Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #6 of Revelation, chapter 6, and we are going to be continuing to read Revelation 6:8:

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

We have been looking at this verse for the last couple of studies and we have realized that the time which this particular Bible verse is speaking of is now – it is in our day when judgment has come upon all the earth.  The condition of hell prevails over all the world; Death and Hell are ruling, in a sense, as God has guaranteed the death of all the unsaved by shutting the door to heaven.  We have looked at the word death and we have looked at the word hell and now we are going to look at the last half of the verse in Revelation 6:8:

… And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth…

And that word power can also be understood as authority; they have official authority from God and that is because the rider on the pale or green horse whose name is Death really is the idea of the Word of God and Christ is the Word and He has been given authority over the nations to rule them with a rod of iron because the heaven has become as iron to the inhabitants of the earth; there is no more mercy.  So the condition of the world is as though they are in the grave, as we saw in Luke 16, where the rich man desired the littlest drop of water to represent mercy: “Is there any mercy in hades, in the grave, in hell?  Is there just the littlest bit possible?” And the answer is, “No, it is not possible.  There is a great gulf fixed between you and us.” 

Even they which would traverse that gulf cannot, as God’s people desire to bring the Gospel as in time past and to carry the message like a messenger man or woman and to be a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ in that way once again.  Yes, we would desire to bring the Gospel to our families and to our neighbors and to the strangers and even to our enemies.  We would desire to do this.  We would “will” in this direction, but we cannot.  Even they which would cannot.  There is an inability and impossibility for one of God’s elect to go against the commandment of God.  We are not the ones in authority.  The Lord Jesus Christ is the authority.  The word of God is the authority and God’s Word declares that this is the time of death and hell.  It is a time of judgment without mercy and, therefore, we cannot allow for even the littlest drop of water, even though we would.  It would be our strong desire. 

So this is the “power (or authority) given to them over the fourth part of the earth,” and we should not miss this, because remember it says back in Revelation 6:7:

And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.

And, now, in this instance of the opening of the fourth seal when the voice of the fourth living creature speaks, now we read that it has given death and hell authority “over the fourth part of the earth.”  God is emphasizing greatly the number four.  Why is that?  Well, the number four points to universality.  There are four points of the compass: north, south, east and west.  So the four points of the compass indicate the whole world.  This judgment – this opening of the fourth seal which is revealing the judgment of God that follows the time of the Great Tribulation as the third seal that we read about previously with the rider on the black horse pointed to the time of judgment on the churches – and now it is the fourth seal and the time that judgment expands to all the world; it is judgment upon all the unsaved inhabitants of the world, not only upon those within the churches and congregations.  So God is emphasizing this (and He does not want us to miss it), by the use of the number four.

Now we saw that it is the fourth seal and the voice of the fourth living creature spoke and power was given unto them “over the fourth part of the earth.”  But that is not all – now we have a fourth occasion in which God is bringing up the number four by itemizing the judgment that this Day of Judgment is afflicting upon the unsaved when He says: “…to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”  Four sore judgments are also in view and this would be the fourth time in just two verses where God is highlighting the number four.

It is very obvious what God is doing here and He, of course, would have us to take note and to realize that this judgment He is describing has to do with the whole earth; there is no exception.  Of course, God’s people, the elect, are living in the world during the Day of Judgment and they are not being punished.  But as far as every unsaved individual, no matter where they are in the world, they have come into the time of wrath and God’s judgment is upon them.

Now the four judgments listed here – to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth – directs us back to a passage in the Book of Ezekiel and God is tying these two places together by listing these four particular judgments.  I am going to read the whole passage and then we will go back and comment on it, beginning in Ezekiel 14:12, through 21:

The word of JEHOVAH came again to me, saying, Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it: Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord JEHOVAH. If I cause noisome beasts to pass through the land, and they spoil it, so that it be desolate, that no man may pass through because of the beasts: Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord JEHOVAH, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; they only shall be delivered, but the land shall be desolate. Or if I bring a sword upon that land, and say, Sword, go through the land; so that I cut off man and beast from it: Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord JEHOVAH, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only shall be delivered themselves. Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast: Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord JEHOVAH, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness. For thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH; How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?

Now in this passage God is listing four judgments.  If you take note and compare, carefully, this passage with Revelation 6:8, you will find they are the same judgments.  In Ezekiel 14, verse 13, we have the first judgment listed where the Lord speaks of breaking “the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it,” and that would identify with Revelation 6:8 and the statement about hunger, as God says in our verse there: “to kill with sword, and with hunger.”  That is one of the things that Death and Hell will produce during the time of their authority over the world.

Then we read in Ezekiel 14:15:  “If I cause noisome beasts to pass through the land, and they spoil it, so that it be desolate, that no man may pass through because of the beasts…”  Then back in Revelation 6:8, it says: “to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”  So we now have the famine identifying with hunger and these noisesome beasts identifying with the beasts of the earth.

And the third judgment listed is in verse 17: “Or if I bring a sword upon that land, and say, Sword, go through the land; so that I cut off man and beast…”  That is very clear, as God says in Revelation 6:8: “to kill with sword.”  So we have three judgments that match up.

And the fourth judgment is in Ezekiel 14:19: “Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood…”  And in Revelation 6:8, that would identify with death: “to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death…”  Of course, pestilence brings death.

