The Black Horse Of Hyperinflation And Famine — Keith Malcomson

The Four Horsemen and the Black Horse of Famine

I wanted you to turn with me to Revelation chapter 6 and we're continuing our short series on the four horsemen of the apocalypse. This is part four tonight. We've already dealt with two horses. We're going to deal with the third horse here tonight.

Revelation 6 and the Four Horsemen

And my message, my title is the black horse of hyperinflation and famine. The black horse of hyperinflation and famine. Reading from Revelation chapter 6 and verse 1. And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and he heard as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

And I saw, and behold, the white horse, and 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 say, Come and see.

And there went out another horse, and 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, 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. And when he had 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. Will you pray with me here tonight?

Father, we realize what an hour that we are living in a critical, Lord God, history changing hour. And we pray that in the midst of all that we are doing, Lord God, that life would be changed not only for time, but for all eternity.

We do believe that you're a God who created all things, that you, Lord God, not only give us the most accurate history of the past, but you give us an absolute accurate history of the future, of what is happening, what is about to happen in great detail.

And we bow the knee to you. You're not only the God of history that intervened in history time and time again, but you're the God of prophecy who knows all things, that works in the midst of all things, simply to bring men to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ who died for them on the cross, that you so loved them that you gave your only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

Our messages, we come to this fourth part, or the third horse of the apocalypse. I've named this black horse that we've just read about here, the black horse of hyperinflation and famine. I believe you're going to see here why I have actually called it that.

In the past two weeks, we have seen, first of all, the white horse ride out, and we preached on that in detail. Then we see the red horse ride out. Then third tonight, we see the black horse ride out.

We said that the first horse is the white horse of political, peaceful deception, that very shortly a world government is going to be established across the nations of the world, and it has been thoroughly planned for a hundred years.

In fact, more than that, it goes back to the French Revolution, when all the French philosophers planned a perpetual world peace that would come about the end of war. How did they say it would happen?

With a world government, by federating all the nations of the world together. That was the first white horse. It hasn't been released yet. It hasn't gone forth. It isn't COVID. But do you know what? That white horse is going to be released in the earth, and then great events are going to happen.

The red horse, we said, was going to be not just war between countries and between continents. That isn't going to be the second red horse. The red horse represents civil strife or rebellion within each nation.

We saw that with the red horse here in Revelation 6, it said that men shall kill one another, and it is talking about within each nation, as a world government is brought in, as the answer to world peace, and that this message of a global government with ten world leaders, that you're going to see an uprising and bloodshed of civil strife right across the nations.

Those two horses, the white horse, then the red horse, is going to lead to the black horse. All of these horses follow one after the other. And in fact, once the four horses ride forth into the world, one after the other, they each represent events that are going to happen in the world.

They each represent a timeframe that is going to happen. And in fact, these four horses represent a period of three and a half years that the Bible talks about as the 70th week or the last seven years predicted by Daniel the prophet.

And so we see that the white horse initiates a seven year period, but also a three and a half year period where ten world leaders are ruling a world government. Where is the antichrist? Where is the little horn?

Where is the one that's prophesied? Well what does the Bible say? It is in that political government of world leaders that another king or leader or political man is going to rise up. As soon as you see that government, a world government of ten leaders, there's going to begin the rise of a little man, insignificant at first, unnoticed in the Middle East.

He's not going to rise in Europe or in America. He's neither Obama nor one of these other men that people have tried to predict. Every time a politician comes to say it's Obama or it's Trump or it's somewhere else.

All of that is foolishness. The Bible predicts that the antichrist, who we know as the antichrist, will arise as a man of peace. When he first comes on the political scene, he is an eloquent man. He is a diplomat.

He is a wonderful leader and for three and a half years he begins his rise. He steps onto the scene of world history as a peacemaker signing a seven year covenant with the nation of Israel. He gives them their temple.

He gives them back the right to make blood sacrifices. Remember these prophecies were made 2 ,600 years ago and how things would happen just at the end. I predict to you there's going to come a world leader, a politician who will sign a covenant with Israel and he'll give them peace in their land, peace in the Middle East.

