December 15, 2024 - Revelation 8-9

With the first six seals, John saw various individual scenes.  The seventh was different:  “When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.  Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.” (8:1-2).  The seventh, thus, expands the vision and, as each of the trumpets are blown, John sees disaster come by way of hail and fire, upheaval of the earth, destruction in and from the heavens, armies like locusts, and angels of death.  Chapter 8, however, begins with:  “Another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel” (8:3-4).  All who have suffered for the sake of Christ, including many who have sacrificed the most through martyrdom, cry out to God, and he hears.  We must never forget that, even when the day is hardest, and even if it seems as though God does not care, he is always listening.  And the promise of God is that he will avenge his own.  He will make all things right.  Until that day, Paul tells us how we are to respond to those who hate and persecute us:  “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’  To the contrary, ‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.’  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:19-21).

If God himself be for me,

I may a host defy;

for when I pray, before me

my foes, confounded, fly.

If Christ, my head and master,

befriend me from above,

what foe or what disaster

can drive me from his love?   --Paul Gerhardt (1865)