1. "The problem of nothing is a query of how the all-powerful God of the Bible can credibly claim to hear our prayers when so often we pray and nothing seems to happen."

2. "Often in our experience, our prayers seem to go missing. Somewhere between our saying them and heaven, it seems like they're just not delivered."

3. "A society which makes no legal preference between heterosexual marriage and what has been called homosexual marriage is a society which may, in the name of what it has come to prefer as immediate love or fairness or freedom or equality, have forgotten more tested notions of family and perhaps even their own survival."

4. "When you believe that every person is made in the image of God, you may not thereby feel that any set of relationships they call a marriage should be legally recognized as such, but you are encouraged to treat each person with dignity and respect."

5. "The prayers of the saints go up. And God's judgments on the earth come down."

6. "The real shock and awe is nothing a military will produce. It's what God will produce. Because He is a holy and an utterly good God. And that's actually our problem. Our problem is that God is good."

7. "The way of coming back to God will not be from our invention. He will specifically Himself declare the way for us to come to Him. Rather than us figure out how we can approach Him, God is teaching us through all of this."

8. "I've got some prayers now running on thirty years that have in no way seemed to me to be answered. But I'm going to keep praying."

9. "Just as Jesus' death would have been misread by the disciples who weren't expecting the resurrection, so we misread God's response to our own prayers. Friend, trust God. Keep on praying."

10. "After God appears to do nothing, to leave even His own eternal Son to die forsaken on the cross, three days later He raised Christ from the dead."

Observation Questions

1. According to Revelation 8:1, what happened when the Lamb opened the seventh seal, and for how long did this condition last?

2. In Revelation 8:2, what were the seven angels who stand before God given?

3. What did the angel with the golden censer offer on the golden altar before the throne, according to Revelation 8:3-4?

4. In Revelation 8:4, where did the smoke of the incense together with the prayers of the saints go?

5. According to Revelation 8:5, what did the angel do with the censer after filling it with fire from the altar, and what resulted on the earth?

6. Looking back at Revelation 6:9-10, what did the souls under the altar cry out to the Sovereign Lord, and what were they asking Him to do?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why do you think there was silence in heaven for about half an hour before the judgments began, and what does this silence communicate about the gravity of what God is about to do?

2. How does the image of incense representing the prayers of the saints (Revelation 8:3-4) demonstrate God's value and care for the prayers of His suffering people?

3. What is the connection between the prayers of the saints going up before God (verse 4) and the fire from the altar being hurled to the earth (verse 5)? What does this teach us about how God responds to His people's prayers?

4. The sermon distinguishes between "the problem of evil" and "the problem of nothing." How does this passage in Revelation 8 address the concern that God seems silent or inactive when Christians pray and face suffering?

5. How does Christ's role as the Lamb who opens the seals and as the one who was "silent" before His accusers (Isaiah 53:7) shape our understanding of God's justice and His answer to our prayers?

Application Questions

1. When you pray for something important and nothing seems to happen for a long time, what specific thoughts or doubts tend to arise in your heart? How might this passage change the way you interpret God's apparent silence?

2. The sermon emphasized that our daily schedules can serve as ready-made prayer lists. What would it look like for you to intentionally pray through your appointments, meetings, or responsibilities this week, trusting that God hears and will act?

3. Are there prayers you have given up on because you assumed God was not listening or did not care? In light of this passage, what is one prayer you will commit to resuming or continuing, trusting God's timing and justice?

4. How can your small group or church community encourage one another to persevere in prayer, especially during seasons when prayers seem unanswered or when facing opposition for your faith?

5. The sermon called us to cultivate moments of silence and reflection in our busy, overstimulated lives. What is one practical step you can take this week to create space for quiet dependence on God—whether in personal devotion, during corporate worship, or in daily routines?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Revelation 6:9-17 — This passage shows the prayers of the martyrs and the beginning of God's judgment, directly connecting to the themes of unanswered prayers and God's promised justice in Revelation 8.

2. Exodus 14:10-14 — Here Israel faces a hopeless situation and is called to be still and watch God's deliverance, illustrating the kind of silent dependence on God emphasized in the sermon.

3. Psalm 141:1-4 — The psalmist prays that his prayer would rise before God like incense, providing the Old Testament background for the image of prayers as a fragrant offering.

4. Romans 8:31-39 — Paul assures believers that nothing can separate them from God's love in Christ, reinforcing the sermon's encouragement to trust God through suffering and persecution.

5. 2 Peter 3:8-13 — Peter explains that God's apparent delay in judgment is patience for repentance, addressing the concern that God seems inactive in response to prayer.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Problem of Nothing: When Prayers Seem Unanswered

II. God Provokes Silence (Revelation 8:1-2)

III. God Inspires Prayer (Revelation 8:3-4)

IV. God Brings Justice (Revelation 8:5)

V. Christ's Resurrection Assures God's Faithful Answer to Our Prayers

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Detailed Sermon Outline

For most Christians, I think it's fair to say that the problem of nothing is a more pronounced problem than the problem of evil?

