The Opening of the Seals: Revelation, Persecution, and the Present Age

A Sermon on Revelation 6

“Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, ‘Come!’ And I looked, and behold, a white horse. Its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering and to conquer. When He opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, ‘Come!’ And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and He was given a great sword. And when He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, ‘Come!’ And I looked, and behold, a black horse, and its rider had 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 denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine.’ When He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, ‘Come!’ And I looked, and behold, a pale horse, and its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, and by wild beasts of the earth. And when He had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.”

— Revelation 6:1–11

Three Reminders

I need to begin today with some review and some reminders.

First, the reminders. We have pointed out at the beginning of this series that, depending on what you have been taught about Revelation, there are churches and pastors who do not try to unpack this book. It is understandable why they do not. It is a very heavy, complex book. Therefore, it is possible that there are folks who have never heard anything taught in the book of Revelation, and when you come to it, it literally sounds like Greek. You have no clue what is going on because you are unfamiliar with the imagery and the purpose. If you feel that way sometimes, do not blame yourself. It is simply because it is a very complex, heavy book of the Bible.

The second reminder I want to give you this morning is this: if all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for instruction—as I mentioned last week—then the book of Revelation has some benefit for us. As you will see in a moment, we are actually told that at the beginning of the book: “Blessed is the one who reads and keeps the things that are written in this book.” And so, as difficult as it is to navigate, we should make the effort, because there is blessing to be had.

The third thing I want to remind you—and please do not laugh, though you are welcome to if you wish—is that Revelation is not a crystal ball or a horoscope. Many people come to Revelation looking for clues and insights and the latest prediction on anything. That is not what the book is about. It is not meant to do that. The book is a revealing of Christ, which has the purpose of encouraging God’s people during their times of tribulation and persecution. Until we get to the end of the book—the consummation of all things—Revelation does have some future-looking aspect, but it is not the kind of predictive thing many people look for. It is meant to be beneficial to every generation.

“Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.”

Notice, please, just in passing: the one who reads aloud. Does that mean that you sitting at home have to read this out loud to get the blessing? No. What that infers is the reading of it in the gathering, like this one—that we read it as part of our worship experience. So it is important for us to get this. Every generation has the potential for blessing from the book of Revelation, and we must therefore give it a little bit of effort to try to plow through and make sense of it. Much of the book is present tense, not just out there somewhere.

The Rider on the White Horse: Christ or Antichrist?

This premise fits nicely with what we observed last week. The rider on the white horse going forth is Christ conquering with the gospel, and He is followed by persecution. But I also pointed out to you last week that that is not the view of everyone. Some people see the first rider as emblematic of the Antichrist—the fake Christ on the white horse. Greg Beale says that the first rider most likely represents the deceiving and persecuting forces of Satan.

I want to call your attention to the fact that, whether it is Christ or the Antichrist, it does not negate the aspects of persecution that follow. Persecution follows the gospel wherever it goes when it is truly proclaimed. The second rider symbolizes persecution. Then there is a specific type of persecution that follows: economic disparity. The fourth rider encapsulates the second and third riders and adds a form of persecution with the symbolic nature of the beast.

When you go back to the book of Daniel, you find these visions about world empires that are always portrayed as an animal of some sort—a bear, a leopard with wings, a bear with ribs in its mouth—and those kinds of things. So this beast in the passage we saw, verse seven, the beast of the earth, is probably symbolic of persecution as well. And then, of course, the ninth verse—the fifth seal—is undoubtedly a passage about persecution, because you see the souls who were slain for the gospel.

The identity of the rider on the white horse has no bearing upon the fact or concept of persecution being portrayed here.

William Hendriksen says it this way: “Whenever in history the church is faithful to its calling and bears testimony concerning the truth, tribulation is bound to follow. The church needs both the antagonism of the world and participation in the common woes that pertain to this earthly life. The church is in constant need of purification and sanctification. And these tribulations, therefore, are employed by our Lord as an instrument for our own spiritual advancement. From the world’s perspective, it is judgment upon them for their sin. And from the church’s perspective, it is God purifying and cleansing and deepening His people.”

The Central Question: When Are the Seals Opened?

Now then, we come to the question I said we would return to: When are the seals opened?

