Revelation 8 vs 1-13
We are at the end of what are called the “seal” judgments. What is ahead
are the seven trumpets and then there will be the seven bowls. All are
successive waves of tribulation upon the earth. It’s a tough and terrible
time period. Someone says, “How can a God of love, how can a God that
is good, how can that be true and this be happening?” It’s a fair question.
Let me also ask a question. A good God lets things just go on until
everything is lost? Until everything is completely given over to corruption?
I can’t get there. God is holy, and He is righteous. His goodness and His
holiness are one… Putting an end to all that is wrong is GOOD.
How would you do it? “I’d show them, I’d show them what is right and I’d
give them everything so that they wouldn’t destroy themselves.” He’s done
that. “Then I’d force them to do what is right.” He won’t do that… I get
the anger and the rejection in the sentiment of the statement, “If God is a
God of love, then why…” And if I sit in my thoughts long enough, I easily
answer my own questions…
Revelation Chapter 8 Verse 1
The seventh seal is the final seal. After this one, the scroll is open.
The seventh seal open effectively declares the end of any constraining
debt, and the return of all creation to its rightful owner, Jesus being
fully qualified as fully man and fully God. The debt is settled and fate
is sealed. All is finished just like He declared on the cross…and
essentially that means, finality is about to fall upon the earth.
In that moment, God declares silence. Silence is deafening. The Four
Living Creatures that did not cease to cry out holy, holy, holy…ceased.
The twenty-four elders who praised Him continually…ceased. All of
the angels, the host of heaven standing around the throne worshipping
and saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and
honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”
Quiet. Something major is going on…something that has not
happened before. All eyes on the Lamb. For just as He had taken all of
the sins upon Himself while on earth, He now is alone, singularly the
only One in all of eternity, heaven, hell and earth that is able to
initiate the return of the purchased possession and the horrifying
reward upon those that have rejected Him.
Silence. Direction straight from the heart of the Father. You will not cy
out, all you angels. You will not sing out right now all the host of
heaven…I don’t want to hear it… Ezekiel 33:11, “As I live,” says the
Lord God, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.”
Silence…many are lost, earth is fallen, and My heart once again, just
as it did as I paid the price upon the cross, My heart again
breaks…so, be quiet. All of the Lord’s intense enmity against all sin
meets head on with all of the Lord’s pure holiness, pure
righteousness…, and the pain is deafening.
Revelation Chapter 8 Verse 2
The seven angels who stand before God. Who are these angels? Most
agree these are a high order of angels known as the archangels. In
scripture, we are given two of their names, only two. Luke 1:19, “And
the angel answered and said to him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the
presence of God, and was sent to speak to you and bring you these
glad tidings.” Jude 1:9, “Yet Michael the archangel, in contending
with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not
bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke
you!” (By the way, the only words spoken by Michael in all of
scripture.) And these seven angels are given seven trumpets…
Recall the trumpets significance in times past…the trumpets were
blown to signify the reign of a king. The trumpets were blown to call
the people to gather. The trumpets were blown on the year of jubilee,
to signify freedom from all debts. The trumpets were blown and the
walls of Jericho fell…and now as these trumpets begin to sound, all of
these things are happening.
Revelation Chapter 8 Verses 3 – 6
Do you ever feel like your prayers hit the ceiling or go unheard?
Certainly unanswered. Let me encourage you today, there has never
been a prayer prayed to the Lord in the power and presence of the
Holy Spirit that has not been answered. God is perfect. He doesn’t
leave anything undone. He never starts something and leaves it
unfinished. He’s never too busy, nothing ever hits the back burner, He
doesn’t have a back burner.
Isaiah 40:12 says, “He measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,
measured heaven with a span…” God has the capacity to hear and
handle more prayers than all of creation could ever create…and He is
handling yours. Pray in faith. Trust the Lord. Jeremiah 33:3 says,
“Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty
things, which you do not know.”
Timing may not be exactly to my liking. But what God is doing today
is preparing you for the answer to every prayer you have prayed thus
far. The difficulty is that we just start tripping while we endure
through the process. But even now, trust that where you are at,
although it may not be good, pleasant or comfortable, is leading you
to a place you could have never gotten to without it. So, honor the
Lord today, right here, because God is handling it…
That’s the hope here, the encouragement…that the prayers of the
saints…they come before the throne of God, He examines them, mixes
them with fire from the altar and throws them back to the earth. I love
that! The word for “throw” literally means “pour.” The answer isn’t a
spot solution, God works comprehensive solutioning in your life…,
God is in to root cause analysis not just symptom relief…
And notice, before that pour happens, the angel took that censer and
filled it with fire from the altar. The altar is the place of sacrifice. The
high priest would take the incense, place it into the censer there at the
tabernacle or the temple, and then he would take a burning coal from
the altar and place that coal in the censor thus causing the incense to
rise… What’s the point? The cross is the activator of our prayers.
Our prayers are heard because of it and our prayers are answered in
accordance with it.
Check this out, 1 Timothy 2:5 says, “For there is one God and one
Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.” Your
performance is not your mediator. Your goodness is not your
mediator. Your sinlessness is not your mediator. You come to God
and God gives ear to you because of what Jesus has accomplished!
