Revelation 6

Revelation — Steve Gregg

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Revelation 6

RevelationSteve Gregg

In his presentation, Steve Gregg discusses the first six seals of the scroll in Revelation 6, which follow the events that take place in the previous chapter. He notes that the breaking of the seventh seal is postponed, and that the qualifications for breaking the seals are not immediately clear. The chapter also includes Chapter 17 and 18, which feature a lament for Babylon's downfall and the shedding of the blood of prophets and saints on earth.

Transcript

All right, we're going to be turning now to Revelation chapter 6. And this chapter is occupied entirely with the breaking of the first six seals of that scroll, which appeared in chapter 5. And the breaking of the seventh seal will be strangely postponed. In these chapters, we only get the first six. And then where you would expect the seventh seal to be broken, there's an interruption in the continuity.

And chapter 7 intervenes, and then you have the seventh seal being broken in chapter 8, verse 1. But there are seven total, and these seven seals must be broken in order to open the scroll. Now, you remember that chapters 4 and 5 were the opening vision that sort of set up this dramatic moment. Because there was the worship of all the heavenly beings around the throne, praising God for His creative works.

And then there comes a time when this scroll appears in the vision, chapter 5, verse 1. And it is sealed with seven seals. And initially, it looks like nobody's going to qualify to break the seals, so we'll never find out what's in there. But it turns out that Christ comes as the only one.

And heaven and earth and under the earth, no one else is worthy or qualifies to open this document. I suggested that the document is the sentence handed down by a judge. That John has found himself entering a courtroom at the end of the proceedings where testimony has been heard.

The judge has decided to act to vindicate the plaintiff. The plaintiff, I suggested, is represented when we see the fifth seal open, and that is the martyrs. The martyrs whose blood has been shed on the earth are seen there asking how long it may be before they are vindicated, before they are avenged.

And that is the role of a judge. That's what courtrooms are for, is to avenge wrongs against innocent victims. Now, who is the defendant here? The defendant has not been identified in our lectures yet, nor even in the book of Revelation.

But it will soon be clear that the defendant here, who is condemned and is being sentenced, is the same person who is identified symbolically as Babylon later in the book. Actually, the first time Babylon is mentioned by that name is not until chapter 14. And even then, there's not much.

It's just a passing reference. In chapter 14, in verse 8, we first read of Babylon with these words, Another angel followed saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. So that's the first time we read of Babylon in the book.

Then, in chapter 16, with the pouring out of the seventh bowl, we are told in chapter 16, verse 19, Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and great Babylon was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. And then, in chapter 17, we're introduced to Babylon almost as if it's the first time. Although Babylon has been mentioned twice, Babylon has fallen in chapter 14, Babylon receives the cup of wrath in chapter 16.

But now we have Babylon dominating the vision of chapter 17 and 18, where a harlot is seen riding on the beast. And she is, as we see in chapter 17, verse 6, I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. Sounds like this is our culprit here.

At least there's considerable circumstantial evidence she's drunk. And what she's been drinking is the blood of the martyrs. Now, she falls.

She is killed in chapter 17. And in 18, there's mainly a lament, a lengthy lament, that the people who have been sympathetic toward Babylon in the past are lamenting over the downfall of Babylon. And it says in chapter 18, verse 24, And in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all who were slain on the earth.

Now, we keep running into this word earth in Revelation, and we shall see that many times, if not every time it occurs, it probably would better be translated as land. Just as is the case, as we've seen, with the Hebrew word eretz in the Old Testament, which could be translated either land or earth. And you really don't have a different word available for either of those words.

If you want to say land, you say eretz in Hebrew. If you want to say earth, you say eretz. So, in Greek, the word ge, in our letters, it would be G-E, ge.

It's gamma eta in Greek, and it means land or earth, just like eretz does in Hebrew. So, you really have to, the translator has to take his pick. Is this time, is it talking about land or is it talking about earth? Of course, in some cases, land and earth, even in English, are synonyms.

But, like, you know, earth can refer to dirt or something, soil. But, I believe that in most cases, land is going to be the better translation. I believe that the precedent for this in Revelation would be found in Revelation 1, and verse 7, where it says, at the end of verse 7, all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him.

I believe the reference to tribes is something of a giveaway. Tribes of the land would be more suited to the Biblical idea of Israel is divided into tribes. The land is Israel, and all the tribes of Israel, all the tribes of the land.

The land of Israel is divided into tribal units. Now, the earth, the world, is not divided into tribes. It's divided into nations, and therefore, the word tribes is much more closely associated with Israel than with the world in general.

And, I believe that it is, in fact, the tribes of the land. I believe it is Israel that is going to be mourning here. And, there's confirmation of that because if we read Revelation 18, 24, as in her was found the blood of prophets and saints and all who were slain on the land, all those who were slain in Israel, that makes sense because that's where the prophets were.

The blood of the prophets, that's what she's guilty of, as well as saints. Prophets in the Old Testament, saints in the New Testament. The first persecutor of the church was Jerusalem, was the Sanhedrin.

After all, they killed Jesus, or they condemned him to death and blackmailed Pilate. They also stoned Stephen in a mob action. That was the first Christian martyr.

They encouraged Herod, when he had killed James, to also, they encouraged him to arrest Peter with the intention of killing him too. They dispatched Saul of Tarsus to persecute Christians afar and wide, and later dispatched others to follow him up and kill him when he was converted. The first persecutor of the church was not the Romans.

The Romans kind of took over that role to a large degree after the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, but the early persecutions came from the Jews. In fact, the Jews tried to get the Romans involved. We read in Corinth that Paul's companions were called before Gallop, who was the Roman official in the town.

They tried to persuade him that they were preaching an illegal religion. Illegal because the Roman Empire had a policy that when they conquered a new region, the existing religions could continue to be there. They weren't going to try to wipe out those religions that were indigenous for the morale of their people, no doubt.

They let them continue to worship the gods they worshipped before Rome got there. After all, Rome worshipped many gods. They didn't care how many gods were added.

So, if somebody in a certain region worshipped their own territorial gods, let them continue. The Jews, of course, were worshipping Yahweh before the Romans got there, so Judaism was a permissible religion. It was a legal faith.

Christianity, however, had arisen since the Romans had arrived. It was a new religion, and those were outlawed. Therefore, sometimes the Jews would try to persuade the Roman officials that the Christians were a new and illegal religion.

Eventually, the Romans were persuaded of this, but at first the Romans had a very serious problem seeing this, because they couldn't tell the difference between one monotheist and another. The Jews were monotheists, and until the Christians came along, the Jews were the only monotheists that anyone knew about. None of the other nations were monotheistic.

Only the Jews believed in a single creator god. Then the Christians came along and also believed in that same god. To the Romans, that looked like just a branch of the same religion.

Therefore, Christianity was tolerated until the destruction of Jerusalem. Because when Judaism ended the destruction of Jerusalem, Christianity continued. It became obvious that Christianity had its own identity, separate from Judaism.

