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The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 55

gion], and why is your toil for what results in no satisfaction? Listen intently to me, and eat what is
good [true religion], and let your soul find its exquisite delight in fatness itself.”

To eat “bread by weight” and to “drink water by measure” (Ezekiel 4:16) is to be in an evil
state. It means that YEHOVAH’s truth has been completely commercialized and corrupted, and is
measured out to the people by some great religious authority who feeds them what they think they
should have -- with no regard to the truth. The words that characterize the mission of the BLACK
horse and rider mention specifically the BREAD of the rich, “wheat,” and the BREAD of the poor,
“barley”; therefore declaring in figurative language that the very bread of life (THE TRUE
GOSPEL) of every individual was to be under the control of this system, which has clearly come to
pass in the actions of the Roman Catholic Church down through the centuries. The amount of truth
to be feed the masses was determined by the upper echelons of the church, who corrupted and per-
verted the gospel message for their own ends. And their “decrees” were more absolute than those of
Caesar of old!

For those with a mind to see, it is those who are able to place an inflexible price upon the true
gospel who are really the masters of the people’s lives or “souls.” We can plainly see, as a result of
the above facts, that the system described in Revelation 18, under the symbol of a great commercial
and pagan city, is the outcome of the mission of the black horse and its rider -- and has reached full
development in our day. This complete dominance of “Christian” civilization has come about so
quietly, and so gradually, that only a few wide-awake people have realized what was going on. And
their voices, when they attempted to raise a warning, were quickly stifled or drowned out. The min-
istry of YEHOVAH’s Word has been commercialized by men professing to be Yeshua’s ministers
and ambassadors in an evil and hostile world who, in reality, are nothing but mouth-pieces of the
world, preaching a “gospel” that is thoroughly conformed to the world. Not only have they made
profit from YEHOVAH’s Word, but they have adulterated the bread of life making it both unpalat-
able and unwholesome. Such a state of affairs has come into existence throughout the “Christian”
world -- and has now developed into full maturity.

The Oil and the Wine

The voice that issued forth from the midst of the cherubim, was a voice of not merely proph-
ecy but also of authority. It added this prohibition: “And see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.”
Now in the Bible oil is a symbol of YEHOVAH’s holy spirit, and has been the force behind the ride
of the white horse of Revelation. Wine, in the Bible, is also one of the gifts included among
YEHOVAH’s blessings to mankind. An abundant supply of wine, symbolized by the “vine” in the
oft-repeated expression “sitting under one’s own vine and fig tree,” denotes prosperity and security
under YEHOVAH’s righteous rule -- see I Kings 4:25; II Kings 18:31; Isaiah 36:16; Micah 4:4 and
Zechariah 3:10. Wine is also included in the restoration blessings promised by YEHOVAH in Joel
3:18; Amos 9:13-14 and Zechariah 9:17.

What we learn from the ride of the black horse is that the power for harm allowed to the
rider was RESTRICTED -- even as YEHOVAH set strict limits to Satan’s power to harm Job.
The rider of the black horse was not permitted -- in any part of his career -- to “hurt the oil and
the wine.” In other words, the power of YEHOVAH’s spirit in disseminating the true gospel
could not be hindered in any way by the ride of the black horse. Nor, even, could YEHOVAH’s

The Berean Voice September-October 2002