Posted on 01/28/2015 7:00:21 AM PST by Stingray
The identity of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse has mystified and intrigued people for centuries. Each symbolizes something, but what do they symbolize?
When you see the connection between Revelation, the gospels, and historical facts, then you, too, will begin to understand John's incredibly powerful letter.
Let's begin.
I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest. Revelation 6:1-2 (NIV2011)
Some people claim this rider with the crown and bow is Christ. Some claim it's an end-time anti-Christ. Truth is, it's neither. When Christ was among His disciples on Earth, He gave them a commission:
He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Mark 16:15 (NIV2011)
After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it. Mark 16:19-20 (NIV2011)
The rider on the white horse is Christ's apostles, sent out as a conquering force to change the world. Paul said as much in his second letter to the Corinthians:
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (NIV2011)
Christ also told the chief priests He would be sending His messengers out, and what He told them would happen then, gives us clues as to the identities of the other three horsemen.
Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. Matthew 23:34 (NIV2011)
When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other. To him was given a large sword. Revelation 6:3-4 (NIV2011)
While Christ was on earth, not one of His disciples was lost to persecution, and the only one whose life was lost, Judas Iscariot, took his own life out of guilt for betraying Christ.
But on the day of Pentecost, when Christ opened heaven and empowered His disciples to become His messengers, everything changed. Now they were as hated as He had been, just as Christ had foretold:
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. John 15:18 (NIV2011)
Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. John 15:20-21 (NIV2011)
“All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you, John 16:1-4 (NIV2011)
Jesus also made clear the coming fratricide in Matthew 24:
“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, Matthew 24:9-10 (NIV2011)
The rider of the red horse with the large sword represents those who persecuted, to death, Christ's messengers - those He sent to preach the gospel throughout the known world. What follows is what Christ prophesied in Matthew 23 & 24 about the persecutors of His messengers.
Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation. Matthew 23:34-36 (NIV2011)
And whom does Christ name as the persecutors of the rider of the white horse?
Jerusalem.
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. Matthew 23:37-38 (NIV2011)
In just this brief passage from Matthew 23, two things are abundantly clear:
Jesus is prophesying desolation for Israel in response to the way its apostate priesthood treated Him and His apostles, and He prophesies that the guilt of their sins would be held against them: that very generation that crucified Him and persecuted His messengers.
Need I remind you at this point who is sitting on the throne in heaven opening the scrolls?
This leads us to the rider on the black horse:
When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “Two pounds of wheat for a day’s wages, and six pounds of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!” Revelation 6:5-6 (NIV2011)
This passage - like so many others in Revelation - is a direct reference to a passage in the Old Testament. The passage in Ezekiel to which it refers is a passage about Jerusalem's impending judgment at the hands of the Babylonains:
“Now, son of man, take a block of clay, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it. Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it. Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the people of Israel. Ezekiel 4:1-3 (NIV2011)
And note this specifically from Ezekiel 4:
He then said to me: “Son of man, I am about to cut off the food supply in Jerusalem. The people will eat rationed food in anxiety and drink rationed water in despair, for food and water will be scarce. They will be appalled at the sight of each other and will waste away because of their sin. Ezekiel 4:16-17 (NIV2011)
The rider on the black horse is famine: the famine that was caused within Jerusalem after the Romans had sealed the people inside the city, as the Babylonians had, turning fortress Jerusalem into a prison.
Now of those that perished by famine in the city, the number was prodigious, and the miseries they underwent were unspeakable; for if so much as the shadow of any kind of food did any where appear, a war was commenced presently, and the dearest friends fell a fighting one with another about it, snatching from each other the most miserable supports of life.
The Works of Flavius Josephus.
Jerusalem, torn by civil war within its walls and the siege of Rome's legions without, saw thousands upon thousands of its citizens die by way of war and famine. And this is precisely what the pale horse's rider symbolizes.
And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, `Come and behold!' and I saw, and lo, a pale horse, and he who is sitting upon him--his name is Death, and Hades doth follow with him, and there was given to them authority to kill, (over the fourth part of the land,) with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and by the beasts of the land. Revelation 6:7-8 (YLT)
I've chosen Young's Literal Translation for this verse because people need to understand that what's being represented here is not the earth as we know it, but the land of Judah and Jerusalem. This is made perfectly clear in Luke's gospel:
“When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written. Luke 21:20-22 (NIV2011)
In closing, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse represent events that occurred from the sending out of the apostles after that first post-resurrection Pentecost, to the judgment of Jerusalem and the "wicked generation" that killed Christ and His messengers. And how do I know this?
Because it had all happened once before.
