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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Even if you haven't studied Revelation, you've probably heard of
the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. What do they represent
and why horses? Today on Turning Point, Doctor David Jeremiah
continues his series Escape the Coming Night with a look
at these prophetic figures described in Revelation chapter six. Listen
(00:26):
as David introduces today's message, the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
And I want to thank you for joining us for
turning Point today. We are studying the Book of Revelation
together and today we find our way into the sixth
chapter of the book as we talk about the four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse. If you have read anything at
all about prophecy, you know the term the four horsemen
of the Apocalypse. The Bible tells us that in the
(00:52):
future there will be a white horse, a red horse,
a black horse, and a pale horse. All of these
horses present some form of scenario that will be on
the Earth during the tribulation, and the horses are given
as metaphors of those events. As we study the Book
of Revelation, we're going to see these events take place
(01:15):
on Earth, and the four horsemen prefigure those and help
us understand it. And you'll know more about that as
we finish today and then again on Monday with part
two of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Hey, we
have a wonderful book that we're making available this month
for those of you who will support us with a gift.
When you send your gift, police ask for the book
(01:36):
Sixty Days of Prophecies, The Truth behind End Time Warnings.
This is a devotional book that has been prepared to
help you spend one day thinking about a prophetic event,
to pray about it, to look at the scripture, to
think about it, ask questions about it, and then move
on to the next one. And when you finish, you
will have studied sixty events of prophecy in two months.
(02:00):
Sixty Days of Prophecies. It's a beautiful book, well illustrated,
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Thank you for your help. Be as generous as you can,
(02:21):
but do what you can and then be sure, no
matter what it is, to ask for this wonderful book. Friends,
we are studying a very exciting portion of the Word
of God right now, and the four horsemen of the
Apocalypse maybe at the center of intrigue when we talk
about the Book of Revelation. So let's talk about it today.
(02:42):
As we open our bibles to Revelation chapter six.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
We have come now to the sixth chapter of the
Book of Revelation, where all of the action of the
book really begins. We have moved through chapters one through five,
studying the things which John saw in chapter one, the
things which are in chapters two and three, and beginning
(03:10):
with the Things which shall be. We have visited the
heavenly scene in chapters four and five. Worship is the
theme of Revelation four and five, but wrath is the
subject of chapter six through nineteen in this book. As
we come to the sixth chapter of the Book of Revelation,
(03:30):
man's day on Earth is dying, structure.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Is being destroyed.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Jesus Christ is just about to take back control of
the earth as the worthy Lamb we saw him in
the fifth chapter, as he comes to the throne of
God Almighty, and in the right hand of the throne
of God.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Is a scroll.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
And John said he looked throughout heaven to find someone
worthy to take the scroll, and there was no one
but the Lamb, and the lab took the scroll, which
was the title Deed to the Earth. And he is
about to unfold that scroll. And in the unfolding of
that scroll, we shall see the entire tribulation unleashed upon
(04:13):
this earth. Now, I want to remind you that this
scroll is the ancient role or document upon which traditional
wills were printed. And the seals are not all on
the edge of the final part of the scroll, but
the seals are placed throughout the roll. By that, I
mean there is a seal that unveils part of the truth,
(04:35):
and then you unroll it, and there's another seal and
that unveils some more of the truth. And as you
open the scroll, the seals are placed one after the
other throughout the scroll, so each seal reveals a little
bit more of the title Deed to the Earth. As
the first of the seals are opened, one of the
four living creatures that we already discovered were angels. One
(04:57):
of the four living creatures summons a writer who is
on the white horse to go forth upon the earth now,
before we examine these four horsemen of the apocalypse, the
white horse, the red horse, the black horse, and the
pale horse, I want to say just a couple of
things to help us understand this passage. First of all,
(05:17):
I want you to note the significance of horses in
this whole passage. Why do we have horses as an
image in the Book of Revelation. It's very difficult for
us to understand that today in our culture, we do
not see the significance of the horse as part of
this imagery. But the Jews held the horse in hide,
honor and reverence and awe. To them, the horse represented
(05:41):
conquest and battle and war, and attack and victory. And
there are several passages in the Old Testament that teach
us that. I want to take just a moment to
read a short passage from the Book of Job that
illustrates the reverence with which the mind held the horse
in the day in which the scripture was written. And
(06:01):
I want to ask you to turn to it. I'm
just going to read it to you. It's in the
thirty ninth chapter of the Book of Job. But listen
to it and catch the significance of the importance of
the whole concept of a horse to a Jewish mind.
Hast thou given the horse his strength? Hast thou clothed
his neck with thunder? Canst thou make him afraid as
(06:23):
a grasshopper? The glory of his nostrils is terrible. He
paweth in the valley and rejoiceth in his strength. He
goeth on to meet the armed man. He mocketh a fear,
and is not afraid. Neither turneth he back from the sword,
the quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear, and the shield.
