Trump and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

        Reminder: If you're new to my blog, I suggest that you start by checking out my initial post that lists the many links between Donald Trump and the biblical figure of the Antichrist.         

        Over the last year of the Trump 2.0 administration, there were several instances when prophecy researchers (myself included) linked Trump’s actions with the white horse rider of Revelation 6:2. Here is that passage: “Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals; and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder, “Come and see.” 2 And I looked, and behold, a white horse. He who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.”

                Biblical scholars have connected this passage with the myth of Nero Redivivus, since the horseman carrying a bow has connections to ancient Parthian warrior horsemen. The notion was that the resurrected Nero would sweep in from the East – i.e., Parthia – to reclaim the Roman emperor’s throne and rule the city that sits on seven hills. Additionally, the granting of the crown – here, a stephanos, the Greek term for a laurel wreath, signifying military victory – and the riding in on a white horse also may have had connections with the ancient Roman triumph: the parading of Roman emperors and military leaders through the streets of Rome on white horses, with their captive enemies dragged in cages. (Think of Cleopatra at the end of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, saying that she would rather kill herself than be subject to ridicule in Octavian’s victorious triumph). I mentioned in my first blog post that the military parade that Trump ordered in his own honor on June 14, 2025 – his own 79^th birthday – had an eerie resonance with ancient Roman triumphs. There was also this insightful video by the researcher Bart Kelly, pointing out how Trump was granted another crown connected to white horse imagery in 2025.

                All of this should lead us to examine how the trajectory of the seven seals that are opened in Revelation’s sixth chapter relate to how we should expect the Tribulation period as a whole to play out. If Trump’s actions in 2025 seem to have had many connections to the white horse rider of Revelation 6:2, then what does the Lamb’s opening of the next seals tell us about how we should expect the next few years to be like? What current news stories might imply that – under the assumption that Trump may indeed be the Antichrist figure we’re looking for – we are on the cusp of the riding out of the fiery red horse of Revelation 6:3-4, which is a game changing development that will upset the entire global apple-cart?

                I like this site called the Enduring Word Bible Commentary, and we can learn quite a bit from a brief read-through of its commentary on Revelation 6:

https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/revelation-6/

                When we back up and take a bird’s eye view of Revelation 6, the first thing we must note is that the seven seals opened by the Lamb of God (Jesus Christ) are not necessarily the first part of a process that will be followed by the seven trumpets and seven bowls. Each of the three sets of seven sit atop each other, with each grouping reflecting how we could interpret the other two sets. In other words, the book of Revelation is not a linear narrative progression, where one event precedes another, with that event preceding another, etc. It is, instead, a series of poetic clusters of imagery, with each cluster informing our interpretation of the other clusters. So, for example, we see the opening of the seven seals in Revelation 6, and how that precedes Revelation 11, where we are introduced to the Two Witnesses and the ‘beast from the bottomless pit’ (the Antichrist). However, if we interpret Revelation 6:2 (the white horse rider) as a veiled reference to this same Antichrist, as most prophecy researchers do, then we should probably conclude that Rev. 6 isn’t *the first in a series of linear events*. Rather, it is simply the first cluster of images, with ensuing clusters perhaps commenting further on what would be the same period of time – i.e. the Antichrist’s 42-month period of global rule. The advent of the Two Witnesses’ testimony might even precede, for example, the charging out of the fiery red and black horses in Revelation 6, even though it is described in a later chapter.

                Viewing Rev. 6 through that lens, then, we might conclude that the seven seals themselves could be a brief snapshot overview of the entire Tribulation period. And what should we infer from that? That the Tribulation will be a period introduced by a briefly “victorious,” “triumphant” declarer of global peace and hegemony – whose proclaimed “peace and security” then soon completely breaks down worldwide, with war, inflation, famines and global suffering replacing it. This then concludes with the rulers and mighty men trying to hide out in underground caves.

