Video Transcript: Tribulation

Revelation 6 is what we're going to be focusing on, but first, I just want to consider what's in Revelation 4 and 5. Revelation 4 is a vision. And John says, After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like an angel said, Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.

At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, of precious stones. A rainbow resembling an emerald encircled the throne.

Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder.

Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God. In the center around the throne were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes in front and in back.

The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, and the fourth was like a flying eagle. Each of the four living creatures was covered with eyes, had six wings, and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. And day and night they never stopped saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

And whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to Him who sits on the throne and who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say, You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they were created and have their being. So Revelation 4 has this great vision of God and His throne attendance.

It resembles in many ways Isaiah 6, which says, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and His glory filled the temple, and there were the seraphs with the six wings, and they're constantly calling, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. So this is a vision very similar to that, an opening of heaven in a visionary way to John. And then having seen God and His great throne attendance and the twenty-four elders who may resemble or may represent angelic beings who look out after God's people, then he has a vision of a scroll.

And when he sees this scroll, he sees seven seals on it. And so I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a scroll with seven seals with writing on both sides. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll? But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it.

The angels can't. The twenty-four elders can't. The four living creatures can't.

Nobody on earth can do it. Nobody is worthy. So he says, I wept and wept because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or look inside it.

There was near the end of the book of Daniel a scroll, and it was sealed until the last time. And nobody can open this scroll, this plan of God for the final chapters of history. And John weeps because nobody can open it.

Then one of the elders said to me, Do not weep. See, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.

And the Old Testament had spoken of a lion coming from Judah, and Jesus was the fulfillment of that great promise. So the lion of the tribe of Judah is going to be able to do it. Then I saw a lamb.

He was told it was going to be a lion, and he sees a lamb, a lamb looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne. It had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne.

And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb, and they sang a new song. You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain. And with your blood, you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth. And then I looked and heard the voice of many angels numbering thousands upon thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the four living creatures and the elders, and in a loud voice they sang, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise.

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and all that is in them singing to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb, be praise and honor and glory and power. The four living creatures said, amen, and the elders fell down and worshiped. So there is somebody who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll, and that someone who's worthy is the lamb.

And so in chapter six, we get to the opening of the scrolls. I spent some time in chapters four and five because it's a little too easy to dive into the four horsemen of the apocalypse and forget who's running the show. Forget who is breaking the seals and sending them in the first place.

I watched as the lamb opened the first of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four creatures say in a voice like thunder, come. I looked, and there before me was a white horse. Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.

Then the lamb opened the second seal, and I heard the second living creature say, come. Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other.

To him was given a large sword. When the lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, come. I looked, and there before me was a black horse.

Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures saying, a quart of wheat for a day's wages and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine. When the lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, I looked, and there before me was a pale horse.

Its rider was named Death. And Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine, and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

And that's what it means when you hear of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The word apocalypse is just the Greek word for revelation, but the four horsemen of revelation, the white horse, which is conquest and conquering. And whenever you get ambitious rulers who want to take over more territory, you get war.

And so you get the rider on the red horse. And when you get war, you get supply chain disruptions, you get shortages, you get problems, and you get the black horse, where food gets really expensive. But somehow there's always enough wine and oil for the rich people.

That's how war goes. The rich people still get their fairly luxurious lifestyle, but the poor people are paying 10 times as much for their groceries. And then you have the rider on the pale horse, which is just death in all its forms, especially death by illness and disease, but also death from wild animals, death from war, death in all of its forms.

So these are the riders that are sent out by the opening of the first four seals and by the words of the four living creatures. When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, how long sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood.

Then each of them was given a white robe and they were told to wait a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed. So there's a number that's going to be killed and until that number is full, history is going to keep unfolding. I watched as he opened the sixth seal and there was a great earthquake.

The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair. The whole moon turned blood red and the stars in the sky fell to earth as late figs dropped from a fig tree. When shaken by a strong wind, the sky receded like a scroll rolling up and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come and who can stand? This ends the reading of God's word and God always blesses his word to those who listen.

When we read the book of Revelation, we need to be hearing what God says to us, but we need to also be willing to think very hard as these images come at us. We need the Lord's power and just that secret influence working on us. At the same time, we want to grasp a little better with our minds what's going on.

