Silence in Heaven

Do you ever struggle to pray? If you struggle with praying, you are not alone. The average Christ follower struggles with prayer. Why is that? Why do we struggle with praying? There are a number of reasons, but one big one is this: Too often we would rather act, get something done, then pray and wait on God to do something. Too often, it’s too hard for us to wait on God. When God doesn’t answer on our timetable, we think He hasn’t heard our prayer, or He doesn’t want to answer it, so we don’t pray as often as we could, or stop praying altogether. Part of why we respond this way may have a lot to do with the culture we live in. We live in an instant gratification and quick fix culture, we want results now, so we would rather act then pray. We would rather take matters into our own hands, rather than wait on the One who has the power to really make a difference in our lives.

Another example of why we often give up on praying comes from a story told by Steve Wilmshurst. He tells the plight of Terry Waite, an English churchman who traveled to Beirut in the 1980’s, seeking to negotiate the release of Westerners taken hostage by Muslim terrorists. Waite was himself kidnapped and made a hostage for five years. During that dreadful time, family members and friends sent letters, hoping they would somehow get through to encourage him. In all those years, only a single postcard got through, sent by a woman from Bedford, England, whom Waite did not even know. Many people feel that something like this is what happens when we pray. We think that our prayers are lost or never get through to God, like all those letters to Terry Waite. So, we think that our prayers don’t carry much weight with God, so we rarely pray or stop praying altogether.

But what if I were to tell you that your prayers carry more weight with God than you think. That’s what we are going to see as we return to the Book of Revelation this morning. As John’s vision continues before the throne of God, once again we are given an insider’s view to how God will bring judgment upon the world. But today, we are going to see something very unique. We are going to see how our prayers actually play a huge role in how God accomplishes His purposes in history. So, if you brought your Bible with you today, let me encourage you to open it to Revelation 8:1-5, where we’re going to learn how our prayers really do matter to God.

But before we get see how much our prayers matter to God, we are introduced to another amazing scene before the throne of God as Jesus, the Lamb of God, now opens the seventh seal. And what we see is this: The calm before the storm When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Revelation 8:1 Now, if you’re like me, immediately you wonder, “Why is heaven silent for a half an hour?” To answer this, we need to look back at what the Old Testament says about the coming of God to judge. In Zephaniah 1, we are told, “Be silent before the Lord God! For the day of the LORD is near” (Zephaniah 1:7).

William Henrickson writes of that coming of the day of the Lord saying, God’s final wrath is “so fearful and awful… that the inhabitants of heaven stand spell-bound, lost for a time – half an hour – in breathless, silent amazement.”

John MacArthur summarizes the situation clearly when he says, “The hour of God’s final judgment had come – the hour when the saints will be vindicated, sin punished, Satan vanquished, and Christ exalted.”

So, what we have with this silence in heaven is a dramatic pause – the calm before the storm of God’s wrath being unleashed upon the earth. There is no worship, no one speaks, there’s just an awestruck stillness before the presence of the Lord. One Scripture comes to mind for me here, and that is this: “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth!” Psalm 46:10 Here is the scene: All heaven waits in reverent silence as they encounter the presence of our Awesome and Holy God whose wrath is about to be unleashed on the earth.

This is an image of God that our world needs today. That we need today. This is a profoundly holy moment. This is like the moment when Moses stood before God at the burning bush, and God commanded him to remove his sandals because where He was standing was holy ground.

It is like the moment when Isaiah encountered the holy presence of God in the temple and cried out: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Isaiah 6:5

It’s like the moment when Jesus commanded Peter to let down his nets for a catch after catching nothing all night, and their nets became so full they were breaking. And we are told that, when Simon Peter saw it, he fell at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” Luke 5:8

And at this holy moment, all heaven, all heaven looked upon the Holy Lamb of God, and were awestruck by His glory, majesty and utter holiness as He opened the seventh seal, so that they were so overwhelmed by His Holy presence that no one could speak. For the Lamb of God is about to unleash judgment on the earth, and all heaven is silent.

But then an amazing transaction takes place. John tells us what happens: Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. Revelation 8:2 We are not told the identity of these seven angels, although there are two notable suggestions. In chapter 1, Jesus stood amid the seven golden lampstands, with seven stars in his hand who were “the angels of the seven churches.” So, these could be the seven angels of the seven churches. Other scholars believe that these seven are the angels of God’s presence, referred to in Isaiah 63. Two of these archangels are named in the Bible: Michael and Gabriel.