The LORD, the God of their ancestors, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy. He brought up against them the king of the Babylonians, who killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary, and did not spare young men or young women, the elderly or the infirm. God gave them all into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. He carried to Babylon all the articles from the temple of God, both large and small, and the treasures of the LORD’s temple and the treasures of the king and his officials. They set fire to God’s temple and broke down the wall of Jerusalem; they burned all the palaces and destroyed everything of value there. 2 Chronicles 36:15-19 (NIV2011)
Just as God had sent Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians to judge Judah and Jerusalem in 586 B.C., so Christ sent the legions of Rome, first under Vespasian then under Titus, to judge them starting in 66 AD, when the Jewish war with Rome began. It ended with the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in 70 AD, just as Christ had also foretold:
Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” Matthew 24:1-2 (NIV2011)
“Can you point to Biblical evidence that ALL of those things happened ? Where is it recorded it the Bible that those things happened ?
Cite chapter and verse.”
Considering that the entire NT canon was written no later than 70 AD, you would be hard pressed to find proof of it in the Bible, since all of this would’ve coincided with the events of 70 AD.
However, the first resurrection is recorded in Matthew 27:51-53.
But I find it utterly amazing how Futurists are so quick to change the subject when they the topic of this thread is the four horsemen, not the resurrection. Maybe you should go back and read the OP a few times until the point settles in, eh?
Matthew 27:51-53 does not record any living people being taken up into the clouds.
So that has not happened yet.
Can you face the fact yet that full preterism is easily proved heresy, as we just did ?
I did not change topics, I was responding to full preterist views.
Much of what is mistakenly viewed today as “end times” prophecy did indeed occur in AD 70, and that knowledge has been handed down throughout the years, but many today are ignorant of it. However, the Day of the Lord, or Day of Judgement, is an essential part of Biblical doctrine.
“Can you face the fact yet that full preterism is easily proved heresy, as we just did ?”
Not at all. You’ve demonstrated nothing.
Matthew 27:51-53 records what happened at Christ’s crucifixion.
1 Thessalonians can not contain prophecy that was fulfilled in Matthew 27 because Thessalonians was written years after the crucifixion by the Apostle Paul.
So we have prophecy (NOTE THAT THE CRUCIFIXION AND RESURRECTION ARE MENTIONED IN THE PROPHETIC TEXT, JUST IN CASE IT MAY SLIP BY UNNOTICED):
1 Thessalonians 4
“14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
I ask again for evidence that this prophecy has come to pass in history.
If it has not, then it most certainly will come to pass in the future.
It’s quite preposterous to think that this prophecy has already come to pass.
So you can’t face the fact yet. You’re not arguing with me so much as you’re arguing with 1 Thessalonians.
“Matthew 27:51-53 records what happened at Christ’s crucifixion.”
No. if you read the text carefully, it records what happens at His resurrection: the first resurrection, or “first fruits.”
“1 Thessalonians can not contain prophecy that was fulfilled in Matthew 27 because Thessalonians was written years after the crucifixion by the Apostle Paul.”
I never wrote that it was. However, again, you’re pulling passages explicitly written for the Thessalonians and trying to, somehow, make them as appear as though they are written to us.
Did you read Daniel 12:1-4, 7? Did you read Revelation 22:10?
Do you understand what those verses are saying? If not, then your repeated appeals to a physical resurrection intended for us at Christ’s return mean nothing.
“I ask again for evidence that this prophecy has come to pass in history.
If it has not, then it most certainly will come to pass in the future.
It’s quite preposterous to think that this prophecy has already come to pass.”
Not at all. It’s only preposterous if you believe the resurrection of believers has to happen the way in which you believe it will. But again, I already know what you believe, and it’s not what the Bible actually teaches. You can discover the truth here:
http://www.preteristarchive.com/Hyper/1999_curtis_resurrection.html
“So you can’t face the fact yet.”
No, my FRiend. It’s you who cannot face the truth.
“However, the Day of the Lord, or Day of Judgement, is an essential part of Biblical doctrine.”
And if you look at all of those “Day of the Lord” passages, you will notice at least two things about them:
1. There was more than one “day of the Lord” in ancient history, according to the OT, because every “day of the Lord” was associated with God’s judgment on a nation. Further, IN EVERY CASE BUT ONE, God used human agents to execute His judgments: the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and - finally - the Romans. The only exception to this was Noah’s Flood, where God used nature to destroy all but a few people and animals.
2. Virtually all of the prophets foretelling of God’s judgment used the same apocalyptic, hyperbolic, language intended to impress upon their hearers/readers what a frightful fate it was to be judged by God. Suns darkening, stars falling, mountains moving are all images intended to convey social, economic, and cultural upheavals that would attend such judgment events.
If the stars are literally going to “fall from the sky”, which way will they fall? Will the sun supernova before it goes dark?
