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Revelation 6:1-8 Part 2 - the four horseman · The TakeAway

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, and welcome to the Takeaway, where we teach through the Bible, chapter by chapter, and verse by verse, to help you understand God's Word so that you can have a more intimate relationship with Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome again to the Takeaway.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Pastor Harry Barrens, and today's episode is part two of a two-part teaching on the first four seals of Revelation.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't done so yet, I highly recommend listening to part one before you go any further, as there will be a lot of context lost if you don't.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Today we will be going over the first four seals that Jesus opens and comparing these events to the ones in the Olivet Discourse found in Matthew chapter 24.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: We will see that what Jesus told his disciples when asked about the last days, that the first four seal judgments line up perfectly, and that they are the same events.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: By the end of this episode, you will have a much clearer understanding of how prophecy written by Daniel, confirmed by Jesus, all lead us right to these events in Revelation.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Before we get started, it's important to remember that there are two perspectives as we look at the events in chapter six.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: One is the judgments coming upon the earth, and the other are the events happening in heaven at the same exact time.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: You need to know that as a believer in Christ, your perspective will be the heavenly one, while the unbeliever's perspective is the earthly one.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: A question we need to ask ourselves then is why do we need to know what's happening on earth if we are in heaven?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: What difference does it make?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: The easy answer is to us, it makes no difference.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: However, this is not as much about us as it is for those who will be living in these times.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: It is written for them, so they know that God's judgment is upon them.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Just as I described in part one, that the wise men were able to discern the time of the coming Messiah because of the accuracy of prophecy, so also will the people in the last days be able to discern that the events coming upon them are God's judgments, as we will see.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: The importance to that is that even in God's judgment upon the earth, there is still opportunity to be saved.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: God leaves no room for confusion or excuse for those who continue to reject Jesus and harden their hearts against him.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: It is and will always be God's desire that people repent and turn towards him so that they can be saved.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Second Peter chapter 3, verse 9.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord is not 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.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let's begin in Matthew 24, verse 3.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as he, Jesus, sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, Tell us when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as we look at the comparison of Revelation chapter six, verses one and two, we will see that there is a similarity.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: In verse one, Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder, Come and see.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I looked, and behold, a white horse.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: He who sat on it had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Since this is the first seal of the scroll, we knew that the reveal that this reveals the Antichrist or the lawless one, as this is also what Jesus starts with in Matthew 24, talking about many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: We can also look at 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verses 6 and 8.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: As we see the Holy Spirit removed out of the way to reveal the lawless one, it says, And you know what is restraining him now, so that he may be revealed in his time.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Only he who now restrains, it will do so until he is out of the way.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: We will see this again in chapter 19 of Revelation at the conclusion of the earthly judgment.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting to note that this false Christ will not be revealed until the restrainer, the Holy Spirit, is out of the way.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Make no mistake about this.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a believer in Christ, then the Holy Spirit dwells in you permanently.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Fesians chapter 1, verse 13 says, In him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of your inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: You have the Holy Spirit as the guarantee that Jesus has purchased you and will come to receive you to himself.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: If this is the case, then the Spirit of God is at work in us, restraining evil in this world.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: When he is removed, we will be also.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Then and only then will he be revealed.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: John Chapter 14, verse 3 says, And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also, and where I go you know, and the way you know.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: In first Thessalonians chapter four, verse fifteen through eighteen, for this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore comfort one another with these words.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: For those who want to argue against the church being removed before the tribulation begins, and interpret these verses differently than what they plainly say, that the church will be caught up to Jesus before the tribulation.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I give you one last verse.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: In Revelation chapter 3, verse 10, because you have kept my commandment to preserve, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you continue to read Scripture the way we have so far with the context given to us, then you are left with no other understanding than that the church is removed, and then the Antichrist is revealed.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: So moving on, you will notice in verse two that he comes on a white horse with a bow and a crown.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: White speaks of peace.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: The true Prince of Peace, Jesus, rides the white horse in Revelation chapter 19, but this is a false peace and a false rider coming in the name of peace in Revelation chapter 6.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Antichrist.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: The bow with no arrows is possibly threat of war or intimidation.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the crown speaks of power and authority.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is a victor's crown, not a diadem like Jesus has in chapter 19.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: He went out conquering, as we will see later on.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: He is given great power and authority over the whole world.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And Matthew, back in Matthew chapter 24, looking at verses six and seven now, and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: See that you are not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet, for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Again, we can now see the comparison in the second seal as war breaks out and people kill each other.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: In Revelation chapter six, verse three, when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, Come, and out came another horse, bright red.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: So the red color speaks of bloodshed and war, which is what this rider on the horse causes.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Granted to take peace, meaning lawlessness or total control, and the great sword used for killing to control with killing power.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: The Antichrist clearly starts out with intimidation that quickly turns to war and bloodshed.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So now we go back to Matthew chapter 24, verse 7, and there will be famines.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Comparison in Revelation chapter 6, verse 5, when he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, Come and see.