Revelation 6:12-17

We are in the middle of a series called Omega. It is a study on the Book of Revelation and the End Times. And so we’ve been in this for a little over a year now. And God willing, we’re going to wrap up chapter number six today. So if you have your Bibles and you have them there with you, turn them to Revelation Chapter six. Today, we’re going to specifically look at verses 12 through 17, Revelation Chapter six, 12 through 17. Just to give you a little contexton where we’re at since it’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve been in the book in Revelation Chapter six, the Lord Jesus has taken the scroll. The scroll is the title deed to all creation. Inside of it are the instructions upon which God has instituted to bring judgment upon the world for its sin and for its evil. And it’s also the process by which he plans to redeem those found in Jesus Christ, as well as create the new heavens and the new earth.Well, this document, this scroll being held together by seven seals, and every time a seal is undone, a judgment happens on the earth. Seal number one is a time of false peace likely orchestrated by this end times figure known as the Antichrist, Satan’s own messiah, if you will, as orchestrator of his plan at the end times. Then that false piece collapses and SEAL number two. And we have catastrophic global war that’s followed by SEAL number three,which is famine and hyperinflation as a result of the war. The fourth seal is death,specifically to a fourth of the world’s population as a result of pestilence and war and famine. The fifth seal is global martyrdom of Christians, and we see that by the fifth seal.The sixth seal gets even more terrifying than the first five. So if you’ve turned with me to Revelation chapter six, verse number 12, I’m going to ask if you please rise and stand in honor of God’s word for our initial and primary reading of it today. 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 in 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 the wrath has come. And who can stand? You may be seated. This text brings me to one question. Our question is this What is the most powerful of all human emotions? Someone advocate that it is loveand it’s possible that it is, but love is a little complicated because there’s several differentdefinitions and perspectives about what love is. It’s very subjective. Now, if you’re talking about the love defined by the Greek word agape, which was demonstrated by Jesus Christon the cross in dying for the rebels of God, you and I, then yes, that’s a very powerful thing. But I don’t know if it’s so much of an emotion as it is a choice, a decision. A position. A grace. What about fear? Fear can seize the mind, it can seize the human will, it can really take every other emotion that we have in subjection every emotion to fear. Fear can send the strongest of the strong into a tailspin. It can dismantle entire kingdoms. Fear can manipulate the most intelligent of minds, it can paralyze the strongest of people. Fear has the ability to take a hero down to the status of a coward and even elevate a coward to the status of a hero. Fear can convert in a matter of seconds. Strength to weakness. Aggression to passivity. Reason to confusion and clear thinking to absolute and total confused panic.Fear affects a lot of people, there are the five primary fears that people hold fear of disease. Fear of injury. Fear of death. Fear of losing someone. Fear of public speaking. Which at one point in my life I had. In addition to the fears that a lot of people share, there are unusual elevations to hyper focused fears called phobias. Maybe one of these fits into your list spiders. Insects. Snakes. Mice. Being alone. The dark. Enclosed spaces or claustrophobia? Flying. Heights. The band Nickelback. Or maybe you’re afraid the Backstreet Boys really will be back. People fear all kinds of things. The reality is, is rarely do they fear what they actually should fear. The Lord Jesus Christ made this clear to us and Luke, chapter 12, verse five, he said, But I will warn you whom to fear. Fear him who after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 34, we know him, who said vengeance is mine and I will repay, and again, the Lord will judge his people.It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Instead of fearing God, a lot of times we sort of just look at God as maybe some grumpy grandpa or deny his existence altogether. One day, though, nobody will be able to escape the uncontrollable fear of the judgments of the living God unless your sin is covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus said himself in Luke, chapter 21, verse 26, people will faint with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world for the powers of heaven will be shaken. The word faint here in the Greek literally means expire or stop breathing. In this text today, we see three things concerning fear. And that’s what I want to look at as we discover what is being unleashedin the sixth seal. I want to talk about the reason for fear, why did they have a reason to fear? What was the range of the fear? How far did it go? And what was the reaction to this fear? And what can we learn from that? So what was the reason for fear? Well, we find that in verse 12, let’s read it again. It says, when he opened the six, so 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 this sky fell to the earth as a fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up every mountain, and island was removed from its place. The reason for fear is that the sixth seal and the judgment that follows that is different than the rest of them. The first five judgments all involve humans. They’re