Revelation 6:1-8 – The Four Horsemen

We have been in the throne room in Revelation 4 and 5 for the past couple of weeks – It has been this beautiful, overwhelming picture of heaven, pictured by Isaiah, Ezekiel and now John, a picture of worship of God on the throne and Jesus, the Lion-like Lamb, and all of creation was worshipping together – and remember last week, Jesus took the scroll, the deed to the earth, an action plan to execute final judgment on the world, final salvation for all who believe and final 11:restoration of the world – it was sealed 7 times, meaning it was PERFECTLY SEALED, and only Jesus was deemed worthy to break the seals and open the scroll – Now, the throne room is about to become the war room, as Jesus begins to break open this plan and get to work ending conflict once and for all.

As we enter the next section of Revelation, we are getting into the character trait of God that the modern, western church either tends to shy away from, or takes a little too much pleasure in talking about: THE JUSTICE OF GOD, which leads to the WRATH OF GOD – Because God is JUST, he must pour out his WRATH on sin – we see the placeholder for God’s wrath in chapter 5, the LAMB of GOD, the sacrificial lamb, JESUS, who took on GOD’S WRATH as payment for SIN – but now, in chapter 6, we will see God’s final display of justice and wrath poured out on a world out of control, and Jesus is executing the orders – Here is the most important thing to remember: from the beginning, God’s plan was for perfection, and while Genesis 3 tells the story of SIN entering the world and destroying a perfect world, God has ALWAYS planned to restore the world, reset it to its perfect state – Jesus satisfied God’s wrath on sin in our lives, but final judgment, final salvation, and final restoration has always been on the agenda.

In Daniel 9:27, Daniel is receiving a prophetic timeline for what we know as the tribulation, a 7 year period in which final judgment will take place – this period is confirmed in Revelation 11:2-3, where we find the numbers 42 months, or 3 1⁄2 years, and 1260 days, or 3 1⁄2 years – added together, and you get a 7 year period where God is executing final judgment – This morning, we will begin this period with the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse, a term that is commonly used language in our world today, and is straight out of scripture – but super interesting is that while Jesus, didn’t refer to the horses, he refers to the events they represent in 3 of the 4 gospel accounts in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 – interesting to note that John didn’t record any of this in his gospel about the life of Jesus, but now is recording it as part of the vision given to him by God – The point is this: Jesus prophesied these events would take place, and now he is executing the plan to perfection, with the goal being RESTORATION OF THE WORLD – REVELATION 6:1-8.

V1-2 - So, here we see Jesus, the Lamb, opening the 1st of the 7 seals, and one of the 4 living creatures that is flying around the throne says in a voice like thunder, “COME” – what does a voice like thunder sound like? Impending doom –

The first horse is a white horse, carrying a bow with no arrows, given a crown, and it says he rode out as a “conqueror bent on conquest” – so, upon first read, we all probably think, “oh, this is a good guy” – why? WHITE HORSE – in fact, Jesus will return on a white horse in Revelation 19, so it makes sense – however, remember, it is Jesus that is breaking the seals, the only one worthy, so it can’t be him leaving heaven at this point, because he is executing the plan – so, who is this white horse? We can get some clues from the words of Jesus himself.

Matthew 24:4-5, Mark 13:5-6, and Luke 21:8, Jesus declares that many false Messiahs will emerge in the end time, deceiving many – this white horse represents the antichrist, a false sense of peace, the great deception – that is why he is carrying a bow with no arrows – his mission is deception, and through propaganda will lead people to believe he is the savior, when, in fact, he is the counterfeit Christ – this is Satan’s MO – he parades around as 2 Cor. 11:14 says as an angel of light, always misrepresenting the truth, but often looking the part – what is important here to note is that this rider is sent into the world by GOD himself – what?
As we read this, we have to remember that this is the sovereign, all-knowing, almighty God setting all of this into motion – he is sending this rider of the white horse into the world to reveal what is true and what is false, the real from the inauthentic – God is in control, and he is allowing the enemy to have one last run at deception before his ultimate demise – he certainly looks the part of a conquering hero, but is actually pedaling false peace, which will soon come to an end
V3-4 – the second living creature says “COME” and a fiery red horse gallops out – And here we read, “the rider was given the
power to take PEACE from the EARTH” – this gives us another clue that horse number one brought a sense of peace, and the 2nd horse quickly takes it away – the way he takes peace is by turning men against each other through war, conflict, rebellion, rioting, civil unrest – we see this in our nation today, but it is nothing compared to what will take place during this time – Matthew 24:6-7, Jesus in sequence talks about this time – wars, rumors of wars, nation against nation – think of how our world must’ve felt during WW2, that Hitler was the antichrist and the world was coming to an end during those years – during WW2, Gen. Omar Bradley delivered an Armistice Day address, speaking of the destructive qualities of mankind:

