The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Self ^ | 1-28-15 | Stingray

[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)

[sasportas]

Preterists have a huge problem with most of scripture and much of history. All of which proves them in error.

I certainly concur. One of the most damnable heresies of our times.

I can remember, back before the rise of preterism, evangelicals (except for a few historicists here and there) interpreted NT prophetic scriptures, Matt. 24 to Revelation, futuristically. The great tribulation with its antichrist and mark of the beast, Armageddon, the 2nd coming, resurrection and rapture, and the millennial kingdom, had not taken place yet. Enter the preterists, making their appearance right on cue to be chief doctrinal representatives of the falling away, or apostasia, of 2 Thess. 2:3.

I've watched Christians getting carried away by these charlatans, the thing that always bugs me, why would anybody buy into such a theory in the first place? To be "one up" on everybody else? Do such things as a future antichrist and mark of the beast trouble them, so they cast about trying to find something that will ease their little troubled minds? They surely hit the jackpot when they find preterism!

I mean, one has to jump through hoops to make the NT a preterist document. One has to read into the scripture - and history - their theory. The NT doesn't naturally read that way, so they have to MAKE IT read that way.

Take Matt. 24:29-31 for example. We read of the sun and moon darkened, stars falling from heaven, the powers of the heavens shaken in conjunction with the coming of Jesus Christ. Now, last time I looked out the window, the sun, moon, and stars look like they did when Jesus uttered the words of Matt. 24. Enter the preterists: oh, no, you shouldn't read it that way, it doesn't mean what it appears to mean. And then they proceed to tell us all this happened in 70 AD...and with a straight face.

And lets not forget, that none of the ECF interpreted Matt. 24 as they do. And they lived almost two thousand years closer to the actual event (the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD) than these modern preterists. Like I said, history refutes them, not just Revelation being written in 96 AD, but the ECF also.

[CynicalBear]

Good points all! Preterists are deniers of scripture and history both.

[Zionist Conspirator]

I sincerely hope you’re not that “PhilipFreneau” fellow who was banned a while back.

[Iscool]

That’s exactly what John did. He was writing hyperbole, not literally.

Where and why would you get that idea??? Because a city that large is incomprehensible to people???

[Iscool]

Numbers in the Bible are largely symbolic. That’s why you see the same ones over and over.
If you take them as strictly literal, you miss the message being given.

Symbolic of what??? Nothing??? If they are symbolic, they symbolize something...What is it???

[Iscool]

>>There is nothing left to be fulfilled because God’s plan for the redemption of mankind is complete.<<

What a pathetic "new heaven and a new earth" Preterists think God constructed.

Ain't that the truth...If this is heaven, I don't want it...And this is my resurrected body, with a bad heart and bad back??? And a car that sits more than it runs???

[Flag_This]

"BTW you know there were no miles in that day so it can’t be 150 miles."

Don't tell that to the Romans.

[Iscool]

Our purpose here is to live as though heaven is real, so that we’re not surprised to see what it’s like when we get there. And what is the currency of the kingdom?

I’m not really sure how you think standing by and watching the world burn in a nuclear holocaust, just because you think Jesus will come and fix it, really represents the best interests of heaven or earth.

Well then, the quicker the earth burns, the quicker we'll get there...I'm all for it...

[Iscool]

The Greek word for “crown” in this verse is “stephanos”. It is used 13 other times in the New Testament, and ALWAYS in relation either to Christ, His apostles, or believers in the church. It is NEVER used in describing “anti-Christ.”

Not even the anti-Christ when he shows up to counterfeit the real Christ???

[LearsFool]

"but ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of Abel." - Hebrews 12:22-24

Note the present tense verb. (He's speaking to Christians, of course.)

[xone]

PhilipFreneau” fellow who was banned a while back.

Well, that's good news, sorry I missed that thread.

[Stingray]

“Not even the anti-Christ when he shows up to counterfeit the real Christ???”

Is there some part of “NEVER used in describing ‘anti-Christ.’” that wasn’t clear?

Once again, the Greek word for crown - used in Revelation 6 - is “stephanos” (a “wreath”, such as Olympic champion might wear), and of the 14 times it is used in the NT, it ALWAYS is used in relation to Christ (crown of thorns), the apostles (Paul’s “crown of joy”), or the church (crown of life.)

It is NEVER used to describe anything other than these that I have mentioned in the NT.

[Stingray]

AP:”Numbers in the Bible are largely symbolic. That’s why you see the same ones over and over.
If you take them as strictly literal, you miss the message being given.

