Why is there silence in heaven for half an hour?

Here is some news that caught my eye. Prophetic mention after each news excerpt and a prophetic discussion below.
Raccoons taking over, hissing at New Yorkers
"A turf battle of sorts is taking place in some neighborhoods. Raccoons are invading. They’re getting into garbage cans, backyards and even breaking into homes. And what’s more, these resourceful raccoons are outsmarting the most determined of trappers, CBS 2’s Dave Carlin reported. Clinton Hill, Brooklyn resident Susan DeBrango snapped pictures of the suspects, their faces masked, trying to get inside her home. “They are adorable but not in your backyard when they impact your life,” DeBrango said. “When he saw at me he stood up on two legs and hissed at me.” They are getting more brazen on Washington Avenue, rummaging through trash, and running right up to neighbors. One even went face-to-face with Barbara Mattocks on her own front stoop. “I don’t want that feeling ever again. I was petrified,” Mattocks said. It’s gotten so bad, one 3-year-old Maltese named ‘Snowball,’ who used to love to play outside, is now a prisoner in his own home, according to his owner. “He refuses to go out in the yard,” Mattocks said.
One of the coming judgments will be the plague of animals. When the Pale Horse of death is unleashed, authority is given to "kill [a fourth of the earth] with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth." (Rev 6:6-8). A quarter of the earth will die from 4 methods and one of them will be by animal. [shudder]
Scientist predicts major earthquake in Middle East The Middle East may not possess the same reputation for seismic disasters as some other parts of the world, but that is of little comfort to the people of north-west Iran, over 300 of whom were killed when a twin earthquake struck the country's mountainous region earlier this year. Destroying villages and injuring many thousands, the two six-plus magnitude quakes - striking the same location north-east of the city of Tabriz and spaced just 11 minutes apart - were among the worst to hit Iran since 2003, when an earthquake killed 25,000 people in the city of Bam. ... We fear that a major earthquake in the Holy Land is imminent," says Marco, whose research led him to conclude that following four major earthquakes in the region some 300 to 400 years apart in roughly the first millennium, the last 1,000 years of quiescence are a matter of grave concern for all in the Holy Land."
"For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains." (Matthew 24:7).

God has always used earthquakes to warn, to judge, to demonstrate His power. It will be the same, but even more so, in the Tribulation.
Universe Today: Curiosity Finds…SOMETHING…on Martian Surface

"While scooping its first samples of Martian soil, NASA’s Curiosity rover captured the image above, which shows what seems to be a small, seemingly metallic sliver or chip of… something… resting on the ground. Is it a piece of the rover? Or some other discarded fleck of the MSL descent mechanisms? Or perhaps an exotic Martian pebble of some sort? Nobody knows for sure yet, but needless to say the soil samples have taken a back seat to this new finding for the time being."
Large asteroid to pass by earth Friday Morning "An asteroid the size of a 7-to-10 story office building is expected to slide past the Earth early Friday at an altitude of 35,000 miles from the surface. The asteroid, designated 2012 TC4, was discovered less than a week ago by scientists. Experts said they do not expect any adverse effects from the asteroid. According to NASA, the 20-to-30 meter wide asteroid will pass Earth at 20 percent of the distance from the Earth to the moon, or 0.2 LD."
Just discovered a week ago?!?! Passing by with a few miles? Oy.

The bible says "And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken." (Luke 21:25-26).

Personally I think the thing on Mars is a chip or a flake from Curiosity flying off in the descent. It is a stretch to say that the news of 'something' on Mars is a sign, because it isn't, but it certainly does add to the sense of foreboding, and enhances the public's proclivity to see aliens around every corner and conspiracy theories behind every water cooler. Especially when asteroids pop up out of nowhere. The truth is, society IS perplexed and in a state of foreboding, so news like this will only rattle the cages and pound the hearts all the more.

You know that war between Syria and Turkey is one mortar away, don't you? Turkey has the 2nd largest army in NATO, after the US. Turks and Syrians have been exchanging shelling for over a week, Turkey is still burning due to Syria shooting down the Turkish war plane earlier this summer, and troops on both sides are mobilizing at the border. Syria's Assad is thinking of making a national call-up to all soldiers. If they go to war, NATO will get involved. If NATO gets involved, the US will too. We're part of NATO.
Turkish president says "worst case" unfolding in Syria "Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on Monday the "worst-case scenarios" were now playing out in Syria and Turkey would do everything necessary to protect itself, as its army fired back for a sixth day after a shell from Syria flew over the border. Gul said the violence in Turkey's southern neighbor, where a revolt against President Bashar al-Assad has evolved into a civil war that threatens to draw in regional powers, could not go on indefinitely and Assad's fall was inevitable. "The worst-case scenarios are taking place right now in Syria ... Our government is in constant consultation with the Turkish military. Whatever is needed is being done immediately as you see, and it will continue to be done," Gul said."
The bible says, "And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet." (Matthew 24:6) "And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword." (Revelation 6:4).

