The White Horse of Peaceful Political Deception — Keith Malcomson

The White Horse of Peaceful Political Deception

I want you to turn to Revelation chapter 6 here tonight with me as we continue with this Bible study. I believe it's very important, very timely. In this hour in world history, never have we been so close to the fulfillment of all Bible prophecy, and yet to misjudge prophecy, to not understand it, or to not know the hour that you live in at this time could make you make a lot of mistakes.

I want to read from Revelation chapter 6, and this is our second message in this short series, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Tonight my message is the white horse of peaceful political deception.

Reading from Revelation chapter 6, Revelation chapter 6, so many things began to go wrong tonight as I wrestled through this, so you need to pray for me as we read and pray tonight. I become very aware when there's opposition, it's not always natural, the things that happen.

When you begin to see that, you realize there's an importance to both preach a thing and to hear it and to understand it. If I miss anything tonight through what happened, things that happened, then I'll come in in the other weeks, but I do want you to understand this first horse.

Never has there been so much confusion around a point in Revelation as I believe this, and it's for this hour that we must understand what it means. Reading Revelation chapter 6 and verse 1, I heard the second beast say, come and see.

And there went out another horse that was red, and power was given to him that sat there on to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another. And there was given unto him a great sword, and when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, come and see.

And I beheld, and lo, a black horse, and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, and measure a wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny, and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, come and see. 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.

Can we pray here together tonight? Father, we do love you. We do worship you. Our eyes are upon the one that was worthy to open up these seven seals. Our eyes are upon him here tonight. We realize there's only one that was found worthy in heaven to open up the seals, O God, and to reveal these prophecies, and we worship him tonight.

He is the Lamb of God that was slain. He is the one that sits at the right hand of the Father with all power and authority and dominion. Now, Lord God, we realize that the opening of these seals are going to stir up all of the nations to bring forth the final portion of your will and your purpose in the earth, and we love you tonight.

Lord God, make us to see that Christ is in control, that he is sovereign, that he is in charge, that the world is not out of his control, but that he has a plan that he shall fulfill in all of the earth.

In Jesus' mighty name, amen. We're coming to Revelation chapter 6, and tonight I want to begin to teach on the four horses. Do not listen to this message apart from last week's message. Last week's message is vital to understand Revelation 6.

We give all of the ingredients and the foundation and the understanding to understand who these four horsemen are. They're not just symbols in a vision or a prophecy. They are much, much more than that.

Misinterpretations of Revelation Prophecy

Now, this white horse that we're going to deal with tonight, I've called it the white horse of peaceful political deception. I have heard throughout my lifetime, and especially in recent times, this first horse that is found in the first seal misrepresented in so many different ways.

I've seen this prophecy taken and interpreted in so many different ways, I don't even have time to touch on it here tonight. You see, there's many in the church that take the prophecies of Revelation, they apply their own thinking, or very often, what is happening in the world, and they twist the vision without keeping it in context, and that is a very, very dangerous thing.

You see, the four horsemen do represent something very important. It was in 1986 that Chernobyl in Russia happened, that terrible disaster. All of a sudden you had a lot of preachers preaching from Revelation 8, verse 11, that it was wormwood, and they said this was the actual fulfillment of it.

It was the third trumpet blasting, and they said this is what Revelation was talking about. Chernobyl is wormwood in the third trumpet. Again, I heard in younger years that the fifth trumpet in Revelation 9, verse 7, where the locusts come up out of the pit, I heard preachers again take that and begin to use it to say that is actually the rock music coming out of the pit of hell.

In Revelation 9, we see that these locusts have men's faces but women's hair. So what did they do? They took the Scripture, applied their natural thinking, and looked at the heavy metal rock stores for this hour, and they begin to apply it.

So they took Scripture out of context. They kept nothing in its order, nothing in its right place, but they began to look with their eyes and give their own interpretation to a prophecy. We've got to be very, very careful of this.

