“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 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?’”

The Second Three Seals – The Breaking of a Rebellious World

1. A Broken Dominion

Last week we looked at the first three of the seven seals, which brought forth or released the first three horsemen of the apocalypse. We saw the white horse, its rider, one who conquers, possibly the antichrist, coming forward with the false peace of his empty bow, and the world bowing before him. We saw the fiery red horse, its rider bearing the sword of war, who burns up the illusion of the hollow, baseless peace from the world. Finally we saw the black horse, its rider holding scales, and sending the world into economic collapse and famine, while almost ironically preserving the commodities made useless in the face of starvation, and pointing to the hoarding of goods and wealth among the rich and powerful. As we studied each horseman and the implications of his impact on the earth, we saw how this wasn’t so much a series of events that were forced upon the world, but rather it was an unveiling of what was already present. These three horsemen illustrate the world’s rejection of God, their denial and hatred of His Son, and the fruit gleaned in their rebellion – false peace, war, and greed-riddled famine. As we begin today’s section we see the fourth seal broken, and the fourth horse come forth, a pale, sickly green. Unlike the other horsemen, there is no mystery concerning the identity of this rider, as we’re told his name – he is Death, and the pain of Hades follows after him in his wake. He is the conclusion of the first three horsemen, the place to which they all, in their rejection and rebellion against God, will lead. Paul writes simply in Romans 6:23,

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The broken peace that failed the world, the sword of war that was already raging upon the earth and the economic imbalance and resulting famine that racked the population continue under the fourth horseman – but added to the lives claimed we now see pestilence. Disease, which is the natural progression of death and starvation, adds to the death toll, and in the midst of mankind’s weakened and disorganized state, we see wild animals begin to prey on us. It is perhaps the wild animals that give us the biggest clue as to what is beginning now, and coming to greater fruition in later seals. In Genesis, in the beginning, God speaks creation into existence. From the nameless, shapeless nothing of non-existence, through the force of His will and the power of His voice, God brought forth the universe and all that is in it. Genesis 1:27–28 says,

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”

This is something that we lost in the fall, not completely, but it was certainly distorted by sin. Man has been blessed to multiply and to fill the earth, and while we do not live in harmony with nature, we have been allowed to subdue it – but we’re watching the end of that. The four living creatures with their four faces (lion, ox, man, and eagle) represent the spectrum of creation, and as each calls and a horseman comes forward, a piece of the common grace that holds our world mercifully together falls away. After the end of mankind’s hollow, fractious peace, as we stand with swords to one another’s throats, starving and diseased, the animals become such a problem that they merit mentioning. The animals that Adam was given dominion over and charged to name as part of his work before the fall are killing us on a massive scale. It’s not that we’ve never seen examples of issues with predators before in Scripture – David, under the blessing of the Lord, killed lions and bears in protecting his father’s flocks, and Samson, filled with the Spirit, killed a lion barehanded. In 1 Kings 13 we see an unnamed prophet killed by a lion for disobeying God, and in 2 Kings 2 we see Elisha curse a mob of heckling pagans in the name of the Lord, and then forty-two of the young men were mauled by two bears. Lions and bears have never been our friends, but we can see a shift after the fourth horseman because as we see the cause of death for a quarter of the world’s population, it goes to war, starvation, disease, wild animals. Nature is broken, in that nature has taken on its relationship with humanity that it should have after the fall and we are being ravaged by the breaking of a dominion that we shirked and rejected – we’re watching as what was once made is now unmade. In Matthew 21 Jesus gives the parable of the wicked tenants. After they have already beaten and killed some of their landlord’s servants, we see in verses 37–44,

“Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.” And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the Scriptures: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes”? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.’”

The world has rejected Christ, the world has denied God, we spit in the face of the relationship that was made for us and mocked the common grace we shared in – and under the hooves of the four horsemen we watch as that is ripped away. We have not yet seen what it looks like for the Cornerstone to fall, destroying upon the earth, but we’re seeing His absence, what the condition of things look like when He is denied and His order and stability is taken away.

3. A Building Vengeance

“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?’”