                There has been a common misconception amongst many prophecy researchers, to the effect that the Antichrist’s global rule will itself be a “period of false peace”. You see this misconception frequently associated with misunderstandings of the Antichrist’s actual nature – people often expect that he will be a charismatic, intellectually brilliant, suave and handsome bringer of peace and harmony (sort of like Barack Obama, who was himself frequently and wrongly called the Antichrist during his tenure in Washington). You often see people casually say things like: “There will be a 3.5 year period of beautiful peace, followed by 3.5 years of global chaos and destruction.” Or: “The Antichrist’s global peace initiatives will lead to the rebuilding of a literal, physical Third Temple in Jerusalem. After 42 months, he will enter that literal building, proclaim himself as God and set up the abomination of desolation. Then the second half of the Tribulation – the ‘Great Tribulation’ – will ensue.”

                Such over-confident delineations of set blocks of time, punctuated by publicly seen events that will demarcate their features, have almost always been hubristic and misleading, sending people down rabbit holes - and at the end, all that awaits them are dead ends. Recent events have shown us that most of these confident assertions have been off-base. People need to be much more circumspect with how we approach possible interpretations of this poetic, highly figurative text. The one thing we know for sure is that many of the ways we had always come to expect the end times to play out will fail to conform to our previous confident expectations. And how do we know that? Because this is all going to comprise a strong delusion that will even take in a ton of Christians into its web of deception. Things will happen under the radar. Fulfillments will occur without many of those Christians even realizing that they’ve taken place. And while they take place, many Christians will still be confidently asserting that, since none of what they had “prepped” for is obviously taking place, we therefore must not even be in the time of the end. 

                The real crossing of the Rubicon, as it were, will occur when the Mark of the Beast is rolled out and mandated to be used. At that point, many more Christians will start to realize what is going on. We know that because the taking of the mark will itself put your soul in peril of damnation. And God is not going to consign His people to such a fate without presenting them with what will be a clear choice between good and evil. However, this probably could lead us to also infer that the roll-out of the Mark of the Beast takes place well into the Antichrist’s 42-month period of rule – not at its outset.

 So, we know that lots of prophecy researchers and people in the Christian community are going to have their expectations of an Obama-like (or Macron-like) Antichrist completely up-ended. However, if instead we apply how the Bible actually describes the Antichrist – as a boastful, warlike, hateful and blasphemous megalomaniac, a true mad king who “throws truth to the ground” and makes people hate one another – that helps us to further infer that the initial proclamations of peace and security are in no sense lasting or real. Instead, they are just that – vainglorious, boastful proclamations, and nothing more. The erection of Trump’s absurd Board of Peace, with its agenda of a dauntingly difficult 20-point peace plan for Gaza, headed and controlled by one ultra-powerful global leader (Trump himself) is already correctly being criticized by U.S. allies as unworkable, unaccountable and ham-fisted. Its existence is probably swiftly evanescent. The slang phrase "epic fail" is a good description of how the Antichrist's attempts to secure global peace and safety will play out.

                Immediately after the Antichrist’s boastful global proclamations of peace and safety, the red horse of Revelation 6:4 comes charging out to take peace from the Earth. This could refer to World War 3. The third horseman comes charging out on a black horse, to denote global inflation. People have to work an entire day just to afford a small bit of food. Could that crashing of the global economy be the immediate cause for the roll-out of the Mark of the Beast, which is described in Revelation 13? It’s entirely possible. If the world’s people are dealing with crashing stock markets and runaway inflation, they would then be strongly tempted to adopt a new digital currency, which tracks their movements and perhaps gives them some free money, in the form of UBI (Universal Basic Income). In lieu of such a global economic meltdown, it’s quite hard to envision the world’s people volunteering to adopt such a radically new form of payments in the public marketplace.

