The Book of Revelation: Revelation 6:1-11

Speaker: Dustin Scott

Passage: Revelation 6:1-11

I love when Pastor Gary says this planet isn’t our home because it’s a reminder that we, as the people of God, are to live from a Heavenly perspective. I think one of the most beautiful things about the Book of Revelation is that we find out at the end of the story that Heaven joins together with Earth and we dwell in a new creation. I like to joke that Heaven is a big deal, but it’s not the end of the world.

REVELATION 6:1-11

So, are you guys ready? Let’s dive into chapter 6. We’re going to read verses 1 through 12. It says:

“Then I saw the Lamb break one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures call out, as with a voice of thunder, ‘Come!’ I looked, and there was a white horse! Its rider had a bow; a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering and to conquer. When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature call out, ‘Come!’ And out came another horse, bright red; its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people would slaughter one another, and he was given a great sword.

When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature call out, ‘Come!’ I looked, and there was a black horse! Its rider held a pair of scales in his hand, and I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, ‘A quart of wheat for a day’s pay and three quarts of barley for a day’s pay, but do not damage the olive oil and the wine!’

When He broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature call out, ‘Come!’ I looked, and there was a pale green horse! Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed with him; they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, famine, and pestilence and by the wild animals of the earth.

When He broke the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered for the word of God and for the testimony they had given; they cried out with a loud voice, ‘Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?’ They were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number would be complete both of their fellow servants and of their brothers and sisters who were soon to be killed as they themselves had been killed.

When He broke the sixth seal, I looked, and there was a great earthquake…”

Let’s pray before we get started.

Holy Spirit, You’re the guide. You’re the teacher. And so, Lord, we remember that warning at the end of Revelation: to anyone who adds or takes away. Would You not allow us to add or take away from Your Word this morning, but would You guide us into Your truth? And would You give us things to read, hear, and obey so that You can practically transform us in our daily lives in order that we may reveal You? We ask this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A BRIEF REVIEW

Before diving back into chapter 6 and hopefully completing it today, I want to do a bit of review. When we first began Revelation chapter 6, we dove into the world of the Bible and used the Old and the New Testaments to understand and perhaps demystify some of the biblical symbols in this passage, like the four horsemen.

This week, we’re going to turn to the world behind the Bible. We’re going to explore the history and the culture that surrounded the writing of this text in order to understand its primary theme, which, I’m going to conclude, is actually worship.

Now, upon an initial reading, you’re probably like, What does this passage have to do with worship? There’s judgment, there’s warfare, there’s plagues and famines and strange astronomical signs. Yet, if we go back to Revelations 4 and 5, we remember Jesus’ invitation to St. John to come up out of the crises of the seven churches and enter into Heaven’s throne room. 

Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things. This was Jesus’ invitation to John to shift his perspective. John is instructed to get his eyes off the world and its problems and get his eyes back on Jesus. Worship of the Lamb and a proper understanding of His sovereignty is the only solution that is going to solve the problems of the seven churches. The people of God must adopt Heaven’s culture of worship.

It’s from this moment that we as the readers, with this context of worship, are transitioned to Revelation chapter 6. The structure of this chapter comes from other passages of the Scriptures. Specifically, they come from the Mount of Olives discourse within the Synoptic Gospels.

REVELATION CONNECTS TO THE GOSPELS

We’re going to dig into those just a bit, but what do all these biblical passages have in common? What’s the connecting string between them all? Is it eschatology? Well, kind of. But if we go back to the beginning of each one of these chapters, what holds them in common? It’s worship. They all address worship.

If you go to the beginning of Matthew 24:1, we find that the disciples are pointing out to Jesus the buildings of the temple. If we go to Mark chapter 13, we find one of the disciples saying to Jesus, “Look teacher, what large stones and what large buildings the temple has”. If we go to Luke 21, it begins with the disciples walking about the temple, appreciating its beautiful stones and the wonderful gifts that were being given to God.

