Voices,Lightenings, Thunders and an Earthquake...Revelation 8 pt 2

https://billrandles.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/voiceslighteningsthunders-and-an-earthquake-revelation-8-pt-2/ ^ | 09-27-16 | Bill Randles

[pastorbillrandles]

And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand. And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. (Revelation 8:4-7)

The cumulative prayers of all of the Saints for all time, have been gathered into a censor, by the Angelic ministers at the heavenly Altar of Incense. Every heartfelt cry for deliverance, and for the coming Kingdom of God has been heard. All supplications from those persecuted and powerless in this world have been regarded by heaven. Each and every prayer for the will of God to be done, “on earth as it is in heaven” will be fully answered.

Those whom the world reject as powerless, and without any earthly resources, and of whom this world despises and rejects, do indeed have power, but not worldly power. With impunity the world mocks and bears false witness of, when they regard them at all. They cry out in places like Sudan, Egypt, Iraq and Afghanistan, where Moslems enslave and slaughter Christians in the hundreds of thousands, and very few even notice, But God has heard their prayer and the time for the heavenly answer has come.

There will be no place for them in the “Brave New World ” the godless western elites are building, so their rights and limited powers will be marginalized, until they have nothing left except the power of prayer. Like the widow woman in Jesus parable, in the day of the unjust Judges, who regard neither God or man, the disenfranchised flock of Jesus have nothing left but to cry out to God, as their brothers and sisters in the rest of the world.

This vision shows us that when their prayers are gathered and flung back to the earth in heavenly response. Awesome and shattering things begin to happen in response to these prayers.

The vision shows that there would be “…voices, thunderings, Lightnings and an earthquake“as the first result of the cumulative prayers of all time being answered at the casting of the Holy Censor.This is reminiscent of Mt. Sinai, where God earlier revealed himself to men, in the giving of the Law. Once again he will shale all things, and once again some will hear the voice of God and His Angels, and tremble at the revelation of his majestic power in the last days.

Trumpets of Judgment are blown and great terror and anguish comes to the God-rejecting world, as a direct result of the prayers of these powerless and disenfranchised ones.

Who may abide the Day of His coming and who may stand when He appears?

Have there not already been a good many voices calling out as a warning? But the earthly voices have been ignored. Partly they have been crowded out by the glad-handed, insipid form of Christianity that has developed as a result of modern “church-growth” studies, taken out of the secular market sciences and even from the New Age movement.

Modern Christians are lulled to a false comfort,(And in a good many cases a false conversion) through these “new and improved” methods. Compared to the glib,hipster model of modern pastor, spouting psycho-babble and feel-good baby theology, the true prophet who bares his soul calling out the sins of our day and warning people of the coming wrath seems like an irrelevant nut!

So much for the “voices”! There are countless “voices “clamoring for our attention.

But in the dark days of Revelation 8, “Voices” will sound from heaven itself, and in the last form of the gospel, Angels will be dispatched to cry out.

Have there not been plentiful “lightnings and thunderings”? Current events meant to illuminate us all to out true condition, and ominous portents meant to startle us out of our lukewarmness?

Shouldn’t the fall of so many Christian leaders into sin and the exposure of deep hypocrisy, have caused us to re-examine our own faith? What about the exposure of false prophets such as Todd Bentley, Bob Jones and Paul Cain? Wisdom cried out loud in the streets, but when such things happened, they had no effect on the constituency of these charlatans.

Have we not experienced a few earthquakes? Wasn’t the attack on the World Trade center One, and the legalization of Homosexual marriage, and the twice election of a Muslim sympathizer to the US Presidency an earthquake?

In the end, these terrors will sound from heaven itself, for God is still long-suffering, not willing that any perish but that all come to repentance! But will many listen? Will they repent?

[Mr. Douglas]

I confess I would LOVE to give a sermon along these lines to purify the church:

I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you:

Bad News: This stuff you hear about suffering in hellfire is all a myth designed to increase the size of the church through fear. Jesus does not ask us to come to Him through fear of hellfire. Rather, as with all the apostles, He asks us to choose LIFE with Him out of DESIRE for his free gift and eternal fellowship with Him. So, if you are here because you’re afraid of going to hell, you’re doing it wrong.

Good news: If that is why you are here, you are wasting your time going to church. Go home. Go boating. Go to the bar and hook up. Hot rod your car. Have fun. And read Ecclesiastes to find out about your life. And when you die, yes, you will be resurrected for Judgement and be handed the “punishment”, which is really a word for “penalty”. And what is that penalty? You get thrown into the lake of fire and get burned up. Sure, it might sting a bit before you are permanently eliminated. But you will be suffering the fate told by God to Adam and from which Jesus saves.

If the congregation took that seriously, I think half the people would leave, and then the “real” church could get down to the business God gave us: To love God with all our heart and mind and being, and love our neighbor as ourself, and share His GOOD NEWS with the world. Not out of fear of some terrible mythical “punishment”, but out of desire to be with your creator. Out of LOVE