In the last chapter I showed how the horseman of the apocalypse were patterns of conquest, war, economic collapse and pandemic. In this chapter I will document these patterns using what we know about history, evaluated inn light of this Scripture
Circuit 1: 100-700 AD Xiongnu and the Great Wall of China
Conquest: At about the time of John’s vision there was war in the far east. The Xiongnu, ancestors of modern Mongolians, were at war with China. About AD 89, the Xiongnu state was destroyed, with many of their military being driven to the northwest*. As they fled northwest, they mingled with ancestors of modern Europeans, who were living in central Asia at the time of Christ. From this mingling, the Turkic people – and a number of Turkish nations – arose. The four-pole balance of power that has existed for three millennia is about to be destroyed. In addition to the Western, Babylonian, Hindi, and Chinese horns, a Turkish horn was about to emerge. These nations would push Causasian tribes, the ancestors of modern Europeans, westward.
During this time, the early church, without an army and without violence, began making inroads into Romans society. In spite of the persecutions, the church began to grow. By AD 313 Christianity became legal, and eventually displaced Paganism in the empire.
War: It was only a matter of time before these tribes would push into Western Europe. First the Huns and then Germanic tribes began raiding Roman territory.
While the Turkish nations were growing, Jews continued on the warpath they had embarked, persecuting the early church and resisting Roman occupation. After AD 135, when Jews were expelled from Judea after Kochba’s rebellion; the histories of Judaism and Christianity separate.
Economic Calamity: Eventually, the western part of the Roman Empire fell. This opened the door for two conquering forces that would play a prominent role: The Roman Catholic Church and the Byzantine Empire.
Pandemic-holocaust-lawlessness: The Pandemic of Justinian occurred soon after the Roman Empire fell. The most important event connected to the pale horseman was the fate of the Jews fought both Rome and early Christians. In AD 135, Rome attempted genocide of Jews, expelling them from Judea. They expelled Messianic believers from their communities, resulting in the church taking on a more Gentile character. When Rome became officially Christian, the Jews were perceived as being a double black eye in the empire. Anti-semitism, as both deep prejudice and official policy, emerged. This anti-semitism would run for centuries and culminate in the Nazi genocide of Jews in WW2.
Cicuit 2: 300-1300 AD The Fall of the Western Roman Empire
Conquest: The fall of the Roman Empire created a power vacuum that was filled by two elements. The Byzantine Empire, formerly the east half of the Roman Empire, began resurgence by re-conquering lands formerly belonging to the West Roman Empire, notably most of North Africa. For a brief time the Byzantines held the Italian peninsula. The west half of the Roman Empire was not replaced by a unified empire. The Roman Catholic Church filled the vacuum, holding together what civilization was left as western Europe broke up into smaller kingdoms.
War: The resurgence of the Byzantine Empire would eventually bring into conflict with the empire functioning as the contemporary heir of the Persian-Babylonian horn of civilization – the Sassanian Empire – from 602-622 AD. While the Byzantines were flexing their muscles, the Roman Catholic Church was becoming corrupted. On Christmas Day, 800 AD, the Pope crowns Charlemagne emperor of “The Holy Roman Empire.” This entanglement in politics exacted a heavy cost on the church. Italian political factions took over the church, and from about 850-920 or so was called the age of pornocracy. Two women ruled the church by spreading their legs before the Popes of the period, using these sexual relationships to manipulate events in the Papal court.
Economic calamity: The corruption of government was not limited to the Papal court. The Holy Roman Empire did not last as a unified empire. Land in Western Europe soon split into many fragments. Feudalism emerged as a system of land distribution and security. A servant called a vassal was given land by a landlord in exchange for service to the landlord, particularly military combat and agriculture. a vassal with a large grant could lease parcels of it out to other vassals. The result was that most Europeans became slaves to a piece of land.
While Western Europeans were wearing their bodies out and wrecking their health, the Byzantine and Sassanian Empires were wearing out their economies. The Sassanian Empire became vulnerable to conquest by the next cycle of conquerors: Islamists.
Pandemic: Feudalism made life hard for most western Europeans, and life spans began to decrease to an average of about 35-40 years.
Circuit 3 (622-1517 AD) The Rise of Islam to the Reformation
In 622 AD, Muhammad made a historic trip between Medina and Mecca. This trip is called the Hegira. The Hegira marks the beginning of Islamist conquests and the rise of the sixth horn. These conquests included the Sassanian empire and areas usually dominated by Babylonian civilization. The Babylonian horn was consumed and suborned into the Islamist horn. Islamist forces also conquered north Africa and Spain.
