War and Famine
Revelation 6:3. And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.
As the white horse receded from John’s
field of vision, riding forth to conquer the world with His great bow, John
looked again at the Lamb in the midst of the heavenly throne. The rider on the white horse had been a
vision, representing the Lamb’s control of the judgments that were about to
break forth on the earth. Indeed,
this first horseman and the Lamb both represented none other than John’s
beloved Lord, the one who as Lamb of God took away the sin of the world (John
1:29) and who as the great Rider on the white horse was now riding forth to
purge away the sinners of the world.
And then, when the Lamb broke the second seal on the title deed to the world, the second great cherub – the one appearing first to John like a calf, or an ox – spoke with a voice like thunder, and the second horseman prepared to ride.
Revelation 6:4. And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given 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.
There had been a time of peace on the
earth, but it was brief and illusory.
The second rider, this one on the blood-red horse, was commissioned by
the Lamb to take away their peace.
“Wars and rumors of wars” (Matthew 24:6) again broke out, as nation rose
against nation and men again undertook to “kill one another.”
It is an amazing thing that men, created
in the image of God, should become so blinded with hate or lust or ambition or
envy that they should seek to destroy the precious lives of others. Yet the very first man born in the
world slew his brother, and men have followed in the way of Cain ever
since. Not only the barbarians of
Genghis Khan, but the sophisticated butchers of Nazi Germany and Red China and
Stalinist Russia in the enlightened twentieth century have murdered millions. The genocides in Cambodia and Viet Nam
and in various African nations continued the same pattern.
Men have longed for peace. There have been peace treaties,
disarmament conferences, leagues of nations, peace prizes, demonstrations for
peace – all seeking somehow to bring in lasting world peace. But all had failed.
Then, with the sudden disintegration of
Russia and its Moslem allies, there had been a tremendous surge of optimism and
the world anticipated a long period of peace and prosperity. The troublesome Christians had also
disappeared, and there was nothing to restrain full enjoyment of all the
pleasures and indulgences of the sinful hearts of mankind.
But it could not last. In spite of themselves, men soon were fighting each other again. This was true not only in terms of actual wars between countries. Racial strife increased, as did labor troubles. Civil wars erupted within nations, and organized crime was rampant. Individual feuds generated waves of murders, and soon a state almost of anarchy prevailed. Police forces and armies were of little avail as they also were engaged in strife internal and external. Nothing seemed to help and men began to fight almost in spite of themselves. God had sent “strong delusion” (2 Thessalonians 2:11) and the Red Horseman had taken peace from the earth, his great sword, invisibly but lethally, plunging into its heart.
Revelation 6:5. And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
The first horseman carried a great bow,
the second a great sword. The
third held merely a pair of balances, but this also symbolized a great weapon. The balances depict trade and commerce,
the determination of price equivalents for goods. The power of commerce, to generate prosperity or calamity,
inflation or depression, opulence or starvation, has been understood and
manipulated by politicians and merchants and bankers for thousands of years,
beginning back in ancient Babylon.
The Sumerian tablets, probably the oldest of all known archaeological
artifacts, reveal mercantile and commercial practices quite similar to those of
today.
There is a remarkable prophecy in
Zechariah apparently dealing with this same theme. In his vision, Zechariah saw an “ephah” going forth through
all the earth, finally being carried to “the land of Shinar” (Zechariah
5:5-11). The ephah was the standard measure for wheat and other commodities,
roughly equivalent to a bushel. An
actual balance had been outfitted, with a container designed to hold an ephah
attached to the balance. Zechariah
saw a woman sitting in the ephah, however, with a talent of lead (that is, a
circular lead weight) covering the mouth.
One woman was in the ephah, with two winged women bearing it back to
Sumer (same as “Shinar”) where the whole system of worldly wealth and commerce
was first developed and whence it had spread throughout the earth. “This is wickedness,” and the angel (Zechariah
5:8), and it was being transported back to Babylon “to build it an house in the
land of Shinar: and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base”
(Zechariah 5:11). The great
Babylonian harlot is seen again in Revelation 17 and 18, where apparently this
system of wickedness has indeed been set again upon its original base, where
she will once again control and manipulate world wealth and commerce.
Babylon is now largely in ruins, but it is
quite near to Baghdad, the capital of Iraq. Iraq is today the center of tremendous oil reserves and has
profited even more than Iran and Saudi Arabia from her great underground
wealth. For years water control
projects have been harnessing the waters of the great Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers flowing through Iraq, and from time to time there has been talk of
someday building a new Babylon.
Babylon would be ideally situated to serve
as a world trade and communications center and indeed even as a world
capital. An Institute for Creation
Research computer study some years ago demonstrated that this region is very
close to the geographical center of all the world’s land areas. In view of the clear indication that
Babylon may indeed be the actual capital of the world empire of the Beast in
the last days (see comments on Revelation 17 and 18), it may well be that the
decision to rebuild Babylon (first as a trade center, later to become the
capital) could be made at about the same time the decision is made to rebuild
Jerusalem’s temple. By that time,
the economic influence of the American nations (already much in decline) may be
much less significant than during the past century. With the defeat of Russia and the increasing importance of
the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, it may well be that the world’s
industrial leaders and international bankers will decide that an
internationalized capital of commerce should be established in an ultra-modern
new metropolis arising out of the ruins of earth’s first metropolis. Possibly even the United Nations Organization
will decide to move from the so-called “Babylon-on-the-Hudson” to the primal
Babylon on the Euphrates.
Wherever they are centered, these
international capitalists will begin to use the new period of peace as an
opportunity to gain full control of the great oil resources of the world as
well as its food resources and its money supply. The Black Horseman, however, will thwart their plans in
considerable measure, as a worldwide famine suddenly strikes the world.
This is the period during which God’s two Witnesses call for a worldwide three and a half-year drought (see comments on Revelation 11:3-6). Tremendous famines, then shortages and hunger, quickly follow.
Revelation 6:6. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
This is an amazing revelation. The voice speaking out of the midst of
the four living ones can hardly be other than God Himself, specifying commodity
prices. Evidently the voice is
directed to the Black Horseman, and perhaps also the various angels who control
the winds and rains and other natural agents influencing agricultural growth,
to instruct them as to precisely how severe the famine is to become.
The “measure” is the Greek koinex, about 1 ½ pints, and the “penny” is the denarius, a coin which was a day’s wage of a laborer. This price represents severe conditions
of shortage, conditions which will allow wage earners barely to survive. If they are unemployed, or if they have
a family, some probably will not survive, without using their savings or being
fed by government dole.
The instruction not to hurt the oil and
wine is grimly sarcastic. Oil and
wine represent luxuries rather than necessities such as wheat and barley. Normally these are expensive, mostly
indulgences of the rich. They will
at that time be available in ample supply despite the shortages of basic
foodstuffs. The demand for
luxuries normally drops in times of inflated prices for necessities.
It
is barely possible that the “oil,” instead of referring to olive oil, as it
normally does, could refer to petroleum, which was unknown in New Testament
days but is extremely important to the modern world. It could be still more important to the future world empire
of the coming Antichrist. Wine has
been the world’s great intoxicating beverage for thousands of years, although
it may in this context represent all intoxicating beverages. Thus, it may be that God’s instruction
here is to preserve the world’s fuels and intoxicants. This would allow men to indulge their
sinful appetites to the fullest, even while suffering from shortages of
necessary food, to demonstrate the justice of their coming condemnation.
In either case, the overriding characteristic
of the world after the third seal is broken is one of violence and near
anarchy, along with severe famine and food shortage.