You'll remember in this church, and I warned you about it in September 2017, leading up throughout that year, where they took Revelation chapter 12, and people all across the internet began to look at the woman in the heavens, that vision, and they began to say that really it was going to happen in September 2017, and that Jesus was going to come back, and that the rapture was going to happen in that month.

And they said because all the stars are moving around, and the constellation is all in its right place, the dragon, the woman, the man-child, and they said because the constellations are moving in that way, we now know it's the fulfillment of Revelation 12.

I told you back in that year before it happened that it was false, it was an erroneous teaching, but you couldn't speak to people. Do you see how all across the church men are selling books, making movies, selling their ministries on the basis of interpreting the book of Revelation, and yet they are not interpreting it correctly.

We had that whole teaching of blood moons sweep through the church. You could buy the books, all the great preachers in America, one after another started to teach on that. And I wouldn't deny there's some unusual things that happen with these blood moons, but the scriptures they took out of context had nothing to do with it whatsoever.

And so we see that men often misinterpret scripture, and they abuse scripture, and then there's many who mock scripture, saying that isn't Bible prophecy. So I want you to understand this first horse of the apocalypse.

Identifying the First Horseman

I want you to understand what this white horse represents. In church history many have taught that it was the first century church, or what happened from the first century on, it was the spread of the gospel.

That's how they tried to interpret it. There are many in our day who say the rider on the white horse is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. They say, look, it's a white horse, he's got a crown on his head, so it must be Jesus Christ.

That's how they actually begin to interpret it. When you look at Revelation chapter 19, we see clearly that it's Jesus Christ on the back of a white horse. He is the Word of God. He is the one who shed his blood at Calvary.

Chapter 19, it is clearly the Lord Jesus Christ, and it comes in the right place in the order of Revelation. You see it clearly. But this rider in Revelation chapter 6 is not Jesus, and I'm going to show you why I say that.

Others, again, say that it is the Antichrist. And I believe they're only partially true in that, but I believe they're actually wrong. I don't believe it's Jesus. I don't believe it's Antichrist. When you get Bible teachers about the same little verse in the Bible, one prophecy teacher says, I know it's Jesus, and the others say, I know it's the Antichrist.

You've got a problem. You've got a serious problem. And you know what? It means they're not using any rules of biblical interpretation. If one man says it's Jesus and the other says it's Antichrist, you're going to have to use something more than your own opinion or your own thinking.

We've got to understand what it means. Then last of all, and I'm just laying, I'm moving out some rubbish before I teach you here. But then there's those in the past year and a half, I mean, mature Christians, men and women with experience, they've been around the church, and they have told me, I know that this is the coronavirus.

I know that the white rider is the coronavirus. Why do you think it's the coronavirus and this crisis? Why do you think last year the white horse rode out and that the first seal was open? Well, it's coronavirus.

It's obvious. The word corona means crown in the Latin language. Therefore there's a crown on the head of the rider of the first white horse. Therefore I know it is the coronavirus. Now I want to tell you, if you interpret Bible prophecy like that, you've got serious problems.

I mean, Chernobyl doesn't even compare with interpreting this for first horse rider as the coronavirus. I've got no doubt that it is significant what's happening in our world and that the stage is being set.

But if that's how you interpret Bible prophecy, you will make very, very major mistakes along the way. I want to show you here tonight who, what, and when this white rider on a white horse is going to ride out.

I've got four points here tonight. First of all, the vision opened. Second of all, expounded or explained in its context. Third of all, we're going to place it in its context in all of Scripture. And then fourth of all, I'm going to apply it to the hour that we are now living in.

The Vision Opened by the Lamb

So first of all, as we look at the white horse of peaceful political deception, I want to deal with the vision opened. We see in Revelation chapter six and verse one, read with me here. And it says, and I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals.

This is the vision or the prophecy open. It actually gets opened here in this first verse. And who is it that is opening the seal? Who is it who opens up the prophecy and reveals what is hidden within it?

