I ended Part 2 of this series with the statement “following after ‘doctrines of devils’ brings about an eternal fall, not just a slip and fall while still on the right path.” Part 2 went into a lengthy discussion on the Apocalyptic White Horse Rider, described in Revelation 6:1-2. I would like to go a bit further in my discussion of the first white horse rider in Revelation before moving on to what Jesus had to say about the Red Horse Rider.
In discussing this first apocalyptic rider, I also gave my reasons why I believe this rider, whose job it is to conquer by deception, has been about his end-time business for possibly at least a number of decades already. I know this is hard for some to accept, and I have no desire to confuse anyone, but the evidence I have seen and what we are presently witnessing coming upon the earth, is nothing less than chilling. There are many forms to this deception in our postmodern world, but what is about to be unleashed upon the inhabitants of this world is likely the greatest deception yet.
As was also made clear in part 2 of this series, the first White Horse Rider in Revelation 6 is not the same as the second White Horse Rider in Revelation 19. The obvious contrast given in their Biblical descriptions makes this very clear. The second white horse rider is none other than the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Here’s how the descriptions read: First, Revelation 6:1-2:
“I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, ‘Come!’ I looked, and there before me was a white horse! It’s rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.”
Now, let’s read Revelation 19:11-16:
“I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.”
Even though it would undoubtedly be worthwhile to go into the entire contrast between these two White Horse Riders, I will have to come back to this another time. I would at least like to leave you a Scripture written by the Apostle John, the same John who also wrote the Apocalypse (or Book of Revelation). In John 1:1 we find these words:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.”
It is easy to see that the Person John the Apostle was describing in John 1:1 was the same One he was describing in Revelation 19:11-16. Both scriptures describe Him as the WORD OF GOD, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, while the first rider is described as a conqueror bent on conquest.
This brings up an interesting question. Since the first White Horse Rider is not Jesus Christ, who is he? It has traditionally been taught that the first rider in Revelation 6 is the antichrist. I do not believe he is. My reasoning is this:
We find that the other three apocalyptic riders listed in Revelation 6 are not associated with mankind in any way. They are not human, nor are they part-human. These are supernatural beings that are released to accomplish their designated purposes, and in a very real sense, they all have the “antichrist spirit.” Their characteristics are totally supernatural.
So why would he not be the antichrist? If the Rider on the Red Horse, which symbolizes War; the Rider on the Black Horse, which symbolizes, the Collapse of the World Economy and World-wide Famine; and the Pale Green Horse symbolizes Pestilence, Death, with Hell following on its heels, the First Rider will also be representative of an end-times world problem, and not be a human being–not even the Antichrist.
We also find that the Antichrist actually shows up a bit later in the chronological events of the Apocalypse. He is described in chapter 13, and even though he may very well be on the world scene early on in the Great Tribulation, his final position as the First Beast, or Man of Sin, as the Bible calls him, may not be fully established in the eyes of the world yet. We know that according to 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12, the “man of lawlessness” will not be revealed until after the Rapture (harpazo in the original Greek), has happened. How long afterward is not real clear. It could be days, or many months. The point is that the Rapture must happen first. I have printed the entire passage out below because it will be of value to have it in mind as we continue this discussion. It is in the NIV version below:
“Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come. Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
“Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.”
This Scripture, as well as others, makes it clear that the Antichrist will not be revealed to the world for who he is until after the Restrainer, who is the Holy Spirit working through the Church, is removed from the earth. This does not mean that the Holy Spirit is totally removed from the earth, but because of the change in dispensation, is working differently than through the Church Age. Because the Holy Spirit is omnipresent, and is God, just as is the Father and the Son, His Presence is still on the earth. It does need to be recognized that the true Church, because of its close relationship with her Messiah, does act as a strong restraining force over evil. The evil one is not able to do his worst until this restraining force is removed out of his way. It needs to be understood that the restraining force that we are describing does not include the lukewarm church described in Revelation 3:16.
In verse 11 of the passage above, we are told that, due to the refusal of earth’s inhabitants to believe and accept the Truth, God will turn them over to a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie. Many say that this is “unfair” of God, yet, notice the “cause and effect” that God uses. Ultimately, everyone will reap what they sow, as Scripture teaches us. We are the ones with the choice, and there will be no valid excuse for those that choose to ignore God’s truth.
In our time, there are many delusions already. From my study of history, particularly American history, it is interesting to see how many distortions of the true Gospel came into existence from the 19th century on. Some were formed before, but the number multiplied as we got closer to the 20th century. Toward the end of the 20th century, there were several notable inner attacks directly on the Church of Jesus Christ. People from within the ranks of Christianity’s main denominations were falling for some twisted teachings, some more obvious than others. It would take a full length study to expose just some of the ways that the Church has been damaged by the “Emerging Church”, “Kingdom Now Theology,” “Replacement Theology,” “Chrislam,” and others. I mention these in passing in order to get to one that many people will find difficult to believe has the capacity to become the worst of them all. A term which most folks are not familiar with yet is called “Panspermia.” This terminology and the belief system behind it is catching the Church off guard. Many Christians that are seemingly solid in the faith are being deceived, and it seems that it is a taboo subject. Unfortunately there is more fear of causing people discomfort than there is of people getting sucked into a damning belief system. I will cover the basics of what it is and why it is so deceptive within this series.
