The Red Horse...

When you lay your life before the Lord and desire to know His will so that you can obey and submit to doing only His will and not your own, you start to understand that there are NO accidents or coincidences. Everything happens for a reason, even if you do not know what the reason is...yet.

The Lord is training me to understand spiritual warfare and to discern the things going on around me. When I was first up having coffee this morning, and checking my email and reading my favorite blogs, I began to feel overwhelmingly depressed. When I started to examine where these feelings and thoughts were coming from, I discovered that they were an attack from the enemy. Don't let thoughts of depression and anxiety stay in your mind and emotions. Fight them with the Word. So I thought of Phillipians 4:8:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things [are] honest, whatsoever things [are] just, whatsoever things [are] pure, whatsoever things [are] lovely, whatsoever things [are] of good report; if [there be] any virtue, and if [there be] any praise, think on these things.

There is a reason we are to lead every thought captive, because that is where the enemy attacks the most. In our own minds.

While we were driving to Cody today we stopped at a rest area. I saw this picture of the red horse on the side of a bus. A fairly profound sign from the Lord. When I got home, I looked up the words "Red Horse" at the Blue Letter Bible website.

The first time red horse was used was Zechariah 1:8-11:

I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that [were] in the bottom; and behind him [were there] red horses, speckled, and white. Then said I, O my lord, what [are] these? And the angel that talked with me said unto me, I will shew thee what these [be]. And the man that stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, These [are they] whom the LORD hath sent to walk to and fro through the earth. And they answered the angel of the LORD that stood among the myrtle trees, and said, We have walked to and fro through the earth, and, behold, all the earth sitteth still, and is at rest.

I am the earth, that sitteth still and is at rest. At rest in the Lord.

Satan also walks to and fro in the earth, and up and down in it. The next occurance of the red horse, of course, is Rev. 6:4, " And there went out another horse [that was] red: (the word is FIERY!) 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."

If you have not discovered J. Preston Eby yet with his series on Revelation I highly recommend it. But you will have to read the series from the beginning because he doesn't talk about the red horse until Part 86! This is what he has to say about the red horse:

OUR GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE, the scriptures affirm. I understand not why fire has been represented to us as something so terrible, so frightening, so hideous that we should try to avoid it. If our approach back to God is through fire, as revealed by the flaming sword placed at Eden’s gate, why do we always try to evade or get out of the fire? Why expend such energy and effort to try and pray ourselves out of the fire? Fire, in the scriptures, symbolizes two primary things: judgment and cleansing. But God is not schizophrenic in His nature — one side of His character disposed to forgive, redeem, deliver, save, heal, and restore, while the other side of His character is bent on vengeful destruction and sadistic torture of His enemies. His action in fire, like His action in grace, is pure, harmonious, purposeful, and balanced, directed towards the purification that leads to restoration. The fire of God cleanses the believer that he may qualify for God’s highest! His activity by fire towards the unbeliever is to the same end, conditioning and preparing that one for good results, when, having been broken and purged from pride and rebellion, he bows low before the Saviour, penitently receiving the gracious gift of life. The fire does not save him, but it removes the hindrance that separates him from appreciating the kind mercy and goodness of the Lord!

It is the Lamb of God Himself that rides forth on the fiery horse! The Lamb nature is not a weak, trifling, spineless little nature. Oh, no! If the Lamb nature were weak the Lamb would not dare to open the seals of the book and unleash all the portentous activities of the horses and their Riders! The nature of the Lamb is the nature of an overcomer, one who cannot be offended, one that can look upon the sin and evil in the world and not become religiously self-righteous but can love the creation to correctively, effectively, and redemptively deal with it. The Lamb is the Lion of the tribe of Judah who has prevailed! Divine judgment is not unto destruction, but unto redemption. Fire appears terrible only to the man who is unprepared to pass through it!

Understanding that the fiery trials of the red horse are still coming - but I look forward to it. I will fight the thoughts of depression - rebuking the thoughts and feelings that do not line up with the Word of the Lord.

Thank you Heavenly Father for the Red Horse and the fiery trials that go with. In Jesus name Amen.