Have you ever wondered why America is not mentioned in prophetic scripture since we are the greatest military and political power in the world today and the only modern country founded and known, at least in the beginning, as a “Christian” nation? America is also the country in which the evangelical “Great Awakening” of the 1730’s through the mid-1800’s took place, spreading back to Great Britain and Europe in the form of the Welsh revival, and leading to the greatest evangelical missionary outreach of the entire church age to present. Assuming that we are in the end times, how would a country like this escape the prophetic plan of the most high God. The answer is that we have not escaped the prophetic plan of God.The buildup of an international Islamic jihad is a sign of the end times, and Islamic jihad will be the cause of a third world war, beginning in the Middle East but not without consequences for America.
Yet, the most important thing that we need to recognize about this shocking event that rocks the world with an all out nuclear exchange that will set the entire Middle East on fire is that it is this specific event, followed by continued war, famines, pandemic disease, and wild animals killing as many as 1.5 billion people, that will result in the initiation of that specific time known as “the tribulation.” What will come as a surprise to most is the fact that the first three horsemen of the apocalypse are already on the scene, having appeared, in order, as the white horseman, the red horseman, and the black horseman. These three are with us now and will eventually be included in the (pale) green horseman dominating the world until the return of Christ at Har-Maggedon.
Unfortunately, many protestant evangelicals in America and the western world, whose eschatological theories have been shaped by that doctrine of demons called “Dispensationalism,” will be caught by surprise with devastating, heart-rending consequences for those who are deceived (a.k.a. “the foolish virgins”). The entrance of the (pale) green horse and its rider in the near future is also the source of the announcement event in the parable of the ten virgins, when the entire, born-again church will wake up, but those who do not keep oil in their lamps during those troubled times will reject their faith in Christ (though many in the church have been deceived into believing that this is not even possible). Yet, the “wise virgins” during this time will have an amazing experience.
For many American and western world Christians the four horsemen of the apocalypse (Revelation 6) are of little concern as we lay around on the couches of the world, satisfied that we have our spiritual insurance policy and certain that the terrifying events associated with the four horsemen are for another generation and another people. (After all, we are the “rapture” generation, aren’t we?. But we have a wake up call coming, saints, and the wise are already trimming the wicks of their lamps in preparation for what is coming.
In the Olivet discuss (Matthew 24 and 25) given in response to the disciples’ question, When will these things happen, and what will be the signs of your coming and of the end of the age?, the Lord referred to four specific time frames.
The first, which includes false Christs and wars and rumors of war, He referred to as “not yet the end.” That time frame began with the original disciples all the way up to the beginning of the end times, which is “the beginning of birth pains.” The “beginning of birth pains” ends as “tribulation” begins, and “tribulation” is followed by, “great tribulation.”
The “beginning of birth pains” also corresponds with the four horsemen of Revelation 6.
Matt. 24:4-6
Matt. 24:7,8
Matt. 24:9-14
Matt. 24:15-31
The church age up to the 1st Seal
Revelation 6:1-8
1st Seal > 4th Seal
Revelation 6:9-17
5th Seal > 6th Seal
Rev 8:1
7th Seal
“not yet the end”
“beginning of birth pains”
“tribulation”
“great tribulation”
False Christs, wars and rumors of war
kingdom against kingdom, financial collapse, natural disasters, famine, and disease kill 1.5 billion
people
Peace and world government is established; false prophets, persecution of Christians escalates
Antichrist declares himself to be “god”;
the end time harvest; the last day resurrection; and the
day of the Lord
It is of great interest that the first four seals of Revelation, (Revelation 6:1-17),
what we have come to know as the four horsemen of the apocalypse, perfectly parallel “the beginning of birth pains” or “the beginning of sorrows” and “tribulation” in the Olivet prophecy (Matthew 24 and 25). Most modern eschatologists have assumed that the four horsemen are a future event, but thanks to James Lloyd of Christian Media Network, I became aware of a more shocking reality. The four horses and their riders represent supernatural beings and those that they control who have been given the permissive will of God, like the Satanic “princes” who exert spiritual control over certain countries and peoples. Thus the horsemen are spiritual entities, and the horses are the natural men, governments, and worldly institutions, including religious institutions, that they control.
