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.
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.
The mystery continues into the third horse rider. This time, he’s on a black horse. What do the balances, wheat, barley, oil and wine represent? By now we know that the beast goes out to battle the horse rider, but what about the voice coming from the midst of the four beasts? That wasn’t in the other two Seals. Who could it be?
As long as you're in that Word, you're safe. "If ye abide in Me and My Word's in you, then just ask what you will..." That's it, the Word.
The Hebrew bride was promised the Word to return, and the spiritual bride from Pentecost, when she fell at Nicaea, then she's promised in the last days that the Word will come again. Now, you say... Then... If you want another Scripture, take over here, Revelations 10. And said, "In the hour, the time of the--the last angel, the seventh angel, seventh messenger, begins to sound, the mystery of God is finished (See?), the restoration back to the Word. The Bible said that this messenger of the last days would be--restore them back to the original faith again, back to the faith of the fathers.
Light and dark can't fellowship together. When light comes in, dark goes out. See? It can't--the most powerful... You can't put light out with dark, but you can put dark out with light. That's right. And He is the Light, and He is the Word. See? Now, there you are, right straight back. You can't make it lie or do anything wrong. It comes right straight back to this spot again. Yes, sir.
Now, these dignitaries come out, and they was so on their substitutes, "Why," they said, "now, if the Messiah comes, He will certainly come to Caiaphas. He will come to our denomination. He will come to the Pharisees."
The Sadducees: "That's what you think; He will come to the Sadducees."
There they was (See?), the same thing they have today. See? Now, but when He come, it was strange. He would come, oh, very contrary to what they thought, but He come according to the Word, and they didn't know the Word.
Let me say that real, so you'll--it'll sink way down. I want us to get it: That's what is the matter with you today. See? You don't know the Word.
He has started riding him in the time of the dark ages. That's what the dark horse represented: the dark ages, for it was a time of midnight to the true believers that was left. Watch now in that church age, that middle church age, the dark church age. Watch how he says, "You just have a little strength." It was a midnight to them for the true believer.
Now, watch. Practically all hope had been taken from the true church for this fellow controlled both church and state. What are they going to do? See? Catholicism had taken over both church and state, and all didn't agree with Catholicism was killed. That's the reason he was on a dark horse. And watch what a dark thing he done (See?), then you can see. And you just... If you know your history, watch it. And you... Well, you won't have to even know it to know this.
Now, watch. All hope was gone; that's his black horse. Now, he rode in on his white horse, cunning; then he was give power, he took peace, slaughtered the millions. That's what he was going to do as he rode on through; and he still does it. See? Now, here he is on his black horse now, coming forth, dark age, that was that time, just about the time after the church got set up and got in power, they smothered out everything else and went through about hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years is what every reader knows that was the dark ages. How many knows that? Sure, the dark ages. There's your dark horse, representing that dark age.
His balances or his scales in his hand (You see?), calling out "A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny." See? Actually that is... Wheat and barley is natural staff of life. That's what bread and stuff's made from. But you see, he was charging for this.
What it means, that he was charging his subjects for the kind of the hope of life that he was sending out to them by making... he started in that very time of making them pay for prayer, charging for prayer. They still do it--novenas. "Cause, what was he doing? Capturing the wealth of the world, the scale weighing out a measure of wheat for a penny and three measures of barley for a penny.
The rider on a black horse (See?) he was making--stripping his subjects of their money, when the Bible predicts that he holds about the wealth of the world. As we said last night about Russia and all that, they just take all the money and just stripped the people for everything they've got, everything. So there you are.
He was charging for that kind of a life that he was giving to his subjects, charging for prayer by the priest to pray people out of purgatory. Charging... (Now, I'm taking this right out of history). Charging for, I guess, it's novena, I guess everybody knows what. Novena, I guess that's something you have to do, you know, some penance. Somebody have to charge for that. Bringing the wealth of the world to him, into hisself, into the church itself, and he's still riding. Oh, sure he is. Yes, sir, still riding.
Notice... Here's the good part now. Notice, "See that thou hurt not this wine and oil." Just a little bit of it left, brother. "Don't you touch that." Now, oil is--symbolizes the Spirit, the Holy Spirit.
Now, oil typifies Spirit, and wine symbolizes stimulation of revelation. Boy, I like to run all over the place. It's a wonder I didn't wake up the neighborhood when the Lord showed me that. Stimulation of revelation... See? Oil and wine in the Bible is associated together always. I got the concordance and looked, and there's a string of them that like--like that, where wine and oil goes together all the time. See?
When the truth of a promised Word of God has been truly revealed to His saints that's filled with oil, they all get stimulated. Wine is a stimulation. Glory, I feel it right now, stimulated with joy, shouts. And when it does, it has the same effect upon them that--that wine does upon a natural man; because when the revelation has been given of a truth of God, and the true believer filled with oil, and the revelation is revealed, the stimulation becomes so great that it makes him behave hisself unnormally. That's right. Glory.
Now, I've got another thing here I want you to notice. Notice. It was not one of the four beasts that said, "Don't touch the oil and the wine." Did you notice that? The four beasts had been talking. But watch. Let me just read out here just a little bit, see: Now, "A measure of penny for a--for a--wheat for a penny and three measures of barley for a penny and see that thou hurt not the wine and oil."
Now, look here, "And I--and I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts..." What was it? The Lamb. Amen. It wasn't the four beasts. The Lamb said it. Why. He's going to take His own; that belongs to Him. He's redeemed it. See? Amen. "Don't you touch that oil." No, sir. Not the four beasts, but the Lamb was the One that said it. Now, oh, my. The Lamb, not the four beasts didn't announce this.
The Lamb said Itself: When the four beasts said, "Come and see," and they went, and they seen it like that, and He said, "A measure of wheat for a penny, and a four...?... so much like this and so much barley..." But then the Lamb cried out right among them, and said, "But don't hurt the wine and oil." Uh-huh. That's right. Oh, my. "Listen to it. Don't you hurt it, boy, or you are going to pay for it someday."