It was a different religion, and therefore it was persecuted by the Romans. The first persecutor of the saints and certainly of the prophets was Jerusalem. Jesus makes this very clear.

For example, in Luke chapter 13, when the Pharisees were trying to get Jesus scared about Herod, Jesus was up in Galilee where the Pharisees didn't have that much influence, and they wanted to get him down into Judea where they could get their claws into him. So they started telling him that Herod, the ruler up in Galilee where Jesus was hanging out, was out to get him. Thinking that would perhaps persuade Jesus to go down to where they could get their claws into him, in Judea, down in Jerusalem.

Jesus knew what they were up to, and he said in Luke 13, 32 and 33, He said to them, Meaning Herod. This is a sarcastic remark, of course. There were prophets who perished outside Jerusalem.

There were prophets of the northern kingdom who perished outside Jerusalem. But he's using a hyperbole, more or less, as a sort of a slam on Jerusalem. Yeah, you can't imagine anyone killing the prophets except the people in Jerusalem, their own people.

It can't be that a prophet would perish somewhere else. Jesus, of course, was not speaking technically accurately, but he was making a comment that was so generally true, that it served as a hyperbolic generality. But in Matthew 23, as far as we know, Jesus was not using hyperbole.

When he had been denouncing the scribes and Pharisees, he says in verse 29, Matthew 23, 29. Actually, verse, pardon, yeah, there we go. I'm right.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, if we had lived in the days of our fathers, you know, the ones who killed the prophets, if we'd been living in those days, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. That is to say, we think our fathers made a mistake in killing the prophets, so we're trying to now posthumously honor the prophets by adorning their tombs and things like that. And, you know, our fathers did this to them, but we wouldn't have done that if we were living back then, is what they say.

But he says, therefore, you are witnesses against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. The very act of calling those murderers your fathers is bearing witness that you are their sons. And to Jesus, you know, like father, like son.

That's why he said, if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham, over in John chapter 8. He says, you're of your father the devil, you're going to do what he does. He's a murderer, you're going to murder me. So Jesus' implication is, sons behave like their fathers.

You call these murderers your fathers? Well, you're testifying against yourselves that you're their sons and you have their blood running in your veins. He says, fill up then the measure of your father's guilt, that is by killing me. Serpents, brood of vipers, how can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes.

Some of them you'll kill and crucify. Some of them you'll scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come on this generation.

That is, that generation of the Jews in Jerusalem were going to suffer the consequences for their fathers' and their own murderous activities toward God's messengers, the prophets, all the way beginning with Abel and through the last of the prophets to be murdered, Zechariah, and then including the ones that Jesus would send. They're going to kill them too. Now, Jesus clearly is saying, if you want to know who's guilty of the blood of the martyrs, especially the prophets, it can hardly be anyone but Jerusalem.

Now, Babylon in Revelation 18, 24, the blood of the prophets is found on her garments. She's the one who killed the saints and the prophets. Notice in chapter 19, verse 2, in the worship of God, the inhabitants of heaven are saying, true and righteous are God's judgments because he has judged the great harlot, that's Babylon, who corrupted the earth with her fornication and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants shed by her.

At the end of Revelation 18 and 19, he has avenged the blood. And at the beginning in the fifth seal, the martyrs are saying, how long before you avenge our blood? Well, by the end of this chapter, of this book, he's done so. He has avenged the blood.

But who has shed the blood? Well, whoever it is that killed all the prophets and the early martyrs of Christianity, who killed them? Well, obviously, Jerusalem is the culprit. Therefore, it is fair to believe and assume that in this courtroom drama, the Christian martyrs and the prophets who were slain in the Old Testament times as well, the Jewish prophets who were slain, are being vindicated, as Jesus said, all this blood shed and the guilt of that is going to come on this generation. That is Jesus' generation.

That is within 40 years of the time that he said it. He said it in 30 AD. So there can be little doubt who is being judged here and when and why.

The drama is the vindication of innocent martyrs and the person being judged and sentenced is Jerusalem. Now, let's see if we could vindicate that theory from the text itself. I believe we can.

Chapter 6, verse 1. Now, I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a loud voice like thunder, Come and see. Now, by the way, this come and see is the way the Textus Receptus reads four times. The first four seals are broken.

There are four horses. They come out when one of the four living creatures in each case says, Come and see. However, the Alexandrian text simply says, Come.

Now, if it's come and see, apparently the exhortation is to John. Come over here. I want to show you something.

Come and see. If the word is simply come, as the older manuscripts suggest, it would mean that the horses are being invited to come. The seal is broken, and in each case a living creature, of which there's a total of four.

Each one gets a turn to say come, and out comes a horse with a rider. I think it's probable that the Alexandrian text is correct in this. And if so, then what we are seeing is whatever comes is coming by heaven's invitation.

These things are not random events that just happen to occur in the course of the rise and fall of empires. This is something God is directly summonsing. And as we come to each of these, I'm going to go ahead and just read it as come, even though the text we're looking at says come and see.

Verse 2, And I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer. And when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, Come. And another horse, fiery red, went out, and it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the land.

Or earth, but land is just as good a translation, I think better. And that people should kill one another, and there was given to him a great sword. When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, Come.

And I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. 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. When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, Come.

And I looked, and behold, a pale horse, actually a more literal translation would be a green horse. Chloros, as in chlorophyll, in our English word chlorophyll. So chloros means green, a green horse.

And the name of him who sat on it was Death, Thanatos. And Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the land to kill with the sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.

Now then we have, of course, the fifth seal, which we've already considered. It's the martyrs complaining and being told, Just be patient. You will be avenged soon, but first there are more martyrs like yourselves that have yet to shed their blood, and then all of you will be vindicated together.

And then we have the sixth seal. We'll get to that separately. And there's reason to, because the first four seals are a cluster.

We can see that they all have something in common that the remaining three seals don't have, and that is that each of the first four has a horse. And it is summoned by one of the four living creatures. It's a good thing there weren't more horses, because we ran out of living creatures.

We'd have to start making the rounds again. But there were four horses, four living creatures, and they are obviously a cluster of events. What do they represent? Well, in many cases we can compare scripture with scripture and get some answers.

Not so much, though, with reference to the first one. Verse 2, I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer. The most common interpretation of this among futurists, dispensationalists, is this is the Antichrist.

So, in other words, the church was raptured in chapter 4, verse 1, and the first bit of important action that we see when the seals start getting broken is the appearance of the Antichrist. And he's going out conquering and to conquer. Now, what arguments can be brought forward to support the identification of this as the Antichrist? Nothing comes to mind.

Now, if it's somebody who's one of the characters in the book of Revelation elsewhere, we might think it's Christ, because there is a rider on a white horse in Revelation 19 who is unmistakably Christ. So, one might say this is Christ. It is a possibility.

It is, I suppose, a possibility that it's Antichrist if we're looking at the future, but John said these things must shortly come to pass, and I don't think we're looking at events in the distant future from John's time. I'd like to suggest that this conqueror on the white horse represents the invading armies of Rome. It could be Vespasian, it could be Titus, or it could just be representative of the conquering power coming and invading in Galilee up in the north.