all brought on by human involvement, false peace, war, famine,pestilence, martyrdom, all of these things have occurred at some level by human handsthroughout history. Maybe not to the extent that we see in Revelation, but it has happened.But the sixth seal is all God. At this point, we’re very likely on our on our timeline likely. You can disagree with me on this, obviously, but we’re very likely on the later part of the tribulation. The last three and a half years, the Antichrist is likely the key central figureheadthat is being worshiped because he can provide the things that humanity wants. Mass persecution is being raised on a global scale against Christians, and the war is still leaving a devastating effect on the Earth, as well as the famine in the pestilence. But the events of the sixth SEAL are so terrifying that the world is actually forced to acknowledge what Christians have been warning the world about for thousands of years, that God is going to come with a reckoning. It says here at the end of the text that they had to they hide themselves from the one who is seated on the throne, they are finally acknowledging that God exists. John, the human author of Revelation, he recorded six natural disasters as a result of these still judgments now, even though they’re natural disasters. They are. They come because of supernatural involvement. And so the first natural disaster that he covers here in the text is a great earthquake. Even more devastating than any previous earthquake that’s ever occurred on the Earth. Keep in mind that the people who experience this earthquake will have already survived a world war, a devastating famine.Widespread pandemics of deadly diseases and more than likely a loss of several family members is a fourth of the world has died. They will have also experienced a world where the Holy Spirit has been pulled out. Do you realize that one of the roles of God, the Holy Spirit in the world today is he’s a restrainer of evil. He’s holding back Satan and the Antichrist. He’s holding back sins, full force. It seems he’s letting a little bit out at a time as we get closer and closer. But eventually, God will remove God, the Holy Spirit out of the picture. And there will be no restraint. There will be a world that we plunge into all sorts of immorality, vice wickedness, godliness. It will be happening on the streets for all to see. It will not be punished. There will not be justice. It will be applauded. Murder or perversionabuse out in the open? The Antichrist is worshiped on the earth, sin is getting ready to take its full course. The second natural disaster, the sun turns black, this is fascinating, how can the sun turn black? It says black, sackcloth cloth with a garment that mourners used to wear, people who had actually be hired by families to mourn at funerals over their lost family members. Sackcloth was made of the hair of black goats. Well, how can this happen? How can this natural phenomena actually occur? Well, scientist Dr. Henry Morris explains in his book Revelation record some details that may explain this and make this possible. He said the great earthquake described here for the first time in history is worldwide in scope. Seismologists and geophysicist in recent years have learned a great deal about the structure of the earth and about the cause and nature of earthquakes. The Earth’s solid crust is traversed with a complex network of faults, with all resting upon a plastic mantle whose structure is still largely unknown, whether the crust consists of great moving plates as a current matter of controversy among geophysicists. So the ultimate cause of earthquakes is still not known. In all likelihood, the entire complex of crustalinstabilities is a remnant of the phenomena of the great flood, especially the breakup of the fountains of the great deep. And in any case, the vast worldwide network of unstable earthquake belts around the world suddenly will begin to slip and fracture on a global basis. And I and a gigantic earthquake will ensue. This is evidently and naturally accompanied by tremendous volcanic eruptions spewing vast quantities of dust and steamand gases into the upper atmosphere. And it is probably these that will cause the sun to be darkened and the moon to appear. Blood-Red. Science geeks in the room. Put your glasses up. It’s fascinating. The Old Testament prophet Joel spoke of this in Joel, chapter two, verseone, he said, The sun shall be turning the darkness and the moon to blood before the greatand awesome day of the Lord comes. Well, that leads us to our third natural disaster, and that is the moon turned blood red. This is already happened. So we know it can happen. Isaiah, chapter 13 verse 10 for the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be dark at its rising. The moon will not shed its light. The world will panic even further as its ability to tell the difference between night and day will be removed. The smoke in the air. will pollute the lungs of humans that already have immunocompromised bodies because of famine, pestilence, war. The fourth natural disasters is the stars of the sky fall to the earth now this likely does not indicate that all the stars would incinerate the earth well before the time has come for Jesus to return. But it’s long been talked about the possibility of the planet being struck by a asteroid or a meteor or several of them, and based on the imagery here that John gives, it’s probably several of them since there’s figs coming out of the tree. The fifth natural disasters, the sky splits and rolls up. This feels like the end, but it’s not the end yet. Whatever natural phenomena he is observing feels catastrophic. Feels like the sky is rolling