Corona Chronicles - Crown of Gold

Welcome back to Corona Chronicles. We've swapped people again, and we've been looking in the last couple of days at Revelation 6. We've seen the cry of the 4 living creatures, the whole of creation. And we've seen the cry of the redeemed, you know, they're they're suffering as everybody does in creation. But they have a particular suffering as well, which is because they are preaching the gospel and they are the Lord's people.

And now we come to the last cry in this chapter, and we're gonna start at verse 12. I watched as he opened the sixth seal, there was a great earthquake, the sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat's hair, and the whole moon turned blood red. And the stars in the sky fell to earth as figs dropped from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled 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 everyone else, both slave and free hidden caves 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 withstand it. So we're still in this section where that the seals are being opened and the scroll is being unrolled, so to speak. And we we've kind of we're doing a bit of jumping in time. So the first the first cry that we looked at we we discussed was kinda both past present and future.

The second cry from the martyrs, the persecuted church, both past present and future. But here we are travelling off into the future now and we're we're thinking about what is gonna happen on the last day on the day of judgement. And the the first thing here, the here in verse 12 and 14 13 and 14, it is just really frightening language, isn't it? And you find a lot of this stuff in the old testament, in Joel, and that there are these realities that have been stable for as long as time has endured, you know, the sun and the moon that are suddenly collapsing. The whole world is falling apart at the seams.

At this judgment day. And even though they looked so strong and stable, they're compared to figs dropping from a fig tree during the wind. Yeah. It looked so stable with just a gust of wind -- Mhmm. -- and suddenly the flicks have fallen.

So the world the world is folding, folding up here. And and then and this is clearly judgment language, isn't it? You get this as you say in the old testament and it's, you know, the moon going out. And the sun going out, but it he he he rolls it up. Mhmm.

So the 1 that's doing this is rolling up the mountains. It's it's a bit like those jigsaw puzzles that people do and you have that special mat -- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. -- you know, that you can put it on and travel around with it and you just roll up the whatever picture you're looking at.

Yeah. It's almost as if this 1 is that big. He's just rolling up the jigsaw puzzle. Of the whole of this world. And and then when you get to verse 15, we go from the kind of natural world if you like to people.

And there's a variety of people here. You know, the kings of the earth, the rich, the mighty, the generals, the slave, and the free. And all of them now are about to face the wrath of the lamb. And no matter what social status or no matter what power they had in this life, they aren't going to be able to escape from the wrath of the lamb. And and they don't but the thing is they don't even pray, and it's almost as if they don't they won't acknowledge that God is king, that Jesus is Lord.

Yeah. You see that today, don't you? I mean, I've just been noticing the media in all of this corona virus sort of reporting and they're loving it in a strange way, aren't they? I mean, the media like that, they get hold of something, they go on and on and on. But the thing that is so utterly missing on everything I've seen is anything to do with God any call for prayer.

I mean, not even a sort of pluralistic idea of God. You know, whoever believes in God why won't you call on your God. Mhmm. There's not even that, which is which we should be bad enough, but it's so secular. No 1 is acknowledging that, at least in the media, that this is some kind of a judgment of God in his kindness warning us to get our attention that there's this final judgment coming -- Mhmm.

-- when when everything will be wrapped up. Not just not just the, you know, third or whatever. And it's not the coronavirus, isn't it? In the sense that the coronavirus doesn't discriminate as to who it infects. So the prime minister could get it.

The queen which he has. The queen could get it, and then all types of other people could get it as well. And that's the thing here. If if you reject Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter what kind of power you had in this life.

You might have been a general who gave orders to other people for all of your life. But you would have to answer to the lamb. And it is a frightening picture, isn't it? The wrath of the lamb doesn't discriminate. Based on who you are.

If you rejected him -- Yeah. -- then you will face him. And their and their prayer is not, as I say, not to -- Yeah. -- not not to God. It to the mountains -- Yeah.

-- fall on us, hide us, cover us up. Yeah. And it's too late. Yeah. Because the covering is the blood of Christ.

Yeah. And people should have said, oh, that's the covering I want. They should have cried out before that. So the stuff that's going on now at the beginning of chapter 6 that it's going on now is a warning that this is going to happen. Yeah.

And this is the problem, isn't it? People are not seeing that death is the inevitable thing for all of us and we have to face God 1 day. I guess the last thing here in verse 17, it suddenly has in this sort of final judgment just that is is there anyone? There's there's a slight niggle and it's brilliant ending, isn't it? This chapter, for the great day of their authors come, And here's the question, who can stand it?

Now, an answer is no 1 -- Mhmm. But actually chapter 7, we're gonna see that there are some people that can stand this. Mhmm. So we'll go on next time.