The Basics
Nothing is more basic to human survival than food and water.
People are—and have long been—suffering from famine-hunger in many parts of the world.
Million have died in the past decade and currently are sick and dying due to food shortages. However, others are sick and dying have because of a by combination of G.M.O foods, modified weather related issues, bad government policies (FDA) with their complacent approval of food additives; initiated protections of poor or dangerous food additives, the spraying of crops with deadly and brain/thought altering chemicals, artificially flavored and colored foods, etc
Even the good foods are now considered by many to be "not worth eating" and potentially dangerous to even keep in your home. Poisons in snacks and candies for children, fluoridated water. *Fluoride (an atomic energy by-product) was used by Adolph Hitler to dumb down and create a human condition whereas people are less likely to be aggressive to gov't or police actions.
Chem-trails (falling to the ground) spraying all sorts of poisons on land and in the waters- lead, radioactive and even human DNA being found in the sprayed aerosols from planes in the skies have been affecting the quality and safety of plants, lakes, rivers and wild grazing animals (our food systems) contributing to making our food unsafe and scarce; thereby creating a form of forced food shortage and poorly made food items.
Vin Diesel joins growing list of celebrities ‘calling out’ chemtrails
The Past
The scourge of famine has appeared cyclically throughout history. Often it is caused by drought, blight, floods and other unnatural means that could have been prevented. Most of the time the causes are all human—war, secret experiments on people, plants and animals and food related items; social unrest and breakdown, and inefficient or outright malevolent government policies.
Control
In a worldly society, there should be no real obstacle to alleviating the effects of food shortages wherever they occur. Ancient and modern agricultural methods and generally stable weather patterns produce bumper crops in the world resulting in massive levels of food production, more than enough to feed the hungry of the world. But there are controls in place, policies and man-made attacks on our food systems and resources to prevent such helps.
There is no reason to expect people to starve when this is coupled with the means to grow healthy food and transporting the food to any location in the world. Yet famine caused by (purposeful attacks) man-made food shortages and false recalls continue. When foods are recalled, ever wonder where that food goes?
How Venezuela’s Repressive Government Controls the Nation Through Hunger
The Third Horseman
We come now to the third horseman’s ride; saddled and riding along side of his company. What does it portend for the world?
Notice what it says in Revelation 6:5-6: “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. 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’” What does this mean?
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary explains regarding this passage: “This amount [of money] suggests food prices about twelve times higher than normal … and implies inflation and famine conditions (Matthew 24:7). A quart of wheat would supply an average person one day’s sustenance. Barley was used by the poor to mix with the wheat.” Even false Food shortages/food recalls can cause inflation in food prices. And higher prices make the remaining food harder to afford.
Oil and wine, though, are typically symbols of plenty. The reference here could indicate there will be pockets of abundance in the midst of famine. Christ’s reference to famine “in diverse places” or "many" places, but not all (Matthew 24:7) indicates the same possibility.
The cry to not “hurt” the oil and wine could represent attempts to safeguard the pockets of abundance against plundering. However, another possibility may mean that there is practically no oil and wine left. That would also fit with the admonition that what is left not be harmed—lest there be none left at all.
In any case, the opening of the third seal indicates the onset of a period of severe famine unlike any in the past. While famines of varying severity and causes have struck throughout history, it appears things will get much worse in days following into the future.
Against the law to grow food? "Control"
With headlines like these it's easy to see how there can be shortages even at our own homes:
Woman Faces Jail Time For Growing Vegetable Garden in Her Own Front Lawn
Man Charged with a Crime and Fined for Growing a Vegetable Garden in His Own Front Yard
Devastating famines of the past
Famine is listed in Revelation 6 as following the previous horsemen of religious deception and war. While man made weather manipulated floods and droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes along with Gov't intrusion, regulations-restrictions—is often the cause of most famines, quite often war and misrule, as well as malignant political or religious ideology, are prime factors as well. A look at past famines gives us an idea of how devastating they can be.
*(Footnotes) With the influx of immigrants and foreign immigrants (muslims from the middle east), coupled with the ever increasing food restrictions certainly can spell possible famines brought on by overloading the system- the food production system. There's plenty for all, but restricting food, meaningless food recalls, and other gov't pressures on its production and distribution can increase famine evidence.
Bottom line; food, real food is getting short while demand is growing, and what is out there is almost not worth eating.
Prelude to an apocalypse?