You see, the Jewish war began in 66 AD when the Zealots rebelled against Rome. Rome simply came in to retaliate, and it happened in Galilee first, but as the battle escalated, of course, it moved throughout the whole country. Eventually, the last point to fall was Masada, but one of the last things to fall and the most significant for the fate of the nation was Jerusalem, and it didn't fall until 70 AD.

But the war began up in Galilee with the invasion, with Roman armies coming in to quell a rebellion of the Zealots, and I believe if we begin with the assumption that this white horse rider represents that conquering power, the Romans coming in, we will make good sense of the rest of the vision. As I said, we don't have much comparison of Scripture to help us with this first horseman. What we do have is the succeeding horseman, and in many cases, we can make sense of them.

Once we do, then the first horseman will fall into sort of the paradigm. So what is the second horseman? When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, Come, and another horse, fiery red. Red, no doubt, is intended to convey the idea of bloodshed, and the one who is riding on it, according to the end of that verse, had a great sword, and he was taking peace from the earth.

He was granted the power to take peace from the earth. I believe, and frankly, commentators of many different approaches to Revelation believe, that this red horse represents civil war. Although, of course, futurist commentators often think it refers to civil war in the future.

And, you know, historicists believe it's perhaps civil war in the Roman Empire, but preterists, who would take the approach I'm seeing, would see this as civil war or breakdown of civil unity in Israel. And if you read Josephus, who was a participant and witness of the war, he tells us that when the Romans came in and when the war began, the people of Israel eventually were so disorganized and disunified that they began to kill each other. He says every village in Israel became broken into two warring camps.

That is, the Jews in the village were on one side and on the other side killing each other. He says the day was spent in bloodshed, and the night was spent in fear of bloodshed, and there was no peace in the land at all. Not only did the Romans come and, of course, do their harm, but the Jews kind of helped the Romans in killing each other.

This also, by the way, happened later when the city was besieged. The Romans were outside. The walls couldn't get in initially, but they almost didn't have to.

They could have just waited because the Jews inside the city were divided into three warring camps killing each other off. You can see that there was a strange, inconvenient, irrational breakdown in the unity of the nation itself. Jews against Jews.

Now, when you read the Old Testament about some of the ways that God won battles when Israel was being attacked by overwhelming forces, as in the days of Gideon and his driving out the Midianites with only 300 men, or when Jehoshaphat had an army of a million people attacking him, and he prayed and asked God for a strategy, and God said, send the singers and the musicians out first and let them praise the Lord and the beauty of holiness. And when they did, in the case of Midian in Gideon's day, and also in the case of Jehoshaphat's day, and other times too, sometimes the wars with the Philistines in David's day were like this, it says God set the enemy against themselves, against each other. It's like confusion happened among the enemy, and they didn't know who their enemy was.

Instead of fighting Israel, they fought each other and killed each other off. That's exactly what happened to the Jews themselves when it came time for God to judge them. When the Romans came in, the Jews began to kill each other.

It's kind of crazy. And I believe that chapter 9 will give us some kind of idea of why they became as irrational as they did in this kind of behavior. We're not there yet.

But the point is, as the white horse would represent external armies coming against them, the red horse represents the breakdown of peace within the nation. They're not at peace with each other anymore. Remember Jesus said in Matthew 10, verse 34, I didn't come to bring peace, I came to bring a sword.

This red horse rider has a big sword, and he divides people. Jesus said, I've come to set... Well, let's see how he puts it, because he mentions several different family members. Matthew 10, verse 34 and following, he says, Do not think that I came to bring peace on the land.

I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes will be those of his own household.

This certainly sounds like actually what Josephus described. People in the same village, in the same households, irrationally killing their allies, their family members, people who are their neighbors, instead of joining forces against the common enemy. But there's a great sword that came as a judgment on the nation when they rejected Christ.

In Luke chapter 19, Jesus, when he was approaching Jerusalem, wept over it, and it's interesting, something he said on that occasion. Luke chapter 19, verses 42 through 44. Verse 41 says, Now as he drew near, he saw the city, that is Jerusalem, and wept over it, saying, If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes.

This red horse took peace from the land. If they had only known how they could have had peace, but peace is now taken from them. And he says, For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, and surround you, and close you in on every side, and level you and your children within you to the ground, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.

Clearly, he's talking about the Roman invasion and the destruction of Jerusalem, very clearly. But he says, you know, it could have been so much different if you'd only known the things that would have promoted your own peace, your own shalom, your own well-being. Instead, it's taken from you, it's hidden from you.

And this red horseman takes away peace from the land. Certainly, that did happen at the outbreak of the war, and following throughout the war, really. Then, Revelation 5.5, 6.5, excuse me, 6.5. When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, Come.

And I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, A quart of wheat for a denarius, and a quart of barley, three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and the wine. Now, the scales were used, of course, in the marketplace, and therefore, one gets the impression that commerce is in some way affected.

Perhaps food supplies are affected, because the amount of money it costs to get a quart of wheat is rather exorbitant. A denarius was how much the average laborer made in a day. We know this from the Bible itself.

In some of the parables Jesus taught, he talks about laborers working for a day and receiving a denarius at the end of the day. That was their expected wage. A denarius was a day's wage, probably for 12 hours' work in all likelihood.

But a quart of wheat was about what a man would consume in a day. Now, if you could get a quart of wheat for a denarius, that means you have to work all day just to feed one man's stomach. What if you had a family to feed? Well, you could buy cheaper grain, barley.

You could get three quarts of that for a denarius. But in any case, food is at a premium, very expensive. The fact that he's carrying scales suggests that they are under judgment.

There is actually food shortage, and they have to eat their food by weight. So Leviticus 26 and verse 26 predicts. Leviticus 26 is a threat.

It's very much like Deuteronomy 28. Both places talk about what will happen to Israel if they rebel against God. And it's not a pretty thing.

And in Leviticus 26 and verse 26, he says, When I have cut off your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall bring back to you your bread by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied. You won't just be able to eat as you normally do in times of prosperity as much as you want. You'll have to weigh it out.

You have to weigh out your bread. And that's exactly what we see going on here. There are scales in the hand of this rider, and he's weighing out bread.

You need a quart of wheat? You need three quarts of barley? Okay, that's going to cost you a day's wage. By the way, while we happen to be open to Leviticus 26, you might find it interesting that the whole chapter, of course, is talking about the judgments that God will bring on Israel if they're unfaithful. Look at verse 18.

He says, After all this, if you do not obey me, then I will punish you seven times for your sins. And he talks more about that. And in verse 21, he says, Then if you walk contrary to me and are not willing to obey me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues according to your sins.

And down in verse 24, Then I also will walk contrary to you, and I will punish you yet seven times for your sins. And I will bring a sword against you that will execute vengeance of my covenant. Now, interesting.

In verse 28, Then I also will walk contrary to you in fury, and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. Now, of course, seven times is probably symbolic for total judgment. Seven is the number of completeness.