So we see that there is a strong relationship between the four judgments that God is referring to in Revelation 6:8 and in Ezekiel, chapter 14.   Now let us go back to the beginning of this passage in Ezekiel 14:13:

 … Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread…

So, here, God establishes a principal “when the land sinneth against” Him.  Now the Hebrew word translated as land is the typical word for earth, and it is the word found in Genesis, chapter 1, verse 1, translated as earth: “when the earth sinneth against me;” and, certainly, the inhabitants of the earth have rebelled and sinned against God and they have done so grievously; and God, in response, has stretched out His hand in fury and in anger and He has brought these judgments upon the earth, finally, in our time, as His Word had declared for thousands of years.  Here, in this passage, God is looking ahead to our present period of time of Judgment Day, which there is a good possibility will continue for 1,600 days.

Notice that God says in Ezekiel 14:14:

Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord JEHOVAH.

Now God is going to repeat this four times; He does not repeat it exactly each time, but the idea is repeated.  Notice in Ezekiel 14:16:

Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord JEHOVAH, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; they only shall be delivered, but the land shall be desolate.

Then, again, in Ezekiel 14:18:

Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord JEHOVAH, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only shall be delivered themselves.

Then, again, in Ezekiel 14:20:

Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord JEHOVAH, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.

Four times God makes reference to these three men.  He does not name them each time, but four times He makes reference to them.  So, again, we see the number four.  Four judgments are in view in this passage and four times God adds this refrain concerning the most faithful of men, the most faithful men possible.  Really, just think about the three men that God names and in naming three of them and referring to them four times, God is indicating it is His purpose and the will of God that when He brings judgment upon the earth, that even if the most faithful men imaginable were in it, they could not deliver even their very own sons and daughters.

You know, when we think about these three men, two of them stand out due to their faithfulness with their own households.  If you recall, it says of Noah in Hebrews 7:11:

By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

And, here, God is indicating that Noah was an outstanding father as God moved in him to “will and do,” and as a result, He was moved with fear and “prepared an ark to the saving of his house.”   Who was in the ark?  It was Noah, Noah’s wife, his three sons Ham, Shem and Japeth and their wives; the only eight souls that survived the flood of Noah’s day were family.  They were his household.  So it is a pretty big statement for God to day that if Noah and Daniel and Job were in the land, they could not save sons or daughters.  And what does that mean?  How can this be some sort of judgment that anyone can escape?  God is speaking of a judgment that none can escape.  There is no way out.  There is no more provision possible that God has made for escaping into the safety of something like an ark.  It is a “judgment without mercy.”  There is not even mercy for the very families of the most faithful men you can find.

Daniel, we know, was a eunuch and he would not have had family, but God uses him to express someone of just tremendous faithfulness.  We read about the life of Daniel in the Book named Daniel and we stand amazed at how he loved God and how he witnessed of the things of God in such a heathen land as Babylon.

But Job was also a man that loved his children and was greatly concerned for the lives of his own children.  Back in Job, chapter 1, we read about the children of Job in Job 1:4-5:

And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.

He had a tremendous concern for the salvation of his own children, just as Noah, and he was constantly going before God and offering up sacrifices as a figure of the great sacrifice, the Lord Jesus.  And we can be sure that it was constantly the prayer of Job to the heavenly Father: “O, could it be that, as this sacrificial animal is burning and as I have slain this animal, the Messiah, the Son of God, the Lamb of God and the sacrifice of yourself might also be burnt on behalf of my children and may Christ, the One coming (because He had not yet come to the earth), redeem my children.”  And later we read of Job’s trust and faith that the Redeemer would stand upon the earth in the latter days.  Job would have had an earnest and constant desire in his prayers before God for the sake of his children that He loved so much.

So God uses these men, the most faithful men (we could say) in the Bible.  Only the Lord Jesus exceeds their faithfulness.  Of course, we know that God is the One who moves in any individual in order that they would be obedient to Him.  Well, God certainly moved greatly in these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job.  And, yet, the Lord says that if these three men were in the land that has grievously sinned against Him at the time when God stretches out His hand upon it in order to pour out His wrath….let me read it again in Ezekiel 14:14:

Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord JEHOVAH.

They are in the land.  They are in the earth in the Day of Judgment coming upon it and they cannot deliver the stranger or the foreigner or the individual that lives quite a distance from them, and they cannot deliver their neighbor and the people of their village, but, more than that, they cannot deliver their own children.  They cannot be a good enough example to their children.  They cannot read the Scriptures to their children sufficiently that their children would be delivered.  They cannot pray to God and have God answer their prayer that their children will be delivered.

Oh, what kind of awful, awful judgment of God is this?  How terrible it is as God points these things out to us that even the most faithful of individuals cannot bring about the salvation of the ones that they love most, even through their constant efforts of bringing the Word of God and praying for the Word of God. God indicates in the Bible to raise your children “in the fear and admonition of the Lord” and He offered good hope.  But there is no good hope here for any parent in the time of judgment, when Judgment Day has begun.  And this is part of the burden (the grievous burden) mothers and fathers carry in this life since May 21, 2011.  We have the burden of knowing there is no more salvation; there is not a “drop of water” available any longer.

Our only hope (and it is a real hope) and God is gracious and God is good to allow us this hope and how much heavier our hearts would be if we did not even have this hope, and our hope is: “O, Lord, could it be that you saved my son or you saved my daughter before you shut the door of heaven on that day, the Great Day of the Lord, on May 21, 2011.  So my hope is that you have already done the work.  You allow for that and you permit me to pray for that.” ( And as the days go by and we see little or, perhaps, no evidence of any saving work and our hearts get heavier and heavier, but we hold on to the littlest hope.)  “O, Father, we pray, could it be that there might have been a seed planted and may we patiently wait and hope and we do earnestly pray that fruit might come forth, even at this late date?”

And this is all that the Bible permits.  We would want more, as the parable says, those that are on one side of the chasm would want to bring mercy to those on the other side, but we can only do what God allows; we can only say what the Word of God permits.