REVELATION 6:5-6
Read Revelation 6:5-6.
As the judgments escalate, the next seal is opened bringing with it famine. The picture of famine is given in the scales and the cost of grain. Apparently a day’s worth of food will be all that one will be able afford, the scarcity of grain raising the price of this normally abundant commodity. The command to be careful with the oil and the wine may be seen as God’s limit to the famine. Oil and wine were normally staples of eastern culture. For a famine to be so bad as to affect the supply of oil and wine would create perhaps one of the most severe famines possible. But God in His grace put limits on the hardship. He supplied enough for the time being. We have to remember that at this point in the Tribulation, it is still early. The heat will be turned up gradually as the seals progress.
As I now understand it, we are still somewhere in the first half of Daniel’s 70th week (cf. Dan. 9:24-27), otherwise known as the Tribulation period. A few days back, I noted that the seals either began with the second half of the Tribulation, or perhaps lead up to the second half of the Tribulation period. After careful study of Matthew 24, and the enlistment of some scholarly works, I believe the whole structure of the book of Revelation and the end times is built upon the framework of the 7 seals. From the beginning of tribulation to the end and to the return of Christ, all is captured in the 7 seals. When the seal judgments are laid over Jesus’ description of the end times presented in Matthew 24, the 6th seal (as we will see again later) must follow after the first half of the Tribulation. This is because Jesus’ description of the 6th seal (Matt. 24:29) follows the introduction of the “Abomination of Desolations”, which we know with certainty from Dan. 9:27 will signal the beginning of the second half of the Tribulation. I will explain this more as we journey further into the seals and other judgments (i.e. trumpet and bowl judgments) in the coming days and weeks. For now it is good to recognize that while things will look bad during this period of the third seal, it will not be enough to turn many to Christ in repentance. For such as these, things will have to get worse in order for them to wake up.
