Broad meadows

To summarize what I’ve recently written, the sun/goat symbols we have been following refers to the angel of the LORD and that that angel is Michael as prophesied in Daniel 12:1, with Jude 9 and Zechariah 3:2 combining to reveal his name. I’m also asserting that he is the rider on the white horse in Revelation 6:2, not the Antichrist. I started this series talking about a prophet who dies twice, but to what end? What is he trying to accomplish? Today’s writing will begin to examine that.

What we have been doing to this point in our study is to start analyzing the symbols in the Old Testament and looking forward into the book of Revelation to gain prophetic insights. But going forward, I will begin in the seals in Revelation 6 and look back into the Old Testament for those insights. I will work through the trumpets and some of the mystery should become clearer.

In a sense, Michael would represent all of the riders at each of the seals, using the concept of merging. I think in each of the seals there are physical dimensions and spiritual dimensions being discussed at the same time. In the second seal, I’ve asserted that the Covid shot was the second seal, that is, its physical dimension. The spiritual dimension, however, should be that this rider wields the word of God (as defined by Ephesians 6:17) in a mighty way. The third seal, however, is where I will spend the remainder of this writing.

The third seal is stated this way, “When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and 3 quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”

On the physical side, what we seem to have are inflationary times, but the spiritual side in this one is a little more complicated. Given that wheat is ground to make bread and the bread represents the body of Christ, which is the church (Colossians 1:24 among others), then what are we to make of barley? And why 3 times the amount? As oil is generally symbolic for anointing and wine represents the shed blood of Christ, then it appears to be saying that the gospel does not change with this revelation.

Another symbol we can define in this seal are wages. In Matthew 20, Jesus tells the parable of the workers in the vineyard and seems to be comparing the workers wages to eternal life. This still leaves us with barley, which I haven’t found a definitive verse for, but the process we have been using will be helpful in this case. As I’ve stated in earlier writings, the first and last place a symbol appears in the Bible are always going to be very important. This appears to be no exception.

The first place in the Bible that barley appears is in Exodus 9:31-32, where it states, “(The flax and barley were destroyed, since the barley had headed and the flax was in bloom. The wheat and spelt, however, were not destroyed, because they ripen later.)”

So if the wheat represents the church and the church blooms later, then the barley seems to represent those that came before the gospel was announced. The barley was destroyed because it bloomed first. This may comport with what the angel of the LORD said in Zechariah 3:2 when he says, “Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?” In Revelation 20:13 death and Hades must give up their dead, with both being thrown into the lake of fire. Is his ministry somehow connected to their release from Hades? And if so, how? I’ll further this discussion in the next few writings as we have begun to wind this study down.