JUL 17 2022 | Seven: A Study of the Book of Revelation S1E7 | The Seventh Seal and the Golden Censer

Sea Change Church · JUL 17 2022 | The Seventh Seal and the Golden Censer
Revelation 8:1-5
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

are blind for the rest of their life and can't afford the surgery, we have the privilege to reverse that blindness in the name of Jesus Christ. And since I don't pass out my calling card and they're blind when we take off the patches, I tell them it's a gift from Jesus, and they know no better. But it brings them close to his heart. Today's scripture reading is from Revelation 8, verses 1 through 5.

When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about one half 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 a 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. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth. And there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord.

The word of the trumpets. This is the second episode or series we've dropped in the Revelation, in the book of Revelation since last year. If you want to go back, you can find it. Everything's up on Spotify now. We're completely updated. So if you got 7,000 notifications this week, that was because we were uploading everything. But just the sermons have been ripped out.

You can go back and listen to the seven churches, and then you can also listen to this entire series as of tomorrow. So we have all the other ones up. Let me just pray as we jump into this scripture. Lord Jesus, thank you for your goodness, your grace. And be with us now as we understand your scripture, the centrality of who you are and what you call us to.

In Jesus' name, amen. One of the things I've realized as I've gone through Revelation is that there was a theme of Revelation that I didn't realize until I started studying the book. Like many people are Christians also, I was a little hesitant with the book of Revelation. Like it's just, you know, a lot of negativity going on, a lot of scary things going on, scorpions flying out of the sky, and, you know, all this craziness.

And I kind of stayed away from it for a very long time. And last year was the first time I've ever started preaching through the book. Now, if you've been with us, you know that I'm looking at the essentials of Revelation. What do we actually need to know? What can we learn about Revelation? I'm not so much going to be looking at who the Antichrist might be or when Jesus is coming or when the rapture is.

I want to look at what, how does this affect my life? How can I, how is this going to make me change today? And what I have, one thing I found is that there's really no difference in the way that I'm supposed to live if it's 500 years ago as a believer, if the tribulation is now and we're in it, or if it's a thousand years from now. We're called to live a certain way, and I found a huge challenge.

But in regard to a central thesis and a central theme of Revelation, one could say it's the, you know, Jesus and bringing his church together and going to heaven. One could say it was that. One could say it was the tribulation itself. One could say that it was about God defeating Satan. There's all these different themes. But as I look at it and as I've been studying, what I've realized is the core foundation, the core theme of Revelation is the centrality of God's throne.

Like that is the absolute, the absolute thesis of what Revelation is all about. Matter of fact, Revelation starts in Revelation 2. Where is John taken immediately? Is he taken to be shown all the things that have happened? No. He's immediately taken to the throne room of God and shown the throne of God. And then over and over again, what I see as things begin to unfold is that nothing really happens outside of it, of something being affected because of the throne of God.

For instance, you've got four horsemen that are released, right? You've got the red horse, the black horse, the pale horse, and the white horse. They all get released. Why are they released? The reason they're released is because you have these living creatures that are before the throne of God. They're before the throne of God. And they are told to release the horses.

So the release of the first, the breaking of the first four seals, breaks, lets four horses lose. But it happens because something is happening before the throne. Those four living creatures are before the throne. In this passage, you see that we're getting ready to move to the trumpets. And you see angels. And what are the angels doing? Are they off doing things?

No, they're before the throne. And when they're before the throne, it says they are given things. You know what? If you want life, if you want your life to change, if you want power in your life, get before the throne as much as possible. We find that in the scripture, in Revelation, everything is happening from the throne. Everything that happens on the earth happens after you see it happening in the throne.

So that is the, I would say that there's a central theme to Revelation. I mean, obviously it's Jesus and God being glorified. But it is the lion, it is the lamb, it is God the Father being worshipped. And everything that happens pivots around the throne. Think of the sun and everything pivoting around the sun and planets. That is what Revelation is like as all the history pivots around the throne.

