6 Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, “Come!” 2 And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering, and to conquer.
3 When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
5 When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a black horse! And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. 6 And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!”
7 When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” 8 And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a quarter of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.
Some hold that the first horseman represents anti-Christ himself, and is a manifestation of spiritual evil of terrific demonic intensity, going forth seemingly to conquer the whole earth. It might be thought that two such diametrically opposed interpretations of this picture must necessarily mean that one of them must be ludicrous, and it is sometimes held indeed that this second view is ludicrous. But we must consider it in all seriousness. It is true that the vision seems like Christ; it is so like Christ that it deceives people into thinking that it is Christ. But recall what Paul says of the anti-Christ in 2 Thessalonians 2:4, '(He) opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God'. Now the measure of his success is the measure in which he succeeds in deluding and deceiving large numbers of people into be lieving that he is the Christ (did not Christ Himself speak of the possibility of even. the elect being deceived?). His purpose is to make himself, and his programme, like Christ and His programme. The whole point about successful counterfeit is that it is so terribly like the real thing that it can be scarcely distinguished from it. How do we suppose that the false sects have been so successful in our time? Is it not because they measure up so nearly to the true divine pattern? This 'imitativeness' is of the essence of the satanic activities in the world in every age, none more so than in our own, in the spectre of communism which haunts and terrorises our time. This is so much to the point that we must spend further time tomorrow considering it.