Revelation 8:1 says, “And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.”
This silence comes between two great pictures. In Revelation 7:9-17, we see the multitude, Christ’s Bride, standing before the throne. It is a beautiful sight. Following this, there is silence in heaven for half an hour, followed by seven terrible judgments on the earth. How great this silence is!
The multitudes ceased crying with a loud voice, “Salvation to our God.” Why did they quit shouting? Maybe God said, “Hush.” Greater than the praise that went up to Him, was His love for the lost world about to be judged.
In Genesis 7:10, we see that God had Noah safely in the ark, yet waited seven days before sending the judgment of the flood waters. This is my speculation: The earth that God had lovingly created, and saw that it was good, was about to end. Yes, God makes a new heaven and a new earth. As Jesus wept as He looked on Jerusalem, I believe in this half hour while heaven was silent, that God wept for what He must shortly do. This is a silent picture of the fathomless love of God.
I have read different descriptions of God’s love. I want to share this one by John Matthews from his book , The Love of God.
“The world is built on the love of God. Divine love formed and fashioned its architecture. Its pillars of space rest upon the changeless love of Almighty God. The whole universe is but the outbursting of God’s irrepressible love, streaming forth in rapturous radiance from the heavens above and falling immeasurable upon the earth beneath. Love sings its songs in the beams of light. It marks and measures the orbit of the planets; burns in the central suns and radiates from every dim and distant star. It glints and gleams in sparkling drops that hang upon the lips of the lily. It flows in every winding river and dances in delight upon every rippling stream that hastens from the mountains to the seas. It swells and sweeps in the restless tides of sunlit oceans; it groans and moans, sobs and sighs in the broken breakers that wash and lash the shores of every clime. It spangles the night with stellar beauty and utters its silent speech from dark till dawn. It gladdens the breezes from the garden of spices and rears in the storm-cloud whose breasts are scarred and scorched by the lurid lightning that flashes and crashes its wayward way across the sky. Love falls in tenderness upon the pool of mire and the lily climbs from its prison house of mud to open its white bosom to the smiling of the sun. Love lingers by the grave of the corn of wheat and lifts to light the slender blade and ere long harvests of golden grain ripen under the summer sun. Love looks with kindness upon the barren woods, and lo! Spring has come and all the trees and fields are clothed in verdant green or robed in bridal beauty. Love dawns upon the dark and barren earth and straightway a million grasses begin to grow upon the black bosom of the barren soil and carpet it with living green. Love lifts the waste of waters from the salt seas and hangs high the moisture in clouds of beauty, then pours their falling floods in bounty back again upon earth’s fruits, farms, fields and flowers. The love of God resounds in the morning hour when ten thousand thousand vocal and vibrant voices of singing songsters from tree and bush carol their praise to the God of creation, care and keeping. If the ear of man could hear-there would arise vast, unnumbered songs from bugs and beetles, from creeping things and flying fowls–all, all, praising the amazing and matchless love of God throughout all the domains and dominions of God’s everlasting creation!”
IN THE BEGINNING GOD SPOKE. HEAVEN AND EARTH LISTENED FOR HALF AN HOUR TO THE ECHO OF HIS SILENT LOVE!
What a beautiful description of God’s love. One we’ve never thought of before.