Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #8 of Revelation, chapter 5, and we are currently reading Revelation 5:8:

And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.

We were looking at the last part of verse 8 in our last study regarding the golden vials full of odours.  We saw that the Greek word translated as odours is also translated as incense.  We also saw how God makes the tie-in with the “prayers of the saints.”  In addition, we saw that the golden vials referred to here are only mentioned with the incense and prayers of the saints, but in every other place we find golden vials it has to do with the wrath of God: the seven vials full of the wrath of God.

Both of these ideas came together in Revelation 8:3-5:

And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. 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, again, here the censor which was identified with “much incense” and the “prayers of the saints” in verse 3 is now filled with “fire of the altar, and cast into the earth.”  It is an expression of the wrath of God and in the remaining verses of Revelation, chapter 8, it describes God’s wrath upon the churches and congregations.  Then in Revelation, chapter 9, it transitions into God’s judgment on the world.  It is God’s judgment program – the end time program – of the pouring out of God’s wrath and, yet, it is related to the incense, which in turn, is connected to the prayers of the saints.

Now last time, we asked the question: Why does God make this kind of connection?  We saw when we went to Revelation 6 that the prayers of the saints has everything to do with vengeance.  It says in Revelation 6:9-10:

And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

It is a cry for vengeance and these particular saints that God is describing here are in heaven.  It is referring only to their souls and we know the Bible teaches us that at the moment of death the soul of a true believer (a child of God) goes to be with the Lord in heaven while his or her physical body goes into the ground to await the redemption of the body, the day of resurrection.  So these are the souls of those that are in heaven.

But God also tells us about those that are on the earth and their prayer to Him in a parable in the Gospel of Luke, in Luke 18:1-8:

And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;  Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

In this very interesting parable the Lord is giving us encouragement always to pray, (to continually pray) and not to faint.  And, of course, this is needed encouragement in our day, as we go through this severe trial of living on the earth in the Day of Judgment.  This parable actually has special application to God’s people that are alive at this point in time.

The widow woman is a picture of the elect who is going to a judge; it happens to be an unjust judge, but through her continual coming, she is said to “weary” him, so he grants her request.  God is saying, “Here what the unjust judge saith.”  And if he is brought to action by the continual coming of this poor widow woman (and this judge has no concern for her and he has no concern for her request; he has no concern for the “rightness” of it at all), imagine God’s concern for His elect and God’s interest in their prayers;  He loves them and has great concern for everything they are going through and here they are coming to Him day and night, night and day, beseeching Him and praying to Him.  And what is it they are praying? 

Are God’s people living on the earth at this time praying to God, “O, Lord, come and smite the wicked!  Come and destroy the earth!  Come and bring fire to burn all of the wicked!”  No – God’s people are not praying that way.  Praying that way would go contrary to what the Bible tells us.  The Bible tells us in Leviticus 19:18:

Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am JEHOVAH.

If the Law of God says, “Thou shalt not avenge,” and if the people that are alive upon the earth are commanded to “love thy neighbor” and not to seek their evil or to seek their destruction or to seek their hurt or harm in any way, then how can God liken the prayer of the elect to this vengeance?  (“And shall not God avenge his own elect”?) 

If the statement is made that God is seeking to avenge His elect, does that not mean that the elect are crying out to Him for vengeance?  And the answer is, no.  God’s people, the true believers, are crying out this way: “Oh, Lord, how long?  How long before you fulfill your Word?  How long, O Father, before you bring all of your wonderful promises to fruition?  How long before the glorious expectation of a new heaven and new earth is finally answered and becomes reality?  And this present earth, necessarily, and this present universe, necessarily, must be destroyed for you to bring all these things to bear.  O, Father, we wish no ill and we wish no harm to come to any others; we do not want you to destroy the unsaved because that means you would be destroying some of our own family members and some of our neighbors and we desire the very best for them.”

We are not praying that God would come and take vengeance and destroy them, but what prayer has God impressed upon us to pray for our fellow man at this time?  Well, He has taught us to pray, “Having had mercy, have mercy.”  So we pray that way for all those outside of the churches and congregations.  As for those who found themselves within the churches, where there was no possibility of salvation and then in the day of transition to judgment upon the world, we realized this and, yet, God still permits us to pray that the “cup of His wrath might pass from them.”  So we desire the very best possible thing that God permits us to desire for these poor people; and we pray for our neighbor that we know was in a church (while God was saving outside of the churches) and now they are in a position where God is not saving anyone, anywhere.  Yet, we desire their good and we pray, “O, Father, if it be thy will, may your cup pass from our neighbor and may you pass the cup from them?”  Just as Christ prayed this prayer while He was drinking of the cup of the wrath of God in the Garden of Gethsemane, we can pray that prayer.  We continue to pray for the very best for the people around us.

Yet, we cannot deny that we have the desire that God’s kingdom come and that the Lord Jesus Christ come and come quickly.  And, as we have this desire and as we pray, “O, Father, fulfill they Word and bring to completion of all things in thy Word,” this would mean that God would come and take vengeance and He actually has done this; He has begun to take vengeance on the unsaved inhabitants on the earth, as He has brought about the Day of Judgment and it is now only a matter of completing this judgment period and then, finally, destroying the people He never saved and destroying this corrupt creation and then creating a new heaven and a new earth.

Well, you see the prayers of God’s people in heaven also cry out, “How long, O, Lord, holy and true?”  And what are they crying for?  They are crying for the completion of God’s salvation plan.  They are still beseeching the Lord that He would bring about the redemption of their physical bodies, the resurrection.

