END OF TIME PROPHECIES 095

THE FOURTH SEAL           GLOBAL CARNAGE          Revelation 6v7-8

"And when He had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say Come and see.   And I looked and behold a pale horse and his name that sat on it was death, and hell followed with him.   And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill with the sword and with hunger and with death, and with the wild beasts of the earth."

The symbol is now that of the pale horse; the root word suggests a greenish- blue colour, the same colour as putrefying flesh.   The event here is of death on a scale never seen before.   When we come to the sixth seal, we shall understand that these six seals are describing events in the period described in the bible as "the day of the Lord."   We must not think of these seals as chronological, in the sense of one following after the other.   One seal arises out of another but the conditions describing each seal is ongoing throughout the entire period; and so we have continuous deception, continuous warfare, continuous famine and the resultant continuous death.  

God has allowed a wicked man to ascend to world power.   Revelation 13 reveals that the whole world go after this man.   Having rejected God's man, Jesus the Messiah, the world (including the bulk of the Jewish nation) will go after the devil's man.   We shall however learn that in fact all he is doing is accomplishing God's will in bringing severe conditions upon the earth.   Focus is made on those riding the pale horse; they are said to be death, followed by hell.   death and hell in the bible are always seen together, even at the end in Revelation 20v13-14.   Death is the vehicle through which human beings who are unregenerate enter into hell; there are no exceptions.   The scene here is truly awesome.  

There is an element of mercy in the judgment of God, and he limits the operations to  "the fourth part of the earth."   Nevertheless sudden death comes to millions, and millions go straight to hell from the hell on earth that has encompassed them.   We all ought to live in the fear of God.  

The judgments are fearsome; he quotes here four means of death; the sword/famine/death/wild beasts.   These four instruments of death in the hand of God are described in Ezekiel 14v21 as follows:  "For thus saith the Lord God how much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?"   These instruments of death are exactly the same instruments of divine wrath He will use in the end times.   A study of the divine judgments in the world of Noah, on the cities of the plain, on Jerusalem on the nation of Israel as a whole, and on Egypt serve to remind us that God will punish wickedness.   The scale of His judgment thus far, however, will be far greater than anything that has gone before.   Jesus said this when speaking of the last days in Matthew 24v21-22  "For there shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no not ever shall be.   And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved; but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened."   Finally we look at the four instruments of God's wrath:

• The sword.          This was the key weapon of the Roman army and was feared by all wherever they went.   The bible uses language relative to the time, and would expect us to translate the idea of the sword as being the most feared weapons of any period of time.   Therefore the sword today could be missiles, or bombs, or lasers, or weapons of mass destruction.   God will allow to be unleashed on the world the weaponry of military might.
• Famine.              Those familiar with old Testament scripture will understand that God has used this basic weapon against mankind in various places to bring people to subjection.   The denial of food to human beings must be the most potent weapon of all.   The first mention is in Genesis 12v10  "there was a famine in the land and Abraham went down into Egypt."   In the book of Ruth 1v1 it is recorded that "In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land."   In the early church in Acts 11v28 the prophet Agabus declared  "that there should be a great dearth throughout all the world; which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar.  through all those thousands of years God has used famine, but the famine of the day to come will be like nothing that has ever been seen.  
• Death.                The Old Testament renders this as "pestilence" and can refer either to death by swarms of insects or by bodily disease.   In Joel 1v4 and 2v25 he describes the locusts, the cankerworm, the palmerworm, and the caterpillar, as "my great army."   We all of us must understand that God holds in His hand the life and breath of every man.   For sure in the context of war and famine, pestilence will follow.  
• Wild beasts.       The old testament describes them as "noisome beasts" and this perhaps gives us the clue.   In days of severe famine the last to be fed will be animals, and when they are denied their food they will emerge from their subjection to man and attack man in the interest of survival.   According to Genesis 1v26-28 and Psalm 8v6-8, God placed all the animals in subjection to man and to a large degree this has been so even in the world's fallen state as it is now.   In that day God will remove His restraining hand and wild animals will go on the rampage.