Four Horsemen at the Gallop! - Behold, the Fiery-Colored Horse!

There had been many wars before 1914, the year when the Rider of the white horse received his crown. But now the rider of the red horse is given "a great sword." What does this imply?  With the eruption of World War I, human warfare becomes more sanguinary, more destructive than ever before.  During the 1914-bloodbath, tanks, poison gas, airplanes, submarines, huge cannons, and automatic weapons were used either for the first time or on an unprecedented scale.  In some 28 nations, whole populations, not just professional soldiers, were pressed into the war effort, Casualties were horrendous. More than nine million soldiers were slaughtered, and civilian casualties were astronomical.  Even with  the end of the war, there was no return to real peace on earth.  More than 50 years after that war, German statesman Konrad Adenauer commented:  "Security and quiet have disappeared from the lives of men since 1914."  It was , indeed, granted to the rider of the fiery-colored  horse to take peace away from the earth!

Then, with his thirst for blood whetted the rider of the red horse plunged into World War II.  Instruments of slaughter became even more fiendish. and casualties skyrocketed to four times  those of World War I.  In 1945,, two atom bombs burst over Japan, each one annihilating-in a flash-tens of thousands  of victims.  During the second world war, the rider of the red horse reaped a huge harvest of some 55 million souls have fallen under the "great sword' since World War II.  

Could we call this a triumph for military technology? It is, rather, a testimony that the merciless red horse is at the gallop. And where will that gallop end? Some scientists  speak of the possibility of an accidental nuclear war-let alone a nuclear conflagration!  But happily this conquering Ride of the white horse has other thoughts about this.

As long as society is based on nationalistic  pride and hatred, mankind must continue  to sit on a keg of nuclear peril. Even if the nations, out of desperation, should scrap all nuclear firepower, they would retain the know-how .  In short order, they could reproduce murderous nuclear devices; hence, any war  with conventional weapons could soon mushroom into a holocaust.  The pride and hatred that envelop the nations today must lead to humanities suicide-ah, yes, unless the Rider of the white horse should head off  the mad gallop of the fiery-colored mount. Let us be confident that Christ the King will ride, both to complete his conquest over the world controlled by Satan and to establish a new earthly society based on love-love of God and neighbor-a force for peace far, far superior to the shaky nuclear deterrents of our maddened times. - PSALM 37:9-11; MARK 12:29-31; REVELATION 21:1-5.

Next time: Four Horsemen at the Gallop - A Black Horse Plunges Forth

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