The time of tribulation, the time when God unleashes his vengeance. When God unleashes his judgment and his wrath on the earth like never before. This is the seven-year period when Jesus Christ not only judges the ungodly, but takes back the earth and the universe for his own possession. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson.
Why would you pray for the destruction of another person? When, if ever, is it okay to rejoice in vengeance? Consider those questions with John MacArthur today as he looks at coming events that lead to history's climax. Events that signal the beginning of the end. That's the title of John's current study here on grace to you.
Now, John's already shown you some of the judgments that God will one day pour out on earth, including war and famine and disease. And today you'll see the reason for those judgments and what the terrible events of tomorrow mean for your life and witness today. And so with today's lesson, here's John MacArthur. Turn to the sixth chapter of the last book in the Bible, the book of Revelation. The sixth chapter.
We're going to look at verses 9, 10, and 11. In our ongoing study of this great chapter, let me read these three verses: Revelation chapter 6. Beginning at verse nine. And when he broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and because of the testimony which they had maintained. And they cried out with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, wilt thou refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?
And there was given to each of them a white robe, and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, should be completed. Also Now, as we look at Revelation chapter 6, we are going to come face to face with God's vengeance. The time of grace is really coming to its end. We are now in a seven-year period that we have called the time of tribulation. It is also called the time of Jacob's trouble with reference to Israel's role in it.
This seven-year period, identified in the book of Daniel as seven years, and identified again in the book of Revelation as to half of it being three and a half years, or 42 months, or 1,260 days, this brief period of time is the time when God unleashes his vengeance. When God unleashes his judgment and his wrath on the earth like never before. Now, there have been past times when God's vengeance has been manifest, when God's wrath has been manifest, when God's anger has been revealed, and some of those times have even been called days of the Lord. But this final time is greater than any other time to precede it. This is the seven-year period when Jesus Christ not only judges the ungodly, but takes back the earth and the universe for his own possession.
Now, you'll remember that in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus is recorded to have preached a sermon, we call it the Olivet Discourse or the Sermon on the Mount of Olives, in which he discussed this period of time. And he said the seven years will be divided into two halves. The first half, he called the beginning of birth pain. It's a very vivid term. When a child is to be born prior to the birth, there are a series of birth pains that get increasingly more intense and closer together as you get nearer to the great event of birth itself.
And what our Lord is saying is, there's a great event, namely the arrival, not of a child, but the arrival of the king, the Son of God. But as you get within seven years of that arrival, the birth pains are going to start to come. The earth is going to feel the pain. It will start out somewhat slowly and it will rapidly increase. The beginning of those birth pains will occur in the first three and a half years, and the furious pain will come in the second half, and that our Lord designated as a time called the Great Tribulation.
So the first half in Matthew 24, 8 is called the beginning of birth pains. The second half in Matthew 24, 21 is called the Great Tribulation, or the Great Time of Trouble, Pressure, and Pain.
Now, interestingly enough, and this is something just to keep in mind for the chronology of all of this. As Luke looked at the same period of time in the twenty first chapter of his gospel, as Luke looked at the same period of time and recorded our Lord's words in the same sermon, Luke added. The fact that Jesus called that great tribulation time, that second half, days of vengeance, according to chapter 21, verse 22. After the abomination of desolations, which is identified as the midpoint by Daniel in chapter 7, which is also mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 24, which is not mentioned in Luke 21, but the succeeding events are mentioned. When he calls this particular time the day of vengeance, he's talking about the time after the abomination, after the midpoint, namely the second half.
The fury of God's vengeance really hits following the midpoint. Luke calls those days, those days in the second half, days of vengeance.
Now, that is very important because that's consistent with what we're going to see here in the fifth seal. The chronology is very clear. The first four seals occur in the front part, the first three and a half, and they're the ones Jesus called the beginning of the birth pains. They happen in the first part. This fifth seal begins in the first part, stretches across the midpoint, is accelerated in the second part, and is followed by the vengeance.
The vengeance. Paul saw this vengeance of God coming in 1 Thessalonians chapter, 2 Thessalonians rather chapter 1. He says in verse 5, this is a plain indication of God's righteous judgment so that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which you're suffering. For after all, it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well. When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, here it is, dealing out retribution or dealing out vengeance on those who do not know God and those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus, and they will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power.
So Paul noted there was coming a day of retribution or a day of vengeance. And it is true that believers rejoice in that day because it does put God's glory on display. It does bring an end to iniquity which we despise. It does vindicate the Lord who has been so mocked and abused. It does take back the universe from that usurper, Satan.
It does bring in everlasting righteousness and end the reign of sin. And so we do rejoice. We understand the gladness that was expressed by the psalmist. We understand the joy and the hope that was in the heart of the apostles as they anticipated this event, even though it meant the destruction of the ungodly to whom they were sent for purposes of evangelism. Again, this dual feeling of joy and sadness is indicated in Revelation chapter 10.