And it brings that kingdom energy into everything that takes place. I would say the more you put yourself in front of the throne, we'll talk about that in a moment, how to do that. The more you do that, the more you are going to be affected by the power of the throne. Now we are in the seventh seal, right? So something really weird happens in the seventh seal.

The seventh seal is broke and basically nothing happens. It says that there is a half hour of silence. Not 42 minutes, not 17 seconds. There's a half hour. The scripture doesn't tell us why, a half hour, but super dramatic. You see this happen, this breaking of the seal, and then everything is quiet. If you look in your notes, you're going to see this.

Revelation 7 is an interlude between the sixth and the seventh seal. I'll stop there for a second. The sixth seal was the beginning, the ushering in of the day of the Lord. If you've heard it, hey, this is the day of the Lord. That is what that means, the day of the Lord is the sixth seal opens up the day of the Lord. Now remember the first four seals that you had, God has given Satan power and the four horsemen come.

And Satan, he is using Satan, he is using Satan's minions to affect tribulation on the earth. But by the time you get to the sixth seal, God's like, give me the keys, I got this. And from that point on, God is orchestrating everything that happens. Now, obviously, he was orchestrating the release of the four horsemen. Who were the horsemen released by?

Well, it wasn't God. God didn't even have time, you know, in his schedule to release the horsemen. It was the living creatures that released the horsemen. So remember, they said, come, and one horse would come. And then the living creature would say, come, and another horse would come. And so you would see this release, and Satan is having his way.

Let me read this, and it puts it in perspective. Revelation 7 is an interlude between the six and the seven seals. During this time, John sees an innumerable throng of people before the throne of God. That was the 144,000 and the great multitude. Loudly proclaiming in chorus, salvation belongs to our God who, what, sits on the throne. There's that throne again.

And to the Lamb. That's Revelation 7. So in Revelation 7, you have this massive, heaping praise. Who were the 144,000 and who were the great multitude? Well, the 144,000 we know were Jewish witnesses that witnessed during tribulation. That's one of the things we learned is you turn tribulation in your life into salvation. The 144,000 were able to take the negative things that were happening around them and turn it into salvation.

They didn't fold. They were witnesses. And their witness led to the great multitude. We spoke about the great multitude last week. What are they doing? All of a sudden, where do they end up? Once again, before the throne of God. And what are they saying? Salvation belongs to our God. I love that. I mean, do we actually believe that salvation belongs to our God?

And I asked the question last week, does salvation belong to you figuring it out? Does salvation belong to your talent? Does salvation belong to your strategy? Does salvation belong to anyone but God? This great multitude knew that it belonged to God. Now, Revelation 8, we're to a seventh seal, right? This is the end of the seal. And I mentioned that the seals, basically as he breaks the seals, they would seal, as they rolled up a scroll, if they wanted it to be released in segments, they would roll it a little bit.

They would put a wax seal and roll it. And then it wouldn't be broken. Then they would roll it a little bit more and put another seal and roll it. So as you broke it, you were opening the seals. And one of the reasons they would do this is they would say, we want this to get to the governor. But the first seal needs to go to the security guard to say, let him in.

So the security guard breaks the first seal and it says, you may not break the second seal, but want you to know that you should let them in. And then they would keep breaking it all the way through. Now we're on the seventh seal. It says that then in Revelation 8, Jesus breaks the seventh seal. And John says that after the seal was broken, there was silence in heaven for about a half hour.

This silence immediately follows the loud and jubilant songs of the heavenly worship in chapter 7, making an absolute, sudden silence even more dramatic. There is something about the seventh seal that stops every mouth and silences all of heaven. In regard to becoming spiritually mature and actually growing, if you want to grow in your spiritual life, there's two things that we see happening here in heaven that are important.

Number one, worship. Do you have a place in your life for worship, praise, and thanksgiving? Worship is a tool. Worship is powerful. Worship will change your attitude. Worship will change spiritual things that are happening around you. Worship will change the environment. It says in the scripture God inhabits the praise of his people. So worship brings God's presence.

