The Seven Seals (Rev. 6:1-17; 8:1) (Part 5)

4. FOURTH SEAL > death, hades > Mt. 24:7b

^“When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, 'Come.' I

looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was

following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and

with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.” (Rev. 6:7-8)

The vicious, downward spiral of judgment continues. After war, murder and other forms of violence remove peace from the earth, the inhabitants experience skyrocketing inflation and never-before-seen food shortages. While people are starving – most of them, not the elite wealthy – an unprecedented number of people will die prematurely at the hands of this rider called Death. 

Death itself isn't what worries a person. What worries a person is how he will die, when he will die and what happens after he dies. The remainder of verse 8 answers some of these questions. The verse establishes that a person will die. This is in keeping with Hebrews 9:27, which says, “It is appointed for men to die once . . .” As a consequence for sin, each person is promised physical death, that death that I just mentioned in Hebrews. Because no one is exempt from sin, no one is exempt from physical death.

• Rom. 6:23a > “For the wages of sin is death . . .”
• Ezek. 18:4 > “The soul who sins will die.”
• Rom. 3:23 > “ . . . all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Notice that the rider, Death, is associated with a color. One commentator said that the color 'ashen', also translated 'pale', “refers to the color of a corpse, or the blanched appearance of a person struck with terror.” If people will be terrified by the impact of the four horsemen, what will it be like when those same people see a glimpse of God on His Throne? We will discuss that more in the sixth seal.

Notice that the rider, Death, has company:  "Hades was following with him." This is what causes concern. While Death claims the material part of a person (his body), Hades claims the immaterial part of a person (his soul, his spirit).

• When a believer in Jesus Christ dies, the immaterial part is not kept in Hades but goes right away to live with Jesus (2 Cor. 5:8).
• When a person who does not believe in Jesus Christ dies, the immaterial part is kept temporarily in Hades.

Why do I emphasize the word 'temporarily/" One should wish that Death was the end of an unbeliever's body and Hades was the end of an unbeliever's soul/spirit! Rev. 20:6 talks about a second death. Rev. 20:11-15 gives us the sobering reality.

Verse 8 concludes by stating that twenty-five percent of the earth's population will die. Let's say that, after the Rapture of the Church, the world population shrinks from 7 billion to 6 billion. I have no reason to use that particular number, except for math purposes. I'm hoping that many more than a billion people will go in the Rapture! If we're left with six billion people after the Rapture, that means that the population decreases to 4.5 billion. To picture a population decrease of 1.5 billion people, imagine a world without any people living in North America (including Greenland), South America (including all of Central America), Europe and Australia.¹

What will bring about such dramatic population decrease? Four culprits will be responsible.

• Sword. That's the rider on the red horse.
• Famine. That's the rider on the black horse.
• Pestilence. That means virulent, epidemic disease. In the past few years we've heard about outbreaks of Ebola, Avian Bird Flu, West Nile Virus, and now the latest – Zika Virus.
• Wild beasts.

1Based upon projected populations (by continent) for 2016. http://www.ecology.com/world-population-continent/ (accessed 4-9-16)