Now, from Revelation chapter
8 all the way over to Revelation chapter 11, we begin the opening of the seventh
seal. Look at verse 1 of chapter 8.
It says, And when he had opened the seventh seal, now who's opening
these seals? Well, it's Christ the Lord, the
Lamb that's worthy. Remember back in Revelation 5,
nobody was worthy. No one in heaven, no one in earth
was worthy to open the seals. This is the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Lamb, the one who accomplished salvation, the one who accomplished
redemption, the Lord of mercy and grace, the Lord our righteousness
opening this seventh seal. The seventh seal is the revelation
of seven trumpets we'll see. But look at what happens here
before this comes about. It says, when he had opened the
seventh seal there was silence in heaven about the space of
half an hour. Somebody said silence is gold. And we know most the time that's
true. We know that this revelation
of the seventh seal, revealing the seven trumpets of judgment
that we're going to be going through as we go through these
passages and all the way up through chapter 11. These are manifestations,
these seven trumpets that we're going to see are seven manifestations
of God's judgment, his vengeance upon the earth, especially upon
his enemies for persecuting the church. And then it'll conclude
in the final destruction of all the enemies of Christ and all
the enemies of the church and the truth in the final judgment. And so understand now as we go
through these, you know, we're seeing, we're in the last days,
we've been in the last days since the ascension of Christ. His
death, burial, resurrection, his ascension. And the last days
will continue up to final judgment. So we're in there and we've seen
manifestations of God's judgment upon the earth, but they've been
limited. But it's all coming to that point
where we'll see what we're going to see described here as the
final manifestation of judgment, final judgment, which will conclude
in the destruction of this world and the creation of a new heavens
and a new earth. And there's several passages
of scripture that describe that. One that I think of and reference
quite often as we go through here is 2 Peter chapter 3. And
that's when Peter is riding to the church, and he's standing
against the scoffers. And those scoffers are those
who live a godless life, denying that this thing is coming to
a close, coming to an end, that there's going to be a final judgment.
And I really think that's the heart of atheism, if you think
about it. It's not necessary that men in
themselves just want to deny that there is a God, which they
do that. But it's the fact that they don't
want to be held accountable. Men by nature do not want to
be held accountable. Because you think about that.
You know, Paul wrote about this in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. He
talked about, we know the terror of the Lord. And so what do we
do? Well, we preach the gospel. That's
what he means when he says, we persuade men. We know that saving
faith is not the result of my trying to persuade anybody to
do anything. But that doesn't negate the fact
that I am to preach the gospel and plead with people. Paul said,
we beseech you, you know, on behalf of Christ. And we know
it's God who opens the heart. It's God who gives the new heart.
But he said, we know the terror of the Lord. Well, what is the
terror of the Lord? Well, here it is, standing at judgment on
your own merit. No matter how good you've tried
to be, but standing before a holy God without Christ, without being
washed in his blood and clothed in his righteousness imputed,
that's the terror of the Lord. And men by nature don't want
to face that. I want to be held accountable. Well, this is where
it's all coming to. But before he reveals the seventh
seal and the seven trumpet judgment, he says, there's silence in heaven
about the space of half an hour. And I put in the lesson here
to make sure you understand. Now, that doesn't mean that the
heavenly occupants cease to praise and declare God's glory. But
this brief silence in heaven, I believe, is just a suspension
of the revelation. In other words, John had seen
some things. Now that uncovering ceases for
a space of about half an hour, and then it's going to start
again. And I believe this is a time of preparation, preparing
him to receive what's coming. Why the space of half an hour?
The only answer I can give you, anytime you see things like that,
numbers, time, symbols and all that, if you can't make a biblical
reference to it, anything you say about it pretty much is speculation. You understand that, don't you?
And there's a lot of speculation that comes out of the book of
Revelation with men who want to answer questions that can't
be answered, or they want to avoid what the Bible says, especially
in the Old Testament. The only thing I can tell you
about a space of a half an hour, it's a brief period of time.
And so this is not a long period of time. It might be a literal
half hour. I don't know, but here's the
thing about it. It's a time of preparation. God is preparing
the Apostle John to receive, not that what he had seen before
is not great and glorious and earth shattering, but this is
coming down to, this is the climax of it all. That's what's happening. So it's kind of like a little
interlude. Now you know in chapter seven, you had an interlude of
assurance, was what I called it, the interlude of assurance.
