The Revelation 6:5-8 | Episode # 1040

October 3, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

The Revelation 6:5-8

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening.

To Hope Applying God's word to your daily life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years.

I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life.

I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name.

Then we move on to Revelation,

chapter 6, verse 5 and 6.

And when we get to there, we have the third seal. And the third seal it says,

and when he has opened the third seal, I heard a third beast say, come and say, notice all this is coming from God. God is in control of this. He is coming right from the throne, right from the beast, to guard the holiness of God.

They are saying to John every time, come and see. It's a pattern. And now we've got the pattern in its fullness. We understand that God's in control of this, and it's important that we understand that.

And he said, and behold 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 that thou hurt not the oil or the wine.

Now this is an interesting beast, and it is a explanation of.

Really. This is highly economic, okay? This is highly economic.

You have a beast.

You have a horseman that's riding a black horse, okay? And this black horse and this rider have balances in his hand.

And the balances are not. Are not for justice. It's not the lady justice who's blindfolded with the balances in her hand. These are balances have to do with commerce. Have to do weighing out gold for a product.

And in.

In Jewish culture,

whenever you would weigh out bread, meaning you would measure it out by weight.

That. That was always in the Old Testament, a picture of. Well, a picture of pest. A picture of famine is famine that is taking place. And so this horse brings about famine, meaning the economies,

both of the economies that has come before it or in some ways, they are melting down. They're not producing the product that's necessary in order for the people of the earth to live, especially the poor and the middle class.

And eventually,

whenever economics breaks down, the middle class becomes poor and the poor stay poor. And so all you have is the wealthy and those who are in charge, which is.

Is a clear picture of China,

Russia,

their societies and their economies that have existed for the last 80, 90, 100 years.

We have seen that those who are in charge,

North Korea,

those who are in charge, all those nations,

they have those who rule them, and they are fabulously wealthy, some would say one of the wealthiest men in the world is Vladimir Putin.

They estimate his wealth in the dozens of billions of dollars.

He's lost a lot of it because of the wars he's engaged in.

But they are fabulously wealthy, and the poor in Russia are poor. Really, really poor, destitute. That's not quite the truth in the west,

but the way we've run our economies and the way we've added socialism and really began to take on a mindset that the government is the one who saves us and that our freedom and the product of the labor of our people is not enough.

That there has to be somebody to control. It has to be somebody who sets the course of it. As that's taken place, we've become less and less wealthy.

Our middle class becomes hollowed out, and that will take place, and I believe that will take place. And I believe this horse is the beginning of that. Do I think it's taking place?

No, but I think it'll take place. Going on in the future. Absolutely, I do. There's no doubt about it.

This black horse is going to bring about economic turmoil, and that's what the black horse does.

Notice the day's wage. It takes a day's wage to buy one meal.

1.

A whole working day only buys a meal for the worker.

It brings about famine, and it's a picture famine.

And so that's what's going on here.

You have a measure of wheat for a penny and three measures of barley for a penny, which is.

You just. You don't even have enough to live off of.

And that is quickly becoming a part of who we are as a society.

And if I were just to speak on the modern system that we're in today, it's because our government is spending far too much money and they're debasing our currency.

You call it inflation, but really the better word is debasement.

The currency's not being inflated in that. In that it costs more to buy a product. What's really happening is the value of your currency is dropping. So it takes more of it to buy the product.

It's better understood as debasement, meaning the government is literally printing money,

stealing from those who have worked hard to create that money, taxing them by printing the money and causing them to become poorer and poorer and poorer. And that's taking place all around the world.

And it's taking place in the United States, not to the extent it is in the west and especially in Europe and some of the other areas of the world. But it is a problem.

And it is causing. It's beginning to bring about great.

Well,

it could bring about great famine.

And quite clearly, this horseman brings about that famine. And so there's going to be. There's going to be great famine in the earth that comes about not from a direct action of God,

but now it's controlled by God, but it's going to come about by the leadership of those who are in charge, which I believe these horsemen speak to. The horsemen speak to the political and economic systems of the world and the way the world is when God brings about his final judgment.

And as you can see, and as you kind of study and read through this, you can see that these horsemen,

they have that picture.

The fourth horseman of the Apocalypse.

He's the rough one.

He is the end result of the other three.

And we see him in verses seven and eight. It says, and when he had opened the fore seal, I heard a voice from the fourth beast saying, so all four beasts are involved.

They've all called John over to look.

He says, come and see. And I looked. And behold, a pale horse. Now, you know those who've watched the Clint Eastwood movie Pale Rider,

that symbolism is used in that movie a lot. And it's.

It's really a good movie. But the pale horse that he rides on is pictured as a dirty white horse. A white horse that is not pure white, but it's dirty.

Actually, the word pale here is not a dirty pale color. It's actually a very light,

sickening green color. And so pale. The word pale here references a more. If you were not dealing with somebody who is sick and pale, you dealing with somebody who's sick and, you know, wants to vomit what's going on in their body out.

It's. It's. It's almost a greenish tint to it. And it is that it ties to a greenish color.

And notice on his name that the name who.

The one who sat on it was death.

That's physical death.

That's talking about the death of the human race. And hell followed with him,

which is the death of the soul. So you have the two deaths that come with this rider. So the results of a false messiah in the white horse rider,

the godlessness and death that comes from Marxism and all its forms come with the second rider.

And then finally the third rider is the results of those economic systems collapsing.