And so before diving into this passage, just a few thoughts on how we interpret revelation in particular, as well as interpreting the Bible as a whole. The first thing to think about when you look at the book of Revelation is that scripture interprets scripture. If you want to understand the book of Revelation, you can't take it by itself.

You need to be a person who familiarizes yourself with the whole Bible because it's part of God's whole revelation and because so much of what it says is linked to other parts of the Bible. There are some who say, well, when you read the New Testament, you need to just focus on that because the Old Testament's out of date. One of the most famous preachers to say that is Andy Stanley.

He says we should unhitch the New Testament from the Old Testament. We should unhitch it. Now, that would be a very challenging thing to do with the book of Revelation.

The book of Revelation has the grand total of 404 verses in it. And of those 404 verses, 278 have a reference to the Old Testament. And not counting direct references and just going by it overall, G.K. Beal says there are more than 500 allusions to the Old Testament in the book of Revelation alone.

Good luck unhitching because you cannot read a sentence from the book of Revelation without having it linked to something that is stated in the Old Testament part of the Bible. We've got to remember that all scripture is God breathed and is profitable, as the New Testament says of the Old Testament. So, we need to keep in mind that we need the scripture to interpret the scripture.

And as we do that, we don't unhitch one part from another. And we also say, well, when you get to a very difficult portion of scripture, then let's look at what a clearer portion says. And it might help us make sense of the more difficult part.

When we're dealing with, you know, parts that we struggle with, let's look at the parts that are a little bit easier to follow. A second thing that I think is important for interpreting the book of Revelation is this. I don't think it says hardly anything new.

Sorry if that's a big disappointment to you. I don't think Revelation says hardly anything that's not said elsewhere in a different form in other parts of the Bible. And you say, well, then what's the use of Revelation? Why don't we just chop off the last book of the Bible if everything's already said anyway? Well, all the things that are revealed in Revelation, or just about all of them, are revealed in other portions of the Bible, but Revelation reveals it in a different manner.

An epistle, where you're writing a letter and stating things in a pretty straightforward manner, is one way of communicating. A historic chronicle, where you're just saying, here's the events and here's what happened, is another way of communicating. And visions and symbols are another way of communicating.

And God wants to communicate with our mind, with our logic, with our sense of truth and fact. He also wants to communicate with our imagination and stir our whole being. And Revelation does that in ways that might not get through from some of the other portions of the Bible.

So, we'll get into that more, and some of you may disagree, but I don't think Revelation is actually revealing a whole lot of doctrines and truths that aren't revealed elsewhere, or even a whole lot of facts about the end times that aren't revealed elsewhere. You can get the Antichrist from 2 Thessalonians 2, the man of sin. It's stated in more straightforward ways there.

In John's letter, he says, hey, many Antichrists have already gone out in the world. You've heard he's coming. There's a lot of them already here.

When he's writing in more symbolic language, then you get a beast. And he's got horns, and he's a weird-looking critter, and all those things are showing us something about the forces of Antichrist. So, you get things stated in one way in letters and in straightforward descriptions.

You get visions and symbols in other kinds of description. And so, when we're interpreting, we need to understand when we're in a book like Revelation, pictures symbolize realities. As I said before, we need to study passages that are clear before we get into the difficult ones.

And we need to sometimes study the literal passages before we get too crazy with the figurative passages. Because when you get into figurative symbols, and you just let your imagination run wild, you can come up with just about anything. G.K. Chesterton said, The book of Revelation contains many strange monsters, but none so strange as some of its interpreters.

So, when you're dealing with the pictures, we need to realize they symbolize realities. And be careful not to take some things too literally. I'll take some obvious ones.

Jesus is not a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes. Jesus is God become human, not a lamb. That looks kind of freaky.

But, the image of a lamb conveys that he died for the sins of the world. The horns convey his power. The eyes convey that the Spirit of Christ is all-seeing and goes throughout all the earth.

The Holy Spirit is not seven different spirits. When you read in Revelation, you'll hear again and again about the seven spirits before the throne. You say, oopsie daisy, is the Trinity off? Is there one Father, one Son, and then seven spirits? You're in the land of symbols here.

