Matlock | 03/05/26 | Revelation 8 | Phil Hardy

Matlock 

Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/354059/episodes/19116064-matlock-03-05-26-revelation-8-phil-hardy.mp3

Phil continued our Revalation series, looking at Revelation 8.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Church in the Peak podcast. We hope you enjoy this message. For more information, visit churchinthepeak.org or come and join us at 10 a.m. every Sunday.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Yeah, I was at a Catholic Leader's Day recently, and one of the things I think was really encouraging to hear, again from back from just following that one, is that we are as a Catholic sphere within New Frontiers, we are over a thousand churches across the world now, which is quite incredible from where you think we were. I remember years ago praying for that to be a thousand churches just as New Frontiers, but now part of a sphere within that is just incredible. So God's on the move and doing some good stuff. Okay, so we're in Revelation 8. And uh for those that are visiting us this morning, it's great to have you with us. We are doing a series going through Revelation, and um it has fallen to me to do Revelation 8. I haven't been here for a few weeks, I've been in Buxton, so I uh it feels a bit strange actually to be back. Uh but nice to see you all, and um let's get into this passage, shall we? It's a passage or scripture chapter of kind of two parts if you like, um, and it starts, it's the opening of the seventh seal. Now, obviously, previous chapters we've been going through, we've been looking at the opening of the seals and what's happening, and uh so here we are in uh chapter. I'm just going to read verse one to five to start with. When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them, and 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 for the hand uh from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. I'm gonna stop there. I'm just gonna look just make a few things, comments, look at this a few verses. The thing that struck me first of all is silence in heaven, and how did they know it was half an hour? Is eternity timeless? Is it not where the time doesn't exist anymore? So, how did John know it was about half an hour? Um, because he was he'd been in the spirit for a long time. He was there in this heavenly realm seeing all this happening for a long period of time. So, how he got all that I do not quite know. I haven't got the answer to it, and nobody else has because I've looked, I've kind of asked around on the internet and looked at a few commentaries, nobody really had an answer for how he knew it was half an hour. But the silence is important. That's the thing, it's not about the length of time, it's about the silence. The silence was significant, and it was significant for a reason. Because on this the seventh seal being opened, something was about to happen that was changed the world forever. And it was about to be released. The God of time and eternity is about to do something incredible, and what we read on as we move on is not just imagery, this is what is about to happen at some point, and we are anticipating it's coming soon. Everyone in heaven understands the gravity of the coming judgment. Everyone there knows, understands what's about to happen as it begins to unfold. And it's God's right to judge sin and rebellion. It's God's right to inflict his judgment upon a world that he created for himself, for his glory, for him to have relationship with mankind that have turned their back on him, chosen sin over him, and he's withheld his judgment, he's withheld his wrath. In fact, his wrath was covered by Jesus' death and resurrection on the cross that he celebrates this morning. It was all covered there, but there's a day coming when God will judge once and for all. And this is the unfolding of it here in chapter 8. This is where it begins to happen. So this silence is significant because it's coming. Now there was a silence, it talks about in the silence in heaven, and or when Jesus rose from the dead. This is different. This is a sign that's somber and sincere because of the gravity of what's to come. God is gonna unleash his judgment, he's gonna speak judgment, he's gonna declare judgment on the world and the universe, and it's all going to change. God is coming to fulfill what he's always said he would do, it's about to happen. So the silence is significant. Jeremiah 3, if you go to slide number three, if you would. Zephaniah 1 7 says, Be silent in the presence of the sovereign Lord, for the awesome day of the Lord's judgment is near. It's coming, it's coming soon. The awesome day of his judgment is near. This that sense of silence. This is by an old testament prophet. This is years before, centuries before uh John has this vision in heaven. It says, be silent before the presence of the sovereign law for the awesome day, the Lord's judgment is near, and it's nearer in this point John's scene in heaven than it's ever been, because it's now imminent, it's now about to happen. It's an incredible moment. The silence of everyone in heaven. Not one dare speak, not one dare make a move, not one. Have you ever kind of sense that? I mean, we had it recently in a Friday morning prayer meeting. There was such a sense of the presence of God, a kind of silence came on our time praying for probably about 20 minutes or so. It was just silent, because the awesome presence of God amongst us, and so and that's how it's going to be in heaven. There's gonna be an awesomeness about it as well. There's a uh severity about it, about what's about to come, but there will be this silence in heaven, and then there's this scene of giving seven angels a trumpet each, seven trumpets, each giving a trumpet. And then another angel comes and uh and stood at the altar with a golden sensor. Now you may have come across these if you've come from a bit more religious background than us uh here, but uh very often used in Catholic or an Orthodox