And you have famine. And now you move from famine to pestilence. And pestilence is different than famine. Famine just means, I'm starving, I don't have enough food. Pestilence is sickness and illness that comes from that.

And this horse rides that. And when pestilence comes,

physical death happens. And if you physically die, separated from God,

then hell follows right behind it. Because to be dead in the bodies, be present with the Lord. When you're present with God,

you're either going to be in the great white throne judgment where he judges those who have not,

who have not placed their faith in him, or you're going to be in the bema seat judgment where you get reward for your faith. And so you're going to be in one of those judgments.

There's no doubt about it.

We've discussed that before in our Bible studies and we'll discuss it again, I'm quite sure.

But these judgments are important.

And when pestilence comes and pestilence comes, when poverty takes control, when these pestilences come,

they are going to really wipe out whole sections of the earth. It says his power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill with the sword, with hunger, with death, and with beast of the earth.

Meaning they're going to kill. Well, it says a fourth part of the earth. So a fourth of the population that was today would be around 2 billion people. 2 billion people are going to die because of the pestilence of this green, pale green rider.

It says so. So what are they? Well,

you've got. You've got the sword. We know that that's just going to be murder and death that comes from the breakdown of society. And so there's going to be a lot of killing.

Anytime you have societal breakdown, you have a lot of murder. And you need to hear that. Anytime you have a lot of societal breakdown,

breakdown of the systems that hold society together. And what are those systems? Well, they're the gifts of God gave us. When you have a breakdown of the family, when you break down the church and when you have breakdown of government, government, family, church are the three institutions that God placed so that we could have healthy societies and healthy communities.

When, when the family breaks down and the Church breaks down,

then the governments break down. And when the governments break down, you have death and murder, and you have a lot of murder taking place.

And so that is in our major cities, that is a major, major problem. You have a lot of killing, a lot of murder that is going on. And why is that murder going on?

Well, that murder is going on because the family is being destroyed, decimated. Decimated by what? These godly, godless ideologies that come from Marxist teachings, and they're all through our universities, they're all throughout our government,

and sadly, in many of our churches, Marxism is taking control.

And so you have death that comes from that.

You also have hunger. So not only do you have the death that comes from just the breakdown of society, you have the death that comes from the lack of good economic power, good.

Well, the production of products for the betterment of society. And that's what capitalism is formed to do. It's formed for there to be a need in the society and for a person to put their labor and their energy and their efforts and their understanding,

place those things in a position where they, they are actually solving the problem and meeting the need. And then obviously they benefit from their efforts and their labor. That's what capitalism's all about.

Oftentimes people say capitalism is just selfishness for other people. It's really not that. It's a, it's a, it's a economic system that says these are the problems. If you go out and solve these problems, you benefit from that.

What do you use to solve these problems? Well, your effort and, and, and the product of your, of your mind and your, your, your heart and the product of your labor.

And when you put all those things together and you meet a need by meeting that need, you benefit from it. And so when those things break down, you end up having hunger.

You end up having the cost of food rising so high that nobody can afford it, and the amount of food shrinking so that there's not enough to eat. And so the things that follow with this are the sword, the hunger, and then you have what we call it calls with death.

But the word is pestilence here. And those are diseases. And we've had.

Boy diseases have become a major issue in our societies, in the societies of the world.

Pestilence has been something that's been all over the world in the past. You've had the Black Death.

You've had all kinds of famine and pestilence that's taken place throughout the world over centuries and millennia.

And those pestilences are coming back and new ones are being created. In fact, new ones are being created in labs around the world. And, and every once in a while, one of them gets released.

And we've seen that happen in the last five years. And so when that happens,

there's death. And then you have the death that comes from the beast of the earth. And if you say, well, what are you talking about there? Well, you know, rats or rats or carries or carriers of major disease.

And when you break down society, oftentimes the rats tend to take over because they don't. They don't have anybody trying to hold them back. The society's breaking down such there's just nobody to handle the bugs and the rats.

And when you have bugs and rats, mosquitoes, rats,

you. You will have disease running rampant, and that's what happens. And then oftentimes you have. You have the fires that come with the pestilence. And so they're not handling that.

We're not doing with the earth what God has told us to do.

And the earth comes back on top of us with pestilence. And so the result of this is, is.

Is a quarter of the population is killed, A quarter of the population is destroyed. And so it swallows them up. They. They die because of it.

This judgment that takes place is a judgment that prepares the earth for the ultimate judgment which we're gonna see played out over the next 10.

Well, really 10 or 11 chapters. And so as you're studying through it, you realize that the four horsemen of the apocalypse are not really like.

They're not like the angel of Death. They're not the Grim reaper going out and killing. They're actually setting up the earth for it. And as you read through it, you can say, you could very easily say that we do live in an age that would tie off to this.

We do live in a time period where it would seem like maybe.

Maybe things are exactly as God would say.

Now,

could that take place in the next few weeks or few years? Sure it could. Could it take place in 200 years? Absolutely it could.

And our job is to study and to know and to understand and I think your understanding of capitalism. And then those things which are anti capitalism, anti democracy, anti freedom,

which. Which find themselves in the broad catalyst, cap.

Broad category of Marxism and ultimately,

or communism,

socialism and fascism.

We need to know those things as believers, and we need to understand them. I pray you will.

And I pray you'll.

As you study and as you know more, you will realize the great God that we serve and the good things that he's doing all the time around us. And his plans are good and his plans are complete and his plan shall not be stopped.

Praise God, that is the truth.

As you go today, I pray that.

The Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.