And the numbers also are symbolic. And the seven means the fullness of the Holy Spirit as he does his work throughout the whole world. Revelation pictures a dragon, a red dragon, with horns and a lot of nastiness.

Satan is not the color red. He's not a dragon either, but he's nasty. And so, the picture of a red dragon is a symbol, but it's a symbol that points to a real Satan.

The lamb is a symbol, but points to a real Jesus. And that's how you deal with symbols, and that's how symbols deal with you, because that's really what's going on in the book of Revelation. When God gives us the pictures and the symbols, then he's arousing in us the sense of the realities that those symbols point to.

And so, we need to realize the value of just having these impressions and these pictures that God sends that then convey to us the realities that it's talking about. And by the same token, we've got to remember that Revelation is one kind of book. There's other books of the Bible that are not highly symbolic.

That are not a bunch of pictures pointing just to something else. They are simply describing what happened. There are some who say, well, Jesus Christ himself and his death and resurrection are kind of an archetype that appears in a lot of different myths.

Well, no. Jesus was a real man who died on a real cross, who rose from the dead in a real body that could be touched. A body that could eat.

After the resurrection. The Bible is very specific about that. So, just because there's a book of the Bible and a few other books with portions that are highly symbolic does not mean the whole Bible is just a symbol, a bunch of myths that you can make of whatever you want.

There are different kinds of writing in the Bible. And there's the straightforward and the more literal. And so, we need to hear both of them, both kinds, as what they really are.

Another thing about understanding the book of Revelation is that Jesus' first coming launched the last days. We are in the last days. When you read the Bible, you hear things like, this is now the last hour.

You need to realize that you're living in the last days. It's a mistake to take the whole book of Revelation and say it's about the last days. And therefore, it's about the last few years of Earth's history before Christ comes again.

The last days is the period between Jesus' first coming and his second coming. Now, there may be a few years at the very end that you could say are the last last days or however you want to phrase it. But the last days, usually in the New Testament, when it speaks of the last hour, the last times, the last days, they're talking about the whole period between Jesus' first and second coming.

When we read the book of Revelation, we need to understand, too, that the visions are not just, okay, here's one period of time. This vision's about that. Now, we move on to the next period in chronological order.

Now, we're moving on to the next one in chronological order. And so, you're just reading Revelation as though it's telling you things in chronological order. The order of Revelation is the order in which John saw the visions, not the order in which things happen.

The end of the world is already here as we read about it in chapter 6. There's a lot of chapters to go yet. And you're going to hear about the end of the world again and about the end of the world again. But it's all from different camera angles.

It gives you the vision from here. Then it gives you a little different angle and oftentimes goes back again and goes through the same events from a somewhat different angle. And so, as you read Revelation, you'll find that the meaning of the visions overlaps.

That oftentimes it's speaking of the same set of events in several different ways. And it's often telling almost the same story, but with a different accent or a different angle or perspective on things. And a final thing that I want to say about interpreting Revelation is that there are multiple fulfillments of these visions.

There are things that happen and you say, well, was that the fulfillment or not? And oftentimes it's not so clear cut as that. I mentioned before the sentence from 1 John where he says, you've heard that the Antichrist is coming into the world. I tell you, many Antichrists have already come.

When you come upon a very powerful and influential false teacher who denies that Jesus is the Christ, he doesn't have to be the final false prophet to be a false prophet. When you come against an Antichristian dictator who is killing Christians, he doesn't have to be the final man of sin to be the beast. Now, the beast, I do believe that at the end of history there will be a final and worst tribulation, a final and worst political ruler and oppressor, a final and worst power of religious deception, a final and worst Babylon civilization which just sucks people in and dominates them and has bodies and souls for sale, as Revelation puts it.

But there are multiple fulfillments along the way because, you know what, God did not give this book of Revelation to satisfy our curiosity about the last few years of world history. He originally gave it to help some struggling churches at the time it was written, and he gave it to the church ever since to help us during times of tribulation. Rather than say, hmm, I wonder if we're living close to the time of tribulation yet, you need to realize that you're in the last days, you're living between the first and second comings, and these forces are at work in our world now.