This inability to understand such language as symbolic is why those in the church are commonly referred to as “hicks”, “Bible-thumpers”, “anti-science” and “anti-reason.” Between mainline denominations that teach a literal interpretation of these signs, and dangerous cults that build entire movements around them, there’s little wonder that people on the outside looking in at the church just keep walking by.
Please do not conflate spiritual laziness with a futurist view. It sounds a whole lot like you are following the bible in the flesh, not the Lord in the spirit, and are doing a gedanken experiment.
That’s pretty much the climax of the resurrection, and it is a classic hope passage. In fact we are bidden to share the gospel as a meek explanation of the hope that is within us. Thunderous question begging (not from you, but from some others) doesn’t qualify.
Missing future prophecy due to imagined near term fulfilment is missing the forest for not even the trees, but for the moss on the trees.
It’s also noteworthy that sometimes large future events have small contemporary pre-echos. The limited resuscitations of the dead when Christ died on the cross are one such pre-echo.
At some point it will be all behind us and we will be in glory, but right now we need to keep faithful in the perspective we have.
The poem about the blind men and the elephant might have been written with an overall skeptic or universalist point of view, but it humorously also illustrates how specialists in this, or that, or the other Christian viewpoint will get into wrangles. Throw in a little pride, and it becomes mutual condemnation. Sometimes the answer really is both-and.
And our dear fishy friend doesn’t speak for me when he implies that a futurist view must beget spiritual lassitude. No, I have already proven out a Christ who both follows the scriptures in their small and large sweep and can be counted on to keep promises. If the future was going to be devoid of special feature, Christ would simply be lying. However, I do not have the privilege of knowing where on an earthly calendar that will transpire. As a dear pastor I know explained, we are now 2000 years closer to it than when the scriptures were penned.
So you are using fleshly reason here?
It’s possible to over-analyze scripture and it will get you into an anxious dither every single time.
Scripture is nothing if it is not a book of introductions to the Lord. whereupon now the Lord comes as a spirit of explanation to the bible. Taking it at the level of Ye Olde Mysticke Booke does not cut it.
No, the failure to appeal to the flesh is not a reason to mutate an immutable gospel.
“And they overthrow the faith of some.”
What is really noticeable to me about “Stingray” is the name itself speaks of a menace among aquatic life (Christian fish watch out!), and the repetitive condemnatory prattle. Little or no reasoned “Well, this viewpoint is better than that one because.” I stress reasoned, because there isn’t much reason in it. Once one accepts the frankly supernatural, one can reason to things that one otherwise couldn’t.
Like all the UFO shots...always blurry...I’ll pass on that being authentic.
Just to remind folks what kind of strawman generator this menace-fish is.
Heck, anything can be photo shopped, but I found this particular video footage peculiar because it originally was not reported as the “pale horse of the apocalypse”.
Simply an anomaly in the video footage. Thought it interesting because of all the muzzies burnin, rioting, killing during the launch of Arab Spring and it has marched on with a vengeance. Right after what appeared to be the Pale (green) horse spirit lookin thing-ah-mah-jiggie.
Was kinda creepy, gotta admit. lol
“I don’t believe anyone in 70 AD saw any of these things happen. Therefore, “this generation” is not the generation from 70 AD.”
So what you’re really saying is, “My belief forms the basis for my understanding of the Bible.”
Seems to me you have it completely backwards.
If your understanding of the Bible allows you to believe in anachronisms or outright untruths, then I’d say it was a bad understanding.
I’ve had some belief-changing epiphanies while reading the Bible, especially when it differed from what I was taught in Baptist Sunday school. Those epiphanies always made more sense than the doctrines I was taught. None of the epiphanies were absurd on their face, or led to absurd conclusions.
Then the kings of the earth [land] and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they *said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” Revelation 6:15-17
This hasn’t happened yet. The elite mentioned, even if you narrow the number of them down by interpreting the passage in the way you have, didn’t care about the wrath of the Lamb. Indeed, they didn’t relate Jesus to any sacrificial lamb; otherwise the Crucifixion may have never happened and there would have been no Great Commission - why spread the Gospel when everybody already knows it?
This denial of the significance of modern events, especially the founding of Israel in 1948, opens doors wide for atheists and anti-Semites to harass us and is leading to open persecution of Christians. I don’t know why anyone would want that.
You’re apparently trying to spread confusion; a sloppy kind of divide and conquer the word of God.
It doesn’t work here!
We read the word here.
Take the your destruction of the word somewhere that it is welcome.
.
Zechariah 1: 7-17 8 During the night I had a vision—and there before me was a man riding a red horse! He was standing among the myrtle trees in a ravine. Behind him were red, brown and white horses.
Just to note that the 4 horseman are not a new aberration from God.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.