It is a vision of scarcity, of insufficiency, not of absolute famine. The world does not seem to contain enough for all, and there happens a continual struggle for the bare necessaries of bodily life. Every year this is becoming more evident. Mostpresent-day problems have their roots in it, and these problems press with such terrible force upon us that, I suppose, St. John’s vision can never have seemed more picturesquely true than it seems to-day. With our constantly growing popula-ion, the difficulty increases by leaps and bounds. The effect of it is an absorbing anxiety, a restless elaboration of contrivance--How can these present difficulties be overcome? and what new ones will start into sight when the old ones have disappeared?--till a large part of life seems taken up by the problem of how to live. Is any precept of Christ harder than this, “Take no thought for your life,” etc. Perhaps if we were alone, with nothing but our own personal salvation to think about, it would be easier. But you are not alone. Others depend on you. Husband, think of your wife; think of the children whose future depends so much on you. And if we go down in social life to the lowest depths of poverty, the struggle for existence becomes piteous. It is terrible to face it, but it is well to face it sometimes. In this abyss, insufficiency has become destitution; the struggle has lost all that it seemed to have of manliness and force; it has deformed life into a chaos of brute instincts; it has become parent of crime, disease, and death. Such is the vision of human want. And from the living creatures before God’s throne the appeal is made to Jesus Christ, “Come!” What is it, this appeal to the “Lamb as it had been slain”? It is for manifestation of the higher life, the true life, the eternal life which is the knowledge of the true God and Jesus Christ. Sometimes the least spiritually impressionable person is forced to see that there is indeed a higher life. The pressure of earthly things relaxes its hold upon you for a moment; above the ceaseless clamour of the world’s voices the voice of Jesus makes its way to your heart, never lessening its claim upon your life, never taking from the promise its consolation, “Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Yes, there is indeed a higher life. But it seems so hard of attainment in the life that I am living now. I am in the shadow of the black horseman; I am a sharer in the great struggle for existence. The thought of the higher life is wearisome; the life of prayer, of hourly communion with a Divine Friend, the life of the love of God, of joy in the knowledge of His presence and love, the life of glad obedience, ofpatient endurance. It all seems so hopeless. We cannot think of higher things. Is not this true of you? The struggle for existence makes us slaves in spirit. Surely the appeal from the living creatures to Christ is wanted for us to-day: Come, with Thy knowledge of the Father’s will. Come, with Thy strong rejoicing in the Father’s love. Come, with Thy unfaltering obedience. Come, with Thy victorious endurance. Let Thine be the Spirit which takes possession of a world in want, O Thou Lamb of God! (A. H. Simms, M. A.)
Scarcity in Gospel times
This vision has been explained in two ways, naturally and spiritually, and either yields a tolerably good signification. Both explanations are consonant with what we gather from the rest of the seals, which is, that much in the time of the Messiah’s triumphal progress is not such as we should have expected.
1. We should have expected that the times of the Gospel would have been times of almost universal prosperity. So it had been prophesied (Eze_36:30; Hos_2:22; Joe_2:19). And we should the rather have expected this, because the preaching of the gospel does much to discourage many vices which occasion distress and ruin in this world, such as intemperance, drunkenness, wastefulness, gambling, immorality, etc. But it has not been so. From the first preaching of the gospel there has been just thesame hard struggle for sustenance as there was before. Of course there have been countries in which the poor have not suffered from comparative scarcity, as in newly-planted colonies, but the tendency of things has been always to bring about, sooner or later, the universal struggle for a bare subsistence.
2. But the riding of this horse-rider has been interpreted spiritually to mean this, that in the day of Christ’s power there has not been, nor will be, that plentiful supply of the wholesome and nourishing Word of God which we should have expected. The more thoroughly we examine the history of religion, I do not mean of the Church, but of individual religion, the more we shall discover the truth of this. For well nigh 1,500 years the Word of God has been altogether out of the reach of thevast majority of Christians. Till the invention of printing each copy had to be written fully and fairly out. And look also at the comparative fewness of those who if by chance they possessed a copy could read it. But we must not for a moment limit this scarcity of the wholesome nourishing Word to the scarcity of Bibles. The nourishment of the vast body of the Church is through teaching and preaching, and there may be a vast circulation of Bibles, and yet these Bibles unread and their contents undigested. (M. F. Sadler, M. A.)
Price lists made in heaven
People do not generally suppose that God has much to do with price-lists. They go up and down, and millions higgle over them every day, but no one thinks of anything Divine connected with them. But whether men realise it or not, price-lists are made in heaven. John hears the rates of corn and bread announced by the same heavenly powers by which these mystic horses are called into action. Whatever the weather, the crops, the quantities of money in the country, the extent of speculation in the market, or other subordinate causes may have to do with it, the prime and all-controlling cause is the decree of the throne. It is God from whom we have our daily bread, and it is by His will that it is plentiful and cheap, or scarce andcostly. (J. A. Seiss, D. D.)
