If your sound is on, you are listening to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” played by Jefferson Cleveland. I have changed the instrumentation on this sequence, but it is otherwise true to Mr. Cleveland’s playing it on the piano. The song in this form is available for downloading from the MIDI PAGES section of this site, or in its original format from www.godsgospel.com

Rev. 6:4 And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.

The second Horseman of the Apocalypse is riding a red horse. Red is the color of violence, bloodshed, and war. We are told this Horseman has been given the power to take peace from the earth. This horse represents political force. The rider in control of this particular Political Force is the Spiritual Power that has been given the authority to wage war on earth by the One who commanded him to go forth. As shown by the Voice of Thunder that has commanded his advance, this power is none other than Almighty God. In as much as this political power is following after Jesus and his church, we must understand that his power to inspire mankind to achieve the kind of political power that he represents cannot take hold permanently nor survive indefinitely among men who have not heard and believed the Gospel.

The nature of the political power that this force is directing is not made clear within this particular verse, so its nature must be discerned from the general tenor of the Gospel that declares, “Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free.” In that light, the political power can be seen to be the Power of Democracy within a Christian Mos Maiorum. When the red horseman tries to take the lead from the white horseman, Democracy becomes the work of the Whore of Babylon instead of the political power that sets mankind free from religious, economic, and political tyranny.

The prophecy of Dan. 2:31-35 showed Daniel that there were going to be four imperial powers that would rule the regions around the Mediterranean Sea between the time of the Babylonian Empire until the Kingdom of God began to first be established from within that region. Daniel was told that God was going to begin to remove His Kingdom from out of the people of the fourth empire. The fourth empire to rule that region was the Roman Empire, and sure enough, Jesus Christ, the Chief Corner Stone, first began calling His church out from the citizens of the Roman Empire. The prophecy of Daniel showed us that the Kingdom of God was going to be a supernatural Kingdom. (This Stone that becomes a Mountain and fills the earth is first cut out of the mountain of the Roman Empire without hands i.e. supernaturally.) Since we are told that the stone eventually becomes a great mountain that fills the whole earth, we can see that the prophecy is pointing to Jesus Christ and the spread of His kingdom over the earth. It is very important to understand that the Empire of Jesus Christ has been prophesied to fill the earth and not some ethereal realm in space.

At he time the “stone was cut out of a mountain,” Rome had dissolved its former Republican Government to become Imperial Rome under the Caesars. This is consistent with the prophecy of Daniel that stated that there would be four Kingdoms in control of the regions around the Mediterranean Sea from the fall of Jerusalem, circa 600 B. C., until the advent of the kingdom which would never be destroyed, and which would eventually fill the whole earth. A Republic is not a kingdom for it has no king, so, for the prophecy to be fulfilled, the Republic of Rome had to become an Empire. Rome became an Empire when Octavian was declared Augustus Caesar about 27 B.C. Shortly thereafter Jesus Christ was born at Bethlehem, which was a part of the Roman Empire at that time. During the next ~33 years He laid the foundations of His Kingdom that will never be destroyed and that will one day fill the earth. But His empire will not stop spreading even after it has filled the earth. Isaiah prophesied saying of this empire, “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever.” (Isa.9:7) Isaiah prophesied that once the empire of Jesus was inaugurated it would never stop increasing as it spread. In order for His government to increase forever for all eternity, it must eventually extend itself beyond earth and into the stars. Friends our destinies are entwined with the stars of heaven. The dream of scientists to go beyond earth will be realized, not through science, but through the power of Jesus Christ.

The Red Horse of Democracy cannot survive in nations that are not Christian. Alexis DeTocqueville wrote in Democracy in America, “How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie be not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? and what can be done with a people which is its own master, if it be not submissive to the Divinity?” Today, we see Democracy self destructing in America because she has abandoned her Christian Heritage. Democracy will only work in a culture that answers to a power higher than itself. For this reason we must see revival break forth in America if God is not yet finished with us.

According to a recent poll, eighty four percent of Americans still identify themselves as Christian. One cannot but help to wonder how this can be so with so much of America under the power and sway of Materialism. It is as if most Americans do not even recognize that they are trying to hold to two religious beliefs at the same time while hoping that no one ever notices the contradictions between the two. “A double minded person is unstable in all his ways.” “You cannot serve both God and Mammon.”

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America, “The materialists are offensive to me in many respects; their doctrines I hold to be pernicious, and I am disgusted at their arrogance. If their system could be of any utility to man, it would seem to be by giving him a modest opinion of himself. But these reasoners show that it is not so; and when they think they have said enough to establish that they are brutes, they show themselves as proud as if they had demonstrated that they are gods. Materialism is, amongst all nations, a dangerous disease of the human mind; but it is more especially to be dreaded amongst a democratic people, because it readily amalgamates with that vice which is most familiar to the heart under such circumstances. Democracy encourages a taste for physical gratification: this taste, if it become excessive, soon disposes men to believe that all is matter only; and materialism, in turn, hurries them back with mad impatience to these same delights: such is the fatal circle within which democratic nations are driven round. It were well that they should see the danger and hold back.”

Although many Americans still hold to the Christian Faith today, they do so from inside a greater belief in Materialism without recognizing the inconsistency in logic this brings about in their lives. The reason we see the power of Democracy following after Jesus Christ and His Church in the Revelation is because Democracy can only survive within a culture that believes, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself.” Such a culture needs no additional civil laws, courts, and police except to prosecute judgment upon the unfaithful. America stands at a junction in the road of her destiny. The road on her right leads to repentance and a return to the Lord Jesus Christ as her Master. The road straight ahead of goes over the precipice into the oblivion of the wrath of God.