But it's also interesting that there's four times he says, I will judge you seven times. And you've got seven seals. You've got seven trumpets.

You've got seven bowls of wrath. There's also seven thunders. We're not sure what they apply to.

But some people have thought that the book of Revelation is consciously providing, as it were, the fulfillment of these threats. The judgments in Revelation are given in series of sevens. As in Leviticus said, if you rebel against me, I'll judge you seven times.

And I'll judge you yet seven more times, and yet seven more times, and so forth. But in any case, one of the judgments he says in chapter 26, verse 26 of Leviticus is, you'll eat your bread by weight. And there'll be shortages.

That does appear to be what God threatened he would do to Judah. And that is what is apparently happening here. Now, what actually did happen in the Jewish war? According to Josephus in his book, Wars of the Jews, or the Jewish War, in Book 5, Chapter 10, Paragraph 2, he made this comment about how the shortages of food affected people.

He said, many there were indeed who sold what they had for one quart. It was of wheat if they were of the richer sort, but of barley if they were poorer. Now, interesting that that has such close verbal parallels to Revelation, since Josephus never read Revelation, probably didn't even know the book existed.

He was writing in Rome probably at the time this was written, or maybe not. He may have been in Jerusalem, but he wasn't reading Christian literature. But he says they gave all that they had.

Well, a denarius is all a person would have from working a day, and they're going to need a quart every day to eat. It cost all they had just to eat. If they were of the richer sort, they could buy a quart of wheat.

If they were not, they had to buy cheaper grain, barley. And that is not exactly the same words as Revelation, but it's mighty similar. And that is describing what actually conditions did prevail in Jerusalem during the siege.

Now, also, what about this statement at the end of verse 6, Revelation 6, 6, where it says, do not harm the oil and the wine. What's that about? Now, I'll tell you, many commentators have said that this third horseman, this third seal, represents famine or food shortages. Of course, different approaches to Revelation see the famine as pertaining to different times in history.

But what often they say, and probably the most common thing they say, is that in times of drought, the grain crops are in short supply. Why? Because grain has shallow roots. Grain dries up more quickly, it needs the water more frequently.

But oil comes from olive trees, and wine comes from grapevines, and their roots are deeper. So that in a time of drought, you're going to lose your barley and your wheat quicker than you lose your oil and your wine. So, some say this is talking about a moderate drought, a moderate famine, really.

That there's shortages of the grain crops, the cereal crops, but some foods are still available. However, oil and wine is not really a staple for your diet. Grain is, and therefore people are hurting, but it's not been such a drought as to knock out the vines and the olive trees.

Now, another interpretation often given to this, touch not the oil and wine, is that they say oil and wine are more like the luxuries. And they say the common people will have a hard time making ends meet, even feeding their families. But it seems like even in hard economic times, the rich always seem to be able to have their luxuries.

They don't seem to be touched by it. Some say that. Now, I think maybe not, either of those things.

Although, maybe so. That could be true, even during the famines in Jerusalem. I'm sure there were the rich who still had their luxuries.

But, Josephus has an interesting little anecdote that some preterists think might be related to this, do not touch the oil and wine. And that is that, during the siege of Jerusalem, I mentioned there were warring factions inside the city, Jews against Jews. And one of the leaders of one of these factions, according to Josephus, was a man named John Gishallah.

And John Gishallah was a rebel leader, a tyrant, as Josephus calls him. And at one point, he and his troops, those who were with him, positioned themselves actually in the temple. And they raided the temple stores.

And there were like sacred oil and sacred wine there, which was supposedly only used for the sacrifices. But they didn't revere them, and they just kind of indulged in drinking the wine and using the oil and so forth, anointing themselves with oil, so that it was a sacrilege. And Josephus writes it this way.

This is in his book, The Wars of the Jews, or Jewish War, sometimes translated either way. Book 5, chapter 13, and paragraph 6, he said, Accordingly, drawing the sacred wine and oil, which the priests kept for pouring on the burnt offerings, and which was deposited in the inner temple, John Gishallah distributed them among his adherents, who consumed without horror more than a hin in anointing themselves and drinking. So they actually defiled and broke into the oil and the wine that was not supposed to be touched.

And so some say, well maybe the statement, don't touch the oil and the wine, no matter how bad things get, it was violated by this man. Obviously there's a lot of different opinions about what is meant by don't touch the oil and the wine. But in any case, the conditions of shortage and the economic difficulties in just feeding a family are mentioned here.

And Josephus bears testimony to the fact that that was essentially how it was. People would give all they had for a quart of wheat, or maybe three quarts of barley. Now, Revelation 6-7, When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, Come.

And I looked, and behold, a pale or a green horse. The name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. Now the first thing I want to point out is Death is not a person, does not ride a horse.

When we see these horses and their riders, this is symbolic. That should be obvious. I would think it obvious there probably are not horses and riders literally in heaven, coming down and doing these things.

Although technically it doesn't say they come from heaven. They are invited by heaven. The living creatures, who apparently bear some kind of authority to call them, call them forth.

It's a heavenly summons, but we don't read that the horses actually come from heaven. There are no doubt, no actual horses that are appearing here. It's a vision.

These horsemen represent something, obviously. If one of them represents famine, and one represents civil war, and one represents conquest and so forth, obviously this one represents death. These are not actual horses or actual people on horses.

This is a dramatic representation of concepts, humanized, personified. It's important to note that at this point, early in the visions, Death and Hades are both personified. A horseman and his runner behind.

At the end of Revelation chapter 20, Death and Hades are cast into the lake of fire. Along with the beast, the false prophet, the dragon, and all the other bad guys, essentially. Death and Hades are... We need to see what kind of a book we're reading here.

We're reading a book where things that aren't people are described in personal terms, anthropomorphized. Therefore, it's one of the things to take note of that the book of Revelation is written in symbols. I would think that would be self-evident.

I remember reading Henry Morris' commentary on Revelation, called the Revelation Record. He wrote the Genesis Record, which is very excellent in my opinion, and he decided to write the Revelation Record next, just so he'd bracket the Bible with his commentaries. Unfortunately, his expertise on Revelation was not the same as on Genesis, and he wrote a dispensational commentary.

As dispensationalists tend to champion the literal interpretation, Dr. Morris, whom I dearly love, he's a very precious man, godly brother, but I think he made the mistake of thinking that Revelation is supposed to be taken literally. He said in his introduction to his commentary, this will probably be the most literal commentary on Revelation that has ever been written. As I read it, I thought, probably so.

He did take everything pretty literally, but I thought it interesting when he came to these horsemen, he made a statement, he said, the events on earth are literal. The horses, he said, of course, are symbolic, because he said there are no horses in heaven. Now, I had nothing to disagree with in that statement.

I felt like he was being very reasonable in suggesting there are no horses in heaven, and the events on earth were literal, but the horses themselves were symbolic. And I thought it interesting that a man who is so committed to literal interpretation of Revelation, even he could not take the horses literally. However, I found a man more literal than he, and that was my friend, not my, I mean, acquaintance.

