Hymn number 50. Before the throne
of God above, I have a strong and perfect plea. A great high
priest whose name is love, who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on his hands, my name is written on his heart. I know that while in heaven he
stands, no tongue can bid me thence depart. Thanks Norm. We're going to sing and then
Simon will pray and then Alan will come and we'll hear from
the Lord again. Thank you. I He was a sinner. Oh The King of glory and of grace,
One in himself I cannot find. My soul returns, my soul, My
mind is healed with Christ's love. Anyway, Father, thank you for
the amazing way you love your people, the way you love the
Church, and the way you gather them together, gather them to
yourself, draw even each one to yourself, thank you, Father, and revealing
Christ to them. Father, thank you for Church
and for the Gospel and for the grace that you show us in every
day of our lives. It is true, Heavenly Father, we are in a
wilderness territory, in a sense. And yet, amazingly, you've numbered
each one of the hairs of that hair, Heavenly Father, for us
with a perfect and invincible one, Heavenly Father. I do pray
for our time together here with Alan, and I do thank you for
opportunities for the Gospel to be declared, for us to look
at such a big and so misunderstood book of the Bible. And I pray,
Father, that you would do as always to meet with them, walk
in against them, take them by the hand, and guide them through
your Word by the power of your Holy Spirit. Father, what a great
and wondrous gift you've given your people and yourself. I do
thank you for it. Please strengthen our church.
Strengthen our pastor. Strengthen the bonds of unity
between ourselves, Father, and just cause love to flow out.
I pray for your mercy, Father. Please refresh our souls this
morning and Christ's precious name. Amen. So let's come back to Revelation
and remember that the purpose of Revelation is God's message
to his believing servants concerning the unfolding of history as the
kingdom of God triumphs over the kingdom of Satan. And we've
seen that Christ is here with His Church in this world, in
these days. Be comforted. He's shown us that
however it may appear, He's in the midst of His people. He's
walking among the candlesticks. Our purpose as candlesticks,
as churches, is to bear the light of the Gospel. The light and
the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
And the question I posed at the end of the last message is why
then, if we understand all of this, why has God not taken his
people straight to glory? Why are we still here? Why is
it still going on 2,000 years later? Because it will take that
time and more in the purposes of God to displace Satan's kingdom
with the triumphant kingdom of God. And to see that, we need
a heavenly perspective. So let's move into the second
vision of the Revelation, which is in chapters 4 to 7, and get
a heavenly perspective of history. Now, don't get me wrong, this
isn't a history lesson, that's not my purpose in the slightest.
No, it doesn't need to be. But what it is, is showing from
the perspective of God in heaven how things are as they are. Things to come. Remember, at
the very start of the book, he gave the vision, God gave the
vision to Jesus Christ to show unto his servants things which
must shortly come to pass, the unfolding of history. The kingdom
of Satan versus the kingdom of God. It's been that way ever
since the fall in Eden, and it will be until Christ comes again,
until the end of this world. That's the way it will be. The
kingdom of Satan will always be in opposition to the kingdom
of God. Now, when we come to Revelation
chapter 4, look, there was John, he's had this vision that Christ
is amongst his church. And he's on the island of Patmos,
and he's conscious of that, but he's in the Spirit on the Lord's
day, and he sees the things that he sees, and he takes down the
dictation that the Lord gives him to write the letters to the
churches. And then we get to chapter 4, and he says, after
this, so we're into a new vision, after this, I looked. He looked
and behold, so he's on the earth, I looked and behold, a door was
opened in heaven. So he's on the earth and he's
looking, a door is opened in heaven. And the first voice which
I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me. It's loud, you
can't miss it, it's pretty obvious. You know, when it comes to an
orchestra, I don't know if any of you are trumpeters, but when
it comes to an orchestra, the hardest thing is for the trumpeters
to play quietly. A trumpet is a loud instrument,
you're very much aware. Our oldest grandson learned trumpet
for quite a while. He got quite good at it, but
I'm rather annoyed with him because he's given it up. But when he
was practising, you knew if Michael was practising his trumpet in
the house, everywhere in the house could hear it. It's a loud
noise. And it was a voice which said to him, come up hither,
come up here, and I will show you things which must be hereafter. Why must they be? Because God
has ordained them to be. How is it that God knows? He's
ordained it. Come up here into heaven, through
this door, from earth where you are, come in a spiritual way
up into heaven and I will show you things which must be hereafter,
things which must happen. And immediately I was in the
Spirit. And behold, behold a throne. What we have in chapter 4 is
a picture of the perfect Kingdom of God in the fullness of its
completion. This is what we're getting to.