But what is significant about these seven angels, is not who they are, but what is is given to them: the seven trumpets. The use of trumpets in Scripture are filled with significance: Trumpets were sounded at Mount Sinai when the Law was given (Exodus 19:16-19), when Jericho fell (Johsua 6:13-16), and when the King was enthroned (1 Kings 1:34-39). A trumpet will sound at the rapture (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18) and a trumpet will sound at the return of Christ to the earth (Matthew 24:31). So, here these seven angels are given seven trumpets of judgment which are about to be unleashed upon the earth.

But perhaps you are wondering, “what do these angels, and these trumpets have to do with our prayers being heard and answered by God?” What’s the connection? That’s what we’re going to see next in verses 3 and 4, as another angel brings

Our prayers before the throne: 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. Revelation 8:3-4

Another angel separate from the seven angels, now comes before the altar of God with a golden incense burner. However, something unique and unusual is to be mixed with the incense as he offers. Here we see that the prayers of ALL the saints are mixed in with this incense and offered up to God. The prayers of every believer, your prayers, my prayers, the prayers of the persecuted, the prayers of the martyrs, the prayers of all God’s people on earth are included and are brought by this angel and placed on the golden altar before the throne of God.

This is another significant and holy moment. Throughout the Bible, incense is always associated with sacrifice, it is this incense that makes the sacrifice acceptable to God. Here, we see that these verses mirror what took place in Leviticus 16:12-13, on Israel’s Day of Atonement.

On the Day of Atonement, in the midst of the blood sacrifices offered for sin, the high priest was to “take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the LORD, and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small, and …bring it inside the veil and put the incenses on the fire before the LORD.” What makes this so significant for us, is that the Day of Atonement pointed forward to Christ’s atoning blood, that would not only cleanse us from sin but would sanctify our prayers.

In other words, if you have trusted in Jesus for salvation, then you have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus – and it’s the blood of Jesus that makes your prayers acceptable to God. Jesus is the mediator between man and God. Therefore, when you pray in His name, God does not just hear your prayers, He accepts them and will answer them. This is one of the great hopes we have in Jesus. He makes our prayers, your prayers, acceptable to God.

But this passage reveals much more about prayer than God simply accepting our prayers. In fact, this passage reveals to us three realities about the prayers of the saints, the prayers of believers. And the first reality this: Prayer is the means by which God accomplishes His purpose in history Right here we see that by some inexplicable, mysterious providence, the prayers of all the saints offered on the altar are what move God into action to unleash His judgments on the earth.

I have said this before, and I will say it again. God is waiting for His people to ask Him to work. And nothing of any eternal significance will ever happen through us unless we ask Him to work. One reason that this needs to be emphasized today, is that we tend to rely on our own activity and to focus on what we can do, rather than asking God to do what He wants to do through us. So, we rarely ask Him, unless it’s our last resort…

In contrast, the biblical idea of holy warfare places prayer first and our activity second. One great example is provided by King Hezekiah during Sennacherib’s invasion in 701BC. Hezekiah’s army had tried to defend his kingdom, but the Assyrians overwhelmed them. It got so bad that the king and his supporters were under siege behind Jerusalem’s walls.

What happened next is that Sennacherib’s herald came before them, mocking their defense and blaspheming Israel’s God. How then did Hezekiah respond? He took the enemy’s demand into the temple and brought it to the Lord in prayer. This is his prayer: “O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, enthroned, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God… O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord.” Isaiah 37:16-20

In the morning, Hezekiah found that God had answered by completely destroying the enemy: “The angel of the LORD went out and struck down a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians.” Isaiah 37:36 The point is simple: When we take matters into our own hands, we often fail. But when we call upon God to fight our battles, those are the kinds of prayers that line up with His purposes. Those are the kinds of prayers that line up with His will and accomplish His purposes in our world. And here in this passage, God is about to bring about His justice, is about to accomplish His purposes because His people have prayed.

