Revelation 8 (Part 1)

Good morning. Andy, will you open us up with a word of prayer?

Father, again, we pray, Lord, that you open your word and your blessings to help us to receive uniqueness, use it in our lives. So, me and Brother Mike, this morning, thank you for his diligence and preparation.

And we pray, Lord, give us the ears to hear in Christ's name.

Let me turn this camera off.

Revelation 8 and the Silence Before the Seventh Seal

Revelation chapter 8, short chapter.

We'll begin in verse 1. When the Lamb broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about a half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, having seven trumpets, were given to them.

Another angel came, and he stood at the altar holding a golden censer. And much incense was given to him so that he might add to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar, which was before the throne.

And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel's hand. And the angel took the censer, filled it with fire of the altar, and threw it to the earth. There followed peals of thunder, sounds, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. The first sounded, and there came hail, fire, mixed with blood. And they were thrown to the earth. And a third of the earth was burned up.

And a third of the trees was burned up. And all the green grass was burned up. The second angel sounded, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea. And a third of the sea became blood.

And a third of the creatures which were in the sea that had life died. And a third of the ships were destroyed. The third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch. And it fell in a third of the rivers and the springs and the waters.

And the name of that star was called Wormwood. And a third of the waters became Wormwood. And many men died from the waters because they were made bitter. The fourth angel sounded, and a third of the sun and a third of the moon and a third of the stars were struck so that a third of them would be darkened and the day would not shine for a third of it and the night in the same way.

Then I looked and heard an eagle flying in mid-heaven saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth because the remaining blast of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound.

Well, we are now obviously into another chapter, and we have come to the seventh seal. If you back up, when you go to chapter 4, you get in the throne room and you see these loud... You could just go through there and count how many times it says loud, or there was a noise, or they were singing with loud voices.

And then you have in chapter 5 the opening of the... the handing of the scroll. And then you would have the worship of the Lamb. It says in there, they were singing with a loud voice a new song. Worthy are you to take the book and break the seals.

And then you go down, and it says that the angels were then beginning to exalt the Lamb. In verse 11 and 12, it says they were saying with a loud voice, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive riches and power and wisdom and might and honor and glory.

And then you continue on, and you get to chapter 6. And you hear a loud voice again saying, Come. And it's summoning the first horse. And then you have another loud voice, Come, the red horse. And then Come again, you have the black horse.

And then you have Come again with the pale horse. And then you have, with the fifth seal, you have this loud voice crying around the altar. Anybody remember what was being said around the altar? How long?

How long will it be before you avenge and make right and judge those who are on the earth? And then you get to the sixth seal, and you have this loud thunder. The people crying out with a loud voice fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne.

This is the great day of the Lamb. And then when we got to chapter 7, we had the interlude or the parenthetical statements being said about the 144 ,000, the great multitude. And once again, what do we have?

We have a herd, meaning he's hearing again the number of those who were sealed. And it goes through the zones that are sealed when you get to the great multitude that are coming out of the tribulation.

In verse 9, through the end of the chapter, you have with a loud voice. In verse 10, they were saying salvation to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. And it says that the angel were standing around that throne, the elders, the four living creatures.

And these all fell on their face, and they worshiped, saying, once again, there's this reverberating sound of worship in heaven. Amen and blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to God forever and ever.

And then here we go again. Then again, he heard something. And the question was, who are these who are coming out? I'm sorry, who are these who are clothed with white robes? And he says, Lord, you know.

And he continues on. And then when we get to chapter 7, it says that the Lamb broke the seventh seal and there was silence.

You do 30 minutes?

I was actually waiting to see if it would go 30 seconds before somebody said anything. And it didn't make it.

Way to go, Andy.

It didn't make it. You know why? Because silence is odd. We don't like silence. We don't like for there to not be noise. I mean, we like I mean, even now on TV, you'll see, hey, when you're trying to sleep, if you want white noise or green noise or something, I don't know if y 'all seen that commercial that's on TV and it'll have this stuff in the background.

