April 2 - Rider on the White Horse (pt. 1)

April 2 – Rider on the White Horse (pt. 1)
Revelation 19:11-12

“I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one but he himself knows.”

Heaven opens and there is a rider on a white horse. Many, many chapters previous, we saw the door to heaven open.

“After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven.” (Rev. 4:1)

At this point in Revelation 19, heaven is standing open. I’ve watched enough movies to have an image in my mind of the great doors to a palace banquet hall opening up to reveal the king, or a princess, or even Cinderella standing there ready to enter as the entire assembly gasps at their radiance.

In Matthew 3:16, heaven opens and the Spirit of God descends like a dove, lighting on Jesus who had just been baptized. A voice comes from heaven saying, “This is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased.”

Jesus tells Nathaniel in John 1:51 that he would see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

Oh … when the heavens open, God shows us amazing things!

We know that the rider is Jesus. We can barely wait for Him to show Himself fully to us. But there are some descriptive phrases here regarding Jesus that we should explore.

Faithful and true. In Revelation 3:14, Jesus is the faithful and true witness.

With justice he judges and makes war. We already know that only He has the right to judge the earth.

His eyes are like blazing fire. We saw this characteristic in Revelation 1:14 before we began all of this! 2 Thessalonians 1:7-8 says that Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire. With these eyes, nothing will be hidden from Him.

On his head are many crowns. The dragon had seven crowns in Rev. 12:3, the antichrist ten crowns in Rev. 13:1. Christ has too many crowns for John to count, simply showing the extent of His reign.

He has a name written on him that no one but he himself knows. It is surprising that even when everything on earth has ended and we are with Christ in heaven, there will be things we do not know. Matthew 11:27 says, “No one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son choose to reveal him.”

We will continue tomorrow with this description of Christ coming to the final battle.