The problem of evil is well known. It's the query of how an all-powerful God could be good and yet allow the suffering that there is in our world.

That question detains some who are thoughtful, perhaps those who tend more to abstract thought, But for every one Christian who is troubled by the problem of evil, there are a hundred who are troubled by the problem of nothing. The problem of nothing is a query of how the all-powerful God of the Bible can credibly claim to hear our prayers when so often we pray and nothing seems to happen.

Sometimes our prayers are prayed casually or vaguely and that nothing happens is not a particular surprise.

When we pray, Help this meeting go well, or Bless Uncle Joe, how can we tell if those prayers are answered?

Other times, Our prayers are prayed with more immediate personal interest and concern.

Help me to live.

Dear God, give me wisdom about whether I should move my family overseas for the gospel. Or, Dear God, help me to find a wife. Or, Dear God, save my children. Or, Dear God, help me to find a job. Or, Dear God, give me faith to keep following youg.

Often in our experience, our prayers seem to go missing. Somewhere between our saying them and heaven, it seems like they're just not delivered. And life gets tougher when we finally encounter human opposition to our faith. Despite our prayers, we find that when we are converted, life becomes not easier but tougher.

We've had the hardness already of wondering why we've prayed and we're not delivered, or the disease continues, or unemployment stretches on. The problem of nothing has puzzled Christians for centuries. But as I say, it does get tougher. More acute when we do encounter human opposition to our faith. When despite our prayers, life gets tougher for being a Christian instead of getting easier.

So the family disagrees with us. Friends distance themselves from us. People at work make fun of us or even avoid us. Promotions and raises may pass us by.

And around the world today, many Christians find that they can lose jobs and houses and families and even their own lives for following Christ.

Often when we hear the word persecution in this country, we think of something very far away. Maybe if we know history, we think of it only in the past. Or we think of it geographically removed from us. And yet, friends, some Christians here in our own land find that life does get tougher when they are converted. And more widespread challenges could be coming.

Could various kinds of hate speech legislation be used to remove certain privileges from religious groups which are taken to be too far out of the new cultural mainstream, perhaps even abrogate freedoms we had previously enjoyed. Will we be viewed as bigots because we reject things our neighbors, perhaps even our laws, perhaps even other churches accept?

And all of this Christians, of course, pray. And yet when we pray, what happens? Do we find, as Newsweek suggested this past week, knowing how to sell issues, Easter week? Christian America declining and falling? Certainly we find our society around us reflecting less of what we understand to be true.

So district officials have now decided that they will no longer recognize only one man and one woman as constituting a marriage. And while it's common to present this as an expansion of rights, watch the legal hands closely here, having advanced the cause this far, will there be further advances to come, even if they're not perceived now? If people are now defining when a marriage ends and when life begins and what constitutes a marriage in the first place, well then why shouldn't the courts allow recognize marriages of three or more if that's what people want. What if anything is lost in refusing to privilege normally child bearing families? What was the point of the original legal recognition of traditional marriage in the first place?

Was there a reason for it? If we expand the class of the persons recognized in having that right, are we as a people making any statement about the class we had previously protected. If we as a society decide that marriage can be redefined, it's not so much that Christianity we as a society are rejecting. History suggests that it may in fact be our own future. A society which makes no legal preference between heterosexual marriage and what has been called homosexual marriage is a society which may, In the name of what it has come to prefer as immediate love or fairness or freedom or equality, it's a society that may have forgotten more tested notions of family and perhaps even their own survival.

What really is natural and why is it that way? John Meacham's argument in Newsweek was brief and at least partially correct about the decline of Christian America. He noted prohibition and anti-evolution statutes as misguided examples of Christian action and influence in the He neglected other ways that Christian values have more positively shaped the nation we are today. There was no mention of Christianity's role in the abolition of slavery, the organization of labor, the promotion of education and civil rights for women and minorities, all movements I know opposed by some Christians, but nevertheless with profoundly Christian roots and leadership. Without falling over into the Christian America era, you can still see how the biblical view of humanity has shaped our nation's life for the good.

When you believe that every person is made in the image of God, you may not thereby feel that any set of relationships they call a marriage should be legally recognized as such, but you are encouraged to treat each person with dignity and respect. There's no doubt that Christians today in America are being made more aware of the unfulfilled nature of being a Christian in this world. And this is good, at least in so far as it reminds us of reality, the reality of living in our fallen world. Personally, it can be quite difficult when God seems to be silent. When He seems to ignore our prayers, when He allows us to become the victims of injustice and persecution.

I mean, a taste of something is one thing, but a regular diet of it is something else. How do we keep going in such days as are now and as may be in front of us?