This, outside of this space-time creation that we inhabit, in
eternity, is the Kingdom of God. In its triumphant appearance
to him in this vision. There it is. In a way, chapter
4 is very much like Revelation 21 and 22, in that it's there
and it's done. And this is a vision of how it
is. There's one who is sat on the
throne, who is God. God in control of all. A throne
is a symbol of rule and authority. And there he is, sitting upon
this throne. The one who rules the universe.
And he that sat was to look upon like Jasper. A Jasper stone,
they tell me, I'm not an expert, is gleaming white. speaking of
righteousness and of purity and of holiness. The one who rules
the universe is righteous and holy and pure. And the Sardine
stone, the Sardius stone, is crimson red, speaking of the
wrath of God and the fire of God and the justice of God and
the holiness of God. And there was a rainbow around
about the throne. The rainbow is the symbol of
grace. How many of you saw it? There
was an absolutely glorious double full rainbow after the thunderstorm
the other evening. That was the best one I think
I've ever seen in my life, a magnificent rainbow. There was a rainbow
around this throne and the rainbow is the symbol of the grace of
God. There you've got the holiness and the purity and the fire and
the the wrath of God revealed in that vision of him on the
throne, but yet round it is the symbol of the grace of God. In sight like unto an emerald,
and I'm not going to speculate over much, but maybe it's speaking
about green, emerald green, it's speaking about the new budding
of the new creation, the new heaven and the new earth that
God is going to make. And it's a symbol of hope and
of renewal. That's there. So he's seeing
the kingdom of God in its final accomplished state. And who's
with this one on the throne there, in verse 4? The four and twenty
elders. Who's that? That's the Church
of God in all ages. How do we get that? We've got
twelve patriarchs of the Old Testament, we've got twelve apostles
of the New Testament, and I'm not going to spend too much time
on the numbers, but if you remember from the other night I was saying
that the number of God is three. And the number of creation is
four. And when three works on four, three fours are twelve,
and you get the twelve patriarchs and the twelve apostles. They're
symbolical of the believing people of God in every age. And twelve
plus twelve? Twenty-four elders. They're there.
It's symbolical that the Church of God is there, just exactly
like Revelation 19 verse 1 says. John says, And I looked. And
what did you see, John? I saw much people in heaven. Do you know what he saw? He saw
you and me, if we're believers, there, outside of this space-time
creation, in heaven. He saw the church complete there,
in eternal glory. And out of the throne of God
proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices, and there were seven
lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven
Spirits of God. I've already said that's the
perfection of the ministration of the Spirit of God, ministering
Christ to his people. The Holy Spirit dwelling in his
church and taking of the things of Christ and revealing them
to us. And then we go on and we see this sea of crystal, this
splendor and clarity of the new creation. And there it is in
heaven, and round about the throne were the four beasts, again,
speaking of aspects of creation. the first beast like a lion in
its strength, and the second like a calf, and third like a
face as a man, and the fourth as a flying eagle, all symbolical. And again, read the book, I'm
not going to spend time going too much into the details of
those things. And they had six wings about them. You know, six
was the days of creation, before the day of rest, when it was
completed. This is speaking of the new heavens and the new earth,
I'm sure of that. And these beasts give glory and
honor and thanks to him that sat on the throne who lives forever.
And there's a spirit of worship. What does the church do? Worships
God. glorifies God, gives all the
glory to God. They sing, verse 11, Thou art
worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power, for Thou
hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and
were created. A glorious vision of the perfection
of the completed Kingdom of God. So, we could spend hours in each
bit of it, but our time is limited, so I'm going to move on into
chapter 5. because he sees, straight away, he sees in the right hand
of him that sat upon the throne, a book, a scroll, written within
and on the backside, so it's covered in writing. There's no
white space left for anything else to be written. It's there
in the hand of God on the throne, is this book. And it's sealed
up, it can't be opened. It's sealed up with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming
with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book and to loose
the seals thereof? Who can make God's kingdom triumphant? Who can accomplish the triumphant
kingdom of God? The challenge goes out to this
creation. Who can accomplish the triumphant
kingdom of God? Who can accomplish what John
has just seen? Who can make it happen? And the
challenge goes out to the whole of this world, it goes out to
the kingdom of Satan, it goes out to all the powers and authorities,
and verse 3, no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the
earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon. They're
completely impotent. Why are they completely impotent?
Because none of them, none of them can make satisfaction to
the justice of God for the sins of the people of his kingdom.
God's kingdom will be populated by sinners saved by grace. But who's going to achieve it?
None of them. None was able to accomplish it. And look at the reaction on John,
verse 4, I wept much. He's heartbroken. He's despairing. The kingdom of God that he's
just seen has got to come, but how is it going to come? No man
is found worthy. This creation, this kingdom of
Satan, is utterly impotent to do it. Because this world and
the kingdom of Satan cannot satisfy the justice of God for sin. It cannot do it. It cannot make
it right. They're not worthy to open and
read the book, neither to look thereon. This book is God's plan
of how his kingdom is going to triumph over the kingdom of Satan.
Who's going to do it? Who's going to make it happen?
You know, when you run a project, which I used to do in my professional
life, you come up with immense project plans, and there's no
point starting unless you have a plan. You might adjust it on
the way, but there's no point starting unless you have a plan.
You implement the plan as you go along and you track the way
you're going. Well, who's going to open this
book which is the plan of God for the accomplishment of his
triumphant kingdom and the destruction of the kingdom of Satan? I wept
much because no man was found worthy. No man. This creation,
this kingdom of Satan, is utterly incapable of doing that. And
verse 5, as he's weeping, one of the elders, one that's already
there in glory, one of the ones that already knows that it is
accomplished, he knows it's accomplished, there must be a way, he says,
don't weep. Behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root
of David. He is the one that's done it,
the Lion of the tribe of Judah. You know, you go back to Jacob,
blessing his sons at the end of his life. And, you know, the
priesthood came from Levi, the Aaronic priesthood. But it's
when we get to Judah that Shiloh shall come, that Christ shall
come, the promised seed of the woman shall come from the tribe
of Judah. And Christ is the lion of the
tribe of Judah. Look, there's the lion, there's
the promised seed in the midst of the throne. The root of David,
according to the flesh, he came as a descendant of David, according
to the flesh. The promised seed of the woman
has come. He has prevailed to open the
book and to loose the seven seals thereof. You don't need to weep,
John, because the purposes of God are fulfilled, because Christ
has come. The lion of the tribe of Judah,
he's come from the line of David according to the flesh. He's
been born, he's done all that is necessary. Okay, okay, yeah,
yeah, yeah, right. He's able, he's prevailed to
loose the seven seals thereof. And so I looked, as I was bidden
to look, says John. I beheld, and lo, in the midst
of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the
elders, stood the lion of the... Doesn't say that, does it? He
didn't see the lion of the tribe of Judah. What did he see? He
saw a lamb, as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven
eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the
world. The lion of the tribe of Judah
accomplishes the triumph of the kingdom of God, satisfies the
justice of God, that this kingdom can be populated with the people
that God chose in Christ before the foundation of the world,
only in the capacity of a lamb. And not only a lamb, but a lamb
as it had been slain. Behold, the Lamb of God. Here
comes Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, yet in the capacity
of a lamb is how he disarmed the kingdom of Satan. In the
capacity of a lamb is how he established the righteousness
of the kingdom of God. in the capacity of a lamb slain
and shedding his blood to pay the penalty to the offended law
and justice of God, that the law might say, it is finished,
it is enough, there is no need for any more. In the capacity
of a lamb slain is the lion of the tribe of Judah, the one alone,
alone, who is qualified to implement this plan of the triumph of the
kingdom of God. And he came and took the book
out of the right hand, of him that was on the throne, he came
to implement it. And he took the book, and then there's worship,
there's worship. Look, verse 9, they sung a new
song, saying, Thou art worthy. Why do we sing praise here on
earth? We're saying he is worthy. He
and he alone is worthy. You are worthy to take the book.
