A seal of the book broken by the lamb
1. The breaking of the third seal.
Revelation 6:5-6
5 When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. 6 Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “Two pounds of wheat for a day’s wages, and six pounds of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”
i. “a dark horse”
This indicates “famine”.
Zechariah 6:2-6
2 The first chariot had red horses, the second black, 3 the third white, and the fourth dappled—all of them powerful. 4 I asked the angel who was speaking to me, “What are these, my lord?”
5 The angel answered me, “These are the four spirits[a] of heaven, going out from standing in the presence of the Lord of the whole world. 6 The one with the black horses is going towards the north country, the one with the white horses towards the west,[b] and the one with the dappled horses towards the south.”
Matthew 24:7
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
ii. “Two pounds of wheat for a day’s wages, and six pounds of barley for a day’s wages”
In those days, a day’s wage of a hired man was sufficient for one day’s food.
iii. “Do not damage the oil and the wine!”
In the aforementioned famine, we can expect the price of food to increase by ten times or more, but we see that God puts a limit on that famine.
The roots grow deep in the olive tree that yields oil and the grape vine that yields wine. So we see here the action to prevent the danger to oil and wine, by limiting the time of famine.
2. The breaking of the fourth seal.
Revelation 6:7-8
And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
i. “A Pale Horse”
A very quick thing that happens when someone dies is that he turns pale. Thus, this pale horse represents death and the name of the one riding on it is death.
ii. “Hell also followed him.”
Here we see that two horsemen are mentioned along with the pale horse, i.e. Death and Hades. Although the first three horsemen are not introduced, two horsemen related to the fourth horse are mentioned here.
iii. “To the dead – power was given to them over a fourth part of the earth”
It does not mean that they were given authority to kill a quarter of all the people living on earth.
Here it is mentioned that they were given ‘power over a quarter of the earth’.
So what is described as a quarter of the earth may be the area that is ‘under the rule of the Antichrist’ in the last days.
iv. “To die by fire, by famine, and by pestilence, and by the wild beasts of the earth.”
The Antichrist will first enter the world’s attention as the “prince of peace,” but very soon he will be the cause of war. A natural result of wars started by a greedy leader is famine, pestilence, wild beasts, and a large migration of human beings to death.
We will talk about “breaking the fifth and sixth seals” in the next section.