Revelation Class #23 - The Seventh Seal
Revelation 8:1
And when He broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about
half an hour. (2) And I saw the seven angels who stand before God; and seven
trumpets were given to them. (3) And another angel came and stood at the altar,
holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, that he might add it
to the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the
throne. (4) And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went
up before God out of the angel's hand. (5) And the angel took the censer; and he
filled it with the fire of the altar and threw it to the earth; and there
followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake.
(6) And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound
them.
This is a part of Revelation that
people really have a problem understanding. If you are looking at Revelation as
futuristic, then this has not yet happened. No body has heard the angel's
trumpets blowing, they haven't seen all of these horrible things happening. But
I want to remind you that I see Revelation along with the author Chilton and
others, as a Suzerain Treaty document. Remember that the Suzerain Treaty was a
document that was drawn up by the conquering king (the Suzerain King) and the
vassal king, the king who had been conquered. They made two copies of this
treaty. The treaty had a very specific format. The first part of it was the
preamble, 'this is who I am.' The second part was the historical prologue, 'this
is what I've done.' The third part were the ethical stipulations, 'this is what
you need to do,' and the next part was the sanctions, 'if you don't do that,
here is what I'm going to do.' The last part of it was a succession arrangement.
Beginning with Chapter 8, what we see in the Suzerain Treaty document are the
sanctions. 'This is what I'm going to do because you have not done what I told
you to do.' My position is these are sanctions that we see against Israel, and
the Roman state.
Slowly the incensing priest, the
one who is to burn the incense and his assistants, ascended the steps to the
holy place. (Remember the tabernacle and then the temple was divided into two
compartments. There was the compartment called the Holy Place which the priests
could go into. It had the table of the show bread on the right hand side with
the wine, it had the lampstand on the left side, the light, and then it had the
golden altar of incense right in front of the veil that separated the two
compartments. Behind the veil God himself dwelt in glory between the wings of
the cherubim on the arc of the covenant above the mercy seat.)
Now when they would burn incense,
which was a daily function, the incensing priest and his assistants ascended the
steps to the holy place preceded by the two priests who had formally dressed the
altar and the candlestick, and who now removed the vessels they had left behind
and worshipping, withdrew. Next, one the assistants reverently spread the coals
on the golden altar. (God had started the fire on the altar of sacrifice which
was outside the holy place. It was the first thing that you saw when you came
into the tabernacle or temple. It was called the bronze altar. God himself
started that fire and they didn't let that fire go out. They kept it burning and
the coals that were used for burning incense actually came off of this
sacrificial altar.) The other arranged the incense, (he didn't put it on yet,
just arranged it) and then the chief officiating priest was left alone within
the holy place to await the signal of the president before burning the incense.
(In other words, they would all go in and set it up, everyone would leave except
for the priest who had been chosen to burn the incense.) Eidersheim writes: it
was probably while thus was expectant that the angel Gabriel appeared to
Zacharias in Luke 1:8-11. (Remember Zacharias was in the holy place, he was in
the temple, that the angel Gabriel appeared to him while he was standing there
and told him that he would have a son who would be named John).
As the president gave the word of
command which marked the time of incense had come, the whole multitude of the
people without (outside) withdrew from the inner court (directly around the holy
place) and fell down before the lord, spreading their hands in silent prayer.
(In other words, everyone would back away from the inner court right around the
holy place into the outer court. They would all fall down with their hands
spread out in prayer.) It is this most solemn period when throughout the vast
temple buildings deep silence rested on the worshipping multitude, while within
the sanctuary itself, the priest laid the incense on the golden altar and the
cloud of odors rose up before the lord, which serves as an image of the heavenly
things in this description.
If you understand what is going
on in the temple, you can see how much sense this makes. Here we're talking
about a worship service in Heaven. Remember the temple service had been
patterned after what had been seen in heaven. So here we have the prayers of the
saints, the incense, going up before God. That was the symbolism when the priest
would go in and burn incense on the golden altar, it represented the prayers of
the saints going up before God. In this temple service, you have all of the
people backing off, bowing down to God and spreading out their hands in prayer.
So the whole tabernacle, the whole temple, is silent in worship before God. I
think that's what we see here in Revelation Chapter 8.
