Introduction: The Fourth Seal - The Pale Horse

"When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come!" 8 I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth."

One of the constant warnings in the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel is that "sword, famine and plague" are coming. The trio of destructive forces occur sixteen times in Jeremiah and eight times in Ezekiel -- but before any of these, the prophet Gad used them as the choices God gave to King David as punishment for a sin he had committed (1 Chronicles 21:12). When David chose the plague that would last three days, the Lord ended the plague on a spot on the mountaintop above Jerusalem. It was on that spot that David began to make plans to put the temple of the Lord.

Here the fourth horseman, on a deathly green horse, comes with Hades (the silence of death) coming close behind. Where war and famine rage, death is their companion. Death is permitted to devastate a quarter of the world. Just as God limits the power of the devil, so he controls and limits all things. Even death.

In one of the passages where Ezekiel prophesies "sword, famine and plague," he also mentions "wild beasts" (Ezek. 14:21). There, as here, the point is that these things will not destroy everything: "Yet there will be some survivors -- sons and daughters who will be brought out of it. They will come to you, and when you see their conduct, you will be consoled..." (Ezek. 14:22).

Although terrors rage throughout the earth, the gospel still goes out. Although wars and persecutions and immorality burn like wildfires, the next generation is growing in their faith in Jesus. God has not released his grasp on our lives. He is preparing us for what is coming. He is turning us back to him, day by day. And like David, whose son fulfilled his plan and built the temple of the Lord in the very place where the plague ended, we recognize that our faith clings most tightly to the Lord where he has tested, challenged, and even rebuked us.

Our help is in the name of the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth, and who has forgiven all our sins.