Herbert W Armstrong

   I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

   The world population will double by the end of this century, and it will double again in just another 35 short years following that. Inexorably, the food versus population curve continues toward that final climactic crossing point on the global charts of food production versus skyrocketing populations, which could usher in upon this earth the final last great catastrophic fulfillment of that mysterious vision of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

   And as rapidly as the third horseman appeared on the heels of the second famine, drought, starvation follow on the heels of war because they are the natural and immediate results of crop damage, of defoliation, contaminated water supplies, destroyed livestock, unusually high food demands, and the millions continue to starve. And the horrible upset economic, social, racial, political conditions as a direct result of those starving millions of human beings continue to plague this earth, and it is going to get a great deal worse before it gets any better.

   There have always been famines, there have always been disease epidemics, and there have always been wars. Is it only then better reporting that we live in a time right now where the capacity for human annihilation is really with us? For the stockpiling of nuclear weapons has given us the capacity to annihilate more than 50 worlds like ours filled with the same numbers of the billions of human beings. No, it's not just better reporting. We now live in the nuclear age. We now live in the space age, and we live in a time when global struggles for global stakes against total populations can become reality.

   In the last several programs on the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, those mysterious specters that came galloping out of the nightmare that John saw. He wrote what he saw in a book called the Apocalypse or the Revelation. In the last several programs, we have covered the real meaning of that vision that John saw in the Island of Patmos at about the turn of the first century following Jesus Christ, the book of Matthew in your New Testament.

   In the first person quotation from Jesus Christ himself gives modern meaning, modern context, a present-day 20th-century environmental setting for those mysterious horsemen of the sixth chapter of the Book of Revelation. In the last several times, I have shown how the Bible interprets the Bible and how biblical prophecy is of no private interpretation. How it is not up to me to get an idea of what those ghost-like figures riding on those horses meant. But it's up to the Bible to interpret the Bible.

   And for us to decide, to prove to ourselves. Is the Bible, the word of God, is there a God, and do his promises, his predictions, his prophecies of the Old Testament, as well as the New, really come to pass and come to pass on time? Where the trends and the conditions of which Jesus spoke to become poignantly alive. The very vivid nightmare, the entire human race during the time just prior to a divine intervention of the Eternal God, which would bring this world peace at a time when unless God did not intervene, where there wouldn't be a human being left alive in the face of the earth.

   Jesus said in Matthew 24 verses 21 and two (Matthew 24:2), "For then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world at this time, no one will ever shall be." And what does tribulation mean? It merely means a time of cataclysmic trouble. It's an Old Testament, King James word that means trial, tribulation, torment, torture, catastrophe, chaos, and unparalleled amount, in that pivotal point of all biblical prophecy.

   Jesus spoke of a time when human annihilation could become a very real potential. And we live in that time right now by any number of several different ways, biological warfare, chemical warfare, germ warfare. In other words, the biological part of it, nuclear bomb war by design or by accident. But as never before, we face the specter on a global sense, and it could strike in the rich, comfortable, affluent, overfed countries of the United States of the democracies of northwestern Europe, of the so-called have or the developed countries of Canada, South Africa, Australia, some of the other countries of the world.

   We always think of famines as belonging in far-off China and Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indo-China, Thailand and Vietnam, and Cambodia. We think of China, or we think of the vastness of Africa of Biafra. We think of India, the subcontinent down there. We think of the starving peoples on the shanty towns tumbling off those muddy slopes around the city of Rio de Janeiro. When the rains fall, we think of people of these underprivileged underdeveloped countries who starve quietly to death every day by their thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands.

   And we think maybe this won't really affect us since there has always been malnutrition, starvation, hunger disease, the pollution of surface water, not enough food to go around late monsoons or early monsoons, drought or dry cycles, crop damage as a result of insect infestation or of stem or root rust or rot or some type of an early freeze or an early thaw weather, which is wrong. We think, well, these things happen all the time here and there a little bit all around the world in the course of history, they have occurred, and that's true. They have.