He'll give them their third temple and they'll start practicing blood sacrifice again upon the mount just in Jerusalem. This is actually going to take place. But from the white horse through to the fourth horse, you have the slow rise of the antichrist.

Now tonight you're going to see why I say this and you're going to begin to understand what I'm saying about the four horses. Antichrist will suddenly at the end of that three years grab power from these ten leaders by uprooting three of them and displacing them.

It will become a tyranny of one leader, a one world leader, a global leader who will initiate some of the worst days in all of history. You see, last week we looked at under the red horse that they would kill one another.

There is going to be many things happening in the nations. The word kill there means slaughter, to violently put down, to massacre. It's not the great tribulation that's going to come under antichrist.

This begins paving the way for him to arise. It's not the contents of the trumpets or the vials that is laid out in the book of Revelation. All of that follows. I'm talking here about four seals in a unique three and a half year period and they come in this order.

First, a peaceful world government for the first time in our world. Then you're going to have all this civil bloodshed and then tonight we're going to see following on the heels of that red horse is a black horse and that black horse represents hyperinflation and famine.

Through bloodshed, through the economic system, all of these things is going to lead to the rise of antichrist. Let me give you my message here tonight and my first point here, I'm going to plunge right into our text, and my first point is identify the black horse and its rider.

I've told you what I believe it is, but I want to prove it to you tonight. Identifying the black horse and its rider in verse 5 and in verse 6. In verse 5 it says,. And I beheld and lo a black horse and he that sat on him.

As we've seen in the previous week, these horses represent something. Their color represents something and the rider on each of them represents something. The first week as we began to deal with this, we look back into the Old Testament to Zechariah chapter 6 and verse 2 and it says,.

And in the second chariot black horses, these are the four spirits of heaven which go forth from standing before the Lord of all of the earth. And we saw in Zechariah 6 that that chariot led out with black horses was actually going to affect nations.

It was going to stir everything up in the nations. It was God's judgment upon the world. And we saw that the black horse and the chariot being led by it was one of the four spirits of heaven that stir everything up in our world.

Black as a Biblical Sign of Famine

Now what does this black horse represent? What does the color black represent in the Bible? That's the first thing we want to look at. I believe black represents famine. When you see a black horse, black, the color black, represents famine.

Listen closely for a second. In Jeremiah chapter 14 and verse 1, it actually says there,. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth, the famine. It was an hour of hard times. And so the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah, a prophecy talking about that hour.

The next verse, chapter 14 and 2, it says, Judah mourneth, or is black in the original, and the gates thereof languish. They are black unto the ground, and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. And so the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah about this dearth, this languishing, and it describes it by the color black.

It actually talks about Jerusalem under this terrible condition, an hour when famine is going to come, when a scarcity of goods is going to come. Listen again to what Jeremiah says in Lamentation chapter 4 and verse 8.

And it's speaking in Lamentations 4, again, about a hard time coming to Jerusalem, a terrible time, a time of famine, a time of dearth, a time of trouble. Listen to what it says. Their visage, talking about the Nazarites who used to look good in good days, it says their visage or their appearance is blacker than a coal.

They are not known in the streets. Their skin cleaveth to their bones. It is withered. It has become like a stick. They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger. For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.

And so again, Jeremiah is speaking. He actually says that these men and women experiencing famine, they have become thin. Their skin is literally clinging to their bones. And you know what they're marked by?

They're called black. Their appearance is actually black. Their visage or their countenance has become black. And you know what it says? It's worse than dying in a war. It's far worse to have to walk through a time of famine.

Again in Lamentation chapter 5 and 10, it says our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine. And so we see that famine is marked by people being called black. When we see the black horse, black represents something.

We are going to see as we look closer at this horse and its rider and everything about this prophecy that this horse and its rider does denote famine. Not just in one thing. I'm going to confirm it time and time again here.

