Sermon from February 11, 2007
The one who sits on the throne held in His right hand a mysterious scroll. It was covered on both sides with writing and sealed with seven seals. Enclosed within that mysterious scroll was the secret strategy by which He will take back from human rebellion what is His by virtue of creation.

I wondered if there under those seals the mysterious scroll could contain such a strategy. So many rulers, so many ersatz Messiahs had promised some earthly paradise, and each had brought human suffering and untimely death on a scale greater than the suffering and death he had promised to relieve. Could John's vision be different?

In his vision John saw the Lamb preparing to open the first seal. In his vision I saw our congregation standing in awe on the far side of what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal. We strove to know the meaning of what we saw and what we should do.

Our congregation was not alone. Though it never felt crowded, it seemed that as many congregations assembled with us as there are people that assemble in one of the great stadiums of earth. Yet it was quiet. What we saw took away all thought of unnecessary talk, as we turned from the worship of heaven that had filled us with joy to watch the dread that was about to come upon the whole earth. Would you turn with me to the sixth chapter of John's vision?

The First Six Seals
I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four, many-eyed, living creatures say in a voice like thunder, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.

When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second, many-eyed, living creature say, "Come!" Then another horse came out, a fiery read one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.

When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third, many-eyed, living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, "A quart of wheat for a day's wages, and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!"

When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth, many-eyed, living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Conquest, War, Famine, and Death! Their fearsome ride has captured the artist's eye and the common man's imagination down the long centuries of man's inhumanity to man.

Yet, from the vantage point of heaven, I saw them in a new light. The disasters they brought on earth were terrible, but we hear all there is to hear about them in eight verses. They come and do their damage and go away, and we hear of them nevermore.

It seemed to me, as if heaven saw with wearied eye that there was nothing new in these old human habits of ambition, war, cruelty, suffering, and death. I also began to see, not for the last time, that what we call God's judgment is God's consent, when human evil refuses to be restrained any longer by the righteousness of God.

What was new was hearing the many-eyed four living creatures say to these dreadful riders in a voice like thunder, "Come!" Their unearthly imperative took charge of these old human habits and said, "Come! Even you will now serve God's eternal, peaceful purpose." I had thought for sure that heaven's purpose was to cow a rebellious world into submission by sheer force. What happened next contraditcted that. It was unexpected. I could not relate it to what the first four seals had revealed.

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?"

Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.

Why this abrupt change of theme? Brief though they were, the first four seals spoke plainly about conquest and war and their bloody aftermath. Why jar us with an image of the faithful witness unto death, and a promise of yet more to come?

I found one hold on continuity with the first four seals. It was the loud cry of the martyrs: "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" The martyrs surely share with me the thought that heaven's responsibility was to cow a rebellious world into submission by sheer force. The opening of the sixth seal seemed also to confirm this straightforward notion of justice.

I watched as he, the Lamb, opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich , the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and 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! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?"

A Mysterious Interruption
At last! The opening of the seventh seal would end the long night of man's rebellion against God. The day was almost here! Words go begging, when I tell you that it did not happen. The hair-raising spectacle of nature coming undone and the distraught cry of rebellious humanity for the mountains to fall upon them simply stopped, as when a screen goes blank at the critical, dramatic moment. The seventh seal remained untouched.

Chapter 7:1 – After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. And then followed images that had nothing to do with cowing a rebellious world into submission by sheer force.

It was as if the playwright had stepped on stage before the grand finale and said, "I just thought of a new way to end my story." Near the end of this intrusive and (I thought) irrelevant vision, one of the 24 elders on his throne told us what we were looking at. He said (in verse 14): "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." That made me wonder, if this interruption might have something to do with the martyrs of the fifth seal, each of whom, you may remember, was given a white robe.

I did not understand, but I knew that I had to listen. I'm glad I did, because these unwelcome interruptions would convey the secret strategy for how "the kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever," (Revelation 11:15).

We could stop now and learn that strategy, but I thought you might want to know what happened, when the Lamb finally opened the seventh seal. Chapters 8-9 of John's vision reveal the surprising content behind the seventh seal.

The First Six Trumpets
When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Earlier, we had heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!"

Angelic being, living creature, and elder had thundered praise that seemed never to end, and joy had washed over heaven like sunlight on a summer morning. I don't know how we bore the sound. Our ears must have grown accustomed to the acoustics of heaven. We speak lightly of deafening silence, but after the thunderous praise of heaven, I don't know how we bore the half hour of silence in heaven.

But what it meant sparked different opinions from many voices. What happened next did not shed any light on the silence. It did break the silence and disclose the surprise hidden behind the seventh seal.

And I saw the seven angels who stood before God, and to them were given seven trumpets. It reminded me of the childhood answer we gave to the question, "What would you wish for, if the genie in the lamp gave you three wishes?" We always wished first: "Give me three more wishes after the first three."

We may say that the seventh seal reveals the end of all things, but it does so in seven new installments. I began to get the impression that heaven was in no hurry to bring about the end of all things. One interruption after the other bore witness to the patience of heaven, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance – 2 Peter 3:9.

Before the first angel could blow his trumpet, another interruption occurred and explained the half hour of silence. Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with all the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel's hand.

Our faithful guide, the Son of St. Andrew, clarified the courtesy of heaven. "Heaven," he said, "is silent so that the prayers of the saints can be heard, and the final judgment occurs in response to them." (Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy, 71). I remembered the prayer of the martyrs behind the fifth seal: "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" Part of God's answer to their prayer came as the seven angels blew their seven trumpets.

Then, says verse five, the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.

Someone from another congregation had reminded us earlier that the children of Israel had seen something like this on Mount Sinai. The book of Exodus says that on the morning of the third day on Mount Sinai there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp (of Israel) trembled – Exodus 19:16. Only here, there was the additional phenomenon of an earthquake. These phenomena always signal God's visitation upon the earth.

All through the eight and ninth chapters of John's vision the angels blow their trumpets. The first four trumpets take less space than the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The first four trumpets turn nature itself against man. Whereas the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse affect a quarter of the earth (Rev. 6:8), the first four trumpets bring natural disasters upon a third of the earth (Rev. 8:7, 9, 11, 12).

Before the last three angels blew their trumpets, John's said in chapter 8:13: As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair call out in a loud voice: "Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!"

The fifth trumpet, the first woe, brought antagonists, say Revelation 9:5-6, that were not given power to kill ... but only to torture, so that during those days men will seek death, but will not find it. But their torture only lasts a short while, five months, according to verse five. By contrast, the sixth trumpet, the second woe, brought death to a third of mankind, vv. 15, 18, a reminder of how destructive human evil, unrestrained by the righteousness of God can become.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
We wept at the accumulating misery of the human family. I thought that surely sinful man would turn to God in repentance and faith. Words go begging, when I tell you it didn't happen. John said at the end of the ninth chapter of his vision in words painful to hear: The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood – idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.

I strove mightily not to catch the eye of Him, whose eyes were like blazing fire. I knew that he could see the secrets of my mind. I blushed at my earlier thought that heaven's purpose was to cow a rebellious world into submission by sheer force.

Judgment, even the judgment of God, has limits. The interruptions we had experienced revealed God's self-imposed limits on the use of force. It came as no surprise, when the seventh angel did not blow his trumpet. It wasn't time. Another merciful interruption would intervene, this time decisively.

At last, I began to understand the interruptions we had experienced. If sheer force will not bring rebellious man to repent and give glory to the God of heaven, something else must. All the seals have been broken. It will be time next time to look into the secret strategy of heaven that brings about the conversion of the nations.