Once again, welcome to this celebration
of life, the celebration of a promotion. I really appreciated that last
verse of that song we just sang, where it says, when Christ shall
come with shout of acclamation and take me home, what joy shall
fill my heart. then I shall bow in humble adoration
and there proclaim, O God, how great thou art. I think the promotion
that Brother Duane had when he passed from this life into the
next, he had the opportunity to say those very words as he
stood before his savior and said, O God, how great thou art. In
your bulletin, there is a yellow sheet And on that yellow sheet
is a scripture passage that I'd like to use today as we say a
few words. We are at the oh no part of the
memorial service. I don't know how many times I've
been in a funeral and that was the oh no part. Preacher got
up and said things he didn't even know about. Well, I hope
I know something about the scriptures and much of it was instructed
by my friend, Brother Dwayne Blanchard. He was a counselor.
He counseled me in the word, he counseled me in life, and
as I mentioned at the graveside service this morning, he kept
my foot out of my mouth several times. Here in the book of Revelation
chapter seven, I'd like to read verses nine through 17. Revelation
chapter seven, verse nine through 17. And as we go through this
passage together, I would like to ask these three questions
and then look at the answers. Number one, what did John see? And that's gonna be in the first
verse. What did John hear? And what did John learn? Those
three things that we'd like to bring out in this short passage
of scripture. In the book of Revelation chapter
7 and verse 9 on your handout, it says, after this I beheld,
and that word beheld means I saw. So we're going to be looking
at what John saw as he was in the presence of God. After this
I beheld and lo, this is what he saw. I saw a great multitude,
which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and
people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb,
clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands. what a
sight John saw when he was in the presence of the Lord. And
as he records it here, as the Holy Spirit gives him the words
to record in the original language, we have this that says, I beheld
a number, a great multitude that no man can number. He saw a great
multitude that was beyond his ability to count, and on purpose
is that because that number is only known to God. It's not known
to us. Now, we may know it when we stand
in his presence, but for us right now, we don't know it. In the
book of Revelation chapter 5 and verse 11, and I beheld and I
heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the
beasts, and that word beast doesn't mean one of those guys that's
under the bed when you're a kid. That's that not kind of beast.
This is an elder and the elders and a number of them was 10,000
times 10,000 and thousands of thousands. Take your calculator
out and figure that up. We can't do it. So many. The great host that John saw
was made up of all nations, kindreds, and peoples and tongues. This
was not everyone that had ever been born though, but folks out
of every place on earth over the centuries that God was pleased
to save. That's this group of people.
Among these folks, and I just heard this word, oh, a month
ago, a pastor friend of mine mentioned this verse of scripture
over in the book of Colossians, and I never paid much attention
to it. And in that verse of scripture is the nationality called the
Scythians. Now, it's only mentioned one
time in the Bible, but it's in the book of Colossians, chapter
3, verses 11 and 12. And they are mentioned in that.
It says, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor
uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is
all in all, put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and
beloved, vows of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind. right there
in Colossae in a gospel church that had a representation that
John saw listed as barbarians and Scythians. Now, I said, who
are these folks? Mentioned one time in the scriptures,
and have you ever wondered who the Scythians are? Right there
in the Church of Colossae, there was some folks that had their
nationality as Scythians, or they could trace their line back
to Scythians. Now, the Scythians were some
of the original inhabitants of Russia. And they were regarded
as the wildest of barbarians. They were not kind folks when
they overthrew another nationality. They were Scythians. But you
know what? When we find out the grace of God can tame the worst
of the worst, And he tamed some Scythians. He brought these Scythians
to the gospel. He brought them. They either
crossed the gospel by some preacher coming to them that knew something,
or they were brought to some place where there was somebody
that knew something. And that's how God does his business.
But here there are some Scythians, worst people on the face of the
earth. You and I know some of them, don't we? If we lived in
the days of Saul of Tarsus, we'd say that man is the worst man
in the world and he should be dead. Why hasn't someone taken
him out? Why hasn't God killed him? Because
he has been killing some of God's people. Well, we find out. that he was one of God's chosen
people. He did hear the gospel. God saved
him by his grace and he became the writer of much of the New
Testament and a great preacher of the gospel. We don't understand
the things of God. God knows his business quite
well. As we go back to this, we find
that John saw a great number which no man could number, and
every one of them had been brought to hear the gospel of God's free
sovereign grace. Given the new birth, given repentance
and faith, God's great salvation. That's who he saw. A great number that no man could
number. John saw where all of these were. They stood before
the throne and before the Lamb. This word Lamb is used 29 times
in the book of Revelation alone. In fact, it's only used one other
time. The book of Revelation is truly the book of the Lamb.
