Mar Mari Emmanuel explains how the second seal in Revelation symbolizes the fiery red horse of martyrdom and persecution, revealing God's sovereign control even over Satan's actions.
In this prophetic sermon, Mar Mari Emmanuel unpacks the meaning of the second seal in the Book of Revelation, symbolized by the fiery red horse. He reveals the spiritual realities behind persecution and martyrdom in church history and emphasizes God's sovereign control over Satan's actions. The speaker calls the church to repentance, true humility, and love, urging believers to trust fully in Christ’s authority amid the trials of the end times.
Full Transcript
When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, come and see, another horse, wow, fiery red went out. First one was white, the second one is fiery red, it is red to the core, white, peace, red, blood, death. The first one came to give me life, the second horse came to kill me.
The first seal is Ephesus. In Ephesus, Christ came to give me salvation. What is salvation? Life.
I got redeemed, saved, I was given a new life. And that was the first century is Ephesus, the first seal, which is the white horse, which is Christ himself sitting on it, bringing salvation, redemption to those who receive him and accept him as Lord and Savior. But what happened after the first century? Second and third century came, the second stage of the church, Smyrna.
Smyrna is the red horse, the fiery red horse. And this fiery red horse represents blood, red, blood is red and blood means death. So the second and the third century, it was the centuries of martyrdom.
Smyrna in the Greek language means the bitter one. Ephesus means the beloved, but Smyrna means the bitter. It became so bitter after the first century.
Christians were persecuted by the Roman emperors like Neron and Diocletian. Like Neron and Diocletian. Neron, one of the emperors, he would not go to sleep unless he sees a bath of blood.
He can't rest, this guy, sick. He's like a vampire. Unless he sees blood everywhere, he can't sleep.
Diocletians, between 302 and 305 AD, he gave his decree to persecute everyone who claims to be a Christian. He killed millions. Rome, the streets of Rome, they were rivers of blood because of Diocletian.
It was a red horse, blood bath by the Roman Empire, second and third century. But look here, my beloved, verse four. Another horse, fiery red, went out and it was granted, now focus on the word granted, and it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth and that people should kill one another.
The first one, the white horse, the one who sat on it, he came to bring peace. It's white. The second horse is red and the one who sat on this red horse, who was it? If the first one is Jesus Christ, guess what? The second one is Satan.
No one else. It's either Jesus or Satan. So Jesus on white horse, Satan on the red horse.
But this Satan who sits on the red horse, he was granted. So who granted Satan to take peace from earth and make people to kill one another? Who granted him this? The Lord Jesus. Satan, after his head being crushed by the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, he has no jurisdiction, he has no authority to do anything unless he receives that permission from Christ himself.
He needs to go and ask. If Satan wants to come and tempt us, he can't just come straight like that. He cannot.
He needs to go to the Lord. He says, Jesus, I've got a request. What is it, Satan? I want to fix this murry.
Can you let me? Then the Lord is going to say, okay, I'll let you. However, this is your limit. You cannot pass your limit.
Or, no, with this one, you can't tempt him. He's my son. Leave him alone.
Get lost. Finished. Satan can't do nothing.
Why? Because Jesus overcame Satan. The keys of hell are in the hands of Christ as well. Not just the keys of heaven.
Stripped him from every authority. So, Satan is the one who's sitting on the fiery red horse, and he was granted by Christ to come and take the peace from earth and make people kill one another. So, Satan went to Diocletian and Neron and raised all these emperors and made them vicious wolves and went against the Christians.
Satan, my beloved, took this as one of the greatest opportunities of his time. He said, wow, Jesus granted me this wish that I can do whatever I want to the Christians. I can kill them.
This is it. I'm going to wipe them from the face of this earth. So, martyrdom came in the second and the third century.
He started killing Christians. What happened? As he was killing those Christians, he realized afterwards that everyone he killed went straight to paradise. Satan lost them all.
You see, that is telling me a new one thing. Satan does not know everything. Satan's knowledge is limited.
Compared to the Lord Jesus, Satan is nothing. So, Satan thought he won the battle by killing Christians. The more he killed, the more he lost these souls to Christ.
