Revelation 6

v1: The scroll has been placed in the hand of Christ who “immediately began the work of opening the seals and declaring the contents.” In opening the first seal, He “began the great work of opening and accomplishing the purposes of God toward the church and the world.”

v2-8: Life will be hard for everyone because there are four horses with their riders galloping all over the world. There will be military conquest and bloodshed, with “human beings, who should love one another and help one another… bent on killing one another.” With famine too, death is “marching around and making fresh conquests every hour.”

v9-11: The souls of those martyred for their faith are in heaven. “Persecutors can only kill the body,” but the “souls of martyrs live on.” These Christians “held firmly to [their] profession of their faith without wavering, even though they died for it.” There is a number of them “known to God, who are appointed as sheep for slaughter, set apart to be God’s martyrs.” It will not be long before this number will be fulfilled and they will rejoice “at the destruction of the hardened enemies of Christ.”

v12-17: “The wrath of the Lamb is extremely terrible, because if the Redeemer, who appeases the wrath of God, himself is our wrathful enemy, where will we have a friend to plead for us? Those who perish through the wrath of the Redeemer perish with no way out.”