A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius. 🪙 What does that mean?
The Intro:
I have some insight to the above quote from Hazon which means "vision" in the original language aka Revelation in the English...
I have been meaning to make this post for some time now. I had always wondered what the title quote meant and when I was young I had accepted the response that my teacher told me in class. Yes, it was a church type school. They said that it means "People will work a whole day and get enough grain to grind and make a piece of bread for dinner. "Tough times"
is what that sounded like to me.
Someday there will be an apocalypse I suppose, and I will be looking out for people who get paid daily and then use that food to buy one meal for the day. Until then, I know that we are not in the time of the horrors, or bliss of the End of Days, if you want to call it that. Oh, wait...
Before I get into the meat of the post, maybe you should see the context of that verse.
The Seven Seals
1 Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, “Come!” 2 And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering, and to conquer.
3 When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
5 When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a black horse! And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. 6 And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, "A quarta of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!”
For further context, I will summarize a bit about the previous chapter...
- Where? They were in heaven and someone was seated on the throne, and there were angels and living creatures all around.
- The problem. Everyone was wondering if there was anyone able to open the scroll. Then one of the elders said, "Weep no more The Lion of the tribe of Judah can open it. There are many other descriptions mentioned and the last one is "The Lamb who was slain.." and a reference to his blood saving the people for God. Enter the above verses and here we are.
That's it for the Bible info and now for something completely different. God may or may not be responsible for what is happening, but he does tell you what will happen and he is never wrong about the future predictions he makes. That was what I wanted to talk about today.
The Meat of this Post
We have all had those days when everything goes wrong and you just want to quit! Well, I get my share of those too. A few months ago, I had one of those days and I was tired of cussing and spitting vinegar, so I said to God, "What have I done to deserve this? Why is this part of my daily life?" Now, I generally stifle my urge to ask an open "Why?" question to God, but I was at my wit's end and I did that very thing. The reason I don't ask that question is because I have never received and answer when I do.
This time I did get an answer when I asked, and it came to me in a split second but the answer annoyed me even more than the day that caused me to ask. But ever since then, that very same answer has given me a reason to keep on trudging when I have a day of unending, I guess you could call it, "Bad luck."
His answer was exactly this, "A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius." and there was no doubt about it.
Ever since that day, I have been nudged daily to write something about this strange answer and the understanding that comes with it. You have to keep reading because I will explain it if I can. I usually put off posting about it and the days that I do inevitably end up with more "Bad luck" Thus you find my post appearing on your feed, if you follow me that is.
Getting back to my story.... I was frustrated to begin with and God puts that verse in my head, a verse that already made no sense to me from the start when I first heard it. I am not sure if any of you have ever been stuck on a difficult task and then had someone come up from behind and make a stupid suggestion. I work on cars and usually can find the difficulty and fix it. If I were stuck trying to find out why an engine is running rough and someone came up to me and asked, "Did you check the "trailer hitch ?" Aaaarrggh...!
I am not calling God stupid. I just did not understand the answer. What's more, that answer could never have come to me as a reasonable answer to my question. It definitely came from outside of me, and I was alone at the time so it was not anyone around me. When I calmed down and stopped shaking my fists at him, I sat down and thought about it and asked calmly, "What does that have to do with the price of rice in Texas??" That is one way to answer a question with another question and make someone feel the same way they just made you feel.
I am not exactly sure how the answer came to me, but it boils down to something like this... If someone was working all day and did not get enough food to make up for the calories he or she spent in order to make that tiny meal, let alone their spouse or children, would it be possible for that person to make any headway on their list of tasks they are trying to accomplish each day? No!
That is what most of my days look like. Impossible and odd malfunctions of xx while using xx as I have used it for the last xx years.
