The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Like ghostly spectres, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse appeared to the apostle John in vision at the close of the first century A.D. What do these four horsemen really represent? Were they merely a vivid nightmare of the elderly John's imagination? Or are they a living prophecy soon to unfold in our generation? Here is how Jesus Christ himself revealed the true meaning---for our day, right now---of the four mysterious riders of the book of Revelation!
Part 2 of 17 The Time Setting
In Revelation 6:1-8, John sees the Four Horsemen, a symbolic reenactment of the bold, straight-forward, easily understood Olivet Prophecy. They differ only slightly in fulfillment. Matthew 24 had a first "typical fulfillment in the war, famine, and disease epidemics in and around Jerusalem in A.D. 70 (see Flavius Josephus, Wars of the person, for a full graphic description of this first prophetic fulfillment).
John's vision of Four Horsemen, however, occurred twenty-five years after the local Jewish wars, the fall of Jerusalem, and the destruction of the Temple. This vision does not refer to any past fulfillment or present condition, but to a future series of specific events, a final fulfillment of Matthew 24.
One way to prove that these events are yet future is the contextual evidence in the book of Revelation itself. John speaks of an army of 200 million. in Revelation 9:16. There were barely that many men, women, and children on earth in the days of Christ or the apostle John. The world did not pass the one billion mark until as recently as 1850. No army from a group of nations could possibly reach the prophesied size of 200 million until the earth housed at least a billion.
The context of Matthew 24 also shows the ultimate fulfillment of these prophecies to be yet future, not in the past or present. Jesus Christ said his messages would be fulfilled at a time when total human annihilation was possible (Matt. 24:21, 22). This period began with the Nuclear Age. Only since 1950 has mankind lived on his short-fused nuclear time-bomb. Only in this Nuclear Age have the Four Horsemen saddled up for their final ride!
This understanding of the duality of prophecy is vitally important. The words of Matthew 24 refer to 1) a first "typical" fulfillment in A.D. 70, 2) a long-term condition prevailing from A.D. 70 until now, and 3) an end-time fulfillment yet ahead. The Four Horsemen on their final ride refer only to the last of these three fulfillments. They represent an intensity of these conditions far beyond the "normal" wars, famines and disease epidemics that periodically scourge mankind.
The knowledge of who these horsemen are, and how you can escape their destructive force is vital to you. Don't ignore it. Read Jesus Christ's revelation of what they mean to you in the coming parts ahead.
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