By The Sword, Famine, and Pestilence

Jeremiah 14:11-12 ESV
The Lord said to me: “Do not pray for the welfare of this people. Though they fast, I will not hear their cry, and though they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.”

Israel has turned their back on The Lord. The Lord tells Jeremiah they will be consumed and describes the judgement in terms that appear in Revelation as three of the four horseman loosed when the seals are broken on the scroll.

The fourth horseman in Revelation is actually the first, an unnamed rider on a white horse who goes forth conquering. In the Ezekiel passage below, four acts of judgement are listed. The the rider of the first horse may be representative of the beast of Satan. It is given that the saints will be conquered for a time. The length of this time is known only to God, but it has an end. The time of God's wrath will be fulfilled.

The horseman relay judgement on the world that Christ has set into motion when He rose to His throne. We are in the last days and the labor pains are increasing as the birth of a new creation grows closer. God increased the labor pains of Eve for her disobedience and we feel them now as mankind staggers toward the light.

Ezekiel 8:18
Therefore I will act in wrath. My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. And though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.”

Ezekiel 14:21-23
“For thus says the Lord God:How much more when I send upon Jerusalem my four disastrous acts of judgment, sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast! But behold, some survivors will be left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out; behold, when they come out to you, and you see their ways and their deeds, you will be consoled for the disaster that I have brought upon Jerusalem, for all that I have brought upon it. They will console you, when you see their ways and their deeds, and you shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, declares the Lord God.”