In Revelation 6 we also note that the four living creatures of God (using the same Greek word translated as “beast” elsewhere) are the ones who speak this particular part of the prophecy to John. The first beast speaks the prophecy related to the first horseman, the second beast the second horseman, etc. This is an indication that these living creatures of God are involved in the implementation of the prophecy. What most have missed, though, is that the four horsemen also represent the four beast kingdoms of Daniel 7. Most eschatologists, especially those whose minds are controlled by Dispensationalism, have wrongly presumed that the statue kingdoms of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, interpreted by Daniel in Daniel 2, are directly associated with the four beast kingdoms of Daniel’s vision in Daniel 7. However, the only scriptural association is the number, four, which serves an entirely different revelatory function.
Nebuchadnezzar’s statue dream was a prophetic revelation of four, now historic kingdoms, beginning with the Babylonian kingdom and ending with the first advent of Christ and the Diaspora of Israel. Daniel’s vision of the four beast kingdoms is a countdown from the return of Israel from the Diaspora to the return of Christ at His second advent.
Statue kingdoms (Daniel 2): Countdown from the Babylonian exile to the first advent of Christ and the Diaspora of national, ethnic Israel after their rejection of Christ
Beast kingdoms (Daniel 7): Countdown from events leading up to the return of national, ethnic Israel to the second advent of Christ and the establishment of spiritual Israel. Thus the four beast kingdoms of Daniel 7 are synonymous with the four horsemen of Revelation 6- Horse and Rider, the Description in Revelation 6 and 7. White, “Given” a crown, has a bow, goes out to conquer. Lion with eagle’s wings - America (eagle’s wings) as the final power associated with the British empire and all associated colonies (now an upright lion having the heart-mind of a man). Red, Given power to take peace from the Earth (begins to act in allegiance with the black horse rider). Bear on its side with three ribs in its mouth – Communism. Black Scales or balances indicating worldwide economic chaos and famine - constant strife with Israel. Leopard with four wings and four heads – Islamic jihad headed by four Muslim “kings” with the ability to strike (ambush) at a distance. Green (Pale) – diverse from all the rest. The only rider with a name – “Death,” given authority to kill 25% of the world population with sword (war), disease, famine, and wild beasts
Diverse from all the rest - Iron teeth, ten horns and a little horn with the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great (blasphemous) things. Thus the first countdown begins with literal, political BABYLON, and the last countdown ends with the literal, spiritual BABYLON.
The white horse and its rider, associated with the west, is synonymous with the first beast of Daniel 7 described as a lion with eagle’s wings. The eagle’s wings are “plucked,” and the lion is made to stand upright and given the heart-mind of a man (i.e. as opposed to the heart-mind of a beast). Daniel 4:16 identifies he clear distinction between the heart-mind of a man and the heart-mind of a beast. Being made to stand “upright” and having the heart-mind of a man indicates that this horse and its rider is initially responsive to the positive influences of God, and it is the white horse and its rider who are responsible for the major world-wide evangelical missions from the 17th century forward. It is also the white horse and its rider who are directly responsible for the re-establishment of national Israel in Palestine, beginning with the Balfour Agreement in 1917 and the ultimate establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.
When we add the description in Revelation 6 that the white horseman is “given” a crown, this is an indication that the spread of the British empire and its ultimate, dominant form, the United States of America, was God-ordained for the specific purpose of spreading the gospel to “all nations.” Nor is it an accident that English is the international language. The spread of the English language throughout the west and the east as well as Europe and Africa was a part of the God-ordained purpose for the white horseman. The bow, as a long range weapon, indicates the ability of the white horse and its rider to rule and to strike militarily at long range. The metaphorical color assigned to each horse and rider prophetically describes the character or nature of each. Dispensationalism interprets the white horse and rider as being the Antichrist imitating the true white horse rider, Christ. But color metaphorically represents the true nature of each horseman, and it would be exegetically incorrect to mix the color metaphors with one being contrary and imitative and the rest being literal. Therefore, the white horse and its horseman, presumed incorrectly by dispensational theologians as being the Antichrist, is actually a positive force at the beginning of his ride and a type of the presence of Christ (the ultimate White Horse Rider).
