Revelation 6 of course, this is where we find the seven seals and then right after that we've got the seven trumpets Somewhere kind of in the midst of those seven trumpets We got the seven thunders and then this after that we've got the seven bowls And so we're gonna work our way through chapter 6 through chapter 16 where we cover these things But if you remember last Sunday last week We looked at the control and the content of the first seal. And those were kind of the two main points. That'll really be the kind of two main points for every one of these seals. Because when we think about the control of every one of the seals, the control of the first seal is by the Lamb of God in heaven, and of course that applies to every seal, right? Seals 2 through 7. They're all opened by the Lord Jesus Christ as he opens them. And then of course one of the four beasts or one of the living ones announce the comings of the content of these various seals. So there's a formula. And I think there's All throughout Revelation, you're going to notice some of these formulas. We saw those formulas there in the first or the seven churches there in Asia that were written to in chapters two and three. And so here's kind of a formulaic way of introducing these seven seal judgments as well. And of course, the content of the first seal was a white horse coming down from heaven to earth. In verse 2 it says, He that sat on him had a bow, and a crown was given unto him, and he went forth conquering and to conquer. Now, I mentioned last week that this particular seal can be understood in either a positive way or a negative way, and there are certainly people that hold to both, and I've read, you know, a lot of people that have held to both. Personally, I have come to approach it as more of the negative way. So the writer would not mean or represent the spirit of Christ coming in spiritual conquest of souls, but rather they would represent or this would represent the spirit of the Antichrist that persists in every age, that seeks victory through intimidation and even imitation as a counterfeit of Christ. And one of the main reasons why I see it in that way, as a negative way, is really because of how we see the biblical background in Zechariah. We started looking at that a couple weeks ago in Zechariah chapter 6, where we see all four kinds of horses. working, really going throughout the earth, roaming to and fro. So these are the spirits that God has allowed to perform elements of His judgment in this earth. Some of the colors correspond with Revelation. One particular one doesn't. But you see them working together. And I think that's probably one of the ways to see these four seals working together with the common presence. Once they are sent forth, they're never recalled. They stay out there in the earth, roaming to and fro, and then they have that common purpose. So, four kinds of forces working together to bring God's judgment on those who oppress God's people. Well, that leads us to the next three seals, but before we look at seals two and three, which we'll consider today, I want to go ahead and read those verses again. So, Revelation chapter six, verses one through eight. John writes, I saw when the lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, come and see. Could also be directed to the horse and rider, come. And I saw, and behold, a white horse. He that sat on him had a bow, and a crown was given unto him, and he went forth conquering and to conquer. And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast, the living one, say, come and see. And there went out another horse that was red. 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. 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. He that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand, a scale. 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. And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, come and see. And I looked and behold, a pale horse and his name that sat on him was death and hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. All right, so we're gonna focus our attention on the second and third seals. So the first point really dealing with all of the seals, as I mentioned earlier, is the control of them, right? The control of the seals all remains the same, whether you're talking about the first seal, second, third, fourth, all the way to the seventh seal, they're all opened by the Lamb, who is standing behind or beside the heavenly throne. Of course, this is Jesus. He is the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world. He's the Lamb that was sacrificed for our sins. So no matter what happens, and this is key for us to remember, no matter what happens, When each seal is opened, Jesus is personally and Jesus is actively involved and he's in full control. I mean, that's really what it means to be sovereign, right? If we believe that God is a sovereign God, it means he is in absolute, complete control. There's not anything in this world that is outside of his purview. I think R.C. Sproul once said, there is not one maverick molecule in all of the universe. And you could even go the distance to the smallest particles, which is even the protons and the neutrons and the quarks and all of those things. There's not a single maverick anything in this universe because God created it and God's in control of it. And so even negative forces or negative spirits that he allows to do his will and his bidding and his work, even of judgment in this world, he is still in charge. And so this is a comfort for God's people, and no matter what age we live in, He is in full control. He's