Rev 8:1-5 Prayer

Intro

This is a golden censor…It has incense burning in it

And maybe you have seen in movies priest swinging these things chanting something in Latin

or you have been to a church where someone was burning incense

I mean right now you are more likely to find incense burning in a yoga studio than a protestant church

But this was an impotrant part of the Jewish liturgy.

And I want to explain this a bit for us today because where we are going in revelation today is just steeped in everything I am about to tell you.

In the book of Leviticus what we have is a priest manual…The priests job is to mediate between a sinful people and a Holy God…So how do you do that?

A sinful people are opposed to a Holy God. Its like two magnets push apart from one another….

But God doesn’t want that. He wants his people to be close to him

And how do you do that? Well the unholy can’t just come over to the Holy….There has to be a death to the old self

So God set up a system in which their sin would cost them something, but would temporarally make them holy

These people would have to make a sacrifice they would actually have to kill an animal.

And I want to show you how this would physically work.

Think of the temple like our church right?

When you come to church you take your slaughtered animal, whether it is a pidgin or a goat and you put it on the alter outside…This is like a big BBQ and it burns up. And your prayer is God, forgive me…Make me holy….

So the priest every day…so if we are keeping with the analogy of this church is the temple then I would be the priest…every day, I’d walk out into the temple courts and get a live coal from the fire, then I would mix it with incense and walk it to another alter in front of the holy of Holies…But the daily censor that you would use would be a silver one…not gold…

The holy of holies is where God dwelt

So every day I would take this coal and put it on the alter, mix it with incense and just as that incense rises up to God…It was symbolic of the prayers of God’s people being made before God…It signified the acceptance of the prayers of God’s people.

The incense were associated with the “prayers of God’s holy people”

Prayers of redemption

Prayers of salvation

That is what this smoke is all about

So every day the priest would do this with his silver censor, but one time a year the priest would take the golden censor and he would fill it with coals from the sacrificial fire and then take all of the incense that he could cary and bring it in and make atonement for all the people…This was called the Day of Atonement or Yom Kupor.

Leviticus 16 tells us this

Leviticus 16:12–13 ESV

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.

This is sort of the way that they would bring the sacrifice from outdoors to indoors…and The smoke of the sacrifice would be a covering for the priest.

This day stood out from all the rest because it was the day when the entire community was redeemed all at one time

It was the time when the priest would literally put his hand on the head of a goat and confess all of the sin of israel onto this goat

Do you get it? there was one time a year when sin transfered from a community of people onto a goat and then that goat was killed….

Do you get that thousands of years before Jesus, the jews did this ritual on an annual basis?

Its almost like God set this up so when it came to his son dying for the sins of humanity that there would be a recognition of almost like, I’ve seen this before!

All of this to say that the understanding of everyone in the early church was that the golden censor and the heaping amounts of incense are all about the day of atonement and the prayers of God’s Holy People!

Now let’s get to our text today:

Revelation 8:1–5 ESV

When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. 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.

5 verses…

Thats all I’ve got for you today

Mainly because while you read this and it might not seem like much, there is more crammed into these 5 verses than we would have time for in two sermons to unpack…

So first…If you remember

when the first 6 seals are opened…Evil is going crazy…It know its days are numbered so all of the forces of chaos go out of control…and the politic of empire really rears its ugly head

And the question is asked, who will you follow, the Lamb or the Empire? Where will your identity come from?

Then before the 7th seal is opened there is this huge scene…A great multitude from every tribe, nation and tongue are sealed before God They are saved and redeemed!

And now the 7th seal is cracked open

And what do we find out?

Revelation 8:1 ESV

When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.

So in Chapters 4-5 the opposite was true…

In heaven there are great shouts of Joy and continuous singing…Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God almighty!

Songs of singing

Worthy is the lamb who was slain!

Heaven is loud! A multitude of Angels all sining praises to Jesus

But now with the opening of this 7th seal everything stops and is completely silent for half an hour

And then the world is going crazy with the noises of war! the 4 horsemen are let loose on the world and war is so loud

So heaven is loud…Earth is loud…Can you imagine 30 Minutes of silence after that?