Do you have a time where you worship? Is it ten minutes a day? Five minutes a day? Do you have it on your Spotify? Do you have a worship channel? They're pretty easy to set up on Spotify. Do you worship? Worship is thanksgiving. Worship is praise. Worship changes you because when you're worshiping something higher than yourself, you're humbling yourself.

And so it brings instant humility. In a world that's seeking not to be humble, to be the top dog, worship brings humility. The next, I would say, you know, Hank Williams had a song when he talked about, you know, one fist of iron, the other is steel. If the left one don't get you, then the right one will. Well, worship doesn't, you know, take care of what's needed.

The next thing is silence. We live in a world that doesn't value silence. Silence is a weapon in our society. Silence allows you to hear. Silence allows you to focus. Silence is a massive filter. And so two areas of your spiritual life. And I would say, look, start with, if you don't have this in your life, start with five minutes a day. Listen to one worship song and five minutes of silence.

And in the midst of that, put yourself before the throne of God. I'm going to give you a tool exactly how to do that. But try to put yourself before the throne of God and have worship and silence. It is a filter. Satan dwells in chaos. He loves chaos. He wants you on your phone constantly. He loves the chaos of the world. You know, one of the things the Lord's been showing me about the news is I read the news and it'll be like, in this country, this happened.

And I feel like Jesus says, you know, I get all frustrated if something's going on. I feel like the Lord is saying to me what he said to Peter about John the apostle. When Peter was like, what about him? And the Lord said to him, what I'm doing with him is none of your business. You just focus on what you're supposed to focus on. What I have realized is there's so much distraction in the world that when I get to the centrality of the cross with worship and silence, it brings me back to ballast.

And so that is the first thing. Just, if you want to change your week this week, one, get yourself before the throne, worship, and silence. We see that's the nature of heaven. When you look at what we can learn from Revelation, it's that everything pivots off the throne. Every movement, everything pivots directly off the throne. All right, so let's go to verse one.

There's a heavenly silence. Verse one, when he opened the seal, seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about a half hour. In a way, the silence in heaven could be seen as the calm before the storm. The storm of a final judgment coming upon the earth. The silence emphasizes the importance and the impressiveness of the seventh and the final seal.

With the opening of the seventh seal is a climax in the day of the Lord. Evil has had its day. Now the Lord will have his. You see, evil has had its day and now the Lord will have his. The Lord in Revelation is doing two things. He's judging sin. And he's also bringing grace. Because how do we know grace? Well, remember in the beginning of the tribulation, what happened?

All these people got saved. God turns tribulation into salvation. And so one of the things God is regularly doing is using tribulation. He shakes the tree so that he might gather the fruit, the low-hanging fruit that would fall to the ground and pick them up and save them. And so as we look at Revelation, one of the things we see is that salvation comes out of that.

Now, as we go from the day of the Lord, there's eight angels. If you can have your scripture, find the eight angels if you can find them. Not too hard to find. First of all, let's go to verse 2. First of all, you have a grouping of seven angels. And I saw the seven angels who stand where? Before God. Circle before God. And seven trumpets were given, circle given, to them.

Now, why is this important? Well, first of all, these angels that are about to go on an assignment before God, where are they? Where are they before they were given an assignment? They're before the throne of God. They're not off in some rando place just hanging out. They are before the throne of God. And when you stand before the throne of God, things happen.

You get assignments. You get power. You get given things. When you put yourself before the throne of God, it says that you have power. There's so many things that come from that. They're given these trumpets. What do the trumpets symbolize? Well, they symbolize that they are going to be given a message. But the two things are key. One, putting yourself before the throne of God.

And two, putting yourself in a position for God to use you. Let me tell you how I did this this week. I have a tendency in my mind to start focusing on all different types of things. Criticism. So I'm pretty critical. Judgmental, especially if you drive too slow in front of me. Upset. The other thing is, like, I'm going on vacation on the 14th of August.