actively and personally involved. So, remember that. Control of the seals. So, sometimes as we go through the Revelation, and we kind of can get kind of down by some of the things that are going through this. Even Paul said that to Timothy that evil men and seducers in this age will wax worse and worse. Things are going to get worse before they get better. And that discourages us sometimes. That causes even believers sometimes to approach the point of despair. And yet, we know who's in complete control, and that is the Lord, that is the Lamb. So, as we keep that as our foundation, we go to the content of the seals, and we start with the second seal. The content of the second seal. This is what we just read in there in verses three and four, introduced using the same formula that John used to introduce the first seal. Again, verse three. And when he, the Lamb, the Lord Jesus, had opened the second seal, broken it off the scroll, I heard the second beast, that's the second living one, say, come and see." Again, in the King James, the New King James, the majority text, Greek text, it has this command being directed to John, come and see, to get a little bit closer and see a little bit more. Or if it's more the critical text or some of the older manuscripts, it just has that one command, come, and that would be directed to the horse and its rider. So either way, We can't be entirely sure which seal is the second seal. He's not coming necessarily from top to bottom, because remember the first seal, it just said one of the seals. Could have been any one of those that he started with, but whatever the second one was, is the second one. Which order, we don't know. What living one, what beast is making this order? Again, it's just the second one. We're not really sure which one either in this regard. But either way, the outcome is exactly the same as it was in the first. Because what happens, verse 4? And there went out, another horse that was red. So we have a white horse and now we have the red horse and power was given to him that sat there on to take peace from the earth and that they should kill one another. And there was given unto him a great sword. So once again, after John tells us what he hears, then he tells us what he sees. And again, we see that correspondence over and over in Revelation. There's a correspondence between what he sees and what he hears. Sometimes there's a difference between what he sees and what he hears. And that also is something we need to pay attention to. So using the same pattern as the first seal, he first describes the horse, which is of course, red in color, red in color. Now, in the background that we have in Zechariah chapter 6, the first horses that were mentioned were actually red. Here in Revelation, this is one of those differences between Zechariah and Revelation. Here we have them found in the second position, but we still have that same color represented in both. The color red in Revelation is translated from a Greek word, which is puros. And you can see both the English transliteration and the Greek word there on your lesson guide. The root of this word is pur, which is simply the Greek word for fire. So you can kind of get the picture of a fiery red horse. Now obviously when you think fire a lot of times you think of Orange right and so you can kind of think of an orange and red mixture and you just think of a fiery red horse This this color is only found in one other place in the book of Revelation It's the common word for red throughout the New Testament but in chapter 12 verse 3 the other thing that has this same color is a dragon And so we have this fiery red colored horse, and then in Revelation 12, 3, which we'll get to, we have a fiery red dragon who has seven heads, ten horns, and seven crowns on its head. And certainly I think the portrayal of that dragon is certainly the devil himself, and he is the one that empowers the first beast that comes out of the earth, which is what we consider the Antichrist. So this red, at least as symbolic in Revelation, is with evil and with the devil even himself. But also, when you think of red, you also think of the symbol of war and bloodshed. A.F. Johnson describes it that way. And certainly, when you think about the content of this seal, that has a lot to do with it. So even though there is war and bloodshed, where does that war and bloodshed stem from? It says it stems from the fire of the devil himself, the fiery red character of the devil. So this color seems to represent, especially in this seal, the worn bloodshed, and it is associated with the evil of the dragon. But once again, whether it's talking about the horse or the dragon, they're both still under the authority and control of the lamb. But then we find, of course, the horseman, the horseman of the second seal. This is also described there in verse four. And so John first tells us about his power, his power. Now in verse four, if you have a King James or I think even ESV, that the word power is in italics. Actually, I don't think the ESV has it this way, but power is italics, which basically means that this is sort of an additional word put in by the translators to give a fuller sense of what is meant. So if you actually take this word out, it would be translated this way. And it was given to him that sat thereon. And what was given to him? to take peace from the earth. So again, power in this, at least in the King James, is added to smooth out the translation. Yet, it still indicates that there is some power, there is some authority, there is some ability that is given to this rider from the lamb. We introduced