There are really two questions here, and I want to come to the second question first. Does it matter? Does it really matter when they are opened? Why do we even have to speculate on that?

I have said many times that it does not matter. We do not need to know the specifics of when Christ is coming. We need to be ready when He gets there. That is the goal—be living our lives faithfully. And if we are living our lives faithfully, when He comes, we have got nothing to worry about. Jesus says again and again—as you know, go to Matthew 24 and chapter 25, and He talks about being ready, because you do not know when your Lord is coming. If we are ready, the timing of His coming will not matter.

But if these seals are dealing with persecution, then this is something that can interfere with our faithfulness. We are compromising because of the pushback of the world. We do not want to make anybody mad. We do not want to offend anybody. So we do not address things as forcefully as we should. That is compromise. And when the Lord shows up, you are still saved, but it is not going to be very pleasant.

We did a series last year about accountability—how each of us is going to be held accountable for the way we have lived as Christians. And there are a lot of Christian people who do not seem to know that. They are floating along without any regard for anything they are doing, not seeing that God is keeping records of this so that He can have joy in rewarding us. Please note that. We sometimes think He has joy in punishing us, but that is not His goal. He wants to have joy in blessing us in the day of accounting.

And so this is something that tribulation and persecution could interfere with our faithfulness regarding. And therefore, we are not ready for His coming. I suggest the seals do relate to this. And therefore, if you just keep pushing them into the future—if the seals are something that happens “out there”—we will not be prepared for what is happening right now. And that is persecution. This is a theme we see again. The fifth seal definitely illustrates that.

The dispensational interpretation is that the Christians under the altar who have been killed happen in the tribulation period, out there after the rapture. And you can see how that could undermine our daily need for faithfulness and endurance today. That is going to happen to those people at some time in the future, rather than it happening right now on planet Earth and in our country.

It is not blatant at this point, except in some circles. It is not in your face. It is indirect. I read a report a few weeks ago about a member of parliament in England who was calling attention to the fact that Christians in England are being treated as second-class citizens. They are not being given the same rights and privileges that we have in our country—rights that are defended by the Constitution and by a great number of Christian people in leading positions of authority who are standing up for them. But it is happening in other parts of the world. And if you think, “Well, someday out there, it will happen”—no, it is happening now. And we need to be prepared, equipping our hearts and praying for God to strengthen us so we do not compromise.

So I say there is a sense in which it would not be necessary to know when the seals are opened. But there is another sense in which we should know it is happening now. It is not just something that is going to happen out there.

Mark 13: The Seals and the Olivet Discourse

This is where we want to go to Mark chapter 13, if you have your Bible. We will read some of it. In Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21, Jesus gives us a description of what things will be like when He comes.

“As He came out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!’

“And Jesus said to him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? There will not be one stone left upon another that will not be thrown down.’ And He sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple. Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked Him privately, ‘Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?'”

Now, pause just a moment there. Because from this point on, you will note a great similarity between what Jesus is saying here and what we read in Revelation regarding the seals. Great parallels. This would suggest that the seals began to be opened not someday in the future, but when Jesus went back to heaven. After His ascension, there was this celebration, and these seals of judgment and persecution began to be opened.

Notice what He says in verse 5. Jesus began to say to them: “See that no one leads you astray.” This has to do with deception. This is part of the reason why some people believe the first rider is the Antichrist. He is a counterfeit Christ. He is going out to deceive people. And this is why they view it that way. I am not saying they are right or wrong, but that is why they view it that way. But this is a theme. It comes up two other times in chapter 13 of Mark. And this is one of the overlapping themes between Revelation and these passages on the Mount of Olives.

Then there is persecution. This is from verses 9 through 13, abbreviated for space. That is persecution that began in the first century, not in the twenty-first century. And so it has already been happening. You have this concept: there is deception mentioned in Revelation, and there is persecution mentioned in the opening of the seals.

And then you have the third of these: wrath manifested in social upheaval, which is echoed in the opening of the sixth seal.

It is very important. Someday I hope to have two of these screens so I could put the Scripture side by side, because I know it is hard to look down and go back and forth and keep it in your mind. But I need you to pay attention to the overlap, the themes happening here between Revelation 6 and Mark 13. We are talking about the same time period. And it has already happened.

