This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom. We're looking at Revelation chapter 6 this week. This is
day 1.

With Revelation chapter 6, we turn the corner and begin to talk about what God
says concerning His plans for the future. We've seen in the first three chapters
what God had to say about Jesus' words to the church. In the last couple of
chapters, we've looked at this awesome worship service in heaven, and now in
chapter 6, it's really in many ways the part of the book of Revelation that many
people are interested in.

To me, if you don't understand what Jesus said to the church, if you don't
understand the perspective of worship in chapters 4 and 5, you're not ready to
look at chapter 6. But now we are. Here we go.

The seals begin to be opened. In chapter 6 verse 1, "I watched as the Lamb
opened the first of the seven seals, and then I heard one of the four living
creatures say in a voice like thunder, 'Come. '" This is all about world events,
these seven seals that we're going to look at being opened.

It's all about God's control in the midst of what seemingly to us sometimes is
chaos. You might even today look at the news and ask what is this world coming
to? You see the hurricanes that might be happening or the earthquake that might
have happened, the terrorism that might have occurred, and you think what is
this world coming to?

You think has God abandoned us? Is his plan failing? The book of Revelation is
written to calm all of those fears, to help you with all of those worries.

The truth is for the Christians in the first century who first read this book of
Revelation, what they were facing was even worse personally for them as a church
than what most of us face today. They were facing terrible times of persecution,
and they had to be questioning has God abandoned us? Is his plan failing?

Is Jesus really returning? In the book of Revelation, we find that God's plan is
unfolding. As we read through this plan in the next several chapters, we're
going to find that one of the hallmarks of this plan is that it's going to get
worse.

It must get worse before it gets better. Sometimes we look at the evil in the
world and the things that God allows in the world and we think that must mean
that God has abandoned the world. No, we're going to find out in these chapters
that God has a plan.

Now, why does it have to get worse before it gets better? We're going to
discover that as we read through the next several chapters. Chapter 6 is not an
easy chapter to read together, but remember as we read it, it is part of the
content of the blessing that's promised to those who read and keep the promises
of this book, the prophecies of the book of Revelation in chapter 1 verse 3.

So God promises a blessing even for reading and understanding what he has to say
to us here. As we begin Revelation chapter 6, we're beginning 13 out of the 22
chapters of this book that relate very strongly to a seven-year period of time
which constitutes what's going to happen at the end of this age. And as we begin
to talk about that time of tribulation or that time of what will happen at the
end of this world, I need to take a moment here to talk about different views of
the book of Revelation.

To understand the book of Revelation, you have to understand how believers down
through the ages have looked at the book of Revelation. There are five general
interpretations of Revelation I want you to be aware of. There are more than
five interpretations, ways of looking at it, but I want you to be aware of five
as we walk into this chapter this week.

The five ways of looking at Revelation are the Preterist view, the Continuous
Historical view, the Spiritualized view, the Futurist or the Dispensational
view, and number five, the Combination approach. Let me tell you what those are.
The Preterist view is the view that the book of Revelation is all about the
Roman government and what happened 2,000 years ago, and all of these symbols are
already fulfilled.

Now, I happen to believe that the book of Revelation is not just about what
happened 2,000 years ago, but I also happen to believe that it is about what
happened 2,000 years ago. In the Old Testament, we see many times that there is
a double application of prophecy, that there is an application for the moment,
but there is also a more extended, a greater application for eternity for the
future of what God has. And the book of Revelation, obviously, you can't miss
it.

It points to the Roman Empire. It points to the emperor, an emperor by the name
of Domitian, and the persecution that was happening to the church in that day.
But to me, it is just as obvious that there is a greater fulfillment to be seen
here, one that can only come at the end of time.

So some people have not just the Preterist view, they have a second view, a
continuous historical view. And their view is that the book of Revelation is the
history of the church from the days of John. I think you have to force a lot of
things in the book of Revelation to have that view, but there are many who have
had that view down through the ages.

There are others who have what I would call the spiritualized view, a third
view, and that is the view that the book is purely symbolic. It's not actual
history. It's teaching us life truths from the symbolized way of how God works
in history.

There's something attractive about that to all of us because the book of
Revelation is hard to understand. But as you read the book, as we go through
these chapters, I think you will probably agree that there's something more than
just symbolism, just spiritualized symbolism here. There's an actual description
of some things that are happening.

A fourth view is the futurist or what's been called more recently the
dispensational view, and that's the view that these prophecies are all about the
end times and everything in it is still to come to pass. Nothing in it is about
the time when it was first written or for all the Christians that have lived
since then. It's really for us who live in the last days.

That's who it's significant to. I don't know anybody who holds only to that view
that it's only for one certain group of believers. I think everyone believes
that in some sense the book of Revelation, the truth of it, has had some truth
for every generation.

But you all know probably someone who believes that it's just about exactly
describing the end time events and it doesn't have anything to do with other
generations. The idea that every Christian of any generation could read and
benefit from the book of Revelation, that goes to the combination approach. The
idea that there are truths for every generation, that there are in this
incredible book pictures of the last days of history and beyond, but there are
also principles of how to look forward to Jesus' second coming for every
generation of believers.

