The Four Horsemen of

The Apocalypse!

Chapter 6

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence,  whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.  The potential for the disastrous rise of  misplaced power exists and will persist.  We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.  We should take nothing for granted.”

President Dwight David Eisenhower

Farewell Address, January 17, 1961

Those are the prophetic words of the five-star general who led the allied forces to victory in Europe and took over the rebuilding of the world in the post war era as President from 1952 to 1960.  He apparently saw something back then and his ominous warning haunts us to this day.  Let’s see how we have fared.

We begin with Scripture which describes not only an evil “last days” system referred to as Babylon the Great, the great city, etc. in Revelation 17 through 19.   “Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath.”  (Revelation 16:9)  This great “last days” empire is also a nation that the antichrist comes out of and has a tripartite nature: religious (Revelation 17), commercial (Revelation 18) and political (Revelation 19). 

In Revelation 6, we see the four horsemen of the Apocalypse representing a great “end times” power bringing devastation to the earth in four stages.

1.     First Seal: The Peaceful Conqueror

^2”And I looked, and behold, a white horse. He who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.”

2.     Second Seal: Open Military Conflict

^3”When He opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, "Come and see." ⁴Another horse, fiery red, went out. And it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth, and that people should kill one another; and there was given to him a great sword.”

3.     Third Seal: Abundance and Scarcity

^5”When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, "Come and see." So I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. ⁶And I heard 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 the wine."

3.     Fourth Seal: Widespread Death and Destruction

^7”When He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, "Come and see." ⁸So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.”

The four seals describe four phases in the spread of the final great empire on the earth.  The first stage is the advance of the empire through “peaceful” means.  It is big and powerful, crowned – recognized as the leader, but just has a bow but no arrows.  But the white horse almost seems to conquer peacefully.   The second stage, the gloves come off and the military empire brings death and destruction as the red horse marches to conquer.   The third stage, the black horse, refers to economic devastation and the fact that the elites are taken care of but the poor are slaving all day just for food enough to stay alive.  By the time we get to the fourth seal, the pale horse is going all out killing with the sword, hunger, pestilence, etc.

In all likelihood, we have just seen the second horse begin to ride forth.  In this section, we will look at the development and spread of the American Empire, an empire academics has heralded as without precedence in the history of the world and far beyond Rome, Alexander the Great, Napolean, Hitler or any other empire ever conceived.  We will see how the development of the American empire perfectly parallels the rise of the “four horsemen of the Apocolypse.”

Some may say this can’t be possible because the 70^th week of Daniel had not commenced.  We know that there is only one way to know when it begins and that is with the defense Treaty Israel signs with the antichrist and that hasn’t happened yet.  But as we read the accounts of the last days in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 23, we see a period of wars, rumors of wars, natural disasters, etc. but this is just “the beginning of sorrows.”  In other words, Luke 21:24 tells us that “And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”  Israel’s birth marks the beginning of the end of days.  Israel was recognized as a nation in 1948.  At the same time Israel was being restored, another nation, the great prophetic Babylon of the end times was also comes on the prophetic scene.  So we begin our search for Babylon in the 1940s at the end of WWII.

The White Horse – the Spread of Peace

World War II was truly a “world war”.  It didn’t just affect the soil of Europe but of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas.  Virtually the entire world chose sides and favored the “Allies” or the “German/Japan axis”.   Two countries were primarily responsible for the allies success: Russia and America.  Russia single handedly took on 80 percent of Hitler’s divisions in the East, not to minimize the tremendous American war effort.  When the war ended, the Europe was divided into East and West – essentially between America and the Soviet Union.  It soon became clear that Stalin did not have the same designs as the west so America sought to contain the further spread of Communism.