During the 20th century two humanly engineered famines brought devastating consequences. In 1932-34, the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin sought to suppress Ukrainian nationalism by forcing a system of collectivized agriculture on the peasants. Food supplies were removed to the cities, crops failed and food supplies were barred from the region. This man-made famine resulted in the starvation of between 6 and 8 million people. It was a state-sponsored attempt at genocide.
China’s “Great Leap Forward” in 1958-60 resulted in mismanaged food production and the disruption of distribution chains. Fertile rice fields were plowed over and factories built on them. Farms were collectivized. Farmers who knew only the land were at a loss in factories. Coupled with bad weather, the result was the death of 20 million people by starvation during 1960 and 1961.
And, what is happening right here in the USA is unmentionable! Of all the regimes the world has seen, the USA privily destroys and or controls food issues creating poor quality or alteration of foods (Monsanto, etc) and their productions (import and export) both at home and abroad. This kind of genocide has been on the works for more than 20 years to date!
FDA Finds Monsanto’s Roundup In Honey Samples Across America
I don't believe we have yet seen the full depths of the catastrophe that awaits the world as the third horse continues his ride across the world stage.
In Jesus' Olivet prophecy, Jesus gave the first description of the events symbolized by these seals—and His prophecy is unerring. He foretold that there will be a time of great tribulation, greater than any previous world conflict, and unless that time is cut short, no human flesh will survive.
No treaty, no cease-fire, no human being, will be able to stop this end-of-the-age cataclysm. Events will drive the world into an out-of-control spin. But for the sake of a remnant called “the elect,” Jesus' true followers, “those days will be shortened” (Ref. Matthew 24:21-22).
The Scales.....
The scales in the rider's hand indicate a need for him to wrongly measure, ration and change the food supply- the over valuing of food; unusual price increases. The earth has been watching this for many, many years now.
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."
So, a loaf of wheat bread or three loaves of barley for a day's pay. Three loaves of barley equal approximately one pint. This is generally regarded as a minimum-sustenance diet. This verse shows that an entire day's wage will barely yield enough food to survive.
"Pair of balances" translates the Greek word zugón, which literally means "yoke," as in a yoke of oxen or the yoke of bondage. The beam of a balance, which resembles a yoke's crossbeam, joins or couples the two pans just as a yoke joins the oxen. Just as it is better if the yoked oxen are evenly matched, so the purpose of the balance is to determine that the contents of the two pans are equal. However, food and prices will not be equal.
Today, we have little experience with pairs of scales or balances, yet until recently, they were the commonly used means of weighing substances (fruit and vegetables). Perhaps we are familiar with a pair of scales from its use in a Western movies to determine the weight of a gold nugget. In addition, most of us are aware that a balance is an international symbol of justice, depicting the "supposed" equality of all before the law. Elements of both of these common uses appear in the third horseman.
In ancient times, the value or quantity of a thing was determined by weighing it on scales. In fact, people bought and sold items by weight or measure rather than by our currency-based system. For instance, the shekel was not originally a unit of money but of weight according to which the price and quantity of things were determined. As such, scales were common marketplace items, and God demanded they be used justly (Leviticus 19:36; Proverbs 11:1; 16:11; Amos 8:4-10; Matthew 7:2). This is not the case in today's commerce of items.
Interestingly scales (balances) are easily manipulated, they can also be a symbol of fraudulent exaction and oppression, as Hosea 12:7 illustrates: "He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress." Micah concurs: "Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights? For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth." (Micah 6:11-12).
When mentioned in terms of foodstuffs, particularly bread, scales become a symbol of scarcity because, normally, bread would be sold by the loaf without much concern for exact weight. However, during a famine when each ounce of flour was valuable, flour would be rationed by weight or measure, and neither buyer or seller would want to be cheated. So what you have is a loaf of bread with less slices today (less flour) than yesteryear and the price either remains (as the amount is decreased) the same or the price is increased without increase of the content or weight of bread.
*(Foot note) Further, most of what we call bread isn't really bread anymore. The amount of real ingredients in bread are considered by most to be just chemicals, metals and dough softeners.
Notice God's prophetic warning in Leviticus 26:26: "And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied."
"And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it. 16 "Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment:..." (Ezekiel 4:10, 16)
Wheat, Barley, Oil, and Wine
Let's look at Revelation 6:6 again....
After describing the black horse and its rider, John hears "a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, 'A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine'" (Revelation 6:6).
Among the Four Horseman, this is an unusual departure; nothing else is said to or about them save in this verse. Being so set apart, the words are doubly significant.
