Read Revelation 6
Key Verse: Revelation 6:16, 17 “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?'”
The Lamb opens the first seal, releasing the first of seven plagues upon the earth. The imagery of the first four is powerfully vivid: horses of different colours and their riders, all symbolizing war and its tragic results. A white horse appears, its crowned rider holding a bow, and he rides out to conquer (probably representing an invader). Then a red horse, whose rider holds a large sword and the power to take peace from the earth, follows, Next, a black horse, its rider holding scales in his hand, enters. This rider announces an exorbitant price for wheat, indicating famine prices, the sorrowful result of war. The fourth is a pale horse, ridden by Death itself, symbolizing the disease and casualties of war and famine.
The fifth seal reveals the multitudes slain in war because of their “testimony” (v.9). They call loudly for vengeance and are told to be patient.
The opening of the sixth seal introduces ominous cosmic disaster: a great earthquake, a blackened sun, a blood-red moon, falling stars, and a vanishing sky (vv.12-14). Every human being on earth is so terrified that all of them seek sudden death — not for fear of the disasters, but for fear of Him who precipitates them: the one “who sits on the throne…and the Lamb.” The issue is not the apparent anger of nature. The issue is the very real wrath of the Father and the Lamb at all unrighteousness and injustice. The “great day of their wrath has come”, and in light of their judgments and man’s accountability, “who can stand?”
