- Chapter 7: "The Four Horsemen!"

IN ALL OF SECULAR AND SACRED literature, perhaps no other cast of characters has evoked the kind of universal discussion and conjecture accorded the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Because the Scriptures present the dramatic appearances of these four horsemen against the vivid backdrop of God’s wrath and judgment, most humans have ultimately reacted with incredulity:

“The judgments cannot be real. The famine, the plagues cannot be real. Our world is too good; men and women are too good to deserve the judgment of God. Forget the whole idea. Think nothing more about it. Such a judgment will never happen.”

Even in the worst of its dark and fearsome times, the human race has never given up hoping for “something better” to happen in the future. The poet sensed that yearning when he pointed out the often quoted truth: “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”

Men and women have never given up their fond hope that the earth next year—or perhaps the year after that—will be a better place in which to live! In spite of war and rumors of war, men and women never abandon their unfounded hope that lasting peace is about to become reality.

Politicians have learned that they can garner votes if they will fan the hopes of constituents that this world actually can be made a place of universal health. I listen to the campaign speeches of the candidates for public office. Their appeal is based largely on their promise to solve all economic and social problems. Then, after four years, we discover that our “paradise” has not happened.

Even in the realm of the church and religion, we hear expressions of hope that religious unity can be achieved. These churchmen fondly hope that the social problems will go away once everyone is worshiping in one large church. The extra and unnecessary church properties can become playgrounds and recreational centers for the well -being of the deprived children in our communities.