this idea last week. What we find here in verse four is the divine passive. Remember that? The sovereign passive, where something is given to someone by someone. We're just not told who it is. But, implied throughout Revelation, whenever you have the Greek word didomi, which is to give, and it's put in this divine passive way, it is implied that the Lamb is the one responsible. The lamb is the one giving it to someone. God is the one giving it to someone. And so the giver is always silently implied to be God. So who gave this power to take peace from the earth to the rider on this red horse? No doubt it was the Lord. He is the one who's in control of everything here. So the Lord gives this horse and rider, just like he did earlier, to the white horse and rider, permission to take and seize peace from the earth. Now the word peace here is the common Greek word for peace, eirene. It is found in Revelation only two times. And I think that's appropriate because in Revelation you don't find a whole lot of peace. Maybe at the very beginning of the book and at the very end of the book, but for most of Revelation you don't find peace. There's only two times. In fact, the very first time you find peace, and the only other time, is all the way back in chapter one. So if you go there with me real quick, in John chapter one, verse four, this is John's initial prayer to the Lord for his people in these churches. It says, John, I'm writing to the seven churches which are in Asia. Here's his prayer. Grace be unto you and, what? Peace. Peace from who? From him which is and which was, which is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ who is the faithful witness. So we recognize that this is a prayer for God's peace upon God's people. But the only other time that we find this word peace in Revelation is here in chapter six, where peace is actually supposed to be taken from the earth by this horse and its rider. So the peace that this writer is to take away is not referring to God's peace, which is present with God's people, in answer to John's prayer for God's people. This is man's peace, or this is at least what men think of as peace. Now, one of the things we need to keep in mind as we go through these seals especially is that when John wrote this, it was during the Roman period of time known as the Pax Romana, or the period of Roman peace. Now there would be a lot of people that would say the Roman peace was anything but peaceful But because of the strength and the power of Rome and even the military might of Rome there was actually some semblance of peace in their empire. You know, if there was any kind of uprising, it was usually small. If it was anything of significance, they would squelch it fairly easily, fairly quickly. And so this entire period of time, which lasted until about 200 AD. So I think it was from about the time of, well, before the time of Christ, till about 200 AD was this period of Roman peace. John is writing this about a hundred years after the birth of Christ. And so this is still that period of peace. And so even to him, even though there was conflict between the state and the church, between Nero and Christians, even that's how the Apostle Paul and likely Peter was martyred. Yet for the most part, in the Empire of Rome, there was some semblance of peace. And so this would have been a rather shocking thing. This is not something that was known to Rome in that time, where there would be conflict coming into this thing. So whatever man thinks of as peace, it's not referring to God's peace. It's not talking about internal peace. It's talking about the external peace that comes about even through might, even through perhaps conquest. Any token of peace that might be found in this world, this rider and this horse is given permission and authority by the Lord to take away. So whereas the purpose of the first rider and horse is conquest, and there are some who consider that conquest physical conquest, like Rome or the Parthians or anybody else coming and conquering other people, or spiritual. And again, you can see this in a positive or a negative way. The purpose of this second horse and this second rider seems to be to bring about all kinds of conflict. all kinds of chaos, all kinds of war and rumors of war. Now, this conflict, this taking peace from the earth, can certainly refer to conflict between nations and certainly has been taken that way. You know, you think about what is going on between Ukraine and Russia right now. When you think about what's going on in the Middle East also between Israel and I guess you could say Palestine, they're not really the state of Palestine. But you can see all of these different kinds of conflicts that are between nations, between people groups, between ethnic groups. Yet this conflict can also refer to any kind of conflict in this world. It can be not just between nations, it can even be in nations. You know, you think of civil war. You think of conflict in communities. You can even think of conflict and taking peace away from families. Even anarchy could be considered part of this conflict. There are some who think that the first seal describes the conquest of man, which is war between nations. So when those that think of this primarily in physical terms, the first seal would be conquest of nations, one nation pitting itself against another nation. A lot of people would look at the second seal as describing just civil war and civil unrest. And sadly, they kind of go together at times, right? I mean, just think of what's going on in the Middle East, right? You've got, again, the conflict between Israel right