It is the Lamb of God. See what we dealt with last week in Zechariah chapter one and Zechariah chapter six. We saw that the riding out of horses at the command of God, under the instruction of God, and the chariots of different colors.

We saw that this was all in the plan of God to stir the nations up to bring about the will of God. When we come to Revelation six, we see it's not the devil dictating time. He cannot. It's not the devil commanding these horses to ride out.

He cannot. He does not have that authority. We actually see, and John has the vision. I saw he had a vision. He could see it clearly. The Lamb opened up one of the seals or the first seal. And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder.

One of the four beasts saying, come and see. In the previous chapter, chapter five, what do we see? We see Christ central in the throne room of heaven. The entirety of Revelation five centers around the Lamb of God.

And in fact, around the opening of this entire prophecy. Look back to Revelation chapter five and verse one. It says, and I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.

This is God the Father sitting on the throne. And in his right hand, he has this book, this very same book. It was a book or a scroll with seven seals upon it. Until the seals are broken, you can't see inside it.

Do you realize, and we'll go into this further in an entire message. Do you realize the seal book that's written on the inside and the outside represents something? When you go back into the Old Testament, you begin to find out that this has to do with the redemption of the entire earth.

And notice this, the four horses riding out. When the first horse rides out, it means it's the beginning of God redeeming the entire earth. This is the time that God is going to literally redeem the entire creation back onto himself.

This is the actual hour. So as soon as the four horses ride out, all of the nations are going to begin to stir to bring forth prophetic events. Each of the four horses initiate certain events, certain things in the nations of the entire world, things that are going to shake our world.

But you've got to understand when things happen in our world, Christ has a plan to redeem the earth back to himself. He's not simply going to destroy the earth. He is going to take up possession and reign upon it for 1 ,000 years.

And then he's going to create a new heaven and a new earth. But here in Revelation 5, we see this book or this scroll with its seven seals in the hand of the Father. We see that they begin to weep and John begins to weep because who is there found worthy to open up the seals and to reveal the prophecies?

We see that it was Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. One, only one is found worthy who can open up the seal. And it is the Lord Jesus Christ. If you don't realize that Christ is sovereign over these events, you're going to be terrified.

You're going to get scared about world events. You're going to think that the devil has his way and man has his way and that there's no power in God until he comes in the air. But I want to tell you that the Lord Jesus Christ never hands over time to anyone or to any other creature.

And so we see this is the first vision that we see here. This is going to be the beginning. With Revelation 6, verse 1, it's the beginning of prophecy in the book of Revelation. And it's going to continue through to chapter 22.

It's a prophecy book. But we are literally looking at the first event that's going to start everything off. What is it? It is the white horse. This white horse is so important that when it gets revealed, released and sent forth, it is the beginning or initiating of a whole series of events.

They'll never stop and that no man can turn back. There'll be no delays until Jesus comes to reign on the earth and redeem the nations unto himself. And so we see that it is the Lamb of God who opens the seal.

Only he can do it. Time is in his hands. Power is in his hands alone. If you're going to begin to understand the book of Revelation, do you know what you need to do? Go back to Revelation chapter 1 and verse 1.

To the name of the entire book of Revelation. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ. That word revelation is the Greek word akalouptos, where we get the word apocalypse from. Now in our common English language, if you talk about apocalypse, people think of wars and disasters and famines and earthquakes and all manners of things like that.

That's what they think. And yet the word apocalypse does not mean that. When we talk about the four horsemen of the apocalypse, it's the four horsemen of revelation. This word apocalypse does not mean Armageddon.

It's not talking about Antichrist. You know what this book is called? The Revelation, the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ. The word means to disclose, to reveal or to remove the covering or to remove the veil so that you can see Jesus Christ.

If you come to a book of Revelation and to the first seal and all you see is war and judgment and disaster, you don't understand the book of Revelation. You see, the book of Revelation is to take the cover off and show you who Jesus Christ really is.

When you see world events go on, I mean political chaos, wars, disasters, do your eyes go heavenward? Are all these things actually revealing to you who the person of Jesus Christ is? When you begin to see Bible prophecy come to pass, do you realize it's revealing that He is sovereignly in control?

