Quite true.
"[In Revelation] it just says he [the angel] offered the incense at the same time."
In Revelation 5:8, John depicts the saints in heaven offering our prayers to God under the form of "golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints." [The Jerusalem Bible has it as, "bowls full of incense made of the prayers of the saints."] So if the saints in heaven are offering our prayers to God, then they must be aware of our prayers: they present them to God by interceding for us.
And if the prayers being offered were not addressed to the saints in heaven, but directly to God? Even then, it only shows that the saints are aware of our prayers even when they are not directed to them!
Either way, you can see from Revelation 5:8 that the saints in heaven do actively intercede for us. We are explicitly told by John that the incense they offer to God consists of the prayers of the saints. Prayers are not physical things and cannot be physically offered to God. Thus the saints in heaven are offering our prayers to God mentally. In other words, they are interceding.
"I have no argument at all about praying in one accord, in agreement, with anyone with whom I can communicate here on this earth."
But why would you exclude the members of the Body of Christ who are actually with Christ in Heaven? Christ's Body is not made of clumps of live cells and organs, interspersed with clumps of dead cells and organs. No, Christ is fully alive, and those who have gone on before us are not to be thought of as 'dead'.
(Matthew 22:31-32) "Have you not read what God said to you, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."
But, you say, "... that still does not justify a practice that is neither commanded or endorsed by Scripture."
Jesus actually demonstrated this for us on Mt. Tabor when He communicated with Moses and Elijah. What do you think they were, dead?
The only ones who have no part of this, are the souls n Hell, And this is, as Jesus taught, there is a "great chasm" between them and us. And since the basis of this constant intercommunion in the life of Christ which we share, the damned are excluded from all this circulating love and prayer because they are not united with us in Christ.
In your church, do you say the Nicene Creed? Do you believe in the doctrines of the Trinity and an orthodox Nicene Christology and so forth? (I'm just looking for a point of clarification here.)
Jesus Himself communicated with those who had gone before; St. Paul explained that we are all as close as members of one Body. Members of one Body influence each other, benefit each other, rejoice together, are in living, effective contact with each other.
I can expect that you'll end up saying "But Mrs Don-o, that Scripture doesn't mean quite as much as you think it does." And I'll be replying "But metmom, that Scripture doesn't mean quite so little as you think it does." This is always going to happen when you have two people with two minds at work.
So how can such disputes ---which are incessant among people who love Scripture --- be resolved? I would say, "How has the Holy Spirit guided the Church?" (You knew I was going to say that!!)
If you know the history of the first millennium-and-a-half, you know that myriads of things were disputed; we have tons of written documentation of matters they argued about; but nobody ever disputed that we pray to and for and through and united with saints on this earth and in the homeland of Heaven, and angels as well, in Jesus Christ Our Lord.
We know that all are alive, because we and they are alive in Christ, one in the Spirit, and together form one Body.
Most Christians worldwide understand it this way (Roman Catholic + Eastern Orthodox + Oriental/Coptic Orthodox + Anglicans and a few others) -- so the most ancient and most widespread communities of the Church are in accord, going all the way back to the the Catacombs of St. Pricilla, where you can find a drawing of Mary with words "Sub tuum praesidium" (We fly to thy patronage) 3rd century AD,illustrating the intercession of Mary.
Either the modernist no-Mary no-saints no-angels Christians are right, and the Holy Spirit was asleep at the wheel for a millennium and a half?? Or --- it's the ancient Christians who were right, and the moderns too prone to abandon the shared Christian life.
Seriously, if it were that important, do you not think that God would have told us about it or to do it?"
Seriously, I'm saying He did.
It's the 24 elders who are holding the golden bowls. But still doesn't mean they were prayer prayed to them.
Jesus actually demonstrated this for us on Mt. Tabor when He communicated with Moses and Elijah. What do you think they were, dead?
Are you saying Jesus was PRAYING to them?
He did not pray to them. He was talking with them about His departure.
When Peter made an attempt to honor them, the Father threw himself on that like a wet blanket and basically told him to shut up and listen to Jesus.
Nobody knows exactly what the saints in heaven are doing. Nobody even knows who the saints in heaven ARE. There are some that we can be reasonably certain are there, Stephen, for example, and the apostles.
Nobody has been to heaven to verify it though and honestly, if someone claimed to have been there and come back with a report, I would be exceedingly skeptical about it, to say the least.
If we go by Jesus example and teaching, we pray to the Father only, who is promised to hear and answer our prayers Himself. That's good enough for me. Sometimes I will ask for others to agree with me in prayer for something, but that is not praying to them.
The Hebrews 11 chapter, the hall of fame of faith, is followed by Hebrews 12 and while the chapter and verse notations are useful, they do have the drawback of unnaturally breaking up the flow of though for one.
But Hebrews 12, following on the thought of Hebrews 11 says this.....
Hebrews 12:1-3 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
It's all about Jesus......
Let’s look at that verse in Revelation.
Revelation 5:8 And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.
Now, you make the statement that they are “offering” them to God. Revelation 5:8 doesn’t say that. They simply hold the vials of incense. Why add to the words of scripture when we are emphatically told not to. The caution in Revelation especially is rather odious.
Revelation 22:18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: 19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
But He didn’t allow the apostles to did He. In fact it was the voice of the father that said specifically to address Jesus not Moses and Elijah. That should be a hint to Catholics.
I do not need angels to carry my prayers to God...I have a supernatural super-fax which gets my prayers there as quick as I can think them up...
Heb 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Heb 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
I find it interesting that your religion completely denies a thousand year reign of Jesus Christ where we Christians will reign with Jesus which is clearly layed out in Rev. 20 while latching onto some obscure verses that have to do with saints and prayers in the same book and build your religion upon it...
Rev_20:6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.