The Revelation Given to John by Jesus Through the Angel
Lesson Twelve
Revelation 6:1-8 continued
John watched the Lamb tear the first seal off and one of the animals (it must have been the lion) roars, “Come out,” to the white horse – the symbol of conquest.
On the white horse is a rider carrying a sign of military power – a bow. Someone gives the rider a victory garland and he rides off triumphant, defeating everywhere he turns. This reminds me of the Roman “church” and its conversion to counterfeit Christianity at the tip of a sword. But just as Yahweh used the cruel circumstances of Joseph’s life for good, he used this insincere conversion to open the door to the world for true Christianity.
The Roman Empire gradually begun to crumble, then split in two in 410. The Middle Ages lasted 1000 years – invaders moved through Europe conquering and re-conquering.
But as the Germanic tribes trashed the Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Church “gradually covered the west with its unstoppable power.”[i]
The Lamb of Yahweh rips off the second seal and the next living creature (the character of Yahweh, revealing the will of Yahweh), the ox, calls to the second horse (a symbol of war) to “come out.” The red horse[ii]of war comes out, ready to take peace from the world by setting people at each other’s throats. Islam removed what was left of Rome’s dubious peace when it rode forward in 633 to subjugate the world to Allah[iii].
This war started in the third century and is still going on today, escalating with every breath we take.
It started when a Bedouin tribesman by the name of Muhammad[iv]had enough contact with Christianity and Judaism to introduce him to the concept of monotheism, but not enough to change his heart. He married money and with the freedom of that money brought, devoted his time to the birth of his own monotheistic religion. In retrospect, one can almost see, with the mind’s eye, one of the foul deceivers from the Euphrates River (trumpet 6) and the mouth of the false prophet (disaster 6). Muhammad, like his god, was a vain, egotistical tyrant, and a deceiver[v]. But he had to deceive himself first.
Yeshua tears the third seal and the living creature with the face of a man calls for the third horse to “come out.” The black horse of woe and mourning follows with inflation affecting everything but the oil and wine. The wages of one day would pay for the food for one day. There is no way to “get ahead.” Perhaps that is why the oil and wine are plentiful. The oil speaks of the Holy spirit of Yahweh and the wine is a symbol of his blood that was shed to pay the debt for all the sin of the world.
Mankind might not have everything we want materially, but the blood of Yeshua Ha Mashiach and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit are sufficient for our every need. Eternal blessings are sometimes more abundant in material drought because it is then that we are more apt to acknowledge our spiritual need and grasp Yahweh’s blessings.
When Yeshua tears off the fourth seal the forth representative of Yahweh’s character, the eagle, calls out to the pale horse of death. The symbol here is that of fear, horror, disease, and death. These are always the result of war. Here they are the result of the war to rid the world of Jews and Christians,[vi]which is the goal of Islam and is still going on today. These disasters[vii]affect ¼ of the earth. Yahweh uses the sword of the enemy to draw and refine his own[viii]. Not only are the Jews scattered throughout the world, but Christianity reproduces itself all over the world all of the time[ix].
When Yeshua tears off the fifth seal John listens as the souls of Yahweh’s people are given assurance and encouragement[x]. John sees the souls of many witnesses, safe under Yahweh’s alter. Among them would have been Peter, Paul, James, Jude, and all of the other heroes of the faith we read about; but there would have been a far greater number of the anonymous faithful – anonymous, that is, to everyone but Yahweh.
Their prayers consist of worship – “strong God, Holy and True…” –and petition for Yahweh to avenge their murders.
The white robes they are given are symbols of Mashiach’s righteousness. They are told to be patient[xi]because many more will be killed because of their faithfulness to Mashiach. They would be joined by those killed at Rome’s cruel hand, some would come out of the Muslims determination to kill anyone who refused to worship Allah, and others would go through the gates of Hitler’s desire to rid the world of all God-worshipers. There would have been the souls of those killed in other ways, like the school children killed her in the United States by other teens because they refused to reject Christ. There will be many who we never hear about, but our god, Yahweh, knows about each one and holds them close to his heart. He doesn’t miss even one. All of them would be killed by anti-Christ – in different clothes, with different names, but all anti-Christ.
John remembered Yeshua saying, while he was still here on earth, “Nation shall fight against nation…it will go from bad to worse, dog-eat-dog, everyone at your throat because you carry my name…some of you will be killed. There’s no telling who will hate you because of me. Even so, every detail of your body and soul – even the hair of your head! – is in my care; nothing of you will be lost. Staying with it – that’s what’s required. Stay with it to the end. You won’t be sorry; you’ll be saved.”[xii]
Yahweh is in control. He carves canyons for rain to pour down into and charts the route of thunderstorms, bringing water to dry fields and deserts that people hardly ever see. He drenches the useless (to mankind) wastelands with the water that carpets them with wildflowers and grasses. He is the Father of rain and dew, the Mother of ice and frost. He gives weather wisdom to the animals and storm savoy to the rooster. He is the one who spread the sky over unformed space and hung the earth in empty space. Long ago he laid earth’s foundations and handcrafted the heavens; and he will still be around when they are long gone, threadbare and discarded like an old suit of clothes.