I mean to us a minute of Silence feels like an eternity

ONE MINUTE OF SILENCE

Didn’t that seem like forever?

Now I want to give you three reasons for silence and tell you this: The way revelation works is that these are all true…It’s not like, choose one of three of these but rather that they all work together.

Why is there silence in heaven?

1. Silence as an indication that God has heard the saints’ prayers

So if you remember back a few weeks ago, one of the seals is opened and what we hear is a reaction from the saints who are under the alter saying. How Long oh Lord? How long will the empire get its way?

How long will we continue to die at the hands of the horsemen?

We know that so much of what John was writing here is is quoting straight out of the book of Zechariah and in response to the prayers of those who are suffering…In response to the prayer of the oppressed in the book this is what it says

Zechariah 2:13 ESV

Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.

So this is an indication that God had heard their cry. So the call is to be silent because God is about to act on your prayers!

And I feel like there are times when we are like…God do you even hear me? I’ve been crying out for years…But what I love about these 5 verses are that they are a visual representation of God hearing us!

That God delights in hearing his people and responding!

2. Silence as an indication of a revelatory announcement by God

Now in the book of Ezekiel when God is about to speak the Cherubs or the angels that are in front of his throne “Stand still”

Ezekiel 1:24–25 ESV

And when they went, I heard the sound of their wings like the sound of many waters, like the sound of the Almighty, a sound of tumult like the sound of an army. When they stood still, they let down their wings. And there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads. When they stood still, they let down their wings.

So in Hebrew “Standing still” is a way of saying falling silent.

So the idea in revelation is that there is silence in heaven for half an hours because

1. God has heard our prayers

and 2. He is about to act! or pass judgment!

If you have ever been in a courtroom when the judge is about to have the verdict read, there is a pin-drop like silence…

Like you can hear a pin drop with how quiet it is in there.

So the chapter starts with this great anticipation of God moving

As a pastor I have sat with people who are super distressed and they are saying…I feel like God doesn’t hear me…I feel like God is not moving…Then they go on the discribe everything that happened and what they have been praying for

And for some people its like…Wait,…you are describing God moving…just not in the way that you wanted….You keep looking for a specific answer but God has been answering you his own way and you are so focused on what you want that you are missing it

And for some other people. I can empathize with them…It feels like God isn’t moving in their persistant prayers…So my response is don’t get discouraged…Look how much closer your walk with the Lord is…God will answer you, but maybe he wanted you to get nearer to him first.

Does my prayer time include silence and waiting?

Are you anticipating that God will speak

Or are you speaking so much that you’d never be able to hear from the Lord?

When my wife and I first got married she was the head of HR for a tech firm..

At like 24 years old she created an HR department from scratch and dealt with all the HR stuff for this growing tech company…She is amazing

But one time she told me that she realized that in Job interviews, whoever does the most talking thinks the interview went really well. even if it went poorly

And by the way that translates to every area of life…Whoever talks more usually thinks the meeting went great…

When I was raising up youth leaders all the time I was saying, now be careful in your groups that you dont talk the whole time, because that means the kids wont and durring the group time is where we want them talking the most….

After every sermon I think it always went great…But I do the most talking so of course I do right

Now think of your prayer time with the Lord, Do you rattle off a list and then say okay God thanks! Amen…

Or do you sit silent before the lord and wait for him to speak?

So after mother’s Day…in a couple of weeks we are going to cover nearly two chapters of revelation but wherever the Bible slows down…we should slow down

Ecclesiastes 5:2 ESV

Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.

Jesus even says this in Matthew 6:7

Matthew 6:7 ESV

“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.

Prayer doesn't need to be made a spectacle.

The person that Jesus commends in scripture just prayed from the heart and that person’s prayer was

“Lord, Have mercy on me, a sinner” a 7 word prayer

Some people pray for hours on end, good for you if you do that

Some have a very simple and basic prayer life, awesome

The point is that it is not about how many words you say but how much you listen!