                Remember as well the principle reflected in Jesus’s statement in the Olivet Discourse that His second coming would be “as it was in the days of Noah,” with people eating and drinking and getting married, entirely oblivious to the fact that the great flood would soon wipe out their prosaic routines. This clues us into another fact overlooked by many prophecy researchers – despite the rushing out of the red and black horses, many of the world’s wealthiest people will still be going about their daily business as though nothing is wrong. Global conflicts will be popping up all over the place, but the Antichrist’s people inside Mystery Babylon will be carrying on like usual, with “the oil and the wine” not being harmed. The world’s poorest and most vulnerable will suffer the lion’s share of the global violence and starvation referred to by the symbols of the red and black horses. However, we are told that, towards the end of this entropic process, the Beast’s kingdom itself is plunged into darkness and destroyed by fire and plagues. Could this imagery of a kingdom thrown into darkness reflect a possible EMP attack that causes a grid blackout? We’ll have to wait and see. Revelation 18 and 19 would seem to suggest that Mystery Babylon receives its dramatic come-uppance immediately prior to Christ's return.

                We should also keep in mind that the world’s people revere – Greek proskuneo – the first and second beast because they are terrorized into doing so. The world’s people ask “who can make war against” or “who can fight against” the Beast from the Sea. Does this mean that they’re going to fall in love with some charismatic, brilliant heart-throb who promises them the sky? No, it doesn’t at all mean that. In my view, this language instead strongly implies that they don’t fall in love with a charismatic, cool, hip Obama-like politician, heading a global kumbaya session overseen by the carefully-orchestrated United Nations, delicately rolling out a mark for making purchases. No, people are catapulted by the Powers that Be into that situation willy-nilly – not by their own choice. Trump’s Board of Peace is evidently a wrecking ball to take down the United Nations and put himself at the forefront of all global questions of war, peace and economic developments. The world’s people will eventually realize that they have been thrown into the chaotic final birth pangs of the dying church age. And since most of them will be unbelievers, unfamiliar with scripture, they will be caught off-guard, presented with the Mark of the Beast in the form of both a carrot – free money sent right to your cell phone or microchip – and a stick – refusing to take the Mark will instantly set you apart as a potential enemy of the state. And as I speculated in this blog post, the use of highly advanced AI predictive policing will make your elimination or imprisonment incredibly easy for the Antichrist’s regime to secure.

                Revelation 6:3-4 describes the second seal being opened, and a fiery red horse of war coming out: "Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other. To him was given a large sword." February 17th sees the start of the Year of the Fire Horse:

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/lunar-new-year-2026-fire-horse-what-to-know/mj0anue2q

The Chinese Lunar New Year has elements (like fire) that combine with various animals (like the horse). The combination of "fire horse" hasn't been seen in 60 years. The last time it happened was 1966. The Greek word purrhos is used in Revelation 6:4 to describe the 'fiery red' color of the second horse:

https://biblehub.com/greek/4450.htm

As you can see by checking out the etymology behind purrhos, John the Revelator literally called the second horse a fire horse. Will 2026 be the year when we see the red horse charge out on the global scene? Ominous portents are out there as we speak. Trump is marshaling lots of military forces in the Middle East theater as a way to pressure Iran into giving up their weapons. The carnage in Ukraine has gone on unabated since Trump took office again last January, even though he had promised on the campaign trail to end the conflict in 24 hours.

We will have to see how this all plays out. It’s no use trying to use some ‘crystal ball’ to pin-point exactly how the future is going to take shape. What we have to do instead is follow current events with an eye on how they might be reflected in specific Bible prophecies. This is a very inexact art, not a definitive science by any means. We’ll make mistakes. We’ll jump the gun in some cases. We’ll sometimes have to go back to the drawing board. But when we back up and take in the whole picture, colors, shapes and shadings will emerge that give us a bird’s eye view of how things may be developing.

It's more important to consider that broad-based view than to hone in on individual details and try to decrypt them totally. Too many come out and make definitive claims about little puzzle pieces, instead of giving up completely on the notion of pin-point accuracy and opting instead for taking in a holistic overview of nebulous big picture stuff. We need to maintain our humility, always keeping in mind that “no man knows the day or hour” when Jesus will return.