If the Big Bang theory is right (and as science investigates and makes new discoveries and changes in its limited knowledge, we don’t know how long it will be before this “truth” is superseded by and new “truth” like the lines of space theory) Yahweh was the one who told space to expand, along with all matter and energy. The function of gravitation that began to pull all matter into clumps that would become stars, galaxies, and clusters of galaxies; and that bind the stars, and galaxies so that they rotate about the massive central bulge is Yahweh’s power. He gave them their instructions so that one limb of galaxies rotates toward us while another rotates away from us, insuring the red shift of variance from one side to the other. He was there directing when the earth was formed by gravitational attraction of dust and gas and made a difference between the crust, mantle, and core. It was Yahweh who gave earth its unique extensive surface deposits of liquid water – the essential medium for life. It was Yahweh who put the earth close enough to the sun to maintain water, but not so close that it would boil away. He is the one who gave the earth its 24-hour rotation period – short enough to block extreme temperature between night and day, but slow enough to prevent extremely violent weather patterns. And it was Yahweh who mad the earth large enough so that fast moving water molecules cannot escape the planet.
Yeshua rips off the sixth seal and John is startled by an earthquake[xiii]that jars his very bones it is so bad. This seal is an assurance that prophesies listed in the above endnote will be fulfilled. The sun turns black as ink and the moon is blood red; stars are falling from the sky while the islands and mountains slid all over the place. There is confusion everywhere. The leaders of the nations, the world’s scientific leaders, the political leaders, military leaders, and even the men and women who control the wealth of the world: all the movers and shakers of the world system are joined by the rest of unregenerate mankind as they run scared, searching for a place to hide from Yahweh. They know that Yahweh’s judgment day has arrived. After all, there have always been some Christians who were brave enough to warn them to flee from the wrath to come.
Yeshua said, “Peace be unto you.” Yeshua in the midst of each battle – in the fire, in the flood, in the storm. It is a matter of position and practice. He will keep us in perfect peace when our mind is established on him. Seated with Mashiach in heavenly places, we are victorious over every battle. But we, in this temporary dwelling, are waiting for the salvation of our bodies, the final death of our old nature and the complete revelation of Mashiach in us. While we are in these earthly dwellings of flesh, we can walk in that victory and practice our position.
My Opinion
We have just seen a basic “overview” of the tribulation period. It started over two thousand years ago and a thousand years is a day with the Lord; so ion Yahweh’s timing, it started day before yesterday. The sixth seal described the incidents that will take place during the “day of the Lord” when Yahweh answers the prayers of the redeemed displayed in the fifth seal.
We have a picture of what the four winds were to bring on the earth to get the attention of lost souls – because he is not willing that anyone should perish.
But before any of this could happen, John sees the four angels holding the winds in check. The winds of judgment are being held back until the redeemed are sealed.
[i] Carmen Renee Berry
[ii] Zechariah 1:8-12; Jeremiah 32:36
[iii] Matthew 24:7-14
[iv] Rising in the Middle East, a man of war, Muhammad ibn Abdullah ibn abed al-Muttabb was born in 570 A.D. /he taught his followers to fight for the religion he developed and told them his god, Allah, had commanded him to take up arms. He began by subjugating his own countrymen (Islam means submission) to Allah; or if they refused to submit, he killed them. Then he moved forward. In 634 Muslims conquered Syria, Persia (Iraq), who appealed to China for help in 638. In 634 they conquered Egypt and, in 634, Gaza; and then in 638 they conquered Jerusalem. They conquered Armenia in 639. In 641 they destroyed the Persian Empire and caliphs ruled until 1258. In 642 they weakened the Eastern Roman Empire by conquering Mesopotamia. With Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Syria in their control, they became a strong enemy. They conquered Tripoli in 643, and Cyprus in 650.
[v] State of Emergency, pages 609, 612
[vi] Revelation 12:13-17
[vii] The
Outline of History, pages 671, 746, 852, 956, 1067, 1134
[viii] Ezekiel 14:21-23
[ix] I Corinthians 15:57
[x] Isaiah 13:9-19; Joel 3:15-17
[xi] II Peter 3:9
[xii] Mark 13:9-13 The Message Bible
[xiii] Isaiah 13:9-16; 34:4; Joel 2:10, 30, 31; 3:15-17; Daniel 12:1, 2: Malachi 3:1-4, 6; Hosea 10:5-8; Luke 21:25-28; Ezekiel 32:7; 38:22, 23; Revelation 11:9; 16:17-21; Matthew 24:29; II Peter 3:10-13
akleslieprice 