Josh Broward
August 20, 2006
The Four Horsemen are probably the most popular image in the Revelation.1 The Four Horsemen show up in so many ways that I can’t possibly list them all, but let me give you a few of my favorites from my research this week.2
In the TV show The Real Ghostbusters, the Ghostbusters have to try to stop the Four Horsemen after they accidentally get out. Oops.
Robot Chicken, an animation show, once featured a spoof (or gag) with My Little Pony childrens toys in the form of the Four Horsemen.
One TV show that never made it to regular TV was called Waiting Four Horsemen, and the theme was the Four Horsemen of Revelation waiting in a modern day apartment for God to call them out to start the End of the World. I bet they had some strange conversations!
The Four Horsemen have shown up in all kinds of music, from Metallica (hard rock) to Johnny Cash (country-western) to Outkast (rap).
And different groups and things have been named after the Four Horsemen, including: 4 Notre Dame football players, calculus professors (at the Georgia Institute of Technology), professional wrestlers, NBA star LeBron James’s close friends, and one very strong alcoholic drink.
Of all of the possible biblical themes, the Western world has chosen to embrace this one. Great! That’s not really the way I want the Bible to be remembered. To make matters worse, the world (and Christians) generally misunderstand the Four Horsemen.
There are four basic ways to view the Four Horsemen, and Revelation in general.3
Preterists concentrate Revelation’s time in the first century A.D, saying that all (or almost all) of the events of the Revelation were fulfilled within the first century A.D. (The Four Horsemen rode in the first century only.)
Historists stretch Revelation’s time across all of history, saying “Revelation provides a detailed map of history from its own day until Jesus’ return.” (The Four Horsemen ride in sequence in different centuries.)
Futurists project all of Revelation’s time into the future, saying the events in Revelation won’t happen until the very end of the world. They are in the future. (The Four Horsemen will ride sometime in the future at the end of the world.)
Idealists say that Revelation stands outside of time all together, saying that Revelation describes the timeless struggles of good and evil, God and Satan. (The Four Horsemen are always riding in every century.)
Actually, today most scholars combine two or more of these views. Revelation demands an eclectic (mixed) approach to understand its many varied images. Unfortunately, for us Christians and for our world in general, the idealist approach is strongest when we read about the Four Horsemen. In other words, the Four Horsemen are always riding in every century. I don’t think Christians can expect God to rescue us out of the suffering of the world through a “pre-tribulation rapture.” On the contrary, Revelation says very clearly that Christians will suffer right along with the world and, at times, even more than the rest of the world. This is the tribulation. Now is the time of struggle.
Let’s talk about these Four Horsemen and how they ride in our world.
The first horseman rides a white horse, the kind of horse kings rode in victory parades. John says he rides out for conquest so that he can conquer. His primary concern is power, and he wants to have this power over others.
Our world is full of people who want to have power over others. Our world never runs out of Alexander the Great’s, Caesars, Hitler’s, Musolini’s, Stalin’s, Kim JongIl’s, and unethical CEO’s.
But if we are honest, we are power-people, too. Sarah has predicted that Emma’s teenage years will be rough as Emma and I clash in an ongoing power struggle. Last week, Anne Cave advised me to take up swimming to keep my back healthy. I explained to her that I don’t want to give up soccer because I am hungry for the competition and the power struggle. I love to run into people, to crush a ball, or to take out my man. I feel a little satisfied inside when the other team complains that I am too rough. Yes, unfortunately, the horse of Domination and Power-struggle still rides4, even in us. (Who ever heard of a church without power struggles?)
Conquest always brings along his big brother: Fighting. The second horse is red, for bloodshed, and he is “given a mighty sword and the authority to remove peace from the earth.” Wherever Fighting goes, peace disappears, and people start to kill each other.
Fighting is a constant feature of our world. www.antiwar.com has news updates on wars or threats of wars on every continent (except Antarctica, and those scientists can get pretty angry). Even in places without official wars, there are gang wars and drug wars and terrorism.
But if we are honest, Fighting rides in our hearts, too. One of my long standing, secret wishes has been to be in a bar fight. We glamorize war and fighting and make a prize of it. On a simpler or deeper level, when our own personal power is threatened, we are quick to fight. Fighting is the second horseman, and he still rides.
The third horseman is Poverty. He rides a black horse and carries scales.5 These aren’t the scales of justice. They are the scales at the grocery store, like where you weigh your fruit. And a good loaf of bread costs a whole day’s wages for the average worker. This is the sad truth for much of our world. 1 billion people currently suffer from hunger and malnutrition.6 That’s bad, but what’s worse is that the rich people’s stuff: olive oil and wine are unaffected. The poor get poorer, and the rich get richer.
