Revelation 6: Riders On The Storm Part II--War, Famine, Death (vs 3-8)
Back To The Future
Today we return to Revelation after studying the Seventy Weeks of Daniel and different aspects of Antichrist for a few weeks. Let's review what we we have learned so far.
It is Jesus Himself Who opens the seven sealed scroll, the title deed to the earth. With each successive seal that Jesus opens, more judgments are brought forth upon the earth.
The first seal brought forth a rider a white horse in Revelation 6:2. This is Antichrist, the super villian of the end times, second only in evil intent after Satan himself. Antichrist will be the "master of intrigue", and will rise to power through the stealth of diplomacy and schemes. This is indicated by the bow without arrows. The white horse and the stephanos crown are both indicative of victory, meaning that he will be named the commander in chief of the world.
We also learned that Antichrist's rise to power will be after the Rapture of the Church, will be during the Tribulation period; he will strike a global peace treaty with Israel and all of the other countries on Planet Earth. He will be slick brainac, a statesman, a great orator, a military mastermind, and an economic mastermind. The world will be under his thumb, and he will rule a configuration of states surrounding the Mediterranean.
We will see and discover more in coming months about Antichrist, such as how he will be the second part of the "unholy trinity", a feeble attempt to copycat the Holy Trinity. The "unholy trinity"will consist of Satan, Antichrist and False Prophet as an evil "substitute" for the Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Satan always tries to ape God, and although Satan is smart and powerful he is merely a "God wannabe". Now, let's look at the other three horsemen.
The Destroyer of Worlds
I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. J. Robert Oppenheimer
It is said that Oppenheimer quoted a Hindu writer in the above quote, but the truth is yet the same. Oppenheimer was the head scientist in the Manhattan Project in World War II: the making of the first hydrogen bombs. It is said that Oppenheimer said this after the first test detonation in the desert in 1945. Of course, we know the eventual outcome of that test was the death of thousands at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It did perhaps save many more lives as it cause the end of the war, but at the same time we have been under the nuclear threat ever since. Truly, in a sense, Oppenheimer's "gadgets" have changed the world; there is a constant fear or at least acknowledgement in the minds of all that one day we may see such a device used here in the United States.
In this second of the four "Horsemen of the Apocalypse", the peace in the world obviously did not really last long. The horse here is a "fiery red" color. The color red is known universally in the Bible as the color of blood, of violence and death. What had appeared to the world as "world peace" quickly turns into violence against the world, against those that will not agree to the "one world government" of Antichrist.
Now think for a moment before you get hasty in your thoughts in judging how the world will be fooled, and how you would not be. John MacArthur writes in his commentary on Revelation how this happened to the British:
Adolf Hitler spelled out in detail his plans for conquest in his book Mein Kampf, published more than a decade before World War II began. Yet, incredibly, the Western allies (particularly Britain and France) persisted in believing Hitler's false claim to be a man of peace. They stood idly by as he reoccupied the Rhineland (demilitarized after World War I), thus abrogating the Versailles Treaty, then annexed Austria, the Sudetenland, and Czechoslovakia. Desperate to appease Hitler and avoid war, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with the Nazi dictator at Munich in 1938. Upon his return to England, Chamberlain triumphantly waved a piece of paper (containing a worthless pledge of peace from Hitler) which he claimed guaranteed "peace with honor … peace for our time." When Winston Churchill (one of the few never taken in by Hitler) rose in the House of Commons to declare that England had suffered a total, unmitigated defeat he was shouted down by angry members of Parliament. The deception was nearly universal; almost everyone misread Hitler's intentions. Only after he invaded Poland in September 1939 did the allies finally acknowledge the truth. By then it was too late to avoid the catastrophe of the Second World War.
World War
When He opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, "Come and see." Another horse, fiery red, went out. And it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth, and that people should kill one another; and there was given to him a great sword. Rev 6:3-4, NKJV
War is nothing new in this world. Violence began when Cain slew Abel, and conflict, violence and war have been in existence ever since. It is part of the fallen nature of man to be violent, to be angry, to seek to do harm to others.