Mark 13, verse 8: “There will be earthquakes.”

Then we jump to verses 24 and 25: “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”

Now go to Revelation chapter 6: “When He opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake. And the sun became black as sackcloth. The moon became like blood. And the stars of the sky fell to the earth. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up. And every mountain and island was removed from its place.”

Now, can you see the similarities? There are earthquakes, the darkening of the sun and the moon, stars falling from heaven, and other expressions of upheaval. The sky is being rolled up like a scroll.

Quoting the Old Testament: The Language of Judgment

It is very important to notice that these images are not unique to Jesus or John. They are not just picking stuff out of the top of their heads. They are both quoting Old Testament judgment passages.

Isaiah 13:9–11:

“Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel and with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark in its rising, and the moon will not shed its light. I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity.”

You see the images of the sun, the moon, and the stars being darkened as an expression of God’s judgment upon a rebellious world.

Isaiah 34:

“The Lord is enraged against all the nations and furious against all their hosts. He has devoted them to destruction and given them over for slaughter. All the hosts of heaven—remember, that phrase refers to the constellations, the stars—all the hosts of heaven shall rot away. The skies will roll up like a scroll.”

Did we not just read that in Revelation 6? “The sky departed like a scroll being rolled up.” And He says, “All their hosts shall fall. As leaves fall from the vine, as leaves falling from the fig tree.”

All of this is where Jesus is drawing His language and where John is drawing His language—from these Old Testament passages.

Now, let us go one more time to Joel chapter 2. And what we are trying to answer, by the way, so that I do not lose myself here, is: When are the seals being opened? Even if they are symbolic, even if they are just symbolic of God’s judgment and persecution—when are they being opened? That is the question I am trying to answer.

Joel 2:30–32:

“I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.”

Now, as to the question of when and how this relates: Peter quotes this passage on the day of Pentecost. In Acts chapter 2, he says, “This is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel,” and then he quotes the passage we just read.

Paul quotes this passage in Romans chapter 10, verse 13, in that long description of salvation and how you come to salvation. Verse 9 and 10: “Whoever confesses the Lord and believes in their heart shall be saved.” And he gets down to verse 13 and says, “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Paul is quoting this passage from the Old Testament, and he is saying it is already being fulfilled. It is not something yet to happen out there. It is something that is already happening with these events.

I already noted the connection to the Ezekiel passage from last week about survivors. And in the midst of judgment, there is salvation. Why? Because the judgment is meant to send people to Christ, to draw people to Christ. It calls them to run to Christ, because there is no answer anywhere else.

The Prayer for Our Culture

You know what you and I need to pray for? Part of what we need to pray for our culture is that people will figure out and realize—as the disciples realized—that they have nowhere else to go. Jesus says, “Will you depart?” And Peter says, “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” There is no one else to go to. That is what we need to pray for our culture, because we still have such an arrogance. We will fix it. We will solve the problem.

I mentioned earlier this year about the frustrations of financial frustrations when my Medicare supplemental jumped $30 a month. Big jump. And I did not know why that happened. So we have been looking into it. Lisa is at that age, and you have to go on Medicare at 65. You are not given a choice. They will punish you for it if you do not. And so we were looking into that.

And the insurance agent told me what happened. They passed a law—and the law they passed, called the “birthday law” here in Virginia—means that no matter what your health is, within 90 days of your birthday, the insurance company has to let you apply, and they have to approve your application. You do not have to go through a medical exam. And so, to cover all those people, they had to jack up everybody else’s premiums. My motorcycle insurance went up the other year because they passed some kind of law to protect somebody, and it affected me.

This is the problem of the human race. Every time we come up with a solution, it is just another problem created for other people. But our arrogance—”Boy, we can do it. We can fix it. We will get it squared away. Just get the right person in the White House and the right people in Congress, and everything will be okay.” I am not saying we should not be involved and animated about that, but ultimately our hope is in Christ, and He alone has the answers for the brokenness of the human race.

And so this is the thing. Paul and Peter say this has already happened. It is already happening. And if you can see the parallel with the seals, then we would suggest the seals have already been opened, and these things are already happening, and it helps us be prepared for persecution in our day.

