When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come and see.” So I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine.” (Rev 6:5-6 NKJ)

Just to recap, in Revelations 6 we have the four horses, often referred to as the four horses of the Apocalypse, and taken completely out of context and brought into the future. I believe the Apostle John was showing the Christians that the wicked and cruel Roman Empire was not outside the government of God. Yesterday we looked at Rome government, symbolized by the Caesar on a white horse.  The Caesar would return from a campaign and parade into Rome on a white horse, and wearing a crown, ‘king for a day.’ No wonder, when Christ returns in Revelation 19, on a white horse, he comes as ‘KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. King forever!

I’ll come back to the second seal, power, tomorrow and turn to the third seal, the economy of God. John warns the people that the Roman economy would collapse, but those who followed the economy of God would prosper. Rome had no central bank to regulate their economy, every coin bore the head of Caesar and so whenever the Caesar wanted to gain popularity he minted more coins—hyper-inflation followed that would eventually play a part in their down fall.

The economy of God was laid out in Leviticus, not as a law so much as it was a set of principles to succeed by. They included.

*Sustainability, *Employment laws, *Loan and Mortgage regulation, *Immigration policy, *Food, and Nutrition and the *Tithe, all linked to a seven-year cycle that culminated in a Jubilee. Follow Rome and pay the price.  Trust in the Lord and see the blessings flow.