Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: First Thessalonians 4, this is what we're supposed to do when we which are alive and remain should be caught up together, that's rapture in the Latin, meet the Lord in the air. Wherefore, what do we do? Comfort one another with these words. The rapture of the church should be a comforting word. It's meant to be a comforting word because things could get really bad even before the rapture.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador placing trust in the Lord for what the future brings.

Brett Meador: What a cool thing that we have, the hope of being taken away before all this stuff down the tribulation period.

Guest (Male): The vision of the four chariots in Zechariah chapter 6 is full of prophetic clues about the end times that we can interpret by also looking at the book of Revelation. But even though we discover these clues point to peril, warfare, and the coming Antichrist, Pastor Brett Meador also sees a heartening glimpse of Jesus and our role as believers in our study in today's word.

Brett Meador: Why don't you grab your Bible and turn to Zechariah chapter 6. What's interesting here in Zechariah chapter 6 is we're finishing up this section dealing with those visions, all that he received in one night. Now, one of the things that you need to see in these, there's kind of in some ways the local application of these visions, but even more importantly and more overtly, I've got to say it's not even a covert thing with the prophet Zechariah, but he's also talking overtly about the future, the end times.

Vision number one starts where Jesus sees the trouble of Israel. You might even say that prophecy is what kicks off sort of the end times. As these visions go on with the horns and the measuring line and the building of the temple and all this stuff, we see, if you've been following with us, it's been moving chronologically through from the moment God starts to say, "I'm going to start intervening for Israel," that's God's plan in the future. The first half of these dreams are things we're seeing in some ways right now. And then the last half of them we're seeing, it's more futuristic.

But the later visions here that we've been looking at speak of what scholars call eschatological Israel, or the Israel of the end times. And Zechariah chapter 6, our text here, we're going to see that specifically, that we're speaking of the tribulation period and the beginning of the millennial kingdom's all going to be talked about here in our Zechariah chapter 6, and it's the eighth vision. Now, by the way, I've got to say you might say, "Brett, I've read other commentaries and heard other sermons and it's totally different."

Well, if you notice a difference in my teaching perhaps versus other teachings that you've heard, it might have to do with their view. Are they pre-millennialists or do they believe in amillennialism? Are they preterists? If you take a literal interpretation of Bible eschatology, study of end times, you're going to hear more of the pre-millennial view of what people believe about these passages. And it has to do with the pre-trib rapture. We're going to be raptured, then there's going to be the seven-year period called tribulation, then Christ returns, the second coming.

The rapture is not a coming as much as we meet him in the air and we go to be with him. The second coming is actually the last part of Revelation, Revelation 19, when Christ returns, and that's when you'll see we are coming with him. How's that possible? We were raptured first. We get to be up in the marriage feast of the Lamb during the seven years of the tribulation, then we come down. If you're a post-tribber, by the way, it's a yo-yo rapture. You go up and then you come right back down.

What's the point? I see a great point in pre-trib rapture because you go up to be with the Lord in heaven, and a day with the Lord, by the way, is as a thousand years. So how long will that feel like to us? Some of you might say, "Oh, seven years is so short to be in heaven." Who knows what that's going to be like? But when we return, we're going to return with the Lord, Revelation 19.

Zechariah, the book itself, the only way it really makes sense, by the way, is if you're a pre-trib, pre-millennial kind of view in your eschatology. Otherwise, the book of Zechariah is dizzying and you've got to do all kinds of gyrations to sort of make things make sense and fit. But if you actually just take the Bible as it literally puts everything out as we pre-tribbers take the more literal view of the biblical interpretation of prophecy, it makes the book of Zechariah doable and understandable. And I think that's kind of noteworthy.

So, my responsibility is to teach the word how I've just been convicted to study it. And by the way, I'm not alone on these views. There's a lot of real Bible scholars that are alive and dead, more of them, a lot of dead scholars. And a lot of people over the centuries have taught the same thing I'm teaching. I'm not like I'm coming up with something new. But my job is to teach the Bible how I believe it. Your responsibility is to search the scriptures daily and see if what I'm saying is true or false. That's what your job is. You've got to remember Acts 17:11: "These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so."