These are signs of the end, in one way or another. But people who mock and scoff say, 'Wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes have always happened! And the raccoons are probably either rabid or sick! And so what there's a metal flake was on Mars, that has nothing to do with anything!"

This kind of denial is rampant. It is also easy to deny because the quakes and animals and wars, though more intense and frequent, are "normal." Even the catastrophes in Revelation 6 during the Tribulation are "normal" insofar as the society of those that dwell on the earth will explain them away just as people are attempting to do now. Bah, they will say, Wars and quakes and storms and disease are part of life on earth. But then Revelation 8 happens...

"When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake." (Revelation 8:1-5).

Why the silence? And what does that have to do with hissing raccoons, earthquakes, and Turkish war drums? Learn the Bible says, "There is a distinction between the seven seals [of Revelation 6] and the seven trumpets that indicates a shift in God's dealings with man in the midst of the tribulation period. The seven seals bring judgment through either manmade or seemingly natural events. They are the judgment of God, but could be dismissed as natural events. The seven trumpets, on the other hand, are clearly supernatural in cause. They are clearly the pouring out of God's wrath upon the earth. Revelation 8 describes a pause in heaven before this shift in judgment occurs."

The essay at LTB goes on to describe more on why there is silence and what it has to do with worship. It is a good article, and sobering.

Do not wait for those times to repent. Repent now. Believe on the name of Jesus and the sacrifice for sins and which was accepted by God. God was pleased to crush His Son: "Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.' (Isaiah 53:10).

The name of Jesus is the only name by which ye may be saved. "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12)

Comments

  1. "This kind of denial is rampant"
    Is there anythingyou WONT see as a sign of the end?
    but that's science for you: taking the almost impossible and, through years of research and repeatable experiments, making it a reality. And, funnily enough, refuting the idea of an involved creator many times over, while never uncovering solid proof of said involved creator. (The cause of the universe's creation is obviously still a giant mystery, and while I really don't think it was due to a rational being, I don't think we can 100% rule it out. But I am extremely skeptical about a deity or deities actively involved with the Earth's day-to-day operations.)

    Yeah! Liberals are crazy! I mean, they want logical explanations for things, and stuff!

    Who would want that when you could just say "goddidit"? It's crazy, I tell you!

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    1. No. There is nothing I won't see as a sign of the end.

      As far as creation goes, do you look at a Mercedes and say an explosion happened in a junkyard?

      As far as science goes, did you know that the current science supports a young earth? And the experiments proving it are repeatable and full of research, just the kind you like.

      For example there is WAY too much helium in rocks to say the earth is billions of years old. Experiments sponsored by RATE show that helium leakage deflates long half-life radioisotopic ages. In 1982 Robert Gentry found amazingly high retentions of nuclear-decay-generated helium (He) in microscopic zircons (ZrSiO4 crystals) recovered from a borehole in hot Precambrian granitic rock at Fenton Hill, New Mexico. In 2001 RATE contracted with a high-precision laboratory to measure the rate of He diffusion out of the zircons. The measured rates resoundingly confirm a numerical prediction we made based on the reported retentions and a young age. Combining rates and retentions gives a He diffusion age of 6000±2000 (1σ) years. This contradicts the uniformitarian age of 1.5 billion years based on nuclear decay products in the same zircons. These data strongly support our hypothesis of episodes of highly accelerated nuclear decay occurring within thousands of years ago. Such accelerations shrink the radioisotopic “billions of years” down to the 6000-year timescale of the Bible.

      Did you know that radiocarbon dating (carbon-14) only dates to thousands of years and not billions? A remarkable discovery made over the past twenty-five years is that organic samples from every level in the Phanerozoic portion of the geological record, when tested by highly sensitive accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) methods, display significant and reproducible amounts of 14C. Because the lifetime of 14C is so brief, these AMS measurements pose an obvious challenge to the standard geological timescale that assigns millions to hundreds of million of years to this part of the rock record. With a half-life of 5730 years, 14C decays to levels undetectable by any currently available technique after only 100,000 years (17.5 half-lives). After one million years (175 half-lives), the amount of 14C remaining is only 3 × 10-53 of the initial 14C concentration—so vanishingly small as to exclude even a single 14C atom in a beginning mass of 14C equal to the mass of the earth itself. However, in samples with uniformitarian ages between one and 500 million years, the peer-reviewed radiocarbon literature documents scores of examples of 14C/C ratios in the range 0.1–0.5 percent of the modern 14C/C ratio. The lower limit of this range is a factor of ten above the detection threshold of most AMS laboratories in the world.