It is significant in Daniel 7 that the eagle’s wings are “plucked” from the lion, and it is after the wings are plucked that the lion is made to stand upright and is given a man’s heart-mind. This specifically identifies the United States of America as the final dominant form of the white horse and its rider at the time when the (pale) green horse and its rider come on the scene and dominate all the others, including the white horse. Thus the other horsemen coming on the scene one after another, and the final dominance of the (pale) green horse and its rider over the other three, indicates that the white horse and its rider is eventually corrupted from its original intent. Western believers sense this corruption spiritually, but this will be more clearly demonstrated as we examine the three remaining horsemen.
I have written about the purpose of “tribulation” and the shaking of all that can be shaken in another article, The Big Squeeze, but it is important to note that the four horsemen serve the purpose of first, bringing us to repentance and faith through the spread of the gospel, and secondly to progressively allow more and more pressure to be exerted so that we lose our confidence in the world systems under the control of the “god” of this present age and turn in repentance to God. It is also important to note that each horseman stays on the scene when the next horseman is loosed, and all four horses will be on the scene when the final horseman is loosed to ultimately dominate all the previous horsemen, corrupting even the white horseman to the purposes of the Antichrist. The red horse and its rider correspond with the bear on its side with three ribs in its mouth as described in Daniel 7. The (blood) red horseman is “given” power to take peace from the earth. This is God-ordained power with the second living creature being the specific source of authority for the red horse and its rider. This sleeping bear came on the scene in 1917 in the form of the Bolshevik Revolution, and the ultimate power of this beast kingdom includes all of the Russian communist states with the three non-Russian “ribs” being communist China, communist North Korea, and communist North Vietnam. (Counting Cuba as a Russian state.) The three ribs “speak” to the bear and say, “Arise, devour much flesh,” demonstrating that the primary purpose of the bloody, godless regimes of Stalin, Chairman Mao, North Korea, and North Vietnam was to destroy the “flesh” of those in their own countries who oppose the spread of communism in order to outwardly kill and oppose the godly influence of the white horseman in the world. That they have been successful, in spite of the fall of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, is self-evident.
For the politically aware, it is likely that the breakdown of the USSR into separate Communist states works perfectly into the future, prophetic Gog-Magog war (Ezekiel 38 and 39) in which Georgia and the Muslim dominated southern states of Russia are involved in an all out attack on Israel. Thus the second and third beast kingdoms (the red and black horsemen) will be directly, but subtly, under the influence and control of the fourth beast kingdom, the pale green horseman, at the time of this future WWIII. The black horse and its rider came on the scene in 1948 when Israel was re-established as a nation in Palestine. Israel’s War of Independence (1947-49) was fought against Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan on its borders, and against the Palestinians within the territory that was given to Israel by the Allied Forces (the white horseman) after WWII.
The Six Day War in 1967 followed the war of independence with the resulting victory leaving Israel in control of Jerusalem. Other wars, like the Yom Kippur War in October of 1973, resulted in Israeli victory as well. And the Allied Forces granting Israel national statehood and America’s political, financial, and strategic military support of Israel quickly identified the West as an equal enemy of the Arab states in general and of Islam in particular. Islamic control of oil prices and terrorism in the form of political deception and violence has had a far reaching impact on America and the western world. The Gulf War followed by the war against Iraq and the regime of Saddam Hussein, the attack by Al-Qaeda on 9/11 (on the anniversary of the defeat of the Second Jihad), the following war on terrorism in Afghanistan and elsewhere, including Libya, has been very expensive politically, financially, socially, and spiritually for America and the western nations.
An unknown aspect of the black horseman’s influence, not directly related to Islamic terrorism, is the manipulation and control of petroleum and petroleum products, accompanied by political irrationality as far as America’s energy policy is concerned, which, combined with the overwhelming debt of a runaway federal bureaucracy, will ultimately lead to economic chaos and collapse in America. And that chaos will have a far reaching effect on the entire world. The current weakening of support for Israel by America and the west is an indication that the influence of the red and black horsemen has already begun to have its desired effect in regard to the corruption and control of the white horseman and the first beast kingdom, the only kingdom to have the heart-mind and the words of a man, the man, Jesus Christ.
