Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #2 of Revelation, chapter 6, and we are reading 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.

Once again, we have been going through the Book of Revelation, verse by verse, and we have come to chapter six and this is the point when the Lamb, the Lord Jesus, is opening the seven seals.  He has already opened the first two seals.  With the first seal there was seen a rider on a white horse that “went forth conquering, and to conquer.”  And when he had opened the second seal, there was seen a rider on a red horse that went forth “to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another.” 

These two riders are representative of the two kingdoms: the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ and, of course, the spearhead of that kingdom is the Word of God as it goes forth into the world to accomplish the purposes that God sent it forth to accomplish; and the rider on the red horse pictures Satan and his kingdom that are desperate to oppose the rider on the white horse, as they come against the kingdom of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

It is Satan’s desire to “take peace from the earth,” to remove the truth Gospel, to remove the peace that comes when a sinner is reconciled to God through Christ.  That was Satan’s plan: to prevent God from saving even one of His elect and this is the point of battle – the point of opposition – where the two kingdoms met each other; God is ransacking the kingdom of Satan, ransacking the house of the “strong man” to free the captives, to free those that were predestinated to receive this salvation by God before the world was.  And Satan, again, is desperately trying to muster his forces, his emissaries, which come as emissaries of righteousness and He, Himself, comes looking like Christ as an “angel of light,” trying to deceive and trying to turn and to twist the Word of God so that those brought under the hearing would be fooled and trust a lie.  And there is no power in a lie to save.  And this was the battle ground.  This was the place where the warfare was happening.  It was in the spiritual realm in the world, as the Word of God would go to a place and Satan would resist it.

Well, now we find that the third seal is opened by the Lamb, the Lord Jesus, and the “third beast” or the third “living creature” (as the word beast ought to have been translated as “living creature”) and this third “living creature” is a representation of God Himself.  And one of the “living creatures” is saying this same thing with each of the first four seals: “Come and see.”  And it says in Revelation 6:5:

…And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

Now we saw with the white horse that the color was significant.  The color of that horse had spiritual meaning; it points to holiness and purity.  Likewise, the color of the red horse identified with the devil, with Satan.  Well, what about this black horse?  We actually find some help in this very same chapter with the color black in Revelation 6:12:

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

Here, the sun becomes “black as sackcloth of hair,” as though sackcloth was placed over the sun, preventing it from shining and, therefore, there was darkness.  That is what happens when the light of the sun goes out.  And Revelation 6:12 identifies with those days after the tribulation, as we read in Matthew 24:29: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened…” 

Here, God does not use the word “darkened,” but He chose to use the word black: “the sun became black as sackcloth of hair.”  Yet, that is the (same) idea.  The black horse identifies with darkness and darkness identifies with sin and death and the judgment of God – the judgment of God that falls upon the sinner.

Now we will see that this third opening of the seal and this black horse and the rider “had a pair of balances in his hand,” is actually picturing the time of the Great Tribulation; as we could understand the first two horses – the white and the red – to be an illustration of the spiritual battle that raged throughout the many centuries of the church age.  And now we have come to the end of the church age and the Great Tribulation period and the opening of the third seal relates to that.

…And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

Now the Greek word that is translated as balances is normally translated as yoke, such as “a yoke of oxen” or when Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you.”  It is the same word, but the translators correctly translated this word as balances in this context, and we can say that as a result of what we read next in verse 6:

…A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny…

In order to measure, you need a balance – you need a scale.  And God has laid down the Law for balances or weights and measures in Leviticus 19:35-37:

Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I am JEHOVAH your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt. Therefore shall ye observe all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: I am JEHOVAH.

Notice how the LORD ties together these balances and weights, and so forth, with being brought “out of Egypt” and the deliverance of Israel from Egypt points to salvation; and He also quickly ties it in with His word – with observing His statutes and His judgments – and that is the Word of God or the Law of God, the Bible.  And that is exactly what these balances and these weights and measures have to do with.

