I encourage you to take your copies of God's Word this evening and turn in them to Revelation 6. And we'll be considering very briefly tonight verses 9-11. Revelation 6 verses 9-11. And just to remind you, we are still working through praying with Scripture. And just to give you some off-the-cuff thoughts, the elders are going to talk tomorrow night about where we're going to go next, what series we're going to do next in the Vespers. There's part of me that's thinking, well, you know, we're kind of done with praying. We've said a lot about it, so let's move on to something else. And we may do that. I don't know what's going to happen. But I would also say on the other side of my mouth that there's still so much in Scripture about prayer that we haven't even really scratched the surface. And I know that some of you have benefited from the time that we spent on prayers of lament. And that was a deep encouragement to my heart and to the heart of the pastors as well, because we do want to pray the full anatomy of Scripture, if you will. We want to pray in all the ways and in all the different emotional shades that Scripture gives us to pray. We want to use the Scriptures as a template. We want to pray with the fervor of saints past, saints present, and even saints in the eschaton, as we're going to learn about tonight. So we'll see. I'll let you know next Lord's Day. But for now, let's consider Revelation 6, 9 through 11. When He 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. They cried out with a loud voice, O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been." Let's further reading of God's Word. Well, I vividly remember it was April of 1999. I was in a little community in Yad Hashmona, Israel, a little town called Kiryat Jerim. The name of the community was called Yad Hashmona. And I was studying abroad for a semester as part of my college education. And I had a habit of reading the paper in the morning. This was before everything was digital. And I'll never forget the day I opened the paper in April, and I saw the headline, which was High School Shooting in Columbine, Colorado. Two deranged teenagers had gone in with enough weapons for a small army, and they took the lives of many students and teachers, and finally took their own. And I just remember being paralyzed with disbelief. I mean, it's not that there had not been school shootings before then, but I mean, it's just a gruesome thought. And I know today we have a lot of them, but I hope we're never desensitized to how abnormal it actually is. But when I came back, I remember reading up a little bit more on some of the biographies of some of the students who had lost their lives, and I remember reading about a young woman named Rachel Scott. Perhaps some of you remember her. Her mother actually wrote a book, and I believe the title of the book was simply, She Said Yes. And the story goes that she was sitting in the quad, talking with some teenagers, and just trigger alert, if you're sensitive and you don't wanna hear hard things, you should probably leave right now. I say that in seriousness, I'm not trying to be facetious. Sitting in the quad, and they were having a good time talking, all of a sudden two men with trench coats started walking up, and you see this gunman knew Rachel Scott. He knew that she was a Christian. And he came up to her and pointed the gun to her head and simply said, do you believe in God? And she said, yes. And he pulled the trigger and she was gone. She said, yes. And I remember just really being drawn to this story. I was a young believer at this time. I was probably a three or four year old believer. And that started a phase in my young Christian life where I was just fascinated with this concept of martyrdom. And martyrdom is very simply those who have given their lives for the witness, as we see in the text here tonight, of Jesus Christ. They stood up, they drew a line, they said this far and no further, they said we will represent Christ no matter what that means, no matter what the cultural challenge is that gives manifestation to that challenge in this age, we will follow Christ. And I was fascinated with that. And I began to read more about martyrs. I purchased that book that I'm sure some of you have read, The Fox's Book of Martyrs. I didn't read the whole thing, but I just couldn't put it down for night after night. I read about Richard Wurmbrand, who many of you have been familiar with, who was tortured in prison for many, many years because he was a minister of the gospel and he preached against communism and the evils that it brought. I learned about the voice of the martyrs and their ministry to those who are suffering throughout the world, Christians. And when I think about why, why was martyrdom so fascinating to me, what I realized is this. These people so deeply and so sincerely believed in Christ that they were willing to die for it. And some of you were like, okay, Captain Obvious, we get it. But here's the thing. When I was 20 years old, I had been saved at 18 years old, but up until my 18th birthday and my spiritual first birthday at 18 years old, I had been brought up in the church, Assemblies of God, different churches here and there, but I had walked away from the Lord numerous times, and numerous times I had tried to come back to the Lord, especially at church camp, you gotta rededicate your life, do that whole thing. I'd come back to the Lord and then straight away from the Lord and come back to the Lord, and finally at 18 years old, through a very, very dramatic conversion experience, I came to the Lord, and now I found myself in Bible college a few years later in Israel, studying for the ministry, and I saw this, and I started to reflect on my own life, and I asked myself the question, would you have said yes? And that's a really important question. It's a really important