And recently, I've been thinking a lot about I can't wait until the 14th of August to go on vacation. I even realized that, like, I think I'm, you know, I'm not living in the future. Like, I'm going to get to the vacation. Can we stop thinking about vacation? Why am I continuing to focus on that? What I started doing, whether it was a good thing or a negative thing in my life, is directing my attention, the center of my spirit, back to the throne of God.

Now, how do I do that? Well, in Revelation 2, or is it chapter 3, it speaks about a picture of the throne of God. And so I picture the throne of God in my mind. This week, as I was thinking about something or I get a negative thought, I take my mind back to the throne of God. And I focus my mind on the throne of God. Last week, I gave this scripture.

I believe it's in Job. It says that the mind that is set upon God is in perfect peace because you trust in him. I would say probably a hundred times this week, I did a spiritual discipline of every time I would get a thought or a critical thought or a negative thought or an anxiety or a happiness, even if it's happiness, even if it's joy, what do I do?

If I found that it was coming back over and over again, I just take my mind off it and I put my mind in the centrality of God and I begin to think about his throne. It even worked in prayer. Let me just tell you how prayer works. When I pray for a friend or I pray, let's say it's a difficult situation, I'll pray for a difficult situation. And as I'm praying, I'll start feeling a little bit of stress about it or I'll start feeling an emotion.

And I picture the people I'm praying for, I picture the thing I'm praying for separate of the throne of God. What I started doing in prayer was taking that picture, that thought, and putting it before the throne of God. So when I was praying for my wife, I picture my wife before the throne of God and I say, God, and in my mind, I physically present her before the throne of God as opposed to thinking about my wife and, you know, whatever it would be over here and then kind of having God in the side of my mind.

I want to take everything boldly before the throne of God and have everything, like in the book of Revelation, pivot off the throne of God. I want every thought, I want every decision, I want every single thing that happens in my life to pivot off the throne of God. I say, if you use this as a spiritual discipline, it's not hard if you did it 10 times a day to get up to 175 to 100 times a week where you're just pivoting your mind and your spirit back to the throne of God.

And that is so key because it actually will change the trajectory. I've noticed that it's changing my spirit. I'm actually, sometimes before I'm actually thinking of a negative thought or whatever, actually on my own, I just go and pivot and think through the throne of God. We see that the seven angels were there standing before the throne of God and seven trumpets were given to them.

If you stand before the throne of God, if you do that in your mind, you will be given more peace, you will be given more power, you'll be given more joy, you'll be given more direction. Now, while you're before the throne of God, you have silence and worship, one-two punch. Before the throne of God, silence and worship, watch your life change.

Absolutely watch your life change. As opposed to randomly just walking around listening to a little Caleb or whatever it is or a little Bible reading. Live from the throne. That is what we're learning in Revelation. This throne is the center of everything we do. The eighth angel comes in verse three. Go to verse three. Another angel, maybe an archangel, who had a golden censer came and stood at the altar.

Now, stop there for a second. Let's show that golden censer. If you grew up in a liturgical church, you remember this. I almost got one of these on eBay for $59 this week. So cool. Totally scriptural. All my friends who grew up in a liturgical church would be like, no, don't take me back. I actually grew up, I love this stuff. I want to say that it is totally biblical if I were to have done that.

The censers are in the Old Testament. We'll see here in a moment. They're in the New Testament. And it represents a fragrant offering before God. If you grew up Catholic, I used to love it. They have a really good smelling, like the incense. It's like a churchy incense. I don't even know the flavor. I'm going to get one. So $59 on eBay. You can have one.

And I want to go up and down. And, you know, it's totally biblical. It's totally New Testament as well. But it represents the prayers of the saints. And we're going to see that here in just a second. It says, he was given much incense to offer with. So he's mixing the incense. A lot of times, if you've gone overseas, I was in Morocco and they mix incense with the prayers of all God's people on the golden altar in front of the throne.