church, even today. They use a centre and they have it on a hook from the centre of the ceiling and they fill it with incense and uh it kind of gives off a perfume and a smoke, and they swing it, and it's to represent the prayers of the saints going up to God. Um, we've joked quite a bit about having a kind of golden uh eagle lectern here that they have in some of the old parish churches, and uh, in fact, we looked on the internet for one to see if we could find one, and we thought it'd be cool. Um but some people disagreed with that. Um but actually, you know, that's kind of thing you would get, and then you get the centre in the middle where it would swing out, and uh, this is what is kind of it's a heavenly thing. It was from the Old Testament, they would do it, it was true in the tabernacle, it was true in the temple, this is what they would do to represent the uh prayers of the people going up to God, and it's an ancient ritual, an ancient rite, and it symbolizes our prayer and reverence rising to heaven. And I want to say something about prayer, because actually, prayer is really important to God, He treasures our prayers, He treasures the prayers such that actually here are the prayers of the saints. Now that's not, I don't think that's just those that are in heaven now, but actually that's for all of us of all time. Prayer of the people come together, and God loves it when we communicate with him, God loves it when we pray, God loves it when we come to him and we share our heart, we have conversation with God, we tell him how we are, we may even at times kind of not be so nice when we talk to God. No matter how big or small our prayer might be, God values, God treasures, he holds it, takes care of it. Sometimes we cry for help, he loves to cry for help, or sometimes just to spend time with him in his presence. Maybe it's a prayer of repentance, maybe a prayer of thankfulness. He loves to hear it, whatever it might be. Maybe it's a rant at God. Things haven't gone well, not how we thought, and we get upset, so we rant at God. David, if you want to know about ranting at God, read Psalms. David did lots of it, and he kind of prayed and uh spoke about God destroying his enemies for him, bringing down coals on them, all kinds of things. So if you want to rant at God, go and read Psalms, you'll get some useful uh language to use uh before God. Or maybe it's just sheer frustration sometimes. We can get frustrated, can't we, with things? Just life sometimes can be frustrating. And so where do we release that to? Let's take it to God. He's the best one because he can handle anything, he can handle anything we bring to him, he values it, he loves it. No matter what state we come to him in, he's always ready to listen, he's always ready to receive, he's always ready to tune his ear to us as we come to him. He loves to hear our prayers, and if it's worship or adoration, he loves that too, doesn't he? Loves it, he loves to inhabit the praise of his people. He just loves us because we are precious to him. He loves us so much that he sent Jesus to die for us as we've celebrated, and he holds our prayers because they're just as precious to him as we are, and he holds them, and he wants us to bring them to him. He wants us to share, if you're going to click next, if you would, please. Revelation 5, verse 8. And when he took the scroll, this is going back a bit where we've been before, but when he took the scroll, and the four living elders, and 24 elders fell down before the lamb, each one had a harp, and they held golden bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of God's people. This is exactly the same scene we're reading here in verse in chapter 8. This bowl filled with the prayers, filled with prayers, mixed with incense. And it says, much incense. God's not a meager God, God's not going to kind of skimp on anything here. It's much incense and prayers rising to God. Incredible moment in heaven. We're gonna be, those of us who know Jesus are gonna be part of, we're gonna witness this. And in that same way, these bowls, golden bowls filled with the prayers of the saints, they've been kept. They've been kept, they're stored in these golden bowls because they're precious. You don't store things in gold that aren't precious generally, do you? They are precious, and God values our prayer as precious. Not one prayer lost, forgotten, or rejected. Everyone treasured by God, just as we are treasured by God. He loves us and he loves to hear our prayers. I think just when we pray, have this in mind that as we are praying, God is storing our prayers. He doesn't just store them, kind of archive them away. It's not like he forgets them, not like he doesn't do anything, not like he doesn't answer. May but not always be in the way you want, but he does answer. But he stores them too. They've been stored because they're gonna be this fragrant offering up to God in that moment in heaven, gonna rise to him. Psalm 34, verse 17 to 22 says this the Lord hears the people when they call for him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. The righteous person faces many troubles, but the Lord comes to rescue each time. For the Lord protects the bones of the righteous, not one of them is broken. Calamity will surely destroy the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be punished, but the Lord will redeem those who serve him. No one who takes refuge in him will be condemned. Isn't that a wonderful promise? None of us trust in him, that live for him, that are his children. Everything we bring to him is precious. Because we're precious. That you are precious in his sight. We can think little of ourselves, can't we? So easily being negative about ourselves, negative about the way we look, the way we are, the things we say, the things we do sometimes. We can look at ourselves in that way, but God is looking at us through a different lens. Just as Aan's prophetic word encouraged us earlier this morning, that even the little things we do for him, he sees. He