question because I would submit to you this evening, it is the litmus test for if you're really a Christian. Jesus paid it all, what does the rest of the hymn say? All to Him I owe. All to Him I owe. Not just coming to church on Sunday morning and Sunday evening, not just giving our tithes or our offerings or whatever, but giving our very life. That's what being a Christian, that's Christianity 101. That's not like the advanced level. That's Christianity 101. And I had tried to come back to the Christian faith, as I said, numerous times before I actually got saved, but then after 18 years old, I asked myself, is this real? Or are you going to go back like you've done before? And by God's grace, He's kept me in His grip for all these many years. And that is where the martyrs came in. I think the single, as I said, greatest litmus test for the authenticity of someone's face is if you're willing to die. I mean, at the end of the day, that communicates that you get it. Jesus paid it all, and all to Him I owe. So now we come to Revelation 6, and I understand that picking a text in the middle of Revelation is very risky business. Revelation is not an easy book to understand, but I do want to try to bring a very simple devotional thought from it tonight. And another reason why we should go to Revelation, among other things, is it's one of the only books in the Bible that promises a blessing to those who read it, and so I think we should dive into it. I'm going to give you a very, very simple breakdown from 30,000 feet of how I understand the book of Revelation up to chapter 16. It's very simple, okay? Number one, in Revelation chapter 1, we have the introduction. John sees Jesus, that beautiful vision. and he bows down and worships him. Revelation two and three, you have the seven letters to the seven churches. And then in Revelation four and five, there's that brief interlude, okay, where the lamb is worshiped by peoples from all tongues and tribes and nations. It's a beautiful, beautiful picture. The 24 elders bow down to him. Worthy are you who was slain before the foundation of the world to receive honor and glory and et cetera, et cetera. And then basically from chapter six, to 16, you have three sets of three things. You have seven seals, and then seven trumpets, and seven bulls. Now, I don't wanna get some of you eschatology nerds on a tangent here, but I just wanna say, I don't believe that these are sequential, okay? I don't believe that it's the seven seals, and then the seven trumpets, and then the seven bulls, and then Jesus comes back. I believe instead, if I could give you a conception schematically of how to understand this, you should stack these, okay? So these seven things, the seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bulls, are talking about the same time period, okay, from the ascension of Jesus Christ up to heaven, at the right hand of the Father, all the way until the time when he comes back. So he's going up and he's coming down. Between those two times, we have the seals, the trumpets, and the bulls. Well, why three different sets? Because, John the Revelator is trying to give you a picture of this age that we call the church age from three different angles, okay? And if I ever preach through the book of Revelation, that's how I would preach it, okay, from three different angles, and we could unpack that. So it's describing from three different angles, the church age, drawing out different things. So we are in the church age right now. So what that means is that we're not waiting for some seven-year tribulation period for all these things to be opened up. Some of these things have already been opened up, and that's why Revelation is so very relevant to us. But when we come to Revelation 6, We have this brief interlude where he moves from, this is the fifth seal, he moves from a scene on earth to now a scene in heaven. And I do believe this is a scene in heaven. But before we get there, let me just say one more thing by way of background. You have to understand the context in which John is writing. He is living in the time of demission. Domitian was an emperor. Before Domitian, either the emperor before him or two emperors before him was Nero. So in the time of Nero, there was intense persecution. Some of you know the story of Nero. There's two stories you've often heard of Nero. One of them is that when he would go on a walk in his garden in the evening, he would want some lighting. And so what he would do is he would have Christians rolled up into wax and he would He would stick them on a tree and he would set them on fire and he would walk through his garden while they were burning alive. But another thing that Nero did, he was a maniacal, he was crazy, is about 67 AD, 70% of Rome was burnt to the ground. And many believe, this has not been substantiated, many believe that Nero started it for political reasons. He was not a very popular leader. People hated him. We live in an age where people hate world leaders right now, so you can understand what that's like. And he did the wag the dog thing. So Rome burnt down, at least 70% of it. And he was playing his, it wasn't a fiddle, it was a sithera, something that's kind of like a fiddle, while Rome was burning to the ground. That's an unsubstantiated rumor too, but I think there's good reasons to believe it, which shows his irresponsibility. And when he got back, on whom did he blame the fire? The Christians, he blamed the Christians because the Christians were a group of basically low-lifes in Roman society that could be thrown under the political bus and people would get distracted from the fact that Nero was such a horrible leader. Wag the dog. And then Domitian, Domitian did something. He raised the stakes in his time. He made Roman despotism the religion of the day. So basically, if you wanted to be a Roman