now and the conflict with the people in Gaza and really all of the Palestinian Arabs. What is that causing in our country? What is that causing especially yesterday in London, in England? I mean, you see this unrest, this fomenting. It's not quite there yet, but it sure is on the cusp. And so you could see that civil unrest taking place as well. And so there are a lot who would consider it to be this way as well. So it is It does have a mission of conflict, whereas the white horse and rider has the mission of conquest. So what is this purpose? What is the purpose of this horse and rider? They're in verse four again, to take peace from the earth so that, here's the purpose, in order that they should, what? Kill one another. Now this is an interesting thing because we don't know who the they are. In fact, we don't have that provided here. This is just one of those situations where you have to kind of assume it and imply it. We're going to say that it's the people on the earth, right? So that's just kind of implied there. That's just one of those things that you have to be aware of in revelation. Sometimes there might not be a precedent, something that, or antecedent of what that particular pronoun is referring to. But obviously, in some way, this horse and its rider is able to influence the people on the earth to turn on each other with murderous intent and rage. And that can be at the most basic level of society, which is family. It can extend out to communities, it can go into countries with civil war, and it can even be between nations in ethnic conflict. But either way, the whole point is that people should kill other people, and this writer is given permission to influence people to kill one another. Now, the word translated here, to kill, is not the usual word in Greek for killing. Apokteno is usually the Greek word for killing, but that's not the normal word for killing. In this case, it is sfadzo. Boy, that's a fun word. Sfadzo. Again, the transliteration, I think, is there on your lesson guide. Sfadzo is found only nine times in the New Testament. Eight of those times we find it in the book of Revelation. In six out of those eight times, it clearly refers to the violent death of Christ and Christians, of Christ and his people. In fact, if you keep your finger here, you just got to go back a page. But in chapter five, verse five, remember when John is being introduced to who it is that is worthy to open the scroll. In verse five, one of the elders says to John, weep not, behold, the line of the tribe of Judah and the root of David hath prevailed to open the book. And verse six, and I beheld and lo in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts and in the midst of the elders stood a lamb as it had been slain. So that's the same word that we have back here to kill one another, sfadzo, sfadzo. So it refers to the violent death of Christ on the cross. We also find that there in verse nine. When there's a new song being sung, thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain, thou wast sfadzo, you were slaughtered, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation. So this word referring to killing is found here pertaining to Christ. But now if you go back to chapter 6, this same word for killing is related to God's people. If you look at verse 9, this is after the fifth seal is opened, which we'll get to. It says, when John sees the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. So it appears that even the followers of Christ will not be immune from the physical conflict that this horse and rider will inflict on this world. We see the comparison of those two words for kill, which is kind of an interesting parallel. So, to take peace from the earth, that's his purpose. How's he going to do that? Well, John also tells us about his possession. This particular rider, there was given unto him. Now, see that phrase again, was given. What is that called? What can we describe that as? A divine passive, right? So a sword was given to him. Now, who gave this sword to him? We're not told. Again, the implied answer is the Lamb, the Lord. So there was given unto him a great sword. So this is the second time in this one verse that we have this sovereign or divine passive to remind us again of the Lamb's control. Keep a lookout for these in Revelation. When you find the word give, and something was given to someone, and you don't know who gave it, That's a divine passive, and it shows God's control. This is the throne room of heaven going on in the seals. You're going to find this in the trumpets. You're going to find this in the bowls. You're going to find this all throughout the book of Revelation, that even though we're not told about the throne in a lot of these places, the throne is still there. God is in still control. So what is he given? A great sword. This is, of course, a clear symbol for destruction. a clear symbol for death, which he is able to use to fulfill his mission. I like how one writer puts it, he is given this large sword because the number of those he kills is so great. There are some who have seen the word that is translated sword here. There's really two main Greek words for sword. And this one is considered to be the Roman short sword, almost like a dagger. And so they would see this as more something that was used in a civil conflict or a civil war. Can't be certain about that because sometimes they're used interchangeably. But this particular sword, we are told in other places in the New Testament the Lord has this kind of sword as well. The word of God is this kind of sword. But he's given a large sword because