,, And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets. And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer [it] with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, [which came] with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand. And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast [it] into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.”
Rev. 8: 1-6
So far we have seen the first six seals and that is the period called the beginning of suffering
,, All these [are] the beginning of sorrows.”
Mt.24: 8
and from now on, with the opening of the seventh seal, we can begin to say, "the other half of the great tribulation," and for it the prophet Jeremiah prophesied:
,, Alas! for that day [is] great, so that none [is] like it: it [is] even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.”
Jer.30: 7
"And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the hour." John had so far seen the Triune God sitting on the throne, with four cherubim around the throne and twenty-four thrones with twenty-four elders sitting on them. it is the Church of Christ, then around them millions of angels and around the angels a great multitude of martyrs who were killed in the first half of the great tribulation. We have seen that they all glorify God and sing songs of redemption and now suddenly when Christ opens the seventh seal about an hour. "
We are now in a time when people are very "hugging" a lot of noise and say various things and do not want to hear God's voice, but we see that the time will come when everyone will be silent. We also have prophecies about this.
,, But the Lord [is] in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.”
Habakkuk 2:20
,, Keep silence before me, O islands; ..."
Isa.41: 1
,, Be silent, O all flesh, before the Lord: for he is raised up out of his holy habitation.”
Zechariah 2:13
So far we have seen celebration and praise and now suddenly silence, that is what people say "calm before the storm" now everyone expects to see what will happen to the earth and those who have been shouting to it for many years and centuries;
,, LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?”
Ps.94: 3
and we saw that the righteous also cried out under the altar;
,, And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”
Rev. 6:10
It is not pleasing to God that punishing people for Him is an unusual job
,, For the Lord shall rise up as [in] mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as [in] the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act.”
Isa.28: 21
and this silence is another opportunity for many to turn to God
,, For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn [yourselves], and live ye.”
Ezek.18: 32
"And I saw seven angels standing before God, and seven trumpets were given to them."
Angels are "official spirits" who have their tasks and perform them flawlessly and accurately. Now here we see seven angels receiving one trumpet each and their task is to carry out God's wrath into action over the earth and its inhabitants.
,, But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
“
Rev. 10: 7
Trumpets played an important role in Old Testament times, so God determined that priests had trumpets, and at that time they had a special trumpet sign, for example, for gathering, a special sign when they stopped or when they left, they also had a special trumpet sign for war. etc.
,, And when they shall blow with them, all the assembly shall assemble themselves to thee at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And if they blow [but] with one [trumpet], then the princes, [which are] heads of the thousands of Israel, shall gather themselves unto thee. When ye blow an alarm, then the camps that lie on the east parts shall go forward.When ye blow an alarm the second time, then the camps that lie on the south side shall take their journey: they shall blow an alarm for their journeys. But when the congregation is to be gathered together, ye shall blow, but ye shall not sound an alarm.And the sons of Aaron, the priests, shall blow with the trumpets; and they shall be to you for an ordinance for ever throughout your generations.”
Numb.10: 3-8
One well-known example of how God even operated trumpets is found in the book of Joshua, chapter six, and it was a trumpet sign for war.
There will be another trumpet in the future when the Church "gathers" and writes about it:
,, Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
1 Corinthians 15: 51-52
This was a trumpet for the Church, a trumpet for gathering, and here in Revelation the eighth chapter we have practically trumpets for war that were given to angels.
..And another angel came and stood at the altar, and had a golden censer; and he was given much incense to offer the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne.
Now we see here an angel in front of the altar with a golden censer in which are the prayers of all the saints which means the prayers of faithful people through all the ages from Adam to the moment when this event will happen and that is the future for us, so there are all the saints through the ages, there are those who have risen, there is the Church of Christ, there are those whose only soul is in heaven, and there are the prayers of those who are still on earth at that moment and are born again because they are also holy and the word "holy "means that these are people who believed in Christ, gave their lives to him and were washed in the blood of Christ, because only such people in Christ can be before God and in no other way.
The prayers mentioned here are the prayers of the saints to establish the kingdom of Christ and then the eternal kingdom in which lawlessness will end and in which eternal justice and truth will reign.
,, Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as [it is] in heaven.”
Matthew 6:10
,, And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.”
Matthew 6:13
The next thing we see is incense, so let's see first what is written in the Old Testament:
,, And the Lord said unto Moses, Take unto thee sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum; [these] sweet spices with pure frankincense: of each shall there be a like [weight]: And thou shalt make it a perfume, a confection after the art of the apothecary, tempered together, pure [and] holy: And thou shalt beat [some] of it very small, and put of it before the testimony in the tabernacle of the congregation, where I will meet with thee: it shall be unto you most holy. And [as for] the perfume which thou shalt make, ye shall not make to yourselves according to the composition thereof: it shall be unto thee holy for the Lord. Whosoever shall make like unto that, to smell thereto, shall even be cut off from his people.”
Exodus 30: 34-38
Incense represents the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, in one word, it represents all the merits of Christ, which are joined by the prayers of the saints, and so through Christ the prayers are placed on the altar or altar.
Carnic's translation
"And there was given unto him much incense, that he might offer him for a prayer of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne."
So we see that only Christ's precious sacrifice gives value to prayers, and in other words, only prayers that are addressed to God on the basis of Christ's merits are answered by God.
,, If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do [it].”
John 14:14
,, And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.”
Eph.5: 2
We further read that this angel puts fire from the golden altar into the censer and serves before God:
"And the smoke of incense in the prayers of the saints came forth from the hand of the angels before God." And further it is written, "And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire from the altar, and cast it upon the earth; countries. "
Now in the next scene we see that an angel takes an incense burner and fills it with fire and throws it on the ground. The fire symbolically represents God's justice and God's wrath. instead of a sinner
,, And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of the congregation, and came out, and blessed the people: and the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the people. And there came a fire out from before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat: [which] when all the people saw, they shouted, and fell on their faces.”
Levit. 9: 23-24
We now see in our text that fire does not fall on the victim but falls on the ground and, "and there became voices and thunders and lightning and earthquakes.". Today, when people see a catastrophic phenomenon in the world, the explanation is that it is natural occurrence, coincidence or case, and this text clearly testifies to us that it is God who governs the earth and even such phenomena.
Here we have an interesting phenomenon, in normal circumstances we have lightning and then thunder, and here we read that the order is reversed, first there are thunders and then lightning, which will surprise many and will not have an answer and will not be able to explain such events. Lightning and thunder indicate impending God's judgment and there are no more warnings. In our text, we see (so far lightning has been a notification that lightning will strike something) that there is no notification but lightning strikes first, so a notification follows, which symbolically means that the trial has already begun.
Next we see "and the shaking of the earth." And voices are mentioned, which means that there will be indescribably loud noise from thunder. phenomena and processes, but that the time of God's wrath and judgment has come, which they heard in various ways about coming but did not believe, they lived in the belief that God is only love. This is a trend that has been growing lately, a trend that many talk about they even preach, a trend through which Satan wants to deceive many into believing that such a thing will never come, but they have "only" forgotten or did not want to know that God is a just judge.
,, God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.”
Ps.7: 11
,, …verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.”
Ps.58: 11
,, But God is the judge:…”
Ps.75: 7
And now we see in the next verse that the seven angels are ready to blow the trumpet, which means more trouble for the inhabitants of the earth, "And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound."