
“When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand in the presence of God; seven trumpets were given to them. Another angel, with a gold incense burner, came and stood at the altar. He was given a large amount of incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the gold altar in front of the throne. The smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up in the presence of God from the angel’s hand. The angel took the incense burner, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it to the earth; there were rumblings of thunder, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them.” (Revelation 8:1-6 HCSB)
For just a minute, shut out all the noise around you. Focus in on God, His love for you, and His mercy upon you. Shut out the noise of your busy life, for just a minute or two. No phone, no Internet, no interruptions, just your silent presence before God. Now, imagine what a half hour of absolute silence in heaven in the midst of this dramatic scene of God’s divine judgment must have been like. Some think this “interlude of silence” is used for dramatic effect. It would certainly get your attention. Some think it’s like the calm before the storm. I think it’s much more than either of those ideas.
I think we often associate noise with power, strength, and authority. In reality, I think the opposite is more often true. Silence is often indicative of God’s power, authority, and judgment. When you step into the very presence of God, you don’t get loud; you get quiet. I suspect that the half hour of silence in heaven at that moment is deafening. We’re expecting the din and cacophony of God’s acts of judgment to overwhelm our senses, but we get a half hour of silence instead. Perhaps this brief interlude before His judgment continues is a chance for the prayers of those who are finally repentant to join and mix with the prayers of those under the altar (see 6:9-11). Whatever the reason for the silence, just know that God’s actions are always consistent with His character and reflective of His will. Hang onto that fact.
If I told you that the seventh seal and all the trumpet and bowl judgments that are yet to be revealed are the fulfillment of the saints’ prayers, would it shock and surprise you? Let me take you back to a day that I’m certain the Apostle John remembers vividly. Jesus had been praying, and it appears, the disciples had been watching and listening. When He finished, they asked if He would teach them to pray like John the Baptist had taught his disciples. Jesus then taught them to pray like this: “Father, Your name be honored as holy. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread (or needs). And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone in debt to us. And do not bring us into temptation (see Lk. 11).”
Our desire for God’s honor and His kingdom should dominate our prayers. I think many of us tend to minimize the first half of that prayer and emphasize the second half of it. We’re often more interested in God meeting our needs and forgiving us than we are in His glory, His honor, and His kingdom reigning on this earth. I like the way Matthew says it, “may Your kingdom come and Your will be done on earth just as it is being done in heaven.” If our prayers are to be reflective of the model we received from Jesus, we MUST change how we pray, what we pray for, and how we desire God’s will by being obedient in our daily living. If you truly want God’s will, that will result in you being changed as you live in obedience to His will – not your own!
Yes, let that thought sink in for a minute. God’s people should desire and diligently pray for God’s will in their own life just as they diligently desire God’s will in the lives of others. You can and should pray for God’s will in the lives of others, but you MUST abandon your own will for God’s will in the way you live each day. To do otherwise is to be a hypocrite of the highest order and subject to divine discipline and judgment. Jesus reserved His harshest condemnation for the hypocritical Pharisees who claimed righteousness before God while living disobedient lives and being openly rebellious to God’s will and Word.
“You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:43-45 HCSB)
According to our Lord, we’re to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors. Can you imagine how radical that must have sounded to those who are dying at the hands of their enemies and suffering under their persecutors? Be honest, doesn’t that sound radical when we consider what that should mean for us and our prayer lives? But our prayers are to be focused on God’s name being honored. Our deepest desire must be that His kingdom rule and reign would come into this broken world of ours. And our heartfelt longing should be that His will would be done on this earth and in our own lives in the same way His will is being done in heaven.
Now, notice how this plays out before God’s throne: “Then I saw the seven angels who stand in the presence of God; seven trumpets were given to them.” This is not Clarence from “It’s a Wonderful Life” who is struggling to earn his wings. These are not your ordinary “run-of-the-mill” angels. These are THE seven angels that stand in the very presence of God and they are given seven trumpets. This is referred to as a divine passive – the seven trumpets are given to them by God and they are acting in His power and authority when they blow them and carry out His will. This harkens back to the reference in 6:17, “the great day of THEIR wrath has come! Who is able to stand?”
The heavenly half hour of silence is ending, and the angels who are acting under the authority and power of God prepare to blow their trumpets. But wait, “another angel, with a gold incense burner, came and stood at the altar. He was given a large amount of incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the gold altar in front of the throne.” Before the seven angels are permitted to blow their trumpets, there’s an act of heavenly worship we are given the opportunity to observe. Another angel is also “given” a large amount of incense, and he is to offer it along with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar that before the throne. This is why I spent time above reflecting on how we have been taught to pray and how we ought to pray. Are our prayers the sweet fragrance of worship to our God?
Christian prayer is one of the most misunderstood and misused aspects of living a life of faith in Jesus. I think we have a tendency to approach prayer in exactly the wrong way, the very manner which Jesus warned us about. He told us not to pray the way hypocrites and unbelievers pray. Hypocrites pray in order to be seen by others, and unbelievers babble on and on because they think they’ll be heard for their many words. Some pray to impress others, and most pray to get what they want. Jesus said, “Don’t be like them, because your Father knows the things you need before you ask Him.” The Apostle James tells us that we “ask and don’t receive because we ask with wrong motives, only wanting these things to fulfill our own evil desires (James 4:3).”
So, “the smoke from the incense with the prayers of the saints went up in the presence of God from the angel’s hand.” As I asked above, are our prayers the sweet fragrance of worship to our God? John tells us in his first letter, “Now this is the confidence we have before Him: Whenever we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked Him for.” (1 John 5:14-15 HCSB) Do we desire God’s will in our lives over our own will? Be careful answering that question. When we choose to sin, we’ve clearly answered the question with a resounding NO!