   But the prophecies of your Bible imply that the very last greatest fulfillment of all of these trends and conditions that have occurred upon this earth of ours are going to take place at a time when the potential for human annihilation is real. No matter the famine that struck China back in the ten hundreds or Japan in the thirteen hundreds or back in Ancient India, of which we have no record. The famines that took millions of lives in Africa or even among some of the Indian tribes in North or South America back in the eight hundreds, the nine hundreds, or the ten hundreds when there was no record of these things. Sure, then no one knew about it. But then also there was no potential. No, not even to the time of the conclusion of World War II for the annihilation of the human race.

   Now, Jesus Christ of Nazareth is a prophet. He's a newscaster that looks beyond his day and down into our he foretells conditions that are right now vividly alive, that color our newsprint that really affect everything we say, think and do. Our lives have been changed from the advent of the nuclear age. The world has never been quite the same. We live in a world now where the potential of extinction of the human race is a reality. And in that framework and in that context, you must view these mysterious horsemen of the apocalypse. In a moment, a look at the third of those mysterious horsemen that portended famine, drought, and death.

   Thousands starve daily because the 10% of Earth's surface which is productive is not enough to meet growing food demands. Yet, if man could level most of the vast mountain ranges, raise up some of the deep added desert valleys, renew the depleted jungle soils and provide good gentle rain in due season that he would have additional millions of acres of farmland. Man would have a solution to feeding the Earth's teeming population. Will such an answer be found? How will tomorrow's world be made free of starvation with the hunger bomb diffused?

   This free booklet titled "The Wonderful World Tomorrow" shows you the brilliant future ahead for man in a world where today's problems will be solved. It offers hope for the future and has a sure basis for that optimism. Be sure to write today for this free booklet, "The Wonderful World Tomorrow - What it will be like?" Send your request to Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney New South Wales. That's Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney New South Wales.

   The population explosion is not a religious experience. It is not an interpretation of biblical prophecy to talk about the millions of human beings who are starving to death. The fact that the underdeveloped countries of this world are adding far more people than the world is capable of supporting every single year, the vast nation of China with its 800 million human beings adds in its own population in spite of infant mortality, in spite of it being ravaged by disease by famine and by various food shortages where about 90% of the total population is engaged in just creating, building, planning, producing food for themselves. And that other 10% of the population. But every single year, China adds the equivalent of a Canada.

   In spite then of this fantastic population explosion, there are millions who die. But the grisly truth is people are not dying fast enough. Take a look at the statistics of what the deaths are in terms of starvation, malnutrition on a daily basis worldwide. Malnutrition causes 100,000 deaths worldwide every single day, starvation 10,000, and all other causes 40,000. So malnutrition, the single greatest cause of daily deaths worldwide that adds up to 150,000 deaths per day.

   And even though that is a staggering figure, people are not dying anywhere near fast enough. The well-trodden old tired human path of political upheaval, religious upheaval, usually religious upheaval and then warfare and then famine follows time and time again. And many of these famines we want to take a quick look at back in history.

   Now, this is going to be a grizzly thing. So I warn you in advance. It isn't a very pleasant subject. I'll try my best not to make it too terribly unpleasant because it's a horrible thing to contemplate. Especially some of these rather grim statistics about cannibalism, which I'm going to skim over very lightly and not get into any detail because it makes me sick even to read some of them.

   The latest repetition of this tired old human formula of religious war leading toward military conflict and in its weight, food shortages and famine and so on was the Indian Pakistan War of December 1971. Here, conflicting religions led to political and social demands which led to war after which famine and disease. And along with it, a horrible climactic upset in the weather in the form of a typhoon took approximately a half a million lives.

   They will never really know the count will never be in because many of those people are just a part of the landscape buried under avalanches of mud and debris and were never found and never will be. Just previously to that, one-half million human beings wiped out. Another chapter of similar grief was written in Biafra where famine killed perhaps millions. No one will ever know as a direct result of war.

   The principle of war causing famine is described in a couple of scriptures in the Bible where in Deuteronomy, the 28th chapter in Leviticus 26 it talks about the broken laws that lead toward all of these conflicts and in their wake follow, because when you have armies in confrontation with each other, vast demands to feed these standing armies of tens or hundreds of thousands or millions.