Up until 9/11, America was generally viewed positively by the world.  It had fostered and financed the rebuilding of the war torn world, had fostered the development of the United Nations, the World Bank, IMF, etc. with the idea of helping the world.  Yes, it had fought police actions to contain communism (Korea and Vietnam) and later to contain Saddam in the first Gulf War, but all of the actions were sanctioned by the UN and fought in a coalition of supporting nations.  There were a few unilateral skirmishes the U.S. was involved in such as the removal if Pinochet in Chile, Noriega in Panama and the invasion of Grenada but the Monroe Doctrine nearly 200 years before had declared our intentions to “protect” the nations of the Western Hemisphere.

However, America did not invade and occupy countries as empires of the past did.  Under the rationale of containing the Soviet Union we had a string of over 1500 permanent military bases around the world (army garrisons, naval bases, airfields, listening posts, etc.)  We were there to secure, defend and exploit economically.  We didn’t boast of an empire of colonies but an empire of bases.  Every time we went in to a country such as Germany, Japan or Korea, we were there for good.  We never left and took the prize land for ourselves.  Today there are at least 700 peacetime bases around the world and we have continued to add to the mix – across the new countries between Russia and China (the ….stans), Eastern Europe (Bosnia, Kosovo) and the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Gulf States, Iraq, etc.  We were kicked out of Panama and the Philippines but still maintain bases in the region and are building new ones.  We still maintain a huge military presence in Germany, Japan, Guam, Okinawa, Korea, etc.

This network of outposts of the empire was established peacefully or as a result of our help and involvement in regional conflicts.  Like a galloping white horse, we went out to secure peace and freedom on the earth and at one time were quite welcomed and admired for it.  It does not go unnoticed that America is often the first and biggest to respond in the event of a national disaster as we have seen with the Tsunami.  And up until 9/11, America worked closely with the United Nations in disaster relief, or in police actions such as Haiti, Kosovo, Bosnia and the first Iraq war where 80 percent of the cost of the war was paid for by allies.

So even though America went forth as the “good guys” on a white horse, we were recognized as the leader, as the “crown” indicates.  We had a big bow but usually didn’t shoot arrows.  We didn’t occupy countries and establish a traditional empire with occupying armies.  Up until 1989, our goal was to protect the world from the spread of communism (justification for Korea and Vietnam) and for the next decade we participated as a member of the international community in concert with allies and the UN.  Not until the second Gulf war, did we embark on unilateral conflict in the name of “war on terror.”

The Red Horse – Open Military Conflict

Up to the second Bush Administration, the U.S. had a foreign policy run by civilians in the State Department, career diplomats and all.  By 2002, the Defense Department of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz had taken over.  Planning had already begun before 9/11 to invade Iraq, followed by Iran, Syria and other countries in the “axis of evil.”  Six months before in March 2001, Charles Krauthammer (Time Magazine, 3/5/01) declared, “America is no mere international citizen.  It is the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome.  Accordingly, America is in a position to re-shape norms, alter expectations and create new realities.  How?  By unapologetic and implacable demonstrations of will.”

Chalmers Johnson in ”The Sorrows of Empire,” asserts that “Bill Clinton was actually a much more effective imperialist than George W. Bush.  During the Clinton administration, the United States employed an indirect approach to imposing its will on other nations.  The government of George W. Bush, by contrast, dropped all legitmating principles and adopted the view that might makes right…Clinton camouflaged his policies by carrying them out under the banner of ‘globalization…

George W. Bush, by contrast, turned to a frontal assault based on the use of America’s unequaled military power.  Even before 9/11, the Bush administration had unveiled its unilateral approach to the world.  It withdrew from important international treaties, including those seeking to ban antiballistic missile weapons, control emission of greenhouse gasses and create a court to try perpetrators of the most heinous war crimes.  Bush also proclaimed openly his adherence to a doctrine of preventive war.  The United States said it was a New Rome, beyond good and evil and unrestrained by the established conventions of the international community.  In its spring 2003 attack on Iraq, it affirmed that it no longer needed (or cared about) international legitimacy, that it had become a power answerable only to itself, and that the internal forces of militarism were dictating foreign policy…Two and a half years into the Bush administration, most of our allies had left us, our military was overstretched, and no nation on earth doubted our willingness to employ military power to solve any and all problems.”  (p.255 - 256)