“After That Tribulation”: The Destruction of Jerusalem

Now, there is another hint in this passage of Mark. He says in verse 24: “In those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light.”

After that tribulation. The typical perspective of Revelation is that these things happen during the tribulation period. But Mark says after that tribulation, these things portrayed in the sixth seal will be seen.

Now, what does that say to us? That the tribulation in Mark 13—reading back from verse 14 down—it is talking about the destruction of the temple and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Not talking about something that is going to happen in the future.

This is very important. This tribulation that Mark says—”after that tribulation,” and Matthew says “after the tribulation of those days”—these things that are part of the sixth seal will be seen. Metaphorically, symbolically, as I will come back in a moment to show you.

This tribulation that Mark is referring to—the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.—is distinguished by two things: One, Jerusalem being surrounded by armies. Now, it is interesting: Mark and Matthew do not mention that. Luke talks about Jerusalem being surrounded and does not mention the temple being defiled. Mark and Matthew talk about the temple being defiled but do not mention armies. Why is that? Because Luke is writing to a Gentile audience who would not understand the implications of the temple being defiled. The Jews would understand that, and Mark and Matthew write to them. But Luke is writing to Gentiles, and he tailors his message to those people.

There Is No Temple to Be Defiled

But here is the bigger point. There is no temple to be defiled today. There is no temple. It was destroyed in 70 A.D.

Now, those of you who are really familiar with these issues, you might have been taught, for example, the argument that they are going to build another temple in Jerusalem, and the Jews are going to build another temple. I am not going to take the whole—I don’t have enough time to get into all that—but it is fraught with error, inconsistencies, and problems.

Let me give you a couple of them. First, if you follow this to its logical conclusion, it postpones the return of Christ. I don’t know how long it is going to take to build a temple. And please, do not let anybody come up to me after church and say, “Well, Pastor, do you know they’ve already got this started?” I know that. In fact, I used to have— I don’t have it anymore, I tried to find it—I used to have a Time Magazine article from 1991 that was talking about how they were getting the instruments for worship together for the Jewish temple. And this is 2026. Do the math.

There is no temple in Israel, and it has great consequences, because where the temple should be set is where the Islamic mosque is—one of the three holy sites in Islam. It is right there. It has to go in order for a temple to be built. The world hates the Jews already. Can you imagine what would happen if they blew up one of the central holy sites of the Islamic faith? There is all kinds of problems with that viewpoint.

Here is the bigger problem. God is done with the temple. He is finished with the temple. What do we read in the Gospels after Jesus dies? The veil was ripped from top to bottom. It symbolizes the end of the temple. It symbolizes the end of the use of the temple. There is no temple. There will not be a temple, even if they could build it. God will not bless it.

You see, in order for the Antichrist to defile the temple, it must be consecrated and sanctified by the presence of God. And He is not going to do that. And you do not have to be an expert on the end times to know that. Why? Because the Bible tells us this: We are the temple now.

He is building a temple, but it is not of brick and stone. It is of living stones, as we will see from Peter in a moment.

Now, notice this very important point. The Jewish temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. Peter and Paul, according to our best information, died in the mid-60s at the hands of Nero. That means when they died, the temple was still standing. And yet both of them refer to us as the temple during their lifetime.

1 Corinthians 3:16: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” By the way, the word “you” there is plural. He means you. You are the temple of God. In our corporate gathering, we are the temple of God. God is not interested in stone temples anymore. He is living in living temples now.

2 Corinthians 6:16: “We are the temple of the living God. As God has said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.'” When Paul says “we” there, he means Jew and Gentile.

1 Peter 2:5: “You yourselves are living stones being built up a spiritual house, a spiritual temple, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ.”

And this is one of the key points—and there are many more things to be said there—but this is one of the key points that moved me away from the dispensational view and the expectation that He is going to build another temple on earth, because we are the temple today. God’s people are the temple.

Social Upheaval: A Metaphor, Not a Forecast

Now let me go back a moment to social upheaval. These images represent social upheaval. There are some people who say, “The moon—we just had this a few years ago, didn’t we? All the excitement about the blood moons. The moon is going to be turned to blood.” And all these evangelists, televangelists, got onto it. Some of you bought into it, unfortunately. The blood moon.