We don’t know exactly what heaven will be like – we don’t know exactly what it will feel like to be freed from our sinful flesh, to exist in a space where we’re not living out a clock that’s counting down to our mortal end, to live in praise and worship in the presence of our holy, Living God. I can’t tell you precisely what it will be like because I’ve never done it – and even if I had, I don’t imagine that I could really do it justice. There is an element of mystery to eternity, a degree to which we have to rely on faith because we simply don’t know all the details – but we really know a lot more than we often act like we do. Maybe not about the specifics (we’re not given a copy of the seating chart), but about the condition and nature of things. Jesus makes promises to “the one who conquers” as He addresses the seven churches, and this gives us a framework for the picture of heaven. Eating of the tree of life in the paradise of God, given the crown of life and unhurt by the condemnation and exile of the second death, hidden manna and a white stone with a new name, ruling authority and the morning star, white garments and a name forever written in the book of life, to be a pillar in the temple of God, to sit with Christ upon His throne – this all comes together to form an understanding of eternity. It’s not about getting what you want, it’s not floating around on clouds all day, it’s not this vague, warm milk, pointless, ambiguous, agnostic idea of going to a “good place.” It’s about God, and it’s elevating us above and beyond the limitations of our flesh that we might praise and worship our Lord, Master, and loving Father in His presence – which is entirely what He is worthy of, and is the best possible scenario for us, something so glorious it’s beyond imagining. This insight we’re given is deepened further through the opening of the fifth seal, and the sight of the martyrs, not just showing us what the condition of things will be in the new heaven and new earth, but right now before the throne of God. The suffering of the saints, the persecution of those who proclaim Christ and the name of holy God has existed as long as we have. The writer of Hebrews commends the faith of those who came before Jesus came bodily to the earth, saying of their suffering and long endurance in Hebrews 11:36–38,

“Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”

It may feel at times like we suffer in anonymity, that as we see news of our brothers and sisters around the world being murdered by the thousands that we are persecuted as a nameless mass – but what Scripture affirms is that God sees and accounts for every injustice. When calling Moses, God tells him in Exodus 3:7–10,

“… I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

We are a persecuted people, hated by the world because they first hated the One we serve

This is why Paul can write with such excitement and hope in Romans 8:33–39,

“Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

It’s always seemed strange to me that in the midst of declaring the transcendent victory we have in Jesus, Paul breaks and inserts, as though underlining his point, this quote from Psalm 44:22,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

We have such assurance, such boldness in the fact that the absolute worst thing that the world can do to us, hating and killing us for our faith in Christ, is still far, far insufficient, in no way poses a threat to the grasp that the Father has upon us. What’s more, God does not count the deaths of His saints as meaningless or inconsequential. To understand how precious the lives of His children are to God, we have to look at where the souls of the saints are in relation to Him and His throne. They’re under the altar, and close to the throne, but to really grasp what’s happening here it helps to look at other passages. In Exodus 37:25–29 we see dimensions of the altar of incense that was built and placed within the tabernacle,

“He made the altar of incense of acacia wood. Its length was a cubit, and its breadth was a cubit. It was square, and two cubits was its height. Its horns were of one piece with it. He overlaid it with pure gold, its top and around its sides and its horns. And he made a molding of gold around it, and made two rings of gold on it under its molding, on two opposite sides of it, as holders for the poles with which to carry it. And he made the poles of acacia wood and overlaid them with gold. He made the holy anointing oil also, and the pure fragrant incense, blended as by the perfumer.”

A key element of the altar (as with many things in the tabernacle, and later the temple), is that you don’t touch it. It’s interesting, because we can see this seems to be the case as well for the altar in heaven. Isaiah 6:2–7 says,

“Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!’ And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: ‘Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!’ Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.’”

Something that struck me as I studied this passage is that the seraphim uses tongs to remove the coal from the altar, but then takes it in his hand to press it to Isaiah’s lips. This made me wonder, if he could handle the coal with his hands, then what were the tongs for? But looking at the conditions around the earthly altars, it seems fairly obvious that it was the altar itself that the angel was preventing contact with, not the heat of the coal. Something else I wondered about the Isaiah passage is, how does a coal taken from the altar of God atone for Isaiah’s sin? I reasoned that there is an understanding of fire purifying, and I could grasp the concept of burning away and making clean, but still, I felt like I was missing something, and I think what we see in today’s passage provides that understanding. What is beneath the altar that stands before the throne of God are the souls and the prayers of His martyred saints. Understand, their appeals are not self-serving – they cry out to God just as John wept when he saw that there was no one worthy to open the seven sealed scroll – their desire is not that they be vindicated for their own sake, but that God, who is righteous and holy and true, see His justice delivered. Now, let’s make sure we have the imagery clear – these souls are not burning, they’re in heaven, before God, sanctified, made holy before God, and are there in His very presence. Their prayers however are like burning incense, right and holy, a form of worship, glorifying God and His power, and a saintly desire that His holy name be defended. It is from this altar where these prayers are burning with righteous intensity that the coal is taken by the seraphim that is then pressed to the lips of Isaiah. James writes in James 3:4–10,

“Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.”