“From the moment we took on a role that included the permanent military domination of the world, we were on our own—feared, hated, corrupt and corrupting, maintaining ‘order’ through state terrorism and bribery, and given to megalomaniac rhetoric and sophistries that virtually invited the rest of the world to unite against us.  We had mounted the Napoleonic tiger.  The quest was, would we—and could we—ever dismount? (p. 284)

The nation moved from our previous multinational and economic imperialism to military imperialism.  The American military star wars technology is so advanced and high tech, it still isn’t a match for the suicide bomber or the sniper.  Yet, we don’t seem to be that discouraged but hell bent on finishing what we started in Iraq and carrying on to Syria and other rogue terrorist nations.  President Bush has declared a policy to dominate the world through military superiority and wage preventive war wherever necessary.  At West Point on September 20, 2001, Bush declared, “We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge…the only path to safety is the path of action.  And this nation will act.”

By 2003, America had a military presence in 153 of the 189 member countries of the United Nations, including large-scale deployments in twenty-five of them.  We had military treaties or binding security arrangements with at least thirty-six countries.  (Ibid., p. 288)  “Theologian and scholar Reinhold Niebuhr predicted the winner of the cold war would inevitably ‘face the imperial problem of using power in global terms but from one particular center of authority, so preponderant and unchallenged that its world rule would almost certainly violate basic standards of justice’…  The result of our hubris was to transform our global reach into full-blown imperialism  and our concrn with national defense into full-blown militarism.”  (Ibid., as quoted on p. 309-310)

Time will tell whether America continues her march of conquest, but for those who would say that it is bankrupting us, and it would seem so.  However Nazi Germany came out of hyperinflation, depression and war reparations which paralyzed the country only to begin a war of conquest in the late 30s.  How did they do it?  They took the spoils by invading one country after another.  There is plenty of spOIL to go around in the Middle East.  One shouldn’t forget that we still sit as the only dominant commercial and military power, the largest economy in the world, with tremendous national resources but that brings us to the next horse.

The Black Horse - Economic Crisis

In the last section, we talked about the unusual formation of a global commercial empire.  America sent out armies of Peace Corps volunteers, consultants and businessmen to develop projects, do business and negotiate loans.  By the l970s and 80s, American banks began to also make risky loans to Third World countries with little likelihood of being repaid.  The IMF and World Bank were charged with making sure that these countries didn’t default on their loans.  If a debtor nation didn’t go along with their requirements, they were essentially boycotted by the international financial community.  Even though we were pulling the strings and protecting our capital, this was done ostensibly under the authority of the IMF, supposedly an UN organization.  Debt was enslaving the world, and ironically not just the developing countries but the developed as well. 

Under the guise of globalization, we began to bring the entire world into our economic web – from Mexico to Indian and China, factories sprung up around the world.  We used the IMF to liberalize trade, drop barriers and insure the convertibility of currency.  “Free trade” was the mantra.  Countries that didn’t cooperate such as Libya, Iran, Iraq, even Argentina, Thailand and the Philippines were cut off and marginalized.  I spent many years in Argentina, a country that tried to meet IMF demands but was destroyed in the process.  American agribusiness made it impossible for the poor subsistence farmer to compete so American corporations either bought up the arable land or installed their elite surrogates to manage it.  Meanwhile, we got the people hooked on American consumerism – everything from television to toothpaste. 

America is still at the center of this system even though it works with elites throughout the world – in Europe, yes, but throughout all of the developed and lesser developed countries.  Throughout the world, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.  This is true in America, the Philippines, Ecuador, Indonesia, etc.   I am not one who is into conspiracies, but “Mammon” (money) is certainly the god of this world.  This scripture describing the black horse talks about things getting so bad that a man works all day just for the food he needs to be alive (a denarius for three quarts of barley) but then it says, “don’t harm the oil and wine” speaking  of  the things that the wealthy consume.   

