind of mash them all up into the three-year period of 66 to 70 AD. And it's true that upwards of one quarter of Israel's population and apparently of the Roman Empire as a whole, was killed later on by sword, famine, generic death, and wild animals, sometime between 62 and 70 AD. So even though there are a lot of killings during the earlier period, perhaps numbering into the hundreds of thousands, the great killings did not start until 62, which is verse nine, right? So that's the problem I'm describing to you. But there are two ways to reconcile that fact with what the text actually says. First, it doesn't say that many people were killed during this first part of Nero's reign. It says that authority was given to him. over one fourth of the earth to engage in his activity, which includes these four things. So you would expect these activities to at least begin during this period, but they wouldn't have to be finished during this period. After all, we've already seen how the previous, the work of the previous demons continues on into the next regime. That's why things kept getting worse and worse. And we would expect the same to be true here. The work of these demons is going to continue into seals five, six, and seven. So one of two things could be meant, depending on whether you understand the earth as a reference to planet earth or Israel. First, it could mean that the authority to kill one quarter of Israel's population, or if you prefer, of Rome's population, was given to these demons at this time, but that it would take the next eight to nine years to accomplish it. Okay, so that's one way of taking it. That's the way I take it. I'm not dogmatic on it, but that's the way I take it. Another possible way to take it is that the earth is a reference to planet Earth and it just so happens that historians estimate that the population of the Roman Empire was between 20% and 25% of the world's entire population. So this phrase could mean that they were given authority to move anywhere in the Roman Empire to engage in their work of death and destruction. And since the Roman Empire was a quarter of the world's population, these demons would have authority over a quarter of the population of the world to engage in these things. So that's another possible interpretation. And actually you could blend the two. I favor the first one that they were given authority to start killing Jews between the years 54 and 61 AD. And for the first time they did indeed start happening. Felix killed 400 Jews and imprisoned 256, AD 56. Festus killed many Jews in AD 57. Josephus doesn't tell us how many, but he said Festus quote slew a great many of them. But the grammar does not necessitate all the deaths have to occur during this period. Only that authority was given during this time. When did the demon have the authority to inhabit Nero? That's the question. And it happened when he became emperor. So that would be a sedgeway nicely into the next three seals that document these killings under Nero later in his reign. And like I say, you could combine those two theories because the Horace men did bring all of these kinds of death in both Rome and in Israel. I'm going to be showing at the end of the sermon some of that. Now back to my first statement, authority was given to death, to the demon Thanatos for these judgments. To me this means that demons can't do anything without God's permission. Praise God. Satan does not have free reign, Jesus has free reign. The way some conspiracy books are written, you would get the impression that these demonic organizations like the Illuminati and Trilateral Commission and Bavarian Grove and all of these demonic organizations are invincible. They're like the 10 spies, you know, they're telling people some true facts, but they tell it in a way that absolutely kills their faith. They don't believe that the Great Commission is even possible. And so, with Joshua and Caleb, we should say to our Christian friends, the land we pass through to spy out is exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, then he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land which flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread. Their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them." You see, if Jesus opens the seals, if He's the one who restricts what a demon can and cannot do, then it is Jesus we should have faith in, not Satan. Rather than looking at the giants of the land as being invincible, we should look at Jesus as being invincible. I mean, why are we having these judgments in the first place? It's because the church is in a mess, right? We deserve these judgments. Think of the illustration that Kathy keeps telling about Jonah. Why was the ship being tossed by a storm? It wasn't because God was upset with the Phoenicians. Phoenicians are Phoenicians. They're going to act like Phoenicians. He was upset and brought this storm because Jonah was the man of God who was running away from God and running away from his responsibilities. As soon as he's cast overboard, the storm stops immediately. Why? He's the problem. And in the same way, I believe America is facing the judgments of these four horsemen of the Apocalypse because the church is running away from the Lord and from its responsibilities. And by the way, the whole nation doesn't have to repent for our nation to be healed, only the church. Here's what Scripture