citizen accepted by all the other Roman citizens, what did you have to do? You had to say Caesar is Lord or the emperor is Lord, basically. And what that required, this is very interesting, and it has a parallel to our day as well, is that you just take a little pinch of salt, just a little pinch of salt, and you throw it in the fire of sacrifice, okay, and you say Caesar is Lord. Caesar was a title, it wasn't just the name of a person, so don't get confused, okay? And many Christians thought, well, what's the big deal? What's the big deal? And some of them did that, and most of them, at least in writing that we know of, deeply regretted it. But you know the one thing that was required in the first century, the one thing, and should be the one thing that's required of us today, the one thing that was required to be a Christian is that you had to say three words. You know what those three words were? Jesus is Lord. So to say Caesar is Lord is to put a challenger in the way of your Lord Jesus Christ. And some of them refused to do it and they were thrown into the Colosseum and ripped limb from limb by animals. It's in this context that John is writing, and this is why when the seal is taken off, the fifth seal, we see these martyrs under the altar and they are crying out. So I just want to say a few more things. Number one, what does it mean that they were under the altar? Well, when a sacrifice is made on the altar, the shed blood would run down to the bottom and even under the altar. Sacrifice was unto the Lord. So John, the author of Revelation, is using rich Old Testament themes to paint a picture of the martyrs who have given up their lives to God. And their blood, metaphorically speaking, runs down under the altar. Their sacrifice is precious in the sight of the Lord. So we see these martyrs, and they are crying out. What do they teach us? Let me give you one thought here, well, two thoughts maybe. This is what they teach us. They show us that even in the intermediate state, there is incompleteness which we must petition the Lord to make complete. Let me say that again, and I'm gonna explain it. The martyrs show us that even in the intermediate state, there is incompleteness, which we must petition the Lord to make complete. Now, what is the intermediate state? The intermediate state, as you can imagine, is the state between this time, the now time, as the apostles literally in the Greek call it, the now time, and the eschaton, the new heavens and the new earth. When you die, Your body goes into the ground, but your soul goes up to the Lord. And this is why Paul says what? To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. So the intermediate state is the state of disembodied spirits, and that's what these martyrs are. They have been slain for their testimony, and John is painting a picture of them in heaven. But there's two things that are incomplete about the intermediate state. Number one is the obvious one. You don't have your bodies. And remember, the Judeo-Christian religion believes that we are not just our souls and we are not just our bodies, we are both body and soul. And so there's a sense in which in the intermediate state, we are incomplete because forever in the new heavens and the earth, we will be resurrected into bodies that we will have forever. And so the martyrs are incomplete in that sense. But then here's the thing that I wanna key in on tonight. Listen very carefully. The martyrs are free from sin. They don't have any sin, right? They're sinless in the intermediate state. Though they have not received the resurrection bodies, they nonetheless, as I said, are not stained with sin. And yet in this sinless state, they cry out for justice. I find that fascinating. I find that fascinating. They're not sinning when they cry out for justice. They're not sinning when they cry out for God to take vengeance on those who took their blood. I heard and read some commentators say, well, no, they're not crying out for vengeance. Well, certainly not in a selfish way, that's true. They said, oh, they're just crying out for those who are being slain right now. And in verse 10, it does say that. But in verse nine, it says, when are you going to avenge our blood? When are you gonna avenge our blood? So yes, they are crying out for vengeance. They are not taking it themselves, they're in the intermediate state, but there's a little verse tucked away in the book of Deuteronomy that says, vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay. And that was meant to be unto the Israelites a source of consolation. It was meant to be unto them a word that said, you do not take matters into your own hands, you let me do it because I am the God of justice and I will do it perfectly, whereas you will not. And that's why these martyrs raise their voices up to Yahweh, the perfect and holy and just God, without sin, without imperfection. They cry to Him, how long? It's the question that the prophets ask. It's the question that the psalmists ask. It's the question that Jeremiah asks all through the book of Lamentations. How long? How long? Sometimes the slowness of providence is the biggest problem in our faith. The slowness of providence. Yes, we know that God has put everything in its time, in its way, for a particular reason, but we don't see it, and the slowness of his providence that is laid out on this stage of history is problematic for us, and it's even problematic for these saints. They don't know when the Lord's going to do that, which even shows incomplete knowledge in the intermediate state. You're not going to automatically know everything. You're not going to automatically know when Jesus is going to come back and you're sending Morse code back to the land of the living and telling them so that they could write their dispensational eschatology books. We should desire justice. Saints