Read
“Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.”
(Revelation 1: 3)
Think
As we come into chapter 6, the scroll that we saw in chapter 5 begins to be unsealed. We don’t get all the way there – there’s a bit of a pause after the 6th seal – but as each seal is undone we see all kinds of trouble being set loose on the world.
Reading the passage again, what strikes me is the sovereignty of God over everything that goes on. Even when trouble comes upon the earth, its limits are absolutely in God’s hands. Each of these horsemen can go no further than God permits, can touch nothing that God forbids.
It’s a chapter that echoes Jesus’ own promises for the future – that in the world we will have trouble, but to take heart – for he has overcome the world. (John 16:33)
Amongst other things, Revelation points us to an increase in trouble as we wait for the day of the Lord. But it also promises an absolute limit to trouble. There is a limit on what can touch the country, or your church, or your family. It’s a limit placed by the one who knows best, loves you best, and does what is best. And there is a final limit on suffering – because there is a day coming when the Lamb will return. We don’t live outside of the trouble – but we do live in triumphant hope.
Pray
Father, thank you that all authority belongs to you. Nothing can happen that you do not permit, no hardship can go beyond the limits you have set, and nothing can separate us from the love of God that is ours in Christ Jesus.
Would you deliver us from evil, and would you help us to be people whose hope and message is a light in the darkness to those around us – who carry the peace and hope of the gospel to those living in the darkness.
Amen