Eidersheim points out the
practice of folding the hands together in prayer, dates from the fifth century
of our era and is of purely Saxon origin. The bowing of the heads and the
folding of the hands is not traditional Jewish worship. The Jews actually stood
up to pray with their hands held up in the air.
Q:
Why do we bow now?
A:
As a sign of reverence. But what is important is that your heart is reverent,
not the position that is important. As I said, the Jews stood up to pray. We bow
our heads as a sign of reverence to God, as a sign of submission and there are
Scriptures that support that.
Q:
How does the Muslim practice relate?
A:
I think the Muslim practice actually is more like what we would have seen in
Israel. Remember they did in fact pray toward Jerusalem. Daniel, for instance,
when he prayed bowed down toward Jerusalem. So what we see in the Muslim world,
is probably more like what we would have seen in an Israelite culture of the
first century. In fact, they bowed down and put their hands out, then bowed down
toward Jerusalem. Why did they bow down toward Jerusalem? Because God was there!
God was in the temple. So they were bowing down toward God. Now God is in the
heavens, so we don't have to bow down to a place. God is with us so we don't
have to bow down in any particular direction.
Q:
What is bowing toward Mecca? Does that indicate they believe God is in Mecca?
A:
They believe that Mecca is where God spoke to the prophet Mohammed and gave them
the Koran. So they consider that a holy place and that is why they bow down
toward Mecca.
(3) And another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden
censer; and much incense was given to him, that he might add it to the prayers
of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.
Notice that the incense here
represents the prayers of the saints. In fact, Revelation
5:8 And when he had taken the book, the four living
creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, having each one
a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
(4) And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before
God out of the angel's hand. What we need to understand in
the symbolism here is that golden altar where the incense was burned, which by
the way was burned 24 hours a day, always had the incense going up before God.
This tells us that there ought to be continuous prayer from God's people. Not
that we have to be in prayer 24 hours a day, obviously we couldn't do that, but
that our lives should be an attitude of prayer. When you're driving down the
freeway, you can pray. Don't bow your head in the Saxon form, keep your head up
and your eyes open in the Israelite form, and pray. We need to have every
thought captive to Christ, that is the attitude we need to have. We ought to be
in constant communication with God, that's what is represented here.
We are too often
compartmentalized. We pray at this particular time, we eat at this particular
time, we go to work at this particular time and we worship God on this
particular day. But you see, you lives ought to be a continual relationship with
God, and a continuous communication with him. That is what I think we see in the
continuous smoke of the incense.
(5) And the angel took the censer; and he filled it with the fire of the
altar and threw it to the earth; and there followed peals of thunder and sounds
and flashes of lightning and an earthquake. A
censer is a pan or container which holds the coals and the incense. For
instance, the Catholic priests carry a bowl-thing on a chain that is smoking
which he goes around swinging over the people. Probably in biblical times, they
were fire pans. They would take the coals from the altar and would bring them in
to the golden altar of incense and then put the incense on that. Then the smoke
would go up before God as a pleasing aroma. Why in the world would the angel
take the censer, fill it with the fire of the altar and throw it to the earth,
and all these terrible things happening? That too comes from Old Testament
symbology. In the Old Testament, it talks about putting the city under the band.
Jesus talks about 'you make things corband. You don't honor your father and
mother because you say everything I have is corband' – it's dedicated to God.
It is dedicated as a sacrifice to God. In the Old Testament what you see, is
that God would say that a particular city has been disobedient, and Israelites,
my army, my hosts, I want you to go in and I want you to wipe out this city and
I want you to burn it to the ground. I want you to put it under the band. It's
corband. Nothing in it belongs to you, it all belongs to me. By the way, the
fire that you use, has to come from the altar of sacrifice. When you bring fire
into the city, bring it from the altar, and burn the city to the ground.
The city of Aiai was put under
the band and everything was supposed to be burned as a sacrifice to God, as a
judgmental sacrifice to God. Aiken of course took the gold and took the shoal
which belonged to God, he was stealing from God. That's why God condemned Aiken
and his whole family.
Q:
The terrorist Muslims have been thinking of us as a great Satan. That we have by
our immoralities done things that they believe Ajehad - the holy war- is needed.