Let’s be honest here, poverty rides through us. The price of one meal for two at Outback can feed a child for more than a year. Our cabinets have more food than millions of families will see in a month. We buy more clothes, more technology, more stuff, more movies while our brothers and sisters around the world long to buy bread or rice. We aren’t poor, but we are also being trampled by the horseman named Poverty.
The last horseman is Death, and Hell is his riding partner. Death finishes what the other three horses started. He adds disease and wild animals to war and famine. 40 million people have AIDS. 26 million of those are in Africa.7 Countless millions have cancer or other deadly diseases.
Death is not fair. It takes people before we’re ready for them to go. Death rides in our world, and we cannot stop it.
We may view the Four Horsemen from the idealist perspective, but they are far from ideal. In fact, they stink. It stinks to live in a world crushed underfoot by these Four Horsemen. They mess up our world, and they mess up our lives. They stink!8
So we cry out with the martyrs and with people who suffer around the world and through the centuries: “How long, O Lord?” “How long will you look the other way?” (Psalm 13:1). Where is God in this picture? Horsemen ride and mess up the earth, but where is God?
John answers that God is in control. God is there releasing the Horsemen into the world. God is there giving them power and limiting their power.
Why does God give them any power? I want to know the answer to that question, but that is not the question John is answering. John is answering the question: “Who is more powerful – God or evil? Who is really in control in this messed up world?”
John’s answer to that question is definite and strong. God is in control! Whatever power evil has is limited and only temporary. One day God will bring the great Day of Judgment and make everything right. One day God will turn the universe upside down.9 God will knock down mountains like Emma knocks town a tower of blocks. God will pull back the skies like a spring-loaded window shade: fffffthplplplplplplplp!
One day God will make everything right. He will bring justice to everyone. On that day, everyone will be on level ground. No one will get special treatment, not kings, not rich people, not army generals, not the power-people. Everyone will fall down before the Judgment of God. And God will make everything right.
John gives one more answer to the question, “Where is God?” God is in the Lamb. This God who is in control, this God who will make everything right in a great earth-shattering day, this God - is the Lamb, the Lamb who was killed. This God is the Lamb who has already been crushed by the powerful people. I don’t understand why God allows suffering, but I do understand clearly that God suffers with us. Where is God? He is here with us in our suffering.
So how do we respond? How do we live in a world that is overrun with the Four Horsemen of Domination, Fighting, Poverty, and Death? How do we live in this world?
Live like the Lamb. Trust God to the death.
Look again at the 5th seal. The martyrs are the heroes of this story.10 They trusted God to the death. Their souls, their lives, are now under the altar in heaven. Their very lives became a sacrifice to God. They lived the word of God to the end. They remained faithful to the end. They trusted the Lamb enough to live like the Lamb. They trusted the Lamb enough to die like the Lamb.
In this world we only have two choices: live like the Four Horsemen or live like the martyrs. Live to dominate, to fight, to store wealth, and to kill. Or live to help, to bring peace, to give generously, and to give life. Live like the Horsemen, or live like the Lamb. This is our choice.
The simple message of this complex text is this: God is in control, so live like the Lamb. God is in control, so trust God to the death. This world is not in control, so don’t play this world’s games. The Four Horsemen are not in control, so don’t live by their rules. God is in control, so live like the Lamb.
Trust the Lamb enough to die to domination. Give up on the power struggle. Give up on dominating others. Live a life of helping others be the best they can be.
Trust the Lamb enough to die to fighting. Give up on violence. Be a peace-maker in the world. Live a life of peace.
Trust the Lamb enough to die to wealth. Give up on getting more and more money. Give up on materialism. Give up on having a bigger apartment, a nicer car, a better IPod. Give up on that stuff, and, instead, give more. Spend less. Share more. Live a life of sharing.
Trust the Lamb enough to die to death. Give up on outliving death. Give up on controlling the time of our death. True life is more important than death. Live life to the fullest, and don’t worry about death. Live the life of the Lamb from now until you die, no matter the cost – even death. Live a life full of Life!
Church, God is in control, so live like the Lamb! God is in control, so live a life of helping. God is in control, so live a life of peace. God is in control, so live a life of sharing. God is in control, so live a life full of Life! May God help us to live like the Lamb.
1 See Pat Marvenko Smith’s picture at:
2 All of the references below are from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Apocalypse
3 Craig Keener, Revelation, NIV Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 27-29.
4 Dan Boone, Answers for Chicken Little, (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill, 2005), 57.
5 See Ted Larson’s picture at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~theoson/Opening%20the%20Third%20Seal.htm.
6 www.thehungersite.com, 8.16.06. Note: if you click a link on this site you can give food to the world’s poor for free every day just by viewing one page of advertisements. I just made it my homepage.
7 www.worldaidsday.org, 8.16.08.
8 Boone, 61.
9 See Pat Marvenko Smith’s picture at:
10 See Smith’s picture at:
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