Iscool: “Symbolic of what??? Nothing??? If they are symbolic, they symbolize something...What is it???”

“For every beast of the forest is Mine, The cattle on a thousand hills. Psalm 50:10

Is this verse saying that God only owns the cattle on a thousand hills, or is 1,000 used to represent something else?

If so, what is it?

[Stingray]

“Well then, the quicker the earth burns, the quicker we’ll get there...I’m all for it...”

So you agree with the ayatollahs who want to see the earth burn to usher in a theocratic utopia?

Do you have any freaking idea how utterly deranged that sounds?

[angryoldfatman]

Which generation?

The one that witnesses these things happen.

Let's take a look at the context of your verse


Matthew 24 KJV
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:

33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.

34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

[LearsFool]

Which generation?

What an odd question. But okay, here's the answer:

"This generation" - Matthew 24:34

[angryoldfatman]

It’s not an odd question considering the Preterist doctrine of all prophecy being fulfilled in 70 AD.

You are implying that “this generation” means the generation of human beings existing in 70 AD.

The Scripture plainly states that “this” generation (the one that Jesus is speaking of) is the generation that witnesses:

1) A tribulation that has never been seen before or ever will be witnessed.

(WWII and the Holocaust far exceeds any Judeaen-Roman war; the Stalinist and Maoist famines exceed any Roman seige famine that preceeded it, etc.)

2) The sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.

(Was there a solar and lunar eclipse in that region of the world in that time period? And how about the “powers of heavens shaken”?)

3) The sign of the Son of man in heaven.
(The closest thing we have in history to this was the cross appearing to Constantine in 312 AD - over 200 years after the Temple was razed)

4) All the tribes of the earth mourn.

(Didn’t happen)

5) [All tribes of the earth] shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

(Didn’t happen)

6) [Jesus] shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

(The OPPOSITE of this happened - the Diaspora. Only in 1948 in the founding of Israel did anything like this start happening.)

---

Along with all other prophecy previously mentioned.

As I explained in detail above, I don’t believe anyone in 70 AD saw any of these things happen. Therefore, “this generation” is not the generation from 70 AD.

[LearsFool]

You don't seem to be aware of what was coming upon Jerusalem and the Jewish people for their rejection of God and His Christ. Look more closely into Matthew's gospel. For instance:

"Wherefore ye witness to yourselves, that ye are sons of them that slew the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers...Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them shall ye kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city: that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth...Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation." - Matthew 23:31ff

The time for their punishment was near at hand, because of their final rejection of the Son (just as in the parable of the wicked husbandmen in Matt. 21.) They would reject and crucify Him, then God would overturn their verdict with power, and they would be given their final chance for repentance before their judgment fell upon them. Listen to what Jesus told the disciples:

"But when they persecute you in this city, flee into the next: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone through the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come." - Matthew 10:23

Perhaps you're unfamiliar with the language used to describe the coming of the Lord in judgments throughout history. Here are a few examples:

"Behold, Jehovah rideth upon a swift cloud, and cometh"

"Wail ye; for the day of Jehovah is at hand; as destruction from the Almighty shall it come...pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman in travail...Behold, the day of Jehovah cometh, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land a desolation."

"For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in its going forth, and the moon shall not cause its light to shine...I will make a man more rare than fine gold"

Are those prophecies about the Lord's return in final judgment? No. This is language that was often used to describe the Lord's various judgments on peoples and nations. But if a person is unfamiliar with this language, it's easy to assume that it must be a reference to the final judgment.

With that in mind, now take another look at Joel's prophecy, and what Peter said in Acts 2 were the days of its fulfillment. Those "last days" brought showers of blessings from God for those who sought Him, but would bring wrath and punishment upon those who stubbornly persisted in their rejection of His Son.

That's what Jesus was prophesying of in Matthew 24. It was coming upon "this generation".

"For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of man also shall be ashamed of him, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There are some here of them that stand by, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God come with power." - Mark 8:38-9:1

[LearsFool]

Here are a couple more examples of judgment imagery in the Bible, to help acquaint you with it:

"I will also water with thy blood the land wherein thou swimmest, even to the mountains; and the rivers shall be full of thee. And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord God."

"Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood. And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree."

The end of the world? Nope.

[Stingray]

“Because a city that large is incomprehensible to people???”

Because a “city” 1.500 miles cubed symbolizes the vastness of Christ’s kingdom, which is, in reality, both infinite and eternal.