(06:44):
He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage. Neither believeth
he that it is the sound of the trumpet. He
saith among the trumpets, ha ha, and he smelleth the
battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.
That passage job tells you how the Jewish person thought
of a horse. He thought of a horse in terms
of battle and conquest, and war and victory, and all
(07:07):
of the things that are associated with it. Here in
the Book of Revelation, horses in the Jewish mind represented
God's activity upon this earth and the forces he used
to accomplish his divine purpose.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
So it is not.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Accidental that when we read the Book of Revelation, in
picturing for us the beginning of the tribulation on this earth,
the picture of a horse is used, and the coloring
of the horse is significant. Now, the second thing that's
important introductory is this. It's important for us to know
what's happening when we read four times in this text
(07:39):
the instruction come and see.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Now.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Notice in the sixth chapter we read the first verse
that one of the beasts opened the first seal and
he said, come and see.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Now what does that mean?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Some people believe that the beast is speaking to John,
John the apostle, and saying to John, John, come here
and look at come and see this. But of course
that can't be possible. John's already there. And if he's
already there and he had to be summoned once, surely
they would not have summoned him four times. And four
times we see in this text come and see.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
The word come in the text.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Is the Greek word erco, and it can be translated
not only to come, but it can also be translated
by the words go or proceed. And the way to
understand that phrase in this text, is this the beast
or the angel is speaking to the horse or to
the writer upon the horse, and he is literally sending
that horse forward upon the earth, and he's saying go.
(08:41):
He's instructing that judgment to come upon the earth. He
is saying to the white horse, go to the earth.
He's saying to the black horse, go to the earth.
And he is thrusting him forth to accomplish the purposes.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Which God has ordained.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Now, the opening of the first seal, which we read
about in the second verse, we read, and I saw
and behold the seal is open. And the picture that
is revealed on the scroll is this, I saw and
behold a white horse, and he that sat on him
had a bow, and the crown was given unto him,
and he went forth conquering and to conquer. Now the
(09:21):
white horse was the picture of a conqueror. Here at
the beginning of the tribulation, the white horse rides across
the earth. And of course, the main question we have
to ask is to what does this refer. And it
seems logical if you read the Book of Revelation, that
the white horse and the writer upon the white horse
must be Jesus Christ over in the nineteenth chapter of
(09:42):
the Book of Revelation, and the eleventh verse we read,
and I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse.
And he that sat upon him was called faithful and true,
and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. That's
obviously a reference to Jesus Christ. And so most scholars say,
if Jesus Christ is on a white horse in Revelation nineteen,
(10:05):
and we have a white horse in Revelation six, and
we don't know the identity of the writer, since there's
a white horse with Jesus on it in nineteen, then
this horse must be occupied by Jesus Christ too.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
But it's not that easy. There's some differences.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
In the nineteenth chapter, when we see Christ on the
white horse, we are told that he has for a
weapon a sword. But in chapter six, notice the weapon
is not a sword, but it's a bow. And it's
an interesting bow because there aren't any arrows. There are
no arrows with this bow, just a bow. In chapter nineteen,
(10:43):
we are told that Christ has a crown upon his head,
and the word for crown in chapter nineteen is the
word diadem. It is the kingly crown the crown of eloquence,
belonging to a king alone. But the crown in chapter
six is a Stepfani's crown. It's the victor's crown, but
does not necessarily mean it has to belong to Christ.
(11:04):
It could belong to anyone who goes forward to conquer.
In chapter nineteen, the appearance of the white horse signals
the end of the time of judgment.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
But what do we know about chapter six?
Speaker 3 (11:16):
In chapter six, the white horse is the first appearance
of judgment upon the earth. I cannot imagine for a
moment that the appearance of Christ on the white horse
is to signal the judgment. He's the one that ends
at all. He's the climax of the tribulation, not the beginning.
So if this isn't Christ on the white Horse, then
who could it be? Well, the writer upon the white
(11:39):
Horse of Revelation is none other than the false Christ
or the Antichrist. You see here is the Antichrist riding
into the world at the beginning of the tribulation period
and bringing peace to the world. Please notice that his
bow has no arrows, for we know that the Antichrist
is going to conquer peacefully.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
He won't do it by war.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
This is the false Christ, and he will conquer without
any war at all. Daniel says and Daniel nine twenty
six that the Prince that shall come will make a
covenant with Israel to protect Israel from her enemies. And
the thing that begins the tribulation is the Antichrist coming
to make a covenant with the people of Israel, and believing,
(12:22):
as they do in the Antichrist, that he will protect them.
That is the beginning of the seven years of Tribulation.
The next horse that comes is said to do what
he takes peace from the earth, And power was given
to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth.
