THE CALM BEFORE THE FIRESTORM

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

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

And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.

Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand.

Revelation 8:1-4

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

In Revelation, chapter 7, we find a series of happenings that occur in a brief interlude between the breaking of the sixth and seventh seals by Jesus on the scroll He took from the right hand of His Father God. You’ll recall that the sixth seal touched off cataclysmic events that shook both the earth and the heavens, and as we’re going to see in chapter 8, the severing of the seventh seal is going to add even more judgment but not before a moment of calm. Let’s look again at the first four verses of this chapter:

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

And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.

Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand.

Perhaps, there was an expectation within the throne room of God that the breaking of the final seal on the scroll would unleash some form of immediate fury but as we see, there was nothing but silence for about 30 minutes, a calm before the firestorm that we will see unleashed in tomorrow’s message but before we get there, we find peace and an issuing of trumpets to seven angels who were standing before God.

More on what these angel-blowing trumpets will bring later but before we get there, we read where there was “another angel” in the throne room who “had a golden censer”, a container used to burn incense. This angel approached and stood at the “golden altar in front of the throne” and the scriptures tell us that the “smoke of the incense” along “with the prayers of God’s people” rose up “before God from the angel’s hand”. Together, they represented the petitions and praises lifted up from the people to their divine and holy Lord.

And thus ends the peaceful, reverent period of devotion that was kicked off with the breaking of the seventh seal. For as we’ll see, the series of events that come next will make the prior six seal-breaking judgments look like child’s play as the Great Tribulation reaches its climax.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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