Turn over there for a moment. In one of the really rich chapters in this book, Down in verse 9, John is told to take the book. Which is open in the hand of the angel in verse 8. And he's told, take it and eat it. It's the book that describes the final judgment.
Take it and eat it. It'll make your stomach bitter. but in your mouth it'll be sweet as honey. And I took the little book out of the angel's hand and ate it, and it was in my mouth, sweet as honey. and when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter.
This is the bittersweet attitude of judgment. There is a sweetness in it because it is vindication for God. There is a sweetness in it because it brings in everlasting righteousness. There's a sweetness in it because it destroys sin, and there's a bitterness in it because it devastates the ungodly. We don't carry around a message of vengeance.
Certainly, Jesus hanging on the cross said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Certainly, Stephen, when he was being stoned by the ungodly, said, Lay not this sin to their charge, which is another way of saying, Forgive them. Certainly, Paul said, I could wish myself accursed for the salvation of my kinsmen, the Jews. And Paul also said, Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. And he went on to say, It has been given to us by God the ministry of reconciliation, and we beg you be reconciled to God before this retribution falls.
The Bible even says, God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. It says, God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. I suppose it is illustrated by the very same psalmist who wrote the imprecatory psalms in which he called down the fire of God on his enemies, is the very same psalmist who, when he had the opportunity, as recorded in 1 Samuel 24 and 26, could have taken the life of his enemy Saul and spared his life. Because he had compassion and he had mercy and he cared about the man's soul. But God's Spirit will not always strive with man.
And there will come an end to the time of grace. In Acts 17, the Apostle Paul preached that. He said, God has been somewhat tolerant in times past. But there is coming a day, he says. In verse thirty of Acts seventeen, A day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man that is Christ, whom he has appointed.
There is coming a day when grace is over with. and judgment falls. It is that very anticipation that is in view in the fifth seal. It is this seal which indicates to us this anticipation.
Now, you have noted in each case there is a force working. Seal number one, the force was what? You remember? Peace. Seal number two, the force was War.
Seal number three, the force. Inundating the earth was famine, and seal number four, the ashen horse, the force was pestilence, resulting in widespread death. There's another force. In This fifth seal, and it's rarely ever discussed by commentators. I could find one commentator who really got a grip on this force.
Out of say a dozen that I read, The force here, the force here. is vengeance. But behind it is prayer. We can almost say that the force is the prayer for vengeance. The vengeance doesn't come in the fifth seal, the prayer does.
And if we remember the promise of James that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much, then these have to be powerful prayers because they're being offered by people who are already in heaven and they have no taint of sin left in them.
So here are the prayers of the perfectly righteous, and those kinds of prayers are a force. and their prayers for vengeance and those prayers will be answered.
Now, remember, the final seven years of judgment. Began to be anticipated in chapter 4 as the throne began to move with thunder and lightning. The actual judgment starts here in chapter 6 and runs all the way through chapter 19. And it all begins with opening the seven-sealed book or scroll. The first four angels we've already seen, they Came on the scene.
In response to the opening of the first four seals, and there will be false peace, and war, and famine, and pestilence, bringing widespread death that will kill one-fourth of all humanity.
So, we already know the world is facing a period of unimaginable trouble. The dream of the optimist for a better world doesn't fit God's word. The ultimate triumph of Jesus Christ, the worthy Lamb, is assured. As the book of Revelation makes plain, he will bring over the earth his reign. at the expense of Satan.
Demons and ungodly men. He will bring in a kingdom of righteousness. that will follow the pouring out of the wrath of God on all the ungodly.
So we're looking at the beginning of this judgment, this time of wrath. It is delineated, as I said, through the seven. Seals It includes, as we shall see, seven trumpets which come in a very brief time and seven bulls which come in an even briefer time in rapid fire succession. We're still in the first half of the seven-year period as we come to seal number five. The second half, the days of vengeance, haven't been unleashed yet.
But this is the prayer for vengeance.
Now, as we look at these three verses, I want you to notice three features, just to break it down so you can sort of follow along. We're going to look at the persons involved, the petitions they have, and the promises they receive. The persons involved, verse 9, the petitions they have in verse 10, and the promises they receive in verse 10. 11. This is absolutely fascinating, and there's much to learn, and we have to.
We have to put it together with the rest of the record of prophetic literature to bring it into clear focus, and we'll endeavor to do that. Let's look first of all at the persons involved. Verse 9: And when he broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and because of the testimony which they had maintained.
Now, you'll notice that he sees some souls there, and they are the persons involved.
