Sacrificing the earth

Victor Hugo let his disdain for the Catholic Church poison him against Christianity, but he never became a true atheist. Although he is often quoted by atheists, he himself said that even after Christianity disappeared, men "would still believe in God, Soul, and Responsibility." He espoused the religion of a Rationalist Deist, much like that of Voltaire, or Thomas Jefferson. Remember that Jefferson wrote a version of the New Testament that took out any reference to miracles, thus leaving Jesus dead and in the grave.

Rational deism is a religious philosophy that arose during the Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century in response to the Scientific Revolution. Although it accepted the idea of a supernatural creator, it rejected the idea of ongoing supernatural intervention in the world. To the rational deist, God was the First Cause, the one who set the world into motion in accordance to understandable principles. For God to have to continually intervene in his creation was to suggest that his original act of creation was somehow faulty.  So while God was the "original cause" of all things, the rest of the world was ordered by Reason.  If you couldn't reason it, or experience it (or in the case of Science, duplicate it in a lab), then it could not be True.

This lack of faith prompted Hugo to write, "Sacrificing the earth for paradise is giving up the substance for the shadow."  In other words, if you give up all that you know on earth--what you can see, hear, smell, taste and touch--in the hope of gaining heaven, then you are a fool, because no one can claim to have experienced heaven.  The whole idea of paradise is but a shadow.

Paul addressed this in his first letter to the church at Corinth:

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."  Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age?  Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.  Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified; a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength." --1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."  And John the Revelator did actually see the end of time as we know it.  In Revelation 8:1-5, he described a holy ritual that played out in heaven, where he actually saw the earth being presented as a sacrifice to God.  We can either accept the testimony of John as true, or not accept it because it has not been duplicated by science.

When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.  And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets.  Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar.  He was given much incense to offer, consisting of the prayers of the saints, on the golden altar before the throne.  The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel's hand.  Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. --Revelation 8:1-5

 Remember what the first six seals symbolized? Conquest, War, Famine, Death, followed by a petition from the martyrs, and the deconstruction of the earth.  Now the seventh seal is broken, and it is followed by silence.  This is not a silence related to peace, but rather of foreboding--waiting for more bad news to follow.  Those washed in the blood of the Lamb have nothing to fear at this point, but for everyone else, this may be a time of fear and trembling.

Seven angels are assigned seven trumpets.  When blown, these trumpets will call in seven plagues more severe than those ushered in by the seven seals.  In Old Testament times the trumpet served to announce important events and to give signals in times of war.  Isaiah 27:13 says, "And in that day a great trumpet will sound.  Those who were perishing in Assyria and those who were exiled in Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem."  Zechariah 9:14 says, "Then the Lord will appear over them; his arrow will flash like lightning.  The Sovereign Lord will sound the trumpet; he will march in the storms of the south."  But in the New Testament, the trumpet often signals the call of the elect into the presence of God.  Matthew 24:31 says, "And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other."  1 Corinthians 15:52 says, "In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed."  1 Thessalonians 4:16 says, "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with it the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first."

But in John's vision, the trumpets are not yet blown.  Another angel, who serves a priestly function, performs a ritual sacrifice.  To the Jewish reader, this would sound very familiar.  See, way back in Exodus 30, God commanded Moses and Aaron to make a golden altar to be used for burning incense to God.  Hebrews 9:3-4 describes it in detail: "Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place, which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron's staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant."  In short, this was where God met with man, represented by the High Priest.  And Leviticus 16:12-13 shows what was done on this altar.  "He (Aaron, or the High Priest) is to take a censer full  of burning coals from the altar before the Lord and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense and take them behind the curtain.  He is to put the incense on the fire before the Lord, and the smoke of the incense will conceal the atonement cover above the testimony, so that he will not die."  In other words, the smoke covered the ark so that the high priest would not see the glorious presence of God, for "no one can see God and live."

In the Old Testament, the smoke from the incense was a covering for the priest and the people, but it was a fragrant sacrifice to God.  In John's vision in the Revelation, the sweet smelling incense is actually the prayers of the saints.  Remember Revelation 5:8, that says, "Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints."  Psalm 141:2 makes this connection for us: "May my prayer be set before you like incense;  may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice."  Mankind longs for fellowship with God.

Now look closely at Revelation 8:5, where the angel takes the censer, just like the priest in Leviticus; he fills it with fire from the altar, just like the priest in Leviticus; but where the levitical priest burned finely ground incense in the censor, the angel of God hurled the censer to the earth.  This caused fire from the golden altar before the Lord to consume the earth, much like a burnt offering of an animal or grain in the Old Testament.  In essence, the earth is offered to God as a sacrifice, and it is burned before Him.

This is followed by peals of thunder, flashes of lightning, rumblings and an earthquake.  These are often signs that mark an important event connected with the heavenly temple.  In this case, it signals the beginning of the seven trumpet judgments, which we will study in detail later.

Just as man longs for fellowship with God, God also yearns to meet us where we are and reveal himself to us.  Deists unfortunately limit God; they don't believe that God would have a need to set things right.  Their premise is faulty, because God does not make error that He needs to correct; we humans have made the mess that takes a Divine Hand to repair and renew.  Rationalists try to limit our knowledge to what can be reproduced by the Scientific Method.  God, however, asks us to open our minds wide enough to conceive of Him, and then take that next step of faith to believe in Him.

Rather than the Scientific Method, we should think more along the lines of the Rules of Evidence.  In a Jewish court, it took the testimony of two or more witnesses to verify anything.  We have seen how the testimony of John lines up with the testimony of Moses: John saw in heaven a golden altar, on which fire burned, the purpose of which was to lift the prayers of the saints to God.  Moses was shown by God how to make a golden altar on earth, and how to fill it with fire so that incense could be burned and the sweet smell of it could waft into heaven into the presence of God.  These men lived thousands of years apart, but their testimony mirrors each other, the one corroborating the other's as factual.

God sacrificed His son for you.  Soon, the earth will be given to God as a sacrifice.  There will be a marriage feast, where the Church, the Bride of Christ, will be carried away home.  Where will you be then?

For you (I swear)
For you (I will)

For you I will sacrifice for all of my life
You and me will be together
For better or for worse
I vow through ups and downs
Here and now until forever
I'll sacrifice

Baby, you and me
Made it through so much
So many storms have come and
Still we're holding on
And I would be a fool to find your love
And then just let it go
It's me and you and you already know that...
For you I will sacrifice for all of my life
You and me will be together
For better or for worse
I vow through ups and downs
Here and now until forever
I'll sacrifice 

You're sure that you love me unconditionally
Do whatever, you'll stay by my side
You're the one I trust with all my secrets
All my hidden fears
I run to you and you are always there
For you I will sacrifice for all of my life
You and me will be together
For better or for worse
I vow through ups and downs
Here and now until forever
I'll sacrifice 

Sacrifice my love, my life
Baby, I know I will adore
I know but see into you
To you, to love, I'll hold on tight
No matter what may come my way
I'll do whatever it takes
For you I will sacrifice for all of my life
You and me will be together
For better or for worse
I vow through ups and downs
Here and now until forever
I'll sacrifice