He is the one that has opened the seals thereof. He is the
one who is implementing the triumph of the kingdom of God over the
kingdom of Satan. He is the one who has established
that kingdom of God on the basis of satisfied divine justice. Why? Because it's, you've redeemed
us to God by your blood. Who has he redeemed to God by
his blood? His people. What people are they?
Jews? No. Out of every kindred, and
tongue, and people, and nation. Isn't that right? For God so
loved the world that he gave his only... He didn't just love
Jews, In Palestine, God so loved the world, people from all over
the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
of them believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting
life. and you've made us unto our God kings and priests isn't
this again what the apostles tell us? you have made kings
and priests unto God and we shall reign on the earth how do we
reign? it doesn't feel like we're reigning on the earth at the
moment, does it? as believers but God tells us that in Christ
in his implementation of his eternal purposes we're reigning
on earth and many angels and praise and worship to our God
every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the
earth and such as are in the sea they all sing blessing and
honor and glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the
throne and unto the lamb forever and ever and the four beasts
said amen and the four and twelve the elders fell down and worshipped
him that liveth forever and ever. So he's worthy. So he's got the
book, he's qualified, he's got the power to implement everything
that we've seen in history from the fall in Eden through to the
end of time and that's what's unfolded in the visions this
vision and the ones that follow and the different visions are
different layers of detail they're contemporaneous and in some senses
sequential don't get it wrong because lots of silly interpretations
show that all of this gets finished and then the next one starts
not like that at all but they're different perspectives on the
same view of history So in chapter 6 he starts to implement the
plan of God. Why has history been as we observe
it to be? It's because the Lamb, as it
had been slain, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, is qualified
by virtue of his redeeming blood. to open the seals, that the Kingdom
of God might triumph over the Kingdom of Satan. He implements,
I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals and I heard, as
it were, the noise of thunder, one of the beasts saying, Come,
come. come and see, come. In actual
fact, in the original, the ANSI is not there. It's probably the
opening of the first seal, summoning forth the first horse to come,
the first of the seals to be implemented. And then, you know
what happens, I don't know how familiar most of you are with
this, but you know, as the seals are opened, the first four seals
are horses that come forth. Now remember, this is not literal,
absolutely, don't get confused, this is not literal, this is
symbolical, this is spiritual signification of the way things
are. And the first one is a white
horse, a white horse. That's the white horse, comes
forth, the one that sat on him had a bow, he's armed, and he's
got a crown, and he went forth conquering and to conquer. This
is the Gospel. God sends forth his Gospel right
from the fall in the Garden of Eden. Immediately, God struck
back against Satan by redeeming Adam and Eve, right there in
the Garden of Eden. And then, from then, Eve thought
that when Cain was born, she had gotten a man from the Lord.
Ah, the promised seed has come. He is the one. But no, he wasn't.
He wasn't at the godly line. And his brother Abel was, because
his brother Abel brought a lamb to God. And that lamb was killed,
foreshadowing the seed who would come and die for the sins of
his people and clothe them with his righteousness. And so it
goes on down the line, all the way down the line, the kingdom
of Satan in opposition to the kingdom of God, but always God
has his kingdom, and always the white horse of his truth He's
riding forth. He's riding forth in all the
symbolism of the Jews in the Old Testament, Israel in the
Old Testament, and their tabernacle, and their temple, and the priesthood,
and the sacrifices, and all of those things. They're blueprints,
as it were. They're patterns, they're types,
they're pictures of the spiritual reality that Christ would come
and accomplish. and the white horse goes forth
down history. And what does it produce? Well,
it calls out the true Church of God. But also, at the same
time, we see an awful lot of religion that calls itself Christian.
We see Christendom, as it were, you know, this huge swathes,
billions it's counted. the people who count themselves
as Roman Catholics and other so-called Christian denominations,
who we know do not know the truth of the Gospel of Grace. They
do not believe what the book says nevertheless. They use the
terminology of the things of God. They use the terminology
of the Gospel. They use a lot of the same terminology
that the true Church uses, but they're not, as we'll see much
later on in the book. But the white horse is God First
of all, in this situation, how are we going to replace the Kingdom
of Satan with the Kingdom of God? The Gospel must go forth.