   And then it follows always, it seems on the heels of war that you have the ravages of weather. Why? This is no one has really been able to figure out. Some of the worst weather in the history of all the world has come right in the most climactic times of great power, confrontations between nations in Leviticus 26 verses 23 through 28 (Leviticus 26:23-28). You can read of that.

   Look at the biblical famines of the past as well as those of history. There is a statement in the second book of kings about cannibalism which says that as the king of Israel was walking up on the wall, there cried a woman under him saying, "Oh my Lord, help me O king. This woman said, give thy son, we may eat him today and we will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my son." She complained and did eat him. And I said in her the next day, "Give your son that we may eat him," but she has hidden him.

   A grisly macabre account of how a king was asked to settle a squabble between two mothers who had been so reduced to starvation that they were trading their own children in that same famine.

   It's recorded in the Bible that the head of the donkey was sold for fourscore pieces of silver and a pint of doves done for about five pieces of silver because people were reduced to eating even those things. Rome had a history of famine. Its early history was punctuated by a succession of famines, pestilences, and wars, but none marked the outstanding series of events that occurred in the fifth century before the Christian era.

   Beginning about 450 B.C., there was a period of famine extending over a period of 20 years recorded in history. Egypt had a famine where it was incredible because so many hundreds of thousands died and the prices that were there. And this was a little more recent. It was 1065; a single cake of bread sold for 15 dinars. At that time, the value of about $2.50 per dinar, five bushels of grain for about 100 dinars, and then the eggs that were for the price of one dinar apiece. Cats and dogs brought fabulous prices. Women unable to purchase food with their jewelry, simply flung them into the street.

   One woman, according to a historian at the time, gave a necklace worth 1000 dinars times $2.50 for a mere handful of flour. Other famines about 1200 A.D. devastated Egypt. This is a thing that seems to occur even in modern-day Egypt continually. Even countries of all Western nations, developed countries, have experienced terrible famines in the past.

   For instance, in 1314, during the reign of Edward the 2nd in England, few English kings have lived through greater periods of distress than he did. They were scarcely able to get enough food for their own households. The rains had spoiled crops, upset weather conditions had brought about drought conditions. And so there were cases where jails reported cannibalism when new felons were thrown into prison cells and were literally ripped apart.

   The black death that struck Europe, where 20 million people may have died, was one of the greatest calamities to ever befall the entirety of the human race. It seemed that even the course of the entirety of nature was upset. There was intense cold in summer, oppressive heat in winter, rains, and frost came out of season. And for three years, there was neither seed, time nor harvest. And in addition to that horrible bubonic plague, people probably killing and eating rats. And that's where a lot of it was spread.

   Thousands upon thousands died, not only of the black bubonic plague or that death, the black death as it was called, but also by starvation. And there were many, many cases of cannibalism, some of which I wouldn't even want to read to you. They were so horrible.

   The great Irish potato famine, a thing that happened as late as 1845 or a pestilential blight is an example severity in Ireland caused the whole potato crop to rot. 3/4 of the population of that island was entirely dependent upon that staple for food. And the resulting suffering is unimaginable. In March and April of 1847, 2500 died every single week in the workhouses of Ireland alone, and thousands of starving peasants poured into New England. Many dying of famine fever while on board the immigrant ships.

   The total death toll at that time was somewhere between 200,000 to 300,000 people. And owing to death and immigration, the population of the island of Ireland was reduced from 8,300,000 in 1845 to 6,600,000, 6 years later. And believe it or not, it's even been declining steadily ever since.

   The great famines of China, of other parts of the Asian periphery of Indonesia, of some of the countries such as Pakistan and India, they call by their ancient names, and the great famines of Russia are all a matter of recorded history, now, most of us know nothing about those unless we were to pick up an encyclopedia or an Almanac and read about the giant famines of history.

   One of the greatest of all time was that which happened in Russia during World War II at the siege of Leningrad. Perhaps no city in history suffered as much as Leningrad did where it was said in those days between 1941 and 42 when the Nazi army was besieging that city, more people died in that city alone than the United States of America lost in all of its wars that's covered in the book called The 900 Days.

