Christina in Worcester, Massachusetts,
listening on Emmanuel Radio, thank you for
calling Immac--excuse me, thank you for
calling--I'm sorry, I almost did that...
That's okay. Hey Jimmy, I have a really good
question for you. Okay. I purchased your
DVD on "Understanding Revelation." Oh,
awesome. And I have to commend you on
that, it's an excellent DVD, but I have a
question. Okay. Regarding the Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse, is that
something that's going to happen in the
future? Are there signs do we need to
look for for those Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse?
I know it's War, Pestilence, Death...
and I think there was one more, I remember
that. Yeah. Are there signs that we have to
look for, or is this something that's
already happened, or how do--I just need
that answer. Well, I'll give you my perspective.
So, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse;
the first one is a--and I'll do this real
briefly, but for people who may not be
familiar--the first--in the book of
Revelation, or the Apocalypse as it's
also called, John the Seer sees a
sequence of four horsemen and their
riders. And the first horse is white, and
seated on it is a conqueror who comes
out with a bow, and he's given the
ability to conquer. And second is a red
horse that has a sword and is given the
ability to take peace from the Earth. The
third horse is black and has a pair of
scales, and John hears an audible message
that indicates that wheat and barley and,
you know, grains like that have become
fantastically expensive by the standards
of the ancient world. And then the last
horse, it actually says "green" in
Greek, the word is "chlorós," which is the
same place we get "chlorophyll;" but the
green horse is explicitly identified as
Death. And so when you look at this
sequence
of symbols, there's a debate about the
who the first horse is; some people-- because
later we see Christ in Revelation
riding a white horse, although he has a
sword on that occasion, not a bow--some
people, a lot of people, have said "Okay,
the first horse is Christ; the second
horse, since it's red and takes peace
from the Earth is obviously War; the
third horse is black and has the scales
with the fantastically expensive food, so
that's Famine; and then the last horse is
Death. And so that's who they are."
Now, there's another interpretation of
the first horse, which is the white one
where they've got the conqueror with the
bow. That doesn't have to be Christ, you
know, there are a lot of people in
history who've ridden white horses: Gandalf,
The Lone Ranger--
Is Gandalf history? Is Gandalf part of history? Well, you know, in literary history. And so there are
a lot of people also who have been
kind of false images of Christ.
Like, you know, Augustus Caesar liked to
be known as the Son of God.
Okay, and Domitian,
another Roman emperor, had people refer
to him as "my lord and my god." So there's
a kind of Satanic echo of Christ in the
Roman system. And so this could be a
nasty Roman pagan
false Christ conqueror, like Nero Caesar,
who also shows up in Revelation as the
Beast of Revelation. So which one--you can
have your own opinion, Cy, but to me the
sequence "pagan emperor leads to war
leads to famine leads to death"
makes more sense than "Jesus Christ leads
to war leads to famine leads to death."
Right. So I would say that, given the
fact that the rest of the book of
Revelation says it's about things that
are going to happen soon, from John's
perspective, we need to look
to most of the events in Revelation as
having their primary fulfillment either
in the first century or in the first few
centuries.
So I would say that what the Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse symbolize, in
their primary sense, is the conflict that
the ambition and warlike nature of the
Roman emperors led to in the first
century, not only in the--leading up
to the destruction of Jerusalem in the
A.D. 60s, but also in the year of four
emperors, where you had a massive
series of rapid civil wars in Rome at
the exact same time as Jerusalem was
under siege. This was in 68 at a slightly
earlier stage in the war, 68-69, so that
you had Nero and Galba and Otho and
Vitellius just rapidly taking office and
seizing it from each other.
And it was a very violent period and I
think that's what's being talked about.
So I think the primary period we're
talking about here with the four
horsemen is first century, not in our
future. Having said that, I think this
also articulates a familiar historical
pattern, where the ambition of rulers
leads them to war which leads to famine
which leads to death. And so this is
something we have to perennially be on
the lookout for, because even though the
primary fulfillment may have been in the
first century,
there can be other fulfillments in other
ages as well, including in our future. Does that work for you? Thank you so much, Jimmy, and
like--oh, that was great, and like I said,
the DVD was super. I enjoyed the whole--
like you said, too, there's a lot of
symbolism, you know, in the
Revelation book also, it's just
unbelievable. But, you know, I commend
you on that DVD, it was excellent, thank you
so much. Thank you so much! Thank you
Christina. Boy, that did make a lot of
sense. The Gandalf part, no. But the
kind of false...we do as a
species kind of keep following false
messiahs. That's part of a symptom of
being human, isn't it? Yeah. Also, and this
is something I actually mentioned on the
DVD, white horses are often used by
rulers, by political rulers, and
not just because they look cool, but
apparently--at least this is what they
said in my horsemanship
class--white horses have better eyesight
than other horses. And so if you're a
horse, you know, your whole survival
strategy is based on running away from
things. There's some danger, you're going to run
away from it.
And so you would therefore want your
pack or herd to have someone with good
eyesight that would serve as the warning,
and so white horses get more street cred
from other horses because they're
better scouts. Because they're the good
leader, then. They kind of symbolize those.
Yeah. I think I may be part horse. Running
away from trouble is my strategy, Jimmy.
That's my primary life strategy, if I
see something--my eyesight is failing, though.
I don't know if that's strategy's going
to keep working. Yeah.