of the number of those he kills is so great. And just like the previous seal, The Red Horse and its rider is given the authority and the ability to continue to bring about conflict as they ride to and fro throughout the earth, just like their counterparts in Zechariah. So anytime you hear this, come. horse and rider comes and heads to the earth, they're never recalled. So this is a continuation. This is a continuation of mission of conflict. And so the white horse and the red horse work together with their common presence and their common purpose in this world. But then, when we come to verses five and six, we find the same formula again, the same formula for the first and second seals, and we find the third seal. Verse five, we read, when he had opened the third seal. Now, that takes us back to the one who's in control. Who opens it? The Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. When he opens the third seal, I heard the third living one, the third beast say, come, or come and see, and I beheld and lo, a black horse, right? A black horse. So we have the white, we have the red, now we come to the black, and this is the horse of the third seal. In Zechariah chapter 6, which is again the background of these horses, in Zechariah the second group of horses are black. but here it is found in the third place, the third position. So again, another difference showing us that the visions of Zechariah and John are not exactly the same, but there are some things that we can learn about it. And we need to see what those things are, which we tried to earlier. Black is only found in this chapter in Revelation. You're not gonna find this anywhere else except here in verse four or verse five. And then also if you jump down to verse 12, When the six seals opened, there's a great earthquake and the sun became, what? Black as sackcloth of hair. And the moon became as blood. Now, obviously when you think of something that is the sun becoming black as sackcloth of hair, that's not a real positive development, right? Not for this earth, not for the inhabitants of the earth. And so what is the common symbol of black? Not just here, but especially throughout the Bible well in both places here in Revelation chapter 6 as well as in other places in the scripture Black describes something that is void of any color and of any light so really black is not a color It's the absence of light because light is what brings out color. So that is what black is. It's just this void, right? And so it gives the impression of darkness and despair even. And certainly when we read about all of these seals combined, we get that impression of darkness and despair. That is the feeling brought about by this horse and by this rider. And so again, along with this black horse, John tells us then in the rest of verse five about the horseman. He that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. So here we have his possession, a pair of balances. This is just a scale. This is one of those old fashioned scales that you would have seen. You know, it has a sort of just a main trunk and then it has the yoke on either side, and it has those little balances. And so you're going to compare what you're buying and what you're selling, what you're using to pay for it with. And so this was still used in commerce. One of the things that Angie and I enjoyed when we were in Italy a few years ago was going to these antique stores. And there was this one guy in this one town that we just loved, because he had antique store after antique store after antique store. He was excited because he could use his English on us, and we were excited because he could speak English to us. So he was taking us back, and the cool thing about his shops were there were different levels of antiquity. So the front of his shop was medieval, so back in the 15, 14, 1500s, maybe earlier than that. You went back a little further, and you're starting to carve into this mountain, and it was Roman times. So this is talking about time of Christ. And then he took us even a little bit further where he could see the markings of Etruscans, which is even before Roman times. So this was an ancient, ancient city. And one of the things that really caught our eye were all these different kinds of scales. Now his scale didn't have the, I don't know, the two trays if you will. He had one that just had one tray and then a weight on the other end. So he didn't have to put weights on the other part of the scale. He just had the weight and then you kind of move the weight around. And he said he uses it still. Because people will order stuff and they want to mail to him. And so he'll weigh it and move that scale. And that's how he would do it. And I thought, is it accurate? He goes, oh yeah, it's accurate. And so we actually bought one of those from him. And it's in our kitchen. So we don't use it, but it's really cool to think about. It's also in metric. Anyways, that's the kind of balance. A little bit different because there's two trays. Elsewhere in the New Testament, the word for balance is translated yoke. Y-O-K-E. And so that gives us a picture. Like if you have a yoke of oxen, you've got this thing, you know, attaching one to another. And that's what that scale is like. You're familiar with that. Even if you've seen any of the courthouses in America, they've got that Lady Justice with her scales in her hand. But this time, This scale seems to be a symbol of the arena of his authority. So whereas the first one had a mission of conquest, the second one had a mission of conflict, this one has a mission over commerce, commerce and the economies of the