-----------Behold A Pale Horse--------

Revelation Chapter 6 states: 7 When He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, "Come and see." 8 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.

Chapter 6 begins the 21 judgements of God on Earth's inhabitants that will take place during a period of time known as the tribulation. The reason for these judgments is that Christ is going to set up His kingdom on Earth and He is going to have remove the sinful element for His kingdom to flourish. The judgments begin with the rise of a false messiah who deceives through diplomacy and promises of peace, but he honors the god of war. This is signified by the red horse who takes peace from the earth and the black horse shows the resulting famines, inflation, and disease as the result of war. Then it gets worse.

Pale is translated from the Greek word "Chloros" which means green. This is probably a light green color or possibly a "sickly green". It says that a fourth of the earth will be killed. If it were to happen today, that would mean 1.5 billion people would lose their lives. None of these people are destined to enter into heaven. The judgement has come because they rejected God. Their messiah is Satan in the form of Antichrist. God is a jealous God and the very first commandment he gave to Moses was Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3

God created us and He wants to fellowship with us but He can't do that if He is rejected. The pale rider has been given the power to destroy the physical bodies of mankind. We know they are unsaved because Hades or Hell follows with him. The spirits and souls of those who die then will enter into Hades. This is not the lake of fire which is the final abode of all who reject God. Hades is a holding area to keep the lost souls until the time of trial. The concept is very similar to putting a criminal in jail to await trial before he is sentenced to prison.

How does the pale rider destroy the bodies of men? His first method is by sword. This is a metaphor for war. What type of warfare could destroy hundreds of millions of lives? There is only one type and that is nuclear warfare. If terrorists have no qualms about blowing themselves up, then it is only a matter of time when the bomb they detonate that will cause themselves to die will be a nuclear bomb. This will occur during the tribulation. If a city is destroyed by a nuclear attack, then there will be reprisals and more nuclear destruction.

The second method used to destroy men is hunger. We have famine in Africa in which thousands die. What causes this famine? It is not a lack of soil that can produce food, but corrupt governments that seize farmland for themselves and cause war and strife in their countries that leads to the lack of food for its own people. A nuclear war would make crops inedible because of radiation poison. Also, this would affect the weather and there could be drought throughout the world. There would also be a lack of people who knew how to farm because they were killed.

The third method used is death. The pale rider kills with death. That doesn't make a lot of sense, but when you consider that the writer of the book of Revelation lived in a time when microbes were a mystery, then the only way he knew how to write down what he was seeing was that death killed them. This is probably a reference to disease. Without hospitals and available antibiotics, combined with super-viruses, it is easy to see how millions could succumb to disease. In fact, it could be the result of biological warfare.

The fourth method used is the beasts of the earth. If there is no food for man, then there will be no food for animals either. A hungry animal will kill for food. Envision packs of dogs killing people who are in isolated areas. Big cats attacking people in parking lots. Bears breaking into houses for food. Animals also carry disease. There may be many rabid animals at this time. AIDS is known as the "green monkey virus" because it was transferred from monkey to man. Many types of flu originate in birds.

This will be a time of great horror for this planet but it will not last long and those who have accepted Christ's pardon will never see it happen. The questions is: Where you will be at this time?

Copyright by Gary Goodworth 2005