This is the very situation that John and his first hearers were in when God gave him the visions that are recorded in the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation. If you're visiting with us today, let me invite you to find one of those Bibles that's provided in the seats or pews around you.

Turn to the last book of the Bible, to Revelation, chapter 8. Now chapter numbers are the larger ones and verse numbers are the smaller ones that happen after that. So if I refer to chapter 8, verse 3, you look for the large number 8 and then you'll see small numbers, look for the number 3 after that. Revelation, chapter 8. You use the Bibles provided in the West Hall and the balconies.

You'll find this on page 1220, page 1220, and on the in the Bibles provided here in the main hall pews on page 1292. And for you guys sitting up in the choir, I have no idea what Bibles are provided at all.

We've seen so far in this famous book, the aged Pastor John exiled by the Roman officials in Ephesus to the island of Patmos, sometimes near the end of the first century. He was exiled because he refused to worship the emperor. Other Christians were being persecuted as well. And it was in this context that God reveals to him the powerful encouragement in the form of the visions that John was to record and give to the churches. In chapters 2 and 3, the risen Christ had messages for the seven churches and really through them to all of us.

And then in chapters 4 and 5, if you flip there, you see that John is shown the heavenly throne room and there is the Lamb, Jesus Christ, The Son of God, He is praised for redeeming. He says there in chapter 5, verse 9, Men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. The Lamb opens the scroll of God's edicts about the future and He opens them all in chapter 6. These six seals as we see, the trials that we go through that God has decreed for our fallen world, including the prayers of suffering Christians and the final answer to those prayers, all depicted in the judgment presented at the end of chapter 6. And in the happy state of God's own people presented in chapter 7.

Now we come to chapter 8. Now as we read through this book of Revelation, particularly these chapters 6 to 22, don't try to read them as if they are chronologically representing what goes on. Some commentators, I think it's fair to say a minority, but some commentators try to read the book that way and it is absolutely confusing. And you make up all kinds of weird and strange doctrines from doing that. You open up a Pandora's box of weirdness if you do that.

Do not do that. When you read the book of Revelation, read it as it's written. Note carefully what it says about itself and follow its own instructions. These visions are recorded in the order that God gave them to John. But you can see God sometimes is making one point and then returning to something that he had mentioned earlier and making another point about it.

Therefore, chapter 8 should not be understood as having the things depicted in it sort of in the flow of time necessarily coming after what was depicted earlier, say in chapter 6 and 7. Well, let's listen to this portion of God's Word. Revelation chapter 8, verse 1.

When He opened the seventh seal.

There was silence in heaven for about half an hour.

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

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 the saints. On the golden altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, 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. What an interesting passage. Not only for Easter.

Oh, it is for that. But for any Sunday. I mean, you have angels and an altar before God's throne, saints and another of these sealed smoke incense, a censor, and the earth. All in these several verses. So the seventh and last seal is opened in verse 1.

You see, and you have this interesting comment about silence lasting some indeterminate time. He says, About half an hour. The place is described there in verse 1 as in heaven. In verse 2 you see the first seven angels were given seven trumpets. We leave these angels after the first two verses.

And this will be our next series of sevens in this book as we hope to see next week. But now the camera, as it were, kind of switches to the other angel in verse 3. You see who's given incense from God's altar for his censor. So you see that censor in verse 3 is clearly central to what's going on here in this passage. This angel had a censor, was given it for incense, and that's our prayers.

It says the prayers of all the saints, referred to there in verse 3. The incense seems to accompany our prayers and, as we know back from chapter 5, verse 8, to represent our prayers. You'll notice both the altar and the censer are made of gold, which reflects God's glory in all this. It's all very God-centered. You'll notice there in verse 2, it's Before God the angels stand.

And verse 3, Before God there is this altar. In verse 4, before God the offering of the incense goes up. Well anyway, the angel comes with a censor and is given incense to offer and he offers the incense there in verse 4. And then he takes the censor and he fills it with fire from the burning altar before God and he hurls it so that what was on the altar before God is now brought dramatically to earth. And then the portents of destruction come upon the earth.

So verse 5 you'll see is about the censor and what happens to it. It and as a result of it. The earth comes back into view as it were there in verse 5. And what a stark contrast there is between the holy silence before God up in verse 1 and the loud thunders on earth in verse 5. What an encouragement to prayer.

The prayers of the saints go up.

And God's judgments on the earth come down.

In this passage our prayers that God's Kingdom would come on the earth are finally being answered. The outline is simple. Verses 1 and 2, God provokes silence. Verses 1 and 2, God provokes silence. Verses 3 and 4, God inspires prayer.

God inspires prayer.

God brings justice. God brings justice.

As we consider these verses, I pray that you will be awed by this God and excited to pray to Him and confident of His commitment to complete and full justice.

First then, number one, God provokes silence. Look again at the first two verses. When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets. This awesome scene begins with the Lamb, a symbol of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, slain for us.

