Fireworks
When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
Revelation 8:1
Imagine this scene in heaven. Everything gets quiet. There is complete silence in all heaven for a half hour. The atmosphere is charged with breathless expectation! What is coming next?
Then it happens!
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 (Revelation 8:2-5).
This most unusual scene tells us two things about prayer: Prayer is precious and prayer is powerful.
Prayer is precious to God. Prayer is a fragrant aroma to God.
Your prayer is precious to God. None of your prayers have fallen on deaf ears. None of your prayers have been wasted.
Yes, prayer is mysterious and elusive. We do not understand so much about prayer. But we know that God loves it when we pray.
Your prayers matter to God.
But prayer is not just precious. Prayer is powerful. This is depicted when the angel hurls the censer and, as a result, there are fireworks in heaven and earth.
When people pray, things happen. When people pray, lives are changed. When people pray, lost people get saved. When people pray, history is altered.
Prayer is powerful.
Mark Buchanan relates a story told by William Willimon, the long-time chaplain of Duke University:
A man he knew went to Russia in the late seventies, at the height of the Cold War. He was sent as part of a delegation from the World Council of Churches to investigate and report on the state of the Christian church under an atheist regime. The man was not impressed.
“The church,” he told Willimon dismissively, contemptuously, “is just a bunch of little old ladies praying.” Just a bunch of perfume makers.
Willimon told that story in the early nineties, when statues of Stalin and Lenin – the patron saints of atheistic Russia – lay toppled, ready to be crated for storage or quarried for stone.
Beware little old ladies praying. Secretly they’re revolutionaries who make Bolsheviks look like kindergartners. They comprise a veritable bomb-making factory.1
Alfred Lord Tennyson stated it so eloquently: “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.”
When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
Revelation 8:1
Imagine this scene in heaven. Everything gets quiet. There is complete silence in all heaven for a half hour. The atmosphere is charged with breathless expectation! What is coming next?
Then it happens!
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 (Revelation 8:2-5).
This most unusual scene tells us two things about prayer: Prayer is precious and prayer is powerful.
Prayer is precious to God. Prayer is a fragrant aroma to God.
Your prayer is precious to God. None of your prayers have fallen on deaf ears. None of your prayers have been wasted.
Yes, prayer is mysterious and elusive. We do not understand so much about prayer. But we know that God loves it when we pray.
Your prayers matter to God.
But prayer is not just precious. Prayer is powerful. This is depicted when the angel hurls the censer and, as a result, there are fireworks in heaven and earth.
When people pray, things happen. When people pray, lives are changed. When people pray, lost people get saved. When people pray, history is altered.
Prayer is powerful.
Mark Buchanan relates a story told by William Willimon, the long-time chaplain of Duke University:
A man he knew went to Russia in the late seventies, at the height of the Cold War. He was sent as part of a delegation from the World Council of Churches to investigate and report on the state of the Christian church under an atheist regime. The man was not impressed.
“The church,” he told Willimon dismissively, contemptuously, “is just a bunch of little old ladies praying.” Just a bunch of perfume makers.
Willimon told that story in the early nineties, when statues of Stalin and Lenin – the patron saints of atheistic Russia – lay toppled, ready to be crated for storage or quarried for stone.
Beware little old ladies praying. Secretly they’re revolutionaries who make Bolsheviks look like kindergartners. They comprise a veritable bomb-making factory.1
Alfred Lord Tennyson stated it so eloquently: “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.”
