# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 01 16_S81
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Der Lutheraner.
"God's Word and Luther's doctrine pure shall to eternity endure."
Rev. of John, Chap. 14, v. 6, 7.
Published by the German Ev. Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other States.
Edited by C. F. W. Walther.
Volume 11.  St. Louis, Mo., January 16, 1855.  No. 11.
Terms: Der Lutheraner appears once every two weeks at the yearly subscription price of One Dollar for out-of-town subscribers, who are to pay in advance and bear the postage. — In St. Louis each single number is sold for 5 cents. Only the letters containing communications for the paper are to be sent to the editor; all others, however, which contain business matters, orders, cancellations, money, etc., are to be sent here under the address: Mr. F. W. Barthel, care of C. F. W. Walther, St. Louis, Mo.

(Submitted by Pastor Röbbelen.)

The Revelation of St. John.

The Sixth Chapter.

Of this Dr. M. Luther writes: "In the sixth chapter begin the future tribulations, and first the bodily tribulations, such as persecution from the worldly authority, which is the crowned rider with the bow on the white horse. Likewise war and blood, which is the rider with the sword on the red horse. Likewise dear times and hunger, which is the rider with the balance on the black horse. Likewise pestilence and plague, which is the rider in the form of Death on the pale horse. For these four plagues surely follow always upon the unthankful and despisers of the Word of God, along with other further destruction and alteration of the authorities, until the last day. As is shown at the end of the sixth chapter, and the souls of the martyrs also urge the same with their cry."

V. 1 and 2. First seal: signifies the persecutions by the regular authority in time of peace (white horse).

V. 3 and 4. Second seal: signifies the bloody wars, the decay of the kingdoms.

V. 5 and 6. Third seal: signifies famine, "hurt not the oil and the wine": mercy lightens the punishment, and may also be a hint that, while all other orders, customs and rights perished, yet the oil and wine of the merciful Samaritan remained, the vineyard of the Lord continued to flourish, as indeed bodily need and severe trial further faith and do not stifle it.

V. 7 and 8. Fourth seal: signifies pestilence.

V. 9 to 11. Fifth seal: The souls under the altar, the blood of the martyrs.

The altar shows that the witnesses of blood are a well-pleasing sacrifice to God; "under the altar" signifies that the altar remains in spite of it, that the Church does not perish, which yet seemed so when the witnesses of the truth were slain, but is ever again gloriously built up over the corpses of her confessors, and that precisely by this, that those fall who faithfully held fast the banner of the cross even unto death, she visibly prospers. The witnesses of blood had a heavy yoke to bear; they saw not the victory of the Church, they labored and sighed in a time of distress; after them the altar was raised high. — Their cry reminds us of Abel's blood, comforts and awakens the hope of the last day, because despite the victories which the truth celebrates, unrighteousness retains the dominion. Also the victory does not follow immediately.

V. 12 to 17. The sixth seal - the changing of the governments. — It now becomes manifest that the wrath of the Lamb was the cause of the dreadful plagues that have come upon the world, which before this was not believed. Sun and moon are darkened: for what hitherto took the place of the heavenly light loses its shining; the stars fall from heaven: these are the celebrated names which shone in the darkness of this world; the heaven departs: the fair dreams of Olympus and its glory flee, the visible glory of temples and altars vanishes, and what remains is a rolled-up book, the Holy Scripture, whose mysteries are not, like the heathen mythology, delightful to eyes and ears and open to the senses, but shut up, to reason a foolishness; all mountains and islands are moved: for the governments are shaken, and there is none left which, as formerly in the time of the Romans, could give a refuge; and the kings, etc., hide themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains: these are the days which for the heathen world were the same as what the Jewish people experienced in the destruction of Jerusalem, as the Lord had foretold (Mountains, fall, etc.), where one in vain chooses for his refuge everything that promises protection (protection like a mountain, Isa. 2), flees to the already shattered orders and powers ("caves"), rebuilds outwardly what has fallen, and because the old regular authority (the mountains) totters and falls powerless asunder, relies on the forces which, without being hallowed by custom, have natural strength ("rocks of the mountains"), which are joined to the mountains, the regular authority and power, that they may prop them up and yet accomplish nothing further than that everything falls in a heap, and, more terrible even than this fearful collapse, the eternal wrath of the Lamb shakes the hearts, which they at last see flaming out of this nocturnal storm-cloud with intolerable flashing into their conscience, in order, what they recognize as the inevitable judgment of the Lord, still