Within these Gospel passages, the disciples are basking in the majesty of this central symbol and location of Jewish worship: the Jerusalem temple. Yet Jesus confronts them with a haunting reality: God is about to rip the temple down. 

I’ve charted out for our visual clarity the parallels between the woes of each chapter and how they connect to the six seals in Revelation.

We find that the first woe is false religion, and the second woe is warfare. Next comes famines, then mass death, then martyrdom, and finally earthquakes. In each of these Gospel accounts, Jesus foretells the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 AD. He warns the disciples by saying, “This generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place”.

I think Jesus makes it clear that He’s not talking about some distant, far-away, future event. No, He’s talking to the disciples about something they are going to know and see within their own lifetime. The structure of their worship as they know and understand it is about to be changed forever.

WHO/WHAT IS GETTING YOUR ATTENTION?

In Revelation 6, John is going to communicate this same message but from a slightly different angle. The conversation still centers on worship, yet this time, the Mount of Olives discourse is going to be lifted out of its Jerusalem context and placed into a universal context.

In chapter 6, we find that the world is dominated by false worship. God is ripping down the world’s idolatry through judgment. Yet that judgment is always intended, until the Second Coming, to turn humanity’s worship away from the idols and back on to God the Creator.

This is the context around what John hears in Jesus’s earlier command to come up here. In this passage, believers are being invited to consider, as we see this picture of the world under judgment, the questions of: What is getting my attention? What has my trust? What is receiving my worship?

Revelation 6, as it’s being addressed to these churches, is something of a reality check. False worship in our world entices us with promises of salvation, peace, prosperity, life, ease, and stability. But what do we find in reality? We see in this chapter that false worship actually results in false messiahs, war, famine, death, persecution, and earthquakes.

So, as we return to this chapter, and as we travel step-by-step through its woes, I would invite us to consider:

• Who is getting my attention?
• Who is promising me the peace, prosperity, and salvation that only Jesus can give?
• Who is receiving my worship and my affection instead of Him?

FIRST SEAL: FALSE MESSIAHS

We’re going to begin with woe number one and figure out who on earth this is talking about. Verses 1-2: “Then I saw the Lamb break one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures call out, as with a voice of thunder, ‘Come!’ I looked, and there was a white horse! Its rider had a bow; a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering and to conquer”.

Who is this mysterious figure who looks so much like Jesus in Revelation 19, where Jesus rides atop a white horse, has a robe dipped in blood, and has a two-sided sword coming out of His mouth? Who is this figure who looks so much like Him? There’s just something off and unsettling about it.

If we go back to the Roman emperor of this time, Domitian, and we look at the patron god of Domitian, who did he worship? The god Apollo. 

There he is. It’s an image of a false messiah, a counterfeit God. He wields a golden or a silver bow. He has a golden crown atop his head, and he rides atop a white horse, or a horse-drawn Sun chariot.

Now Domitian, Apollo’s primary worshiper and the emperor at this time, was likely the leader of Rome at the time of John’s exile on Patmos. Domitian was also the first Roman emperor to formally demand worship of himself as a self-proclaimed god while he was still living. We could say he had a god complex, right?

Let’s take a look at the coins used during this era of Domitian’s reign. Do you guys remember in Revelation 1:16 where Jesus says, “I am the one who holds the seven stars”? Well, here on their coins we see a picture of Domitian’s son seated as a god atop the world.

What’s coming out of his hand? Seven stars. And what did the Romans believe these seven stars represented? They represented the deified emperors who were reigning over the city of seven hills over Rome. 

So, what does this say to us? Well, false messiahs like Domitian and his god, Apollo, treasure power, elitism, and wealth. But if we go back to Revelation chapter 1, what does Jesus, the true Messiah, value? He values the well-being and the destiny of His people.

In light of that, how did these false messiahs entice the early believers into false worship? Well, Roman subjects were legally obligated to worship the emperor as a god. They were also required to participate in cultic incense offerings in order to buy and sell goods in Roman marketplaces.

This means if you and I wanted to go into a marketplace in this era and buy food for our family, we couldn’t do it unless we worshiped the Emperor first. Those who refused to participate in these rituals, as we find from the historians of this time, were viewed as antisocial, deviant, and stupid.