As we look through these descriptions of the last days, we're going to be
looking in the next several chapters at seven seals and seven trumpets and seven
bowls. As we look at those, they're really contained within each other. When we
get to the seventh seal, it's going to contain the seven trumpets.

When we go through those seven trumpets and we get to the seventh trumpet, it's
going to contain the seven bowls. Everything is contained within the seven
seals. Remember those dolls maybe that you had or have given to your kids where
it's a bigger doll and you open it up and there's a smaller doll inside and you
open it up and there's a smaller doll inside?

That's the way this is. They're contained within each other. As we look at what
God has to say about this world that he's created, about his plans for this
world, we're going to discover again and again and again that God communicates
to us that he's in control.

He has a plan. Now we're going to be focusing this week on what God has to say
about that plan as he begins to open these seals. But before we even begin this
week, there are two big questions that I feel like it would be helpful to
answer.

Otherwise, you're going to have them in your mind all week long. Question number
one is, are the seven seals, bowls and trumpets happening successively or all at
the same time? It's a question many people have had down through the ages.

Some think that these are descriptions of the same events and it's just
describing it three different times. Many more, and I agree with those, believe
that they occur one right after another in some way. The fact that they grow out
of each other seems to make that clear.

Now, by the way, as we go through three sevens, it doesn't mean that each of
these have to be one third of the seven years necessarily. Later we're going to
get into some talk and details about the timing of the events. Three sevens
could mean one third each, but they could also just as easily point to three
complete periods of judgment.

Remember, seven means perfect. So I think they're successive. They follow after
the other.

We're going to talk about that more during this week. Another big question that
people have that you're going to have as we walk through this is, when does this
thing that I've heard of called the rapture of the church take place in all of
these sevens and sevens of years? I think you might be interested in that.

Some would say before these terrible events come upon the earth,
pre-tribulation, that's when the rapture occurs. There's others who say in the
middle of all of these events that come upon the earth at the end of time, in
the middle of the tribulation, mid-tribulation, that's when it occurs. And there
are others who say it's afterwards, it's post-tribulation.

Pastors have always like to say, "I'm going to believe the best of what God can
do in our lives. " You may have heard your pastor say this, that as a person who
trusts in Jesus Christ, I believe that he's going to come before the
tribulation. If somehow he's doing it differently than I anticipated, and I'm
still here when the tribulation begins, I'm going to immediately shift to a
mid-tribulation view.

The idea behind that is, I'm expecting Jesus to come as soon as possible. That
needs to be our heart. And I do believe that he is going to come and take his
church.

I do believe that he's going to come and take his people to be with him. That's
a pre-tribulation view. I know believers and have read believers down through
history who have the other views and deeply respect those views.

But that is a view that I would have. What are some of the reasons for that?
Well, the unexpected nature of the rapture, as it's talked about in the
scriptures, even for believers, if we know that it's going to come in the middle
of the tribulation, then we know the tribulation events have begun and it's
going to come in three and a half or whatever number of years.

I also believe that we're told in scripture that we're going to be protected
from God's wrath as believers. You can see that in Romans and Thessalonians and
the book of Psalms again and again. I also believe that the descriptions of
believers during these tribulation times tend to focus, we're going to see as we
read through the book of Revelation, on those who are saved during that time.

What about those who were already saved? What's happened to them? So I believe
we're going to be raptured before these events that we're going to talk about
happen.

But I have to say there's a couple of things that make me uncomfortable with
that belief. One of them, I'm just being honest, is the arrogance sometimes of
people who have this pre-tribulation belief. I've read many books on the second
coming of Christ, heard many studies on them, and many times those who are
pre-tribulation, there doesn't seem to be a sense of compassion in their
teaching.

Even towards others who have a different view, there seems to be a sense of
judgmentalism in their teaching. Well, I'm not comfortable with that. If I'm
going to be pre-tribulation, I want to do it with the Spirit of Christ,
recognizing that there can be other views, and talking about what the scripture
has to teach about that.

The other thing that makes me uncomfortable about that view sometimes is it can
become for us as believers an escapist view. We want to take this view obviously
because we're fearful. We don't want to go through tough times.

Who would want to go through tough times? I want to be ready for whatever Jesus
asks me to do. I don't want to be so sure that I'm not going to go through a
time of tribulation that if I face a tough time all of a sudden I begin to
question my relationship with Christ.

I begin to think as if he has abandoned me. However God's plan unfolds, Jesus is
going to be with you. The truth is even though you may not go through this time
of tribulation, at the end of time we all go through tough times in our lives
and he has not abandoned you.

We go through times when we face the evil in this world but he is still with
you. He'll be with you today. In fact that's the very thing I want to pray for
as we end this time.

Lord as we think about the end of this world and some of the tribulations that
will come upon this world we also look at our lives. We look at the earthquakes,
the hurricanes, the terrorism that's happening in the world today. We look at
those things that are happening in our own lives today and we know that we need
you.

We need you as the one who is in control and I pray that my heart, our hearts
should be affirmed and strengthened in this truth that you are in control as we
walk through these chapters. That you will not abandon us. Let us know that to
the core, to the depth of our heart we pray Jesus.

In your name, Amen. Join us tomorrow, the first two seals are going to be
opened.