The first beast, living creature—lion—calls up the first horse with its rider. Due to the parallel with the ‘discourse on the last things’ we said that this is the preaching of the Gospel to the ends of the earth.1 Although some people see the false christs and the false messiahs and the false prophets here,2 because of a parallel with the same discourse of Jesus on the ‘signs of the times’ and the last things in Matthew 24 – yet the white colour and the conqueror’s crown and the conquering nature of the lion nevertheless seem rather to indicate this to be the preaching of the true Gospel. However, everyone agrees on what the following three horsemen will bring: death and destruction, hunger and war—yes, even mass slaughter, genocide—over the whole world.
When the Lamb opens the second seal (for He is revealing the contents of the scroll) the second ‘beast/living creature’—ox—calls up the second horse with its rider. This horse is ruddy, as red as blood, and has a large sword, with which to slaughter. He is going to take the peace away from the earth—a conscious, malevolent scheme with a purpose, so that they would slaughter each other (!). Satan is the ‘murderer from the beginning’ and the ‘father of lies’3 and this second rider rides on the second horse, which has the colour of the ‘dragon’.4 There is no question that this could refer to a possible defensive war or of a war of economic gains or interests, or even to an ideological war. Here conditions are created, situations and circumstances manipulated that would lead to mutual frenzy. Think of the mass-killings in Cambodia and Rwanda. “People against people and kingdom against kingdom,” the Lord Jesus says.5 Think of the French Revolution, which ‘ate up’ its own children, after having first shed rivers of blood under the guillotine. Think of the victorious campaigns of Napoleon, Bismarck, Wilhelm II, Hitler. Think of the Russian Revolution and the Chinese Revolution with millions of victims under Stalin and Mao Zedong. Think of the mass-killings in the First World War and in WWII. Think of Vietnam and the torture chambers of the juntas in South America. Think of … we could go on endlessly.
Has there ever been a time of real peace on planet earth? And what is awaiting us if the ABC (Atom, Bacteriological and Chemical) weapons are indeed used? We saw a small foretaste at Hiroshima, and when chemical weapons were used in the First World War, and in Iraq. How the people must have trembled in John’s days at the thought that the ‘Pax Romana’ – the peace of Rome—that stretched far beyond the area of the Mediterranean Sea—was to disappear. To be taken away.
At this point if time in the book of Revelation the Peace is taken away. What a terrible thought. Ideological propaganda, sometimes disguised under the term ‘democratic’, left- wing and right-wing, and the drums of war are heard and seen in the media today. If there is no peace, structures collapse and justice disappears. In one word: lawlessness prevails. ‘Homo homini lupus est’, the Romans said. Meaning: man is a wolf to man. More and more chaos, and rivers of blood. Auschwitz and Hiroshima. There were more victims in the two World Wars of the twentieth century than in all the previous wars in all the previous centuries, even counted together. A large, big sword was given to kill on a mass scale. Hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousand, and millions of people– just by one strike with these modern weapons of mass-destruction. Will people come to their senses and repent? Will people change and convert because of these pending disasters and these terrors that are facing us all? Some will, but very many will not. How about us, you and me?
• Problems and need teaches people to pray, they say. But problems and need can also teach people to curse, however. It depends whether we learn to bow under God’s judgments, or whether, on the contrary, we harden ourselves, like Pharaoh. This king of Egypt in the Bible at first hardened his heart; then later, when he changed his mind, the Lord hardened his heart.6 “When the earth experiences Thy judgments, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.”7
• Daniel knows that many will allow themselves to be purified and made spotless and refined, but that the godless will behave godlessly.8 “Your troops will be willing on Your day of battle. Arrayed in holy splendour, Your young men will come to You like dew from the morning’s womb.” Psalm 110:3 NIV. So some will change, Revelation 11:13. But it is also written: “Nor did they repent.”9
Bible References:
1.Matthew 24:14, Mark 13:10 2.Matthew 24:4–5, 11, 23–24 3.John 8:44 4.Revelation 12:3 5.Matthew 24:6–7 6.Exodus 7:22, 8:15, 19, 32, 9:7, 12, 34–35, 10:20, 11:9–10 7.Isaiah 26:9b 8.Daniel 12:10 9.Revelation 9:21; 16:9-11 and 21