But there is a significance. There is a symbolism here that I want you to see, and I have to go way back here in the book of Genesis, because this did not occur to me until this morning.

Notice what He says: “The sun shall be darkened. The moon will not give its light. The constellations will fall.”

Now, contrast that with Genesis 1, verse 16: “God made the two great lights. The greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars.”

Thus, when the sun is darkened, when the moon is darkened, when the stars are darkened, there is chaos. There is upheaval. Because the ruling power is metaphorically— I know it, metaphorically—these ruling powers have been darkened, and the result is chaos, pandemonium.

And it does not literally mean we are going to go out and see stars falling out of heaven or the moon actually turned to blood. It is a metaphor for chaos and upheaval. And by the way, most of you know that. As Americans, we naturally are focused on division in America. But every country on the planet is divided. You go to England and there is division. You go to Iran and there is division. It is a human problem—this division. Chaos.

In fact, in Luke’s version, he says: “Men’s hearts will be failing them for fear, for looking at what is coming on the earth.” And he talks about the fact that there is no answer, no solution. This is indicative of our time. And that is what is meant by social upheaval. It is not these literal events. And yes, there are those who say they are literal atmospheric events. We do not agree with that, because when you look at all the Scriptures, it is about God sending chaos as a means of judging the earth.

And they cannot accomplish what they would like. Humankind. And you know, that is the story, isn’t it? In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve wanted to do it their way. At the Tower of Babel, after the flood, they come out and say, “Let’s build us a city that will reach all the way up to God, and we will not be scattered through the earth.” This is the human predicament: always trying to do it ourselves without reference to God.

A Summary

Here is the summary. The opening of the sixth seal in Revelation portrays events that, in the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, immediately followed the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. And therefore, even taking the seals symbolically, the first five seals would have had to occur before 70 A.D. And this is then the inference: Jesus goes back to heaven. The Conqueror. He is received. He is glorified. And He begins to open the scroll.

Even symbolically, we do not need to believe that Jesus is actually pulling back the seals, but it symbolizes the judgment that is coming upon the earth, and that judgment includes—and causes—the persecution of God’s people.

Let me give you two applications, and I think you can understand—this is a difficult, complex book. I am using ten commentaries when I put my message together. Ten. And you have got to sort through those ten in common themes in order to make sense of any of it, because they all have different little insights. And so it is difficult to find a theme that we can apply to our lives. But here are a couple I hope we could get.

Application One: Approach Sin with the Seriousness of God

First, in light of the Isaiah passages, we should approach sin with the same seriousness as God. We do not do that today. We just do not.

I know you will think I am just trying to boost membership and attendance. That is not it. The Bible says that abandoning church is a sin. And there are tens of thousands of Christians in America who have done that and they do not blink. “If I get there, okay. If I don’t, it’s no big deal.” And as a consequence of their not attending, they are also not giving to the kingdom in any measurable sense. Why does that not bother us? Because we no longer care about sin. God takes sin seriously. And it is very important for us to see that.

Note that phrase again from Isaiah: “Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it. I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity.”

I wanted to read a section of the foreword from a book called Knowing Sin. I just read this recently. Mark Jones—he is a pastor in Vancouver, Canada. And the foreword is by Rosaria Butterfield, who was a lesbian. She came to Christ. And she has a ministry of her own now. A homeschool mother. And here is what she says in the foreword to this book on sin:

“Knowing Christ requires that we know sin. Born of sin. We consistently sin against God, others, and ourselves. Sometimes simultaneously. Sin is our first language. Because of this, we need additional help to see it, hate it, repent of it, fight it, and flee from it. Indeed, the Christian’s daily task is to hate your sin without hating yourself and drive ten fresh nails into your indwelling sin every day. And then she says this: But really, now, does anyone believe that? Does anybody really believe there is this thing called sin that stains the heart of man and separates him from his God? Repenting of sin, or repentance unto life, as rendered in the Westminster Confession of Faith, has fallen on hard times.”

Now let me pause. It is so easy for us to gather and think of other people’s sins. And we need to think of our own sin. And none of us here can say we have none. 1 John says if we say we have no sin—1 John 1:8—we deceive ourselves.

