And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, "Come!" And I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and the one sitting upon it was named Death, and Hades followed after him. And they were given authority over the fourth of the earth, to kill with the sword, with famine, with pestilence, and by the beasts of the earth. Rev. 6:7, 8.
The key Old Testament background to the four horses of Revelation 6 is the covenant and its curses. But we also find additional background within the New Testament. Revelation 6 has strong parallels with what scholars call the Synoptic Apocalypse, the end-time sermon of Jesus recorded in Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21. These three chapters, therefore, form the major New Testament background text for Revelation 6.
In the Synoptic Apocalypse Jesus moves through a series of events that will characterize the whole Christian age from the cross until the second coming of Jesus. They include wars and rumors of wars. Earthquakes, famines, and pestilences will strike various places. In addition, Christ speaks of deception, persecution, and a final climax in heavenly signs. All of these themes also occur in Revelation 6. The basic message of both passages is that God is in full control of history, even when bad things afflict God's people. The course of human history is the consequence of the Lamb opening the book.
After I had taught a class on Revelation 6, a young man, extremely upset, came up to question me. Taking issue with a couple things I had said in discussing the chapter, he seemed to have great difficulty with the idea that God was "in control" of human history. After some discussion he finally revealed that when he was a teen-ager he had been forced to watch the murder of his brother. The horrendous event forever marked him and the way he thought about God.
You see, he felt that if God could have intervened on that occasion, He should have. Since He did not, the young man was angry with Him. But that placed him in a dilemma. He didn't want to be angry with God. So his solution to the dilemma was to believe that God did not have the power to come to his brother's aid.
I affirmed his need to do theology in light of his brother's death. But I pointed out that for some people the thought that God was unable to intervene would be even more frightening than the idea that He sometimes chooses not to. On the surface the world seems completely out of control. But the message of Revelation 6 and the Synoptic Apocalypse is that even when things seem chaotic, God still rules and will set everything right in his good time.
Lord, I trust Your judgment and Your timing. Help me to have faith in You even when I think You should have intervened and You did not.
The key Old Testament background to the four horses of Revelation 6 is the covenant and its curses. But we also find additional background within the New Testament. Revelation 6 has strong parallels with what scholars call the Synoptic Apocalypse, the end-time sermon of Jesus recorded in Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21. These three chapters, therefore, form the major New Testament background text for Revelation 6.
In the Synoptic Apocalypse Jesus moves through a series of events that will characterize the whole Christian age from the cross until the second coming of Jesus. They include wars and rumors of wars. Earthquakes, famines, and pestilences will strike various places. In addition, Christ speaks of deception, persecution, and a final climax in heavenly signs. All of these themes also occur in Revelation 6. The basic message of both passages is that God is in full control of history, even when bad things afflict God's people. The course of human history is the consequence of the Lamb opening the book.
After I had taught a class on Revelation 6, a young man, extremely upset, came up to question me. Taking issue with a couple things I had said in discussing the chapter, he seemed to have great difficulty with the idea that God was "in control" of human history. After some discussion he finally revealed that when he was a teen-ager he had been forced to watch the murder of his brother. The horrendous event forever marked him and the way he thought about God.
You see, he felt that if God could have intervened on that occasion, He should have. Since He did not, the young man was angry with Him. But that placed him in a dilemma. He didn't want to be angry with God. So his solution to the dilemma was to believe that God did not have the power to come to his brother's aid.
I affirmed his need to do theology in light of his brother's death. But I pointed out that for some people the thought that God was unable to intervene would be even more frightening than the idea that He sometimes chooses not to. On the surface the world seems completely out of control. But the message of Revelation 6 and the Synoptic Apocalypse is that even when things seem chaotic, God still rules and will set everything right in his good time.
Lord, I trust Your judgment and Your timing. Help me to have faith in You even when I think You should have intervened and You did not.
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