should desire the reckoning of all things. Saints should desire the wicked to be judged and the righteous to be vindicated. But I think some of us still sometimes have a problem with that. We have a problem with the imprecatory Psalms, don't we? Some of us still do. Don't be ashamed. You know, I have oftentimes had a problem with the last verse in Psalm 137. I'm not going to tell you what it says. Go back and read it tonight. But it's hard. It's hard to pray that the Lord would bring vengeance on people. And why is that? Well, because we read things like in 1 Thessalonians 4, 9-12 where Paul says this, Now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more. And then he says, verse 11, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your own hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. You know what he's saying? Live peaceably with everyone. And guess what? In this age, that's exactly what we're supposed to do. In this age, we are to live peaceably with everyone. But you can get so used to living in peace with God-haters and baby-killers that you forget one thing. It's not supposed to be this way. It's not supposed to be this way. And you can get so used to it being this way that you refuse to pray a prayer that God has given you as a template and put into the mouths of the martyrs in the intermediate state so that we would pray for the quickening of justice, so that we would pray for the hastening of the new heavens and the new earth. And that is what the martyrs remind us of. They remind us that the death of God's children was never meant to be the plan. Lazarus died, and this is one of the most misunderstood verses in the whole Bible, also the shortest in the English. Jesus wept. Those were not sobby tears of emotionalism. They were emotion. But in the Greek, when it says Jesus wept, it's the kind of weeping that comes from deep-rooted anger. Jesus was angry that his friend was dead. And I believe what Jesus was doing was going back not just to his friend being dead, but death itself. Because He knows when it entered. He knows why it entered. He knows the deception of the servant. He knows the frailty of mankind. And He knows that that is our frame. And He was angry because once again it's not supposed to be this way. And what the martyrs teach us is that our brothers and sisters are being killed and persecuted in other lands and that it's not supposed to be this way. And once in a while, we need to just stop, listen to me, we need to just stop thinking about our first world problems and start thinking about the plight of the universal church and pray for our persecuted brothers. What shall we pray for? Pray for God's justice now and pray for the ultimate justice in the eschaton. Let me just read as I end here one psalm that I'm not going to read the last verse of because there's only so much heaviness that we could take in one session. But this is out of the mouth and heart of a psalmist who was in Babylonian exile. And this psalmist did not ever want to forget Zion. And for Christians, what is our Zion? Our Zion is the new heavens and the new earth. The psalmist says, this is Psalm 137, by the waters of Babylon there we sat down and wept. We wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres, for there our captors required of us songs. and our tormentors mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's songs in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, Let my right hand forget its skill. Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy. Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said, lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations. O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall be he who repays you with what you have done to us. You know what drove that psalmist's prayer of imprecation? A desire to be in the new heavens and the new earth. Is that your desire tonight? Do you desire for the Lord to hasten the coming of the new heavens and the new earth and then join the martyrs? In the church triumphant, we are the church militant, which means that we haven't got there yet. Let the church militant join with the church triumphant and lift our petitions up to the Lord, praying that justice would be served, especially in the cases of our brothers and sisters who are suffering persecution internationally. Let's pray. It's been a full menu this day, Father. You've given us a wonderful reminder this morning in the ministry of the Word of Your promises. If I do not fulfill my promise, may I be like these slain animals on the ground. Father, we thank You that just as You put Abraham to sleep and did not expect of him any responsibility, in the covenant. It was not a bilateral covenant. It was a unilateral covenant. So also, Father, you expect not from us, but only from your Son, perfect, perpetual, and personal obedience. And we thank you that He has given it to you. And Father, we also thank you tonight for this brief image that we've seen of the martyrs. And we pray, Father, that you would give us the audacity to pray strong prayers and yet keep love in our hearts as Jesus has taught us for our enemies. There's a balance, there's a paradox there, Father. But would you give us the grace to play it out in our lives, whether we find ourselves in the coffee break room with pagan believers who are speaking nonsense. Or Father, we think of our unsaved loved ones. Father, we pray that you would save them. Or if we think, Father, of those brothers and sisters of ours who are suffering at the hands of evil regimes in China and other places. Lord, would you keep them hidden? from their captors. Would you allow them, Father, to worship you together with their brothers and sisters without retribution? And Father, would you please send your Son from Heaven soon to retrieve your church? For it is in Christ's name we pray, Amen.