Complete silence. Have you ever experienced complete silence for 30 minutes? No white noise or anything. What about on Good Friday? Often Good Friday services end in silence, but I haven’t attended one where it lasted 30 minutes. It doesn’t take but 30 seconds for someone to drop a pen or a kid to squirm. When Jesus opened the 7th seal, though, all of heaven stopped for 30 minutes.
Revelation
8:1-5 When he [the Lamb]
opened 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 Another
angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given
much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden
altar in front of the throne. 4 The smoke of
the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before
God from the angel’s hand. 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.
What’s
about to happen from the 7th seal must be quite serious if all of
heaven is silent for 30 minutes. Remember from last week that John was just
told that there would be no more tears for those who go to heaven? Yet, the
judgments about to take place are world altering. John is given significant
warnings to write down, but layered with encouraging assurance to those who
follow Jesus.
One
encouragement from this passage is that our prayers are a pleasing aroma to
God! What value! He takes great pleasure in our time talking with Him. How much
and how well do you and I value our time talking and listening to our eternal
King, the Almighty God, who has all power and authority over every aspect of
life?
Jesus is
worthy to open the 7th seal, worthy to hear from us in prayer
regularly throughout the day and worthy of our silence so we can hear Him!