And the Lamb was meant something to all the great hosts of the
folks. This Lamb was all their salvation. This lamb was all their redemption.
This lamb was all their righteousness. This lamb was all their sanctification. Every spiritual blessing was
based upon this lamb. The Lamb of God. This Lamb has
been pictured throughout all the Old Testament, through the
Bible, Abel's burnt offering, Noah's burnt offering, Abraham's
burnt offering, the Passover Lamb, the bulk of the offerings
at the tabernacle and temple, and in Isaiah 53 and verse 7
it says, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, He is brought as
a Lamb to the slaughter. John, was pleased to point out
this one to two of his disciples. Now, John was a preacher of righteousness,
and he had people follow along with him as he began and preached
the gospel to them. But one day, he saw the Lamb
of God, and he pointed his disciples to the Lamb of God. He says,
behold, the Lamb of God. And you know what those disciples
did? They left John and went to Christ. And what did John
do about it? He says, amen. He was not interested
in creating a following. He was interested in pointing
people to the Lamb of God, and that's who John got to see. John
pointed out this, and in 1 Peter 1, verse 18, says, for as much
as we know that we're not redeemed with corruptible things as silver
and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your
fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb
without blemish, and without spot. So he got to see those
who had been redeemed by the blood of this lamb. They're clothed
with white robes. What does that mean? Well, we
find the answer to that in the book of Isaiah, chapter 61. I'll
greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my
God, for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He
hath covered me with a robe of righteousness. You know, there's
one essential, well, there's really three essential things
we must have if we're ever gonna meet God on good terms. We must
have perfect righteousness. And there's only one place for
that, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. We must have our sins
forgiven. And there's only one place that
takes place, and that's in Jesus Christ. And we must have a spiritual
being created. and that is only in Jesus Christ. So in Revelation chapter 7 and
verse 9, John saw a great host of folks with palm branches,
and these palm branches are very symbolic. If we follow that out
through the scriptures and out through history, we find they
were a sign of victory and joy. We're glad to be here, and Christ
has given us the victory. We're here by divine appointment.
Now, what did he hear? My goodness, as we start there,
go back to your yellow page if you would. They cried with a
loud voice saying, so he got to hear something. It's a wonderful
thing when God gives us the privilege of hearing something, to hear
his word. For years, his word meant nothing
to me. And then one day it meant everything
to me. Here it says, it cried with a
loud voice saying, salvation to our God, which sitteth upon
the throne and unto the lamb. And all the angels stood round
about the throne and about the elders and the four beasts and
fell before the throne on their faces and worshiped God saying,
amen. blessing, and glory, and wisdom,
and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might be unto
our God forever and ever. Amen. What a song of praise was
brought out in that scene that John heard. He heard the great
glories of that multitude of people as they realized where
they were in the presence of a thrice holy God on good terms
because of the blood of Christ. Salvation is of the Lord, is
what they were essentially saying. They were saying blessing, amen,
blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor,
and all of these things is summed up in Jonah's words from that
great vicious belly, salvation is of the Lord. Not of us, not
of you, but of Him. Now what did he learn? He learned
a number of things as we followed this out. He saw some things,
he heard some things, and then he learned some things. And in
the last section of this, beginning with verse 13, and one of the
elders answered, saying unto me, what are these which are
arrayed in white robes, and whence came they? And you know what? John was so honest in his answer.
He didn't jump to conclusions. He didn't say, well, I think
this is true. Well, let me look at his commentary.
He just simply said the best thing he could possibly say,
and that was, as we read there, Sir, thou knowest. I don't know, but you know. Now, that takes me back to a
scene in the Old Testament, in the book of Ezekiel, when Ezekiel,
the prophet of God, was taken out to a valley full of dry bones.
Now, coming over Seven Mile Hill, that could have been one of those
valleys down that we looked at that was burned, because no doubt
there are a lot of lizards there that didn't make it out. Maybe
some snakes. Well, this valley in the book
of Ezekiel was filled with human bones. And they were dry bones. And they were extremely dry bones.