The subversion (conquest) of Roman Catholicism by Italian aristocracy left the church in disrepute. In the 11th century, Pope Gregory (Hildebrand) began “reforms” of the Papacy. His idea of reform was transforming the Papacy into a godlike office. Tghis idea is called Papo-caesarism. Hildebrand proclaimed the Pope “the Vicar of Christ.” To Hildebrand, the Pope was co-regent with Christ, possessing absolute spiritual and secular power of all planet earth.
War: Repeated attempts by Islamists to invade Europe resulted in European counter-attacks. Spaniards initiated re-conquista, pushing Islamists back. The newly ascendant Papal power was put to use organizing crusades to counter Islamists, seeking in particular to reclaim the Promised Land.
While Popes were organizing crusades against Islamists, opposition was mounting to the blasphemous claims made by Popes. From the time of Hildebrand to the days of Wycliffe, the opposition was predominantly political. Wycliffe, by pushing for reformation, transformed opposition to Papo-caesarism into a theological battle. Wycliffe started the Reformation, which achieved critical mass when Martin Luther nail Ninety-Five Thesis to the door at the church in Wittenberg.
Economic Calamity: The plundering of the Crusades weakened the Byzantine more than the Islamists, opening the door to Ottoman takeover. The crusaders were themselves plundered by Papists, who squandered it on riotous lifestyle. By 1500, the Vatican had a debt crisis. Their answer, selling the forgiveness of sins to the highest bidder, would trigger a dramatic shift in the balance of power in Europe.
Pandemic: Between 1300-1480, Black death claimed almost half of Europe’s population. When people weren’t dropping off like flies from the plague, Papists kept busy murdering anyone who opposed equating the Pope with Christ.
Cicuit 4: 600 – 1500
Conquest: By AD 600, Turkish nations would start asserting themselves as imperial powers. Groups like the Gokturks, Kipchaks, Seljuks, Krgyz, Bulgyars, Ulgyars, Khazars, and Ottomans would make their mark on history. Their wars would be with nations all around and with each other.
War: In the 1200’s, Genghis Khan, would unite the Mongols and wage fierce war. For a brief time, their empire would occupy the largest land area of any empire in history.
The Mongols drove the Ottoman Turks southeast. They would re-settle in Asia Minor, putting them in conflict with the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Empire would fall in 1453.
Circuit 5: 1350-1945 Renaissance, Reformation, Rise of the West
Conquest: When the Byzantine Empire fell, dozens of scholars left Byzantine lands to flee Islamist domination. Many headed to Italy, bringing with them numerous documents containing Greek scholarship. This scholarship would ignite an intellectual awakening that would dramatically alter the balance of power on the planet. This intellectual awakening is called the renaissance. The renaissance laid the technical background necessary to future advancements in civilization.
The Reformation, which had already begun centuries earlier with Wycliffe, would reach critical mass with Martin Luther. The Reformation, in addition to providing greater freedom to present the gospel in its fullness, would also lay moral and legal groundwork to support advancement in civilization, particularly the growth of freedom. The development of freedom would both destroy the shackles restraining innovation. It would also create an optimum environment for the creative enterprise needed to develop the innovation that would power the technological revolutions that would lead to European dominance.
The re-emergence of classical Greco-Roman thought during the Renaissance would lead totechnological revolution; it first stirred up intellectuals to pursue science. Reformation destroyed the restraints that shackled to empirical inquiry and innovation. Nearly all of the founders of modern science were devout believers that God created the human mind with categories that corresponded roughly to categories of the external world and created man this way because He wanted man to discover how the world worked. With this mindset, they started thescientific revolution.
The scientific revolution provided knowledge needed to develop the technology that would empower theindustrial revolution. The Reformation provided two tools, one moral and one legal, that would be needed to ensure success of the scientific and industrial revolutions.
The first was the principle of the rule of law. Absolute monarchy is not conducive to creativity and innovation because the king’s mind can change quickly or the king is succeeded by his son who has a more hostile view. Reformation thought held that even kings and Pope were subject to God and God was a logically consistent law giver and Promise keeper; therefore even Popes and kings were subject to law – the law was above the king. The dominance of the rule of law meant calculable law; people could anticipate the legal consequences of their actions, making capital ventures less risky. This encouraged people to invest labor and capital into their creativity to make their dreams come true.
As the emphasis on freedom of conscience lead to the increased development of freedom, there was increased perception of the dignity of the individual and increased encouragement for individuals to pursue their own dreams. This resulted in more dreams to pursue, which lead to more projects – businesses – to be developed.
Once these were in place, European powers would soon have an overwhelming technological advantage over all of the other nations on the planet. They began to colonize other nations, subjecting them to European hegemony. During the age of Colonialism, Christianity went global, sending missionaries wherever European powers became dominant. European powers controlled up to 85% of the world land area when Colonialism was at its peak.
War: Colonialism bred much conflict – conflict on a scale the world has not previously seen. Colonial occupation, while it brought the blessing of western civilization globally also brought numerous problem to occupied areas.
