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

In our last study we were looking at the altar as God writes about it in the Old Testament.  We saw that there was a brasen altar (bronze) that was used for burnt offering and there was a certain location where that altar could be found.  There was also a golden altar, which is referred to here in Revelation 8, and it was before the throne of God and before the ark.  Aaron, as the High Priest of Israel (and his descendents who would become High Priests), were to go in and offer incense on the Day of Atonement, once a year. 

So we were just looking at how God speaks of these two different altars and we saw that their location is able to distinguish them; one was of bronze and one was of gold, and one was to have burnt offerings offered upon it and one was to have incense offered upon it.

That led us to Numbers 16 and there we have an historical account that God has recorded for us of a rebellion which took place in the wilderness, after Israel came out of Egypt.  There were men of renown and famous in the congregation, and they rose up and accused Moses and Aaron of taking too much upon themselves because, as they said, “All the congregation are holy.”  So a test was devised and the test had to do with every man taking a censer and putting incense and fire thereon and coming before the Lord with that incense.  The 250 men of the congregation did come before the Lord, as we read in Numbers 16:35:

And there came out a fire from JEHOVAH, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.

Following this, the congregation of the children of Israel continued to murmur against Moses and against Aaron, saying, “Ye have killed the people of JEHOVAH.”  So God continued to be displeased and He sent a plague, in which many of them were dying, and I want to read this, again, in Numbers 16:46-50:

And JEHOVAH spake unto Moses, saying, Get you up from among this congregation, that I may consume them as in a moment. And they fell upon their faces. And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from JEHOVAH; the plague is begun. And Aaron took as Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the congregation; and, behold, the plague was begun among the people: and he put on incense, and made an atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed. Now they that died in the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred, beside them that died about the matter of Korah. And Aaron returned unto Moses unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and the plague was stayed.

Here, we have a wonderful picture of Aaron as a type of Christ and he took the censer and put fire therein from the altar and put on incense, and as we saw previously, these were things that the High Priest would do on the Day of Atonement.  God uses the language, “put on incense and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them,” so it is picturing the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ; and that atoning work of Christ did “stay the plague,” the plague of God’s wrath against all the sinners that Jesus atoned for.  God is using this event of the rebellion in the camp of Israel to teach us about the true and genuine atoning work of Christ for His elect.  The murmuring Israelites that were spared are being used here as a picture of those elect, even though the vast majority of them will perish in the wilderness because they never became saved.  But, in this picture, the ones that are spared in this particular plague are picturing those elect that Christ saved when He did make atonement for their sins from the foundation of the world.

So we have two pictures of atonement.  We have the 250 men that were famous in the congregation; they also had censers and fire and incense and went before JEHOVAH and, yet, their sacrifice was not acceptable.  It is similar to Cain and Abel, but in this case offering the wrong kind of offering led to their destruction, as they were burned up by the fire that came from the Lord.  The atonement that the 250 men were presenting was a “false” atoning work and God, here, is typing those that come with other kinds of gospels, using the language of the Bible and claiming that sins can be forgiven through their kind of gospels. 

The number of (false) gospels are so numerous; there is no sense to even try to name them all.  You can get saved in many varied ways, according to the churches.  If you go into one church, the pastor may say, “Well, here is what you have to do to get saved.  Just come to our service, walk down the aisle and say the “Sinner’s Prayer.”  Another church will say, “Just accept the Lord and you will be saved.”  Another church will say, “We want you to come to church for a couple of months and then be baptized and you will be a part of our congregation.”  Then another church will say, “You just have to be a member in good standing and partake of the Lord’s Table and you will be saved.”  Then in another church, speaking in tongues is an evidence of the Holy Spirit…and on and on it goes, and it is all an offering of “strange fire” before JEHOVAH; and those people will be burned up, literally, on the last day when they are destroyed, unless at some point during the day of salvation, God would have saved them and they would have abandoned those types of gospels.  But any that continued in the churches and congregations will be destroyed.  God lit a spiritual fire in His anger that judged the churches and now has destroyed the “third part” of the unsaved people that were within these churches and congregations, as we have now entered into the Day of Judgment upon the world. 

Let us look at one more thing before we move on and that is the number that God gives us in Numbers 16:49:

Now they that died in the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred, beside them that died about the matter of Korah.

