What if its not about us?
As I was reading the section in Revelation 8, it made me ask the question, what if it is not about us?
Jesus has taken the scroll, sealed with seven seals, and, because He is worthy, He has opened the seals. Because we are human, because we have been given dominion over the earth, we assume the document that He has unsealed must be about us. But, what if it is not? We are never told what words on on the page (although we know there is writing on both sides of the scroll).
What if this document is the deed to the New Heaven and New Earth? What if, instead of dominion going to mankind, it has been given to Jesus? What if He has the choice to start anew and simply leave the old in silence instead of going through the messy and painful work of redeeming and cleansing the old creation?
I can’t substantiate this, nor am I stating it as an argument contrary to some of the great biblical commentators, but it provides an interesting challenge to perspective.
If this is the case, however, then it is the aroma of prayers that rekindles us to the new order. It is because of prayer that the angel reignites the world with the fire of the altar of God, claiming it in not just water and blood but in fire and spirit for the ruler of all, Jesus.
It is not our day, it is the Day of the Lord. The fact that time and time again, our God chooses us is an amazing thought. The fact that prayers matter given the fastness of the cosmos, is unfathomable. The fact that a being as mighty and awesome as God would want to be in communion with such sinful and weak people, is truly a gift.
My Answers:
3.
a.
Silence in heaven for about half an hour
b.
Unlike anything ever before. Reverent and unprecedented silence in anticipation
c.
The angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar and hurled it on the earth; then came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.
4.
a.
Joel: The day of the Lord is coming, it is close at handEx: The time (after preparation) for the people of Israel to meet with God at the foot of the mt
Num: To call the community together and for having the camps set out
Joshua: Sounding of a long blast when walls of Jericho came down
1 Thes: The Lord himself will come down in heaven and the dead will rise up
b.
The day of the Lord has arrived. Christ is going to return
5.
Things do not continue exactly as they have been, there will be a point in time when it changes and the wrath held back is held back no longer
The Notes are Good 