That's what you guys need to do. And that's kind of an important thing. The whole reason to teach through the scriptures verse by verse is to equip us as a church to have knowledge of what the Bible says, ready to have an answer to every man that gives you a question. You have an answer. And so that's kind of why we spend the time that we do talking about the things we do. So we've covered the first seven visions. Let's get to the eighth, Zechariah's eighth vision. Vision number eight is the vision of the four chariots, the four chariots.

Let's take a look starting in verse one, Zechariah 6:1. It says, "And I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold, there came four chariots out from between two mountains; and the mountains were mountains of brass." Now again, these are images. If you know your Bible, the Bible speaks in types. Another word is typology. And there's some things that we learn about certain types throughout all the other scriptures. So reading your Bible and learning about other stories of the Bible help you interpret the rest of the Bible. Expositional constancy is what it's called.

So when you come up into things like chariots and mountains of brass and stuff like that, you think, "What is that all about?" Well, a lot of it makes perfect sense. When you talk about brass in the Bible, it actually is a connotation of something that's radical and important. Does anybody remember what brass symbolizes often? Judgment. And there's so many scriptures we could talk about the idea of brass. And there's these two mountains of brass. Now, this should make somebody go, "Uh-oh, two mountains of brass," that means lots of judgment. And two of them, what's that all about?

Well, for sake of time, I'm not going into this too much, but many scholars wonder if this could be speaking of the two mountains of Jerusalem that are most important. And the valley between them is called the Kidron Valley. And the one mountain is the Mount of Olives, the other mountain is Mount Zion, or the Temple Mount. Or Mount Moriah, as it's called in the book of Genesis, or the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. We'll talk more about these, what's going to happen here, but the idea also of chariots. It says there will be four chariots out from between two mountains. So these chariots will come.

Now, these chariots, when you think of a chariot, what do you think of? Ben-Hur. But does anybody know what the equivalent today would be of a chariot? Tanks. Yes. That's the imagery you have to have when you talk about these four chariots and the vision of the four chariots. You think battle. The tone here is warfare or even conquering, and these two mountains of brass speak of judgment. And some scholars call the Kidron Valley the same as the valley of Jehoshaphat, which will be a valley of judgment in future times. So this is kind of setting the tone and the stage for the scene here.

But then we go on and hear more description in verse two. It says, "In the first chariot were red horses; and in the second chariot black horses; and in the third chariot white horses; and in the fourth chariot grisled and bay horses." Now this is an interesting thing. You're saying, "Brett, why are the horses in the chariots? Shouldn't they be pulling the chariots?" Well, that's what the King James says here. The idea is these horses are actually pulling chariots. They're not riding along with people pulling the chariot, not that. You're like, "Wow, this is a weird dream." No, it's the horses are linked to these chariots, okay?

So you've got to get the King Jimmy language out of there for that. The idea is the horses are pulling these chariots. But by the way, Zechariah chapter 6, I'm not going to pretend to say we know everything about this chapter and what it means and all this stuff. We just have some hints and that's the way I'm going to put it. We have hints. But where else do we see as it relates to judgment, wrath, warfare? Where else do we see horses and their colors?

Revelation chapter 6. Would you keep your finger here in our text in Zechariah and flip over to Revelation chapter 6? Let's review before we talk about the colored horses of Zechariah. I think it might help us to review the colored horses in Revelation chapter 6. Now, in Revelation you have this divine outline of the book. Write the things which thou hast seen, vision of Jesus, chapter 1. And then in verse 19 of chapter 1, he says, "Then write the things which are," that's present, "and then which things shall be hereafter." So chapter 2 and 3 are the churches, the seven churches of Asia Minor. We're in the church age right now.