knows, and we're precious. And I just sense the Lord wants to impact that into our hearts this morning, that you are precious to him. No matter how you feel about yourself, what you think about your prayer, prayers, what you think about your prayer life, it's all precious to him. Because you are precious to him. I'm gonna pray that for us this morning. Let's just hold our hands, shall we? Yeah, come, Lord, we pray. Holy Spirit, we pray now that by your Holy Spirit, that truth will impact every heart and every life. Lord, I pray, Lord, whatever things going on in our minds, our hearts about ourselves, or what the enemy might whisper in our ear about us, Lord, I pray that that truth, that we are precious in your sight, we are loved and fully accepted, and every prayer is precious to you. I pray, Holy Spirit, will you reinforce that into our hearts right now? Holy Spirit, may we live in the good of that truth in the coming weeks, months, and years. Lord, I pray you'll break any stronghold now of the enemy that would seek to rob us of that truth, who seem to mask that truth, who would seek to uh lock us up from that truth. I pray now, may prison walls uh fall down, may get doors open. I pray, Holy Spirit, come now. And would you reinforce that into our hearts and lives that we might live in the good of it? In Jesus' name. Amen. So it raises a question, I guess. Do we have a lifestyle marked by prayer? Are we living a lifestyle marked that is prayer and spending time with him, giving time to pray, giving time with him, no matter how you do that? And I've talked on prayer many times, and if you want to hear any of them, you can find them on our podcasts there. I'm not gonna go into depth on any of that stuff, but let's have a lifestyle of prayer, encourage you. You know, because your prayers are precious, you're precious, and actually it's how we build relationships, isn't it? We you don't build relationship by not talking, you don't build relationship by non-communication. Doesn't happen. So let's communicate, let's do that with God. So that kind of is that first part, except for if we go on to the next slide, if you would this is the consequence then of those prayers going out. We have trumpet calls, and the first trumpet on the back of that is this fire that comes from the the uh sensor that's filled with fire is cast to the earth, and hail and fire mixed with blood, turn a third of the earth and trees, just do away with them, just burn them up, just gone, and all green grass is gone. How you know when you kind of think this is not just imagery, this is gonna happen, but how it's gonna happen, you can't kind of get that in your head, can you? How can all green grass suddenly disappear off the face of the earth in one moment when God does this? It's gonna be incredible. And the second trumpet sounds the burning of the mountain comes, a fiery mass falls into the sea, turns a third of it to blood. Now, the biggest ocean is the Atlantic Ocean, and it's about a third of the water's seas on the earth. So imagine the Atlantic, all boats, all gone, all the sea life gone. A third of it turned to blood. It's gonna be an incredible sign of God's judgment coming to the earth. And the third trumpet, the falling star, the great blazing star falls upon the earth, the fire out of the rivers and springs, so the water is no longer drinkable. All coming in this moment.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Uh forty years ago. It just changed my whole life. Um last Sunday was the anniversary of fortieth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. I don't know how many of you remember it. It was um it was huge, an atomic blast in a power station in the Ukraine. And it at the time it was very scary, and my young family and me, we weren't saved, we didn't know Jesus. And uh we were quite scared. There was a a nuclear cloud came across, blew our direction over Europe, um, and we were in Norway at the time, and we were scared. And uh then in the paper it said that there might be a meltdown into the earth's core because they didn't know what the consequence of this huge explosion would be. Um and yes, we were scared. We got home from Norway and Mick loves reading the news, and I rather wanted to hide from it. He said in the Daily Telegraph on the front page that people in the Ukraine are turning to the Bible because Revelations 8, uh, the Star of Wormwood, and it suggested in the paper that that was Chernobyl. Chernobyl is Ukraine for Wormwood. So we picked up our Bible, I've got it here, King James Bible that had never been off the shelf, found the Star of Wormwood and Chernobyl, and read it, and I believed it, and carried on reading to the end of the Bible, and it terrified me. It terrified me more than you can ever that this was forever. I'd had worries in my life, I'd had problems, but this was forever and ever and ever, and I was so scared. And I went to bed and I shook violently all night, and the next morning went round to a neighbor who was one of these Christians, and I'd got the telegraph in one hand and the Bible in the other hand, and I said, please do something. And she said she said, Well, it's true, and I didn't want her to say that. And then unknown to me, of course, she prayed for us as a family and lent me a booklet. And I leapt into the kingdom wholeheartedly, but not out of knowing love at that time, it was out of terror.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