Saying no to the false messiah, the emperor and his gods, meant embracing the reality that you as a believer were going to suffer a lot for Christ.

SECOND SEAL: WARFARE

If we go to the second woe, we see a picture of warfare. Verses 3-4 say, “When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature call out, ‘Come!’ And out came another horse, bright red; its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people would slaughter one another, and he was given a great sword.

The second seal to strike the Earth is warfare. If we go back to first century Asia Minor, this region where the seven churches are was engaged in a multi-century war between the Roman and the Parthian empires. This conflict lasted for two hundred and seventy years.

It directly affected the believers living within these churches, and it exposed them to the constant threat of pillaging and invasion.

While the Roman emperors, beginning with Julius Caesar, were largely responsible for this conflict, guess who came in and promised the people peace, prosperity, and protection? The emperors. Guess what they wanted in return for it? Worship.

So, how did warfare entice these early believers into false worship? Well, they were promised peace. They were promised freedom from this war, and they were promised law and order and protection.

Saying no to the false messiah meant you were releasing the protection of an unbelieving culture and instead believing that the Lord was your protector, even in the midst of conflict.

THIRD SEAL: FAMINE

If we go to the third seal, we see a picture of famine. Verses 5-6 say, “When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature call out, ‘Come!’ I looked, and there was a black horse! Its rider held a pair of scales in his hand, and I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, ‘A quart of wheat for a day’s pay and three quarts of barley for a day’s pay, but do not damage the olive oil and the wine!’”

What do all these cryptic measurements and currencies mean? When I was a little Baptist kid, I would read passages like this and be like, Who on earth understands the Bible? This is crazy stuff. Well, if we go back to 92 AD, the time in which these churches lived, Asia Minor was struck with a devastating famine. These measurements speak to scarcity and to a reality we’re all a little too accustomed to these days: inflation.

A denarius was the average daily wage of a Roman laborer, and a day’s pay afforded a person an average of 16 quarts of wheat. If we go back to Cicero and other figures of this time who help us understand the significance of these measurements, what we find is that verse 6 speaks to a 1,600% inflation rate on the price of wheat. Imagine going to the store, heading down to King Soopers, and finding that a gallon of milk has increased from $4.15 a gallon to $66.40 a gallon.

Now, if we go to barley, which was poor people’s food, we find that in this time barley was half the price of wheat, and a denarius afforded a laborer approximately 32 quarts of barley. That means verse 6 speaks to a 1,075% inflation rate on the price of barley. So imagine you head to Sam’s Club. You’re looking for some low-quality Hostess white bread to make a grilled cheese with, and you find out it has increased to $26.88 a loaf.

That’s the picture that is being painted in this passage. So what’s all this stuff about don’t touch the olive oil and the wine? Well, remember our self-proclaimed savior, Emperor Domitian? He swoops in and says, Guess what? I’ve got an answer to the famine. I’m going to be your Savior. I’m going to lay waste to the vineyards and olive groves of Asia Minor, and I’m going to replant grain fields in their place.

This measure was intended to end the famine and save the local population. But you know what Imperial historians tell us? Domitian’s edict was just a hoax. He never replanted grain fields. He used the famine as an excuse to raise the price on Roman wine and olive oil. And guess where that money ended up? In his own Imperial treasury.

It’s almost as if Jesus was warning these churches, saying, The emperor is going to come in and claim to save you, but don’t believe him when he says it. So, how did famine entice these believers into false worship? Well, they were promised restored food supplies. They were promised relief from inflation, which sounds pretty good, right? They were promised economic growth in the place of poverty.

Saying no to the false messiah was a test of faith. It asked the question, Do I really trust God to be my provider? Or am I going to look to someone or something else?

FOURTH SEAL: MASS DEATH

Next, we find that the fourth seal is a picture of mass death. Verse eight says, “I looked, and there was a pale green horse! Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed with him…”

The ancient world was cruel, brutish, and short. You were lucky if you made it to thirty or forty years of age. The seven churches were predominantly populated by Jewish followers of Jesus, who were still grappling with the fall of Jerusalem, an event which the first century Jewish historian Josephus described as exceeding all destruction that men or God had ever brought upon the earth.

So, the Roman Empire comes in. They have what’s called the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome. They claim, Hey, we’ll bring you salvation from this otherwise brutal world. Nevertheless, an ancient Celtic leader who lived at this time named Calgacus would say of the Romans, Alone among men they lust with equal eagerness, poverty and riches. To rob, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a desert and call it peace.

Why did death entice these early believers into false worship? Well, imagine you’re promised life in an otherwise brutal world. Imagine that you’re promised happiness, affluence, peace, and security in the place of suffering—all of which come from the Empire. Lastly, they were promised a better existence than the ancient world could otherwise give them.

Saying no to the false messiah meant embracing that the Lord is my joy even when nothing else is.

FIFTH SEAL: MARTYRDOM

If we go to the fifth seal, we see an obvious picture of martyrdom. It says, “…I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered for the word of God and for the testimony they had given; they cried out with a loud voice, ‘Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?’”

The fifth woe to be released upon the earth is persecution. The early church suffered devastating persecution at the hands of the Romans. During this time, there was a pagan Roman historian named Tacitus. He was not a Christian, and he thought Christianity was dumb, yet he even had pity on the way the Emperors persecuted Christians.

I want to give a little bit of a parental advisory warning here because I’m going to read a passage about how he describes persecution at this time. He says, Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly light, when daylight had ended.

It’s obvious why persecution enticed these early believers into false worship. They were promised an end to their suffering, the social acceptance of others in the midst of a pagan Empire, and the lie that a Christian could inwardly believe in Jesus while outwardly avoiding the difficulties and the sufferings of following Him.

Saying no to the false messiah meant embracing any and all consequences for following Jesus as my Lord because my life entirely belongs to Him. Even if I die, even if I’m tortured, this life isn’t mine anymore. He calls the shots.

SIX SEAL: EARTHQUAKES/NATURAL DISASTERS

The sixth woe to be released upon the earth in this chapter is earthquakes and astronomical signs. Verse 12 says, “When he broke the sixth seal, I looked and there was a great earthquake…”

If we look at the eastern Mediterranean of this time, between 1 and 150 AD, we find that five major earthquakes shook this region of the world. Turkey continues to be one of the most tectonically active regions on earth. A Roman historian named Cassius Dio will even say that an earthquake preceded the suicide of Emperor Nero, which even the pagans perceive to be an omen of divine judgment against the cruelty and the wickedness of his reign.

Within the Christian scriptures, both Old Testament and New, earthquakes are a sign of God’s absolute sovereignty. If you’ve lived in California, you know that earthquakes split reality right down the middle. You might be driving in the left lane and suddenly find out you’re in the right lane. Earthquakes remind us that we aren’t in control, and earthquakes within the Scriptures represent the sobering reality that sinful humanity can be swept away in judgment in the blink of an eye.

Earthquakes are a sign to repent, turn away from false worship, and get our eyes back on Jesus. Yet the tragedy of first-century Asia Minor is that most of its inhabitants rejected this call to repentance and further entrenched themselves into false worship. Following the Lydian earthquake of 17 AD, a certain Roman Emperor named Tiberius came in and instituted a public program to waive taxes and facilitate the reconstruction of the ruined cities.

Many cities, including some of the ones we are now familiar with after chapters 2 and 3, like Sardis and Philadelphia, in response to this gave themselves over to greater expressions of emperor worship. Some of them even adorned their towns with Imperial idols, and some of them even adopted the title Caesarea in honor of Caesar, the self-proclaimed God.

Why did earthquakes and natural disasters entice believers into false worship? Well, they were promised stability. They were promised a fresh start. Sounds pretty nice sometimes. And they were promised support for their everyday needs.

Saying no to the false messiah meant releasing control of my life and acknowledging that God is my stability, even when nothing and no one else is.

