7th Meeting - Continued Revelation 7-9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8 of Revelation opens with the seventh seal being opened on the scroll, there was silence in Heaven for a half hour. This must have been something to behold, from the glimpses of Heaven we have from other places in the Bible, Heaven sounds like a busy place with a lot of praising going on. To have total silence for a half an hour must have been quite deafening. Why was the silence. Awe at what was going to happen. Seven angels were given seven trumpets. Seven is the number for completeness. Another angel has a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. Censer's were part of the worship from the time of the tabernacle until the temple was destroyed. The censer was used to carry the hot coals from the altar of sacrifice to the altar of incense. The incense was mixed with the prayers of the saints and the smoke went up. If the smoke goes up, this signifies that God accepted the prayers and incense. Verse 5 says that the angel filled the censer again and threw the coals on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake. Matthew 24:7 says that these are the start of birth pains but the end is not yet.

Revelation 8:7 begins with a plague that has fire mixed with blood hail; this looks like one of the plagues that God used against Egypt to get His people out of bondage. You need to read the story in Exodus, to find that the children of Israel, were not harmed by this plague. In the same way they were spared when the Nile River was made Blood; God will spare His believers from these plagues.

Revelation 8:12 says that the fourth angel sounded his trumpet and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars. The world is becoming a very dark place.

Revelation 8: 13 tells of an eagle or an angel depending on which version of the Bible you have declaring woe, woe, woe, this is to warn the people living on the earth that there are still three more trumpets to sound.