The truth of God in saving grace must go forth. Then secondly,
verse 3, He opened the second seal, and I heard the second
beast say, Come and see. And there went out another horse
that was red. And power was given to him that
sat thereon to take peace from the earth, that they should kill
one another. And there was given unto him
a great sword. What's that? Down history, is
history not the history of wars and conflicts between nations?
Yes, it is. This is the red horse. This is
the implementation of God. Why does God send war into this
world? You can imagine the religious
world being up in arms in shock at somebody who purports to preach
the gospel of Christ, saying that God has caused these things. He's done it because it's to
replace the false kingdom of Satan with the true kingdom of
the gospel of his grace, with the kingdom of God. He sends
war into this world to disrupt it, to frustrate. You see, Satan's
purpose Satan's purpose is a worldwide consensus of unity, of people
who think we all get on really well, we've no need for any national
borders, we've no need for this that separates one people from
another and that that separates them. We can all get on well
together and we can have this lovely great big world where
we're all freely moving around and interacting with one another
and isn't that a lovely place? Isn't that a lovely utopia? That's
Satan's idea. But what's the flaw in Satan's
plan? There is no justice of God. There is no blood of the
Lamb. There is no Christ. There is
no need for Christ in his scheme of things. So God sends forth
the true gospel to challenge that, and then he sends forth
war amongst the nations. And a lot of religion so-called
Christian religion, portrays God as if God is this pathetic
being sitting on the sidelines of the world he's created, wringing
his hands in sorrow while the nations fight one another. No,
Christ opened the second seal and the red horse went forth.
Why? To disrupt the plans and intentions of the kingdom of
Satan. Then the third horse, when he
had opened, this is verse 5, When he had opened the third
seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld,
and lo, a black horse. And he that sat on him had a
pair of balances in his hands. And I heard a voice in the midst
of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three
measures of barley for a penny. And see thou hurt not the oil
and the wine. What's that talking about? God
sends forth into the kingdom of Satan enormous variation of
material wealth, of poverty and riches. The vast majority live
hand-to-mouth, as it were, a measure of wheat for a penny, a day at
a time, a measure of wheat for a penny, three measures of barley
for a penny, and the rich live in really obscene opulence and utter
riches beyond understanding. You see it all around us in the
world, especially in the Western economies. All around the world
you see the stupendous differences there are of the many, many,
many who are on a subsistence level of living whilst others
have so much money they just literally do not know what to
do with it. That's not the oil and the wine. This is God's doing. Why does he do it? You know,
I don't want to be misunderstood.
We should do good, as believers, we should do good to all men
wherever we see them, wherever we have opportunity to. You know,
it is quite right to try and help somebody that you see that's
in need, that's absolutely fine. But the thing is, if we think
that the purpose of the Church in this world is to make poverty
history. There was a big slogan in Britain
a few years ago, you don't see it so much now, but it was on
all the churches, let's make poverty history, Christians against
poverty, all this kind of thing. And, you know, as I say, individual
cases of trying to help people, fine, but the purpose of God
is to disrupt the kingdom of Satan. And this he does by this
horse, this black horse. That's, however much politicians
and economists try, and they've been trying for an awful long
time, here we are today, is it not the case that it's never
been more polarised than it is at the moment? The degrees of
riches and of poverty that we see in this world? And then the
fourth horse, I looked, verse 8, and behold, a pale horse,
and his name that sat on him was Death and Hell, and that
followed him, and power was given them over a quarter to kill them. Again. We're all living longer,
aren't we? Isn't it a wonderful thing, I
think I've put in the book, that if I get to the stage where I'm
like my dad who is now 93 in a nursing home, that living longer
like that is a privilege that I could quite well be happy to
do without. Death comes and takes swathes
of humanity away. It's one of God's horses that
is sent forth as the seal is opened. The fifth seal is a picture
of there being throughout this space-time creation tension and
division between the kingdom of Satan and the people of God.
And it's the martyrs under the altar crying for justice. They're
not crying for revenge, they're crying for justice to be done,
for what the kingdom of Satan has done to the kingdom of God.