   And during that siege, parents ate children, children ate parents, husband ate wives, and wives ate husbands. It's a fact, and the examples I will not even read to you because they're too horrible to contemplate.

   Now today, the twin problem of population versus food production has ushered upon us an era where great global famines are a potential in the 1970s, grizzly though it may sound, horrible and macabre as it may be to wade back through some of the histories about the death of the tens of millions of human beings who have died in the past. It's about time to begin to look at the fact that it could happen all over again today and that it's likely that even in the West of our affluent overdeveloped, overfed and yet malnutrition, countries of the United States and Canada, as well as many other developed countries, great famine could strike again, and believe it or not, the Bible says, it really does, that unless we change our personal and our collective and our national ways of living, then those famines will strike us as a consequence of our actions.

   One of the enigmas of all time has been understanding the Book of Revelation. For instance, the phrase "the four horsemen of the apocalypse" is common in our language. But few know the true meaning of these symbolic horsemen. The Ambassador College booklet, "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," brings you that understanding. If you dare to know with biblical proofs, each of the horsemen is described, and their meaning made clear: religious confusion and misdirection, war and upheaval, drought and famine, disease epidemics.

   You can now understand what the four horsemen of the apocalypse mean and how you can escape their destructive forces. For this vital information, request your free copy of "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." Send your request to Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney, New South Wales. That's Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney, New South Wales.

   Jesus Christ of Nazareth foretold famines in our day, famines at the very same time when the extinction of human life would be a real eventuality, a probability, a possibility. The Bible says it won't happen. The Bible does have the good news that God is going to cut short those days and bring about the salvation. I mean by this, the physical salvation, saving human beings alive, not some church exercise or ceremony, but that's what this 24th chapter in the book of Matthew illustrates, Matthew 24:3-7, where Jesus gave a time order of events.

   We've covered the first, which was false Christs, false prophets, false religions. And then we covered the second, "you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars." And we showed how each of these is also are explained in Revelation with those mysterious four horsemen: the first, the white horse with a bow and a crown that we explained in great detail, which is false Christs, false prophets, false religions, and religious confusion and deception. And the second beast, the second beast that saw the red horse that we describe in great detail, warfare. We did a couple of programs on that and how the Bible interprets the Bible, how Jesus' statements in Matthew 24 must be used to interpret John's statements and Jesus's own statements as far as that's concerned in the Book of Revelation.

   Now, finally, he said, "and there shall be famines," that was next in sequential order of events. And in the fifth verse, six, the Revelation six chapter (Revelation 6:5-6), and when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, "come and see," and I beheld and lo, 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 living creatures or beasts, living creatures, the Greek say, "a measure of wheat for a penny and three measures of barley for a penny and see that you're hurt, not the oil and the wine," a mysterious statement that he is talking about the measuring out very tiny little amounts of staples of life, a very life support supply of vital life-giving food stuff. This then portends famine. Jesus said it would happen at the very same time as what he calls a great tribulation.

   Now, follow me over here, and we'll take a look here. We have these same scriptures repeated in Matthew 24:7 in which he said, "nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against Canada. And there shall be famines and pestilences, disease epidemics, and earthquakes in different places." Here's that same scripture we read in Revelation six and five and six.

   Now, take a look at what Ezekiel said, a third part, verse 12, of the fifth chapter of the book of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 5:12), a prophecy which is for our day today, which ends and culminates in the very same descriptions, the very same period of time as do the prophecies by Jesus Christ of Nazareth in Matthew 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13. "A third part of you shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be in the midst of you. A third part shall fall by the sword as a symbol, biblical symbol of warfare round about you. And I will scatter a third part into all the winds, captivity, then and I will draw out a sword after them."

   Why? Why does God's word say these horrible things are going to happen to people on this earth? And why, especially the people who are the most responsible? One to live by his laws and therefore to obey God and to receive the rewards, the blessings, and the benefits as a direct result. And to live an example to all other nations on the face of the earth. Why do that?