Now, download this app so that you can hear this junk while you're trying to sleep. Now, look, I'm not going to lie. I got to have the TV on. I can't. One, I don't sleep enough anyway. And when everything is quiet, if I hear something in the backyard, it's jump up and listen.

See what's going on in the backyard. So I don't I got to have something to block all that out. But by and large, we don't like quiet. We want things going on. We don't like our minds to be usually at rest or where we're actually thinking about stuff.

In this case, this is silence in heaven. This is actually very this is weird. Let's just be honest. If we've been following the the flow since the beginning, when he gets these starts these visions, what has been taking place in heaven?

I mean, this has been a place of worship. It's been a place where the lamb has been put on display as the one who has been slain before the foundation of the world. It's the one sitting on the throne.

And there's all of this worship. We've got this constant 24 elders up and down on their face, throwing worship to God. And then all of a sudden we get to the seventh seal and it is absolute quiet. I don't think there's anybody in here who's ever been to a place where there is zero sound.

There is a place in the Midwest you can go and you can pay. And it has I think it's it's below 20 decibel in sound. It is a completely soundproof room. You can go in there and there is nothing. They said everybody goes in there.

Nobody has they they offer a reward for those that can stay in there for eight to 10 hours. And nobody has been able to stay in there because they say it's weird. It just is weird being that quiet. But in this case, you imagine being around the throne room of heaven.

You obviously the lamb is here. This is a vision. Now, understand this is not actually what heaven is. This is a vision. In that vision, the father's on the throne in his vision. He is the lamb has been opening these seals.

You've got all of this death and destruction that has taken place between the first and the fourth seal. Then you have the crying out of the souls to how long before you're going to judge these people that have been murdering us.

And then you have the sixth seal, which then is peels of lightning, thunder, all of this, the cosmic upheaval.

And then, boom, quiet.

Silence is actually pretty important in the Bible. Even in, we're all probably pretty familiar with Psalm 46, where it talks about where he, though the mountains may fall into the sea and the oceans foam and it's all of these tumultuous things happen.

And then you get down toward, I think it's verse nine or 10. And depending on what translation you have, it says either be still or be calm. And that's actually not as accurate as it should be. It really means be quiet.

Just be silent. Don't say anything and worship the God who is here to save you. So why don't we look through? We'll do some flipping so that you can see that I'm not making this up out of thin air. Let's go.

Let's go to Psalm 62. And this will help us try to get an idea of why this silence. Because there are some different views of this silence. Is this silence the calm before the storm? Some people believe that it is.

Some people believe that because if you believe that the opening of the seven seals is the sequential now opening of the blowing of the seven trumpets, well then I could see how someone would come to that conclusion that this is the calm before the storm.

That's not my position. My position is that the seventh seal, if you remember a number of weeks ago, that I believe that the seventh seal is a continuation of the sixth seal, which is final judgment. And hopefully we'll be able to show you how to come to that conclusion.

And at least if you disagree with me, you will know how I got there. Remember, anytime there's judgment, what comes with it? Salvation and judgment, they come together. They come together. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, He stayed their life by doing what?

By killing an animal and providing a covering for them. In other words, who got judged in their place? That animal that He killed, however God did that, to make an atonement for them, to cover them. The judgment on all of creation when He flooded the earth, was that not judgment?

Yes.

And who got saved through that? Noah. We could just go right on down the line how many times every time there was judgment, there was salvation. Judgment and salvation. Even with the exiles, those that were hauled off into captivity, they were saved from the judgment of God.

A lot of people didn't understand it that way, but Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Daniel, by God sending them into captivity, He preserved their life to consistently worship Him and for Daniel to teach those that would come up after him.

So Psalm 62 says this in verse 1.

It says,.

My soul waits in silence for God alone. For Him is my salvation. He is my rock and my salvation. He is a stronghold and I will not be shaken. So what's the psalmist saying here? This is David. He is saying what?

I'm going to be silent. I'm going to stand and worship before God and wait for Him to save me. And then if you flip over, he says the same thing again in verse 5.