So let's just read these few verses, shall we? In the second part of verse 6 to 11. Now the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them. And the first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail fire mixed with blood, and these were thrown upon the earth, and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up. The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. A third of living creatures in the sea died, and a third of ships were destroyed. The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on the third of the waters and on the spring water. The name of the star is wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water because it had been made bitter. Just incredible events. And if you read them as Pam did may be, they are things that are terrifying, aren't they? They are quite scary things to happen, and we see lots of things happen around our world even today that would perhaps cause us to fear and what's happening in our world, what's taking place, but it's all leading up to this, and I want to say that there are no coincidences in God. Chernobyl was not a coincidence, God knew. And it's part of his warning of what is to come. And he allows things that help us. Hopefully, we don't want people to come into the into the kingdom by fear. So you know, I remember many years ago when we were visiting a church in America, and we had a they had a visiting speaker while I was there, and um he spoke on basically preaching hell to frighten people into the kingdom. Now, I'm not sure that that's would be our well no, it's not our position. It's definitely not why we would uh present the gospel because God is love, and God is for people, and people are precious to him. So we would preach that God who loves you. But also there are some realities. There are realities out there that actually will happen one day, and people will fear. And it talks the Bible talks about men's hearts will faint with fear because of what happens in the world, and it will happen, and it will come to pass. These say this is not imagery, this is what is unfolding that John's seeing that is to come, and every day is getting closer to it. As we see our world, every day is leading to the point when Jesus is going to return, and these events are going to take place on the earth. And obviously, the wormwood, I had to look this up myself, and in Greek it means bitterness or calamity from the Greek, and obviously, as Pam said in the Ukrainian Russian language, Chernobyl was the word for wormwood. And saying no coincidences in God, it's how it is. But also, of course, wormwood is known as a herb and is used actually in medicine in small amounts, but any excessive amount will cause problems, it will cause convulsions, and um it can cause death and paralysis before death. So it's not kind of a number of things, but it is also a herb that is bitter, and you wouldn't want to necessarily use it, but these things are going to come to pass, and then there's a fourth star, a fourth trumpet. So then if you're going to slide five, the fourth angel, verse 12 to 13, the fourth angel blew his trumpet, and the third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their light might be darkened, and a third of the day might be kept from shining, and likewise a third of the night. So if you've got a third of the day mission, a third of the night, what exists? What is there? There's a void somewhere there. Then I looked and heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead. Whoa, whoa, whoa, to those who dwell on the earth at the blast of other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow. So you might think this is bad. Chapter 9 next week, you'll get a bit more. Brace yourself. But these things are going to come about. God has spoken. He is a God who keeps his word. What was shown to John is going to happen. But actually, what really matters is where are we? Where do we stand? Are we, do we belong to Jesus? Are we, because if we belong to Jesus, we're safe from all this. We will witness it, but we're safe from it. Because we will be with him in safety and security. But these things will come about. Everything in this chapter, one day, will happen. So what should our response be? Live a life shining for Jesus. Live for him. Live a good life for him. Use our God-given gifts to extend his kingdom. God has given all the kind of manner of things we can do to extend his kingdom and bring others into a knowledge of Jesus Christ and hopefully then the experience of him too. Live clean, holy lives. If we like, if we live like that, we will be ready for whatever comes, whatever it is, whenever it is. We'll be ready if we live like this. If you go to the last slide. So not only have we got it in Revelation, we have it here in Peter also speaking of it. Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this. What holy and godly lives you should live. Looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along. On that day he will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames. But we are looking forward to the new heaven and the new earth as he has promised. A world filled with God's righteousness. And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight. That's a good instruction. That's good teaching from Peter. A good instruction for us to live right before God. Live a place of peace with him. And we're going to come back to a song, and this song came to mind. It's a very old song. Remember it from the old Stonely days. God of Time and Eternity orchestrates all history. Our God, He reigns. And we're going to sing that together. Some of you may know it, some of you may not, they're new around. So I say it dates back donkeys' years, but it's such a true song. And we're going to sing it as a declaration this morning. Because we're in his hands. If we know Jesus, we're safe and secure in his hands, and we've nothing to fear. In fact, we've got plenty to look forward to. We've got hope of a future. We've got hope of an eternity with him. We've got hope of living in glorious splendor with Jesus. So we've nothing to fear. So, Matt, wherever you are, oh there you are. Team finally just come back. I may attempt to play drums on this one. We haven't practiced this. I came in this morning, they were practicing. I got on the drums, I played one song with them. And then while two of the wish, I thought, oh, I can play on that song again. So I haven't played on this one, so if I get on the drums for a moment, it might be awful. You might want to go home quickly. Um, but let's stand together, shall we?