He opened the seventh seal. So last week in chapter 6, we saw the first six seals of God's scroll opened. Now the Lamb completes His work of breaking open the scroll, the future that God has decreed, and the future is now completely open. This is the last seal, the seventh seal. And the scene here is a solemn one.

We are again presented with God on His throne, and this time with these seven angels who stand before Him. These angels are further honored here by being given seven trumpets. And as we'll come to see Lord Willingmore next week, they will be used to announce the judgments of God that have been decreed by God and kept in this rolled up sealed scroll that's now been broken open. Trumpets were used in Old Testament worship. They were associated with the presence of God.

So when the law is given at Mount Sinai, We read in Exodus, chapter 20, When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance. Throughout the Old Testament, praise and worship is associated with the sounding of trumpets. Also a king's rule, beginning or his approach, perhaps some news, they were also used to sound the alarm and to call troops to battle. One of the most famous stories, you really see many of these different things coming together about trumpets in Joshua, chapter 6.

Where you have seven priests leading in front of the Ark of the Covenant with seven trumpets blowing them as they march around the city, declaring God's judgment that God is greater than, God is worshiped in the giving of Jericho over to destruction. Well so too they will be used to declare the coming judgment of God. You remember what Jesus taught His disciples in Matthew 24, and He will send His angels with a loud trumpet call. And they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the heavens to the other. Paul taught the same thing.

Paul taught in 1 Corinthians, For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. And to the Thessalonians he wrote, For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. John already in this vision had heard Jesus' voice as a trumpet. If you look back in verse 1, he says that.

So here, trumpets would signal the beginning of God's plagues to judge the world. So He's letting people know so that the rebels against God should immediately repent. But you'll notice in our passage, no trumpets are sounding.

There is instead a half hour. Of no noise. Did you notice that in verse 1? Look at verse 1 again and see that. Give a brief interlude in God's otherwise ceaseless praise.

The brevity about half an hour perhaps points to how sudden and unexpected God's answer to His people's prayers for vindication would be. He won't leave us in distress too long. All the things we see in this part of John's vision, the silence, the trumpets, the incense, All were part of the worship of God in the Jewish temple. Here we see revealed how the temple worship was really at root the recognition of God as King as we see the temple and the image of the throne room combined. But what is most striking here, and it's intended to be, is there in verse 1 the silence.

So the shrieks and outcries of the damned you see up in 616. Chapter 6 verse 16, They faded away.

And where there was the loud voice of the innumerable multitude praising God in chapter 7 in verses 10 to 12, Now there is silence. Perhaps the silence rings, eerie silence. Perhaps a reflection on what's just been presented in chapters 6 and 7, this destruction and final salvation, sort of the heavy, awful silence of those people who witness a just execution.

The silence is completing the picture of the judgments of God on all creation, the damned and the saved, as has just been recorded in chapters 6 and 7. The silence previews the heavy, awful silence which will be the human response to God's justice one day. That day when indescribable horror is meted out and when indescribable horror has been deserved. Silence as all creation reflects in astonishment.

Even those who most loudly cry for justice now or that there is no justice when they look at all kinds of injustices through every history, through every century of history. From the Holocaust of the 20th century to the planned famine to go back and back and back through the centuries and you see man's inhumanity to man and so many times people have felt, will these things never be said to be wrong? And what we find here is yes, they will one day be said to be wrong in a way that is irrefutable and final. God will mete out appropriate justice.

Even now we use silence in our own lives. We use silence for reflection.

We also know the silence of conviction. Paul says in Romans 3, Now we know that whatever the Law says, it says to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be silenced. And the whole world held accountable to God. Kind of like the silence of Job when God appears to him in Job chapter 40. But here in Revelation 8 is the silence of those who are prepared to listen, prepared to see, to witness.

There is, you know, a time to speak and a time to be silent and show of a submission to the One in whose presence you are and this Is that this silence functions as the calm before the storm, a kind of ominous prelude as the universe holds its breath.

This silence creates suspense as our attention is turned from the praises that fill heaven to the prayers of the saints still struggling and suffering. The silence caused John as it causes us now to concentrate our attention on what is about to happen. This silence sets the stage for what?

You remember perhaps how the children of Israel at the Exodus were coming out of Egypt when they were in Exodus 14 apparently trapped God had led them out by miraculous signs, but it seemed like He had led them into a dead end.

God wouldn't lead us into dead ends, would He? They had the Egyptian army pursuing them behind. On both sides they had mountains, and in front of them they had the Red Sea. Why would God lead us into dead ends? And then we read in Exodus 14, Do not be afraid, Moses said to them.

Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still.