In other words, when God is pronouncing judgment against the unbelieving
world, the sinful earth, it's important that God's people be
assured and comforted in the fact that we're safe and secure
in Christ, that we know that whatever befalls this world,
It is nothing more than a glorious passage for us. Now, we may suffer
persecution. Many of the early believers suffered
a lot of persecution. I'm gonna talk about that in
the message today, about the development of the church in
the last days. You know, when the church first
began, the New Testament church is what I'm talking about, believers
were really, really persecuted physically, weren't they? And
we've been spoiled in that area. But that doesn't mean persecution
is stopped. It still goes on in different
ways. But those believers had to be assured
that even though persecuted, they were still blessed, blessed
of God. They weren't accepted by men,
but they were accepted of God in Jesus Christ. They were still
justified. They're still righteous in God's
sight, and that never changes, no matter what happens to them
in this life. And so we have to be assured of that. You know,
we talk about our world situation, the situation of our country,
and how bad it is and how bad it's getting, and we're not optimistic
and all of that. But listen, that has absolutely
nothing to do with our standing before God in Christ based on
His righteousness alone. You understand that? We're safe
and secure in Christ. And so here's the preparation.
So I put in here, the opening of the seventh seal accomplishes
two things. Number one, it reminds us of
the security of the sealed saints in the Lord Jesus Christ by the
grace of God. We're sealed under God. And secondly, it ushers in the
judgment sent forth by God through the agency of what's revealed
in the seventh chapter of the angels that stand on the four
corners of the earth, holding back the four winds. The four
winds are going to be released, eventually. The four winds of
judgment. And I thought about this too,
as I go, silence in heaven. This is God sending a message,
and this is not man's message. And I thought about, when God
sends forth these judgments, no sinner is going to be able
to justify himself. You know in Romans 3, What is
it, verse 19? Whatever the law saith, it saith
to them who are guilty that every mouth may be stopped and all
the world become guilty before God. And that's every sinner
without Christ. But even God's people, you know,
we won't open our mouths either because Christ speaks for us.
He speaks for us. He intercedes for us. Well look
at verse two he says, 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. Now I believe this
other angel here is talking about the angel of the covenant. the
messenger of the covenant, which is none other than Jesus Christ
himself, performing the duties of his priestly office as the
intercessor, the one mediator between God and men. Everything
that he mentions here, you can refer back to the old covenant
tabernacle, the old covenant temple. He stood at the altar
having a golden censer. And so, did I skip chapter two? I did, didn't I? Go back to chapter
2, I mean verse 2. First of all, in verse 2 he says,
I saw the seven angels which stood before God, and to them
were given seven trumpets. Now that's the trumpets of judgment. There'll be seven of them. And
we'll begin with the first one next week. A trumpet, as you
know, is an announcement. It refers to some big announcement. You use trumpets for a lot of
different things, to announce like the coming of a king, or
the sending of a message, or to send some kind of a message. And the message of these trumpets,
each one specifically, boils down to simply flee from the
wrath to come, flee to Christ. All right? And then in verse
3, then we see Christ himself as the angel of the covenant.
And everything mentioned here has its reference back to the
old covenant temple. Here he is, he stood at the altar.
You can talk about the altar of his own sacrifice. He took
his place and died under the judgment of God for the sins
of his people imputed to him. You can talk about the altar
of incense, and we'll talk about that in just a moment here. The
golden censer with much incense. That symbolizes the merits of
his sacrifice and his work of redemption. His blood, the blood
of Christ, washing away all of our sins, the righteousness of
Christ, justifying us forever and ever and ever before holy
God. And he offers them up at the altar of incense. They're
like the prayers of all the saints, he says. He offers it with the
prayers of all the saints. And then he mentions the golden
altar. That's the altar of incense. So here we have God's people
continually accepted and received by God on the basis of the merits
of the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. And that shows
us this, that Everything we are and everything that we do that
is received and accepted by God is not received and accepted
because of our goodness or our sincerity or our efforts, but
only because of the merits of the righteousness of Christ freely
imputed to us and to receive by God given faith. And then
look at verse four. And he, well, he offers these
before the throne. That's the throne of God's grace.
