What Happens When The Fourth Seal is Opened?

Ankerberg: Mark, the fourth one follows what we’re saying here. You’ve got war, you’ve got the consequences. The Bible says, “So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him” (verse 8). Well, what does that mean? Hitchcock: Well, it tells us there there’s just going to be massive death. In fact, it says there’s going to be one fourth of the earth is going to die just in this one judgment. Now, we can kind of read over things like that rather quickly and just, you know, kind of read over that number. But that’s a fourth of the people on the earth. You know, say there’s, after the rapture, there’s six billion people left, or something like that. I mean, you’re looking at, you know, almost one and a half billion people on the earth dying in one of these judgments. And we see the severity of this. And sometimes it’s hard to get our minds around because, you know, we see God as a God of love and a God of grace and mercy, which He is. But God is going to bring judgment on this earth, unmitigated judgment. And it says they’re going to be slain there by plagues; it says they’re going to be slain by the sword; and it says by the wild beasts of the earth. And some people wonder what that means, “the wild beasts.” But primarily the other times that word is used, “wild beasts,” it refers to powerful rulers on the earth. So probably by the actions of dictators. And the Antichrist is called the beast. Probably through their actions, you know, millions, billions, of people literally will die on the face of the earth.