So what's happened is this angel has come. He was given much incense. What is this incense? The incense, it says three chapters earlier, we know what this incense is. It's the prayers of God's people. If you want to know what God uses as incense in heaven, flip over on your notes. I think it's on the other page. In Revelation 5, 8, it tells us, this is another angel, maybe the same angel.

And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb. There they are once again, centrality of Jesus in the throne. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls. Full of what? Incense. Next sentence, comma. Which are the prayers of God's people. God calls prayer incense. Now, many people haven't seen what happens to these prayers.

In a moment, we're going to, let me just tease it. It is so cool what happens to these prayers. It is so cool. But these prayers are burning in these bowls eternally before the throne of God. It says that any prayer that is prayed in God's will goes into this bowl, whether it's the prayer of Moses, whether it's the plumber who came to your house who prayed in God's will, whether it is your prayer from six weeks ago, whether it is Mother Teresa, whether, no matter who it is.

All the prayers that are prayed in God's will burn before his throne. Well, do they burn there eternally just for no other reason? We'll see that in just a second. God established incense as part of the sacerdotal system and therefore uses it as symbolism. In Exodus 31 through 10, when Moses was told to build what? An altar of incense. It says in Revelation 7-4, back to Revelation 7-4, the smoke of this incense, together with the prayers of God, went up from the angel's hand.

Now, think of this. This angel scoops fire. It says he has fire. It says he has incense. The prayers of these people, scoops it up, and he just has it there burning before the throne of God. How cool is that imagery, right? It's all the prayers. It's, you know, all these things. Prayers for people's lives. Prayers for people to get out of prison. Prayers for sustenance.

Every prayer that has ever been prayed in God, this angel is holding them. Let's say prayer is linked to incense in the temple in other passages as well. Well, when Gabriel appears to Zechariah in the temple and tells him that his prayers have been answered, Gabriel is standing at the right side. Where is he again now? Where is Gabriel? Right side of the altar of incense there before the throne of, not before the throne of God, but the altar of God on earth.

This happened when the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. They had a whole hour in the Jewish day where they would have an hour where they would just burn incense. They would just burn incense as prayer and offering before God. The Bible says your life is an offering. Your prayers are an offering, and God adorns himself.

He inhabits the praises of his people. Your life is an offering. Imagine living like that. In the midst of the tribulation, in the midst of all the things that are going to happen, heaven is silent, heaven has praise, and praise is going up in prayer and incense. Look at the environment, the atmosphere of heaven. You can have that atmosphere now if you want it.

It's just a matter of putting ourselves in that position. It says, now the next question, you might ask, well, who, which are these? Are these the prayers of just the holy people? Are these just the prayers of like, you know, Jeff up in the, you know, super holy Jeff in the media department? Or, you know, maybe Curtis out at the front, he's super holy.

Are these just holy? You know, no. It says, it tells us specifically, these are all the prayers. In Revelation 5.8, it says, since these prayers are, in your notes it will say, since these prayers are the aggregate of all believers' prayers through all time, they are about everybody and everything that is consistent in God's will. So what happens now?

Got all these prayers, they just sit and burn before God? No. You know what's awesome? He takes them, the angel takes them, and he's like, let's go. And he throws them on the earth. And it goes, boom, like, go to Revelation 7.4. No, excuse me, 7.5. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, fire, and hurled it on the earth.

And then came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashing, lightning, and an earthquake. You know what initiates the next season of Revelation? It's the prayers of God's people. It is the prayers of God's people that are the key, that unlock the seven trumpets in everything going forward. God, it's your prayers, it's my prayers, it is prayers from a thousand years ago.

It is prayer that changes the world. All these prayers have been pent up. When, Lord, will you answer? When will you answer? When will you bring justice to the world? When will you punish injustice? When will you punish sin? When will you change the world? When will you bring salvation? God, prayer, prayer, prayer. The angel scoops it up. He takes it and he throws it upon the earth and boom, everything takes place.

