The Third Seal
When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come and see.” So I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine.”
Revelation 6:5-6
In the physical, this seal deals with famine. Food will become expensive and scarce. In this seal, God sets the price; He tells satan what the price will be. Not more, not less. And the price requires the person to work all day for just his daily bread. And this is to cast man on God in dependence, because unless he has a large savings account, he will not be able to satisfy his other wants and needs in any other way. God wants to draw hearts to Himself, so this works to His advantage.
Each seal judgment is righting an injustice on earth. And the wrong being called out here is that the worker is not being paid properly for his labor. In the unrighteous marketplace, when inflation is in play, the person who sells the good reaps the profit from the increased price, even if he bought it at a low price. He’ll sell high. The worker then must pay high prices for goods, even though he is paid low wages for his services. We see this in all areas of our society, from exporting labor internationally, to whatever else. The circumstances of this seal calls this unrighteousness out, and many suffer as God is righting this wrong.
The seal also implies scarcity of spiritual food, as well. If you look at the parable of the ten virgins, five did not have enough oil, so they had to go to the merchants and buy it. Spiritual victuals will be rare and costly in these days. Come buy and eat. Take freely from the living waters now while you still can.
The five virgins had oil in themselves. The admonition hidden within this is to have the real bread, the real food, the word of God in you, so that when scarcity comes, you’ll be able to sustain yourself. Jesus said, “Have salt in yourselves,” (Mark 9:50) to salt the world around you. If the salt hath lost its saltiness, wherewith shall it be salted? He wants us to be salt and light in the world around us. But if we don’t have it in ourselves, we’ll have to go to others to get it.
Right now you can go on Facebook and some of us are posting free salt and light all over the place. You can get it if you want it. But when the marketplace and social media are strictly controlled, as they will be in a few months, during this seal, it will be harder for you and cost you more effort to find the salt and light. Fill up now! Enrich yourselves now while it is freely available to you and overflowing.
The significance of the phrase "Do not harm the oil and the wine" is
discussed in The Prophetic Word Made Even More Sure.