Revelation’s Diamond for chapter Six: “ My child, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof…for the Lord reproves the one he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights” (Proverbs 3:11-12)
Jesus says to JP: “John , my Father (the One on the throne) created you and all creation as silver and gold. I hate to tell you, but all your life experiences -- in your family, among your friends, in your churches and Synagogues, have put a lot of dross on His gold. I’m sending you the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - war, famine, pestilence and death - to smelt out all that dross. It’s not going to be easy. In the end, though, you will be restored and renewed to gold and silver once again.
“You’re going to think I’m so angry that I’ve abandoned You; that I have hidden my face from you. These words will be on your lips, ‘The great day of their (the Father and the Lamb) wrath has come, and who is able to stand?’(rev. 6;17).
When our Pastor recently left to accept another call, I felt a little like JP in exile on Patmos. “Why, Lord,” I prayed, “did you take him away?” You took my wife home a few months ago, and now this.” I started to feel alone in the wilderness with all Four Horsemen stampeding in on me at once.
Then the Holy Spirit said, “Wake up, John. Go back to the Bible. See what the Word says about your wilderness experiences: ‘God has led you these forty years in the wilderness to humble you, to test what was really in your heart and to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every Word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord’.”(Deuteronomy 8: 2-3)
What was really in my heart? I suddenly realized what a rock that Pastor had been for me -- and how much I cared for him –and now he was gone. “Where do I go from here?” I asked myself.
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God has sent His Four Horsemen into my life when warfare has erupted in my family, or I found myself starved for compassion, or I came down with a sickness I didn’t see coming, or I experienced the death or loss of someone I really cared about. That’s when these words from the prophet Isaiah gave me hope:
“For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing wrath for a moment, I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you” (Isaiah 54:7-8.)