But then in chapter 4 you hear the words, "Come up here," which to me, it's almost like you see the rapture happen, if you would, in chapter 4 at the beginning. The things that are going to happen after the church age. When's the church age over? When the church is raptured. But in chapter 6 here, you start to look back on earth. We've got the tribulation period beginning. So let's look at this. It says in chapter 6, verse 1 of Revelation, "And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer."

So the first horseman of the apocalypse. Now, who's the rider on this horse? By the way, this is one of those places where your Bible interpretation being very different. Have you ever heard people say that this is Jesus? I don't believe that, not even for a second. But most contemporary Bible expositors, especially of the pre-millennial school that I'm a part of, they would say this is the white horse of the Antichrist. He looks a little like Jesus because that's his whole thing. He's an imitator and he's trying to replace Jesus.

So, by the way, this horseman that's coming, he comes with a bow in his hand. Interesting word bow, because the word bow both in the Greek and in the Hebrew can talk about a bow like a bow and arrow or a bow like a rainbow, but also interestingly enough about a covenant. Anybody that knows about the Antichrist, if you read Daniel chapter 9, what's he going to do? He's going to make a covenant with the Jews. If you read Daniel 9, the 70 weeks of Daniel and all that stuff.

So basically this guy's going to come and he's going to come to conquer and he's given a crown. The idea of the crown is he's going to be a leader and people are going to look to him as sort of a king, similar to Jesus' second coming. This is the Antichrist. It says chapter 6, verse 1, he's got a bow and he's coming to conquer. What is this Antichrist going to look like? Now let me share something with you about the Islamic Mahdi. You say, "Well, who in the world is that?" Did you know the Muslims have eschatology too?

It's interesting because their eschatology is from not the Bible, but from Muhammad, the Quran, the Hadith, and these different traditions of the Islamic faith. But it's really uncanny how the Muslim story of their end times sort of matches the biblical story of end times, only here's the problem: all the players are the opposite. What we deem as the Antichrist, they deem as the Mahdi. What we say is Jesus the Messiah, they call him the Dajjal, or maybe you could even call him something else. In fact, let me share with you some of the things here.

In case you aren't aware, I'm going to go over in lightning speed the Islamic view of eschatology. And here's what they believe. Are you guys ready for this? The Mahdi, the 12th Imam, as he's often called, he's a descendant of Muhammad, he has to be, and bears his name. In fact, his name is going to be Muhammad al-Hasan al-Mahdi. He's going to have unparalleled spiritual and political and military world leadership. That's what they say. Now, if you know the Bible and the Antichrist that's coming, these are all the things the Antichrist is going to have.

He will emerge after great turmoil on the earth. The tribulation starts, then the Antichrist comes on the scene. That's interesting. According to them, he's going to eradicate tyranny and oppression. He will lead a world revolution and establish a new world order. That's what the Muslims teach. That's what Antichrist is going to do, a new world order the Bible says Antichrist is going to do that. He will make a seven-year peace treaty with the Jews. This is amazing. They believe their Mahdi is going to make a peace treaty with the Jews, just like the Bible says Antichrist is going to make a peace treaty with the Jews. What a coincidence.

But after that, he's going to conquer Israel for Islam, lead faithful Muslim in a final slaughter of the Jews. And that's exactly what Antichrist is going to do according to the Bible, attempt to do. How long do you think he's going to rule for? The Muslims say their Antichrist will rule for seven years, their Messiah figure. He will have supernatural power from Allah over wind, rain, and crops. By the way, the Antichrist will appear to have supernatural powers in the Bible. The Bible tells us that.

Loved by all the people of the earth. Antichrist is going to be extremely popular in the world and he's going to dupe everybody at least in the first half of the tribulation. By the way, in the Bible, the Antichrist will have a false prophet who will come with him. In Islam, guess who's going to be his sidekick? Who's going to be the Mahdi's sidekick? Jesus of the Bible. That's what the Muslim believes, that their 12th Imam's going to come and then Jesus who died on the cross and all that stuff.