Now, we'll get to them specifically, but let's start at the beginning of the verse. And when he broke the fifth seal, remember now the seven-sealed scroll is the title deed to the earth. He is unrolling it. And every time he unrolls it and breaks another seal, which was put on ancient documents to keep the information in there hidden from public view. Every time he unrolls the next section, the seals being on the edge of the scroll, one would be broken and it could be unrolled to the point where the next seal was.
Every time he unrolls one, another sequence of judgment action is made visible. This seal reveals these souls. Under the altar. How did they get there? Verse 9 says, they were killed.
So it's safe to say these are martyrs.
So, after you have false peace and war and famine and natural pestilence that results in widespread death of a quarter of the population of the world, you have Persecution. Resulting in martyrdom.
Now, again, this fits perfectly the teaching of our Lord in Matthew 24. We want to go back to that because I want you to have this whole picture in mind. Go back to Matthew 24, and you'll see the flow is the same there. In Matthew twenty-four, verse three. They ask the question: when is the sign of your coming and the end of the age?
I mean, when does all this stuff end? When is the wrap-up? When is everlasting righteousness coming? When is sin going to be destroyed? And Jesus says, See to it that no one misleads you.
Many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and mislead many. And that's an allusion to the opening false peace with all the false messiahs who set up a fabricated, concocted world of peace and prosperity that doesn't last very long. And then, verse 6, you'll be hearing following that immediately about the wars. The red horse comes right after the white one, rumors of wars. Nation, verse 7, rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom, various places following, there will be famines.
And then he adds the earthquake, which could include the natural disasters referred to as pestilences in the book of Revelation. And he says, All of these are the beginning of the birth bangs. Then come to verse 9. Then they'll deliver you to tribulation and kill you. See how that parallels in Revelation chapter 6?
The souls under the altar and the fifth seal are there because they were killed. That's precisely what follows. What follows, the natural disasters and the pestilences that end life for a fourth of the earth is persecution. It says, You will be hated by all nations on account of my name.
So immediately following the fourth seal is coming the fifth one, which is widespread persecution. By the way, you can read the same thing in Mark chapter 13, verses 9 to 13, and in Luke chapter 21, verses 12 to 19. The persecution begins, and I think it's important to note this, and it's hard. You're not going to feel the difficulty of it because I hope it's clear by the time it gets to you. But it's very hard to study all the passages and pull out the chronology of all of this.
I hope I can make it clear to you. This persecution begins in the first three and a half years. How do we know that? Because we've already got it started in verse 9, and the abomination of desolation doesn't come until verse 15, and Daniel 9:27 says that happens at the midpoint.
So we're still in the first half, the beginning of the birth pains. Why is that important? Because Jesus says this is only the beginning of the pain. The real pain comes later. And you say, if that's the only beginning, if that's only the beginning and it takes a fourth of the population of the world, boy, what is the rest going to be like?
That's right, that's the question. And we'll answer that. During the beginning of the birth pains, there will be initiated persecution. It is not going to be a wholesale massacre. It will be a beginning persecution.
And they will deliver you to tribulation, verse 9, and they will kill you, and you'll be hated by all nations on account of my name. Here's where it starts. There is a certain inevitability that will happen at that turn. Persecution will be official. It'll be government-led.
You'll be hated by all nations. On account of my name, all over the world, I believe there will be government-led and religiously inspired persecution. I think the courts will get involved in it. The governors will get involved in it. The synagogues and the churches will get involved in it.
It will be the kind of persecution that is handled officially. The whole worldwide ecumenical religious system will get involved in it, and religion will become the persecutor of the true believers. Read Revelation 17:6. The false harlot church will become drunk with the blood of martyrs. The persecution reflects worldwide hatred for God and Christ.
It starts, as I said, even before the Antichrist is revealed. He doesn't get revealed until the midpoint when he desecrates the temple in Jerusalem. Up to that point, he's the world's savior, he's the world's deliverer. He's a very important world power who is involved first in the peace and then in the war, trying to consolidate his world power. He really isn't revealed until the midpoint.
But even before the revelation of Antichrist to the world, this persecution will begin. And remember now, the restrainer, according to 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 7, who is the Holy Spirit, has been restraining sin. He's doing it now, holding it back. But during this period of time, the restrainer lets go and sin runs amok. The Holy Spirit pulls back his restraint and lets anti-God, anti-Christ attitudes go unchecked.
And as this begins, Some will die. Then comes the inevitability in verse 10. At that time, many will fall away and deliver up one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and mislead many. And because lawlessness has increased, most people's love.
We'll grow cold. Up to that point, I believe there will be certain people who will attach themselves to Christianity. There will be people saved early in this period. Remember now, the church has been raptured out before this begins. There will be conversions occurring early on in this period of time, and we'll mention that in a moment.