But the color black does represent where you see the color black on a horse. That's what it's representing is a very hard time. Job in Job 30, he also says,. And many other scriptures describe this. And so when we see this third horse following after the red horse of war, you see what follows after war?

One of the most common things that comes on the back of war are bloodshed or civil disobedience and revolution is usually famine. The Bible has shown us in a short period of time the entire global atmosphere in which one little politician is going to rise to ultimate power.

First a world government, then bloodshed, and then third of all a famine or hyperinflation as we're going to see. And this black horse rides out after the red one. Once the red one has rode across the nations, then the black one rides out across the nations as well.

The Scales and the Scarcity of Food

Look at verse 5. What else it says? That he that sat on him, on the black horse. See each black horse represents a movement, a set of political events, something socially that affects the entire world.

He that sat upon him had a pair of balances in his hand. You remember the first white horse? He had a bow in his hand. You remember the red horse? He had a great sword in his hand. Now the rider of this black horse, he has a pair of balances in his hand.

The word balances here means a pair of scales, a weighing scales where you weigh things out very, very deliberately. And in fact, when you see this rider ride out onto the nations with balances on hand, do you know what it begins to mean?

That we're going to begin to weigh very, very precious things, expensive things. You don't weigh what isn't important. When there is an abundance, when there's lots of it, when it's cheap and nasty and everybody has it, you don't weigh it.

You only weigh what is most expensive, what is most important, or what is very rare. Not a grain must be lost at this time. The balances here in this prophecy are an emblem of scarcity, of things that are going to become rare or hard to get.

Things are not carefully measured in good times. It was Candice's father, pointed out to her, and I picked that up, was that how companies, if you notice over the years, we've noticed it in our lifetime, how the product looks the same on the outside.

It's the same container, but all of a sudden it gets smaller and smaller, or when you open the same size packaging, what is inside there? There's hardly anything. Have you ever had a packet of crisps and you open it, and you used to go, there used to be an awful lot more in this crisp packet than there is now.

They actually fill it with a bit of air, a bit of oxygen, and so you think you're getting a full crisp packet, nothing of the sort. You see, that is a sign that the economy is affected. In the 80s and 90s, up to 2000, that didn't happen.

It's the same with flights. You could fly anywhere in the world, it was without limitation. But from 2001, they began to push seats and flights closer together. Prices began to increase. And so we see here the rider is weighing something in his balances, and it's shown there's a scarcity of certain things.

There's a prophecy in Ezekiel chapter 4, in the past, in history, and it talks about Jerusalem being under siege of her enemies. And God's speaking to Ezekiel. He actually says, I want you to do something, and I'm going to show you what's going to happen.

And he told him what to do. And he told him what was going to happen, that the people were going to have to cook their food by using the fuel of dung. Animal dung was going to have to be used, literally, to make their meals.

But listen to prophecy. In Ezekiel chapter 4, 16, Son of man, behold, I, that is God, will break the whole staff of bread in Jerusalem. The staff of bread is the basic food you need to live. Here God is saying an hour of judgment is coming in which the staff of bread is going to be broken in Jerusalem.

And they shall eat bread by weight. So you know bread is being broken. The staff of bread is being broken. Famine is coming when they shall eat bread by weight. And so Ezekiel was told that the bread was going to be weighed before you would eat it.

When men begin to weigh bread, it means the bread is going to be broken or become very scarce. And it says they will eat it with care. And they shall drink water by measure and with astonishment. So Ezekiel was actually warned that the bread was going to be weighed and it was going to be done with great care.

That's what the balances are symbolizing. Do you realize that after a world government's in place and after there's been national bloodshed, here comes the black horse and men are going to begin to weigh carefully the basic food that they have.

It's going to be with great care. It's going to be measured out. It also says in Ezekiel 5 and 16, I will increase the famine upon you and I will break your staff of bread. In Leviticus 26 verse 26, it says, when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall break your bread in one oven and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight.

And he shall eat and not be satisfied. And so we begin to see when bread is weighed or measured or when you've got ten women using the same cooker instead of what they would have before, you are in a serious time.