What peace does he take from the earth? He takes
(12:44):
the peace from the earth that the Antichrist, who is
the writer on the White Horse, establishes at the very
beginning of the tribulation. What is going to happen at
the beginning of the seven years is that the Antichrist
will come. He'll be the answer to all of men's needs,
and we'll see more about that.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
In a moment.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
He will make peace and everyone will think that the
world's problems are solved. Until three and a half years
and then the covenant with Israel will be broken, and
the tribulation will be horrendously awful. Do not be confused
by the similarity of chapter six to chapter nineteen, because
you see, it has always been the purpose of Satan
(13:23):
to counterfeit the work of Christ, just as we would
expect him to do. He gets as close to the
picture of Christ as he can. Christ has a white horse.
The Antichrist has a white horse. Christ has a weapon.
The Antichrist has a weapon. Christ rides forth, the Antichrist
rides forth. You see, Satan is no ignorant person. In
(13:44):
order for him to deceive the multitudes, he has to
come in the similitude of Christ.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
And therefore there is very much that is similar. Doctor
Chris will, who's.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Writing on the Book of Revelation I greatly admire, says
this about the writer on the white Horse. In the
restlessness of nations, and in the revolution of the masses,
and in the prospect of catastrophic war, the first thing
that will happen is to be the appearance of this
great final dictator, this great final world tyrant. He will
(14:15):
promise peace, and he will bring with him every token
of affluence in prosperity, and the nations of the world
and the peoples of the earth will flock after him.
This is our furer, this is our great leader, This
is our savior and the hope of the world. He
comes riding on a white horse, conquering and to conquer,
and the entire military and economic political resources of the
(14:39):
world are at his disposal.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
So let's just remind ourselves for a moment that the first.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Thing that happens at the beginning of the tribulation period
signaled by the opening of the first seal, which is
the first horse, the white horse, is the appearance of
the Antichrist. Let me just stop for a moment and
say something. That person could easily be alive in our
world today, because you see, the Antichrist isn't going to
appear at the beginning of the seven years of Tribulation
(15:07):
as a baby. He will be a full grown adult,
already in the position of leadership. He will have lived
upon the earth for some thirty, forty or fifty years
before his appearance at the beginning of the tribulation.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
He may already be alive somewhere in the world.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Notice now the second seal is opened Verses three and four.
And when he opened the second seal, I heard the
second beast say, come and see. And there went out
another horse that was red, and power was given to
him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth,
and that they should kill one another. And there was
given unto him a great sword. It is very clear
(15:45):
that the rider on the second horse personifies war. The
horse is red for the purpose of shed blood. It
speaks of the devastation of war. Since the day that
Cain killed his brother Abel, the world has known very
little else but war. But as we watch what is
(16:05):
happening today, we see the escalation of it all. War
is escalating, it is growing, It is becoming more and
more of a problem. Winston Churchill saw the twentieth century
as the Kingdom of War at its summit, and he said,
on an occasion, the coming of nations to full collective
consciousness enabled enterprises of slaughter to be planned and executed
(16:26):
on a scale and with a perseverance never before imagined.
Twice in one generation, the world was plunged into a
major world war. World War One involved twenty seven nations.
It cost the lives of ten million men. It left
twenty million men wounded, and it was to be the
war that would end all wars. But within the short
(16:48):
span of twenty years, the nations were all engaged in
war again, a war that would be longer, costlier, deadlier
than the first war. We are told that World War
II claimed thirty two million people killed on the battlefields,
fifteen to twenty million people were killed in bombing raids
on civilian populations, twenty five million people died in concentration camps,
(17:11):
and thirty million people were wounded.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
And since World.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
War Two that was to end all wars, there have
been limited wars in the world, political assassinations, personal revolts,
rebellions for independence, social revolutions either political or economic, racial
or religious. Now it is of great interest to study
the word that is used in this text, for the
(17:37):
word sword. Look down in your bibles at the fourth verse.
And there went out another horse that was read. Power
was given to him that sat thereon to take peace
from the earth, and that they should kill one another.
And there was given unto him a great sword. Let
me talk about that for just a moment. The word
sword in the text is because there is a Greek
(18:01):
word for the sword of a soldier when he goes
marching to war.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
And it's the word ramphaii.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
And there is another Greek word for a sword, and
it's the word machaira.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
You know what a machira was.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
It was a dagger, a dagger that could be hidden
inside the coat, a dagger that could be concealed. It
was known as the assassin's weapon. And makaira was the
kind of sword with which to cut the throat of
an animal or of a human being. And the red
Horseman represents not only the fact that nation is rising
up against nation and kingdom against kingdom, but men are
(18:39):
fighting against individual men. It is a time of murder
and assassination and bloodshed and revolution and war. And this
second period of the Tribulation, which follows the advent of
the Antichrist, is a time of the breaking out of
war in every aspect of it that we can comprehend.
And we are now seeing the foreshadowing of that in
(19:01):
the world in which you and I live. Some of
you are going to ask the question, what do I
care about the Antichrist or war or famine or death.