The elites of the world, fueled by a demonic greed to acquire more and more goods, do not care for the “little people.”  It doesn’t matter to them what happens to the poor as long as they can live in luxury in their guarded gated communities.  They make a show of generosity when a natural disaster occurs such as the tsunami but turn their heads away from the real problems if poverty, disease and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few.  But where is this all really headed? 

The world economy is in deep trouble.  All the nations of the world are drowning in debt.  And what do they do?  Everyone is printing money with abandon.  And the results of more money?  Inflation and more inflation.  , "The U.S. Fed has not merely brought about an explosion in the number of dollars around the world; it has also lit the fuse of other currencies all over the world. The United States sells dollar debt. Foreign central banks buy it by issuing currency of their own. The result? A world flooded not only with dollars, but also with yen, kroner, euros, and pounds. The broad money supply in Australia is rising at a 9.7% annual rate. In Britain, the pounds pile up at a 9.3% rate. Canada multiplies its loonies at 9.1% per year. The Danes are expanding their money supply at a breathtaking 10.7%. Euros are increasing 6% annually. And the dollar - the U.S. broad money supply is only increasing at a fairly modest rate of 4.8%, a rate that is still far above the increase in GDP."  (The Daily Reckoning, 11/19/2004) 

Here in America we are told to keep consuming but people do not get rich by spending money they don't have. As long as America's 'recovery' is led by consumer borrowing and spending...it is no recovery at all.  The policy of the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates has been to create asset bubbles – bubbles in real estate, the stock market, bond market and to spur inflation and devaluation of the dollar.  America absorbs 80 percent of the world’s savings.  It still consumes more than half its goods and services, energy, etc. and produces less and less each year.  Without the support of the world, mainly Asian countries, the dollar would collapse.  The dollar has lost 40 percent of its value against the Euro in the last several years and economists and policy makers thought this was great because it would lead to more exports.  Yet, yesterday it was announced that our trade deficit had hit a record $60 billion dollars for November. 

This will lead to a collapse of the entire world economic system.  Interest rates will go up.   The markets will crash.  Housing and bond bubbles will burst and the entire world will fall into a tremendous monetary crisis and depression never before seen.  Here is the black horse.  Do the rulers of Babylon the Great care?  Not really, a depression allows the elites to strip the savings and assets from the lower and middle classes while the rich get richer.  The truly wealthy (the Rockefellers, DuPonts, Morgans, etc.) were not hurt by the Great Depression but came out of it wealthier than ever.  The same thing will happen again. 

Patriot Acts I and II, the reform of the intelligence community and the expansion of homeland security have put in motion the workings of a police state where every dime is tracked, every movement whether international or within the U.S. is tracked, where the National ID has been formalized with biometric indicators attached to your standardized drivers license.  The new money being printed has chips implanted to track their movement.  Your credit card expenditures, phone calls, cell phone and emails can be tracked – all in the name of the war on terrorism – much better than our old Cold War enemy – Communism, because this enemy can be within or without – everywhere!  This isn’t happening just here, but in England cameras record your every move (in the name of the prevention of crime and terrorism).  National ID cards are more and more common around the world.   

This apparatus is there to keep us in our place.  An economy that expects to get rich by consuming more and more cannot sustain itself.  Once the crash begins (and it may be a slow melt down as has occurred in Japan the past 14 years or it may be cataclysmic), people with money will start to save more and consume less.  Those who lose their jobs will be outside the system.  Once a person’s job has been ‘downsized’ or ‘outsourced’, people will grow more and more desperate – unable to keep up with credit card and mortgage payments, the homeless will be herded into “work camps” where the State will take care of them and put them to work or possibly allow them to volunteer for military service in the ever expanding empire. 