He is the only one that can reveal what is going to happen. Only God knows the future. When you come to the book of Revelation, you have, and listen this carefully. First of all, you have the seven seals.

Then you have the seven trumpets. Then you have the seven vials or cups of wrath being poured out. Most people, when they come to Revelation, they begin reading from Revelation 6, the first seal. They read through the seven seals.

They read through the seven trumpets. They read through the seven vials, and they try to read it as one complete history. They think it begins here and continues through. You will get very, very confused with that.

You know why? Because the seventh seal, the seventh trumpet, and the seventh vial all finish at the same time. So we actually have two entire histories in the book of Revelation. No, we have three entire histories, all playing out through the book of Revelation.

And if you don't understand that, you'll get very confused. You see, first of all, you have the seven seals being opened by Jesus. In the seventh and the last seal, do you know what you have? You actually have the seven trumpets.

The seven trumpets don't begin until the seventh seal. But then the seven trumpets and the seven vials are the same. They actually are merged together, 14 distinct prophecies, but they merge together as seven distinct events through the book of Revelation.

And when you begin to study it, and you begin to understand this, you can tell time schedule from the book of Revelation. Let me prove it to you here a moment. We're gonna go to the four horses, and that's our concentration in this Bible teaching.

But let me take you to the fifth seal, the sixth seal, and the seventh seal. If you understand what those three seals are, then you know when the four horsemen are gonna come. The fifth seal is the great tribulation.

The sixth seal is the cosmic blackout. And the seventh seal is the day of the Lord when the seven trumpets begin to sound and the wrath of God is poured out. Now listen carefully. If you go to Matthew 24, what Jesus taught, He taught about the great tribulation.

At the end of it, the cosmic blackout, everything's gonna go black. And then at the end of that, about the day of the Lord, the three events of Matthew 24, we read about in the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh seal.

Do you know what this actually means? This means that the four horsemen come before the three and a half years of tribulation. They don't come during it, they don't come after it. The four horsemen, what they represent, have to come before the great tribulation.

How does the great tribulation start? It begins with the abomination of desolation in the book of Daniel. As soon as you see the abomination standing in the temple in Jerusalem, the great tribulation begins.

When you go to the book of Revelation, we see the great tribulation that's talked about in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we see it in the fifth seal. What is in the fifth seal? The saints are suffering, the martyrs, and they're crying out, when are we gonna get avenged?

That's what the fifth seal is. The fifth seal marks the great tribulation. Now that might be a lot to take on board, but just shelf it for a second. And let me show you that these four horsemen ride out to prepare the way for the abomination of desolation.

The first point here we have is the vision open. There is an opening of this vision. When Christ actually breaks the seal and opens the vision contained in it, when that event begins, you've got all of time sequence beginning.

I actually believe that this first seal, this first horseman marks the beginning of the last seven years of Bible prophecy. Halfway through, the great tribulation begins. But these seven years begin when the seal is broken and this first horseman begins to ride out.

And so you can begin to understand scripture. You can begin to put it together. The seven seals are all negative. They are judgments. They are a series of disasters that come upon the world and the nations of the world that are finally gonna bring forth the plan of God.

And these four horsemen are united together. What one is, the other three are, but they each represent something different. And so we see that Christ opens up the vision. My second point here concerning Revelation and verse six, and we read about it in verse two, the vision expounded.

The White Horse as Political Diplomacy

Not only the vision open, Christ does that. But we have here the vision expounded. Or let me explain what the vision actually means. You see, I don't believe it's Antichrist or Christ or coronavirus, not at all.

But what is it? I believe time and time again, I can prove to you what it actually represents. We have two verses concerning this first seal and it's explained in verse two. And I saw and behold a white horse and he that sat on him had a bow and a crown was given unto him and he went forth conquering and to conquer.