Because God loves you and part of your relationship with him is listening…

Ok…All of that on the 30 minutes of silence in heaven

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.

Ok now do we see this You Kupor Golden Censor language being used?

But before we get back on that…You see that there are seven trumpets given to seven angels…We need to Pause here because what I want to show you is that there are 3 sets of 7 judgments in the book of revelation and they all sort of replay the 7 seals…

Out of the 7th seal comes the 7 trumpets and out of the 7th trumpet comes the 7 bowl judgments it has been described like a Russian Nesting doll So we will begin looking at these things next week

But in the rest of the text it is all about prayer

The golden censor, the smoke and incense with the prayer of the saints

and then this angel takes the censor fills it with sacrificial fire and throws it on the earth…

What does it all mean?

Prayer is extremely costly

It is a participation in the sacrificial fire that cleanses and purifies by consuming all that is offered to God.

True prayer cannot withhold anything of self from the consuming fire of God’s holiness.

I feel like this sensor with burning coals is such a good way to reconcile this…

God Holiness is a consuming fire…In light of his holiness, who can stand?

So in prayer we radically abandon ourselves to a Holy God.

In prayer we offer our whole self to the Lord…

See going back to Yom Kupor, the day of atonement, this is what it was…You confessed everything before a Holy God and you put your sacrifice on the alter.

Prayer is costly, because if I am honest there are some things I dont want to offer

There are some places that are off limits

there are just some areas I dont want to confess

But this is what Prayer is….Coming before a holy God and realizing that his ways are not my ways, and offering my whole self

prayer is a radical relinquishment of oneself to God’s purposes.

The prayers of the saints are laid upon the altar in the presence of God.

This kind of prayer is not a means of getting God to do what we desire,

but a relinquishment of our lives to what God desires for us and our world.

The prayer of the vision is much more a mode of being in relationship with God than a means of manipulating God to fulfill our, or even his, purposes.

I mean, have you done that…I feel like sometimes our life is ok…It’s Sunday…Ok there is a sermon that resinates with me…I need to abandon everything to the Lord

And then by Tuesday you are kind of back to life as usual right?

What do you need to relinquish to Jesus this morning…He relinquished everything for you on the cross

And then the picture I love is that an angel takes the fire and the smoke…which are the prayers of the saints…and throws it back down on the earth

Our relinquished prayer becomes the means through which the presence of God is released in the fallen world in which we live.

Like Israel, and even like the martyrs under the altar (6:9–10), we tend to think of prayer as getting God to fulfill his purposes in the world.

The vision reveals that our lives are the means through which God acts to fulfill his purposes in our world.

Because what happens here?

God hears the prayers of his people and the angel throws them back down to earth like fire…Our heartfelt relinquishment of self becomes the means by which God releases his presence on the world.

For example, we tend to think of intercessory prayer as getting God to do something for another person.

Rarely do we realize that genuine intercession is the offering of ourselves to God that we may become God’s presence for the other person

There is something about these 5 verses that I love

It is this old testament picture of the priest with the censor taking the sacrificial fire over to the lord and the lord hearing our prayers of deliverance

It is exactly what has happened in Revelation 8:1-5

Its kind of an eternal day of atonement

It’s a reminder that the Lord hears you when you pray

He knows you

He loves you’

and that he takes your cry and will ultimately hurl it back down to the earth…And the point is that prayer is not only heard by a holy God but changes us in the process…

So here is what I want to invite you to today:

On your notes there is a yellow post-it

In the same way that the old testament priests would lay the prayers of their people on the alter

We dont need that any more…Jesus is our high priest. He advocates for you before the father…

So when I invite you to communion, I want to invite you to leave yourself and take Jesus

So on that yellow post it, what do you need to give to the Lord? What are you still hanging on to? What fears do you have?

It is in giving your own self up that you become the kind of person that God wants to use to transform this world!

Maybe there is something you need to relinquish this morning…It’s that one thing that you are holding back from the Lord…You need to write it on this

Communion:

Open to all

On the night he was betrayed