That's all in the seven years of Tribulation, that's true,
But every event casts its shadow before it. And as
we see the escalation of these things in our world,
as we discern these things on the uprise and our
culture today, we certainly understand that the day of the
(19:24):
Lord drothnigh.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
And Jesus Christ is coming back soon.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
General Douglas MacArthur, in the book entitled Reminiscence published by
McGraw hill, wrote these words. He said, since the beginning
of time, men have sought peace, military alliances, balances of power,
leagues of nations, all in turn have failed, leaving the
only path to be by the way of crucible of war.
And the utter destructiveness of war now blots out this alternative.
(19:54):
Noted historian Arnold Toynbe reminds us of the relationship of
the red horse and the white Listen carefully, by forcing
on mankind more and more legal weapons, and at the
same time making the world more and more independent economically,
technology has brought mankind to such a degree of distress
(20:15):
that we are ripe for the deifying of any new
caesar who might succeed in giving the world.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
Unity and peace. What is he saying?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
He's saying because man is afraid, Because man is afraid,
that war is imminent, and I hear more people talking
today than ever before about the fact that the world
needs to come together.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
We need to unify, We need to.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Get somebody who can help us solve our world problems
together and men and women. That is the context in
which the anti Christ will appear, and he will have
all the answers and all the resources, and men will
follow him and flock to him because he will be
the one who will save us from worldwide destruction.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
War is a part of that, you see.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
The message of Revelation chapter six is the same message
that Jesus gave in Matthew twenty four. And we're going
to look at that in just a moment. But notice
what he said. He said at the end of time,
at the beginning of the tribulation, at the beginning of sorrows,
here's what we should expect. There will be wars and
rumors of wars. There will be great tribulations. Such has
not occurred since the beginning of the world until now,
(21:18):
no never shall and unless those days had been shortened,
no life will be saved. Jesus said that in the
end of time, at the beginning of the tribulation, there's
going to.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Be wars and rumors of wars.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I dare you to look at any major section of
the globe today where there is not some kind of
conflict or war either going on or just about to start.
All right, let's go to the third seal. The first
seal is the white Horse or the Antichrist. As the
scroll is unrolled, we see that beginning at the tribulation period,
we should expect the Antichrist to appear. It's unrolled a
(21:51):
little bit more. The next seal is opened, and we
see the red horse, and that tells us there's going
to be war. Now we open the third seal. And
as we opened the third seal, we see the black
horse versus five and six. And when he had opened
the third seal, I heard the third beast say, come
and see. And I be held in low a black horse,
and he that sat on him had a pair of
balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in
(22:14):
the midst of the four beasts say, a measure of
wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for
a penny. And see thou hurt not the oil and
the wine. The color of black is often connected with famine.
If you have time, you can look at Jeremiah fourteen
one in two and Lamentations five to ten. You will
(22:35):
see the connection clearly. Famine and war usually go together,
do they not. A shortage of food will always drive
up prices and force the government to ration what is available.
When the text speaks of a penny, it is referring
to the standard daily wage for a laborer in Bible times.
Now look down at your bibles and notice what we're saying.
(22:58):
We're saying that a measure of wheat cost a penny.
A penny was a day's wage. A measure of wheat
was about two pints of wheat. That was the very
least amount that was necessary to sustain one person for
one day. So what the text says was that in
order to get enough wheat just to stay alive yourself.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
You had to give up a whole day's wage.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
You could only work enough in one day to feed yourself.
You could get a little bit more barley because that
was a cheaper grain. But in the tribulation period, along
with the appearance of the Antichrist followed by war, famine
will appear and the globe will be wrenched with hunger
because there.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Will not be enough food to go around.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
The tribulation is a period of suffering that you do
not want to experience. Friends, I hear people say periodically,
I'm going to wait and see if the rapture happens,
and if it does, after the rapture happens, I'll get saved.
And that very well may be. But if you wait
until then to get saved, you're going to go through
all of the tribulations that are on the earth, including
(24:11):
hunger and starvation that we just talked about, because you
won't be taken away until the end of the tribulation.
The Bible says that God has a better plan for us,
and that is He's coming back before the tribulation to
receive to himself all those who have put their trust
in Him. And if you put your trust in him now,
you won't have any of the tribulation things that we're
(24:33):
talking about. You will go straight to be with the
Lord when he comes to get you. Please consider that,
Please think about that, and don't delay doing what you
know you should do. Thank you for listening. We'll see
it right here next time.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
For more information on Doctor Jeremiah series Escape the Coming Night,
please visit our website where we also offer two free
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Davidjeremiah dot org slash Radio. That's Davidjeremiah dot org slash Radio,
(25:16):
or call us at eight hundred ninety four seven nineteen
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You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the
English Standard, New International and New King James versions available
(25:37):
in your choice of versatile and attractive cover options. Get
all the details when you visit our website. Davidjeremiah dot
org slash Radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us
Monday as we continue the series Escape the Coming Night
on Turning Point with Doctor David Jeremiah
Even if you haven't studied Revelation, you've probably heard of
the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. What do they represent
and why horses? Today on Turning Point, Doctor David Jeremiah
continues his series Escape the Coming Night with a look
at these prophetic figures described in Revelation chapter six. Listen
(00:26):
as David introduces today's message, the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
And I want to thank you for joining us for
turning Point today. We are studying the Book of Revelation
together and today we find our way into the sixth
chapter of the book as we talk about the four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse. If you have read anything at
all about prophecy, you know the term the four horsemen
of the Apocalypse. The Bible tells us that in the
(00:52):
future there will be a white horse, a red horse,
a black horse, and a pale horse. All of these
horses present some form of scenario that will be on
the Earth during the tribulation, and the horses are given
as metaphors of those events. As we study the Book
of Revelation, we're going to see these events take place
(01:15):
on Earth, and the four horsemen prefigure those and help
us understand it. And you'll know more about that as
we finish today and then again on Monday with part
two of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Hey, we
have a wonderful book that we're making available this month
for those of you who will support us with a gift.