Wayne and I are not friends in the sense that we don't really hang out. But H. Wayne House, another dispensational writer, actually read part of my manuscript for Revelation of Four Views before it was published and made some commentary. I submitted it to him for him to take a look.

He is a dispensational scholar. And I quoted Henry Morris there saying, there are no horses in heaven. And Wayne House wrote a note on it that says, who says there's no horses in heaven? And in other words, Wayne House is saying, well, I'm willing to take even that literally.

Well, I guess anyone can do that if they wish. But it should be obvious that whether there are horses in heaven or not, these horses are symbolic. They represent war.

They represent civil disunity. They represent famine and food shortage. They represent things that aren't actual people.

And the horses, in this case, death is personified, followed by Hades. We have to see, this is not a literal description. This is a symbolic description of some things that literally did happen.

What did happen? It says, and power, verse 8, was given to them over a fourth of the land, or earth, depending on your viewpoint, to kill with the sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth, or the land. But to kill with what? Sword, hunger, death, and the beasts of the earth. Now, the word death there is thanatos.

It's the same as the name of the rider on the horse himself. Death is riding the horse. But thanatos is a word which the Septuagint, that is the Greek Old Testament, used more than 50 times to translate the Hebrew word for pestilence.

In the Old Testament, there are many occurrences of the word for pestilence. And more than 50 times, the Septuagint used the word thanatos to translate pestilence. And therefore, although thanatos literally means death, it obviously, in the time of John, in the time of the Greek Bible, it stood in for the word pestilence as well.

So that these four things could be read as sword, hunger, pestilence, and beasts of the earth. Which is, of course, what I think it actually does mean. And that makes it a clear allusion to something in the Old Testament.

Something that helps us understand what we're looking at here. In Ezekiel 5, in verse 17, God says, So we've got famine, wild beasts, pestilence, and the sword. But more to the point, if you look at Ezekiel 14.

Ezekiel 14, verse 19. Actually, the whole section. I don't want to read the whole section, but let's just look at verse 21.

To cut off man and beast from it. Now what's interesting is the four severe judgments are said specifically, these are my four severe judgments against Jerusalem. John knew that.

The Holy Spirit knew that. And of all the things that could have been said about this death, and Hades, and the fourth horseman, what the Holy Spirit chose to say is that it was these four severe judgments that are against Jerusalem that killed off a quarter of the people in the land. And so at the end of verse 8, we read that these killed with the sword, with hunger, with pestilence, and with beasts of the earth.

The very same things that Ezekiel calls the four severe judgments on Jerusalem. Or in the King James, the four sore judgments. Okay, so to my mind, there's quite a few allusions here to things in the scripture pertaining to Jerusalem, things in Josephus about the Jewish war, and therefore things that point our sight to Jerusalem, which is where we should expect it to go since we're now seeing the judgment on those who have killed the martyrs, whom Jesus very clearly calls, says to be Jerusalem.

Now, the fifth seal, as I say, we've talked about with some, we've spent some time on it, says, when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who have been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they had held. That could be Old Testament prophets and New Testament preachers as well. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, how long, O Lord, holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth or on the land.

And a white robe was given to each of them, and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed. Now, I don't need to say much more about this since it's come up for discussion several times. But one point I have not made is that what he saw was the souls of the martyrs at the foot of the altar.

Now, the altar, I believe, is in heaven. I believe John's visions are in heaven. It could, I suppose, be a vision of the earthly altar.

But John, in Revelation, sees at various points tabernacle furniture, temple furniture in heaven. At one point, he sees the Ark of the Covenant in heaven. Another time, he sees, of course, the incense altar, where the prayers of the saints are offered with incense.

He sees, well, the Holy of Holies he sees up there. In this case, I think he sees the altar, which probably is the altar of sacrifice. The reason for that is because of what's at its foot.

The souls of the martyrs are at the foot of the altar. And in the Jewish ritual, according to Leviticus 4 and verse 7, the Jewish priests, when they slit the throat of an animal, would drain its blood at the foot of the altar. So this would be where the blood of the sacrifice would collect, at the foot of the altar, below the altar.

Now, interestingly, this is the souls of the martyrs, but they are sort of standing in for the blood of the martyrs. After all, it does say in Leviticus 17, 11, the nephesh of the flesh is in the blood. The soul of the flesh, or the life of the flesh, is in the blood.

Nephesh is the word used, soul. The soul of the flesh is in the blood. If it's blood or soul, it's the life.

And the lives of the martyrs have been shed and spilled. Now, what's interesting, it says, those who've been slain. The word slain there is the specific word for sacrificing an animal, slitting its throat.

In fact, the word was used in chapter 5, in verse 6, when he saw Jesus as a lamb that had been slain, that is sacrificed. And so these people are martyrs, and their death is viewed not just as a death, but as a sacrifice, something offered to God. We are told by Paul in Romans 12, 1, that we should present our bodies as a living sacrifice.

And that is true, as long as we're alive, our bodies should be offered to the Lord, as if we're on the altar and holy unto the Lord, and we're available for his service. But there comes a time when we become a dying sacrifice, not a living sacrifice, if martyrdom happens to be our privilege. And so, these people have been sacrificed.

They've been sacrificed like a lamb. Their blood, or rather their souls, are collecting at the foot of the altar, like the blood of the sacrifices. Interestingly enough, those who sacrifice them are no doubt Jewish priests.

That's who would pour out the blood at the foot of the altars, the Jewish priests in Leviticus. And the Jewish priesthood was, of course, the Sanhedrin. And, well, the Sanhedrin were not all priests, but the head of the Sanhedrin was the high priest.

And Caiaphas, the high priest, had set Jesus up, and it was the Sanhedrin, initially, that crucified Christ, and also Stone Stephen, and so forth. In other words, these people were sacrificed, very possibly, their blood is being laid at the door of the high priests, or the priests. Because they did persecute Christ and the apostles.

Anyway, their blood, or their souls, are crying with a loud voice. Remember, Abel's blood cried from the ground when Cain slew Abel? And, by the way, Jesus said, all the righteous blood that was shed from Abel's blood on will be laid at the door of this generation, he said. This generation will pay the price for all the righteous blood from Abel's on.

Well, Abel's blood, the first martyr, the first innocent victim to be killed for righteousness sake, his blood cried from the ground. What did it cry for? Apparently, for vengeance. Apparently, for vindication.

Apparently, for God to step in and do something to redress the wrong. So, also, the souls of the martyrs are crying out, as did the blood of Abel from the ground, saying, when will you avenge our blood? And they're told, it'll happen. And we saw already at the beginning of this lecture that in chapter 19, verse 2, we find that God has now, at the end of the book, avenged their blood.

So, the un-avenged blood of the martyrs seems to be presented to us as the unfinished business at the beginning of the book. And, the avenged blood of the martyrs is the finished business at the end of the book. So, that essentially the book is about the avenging of their blood.