That's why it was granted by the Lord to deceive Satan, to make him fall and to laugh at Satan and say, Satan, you think you can stop my plan by killing Christians? Everyone you killed is a saint in my heaven, Satan. So, who won? I, Jesus. Now, guess what? As people on earth, you say, well, why is the Lord allowing for martyrdom to happen? What if I say to you, imagine I was not killed by the sword and I lived a normal life and throughout my life's journey, I did nothing but sinning against God and at the end, I went to hell.
Which one would you prefer? The sword that's going to take you to heaven or living a life that's going to take you to hell? Which one? Can you trust God with you? He knows you more than you and he knows what you are going to do before you do it. He knows what you are capable of and he knows what kind of a substance you are. Let Jesus navigate your life on earth.
Let him be your good shepherd and trust the Lord and entrust him with your own life because he knows what is best for you. Let him get you to his heaven the way he knows, not you. So, when the Lord saw that it is through martyrdom I'll have saints in heaven, he granted Satan to go and kill.
So, who granted Bill Gates? Please, my beloved, these sessions and these Bible preachings are not just for us to come and get some information. You need to believe in your Bible that this is the word of God, the truth. If you say, I believe in Jesus Christ, you better believe in every word he said.
Who granted Satan to kill? Christ. Who grants these evil doers to do whatever they're doing? Christ. Not Satan, Christ.
Because Satan cannot do nothing unless Christ grants him whatever he is to do. So, who shut the door of the church? Christ, not Satan. So, what is Christ trying to tell us now in the 21st century? My children, I need to discipline you.
You know why? Because you walked away from me. You, my Christians, you are mine. You belong to me.
The world, I have a day for them to judge, but I will not discipline the world. I discipline my own children because this is my jurisdiction. The parents can only discipline their children, not the neighbor's children.
If you smack the neighbor's children, they'll call the police on you. But if you discipline your own child, it is within your own rights to do so. So, the Lord has his own, which is the Christian world.
So, the Christians, the day they walk away from him, he will smack them. How is he gonna smack them? Through Satan. And what is Satan gonna do? He's gonna raise another neuron, another diocletian.
He's gonna raise evildoers. It's very simple. So, Bill Gates, George Soros, Klaus Schwab, Elon Musk, the Rockefeller, the Rothschild, the Freemason, and all the secret societies, the black, whatever they call them, all of them.
Who is making a move? Christ, my beloved Christ. Because he's not happy with his church. You can say you're a Catholic till kingdom comes.
You can say you're an Orthodox till kingdom comes. You can say whatever you want. If you do not come and start building a relationship with the Lord, if you do not bow your head before Christ, neither Catholicism nor Orthodoxy will come to your rescue.
I'm not saying deny who you are and what you are. No. I'm saying you need to live with Jesus.
This is not a some sort of a duty. This is not some sort of an obligation. This is not some sort of a, and I have to do this.
I'm going to church to visit Jesus. I gave him two hours. That's it, Jesus.
You got nothing now with me. Leave me alone. The rest of the week, I do things my way.
Doesn't work. The whole week is needs to be given to Christ. You are Christian in the church and outside the church.
You are a Christian wherever you are, wherever you go. You are a Christian and Christ is with you wherever you go. So when the Lord sees his children walking away from him, he will raise the enemy and grant the enemy to come and smack us and persecute us.
Believe me. Don't believe me. Believe the Lord, please.
Believe his word. But I say this as a human, as a Christian to a Christian. Believe you me.
Believe you me. Then believe you me. Three times.
Right? If the entire Holy Apostolic Universal Church, if the entire Holy Apostolic Universal Church comes and bows before the Lord Jesus, repents and from the Pope to the deacon, from all the ecclesiastical orders and every faithful, you come and say, Lord, I have sinned against you. The Pope repents. The cardinal repents.
The bishop repents. The priest repents. The deacon repents and the faithful repents.
If all of us come to Christ and bow our heads before his holy altar and say, we have sinned against you and against heaven, we are not worthy to be called your son, but make me a hireling in your citadel. Believe you me. This whole evil agenda, Christ will wipe it before you and I blink our eyes.