When you send your gift, police ask for the book
(01:36):
Sixty Days of Prophecies, The Truth behind End Time Warnings.
This is a devotional book that has been prepared to
help you spend one day thinking about a prophetic event,
to pray about it, to look at the scripture, to
think about it, ask questions about it, and then move
on to the next one. And when you finish, you
will have studied sixty events of prophecy in two months.
(02:00):
Sixty Days of Prophecies. It's a beautiful book, well illustrated,
and we want you to have your copy of it
right away. You can get a copy of this book
by sending a gift of any size to Turning Point
to help us with the cost of production and radio
airtime that brings this program to you every single day.
Thank you for your help. Be as generous as you can,
(02:21):
but do what you can and then be sure, no
matter what it is, to ask for this wonderful book. Friends,
we are studying a very exciting portion of the Word
of God right now, and the four horsemen of the
Apocalypse maybe at the center of intrigue when we talk
about the Book of Revelation. So let's talk about it today.
(02:42):
As we open our bibles to Revelation chapter six.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
We have come now to the sixth chapter of the
Book of Revelation, where all of the action of the
book really begins. We have moved through chapters one through five,
studying the things which John saw in chapter one, the
things which are in chapters two and three, and beginning
(03:10):
with the Things which shall be. We have visited the
heavenly scene in chapters four and five. Worship is the
theme of Revelation four and five, but wrath is the
subject of chapter six through nineteen in this book. As
we come to the sixth chapter of the Book of Revelation,
(03:30):
man's day on Earth is dying, structure.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Is being destroyed.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Jesus Christ is just about to take back control of
the earth as the worthy Lamb we saw him in
the fifth chapter, as he comes to the throne of
God Almighty, and in the right hand of the throne
of God.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Is a scroll.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
And John said he looked throughout heaven to find someone
worthy to take the scroll, and there was no one
but the Lamb, and the lab took the scroll, which
was the title Deed to the Earth. And he is
about to unfold that scroll. And in the unfolding of
that scroll, we shall see the entire tribulation unleashed upon
(04:13):
this earth. Now, I want to remind you that this
scroll is the ancient role or document upon which traditional
wills were printed. And the seals are not all on
the edge of the final part of the scroll, but
the seals are placed throughout the roll. By that, I
mean there is a seal that unveils part of the truth,
(04:35):
and then you unroll it, and there's another seal and
that unveils some more of the truth. And as you
open the scroll, the seals are placed one after the
other throughout the scroll, so each seal reveals a little
bit more of the title Deed to the Earth. As
the first of the seals are opened, one of the
four living creatures that we already discovered were angels. One
(04:57):
of the four living creatures summons a writer who is
on the white horse to go forth upon the earth now,
before we examine these four horsemen of the apocalypse, the
white horse, the red horse, the black horse, and the
pale horse, I want to say just a couple of
things to help us understand this passage. First of all,
(05:17):
I want you to note the significance of horses in
this whole passage. Why do we have horses as an
image in the Book of Revelation. It's very difficult for
us to understand that today in our culture, we do
not see the significance of the horse as part of
this imagery. But the Jews held the horse in hide,
honor and reverence and awe. To them, the horse represented
(05:41):
conquest and battle and war, and attack and victory. And
there are several passages in the Old Testament that teach
us that. I want to take just a moment to
read a short passage from the Book of Job that
illustrates the reverence with which the mind held the horse
in the day in which the scripture was written. And
(06:01):
I want to ask you to turn to it. I'm
just going to read it to you. It's in the
thirty ninth chapter of the Book of Job. But listen
to it and catch the significance of the importance of
the whole concept of a horse to a Jewish mind.
Hast thou given the horse his strength? Hast thou clothed
his neck with thunder? Canst thou make him afraid as
(06:23):
a grasshopper? The glory of his nostrils is terrible. He
paweth in the valley and rejoiceth in his strength. He
goeth on to meet the armed man. He mocketh a fear,
and is not afraid. Neither turneth he back from the sword,
the quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear, and the shield.
(06:44):
He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage. Neither believeth
he that it is the sound of the trumpet. He
saith among the trumpets, ha ha, and he smelleth the
battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.