So God’s people on earth are beseeching the Lord to fulfill His salvation plan and to bring them into His glorious kingdom and God’s people in heaven are beseeching the Lord to complete the salvation that He has begun; He has saved their souls, but their bodies are still lying in the ground and seeing corruption on the earth; and that body must be redeemed and become one whole personality, perfect in body and soul; the salvation of God must be completed.  So all of God’s elect are praying to God that He would finish what He has started and complete His salvation program for this world, which, in turn, ultimately means that He must complete His judgment program as well. 

So the prayers of the saints ascend up before God and the golden vial full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s elect, are turned into the seven golden vials that are filling up the wrath of God and they must be poured out as the world experiences Judgment Day.  And, finally, at the end of the pouring out of those vials, the prayers of the saints will have their final answer – God will hear.  He will complete His entire program for this world.

Well, let us go back to Revelation, chapter 5, and we will move on to Revelation 5:9:

And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;

Now, again, in verse 8 when the Lord had taken the Book and the four living creatures and four and twenty elders fell down, they are the ones that are singing the song together and they are the ones that are saying (together), “Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals.”  And they are the ones that are declaring, “for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;”  And, immediately, we wonder: How can the four living creatures sing this particular song when they are a representation of God Himself and of His glory?  We understand God praising God; God is worthy of praise, certainly, but how can God sing a new song that declares: “for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us (as if God had redeemed God)? 

Well, we have to remember what we find in the Gospel account when the Lord is speaking of separating the sheep and the goats and He makes the statement that “I was naked and you clothed me and I was hungry and you fed me,” when He was commending the individual that did this.  And they asked Him, “When did we see you hungry and do these things unto thee?”  Let us go there, just to make sure that I say it right.  It says in Matthew 25:37-40:

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?  And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Now all of those statements identify with bringing the Gospel, the Word of God, which redeems the sinner – that saves the sinner from his sins and brings salvation.  So when the King (representing Christ) says, “When ye have done unto these…ye have done unto me,”  that means that it is as though Christ Himself was redeemed by the actions of these true believers.   But the true believers were carrying out the command of Christ; they were going forth at the beckoning of Christ; they were performing these “good works” by the will of Christ as He moved in them “to will and to do of His good pleasure,” that they might perform the doing of it.  So, really, we have God redeeming God. 

That is what we see here in Revelation as the four living creatures and the four and twenty elders (which typify all the elect). “And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.”  So, there is no real difficulty once we understand that what is done to the people of God, God likens as done to Him.

Now let us look at this phrase: “And they sung a new song.”  And we find, from time to time, references in the Bible to a “new song.”  It says in Psalm 40:1-3:

I waited patiently for JEHVOAH; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in JEHOVAH.

Now this does have some application to Christ Himself in a Messianic way, but it also pictures the believers that, likewise, were under the wrath of God and, therefore, spiritually in the condition of being in a “horrible pit,” we could say.  When God saves us, He sets our feet upon a rock (upon the Lord Jesus) and He puts a “new song” in our mouths – praise to God and many see this transformation of the sinner and they also fear and come to trust the LORD. 

This is how God has worked in the world.  He saves one individual, as the Lord Jesus said to Nathaniel, and you shall see “the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man.”  And that is a mysterious sort of statement, but it is actually pretty simple in its meaning: when God saved a sinner, they were spiritually transported into the heavenlies to be seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, and then they were immediately transported back to earth, and commissioned with the great commission to go forth with the Gospel that others might, likewise, experience the same transformation.  So, “many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in JEHOVAH” because God commissions His people (once they are saved) to be messengers of the Gospel.  That whole process was in action in the day of salvation, but we have come to the end of that program of God – it is no longer the day of salvation.  So for an individual that was saved, finally, at the end of God’s salvation plan for this world just before He shut the door to heaven, it is as though they ascended to the heavenlies, spiritually, but they were never commissioned, so they never “descended” on the Son of man; and when we get to Revelation 11 we will see that this is the case: that is why it speaks of those that “ascended,” but it never refers to them “descending” back again. 

Let us also look at Psalm 96 regarding the new song, in Psalm 96:1-2:

O sing unto JEHOVAH a new song: sing unto JEHVOAH, all the earth. Sing unto JEHOVAH, bless his name; shew forth his salvation from day to day.

And it says in Psalm 98:1-2:

O sing unto JEHOVAH a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory. JEHOVAH hath made known his salvation: his righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the heathen.

In both of these places, singing the “new song” is quickly identified with salvation.  The person that experiences the salvation of God sings the “new song,” and we find same wording in Revelation 14:1-3:

And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.

Here, we find many of the same ingredients as in Revelation, chapter 5, as these 144,000 are singing a “new song” before the throne where God is seated and before the four living creatures and before the elders.  The 144,000, it goes on to tell us in verse 4, are the “firstfruits unto God.”  They represent all of those saved throughout the New Testament church age, from the period of 33 A.D. through 1988 A.D. – 1,955 years.  These are pictured by the 144,000 and they all sang the “new song;” that is, they were saved and the thing that they sing about is their salvation.  God likens it to singing a “new song.”

We find something similar with those that had gotten the victory over the beast and this group would identify with the great multitude because the beast is the name that God gave Satan exclusively for the great tribulation period, and it says in Revelation 15:2-3:

And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb…

Now Revelation 15 tells us that the “song of the Lamb” is the “new song” that identifies with salvation: “Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.”  The interesting thing about this reference in Revelation 15:3 is that those that have gotten the victory over the beast – the great multitude, or in other words (us), God’s people saved during that period of time and still living on the earth at this point – is that they not only sing the “song of the Lamb,” but they also sing the “song of Moses.” 

Lord willing, when we get to that chapter, we will be able to spend more time looking at that.  What is the “song of Moses?”  Unfortunately, we have come to the end of our time today and we will have to continue our Bible study in the Book of Revelation when we get together the next time.