Revelation 6 identifies the black horseman as having a pair of scales or balances in his hand and specifically prophesies that worldwide inflation, economic collapse, and famine will accompany the black horse and its rider. A voice in the midst of the four creatures prophesies concerning the ride of the black horseman, and issues a command. A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine! Revelation 6:6. A denarius represents a days wages, and, at the point that this prophecy is fulfilled, it will mean that it takes a days wages just to feed a family. The follow up command not to harm the oil and wine demonstrates that the black horseman, directly or indirectly through the control of petroleum products, controls the food commodities that much of the world needs. “Oil” in this passage is not petroleum oil as some have interpreted, because it must be viewed in context with the entire passage. Thus the black horseman will exert a huge degree of control over world finances, world energy supplies, and subsequent production and distribution of food sources.
I do not have specific prophetic insight regarding how this will look, but my presumption
is that the political and economic chaos instituted by the black horseman, including escalating terrorist attacks, will result in runaway inflation, incredibly high fuel prices, and other difficulties related to food production and distribution. Political and economic chaos is the primary agenda of Islamic terrorists, and, as we will see, it is the likely successful precursor of the third jihad’s invasion of Israel, which is the next easily identifiable event on the prophetic horizon. In Daniel 7 this third beast kingdom is identified as a leopard with four wings and four heads. The leopard is a stealth killer, not a power killer like the lion, and it hunts alone, not in packs, ambushing its prey primarily at night. This corresponds perfectly with jihadist terrorism. Leopards also have a black color phase, but Daniel does not identify the specific color of the leopard. Four heads is not an indication of four successive kings of this beast kingdom but of four separate kings that have a single purpose, and the four wings indicate that each has the ability to fly or to strike from a distance (in the form of a leopard-like ambush). The four kings, united in purpose as they rule this beast kingdom, will ultimately be identifiable, but, based on my current knowledge, I would only be able to make a presumptive guess. These four “kings” (regardless of the actual identity of these nations) represent the primary Muslim nations involved in the third jihad, a jihad that will ultimately end with the Gog-Magog invasion of Israel. (Ezekiel 38 and 39. At that time, though, Georgia, at least some of the southern Russia Muslim states, and Turkey will be included in the invasion.
Christians should be generally aware that, at some point, Turkey will require the removal of the United States and NATO military presence (Incirlik AB and Izmir AFS), and that will coincide with a political shift towards Islamic jihadism leading up to the Gog-Magog war. Thus we are currently witnessing the black horseman’s ride during the early stages of the third jihad of Islam. Jihad means "struggle," but a particular kind of struggle. Jihad means to struggle to make Islam dominant over all other religions and governments. This is one of the religious duties of all devout Muslims, and according to Mohammad, the prophet of Islam, it is the most importantobligation a Muslim must fulfill. It is the Islamic equivalent of “the great commission” for Christians. And, like those disobedient Christians who are not involved in or moved by the great commission, there are those disobedient, “moderate” Muslims who will not participate in jihad.
Mohammed illustrated what the Qur’an clearly states, and during the first jihad his armies conquered all of Arabia. In the hundred years after his death, his armies conquered most of the Middle East, North Africa and Spain. This first jihad lasted from 622 AD until 750 AD. The second jihad started in 1071 AD. Islamic armies toppled Constantinople and spread into Europe, India, and further into Africa. This is the jihad that was the crusaders opposed. The second jihad began to decline when the Muslim army was ultimately stopped on September 11th, 1683 at the gates of Vienna, Austria.
Strangely, many historians (primarily historians with a subtle anti-Christian or anti-church bias) have falsely identified the crusades as an empiricist, Christian war against Muslim states. But the crusades were a defensive war against Islamic jihadism begun by Mohammed against the west and continuing to this day against Israel and the west. What is different about the third jihad is that it includes much more stealth and deception than the two great jihads of past history. The deception of the government of Pakistan in its dealings with the United States is an example that is just now coming to light.
We also need to be aware that this conflict between Israel (and its supporters) and the Muslim states is a spiritual struggle that began with Abraham, who is the father of both the Muslims and the Jews. Ishmael, the firstborn son of Abraham and Sarai’s handmaiden, Hagai, is the son of unbelief whom God ordered Abraham to send away, and Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarai, was the son of faith who inherited the promise to Abraham. This spiritual struggle between the sons of Ishmael and the sons of Isaac is what jihad is all about, even though these parties are scarcely aware of the true cause of their conflict. The Gog-Magog war, about which a great deal has been written, is the great climactic event that ushers in the (pale) green horse and rider, although he will actually be on the scene and will somehow be instrumental in the alliance of the red horseman with the black horseman
for the purpose of attacking Israel.