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and the wine.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: So black here pictures famine and disease.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's also used in Lamentations, chapter four, verse four, and chapters eight and nine to speak of the effects of famine.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: The scales are used to measure out or portion resources.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: A denarius, the gospels refer to the denarius as a day's wage for a common laborer.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: We see this in Matthew chapter 2, verse 20, verse 2, and John chapter 12, verse 5.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: So verse 6, as we have seen, is speaking of hyperinflation.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then moving on, we see do not harm oil and wine.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: This speaks of the wealthy being untouched by this inflation.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they may very well be getting wealthier on the backs of those who are spending that day's wage to put bread on the table.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: We have seen this through the COVID pandemic as the rich get richer, but the middle class has struggled more and more.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: We have had to rely on the supplies of the wealthy to be fed, grocery stores, commercial farmers, distribution, big oil, and so on.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: They adjust their prices to stay profitable through inflation, but our wages don't change.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: People will die because they can't eat, which leads to malnourishment, which leads to sickness, which leads to death.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Back to Matthew chapter 24, the last part of verse 7, going into verse 8.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Pestilences and earthquakes in various places, all these are the beginning of sorrows.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Some will say all these things happen pre-tribulation.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: However, the six seals are the beginning of sorrows, as things will just escalate from here.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Everything we see today is nothing more than a foreshadowing of things to come.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how bad things get while we are here, it's nothing compared to what's to come.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Revelation chapter 6, verse 7.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the four living creatures 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, with pestilence, and by wild beasts of the earth.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now pale green or ashen, this is the color of death, which is what this horseman brings.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: The Greek word from which the English word chlorophyll comes describes the pale, ashen green, paler characteristics of the decomposition of a corpse.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Power was given to them, this would be the four horsemen, and one-fourth of those on earth are killed during this time.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: To wrap this all up, let's recap.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: First, this is not yet God's wrath, as we will see when we get into chapter seven.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: What this is, is God letting man have his way.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Society has been growing cold towards God for a long time, and they don't want anything to do with him.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: So God starts off by giving them just what they want: a world without the Holy Spirit intervening.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And just like when Israel wanted a king like the rest of the nations in the Old Testament, they rejected God for a worldly leader, so he gave them Saul, who turned out to be a horrible king.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: This world today will also raise up a leader for themselves, and he is going to be the worst of the worst.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: He will promise false peace, bring war, which leads to famine, and then death naturally follows.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: These first four seals are not nothing more than man destroying himself.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: But as we will see, God will not let them have the pleasure of destroying everything and everyone.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: He will intervene after this, and they are not going to like it.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, what is the big takeaway from this teaching?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's that man is continually evil, and that without God's grace and spirit in this world, we will destroy ourselves.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: We could see right before God judged the world with the flood in Genesis, what he says about man, Genesis 6, 5.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 24, verses 36, but of the day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my father only.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day of Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: As we come closer to the end, we see this world becoming more and more evil.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: The loss of morality, calling good evil and evil good.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Second Timothy chapter 3, verse 1 says, But know this that in the last days perilous times will come, for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanders, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying its power, and from such people turn away.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women, loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Does that not sound like the world we live in today?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And as we have just learned, they will get what's coming to them.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Evil will have its day, but be assured, God will also.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Before we leave today, I want you to remember this.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a believer in Christ, then the Holy Spirit lives in you.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: He is the restrainer of evil in this world today, and you, my friend, are a part of that work.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: At least you should be.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to look far to realize that the majority of good being done in this world is being done by Christian organizations.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: How are you letting God use you to restrain evil today?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Do you face it head on, or do you turn from the opportunity to do good when it presents itself?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: I encourage you to ask God for the power to stand against evil in every part of your life so that evil can't have an inch of more ground until it's appointed time.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's our job while we are still here, not only to restrain evil, but also to conquer it.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Put on the full armor of God, my fellow warrior, and let's get out there and push evil back into its corner.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let the restrainer of evil do what he does best and don't fight them.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Father God, thank you so much for your word, for your revelation, for your truth, that you reveal to us so much about the depth of your heart and your desire for us, God, so that we could be saved and not only saved, but that we could be empowered to be used by Jesus, that we can push evil back in this world, that we can stand against it, that we don't have to be afraid, that you have a desire to do a mighty work in this world, and you want us to be blessed by that.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: You even promise us rewards if we allow you to use us.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, God, thank you.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: We pray that you would anoint our listeners today, anoint us for the work that you have for us, God.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: We pray this in your precious name.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us in this episode.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: I hope today's message helped you take a step closer in your relationship with Jesus and that you have a better understanding for just how much God loves you and wants you to know Him.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: In our next episode, we will look at the last part of chapter six as we will see just how far God allows evil to go before He puts a stop to it.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: God bless, and we'll see you next time on the Takeaway.