Wheel in the Sky

Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, “Come!”  And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering, and to conquer.  When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!”  And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that men should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.  When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a black horse! And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand.  And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!”  When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!”  And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth. – Revelation 6:1-8

My wife bought a book recently.  It was written by one of the popular teachers on prophecy.  He points out that “end times” does not mean “the end of time”, which is true if somewhat obvious.  I like to think about it like the Ages in Lord of the Rings.  Certain elements have ascendancy in a given age.  Those elements may weaken or even disappear in a subsequent age.  This is different from the natural cycles of history, though those cycles are part of any age.  A prophetic book whether the Revelation of John, the prophecies of Jeremiah, or The Chronicles of Narnia will be applicable in any epoch or administration and fulfillment may be glimpsed in types more than once.  Humanity has seen in Christ the anti-type that casts all of the shadows of the Law and the Prophets.  Some dark day humanity may see the ultimate anti-type of the many antichrists that pop up in history.  I do not know. 

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have been around and may come around again.  They speak of a process that breaks down civilization.  It begins with the rider on the white horse.  Some say this is Christ, some say it is the Antichrist.  My interpretation is my own, but I see this first rider as tyranny, for tyranny almost always arises in a Good Cause -- on a white horse.  The tyrant comes as a rescuer, as one who can solve the problems inherent in, as Bill Clinton once said, too much freedom.  The sword of the red horse rider is a weapon symbolic of war in general, so perhaps the bow is meant to be a more specific symbol of suppression.  After all, the white horse rider comes as a conqueror rather than a warrior.  He is not fighting defensively.  He is the invader, the usurper and, ultimately, the despot. 

Tyranny and conquest are naturally tied to war and conflict.  Thus the conqueror is followed by one who takes peace from the earth and initiates great slaughter among humanity.  We see this played out on a small scale throughout the world as people find it impossible from time to time to live without killing their neighbors.  Many of these conflicts threaten to flare up and engulf much larger regions in blood red flames of war. 

The third rider is on a black horse and is the harbinger of economic hardship, famine, and lack.  Again this is a natural extension of the destruction of war which hampers the production of food and other resources along with trade and transport. In addition to hampering production and displacing resources, war itself is directly demanding in terms of food, fuel, and material.  There is nothing constructive or productive about war.  It is the ultimate form of broken-glass business stimulation.  It creates only to destroy.  The lives of many are disrupted.  Many become refugees, losing their own power to produce and becoming a drain on the productivity of others.   

Displaced people without enough food, lacking adequate shelter, often crowded together in unsanitary conditions are near perfect incubators for epidemics.  We are not surprised when the pale horse of pestilence follows hard in the footsteps of war and economic collapse.  As in our own American Civil War, disease often kills more than the war machines themselves.

What is unveiled to us is the dance of history, the cyclical destruction of humanity’s best efforts.  We build our civilizations and systems, determined to eliminate the flaws and weaknesses of prior systems only to find that we have created a weakness of a different kind.   There is only one kingdom that has a sure Foundation, and even that one must be tested, purged, purified, and refined.  The Church will endure, though at times it must be reduced to the Remnant, so it seems.  A company or two of prophets will be hidden away, and the Lord will find His seven thousand who have not bowed to Baal, and, in the end, we will come, not to another cycle of exaltation and destruction, but "to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ".  And He shall reign.    

Until then, while the horsemen ride their rounds and the old earth rolls as a sleeper in a recurring dream, the sun goes down each day, and I hear Yeats reading the evening news.

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?