And they believe he's just a prophet. They don't believe Jesus is the Son of God, but they do believe the Jesus of Christianity will be sort of the sidekick of the Muslim Messiah. The Bible says the Antichrist will have a sidekick, he'll be called the false prophet. Are you guys with me so far? Dizzying how much the two eschatologies match the story point for point, except one is true and one is false. How much will the Muslims play a role in the last days?

It is interesting. Ezekiel 38 and 39, Mystery Babylon, the old Roman Empire. If you look at a map of the old Roman Empire, there's a lot of Middle Eastern nations that are included in North Africa and all around, but a large part of the Islamic Roman Empire is going to be a part of the iron and legs. Remember the iron legs and then the feet were part iron and what? Clay. Those 10 nations are going to be a mix of Europe and the Arabs and it's going to be a part of the end times and the whole stage being set for this coming world leader.

Well, I'm only on the white horse. Let's keep going. We're in Revelation chapter 6 still. So you've got the white horse, verse 2, and then verse 3, you've got the red horse. For speed, it just says when he had opened the second seal, I heard a second beast say, "Come and see," and there went out a horse that was red and power was given to him to take peace from the earth. So the red horse is warfare. Then verse 5 and 6, when he had opened the third seal, the third beast say, "Come and see," and I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he had a pair of balances in his hand.

By the way, this is a picture of inflation that sort of leads to famine, even kind of interestingly enough, the scales and all that. Famine, we're seeing the potential of famine to a whole new level right now. The stage is again being set for these end times scenarios. But there it says in verse 7 of chapter 6 of Revelation: "Then he'd opened the fourth seal, I heard a voice and the fourth beast say, Come and see; and I looked, and behold a pale horse." Interesting Greek word for pale, the word is "chloros," which is like where we get chlorine or bleach or what have you.

You say, "Brett, this sounds horrible. What's that one?" Death and hell. You're like, "Brett, this is really encouraging." Well, I love Luke chapter 21, verse 36. People that are different eschatology than us, they say, "You guys just hope the rapture happens before the tribulation." And I always say, "Yep, that's right." And it's more than hope. I'm glad that we have the evidence in the Bible. But I love what Jesus said: "Watch ye therefore and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man."

So what a cool thing that we have the hope of being taken away before all this stuff comes down, the tribulation period, because we're going to be taken out. Don't forget 1 Thessalonians 4. This is what we're supposed to do when we which are alive and remain should be caught up together, that's rapture in the Latin, is the word caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, what do we do? Comfort one another with these words.

The rapture of the church should be a comforting word. It's meant to be a comforting word because things could get really bad even before the rapture and what have you. So we see in Book of Revelation we see these colored horses. Are they exact same colors as the horses in Zechariah? No, and that's where it gets kind of confusing. But check it out. Let's go back to Zechariah now. We see these colored horses. We do see similar red and black, but what's this grisled and bay horses?

There's some tricky translational issues with those words. In your newer translation, they say different things. But the word "grisled," most Hebrew scholars would say it can mean sort of spotted, the word "dappled" or "spotted" horses. Maybe they're Appaloosas or something like that, I don't know. But then the bay horse there means strong. Maybe it's like one of those big Clydesdales. But there's another one. I wonder if it's going to be like a big giant muscular horse like that. But we don't know for sure.

So we started okay with red and black and white, but then these speckled and then the super strong horse, that's where it doesn't really line up as much with Revelation. But it shouldn't cause any panic. We'll see as we keep going. Back to this vision here. It says here in verse 4, "Then I answered and said unto the angel that talked with me, What are these, my lord?" Okay, good. This is that question. Remember the pattern we see in all these visions? There was always that question and that's great because it brings a little clarity.

