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. 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 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. Revelation 8:1-5, The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
The Sovereign Lord who needs nothing has freely chosen to use the prayers of His saints to be the catalyst that consummates His kingdom. No, He needs no one and nothing yet in His love and wisdom has chosen us puny sin-prone humans that don’t deserve His mercy to be co-workers with Him in ushering in His new age. This is very clear from John’s vision of the seventh seal where an angel offers incense with the prayers of the saints that bring about the Second Coming of Jesus.
Incense and prayer have a long history in the Bible. The psalmist prays “Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!” (Psalm 141:2). Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father, encountered the angel who told him about his son’s birth while offering incense in the temple when “the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense” (Luke 1:10, emphasis mine).
The amazing thing though about this vision is that the incense and prayers become the catalyst for the Second Coming. The angel takes the golden censer with the incense, fills it with fire from the altar (where fire symbolizes the judgment of God), and throws it on the earth. When that happens, there are “peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake” (Revelation 8:5) the kind of things that signify a storm theophany (appearance of God like a storm). This is similar to the appearance of God at Mount Sinai where “on the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled” (Exodus 19:16). In Revelation, there are two other such storm theophanies both of which are a part of the seventh and final judgment of the trumpets (11:19) and of the bowls (16:18). The seventh of the seals, trumpets, and bowl judgments bring the world to the end in which God comes in power, the Second Coming.
Here is the amazing thing: God is using the kingdom prayers of the saints to bring about the end. Kingdom prayers are essentially those that are crying out, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). In other words, these are prayers of hastening the Second Coming of Jesus who will establish God’s kingdom in the earth at that time. And it is the saints who will bring this about not only by their prayers but also by their witness since “this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14). Wow!
We are not praying in vain, saints! God is using our prayers to hasten His kingdom. No wonder Satan hates it when we pray and places every obstacle in our efforts because he knows that his end will be nearer when we pray. May you return to that place of prayer in your life! May you remember that “the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (James 5:16). May your prayers be kingdom prayers that seek to expand the Gospel reach! May you start praying for the nations to hear the Gospel! May you support the sending of preachers to ends of the earth! Most of all, may you pray!
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