Now, the sixth seal, verse 12. I looked when he opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair. That would be goat's hair, probably.

Sackcloth made out of goat's hair, they had black hair. And the moon became like blood, and the stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place.

And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man. Seven different categories given, just, they're not counted for us, but it's one of the many sevens in the book of Revelation. It almost becomes redundant to list all these, but they, I think it's intentional to get through seven, get the list up to seven types.

All people, in other words, the complete population, hid themselves in caves and in rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of his wrath has come, and who is able to stand? This passage is so full of wonderful things that support the thesis that we are looking at the destruction of Jerusalem in this. First of all, we have both cosmic and geological seismic disturbances.

There's an earthquake, the sun, moon and stars are affected. In fact, the whole heavens are rolled up like a scroll. All the mountains and islands vanish.

Now, none of these things are literal, and that can be demonstrated that they're not. They're no more literal than the red horse and the white horse and the green horse are literal. They are symbols, and they are well-known symbols.

Fortunately for us, since we don't usually speak with such symbols, and our modern writers don't, we have many examples of it in the biblical writers, that these are commonplace symbolic things. Even in this passage itself, without looking any further, we could easily see that it's not literal, because it says in verse 14, the middle of that verse, every mountain and island was moved out of its place. So we lose our mountains and our islands there.

But then how is it that at the end of verse 15, people are calling out to hiding themselves in caves and in the rocks of the mountains? Where did these mountains come from? And they said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us. Well, I thought all the mountains were gone now. All the mountains and hills were removed.

But now we've got people hiding in the rocks of the mountains and calling for the mountains to hide them. Obviously, we're not supposed to be taking this as a literal set of events. This is something to absorb as a horrendous judgment, which is described in terms cosmic and seismological.

For example, of course, when it says the sun became black as sackcloth of hair and the moon became like blood. This language is coming from Joel chapter 2 in verse 31. And that passage is quoted by Peter.

So we don't have to guess about the timing of its fulfillment. You know that in Joel chapter 2, verses 28 through 31, it talks about God pouring out his spirit on all flesh. And your sons and daughters prophesy.

And it goes on to talk about cosmic disturbances. And Peter, on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, is explaining what is actually going on before the eyes of those people in Jerusalem. As they see, the spirit has fallen.

There's tongues of fire over the heads of the Christians. They're speaking in unknown tongues that they've never learned. Someone wants an explanation.

He says, okay, here it is. In Acts 2.16, it says, but this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel. He quotes him.

And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions.

Your old men shall dream dreams. And on my men's servants and my maid's servants, I'll pour out of my spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy. Now, he could have ended the quote there, if all he wanted to talk about was Pentecost.

Because that's the point at which Joel stops talking about Pentecost. But Joel continues. And Peter apparently felt the remainder of this quote is relevant, too, to what is happening right now.

He says, I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and notable day of the Lord. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Now, there is a reference here to the great and notable day of the Lord. In Joel, it actually says the great and terrible day of the Lord. Or great and, yeah, terrible is the word used in our translation in Joel 2.31. There's this great and terrible day of the Lord coming.

And before it comes, God will pour out his spirit on the remnant in Israel. And then will come those events that precipitate the great and terrible day of the Lord. Those are described in these terms.

There will be wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire, pillars of smoke. Now, you know, there certainly was that. In Jerusalem, there was blood.

Josephus said the streets were running like streams of blood. There was so much bloodshed going on in the streets. Fire, yeah, there was that.

The temple was burned. Other parts of the city were burned. There were great billows of smoke going up.

And this caused the sun to appear to be darkened and the moon to appear to be blood. Now, there is a literalness about that because thick smoke does darken the sky. It does darken the sun from view.

And actually, blood is actually the color the moon sometimes looks when there's smoke in the sky. I know because I grew up in L.A. And when I was growing up, they didn't have catalytic converters on the cars. And you could see the color of the sky on a regular basis.

It was gray. You know, air is supposed to be colorless. It was not.

In L.A., it was not colorless. It was gray. And sometimes it was so bad, your eyes would burn just to go outside because there was so much smoke, exhaust mixed with the air.

And there were some nights when you'd go out and there was a full moon. And you'd look, and if the moon was low on the horizon, it looked literally as red as an apple. It looked blood red.

Those of us who were dispensationalists back then had many a night. When we looked at the moon and it was literally blood red, we said, whoa. We really thought this was it coming.

But you see, that's just the effects of smoke in the air. It makes the moon look red. If the smoke is thick and dark, it darkens the sun.

That's what's going to happen. Jerusalem is going to have pillars of smoke, fire, blood in the streets. The sun darkened.

The moon turned into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord, said Joel, said Peter. And the fact that Peter quoted it on this occasion in a statement that began with, this is that, meaning this is the time of fulfillment, means that Joel predicted two things. He predicted an outpouring of the Holy Spirit before the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and burning and bloodshed, trouble.

And of course, we have seen already in our studies of the Old Testament how often that is the case, that the fall of Jerusalem is joined in prophecy with the new order, the age of the Spirit, the age of the Messiah. And Joel mentions these two, and Peter doesn't just mention the first part. He mentions the whole thing and says, this is what's happening.

This is the age you're living in right now, the age Joel talked about. In other words, the destruction of Jerusalem is imminent, and the outpouring of the Spirit is a clue that this is the time you need to be watching out for that. Now, if you look at the passage in Revelation again, we have these two phenomena, the same ones, clearly taken from Joel.

It says, the sun became black as sackcloth, and the moon became like blood. At the end of chapter 6 of Revelation, those who are hiding say, the great day of his wrath has come. Obviously, this is the great and terrible day of the Lord that Joel predicted.

It's that great day of his wrath. Malachi also spoke of that day. He called it the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

We'll be looking at Malachi shortly as a cross-reference to some of this. But, we see that a passage about the fall of Jerusalem in Joel, quoted by Peter and so identified, is informing this passage also. With the sun turning black, the moon turning to blood.

It says in verse 13, the stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its late figs when it's shaken by a mighty wind, and the sky receded as a scroll. Both of these images, stars falling like figs, and the sky being rolled up like a scroll, actually come from Isaiah chapter 34. And, taken at face value, the passage is about the destruction of Edom.

Isaiah 34 and verse 4, it says, all the host of heaven should be dissolved. That means the stars. The heaven should be rolled up like a scroll.

That's imagery that is now found in the sixth seal in Revelation. And, their host, meaning the stars, shall fall down as a leaf falls from the vine and as the fruit falling from a fig tree. It's very obvious that Revelation 6 is deliberately adopting this imagery from Isaiah chapter 34 verse 4. But, the next line in Isaiah 34 says, for my sword shall be bathed in heaven.

Indeed, it shall come down on Edom, on the people of my curse. So, Edom here is said to be under judgment. I have suggested on other occasions that Edom might here be a representation for Jerusalem.

But, whether it is or not, it is clear that this rolling up of the heavens like a scroll is not a sign to the end of the world. We're not looking at the literal end of the universe. These things are not really happening in the sky.

