Read with Me
Revelation 6:7-8 (NET)
Then when the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come!” So I looked, and here came a pale green horse! The name of the one who rode it was Death, and Hades followed right behind. They were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill its population with the sword, famine, and disease, and by the wild animals of the earth.
Listen with Me
The breaking of the fourth seal by the Lamb and the command of the fourth living creature to “Come”, brought forth an alarming rider, the last of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”. The horse itself was a sickly greenish-gray color, the color of the skin of someone who is deathly ill. The rider of the horse was Death personified, and John saw Hades, symbolizing the grave or the afterlife of doomed souls, following in his wake.
These were given authority by God to inflict death throughout the whole Roman Empire (the frequent meaning of the Greek word “ge”, “earth” or “land”, in these prophecies). This would be accomplished through God’s usual agents of the sword, or warfare and rebellion; famine, as had already been seen in the third rider; disease, including all kinds of plagues; and wild animals (see Ezekiel 14:21 for another example of this form of judgment.)
These agents of God’s judgment would be responsible for the death of a quarter of those in the empire, weakening the whole structure of society, and opening the doors to future attacks from without and collapses from within. Implied by the fact that this is not a natural occurrence, but a specific judgment from God’s hand, is the understanding that God will shelter his people from these plagues as they unfold.
Even though many of the believers might hope that these plagues would be unleashed immediately, and that the widespread destruction would happen overnight, what actually happened was identical to what happened when God unleashed these same destructive plagues against His own people in Israel and Judea because of their sin and rebellion. Instead of being instantaneous, God caused a slow-motion collapse of security and people as He inexorably brought these pressures to bear on the land. And this ultimately led to the complete collapse and destruction of the entire nation.
Pray with Me
Father, we have seen this “slow motion collapse” that ultimately results in the sudden dissolving of a whole governmental system in our own day in the collapse of the Soviet Union. This reminds us that these tools are still in Your hand to be used whenever Your people are oppressed and persecuted by tyrannical regimes that emulate the iron hand of Rome. If they will not repent, they will be destroyed, or so severely weakened that they never regain their ability to harm Your people. And this is the case no matter how large these oppressive regimes become. Rome was considered by many to be too powerful, too well-equipped, to organized, and even too large to fail. But You brought divine pressure to bear on them, attacking in ways that no human force ever could. And You ultimately brought the whole system to an end. Lord, thank You that You are able to fight and win against any foe of Your people and Your kingdom, no matter how big or fearsome they might be. Amen.