It is not by going on riots. It is not by going and screaming and yelling. It is by repenting before Christ because the battle is not mine, not yours.
The battle is Christ's. It's Christ's. The battle is Christ's.
You cannot fix yourself. Do you think you can fix the world? You cannot protect yourself. Do you think you can overcome Satan? Only one overcame Satan, Jesus of Nazareth.
All glory to his holy name. He is the only one who can put an end to this. The church is still asleep and I say this with great sadness.
It's asleep. We call ourselves or we call each other brothers. We're not.
It's a lip service. Nothing comes from the heart. Christ is the God of the heart, not the lips.
We stand on the pulpits and we say brothers, my brother so and so. You don't accept one another. What brothers? What brothers? I've said it before.
It's not me. It's the Lord and I'll say it again. The church is lacking two foundational pillars, true love and true humility.
That's what the church is missing. That's why it's so weak because the strength of the church comes when there is true love of God in the church and where there is true humility of Christ in the church. This is the strength of the church.
Love and humility are missing. That's why the church is lost. I'll have to finish it off.
And he was granted to the one who sat on it, on the red horse to take peace from the earth. Is there peace on earth? Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness.
Where is the peace? Even the sky is not at peace. Raining all the time, baby. We want to see the sun.
We miss the sun. Man, it's so miserable. There is no peace.
You listen to the news. It's very depressing. If you want to have depression, listen to the mainstream media.
You'll be depressed, mate. Not the whole tablets in the world of psychologists and psychiatrists can save you. Listen to the news for a month.
You've got depression to the core. And Russia went into Ukraine and now all these children are there and millions of people have been, you know, sent out of their homeland and you could go over there. Flooding happening in Uganda and militia.
What's this, man? Flooding in Sydney. It's very depressing. And there is threats of nuclear war when people walk away from the true divine God, they will kill themselves by themselves.
Russia holds the highest number of rockets with nuclear heads in it. The highest number, followed by America. America has over 5,000 nuclear warheads.
One is enough to wipe Australia. 5,000. All the countries that have nuclear warheads, they total over 13,000 nuclear warheads.
They are capable of destroying the whole globe thousands of times moreover. But I was going to say, remember this. When World War III happens, the Lord will not let them use the entire nuclear warheads because the Lord has still got time.
There will still be people living. The nuclear warheads can wipe the entire human race. Everything will come to a halt.
But they will not. Not every country will enter World War III. Not every country will be striked by the nuclear warheads.
Not every country. So there will be some people left. One third of the world's population will vanish in a blink of an eye.
Over 2 billion people will be wiped out. So Bill Gates, don't worry about your vaccine, brother. My dear friend, just wait.
You don't need all the billions. I know you give it to the Rothschild, but you don't need all the billions, you know, because what are you going to do when the rocket wipes you and the billions with you?
Sermon Outline
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I. The First and Second Seals
- White horse symbolizes Christ and salvation
- Red horse represents blood, death, and martyrdom
- Historical context of persecution in Smyrna
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II. Authority Behind the Red Horse
- Satan as the rider granted permission by Christ
- Limits of Satan’s power under God’s sovereignty
- Role of Roman emperors in persecution
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III. Purpose and Outcome of Martyrdom
- Martyrs gain eternal life in heaven
- Martyrdom as a divine tool for sanctification
- God’s discipline of His church through trials
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IV. Call to Repentance and True Faith
- Need for genuine humility and love in the church
- Repentance as the solution to spiritual decline
- Trusting Christ’s authority over worldly powers
Key Quotes
“If Satan wants to come and tempt us, he can't just come straight like that. He needs to go to the Lord and ask permission.” — Mar Mari Emmanuel
“The battle is Christ's. You cannot fix yourself. Do you think you can fix the world? You cannot protect yourself. Only Jesus of Nazareth can overcome Satan.” — Mar Mari Emmanuel
“The church is lacking two foundational pillars, true love and true humility. That's why it's so weak.” — Mar Mari Emmanuel
Application Points
- Trust in God's sovereignty even when facing persecution or hardship.
- Cultivate true love and humility within the church community.
- Repent sincerely and deepen your personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