The first thing to notice here is that it is a white horse. We saw that the horses of Zechariah one and Zechariah six, they represented, the horses and chariots represent angelic beings. The horses going forth represented God's plan and purpose in the earth that would stir up wars, disasters that would stir up a shaking of the nations to bring forth his plan.

And so we see the horse here, the color of the horse is white. It symbolizes something. The color of the horse symbolizes something like with Zechariah chapter one and chapter six. It is symbolic. It has a spiritual meaning, a supernatural meaning and it represents physical prophetic events that begin to happen on the earth.

Notice this, in order to understand who the man and the horse is and the horse. Do you remember last week, we said the fourth horse with its rider, the rider, who was he? He's death. He's an angelic being.

He is a person sitting on the fourth horse. You can't make the first horse rider Jesus and the fourth horse rider death or a demon that's gonna be cast into hell. You see all four riders are spiritual beings.

They are angels. And each of these angels are being sent forth to actually stir up events in the nations that are gonna bring about God's will upon the earth. This first horse rider on the white horse, I believe is an angelic being.

I believe he is a fallen angel, an evil angel or a spirit riding on the back of the horse. If we are to agree with Zechariah and agree with the fourth horse, what he is, the rider of it, then we begin to understand the rider of this first white horse has to be a fallen angel that has been sent to accomplish something in the earth.

In other words, he's not bringing peace. He's not preaching the gospel. He is not bringing something good. It is a judgment released by Jesus Christ. If the first thing is good and the others are bad, we're gonna run into problems here.

But people say, but it's a white horse. And in the book of Revelation, white usually represents righteousness, victory, no guilt, being cleansed or a fresh start. This horse is a white horse symbolizing something that's gonna get released on the earth at a very specific time.

And when that horse gets released, everything is gonna happen in the book of Revelation. It triggers the entire book of Revelation. It all begins to happen at that point. Notice it also says, he that sat on him.

So you've got the white horse, the man sitting on the horse, and it is a white horse. We have the entire picture set here. It says, he that sat on him had a bow. Notice he doesn't have a name. The man on the fourth horse has a name.

His name is death. This rider has no name, but he does have certain things that we can identify him with. It says that he had a bow. So this rider on the white horse, he is there on the back of the horse with a bow on his hand.

What does the bow in the Bible represent? It is an instrument of war. In fact, the bow represents military power. And the bow isn't face-to-face conflict. It is warfare at a great distance. That's what the bow represents.

It is not hand-to-hand combat with a sword, looking your enemy in the eye. The bow represents the power of military force. In the Old Testament, anytime you read about the power of the bow, do you know what God is saying?

He's talking about the nations, the power of the bow. When he breaks it, it means he's broken their military power. And this is extraordinary military power. Do you know when a bowman fires an arrow, it usually hits you before you see it or you hear it.

Sometimes you hear the whistle of an arrow and go, what's that? And then it hits you. It's an extraordinary weapon. So this rider on the white horse, he's got a bow that represents military power. He is like a sniper of the first century.

What it's talking about here is someone with remarkable military power who's going to initiate the book of Revelation. And what he does, it's going to be sudden, unexpected, and hidden. He comes looking like he's righteous.

He looks very similar to the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet he has military power in his hand. Although he has it and he possesses it. We actually see in this seal, he doesn't kill anybody. He makes no war.

He looks like a military power. And yet when you read about this seal as we're about to hear, there is no bloodshed, nobody dies. And in fact, there's no arrows. Notice he's got a bow in his hands, but he's not firing arrows.

Neither does it say that he has arrows with him. You see, I believe it's talking about military power with diplomacy right across the world. Look further, it says, and a crown was given onto him. So he's got a bow, military power, and a crown was given onto him.

He didn't earn it. He didn't deserve it. He didn't fight for it. Before he goes forth to conquer, he is given a crown. Right at the beginning, he's given a crown before he wages war, before he goes forth with the power of the bow.

He actually has a crown given to him. What does this crown represent? It's not the royal crown. You know, in Revelation 19, Jesus has a diadem on his head. That is a royal crown upon, sorry, let me say that again.