up, Isaiah, chapter three, four verse for all the hosts of heaven show right away and the skies roll up like a scroll and their ho shall fall as leaves fall from the vine like leaves falling from the fig tree. So what John is seeing here is he knows the words of prophet Isaiah, and now he is seeing it happen and he’s pulling the two together and using what Isaiah said to reinforce what he is seeing. Six Natural disaster, every mountain and island will be removed from its place. The instability of the Earth’s crust, no doubt moves everything out of place. Let me go back to Revelation record. He says the earth’s crust, highly unstable ever since the great flood will be so disturbed by the impacting asteroids, the volcanic explosions and the worldwide earthquakes. The great segments of it will actually begin to slip and slide over the earth’sdeep plastic mantle. Geophysicist for many years have been fascinated with the idea of continental drift, although strong evidence has been accumulating against any suchphenomena occurring in the present age. Several have published theories of past naturalistic catastrophism involving what they call the earth’s shifting crust. Some such phenomena may actually be triggered under this judgment of the sixth seal dwarfing the damage occasioned by all the mighty earthquakes of the past. Revelation Record. These events of the sixth seal would be the most devastating things that have ever happened to the Earth. That’s the reason for fear. We don’t have to dig very far to find out what the reason for fear is. So how what is the range of the fear? How far does the fear go? Well, verse 15 makes this clear. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful and everyone, slave and free, everyone. No one will be able to escape this. Every member of society. It don’t matter if you have political power, doesn’t matter if you have military authority, doesn’t matter if you have wealth? Doesn’t matter if you have influence? You can be the most lit tick tock influencer in the world. And you’re not going to be able to escape God’s coming judgment. So the third thing is, what is the reaction to this fear? Verse 15 clarifies that for us as well. Well, they hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks fall on usand 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. What is a horrible tragedy in all of this is that. The world, after seeing all of these things happen, should do what? Get on their knees and repent before the living and holy and righteous God. But instead. There will be many most, Then instead of repentance, it will just cause mindless panic. Maybe they’ll finally believe that God exists in these judgments are coming from them, but just like the demons, they won’t repent. James 2:19, you believe that God is one you do Well, even the demons believe in shutter If anybody knows the power of God and the power of the Lord Jesus, it’s Satan. And he rebelled. Now, I don’t want to get into thetheology of cause demons cannot be redeemed, their fallen angels, and can they repent? I don’t think that’s clear anywhere in scripture that they can actually do that. But my point is, is that even the demons and Satan saw the power of the living God firsthand and they rebelled. So just like the demons, people will refuse, they’ll see the awesome power of God and they’ll refuse. There will be no place to hide. You can get in a plane and try to escapethe things that are happening on the ground, but the pilots won’t be able to see in the unsafe air, nor can they. They evade the falling sky debris. Let’s get in a plane where there’s asteroids hitting the earth, that sounds like a great idea. You can run in the caves but the earthquakes have dismantled the caves, I think it’s funny that the affluent has spent so much time building bunkers underground and they will be destroyed. You can run out in the open. Hey, I don’t want to go to a cave because it may fall on me. I don’t want to get in a plane because I might be hit by falling sky debris. I’ll just go out in the open. Oh, yeah. Well, the ground shifting buildings are falling and the air is polluted. And things may fall on you.There will be nowhere to hide. The prophet spoke of this, an inescapable grasp of God’s judgment. Amos chapter nine, verse two. If they dig in the Shoel from their shell up my hand, take them, if they climb up to heaven from there, I will bring them down. If they hide themselves on top of Carmel, from there, I will search them out and take them. And if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea there, I will command the serpent and it shall bite them. Now, there’s some hyperbole being used by Amos here in the sense that obviously you can’t climb down to Hell or climb up to Heaven different dimensions stuff.But the key is you can’t go anywhere. It is appointed unto every man to die once and then judgment. Those who are found in Christ Jesus, our judgment are guilt will be put on the cross and we will be saved and enter eternity. But those who are rebels of Christ who have not put that ask for forgiveness from Christ and made him Lord and savior, they will face God’s judgment. And you can run and hide in the cave. You can get in, get in a plane and try to fly. You can run to Mars if you want. God knows where you are. And you can’t run. The terrifying events prompt a worldwide prayer meeting, but the prayers are to mother naturethey’re not to God. The prayers go to the Antichrist. They’re looking for Mother Nature to protect them, all the false little gods that they made up in their minds over all these ages.But God created nature. God created the world, and he’s in complete control of it now, he’s using it as an instrument of