You know, “weights and measures” are a familiar phrase even today in our modern time.  Maybe you have noticed when you have gone to the gas station that normally there is a seal placed upon the gas pump which indicates that is has been inspected by the Department of Weights and Measures.  So many things involve measurement.  When we go to the deli and ask for a pound of cheese and a pound of ham, what do they do?  Well, they slice it and then they lay it upon a scale and the scale must come to a pound.  That is what we ordered.  We want one pound and we know the price for one pound.  And if it is a correct scale, we receive one pound for the amount of money that was stated and that is a “just” measurement, a “just” balance or weight, and so forth.  The scales have to be inspected by a department because, historically, there have often been people that have tried to make a little extra money by altering the balance of a scale.  If they are able to sell you a little bit less than a pound for the price of a pound, in their minds they are making more money – and they do, of course, but it is deceitful and they are not really making anything at all because, normally, it will cause them far more trouble than the little bit of money that they make.  But this is why there is an official department that performs inspections to make sure that the weight or amount of a product we are purchasing is correct.

And God is using that figure which was very familiar with the people of that day, as it also is with us today.  It is a very familiar thing all throughout time; we have to have a scale or balance, in order to make sure that things are done justly.

We read in Micah 6:10-11:

Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable? Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights?

Now, here, God is really following up on that command we read in Leviticus.  God has commanded you must use just balances and equal weights and measures and everything is to be done according to the Law of God.  There needs to be a just system in place.  Now God is referring to those who “count them pure” (referring to the wicked) “with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights.”  Now how can that be?  Well, remember that passage in Leviticus 19 and how quickly the LORD related that to His statutes and to His judgments – to His Word.

And we can understand when we think of how the Gospel has been manipulated today when people are brought under the hearing of it in the churches and congregations, for instance.  The teaching is: “Well, now you are a sinner.”  (And that is true; they are correct so far.) And then they say, “There is a way of escape.  There is a way of salvation.  There is a Saviour.” (And that is true, as it was stated during the day of salvation.)  But then they say, “Here is how you find salvation.  Here is how you may become saved.  This is the thing that you do:  believe on the Lord and decide to accept Him.”  Right away, the scale of justice – the scale of the Word of God – is (falsely) weighted; it is as though a crooked a merchant has added a heavier weight on the side of the product you are buying and now you are paying for something you are not getting.  They are selling something that is not true and faithful.  It is a lie.  It is a “bag of deceitful weights.” 

The true weight that needs to be put on the scale (with the information is put forth that we are sinners under the wrath of God and subject to eternal destruction and annihilation) is the work of the Lord Jesus, the work of Christ on the sinners’ behalf – on the behalf of His people, for the sake of the elect. 

Now remember that God spoke of a “deceitful bag,” a deceitful weight, so let us turn to Proverbs 16:11:

A just weight and balance are JEHOVAH’S: all the weights of the bag are his work.

Oh, there is a balanced scale!  There is a just weight.  It is the work of Christ and the faith of Christ that saves, not the faith of man.  When someone says it is “your faith” that you have to exercise in order to bring yourself to salvation, it is a “deceitful weight.”  But the proper and just weight is the bag of His work.  The emphasis is upon the grace of God and the work that Jesus performed in paying the penalty for His people’s sins from the foundation of the world when no man was with him.   He Himself and His own arm brought salvation and not anything that any other individual did.  So, you see, this is the picture God is drawing from when He speaks of a pair of balances in Revelation 6.

Let us also look in Amos 8:5:

Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?

Remember God likens the Gospel to “buying and selling” and He likens Himself to a merchant man in Isaiah 55, when He says, “Come ye and buy.”  Then, of course, He says to “Buy without money,” because His salvation is a free gift by the grace of God for those He has chosen.

But there are those that are “shady” and they are not honest at all in their dealings with the Word of God, as they are merchandising the Gospel in a very horrible way and “dealing” with men’s souls.  In Revelation, chapter 18, the Lord mentions that as one of the items of merchandise in Babylon: the souls of men.  And, sadly, this is what the corporate church of our time is “dealing in,” the souls of men and they have brought ruin to all the souls of men that have been deceived by their unjust “weights and balances.”