That's the fifth seal. And the sixth seal which we see
from verse 12 downwards, is the end of all things. It is the
final day. It is the end of all things.
We keep seeing the end. So this is the vision that says,
right, there it is. It brings us to the end, virtually
to the end. The seventh seal is to open,
but the seventh seal will reveal itself as seven trumpets, giving
more detail of the way in which God judges this earth. But you
see quite clearly there, in verses 12 to 16, a fleeing away from
that great day of the wrath of God. Who shall be able to stand? And the picture painted is one
that is quite alarming. And you know how the Second World
War was quite alarming for true believers. True believers in
the flesh still had to live in it. People who were true believers
still had to go and fight. People who were true believers
still had to pick up weapons and shoot and kill the enemy.
People who were believers still had to do all of that. That was
it. That was their responsibility
as citizens of the nations that they belonged to. They had to
do it. That was the case. Does this picture of how things
are going to go on as God replaces the kingdom of Satan, and the
lies of Satan, and the falsehood, and the lack of the justice of
God being satisfied in the kingdom of Satan with his own true kingdom,
it causes, potentially, it would cause us alarm. It's a picture
that says, look, this is what's happening, so we can take comfort
from, we know why it's happening, and who is doing it, but it could
cause us to be quite downcast and quite despairing. And so
God gives us as part of this vision in chapter 7 the end of
things for the people of God. And that's what I want to finish
with. This chapter 7, very very quickly, after these things I
saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth. This
is the number four related to the creation and to the world.
holding the four winds. These are winds of judgment that
are coming finally on the earth. Because he's just said the end
is coming at the end of chapter 6. And he saw four angels holding
these winds that they should not blow on the earth, nor on
the sea, nor on any tree. Hold them back. Don't do it yet.
I saw another angel ascending. This other angel in verse 2 is
Christ. He is the righteous man from
the east. I saw an angel ascending from
the east. You look in Isaiah, and Christ is pictured as the
righteous man from the east. This is Christ, and he's got
the seal of the living God. And he cried with a loud voice
to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and
to the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, Don't let the judgment
fall. Don't let the final judgment
fall. Nor the trees. Why? Because we haven't yet sealed
all the servants of our God in their foreheads. All of the people
that God chose in Christ before the foundation of the world,
put in Christ and Christ redeemed them at the cross. He was made
sin for all of those. all of them, all of them, they've
not all been called out yet under the sound of the gospel. Hold
back the fall of the final judgment until all of them, every man. You know in Ezekiel, where the
vision of the dry bones, in the valley of the dry bones, and
he sees them and he says prophesy to them and they stand on their
feet a mighty army. Have you ever seen you know,
the troops paraded, where we have the Trooping of the Colour
on Horse Guards Parade in London every June, and the Queen comes
along to watch, and there are all the soldiers, and the most
obvious thing is if one of them's fainted or something's gone wrong,
because there's a gap. You look at some lovely building,
you know, because believers are pictured as living stones in
the temple of God. The picture is, you look at a
temple and there's a great big gap like a missing front tooth,
you know, you know that it's not there. But they're all there.
That's the picture that every single one of them is there.
All of these people have to be there. All of them. Hold back
the final judgment till every one of them has come to a knowledge
of the truth, has come to faith, has come to know Jesus Christ,
has come to know Him as their Saviour. They've all got to come.
As the Gospel is preached, those who are ordained to eternal life,
Acts 13, 48, those who are ordained to eternal life believed. They
preached the Gospel to any and all. They didn't make altar calls,
they didn't make the free offer of the Gospel, they declared
salvation accomplished. And those ordained to eternal
life believed that Gospel. They believed it. They've all
got to come out, and then the judgment can fall. Then the final
judgment on the kingdom of Satan can fall. So how many are there?
