Revelation 8:1-5

What would make you want to PRAY more?

Prayer is hard work. It is hard for us because the sin and weakness in us causes us to struggle with it. It sometimes seems that our prayers go as far as the ceiling and then fall to the floor.

Or, it seems to our minds like, “This isn’t accomplishing anything.”

Or, God can’t possibly be pleased with my praying and certainly won’t hear and answer it.

Or, Prayer is such hard work that I must not know how to pray.

Prayer is also hard because the Devil KNOWS how important and powerful prayer is and does all he can to discourage us in our praying.

That is often how WE see prayer.

BUT IT IS NOT HOW GOD SEES OUR PRAYING.

To help us see prayer HIS WAY, God has put in the Bible one of the most amazing pictures imaginable...so we will KNOW how important and privileged and powerful prayer is and...KEEP ON PRAYING...and pray even MORE!

Revelation 8:1-5

1 When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. 2 Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. 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, 4 and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. 5 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.

Chapter 8 of Revelation begins with Jesus, the Lamb, opening the 7th seal (remember that the 6th was opened at the end of ch 6 (Rev 6:12))...

And when the seal is opened (v1), there was SILENCE in heaven for about half an hour.

No one seems to know for sure what the silence signifies, but there are some good Scriptural possibilities...

Eg:

Derek Thomas mentions that two OT passages seem to be in the background:

Habakkuk 2:20

20 But the Lord is in his holy temple;

let all the earth keep silence before him.”

And

Zechariah 2:13

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

Thomas states:

“Both of these passages depict the Lord ‘in His temple’ executing judgment, the result of which produces a sense of profound awe at the revelation of God’s holy majesty.

Then, in v2,

John sees 7 angels (note that in heaven there are PLENTY of angels, the servants of God and of His people through whom He does His work...)...

Could these possibly be identified with the 7 angels of the churches in chs 2 & 3?

And 7 trumpets are given to them...these are trumpets that are, as we will see, blown and followed by judgments on the earth

So the preparation is made for the judgments that follow each of the blowing of the trumpets...

But before the trumpets are blown and the judgments come on the earth...

Our attention is directed (v3-4) to another angel who

Revelation 8:3-4

3 ...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, 4 and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.

The angel stands at the altar, which appears to be the same altar as we saw in Rev 6:9:

Revelation 6:9

9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.

So here in Revelation 8, before judgments are sent from heaven to the earth, we see 2 things: 1. they are sent both because of God’s will (trumpets given and much incense given to the 7 and 1 angels)...and 2. because of the saints’ prayers!

The altar in ch 6 the martyred saints were under was the bronze altar, where sacrifices were made and they were PRAYING. Here in ch 8 the golden altar in v3 is the altar of incense from inside the tabernacle...but they BOTH seem to be combined into one altar here in this scene in chapter 8:

Here in vv3-5 we have an amazing picture of the awesome place of OUR PRAYERS in God’s plans for time and eternity...

From our perspective, prayer often seems without any power or effect...but here we have a view of our prayers from Heaven’s vantage point...

From one author: (Welwyn Commentaries)

In Tibet, which I visited a few years ago, one of the most striking features of the landscape is that on every hilltop, in fact on nearly every housetop, there are clusters of little flags flying. Sometimes they are actually festooned across the hillsides. These brightly coloured squares of cloth are not some bizarre form of decoration; they are prayer flags. Every one has a prayer written on it; the idea is that it stays there, blowing in the wind, and as it flaps in the wind the prayer is wafted up to the gods. You go to the hilltops because that is closer to the gods. In the Buddhist monasteries, meanwhile, you find line upon line of prayer wheels which you are supposed to spin as you walk past, so that the prayers inscribed on the wheels will keep on being automatically recited as the wheels spin on after you have gone. People like that kind of idea because they can see something happening. (me - they are sort of in charge of the effectiveness of their prayers!)

-but here in v3, the prayers of ALL the saints are on the golden altar

Revelation 8:3

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,

NOTE: ALL the saints, not just the martyred saints, or past saints but...ALL...

WHO is a SAINT? In the NT of our Bibles, we are taught very clearly that a “saint” is not an amazingly godly person who has done one or more miracles, but simply, SOMEONE WHO BELONGS TO CHRIST. SAINTS ARE CHRISTIANS. ALL SAINTS ARE CHRISTIANS.

1 Corinthians 1:2

2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

So here in Rev 8, we see a picture

NOTE: these prayers of all the saints are on the altar BEFORE THE THRONE...they have made it all the way into GOD’s very awesom and holy presence...

THEN...

-the angel is given (BY GOD) much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne

MUCH...perhaps because there are so many prayers on the altar

Incense to offer with the prayers because they are made acceptable and pleasing to the Lord by the incense of Christ’s intercession and perfection...

Welwyn: Going behind the symbolism, Scripture shows us that there are two great assistances promised to every believer in order that we may pray aright, and both are mentioned in Romans 8: the intercession of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:26-27) and the intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 8:34). 

James Montgomery puts it all together in these lines:

No prayer is made on earth alone,

The Holy Spirit pleads,

And Jesus, on the eternal throne,

For sinners intercedes.

Jesus is God’s Beloved Son in whom He is well-pleased...and the perfect and well-pleasing life of Jesus is added, we are told, to our prayers and so...

VERSE 4: the smoke of the incense with the prayers RISES before God...

GOD HEARS THEM...GOD ANSWERS THEM.

VERSE 5: then the censer is filled with fire and thrown to the earth and there is JUDGMENT...

Revelation 8:5

5 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.

Thunder and flashes of lightning, and earthquake are signs in Scripture of GOD’S JUDGMENT.

So here is what we see: the prayers of all the saints, made perfectly acceptable to God because of the sweet incense of Jesus’ life and merit are added to them...and THEN...

...the 7 Trumpets are blown, which means that God’s plan to bring judgment on the earth is executed...and God’s plan to bring all things to an end: evil judged and defeated and righteousness reigning in a new heavens and a new earth TAKES PLACE AND OUR PRAYERS ARE PART OF WHAT MAKES IT HAPPEN!

THAT IS HOW IMPORTANT IN GOD’S PLAN OUR PRAYERS ARE.

So this picture in Revelation, a REAL picture of God’s view of our prayers, teaches us to pray:

For God’s KINGDOM to come

For people to come to know Jesus

For God to judge evil and bring heaven to earth

And for God and His Son Jesus to be HONORED and GLORIFIED forever and ever.

So KEEP ON PRAYING...no matter how hard it gets...because those prayer are making their way to God, through Jesus, and they are heard and answered and are PART of making sure God’s plans for eternity happen.

Let’s pray that prayer Jesus taught His disciples:

“Our Father, which are in heaven, hallowed by thy name...your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven...give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses and we forgive those who trespass against us...and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever...Amen.”