It is not actually 'bad luck' but that is the way I refer to it. What else would you call it? And it seems to come in waves. A day here or there with no 'bad luck' and then several days in a row where it would have been better if I had gotten up and just read a book. I have also referred to my 'bad luck' days as, "One step forward and three steps back." because the next day starts with several things that need repair or attention before even starting the day, referring to the fallout of the disaster that was yesterday. Anyway, something hit me that day.
Connections were made and, along with my studies of prophecy, sense was made of God's answer to me. Most of what God says can be taken in three ways. Maybe more...
Some make this really complicated - image from this article.
I don't go into Bible reading that deeply in English because it was written at a time when people did not attach such fancy names to the why and how. But I understood what God was saying to me, as many simple people could it the times of David and Jesus. Jesus spoke to people and they understood his stories. Some could not make sense of them like I could not make sense of my answer. Others could make the figurative connections to the spiritual realm.
The line God gave me spoke of a time when people would have to put forth a concentrated and feverish effort to accomplish the simplest of tasks. Put another way, very little or no return on your investment (of time, or money) and added turmoil to boot.
I feel that just a few years ago, this (or that) task would have taken me only a moment. then I would move on to the next one. Now, the same task has me running into unforeseen impossible difficulties arising en mas and I find myself finishing up the simple task with many other things in need of repair or attention. I can see that happening once in a day - just dumb luck. But recently (on a bad day), everything I try to do is met with catastrophe.
I took his answer to mean that there is a break down of cohesive underpinnings of the world and all that is normal about it. Maybe an 'ungluing of the ease with which things are accomplished. In simpler terms, he was telling me that things are going to be like this from now on and he warned us that it was coming. I would have never guessed that to be the interpretation of the title phrase, not in a million years. But it had been foretold. That gave me peace. God and his son The Prince of Peace, when they choose to speak, their peace comes like a father helping his frustrated son who cannot quite get the hang of tying his shoe.
Side Tracking
In another part of the Bible, he spoke of worldwide adoption of a global currency that will cause some people to be cut off from buying and selling and we are on the cusp of that becoming reality. Does that mean it is part of God's plan? No. But did he know what they would do? Yes.
Today there are certain people who cannot speak freely, while others can say the same kinds of things, but they are not banned.
There are people who are locked up for years for protesting while not damaging anything around them (think J6) and others who can burn down businesses (think BLM) and charges are never filed.
And now, they want to violate some people's right to keep and bare arms, while at the same time the same people are looking to arm people who entered the country illegally. It is not about "guns yes." or "guns no", but rather who gets to have that right.
There are many other examples of what is happening and these do not relate to the one prophecy that I am highlighting today. I am just saying that there is global collaboration to accomplish some global goal.
When?
Going back to the verse I quoted, it took place in heaven and up there, there is no time. No sunrise or sunset. No years that are marked on a calendar. There is a plan and God has his calendar in the stars. We do know that it was after the "Lamb was slain" and that it comes after the rider on the white horse who has a bow and went to conquer, the rider of the red horse who was permitted to take peace from the earth, the rider on the black horse who has a pair of scales - then a voice proclaimed (the title of this post), followed by the rider of the pale (some say 'green) horse who is able to kill 25% of the population with sword, hunger, death, and animals...
The next two have clearly not happened yet, like the one about the black horse, but the sixth seal sees the sun turning black and the largest earth quake in history. There are seven seals and I did not read far enough ahead to find the seventh. But when a 25% decrease of our population happens, we are headed for a dark day.
I could be way off on what God did or did not tell me, but if you see the population drop due to war, hunger, etc. Then there is only to figure out who the other riders were prior to this place in our timeline that I am laying out here. I have some ideas on that but let's see if anyone reads this one first.
Final Notes
I am glad and feel peace knowing that the Creator of heaven and earth answered...
I do not think that God sat down and planned any of this, but he did foresee it. I am glad that someone was there to write it all down though.
He basically cared enough to let me know that he is aware of this senseless frustration and its source. He lets me know that he told us about it. Many who are responsible for riding those horses, will pay for what they have done to the people of the earth.
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