One of the things that many miss in reading the Bible “story”, is the ancient struggle that began between the “seed” of the woman (Jesus) and that of the serpent–a struggle that would not be resolved until the Salvation story has been completed near the very end of the Bible. Stay with me as I build the case for this coming great delusion. In Genesis 3:15, we find a very familiar verse. Note the Hebrew for “seed”.
“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed [zera, meaning “offspring,” “descendants,” or “children] and her seed.”
What God was exposing here in this short verse in Genesis, and then confirmed in numerous Scriptures throughout His Word, was well known to the early church, as historical writings show. This common knowledge however was gradually marginalized, then ignored, and soon lost to the Church. From this time on, theologians thought the story too incredulous to be true. This is still a fact with most today, although there are more and more Christian people who are not necessarily accepting traditional religious thought as gospel truth just because it is taught as such. There are a number of Biblical issues coming to light once again right at the end of this age; issues people want to understand and so they are searching for the answers. What this ancient battle encompasses and what it has to do with our time in history is one of these issues.
In our sophisticated, refined society, we have difficulty in seeing the depths that define the fallen Lucifer, and especially what he is doing in our world today. We understand very little about the fallen one and what he is capable of. Especially here in the west, we have a tendency to paint our existence in a way that is comfortable to us. Unfortunately, when we get a dose of reality, we are quick to reject it, either because it isn’t reasonable or because it doesn’t fit our preconceived theology.
Neither Adam nor Eve realized the depth of what had happened in the Garden of Eden when they fell. Neither did they realize the tremendous turbulence that was coming to the human race as a result. God’s statement in Genesis 3:15 set something into motion that was beyond the capacity of the first couple to understand, but they soon saw the results of the fall beginning to tear their perfect world apart. Jesus’ statement in John 10:10 quickly became a reality to Adam and Eve. Jesus said, “the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” The serpent left the scene after his condemnation from God with one thing in mind, and one thing only! He wanted nothing less than the complete destruction of God’s prize creation….. man! According to the original Hebrew, a predicted battle was coming between the “seed” of the woman and the “seed” of the serpent. God, right there in the garden, was foretelling the coming of the Messiah, who would be brought through the human race. The serpent would bruise His heel, but He would eventually crush the serpent’s head. The battle was on!
Have you ever wondered where Greek mythology came from? In fact, when reading ancient history, you will find Egyptian mythology, Roman mythology, Assyrian mythology, Babylonian mythology, etc. Every culture on earth has its own version of some very strange goings on. Have humans always had such wild imaginations or was there something of real substance to all of these myths?
The Bible gives us the answer and it turns out to be pretty simple, although many people are loathe to accept it for what it simply says. As we read the Genesis story, we find how fallen man fell deeper and deeper into sin and depravity. In Genesis 6, however, it went to a whole new level of corruption. Verses 1-8 read this way:
“When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal, his days will be a hundred and twenty years.
“The Nephilim were on the earth in those days–and also afterward–when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
“The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the Lord said, ‘I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth–men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air–for I am grieved that I have made them.’ But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”
Because this whole subject is so involved, I can only establish the basic facts of what happened in Genesis and use that as groundwork to show where it was foretold that this battle would be in our generation. Establishing this will help us understand what this strong delusion is that is coming upon the world right at the end of this age.
When we read this passage of Scripture, especially in the original Hebrew, we find that the “Sons of God” mated with the “daughters of men.” Who were these “Sons of God?” For the last 1500 years or more it has been taught that these were sons of Seth. This is impossible for a number of reasons. The most obvious was the fact that the word used in the Hebrew for “Sons of God” is only used five times in the Old Testament. Job 38:7 shows us that this particular Hebrew word is always used of angels and nothing else. To ignore what God made clear is to put many other historical events of ancient history in a fog. As uncomfortable as this concept is for us, the Bible tells us these Sons of God saw how beautiful the daughters of men were and took any they chose as wives. Not only did they take wives, but they had children by them. The Bible tells us that these children became giants, or more correctly, the “Nephilim”, the mighty men of old. These giants apparently grew to anywhere from 8’-36’ tall, some before Noah’s flood, taller yet.