It sounds like they're trying to be a part of Revelation.
A:
I knew a pastor in Bakersfield who had spent some 20+ years in Moslem lands as a
military guy and had studied the Muslim faith and could quote you from the
Koran, and in spite of what the average Moslem on the street will tell you, the
foundational tenet of the Muslim faith is to wipe the infidels off the face of
the earth. You and I are infidels. We are not Muslim, we are infidel. Their
foundational tenet is to cleanse the earth by getting rid of all the infidels.
They may talk peace all they want, but what the religion teaches, is that they
are to get ride of all the infidels. That is the basis for all these fanatical
Moslems, they're just carrying out the tenets of their faith. They're more
consistent in their understanding and interpretation of the Koran than the
Moslem on the street. So we have to understand that this is a war between God
and not-God. If you're not of God, you're going to try to get rid of God. People
don't like God. People don't want to be faced with their sin, so they're going
to try to get rid of it. That is the basis for alot of this.
I don't think they're consciously
saying we're going to be part of Revelation, but, we're going to be part of
God's judgment. I don't think they think that part out. Here again, as I
understand Revelation, we're not talking about some future destruction upon the
earth. We're talking about destruction upon Israel. God's sanctions upon the
Israelites for their disobedience to his word. So what we see here is God
putting the old nation of Israel under the band. He's going to wipe them out
with fire from the altar. They refused to understand that Jesus Christ was the
ultimate sacrifice, and that once he had sacrificed, the sacrificial system
should go away. They continued to sacrifice animals. Now I would submit to you
that if I were God, and I had sacrificed my son as the ultimate sacrifice, and
people still continued to sacrifice animals to cleanse their sins, I might be
pretty upset. I think that is what we see in Revelation. That God is condemning
that unbelief in the Israelite system. So what we see here is God pouring out
His judgment upon the land.
and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning
and an earthquake. What you see there
is God's judgment. Just like Chilton and others have pointed out, that the same
words there are used when God came down on Mt. Sinai to give the law. Peals of
thunder, this incredible cloud, flashes of lightning, this horrendous noise that
the Israelites couldn't stand. They sent Moses to talk to God because they
feared they would die if they did. 'We can listen to you, we don't want to
listen to God.' I think that's what you see here, that this peals
of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake is talking about God's judgment upon Israel. That's further
verified as we go on.
(6) And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets
prepared themselves to sound them. (7) And the first sounded, and there came
hail and 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 were burned up, and all the
green grass was burned up. (8) And 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; (9) and a third of the creatures, which were in the sea and
had life, died; and a third of the ships were destroyed. (10) And the third
angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it
fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters; (11) and the name of
the star is called Wormwood; and a third of the water's became wormwood; and
many men died from the waters, because they were made bitter.
If we interpret Revelation in
a literalistic sense, this has not yet happened, obviously. But if it is
symbolic, as I believe it is, if it's using Old Testament symbols to tell the
Christians of the first century about God's grace, God's mercy and that God was
going to be with them and that God was going to pour out judgment against Israel
and the Roman system, and that He was going to keep them. Then I think it's very
easy to explain these things.
And the first sounded, and there came hail and fire, mixed with blood,
Doesn't that remind you of Egypt? It
sounds just like God's judgments upon Egypt and upon their gods. Remember when
he was bringing the Israelites out, he said 'I'm going to harden Pharaoh's heart
so that he won't listen, so that my judgment will be upon them and I will bring
these plagues.' He brought ten plagues, one of which was fire and hail. Very
large hail would come down and break down all the plants and kill people who
refused to understand and were out in it. Fire ran along the ground and came
down out of heaven. This is God's judgment upon a disobedient nation, the nation
of Israel.
the blood, Remember that Moses dipped
his staff into the Nile and all the water became blood. So we see that kind of
imagery here. The Israelites, who understood the Old Testament and understood
that those were God's judgment plagues, said 'Whoa, this is God's judgment.'
Remember these plagues were done to the ungodly, the foes of Israel. This is
judgmental language. What's in view here is the terribleness of God's judgment,
the hail and the fire. When David was talking about these incredible judgments
poured out upon God's enemies. He wasn't saying that literally these things
happened, he was saying this is the terribleness of God's judgment.
