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Revelation 8:4
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4 And [kai] the smoke [kapnos] of the incense, [thumiama] which came with the prayers [proseuche] of the saints, [hagios] ascended up [anabaino] before [enopion] God [theos] out of [ek] the angel's [aggelos] hand. [cheir] KJV-Interlinear
4 And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel's hand. NASB
When the first five seals were removed, the scroll revealed the horrors that result when humanity, sponsored by Satan, lead to nothing but unfair, biased policies, and those always end in persecution, suffering and disaster without limits.
Now we have the seven trumpets being distributed to seven angels, and before they are sounded, the prayers of all of the believers are recalled, assembled, and allowed to be presented in total, to God the Father, the one to whom all prayer is directed.
The prayers are just, because they are presented before the throne of the lamb, for it is by His work on the Cross, that prayers are acceptable. All prayer is presented through Christ (not to Christ). Neither man nor angel, can approach the Father on their own merit, but must approach by way of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ, however, is the one who executes and controls history, in accordance with the divine plan.
The angel did not originate these prayers, believers did. The angel did not authorize these prayers, Christ did. The angel is merely demonstrating the mechanism by which prayer is presented in the proper fashion, and then accepted by God the Father.
And just in passing, you should note that as the persecutions increase, so too, the prayers increase, and so too, the answers to those prayers increase.
For many folks, faith in Christ comes easy. For some folks faith requires a little nudging. And for others, that nudging needs to become a push, and for still others that push needs added force, and so forth. You get the idea.
When the Rapture occurred, the world will full of people who had rejected Christ up to that point. They needed a little nudge in their life, in order to bring them to faith in Christ. Perhaps the occurrence of the Rapture, which they missed, was enough convincing, for many of them to make that commitment.
But still others will need more pressure in their lives, in order to get them off their arrogant resistance and into faith in Christ.
The first five seals revealed a total breakdown in human leadership and the horrors of persecution and death as a result. Huge numbers will believe in Christ, because of those persecutions and sufferings, and then pay the ultimate price as God removes them from the world.
But still others will need more persuasion, in order to bring them to Christ.
The trumpets, the woes, the thunders, and the bowls will represent the increasing judgments being delivered against an unbelieving world. With each increment in pressure, people will believe in Christ. Then they will be removed from the world in some systematic manner, and whisked off to heaven to be with Christ.
Gods ultimate objective is to defeat evil, but in so doing, He is also wanting to bring all who will believe, to their moment of faith, so that they will be saved and have a destiny in heaven, rather than in the Lake of Fire.
Right up and until the moment of the Second Advent, people will believe in Christ, and be saved, and perhaps even when Christ returns, in that final moment of history, some may be saved by believing in Him.
But the prayers of believers, mark the reason as to why God is pursuing history at all. There are those who will accept Him, His plan, and His purpose of truth, and want to live with Him in heaven forever.
And so as the seals have revealed the failure of human rule, now the prayers of believers mark the start of Gods judgments to bring people to salvation and to rid the world of evil.
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