Summary
John sees all of space and time, the seven-sealed scroll, in the right hand of God.
And outside of space and time, he sees your prayers.
Do space and time determine your prayers or do your prayers determine space and time?
Jesus said, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do…”
And then He said, “Until now (this is after three years of constant discipleship), you have asked nothing in my name.”
What does it mean to ask in His name?
In Revelation eight, the Lamb opens the seventh and final seal, and “there was silence in Heaven for about a half an hour.”
Why is everyone silent?
Perhaps the vision has taken their breath away.
And perhaps God is still speaking in silence.
Human words are always a reduction of the Divine Word.
Seven angels are given seven trumpets and another Angel stands on the altar.
Given much incense, He mixes it with your prayers, which rise before the throne.
At the opening of the seventh seal everyone sees the Judgment of God, the 7th day of creation, the Sabbath, the Jubilee, the Vengeance, and the Day of Atonement. They see “God is Salvation” and “It is finished”; the Gospel is eternal.
Why are they silent?
Why do you normally speak?
Is it not to make things right? Is it not to create yourself and your world?
Is it not to create yourself, save yourself and justify yourself?
What if you truly saw that you were already justified and “everything was very good?”
Perhaps you would stop speaking—shabbatt, in Hebrew; Sabbath.
The Angel on the altar is Jesus. That name means “God is Salvation.”
The thing that believes that you are salvation, and must, therefore, justify your self, is your ego.
Your ego can only exist in time for it’s constructed of what you think you have done in the past and can do in the future.
But your ego cannot tolerate the Light that is God’s Grace and the Eternal Now.
“Now is Salvation,” said Jesus, who is “the Light.”
Be silent in the Light, without defending yourself with words, then speak.
Those words rise from an altar in space and time and those words create space and time.
Those words are God’s Word, spoken through you, His Body.
*Discussion Questions for this sermon are available here: Discussion Questions “The Other Side of Silence”