      GOD DID IT. He created science, after all. He created the earth, And He created YOU...to have a relationship with. Won't you believe on the Gospel and repent? He loves you, you know.

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    2. the bible contradicts chinese history,unless you want to say carbon dating only works when it supports the bible...

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    3. The bible is authored by God's Holy Spirit, who wrote history. Carbon dating only work back a few thousand years. And science is not the barometer of faith, but belief is the barometer of faith. In the end, science will fail but God will never fail

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  2. i was watching a video on youtube with all the events that have happend from the beginning of this year and when you see the odd news report about somthing that has happend in any part of the world it dont realy sink in that things are not right, people are still oblivious to whats going on around them, but when you put it all together in a video like the one i watched on youtube i am dumfounded as to how anyone could be so blind to see that what is happening right before our eyes is not normal as jESUS said Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time? God bless

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  3. Great article!
    Could the silence also represent sorrow on creation and what is about to take place? Also, could this be the period of the rapture? I was chatting about this last week and these were some of my thoughts.

    Blessings sister, keep up the great work.
    <><

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    1. Thank you so much Child of God!

      I believe absolutely the silence could be sorrow for what is about to unfold. I believe the shift in type of judgment occurring at the opening of the 7th seal and the resulting silence indicates they are cognizant of the fact that the judgments of God will shift from judgment via catastripic natural disaster to judgments directly upon humanity are about to begin. It is a mournful and sorrowful moment. John MacArthur put it this way

      "The prophet Zechariah called for such silence in the light of God's glorious judgment, chapter 2 verse 13, "Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord for He has aroused from His holy habitation," Zechariah 2:13. So when the Lamb opens the last seal, all of those in heaven know what it means. It means the end has come."

      I am positive it is not the period of the rapture. That happens somewhere between Rev 4-5 and then the church is never spoken of again until we're pictured returning with Jesus in Rev 19:14. Revelation 3:10 says "Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.' So we will be raptured before the judgments begin, and that means prior to Rev 6:1

      Here is a mind blowing thing to think about. The verse in Rev 8:1 is speaking about US!!! We will be in heaven, and when the Lamb takes that scroll and unseals the last seal, which begins the next set of judgments, WE will be silent!

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  4. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
    Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. psalms 19:1
    i would like to think my life had meaning and purpose and with Evolution you dont get any meaning or purpose except for what we think it should be, i mean if we evolved what is its purpose what was nothing thinking of when it created everything, what caused nothing to suddenly explode and start forming all sorts of life as we know it ,or what if there was a creator somone who had a plan a purpose for his creation what if somone called a few select men to take an account of somones plan and purpose for his creation in a book that we christians call the holy bible so that we would not be in the dark and we would know his intentions and purpose for his creation and plan for mankind, does this not make more sense than a theory of somthing that makes no sense atall ,the signs that we see around us today are the signs that jesus spoke of himself in the bible as to what we as christians were to watch for knowing that the time for his return hense his second coming was near, but he used the words birth pangs and we all know what happens when the birth pains start (i know i got seven kids smile)its getting closer to the birth of the child so this is the example jesus used to illustrate how close we are to his return,but people will say we have always had these things and yes maybe so but not on a scale we see happing today ,Jesus said i am the WAY and the TRUTH ,and the LIFE if you want to know truth give Gods word a chance you be amazed what he will reveal i know i was God bless

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  5. Great response to the top comment, and great article. Love reading your blog. Scary times right now. Amazing that that will be us being silent! Lately end times has been pressing on my heart, it feels all so close and it's heartbreaking.

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  6. no, you are probably making it alot more "scarier" than it needs to be due to sensationalism by prophecy authors

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    1. There is nothing more scary that the pit of hell being opened and the demons being let out to torture humans on earth

      "He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. 3Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. 4They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone. 6And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them." (Revelation 9:2-6)

      The wrath of God is THE scariest thing one earth *and* in hell. If you are NOT scared, you are foolish (Proverbs 1:7)

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    2. well god creates people he fully know that are going to hell.... but he still does it anyways, he indeed is love!so what is the point of being scared?

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    3. God creates people to have a relationship with. If you refuse that relationship you will be given an eternity apart from Him, as you had wanted in life. You don't need to worry about all the doomed people in comparison to God's will and plan for them...you only need to worry about yourself.

      The question you need to ask yourself is, is there a heaven, am I going there, and if I think I am, what would qualify me? If you do believe there is a heaven and you're going there after life ends, then by default you believe there is a God who created it, and the ultimate question then becomes, what qualifies you to enter it?

