The second horseman is about to ride:
“Another horse, fiery red, went out. And it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace form the earth, and that people should kill one another; and there was given to him a great sword” (6:4 NKJV)
This is no ordinary sword; this is an assassin’s sword, a terrorist’s sword. The result will be crime in the streets, people butchering one another. Blood red will be the color of the day.
One does not have to belabor the point in America today. Because of violent crime, in most cities it is unsafe to walk our streets at night, and in many places life feels unsafe even during daylight hours.
Senseless drive-by shootings occur frequently, not as acts of revenge or retribution, but often for no reason at all. We have so devalued human life in our society that for many people it is a small thing to kill another person. At first we were shocked when we heard of children and teachers being gunned down on school property. Although the tragic killings continue to wrench our stomachs, we are no longer surprised by them.
Even our slang in America reflects the appalling devaluation of human life. Recently I heard a man describe a fellow employee who had lost his temper over some minor issue at work.
“He just went postal on me,” the man said.
Sadly, “going postal” no longer has anything to do with how the mail gets delivered.
Outside the U.S., terrorist-spawned violence continues to escalate as well. Hardly a day goes by when our senses are not bludgeoned by some new outbreak of terrorism in the Middle East.
Despite our best efforts at making and keeping the peace, political, economic, and religious tensions often lead to unrest, violence, and riots. Ethnic cleansing, one group of people trying to exterminate another, continues in various locations around the world, often with terrorist backing.
In the United States we are painfully familiar with terrorist activities: the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, the bombing of the federal Building in Oklahoma City, numerous letter bombs by the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, and the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
In all of these cases, a sobering truth must be faced, namely that a relatively obscure person or group was able to destroy the lives of many. I am convinced that similar senseless killings will increase, as we get closer to the coming of Christ.
Our government is rightly concerned about the growing number of nations with nuclear capabilities. Atomic bomb detonations by India and Pakistan in May 1998 reminded us once again that if the technology is out there, someone will use it to create a weapon of mass destruction.
With nuclear power spreading to Third World nations, it becomes more and more likely that terrorists will eventually get access to weapons they could only dream about in the past.
Not long ago I was shocked when I heard a message by a man who has a prophetic gift.
This man has an incredibly accurate track record—in fact, I have never known him to be incorrect on a single prophecy.
For instance, he predicted the Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles area, and the earthquake took place on the exact day the man predicted. But the message that shocked me did not concern earthquakes.
The man said God had shown him that a terrorist bomb the size of a football will be smuggled into the United States in a suitcase. One of our major cities will be destroyed this prophet declared.
But the nuclear threat is not the only concern from terrorists. Think, for example, what damage terrorists could do it they could tinker with the nation’s water supply.
Just a small amount of lethal chemicals in the right place, and millions of people could die. Or think of the awful potential of germ warfare. With all sense of morality flung to the wind, what might happen if a terrorist were able to cast a lethal biohazard into those same winds?
The red horse is out of the barn.