   Because since there is a God and since God has the power to bless human beings with what they really need and the greatest, the most prized blessing that could ever come to any country is simply the blessing of having good land and good weather. We can reduce it to its simplest, most elementary form that the greatest blessing from the Eternal Creator God that could befall any country is to have what we've got in the United States of America, such as in states like Iowa, Ohio, Illinois, and the like where the topsoil is sometimes feet thick. And where if you had one square mile of that in the entire continent of Africa, they'd make it into a national park. And when you combine the fabulous resources, we've been given with good weather with the productivity that could come as a result of it. That's the greatest blessing that could ever befall any people.

   Now, God's word says in Leviticus 26:23 through 28 that we won't obey his laws. He shows that if we would, we'd have all these great tremendous national blessings in a global sense, we would be the greatest people on the face of the earth and we would remain there. But he said, we haven't done it. And he said, if you will not be reformed by all these things that went before various national calamities, warfare, etc., I will also walk contrary unto you and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.

   And notice following on the heels of warfare as the scripture shows this statement: "And when I have broken the staff of your bread," that's the national produce. That's the national food production. "When I have broken the staff of your bread, 10 women shall bake your bread in one oven and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied. And if you will not hearken unto me but walk contrary unto me, then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury. And I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins."

   I'm having to hurry because I'm running out of time. But I want to get this message across and get it across very plainly. You can disagree with me if you like. I believe that this is the word of a divine creator being who sits up in heaven at the helm of his control over the entirety of this universe. I believe that we were put on this earth that our forebearers and our forefathers' footprints lead away from the Middle East. And I know that the United States of America is not obeying God's laws, that we as a people, whether we're talking about Canadians, Britain, South Africans, Australians. We're talking about some of the democracies of Northwestern Europe who claim to be a Christian professing people and believe in the Christian God and the Christian Bible.

   One thing we don't seem to believe in, we don't seem to believe in obeying our God. Oh, we might appropriate his Son as a talisman and make him our savior. But we won't do what he told us. We will live by the principles of the sermon on the mount. We want as a political program as a part of our entire system of jurisprudence of legislation, of law, of our actions, interactions, one with another work with live by and obey the 10 commandments of God as magnified in the New Testament of your Bible. And since we will not do this and since we refuse to obey God's laws, and I believe I've got to pass it on to you. I'm sorry. But I have to say it, I believe these prophecies of war, of drought, of famine, and of disease are going to strike our people unless we repent of our national sins.

   Now, you ought to write for these books. You can disagree with me, and that's fine. But write for these booklets and find out what they say and study it in the privacy of your own home and see whether God's word means us right now, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. And is this the end time, the approach that is taken in this brand new booklet, very little advertised before, "Is This The End Time?" is to take the challenging prophecies of your Bible and put them to the test to superpose over these prophetic statements of the Old, as well as the New Testament, the conditions that are expanding upon this earth right now at this present time.

   What about Daniel's statement that knowledge would be increased and many would run to and fro? What about the statement that the prophecies of the book of Daniel would be concealed, cloaked, and would be hidden from human understanding until the time of the end? What about knowledge doubling, the knowledge explosion? Is that really happening? Or is it just some pet theory of ours?

   I have shown recently that present knowledge is doubling at a fantastic rate, that it took hundreds and hundreds of years to double from the time of Jesus Christ until 1750, 1750 years. And then by 1900, it had doubled again in just 150 years, that it doubled again between 1900 and 1950, that it doubled again between 1950 and 1960 from 50 years to only 10 years. And that now they are claiming eventually human knowledge is going to double every three months. Knowledge output in such special fields as medicine, as the space area, as well, transportation, communication, and so on is doubling at such a fantastic rate that those fields are of their very nature forces to become more and more highly specialized. And knowledge really is doubling. We're in the midst of a knowledge explosion.

   These and other proofs are going to be found in this booklet, "Is This The End Time?" and all you need to do is to request it by sending your letter to Post Office Box 345, Sydney New South Wales. Be sure to tell us the call letters of your station. We need that. That's all there is no cost but tell us the name of the radio station to which you've been listening, the call letters and then send your letter to box 345, Sydney New South Wales. Until next time, this is Garner Ted Armstrong saying goodbye, friends.

   You have been to the world tomorrow. If you would like more information, write to Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney New South Wales. That's Ambassador College Box 345 GPO Sydney New South Wales.