Friends, do you see the utter dependence upon God? That is reflected by our silence sometimes when we finally run out of words and anything our own appeals can do. Here we see this same silence of utter dependence and awful anticipation awaiting the final act of God's deliverance of His people and of His judgment of those who oppose Him. Fundamentally, this silence shows profound awe at the presence of God, the God who will judge the earth in answer to His people's prayers. So heaven anticipates the grim calamities to come.

We see this call to silence in the Old Testament prophets. So Habakkuk says, the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him. Zephaniah says, Be silent before the sovereign Lord, for the day of the Lord is near. Zechariah says, Be still before the Lord all mankind because He has roused Himself from His holy dwelling.

Friend, if you're just visiting here today and you're not normally in a church on Sunday, I wonder, does anything awe you? We've obviously terribly misused the word awesome. We all realize that. But I mean the idea that we understand of what real awe is. Does anything awe you?

What is it that does?

We see here that the real shock and awe is nothing a military will produce. It's what God will produce.

Because He is a holy and an utterly good God.

And that's actually our problem. Our problem is that God is good and that we, though made in His image, we have chosen to not be good in the same way. We have chosen to not live our lives in reliance on Him, in submission to Him, seeking His wisdom, following His guidance. Oh, we may sometimes, whenever He agrees with us, but don't be fooled, then you're not really following God, you're just doing what you want to do. And you're made in His image, so it's not surprising that sometimes you do what you want to do, which is the same thing He tells you to do.

Now, you tell what's really going on when He tells you to do something you don't want to do or tells you not to do something you do want to do. And if your life is anything like mine, I bet you see examples of that.

Now, friend, that brings us into a problem. Because God isn't just kind of good or good on Thursdays, because He's completely good, He is not satisfied with our occasional and apparent obediences. He wants us to rely on Him completely as a loving and good Heavenly Father. And I defy you to speak truthfully and say that you have done that. And therefore that puts you in need of something if you will relate to Him in a friendly and happy fashion.

That puts you in need of what we call in Christianity a Savior. Someone who will liberate you. Someone who will deliver you from the penalty, from the wrath of God against you because of your sins, because God is good.

And that's what the Lord Jesus did. The eternal Son of God took on flesh and He lived His life in complete dependence upon God. And then He died on the cross not because, as the Bible teaches us, death comes because of sin, He had no sin to die for. Why did He die? Because He died for the sins of others.

He died for the sins of all of us who would ever repent of our sins and trust in Him. Well, how do we know that just wasn't a claim He was making? Because then God raised Him from the dead. And friends, that's why we gather on this day. That's why some of you gather this day because it's Easter.

That's why all of us who are Christians here gather because it's the first day of the week. This is the day that Jesus got up from the dead. We don't really know when it was in the calendar. We think because of the crucifixion and Passover, we can tell roughly it's this time of year. But this exact day there's some dispute about, but there's no doubt that it was the first day of the week.

And that's why Christians meet on the first day of the week because we rejoice because in Christ's resurrection we see God's acceptance of Christ's claims to be a minister, a servant of us in serving us in a way no one else ever could, in dying in our place so that we could be forgiven for our sins and reconciled to God.

And He invites us not to become morally self-righteous people and meet in an ethical club every Sunday, but He invites us to realize we're not righteous people. We need a righteous Savior who's perfectly righteous. God has given Himself to us in Christ as that. And He calls us now to turn from our sins and to trust Him entirely, to repent of our sins and to rely on the Lord Jesus Christ with our whole lives. And when we do, He will give us a new life.

He will bring us into fellowship with Himself. And that's what all of us here this morning who are Christians claim to be experiencing even now.

Brothers and sisters who are Christians, are you experiencing this at work?

I wonder if you're viewing your work in the Washington way, in which it's the end of your life, or if you've decided to adopt a Christian way to view your work. God is the end of your life and you will use work as a means to bring Him glory. Your job is a way God has given you to glorify Him every day of the week.

That's what we're called to in Christ. Kids, just a word to you. The silence that you show your parents or other adults is a way of respecting them.

And that teaches you how all of us need to relate to God. Parents, you do a good job when you just teach your children basic forms of politeness. It's correct to be silent or quiet with an adult. It's not a good idea to teach them to speak just the first thing that comes out of their mouth whenever they do. You want to teach them to show respect so that they've been taught deeply about what God is like.

It's not unloving to respect. It's part of love. Here in our congregation we use silence in our own lives to help us with reflection, you know, when we give time to walking without our iPods on or driving in the car without a radio or something else playing. Corporately, you'll notice if you're visiting with us today that we're strangely silent at points, at least for modern American churches. What we're told usually in seminary these days is sort of to have TV timing.

No dead airspace. You'll lose their attention. They'll tune out. As soon as somebody finishes talking, somebody else is talking. He has to take its place.

I love that.

If you're looking for excitement, I promise you, you've come to the wrong church. See, we think you're overstimulated, overexcited all week long. That's why you have no idea what God is like. We're trying to give you little tastes of that, even the little bits of silence. So like when Garrett walks back and sits down, and then I walk up and come here and lead us in prayer.

