No, Inflation and Higher Gas Prices Aren’t a Sign That Armageddon Is Near

Gas goes up. Groceries go up. And right on cue, someone reaches for Revelation:

“A quart of wheat for a denarius.” (Rev. 6:6)

See? The black horse. Armageddon must be close.

Is it that simple? Or is something getting skipped?

Revelation isn’t a grab bag of signs you pull out when the news turns bad. It’s a sequence: white horse, red, black, then pale. The black horse — famine, inflated prices — rides third. Something is supposed to come first.

For the sake of argument, grant Watchtower’s reading of that first rider: the white horse is Christ, enthroned in 1914. Invisibly.

And here’s where it collides with Watchtower’s own Bible — the New World Translation.

In the NWT, Jesus tells his followers not to fall for a hidden arrival:

“Therefore, if people say to you, ‘Look! He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out; ‘Look! He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it.” (Matt. 24:26)

This next verse anchors the “invisible presence” teaching. Ironically, the NWT translates parousia here as “presence” — yet Jesus immediately compares that presence to lightning flashing across the sky, hardly the description of something hidden, or visible only to a select few:

“For just as the lightning comes out of the east and shines over to the west, so the presence of the Son of man will be.” (Matt. 24:27)

Three verses later:

“Then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will beat themselves in grief, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” (Matt. 24:30)

And Revelation:

“Look! He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, and those who pierced him; and all the tribes of the earth will beat themselves in grief because of him. Yes, Amen.” (Rev. 1:7)

Line them up:

• Matthew 24:26 — don’t believe claims of a hidden arrival.

• Matthew 24:27 — the parousia is like lightning.

• Matthew 24:30 — they will see the Son of Man.

• Revelation 1:7 — every eye will see him.

Taken together, the cumulative imagery consistently points toward a public, manifest event. Revealed — not concealed. In Watchtower’s own Bible.

Taking their reading at face value:

• The white horse is Christ.

• The white horse rides first.

• The black horse rides third.

• Therefore Christ’s arrival must come before the famine.

Yet Jesus describes that arrival as lightning across the sky, seen by all.

Watchtower says it happened invisibly — noticed by no one until they explained it decades later.

The contradiction isn’t with history. It isn’t even with 1914. It’s with a way of reading prophecy that requires invisible events to explain visible ones.

So if the third horseman proves the prophecy is unfolding, where is the visible first rider who began the sequence?

Inflation can be explained by economics, war, trade, and supply chains. It is not evidence that Christ arrived — invisibly — and that nobody noticed.

Brick by brick, the Tower comes down.