The sacrifice of Jesus was a horrific circumstance, situation and event.
And yet it brought about the greatest victory that could ever be known
and that victory would go out as a free gift simply to be received by all
people. So, it was greatest in value, greatest in purpose and greatest
in reach. But it all went through the cross. So, take heart. Pray. Pray in
hope…and know that even today God is working that victory even if
you can’t sense it or perceive it over the intense suffering of whatever
cross you have to take up. Take it up anyway. You don’t even know
it, but the pouring out of your answered prayer has already begun…
(Total faith statement even for me as I write this…, not sure all of me
believes it but I have faith in it…, if that makes sense)
Habakkuk 1:5 says, “Look among the nations and watch, be utterly
astounded! For I will work a work in your days which you would not
believe, though it were told to you!” Nothing worthwhile is easy…
We don’t like difficult, but everything with great worth comes with a
measure of difficulty!
Revelation Chapter 8 Verses 7 – 13
A third of all trees on the earth destroyed. All of the grass upon the
earth destroyed. All of it. Imagine the second order affects of that like
air quality and what about all of the herbivore animals? All gone!
(Imagine the heartbreak of every dad with a zero turn mower,
HA!) A third of all of the living creatures in the sea destroyed. Many
people losing their lives just trying to quench their thirst as a third of
the waters become poison. And finally, darkness is multiplied upon
the earth…
Let me ask you, what did the trees do, the animals do, the earth itself,
to deserve this? Nothing. Nothing at all…but this is the exceedingly
sinfulness of sin. All it can do is deliver evil. That’s the only thing
you don’t already have as you seek, walk and grow in the Lord!
Sin seems so innocent. Maybe even no one will ever know…I can get
away with it or I can stop before it causes any real damage…but
beware, sin will always cost you more than you can pay…and
others, uninvolved and innocent, others will have to pay a portion of
the price too. If we could just stop and consider, maybe even God
would grant us the ability to see, truly really what our sin is doing and
going to do to us and others…we’d walk right with the Lord, right
now.
Now, righteousness is the exact same and the exact opposite.
Righteousness and wisdom will always take you farther than you ever
thought possible and it will profit you more than you can spend
yourself. Righteousness and God’s grace flowing through you will
always give you more good than your one life can absorb…and so,
others around you get paid too…they profit too…when you walk in
God’s grace, and when you walk in righteousness!
The effects of receiving and perceiving and growing in the grace God
has given to you, the effects of righteousness are more valuable than
any earthly wealth! Grace flowing through you results in you giving
someone far more and without limit what they do not deserve! It
causes you to act, think and plan in accordance with seeing the best in
someone. And it teaches you to never quit! Never stay discouraged but
on the flip shows you the joy of diligence in doing what is wise and
right in the eyes of God. Grace teaches you incredible work ethic!
Righteousness and wisdom will always deliver to you more than you
need to be fully content, fully satisfied and fully joyful!
The angel declares at the end of Chapter 8, “Woe, woe, woe,” a deep
groaning, an angel struck with grief and with terror at what is
happening upon the earth…, because it’s just starting… Men are
suffering, women are suffering, children are starving, all because of
unrepentant, unchecked, unstopped…sin.
Just when you think it’s as bad as its going to get, sin delivers its
second round of consequence. You get through the grief and then the
anger sets in. The anger lingers and regret comes to join the party.
Then depression and now you’re trying to just hold on, one day at a
time trying to figure out who you are and if you even want to keep
going. Hopelessness is the character of sin. Remember that when you
are toying with the flesh!
Now, hopefulness is the character of grace! Second round
consequence to that is outstanding! You think the work is just going to
be difficult, denying your flesh and putting God first and others before
yourself and then a little self respect dawns. Peace arrives. Peace gives
birth to joy. Joy starts to shine and glitters out freedom…a spark of
freedom in your heart of hearts…and that freedom brings forth
contentment! And let me tell you, contentment is true strength. Grace
is the same and exact opposite of the flesh! Don’t sound bite that but
never forget that in context!!
Next week the trumpet blasts will bring even more destruction because
it moves from the natural to the supernatural…demonic
activity…which is indeed the course of unaddressed sin even today
in our lives!
And so too this star, interestingly called “wormwood,” ‘apsinthion” in
the Greek…in Russian, “cherynobyl” and it affects the waters, turns
them bitter and kills many.
We’ve seen “wormwood” in other places of the Bible too. Amos said
in Amos 5:7 that the wicked turn justice into wormwood and Solomon
warned that immorality in Proverbs 5:4, might seem pleasant, but in
the end, she is bitter as wormwood.
You may recall that after the Israelites traveled through the wilderness
for three days without water, they dove right into the first pool of
water they encountered. You find this in Exodus Chapter 15. But they
soon discovered that the water was “bitter.” They called Moses and to
fix the situation, God told Moses to cast a nearby tree into the water
and when he did, the water became sweet.
It’s interesting that it is a tree that makes the water sweet. The tree is
always a picture of the cross in the Bible. God’s perfect and
wonderful grace on display! God’s righteousness and love on
display! When you add the cross, commit to, seek and walk in God’s
grace, add that to the bitter of what has happened…, the result will
always be a healing of the waters…