In the last days, seven seals of judgment will be opened upon the world. The first four are represented in Revelation 6 as a horseman riding a steed of a different color, including white, red, black, and pale. The pale horse’s rider’s name is death, and he will be given the power to kill a fourth of the world through violence, pestilence, and nature.
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth (Revelation 6:8).
Whether coronavirus is represented by the pale rider or not, it is certainly an emblematic foreshadow of things to come, at the very least. This world is in for tough times, that we are assured by the Word of God. As Jesus tarries, the hoofbeats of these stallions get closer.
Can you imagine a fourth of the world, dead? That would be 1,875,000,000 dead across the world thanks to mob violence, pestilence, and a revolt of the earth’s beasts (probably due to empty streets). I couldn’t help but think of the latter scenario as pictures came in of thousands of angry, starving monkeys invading the cities of Thailand. At first, I chuckled at the imagery of angry primates beating their little chests to the Tai people and made a joke about Planet of the Apes. But then I remember Revelation 6:8 and I took a deep gulp.
Then, came in stories about hungry and ill-tempered coyotes invading the empty streets of San Francisco, crocodiles and jaguars invading tourist resorts, and international newspapers reporting animals taking back over cities all over the world including elephants storming villages in Asia, ornery mountain goats in Wales, pumas in Chile, and wild boars in Sardinia.
Laugh all you want, but you would have scoffed at the idea of the great 2020 toilet paper shortage. What the Bible prophesies will absolutely, 100% come to pass.
And that Pale Rider is the distance, jingling his stir-ups and putting on his spurs. His bridle is on the horse’s snout.
Coronavirus is not a plague of Biblical proportions. It’s not even close. COVID-19 has a kill-rate of under one-percent. It is nothing, and I mean nothing, compared to what will one day be unleashed on the Earth. And yet, churches have closed their doors. Panic has set in. And remarkedly, the church seems as scared as the rest of the toilet paper hoarders.
Thankfully, we know how the church should be responding to the Pale Rider.
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching (Hebrews 10:25).
Many Christians seem to think that the proper response to pestilence and plague is closing. But the church was told that assembling ourselves together (which is the very act of “church” itself) is important all the more as you see the day approaching.
The modern church is ill-equipped to deal with the Pale Rider because we are even running scared from his impotent cousin, coronavirus. Those churches who are closed now, will likely not be those who gather as the Pale Rider draws closer. If all it takes is a little inconsequential bug to get us to disobey Hebrews 10:25, one can only imagine the barrenness of the church in the eschaton.
