Revelation 6:5,6 says "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 beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine."

At the time these verses were written on denarius was about 1 day’s wages, and a measure of wheat or barley was about a quart, about enough flour to make 2 loaves of bread.

The balance or scales in the hand of the Rider of the Black Horse represents commerce and trade and of course “Black” means a dark time for the economy.

Do you see the pattern here?

Revelation 13:15, 16 says "He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads". Now if you cannot buy or sell, then you will have to do something else.

Now I know many people feel that before this transpires we, the followers of Messiah will be “Raptured”; and although I don’t agree with this position, that is not my point here. Some say that God will send manna from heaven to feed believers. That is a possibility also. But I think we should keep in mind that God has given us warnings, he has also given us abilities to take care of ourselves and our loved ones.

Now, with that said, we will be looking at what God has taught us, my family.

We started our walk with the Lord in the mid-80’s. It started with a vision that was given to me, but the vision had been given to Linda, my wife, in part years before.

The vision was, I think, personal. It was how God wanted us to live our lives. It was how the end times would unfold for us. It was for us, our family, a call to prepare a place of refuge and sanctuary for all those that the Lord would send.

In this series of articles we will try to help others to see the pit falls and the obstacles that await them if and when they try to live their lives off the grid, out of the main stream of society.

How will you obtain that quart of flour if you don’t make or have enough money to buy it?

THE BASICS

First, these articles will be written from my personal point of view, and God willing, my wife and family will contribute their own personal thoughts on the topics discussed here.

Where will you live? We have lived in many areas of the country. God has lead us into many different areas for our teaching and to experience different cultures and ways of life we had not known before. He moved us around for the sole purpose of learning.

First, and foremost a person needs to know that God is in all the decisions you are making.

THE PLACE

Where you live is not as important as how you live.

Try to be debt free before you start on this way of life. If you have debt you will not be able to live on your own. You will be tied to this world and the world system.

Many times a person overloads their ability to become independent because of debts. A person has to look at their circumstance and decide how long it is going to take them to become independent from the world.

2 .Is where you are living gong to work for the task that is ahead of you? How do you heat your home? If you live in a cold climate, are you able to heat your home with a fuel that YOU can provide for yourself? Wood is a good alternative, but is it available to you? By local ordinances, are you able to burn wood? How much will you need? How long will the trees available to you for harvest last? Could you grow a large garden on the land you own and trade some of that food for firewood? Living in the North is more challenging that living in the South for a number of reasons. We will try to address these issues.

3. How will you pay your land taxes? This is a problem we will all have to deal with. If we live long enough, there will come a time when without the “mark” we won’t be able to pay our taxes.

So what will you do? Can you get someone else to pay the taxes on your place? Can you put a large amount of money in an escrow account to pay your taxes? Will you trust God to make provision for this problem?

4. Before a person relocates to a new area, it is important that you check out how local laws will affect the way of life you are planning to lead. Sometimes moving isn’t any better than staying where you are because of the local political climate. If your neighbors are opposed to a self-sufficient life style, you could be in trouble before you get started.

Along those same lines, your family can be even more of a problem than neighbors.

LIVESTOCK

We will get into livestock in great detail, but for now these are some things to consider. Why are you going to have animals? Food, clothing, to barter with, or as pets. Or just because you think it’s cool to have a bunch of critters around the farm looking like they are doing something important? Animals are a lot of work. They take lots of time and they eat all the time. Speaking from experience, if you can’t provide everything needed to sustain your animals, don’t have them.

Keeping animals seems important, and in some cases it can be. But in many cases it’s just our desire to get out of the city, have a small farm and animals.

We can’t cover EVERYTHING about caring for your animals here. The idea is to get you to think before you leap. Do your research, learn everything you can about the animals you intend to have BEFORE you get them.

We can try to answer questions for you or point you in the right direction for resources for information you need.

-Julian Hickok
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