That passage job tells you how the Jewish person thought
of a horse. He thought of a horse in terms
of battle and conquest, and war and victory, and all
(07:07):
of the things that are associated with it. Here in
the Book of Revelation, horses in the Jewish mind represented
God's activity upon this earth and the forces he used
to accomplish his divine purpose.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
So it is not.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Accidental that when we read the Book of Revelation, in
picturing for us the beginning of the tribulation on this earth,
the picture of a horse is used, and the coloring
of the horse is significant. Now, the second thing that's
important introductory is this. It's important for us to know
what's happening when we read four times in this text
(07:39):
the instruction come and see.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Now.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Notice in the sixth chapter we read the first verse
that one of the beasts opened the first seal and
he said, come and see.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Now what does that mean?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Some people believe that the beast is speaking to John,
John the apostle, and saying to John, John, come here
and look at come and see this. But of course
that can't be possible. John's already there. And if he's
already there and he had to be summoned once, surely
they would not have summoned him four times. And four
times we see in this text come and see.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
The word come in the text.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Is the Greek word erco, and it can be translated
not only to come, but it can also be translated
by the words go or proceed. And the way to
understand that phrase in this text, is this the beast
or the angel is speaking to the horse or to
the writer upon the horse, and he is literally sending
that horse forward upon the earth, and he's saying go.
(08:41):
He's instructing that judgment to come upon the earth. He
is saying to the white horse, go to the earth.
He's saying to the black horse, go to the earth.
And he is thrusting him forth to accomplish the purposes.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Which God has ordained.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Now, the opening of the first seal, which we read
about in the second verse, we read, and I saw
and behold the seal is open. And the picture that
is revealed on the scroll is this, I saw and
behold a white horse, and he that sat on him
had a bow, and the crown was given unto him,
and he went forth conquering and to conquer. Now the
(09:21):
white horse was the picture of a conqueror. Here at
the beginning of the tribulation, the white horse rides across
the earth. And of course, the main question we have
to ask is to what does this refer. And it
seems logical if you read the Book of Revelation, that
the white horse and the writer upon the white horse
must be Jesus Christ over in the nineteenth chapter of
(09:42):
the Book of Revelation, and the eleventh verse we read,
and I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse.
And he that sat upon him was called faithful and true,
and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. That's
obviously a reference to Jesus Christ. And so most scholars say,
if Jesus Christ is on a white horse in Revelation nineteen,
(10:05):
and we have a white horse in Revelation six, and
we don't know the identity of the writer, since there's
a white horse with Jesus on it in nineteen, then
this horse must be occupied by Jesus Christ too.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
But it's not that easy. There's some differences.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
In the nineteenth chapter, when we see Christ on the
white horse, we are told that he has for a
weapon a sword. But in chapter six, notice the weapon
is not a sword, but it's a bow. And it's
an interesting bow because there aren't any arrows. There are
no arrows with this bow, just a bow. In chapter nineteen,
(10:43):
we are told that Christ has a crown upon his head,
and the word for crown in chapter nineteen is the
word diadem. It is the kingly crown the crown of eloquence,
belonging to a king alone. But the crown in chapter
six is a Stepfani's crown. It's the victor's crown, but
does not necessarily mean it has to belong to Christ.
(11:04):
It could belong to anyone who goes forward to conquer.
In chapter nineteen, the appearance of the white horse signals
the end of the time of judgment.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
But what do we know about chapter six?
Speaker 3 (11:16):
In chapter six, the white horse is the first appearance
of judgment upon the earth. I cannot imagine for a
moment that the appearance of Christ on the white horse
is to signal the judgment. He's the one that ends
at all. He's the climax of the tribulation, not the beginning.
So if this isn't Christ on the white Horse, then
who could it be? Well, the writer upon the white
(11:39):
Horse of Revelation is none other than the false Christ
or the Antichrist. You see here is the Antichrist riding
into the world at the beginning of the tribulation period
and bringing peace to the world. Please notice that his
bow has no arrows, for we know that the Antichrist
is going to conquer peacefully.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
He won't do it by war.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
This is the false Christ, and he will conquer without
any war at all. Daniel says and Daniel nine twenty
six that the Prince that shall come will make a
covenant with Israel to protect Israel from her enemies. And
the thing that begins the tribulation is the Antichrist coming
to make a covenant with the people of Israel, and believing,
(12:22):
as they do in the Antichrist, that he will protect them.
That is the beginning of the seven years of Tribulation.
The next horse that comes is said to do what
he takes peace from the earth, And power was given
to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth.
What peace does he take from the earth? He takes
(12:44):
the peace from the earth that the Antichrist, who is
the writer on the White Horse, establishes at the very
beginning of the tribulation. What is going to happen at
the beginning of the seven years is that the Antichrist
will come. He'll be the answer to all of men's needs,
and we'll see more about that.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
In a moment.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
He will make peace and everyone will think that the
world's problems are solved. Until three and a half years
and then the covenant with Israel will be broken, and
the tribulation will be horrendously awful. Do not be confused
by the similarity of chapter six to chapter nineteen, because
you see, it has always been the purpose of Satan
(13:23):
to counterfeit the work of Christ, just as we would
expect him to do. He gets as close to the
picture of Christ as he can. Christ has a white horse.
