Monday, November 20, 2017

Revelation chapter 8 with References


The Seventh Seal and the Golden Censer


When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder,“Come!”

And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. He stationed the Levites in the temple of the Lord with cymbals, harps and lyres in the way prescribed by David and Gad the king’s seer and Nathan the prophet; this was commanded by the Lord through his prophets. So the Levites stood ready with David’s instruments, and the priests with their trumpets. Hezekiah gave the order to sacrifice the burnt offering on the altar. As the offering began, singing to the Lord began also, accompanied by trumpets and the instruments of David king of Israel. The whole assembly bowed in worship, while the musicians played and the trumpets sounded. All this continued until the sacrifice of the burnt offering was completed.

Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people. “Make an altar of acacia wood for burning incense, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand. May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.

Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake. Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since mankind has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. The earth trembled and quaked, the foundations of the heavens shook; they trembled because he was angry. The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After they prayed, the place where they
were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.


Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them.


The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. I will execute judgment on him with plague and bloodshed; I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him. The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the land, and ugly, festering sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image, for all the cedars of Lebanon, tall and lofty, and all the oaks of Bashan, They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not
have the seal of God on their foreheads.


The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, “I am against you, you destroying mountain, you who destroy the whole earth,” declares the Lord. “I will stretch out my hand against you, roll you off the cliffs, and make you a burned-out mountain. “The high places of Isaac will be destroyed and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined; with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.” The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead person, and every living thing in the sea died. “Or if I send a plague into that land and pour out my wrath on it through bloodshed, killing its people and their animals,


A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead person, and every living thing in
the sea died.


The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood.


The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter. “Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter.
(That is why the place is called Marah.)


The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night. The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. “In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun go down
at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.


As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair call out in a loud voice: “Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!” Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people. The first woe is past; two other woes are yet to come.


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