The Pale Horse - Death and Destruction 

“And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.”  (Revelation 6:8)  Daniel and Ezekiel both touch on the exploits of the antichrist and his armies after the Gog Magog Conflict.  Doug Krieger has covered this conflict and the build up to it in his recent series on Syria.  As Doug points out in the article, Syria is next on Washington’s hit list of countries and Iran is not far behind. 

I realize that there are very few American Christians can conceive of this happening but our foreign readers (and there are many of you) find it utterly believable.  Brothers and sisters, there is a tremendous deception that not only would not let you believe this scenario could possibly be, but in fact, convince you of the exact opposite.  American Christians are being led to believe that we are the good guys ushering in the Kingdom.  All of the propaganda of the church and press will try and convince you this couldn’t possibly happen.   

No, they say, the antichrist will come out of Syria, Russia, Europe or even Israel or say that the antichrist isn’t even really a person but a “spirit.”  But the antichrist is not only a person but he represents a great and powerful country as we see throughout the Bible – Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Revelation, etc.  God looks at peoples, not just boundaries.  A Jew is as much a Jew in New York City or Buenos Aires as he is in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem!  Further, the antichrist is not some fanged devil new age guru.  He is going to look and act so Christian that we will be deceived.   

I would refer you to Daniel 7:8, 19-21) and you see the “little horn” that came out of the ten European nations that colonized the world and grew to become the dominant nation and “that horn was waging war with the saints and overpowering them.”  (Daniel 9:21)  This is very similar to Revelation 13:7 which says, “and it was given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him.”  A non-person or someone from a two bit country does not have authority like this! 

The restoration of the nation of Israel marked the beginning of the countdown to an end.  Right after the description of the signs of the last days in Matthew 24:32-34, Jesus says, “³²"Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. ³³So you also, when you see all these things, know that it^[a] is near--at the doors! ³⁴Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.”  Luke 21:24 also tells us that “And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”  The fig tree represents Israel’s return to the land and Luke tells us that Jerusalem will be trodden down until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.  Jerusalem was officially made the capital of Israel in 1982 although it was recaptured in 1967.  That is when the generation countdown began (not the seventieth week). 

The math tells us that at the very least, we don’t have much time left.  I would propose that the rise of the nation of Israel in the last days would be paralleled by the rise of the great “end times” power referred to throughout prophecy.  There are as many theories about who that nation is as there are people and most Christian leaders – even the great ones such as Dave Wilkerson believe that since the U.S. isn’t mentioned in prophecy, it has to hurry up and go into the dust bin of history – get out of the way so prophecy can be fulfilled and God can wrap this thing up.  But I would submit to you that: 

1.               America is in prophecy but we are just too blind to see it.

2.               There isn’t enough time for a replacement to come on the scene. You don’t raise up a political and commercial empire over night.  There is an elephant in this picture.  Get your eyes off of the canary!  No nation in the world comes any where close to being such a dominant player – past or present.

3.               Only one nation is and has historically been Israel’s friend.  This is even understood prophetically by the present administration.

4.               There is only one powerful, “Christian” nation with a sense of God-given Christian destiny that has the zeal to bring democracy and capitalism to the world and stand for truth, justice and the American way, etc… A nation that promotes itself as righteous but does the opposite.

The length and height and breadth and depth of the deception has essentially blinded American Christians to the Bible, to prophecy and to the true facts relating to the empire America has built.  This is a fact that Chalmers declares, “As distinct from other peoples on this earth, most Americans do not recognize—or do not want to recognize—that the United States dominates the world through its military power.  Due to government secrecy, they are often ignorant of the fact that their government garrisons the globe.  They do not realize that a vast network of American military bases on every continent except Antartica actually constitutes a new form of empire.” (pg 1) 

There is a great deception afoot and I would encourage you to read the book, “Recognizing Deception and Apostasy” which is free for you to download on this site.  The most important thing we, as Christians, can do in these days is to be alert to what is happening so that we won’t be found sleeping and unaware in that day.

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