The Prayers of the Saints

INTRODUCTION

It has been some time since we were together, so allow me to do a bit of a review.

There are seven cycles in the book of Revelation and we have been through two of them thus far.

Each cycle shows us something about history and its culmination with Christ’s return from a different perspective.

So in Cycle 1, Christ is in the midst of 7 churches and we get a picture of who He is.

We also get a snapshot of those 7 churches, which represent all of the churches that exist between Jesus’ first coming and second coming

In Cycle 2, there is a worship scene in heaven and God the Father holds a scroll with all of history written on it.

The scroll is completely sealed and there is only One who is worthy to open it—that is Christ.

And as the seals are opened, we saw history unfold and we got a glimpse of what the world is like until the return of Christ.

There will be conquest. There will be war. There will be famine. And there will be death. We saw this in the first four seals.

Christians will be martyred and crying out for justice. We saw this as the fifth seal was opened.

And then Christ will return and judge the world. And we saw this in the opening of the 6th seal.

But His people will not be touched by that judgment. This was clear in chapter 7.

They are the 144,000. The sealed church. His ranks on earth carrying out His will.

And ultimately, they will worship Him in heaven with the angels as the great multitude from every nation.

Cycle 2 ends with half an hour of silence in heaven. An eerie awe over God’s plan and the weight of God’s judgment.

This is where we pick it up tonight.

And I love this passage that we are looking at tonight. It is just a few verses.

But I love it because it is a bit of an interlude. A bridge between Cycle 2 and Cycle 3.

And in these few verses, we get a really neat look into the meaning and purpose and importance of prayer.

Let’s read Revelation 8:2-5

Revelation 8:2–5 ESV

Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

THE TRUMPETS (v. 1-2)

Verse 2 begins with John seeing seven angels who are standing before God and they have been given seven trumpets.

These trumpets will be the main literary device used to show us what is going to unfold in the 3rd cycle.

Just like the 7 churches were in Cycle 1

Just like the 7 seals in Cycle 2

And what the trumpets will do is show us the distresses and disasters that God will allow to come upon the earth throughout history

And how all of these distresses and disasters are little previews of what is to come in the Final Judgment when Christ returns.

The trumpet is very important in the Bible.

When God gives the Law to the people at Sinai, the Law is accompanied by a trumpet blast

Exodus 19:16 “On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled.”

Exodus 19:19 “And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder.”

In Numbers 10, two silver trumpets are made for the purpose of gathering God’s people

Numbers 10:2-3 ““Make two silver trumpets. Of hammered work you shall make them, and you shall use them for summoning the congregation and for breaking camp. And when both are blown, all the congregation shall gather themselves to you at the entrance of the tent of meeting.”

When the year of Jubilee came and debt was forgiven and slaves were freed every seventh year, how was is commemorated?

Leviticus 25:9 “Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land.”

In Joel 2, Israel's Southern Kingdom, Judah, is weak from frequent military conquests in their land and agricultural hardships.

And Joel is warning them that their weakness a symptom of their spiritual state. He warns them that judgment is on the way.

Joel 2:1 “Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near,”

So when he calls the trumpet to be blown, it is a blast of warning to Judah that judgment is on the way.

And of course, the New Testament teaches us that Christ’s return will be proclaimed with a loud trumpet blast

Matthew 24:31 “And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

1 Corinthians 15:52 “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.”

But for the purposes of understanding Revelation 8, there is one text that seems to be of the most importance when it comes to the trumpet in biblical history.

It can be found in Joshua 6, when Israel conquered Jericho by the power of the Lord.

The time had come for Israel to enter the Promised Land. The wilderness wandering was over.

But one of the first enemies that needed to be dealt with in the land was Jericho. They had many mighty men behind high, strong walls.

Joshua didn’t have tanks or guns or air support. But he had the strength of the Lord.

He was to have all the soldiers march around the city while seven priests carried seven trumpets

And they were to do that for six days.

And then on the 7th day, the trumpet sounded and the people shouted and the walls came down and Israel took the city.