Now, I grew up in an area in extreme northern California,
where every once in a while, a cow would die. And over the
process of time, you could actually see the skeleton of those animals
after all of the meat was gone and the sinew and everything
else. And we'd say, wow, look at the ribs. Oh, look at that.
I wonder what that bone is. Well, here we have a scene of
human bones and Ezekiel is taken out there and God Almighty asked
him, can these bones live? You know what Ezekiel's answer
was? Thou knowest, only God knows. Now, we'd say no, that's not
going to happen. These bones are never going to
happen again. Well, we read the account in
the book of Ezekiel, And it tells us that these, the hand of the
Lord was upon me and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord
and set me down in the midst of the valley, which was full
of bones and caused me to pass by them round about and behold,
there were very, very many in the open valley and lo, they
were very dry. And he said unto me, son of man,
can these bones live? And I answered, oh Lord, thou
knowest. If we follow that out, we find out that God came worked
his work of grace, put those bones back together, put sinew
on them, put flesh on them, and there arose an exceeding great
army, like as in heaven. That's exactly what God must
do for us. We are dead in trespasses and
sin, and we have to have somebody come along whose ability to raise
us up. We can't raise ourself. You can't
raise a dead man. Only God can. And he demonstrated
that three times in the New Testament. Well, as we go on through here,
the answer that the elders gave, what did he learn? These are
they which came out of great tribulation. Now notice that
it doesn't say the great tribulation, it says great tribulation. You
know, God brings his people, through many, many different
ways. We look back and sometimes it
was tribulating. I remember a friend of mine telling
about a lady, her name was Sister Tilly, and she was having a dither.
He said, ''What's happening, Sister Tilly?'' She says, ''Well,
the Bible said I'd have tribulation, so I'm just here tribulating.''
Sometimes we make up our tribulating, don't we? Well, this is tribulation
that God permitted to come upon his people. Some left this earth
in a terrible manner. Some left this earth after great
tribulation, health-wise, all kinds of tribulation. One of
the greatest tribulations I ever had in my life was to find out
that my religion was worthless. I had religion, but it was worthless. And then God permitted me to
hear the gospel. What else? They have washed their
robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Their
natural self-righteous robes are filthy. You know, the Bible
says our righteousness is as filthy as rags. But these robes
are righteous, they are the righteousness of Christ. Also it says there,
and there before the throne and serve him in day and night in
his temple. In his temple, serve him in his
temple. Who's the temple? Christ. He's
the covering for all the saints and they will serve him in Christ. He that sitteth on the throne
shall dwell among them. What a thing to learn, that he
that sitteth upon the throne shall dwell with his people.
You know, I've read about kings that have a lot of people in
their kingdom, but hardly any of them got to come into his
presence. This host of people is in the presence of the king,
in the presence of God, because he has invited them there by
his grace. They shall hunger no more. Their
souls shall be completely satisfied. They shall thirst no more. Their
soul shall be completely satisfied. And the sun shall no more be
scorching heat will affect them. So everything there. And as I
went down through here and read John's name and what he heard
and what What he saw, what he heard, and what he learned, I
believe, applies to everyone that has ever been born again.
When God calls them out of this world into his presence, they
too get to hear, see, and learn things they could not learn here. You know, the amount that we
know about the Bible is probably about this much compared to how
much there is. But there, we shall know him
as he is, face to face. The New Living Translation says,
for the Lamb on the throne will be their shepherd. He will lead
them in springs of living water, and God will wipe away tears
from their eyes. I just think of that, no more
tears. No more tears. I mentioned out there this morning
that Brother Duane anticipated this time. All I had to do is
turn around to the headstone that his wife's name was on,
and next to that was his name. He anticipated this day. He didn't
fear this day. He anticipated this day. He looked
forward to this day. Now, he was glad to live as long
as he could. Don't get me wrong. But when that day approached,
he stepped through this life to the next life in anticipation
of meeting his great king face to face and hearing seeing and
learning the things that be of God as we read about them here
in the Book of Revelation. The Lamb at the center of the
throne continuously shepherds them until life guiding them
to everlasting fountains of water of life and God will wipe away
all tears. We can't say enough positive
about this place that God puts all his people. Now, in no manner,
is everybody that was ever born in that situation. He said to a whole group of people,
welcome to the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of
the world. But on the other side of the
line, There was a whole host that didn't hear that word. I
pray to God we can see, hear, and learn the things that be
of Christ. All right. Brother Mike, if you'll
come.