Colonial powers fought amongst themselves in wars that culminated in WW1. Opposition to Colonialism arose from within the colonial powers. Many saw the colonial occupations as morally problematic; it involved excesses that violated both Biblical morality and the natural moral notions that God gave to man. During this time various socialistic ideologies emerged as opposition to colonial occupation. These ideologies would seek to conquer and wage war of their own. During this period, the ottoman Empire fell and the British conquered the land that is now Jordan and Israel. This would set the stage for the re-birth of Israel.
Economic Calamity: Colonial occupation impoverished occupied peoples to enrich European governments and big business. This impoverishment has made many of these areas financially insolvent. This caused people in Africa, South America, and India to be poorer than their ancestors.
One of the features of Colonialism is the creation of artificial entities for transacting business. The accumulation of wealth by these entities resulted in alienating a person from his labor. John Locke argued brilliantly in his Second Treatise of Government that the fruit of a person’s labor was his own property, and that labor performed processing a resource appropriated that resource out of the state of nature and made the finished good his property. The methods of wealth production that created wealth on a scale never before seen disconnected this relation: the fruits of a person’s labor were no longer his own property, but that of his employer. This would create a permanent poverty class subsisting on the lowest wage the market would bear while corporate managers and owners became unbelievably rich.
Pandemic – holocaust: Occupied peoples suffered pandemics from diseases of which the occupiers had immunity. Millions more died from atrocities committed by the conquerors.
Circuit 6: 1830 – 2020 Colonialism Vs Socialism
Conquest: Socialist movements have emerged as opposition to Colonialism. Socialists often conflated Colonialism with capitalism and thought the state can save them from big corporation. They failed to realize that Colonialism itself was statist. Socialism did not empower individuals and individual nations who had become helpless in the face of Colonial power and Big Business. It was replacing one form of domination with another. Big Government dominated individuals now, and powerful socialist nations dominated other nations in their sphere of influence. the Soviet domination of eastern Europe during the Cold War was a prime example of this. The ascendancy of Socialism resulted in the creation of ideologically driven empires becoming commonplace: Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, world-wide Communism, Neo-Conservatism, and so-called “Democratic” Socialism, and the emerging Islamist threat.
While socialism gained ground in the nineteenth century, in the twentieth century it took over many governments: Communism took over Russia, Eastern Europe, and a huge chunk of southeast Asia. Nationalistic forms of socialism took over Germany and Italy in the 1930’s. “Democratic” Socialism took over Europe after WW2 and threatens America.
War: The rise of ideologically driven empires resulted in ideological wars. WW2, the Cold War, and the beginning of the War on Terror were ideological wars whose primary focus was to spread one version or another of socialist paradise by force on both their own people and other nations. Among the most ruthless examples of this was the Genocide of Jews by the Nazis
Colonial power began to decline after WW1. After WW2, Colonial power was broken. Many countries sought independence, and numerous states came into existence. Because of the systematic persecution of Jews through the centuries, culminating in Nazi Genocide, there was a movement to establishment a Jewish homeland. In 1948, Israel was reborn.
Because of the severity of WW2, particularly the advent of weapons of mass destruction, the United Nations was formed in the hopes of preventing another world war. Powerful nations were given permanent seats on the Security Council. The idea is that the United Nations would give legal cover for the aggression of powerful nations and manage conflict between superpowers so that causalities can be limited. The necessity of limiting war and the availability of manipulating tools of peace to advance the national interests of superpowers would create a “Cold” War from 1946-1987. The USA and the Soviet Union would both manipulate the United Nations and use proxy nations to wage war that was won when America bankrupted the Soviet Union.
Something very unusual happened during the Post-Colonial period. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that said that the religion brought by the conquerors would decline as the Colonial power declined, Christianity grew – began spreading like wildfire. The Pentecostal fires of revival, started in such movements as the Welsh revival and the Asuza Street Revival, had spread all over the world. God began to restore the church into an organism more closely resembling the New Testament Church. Pentecostal Christianity is by far the fastest growing religious movement in the world today!!!
Economic Calamity: The rise of big business allowed for larger scale of consequences when market become imbalanced. Panics, bubbles, and recessions became more intense. In 1929, the Great Depression started. The Great Depression started as a consequence of Colonial policies but became aggravated as a result of socialism. Government attempts to manipulate the economy made it worse and prolonged its duration. Eighty years of programs to manipulate the money supply and set up a “safety net” have burdened economies of the West with fatal levels of debt. Germany was hit particularly hard in the Great Depression, suffering hyper-inflation that would create a perfect environment to develop Nazism.
