Like the brain and the heart working together,
Like a locomotive on a set of tracks,
Like electricity through copper wire,
Like a cog within a wheel.

So works the throne of God together with the prayers of His saints.

In fact, you could say a prayer gathering drove the very book of Revelation.

But this was no Tuesday night yawn-fest.  Dead believers were there in attendance—Christians whose powerful prayer life had not been snuffed out even by cruel tortures and martyrdom:

Rev. 6:9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. 10 They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” 11 Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

Don’t complain about prayer taking time to be answered.  Sometimes even the dead have to wait.  But when the wait is over, Scripture provides one of its most remarkable insights into the very process of prayer being answered.    

Rev. 8:2 Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. 3 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, 4 and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. 5 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.

The answer unfurls into six trumpets announcing electrifying things–terrestrial and cosmic disturbances, locusts from the pit, and even Armageddon beginning to take shape.  And then finally the vision of chapter 10—a fabulous angel appears sent from heaven, invested with a glory derived from standing in the presence of God.  

He has been sent with a message to be roared out like a lion to those crushed, praying saints:

Rev. 10:5 And the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven 6 and swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it, that there would be no more delay,

It all reminds me to keep praying in the name and Person of Christ.  

True, those people in Chapter 6 were martyrs.  But Jesus named us all witnesses, (the Greek word being “martyras,” or “martyrs”), in Acts 1:8.  I’m not a dead witness, but I can certainly be a living one of His death and resurrection, and pray for His eternal purpose to be carried out here on earth.    

How about adding that one to your 2023 calendar?  Beseech God for the wrap-up of the age, and the coming in of eternal righteousness.  Join in to ask for divine justice—not the flawed, warped variety that human beings try to dole out to each other, but the kind only the Messiah will bring.

Be a person who drives the book.