CONCLUSION

If any of those temptations to false worship in the early church hit a little too close to home and made us uncomfortable, it’s because they should. Idolatry isn’t as flashy, shocking, or grotesque as we were often told by our parents. Rather, false worship usually comes across as subtle, reasonable, and very practical.

The apostate former believers of the early church didn’t walk away from Jesus because the emperors were more handsome, alluring, and generous than Jesus was. They abandoned the Lord because their fear, their needs, and their life circumstances had overcome their attention. They weren’t fixated on Jesus, and because of that, they began to focus on something else.

False worship, if we go back to chapter 4, is a refusal to come up there and worship Him. False worship comes from focusing on the wrong things rather than the right thing. That’s why if we look holistically at Revelation, we see it is a book of worship, yet it’s also a book of crisis. This is why many believers throughout church history have used it to say some really weird stuff when they are in crises; it works really well in the midst of a crisis.

But I think if we return to chapter 1 and that statement—this book contains blessing for those who read, hear, and obey it—I think Revelation can be a tutorial for us and a challenge for how we are to worship Jesus through the midst of any crisis we face.

Sometimes, shockingly, Jesus isn’t responding to our crisis. He’s bringing the crisis. If we go back to chapter 3 and look at the church of Laodicea, we see they weren’t in crisis. They were great. They were a textile city. They made lots of money. They were pursuing prosperity and security. Yet Jesus says to them, I look at you, and what I see is that you’re wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

Revelation 6 is intended to be a similar crisis moment for us as believers. It’s as if Jesus is showing us a picture of the world under judgment, and He’s asking us a question:

You claim to be My followers and My worshipers, but is that actually true? What’s getting your attention? Is it conflict in your marriage, in your family, or in your social circles? Is it famine? Is it the financial hardships we’re facing or the inflation we see in our world? Is it our turmoil, church gripes, the political landscape, or shocking world events? Is it the hardship of staying a faithful follower of Him every day? Is it the cost of discipleship that’s turning our attention to the side? Is it earthquakes?

Whether the terrible natural disasters are like the one that just struck the Foothills or perhaps more personal ones, God is shaking our individual lives. If those are the things that are getting our attention, then where is our worship going?

Is it going to our spouse, who we expect to meet all of our needs and our emotional desires? Is it going to our boss, who we expect to always appreciate, reward, and promote us? Is it going to finance, where we’re searching for stability, status, comfort, and leisure? Is it going to a political leader who we worship in an effort to relieve our famine or perhaps save our country?

If the answer to any of these questions isn’t Jesus, it’s a warning that we’re expecting someone or something else to give us the peace, prosperity, and salvation which only He can. Simply stated, we’re being tempted to engage in the false worship of the world. We must come up and return to Him.

This is really a process of humility, repentance, and transformation, one which, unsurprisingly, I’ve been doing this week. It’s a humility that acknowledges, I have idols that are consuming my focus, my expectations, and my worship. And it’s a humility that acknowledges that my false worship is, in fact, deserving of God’s judgment.

This is where repentance comes in. Repentance exchanges my idols for Jesus. Repentance straightens out my warped priorities through daily relationship with the Holy Spirit, where He tells me the things that are unclean and need to be changed. Repentance is what reorders the patterns of my life, so that my prayer, my worship, and right treatment of others become more regular and more centered upon Him.

Then comes the transformation. This is the part I’m excited for. I become less earthly and more Heavenly. I become more satisfied in Jesus and less content in the empty counterfeits of the world. Most importantly, I become more and more like Him so that when the world sees me, they don’t just see more judgment. Instead, they see Jesus living in me and living through me.

That’s the goal. It takes us right back to the beginning of chapter 4, where Jesus says to John, Hey, stop looking at that. Stop looking at the world and its tribulations. Come up here and get your eyes back onto Me.

Can I pray over you? Sometimes I think it’s great just to pray the blessing of the Scriptures. This comes from 1st Peter 4: “May the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Jesus, restore you, support you, strengthen you, and establish you. To Him be the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.”