He says,.

My soul waits in silence for God only. For my hope is in Him. He is my rock and my salvation. A stronghold and I shall not be shaken. Oh God, my salvation and my glory rest. The rock of my strength for He is my refuge.

Once again, we see here David in silence. Quiet. Not speaking. Waiting in worship for the salvation of God. Then if you look over to Psalm 65. I'll explain this here in a second. Verse 1. There will be silence before you and praise in Zion, O God.

Does anybody else say, Mike, what does yours say?

None of the verses that you've read have had quiet in them.

Really? Are you on verse 1? Well, I'm going to explain why this one is different. The other ones didn't say that either.

Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Zion.

What did yours say in the New King James?

It says the same thing, praise is waiting you.

In chapter 62 it didn't say that? Yours is King James and yours is New King James?

No, in 62 it says, truly my soul silently waits for you.

Silence. It is.

Okay, I thought so.

I know why the King James though. I'm going to make this in just a second. Does anybody have the ESV? What does yours say in 65? 65 and 1.

Praise is due you, O God, in Zion.

I'm going to explain to you why the New American Superior Bible, I mean Standard Bible, has...

That's for me.

I'm going to explain to you why. I think the, maybe it's the American Standard Version, and the New American Standard is the only one that uses the word silence because all the other English translations in this particular text use the Septuagint, and the Septuagint doesn't use the word for silence, they use it for praise, and I understand why they do it.

The New American Standard, I think it's the American Standard Version, are the only ones that use the Masoretic text here. I think using the Masoretic text, and you've done Biblical, I think the Masoretic text is probably the one that should have been used here, not the Septuagint.

The Septuagint, they use it to inform the Hebrew text. Everybody knows what Septuagint is, right? Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. So if you're going to translate something from its original language, don't translate it from the Greek, because what was the Old Testament written in?

Hebrew.

So where should you look at? The Hebrew text. Now, we can use, and I do, I use the Septuagint as a commentary to say, okay, what were they trying to say? And I understand why the English translations, some of them use this as praise, right?

Praise, praise, praise. Andy, New King, praise. I understand why. Silent seems weird, doesn't it? Let's just be honest, does it? If you're praising God, are you normally silent? No, what are we doing?

I mean, I know we're the frozen chosen, but by and large, we're raising our hands, we're praising God, our hearts are singing songs to Him. So in this, I think, not just because of the New American Standard, I think this is a better translation because it uses the Masoretic text, and he says here, 65, there will be silence before you and praise.

So what has he done? He's taken silence and praise and coupled them together as being silent before God is praising. And we'll look at a couple of more. Turn over to, let's go to the prophets. We could go through a ton of them.

Let's see here. Let's go to Habakkuk. That's actually how it's supposed to be pronounced, Habakkuk. There was a guy that I was very good friends with, and every time I said Habakkuk, he said Habakkuk, Habakkuk.

And I remember what Habakkuk was about. This is a conversation. This is actually not a book written to the people of God. It's actually a, I mean, obviously, it ends up in the canon, but this is a conversation between this guy and God, and he has said, you know what, our people are wicked.

They're evil. They're idolaters. They're adulterers, and God, they need to be judged. And God says, you know what, Habakkuk, you're right. You know, I've been thinking about it.

You're right.

And you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to send the Chaldeans. I'm going to send the Babylonians. And Habakkuk says, whoa, hold on. Now they're more wicked than us.

He goes, I know. He says, you ought to see what they do when they come through these cities. They'll have their blades will be flashing, and they'll be riding horses through there. They'll be cutting people up.

It's awesome when they come through there.

And then he says, well, hold on, God. You can't do that. And then Habakkuk then gets rebuked. And God basically says, look, I'm the God of all creation. I can do what I want. And if I so choose to use these people to judge my people, I can do that.

But then when I get done, I'll judge them too. You let me handle this.

So he goes on, and you get to chapter 2, verse 20.

He says, but the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him. Let all the earth be silent before God. This is actually the last statement. He says before he goes into God now fixing to make an oracle of judgment on his people, the covenant people, and what he'll do to Babylon when he's finished using them.