So, those are just a few of the principles that I follow when reading the book of Revelation and thinking about what it means. Now, when it comes to what we just read about, you know, say, boy, that is really bad. We had this exciting, vivid chapter full of pictures, and then we got a lecture from a theology professor.

There is a great difference between the power of the visions of Revelation and our attempts to kind of try to say, okay, how do I think that through? But having said all that, it is so very important that we do listen to these visions. And as I said before, there's overlap among the various visions. This is a chapter about tribulation, but there are also, later in the book, similar visions about tribulation.

In this vision, you have the white horse of conquest, the red horse of war, the black horse of shortages and famine, the pale horse of death. Do we have to wait for the very, very end of the world to think that those horses have been set loose? Those horses are often at work. As Jesus said in a less figurative passage, he says, you're going to hear of wars and rumors of wars.

There's going to be earthquakes. The end is not yet. He says those things are going to happen, but it doesn't mean you're at the very end.

And I want you to notice the importance of the fifth seal here. The souls of those who are under the altar are crying out, how long, O Lord, until you avenge our blood. If you read the vision earlier, which I was reciting of John in heaven, he says that they're holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

So already in the earlier vision, there are bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. Now, from below the altar, you have the cries and prayers of the saints. Again, when you look ahead a little bit, you find that an angel, when we get into seven trumpets, there's an angel who has a golden censer with incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

John says again and again and again that the incense of his visions is the prayer of the saints. And what is happening is that tribulation is coming in large part in response also to the prayers of the saints. And so you have the souls calling on God.

I know that some people say, you know, in the Old Testament, there's those prayers in the Psalms about God, would you please take out my enemies? Just take them down. But we've grown beyond that, except there may be souls in heaven right now praying, God, take out those enemies and take them down. And how long is it going to be till you do it? We've sometimes progressed beyond the Bible.

It's not always a great improvement. The sixth seal is the end of the world. As I said before, if revelation were happening just in sequence, you'd already be at the end of the world by the end of chapter six.

Because you have all the powers of the earth calling on the mountains and rocks to fall on them and hide them from the wrath of God and of the Lamb. And the seventh seal, which isn't part of chapter six, it comes after an interlude from heaven. Then in the very beginning of chapter eight, the seventh seal is opened and there is silence in heaven for about a half hour.

Just silence. After that devastating judgment on the earth, there is silence. The Lord is in his holy temple.

Let all the earth keep silence before him. That used to be a call to worship in some churches, and it's an appropriate call to worship. Today, we just read, be still and know that I am God in the midst of a psalm about the desolations he brings on the earth.

Silence and silence means that we need to be silent before the great and magnificent power and justice and vengeance of God, the judge. Now, when you look ahead from the seven seals, soon you have seven trumpets sounding and some of the events and plagues are a little different, but I would contend that they're really telling us about some of the same realities unfolding during history. And then at the end of history, in the seven trumpets, there's hail and fire and turns things to blood and kills a third of the plants.

Then the second trumpet is sounded by an angel and there's a fiery mountain that kills one third of everything in the sea. Then a fiery star called Wormwood comes in and poisons a third of the rivers in the springs. And then one third of the sun, one third of the moon, one third of the stars go dark.

Then you have these terrible beings that are described in some detail that are going out and causing torment so that people want to die, but they don't dare to die because they're afraid something worse may be waiting for them beyond death. And so you have demons that have gone out to torment unbelievers. And then great rivers are dried up and 200 million attackers come in a terrible war.

And then the seventh trumpet, the seventh angel sounded his trumpet and there were loud voices in heaven which said, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ and he will reign forever and ever. And the 24 elders who were seated on their thrones before the throne fell down and worshiped and saying, we give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who was and who is because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign. The nations were angry and your wrath has come.

The time has come for judging the dead and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and your saints and all who reverence your name, both small and great and for destroying those who destroy the earth. That's the seventh seal, destroying those who destroy the earth. The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of God and of his Christ.

So you see that the seven trumpets end up pretty much where the seven seals did with judgment, with silence and with the reign then of Christ over all things. Then in chapter later chapters, you have this terrible dragon. And we'll be talking about that more in future message, the dragon and the beast and the false prophet and Babylon and they are judged and the seven bowls.

And once again, they're bowls of incense. What are incense? The prayers of the saints. It's somehow in response to prayers of the saints that God is sending judgments on the earth.