(8)
And 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; A
great mountain burning with fire, has that happened yet? …Volcanoes… But thrown
into the sea? Daniel 9:20 says that Israel is the mountain of God. Jeremiah
51:24 God says "But I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea
for all their evil that they have done in Zion (Zion is the mountain
of God. Zion represented Israel. So here God is condemning Babylon and Chaldea
for all the evil they've done in Israel) before
your eyes declares the Lord. (25) Behold, I am against you, O destroying
mountain. (Who is He talking about? Babylon.) Who
destroy the whole earth," declares the Lord, "And I will stretch out
My hand against you, and roll you down from the crags and I will make you a
burnt out mountain. (26) And they will not take from you even a stone for a
corner nor a stone for foundations, But you will be desolate forever,"
declares the Lord.
Chilton points out that what's
going on here is that God is speaking of Israel in terms of Babylon. That Israel
by their disobedience have taken themselves out of the realm of the family of
God, by their incredible disobedience, by their ignorance, by their ignoring
what God had commanded them to do, they are now being talking about in terms of
Babylon. They are the burning mountain that is going to be thrown into the sea.
Judgment upon Israel. That puts a whole new light on something that I've
preached for years that I don't think is correct anymore. In Matthew
21:19 Jesus is coming into the city and he's hungry. (19)
And seeing a lone fig tree by the road (By the way, it wasn't the
season for figs.) He
came to it, and found nothing on it except leaves only; and He said to it,
"No longer shall there ever be any fruit from you," And at once the
fig tree withered. (20) And seeing this, the disciples marveled, saying
"How did the fig tree wither at once?" (21) And Jesus answered and
said to them, "Truly I say to you, if you have faith, and do not doubt, you
shall not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this
mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' (the mountain he is
talking about is Mt. Zion, Israel, the mountain of God)
it shall happen.
(22) And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive."
Jesus is teaching two things
here. One is strong faith exercised in prayer. Yesterday when we were standing
out in front of the abortion clinic with the signs, something incredible
happened. This man came up and he was angry, hostile, his voice was shaking and
trembling. I tried to reason with him but he didn't want any reason. He wanted
his way. He wanted to force his opinion onto the children. He wanted the
children who were there to see the horribleness of what he was talking about,
because his daughter had see the horribleness of the pictures. A couple of
people tried to reason with him, but he didn't want any reasoning. Finally in
desperation, I didn't know what else to do, I said, "Let's don't carry on
this, let's pray." And I prayed, Pastor David Brown's son prayed, and
prayed and prayed. I said "Thank you Lord, thank you father." When he
was done, he had prayed for about 15 minutes, this man folded up his stuff and
walked away. He never said a word. It was through the power of prayer that the
situation was resolved.
I think that's what Jesus was
teaching here. He knew that Israel was going to persecute the church. He knew
that Israel had become Babylon. He knew that the mountain of God had become the
destroying mountain of Jeremiah. What he was teaching the people and his
disciples was to pray for the destruction of Israel, and they did. And it did.
Chilton points out that people
understood this and that the Christians prayed for God's judgment upon Israel.
'God reins down his judgments upon the earth in specific response to the
liturgical worship of his people. As a part of the formal worship service in
heaven, the angel of the altar offers up the prayers of the corporate people of
God and God responds to the petitions of his people. Acting into history on
behalf of the saints, the intimate connection between liturgy and history is an
inescapable fact. One that we cannot afford to ignore. The point here is that
the official worship of the covenantal community is cosmically significant.
Church history is the key to world history.' That's what we as a church don't
understand today.
Q:
Right now we apparently have in the next couple of years, the likelihood of
disease being spread around by people who believe they are supporting the Holy
War. They see our television with its violence, sex, and they're treating the
United States as if its Sodom, as if they're God. Now with the understanding of
this, do you have any recommendations on how to understand them? What's driving
them? What can we do to counteract?
A:
Give them the gospel. Pray. That
sounds simplistic, it really does. But that's what God tells us to do. You see,
what you see over and over again in Scripture is that God says, 'this is the way
you handle a problem.' What happens is that we try to do it our way. Remember
the commercial that said 'Please Mother, I'd rather do it myself.' We're like
that with God. Please God, I want to do it myself. We've got to understand
that's not the way to do it. It sounds simplistic, but it's the essence of
faith. That when we believe God and do what God commands us to do, things
happen. I don't know how to make that any plainer.
