SEQUENCE OF EVENTS... Seal 1

SEAL 1… (Revelation 6:1-2) “I watched as the Lamb (Christ) opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.”

The rider on this White Horse is a false Christ… the “Antichrist”. This pretender of holiness, symbolized by the white horse, carries a “Bow”, an earthly weapon to fight earthly wars. In the past, before Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, the Christian Church was united under the leadership of the Roman Catholic Pope. The Pope was the virtual king of a real empire. The Holy Roman Empire was a consolidation of many European countries. The Pope also commanded a real army that fought real wars of territorial conquest. The Crusades, which began in 1100 AD, were an attempt by the Pope’s armies to re-conquer the Holy Land, which was lost to the Moslems in 711 AD. However, the Crusades failed to achieve their goal.

Luther and others saw the Pope as just an ordinary man who pretended to posess the authority and holiness of Christ on earth. Therefore, they believed him to be an antichrist. Martin Luther was indeed able to restore the true gospel of grace and mercy to Christianity. However, he was unable to vanquish Satan's lie, that mere humans could actually attain Christlike holiness. Seal 1 has been open for quite some time now.

Today, Christianity has no military power. When the final Antichrist takes his place as the the leader of a united apostate Christian Church, he will have no army to command. Therefore, it is interesting to note that the rider on the White Horse of Seal 1 has a “Bow”, but no arrows!

In (Revelation 19: 11-16), Christ, the real leader of the real Christian Church is also pictured riding a pure White Horse. However, as he righteously dispenses God’s wrath on an evil and unbelieving world, his weapon is only his powerful voice, which is symbolically described as a “sharp sword”.