The Lord opens the second seal on the scroll and the second horseman rides forth.
"When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, 'Come!' Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other. To him was given a large sword." (Revelation 6:3-4) Yesterday we saw the Antichrist riding the first horse, the white horse. He pretended to have pure motives and to come in peace, but the rider on the red horse reveals the true plan of the Antichrist. It is to bring war and death, not peace. Though the Antichrist will engineer a temporary peace treaty in the Middle East, it is for the purpose of gaining the admiration of the nations, and once these nations are under his thumb he will violate the treaty himself. The rider on the red horse who brings war and death provides further proof that the rider on the white horse in yesterday's passage cannot be Christ, as some scholars of past centuries have proposed. When Christ brings peace to the world, it will last forever.
The rider on the red horse has a sword and he intends to use it. He will be given permission, for a time, to use it. His power is "given"; he does not take it or earn it. If the Lord didn't grant this rider permission to bring war to the earth for a season, he could do nothing on his own.
Later in Revelation we will see how the nations will hand their power over to the Antichrist. Dr. Tim LaHaye, in his book Revelation Unveiled, says it will be too late once they realize they have made a mistake. "Obviously, in the Antichrist's takeover of the world, some dissatisfied nations will have waited too long to make their play to avoid his domination. Yet, rather than remain slaves, they will revolt, thus inaugurating a world war." Too late they will realize that their awesome leader who was able to make peace in the Middle East is the worst deceiver and dictator the world has ever known. They will see that they have allied themselves with the most evil man on the face of the earth. They may not realize that this leader is literally possessed by Satan himself, but they will know they have been duped. The wicked rulers of all the ages past will be nothing compared to him.
While we are on the subject of evil rulers, I want to stop here and point out something quite interesting, and it's something that proves to us that Satan is not omniscient like God. The devil is aware, naturally, of many of God's plans, since Satan is an angel (though now fallen) who was created by God and who was once privy to many of the things God did and said regarding His plans for mankind and for the entire creation. In addition to this, the devil is able to read and he knows the Scriptures; he even dared to quote the Scriptures to the Lord Jesus in the wilderness. But Satan doesn't know when the end times will begin. He doesn't know the day when the Lord will call the church out of the world and he doesn't know when his chance will come to deceive the world on a scale never before possible. This means that, in every era, he has had to have a man prepared who could become the Antichrist.
For example, if the 1940s had been the time prepared by God to usher in the Great Tribulation, then most likely Adolf Hitler would have been the Antichrist. Hitler and a number of the other top ranking Nazis were obsessed with the occult, and it has always been my opinion that these men may actually have been demon possessed. I am not sure how else to explain the atrocities that these men perpetrated. I can easily imagine Adolf Hitler and his henchmen being willing to "sell their souls to the devil", so to speak, for the victory they sought. If the Great Tribulation had been scheduled to begin in some other era, then some other leader with a wicked heart was probably picked out by Satan to become his man on earth. In ancient times, it might have been a madman such as Nero or Herod the Great or Antiochus Epiphanes. In in our own lifetime, we've witnessed the evil deeds of men like Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, and if the Great Tribulation had been scheduled to start while these men were alive, perhaps one of them would have been the Antichrist. I don't know whether the man who will become the Antichrist has been born yet. I lean toward believing he has because I think we are living in the last days leading up to what will be the last days. But his identity has not yet been made evident. He may still be a child or a very young man. Or he may be an adult who is not yet on the political scene. It could be that we who belong to Christ will not know who he is before we are called up to be with Him. Looking around us and speculating whether this or that political figure may become the Antichrist is not a profitable way to spend our time. If we are indeed living in the final days leading up to the rapture of the church, our focus should be on sharing the gospel as much as we can.