world. Now even though He has authority over this it is clearly limited because in verse 6 we actually hear about his purview which is really the range of his authority and in verse 6 it says 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 John sees, again, this rider with a pair of bounds in his hand, and then he hears a voice. And where's this voice coming from? In the midst of the four beasts. Now, what's in the midst of the four beasts? We've seen this. What's in the midst of the four beasts? Not in this passage, but think through Revelation. What's there? What do they surround? The throne of God, that's right. So where's this voice really coming from? The throne of God. This is God's voice. It could be the voice of the lamb, because he's standing right next to the throne, or it could be the voice of the one sitting on the throne, God himself, we're not told exactly. But either way, we find that God himself is in control. He's still in charge, and he's speaking. Now, what does this voice say? Well, this voice gives, first of all, words of instruction. a measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny. What is a penny? At least in the King James, I think there's other translations that have the actual Greek word, which is denarius. So this would have been the Roman equivalent of a day's wage. So this is, if you worked for a day at minimum wage in the Roman Empire, you get a denarius. And that was sort of the base rate. So if you were, you know, a better employee, you might get, you know, one and a half times of that. So, you know, that would be the base range. So the denarius is one day's wage. But look what you can buy with it, right? You can buy a measure of wheat or three measures of barley. Now, what's a measure? There are some who would translate this as a court. Either way, a measure would be enough food to support a single person of moderate appetite, as one person says, for a day. So this is just enough food to eat. Now, I don't know about you, but I would be very, very discouraged if I'm working all day for just one quart of wheat for myself to eat. and I don't get a whole lot else, or three quarts or three measures of barley for my family to eat. I mean, that really is a hand-to-mouth existence, isn't it? This is what we would describe as living not just from paycheck to paycheck, but living just day by day by day. And there are a lot of people in this world that live that way. They have those basic wages, but they're still able to get a lot more than just one quart of weed or three quarts of barley. A lot of times, if you see even some of those people that live that hand-to-mouth existence, what do they have in their hands or in their pockets? A cell phone! So they have a little left over, alright? So they're able to buy something there. So we're not even to that point yet here. But the point of these instructions is that even though food may still be available and accessible. So there might be a famine involved, but it's not so bad that there's nothing available. It's just not sustainable. So food would have to be rationed. Food would have to be rationed in some way. And so this would be done with high rates of inflation. You know, this is one of the ways that people keep products that are in short supply away from the masses. They set their prices higher. And of course, that deals with inflation. And it hurts the buying power of common workers and their families. In fact, the prices that are mentioned here, I learned, were about 10 to 12 times the normal prices. So if you think about a measure of wheat for a penny or a quart of wheat so that you could make your grain to make your bread for a day's wage, that was 10 to 12 times more than it would normally have been. So they had money for other things normally. They had to pay for their house. They had to pay for all of these other things that they would need to live. But again, this inflation could be the result of natural problems like famine. and food shortages. This is certainly something that we see in the Old Testament in Leviticus and Ezekiel. There are times when there were conflicts and wars that led to famine and then prices got really high for the basic essentials of life. But it could also be caused by human involvement and policies. There may not be any war or conflict at all, but just the inept policies of government can actually cause inflation to rise. And isn't that what we've been experiencing the last few years? You know, as the government is just infusing cash, and there's nothing to base that cash on, and they're just going into debt, debt, debt, what happens to all our prices? it's inflated because there's a lot more cash out there. And so they think, oh, there's plenty of cash. There's plenty of money going around. So let's just raise the prices. That has nothing to do with conflict. That has nothing to do with famine. That just has to do with man. And so we can see all kinds of reasons for inflation that would happen here. So the effect of this horse again and its rider will be that hand to mouth existence for a majority of people. So that is the words of instruction. But there are also words of limitation. We find this in the rest of verse six. It goes, and, so in addition to the instructions of, you know, basically causing great inflation on the basic necessities of life, and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. Now later on in Revelation, in chapter 18, verse 13, oil and wine are mentioned as some of the merchandise of the city of Babylon. And so that's kind of a, probably one of the connections here. Oil and wine is something that is available