(commentary by Coleen…not
loud enough to hear)
They turn the world upside
down. They brought down the strongest governmental system the world had ever
known, the Roman empire. How did they do it? With a great army or great funds,
or with incredible plans? No, they did it with prayer because they believed God
and they did what God commanded them to do. I am convinced that if churches
today understood that message and we as churches today, corporately in worship,
were praying for God's judgment upon the pagans, for God to step in to history
and work something and do something with our television system and our
ungodliness in our schools and wherever, God will respond. But we don't really
think he will, do we? Well, we should pray, but don't we hedge our bets? 'God if
it be your will, do this.' That's kind of a cop out. Just in case God doesn't
want to answer our prayers. We don't pray in faith, do we. 'God, heal this
person. God, change these circumstances.'
So I think we see here in
Revelation, God pouring out judgment upon Israel. It's not literal, it's saying
not a third of everything is burned up. There is a pattern here. Notice that
when the seventh seal was opened, now there are seven trumpets. When the seventh
trumpet sounds, there are seven bowls of judgment. There's a pattern here. It's
not literalistic, its symbolic. The seven angels who had seven trumpets. There
were seven trumpets were there in the worship service in the tabernacle in the
temple.
So what we're seeing here is
symbolic of worship and God's judgment and God's word to men. This is not the
final destruction of the cosmos. Even if it were, there were only a third burned
up. A third of the cattle, a third of the tree. All the green grass was burned
up but you'll find out later all the green grass wasn't burned up because it's
burned up again later. So it's symbolic. It's not literal in the sense of
absolute.
Again we see in
Isaiah 14:12-15 where God says through
the prophet Isaiah "How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the
dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, you who have weakened the nations!
(13) But you said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my
throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the
recesses of the north. (14) 'I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I
will make myself like the Most High.' (15) "Nevertheless you will be thrust
down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit. God is prophesying
through Isaiah specifically against Babylon. He is predicting judgment (v4)
that you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon … So
what God is predicting here is the destruction of the king of Babylon who said
'I'm going to make myself like God.' It's also about Satan we learn because
Satan was like the king of Babylon. He said 'I'm going to put myself above God.'
That was his sin. By the way, that's our sin too. 'I want to be like God.' That
was the temptation in the garden and that is the ultimate sin, that we want to
be like God.
I don't know that this is
specifically against Nebuchednezzar, but certainly it says its against the king
of Babylon. I haven't studied it so I don't really know the answer. You see this
same thing in Jeremiah 9:15 therefore
thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, "behold, I will feed them,
this people, with wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink. (16) And I
will scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have
known; and I will send the sword after them until I have annihilated them."
Who is God prophesying about? Look back up to
verse 11 "And I will make
Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals; and I will make the cities of
Judah a desolation, without inhabitant." (12) Who is the wise man that may
understand this? And who is he to whom the mouth of the Lord has spoken, that he
may declare it? (13) And the Lord said, "Because they have forsaken My law
which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice nor walked according to
it, (14) but have walked after the stubbornness of their heart and after the
Baals, as their fathers taught them," (15) therefore thus says the Lord of
hosts, the God of Israel, "behold, I will feed them, this people (Israel,
Judah), with wormwood
and give them poisoned water to drink.
What is being prophesied here in
Revelation is exactly what Jeremiah was prophesying. That God would pour about
upon Israel His judgment. The wormwood and the upon Israel because of their
disobedience. I don't think this is some futuristic incredible thing that's
going to happen. I think this is something that they would have understood,
because they understood Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the Psalms. They understood the
temple worship and they understood that what God was talking about here was His
judgment against ungodly Israel. I think that is what we see in Revelation.
They were steeped in the Old
Testament. Instantly, when they heard seven trumpets, they would be thinking
temple liturgy. When they heard wormwood, they were thinking of Jeremiah's
prophecy against Israel. When they heard of the burning mountain, they were
thinking of Isaiah and his prophecy against …END OF TAPE