And so with the seven bowls, you have sores on those who worship the beast. There's blood and death to the sea in the second bowl of the third bowl. The rivers and springs become blood.

This sounds a lot like the plagues on Egypt, by the way, also sounds quite a bit like some of the earlier trumpets that we've heard in the fourth one. The sun scorches people. You want to talk about climate change.

The sun scorches the inhabitants of the earth and they curse God, but won't repent in the bowl. The beast's realm goes dark there. Once again, one of the plagues on Egypt, one of the most terrible we read about darkness.

What's the big deal for them? It was a terrifying plague where the sun stopped shining and everything went dark. The beast's realm goes dark and there's more cursing of God and no repenting. Then in the sixth, the kings and the demons, they all gather their forces to make war on the lamb.

And then with the seventh bowl, there is again a great earthquake. The hail comes down, the collapse of everything in the earthly creation. And even then, what do they do? They curse God.

Probably the most terrible verses almost that you can read in the book of Revelation are in chapter 16. They're going through this tribulation, these terrible times. They cursed the name of God who had control over the plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him.

Men nod their tongues in agony and curse the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done. No matter how terrible it gets, the question doesn't have any impact. How's that working out for you? How's that working out for you? We sometimes experience that on an individual level.

We are going to do things our way. We know God has different notions about how we ought to proceed, but we're going to go our way. And this happens.

And that devastating thing happens. And still, we're right. We're not changing course.

And we refuse to pay attention. Events even, catastrophe, can hardly get our attention. At any rate, that's what happens in the tribulation, is that there are some who harden themselves, just like Pharaoh did in the Old Testament.

They harden themselves so much against God, and God hardens them, that they refuse to repent. So, what's going on? Just to summarize and highlight some of the most important things that are taught in this chapter and in other chapters of the Bible that teach about tribulation and reveal visions about tribulation. First thing that I want to get back to again is, who's in charge? This is not random stuff.

Somebody's in charge of it all. Somebody is the one who's been opening those seals. The Lamb on the throne is the one who opened the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh seal.

Some would like to doubt the sovereignty of God over painful things, terrifying things, and say, oh, God has nothing to do with that. Revelation doesn't make many apologies. It just says the Lamb opens the seals, and He's the one who is in charge of all these matters.

You'll notice, not only does He open each of the seals, but it is a heavenly being, a cherub, who summons each of the four horsemen. Our imaginations are gripped by that white horse and its rider, and the flaming red horse, and the black horse, and the pale horse of death. But don't forget that in the vision, it's the first living creature, one of the cherubim around God's throne, who says, come.

And then the second one is summoned, and he can only go out when that cherub says, come. And then the third, and then the fourth. They may be hellish types of powers, but they are summoned and governed by the supreme powers of God, working through His throne attendants.

I know that people have different ways of understanding the sovereignty of God, and wickedness, and catastrophe, and I don't claim to have all the answers to that. But I would say, take very seriously this vision, that it is the Lamb who opens the seals. It is the mighty, angelic, heavenly beings around God's throne who are summoning those forces of judgment.

Another thing, just to repeat, it reflects Old Testament plagues. Almost everything that's described in here is elsewhere described in the Old Testament, whether plagues that were sent on the Egyptians when they were holding Israel as slaves, or in other portions of the Old Testament. What does tribulation do? Well, it drives rebels to rage, to make them frightened.

It causes them to perish, but they don't repent. What a horrifying reality, that the worse life gets, the more hardened they get against God. There's a verse in Proverbs which says, a man brings himself into trouble, a man's own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord.

Isn't that, I've heard from so many people say, how could God do this to me? And very often, it is catastrophic consequences of their own actions. And the question is, God, how could, you know, never was a question asked when things were sailing smoothly. Why is God blessing me and sending all these good things my way? That's God's job.

When God actually just allows the world to be what it is, and it's wreckage to become a wreck, then we say, God, why? And I don't want to be light and cavalier about it, but the fact is that tribulation brings out where we are in relationship to God. It won't make us into followers of Jesus Christ. The gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit's going to have to do that, because just having the temperature turned up on punishment, people just get angrier and they get more resistant.