So once again, we see this act of silence as an act of praise before God. And in this specific case, we're seeing an act of silence and praising God before what? Judgment. Before judgment. Turn over to Zephaniah.

You can probably just go over. And when we were talking about the great days of the Lord, I read this passage here, and I said we would come back because of what it says in verse 7. Remember Zephaniah, contemporary of Habakkuk, and the coming judgment of God on his people for their disobedience.

And here's what he says beginning in verse 7. He says be silent before the Lord God, for the day of the Lord is near. So what does he say here? Be silent.

Why?

Because God's judgment's near. God's judgment is coming. He says for that, for the Lord has prepared a sacrifice. He has consecrated his guests. Then it will come about on that day of the Lord's sacrifice that I will punish the princes, the kings, the sons, and all who clothe themselves with foreign garments.

And I will punish all on that day who leap on the temple threshold, who fill the house of their Lord with violence and deceit. And then skip over to verse 14. Near is the great day of the Lord. Near and coming very quickly.

Listen, the day of the Lord. In it the warrior cries out bitterly. A day of wrath is that day. A day of trouble and distress. A day of destruction and desolation. A day of darkness and gloom. A day of clouds and thick darkness.

A day of trumpet and battle cry against the fortified city and the high-cornered towers. I will bring distress on men so that they will walk like the blind because they have sinned against the Lord. And their blood will be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung.

And on that day neither silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them on the day of the Lord's wrath. And all of the earth will be devoured in the fire of his jealousy and he will make them to a complete end.

And indeed a terrifying one of all the inhabitants of the earth. So here it is. He's saying be silent before God. Why? Because impending judgment is coming. And what does he say this impending judgment is going to do?

I don't see how you can say anything other than this is absolute complete destruction. What does he say? Nobody's silver or gold is going to be able to help them in that day. And what does he say is going to happen?

They're going to be consumed. He says their blood's going to be poured out and then their flesh is going to be poured out like dung. And it says, and indeed, the last thing, indeed a terrifying one. To who?

Not part. All the inhabitants of the earth. All of them. So here it is. The prophet saying be silent before God because impending judgment is coming and that silence is an act of worship. Who's writing this?

Is this an apostate writing this? Or is this a prophet of God writing this? This is a prophet of God. This is a prophet of God. Look over to, probably just turn just a couple more pages, and you can go over to Zechariah.

The book of Revelation, especially in the section we're getting in now, is very heavy on Zechariah. I mean, we've had the horsemen. They'll go back to chapters 1 of Zechariah. You've got the chariots that go back to chapter 6.

We're fixing to get into the two olive branches. We're going to get into the priest and the kingship, which is also pointing back to the book of Zechariah. We're going to get into the two witnesses. We're fixing to come into that when we get to the next interlude.

It comes from here. But here, to once again show that being silent before God was an act of worship, is in chapter 2, verse 13. He says right here in verse 13, Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for he is aroused from his holy habitation.

Be silent. Hey, this is Zechariah is saying, Be silent before God. He is aroused in his holy habitation. Hey, anybody remember when Zechariah was written? They were already back into the land. And the whole book of Zechariah was written to inspire and to motivate them to lay the foundations of the temple, build it up.

Has anybody ever read in one sitting through Zechariah how that encouraged them to build the temple again? I have no idea. But that's the reason why it was written, was, hey, we're going to give all of these prophecies, and this is supposed to incite them to look to Zerubbabel, who would be the one that would lay the foundation, and God says, hey, not only is he going to be the one to lay the foundation, he is my guy.

I know he's ragtag looking, and I know he's got some dirty old clothes on, but he is a descendant of David, and he is the governor of Jerusalem. He's not only going to lay that foundation, he's going to be the one to put the capstone on it.

He's going to see to it that it's completed.

But here it is,.

Be silent all flesh before the Lord, for he is aroused in his holy habitation. So once again, we see silence before God, silence to be worshipped. Now, go back to Revelation. The land broke, the seventh seal, and there was silence in heaven for about a half an hour.