We're just in many little ways, even the silence at the end of the service, we have a moment to kind of reflect and think, okay, what did God just teach me for three hours? That was just to scare the visitors. What? What? The silence at the end of the service where you can kind of look around and see, what is it that I've been impressed by today?

Was I convicted about something today? Was there something I hadn't understood before that gives me a clearer view of God? So that before you just turn and talk to somebody else and say what you're doing for lunch and say something about your week, you can actually remember something about God, which is the reason you were here. Friends, I have one older friend who's a well-known Christian author and he said to me after I did a Nine Marks interview with him recently, he said, you, know, I love visiting your church. I said, why is that?

I'm so old, I just can't stand my own church anymore. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, it's just very loud and quick all the time. And he said, I need time to reflect. I need time to take things in.

And he said, you, guys are just slow enough that I can do that.

Well, friends, our slowness is meant to communicate something, just the tiniest part of this awesome silence. There is before God. The God of the Bible provokes not a casual chattiness, but the God of the Bible provokes silence.

Number two, God inspires prayer because He cares about His people, His saints. Look again at verses 3 and 4.

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 the saints on the golden altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense together with the prayers of the saints went up before God from the angel's hand. Now here we have the priestly function of this angel describing yet another aspect of God's care for His saints. We see here in verse 3 there's this altar.

I think it's the same one that's mentioned up in chapter 6 verses 9 to 11. Here it's called the golden altar before the throne. There was such a golden altar, by the way, in the earthly tabernacle and in the temple, which was the incense altar. It was directly in front of the Holy of Holies. So you have the Holy of Holies and then this veil over the one entrance into it and right in front of that veil is this altar of incense.

So it could even be said to have been sort of before the throne if you view the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant as a throne. Some may mistakenly think that we should try to emulate the patterns of worship John is presented in this vision. That we should make a golden altar and that it should have a golden incense holder and that we should burn incense physically to God before who were the holy of holies. But Christians long ago settled that issue when Jesus Christ presented Himself as God's true temple. And when His propitiating work on the cross was done, the veil of the temple which symbolized its purpose of representing God's holiness, separateness and mercy, He was there all at the same time.

That work was completed by Christ's death on the cross. That earthly signpost, it's going to be over here, was no longer needed because now the real temple had come and His work was done. The realities themselves had been enacted in the person and work of Christ supremely in His death and in His resurrection. So there was no more need for the signpost saying, Watch this space which the temple was.

Now some of you have never been around incense. It's burned in order to please our sense of smell. As Proverbs 27 says, Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart. Here God used these beautiful and powerful images to teach and encourage John. So you see here in verse 3, this golden censer is mentioned.

The censer was a pan suspended probably from a chain that the priest would use to carry burning charcoals from the other altar outside, the altar of sacrifice, inside to this altar of incense. And then he would put incense on this altar and in this censer to make the smell of the burning incense happen. And it was part of the prescribed worship in the temple and the tabernacle. The temple, the golden altar of incense was, I say, right in front of the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant was. So the priest was actually prescribed in Scripture to offer incense at every morning and evening sacrifice in order to burn the incense at the same time the sacrifices were being made to show that they are in fact a sweet smell, a sweet aroma to God.

Incense was valued as a sign of reverence. It was expensive. That's why it was one of the gifts. Remember the Magi brought the infant Christ incense as one of the gifts. It made things special.

And it was associated especially with prayers in the temple. That's why Malachi prophesied in Malachi 1, In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to My name, because My name will be great among the nations, says the Lord Almighty. If you just think that Holy of Holies in the Jewish temple was there inviolate all year long, no one went into it except once a year. On the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, when the high priest went in. The only other visible entity to enter the Holy of Holies, the place representing the special presence of God, was the smoke from the altar of incense, which every morning and every evening went up from right outside that veil.

That's one of the reasons I think it probably came to be associated with the prayers of God's people. There's nothing magical about that incense. People could think some odd things like this is special power with God blend right here. But that's not what we see because when we read the Bible we find that to whom this incense was offered was of crucial importance. Incense was used in the worship of false gods.

So to whom the incense is offered was of crucial importance. But also what the incense itself was. You find in Exodus 30 there's a recipe for the incense. Exodus 30. So if you're having a really hard time concentrating, feel free and turn there.

Exodus 30. I'm not going to talk any more about it. But you can read there's a recipe for the incense. Actually what the incense was mattered. And not just what the incense was, but who offers the incense.

You see in 2 Chronicles at one point one of the kings of the nation comes to offer incense, intent on being reverent, and yet he is condemned for doing that because only those people God had designated could offer the incense, only the ones he had prescribed.

So friends, when you think about that, to whom the incense is offered, what the incense is composed of, who is offering the incense, why is the God of the Bible so picky? So particular, so difficult.