I've already tried to clear up some things, but let's see what the angel says. This is where it really gets to it. It says in verse 5, "And the angel answered and said unto me, These are the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth." Now, this is interesting because these spirits, familiar word by the way, the word spirit is the Hebrew word "ruach," the Greek word "pneuma," which means wind or breath. So when the word spirits are used, you have to be kind of careful about that because we don't want to say it's the Holy Spirit necessarily every time.

But there is something that's used here in end times eschatology language talking about the four winds, okay? Do you guys remember hearing about the four winds or the four ruachs in the Hebrew? And it's sort of an idiom like when somebody says the four corners of the earth. Now let me put some fires out here. Some of you guys are like, "Yeah, the earth doesn't have four corners, we know the earth is round. And what a horrible stupid thing the Bible said." Well, we still say that.

People still use idioms that are not technically correct but they do mean the same thing. You probably have said it in your own life something really stupid. You said, "I was just watching the sunrise." Does the sun really rise? No. No, see my problem there? When you say the sun rises, it's an idiom. We know the sun is not rising, but we know the earth is rotating. It's not the sun rising, it appears to be rising. But in the same way, the Bible employs the four winds speaking of the four corners, North, South, East, and West of the earth.

And by the way, if you think the Bible doesn't know that the earth is round, even though most people didn't until fairly modern history, it really wasn't until the 1400s we kind of realized, "Oh, wow, the earth really is round." But the Bible said long before Columbus sailed, that we saw in Isaiah and the book of Job, it was called the sphere of the earth, and it said the earth is hung upon nothing. Like who knew that back in the old day? But all that to say this language is similar language that we need to kind of look at. Revelation chapter 7, you can jot this down in your notes.

This language is similar. We just read part of chapter 6 of Revelation starting the tribulation period. But as we get into the tribulation in chapter 7 of Revelation, it says, "And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth nor the sea nor any tree." So first we see the horses, Revelation 6. Now we see the four winds in Revelation chapter 7. So most scholars at least agree on this, that we're talking about the tribulation period of Revelation 6 and 7, and there's some similar language: the four horses, the four winds.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador once again drawing glimpses of the tribulation from the New Testament book of Revelation that offer additional insight for the vision of Zechariah of the Old Testament. And there's more to come in today's word as we conclude our verse-by-verse look into Zechariah next time. And I invite you to stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me to answer a question many people have wondered about his church.

But first, Today's Word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church, just south of Portland, Oregon, where Pastor Brett Meador's the senior pastor. Our vision on Today's Word is to proclaim the hope of salvation and help people know Jesus through careful study of the Bible. We invite you to find out more by going to todayswordradio.com. If you've missed any portion of this message, you'll find all of Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com.

All right, I have Pastor Brett with me now. Brett, I know that there are people out there that are wondering about the name of your church, Athey Creek. You said it before, but can you repeat, how did you get that name?

Brett Meador: Well, people say, "How do you pronounce that? A-they?" And I say, "Well, it sounds like atheist, but we are not atheists." But it's Athey. No, the way we got that name was we started with a different name 30 years ago, and as it turned out, somebody about 100 miles from here had the same name that we chose. So we quickly had to change. Our first church meetings were in a middle school and that school was called Athey Creek Middle School because there's a little creek right next to the school called Athey Creek.

And so we thought, "Nobody will name their church Athey Creek." So we took that name. And you know what's kind of funny about that? We moved from that school about a mile away and built our church building, and right next to our building is a road called Athey Road. So the Lord kind of worked it all out. But it's a unique name, but it's funny how a name that's strange becomes very familial and happy. We just think it's just kind of a nice name for our church. Athey Creek Church is where we landed.

Guest (Male): Absolutely. That's a great story. Thanks for sharing, Pastor Brett. And if you'd like more information about Athey Creek Church, Pastor Brett Meador, or Today's Word, you can visit our website at todayswordradio.com. That's todayswordradio.com. Well, that's all the time we have. Next time, Pastor Brett concludes our look in Zechariah chapter 6, recognizing that signs of the times are encouragement for abiding in today's word. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.