The Antichrist has a white horse. Christ has a weapon.
The Antichrist has a weapon. Christ rides forth, the Antichrist
rides forth. You see, Satan is no ignorant person. In
(13:44):
order for him to deceive the multitudes, he has to
come in the similitude of Christ.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
And therefore there is very much that is similar. Doctor
Chris will, who's.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Writing on the Book of Revelation I greatly admire, says
this about the writer on the white Horse. In the
restlessness of nations, and in the revolution of the masses,
and in the prospect of catastrophic war, the first thing
that will happen is to be the appearance of this
great final dictator, this great final world tyrant. He will
(14:15):
promise peace, and he will bring with him every token
of affluence in prosperity, and the nations of the world
and the peoples of the earth will flock after him.
This is our furer, this is our great leader, This
is our savior and the hope of the world. He
comes riding on a white horse, conquering and to conquer,
and the entire military and economic political resources of the
(14:39):
world are at his disposal.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
So let's just remind ourselves for a moment that the first.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Thing that happens at the beginning of the tribulation period
signaled by the opening of the first seal, which is
the first horse, the white horse, is the appearance of
the Antichrist. Let me just stop for a moment and
say something. That person could easily be alive in our
world today, because you see, the Antichrist isn't going to
appear at the beginning of the seven years of Tribulation
(15:07):
as a baby. He will be a full grown adult,
already in the position of leadership. He will have lived
upon the earth for some thirty, forty or fifty years
before his appearance at the beginning of the tribulation.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
He may already be alive somewhere in the world.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Notice now the second seal is opened Verses three and four.
And when he opened the second seal, I heard the
second beast say, come and see. And there went out
another horse that was red, and power was given to
him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth,
and that they should kill one another. And there was
given unto him a great sword. It is very clear
(15:45):
that the rider on the second horse personifies war. The
horse is red for the purpose of shed blood. It
speaks of the devastation of war. Since the day that
Cain killed his brother Abel, the world has known very
little else but war. But as we watch what is
(16:05):
happening today, we see the escalation of it all. War
is escalating, it is growing, It is becoming more and
more of a problem. Winston Churchill saw the twentieth century
as the Kingdom of War at its summit, and he said,
on an occasion, the coming of nations to full collective
consciousness enabled enterprises of slaughter to be planned and executed
(16:26):
on a scale and with a perseverance never before imagined.
Twice in one generation, the world was plunged into a
major world war. World War One involved twenty seven nations.
It cost the lives of ten million men. It left
twenty million men wounded, and it was to be the
war that would end all wars. But within the short
(16:48):
span of twenty years, the nations were all engaged in
war again, a war that would be longer, costlier, deadlier
than the first war. We are told that World War
II claimed thirty two million people killed on the battlefields,
fifteen to twenty million people were killed in bombing raids
on civilian populations, twenty five million people died in concentration camps,
(17:11):
and thirty million people were wounded.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
And since World.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
War Two that was to end all wars, there have
been limited wars in the world, political assassinations, personal revolts,
rebellions for independence, social revolutions either political or economic, racial
or religious. Now it is of great interest to study
the word that is used in this text, for the
(17:37):
word sword. Look down in your bibles at the fourth verse.
And there went out another horse that was read. Power
was given to him that sat thereon to take peace
from the earth, and that they should kill one another.
And there was given unto him a great sword. Let
me talk about that for just a moment. The word
sword in the text is because there is a Greek
(18:01):
word for the sword of a soldier when he goes
marching to war.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
And it's the word ramphaii.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
And there is another Greek word for a sword, and
it's the word machaira.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
You know what a machira was.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
It was a dagger, a dagger that could be hidden
inside the coat, a dagger that could be concealed. It
was known as the assassin's weapon. And makaira was the
kind of sword with which to cut the throat of
an animal or of a human being. And the red
Horseman represents not only the fact that nation is rising
up against nation and kingdom against kingdom, but men are
(18:39):
fighting against individual men. It is a time of murder
and assassination and bloodshed and revolution and war. And this
second period of the Tribulation, which follows the advent of
the Antichrist, is a time of the breaking out of
war in every aspect of it that we can comprehend.
And we are now seeing the foreshadowing of that in
(19:01):
the world in which you and I live. Some of
you are going to ask the question, what do I
care about the Antichrist or war or famine or death.
That's all in the seven years of Tribulation, that's true,
But every event casts its shadow before it. And as
we see the escalation of these things in our world,
as we discern these things on the uprise and our
culture today, we certainly understand that the day of the
(19:24):
Lord drothnigh.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
And Jesus Christ is coming back soon.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
General Douglas MacArthur, in the book entitled Reminiscence published by
McGraw hill, wrote these words. He said, since the beginning
of time, men have sought peace, military alliances, balances of power,
leagues of nations, all in turn have failed, leaving the
only path to be by the way of crucible of war.