Who speaks these words? John simply says "a voice." Literally, the Greek is "like a voice," which can be stated as "what seemed to be a voice." The only clue we have is that it comes from "in the midst of the four living creatures." Revelation 4:6 provides the answer: "And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind." (see Ezekiel 1:4-28). The language suggests that the creatures were situated around the throne. The voice coming from the midst of these creatures must have come from the one sitting on the throne! God Himself utters these words!
What He says is a common marketplace call of a merchant shouting out the price of His wares. He is setting relative values for both wheat and barley, with wheat being three times as valuable as barley. However, His price is highly inflated! The "quart" here is choinix in Greek, which is roughly equivalent to our quart, the amount of grain that a normal man needs each day to survive. In ancient times, though, a denarius would buy eight to ten quarts of wheat, not one! Obviously, these are disaster prices.
The "denarius" was equal to an ordinary worker's daily wage, as Jesus illustrates in His Parable of the Laborers (Matthew 20:1-16). These prices, then, give a person an unenviable choice. If he is single, he can buy the more expensive, more nutritious wheat, yet have nothing left over, or he can buy the cheaper, less nutritious barley and save the remainder for the next day or so. However, if he is married and has children, he can choose only the barley because he needs more than one quart of grain for his family's subsistence. None of these choices really allows the person either to get ahead or to stay healthy, especially if he has dependents.
God also commands, "and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." which is a puzzler to scholars. To whom is God speaking—to the horseman or to people in general? It seems to be directed at the horseman, as he is the direct cause of the famine. Thus, the staff of bread (Ref. Psalm 106:16) will be in such short supply as to need to be rationed or sold at extortionate prices, but oil and wine will be relatively untouched. Why?
Many commentators consider oil and wine to be luxury items, but this is false. In ancient times, olive oil and wine were staples of the Mediterranean diet along with grain, as Deuteronomy 7:13 and 11:14 indicate (see also II Chronicles 31:5; 32:28; Nehemiah 5:11; Hosea 2:8, 22; Joel 1:10; Haggai 1:11).
A person, though, cannot live on oil and wine as he can on grain, yet, as science is just now discovering, they do provide additional and necessary nutrition. These items are available during the third horseman's rampage, but the average man will not have the means to purchase them, since all his money is being spent on flour for bread (food necessities-staples)!
What is God picturing then? The key is to remember that this "famine" is ongoing just as the wars and rumors of wars of the second horseman and the deceptions (false ministers of Christianity) of the first horseman are. There are occasional lulls of plenty, but the experience of history is that most of the time, the ordinary individual is just getting by.
The third horseman's job is to follow his red brother's devastating wars with oppression, corruption, and scarcity so that men stay weak and poor and many die.
Disaster With a Human Face
An additional detail remains: This horseman is presented by the third living creature, identified in Revelation 4:7 as having "had a face as a man." Symbolically, one could say that God puts a human face on the third seal. Conversely, it could also be seen as ironic that the living creature that looks like a man introduces such inhumanity.
The man's face may also be a reminder of certain men's role in these devastating judgments. They do not just happen—they are caused by evil men. Man's wars and weather manipulations not only slay thousands or millions of men, women, and children, but they also destroy valuable farmland and demolish vital industrial, manufacturing (by mans of also NAFTA, GATT, WTO, etc), and merchandising businesses. Armies and beast governments have one job: to kill people and break things. Thus, what we have is a non-viable system of commerce, a war-torn society that often experiences created shortages of food, water, and other necessities. Famine is a consequence of evil men's misuse of power and authority.
The cause of famine is oppression and corruption. One need look no further than the Communist, state-controlled system of the USSR (Russian Federation) to realize that the regular and sometimes grievous shortages of food the common people faced derived from governmental manipulation, lies, and favoritism. Now, we need only look in our back yards for tyrannical attacks from the United States political wheels.
If the State had a "need," the people were expected to sacrifice for it (i.e. state created and funded terrorism,a perceived or contrived threat), and if that meant doing without bread, cabbage, vodka, or meat, so be it.
Gov'ts "Free and rich people" eat well, while slaves—men and women controlled by other human beings—eat only enough to eke out a miserable existence. Where are your shoes standing between these two entities?
A Future Hope
Too often, people speak of this period as “the end of the world” or by some other similarly gloomy name. Terrible as that time will be, the world will not end and human life will not be extinguished. The Bible gives us hope that the light will dawn out of the chaos at the end of this age. It is when we keep our eyes firmly focused on this truth that we can have hope beyond the tensions of our present world.
Related Verses
Matthew 24:7
"For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places."
Mark 13:8
"For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows."
Luke 21:11
"And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven."