Thus the Antichrist will be an active (but unrecognizable) political influence playing some part in Gog’s decision to attack Israel. The Magog forces, including, at the very least, Georgia and potentially some Muslim country-states that were formerly a part of the USSR, along with Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Iran (and, potentially, Iraq), Egypt and Libya, form an alliance for the purpose of attacking and defeating Israel (Isaiah 38 and 39), and the precursors for this prophetic event are almost in place at the time of this writing. Saudi Arabia and the “young lions” of the merchants of Tarshish (traders coming and going through the straits of Gibraltar) politically challenge the pending invasion, but, for some reason, these are unable or unwilling to intervene with military assistance to Israel. Because Gibraltar is a protectorate of Great Britain, the “young lions” are potentially identified as America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Hong Kong. The inability or unwillingness to respond is itself a result of Islamic, third jihad terrorism, and it speaks volumes concerning the level of political, financial, and social chaos that will be present in America and the western world at that time.
However, God intervenes miraculously on behalf of Israel, causing a great earthquake that so confuses the Islamic allies that they end up firing on each other. He knocks the “bow” from their hands, causes their “arrows” (missiles) to fall short, and many are killed by their own chemical and biological weapons. In addition, He “sends” fire on the homelands of the attacking forces. This is easily identified as nuclear retaliation. I will send fire on Magog and on those who live in safety in the coastlands...(of the invading nations)..., and they will know that I am the LORD. (insert is the author’s). Although the causal source is the will of God, this does not appear to be fire from heaven. God sends (in the sense of issuing an order) fire on the Magog homelands, which may or may not be a nuclear retaliation by the protesting nations and their allies or even by the fourth beast kingdom.
Prophetic highlights of this war include the complete destruction of the city of Damascus (Isaiah 17:1-3) and the death of eighty-five percent of the attacking force. It is intriguing to me that God is currently reaching millions of Muslims with the gospel, primarily by radio and by the personal evangelism of the underground house church in Muslim countries. But more and more reports are coming from the Muslim countries and Muslim converts to Christianity of Muslims receiving spiritual dreams and visions in which Christ tells them who He is and whom they must contact in order to receive the truth of His gospel and to be discipled in the faith. The (pale) green (chloros) horse and its rider, though scarcely noticeable prior to the Gog-Magog war, rises to prominence in the aftermath of worldwide financial collapse, famine, nuclear war, disease, and even a notable number of people being killed by wild beasts.
The horseman’s name is “Death,” and it is under his reign as the prevailing control of the other horsemen, including the white horseman, that 25% of the world’s population will be killed. But we should also note that his control in the beginning will be a hidden, “black ops” kind of control, not open political control. At this point in time the entire world will be crying out for peace and for the restoration of economic stability, and the world will be ready to submit to a one world order. The likely event will be an emergency session of the United Nations in which they will decide that the sovereignty of individual nations is surrendered to the United Nations for an interim time frame for the restoration of peace and prosperity in the world. At the same time the UN Security Council will change from a five member veto vote to a ten member consensus vote, and Israel, then a world power, will participate in the ten. With the world capital being initially in New York, and the world quickly regaining political and economic stability under a one world government and a one world economic system, New York, and America, seem to be a likely candidate for metaphorical identification as the political and economic “Babylon” of Revelation.