In verse 4, we see how "the one who sat upon (the red horse)" will "take peace from the earth". A better translation, according the Robertson, is "to take peace out of the earth". In other words, this would mean a great world war between those on the side of Antichrist and those that are against him.
One important note at this point is that we must remember that this is not the wrath of man on man, or the wrath of Satan on man, but instead is the wrath of God on rebellious and sinful mankind. Does this surprise you? It should not.
I think if you talk to anyone over the age of forty, we all agree that each successive generation gets worse than the prior one. By that I mean of a moral nature. I have noticed this to a huge degree since I graduated from high school in 1977 (yes, I am old!). People have changed. People do not care about others like they used to. People are more self centered than they used to be. People are not as family oriented as they used to be.
Also, if you look at our world, it is like one big festering sore of sin. Sin is more easily committed now because of advances in technology; the internet is a great tool, but also can be a source of great sin and perversion. What men one hundred years ago had to go outside of the home to do, in dark alleys and in secret places has now been replaced with the computer screen.
In addition, many people profess Christ but live like hell is within them. And there are more affronts to God and His holiness now than ever; it seems that many TV shows and movies put God and His peoples in a bad light. For instance, I watched a recent episode of the new TV series "Harry's Law", and the supposed hero was a science teacher that failed a student because he did not answer the questions right on a test about evolution. Regardless of the issue of what the teacher did, in the end the young man's pastor was made out to be a wife abuser, and his wife cheated on him with the science teacher. Then the student brutally murdered the pastor's wife, and then committed suicide because of his wanting to be forgiven. It all showed God's people, God's minister, and God Himself in a totally messed up way. I was offended myself, I shudder to think about what God thinks!
In short, God will basically remove restraints and roadblocks from the powers of the world and the people of the world and they will "kill one another". The meaning of sword is one like a great knife used in close combat, or used to butcher. The battling will be bloody, brutal and horrific. At the hand of man, but in the wrath of God.
When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, "Come and see." So I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, "A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine." Rev 6:5-6, NKJV
The color black is often used to describe famine, and this is the case here in describing the black horseman. Famine and war go hand in hand, and for many reasons. The battlegrounds being in the country that is at war itself is at times destroyed or damaged. The war makes demands on many resources such as personnel, fuel and machinery. In addition, the supply lines of food are often cut off because of the action in the war itself or because of it is used as a tactic to "starve people out" and demoralize or destroy them. Cut off food, you cut off life.
Food will be in very short supply . And we all know what is called the "Law of Supply and Demand". In short, if the supply is short and the demand is high, you pay higher prices. We here in our country know all about that, with the constant fluctuations in the price of gasoline. Short supply with high demand means high prices.
He who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. The metaphor of the scales is best described by John MacArthur:
"The pair of scales the rider carried in his hand pictures the rationing that will result from the famine. As in the United States during the Depression, in Europe in the aftermath of World War II, and today in many war-torn third-world nations, there will be starving people standing in food lines. But they will not find enough food to live on, as the fourth seal in John's vision reveals."
A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius--a denarius is a coin that would be the quivalent of a day's wages. A quart of wheat would be enough for a man to feed himself, and no more. Barley was a poor man's grain, and would enable a man to feed himself and two others, but it was not as nutritious as the wheat would be. In order to feed a family, which would usually be more than just three, food would have to be split down farther--people would go hungry at night. And what about those that have no way to earn money?
"And do not harm the oil and the wine."--this particular section of the scripture causes some disagreement among scholars. There can be two views of this; one is that people will be barely able to afford to feed themselves but not have the money to buy wine to mix with impure water and oil by which to assist in baking and in lighting a home. I tend to favor the second interpretation: oil and wine are items for the rich. Oil was used in a large degree for skin care, and wine would be a luxury for the rich. J. Vernon McGee noted that during World War II, he knew a rich man that never went without a big t-bone steak, but that his family--who were poor--often ate tongue. This will be the same during the time of the black horse.