his justice. People will be so terrified that they will consider itbetter to die than face the wrath of God. That’s pretty horrible that you’d rather die. But it’s a delusion because what happens when you die is appointed unto every man to die onceand then what judgment? They’re just going to usher themselves right into the worst possible torment ever. in the lake of fire. Folks, we’re only getting started. If we don’t take the judgment of God seriously, we’re only getting started. I know this is the sixth of seven SEALs, but in the seventh seal, if you remember, there are, what, seven more SEALs called the trumpet judgements or seven more judgements called the trumpet judgment and the seventh trumpet trumpet judgment. I have no problem talking too much coffee this morning. Don’t drink coffee. And the seventh trumpet judgement has what? seven more judgments called the bowl judgment. Why are they called bowl? judgements bowl doesn’t sound very scary. Well, it’s like if you had. liquified God’s judgment and poured out on the earth, that’s why they’re called bowl judgments. We’re just getting started. Revelations 6:17 for the Great Day of the Wrath has come and who can stand 1 Thessalonians 5:3? What people are saying there is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. Well, what’s the good news in all of this, Josh? What’s the good news in all of this, all of these things? Well, the good news is if you’re found in Jesus Christ, you don’t have to experience this cause you’re not appointed unto wrath. Hey, we got. So why do we need to know these things to warn people of God’s impending judgment if they don’t repent of their sins and come to Christ? But right in the middle of all this, even though many will rebel and refuse to repent.Many will get saved. Revelation 7:9 I just imagine this picture in your head after this. I looked and behold a great mulitude that. No one can number from every nation, from all tribes and people and languages standing before the throne, before the limb, clothed in white clothes with palm branches in their hands. There’s going to be a mass revival during the tribulation like you have never seen. What do you fear? There’s a lot of fear in the world right now. There’s a lot of fear in the church right now. First, John, chapter four, verse 18, there is no fear in love that perfect love cast out fear. For fear has to do with punishment.And whoever fears has not been perfected in love. There’s a lot of fear. Because there lacks a lot of love. You know, people a lot of times think that. Hate is the greatest opponent of love, and I think that’s probably pretty accurate, but I think fear is the greatest. One of the greatest opponents of love. Sorry, this is how the sausage is made. The world will always present us opportunities for fear. And the world will always present us opportunities. To divide ourselves. If you go back down through the timeline of your life, you can probably point at every year and there was a topic that the church could divide themselves over.What has it been the last couple of years? Mask and vaccines. Yeah, I’m going there, haven’t gone there yet, so I’m going to go there. It is absolutely asinine. How we have allowed. Things that don’t. Are not critical to the gospel to divide us. Some people lived in fear of what not wearing a mask, would do to them or someone else, some people lived in fear that wearing a mask was the lack of faith. So one side pointed at the other and says, if you don’t wear a mask you don’t love. And the other side pointed at the other side and says if you wear a mask, you don’t love God because you don’t have faith. Well who is right? That’s not the point. The point is, is it divided us, so we all lose. We all lost. So enter vaccine is like now mask wearing 2.0. We could have looked at this as another opportunity to fix what we got wrong with mask, but instead we compounded the argument. If you’re sitting there right now going, I wonder if he’s a pro-mask or anti-mask. No, that’s not the point. First of all, you don’t care about my opinion. You don’t care about my opinion, I’m not here to share my opinion, I’m here to unite us under God’s truth. OK, you want to get a shot? Go get a shot. You don’t want to get a shot. Don’t get a shot. You want to wear a mask where a mask. You don’t want to wear a mask. Don’t wear a mask. We have lost so much time and Jesus is coming soon. Bickering over things and Jesus is going to come back. And here’s the bride of Christ bickering on the playground like a bunch of school girls. We have lost the art of being able to just carry our own convictions and respect each other’s point of views and convictions that aren’t. That don’t tear down the gospel. Of course, if youdisagree on gospel central ideas, we have to get to the truth. But why are we dividing ourselves over things that are not gospel centric? We should be the example to the worldon how to unite and in times of confusion, in times of fear and in times of chaos. The world should look at the church and look at those people some are wearing mask some aren’t. Some have vaccinations, some aren’t. But they all love each other still. But instead, we become the laughing stock. And a lot of us, the voices that we raise to advocate for our position, I’m not saying you can’t take a position and you can’t be passionate about that position, by golly, I don’t care. Go for it. But whenever it’s used as a weapon to divide you against your brother and your sister, we have sinned. And the voice that we raised in our argument against our brother and sister should be taken to the altar and raised in forgiveness and repentance before our father. ROMANS, Chapter 