“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.” Revelation 6:7-8
The fourth seal. The fourth seal is opened, and John sees a pale horse. “It’s rider was named Death, and Hell was following close behind him”. The result of this fourth seal is that one fourth of the earth’s populations are killed “by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.”
With the opening of the fourth seal a dramatic picture of divine judgment upon the world is unfolded. In some manuscripts the invitation is simply “come” with the omission of “and see.” However, John is obviously invited to witness the scene. He introduces the vision with the same dramatic expression he uses in verse 2, “I looked, and behold,” indicating that what he sees again startles him. He describes a horse on which Death is the rider and which Hell follows.
We are told that this fourth rider comes out of hell. These seals and horsemen are not an outpouring of the wrath of God. They are not the judgements of God. What we see here is satanic persecution. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that we will not go through satanic persecution. Jesus had to endure it when Satan moved against Him. In the same way, Satan will move against us, causing us to be hated by the world. “And all nations will hate you because you are my followers. But everyone who endures to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 10:22).
All the horsemen are connected to each other. They are all rooted in Satan. Satan is bringing about a lot of change to the Earth. There is going to come a day when extremism is no longer going to be tolerated and the antichrist will seek to stomp it out for a religion based on tolerance. Believing in Jesus and in the Bible, will cause us to be labelled “extremist”.