Here it is. It's been quiet. There was worship of praises and adoration, and remember, there was prayers that were coming up from the altar, and what was the altar? The altar was a place of worship, was it not?

Remember?

And the fifth seal, where were these souls' prayers coming from? They were coming from the altar, and in this case now, all of that ceases, and now quietness is in heaven as an act of worship. And then he says here, this here is a parenthetical statement.

And then I saw seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. So here it is. The seventh seal has been opened. What does the seventh seal bring? Immediately. Silence. But then we have this parenthetical statement that goes from two to about, well, the end of verse five.

You would think at this point, as soon as you would hear, I saw the angels who stand before God, and they had seven trumpets were given to them. What would you think is next to happen? What's that? Sure, that's what you would think would happen, but that's not what takes place.

What we have is now we have the finishing of the seventh seal. And what is that? He says in the fifth seal, we had the souls of the martyrs asking God how long. Now, what's praying here? All the saints of God.

All, not those who had been put to death and were under the altar. All the saints. Here's what it says. He says, I saw the seven angels standing before God and seven trumpets were given to them. That's just a parenthetical statement.

He's just saying what he's seeing. He's not saying this is not the seventh seal has now opened these trumpets. He's just saying, hey, look, this is just a continuation of what he's seeing. Remember, this is a vision.

Then another angel, okay? Now we've got an eighth angel has appeared. This is not one of the seven. This is an eighth angel. That eighth angel came and he stood at the altar holding a golden censer and much incense was given to him to add to the prayers of all, how many?

All the saints. So what has been the structure of the book so far? Progressive, parallel. So now what do we have? Fifth seal? I said this when we got to the fifth seal. This is important. The fifth seal was them crying out for the judgment, for God to do what?

For those who have been killing God's people. Now all these saints are praying that God would pour out judgment. What was incense for in the Old Testament? It was an act of worship.

Look, when you came, we'll just use the tabernacle.

Because it's easier.

When you came to right here, anybody remember what this was?

You came through the gates. You would have the brazen altar. You would have the laver. You'd have all these butcher tables. You would have the Ark of the Covenant. Actually, it would be a little smaller than that.

You would have had the show, bread, menorah.

What was right here? That was the altar of incense. That was the altar of incense. So before that guy would enter into the holy place, and then this was the most holy place, what did they do? They offered incense.

One, when they went in here, they offered the incense here as an act of worship. Then when they went through here, what was the reason for putting incense in here, the smoke? What was the reason for it?

Anybody remember?

The guy couldn't stand before the Shekinah glory of God, and even when that priest went in after doing all of his ritualistic stuff, which it is a ritual what he had to do. Let's just be honest. It was a ritual.

First he had to clean himself, had to strip himself down of his priestly garments, the ones that had all the funny jewels and the big hat and all that. He got down and was just stripped down like a regular old dude, regular old priest.

And what did he have to do? He had to offer up himself a sacrifice for himself. Go read Hebrews. It will tell you all the ins and outs. Then he offered up that incense, and he went in there, and he stuck that incense in there before he went in there.

Why?

So once again, you still had to be availed because a sinful man could not walk into the presence of God unhindered. So that incense then, because the Shekinah glory that was over top of the two cherub,.

What was it?

It was glowing. Has anybody been here been a smoke machine? What does a smoke machine do when you put a flashlight in it? What happens?

Poof.

Yeah, light goes everywhere. That's what happened here when the incense was an act of worship, and it was also an act of praise. And I think it's in, if somebody can look at it, I think it's in Psalm 141.

He says,.

We offer up our prayers to you, O God, as a sweet aroma of incense to you. So the act of prayer and incense was an act of worship before God. So in this case, you have a golden censer, which had the incense, and it was given to him, and he would add that to the prayers of the saints before the golden altar that was before the throne.

Look, this is in the vision. This has taken place in front of God. And the smoke of that incense with the prayers of the saints went up before God out of the angel's hand, and then that angel took that censer, he filled it with the fire from the altar, and what did he do?