14. Therefore, let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or a hindrance in the way of a brother. I know I am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean . For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love by what you eat. Do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. So do you not so do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking and masks and vaccinations, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.Whoever thus serves, Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding OK, so what does this mean? This is what this means in this context. In this time, you have gentile people, non Jewish people coming to Christ who are not used to Jewish customs. Then you are Jewish people who are also coming to Christ. But they were still adhering to a lot of their customs. I can’t eat bacon. That’s what it boils down to, because I like bacon, that’s where I go to I can eat pigand all these things, all these customs. And there was this tension, this argument between the two sides and the Jewish people were looking at Gentile people say you can’t eat baconto be a true Christian. You got to hold the Jewish customs. And the Gentile people are saying no Paul is over here telling me I’m free in Christ I’m not in bondage to law, so I don’t want to follow Christ fulfilled it. And so you have this argument in the church about bacon, bacon with no bacon, no bacon. Same thing only it’s over bacon, which I think is far more legitimate argument than all this other stuff. That’s just my opinion. You don’t care whatmy opinion is. OK, listen. What Paul is saying for the love of your brother? If you sit down with a brother and you sit down with the sister and they’ve got a problem with you. Listen, those people coming from the Jewish culture, it’s hard to change your mindset for their whole life. They could not eat bacon. And now people are telling him, you can eat bacon now. Do you know how hard it is to change a behavior that has been engrained in you since you were? You can remember very hard. So when Paul is telling the dude hey, you sit down at lunch with someone and they’ve got a problem with bacon, but it smells good and they want to eat some don’t order bacon. For you to sit there and prove your point and say, I’m going to order the biggest hog jaw at Lamberts I can eat in front of them, and then I’m going to tell them all the reasons why your free in Christ and that you should grow in your faith and then you should do all these things. No, it doesn’t say go there and try to prove your point and make them wrong. And you right it says for the love of your brother. Don’t order the bacon. In the same way, let me give you another example. OK, maybe you’re an individual, you’d like the occasional fermented beverage. That’s beer and alcohol. And maybe you have no conviction against drinking it, as long as you don’t get drunk with the Scriptures forbid. But if you were going to sit down with somebody at a restaurant and you know that they struggle with alcoholism. Or they came out of an abuse situation where alcohol was the key contributing aspect and they have a major conviction with drinking.What do you do? Do you order that beer? Do you order that wine and sit there and drink in front of them? No. For the love of your brother, you save that for when you get home and in front of your brother, you order a Coca-Cola. Because you don’t know what they’ve been through, and it’s not about me and my convenience, it’s about them. It’s not about me and my opinions. It’s about them. The love of Christ elevates everyone else above you. And the reason why we fear so much is because we love so little. And love is I love you and your perspective, I love your passion about it. And listen. I’m going to make myself lower. To glorify God. Romans three four. Let God be true and every man a liar. In the end, the only thing that unites the body of Christ is the holy scriptures. OK. I’m here, I’m going to take a shot here. I love you, I love you, I love you. Just remember that if we would have spent less time looking up articles to advocate for our position and how to argue it and more times in this book, we would have read Romans 14 and knew how to handle this from the beginning. The truth would have transformed us. And instead of having a great argumentto advocate for our position, we’d have the Truth transforming our hearts and lives. Loving each other. You go on, you have your opinion. I’ve got opinions. I’m passionate about my opinions. I don’t think you care about my opinions. Be opinionated, be passionate, don’t divide with your brother or sister, OK, don’t divide. So what do you fear? Luke, 12:5 Jesus told us who to fear, but I will warn you whom to fear, fear him after he is killed, has authority to cast into hell . Yes, I tell you, fear him. And there’s going to be a day that is going to come, that everything that people have sold their souls for to gain in this life will fail them. The fear of poverty that drove them to worshiping money will fail them because you can’t buy off God. The fear of not being in control that drove them to achieve power in sinful ways. None of that influence will persuade how a holy God the fear of man that drove us to focus on enhancing our image rather than our character to pursue righteousness. Well, fail us. It will not stave off the wrath of God. And when God knocks the mountains off their spot and rolls up the sky, nothing that people sold their lives for will protect them. The only thing that will protect you is the cross, the blood of Jesus. And the forgiveness of your sins by accepting the savior. That’s the only thing that saved you from. Judgment of God. Would you stand with me this morning, Father?