Part of what we witness in Isaiah 6 is the taming of Isaiah’s tongue, the burning away of unclean lips with the righteous fire of saintly prayer taken from the glowing altar of God. His sins are atoned for as they’re burned up, as the wicked words of flesh are taken from him and the righteous words of the Lord are placed in his mouth, a prophet of the Living God. If the prayers of saints are this pleasing to God, if the cries of His martyred children are given such significance and made holy as to atone for sin, then we should have an inkling as to the status God gives these souls, as to how cherished they are in His presence.

“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.”

After we hear the cries of the martyrs, we see the response. They are dressed in white robes, the attire, as Jesus tells the church at Sardis, or the living. They are given rest, and assurance that God’s vengeance is coming. It is recorded in the song of Moses, in Deuteronomy 32:35–36,

“‘Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly.’ For the LORD will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone and there is none remaining, bond or free.”

For the God who would leave the ninety-nine to rescue the one, how could the death of any of His children go unaccounted for? And what we see is that there are none that are overlooked, none that go unseen, and His delay in moving against the world, in claiming His holy and rightful retribution is not out of any lack or negligence, but rather His patience, and His slowly building vengeance. Paul writes in Romans 2:5,

“But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”

And Peter tells us in 2 Peter 3:9–10,

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”

The fifth seal displays what we who are followers of Christ have already known – God is not asleep, He is not negligent, He is not unfeeling or unconcerned with the suffering of His people. And just as He will dry every eye and bind up every wound, He will level just and holy retribution on the world that has hated Him – on the wicked world that has persecuted His flock.

3. A Stiff-necked People

“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.”

What we saw from the first four seals, the conqueror with his false peace, the red rider with the sword of war, the black rider with the greed and corruption in the midst of famine and starvation, and the pale rider bearing death on a massive scale – it’s all things that we’ve already seen. As we’ve discussed, it’s an intensification of what is already present on the earth, a revealing of the true nature of things without Christ. The sixth seal is different, because we see as the stability of creation itself is compromised – the world is being unmade. There are other, extreme instances in Scripture where the sun was darkened – Exodus 10:21–23 describes the ninth plague against Egypt saying,

“Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt.’ So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the people of Israel had light where they lived.”

“A darkness to be felt,” is an ominous sentiment, but even this, chilling as it is, was in a limited geographical region. Matthew 27:45 says that during the crucifixion,

“Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.”

This is not described as geographically limited, but it had a very specific duration – for the three brightest hours of the day, which Jesus hung suffering on the cross, the world was cast in darkness. What is described in Revelation however is unprecedented, and fulfills the prophecy of Joel 2:31,

“The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.”

The breaking of the sixth seal doesn’t just show humanity in the turmoil they face in the absence of Christ, it shows creation with God’s ordered stability reduced. Colossians 1:16–17 says,

“For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

and Hebrews 1:3 tells us,

“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power…”

When we reject Jesus, we’re not just denying Love, Peace, Truth, justice, Light and Life, we’re denying the One who made everything, who created the space we occupy, the time that measures our existence, and the entirety of reality. If He goes away, the entire structure, the order of it all goes with Him – without God, we truly have nothing. And then, under a darkened sun and a bloody moon, and with stars cascading to the earth like fruit from a windblown tree, the sky rolls up. We could imagine this as mass weather movements, as some kind of breaking of the firmament as the atmosphere is compromised along with the rest of creation, but I have another theory. I wonder if the rolling up of the sky is a pulling back of the veil that hides heaven from mortal eyes. I’m wondering if as the beginnings of judgement are visited upon the earth, the sky is pulled away, and through the crystal sea, the world has view of the One who is seated on the throne, the One whom they’ve spurned and rejected, whose justice is now being delivered upon them. The reason I think this may be the case is because of what we see next – as the people of earth lament their condition, they don’t blame nature, or the wrath of empty pagan gods.

“Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb…”

This is what they cry as the world breaks around them – there’s no mystery, they know whose righteous gaze they’re under, they know who it is that levels judgment against them, and so it makes me think that the world can see through the open sky the One who looks upon from the throne room of heaven. We’ll return to the people on the earth later, as there’s more to say about them, but we next see that the mountains and islands are removed from their places. As the world is broken and turned upside down, this has very literal implications, as geographical events take place the likes of which had never been seen – but there are also heavily symbolic meanings. Mountains are consistently shown in Scripture as relating to structure and authority. It was at the top of Mt. Sinai that Moses received the Law from God – the entire structural system by which the Jews would be governed. In Matthew’s gospel we see as Jesus is baptized, then His forty days of temptation in the wilderness, and then the immediate transition into His ministry. After the second half of Matthew 4 shows all the groundwork and key elements of Christ’s earthly ministry laid (His central message of “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” the calling of the first disciples, and His miracle healings), we are given in Matthew 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5:1 says,

“Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.”