“We have many men of science; too few men of God.
We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the
Sermon on the Mount. Man is stumbling blindly through
spiritual darkness while toying with the precarious secrets of
life and death. The world has achieved brilliance without
wisdom, power without conscience. Our world is of nuclear
giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than
peace, more about killing than living. This is our 20th century’s
claim to distinction and progress.”

We have not gotten better, only more sophisticated and brilliant with the art of war – whatever we think is being solved or resolved, it will eventually come to a bloody conclusion, worse than any time in human history – and again, this is part of God’s plan for the final restoration of all things – tough stuff.

V5-6 – The third horse is a black horse or famine – Lamentations 5:10 (KJV), black is the color of famine – logical consequence of worldwide war, as food supplies are destroyed – the scales are used to parcel out food, just enough for one man to survive – “2 pounds of wheat for a day’s wage” – other translations say, “a quart of wheat for a denarius” – this translates to ones day’s wage for just enough food to feed one person for one day – not a family, but a person – and barley was a less healthy substitute for wheat, so you could get more, but it was not nutrient rich, so you could feed more, but not get the benefit and still starve – oil and wine were used in cooking, so the imperative here is to protect it a huge commodity because it was crucial to cooking.

Luke 21:11, Jesus speaks of famines and “pestilences” coming next in the narrative of the end – we already see famine as a problem in our world today – famine and hunger kill more people every year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined – about 1 in 9 people on earth, 805 million, don’t have enough food to lead a healthy life – and, with malnourishment comes “pestilences” or diseases – again, the challenges we see today ore NOTHING compared to what is to come.

V7-8 – The pale horse of death – the word pale here is translated “Chloros”, where we get word chlorophyll or chlorine – color is pale yellowish – green, or the color of a decomposing corpse – he says that Hades is behind him – Hades is translated “grave” – so we have death, followed by the grave – and it says here 1⁄4 of the population of the earth is eliminated – today, almost 8 billion people on the planet, so close to 2 billion people will die from war, famine and plague or disease – it also talk of the beast of the earth – not sure
what he is speaking about here, but likely RATS, which annually destroy billions of dollars of food in the US every year, and can carry up to 35 diseases at once – and here’s the worst part – if you exterminate 95% of the rat population in an area, it can replace itself within an year
Ok, we are going to pause here and gain some perspective – for some this morning, you struggle with the thought of a loving God sending all this wrath on the world – here is the truth: God has made provision for escaping this final judgment – Hebrews 2:3, it is ignoring his salvation through Jesus that leaves a person subject to his wrath – in fact, in Romans 1:24, Paul talks about man being given over to themselves because of their refusal to follow Jesus –

Grew up in church culture where goal was to “scare the literal hell out of people” – The problem is the same fear that drives you to Jesus is the same fear that will cause you to abandon him – It is important to see for each of us that we have been given access to the final playbook on God’s wrath being poured out to give us perspective on his desire that ALL should turn and follow him – but make no mistake, God will eradicate sin once and for all, and RESTORE the WORLD to PERFECTION, and those who choose the LAMB will be a part of the FUTURE KINGDOM that will REIGN on the EARTH (Rev 5:10) – John 1:12 this is who we are as people of Jesus, and we get to invite people on this journey to experience REAL PEACE, not the absence of war, famine, sickness and death, but IN SPITE OF war, famine, sickness and death -