He has a Stephanos. There's two different Greek words for crown, a Stephanos and a diadem. Here, this white rider has a diadem on his head. But in Revelation 19, Jesus has a Stephanos, which is a royal crown.

In other words, government or power or authority to rule. He actually has that royal designation. But this rider here has a diadem. What is the diadem? It is a war wreath or a victor's crown. You know, at the Olympics, this is the crown that an Olympic runner wins or a great general who wins a war.

He got crowned with a victor's wreath. But notice here, he's getting crowned before he does anything. He's getting a victor's crown or it's in the position of as a victor that he goes forth to do all that he's going to do.

In other words, his victory comes out through this. It goes further and says, and he went forth conquering and to conquer. He is crowned. He has military power. He has the testimony of being victorious.

But he also, in that positions, goes forth to conquer and to conquer. It says in Revelation chapter six and verse three about the second horse with its angel rider. Notice what it says. And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast come and see.

And there was another horse that was red. The red horse that we're going to see next week, the red represents war. And in fact, people die in the second seal. The red horse clearly represents bloodshed or war.

And it says the power was given to him that sat there on to take peace from the earth. Before you take peace from the earth with war, there's got to be peace. Do you see that clearly there? In verse four, it says, the rider on the red horse rides forth in war and he takes away peace from the earth and they kill one another.

So it is the second horse that's going to bring war. But there has to be peace in the earth before you can take it away from war. I believe the first horse brings peace. Do you know that in that first seal, there's going to be peace upon the earth.

Peace has to be manifest, quietness, prosperity, before the second horse rides out to remove that peace. And so this first rider, notice the picture we're beginning to see. We're seeing a white rider on the horse with great military power, remarkable military power.

And yet he isn't using it for war, but he does possess it. You can see it. It is the power of military force, but he's not killing anyone. There's no war. In fact, his power, his military power, as he rides forth in white, representing peace, representing prosperity, representing what he's going to do in the world.

Do you realize how deceptive this first horse is? When you see this horse coming, will you think this is a judgment from an angelic being? Will you actually think this is a bad thing? Or will the nations of the world say, surely this is our hour of peace?

Do you remember Paul writing? And he said an hour is coming where they're going to say, peace, peace. And he said, there shall be no peace. There's going to be an hour. We live in an iron generation where everyone's being told, sure you'll be okay.

Even people in the church, sure live like a devil, but you'll be okay. I want to tell you, that sort of message is a false message. When people start telling you, sure you're living in sin, but peace be unto you.

Sure the Lord will just bless you. That is a false message. And we're moving into an hour where we're listening to politicians and leaders. There's going to be a strong proclamation. We're going to bring peace in the earth.

We hold, we possess military power, and yet we're speaking peace. Do you see this white horse? As he rides out across the nations of the world, it says there in Revelation 6 and 3 about the second, sorry, verse 4, about the second horse.

It says there went out another horse that was red. The word another there is alos. It means another of the same kind. The Greek word heteros means, you're a girl, I'm a boy. Heteros, heterosexual. You're not the same as me.

I know the world now doesn't know that. But you know what? The Bible makes a difference when it talks about a heteros horse is radically different. But you know what he says? That first horse and that second horse, they're not radically different.

It's another of the same kind. A white horse is very like the red horse. But when you look at it, you don't think that. You think one is a horse of peace, the other is a horse of war. I want to tell you they are very, very similar.

They are very alike. And yet the first one rides out with a message of peace, saying we've got all power, we've got military power, but we're bringing peace to you. The second horse brings bloodshed and removes that peace and brings war into the earth.

Notice it says he went forth conquering and to conquer. A crown on his head, the victor's crown. He goes forth saying, I've already got the victory. I've been crowned with victory. It's been given to me.

I will fulfill it. Do you realize this horse cannot be stopped? He is crowned with victory and power. Nobody is going to stop this horse, nobody. It is unstoppable. It says he's going forth to conquer and to conquer.