And then in verses 4 to 8, you have the tribes of Israel, but
it isn't exactly, it's close but exactly, because it's vision,
and it's 12,000 of each. 12 twelves? 144. It's a picture
of the people of God. And I believe, and I wouldn't
split hairs with anybody who thinks that that's all of them
for all time. But I think it's speaking, because
of other parts of revelation, of the number of true believers
on the earth at any one time in history. Symbolically. I don't
mean literally. I wouldn't be surprised if it's
pretty close. In our day, 144,000 who truly
know the true gospel. Wouldn't be far off, would it,
if you think about it, from what we know. But these are the people
of God. These are the ones that have
got to be sealed with the mark of the servants of God in their
forehead. What? Literally? Literally the
mark of the servants of God. You'll read it in the book, but
I remember when our oldest son was about the age of grace. about nine months old and crawling
around and laughing and playing and he had one of those little
rubber sticky things where you stamp it down and then it sticks
to a surface and just to play silly games with him I stuck
it to my head and I'm wandering around and he's laughing and
chuckling because daddy's got this funny thing sticking out
of his head And I took this thing off my head and it burst a ring
of blood vessels. So I had a bright red ring. And
the church we were attending at the time, lots of people were
laughing saying, you've got the mark of the seal of God on your
forehead. Either that or of the beast. But these are God's people
in the world that have got to be called out. How are they called
out? The preaching of the gospel. What's the church here for? The
preaching of the gospel. That's what we're here for. I
determined said Paul, while I was among you, not to know anything
other than Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And really, I'm not
going to keep you very much longer at all, really not. Verse 9,
we see them when all those 144,000 at every period of history are
all accumulated together in heaven. After this, so it's different,
it's separate, verse 9, I beheld, look what he saw, a great multitude,
which no man could number, of all nations and kindreds and
people and tongues, stood before the and before the Lamb, clothed
with white robes and palms in their hands. They're there on
the basis of justice established. They're there on the basis of
sins forgiven. They're accepted in the Beloved,
and therefore, as Paul says in one of the Epistles to Colossians,
isn't it, has qualified us, has made us meet to be partakers
of the divine nature. They're qualified there on the
strength of what Christ has done, and they're there in heaven.
And here we have, at the end of this vision, as we had previously,
and another picture of the people of God in heaven, because Christ
has accomplished their salvation. It's a chapter of comfort to
us. God, the things that are happening are entirely at the
behest of God and for his purposes, but we need to be comforted that
the end result is every single one, every last one of that number
that no man can number, that multitude that no man can number
in eternal glory. God's people sealed on earth
before final judgment falls and then taken to be in heaven. And
what message could we get for it for today? That today still,
because that judgment is withheld, today still is the day of salvation. Harden not your hearts, Hebrews
3.15, today, if you will hear His voice. Harden not your hearts,
as in the provocation. It's still the day of salvation.
The final judgment is still withheld today. Therefore, seek Christ,
seek and ye shall find. Oh, what a glory to be amongst
that number that no man can number. What's the relevance to us now?
We've taken a bit of the mist that shrouds this away. We've
seen through this curtain into heaven, the reality, everything
happening. In our world is all at the behest
of God. He's doing it all. He's accomplishing
all of His purposes. All of His kingdom will be there.
His citizens of His kingdom. His kingdom will be established.
The kingdom of Satan with its lies and its falsehood and its
violation of the justice of God will be gone and his kingdom
is there. It's a no-risk plan. Our God
is in supreme control, in supreme control. And then we get another
view as we go on into the rest of the book. So I hope you find
that encouraging. I know it seems rushed and possibly
biting off more than we can chew, but I hope you find that of use
and encouraging to our faith. But in Revelation 7.14, who are they? These are they
which came out of the great tribulation and have washed their robes and
made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Let's pray. Our
Heavenly Father, we do thank you that our God reigns. We do
pray, Heavenly Father, that you would grant to your people a
simple childlike faith, that we would take you at your word
and entrust our entire souls into the hands of your dear and
precious Son. Father, we pray that you'd bless
your words. You have promised that they would
come to this earth and they would return having done their purpose. And we entrust our souls into
your care, our Father. For we thank you in Jesus' name.
Amen. Let's sing. Thanks, Normie. ? Of His glory we sing joy ? ?
To the only one God our Savior ? ? Be glory and majesty ? ?
Now and then and now ? ? Both now and forevermore ? Lunch is served. And Alan will
be back, Lord willing, on Thursday evening to continue a series.
It'll be Thursday evening, Friday evening, Saturday evening. It's
daunting as I speak of it, really. And then Sunday morning next
week and the following Sunday. So thank you.