Do you know what these balances speak of? The commerce, the economy, the trade, the business world, the marketplace where you buy things, the shops around you, the banks where you keep your money. It's looking at these balances that suddenly food is going to become very, very scarce.

What happens in a famine? Usually there's a lot of corruption. There is great poverty. There's a lot of debt, inflation, things become very expensive. There's a boom and bust within the economy. There is great unemployment and there's financial loss.

All of this we're seeing in this third horse of the apocalypse. It's a very serious thing. This black horse is riding out and the man is holding the balances. Remember what I said about each of the riders, they are spiritual beings or creatures.

I believe it's a fallen angel. This is a fallen angel holding the power of the economy in his hand and initiating a movement that brings judgment on the nations. We also read here a bit further on in verse 6,.

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, So as this horse rides out and John is looking at the vision, you hear a voice speak out from the midst of the beasts, the four beasts, the cherubims that we mentioned last week.

This voice, whose voice is it? It's God. In other words, God himself is intervening with this seal in this horse to explain what it means. It's not enough just to see the black horse that represents famine and the scales that begin to show us a warning.

God himself begins to speak here and begins to explain exactly what's going on in verse 6. What do we hear? A measure of weight for a penny. A measure of weight. What are you looking at, at this black horse with the balances?

This is the explanation. This is what happens in our world. And I believe it's in the future, shortly in the future. It's going to be in an hour. This is going to be a part of how Antichrist comes to power in the world.

It's going to be in an economic crisis. It's going to be in an hour where people are just glad to feed themselves. He is going to maneuver himself as a man of peace. Remember, it's going to be the ten world leaders who are going to be blamed for this.

They'll be blamed for the red horse. They'll be blamed for the black horse. And then they're going to be blamed for the horse that we're going to deal with next week. Government always gets blamed, whether they've done it or whether they didn't do it.

And in this hour, governments are to blame for an awful lot. I want to assure you. And so God begins to tell you what is going on here, a measure of weight for a penny. What is a measure of weight? The word measure here is the Greek word koiniks.

It can mean about a liter of weight. Think about a liter of Coke. So he says you will pay a penny for about a liter of Coke or a liter of bread, I should say. I won't go through all the measurements. You can look it up for yourself.

But basically what it's saying is that you're going to pay one penny for enough bread to feed you for one day. That's what you're going to do. In other words, you'll pay a penny for working all day. You're going to get this liter of bread, this amount of bread that you can hold in your hands.

You're going to work all day long and all you'll get for it is that amount of bread. That's all you'll get. So you'll work all day long, every day, just to get enough food to feed you for one day. Not your family, not anyone else.

One man, one hard working man. And so we see that God is explaining what is going on in this third seal. That a measure of weight is going to cost you one penny. It's talking, when it talks about weight, it's talking about essential basic food to survive.

What is necessary. The fact that it is being measured out and the balances are weighing it. Do you know what that represents? Government rationing or the control of prices. So that there is a power here holding back, restraining and limiting.

In order to get that measure of weight, you'll have to pay a penny. How much is a penny? The word in the Greek here is denarius. And a denarius was a Roman silver coin. It's mentioned nine times in the New Testament or in eight different verses.

What is a denarius? Or what is a penny in the New Testament? It was an entire day's wage. Jesus in his parable in Matthew chapter 20 about the labours going out in the field to work for a day or to work for an hour.

Listen to what he says. And when he had agreed with the labours for a penny a day. How much were they working for? A penny or a denarius a day. He sent them into his vineyard. He says, are you willing to work all day for one penny?

They said, yes. That was the value of one penny. And so we see that one penny is the equivalent of one man's hard day's work. Working all day long. And in fact, if you go back to the first century, a Roman soldier worked every day for one denarius.

That was his wage or a hard worker. You're not just talking about casual work here or popping and doing something. You're talking about a hard day's work was one penny. And it's saying here that when this happens, one day's hard grafting or work will only get you a measure of weight.

That's all you will get. A denarius was a person's wage for one day's labour, but only for one person's food. Let me move this into our day. I tried to do the calculations on this because I wanted it simple.