says in 2 Chronicles 7 14, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways Then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and do what? Heal their land. Reformation of the church is key. Now let's quickly end with the four judgments that God was going to use against both Rome and Israel. I think you'll recognize these things have come against our society at one time or another as well. First, the sword. As we saw in earlier sermons, the sword swallowed up millions of Jews. and millions of Romans throughout the empire between 68 and 70 AD. War has always been one of God's judgments on a rebellious people, and America has had a lot of lives lost due to war, private weapons as well. But the sword was already beginning to be unleashed during the early part of Nero's reign while Seneca was still alive. And I'm just going to give you one such account. Heichel, Chaim, and Yao write about an incident in Britain. Their book says, Roman procurators, acting on behalf of money lenders such as Seneca, confiscated farmlands and reduced the former owners to the level of serfs. They robbed the king's widow, Queen Bodicia, of her land, flogged her, and permitted the raping of her daughters. The outraged queen collected an army and captured the Roman colony of Kalamodinum, which is in Colchester, She destroyed the Roman Legion sent against her and marched on London where she caused the massacre of 70,000 Romans. Suetonius Paulinus defeated her army in battle by superior discipline and skill and stamped out the rebellion with ruthless efficiency. The vanquished Bodicia took her own life and Britain thereafter remained quiet and peaceful except for a few border raids. So the massacre of the Roman Legion, we aren't told how many were massacred in that, And of the earlier town, we aren't told how many there, the 70,000 Roman citizens in London and then their retaliation, a massacre of the Britons, it was an astonishing number of people. And that's just one example that fits into these verses of 7 through 8. I'll give you one more example, this one toward the end of this period, AD 61. And this is just one of many examples of slaves being killed. Oh, they just killed tens of thousands of slaves. Martin Armstrong writes, after Secundus was murdered by his slaves in 61, the law allowed the execution of 400 slaves in his palace, although the urban commoners protested. The jurists Cassius Longinus proposed stronger measures to control slaves. Now, it doesn't account for a quarter of the Roman population or a quarter of Israel or a quarter of anything being killed, but they were beginning that work of killing. And those around him, like Poppea and homosexual Tigellinus, were involved in the macabre use of the sword. For example, according to the Roman historian Tacitus, Nero's second wife, Poppea, wanted to see the head of his first wife that he had just finished killing. I mean, she was just sick. She was the one, you know, who put her thumbs down on the Colosseum, which means, no mercy, kill the gladiator, right? So the sword was definitely a judgment seen by Nero early in his reign. Famine is the next judgment, and famine is simply a scarcity of food and goods. These famines started under Claudius were continued under Nero because he failed to get the government out of the economy. Instead, he exacerbated the problems by trying to be a better statist. Several authors have compared his public work projects to the WPA under FDR during the Depression. If you have a stagnant economy, a lot of unemployment, well, Nero thought, let's hire them. Let's give them government jobs. Those bloated programs were designed to stimulate the economy, give jobs to the unemployed who were hungry, and create a greater centralization of the government. Martin Armstrong, who just does a whitewash of Nero, he's a Nero supporter, but here's how he describes this situation. And I'm picking him because even he shows how this is a problem. As the economy turned down sharply, Nero increased his spending in the classical Keynesian model, yet it failed to reverse the economic decline. As was the case with Caligula, it appears that during the reign of Nero, his administrators turned to treason trials, confiscation of assets, and raising taxes. The coinage was even debased, setting in motion a long-term trend that would end only during the third century. Nero debased the metal content of the Roman currency to increase the money supply for the first time in the empire's history. He reduced the weight of the denarius from 84 per Roman pound to 96. He also reduced the silver purity from 99.5% to 93.5%. The silver weight dropping from 3.83 grams to 3.4 grams, furthermore, Nero reduced the weight of the aureus from 40 per Roman pound to 45. And what happened basically, in a nutshell, is this constant meddling either led to gluts, which put people out of work, or shortages, which often resulted in famines. He discovered you cannot mess with God's economic laws without feeling the negative consequences. The next judgment stated is death and death is taken by most commentators as death by natural causes such as disease and storm and earthquake. And there was a great deal of this in Nero's reign. A massive plague struck the region of Turkey, especially where the church of Ephesus was located. That was in 61. Earlier Nero's reign saw hurricanes, devastating huge regions, numerous plagues