What did he do with it? He threw it to the earth. This is God's final judgment. And how do we know that? Because it says here, he threw it to the earth, there was peals of thunder, sounds, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

What happened at the beginning of the sixth seal? I said this a few weeks ago. It's judgments coupled with an earthquake, and what does it end with? This statement's going to happen again with the end of the seventh trumpet with peals of thunder, sounds, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

Now, I don't know about y 'all, but when you're reading that, you would think, okay, well, how come we're not seeing the consummation of God's kingdom? Am I the only one that thinks that? If God comes and he kills everybody, what should be the immediate thought?

Well, the kingdom's coming, but we're not seeing that. We don't see that.

We will.

Remember, we're making rounds.

The seals come to final judgment,.

And what are the trumpets going to do? They're going to end in final judgment. What are the bowls going to do? Anybody want to guess? Final judgment. You have an interlude here. Does everybody in the Bible say interlude?

Is that what it says on your heading?

You have interlude here. Each one of those interludes shows the consummation of the kingdom. And how do you know that? Well, all you got to do is just back up, and in chapter 6, it tells you that he's...

Who did they see that were clothed from every nation, tribe, and tongue, wrapped in white garments? Who were they? Those were those not who had come out, but were what? Coming out. Present tense. Were coming out.

Those were the ones who were coming out of the great tribulation. And then what does it say? Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and all the angels standing around the thrones and around the elders and the four living creatures.

They all fell on their face and worshiped God and said amen and blessing and glory and wisdom and power and honor and to Him be forever and ever and ever. And then you continue to read down, and here is the consummation of the age.

They will never have hunger again. We said this last week. Never will they have hunger again. Never will they be burned up by the sun, nor will there be any heat. The Lamb will be in the center. He will be their shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of living water.

And then here it is. How do we know this is the end of the age? This is the consummation of the new kingdom because He's going to wipe away all their tears. He does the same thing in the next interlude.

It says the same thing. The same thing. Now, I know in our brain we're going, wait a minute, is there final judgment? It should immediately show the consummation of the kingdom. Well, that's not how God so chose to do revelation.

But as we go from here to here, you're going to see we'll find out more about that kingdom. And then as we go to here, you're going to find out more about that kingdom. And then you have, after the bowls, you get to the eternal state.

The eternal state is the consummation of the kingdom. That is the new heavens and the new earth. Each one of these is building on the other. Remember what we called the structure of the book? Remember?

Progressive. Parallelism.

Progressive.

Each one of these is progressing. Look, you're going to see, we're fixing to open the trumpets, not today, but we'll open them next week, and you're going to see parallels with the seals. Well, then the trumpets are going to be parallels, the bowls are going to be parallels to the trumpets.

It's all building. It's building. It's building on the, as Andy preached, on the eternal state. When we did the eschatology weekend, it's building on all of these are pointing to the eternal state. And when you get to that eternal state, it is going to be a new heavens and a new earth, and we know what's going to be so great about that?

There ain't going to be no more full horsemen. There ain't going to be no angels blowing trumpets. There ain't going to be no more bowls being poured out on the earth.

Why?

Because God's going to wipe away every tear. He's going to kill everybody that's ever messed with his people. He's going to make every right, every wrong, right, and then he's going to cast the beast, the false prophet, and the dragon into the lake of fire.

That's what this is all building to. I've got five minutes for mass destruction or questions or comments. Actually, we've got four minutes.

Even when you get to the sixth trumpet opens,.

There's going to be, it's going to be blown, there is a earthquake. When you get to the seventh trumpet, hey, look, the sixth trumpet's blown. There was an earthquake. You get to the seventh trumpet, it's blown.

The temple of God's opened up. You see the ark of his covenant, and then it says there was lightning, sounds, peals of thunder, and great hailstorms. Final judgment. That's what each one of these sixth to seventh seals is pointing to, final judgment.

Questions, anyone? Are you holding your head back there because I've overloaded your brain?

I'm trying to catch up.

Huh?