Revelation 8 - Key

v4

And the smoke of the incense, [which came] with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand.

I think of the passage in Isaiah, where Isaiah saw the Lord, and cried, Woe [is] me! for I am undone; because I [am] a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips... (Isaiah 6:5). And then one of the seraphims laid a live coal on his mouth, that he had taken with tongs from off the alter, and Isaiah's sin was purged. I think about how when we don't know what to pray exactly right, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groans that cannot be pronounced (Romans 8:26).

The censer makes me think of the Lord's will. The Lord taught His people to pray, ...Thy will be done in earth, as [it is] in heaven. (Matthew 6:10b). The censer being filled with fire makes me think of Spirit-filled prayer, that we pray, in holiness, according to the Lord's will.

(Revelation 8) v5

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.

When the censer was thrown into the earth, I think of all of the unfulfilled prayer being fulfilled at once. One day we'll no longer need the same kind of prayer, with the Lord's people on earth praying to Him in heaven, because we will be with Him where He is, and see Him face to face. I think about all the things we pray now-a-days, and many of them we don't see fulfilled the way we think or desire, but we're taught to be patient and wait for the Lord. If they were all, finally fulfilled, wouldn't it shake the earth?

Application

Jeremiah 33:3

Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.

Realizing that I pray to a living, all-powerful God, and He will answer and grant my requests, I'll pray, more often, with real fervor and passion.