Which leads me to the second reality we see about prayer in this passage: The prayers of Christians are certain to be received and answered by God This is the point of the incense that the angel mixed with the censer of prayer to offer before God. The function of the incense was to make the prayers sweet-smelling in God’s presence.
I mentioned this previously, but what makes our prayers acceptable to God is not how often we pray, or how earnestly or seriously we pray, or how spiritual we are. There is no spiritual elite in God’s family who have special access to God. All believers have special access to God because of what Jesus has done for us: The Bible says this: For through him (Jesus) we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Ephesians 2:18
This is why non-Christians often ask believers they know to pray for them, since they sense their own lack of access to heaven. So now the simplest believer, the most ordinary believer, any Christ follower who prays in Jesus’ name, can be certain that his or her prayers will be received by God and graciously answered simply because Jesus has given us access to the Father.

That’s why Jesus said, I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. John 14:13-14 Jesus is our mediator. Jesus makes our prayers sweet-smelling/acceptable to God. And in today’s passage we see this promise fulfilled. Here, we see that the prayers of all the saints are now brought before the throne, and God immediately answers them by pouring out the fire of incense upon the earth.

Are you beginning to see the importance of your prayers? God doesn’t just accept your prayers; He wants to answer them. That’s the second reality we glean from this passage.

Here now is the third reality: The great prayer of the church is prayer for the kingdom of Christ to come! The prayers placed in the angel’s golden censer came from all believers who were seeking God’s judgment to avenge them, with the ultimate goal of establishing His kingdom on earth.

That’s precisely what Jesus teaches us in “The Lord’s Prayer.” This prayer includes asking God to meet our daily needs, to forgive our sins, and to lead us away from temptation. But Jesus began this teaching on prayer by having us seek God’s holiness and the establishing of His kingdom here on earth: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthews 6:9-10). This is the great prayer of the church. In every generation, followers of Jesus have sought to seek God’s glory and establish His kingdom on earth through this prayer.

Certainly, we as Christ followers are encouraged to pray for our own needs and those of our friends and neighbors. But the priority of our prayer lives should be given to exalting God’s glory, establishing HIs kingdom and seeing that His will be done – through the spread of the gospel, through the influence of His church, through the ministry of God’s Word, and through the obedience of His followers making disciples by bringing the presence of Jesus to a broken and godless world.

So, here’s our question: Are we praying about these things? These are the prayers that carry weight with God. These are the kinds of prayers God delights in answering. Sure, we need to pray for our personal worries and concerns. But we need to raise the bar in what we’re asking God to do. When was the last time you asked for His kingdom to come, and His will to be done? When was the last time you came to a prayer gathering and asked God to send out workers into His harvest field? When was the last time you asked God to bring a revival in our nation, or to your heart? When was the last time you prayed for the lost, or prayed against injustices and wickedness in our world?

Here, we are reminded that the great prayer of the church is the simple prayer Jesus taught His disciples: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” You see, our greatest privilege, , our greatest power, our greatest potential to unleash God’s kingdom is to come into God’s presence and ask Him to do that which we cannot do on our own. That’s what we see here today. For when God’s people pray this way, God answers. In fact, that’s the final thing we see in this passage. God answers the prayers of all the saints with…

3.The censer filled with fire: 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. Revelation 8:5

The angel takes the incense burner filled with fire from the altar and hurls it to earth. This is just as Jesus predicted when He said, “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” Luke 12:49

And what follows are “rumblings of thunder, flashes of lightening, and an earthquake.” The silence in heaven has ended. The day of reckoning has arrived: “Now the seven angels who had the seven trumpets are prepared to blow them.” All because the prayers of the saints have ignited the thunderous judgment of God… Your prayers matter to God. Your prayers do carry great weight with God.

So, what would God’s Spirit have us take away from this passage today? At least five things:
One: We worship and serve a Holy God who deserves to be revered and feared. There is no one like our God. So be still and know that He is God and that He will be exalted on the earth.

Two: We have an extraordinary privilege in prayer. So, let us take advantage of our access to God: Pray God sized prayers. Pray God honoring prayers. Pray for His kingdom to come. Pray that His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Third: Believe! Believe in Jesus, and believe He shed His blood for you to give you access to God and make your prayers acceptable to God.
Fourth, Stop trying to do everything in your own power and start believing God will answer your prayers. Be that person who prays first and then waits on God to answer.

Finally, Remember! Remember that one day God will judge the world and set up His kingdom. And remember that your prayers play a part in moving the hand of God to come and set up His kingdom. Remember, your prayers carry great weight with God.

So then, one way we can apply today’s message is to pray. Let us do that now by praying the Lord’s prayer together. Would you stand and pray with me:“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. “Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.’
We pray this in the name of Jesus, Amen.