Friends, He's showing us. This isn't magic. It's not about your figuring out some way to propitiate difficult Me because I am so moody. That's not what the Bible is presenting. This is not what the Bible is presenting.

The way of coming back to God will not be from our invention. He will specifically Himself declare the way for us to come to Rather than us figure out how we can approach Him, God is teaching us through all of this. The offering must be by the one He declares qualified. And this one must offer only what God has said He requires. And this one must make the offering only to the one true God.

There's nothing magic about incense. God was teaching us that He will make a way through the pile of our own sins Back to Him.

Look again at verse 3. Much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints was given to Him. If you look back in chapter 5, verse 8, you see that this incense was identified as the prayers of God's people. The psalmist had used this image as an image for our prayers in Psalm 141 when he prayed, May my prayer be set before you like incense. May the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.

Friend, is there something you want from God?

What is it?

Here God was encouraging His own oppressed saints to pray to Him. And their prayers would be more powerful than the Roman governor or emperor or armies. Brothers and sisters, do you pray? I don't just mean on Sundays, but let's take most of your life. Let's take work.

Do you pray at work? Do you pray about what goes on at work? You know you have a prayer list ready-made. I mean, look on your Outlook schedule for the day or your BlackBerry or in my case, a Word document. But, you know, look at your list of appointments, of scheduled meetings.

I know there are too many days that happen that I do not begin by praying carefully through that list. But friends, we've already done the work for our own prayer list. Why aren't we better about using it?

Parents, do you teach your children anything about how much God enjoys our prayers? I love the image of the prayer as incense because God delights in it. It's a pleasant smell. It pleases Him. Joy should be part of our prayers.

We realize that when we pray, we're delighting God. You don't need to look like some whipped puppy that barked when it shouldn't. You know, when you come in your quiet time in the morning to the Lord. God delights in our prayers. He rejoices in us in His kindness and tenderness and His loving kindness toward us.

So we should come with joy in our prayers. I don't know about you, but some days it's just good for me to be able to do any praying at all. Sometimes I feel dry, and sometimes I feel weak, and my prayers show it. I'll still pray, though the prayers may feel dry or weak. I love what Spurgeon said about that.

There are some prayers that are so little and so feeble that you would think they never could get to God at all. But it is with them as it was with some of the creatures in Noah's Ark. I never can comprehend how the snails managed to get into the Ark. Yep, they did. They must have started very early.

There are some people's prayers which seem to travel almost as slowly as those snails did. Yet they do get to heaven. And they are presented by Christ with all the rest of the saints' prayers before His Father's throne.

Brothers and sisters, we must train ourselves to realize that prayer to God is a privilege and a joy, and it is work. Don't be discouraged by not seeing all your prayers immediately answered. I've got some prayers now running on 30 years. That have in no way seen to me to be answered. But I'm going to keep praying.

In God's kindness, I've got other prayers that I've prayed for decades that to my own shameful surprise, God has answered. One of the reasons we get together each Sunday morning and evening is to encourage each other in the practice of prayer. Members of this congregation Thank you so much for the way you give yourselves regularly. You're coming on Sunday evening to pray. It is an encouragement to me, to your elders, to each other.

If you're not doing that as regularly, let me encourage you, come and pray with us.

I don't know about you, but I find the most effective way of stirring up my heart to prayer is the praise and worship of God. It is remembering who this God is that I worship, what He is like, And what He's about in the world. I find exalted thoughts of God encourage my praying and stir me to prayer. God inspires prayer.

God brings justice. God brings justice. Look now at verse 5.

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.

Some of you have been following this series in Revelation. Here's a key statement. I think what we see here in verse 5 Depicts the same judgment that we saw described back in chapter 6, verses 12 to 17.

The difference is this verse in our chapter 8 is emphasizing the aspect of God's judgment in answer to our prayers.

These verses show directly that God's judgment comes in answer to the prayers of the saints.

Look up there at chapter 6. Again, look at verse 9, chapter 6.

Here we see the Lamb opening the six seals. And this is the fifth seal. He's opening in this verse. When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the Word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until youl judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood.

Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed. Friends, now in our passage those prayers are being answered. And verse 5, Peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake show this. This is an expression of the power of God revealed at the beginning of judgment. He is coming to establish His kingdom as it is in heaven, as we saw when that same phrase was used back in chapter 4 in the throne room scene in verse 5.

That exact same phrase is used of what's underneath God's throne. It's there in potential, this power. He will do this. So here in chapter 8, verse 5 we have a summary of the end that has been represented in chapter 6, verses 12 to 14. And that will be represented even more intensely in the trumpets to come.

You'll find if you come back next week, which will announce and call the world to God's judgment.