No wonder there is silence. Because you know how long God has been waiting to answer prayer? You think you've been waiting? He's been waiting for days, years, thousands of years to change the world, to take your prayer and turn it into action and into movement. Prayer changes things. Prayer brings power. Four quick things and we're done. Four quick practical takeaways today.

Okay, number one, the centrality of God's throne. What are you focused on? During your day, are you focused on your next distraction? I get focused on my distraction. Just can't wait to get home, get my feet up, and go waste an hour and a half on the internet. I can't wait to get home and I can't wait to get to my workout. There's nothing wrong with those things.

But everything that I do, I find that sometimes if my mind keeps going to something, why can't my workout, why can't I take it to the throne? God, just be with me. Why can't I consistently practice the presence of God in my life? And so we see that, that silence, the centrality of that. The next is a silence is a virtue. See, in a world full of chaos, we need silence.

We need a place, silence is a filter. Do you have silence in your life? Are you comfortable with silence? Silence. Some of us are not comfortable with silence. Silence is a virtue. You can continue, it's a spiritual discipline, to hear in silence. The quieter, the more quiet it is, the easier it is to hear. It's not, you go to a concert and all this noise going on.

I mean, it's fun. It's awesome. Chaos. Your phone, just all this, it's chaos. The devil thrives in chaos. Silence. Find silence. Silence. God leaves no prayer unattended. I love that. You pray, goes before his throne, and one day that prayer is going to be hurled down upon the earth. One day. God will, he's taking care of it. You pray. And the final thing is this, prayer releases power.

Power. Little prayer, little power. Big prayer, big power. Let's say, you know, I had a call this week. Somebody read a book I wrote on prayer a long time ago. I wrote about having a list. First, and I got this call. I think he was up in Northern California. He's all, hey, pastor, just want you to know, you know, it's been a while since you wrote this.

I found it. I just started praying. I can't tell you all the prayers that have been answered. I started praying on my list. God started moving, praying, praying, praying. And he goes, I just want to encourage you. And so I'm going to call him back this week, see what's up. But it was so encouraging. And I thought to myself, I need to pray. So I got my old prayer journal back out.

And I started crossing off. You ever made a prayer journal? I started crossing off all these things that have been answered. I was like, whoa, whoa, I forgot about that. God's like, I didn't forget about it. Boom. Throw it down upon the earth and God is going to use it. Centrality of the cross. A centrality of his throne. Position yourself before the throne.

Silence is a virtue. God leaves no prayer unattended. And prayer releases power. You want power? Pray. Amen? Let's stand if you would. If you need prayer today, you can come forward. We got a crack prayer team. They've been trained like Navy SEALs to pray for you. Prayer. Prayer is going to change things. If you need some time to sit up here and focus.

I know Bonnie's got a nice little ditty she's going to play. I heard that last service. We want to pray for you. If you want to learn more about our church, to get baptized, to get involved, you can go to the next steps table. If you just need a hot cup of coffee and a pastry, go say hi to the cafe team. If you extend your hand, I want to bless you.

Lord Jesus, we bless our people, Lord God. We bless these people. Pray that we just put them right now before the throne of God. In your own mind, just picture the throne of God. All your other problems behind you, throne of God. Want more of your power. Let your power fall. Bring power. Bring righteousness. Bring your care. God, bless these people, Jesus.

Give them provision. Bring them healing. Give them hope. Let them be a change, Lord God. Let them focus on you. Give them the discipline this week. Keep bringing it off the things we don't want to focus on back to you. Back to prayer. Let their prayers be an incense. And I pray for answered prayers. This week, God, I would pray that every person here, God, that you would answer one prayer, God, that they pray this week.

Just as they pray, just one, God, just to encourage them and to bless them. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Hey, we love you guys. Go have a great weekend. Change the world, okay?