in the city of Babylon, or to those who are part of the city and the structure of Babylon. Now, even though oil and wine are still used for food. I mean, they would use it in cooking back then. It's still used in cooking today. They seem to represent here commodities that you can do without. I mean, if you don't have the oil to mix with your grain, you can mix it with water and eat crackers, right? I mean, so these do seem like they are elements that you can do without. So whereas wheat and barley were essential, I mean, that's the bread, if you will. Here we have the oil and wine, which are what we consider non-essential, which is the butter. Butter is what makes things taste better, makes it go down a little easier. The word translated here, hurt, is an interesting word. The Greek word is adikeo. Adikeo has the idea of justice. And so if you put an ah in front of it, it negates the justice. So basically ah de keo basically means unjust. So if you translate it that way, he's saying to this horse and rider, see that thou are not unjust with the oil and the wine. Don't be unjust with the oil and wine. Now, the context here is economic. Remember, this is the horse and rider of commerce. And since the context here is economic and dealing with money, the economic definition of this word might be in mind. Because if you put the wrong kind of weights on a scale, you're being unjust with that, right? I remember watching a movie years ago, and I remember it was over in Japan, I think it was. I think it might have been Karate Kid. This was when I was a kid, okay? And they had those kind of scales, and they had weights on one side, and they had the produce on the other. And to cheat the people is that they had weights that were not as heavy as they really said they were. So instead of a pound, it was maybe, instead of 16 ounces, it was probably 10 ounces. But it said 16 ounces, and so you had to put more of those on there to balance it out so you could cheat the person. You were unjust with that scale. Maybe that's the definition here. So when it comes to these more non-essential commodities like oil and wine, the writer is told, do not be unjust with them. Because when it came to the wheat and the barley, he probably was unjust with them. He was cheating the people that need it the most to keep them under his thumb, to keep them under his control. He was unjust with the essential commodities of wheat and barley. So there's overcharging of these essential commodities, but not necessarily for the non-essentials. He says, don't be unjust with those. Go ahead and charge the fair market price, because guess what? When they buy their essentials, they can't buy their non-essentials. Or maybe they'll do without some of their essentials so that they can buy some of those essentials. You see, those non-essentials are available, but who can afford them? There's a couple of scenarios this could describe. It could describe where the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. So those who can afford the oil and the wine, they have no problems. but those that can only afford the wheat and the barley, they have problems. Certainly that is one area that we see in this world, but I mentioned about the whole cell phone, right? Hand-in-mouth existence, but you got a cell phone in your pocket. Perhaps this also could mean that the poor are so caught up with the non-essentials that they're actually willing to do without the essentials. One element of that is found in Proverbs 21 verse 17. It says, he that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man. He that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich. So again, buying a cell phone while doing without for you and your family. Either way, either way you look at this, it's about economics. It's about commerce. The pocketbooks of people will be affected, so that either life will be more about surviving than thriving. There are some that are doing that, right? They're just about survival. I've got to do that hand-in-mouth existence. Or it's more about wants versus needs. And we see that too, right? And so they're not even barely surviving. They just want the oil and the wine. And they're willing to do without what is really essential to life. So it could be a combination of all of these things. We have the white horse now, and the red horse, and this black horse, along with the riders working together with their common presence and their common purpose in this world. There might even be connections between the conquest of the white horse, the conflict of the red horse, and then the commerce of the black horse, which I think we'll see a little bit later when we look at the trumpet judgments. But then as we'll start looking at next week We come to the fourth horse and rider which really takes a lesson all of its own Because there's a lot more to it and that is perhaps the worst of all of these These seals and we will look more at that next time let's close in prayer father. We thank you for your word We thank you Lord that even in these We see the throne Prominent because these things were given to them. And Lord, we don't fully understand that, but Lord, we do know that this is you bringing out your plan to its final fulfillment so that we can once again. Look forward to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds on that great white horse to finally usher in that wonderful kingdom that will have no end, where everything will be just, everything will be right, everything will be true. And that is our hope. And that is our, that is our faith. Lord, I pray you bless our service to follow in Jesus name. Amen.