The message of Silence

Revelation 8:1 speaks volumes without saying a word!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay, we are in the book of Revelation and chapter 8. Chapter 8 is where the seventh seal is going to be open and it will uh start the uh the actual tribulation period and um the wrath of God. It will uh set up the first seven uh uh trumpets that are the seven judgments of God that are during the first three and a half uh years of the tribulation period. And the second three and a half years will be the bold judgments. But this is what sets it up. What has gone on before has not been the tribulation period, as some would teach and preach. Six and seven is just showing us uh a snapshot, the uh table of contents, or even better, is the goals or the purposes of God for the tribulation period. Now in the eighth, we are opening the last seal. Uh Jesus is, and uh it will start the actual tribulation period. But before we do that, we don't want to miss the small, what seems to be the small, and maybe even seems to be the insignificant messages uh of Revelation. Revelation has so much drama in it, and voices, and thunders, and lightnings, and and worship, and people singing, and people uh talking and and and praising God. And it's wonderful, don't get me wrong, but um but we see that there is a real strong message here in the first verse of chapter eight uh that speaks to us, and I don't want us to miss this. In um chapter eight, verse one, it says, and when he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about a half an hour. Now, this is very, very significant, all right. Heaven, normally filled with worship, thunders, voices, angels, and praise suddenly becomes entirely silent. Throughout Revelations, there's the constant sound of things going on in heaven. There's the worship, there's the trumpets, there's the thunder, there's the voices, there's the declarations. So the sudden silence itself becomes meaningful. The absence of sound is a part of the message. Now I want you to catch that. The absence of sound here is a part of the message. First off, John didn't have to write that. John didn't have to say it, but God wanted it in there. God wanted us to see the significance of what's happening. And those in heaven at this point understand the significance of what is about to take place. The silence highlights what is coming is extraordinarily serious. The silence highlights what is coming is extraordinarily serious. Even the worship of heaven pauses before the unfolding of God's final judgments. The flashing of lightnings, rumblings, and the banging of thunder coming from the throne of God will cease. The four living creatures will suspend their talk of the holiness of God. The twenty four elders will halt their declaration about the worthiness of the Lamb, and the heavenly host will end their singing. See, God's original desire for us was that we would live forever in a innocence, in a state of innocence. We were never to know sin, we were never to know wrong. You go back and read chapter uh three of Genesis, this was never the intention or the plan of God. He wanted us to live in a state of innocence for the rest of our lives. Man chose to disobey God, and due to his disobedience, the law of sin and death became active. The kingdom, remember, remember what God told uh uh Adam, the day that you eat thereof, you will die. The law of sin and death is going to be activated the day that you eat of the tree that I tell you not to eat of. The kingdom of darkness took over, and Satan became the God of this world. And now God has been brought to this final end, his judgment. This was never his plan, this was never his desire, but now he has to set aside his mercy and his grace to bring this catastrophic judgment against man, the world, and sin. And for 30 minutes, all of heaven shuts down. All of a sudden, God is bringing to an end of the law of sin and death. He's bringing to an end Satan, he's bringing to an end uh uh the sinful world, he's bringing to an end uh the world of sin, and he's conquering the enemies, and all this is going on. But this is not something that he wanted to do. In fact, as we study the mercy and the grace and the judgments of God throughout from the Old Testament clear through the new, we can see that always when God exercised his judgments, he also exercised his mercy. And we even see that in the tribulation period. Remember in chapter six, when we're looking at the goals of God, he brings uh judgment against man, but then he also saves the martyrs, those who died for the faith. He saves them because why? Because God still wants to show mercy. It reminds me of the story of David in the Old Testament after he became king of all of Israel. He had just del he had just delivered uh the children of Israel from all of God's enemies that had that that had come against them. And and it was a very violent and vicious and bloody thing that David had done. And then before he takes the throne, when David could finally sit back and take ease and say, I've done my job, and now I finally am going to be king as I always wanted to be, and and and and I can rule now and take it easy and set back and so on. What does he want to do first? He says, Is there anyone left of the house of Saul that I can show kindness to for Jonathan's sake, Saul's son? Because what? David was a man after God's own heart. And what he really wanted was he really wanted to show mercy and grace. And we see even in the tribulation period, God is showing mercy to those that were the martyrs during that time. And then he even shows mercy to fulfilling his uh his uh promise to Abraham by saving, you know, 144,000 of the Jews, of the seed of Abraham, Abraham's descendants, because that is God's. But here now, the Bible even tells us all the complete and entire wrath of God is now going to be poured out. And God is not taking pleasure in it, but God is turning around and having to do what it takes to end this world of sin. Because the goal is to have a new heaven and a new earth that is, that is led by righteousness and holiness and by Jesus on the throne. Praise God. And uh the law of sin and death will be destroyed. And this is he's ending the caskets and the tombstones and the funeral homes and the death and the sorrow and the hospitals and the cancer and the diseases. He's ending all that because God hates those things as much as we do. But he doesn't like how he's got to do it, but he has to through his judgment and his wrath. In this silence, heaven is speaking volumes. In this silence, heaven is giving us one of the greatest and maybe one of the saddest messages that we could ever have. And that is that God is about to let loose of his judgment on the world. And folks, we are close today, and you better be ready because it is better for those that go in the first than stay for the second death. Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior now, because it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. Our God is a consuming fire, and his wrath will be poured out, and he will end this thing. God bless you.