I wanted you to understand. At this present time in Ireland, they say that minimum wage in Ireland per hour, per day is 10 euros an hour. That's the minimum wage or thereabouts. They're trying to up it, but that's the basic, basic wage that they say you should be working for, 10 euros an hour.

But really in Ireland, they say the average amount is 25 euros an hour. That's on average. It can go way above that and sometimes a bit lower than that. But that is average, 25 euros an hour. If that is true, listen for a second as I apply this.

Do you know what that would mean if that horse, that black horse rode out now and this happened right now? The same thing of charging a penny an entire day's work for enough bread to feed you for one day, for a measure of weight.

If that happened, it would mean whatever you can make, you men, you hard working men, working all day long, whatever money you can make in one day, you would spend for enough bread to eat. Only you, not your family.

That means that a loaf of bread in our day, or enough bread to eat throughout the day, maybe three loaves to cover three meals and that's all you have, it would cost you either at the low end of the scale 100 euro, or on average 250 euro just to eat a few basic loaves of bread in one day.

The average person would be spending that in this crisis. It will cost you 250 euro every single day for two or three loaves and you don't even get to feed your family. That's what this prophecy is talking about.

Well it talks about wheat and barley in this. The wheat is wild cereal. We know it's a wild cereal and it produces grain or flour or good bread, a good loaf of brown bread. Some of you in here, you like your white bread.

You know what, you've been short changed. They've stolen all the good out of it and they leave you with this white thing that we all love. I used to love white bread growing up. I wouldn't eat anything else.

It had to be white bread. Little do you know that you're being short changed. All of the good is taken out. But when I'm talking about wheat bread, I'm talking about healthy, good quality bread. You would be paying 250 euro per day.

I assure you, you wouldn't do that in this hour. You know why, it's bountiful, it's everywhere. And yet in our hour, if it doesn't keep rolling through, you could end up without it. If you want to eat well or healthy, you'll pay 250.

And that's not covering any other bills, any other clothes, any other thing you want to do, or for your electric or for fuel. This is only for eating day by day. It goes a bit further in verse 6 and it says,.

And three measures of barley for a penny. So one measure for wheat, three measures you get for barley. I would personally go for the barley. But you see when you go for barley, that was the poor man's food.

Usually used for making beer or it's horse fodder. They usually use barley to make mixtures to give to our animals to keep them well and feeding. And here we see that you get three times as much barley as you would wheat.

So I would go there, but it's not as good as wheat. You're actually going down a level. So in other words, if you want to feed your family, if you want to work all day every day from morning to night hard and feed your family, you're going to take a drop to the most common food or bread just to put food on the table.

You could feed your small family, not large family, a small family. You could just survive by doing this. And in fact, it often is that barley is twice. You get twice much, but here it says three times as much.

One working man working all day provides only for a small family. Only bread, nothing else, no other purchase, no other bills. Do you know what this was? This was the food of a slave in the first century.

And that's the picture we have here. To feed a family daily, you will need to go to a lower quality. You will not have a high expectation like you maybe do today. And notice what else it says in verse 6.

All these things are happening with this third horse in a very short period of time, within a year. Within a year. All four horses ride out over a period of three and a half years. Look what's happened in the last year and a half.

Weren't we shocked by what happened to our world? In one and a half year, our world has changed. The economy, the workplace, school education, society, everything changes in a year and a half. Can you imagine these horses?

As soon as one has done its work, then the Lord says, next, next, next. It's going to be like rapid fire and bullets, one after the other coming. But notice what the Lord says. And see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

The Oil and Wine: Unequal Suffering and Israel

Now the oil and the wine were luxuries. Wheat and barley are the necessary basics for life. But wine and oil, that's an expense. That's a liberty. And this could have two meanings I'm going to give to you here.

First of all, it could mean that the rich are unaffected under this particular seal. Under the sixth seal, very shortly, the rich are going to suffer terribly along with the poor. But the fact that God says, don't touch the oil and the wine, leave them alone.