To the people of Israel, the sound of the trumpet was the sound of victory.

To the people of Jericho, it was a warning of impending judgment.

We certainly see a parallel for the New Testament church that Revelation is written to.

The church has been rescued from slavery by a better Moses named Jesus.

He leads us through life with a better cloud and flame—His Holy Spirit.

And before we can fully enter into the Promised Land and dwell in it, we have work that must be done.

And that work is to conquer the nations of the world in the name of Christ

But we do not do it with swords. We do it with love and preaching of the Gospel.

Warning people of the judgment to come and calling the to repentance

Joel Beeke: The people shouted, and the walls of Jericho collapsed. That is what God is going to do in the world. At present, God is encircling the stronghold of the enemy. When the last trump sounds, however, earth will crumble, and the kingdoms of this earth will become the kingdoms of God and His Christ.

We will keep Jericho in mind as we talk through the trumpets and we will keep comparison to the New Testament church in mind as well.

But to summarize verse 2—we have seven angels with seven trumpets.

Trumpets that are an important literary device with lots of biblical meaning for the purpose of showing us history and the 2nd coming from yet another perspective.

WHO PRAYS? (v. 3-4)

But we really won’t get into any of the trumpets and their meaning until we get to verse 6. Tonight, we will stop after verse 5.

And that is because I don’t want us to miss this brilliant bit of the vision that teaches us so much about prayer with just a few words.

If we go back to the beginning of the chapter, we had that sudden silence after all the noise of Revelation.

We had that silence in heaven for about half an hour.

Awe over what God has done and what He is about to do.

And when is that silence broken?

You see it in verse 3--

Revelation 8:3 “And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne,”

The first “noise” we see to break the silence is the prayers of the saints.

Who are the saints? Who are these people who are praying?

The Greek word for saint is hagios. It means a most holy thing.

So when John says, “The prayers of all the saints,” he is surely just talking about strong believers right? Because “a most holy thing,” is going to make a lot of us feel like we don’t fit the description.

Well actually, the reality is that if you are a believer in Christ, you are a saint.

Your sin has been atoned for in Christ’s death. He has received your sin punishment. You have received His righteousness.

You have been made holy by Christ. You are a saint.

Now, to be clear, you are still a sinner too and God is sanctifying you and separating you from your sin.

But just because you are still being sanctified, it doesn’t change that you are holy in the eyes of God because of Christ’s death and you are a saint.

You have been called out of the world by God’s grace and He has set you apart as His own.

His most precious holy thing.

So the answer to the question is that the saints are Christians. The prayers being talked about here are your prayers, my prayers, Billy Graham’s prayers, Augustine’s prayers, John Calvin’s prayers, etc… It’s the prayers of all the Christians throughout all the ages.

This brings us to our first teaching point tonight:

1. God hears all the prayers of all the saints (v. 3-4).

God hears each and every prayer of His children. And this text is evidence of that. The prayers rise before God in verse 5.

This is a special covenant privilege that only believers enjoy.

That isn’t to say that God never hears the prayers of unbelievers.

God might choose to glorify Himself by hearing the prayers of unbelievers and even answering those prayers, but He is not obligated to because He has no promise with them. No covenant.

God has promised to hear all the prayers of the saints and does hear all the prayers of the saints because the death of the Lord Jesus has made our prayers acceptable to the Father.

The blood of the New Covenant qualifies our prayers for the throne of God.

Charles Spurgeon said, “The goal of prayer is the ear of God.”

It is the blood of Christ that sees to it that prayer reaches its goal and the petitions of Christians are always welcomed by the Father.

The prayers of the saints don’t appear in a vacuum.

There is an 8th angel who appears, in addition to the seven with the trumpets.

This angel stands at the altar with a golden censer and he has been given much incense to offer to on the altar with the prayers of the saints.

The altar being referred to here is the altar of incense in the Holy Place in the tabernacle/temple.