As difficult as it is for the modern day church to accept the validity of these historical events, there is an abundance of evidence; in fact plenty of scriptural proof as well. These “Sons of God” are the same ones that are mentioned in 1 Peter 3:19; 2 Peter 2:4; and Jude 6,7. All three Scriptures are rather pointed in their implication:
“…through whom also he (Jesus) went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built…” (1 Peter 3:19 NIV)
“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment” (1 Peter 2:4 NIV)
“And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home–these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.” (Jude 6-7, NIV)
According to the ancient prophet Enoch, the incursion of these fallen angels came about in the days of Jared, his father. In the 365 years that Enoch lived on the earth before he was raptured from the earth by the Lord, he wrote several books. At least one of his books told the story of the 200 angels that met at the top of Mount Hermon in order to confirm a pact with each other so that all would go through with the plan of mating with the daughters of men. Enoch named 20 of the leaders of these angels in his writings. There was of course much to the story but the details are not necessary at this time. It is however worth mentioning here that the early church had Enoch’s writings in their collection of books and regularly used Biblical sources. It is also worthwhile knowing that Enoch’s writings, or at least some portions of them, were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Other excellent sources for this information are the “Septuagint” and Josephus, the Jewish historian. An additional source is the “Ante-Nicene Fathers”, Volume 8. There is also reference made to this angelic-human “mingling” catastrophe in the Book of Jubilees (called the little Genesis and widely used for reference by the early Church fathers). The ancient Book of Jasher, which is mentioned in the Holy Scriptures also speaks to the horrible events that transpired, finally causing God to say He regretted creating mankind. In fact, the Book of Jasher has a passage that I will quote below because it speaks specifically to how the sins of the fallen ones carried down to their Nephilim children and then also to the human race around them. Note what is said about how the rest of God’s creation was affected; in fact was mutated from its original created design.
“And all the sons of men departed from the ways of the Lord in those days as they multiplied upon the face of the earth with sons and daughters, and they taught one another their evil practices and they continued sinning against the Lord. And every man made unto himself a god, and they robbed and plundered every man his neighbor as well as his relative, and they corrupted the earth, and the earth was filled with violence. And their judges and rulers went to the daughters of men and took their wives by force from their husbands according to their choice, and the sons of men in those days took from the cattle of the earth, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and taught the mixture of animals of one species with the other, in order therewith to provoke the Lord; and God saw the whole earth and it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon earth, all men and all animals.” (Jasher 4:16-18) [Note: The ancient Book of Jasher is referenced in Joshua 10:13; 2 Samuel 1:18; and 2 Timothy 3:8]
Ancient records show that not only was there the crossing of species between angels and humans, but the mixing of species between different kinds of animals, and then also between animals and humans. As revolting as this may be to most of us in modern times, our disgust does not preclude these things from having been done by the fallen angels as well as their know-how taught to men. The records are clear and this indeed did happen as was recorded. The accounts were unquestioned fact until supposed religious theologians later took hold of the subject. Then the arguments and bickering began! More and more theologians began to question the whole story of angels mating with human women. Then they began to insert their own idea that the “Sons of God” were really the righteous people who existed before the flood (specifically, the bloodline of Seth). This same flawed theology is still the teaching and understanding in most churches today. Our lack of understanding of how a spirit being like an angel can mate with a physical human being does not preclude it happening. Our understanding of the spiritual world is much more limited today than we would like to think.
Question: What would Satan’s plan be behind such a corruption of mankind? God had promised that the Redeemer would come through the seed of the woman. What better way to try and keep that from happening than by totally corrupting man’s genetics, thereby effectively making it impossible to complete God’s ultimate plan of salvation for the human race? It appears that most of the human race had been corrupted in this way. Nearly all humanity was either an angel-human hybrid, or of hybrid stock. Noah however was said to be “perfect in his generations.” This does not mean he was a perfect human being, but means he was of “perfect” human genetics, as was his father Lamech, his grandfather Methuselah, his great-grandfather Enoch the prophet, and then of course Enoch’s father Jared, in whose time the incursion of fallen angels originally happened. God sovereignly stopped Satan in his tracks before he was able to destroy the whole human race through genetic corruption.
So, what does this all have to do with the powerful delusion of the last days? In this generation in which accumulated knowledge is doubling every 12 months and soon to be every 12 hours, we have scientific labs all over the world, some government run, but most operated and run by private money, where these same type of scientific experiments have been going on for decades. These private labs have no government controls over them. There are thousands of scientists like the evil Nazi Dr. Mengele behind the scientific scenes today who have no conscience. Not only has transhumanism and singularity become a threat to God’s original creation and definition of what is human, but so has the out-of-control scientific experimentation with the cross-breeding and gene-splicing of different species. This is inclusive of hybrids created between animals, humans, and even the plant kingdom. Science has also come a long way in perfecting the cloning process since Dolly the sheep was successfully cloned on July 5, 1996. Most nations have laws against human cloning, but this has not stopped it from being done behind closed doors with private funding.
You might ask, why do I need to know any of this? The simple answer is that God warned us ahead of time. If we were warned, then God not only wants us to pay attention, but also be prepared! Not only is it one of the signs of the times but it is already taking the world by storm. It is major part of the evil one’s strategy. Regardless of the fact that the true believer will be removed from the earth just before the Great Tribulation, we don’t know how far the enemy’s plans will have progressed before we’re gone and we need to warn the world around us what is coming.
To Be Continued in Part 4