“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.”
(Revelation 19:11-13)
Today’s verse passage is among the most powerful stretches of Scripture in all the Bible. The scene is awesome in the truest sense of the word. The world at the end of the age is entombed in deep, satanic darkness. The conditions on planet earth are so awful that if God had not predetermined to cut the days of the great tribulation short, absolutely nothing would survive (Mark 13:20). Against this blackest of backdrops will appear the greatest Light the world has ever seen. The King of kings will arrive in power and great glory, to rescue His covenant people as He promised. He will single-handedly put down all military opposition to His rule. Those that spilled innocent blood without regard to justice or the sanctity of human life will themselves be wiped from the earth in ghastly fashion (Isaiah 63). Our Lord’s discriminate warfare stands in stark contrast to our own best efforts to eradicate that which is hurtful and harmful from our world. Cancer, for instance, is still fought with drugs that poison the whole body. The logic here is that since cancer cells are typically weaker than normal cells, poisoning the whole system ought to kill off the cancer before it kills the person. Something like this kind of logic was applied during the alleged Covid pandemic, where government mandates and lock-downs arguably did more damage to people’s lives than the virus alone ever could. The “wisdom” exercised was a bit like throwing a hand grenade into a room full of people in order to kill a rat or some other vermin. Servicemen in the western world who shoot bullets, launch missiles, or drop bombs, are intending to hit only military targets, those that pose a clear and present danger to them or some other innocent human life. Try as they may, they still cause collateral damage. Women and children suffer and non-military targets are sometimes hit. Fallen man, even when he is exercising moral uprightness, care, and diligence, simply cannot exercise complete discriminate warfare the way our Lord can. Even the angels are apparently at the present moment unable to flawlessly wage complete discriminate warfare (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43). Our Lord is different. He has eyes as a flame of fire. That is, He needs no external illumination to see what is there and to perceive correctly. We may be very sure that the righteous judge of all the earth will do right (Genesis 18:25). Then we “shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever” (Daniel 12:3). Maranatha!
God bless you, dear saints,
pastor john
English