“Repenting of sin, or repentance unto life, as rendered in the Westminster Confession of Faith, has fallen on hard times.”

The thinking goes like this: if love equals love, then Jesus can’t hate sin. If Jesus is compassionate, then He sees my sin from my point of view rather than the Bible’s. Jesus knows the bad things I do are just coping mechanisms. They help me get through life.

Now, we need to pray. We want a revival in America? A revival in America does not mean more people in the church, though that would be a consequence of it. It does not mean more prosperity. It does not mean more healing. It means more honesty about the struggle of sin that we have and how we must daily run to Christ. I have told you before: my two constant companions are lust and contempt. Lust and contempt.

In light of this observation—this idea that sin is no longer viewed badly in our world, even in the church, it is no longer viewed badly—when we hear this phrase, “I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity,” many people protest. “Pastor, John 3:16—God so loved the world. Pastor, 2 Peter chapter 3—God is not willing that any should perish.”

Application Two: End the False Distinction Between God’s Love and His Wrath

And this leads me to my second application. I hope we must seek to end the false distinction between God’s love and His wrath.

See, what we have done is we have said God is all love, and we have forgotten the wrath part. And it is possible to go the other way, and we are always talking about wrath without the love part. That is what I tried to illustrate with that Scripture from Joel. In this one verse, He is talking about judgment, and the next verse, He is talking about rescue. We have to keep Him in balance.

Here is the false distinction. In the Old Testament, God was mean and filled with wrath, and He did things. He killed people and was always judging. But in the New Testament, Jesus comes along, and He is full of love. And that is a false distinction. Because when you look at the Old Testament, you find expressions of God’s love. And when you look at the New Testament, you find expressions of God’s wrath.

Can I remind you that it is Jesus who quotes these Old Testament passages in the Synoptic Gospels, and it is Jesus who is peeling back the seals, unleashing this judgment in Revelation? We must keep the balance.

The greatest wrong of that false distinction—in the Old Testament God was all wrath, and in the New Testament He is all love—can I give you another example? In the Old Testament, He strikes Nadab and Abihu dead in the sanctuary. And in the book of Acts, He strikes Ananias and Sapphira dead in the sanctuary. And there are other examples.

But the bigger problem, the greatest problem, is this: the idea that somehow when Jesus came, God changed. That He was mean back then. Jesus came, and now He is nice. And what you are doing is suggesting change in God. That He was, now He has become more loving and less wrathful. And that suggests change.

And here is the problem with change. Any belief that God has changed—you need to take this and put it somewhere and walk away from it. Because God—if God, why do you pray? Well, God said to you, “Answer my prayer.” How do you know you can rely on Him if He changes? If He changes, how do you know He is going to welcome you into heaven? How do you know He is going to cover your sins? This Word is not worth the paper it is written on unless the God behind it is faithful to His Word, because He does not change.

And this is the greatest problem with that: “He used to be like that. And now He is like this.” And the fact is, He is both. God is love, and God has wrath. There is a subtle distinction there, but you cannot separate one from the other. He is always loving toward those who will cry out to Him, and He is always angry and offended at sin.

You and I cannot fully understand that, even though we are the same way. Listen to this life lesson, and two more Scriptures, and we are done.

God’s love makes a way of escape from His wrath. It does not negate His wrath.

You want God’s love to be demonstrated? Run to Christ. That is the only cure. Run to Christ.

Two Passages That Put Love and Wrath Side by Side

Listen to these two New Testament passages that put love and wrath side by side for the Christian.

Romans 5:8: “It is the love of God that rescues us from the wrath of God.”

Take away the wrath of God, and there is no need for the love. That is why we tried on the sign this week: “Where are the wretches who need amazing grace?” Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. It saved a wretch like me—written by the captain of a slave ship. No body can sing that song in America today, because we are all basically good. “I’m better than that person, but you’re not nearly good enough to merit God’s favor.”

It is His love that rescues us from His wrath, and to downplay either skews the message.

Ephesians 2:3–5: “We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath—children deserving wrath—like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved.”

Wrath. And how are we delivered from the wrath? By the love. But they must be kept in tension in order for our message to be true.

Father God, thank You for Your Word.