Could actually mean that you've got the common people are going to suffer terribly economically. While the rich and the powerful and the famous, they're going to say, we're still dying on oil and wine.

We're unaffected by this. And you're going to have this break in society. What a tragedy. Do you realize why this little horn is able to arise? If he's smart and eloquent, he's going to come up through the system.

But also, the wine and the oil comes from olives and grapes. Where do you mostly get olives and grapes? In the Mediterranean. Around the Mediterranean Sea or in the Middle East or in the nation of Israel.

You remember, during this three and a half years, as the world is experiencing the white horse and then the red horse and then the black horse. Do you know what's happening in Israel? They have peace.

They have a unique, a political, a guaranteed peace. They're in prosperity. They're not fighting any wars. Hamas is not firing rockets at them. There is an actual peace. And in fact, there's a revival for the first time in a thousand years of their blood sacrifices in the city of Jerusalem.

They ended in AD 70. But very shortly, they're going to come back in again. I'm not for it. You know what? If they build a third temple, I won't go there and worship there. That is not a good thing. It is actually going to be a trick of the Antichrist.

He is going to be pandering to Israel. And they'll say, look at this political leader. He's given us peace. He's given us a third temple. He has given us our religion back. A restored, orthodox, Old Testament, legal religion.

Isn't he great? Do you see how the whole stage is set? So while the world is falling into an economic crisis, I believe Israel is going to be getting preserved. The oil and the wine could be meaning that.

That Israel, the Mediterranean, is unaffected while the nations of the world are in a terrible condition. That's my first point here, is an explanation of this black horse. And I hope you understand what the fourth horse is.

Hitler's Rise During Economic Crisis

Second of all, let me give you a lesson from history. History is very important. History is very, very important. And we live in a generation where people have forgotten what's happened in history. That's why they say, oh, that's a conspiracy theory.

Because you know what? I know all of our politicians and all of our institutions. And all of these, they would never conspire. All of our politicians are so perfect, none of them are corrupt. None of them work for their own richness.

They're actually working for your good and your benefit. And they're thinking of you rather than their career. We don't believe in conspiracy theories in this hour. Then you might as well chuck 6 ,000 years of history in the bin.

Because anybody who mocks conspiracy theories or says you shouldn't be questioning, and you shouldn't be looking, and you shouldn't be scrutinizing, and you just need to trust. Do you know what? They need to be, they're stupid.

They're certainly not historians. They certainly don't have any scholarship. They certainly haven't learned any lessons from history. My second point, a lesson from history. I want to show you how Adolf Hitler arose in Nazi Germany.

See, it's shocking. How could a man like that arise in Europe, in Germany? It's a shocking thing, especially if you knew the German people. But I believe with Adolf Hitler and his rise, we see an example of what happens under this third horse.

And I want to show you it here. Do you remember with the First World War? It went from 1914 to 1918. And in November of that year, the war ended. It was called the war to end all wars. Because they were going to bring in a governmental system that was going to stop all wars.

Then just a few months after the end of the war, in January 1919, these governments held the Paris Peace Conference. 27 nations gathered in Paris to reorganize the political situation of the world, dominated by four nations, Great Britain, France, the US, and Italy.

These four countries were the main influences on it. They elected and raised up a council of ten men over this Paris Conference. One of them was Lord Milner, who was a notorious Englishman. And for six months in Paris, Paris became the capital of the world, the headquarters of a temporary world government, which wrote up new international treaties, scrapped old entire empires, created new countries, and reshaped the world map.

These men literally done it for six months. And historians say this is the only time in modern history that we had a provisional world government that dictated, that changed borders, that changed our entire society and culture.

These ten men sitting there in Paris done that, and an awful lot more happened there, that I could tell you about. I could keep you for ten hours just telling you the details of things that are affecting our world now, that were planned during those six months.

It was a remarkable time. Now I'm telling you how we got to a Nazi Germany. In June 1919, 44 nations signed the Peace Covenant of Paris, which created the League of Nations. They wanted the League of Nations to be the first world government in modern society.