      He is the gatekeeper, and in His grace He sent the bible to tell us what the standards are. You are holding the key at this moment, the key is acknowledgement of your sins as a prohibiting factor to relationship with God in either side of death, repentance of them, and acknowledgement of resurrected Jesus as the payment for those sins. (He died and rose again, taking YOUR punishment- because sins are a crime against Holy God that must not go unpunished).

      You can refuse that opportunity and throw away your key, or you can grasp it and in so doing, grasp the hand of Jesus who made you. Are you too scared to face your sin and embrace forgiveness?

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    4. "He died and rose again, taking YOUR punishment- because sins are a crime against Holy God that must not go unpunished"

      Why cant he just not create me in the first place? It would make thinds a lot easier ,and it seems unintelligent that an omniscient god would knowingly create his own rebels

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    5. 1. he did not create His own rebels. he created Adam and Eve who were perfect. They decided to fall.

      2. You're still making this a conversation distant from your own problem: your sin. If you repent and believe, having faith on the name of Jesus, then you will be saved and THEN you will understand. But you have to repent and believe first. You will never understand God as His enemy. We could talk till we're blue in the face but it won't happen. Your mind is blinded. Repent. Be saved. Then get philosophical.

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    6. Theists have suggested that by ignoring God or rejecting the atonement, humans also reject all prospects of a pleasant afterlife: God would not want to be with humans who denied him, and he wouldn't force them to be with him. On an infinite time scale, this is also morally unsound because the judging god is still giving thoughts and beliefs priority over physical actions. Given a choice between heaven or hell, most skeptics will prefer a continued existence with a god not believed in to eternal torment or eternal death.

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    7. If God would "not want to be with humans who denied Him" then why send Jesus to come and die at the hands of humans who denied him?

      The reason God created hell is for the devil and his angels. After Adam and Eve sinned hell was to receive those who sinned and rejected the promise of the coming savior. The Savior is so named because He SAVES people from hell.

      All arguments from these so-called theists, rationalists, and philosophers leave out the important detail: God's holiness and our sinful state.

      He is the judge of the universe. He is holy and is grieved by sin. He loves us so much he asked His Son to come and be the atoning eternal sacrifice for our sin, and when Jesus hung dying on the cross, ALL GOD'S WRATH for (your, my)sin was poured out into Jesus, who took it.

      God is not "into" torture. He is "into" holiness. However if you reject His offer of a pardon, you *will* send yourself to hell. He is Judge, too. Your afterlife will be most UNpleasant, and will contain an eternity of punishment for your crime. On an infinite time scale, that is a really long time.

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    8. One last thought about thought what the "skeptics prefer." During life, they get a choice. Repent, or rebel. After that, they get nothing they "prefer." They will be thrown into the Lake of Fire whether they prefer it or not. It is another of those details skeptics forget: we are not the boss.

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    9. first of all why cant GOd just "save" someone with out asking? if they really are in that much trouble? you would still give a child medicine even if they said it is "too yucky" and according you your logic God is saving us from himself....because he created the pickel that we are in

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    10. God gave us our medicine. It's Jesus. But like a child, you smush your mouth closed and refuse to take it. Even so, open it and "if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9.

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  7. to anwser your question Elizabeth Prata, nothing would qualify me into heaven-my soul was lost even before i was born, there is NOTHING i can do to change by destiny, because God already chose it for me

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  8. All I can say is that in the book of Revelation God tells why there is silence in heaven and who caused it

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    1. Hello Dean,

      Rvelation 8:1 says

      When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.

      But that is all I can find What did I miss? Can you share the specific verse address in Revelation that tells why there is silence in heaven and who caused it? Thanks!

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  9. The half hour silence in heaven is the millennium, the thousand years of peace on earth as observed and approximately estimated by John while in Heaven, that's why he said ABOUT half an hour.
    There were not much revelation shown to John while observing the entire millennium for about half an hour, not much significant events, because it was a very peaceful thousand year period of Reign of the King and his royal priesthood. Though some Prophets of the Old Testament prophesied about the plight of Israel during the thousand years of reign of the Messiah, The Day of the Lord.

    YBIC
    eaglet

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    1. Hi Eaglet,


      Thanks for your thoughts! I was wondering though, since the first two sets of judgments are delivered and then the half hour of silence, then the next set of judgments begins, the Trumpets, where the 1000 year reign of the millennnium fits in there? I'd think it would be after Jesus returned physically to earth when all the judgments are concluded, and rules and reigns on earth...?

      I also wonder since the Millennium is so specific in number of years via so many verses, why the half-hour is suddenly non-specific? We know the millennium is 1000 years for sure. Why 'ABOUT" half an hour of silence since we know so speifically the Millennium, for sure?

      Can you offer some scriptural basis for your conjecture? I'd like to know more of your thinking...

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