and pestilences. Suetonius spoke of 30,000 dying of the plague during one of the fall seasons, during this period, one of the fall seasons in Rome alone. Death from natural causes significantly increased. And then the last judgment is the wild animals of the earth, and Nero was famous for death by wild animals. So let me just conclude with a few thoughts. Why does God allow the state to go crazy? Why does He bring judgments like these? Well, I believe in part it could be to give a God complex state some reality check. It could be in part to punish citizens who delight in worshiping Caesar. But I believe that many if not most of the New Testament judgments were redemptive judgments that brought multitudes into the kingdom and as Christians ministered to each other and they ministered to those outside of the church during earthquakes and famines and plagues and other judgments. What happened is that the pagan Romans were just blown away by seeing the love that these Christians had for one another. And it made them long for the grace that they had. As Romans talks about, it made them jealous of the gospel. And so that's what we mean by redemptive judgments. Yes, it's a judgment that destroys, but it's also a judgment that leads to redemption of many people. And most history books, Christian history books that look back on this period are very negative. You know, they say, oh man, how terrible it was. You know, there were multitudes of Christians who were martyred. And I'm thinking, yeah, but you're forgetting the fact you couldn't martyr multitudes of Christians if there weren't multitudes coming to Christ in the first place, right? The whole reason why Satan is so upset is that the church was growing like crazy and the gates of Hades could not prevail against it. They were smashing down those great gates. They were taking people in. So the church militant was growing, and the church never let up, and eventually country after country became Christian until Rome itself was incorporated into Christendom. But it was because the church was willing to take on demonic strongholds that it had success. Like Caleb of old, the saints of the first few centuries asked God, give me this mountain. They were willing to take on Goliaths. They were willing to take on the four horsemen. And they won because they had four things in place that the modern church in America completely lacks. Let me list those four things. They first of all had an eschatology of victory. That is critical. If you don't believe God has promised victory, you'll never have the faith to attempt victory. Second, they had biblical blueprints to replace humanism with. If you got all these failed economic problems and you get a Christian in there who has no clue what the Bible says is the proper solution, they're just gonna continue to have the humanistic answers, right? They have no blueprints. Christians who get into politics today, they do not have biblical blueprints. They do baptized humanism. They are part of the problem. Well, as Gary North has said, you can't beat something with nothing. The church must once again pull out the biblical blueprints and begin using them. Third, they had each other's backs. The church stuck up for each other. They were united in battle. OK, love was one of the marks of the church. Fourth, they believed in the alls of the Great Commission. They did not have a truncated commission like the modern church did. They believed that Christ has all authority, not just in heaven, but all authority on earth as well. They believed His authority extended to politics, not just the church. It extended to every area of life. They believed converting all nations was possible, so they attempted to convert all nations. They believed Jesus wants us to teach all things that He has commanded. Matthew says, Matthew 5, 19 says He commands us to teach every lick of the Word of God. Matthew 4, 4 says we're to live by every word applied to every part of life. And they believed that Jesus was with them powerfully to the end of the age and that he had already given them everything they need for godliness and life and success. If the church as a whole were to regain a biblical faith, a biblical hope, a biblical love, and a truly comprehensive vision of the Great Commission, I think they could effectively resist the four horsemen that have revisited America. But instead of having our focus on Jesus, the church often focuses on the demons and they think that they're too much. If you really know the Jesus who opens those seals, you'll be convinced that if He is for us, who can be against us? Lord, give us faith to resist the horsemen. Amen. Let's pray. Father God we thank you for your word and the challenge that it is to our faith. And we thank you that the early church took up that challenge and they ran with it and the church grew like crazy. And I pray father that the church in America and the church around the world today would regain these four things that would enable them not to fear and to run from these four horsemen but to take them on. and to be a part of an army that advances the cause of Christ. We pray that you would bless your church with revival, and not just revival, Father, with far-reaching reformation, greater than any reformation that we have ever experienced in history. Advance your kingdom for the sake of your dear son. And it's in his name that we pray this. Amen.