Exodus 40:5 “And you shall put the golden altar for incense before the ark of the testimony, and set up the screen for the door of the tabernacle.”

So on the Day of Atonement, a censer of incense would be carried inside of the veil and the cloud of incense covered the mercy seat so that the priest would be shielded from judgment.

Leviticus 16:12-13 “And he shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the Lord, and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small, and he shall bring it inside the veil and put the incense on the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is over the testimony, so that he does not die.”

So that is the image we are supposed to get.

Some, including maybe the finest Baptist preacher to ever live, Charles Spurgeon, believes this 8th angel is Jesus, Himself—our Great High Priest.

I don’t think that is the case because I think Jesus is pretty clearly identified whenever He shows up in Revelation. You don’t have to hunt for Him. It is clear.

Instead, I think this is an angel who is serving like a priest in Jesus’ High Priestly ministry.

And the angel has come to add in the incense of Christ’s intercessory work with our prayers, so that they would rise to the Father.

In Exodus 30, we get a description of the priestly work of intercession.

Exodus 30:10 “Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once a year. With the blood of the sin offering of atonement he shall make atonement for it once in the year throughout your generations. It is most holy to the Lord.””

Without atonement, the people could not be heard. They would be separated from God. Aaron, the High Priest, would enter the Most Holy Place as an intercessor to represent the people before God and to make sacrifice.

And when the people repented and trusted in God’s mercy, the sin would be removed and they could draw near to the Lord.

But now, in the New Covenant, we have a better High Priest than Aaron.

Hebrews 9:11–15 (ESV)

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.

The reality that was foreshadowed by the High Priest entering into the Most Holy Place to intercede once a year has come to fruition in Christ.

Christ delivers all of the good things that God promised His children in the New Covenant

He did it by offering His superior, sacrificial blood once and for all

And He did it by entering into the heavenly sanctuary to atone for us—not just the copy on earth

And now, He has obtained for you an eternal salvation and unending access to the throne of God in the heavens.

And with that access, you are able to pray to God.

So without the priestly work of Christ, which is represented by the angel and the censor in Revelation 8:3, we would have no guarantee that God hears our prayers. Can you imagine living with that sort of hopelessness?

But by the merits of Christ, we are sure that our prayers are heard and accepted by the Father.

We should try and remember this each time we pray.

We should remember that if our prayers didn’t rest on the altar stained with the blood of Christ, they would live die at the ceiling. They would not rise up to God.

Without the High Priest adding in His intercession, our deficient prayers would mostly be like lemmings jumping off a cliff into nothingness.

We should thank God that He hears us when we pray because the Son laid down His life and poured out His blood.

WHY PRAY? (v. 3-5)

Now, with all of that said, with the context of Revelation in mind, some might ask, “Why should I pray?”

In chapters 4-6, we saw God holding a scroll with all of history already recorded on it.

Then Jesus opened the seals to that scroll and we saw history unfold.

Well, if everything that is going to happen is already decreed by the Father and written on the scroll, what is the point of praying? Isn’t everything fixed?

Well, let’s start by commending good theology before we sort through the implications of it.

If you think that everything God has decreed will come to pass, you are believing good theology.

Isaiah 46:8–11 (ESV)

“Remember this and stand firm,

recall it to mind, you transgressors,

remember the former things of old;

for I am God, and there is no other;

I am God, and there is none like me,

declaring the end from the beginning

and from ancient times things not yet done,

saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,

and I will accomplish all my purpose,’

calling a bird of prey from the east,

the man of my counsel from a far country.

I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;

I have purposed, and I will do it.

When we see the Lamb opening the seals in chapter 6, the events written on the scroll begin to occur. Why?

Because the sovereign will of God will be carried out on the earth down to each detail.

He has decreed it in the scroll and He will bring it to pass through His plan, which is all about the glory of His Son.

But if that is the case, you might think, “What is the point of praying then?”

“If everything is already decreed by Him and it will come to pass, does prayer really do anything?”

This is a conundrum that Christians face.