This is just the apocalyptic language that is used of judgments, such as we would find in the judgment of Edom. Which, by the way, Edom is an extinct race today. So, this is not a future judgment of Edom.

There is no future for Edom. There is no present for Edom. There has not even been a past for Edom for the past 2,000 years.

It's been gone that long. So, clearly this rolling up of the heavens like a scroll and the stars falling, if literal, would certainly be the end of the universe. Although, of course, stars can't fall to the earth because the earth is much smaller than the stars and it just wouldn't work.

So, obviously, we're not looking at literal descriptions here. We're looking at apocalyptic imagery. These images are used throughout scripture to speak of nations falling or capital cities falling.

Egypt, Babylon, Tyre, Jerusalem, all in the Old Testament are spoken of as falling and terminology like this is used. Common in the prophets. Now, I mentioned that verse 14 where it says, Every mountain and island that was moved out of its place also cannot be taken.

Literally, since we have some mountains playing into the story in the next few verses. So, again, it's impressionistic. There's this great earthquake.

It moves everything. It changes everything. Even everything that seems so permanent.

Certainly, Jerusalem and its temple seemed permanent. As permanent as the everlasting hills. But, they can go down too.

Just like Jerusalem can. And, it says in verse 15, The kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, etc. are going to hide themselves in caves.

Now, let's talk about the kings of the earth for a moment. I have said that earth, I believe, is best understood as land. But, were there kings of the land of Israel? Well, the term kings of the land or kings of the Eretz is found in Psalm chapter 2. And, in Psalm chapter 2, that is the Hebrew equivalent of this Greek phrase, is found in the opening verses.

Psalm 2, 1 says, Why do the nations rage and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth, this is the Hebrew equivalent of the phrase in Revelation, The kings of the earth set themselves and rulers take counsel together against Yahweh and against His Messiah. Anointed means the Messiah. Saying, let's break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us.

That is, these powerful people are resisting God and resisting the Messiah. Now, if you look over at Acts chapter 4, we find that the apostles actually quote this verse. And, it's application in their minds is significant because they have been threatened by the Sanhedrin.

That if they preach anymore in the name of Jesus, they will suffer dire consequences. And so, they've gone back to their company of disciples and had a prayer meeting. And, in their prayer, they said, in verse 24, the middle of verse 24, they said, Lord, You are God who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them, who by the mouth of Your servant David have said, now they quote Psalm 2, Why did the nations rage and the people plot vain things? The kings of the earth, there it is.

This time, it's the Greek phrase because the New Testament is written in Greek. It's the Septuagint phrase. It's the same phrase that we find in Revelation repeatedly.

Whenever you read of the kings of the earth in Revelation, it's this phrase. So, they say, the kings of the earth took their stand and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ. Now, the disciples see this as something already fulfilled.

They say, for truly, against Your holy servant Jesus whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done. In other words, they see the fulfillment of this Psalm as having taken place in their time. Jesus is the Lord's Christ who has been resisted.

Who has been resisted? Him. Who are the kings of the earth? Well, Herod, Pontius Pilate, the rulers of the Jews. Herod ruled Galilee.

Pilate was the Roman official governing Judea. The Sanhedrin were the rulers of the Jews. These are the people that the apostles understand to be the kings of the earth in Psalm 2. In other words, they had no trouble seeing this phrase as meaning the local rulers of Judea and Galilee.

The rulers of Israel. The rulers of the land of Israel. That's specifically how the apostles applied that phrase from the Old Testament.

Among those disciples was John. He was one of the ones praying with them on that occasion. He's also the one who wrote this book.

And he said, the kings of the earth. And this group is mentioned a number of times. This is the first time in Revelation.

But the rulers of the land would be how the apostles understood this phrase. And all these other groups of men. They hid themselves in caves in the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb.

Now, there's an actual literal fulfillment of this. Josephus records it in his book, Wars of the Jews. In book 6, chapter 7, paragraph 3. This is when the Romans had broken through the walls.

And were now wreaking havoc on the Jews inside the city. This is at the end of the war. And it says, Josephus said, So now, the last hope which supported the tyrants, meaning the Jewish tyrants, like John Gashala and others.

The last hope which supported the tyrants and that crew of robbers who were with them, was in the caves and caverns underground. Whither, if they could once fly, they did not expect to be searched for, but endeavored that after the whole city should be destroyed and the Romans were gone, they might come out again and escape from them. This was no better than a dream of theirs, for they were not able to lie hid, either from God or from the Romans.

Notice Josephus sees the judgment on these people as from God. And he's a Jew himself, but he sees it as God judging a wicked city and the Romans judging it as the instruments. But notice, the last place they hid was in the caves and caverns under the city, hoping they would be spared the wrath of God and of the Romans.

And so we have these people in Revelation, they're hiding in the caves, because the wrath of the Lamb, the wrath of God is coming on them. Josephus, again, had no idea the degree to which he was confirming what Revelation said, because he didn't know about the book of Revelation, but there's more. Because we find these people saying to 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.

If you would look at Luke 23, Jesus gives us the inspired interpretation of this passage. In Luke 23, verses 28-31, Jesus is making his way to Golgotha with his cross. Verse 27 says, A great multitude of the people followed him and women who were also mourning and lamenting him.

And he turned to them, he turned to the mourners and he said, The daughters of Jerusalem, verse 28, Do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. Your generation and your children's generation are going to face something that you should be weeping for, you inhabitants of Jerusalem, you daughters of Jerusalem. Sounds like something might happen to Jerusalem in the lifetime of those women and their children.

For indeed, the days are coming in which they will say, Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts which never nursed. Then they will begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us and to the hills, Cover us. That sounds rather similar to Revelation chapter 6. And Jesus says, For if they do these things in the green wood, or in some translation, the green tree, what will be done in the dry? Jesus is a good tree.

He's a live tree. He's fruitful. Not like that fig tree that was withered and no one will eat fruit of it again because it's withered and dried.

Israel has become a withered, fruitless tree. Jesus, however, he still has redeeming qualities, unlike the dry tree. But if the Romans are treating me this way, he says, how are they going to treat you? If they do this to someone like me, I'm not even a criminal.

I'm not even worthless like you. I'm not dried up and fruitless like this vine, Israel. I'm the true vine.

I bear fruit. If they do this to somebody who has value, what will they do to a tree that has no value? In other words, what will they do to Jerusalem? You women, you daughters of Jerusalem and your children, what are they going to do to you folks? If they do this to me, as he's saying. He says, the time will come when the Romans are going to do worse things to Jerusalem than they're doing to Jesus right here.

And he says, they will then say to the mountains, cover us, fall on us, hide us. Jesus predicted that before John wrote Revelation. And John's description is of these people saying those very words, or essentially those very words.

The mountains and rocks are saying, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. This is, of course, the Roman invasion, but that is in the book of Revelation described as the wrath of Christ and the wrath of God. For, they say, the great day of his wrath has come.

