Before continuing with this series I want to make certain that readers understand that when a seal is opened, that which begins as the result of the opening of the seal will continue until the second coming of Jesus Christ.  That horse will continue to run, joining those that came before it and those that will come after it.  As we join the narrative, remember that the white horse–false Christianity–has continued to gallop, its “rider”–the false Messiah–has continued to “conquer” God seekers with his false gospel, false god, false Christ, false church and false salvation.  As men wander ever further from God the rider will claim ever more souls.  Let us now join John as, in spirit, he watches the opening of the next seal.

John writes in Revelation 6:3,4 that he saw the Lamb open the second seal which revealed a red horse.  Power (from Satan) was given to its rider–war–to “take peace from the earth” so that men would “kill one another.”  To discern just how successful the rider on the red horse has been, to date approximately 350,000,000 people have died due to warfare.  This is a conservative estimate that could be off by millions.  There are no records of those who have been killed in tribal warfare in areas and at times when no written records were kept.

Jesus Christ warned in Matthew 24:6 that wars and rumors of wars would proliferate in the last days.  As usual, He was right.  Ever more people have died as man has developed ever more deadly weapons with which to kill other men.  Jesus declared that in the days leading up to His return the world condition will become so deadly that if He did not return and put a stop to the slaughter, no humans would be left alive.

Man having the power to eradicate himself is one of the signs that Jesus gave us that show that the end of the world is drawing nigh.  In order for that possibility to be real, man would have to have the explosive and chemical power to kill over 7,000,000,000 people.  Today mankind possesses much more power than that.  Man has never created a weapon that he did not use.  Weaponry upgrades have proliferated with rapid speed.  There was a time when a weapon was created that was known at the time as “the weapon to end all wars” because of its incredible power and accuracy.  That weapon was the crossbow.  Obviously, weaponry has advanced in exponential leaps and bounds since the crossbow came on the scene.  Man now has bombs that are thousands of times more deadly than those dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that brought an end to World War II.  And some of them are in the hands of madmen.  Other madmen are seeking them for reasons unrelated to winning of a war.  Rather they want them for the eradication of the world’s population.  For example, radical Muslims are told by their spiritual leaders that the world as we know it must be destroyed so that it can be rebuilt as a global Muslim nation.  This would entail the eradication of every non-muslim on earth.

A study of the history of war reveals some startling statistics.  It has been estimated that 19 out of every 20 days of human history have been filled with war.  The Mongol Army killed approximately 10 percent of the world’s population during Genghis Khan’s conquests of Asia.  Of all Soviet males born in 1923, about 80 percent were killed during World War II.   During the Crusades some 3,000,000 people were killed.  The Spanish inquisition resulted in over 3,000,000 deaths.  The final death toll of the Catholic Inquisition topped 50,000,000 first to last.  The Mahdi revolt caused over 5,000,000 deaths.  We do not know how many people have been killed in family and regional wars.  History reveals that on any given day, 10 wars are being waged on earth’s surface.  Wars are being waged in America’s inner cities on a continuous basis.  Every day dozens of young black males are killed by other young black males.  In those areas death of a human being at the hands of another human being is as common as breathing.

Slavery is a type of warfare in that war must be waged in order to capture those who would be sold into slavery.  This horrible activity has resulted in approximately 55,000,000 known deaths of people who, having been defeated and captured, later died while in captivity to other people.  Thirty to forty percent of the people in the Roman Empire were slaves whose lives and deaths were determined by those who owned them.  Roman Emperor Nero lit his garden with the bodies of burning Christian slaves.  Others were forced to face wild animals for the entertainment of their captors

Religious rituals designed to result in the death of human beings are acts of war against the victims.  Aztec priests cut out the hearts of 20,000 living people each year as part of a pagan religious ritual.  Human sacrifice is as old as recorded history.  Historically, children were sacrificed to heathen gods and their blood used to color eggs used in paying homage to the Goddess of Fertility.  Today in the Western world the celebration is known as Easter.

Regardless of its particular characteristics, the taking of a human life is an act of war on that person.  Though some death penalties are justified, the vast majority of forced human deaths this world has ever seen have been acts of war.  And the war to come will make all other wars pale by comparison.  So says the Lord.  L.J.