In public gatherings following a tragedy, the organizers of the event will often call for a moment of silence. It is a recognition of the tragedy that had happened, a call for a demonstration of respect for those that had been wronged or who had lost their lives, and a moment of remembrance. It can be a time for prayer, a time to ask God for mercy upon those that remain after the tragedy, or a moment to call for peace or blessing upon us.
John also saw a moment of silence take place, but this time it was in heaven. And this wasn’t even just a moment, per se, but instead a full half of an hour. It was a very long moment, but in this instance, not for something that had already happened, but for what was about to happen.
When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
Revelation 8:1
The Lamb had just broken the seventh seal, and if the inhabitants of earth hadn’t already understood God’s wrath through the demonstration of his power and might, they were about to. Of course, we had already seen that many people had fled to the mountains and the caves and called upon the rocks to fall upon them because of the terror that had come upon them.
So that was the people’s reaction from the first six seals, but there was no moment of silence in heaven before breaking each of those seals. And now heaven recognizes that upon breaking this seventh seal, the real terror will begin.
The wrath of God is going to be poured out upon the earth. Massive numbers of people will be killed. Large swaths of the earth will be wiped out. And all of this before the true final battle for the earth.
Do we have any more doubts about the nature of God’s wrath? He will come to judge the evil that has been done on the earth, and it is not going to be pretty. It is going to be terrible. God’s judgment is not roses and rainbows. God’s judgment is wrath…and even to say that is to minimize the terror that people will feel as the recipients of His judgment. John’s words cannot even begin to help us feel the weight of what the people on the earth will experience.
May God help us and may we know Christ. Jesus is the Lamb that is worthy to break the seals. To know God, we must know Christ and come through him. There will be a moment of silence in heaven for the judgment that will be unleashed on the earth. May we be found in Christ so that we will know God and live with him instead of being the recipients of God’s eternal wrath.