The war we will study in Revelation may be a world war or it may be confined to the nation of Israel and those nations who would like to see her gone from the earth. Like many other madmen before him, the Antichrist will harbor an especially rabid hatred toward the Jewish people. He may think that if he can wipe Israel from the earth, he can prevent Christ from coming to assume the promised throne of David from which He will rule the world. The prophet Ezekiel (see Ezekiel 38) foresaw a military action that may be the military action that takes place in Revelation. Ezekiel saw a coalition of nations coming against Israel with a weapon capable of destroying her, but this is a weapon from which the Lord will miraculously save His people Israel. The Lord spoke to Ezekiel in a time when Israel had been conquered and when it looked impossible for her to ever be a nation again. The Lord promised that Israel would once again be a sovereign nation in the world, a promise that came true in 1948. The Lord also said that an enemy from the north, that will ally itself with other enemies of Israel, will invade the land. In Ezekiel 38 where we find this prophecy, names of ancient enemies of Israel are used, but their locations correspond with areas of the world in our day such as Iran, the Sudan, Libya, central and eastern Turkey, and possibly Russia. In our own times we can easily picture an alliance of Iran and Russia. Iran desperately wants nuclear weapons, and the modern leaders of Iran have explicitly said that they would love to wipe Israel from the earth. Russia has been quite sympathetic to Iran, so it's not difficult to picture these two nations banding together and turning on Israel.
The weapon may very well be a nuclear weapon, but if so, the Lord turns it back on Israel's enemies. I like to picture this as a God-caused malfunction of the computer system that guides the nuclear missile, so that it boomerangs back on the nation that sent it out. The Lord says that upon the enemies of Israel He will "pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulfur". (Ezekiel 38:22) He says the enemies of Israel will fall where they stand when He sends fire on them. (Ezekiel 39:5-6) Whatever this weapon is, it sounds as if it contaminates the area, because we are told it will take seven months to bury the dead and cleanse the land. (Ezekiel 39:12-16)
This prophecy is a prophecy that has not been fulfilled, and we don't know whether this military action will take place before or after the church is removed from the world. The Jewish people have long considered the war in Ezekiel's prophecy to be a military action that takes place right before the Messiah comes to rule the earth. Since the Great Tribulation takes place immediately prior to Christ coming to rule the earth, the battle in Ezekiel may be linked with end time events. We know the church will be called out before the Great Tribulation, but some world events which set the stage for the Great Tribulation may begin while we are still here. Either way, I think it's possible that this battle against Israel could be what paves the way for the Antichrist to assume power. The entire world will be shocked by the use of a nuclear weapon in the Middle East, if indeed this is the type of weapon Ezekiel foresaw. The region may become so destabilized that the world will accept any political leader who can restore order. That's the type of situation the devil can use to put his man in place.
The rider on the red horse is going to bring war. This means that there will be civil unrest, military action, and death on the earth leading up to the great battle of Armageddon. The Antichrist's promise of peace is a lie. The treaty he brokers in the Middle East is a treaty he never intends to enforce. The nations who don't want to submit to the man of sin will have to fight against him and many will die in their efforts to be free of this dictator. Yet, even during those dark times, there are still going to be people who will come to believe in Christ as their Savior. The Lord spoke of the perils coming against those who accept Him in the end times, warning them of the war and unrest on the earth during those days. But He also said, "When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." (Luke 21:27)
What does He mean by this? He means, "I am coming soon." Those who turn to Christ during the Great Tribulation will endure persecution and, in some cases, will even be martyred. They will witness natural disasters on a scale never before seen. They will be surrounded by war and tyranny. But the Lord speaks words of hope to them, "When these things happen, look up, because I'm coming soon." The Great Tribulation is limited to a seven-year span---a short time when compared with how long man has been on earth, and an extremely short time when compared with eternity. Those who come to faith in Christ during the Great Tribulation won't have long to wait until Christ comes to make war with His enemies and with the enemies of His people. They won't have long to wait until they see the righteous One being crowned King of kings. They will be able to take hope in His words.
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