we approach God as the King of Kings. And verse four says, in
the smoke of the incense which came with the prayers of the
saints ascended up before God out of the angel's hand, out
of Christ's hand. Look over at 1 Peter chapter
two. In 1 Peter chapter two. The life of a believer is coming to Christ, looking
to Christ, bowing to Christ, not just one time, but continually. In other words, there's no time
in our lives as believers that we can say we don't need him,
that we can stand on our own two feet. No time at all. Here, the Apostle Peter is encouraging
the people of God to fight sin. Look at verse one of 1 Peter
2. He says, wherefore, for this reason. Now, the reason that
he's talking about is the fact that we've been redeemed by the
blood of Christ and born again by the Spirit. And he says, for
this reason, laying aside all malice, all guile, hypocrisies,
and envies, and all evil speakings. You mean believers still have
trouble with that stuff? Well, of course we do. Of course
we do. I was talking to a fellow several
years ago about that issue, about a Christian, being a Christian,
do we still sin? Well, of course we do. And we
got to talking about the issue of total depravity and what total
depravity means and how the scripture defines total depravity. And
of course, you know, the doctrine of total depravity is simply
just a theological way of stating the doctrine of sin. What does
the Bible say about sin? And I believe these three categories
covers the whole issue of total depravity. Number one, by nature,
we don't have righteousness. We don't have it. There's none
righteous, no not one. I think Romans 3, 10 and following
is one of the best definitions in the scripture of total depravity.
We don't have righteousness. Secondly, the second thing that
shows is we can't work one. In other words, no matter how
good we try to be, we still cannot be good enough to make ourselves
righteous before God. You know, people, sometimes they'll
quote scripture to their own detriment. Everybody goes around
saying, we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Well, what does that mean? It doesn't mean that we've all
made some mistake. It means that no matter how good
we try to be, we cannot make ourselves righteous before God.
And then the third part of total depravity is this. Not only are
we not righteous, not only can we not work one, the third is,
by nature, if left to ourselves, we don't want one God's way. We want it our way. That's why
all the religions of man are religions of works and free willism. We want righteousness. We want
salvation. We want blessing. We want to
live forever, but we don't want it God's way because God's way
doesn't give us any room to glory. God's way doesn't leave us any
room to boast. God's way leaves us room to glory
in one person based on one thing. God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross. of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
so that's it. But he told me, he said, he said,
well, I just don't believe that we're that sinful, he said. And
I asked him this question. I said, do you claim to be a
Christian? He said, yes, I do. And I said, so you just don't
think you're that sinful? He said, no, even yet. And I asked him, I said, well,
let me ask you a question. I said, if I could take all your
thoughts Not what you do now, but just all your thoughts given
out in one day, let's say, and take them to your church and
flash them up on a screen before everybody. Would you want to
be there? And he just smiled. He knew better. Think about that. If I could
take all of our thoughts, my thoughts, even at my best moments,
I said one time to a guy, I said, even when I'm asleep, what about
that dream I had? Would you want that flashed up
there on the screen so everybody see it? Would you be there? Would you
want to be or would you sink down or you'd want to run out of the
building? And that's the problem, you see. The thing about it is
even believers have to struggle with evil thoughts, evil motives,
evil desires. It's a struggle, it's a warfare.
And so Peter says here in 1 Peter 2, lay aside malice. You mean
believers can still hate? That's what that is, yes. Guile,
you know what guile is? It's hypocrisy. I know he says
hypocrisy, but it's just a way of emphasizing it. Dishonesty
is what he's talking about. Then hypocrisy, don't play an
act. Envies and evil speaking. And
verse two, now look what he says, as newborn babes desire the sincere
milk of the word that you may grow thereby. In other words,
immerse yourself in the word of God to be your spiritual food.
If so be you've tasted that the Lord is gracious. You're not
going to have a hunger for the word of God apart from God being
gracious to you. I'm not going to have a hunger
for it. And then he says in verse four, to whom coming, that's
a continual coming to Christ. as unto a living stone," he's
our rock, "...disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and
precious." In verse 5, "...you also as lively stones," or living
stones, "...are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood." Now
the same people that he said put away malice and guile and
hypocrisy and evil speakings, he calls a holy priesthood. Holiness
there doesn't mean you're morally perfect inside and out. Holiness
means you're separated unto God. Priesthood means that you have
free access to the presence of God on what ground? Well, look
at it. Holy priesthood to offer up spiritual
sacrifices. Now, what are those spiritual
sacrifices? Our prayers, our obedience, our worship. Now,
look at the next line. Acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Now he doesn't say acceptable
to God because you just had a good day. He didn't say acceptable
to God because you were real sincere in that prayer. I know
God accepted that prayer because I know you were sincere. Should
we be sincere in our prayers? Of course we should. But God
doesn't accept it on that basis. He accepts it on the basis of
the imputed righteousness of Christ. That's what he does. Now go back to Revelation 8 now. That's what this whole thing
is... See, this is the preparation for everything that's coming.