So, by the association of the prayers of God's people with this censor, and then this censor is appearing to bring God's judgment on the earth, We can see that this is a dramatic presentation of the devastating answers of God to His people's prayers. It's the scene of 6:12-14 from another angle, emphasizing another aspect of it. I wonder, is this an encouragement to you to pray for God's will to be done? Oh, we pray that so easily in the Lord's Prayer, and I think we think of it so rarely, what we're praying when we pray that.

This vision is given to encourage us in our prayers. It's also a challenge to us not to misread events. Imagine the disciples. Put yourself in their place on that first Good Friday when Christ is crucified.

They were completely distraught. They heard Jesus Himself seem to say that God had forsaken Him.

All their prayers seemed to have fallen to the ground. They entirely misread what was going on. Friends, are we so much wiser than the disciples? Are we so much more trustful of God? Have we never accused God in the delay between our prayer and His visible answer to us?

Accused Him of not caring, of being indifferent, Well, friend, this is a common human temptation. Just as Jesus' death would have been misread by the disciples who weren't expecting the resurrection, so we misread God's response to our own prayers. Friend, trust God. Keep on praying. Those matters that you and I have prayed for God's glory in our own lives and in the lives of others that we know for His kingdom to come, for His people to flourish are prayers that are precious to God, and He will answer them.

These prayers themselves are part of God's accomplishment of His plans. So we continue to regularly pray that God's will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And it will be. And just as God was glorified by raising Jesus from the dead, so He will glorify Himself in the life of all believers. We shouldn't misunderstand God's Repentance as indifference.

Peter wrote to some early Christians who were struggling with this. The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. Because He will answer our prayers. He will judge our oppressors, His enemies.

Therefore, we should be encouraged not to misread events and despair, wrongly imagining that God will never answer our prayers. But instead, we should pray and trust and persevere and do anything we can to cultivate in us this what it often seems an inhuman practice of prayer. Do not neglect cultivating this discipline of prayer because in praying you exhort yourself to trust God You help yourself and others to persevere through whatever persecution or whatever nothing may come in our lives. We are in a church together to help us encourage each other to bear one another's burdens so that we will continue faithful in prayer till Christ returns And God brings justice.

We should conclude. Today is the wedding anniversary of Timothy and Mara back in '86. Timothy and Mara married in 286 A.D. Twenty days later, Arian, not the famous heretic Arian, but Arian, the governor of the Thebaid in southern Egypt in the time of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, Arian had Timothy arrested. Diocletian was at that time trying to curb the rise of Christianity. And so he issued decrees that all citizens should be compelled to demonstrate their loyalty to the Roman gods by offering some kind of public sacrifice to them.

He was directly challenging the Christians in his empire.

He issued these decrees. And Arian decided to follow them. Any person who refused these public sacrifices to the Roman gods was not only insulting the gods of Rome, but thereby he was showing disloyalty to the emperor. And that was treason and was punishable by death. He realized persecution can be legal.

Very, very legal. It can have to do with the laws, my dear congregation of lawyers.

When Timothy refused to offer worship or to give them his copies of the Scriptures that they were demanding, he refused. He refused to worship the false gods. They found out he'd recently been married. They went and found his wife, Mara. They brought her.

They tortured her in front of him. And finally, after enduring horrors, I won't mention, they were killed.

Some scholars say by crucifixion, others by nailing them to the wall and leaving them there for days. All the scholars agree it was days until they actually expired. But they would not renounce Christ.

They would not worship false gods. These African saints would not come up with the typical Washington solution of, well, I'll appear to give the people what they want, but in my heart I'll know what I really mean.

Friends, if the God of the Bible exists, why would He do nothing about such wrongs?

Why would he let a young couple go through that?

And millions and millions of others?

Why would he do nothing?

I guess the short answer is he hasn't.

There is one who is silent for us. One who gave up his life as a fragrant offering for us, one who received God's justice for us, one who died and was raised for us, one who will return for us. Can you hear the Scriptures?

The ancient promises. Isaiah tells of the suffering servant who was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shears is silent.

So he did not open his mouth. And of course, that's what Jesus did. When we read the account of his time before Pilate, we read then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you? But Jesus remained silent.

He was led like a lamb to the slaughter for us in silence.

We read in Ephesians 5 that Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God even As He was the Lamb slain for us, so He was the fragrant offering for us.

After God appears to do nothing, to leave even His own eternal Son to die forsaken on the cross, three days later He raised Christ from the dead. And this very John had been a witness of the risen Christ, the one who had said to John back in chapter 1, I am the living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever. He was, as Romans 4 says, delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. Who is he that condemns?

Christ Jesus who died, more than that, who was raised to life, is at the right hand of God interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, For your sake we face death all day long. We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Jesus said to His disciples, Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in Me.

In My Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you also may be where I am. Brothers and sisters, take courage.

Trust in God.

And persevere. The Christ who is risen is coming back. That's what His resurrection is all about. He is coming back for us and He is risen. Hallelujah.

Let's pray together.