Unless you believe God has chosen not to know the future, which you shouldn’t because it is wrong, you have to reconcile that God has already decreed the end from the beginning and the fact that we are called by Him to pray.

And amazingly, I think this little paragraph at the beginning of Revelation 8 can do the job of settling it in our minds.

So watch how the events unfold in the passage.

The prayers of all the saints are on the altar (v. 3)

The incense of Christ’s intercession is added in (v. 3)

The prayers of the saints rise up before God from the hand of the angel (v. 4)

The rising of the prayers insinuates that God is pleased with the prayers and accepting them.

And then what immediately happens? The angel fills the censer with fire from the altar and throws it down to earth and there is thunder and rumbling and lightning and and earthquake.

This is apocalyptic imagery here.

The fire represents God’s judgment.

We know that because it is similar language to the judgment we see in Ezekiel when the man of linen is tossing burning coals on the city:

Ezekiel 10:2 “And he said to the man clothed in linen, “Go in among the whirling wheels underneath the cherubim. Fill your hands with burning coals from between the cherubim, and scatter them over the city.” And he went in before my eyes.”

It is a preview of the judgment that is to come when the seven angels blow the seven trumpets.

The thunderstorm and the earthquake is very similar what we saw in chapter 6.

Revelation 6:12 “When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood,”

In Revelation, it is common for the 2nd coming and judgment to be signaled by storms and earthquakes.

It happens again in chapters 11, 16 and 19.

The point is to show that as God pours out His wrath on sinners, creation itself will be coming apart. And that lets us know that the judgment is definitely from God because who else has the power to tear creation apart?

So do you see how this has played out?

There is silence in heaven. Then God’s people pray and He responds to their prayers by acting in justice. Prayers that He hears because the intercession of Christ has made them acceptable.

So even though everything is decreed and written on a scroll in Revelation 4-6, here we have the prayers of the saints bringing about judgment. How can both be true?

How can everything be decreed AND at the same time, our prayers have an impact on God’s actions?

The only way that it works is if God has sovereignly worked the prayers of His people into His plan.

It only works if we understand that God has not just decreed from eternity past what will happen, He has also decreed that our prayers would be a part of the means by which things happen.

I will quote Joel Beeke again, who says, “He has ordained the end, but also the means to the end. And prayer is a very important means.”

So here is our second teaching point for the night:

2. God uses all the prayers of all the saints (v. 3-5).

I think this transforms the way that we look at prayer.

We might be tempted to look at prayer as a way to change God’s mind. This is not a healthy approach because it isn’t consistent with what we know of God in the Bible.

Numbers 23:19 says “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?”

James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

Prayer is not about grabbing the wrist of God and twisting it behind His back until He gives you what you want.

Prayer is more about us learning to depend on God and having our minds changed to line up with His will and His decrees.

The old cliche is that “Prayer changes things.”

That is partly true. It changes things inasmuch as God has ordained that it would.

ILLUSTRATION: One way we can illustrate this is to think about a little boy who goes fishing but he doesn’t haven’t an anchor.

So before he goes out to fish, he ties the john boat to the shore using a long rope.

Once he is done fishing, he pulls the rope in order bring the boat back to shore.

From the boy’s perspective, he might feel like he is pulling the shore to him, but in reality, he is pulling himself to the shore.

That is how it is when we are praying to God.

We are not moving and manipulating God to do what we want Him to do. In praying to Him, we are actually pulling ourselves closer to Him and aligning ourselves with what He has already decreed.

So prayer changes things so much as God has willed it, but prayer is always changing us.

And in the case of Revelation 8, it is exciting to know that God has ordained our prayers to be a part of the timeline for His Son’s return and the judgment that is coming on the earth.

Why pray for Jesus to return if the time is already fixed?

Because in praying for His return, He will change your heart to be prepared for His return.

But also, because He has ordained the prayers of His people as a means to bring about His return and His justice.

If that doesn’t motivate you to pray, I don’t know what will.