So, tribulation, when God sends that judgment, it often drives the rebels to rage and to fear and to perish. That's just a warning again, too, to say, while it's the day of grace, while God is being kind and gentle in your circumstances and in your situation, that's the time to repent. Seek the Lord while he may be found.

Call on him while he's near. Don't wait till the day when you can't bear to see that face and you want the rocks to fall on you and hide you from the face of God and of the land. We need to repent before it's too late.

It's possible for it to be too late, even before death comes, where the heart becomes so hardened against God that our day of opportunity has passed. Now, I don't want to say that to discourage any of you. Have it in your heart.

Say, well, I wonder if my day has passed. If you're asking the question, it hasn't. Tribulation has a very different effect on those who love the Lamb.

They triumph by dying. They triumph by bearing up under persecutions through tribulations. They may die at the hands of their oppressors.

They may not flourish to look at in this life, but they're getting stronger. They're becoming more pure. They're becoming ready for that day when the Lamb comes.

And when he comes, two different things happen. When he comes, those who long for him rise in the air to meet him because they are drawn to that beautiful face that they have loved even before seeing it. And the others, when they see that terrible face that they've never loved, are repelled by it and are forever fleeing towards outer darkness because they prefer outer darkness to the light of the world.

The light of the world is unbearable. The light of the world is unbearable to those who prefer the darkness. Another thing about tribulation is that it intensifies until finally creation can't bear it anymore.

The earth is shaken. Things collapse. And the old world is brought to its end so that a new one that rises out of those ashes can take its place.

And in all of that, we need to realize that God's plan includes all this. None of these things that happen when tribulation happens in our world, when we get a pandemic that affects us, that kills some of us, we don't say, well, nothing like that has ever happened before. It has.

And you don't go into a total panic when it does if you know who's in charge. If you don't know who's in charge, then panic away. We need to know that he's got the whole world in his hands and that until he decides it's time for it to be over, it won't be over.

And in the meantime, we learn from tribulation. We seek his help in becoming stronger, purer, more ready to meet him. And we need to know that basically, you know, I mentioned interpreting scripture with scripture.

This is all a comment on one statement of Jesus. In this world, you will have tribulation, but take heart. I have overcome the world.

In this world, you will, not might, you will have tribulation, but take heart. I have overcome the world. And how does this particular vision end up? It doesn't actually end up with everybody calling on the mountains to fall on them.

There's still that one more seal with silence. But before even that seal is opened, John has a vision of a great host in heaven. Firstly, he has a vision of Israel, 144,000, 12,000 from each of the tribes.

Again, this is symbolic territory, and it's very likely that it's a picture of God's Israel and not just of Jewish Israel, although it includes Jewish people. And numbers, again, are symbolic. 12 is a number of completeness.

12 times 12 times 1,000, the completeness of God's people. And then just having seen that vision, often you'll find that another one comes right on its heels that explains it some more. After this, I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people, and language standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.

They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. All the angels were standing around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures.

They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshipped God saying, Amen. Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen.

Then one of the elders asked me, Now these in white robes, who are they? Where do they come from? I answered, Sir, you know. And he said, These are they who have come out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

They've come out of the great tribulation. Remember earlier that the kings and the powerhouses of the earth are saying, Who can stand? They can stand. They're standing.

They're standing in his presence because they're the ones who came out of the great tribulation. Their robes have been washed in the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ. Therefore, they are before the throne of God day and night and serve him in his temple.

And he who sits on the throne will spread his tabernacle over them. Never again will they hunger. Never again will they thirst.

The sun will not beat upon them. They're not going to get scorched by the sun. The sun will not beat upon them nor any scorching heat.

For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd. He will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe every tear from their eyes.

That's the final word on tribulation for those who belong to Jesus Christ. They have come out of the great tribulation. And they stand in his presence forever.

Dear Father, we pray that you will help us not only with minds but also with heart and soul and imagination to just sense more and more of the reality of your great reign, of your purposes in tribulation, of your victory over all the powers of evil, and your control of those powers even before you destroy them. And so, Lord, give us trust in you, in your might. Give us confidence in our risen Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And help us, Father, to be among those who stand unashamed in your presence, in your radiance, not fleeing from your light but basking in it and rejoicing in you forever. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.