When He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, "Come and see." So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth. Rev 6:7-8, NKJV
War brings death from violence, but it also brings with it disease and plague; this fourth horseman is death.
It is often the case that following or during war there is an outbreak of a plague or pandemic. During World War I, there was an influenza pandemic. Molly Billings of Stanford University noted on the Stanford.edu website: The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people.
In addition, the ancient war between the Spartans and the Athenians over two millenia ago caused a plague, as was found by a University of Athens researcher to be due to typhoid fever. In an archological dig in the area, archeologists found a mass grave and these researches tested the teeth found in some of the bodies:
"Proceeding randomly through a list of possible causes, Papagrigorakis' team tested the pulp for the bacteria responsible for the bubonic plague, typhus, anthrax, tuberculosis, cowpox and catscratch disease before finding a match in Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi--the bacteria responsible for typhoid fever.
Typhoid fever--transmitted by contaminated food or water--causes fever, rash and diarrhea, all closely matching Thucydides' account of the terrible plague."--David Biello, Scientific Amerian, January 25, 2006
When my father was in World War II, he suffered from two diseases in the area that affected most men: malaria (spread by mosquitos, from standing water due to the ravages of the land in war) and dysentary (from impure water, possibly due to the war). My father had flare ups of malaria years after the war was over.
The horse here is pale in color, also translated as ashen (NASB). The Koine Greek word for pale is chloros, the word we get chlorophyll and chlorine from. It is a pale, yellow green color, best translated in the New Living Bible as "pale green". It is the color of a dead, rotting body. On this horse rides Death and Hades, with the latter not being "Hell proper" but instead referring to the grave.
"And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth": This speaks not of just the fourth or pale horse, but of all four horsemen. Power is given to them...by God. Remember, this is a time of wrath upon the earth. One fourth of the earth's population--billions of men and women--will die from these first four judgments. Many will be butchered, many will starve, many will die from illness and also by "the beasts of the earth". In other words, wild animals. Pushed from their habitats by the devastation of war, these animals will need new feeding ground and a new source of food--mankind.
Closing
Debt-free, But Still In Debt
I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise. So, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith." Rom 1:14-17, NKJV
You and I have no possible way to earn our way to heaven. We often lose sight of how offensive and repugnant sin--any sin--is to God. It does not matter if you tell a white lie or a whopper, hate someone and wish them dead or actually murder them, sin is sin and the wages or paycheck for sin is death (Rom 6:23a). Everyone has sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). Only Jesus, he who never sinned and is God Himself, could ever save us.
Jesus paid our sin debt. He reconciled us to God. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2:14, NLT). Jesus wiped our sin debt out, not just those things that we have done but those sins which we will still do. We are debt free. But should that be our attitude? Absolutely not.
In today's passage, we see that Paul considered himself debtor to both Greeks and barbarians (basically anyone other than the "learned" Greeks). Paul was a people person, as we all should be when it comes to matters eternal. Paul wanted to see people saved, and considered himself to be indebted to those that did not know Christ; he wanted to see people come to Christ and be saved.
But what it gets down to is this: are you ashamed? This might really rankle you, but truth is if you are not witnessing to others it most often a sign of being ashamed of Christ. We are afraid to witness, afraid of rejection but also that we will be made fun of or ridiculed. We are also afraid that we will fail. No one likes to fail. In fact, we all hate to fail. But we are not responsible for the result, only the message. It is the Holy Spirit that does the saving, not you or me.
But give this some serious thought. Over the past five devotionals, we have talked about the first four seal judgments, these "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse". We have seen that Antichrist will unite ten European countries in a "One World Order" to dominate the world, that a great world war will occur and it will be a bloody, vicious conflict, that many will starve because of war-related famine, and that one fourth of the population at that time will die from these judgments. Some will be torn to bits by wild animals.
Now isn't it worth your effort, and putting your "shame" or "fear" aside to talk to that family member, friend, loved one, neighbor or co-worker? You may be debt free in God's program of redemption, yes, Jesus paid it all. But you should have an attitude of being indebted to Him--and to others. Now, go out and share.