And who is able to stand? Now, this question sets up chapter 7. Because the answer to the question is given in chapter 7. This is the day of God's wrath on Jerusalem. This is the great and terrible day of the Lord. As Joel called it, or as Malachi called it, we shall see the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

But, will there be any survivors? This is such a bloody holocaust. This is such a wholesale judgment. Will there be anyone surviving? The rhetorical question, who shall be able to stand, suggests some doubt as whether anyone will.

Now, who shall be able to stand is a direct quotation from Malachi, associated with the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. If you look at Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. is mentioned in chapter 4 and in chapter 3. The last two chapters, there's only four chapters of Malachi. The third and fourth chapter both make reference to the great dreadful day of the Lord. Both passages mention John the Baptist coming in advance of it.

Of course, John the Baptist came and warned that the axe was at the root of the trees. The fan was in his hand. This day of the Lord was near.

Judgment was imminent. Well, Malachi said John would come and would do his best to turn people around before the great and terrible day of the Lord. So, we read in the end of Malachi 4, the end of the book, it says in verses 5 and 6, It says, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

That is before God would come to judge Jerusalem, he's going to send one in the spirit and power of Elijah to try to fix it. Try to turn them around. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with or the land with the curse.

By the way, the New American Standard, I believe, says, lest I strike the land with the curse. New King James says earth, but land obviously is an alternate translation. The curse is that which is mentioned in Deuteronomy 28, which would come on Israel if they are rebellious.

So, before God sends this great curse, this great and dreadful day of the Lord's judgment on Jerusalem, he will send Elijah the prophet to attempt to turn people around and avert the disaster. And he says it's Elijah, but Jesus, of course, we know, said, if you can receive it, John is Elijah who was to come. Jesus actually made this comment twice, just so we make sure we didn't miss it.

This Elijah prediction is pretty important, because it is the last prediction in the Old Testament. Just before the prophets went silent, a prediction was made of John the Baptist, who was the next prophetic voice that was heard. But in Matthew chapter 11, John had sent messengers to Jesus, and he had sent the messengers back to John with his answer.

And then as John's messengers were gone, Jesus decided to eulogize John to the crowds that were there. And he said in verse 11, He is Elijah who is to come. Now, that statement, who is to come, means who is predicted to come.

The only place in the Bible that Elijah is predicted to come is Malachi 4. There is no other prediction in the Old Testament of Elijah coming. So, he is alluding to Malachi chapter 4, I will send Elijah. You know, Elijah, who is supposed to come, John's him, if you can receive it.

Over in Matthew chapter 17, when the disciples actually saw Elijah and Moses up on the mountain of Transfiguration, as they were coming down from the mountain, in Matthew 17.10, the disciples asked Jesus, saying, why then do the scribes say Elijah must come first? Well, we know why, because they took Malachi literally. They thought Elijah was literally going to come, because Malachi said, behold, I send Elijah the prophet. However, Jesus said to them, Elijah truly is coming first and will restore all things.

Now, I myself have my own opinion about this statement. I think Jesus is quoting or paraphrasing, essentially, Malachi. In other words, why do the scribes say Elijah is going to come? And he quotes or paraphrases the verse that the scribes base this expectation upon.

It's not a direct quote, but it's essentially a paraphrase of the prophecy of Malachi. Elijah truly is coming first and will restore all things. But then Jesus gives his commentary.

But I say to you that Elijah has come already. And they did not know him, but did to him whatever they wished. Now, this is a reference to John the Baptist.

It says in verse 13, the disciples understood that he spoke to them of John the Baptist. So if you can receive it, this prophecy of Malachi about Elijah is about John the Baptist. And so the prediction is God's going to send John the Baptist to try to turn the apostate nation around so that he doesn't have to strike the nation with the curse.

However, if John fails to bring about national repentance, then the great and terrible day will come, which is, of course, what came in AD 70. And John predicted it, by the way, in Matthew 3. But look at Malachi chapter 3 now. Because we see that there's another time that Malachi talks about John the Baptist.

Malachi 3.1 Malachi 3.1 Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight. Behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

But who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? Who can stand? That's the question raised at the end of Revelation chapter 6. But what is the context here? Just like Malachi 4, John the Baptist, and by the way, all the gospels, I think, quote Malachi 3.1 and apply it to John the Baptist. So we've got John the Baptist mentioned in Malachi 3.1 and also later in Malachi 4.5. But after it mentions John the Baptist, it talks about Jesus, the messenger of the covenant. He will come.

He'll suddenly come to his temple. This is a judgment coming. How do we know that? Because who can endure it when he comes? This is not talking about Jesus walking into Jerusalem and sitting in the temple steps and teaching.

That's not the sudden coming that people will have a hard time enduring. It's not even referring to him going into the scourge of cords and driving out a few animals. Lots of people survived that.

In fact, as far as we know, no people were even endangered by that. We don't have any record that Jesus hit a person. And if he did, he didn't kill anyone.

Who can survive this sudden appearance at his temple? This is the coming on the clouds where all the tribes of the land will mourn. This is the destruction of the temple. This is the destruction of Jerusalem.

And about that, it is legitimate to say who can endure that? Who can stand when that happens? Malachi is the last prophet God sent to say there is going to be a time when Jerusalem and Israel will be teetering on the verge of judgment. And the Messiah will be the one who comes and brings that judgment. But first, God will send the messenger to try to give you a chance to turn around.

But Malachi makes it very clear. They probably won't turn around because there's going to be this great and dreadful day of the Lord. The messenger of the covenant is going to suddenly come and do some serious harm.

And when he does, it will seem like no one would survive it. Who will stand? Who can endure it? Well, it is this line in Malachi 3.2 that is being quoted in Revelation 6. Those who are hiding in the caves. Those who are saying to the rocks, hide us.

Which is what Jesus said the inhabitants of Jerusalem would do. And they're saying, who is able to stand? As Malachi 3.2 raises that question in the connection with the destruction of Jerusalem. The answer to that comes in chapter 7. Now, where you would expect to see the 7th seal broken, you do not.

There is instead this interlude. And you're going to find this is true with the 7 trumpets and with the 7 bowls of wrath. That you get the first 6 in somewhat rapid succession.

And then there's a bit of an interlude before the 7th one. In the case of the bowls of wrath, it's not much of an interlude, but there's an interruption in the sequence. Here, the interruption is a full chapter.

In the case of the trumpets, the interruption between the 6th trumpet and the 7th trumpet is a chapter and a half. But it's sort of a stylistic pattern of the vision. Just as when you have these series of 7s, there's like an opening vision in heaven showing why this is happening on earth.

So also, when the series of 7s begin, the first 6 in the series go by rather quickly. And then there's an interruption before the 7th comes. Perhaps to answer some question that people would have.

In this case, the question is, is anyone going to survive this? Who will be able to stand when the Lord comes in wrath against those who killed Him? And who killed His saints? And who killed His prophets? When the blood of all the martyrs is brought upon that generation, will there be any survivors? The answer is yes, there will be. Quite a few, actually. They will be the Christians.

And we'll see that in chapter 7 when we come to it next time.