And the utter destructiveness of war now blots out this alternative.
(19:54):
Noted historian Arnold Toynbe reminds us of the relationship of
the red horse and the white Listen carefully, by forcing
on mankind more and more legal weapons, and at the
same time making the world more and more independent economically,
technology has brought mankind to such a degree of distress
(20:15):
that we are ripe for the deifying of any new
caesar who might succeed in giving the world.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
Unity and peace. What is he saying?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
He's saying because man is afraid, Because man is afraid,
that war is imminent, and I hear more people talking
today than ever before about the fact that the world
needs to come together.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
We need to unify, We need to.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Get somebody who can help us solve our world problems
together and men and women. That is the context in
which the anti Christ will appear, and he will have
all the answers and all the resources, and men will
follow him and flock to him because he will be
the one who will save us from worldwide destruction.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
War is a part of that, you see.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
The message of Revelation chapter six is the same message
that Jesus gave in Matthew twenty four. And we're going
to look at that in just a moment. But notice
what he said. He said at the end of time,
at the beginning of the tribulation, at the beginning of sorrows,
here's what we should expect. There will be wars and
rumors of wars. There will be great tribulations. Such has
not occurred since the beginning of the world until now,
(21:18):
no never shall and unless those days had been shortened,
no life will be saved. Jesus said that in the
end of time, at the beginning of the tribulation, there's
going to.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Be wars and rumors of wars.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I dare you to look at any major section of
the globe today where there is not some kind of
conflict or war either going on or just about to start.
All right, let's go to the third seal. The first
seal is the white Horse or the Antichrist. As the
scroll is unrolled, we see that beginning at the tribulation period,
we should expect the Antichrist to appear. It's unrolled a
(21:51):
little bit more. The next seal is opened, and we
see the red horse, and that tells us there's going
to be war. Now we open the third seal. And
as we opened the third seal, we see the black
horse versus five and six. And when he had opened
the third seal, I heard the third beast say, come
and see. And I be held in low a black horse,
and he that sat on him had a pair of
balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in
(22:14):
the midst of the four beasts say, a measure of
wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for
a penny. And see thou hurt not the oil and
the wine. The color of black is often connected with famine.
If you have time, you can look at Jeremiah fourteen
one in two and Lamentations five to ten. You will
(22:35):
see the connection clearly. Famine and war usually go together,
do they not. A shortage of food will always drive
up prices and force the government to ration what is available.
When the text speaks of a penny, it is referring
to the standard daily wage for a laborer in Bible times.
Now look down at your bibles and notice what we're saying.
(22:58):
We're saying that a measure of wheat cost a penny.
A penny was a day's wage. A measure of wheat
was about two pints of wheat. That was the very
least amount that was necessary to sustain one person for
one day. So what the text says was that in
order to get enough wheat just to stay alive yourself.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
You had to give up a whole day's wage.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
You could only work enough in one day to feed yourself.
You could get a little bit more barley because that
was a cheaper grain. But in the tribulation period, along
with the appearance of the Antichrist followed by war, famine
will appear and the globe will be wrenched with hunger
because there.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Will not be enough food to go around.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
The tribulation is a period of suffering that you do
not want to experience. Friends, I hear people say periodically,
I'm going to wait and see if the rapture happens,
and if it does, after the rapture happens, I'll get saved.
And that very well may be. But if you wait
until then to get saved, you're going to go through
all of the tribulations that are on the earth, including
(24:11):
hunger and starvation that we just talked about, because you
won't be taken away until the end of the tribulation.
The Bible says that God has a better plan for us,
and that is He's coming back before the tribulation to
receive to himself all those who have put their trust
in Him. And if you put your trust in him now,
you won't have any of the tribulation things that we're
(24:33):
talking about. You will go straight to be with the
Lord when he comes to get you. Please consider that,
Please think about that, and don't delay doing what you
know you should do. Thank you for listening. We'll see
it right here next time.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
For more information on Doctor Jeremiah series Escape the Coming Night,
please visit our website where we also offer two free
ways to help you stay connected, our monthly Turning Points
magazine and our daily email devotional Sign up today at
Davidjeremiah dot org slash Radio. That's Davidjeremiah dot org slash Radio,
(25:16):
or call us at eight hundred ninety four seven nineteen
ninety three. Ask for your copy of David's timely and
valuable new book, Sixty Days of Prophecy, The Truth behind
Endtime Warnings. It's yours for a gift of any amount.
You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the
English Standard, New International and New King James versions available
(25:37):
in your choice of versatile and attractive cover options. Get
all the details when you visit our website. Davidjeremiah dot
org slash Radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us
Monday as we continue the series Escape the Coming Night
on Turning Point with Doctor David Jeremiah
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