God is saying it is “fourteen thousand and seven hundred,” plus those that died in the “matter of Korah,” and we know that to be 250 men, so the total number of those that died in this rebellion was 14,950.  We wonder if there is any significance to that number, and when we break out our calculator and try to find the significant numbers that make up that number, we do find that it is a highly significant number.  The number “14,905” breaks down to “5 x 10 x 13 x 23.”  Each one of those numbers is of great significance.  For instance, if we insert the spiritual meaning for each of the numbers, it would say: “At the end of the world (13), God will bring judgment (23) upon the complete number of them (10) that offer strange incense in relationship to the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ (5).”  In other words, this points to the final judgment of God upon those that bring other kinds of gospels; the judgment that begins at the house of God, which God completed at the end of 23 years. 

It is interesting how we have these very same numbers.  After 13,000 years of history (13), God began judging the house of God (23); and after that, he completed the judgment (10) against those offering “strange fire” or false atonements (5). 

Let us go back to our verse in Revelation 8:3:

And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer&hellip

As mentioned before, this “angel” would be Jesus Christ.

… 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.

The word “censer” here is a Greek word, but just as the term “golden altar” came from the Old Testament, so does the word “censer.”  In the Old Testament (just to help us get a very good understanding of what this word means), the word “censer” is also translated as “firepan” in Exodus 38:3:

And he made all the vessels of the altar, the pots, and the shovels, and the basons, and the fleshhooks, and the firepans: all the vessels thereof made he of brass.

Now this “firepan” or “censer” would be made of brass because it had to do with the altar of brass for the burnt offering, but there are also censers for the golden altar.  This is a very vivid description of what a censer is: it is where the coals of fire would be placed and the incense would be placed thereon, so it had to be something that would hold the fire, like a firepan.

We read in Leviticus, chapter 10, of another historical occasion where some men attempted to offer incense and a very similar result happened, as it did with Korah and the 250 men of renown.  It says in Leviticus 10:1-2:

And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before JEHOVAH, which he commanded them not.  And there went out fire from JEHOVAH, and devoured them, and they died before JEHOVAH.

This was a lesser judgment, but it was a judgment for the very same reason.  Just as those 250 men should not have done what they did, neither should Nadab and Abihu (even though they were sons of Aaron) have attempted to offer this incense; there was something wrong with their offering that caused it to be considered as “strange fire.”  Now why would God call it “strange fire”?  Well, “strange fire” would be any kind of offering of incense in a censer that was not according to the Law.  It could be something that they did with the censer or, more than likely, it had to do with God wanting only Aaron to approach to the golden altar with the censer, fire and incense, and not his sons.  So they may have taken something upon themselves that they were not qualified to do, just as those 250 men of the congregation.  So they suffered the same fate: fire came down from JEHOVAH and devoured them, and they died before JEHOVAH.

So God is giving us these true historical examples to teach us the deadly serious nature of bringing the true Gospel of salvation – the Gospel the Bible defines – and not going beyond the boundaries and limits the Bible puts on that Gospel; that is, Christ does all the work; He is the one that offers up the atonement for the sake of His people and man can do no work of any kind.  So we see that God took men’s lives and God could take anyone’s life at any time and be perfectly just in doing so, so He determined on occasion to take lives, like the example of the man that picked up a few sticks on the Sabbath Day and the Lord commanded that he be stoned to death.  That man was a sinner; Nadab and Abihu were sinners; the 250 men of the congregation were sinners.  God could take their lives because of sin at any point, so He determined that He would take their lives now because they are sinners and, while doing so, God will use it as a means of instruction.  He uses their death to teach others that they might not die as these men die.  God, of course, is just in all that He does and, here, it really is a good thing that God has given us these examples, so that we might not follow in the way that these men went.

Let us go back to Leviticus 16…and I say “back” because I would like to read it again, as it uses the word “censer” in speaking of the Day of Atonement and in regard to Aaron, the High Priest of Israel, and it says in Leviticus 16:12-14:

And he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before JEHOVAH, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the vail: And he shall put the incense upon the fire before JEHOVAH, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not: And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward; and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times.

This is illustrating the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, as the High Priest would enter into the Holy of Holies and he would bring “a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar,” full of this sweet incense; and then the cloud of incense would cover the mercy seat so that he could not see very well and then he would sprinkle the blood of the sacrificial animal.  This would point to Christ as He gave His life for His people.  This is the legitimate and prescribed Law that God gave concerning the offering of incense on the Day of Atonement.  None others were qualified.  It was only the High Priest and it was only once per year, and this pointed to Jesus Himself.

Let us go back to Revelation 8 and let us read, again, from Revelation 8:3-4:

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.

Is this not interesting how God associates the offering up of the incense along “with the prayers of all saints”?  He says it twice, so that we take note of it and we cannot miss that there is some connection between this offering of the incense within the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement and “the prayers of the saints.”  When we come back in our next Bible study we are going to get into this in more detail and think about this some more, as we see what God has in mind when He is directing us to consider “the prayers of the saints.”