While I believe our salvation is very, very secure, it is certainly not meant to be static. Salvation is described in scripture as a new birth; you must be born again (Jn. 3:3). Theologically, this new life in Christ is referred to as regeneration. But a newborn baby should never stay like a newborn. A baby that is healthy, loved, nurtured, and taught will most certainly grow and develop physically, emotionally, relationally, and mentally. A newborn Christian that is spiritually healthy, loved, nurtured, and taught will also develop well and begin to take on the qualities and characteristics of Christ. Theologically, this process is referred to as sanctification. This process goes on throughout a Christian’s life and is, basically, ongoing growth in spiritual maturity. Eventually, we reach a point at which we die physically and we enter into the presence of our Lord. When that happens, we are rid of the physical body and its desires, and Christ completes in us what He began at our new birth. Theologically, this is called glorification.
But every Christian faces an adversary, the deceiver/accuser, whom we call Satan. He is unable to take away our salvation, but he loves to stunt our growth, impede our character development, and redirect our passions, dreams, and goals. In other words, he loves to make us doubt God’s love and His word and choose sin over obedience. By now, you know that I believe Revelation was written as a means of encouraging the churches of Asia Minor to overcome their doubts and remain faithful to Jesus in the face of persecution. Satan loves to make us think that God doesn’t hear our prayers so that he can sow seeds of doubt in our hearts and minds. When we begin to doubt God’s love, then we begin to question God’s goodness. When we begin to question God’s goodness, we choose doubt and sin over faith and obedience.
But the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up in the presence of God from the angel’s hand. Apparently, the prayers of these saints were full of faith and obedience. They desired for God’s kingdom to be fully realized and for His will to be done on earth, just as it is in heaven. I’d like to encourage you to make a conscious effort to change the way you pray. Instead of praying like God is some celestial Santa awaiting your personal wish list, pray that His kingdom would come and be fully realized in your life and in the life of our church. Pray that God’s name would not be used in a derogatory way but that He would be proclaimed as holy, righteous, and just. Pray that you and I would live out His will in our lives each day. Pray that our families, friends, coworkers, and neighbors would surrender to His kingdom rule over their lives and begin to live for Him, just like the angels in heaven do.
When we begin to pray like that and continue doing so, we will begin to see our view of sin and this world change.
Right now, I think we try to live lives of divided loyalty – divided between heaven and earth. But I would remind you that Jesus said we can’t really live that way. You can’t serve two masters; one will always have control over your heart and your desires. You will obey one and betray the other. Who will it be? Well, check on whose will you keep praying for in your life. That’s a dead giveaway as to which master you’re really serving.
Finally, notice that the prayers of the saints and the incense offered up to God are mixed with the fire from the altar and then hurled to earth. It would seem that God is getting ready to answer the prayers of those saints under the altar as thunder rumbled, lightning flashed, and an earthquake shook the earth. While we’re told to pray for our enemies, those prayers are to be specifically for God’s kingdom to come into their lives. When they continually reject His kingdom rule, they will ultimately face the wrath of His judgment.
Maybe you haven’t seen the connection between proper biblical prayer and God’s righteous judgment, yet. If we desire, pray for, and seek God’s kingdom rule “on the earth just as it is in heaven,” then what happens when His reign is rejected? What will God do when others choose their own will and their own way above His? God begins to bring our prayers to complete fulfillment. His kingdom rule will not, cannot be stopped. Whether you like it or not, God is sovereign, and all of creation will humbly submit to His will, or they will experience His wrathful judgment. Everything and everyone will kneel before Him, and they will kneel before the Lamb and will confess that He is God’s Son.
So, as the final seal is broken and the scroll begins to reveal its secrets, we have this half hour of silence in heaven. The seven angels who stand in the presence of God take the trumpets given to them and prepare to unleash the full fury of God’s wrath. Another angel takes the golden incense burner, and as he stands before the altar, he’s given a large amount of incense to mix with the prayers of the saints. The prayers of those first-century saints of Asia Minor are mixed with the prayers of the churches in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, Galilee, Samaria, Ethiopia, and Damascus. They’re also mixed with the prayers from the churches across the Roman Empire, throughout Egypt, Syria, and Greece. And those are mixed with the prayers of the churches down through the centuries and right up to our time and our own prayers. The angel then takes fire from off the altar and fills the incense burner, and as the sweet fragrance of the incense and our prayers waft up before our God, the angel turns and hurls it all to the earth…
I hope that does to you what it did to me as I wrote those words. It caused me to pause, to catch my breath, and to think about what God HAS done and what God IS doing. He’s not finished, not just yet. But He hears ALL of our prayers as they mix together with the incense: “Holy LORD, may your will be done on earth, even as it is being done in heaven. May you glorify Your name and the glorious name of Your Son through our service and sacrifice. Even so, COME Lord Jesus!” Scripture tells us that He hasn’t destroyed everything because He is patient, long-suffering, and doesn’t want anyone to miss out on His mercy and the glorious gift of His grace – Jesus, the LAMB of God who takes away the sin of the world.
This is Palm Sunday, and we begin that slow progression towards Easter morning and the glorious Son-rise that’s coming. I hope you can hear the crowds as they cry out: Hosanna! Glory to God in the Highest! Hosanna to the Son of David! Salvation is from our God. Those first rumblings of God’s wrath on man’s sin and rebellion are getting ready to break forth. Do you hear the thunder, see the flashes of lightning, and feel the ground shuddering beneath your feet?
Just think, God is about to finally answer our prayers!
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