The Great Ribulation

~ THE WEAT TRIBULATION
And I looked, and behold, a white horse;
and He who sat upon it had a Bow; and a
crown was given to Him; and He went out conquen”ng,
and to conquer (6:2).
It is Christ who is the Conqueror@r excellence. All
events in history are at His command, and it is entirely
appropriate that He should be the One represented
here as the leader of the judgments of God.
He is the Center of history, and it is He who brings
judgments upon the Land. His opening of the New
Covenant guaranteed the fdl of Israel; as He conquered
to open the Book, so He rode out in victory
to implement the meaning of the Book in history. He
rode forth at His Resurrection and Ascension as the
already victorious King, conquering and to conquer,
extending the applications of His once-for-all, definitive
victory throughout the earth. And we should
take special notice of the awfid judgments following
in His train. The Horsemen represent the forces
God always uses in breaking disobedient nations,
and now they are turned against His covenant people.
The same holds true, of course, for all men and
nations. All attempts to find peace and safety apart
from Jesus Christ are doomed to failure. The nation
that will not bow will be crushed by His armies, by
the historical forces that are constantly at His absolute
disposal.
There are differences between this vision of
Christ and that in Revelation 19. The primary reason
for this is that in Chapter 19, Christ is seen with
a sword proceeding out of His mouth, and the vision