Pandemic – Holocaust: The Nazis exploited both the suffering of the German people and deep Antisemitism and made the Jews the scapegoat for Germany’s problems. They attempted genocide upon the Jewish people, killing between 10-15 million Jews. Unfortunately, the Nazi holocaust was not unique in the 20th century. The nature of ideological, socialist regimes involving murdering those who oppose the ideology. The Soviet Union murdered 50 million and the Chinese murdered over 100 million. The emerging Islamist Empire is just beginning its murderous stride.
Circuit 7: 1990 – 2020 The Emergence of the New World Order
Conquest: The New World Order began to emerge with the founding of the United Nations in 1945. During the Cold War, organizations and legal precedent were established, and a substantial amount of indoctrination of the academic, business, and political worlds was executed. When the Cold War ended, the New World Order would be in position to assert itself.
Because the New World Order relies on UN instruments to rule by manipulation, the dichotomy between business and politics is reduced. The development of the New World Order has resulted in the marriage of Big Business and Big Government on a growing list of issues. This was inevitable: once business realized they could manipulate the system and socialists realized how much money they could make by putting the government for sale as a prostitute, the adulterous affair would soon be on at everyone else’s expense. This marriage is also called Fascism.
War: After the Fall of the Soviet Union, the New World Order. On September 11, 1990, President George H.W. Bush proclaimed that the world at the beginning of a New World Order. The United Nations, touted as a tool of peace, was soon to be used as a weapon of war. The United Nations would provide legal cover for wars: Two wars in Iraq and a war in Serbia. When the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush declared a “War on Terror.” which is described as permanent war. The War on Terror has resulted in substantial erosion of civil liberties in nations of the West.
Since the re-birth of the State of Israel, the Middle East is in a constant state of war.
Economic Calamity: Eighty-plus years of social programs and over a trillion dollars spent in the War on Terror led to a collapse in September 15, 2007. Because of the adulterous relationship between Big Government and Big Business, nearly all of the gains made by the “recovery” were gobbled up by large corporations. Because global fascism is emerging, we are now living in a world where the ‘one percent’ gobble up every resource on the planet, while the other ’99 percent’ struggle to avoid complete destitution.
Pandemic- Holocaust:The artificial boundaries drawn on world maps set the stage for all kinds of wars. ethnic group are separated or forced to live in the same state with their archenemies. for example, there is really no such nationality as an Iraqi or Sudanese. Iraq and Sudan are artificial states with no logical unifying commonality, each containing rival group who have never lived together in peace but are being forced to live in the same state. This has caused countless wars.
A modern holocaust is coming that will make Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Genghis Khan look like a bunch of saintly choir boys. Because civil liberties are eroding fast as a consequence of the War on Terror, the relationship of police forces to the civilian populations is changing. Police forces are becoming increasingly hostile to the interests of citizens and becoming more violent, even criminal, in their responses. Robbery, rape, sodomy, and murder are becoming increasingly common activities amongst police officers.
Cycle 8: 2020-? From the New World Order to the Second Coming
Conquest: The global police state has arrived (Rev 13, 17-18). It will be likely that the world will exist in a scenario similar to that portrayed in the Hunger Games Trilogy where most of the world’s populations are locked up in districts or camps while the elite play wherever they want. In the past, governments required a critical mass of support from within the society in order to exist. Advanced technology can eliminate the need for a government to require the support of a critical mass of people in a society; Such technology would truly allow an elite to dominate the masses without their consent or even acquiescence. With technologies like drones, robots, and data-mining, a dictator can enforce the power of the government even if the human political support base rebels.
This dictatorship will be hostile to the Sovereignty of God and the royal claim of the Lord Jesus Christ to the planet. The global police state will persecute Israel because she has been selected to be God’s nation and the place where the throne of David sits. This persecution will result in an international coalition threatening to invade Israel (Ezekiel 38-39). The global police state will persecute the church because it is believers in Christ and only believers in Christ that are the people of God.
War: When Israel is first surrounded by armies and God’s people are threatened world-wide, the call goes out for the people of God to seek Him in sacred assembly. God responds supernaturally with judgment upon the persecutors (see Joel 2-3; Psalm 118;Matt 23:39).
Economic Calamity: trumpet judgments rape much of the earth, rendering it useless for economic activity.
Pandemic-Holocaust: Bowls of God’s wrath followed by Armageddon will result in the slaughter of many who have rebelled against God. God’s people will receive resurrection bodies, Jewish and Gentile saints reconciled to God and each other, and Israel fully restored. Jesus Christ will be ruling the earth from Jerusalem and suffering will be banished from the earth.
In the latter cycles of these horsemen, we would see the fifth seal opened, probably beginning in cycle 6 with modern democides and holocausts resulting in mass killing over ideology – and mass persecution of Christians. The sixth seal would be opened in the last cycle, as cosmic events would herald the Trumpet judgments. An argument could be made that the sixth seal is the trumpet judgments. The next chapter will analyze this.