Go back to verse... Revelation 8. Go back to verse
3 again. Here's that other angel. Here
he comes. He stood at the altar, the altar
of his sacrifice, where his blood was shed, where righteousness
is established. There's the ground. There was
given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with
the prayers of all his saints." That's his intercessory work,
his mediatorial priesthood. He's our advocate. Everything
we are, everything we do in God's sight is acceptable because of
Christ. His merits alone. It's not his
merits plus my merits. I don't have any merit. It's
his. And the prayers of all the saints, now remember every true
believer is a saint. That means sanctified one. Sanctified
before God. Set apart by God in Christ. And there's the golden altar,
that's the altar of incense 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." There's our
prayers going up to God through Christ. Hebrews chapter 4, we
have a high priest, a great high priest who's passed through into
the heavens, Jesus Christ, the Lord our righteousness, and we
come to the throne of grace to pray and pray in time of need. We come to the throne of grace
in worship. And it's all brought up to the
Father through the merits of the Son out of the angel's hands. And so I've got a paragraph here
in your lesson to show that even as saved sinners, we have to
continually realize that our only qualification to approach
God in any capacity, in worship, in prayer, in obedience, in service,
is because of our standing in Christ. That'll never change. And I say it like this often
in messages. Here I have, I've preached the
true gospel for over 30 years now. I am still no more qualified
in myself to be accepted with God than I was at any time in
my life. My only qualification is Christ. My hope is still built on nothing
less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. And I still dare not trust the
sweetest frame, but still wholly lean on Jesus' name. It's still
Christ, the solid rock I stand, and all other ground sinking
sand. You understand that? Acceptable to God. We'll look
at verse five now of Revelation 8. The angel took the censer,
that censer, that golden pot, filled with fire off the altar. That's what the fire was taken
from the altar and put in the censer, the golden pot. And again,
what's that telling us? It's all based on the merits
of Christ. It's all by His blood, by His
righteousness. And He cast it into the earth,
all right? And there were voices and thunderings
and lightnings and an earthquake. Now, you know what that shows?
That God's judgment upon the earth is all based upon one standard,
and that's the standard of the merits of Christ's work of redemption
as God in human flesh for his people. In other words, here's
what it is. If you don't have Christ as your
righteousness, as your Savior, you're under the judgment of
God. And there's the standard. It's like Acts 1731. He's going to judge the world
in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained. and that
he hath given assurance unto all men, and that he hath raised
him from the dead." You see, the issue here is, it's not how
much good you have done or how much bad you have done. The issue
here is, how do you stand with Christ? Now, if you don't stand
with Christ, you're going to be judged by how much bad you've
done. The Scripture tells us that.
If you stand in Christ, you're going to be judged by how much
good He's done. And that's the comfort that we
have. Think about this. The Holy Spirit has revealed
to God's people what we are in ourselves. Now, knowing that,
you know, this is what I say about people who say, well, God's
going to judge me by how much good I've done. You don't know
yourself if that's what you think. You see, the reason I take comfort
that that's not going to happen is I know me. I know my only
hope is Christ. But knowing yourself, what comfort
could you really take in knowing how much good you've done? You
couldn't take any comfort. You'd be, as old Bunyan said,
in the slew of despond all the time. But we have a righteousness
that answers the demands of God's law and justice. It's the righteousness
of God in Christ. That's comforting, isn't it?
My righteousness is the righteousness of God. It's freely given to
me. It's imputed to me. The reason I can take so much
comfort in that is I didn't have anything to do with it. I didn't
work it out. You can't contaminate it. You
can't corrupt it. And God says he'll never take
it away. It's there forever. We stand
in Christ. Oh, that I may know him and be
found in him, Paul wrote. Well, now there's the preparation
for the seven trumpets. Look at verse 6, we'll pick up
here next week. He says, and the seven angels... Now, you
know, of course, I've emphasized this throughout the study of
Revelation. Seven means it's the completed, perfected work
of God. Here he's talking about the completed,
perfected work of God in judgment. So the seven angels, which had
the seven trumpets, prepared themselves to sound. And then
we'll begin with that next week.