We read in Ezekiel 4:16-17:

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: That they may want bread and water, and be astonied one with another, and consume away for their iniquity.

Now, here, the Lord is connecting the idea of the breaking of the staff of bread with eating bread by weight and drinking water by measure.  The breaking of the staff of bread is language that describes a famine, but as Amos 8:11 says, there is a famine in the land, but “not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD.”  That is the famine that God brought to the churches and congregations at the beginning of the Great Tribulation when He ended the church age and judgment began at the house with God. 

That is what is in view here in Revelation 6:5 as the seal is opened and the third living creature says, “Come and see.”

… And I beheld, and lo a black horse…

And black identifies with darkness; and darkness has descended on the churches.

…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,

And, again, that voice is God, as the four living creatures are a representation of the glory of God.

…A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny;…

Again, they are measuring the wheat and the barley and you use those to make bread and just as Ezekiel 4 said, God will cause them to measure and this will produce a “want” of bread and, therefore, this identifies with cutting off the “staff of bread” or the judgment of God when He brought judgment upon the churches and congregations of the world.

And it says at the last part of Revelation 6:6:

…and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

And, here, God is doing something very typical.   He is using figures of speech and painting pictures with words.  And I really do not know how it is possible for those that say you are not to look for spiritual meaning and that you are just to take the words as they are given and they reject the idea of “comparing spiritual with spiritual.”  They do not like all that “jumping around,” even though the Bible tells us that the way to come to right doctrine, according to Isaiah, is “here a little, there a little.”  Again, they reject the teaching of God Himself, as God says we are to compare “spiritual with spiritual” and, in doing so, “the Holy Ghost teacheth.”

But the churches today are wiser than God; they know better than God.  That is foolishness, of course.  They have proven that they are ignorant of a great many things in the Bible and one of the reasons is that they do not know how to follow God’s methodology for coming to truth.

So, when they read words like this (“and hurt not the oil and the wine”), they might tell you what they think it says; maybe they will tell you what kind of meaning this had for the people that lived at that time in the first century A.D., when the Book of Revelation was being written.  But they have no idea how to actually discover what God is saying.

And, yet, it is not that difficult as God directs us.  He tells us to look up the words and He has provided for us a concordance (like Strong’s Concordance) keyed to the King James Bible, so we can quickly search the Scriptures and look for (the words) oil and wine. 

And it leads us to the Book of Joel.  The Book of Joel is most helpful in giving a commentary on what we are reading in Revelation, chapter six.  In Joel, chapter 1, we read of a nation that is coming upon Israel and this is pointing to Babylon, historically; yet, spiritually, God is referring to His judgment that He will bring upon the churches by loosing Satan at the time of the end.  It says in Joel 1:9-11:

The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of JEHOVAH; the priests, JEHOVAH’S ministers, mourn. The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth. Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished.

Well, this sounds as bad as anything could be and it is.  And it is – for the churches.  This is because God ended the church age and removed His Spirit from the midst of the congregations and Satan entered in and from that point on there was no more salvation in the churches.  The spiritual harvest, the precious fruit, was destroyed and that is what is being described: the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth…the harvest of the field is perished.” And that is how it remains to this present time.  The spiritual fruit (those that became saved) left the churches and congregations, as God commanded His people to come out, and that left a destroyed and rotten harvest within the churches, a ruined harvest.  There was no fruit. 

However, the Lord also tells us in Joel 2:21-24:

Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for JEHOVAH will do great things. Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength. Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in JEHOVAH your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month. And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil.

Here, this is blessing, blessing and blessing!  This is wonderful.  How can this be?  Well, we know that God had a program to evangelize the world two times with His Spirit; the first time was the “early rain” and that identifies with the church age as the firstfruits, the 144,000, representing all that God saved throughout the 1,955 years of the church age; and then He had a plan at the time of the end during the Great Tribulation (when the harvest of the churches was perished) to send forth the “latter rain” outside of the churches and congregations and to bring in much fruit.  A great multitude would be saved and “the fats shall overflow with wine and oil.”