Um People will be saved, and people will attach themselves, as they always have, to the church. They won't be the true wheat, they'll be tares. But once the persecution starts, they're going to fall away. They're going to follow false prophets. They're going to become cold in their love toward the Lord.
They're going to show themselves to be false. They will defect false believers. Then in verse 13, he says, the ones who endure to the end will be saved. Genuine Christians always persevere through any kind of trials, even persecution and martyrdom. Then in verse 14, he says, in spite of all of this hostility, and this is wonderful, in spite of this massacring of Christians that's causing defection everywhere, the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
So, while the persecution starts, the beginning of it in the first three and a half years, and it goes on, it'll go all the way to the end, by the way. It'll go all the way to the end, and we'll see that in a moment. It starts early and it begins to escalate until at the end it just, for all intents and purposes, is an effort to massacre any believer and every believer on the face of the earth. But while this is going on and certain people are defecting, verse 14 says, the gospel will continue to be preached. That lets me know.
That it's going to be preached through this whole period of time. The gospel of how to enter the kingdom by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ will be preached. Who's going to preach it? According to Revelation 7, 1 through 8 and Revelation 14, 1 through 5, there's going to be 144,000 Jews, 12,000 from every tribe who are going to preach. According to Revelation chapter 11, there's going to be two witnesses.
Two witnesses who are going to do miracles and are going to preach the gospel. According to Revelation 14, and this is really wonderful. According to Revelation chapter 14, there's going to be an angel. There's going to be some kind of angel flying around in the sky preaching. Revelation 14, I need to read this to you.
I saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people. And he said with a loud voice, Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. And worship him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of water. Right to the very end, there will be people preaching. There will be Jewish believers and Gentile believers.
We read in chapter 7: there are so many people who come to Christ that they can't even be counted.
So the persecution starts. The gospel is being preached. It keeps being preached.
Some defect the true Christians stay on either until they die or till the very end when they go into the kingdom because the Lord has protected them from death. Yeah. Then the event, back to Matthew 24, the event that hits the midpoint, that one in verse 15 comes. We're just flowing through the text. The gospel is being preached, and then boom comes the abomination of desolation.
That's the desecration of the temple. The Antichrist goes into the temple in the holy place in Jerusalem. Blasphemes the true God, sets up an idol of himself, demands that the whole world worship him as God. He's got a false prophet who points to him and demands the same thing, his henchmen, and the whole world is to worship Antichrist. He takes charge.
That happens at the midpoint. Up to that point, he's subtle.
Now as subtlety is Gone. In 2 Thessalonians 2, it describes him. In verse 4, it says, When the man of lawlessness is revealed, this man called the Son of Destruction, he opposes and exalts himself above every so-called God or object of worship. He takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. He's not a political leader anymore.
He's not a world deliverer. He's not a politician. He's not a savior. He's not a great leader. He now announces to the world that he is God.
He is God. Verse 9 says, He will come in accord with the activity of Satan with all power, and signs, and false wonders, and all the deception of wickedness. He'll deceive all those people who perish because they didn't receive the love of the truth, is to be saved. What happens is the world buys it. The world buys it.
Remember, we examined Daniel 8, which describes something about his rise to power. Daniel 11 follows up on the same thing. And we could safely say at this point, Antichrist is in control. And at that precarious point in world history, the time when Antichrist will be in control, we pause in this look at some of the most compelling future events. You've been listening to John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary.
And John's current series here on Grace to You is called The Beginning of the End.
Now, as we've been saying, John's study comes from the book of Revelation, and maybe you've always assumed that Revelation could be understood only by longtime students of Scripture, not by average Christians. But no matter who you are, you're going to appreciate a booklet that John has written called A Jet Tour Through Revelation. It's an excellent resource that takes the mystery out of Scripture's final book, and we'll send it to you. A jet tour through Revelation. The booklet is free.
All you have to do is ask for it.
So contact us. us today and ask for your free copy. You can call us at 800-55 GRACE or go to our website gty.org. If you're not sure what the future holds, what the Bible says about judgment, the tribulation, or the millennium, you don't want to miss this offer, a jet tour through Revelation. It's our gift to you.
Just call 855Grace or visit gty.org. And when you get in touch, make sure you let us know how you're listening, whether you're hearing us on local radio, or listening online, or listening through the Grace TU app. Of course, we'd also love to hear how John's verse-by-verse teaching has encouraged you. Perhaps you're better equipped to explain the truth of salvation to friends and neighbors after you've listened to biblical preaching like you heard today. If you have a story like that, email your note to letters at gty.org.
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Now for John MacArthur and our entire staff, I'm Phil Johnson. We take a 4th of July break tomorrow, pausing our current study for a time of Bible questions and answers.
So join us for that as another half hour of Unleashing God's Truth, one verse at a time on Grace to You.