James Lloyd of Christian Media Network, who has a great deal of revelatory prophetic insight, identifies the Antichrist as the next president of the United Nations. If so, economic collapse of America and the western world, which sets the stage for the Gog-Magog invasion of Israel, is much closer than any of us expect. The start of the “tribulation,” though, is specifically revealed in Daniel 9:24-27, and that event parallels Matthew 24:9-14 and Revelation 6:9-11, after the opening of these first four seals. The picture the Lord gives us in the Olivet prophecy, and in Revelation, is that “the beginning of birth pains,” which includes the terrifying events of the first four seals, the four horsemen, precedes what we have traditionally thought of as the “tribulation” or “the time of Jacob’s trouble.” It is the fourth horseman, though, riding the pale green horse, who dominates the scene in the form of the fourth beast kingdom all the way up to his defeat at Har-Maggedon. The end times shaking by God, as defined by Revelation and confirmed by Matthew 24, begins with the opening of the first seal, “the beginning of birth pains,” and goes all the way through the birth event itself when Jesus of Nazareth returns to Jerusalem as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
We have, therefore, already experienced the God-ordained shaking of the first mild birth contractions since the origin of the British Empire in the 1600’s, but these birth contractions have become more frequent and more intensely painful in modern times, experienced by us as WWI, the “great depression,” WWII, the cold war, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, 9/11, etc. Therefore, even those believers who are expecting (albeit falsely) to escape “tribulation” by being raptured away just before the beginning of the “tribulation” will experience the “trouble” and “tribulation” of what is still to come of the first four seals, including a nuclear world war, followed by famine and pandemic disease that kills 25% of the world’s population, and, if they survive this part, they will experience the rest of the seals all the way up to the seventh trumpet of the seventh seal. But in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as he announced to his servants the prophets. Revelation 10:7.
Because the Antichrist’s rise to political power will be accompanied by the influence of the false prophet whom the entire world will witness doing great signs and wonders, Christians, who will recognize the Antichrist, will openly oppose him in the beginning (just as many are opposing President Obama at the time of this writing). But our opposition will quickly be determined by the entire world as a form of “terrorism” against the new world order (just as it is seen now by liberals), and we will be persecuted throughout the world. This persecution will result in what scripture describes as the “apostasy,” the falling away from the faith of many Christians who are unprepared for tribulation. This is not the falling away of nominal Christian believers who do not have a real relationship with Christ. This is the falling away of “born again,” regenerated believers who, because of corrupt doctrine and practice and their unwillingness to repent of those things the Lord identified in His letter to the seven churches as recorded in Revelation 2 and 3, will reject their faith in Christ. (See “The Parable of the Ten Virgins Unveiled” and “ REVELATION: The Lord’s Letter to the END TIMES CHURCH”)
Dispensational theologians (from which comes the false doctrine of a pre-trib “rapture”) have fostered the concept of tribulation being limited to the specific seven prophetic years of Daniel’s 70th week, but the unified picture presented to us in scripture is one of escalation beginning with events leading up to the re-establishment of Israel as a nation and becoming progressively worse until it ends on the day of the Lord as He returns to earth to destroy His enemies and set up His millennial kingdom in Jerusalem. For the world, apart from true Christianity, the only interim of relative peace and relief from tribulation, strangely enough, will be the first few years after the establishment of a one world government. Yet, for Christians during that time, the escalation continues as the awakened wise virgins begin to experience worldwide what Christians are already experiencing in numerous countries, like North Korea, China, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, and Iran.
As we examine the events of the first four seals we will see that it is these events that set the stage for the rise of the Antichrist to power in Daniel’s 70th week, also sets the stage for the awakening of the church for the final, amazing end time harvest of an uncountable number of souls from every nation, tribe, and tongue. It is, therefore, NOT, a time of fear and dread for believers, but a time of jubilant expectation for those He is now warning and preparing for the trials to come. Two years ago the Lord sent me a dream in which I saw a gigantic tsunami coming ashore. The wave was so big that I knew it would destroy everything in its path, and I was afraid that I, too, was about to be destroyed. But, instead of destroying me, the wave picked me up and carried me along with it like a body-surfer as euphoric joy filled my soul. I woke up immediately afterwards and asked the Lord the meaning of the dream. The Spirit caused me to understand that the move of God was coming like a destroying wave over the entire earth, but that I would be picked up and carried along with the move of God, not destroyed by it. And, because, at the time of this writing, I am seventy years of age, I am assuming that this tsunami, which has already begun to sweep over the world with the release of the first three horsemen, is going to peak soon.
Therefore, rejoice, brothers and sisters, IF you are included among the “wise virgins,” that you have been chosen to participate in a time such as this.
Arise, shine; for your light has come,
And the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.
For behold, darkness will cover the earth
And deep darkness the peoples;
But the LORD will rise upon you
And His glory will appear upon you. Isaiah 60:1,2
