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Here's Rev 5:8 MESSAGE VERSION:

Revelation 5:8 (The Message)

6-10So I looked, and there, surrounded by Throne, Animals, and Elders, was a Lamb, slaughtered but standing tall. Seven horns he had, and seven eyes, the Seven Spirits of God sent into all the earth. He came to the One Seated on the Throne and took the scroll from his right hand. The moment he took the scroll, the Four Animals and Twenty-four Elders fell down and worshiped the Lamb. Each had a harp and each had a bowl, a gold bowl filled with incense, the prayers of God's holy people. And they sang a new song:

Worthy! Take the scroll, open its seals. Slain! Paying in blood, you bought men and women, Bought them back from all over the earth, Bought them back for God. Then you made them a Kingdom, Priests for our God, Priest-kings to rule over the earth.

I don't think a great deal of 'doctrine' or 'dogma' can be extrapolated from the verses above--particularly independent of the rest of Scripture.

My own take on the issue is that our prayers here matter greatly because it is here that we are tempted with all manner of distractions and competitions for our time and energy. Similarly, here, where we have tears, they are bottled for Heavenly use at some point.

Hebrews speaks of:

Hebrews 12:1 KJV
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

HEBREWS 11:

13-16Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that—heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.

17-19By faith, Abraham, at the time of testing, offered Isaac back to God. Acting in faith, he was as ready to return the promised son, his only son, as he had been to receive him—and this after he had already been told, "Your descendants shall come from Isaac." Abraham figured that if God wanted to, he could raise the dead. In a sense, that's what happened when he received Isaac back, alive from off the altar.

20By an act of faith, Isaac reached into the future as he blessed Jacob and Esau.

21By an act of faith, Jacob on his deathbed blessed each of Joseph's sons in turn, blessing them with God's blessing, not his own—as he bowed worshipfully upon his staff.

22By an act of faith, Joseph, while dying, prophesied the exodus of Israel, and made arrangements for his own burial.

23By an act of faith, Moses' parents hid him away for three months after his birth. They saw the child's beauty, and they braved the king's decree.

24-28By faith, Moses, when grown, refused the privileges of the Egyptian royal house. He chose a hard life with God's people rather than an opportunistic soft life of sin with the oppressors. He valued suffering in the Messiah's camp far greater than Egyptian wealth because he was looking ahead, anticipating the payoff. By an act of faith, he turned his heel on Egypt, indifferent to the king's blind rage. He had his eye on the One no eye can see, and kept right on going. By an act of faith, he kept the Passover Feast and sprinkled Passover blood on each house so that the destroyer of the firstborn wouldn't touch them.

29By an act of faith, Israel walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. The Egyptians tried it and drowned.

30By faith, the Israelites marched around the walls of Jericho for seven days, and the walls fell flat.

31By an act of faith, Rahab, the Jericho harlot, welcomed the spies and escaped the destruction that came on those who refused to trust God.

32-38I could go on and on, but I've run out of time. There are so many more— Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets....Through acts of faith, they toppled kingdoms, made justice work, took the promises for themselves. They were protected from lions, fires, and sword thrusts, turned disadvantage to advantage, won battles, routed alien armies. Women received their loved ones back from the dead. There were those who, under torture, refused to give in and go free, preferring something better: resurrection. Others braved abuse and whips, and, yes, chains and dungeons. We have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless—the world didn't deserve them!—making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world.

39-40Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.

The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

I don't see that the Scripture indicates per se that the cloud of witnesses are in Heaven praying for us. Cheering is not the same as praying. It wouldn't mess my theology up greatly if they observe and pray for us. I just don't see that, per se, in Scripture. And extrapolations to that effect are greatly overblown, imho.

When I consider Scripture and the CONVINCING BIBLICAL HEAVENLY VISITATIONS taken together . . . I don't find, per se, a single instance that I can recall of Heavenly personages praying for earthbound folks.

The Heavenly spiritual activities, other than teaching aborted children the ways of God . . . and evidently reading books, interestingly . . . I don't recall a single case of anyone commenting on or observing Heavenly personages praying--including Mary who was seen by one or two teaching said children. She was characterized in her role there as no one all that Special.

ALL THE SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY was described IN EVERY CASE, as WORSHIPPING GOD--THE FATHER, THE LAMB.

IN EVERY CASE, the personages of Heaven are without affectation, pretense, ostentaciouisness, puffery, artifice.

Sometimes they are characterized as enjoying such things as a picnic with family--one visitor being invited on such a picnic but left Heaven too early to go with the family.

Heaven in every case was characterized as a place of EXTREME LIFE, LIGHT, JOY, PEACE, LOVE . . . flowing from The Father, The Throne, The Son. There's always great purposefulness. There's no anxiety. There's no compulsion.

It is reasonable to assume that once one reaches Heaven, the duties of prayer--at least in the conventional earthly sense--are over. Certainly there is NO sense of any hint of a BURDEN OF PRAYER.

NOR is there any sense that graduated saints are all that fussed up, concerned, even greatly interested in all the details occurring on earth--even though there were seen in some cases--well lit stadia--no look closely within was allowed but the impression was that the stadia represented somehow watching some dramatic events on earth.

Yet, the impression in virtually every case has been that events on earth are playing out as they will. And graduated saints in Heaven are enjoying their Heavenly rest and going about Heavenly things largely unconcerned about earthly things.

There is often an exhortation from some of the Disciples or Patriarchs or a departed loved one met in Heaven that earth bound believers MUST DO ALL THEY CAN to help others come to saving knowledge of Jesus as well as to be OVERCOMERS in their own spiritual walks. Yet, it's a kind of mentor's exhortation. A loving press to be mindful of highest priority things.

Hebrews 12:1 (The Message) Hebrews 12 Discipline in a Long-Distance Race 1-3Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!