GOD’S POWER (v. 3-5)

Let’s bring it home by noticing all of the divine help in this passage. I want us to see that the real power in our prayers comes from God.

We have already covered the intercessory help of the Son. Without the priestly ministry of Jesus, you and I have no prayer life. So we can start there—we get divine help from the priestly work of the 2nd Person of the Trinity.

But we also see that there are seven angels around and then the 8th angel with the censer.

Hebrews 1:13-14 “And to which of the angels has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”? Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?”

So the author of Hebrews gives us a look at an angel’s job description.

Angels are beings who minister on behalf of God and their ministry is for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation—God’s people. The church throughout the ages.

This squares with what we read in Psalm 91:11-12

Psalm 91:11–12 ESV

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.

So the heavenly picture we get are angels at the throne of God, waiting for the prayers of the saints to rise up like incense to the Lord, eager to get orders for the Lord so that they can go and serve for the sake of the church.

How comforting and awe-inspiring is it to know that angels carry out God’s will as His people pray?

To know that God is unleashing his army of heavenly beings for the purpose of helping the church accomplish its mission for the Lord.

So we have the Son and we have angels, dispatched by God for the sake of the church, and then we can turn to Romans for even more evidence of God’s help in our prayer life.

Romans 8:26 “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”

So just as Christ is interceding for us from heaven, we have the Spirit here to help us on earth.

When our words fall short and the stress or the joy of life is too much for us to articulate, the Spirit is there to assist us with His own intercessory ministry.

So we have the Son interceding in heaven. We have the Father dispatching His angels. We have the Spirit helping us when we don’t have the words.

Do you see how the power of God is being employed in the prayers of His people?

This should motivate us to pray all the more.

Final teaching point for tonight:

3. God empowers all the prayers of all the saints (v. 3-5).

CONCLUSION

Why do we have this here in Revelation? Why don’t we go straight from the silence in heaven to the sound of trumpets blasting?

Well first of all, we don’t see that because that isn’t what John saw. He is relaying to us what he actually saw.

But why would God see to it that this was included?

Because the people listening to this message needed to hear it.

Many of them would be thrown into prison for their faith. Some of them would be arrested and beaten and tortured for their identifying with Christ.

Some of them would even lose their lives and be martyred for their faith

So in the midst of all their suffering and their pain, God wants them to understand the power of prayer.

That Christ’s ministry has made their prayers acceptable to the Father.

That our prayers are a part of God’s great plan to bring this world to a conclusion and glorify His Son in the process

That God Himself is pouring out His help and His power into our prayer lives

This would have been a great encouragement to them as they faced the Great Tribulation

These people were a despised minority in the Roman Empire.

They were accused of turning the world upside down (Acts 17:6)

They were preaching their way through the known world, boldly proclaiming Christ to Jews and Gentiles, alike

And when Satan and the government and the culture pushed back against them with threats and beating and even killing some of their number, what did they turn to for help?

Acts 4:23–31 ESV

When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, “ ‘Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed’— for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

They prayed. They knew that is where their power came from.

And their prayer was already a part of God’s plan. And their prayers was acceptable by the ministry of Christ. And their prayer was powerful by the help of God.

This provides the model for us. Listen to this quote from Ben Patterson:

Churches can run without prayer. Whole denominations can run without prayer. The question is: Is what they’re doing worth doing if they can do it without prayer?

Ben Patterson

Deepening Your Conversation with God (1991)

Ben Patterson

We are the workmanship of Christ. He had created us as new men and women in Christ Jesus. And He has given work to us.

That work is fulfilling the Great Commission.

Making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Triune God and teaching them everything He commanded us

And what we have seen in Revelation is that we are doing this work in this midst of conquest, war, famine and death in the world. And we do this work as we ourselves are being persecuted.

But if we want to be faithful, we just need to stick to God’s plan.

To march around the city, lifting our voices in prayer

Soon the trumpet will blast and the walls will come down

But until then, we pray as we work to fulfill our mission.

Let’s do that now.