«　WEEK 4　DAY 5　»

　　Rev. 6:9-10 And when He opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and because of the testimony which they had. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Master, holy and true, will You not judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?

　　In Revelation 6:9 and 10 we see that [the] kind of persistent prayer [in Luke 18] is carried out by the souls of the martyred saints….In figure, the altar is in the outer court of the tabernacle and the temple, and the outer court signifies the earth. Hence, "underneath the altar" is underneath the earth, where the souls of the martyred saints are. This is in the Paradise where the Lord Jesus went after His death (Luke 23:43). It is the comfortable section of Hades (Acts 2:27), where Abraham is (Luke 16:22-26). Here we see that the souls of the martyred saints are crying out, "How long, O Master, holy and true?" They seem to be saying, "Lord, how long will You be silent? How long will You apparently be unjust? You are the righteous Judge. How can You tolerate the unrighteous persecution that is still taking place on earth? How long, O Lord, how long?" This is the prayer from the unseen realm, the prayer from the martyred saints in Paradise. (Life-study of Luke, pp. 350-351)

　　Revelation 8:5 says, "And the Angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar and cast it to the earth; and there were thunders and voices and lightnings and an earthquake." This implies the answer to the prayers of the saints, especially the prayer in the fifth seal mentioned in 6:9-11 and the prayer mentioned in Luke 18:7-8. The prayer of the saints in this chapter must be for the judgment of the earth which opposes God's economy. The answer to the saints' prayers is the execution of God's judgment upon the earth by the following seven trumpets. To cast fire to the earth is to execute God's judgment upon the earth. Therefore, the thunders, voices, lightnings, and the earthquake come as signs of God's judgment.

　　Although the sixth seal has been opened and the seven trumpets are ready to be sounded, nothing happens until Christ comes to offer the saints' prayers to God with Himself as the incense. At that time, there are thunders, voices, lightnings, and an earthquake. This indicates that while God has the intention of executing His judgment upon the earth, there is still the need of the saints to cooperate with Him with their prayers. God needs His saints to pray that He might execute His judgment. If you read Luke 18, you will see that the Lord Jesus says that at a certain time the saints on earth will cry to God to come in to deal with the situation and to vindicate Himself. At the end of this age, people will be so rebellious against God that they will even declare to the whole universe that they are God. While God has been tolerating this, some of the faithful saints will no longer bear it and will pray, "O sovereign Lord, how long will You bear with this? Will You tolerate this rebellion forever? How long will it be before You come in to vindicate Yourself and avenge us? How long will it be until all the earth will know that You are the Lord?" Eventually, there will be a need for this kind of prayer. I believe the time is coming when we shall all be pressed to pray like this. I cannot charge you to pray this way today because you are not under this kind of pressure. But one day the pressure will be upon us and we shall be burdened to pray in this way. This will indicate that the end is at hand because our spirit will not tolerate the situation any longer. Then we shall pray to the Lord to vindicate Himself and to let all the rebellious ones know that He is God. When we pray like this, the Angel sent by God will minister to God with our prayer, adding to it Himself as the incense. God will certainly answer this prayer, and there will be thunders, voices, lightnings, and an earthquake. That will simply be the beginning of God's judgment upon this rebellious earth. (Life-study of Revelation, pp. 279-280)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Revelation, msg. 23