So again, this mountain is literal – but also highly symbolic. Jesus is speaking from the top of the mountain, from the place of authority, and as He preaches in the longest single address we have from Jesus in all of Scripture, He is correcting the errors that rabbinic teaching had inserted into the Law – He’s rebuilding the order of the mountain. Five times Jesus says, “You have heard,” and then goes on to give correction of what the ruling Jews have taught concerning the Law, and what the Law actually says, and what the Spirit of that Law instructs. It was an opportunity to reset, for the people to continue to follow the idol that the religious leaders had turned the Law into, or to acknowledge Truth and to obey the instruction of the ordered mountain of God. There is a reason that Jesus tells the disciples in Matthew 17:20,

“… For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

This wasn’t about moving land masses (though we’re mistaken if we think that God couldn’t work through His servants to accomplish any task we may think of as beyond natural law), it was about moving hearts and minds to repentance and redemption. And if you think about the order of the world, about the power among the Jews that was held by the Sanhedrin, about the might of the Roman empire, to the width and breadth of the world that wasn’t even explored at that point in history, and then consider what God blessed twelve men to do – twelve men, ranging from fishermen, to a religious zealot, to a tax collector, armed with the gospel of Christ and the Spirit of Truth, and they changed the landscape of the entire world forever. Looking at all this, it’s hard to say that they didn’t move mountains. Returning to Revelation and now bearing in mind the symbolic relevance of mountains, we can understand that not only is the land torn apart, but the human institutions, the governing bodies, the systems of order that mankind has prided itself on are all displaced. While the image of islands don’t carry the same Biblical examples as mountains, it’s not hard to picture that if a mountain is a governing system of power and order built up from the land, then an island would be a power unto itself, a separate, isolated entity. It doesn’t matter – there’s no stone left unturned, no corner left undisturbed. All of creation is receiving what sinful man has asked for – separation from God, reliance upon self. Remember that Jesus didn’t come to judge the world, for the world had already judged itself in rejecting Him as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And so the wrath of the Lamb, the death and destruction, the end of worldly institutions and upheaval of the land itself is all just, it’s all right and good. This is the level punishment, the proper condition of a world that has hated God.

“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 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?’”

As the world is thrown into chaos, and the fabric of what we know and orient ourselves on starts to shred, we first see that everything has become unnaturally level from a social standpoint. Everyone, from the highest ruler to the lowest slave has been reduced to the same level, hiding in caves amidst the death and desolation. We see the people cry out and fulfill the prophetic words Jesus speaks as He marches toward Calvary in Luke 23:27–31,

“And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. But turning to them Jesus said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, “Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!” Then they will begin to say to the mountains, “Fall on us,” and to the hills, “Cover us.” For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?’”

We could possibly understand and even maybe empathize with a world that is in such pain that people would ask to die, to be covered and concealed from the gaze of God and the wrath of the Lamb – but there’s something far, far more tragic going on here, and a motivation more wicked than a simple desire for suffering to end. Exodus 32:7–10 says,

“And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”’ And the LORD said to Moses, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.’”

If we read ahead in Revelation, as we move through the seven trumpets that are to come, we see a degree of suffering and judgment poured out on the world that exceeds what we’ve seen from the scroll and seals so far. As the world is in ruin and mankind in shambles we see in Revelation 9:20–21,

“The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.”

 The wording is different, but this is the same thing we see in today’s passage. The world is in ruin, they’re hiding in caves, the eye of the Lord is upon them, the wrath of the Lamb leveled against them, and what does everyone from king to beggar do? They cry out – not to God, not to the Lamb, they don’t beg for mercy, they don’t confess, they don’t repent. They beg of the mountains, “Fall on us and hide us.” They look to the natural world, they ask of the institutions and hierarchies that have been dismantled and displaced to protect them from the wrath of God and His divine judgment. They seek protection where there is none to be found and in so doing they show their wickedness – they reveal their stubborn hearts and stiff necks. This is the world apart from God – wicked, treacherous, deceitful and selfish. No honor, no justice, no comfort or shelter. This is the truth, this is, again, who and what humanity is apart from God, and it sounds terrible, because it is terrible. But we’re not condemned to remain in that condition – we are offered Life, and Hope, and Peace, deliverance from the pain and darkness of the second death and eternal, burning exile. This is not a choice to be made out of fear, not a path to walk in the hope of avoiding punishment – rather it is something to pursue with great joy and gladness, because God is good, His path is right, and the mountain of His justice will prevail against any and all who oppose it.

Pastor Chris’ sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWClOrCxNXk