Lord, it seems that our world
has gone crazy. And even so many professing children,
Lord, have lost their minds putting their hope in man, woman, government,
elections. Lord, help us to rest in the
peace of your sovereignty. It brings us such comfort. It
brings us a resolve that the world looks upon and says how
foolish and ignorant. Lord, help us to stand in that,
that your name will be glorified. We do pray for our country, we
do pray for our government, Lord, that in your mercy you would
see fit to rise up leaders that would be government as you have
called and ordained it to be. But Lord, we have not seen that
in some time in our land. And so Father, if it suits you
and your purpose to continue to let the governments of this
world go down, then so be it. Fathers, we come tonight, we
put aside all those things, we put aside life, we put aside
the anxieties and cares of our world, and of our home, and of
our job, and our health, or whatever may be on our hearts today, and
we rest knowing that You are sovereign in it all, that You
are supreme over all of the evil, all of the wickedness, all of
the maliciousness, the murder, Lord, even the enemy, You send
him to do that which fits Your decree. Help us to rejoice in
that. And we thank You for the privilege
of praying to Your ears through Jesus Christ the Son. Amen. Revelation chapter 7. Y'all reading
this stuff through the week? Or are you just waiting for me
to read it to you? Alright, that sounds good. A little recap. Just stay off
YouTube. It'll get you. A little recap. Chapters 1 through 3, well specifically
chapter 1, we saw Jesus Christ giving revelation to John and
then he calls himself the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning
and the end. We see the supremacy of Christ. In chapters 2, we
see Jesus speaking to John in letters to the churches of Asia
Minor. We see Jesus giving condemnation and commendation to the churches.
We see Jesus saying that if these churches do not repent, they
shall suffer tribulation, they shall have their lights taken
out, they shall be removed, they shall suffer the second death,
things of that nature. In chapters 4 and 5, we saw two
things which are really one. In chapter 4, we saw the one
seated upon the throne to whom all glory and honor and wealth
and worthiness is due. And we see that that is God.
God the Father in some sense. And then we see in chapter 5
that this Lamb that was slain actually takes the scroll from
the Father's hand and is worthy to open the decrees of God. And
in doing so, this power and glory and position of God seated on
the throne is also extended to the Lamb. So we see the Godhead,
remember the Trinity, the tri-fold, premises of the Trinity that
the Bible says that there is one God and one God alone. And
the second thing for us to understand, and this is new to our study
here, but this is truth. The second thing for us to understand
about the Trinity is that the Trinity in the scripture, each
person of the Godhead is described as God. Father, the Son, and
the Spirit is described as God in worship, in work, in creation,
and submission. And then finally, the third thing
we know about the Trinity is that each person is distinct
and is separate in their personhood, or in their being, but yet they're
all one God. All three statements are true.
And so we see the Lamb actually being given worship and honor
and glory, just as God is on the throne. And the Lamb is worthy
to open the decrees of the one who sits on the throne. Then
the Lamb, as He opens the scroll, and as He breaks each seal, we're
at seal 6 right now. You notice seal 7 is not until
chapter 8. But as these six seals have unfolded, we've seen some
things that happened through history. We've seen several things
last week. That the Lamb is the one commanding
to the decrees of God, the enemy of God. The angel on the white
horse that has been given a crown and a bow to wreak havoc and
destruction and to conquer. This is the devil that God has
established for his purpose to go out and rank terror on the
world. It is happening right now, simultaneously. as worship
is happening in heaven to God and to the Lamb, the Son of God. The scripture shows us in the
stuff that we've already learned is that we see that the day of
the Lord will bring restitution for those who are martyred, for
the church who dies under the maliciousness of evil. And he revealed that Christ,
the Lamb, Though he commands all things, he commands the army
of the devil, if you will, he brings all calamity upon the
earth as king, and this proves to us that nothing goes on apart
from the rule of the supremacy of Christ. And in that action
of supremacy, he rules sovereignly. And then he finally asks the
question at the end of chapter 6, he says, then who can stand?
Who can stand? And in chapter 7, that is being
answered. So we need to know a few things
about chapter 7, because what we tend to do, because we've
been taught a lot of things about the reading of Revelation, and
what we end up doing is when we read this stuff, even though
we try so hard to read it, Objectively, we do not. We read it subjectively
with all of this prior learning and all of this media type thing
and all of this dispensationalism and all of this pre-post millennium
stuff. Oh, I forgot to open that. Anyway,
And we read into the text rather than the text being interpreted
and read from and interpreted out of the text. So the question
is, who can stand? Chapter 8 reveals the seventh
seal. And so what we need to know is
that this interlude now, chapter 7 is an interlude between the
sixth and seventh seals and the revelation of John. And what
we end up doing is, if we read with all these presuppositions,
that means just prior learning, prior understanding, and bias. If we read with that bias in
mind, we'll think that John is showing us a chronology of events. And it has not happened. There's
no chronology of any event yet. It's not happened at all. If
I look over here, and then I look, and I saw this, and then I look
here, and then I saw this, and then I look here, and then I
saw this, and I look over there, and I saw this. It's all happening.
And if I'm looking at a volume of history books and I look over
here and I read this book and then I see that and I look over
here and then I see that and I look over here and I see that,
it's not chronology, it's just showing you the narrative of
what I'm looking at and what order I'm seeing it. It doesn't
mean that it's the order in which it's happening. So keep that
in mind as we read Revelation. There's nowhere in this text
that we're seeing this is going to happen, and then after that
this is going to happen, and then after that this is going
to happen. It's not there. It just says, I looked and then
I saw, and then I saw, and then I saw. Because he's not omniscient,
he can't see everything at all times, so he's looking and being
revealed something, and then something here is being revealed.
It's sort of like the last two, not the last, but the previous
three Star Wars. They were prequels, but they
were printed and produced, and after the original story. That
happens in the writing of Revelation, in the reading of Revelation,
and we see it very clearly if we read it without assumption.
So this interlude, this chapter 7, is an interlude between the
opening of the 6th seal and the opening of the 7th seal. And
the reason that it's here is because the writer has been asked
a question, and now the writing is going to answer the question,
who shall stand? Let's look at some of the verses.
I'll read some verses, we'll talk about it. I'll read some
verses, we'll talk about it, then we'll close. After this I saw
four angels standing at the four corners of the earth." By the
way, the Flat Earth Society uses that as text positive proof that
the earth is flat. "...holding back the four winds
of the earth, that no wind might blow on the earth, or sea, or
against any tree. Then I saw another angel ascending
from the rising of the sun with the seal of the living God, and
he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been
given power to harm the earth and sea, saying, Do not harm
the earth, or the sea, or the trees, until we have sealed the
servants of our God on their foreheads, And I heard the number
of the sealed, 144,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons
of Israel." Now we're going to stop there and we're going to
talk about this. Remember what we learned last week in chapter
6. We see what? We see the destruction of the
earth and the heavens. We see everything that was created coming
to a great end in the day of the judgment of the Lord. And
at the same time, simultaneously, like a twinkling in the eye,
Paul would say, all the righteous in Christ are vindicated and
established anew in the resurrection. And then at the same time, simultaneously,
instantly, all of the reprobate, all of the unbelieving are put
into the lake of fire. There's a second death there,
and we'll see that over in the latter part of the letter. But
you have to ask a couple of questions that are actually presented here.
And if you look at the text, remember when we looked, it was
the week before the last Tuesday at our other building, and I
talked about how we should look at apocalyptic literature. And
one of the last things that I said that night is the deer in the
headlights. That's the way it was, because I went very, very
fast, and it was a lot of stuff. But one of the things that I
reminded us about is that there is a biblical synergy that must
be kept at the top of biblical interpretation. And so that if
we understand what the Bible is to say, we must understand
what the Bible has already said on the topic. So we cannot impose
External influences upon the interpretation of the text, like
what mama says, or grandmama says, or the pastor says, or
what the media says, or what the author says, or what the
movie says. Charlton Heston doesn't write the book about Moses, he
just acted the part and got it wrong. So you know, and that's
an old movie. I lost my train of thought. So
we don't impose. We look at Scripture and say,
OK, what could that mean? Scripture then will identify
the meaning of that text elsewhere and it will not change. So if
God talks about grace and covenant, We know that if there is a covenant
that is anything but Jesus Christ salvifically, that that covenant
is a temporal covenant, it's an earthly covenant, it's not
meant to be effectual salvifically. So in other words, there is no
one in the history of the creation of the world who has ever been
saved apart from grace, apart from Jesus Christ. Never. There's
no possibility. If there is a possibility, God's
a liar and everything in the Bible is off. It's done. And so these
dogmatic things to think about, we should think about them that
dogmatically when we look at the interpretation of text. Well,
if this is what I think it is, then how is it that? So there's
a couple of questions. First, I want us to see what's
happening here. These four angels holding back
the four corners of the world. What do we see in chapter 6?
What was it? Destruction of what? All of the
world. All of the cosmos. The sky is folded up like a scroll. And so here is these angels being
told, do not harm the earth yet. Don't harm the earth yet. Hold
it back. Don't kill it. Don't destroy
it. Why? Until we have sealed the servants
of our God on their foreheads. What does that mean? We'll look
at it. So here we see that the earth will not be harmed, which
is when? Judgment Day. Until the full number of the
elect are in. That's what it means. Until all of God's children come
to salvation, the earth is safe. The land is safe. Judgment Day
does not come until all for whom Christ has died have come in. Now think about that for a second. There's a lot of good buddies
I have who are full preterists who think that's already taken
place. We learned about the positions of end times. Preterism means
that every prophecy, everything that's ever going to happen in
the context of Scripture and the coming of Jesus and all that
has already been done, already been fulfilled and the earth
is just in this perpetual state of declination and when we die
we're resurrected into another realm. Well, the Bible doesn't
necessarily teach that explicitly anywhere. So we don't believe
that. But some people will say that.
Then what, pray tell, is the Lord saying if He's saying wait?
There's a full number of people that are going to come and we're
waiting on them to be saved, so we're waiting. What is this? Why is this even good? Remember
who's listening to this letter? People who are dying by the hundreds
every day. People who are being run out
of town and disowned and losing their property and losing their
lives. Their children are being sold into slavery, being arrested,
they're being fed to animals, burned like lampposts. And all
of a sudden, now they've been told that there's this great
cosmic judgment day. And they don't have anything
to worry about because they're sealed by God. And that the terror
of the judgment day and the destruction of the earth will not come upon
them. For they have nothing to fear. This is a picture of hope. The
Spirit says, listen. Those who have an ear to hear,
listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. Jesus Christ says in the beginning
of this letter that we ought to listen and understand, and
if we understand and hear the Word of God, then we are blessed. Blessed is the one who hears
and does what is written in the prophecy. These people knew what
was happening, and they understood that there was not going to be
one of them lost, but they would be sealed by the Lord for salvation
forever. Much happens in this letter,
and it seems like a little short letter, but it would take us
years to preach, but in God's grace we're going to do it in
just a couple of months, going on Tuesdays. But there's something
that we need to understand, and I've mentioned it before in the
very first three weeks. There's something that authors
do called recapitulation. And that means they give a recap
of what has already been stated. And here in chapter 7, there
is a recapitulation of what's happening in chapter 6 from a
different perspective. You might say, whoa, whoa, whoa
now, you're reading into it. No, I'm not. I'm not doing the
same error that these second creationists do. You know what
a second creationist is? You never heard of it? These
are the people who think there's a world that was created in Genesis
chapter 1, and Lilith, and what's the other guy's name? Anyway,
they were created, they fail, and then God created another
group of people, Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 2. That's where they get that. They
get that because in Genesis we see the creation of the world
and everything in it, the creation of the man and woman, and in Genesis
chapter 1, and in Genesis chapter 2 we see a specific detail of
the creation of Adam and Eve, of humanity. Chapter 3 we see
the fall of that. So here in chapter 7, we see
what is going on also at the same time that we see the terror
on earth, peace in heaven. All of this is going on since
the beginning of days, and is still going on today. And when
the full number of the chosen are in, then God sets it all
straight, all the records straight, and we see that the latter part
of chapter 6, what do we see? We see peace in heaven. We see
all of that. Here in chapter 7, we start to
see these simultaneous happenings. It's a recapitulation of chapters
4 and 5 that show us simultaneous happenings. It's like watching
a sitcom about a bunch of people that live in an apartment complex,
but they're not in the same room. And while this is going on, you
hear this conversation, you hear this conversation. But these
conversations are happening like a soap opera at the same time. You can't
see them all at the same time. You can't put six images on the
screen and listen to them. So you have to hear what this
person said, and this person said, and this person said. And
that's what's happening here in the book of Revelation, all
throughout it. Because we'll see the fall of Satan from glory
later on in the letter. We know that happened long before
God created the world, so why is it in here? It's not a narrative
of historical sequence. It's a revelation, it's a revealing
of pictures, so that we can understand what has happened, what is going
to happen, what is happening, and how the Lord is sovereign
over it all. That's the point. And so when we see this stuff,
keep in mind, and as we keep going I'll remind us, remember
this, remember this, this is a recapitulation of this, this
is a restatement of that. This chapter is... simultaneous. But the question then comes from
this, this seal. This seal is important because
if we don't know what the seal means in the context of Scripture,
then we're going to misapply the meaning of the seal all the
way through the reading of this letter. What does it mean? It
says there that, "...do not harm the earth, the seas, or the trees
until we have sealed..." Hear that? "...the servants of our
God on their foreheads." And then he heard a number, 144,000
sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel. Here is this
sealed. What is this? In Ezekiel chapter
9, I think it's the first few verses, the first five verses,
the Lord promises to seal those who love Him. And He does so
in the context of being able to show their identity. It is
an identifier, and this identifier produces an escape from judgment. That's what the Lord preaches
through the prophet Ezekiel. We also understand throughout
all of the Old Testament, and even historically, not even for
Judaism, but even other pagan tribes and nations, that the
seal of a king, just like we've seen the seals being broken on
this scroll that Jesus is opening, showing His authoritative command
over these things, the seal of a king is something that actually
puts permanence to it. Like the signature of a president
on an executive order is what makes it legal. You can't stamp
it. You can't stamp the president.
You've got to have his signature on that. The king's seal. If
someone had the king's seal back in the days of the monarchy,
they could make havoc in the world or the realm. Because the
seal is what made legal all declarations. A seal is what made legal a document.
A seal is what gave legal notes. It's their power. If the king
says, you will do this or you will die, it is because his seal
has been affixed to that thing. So a seal on the forehead or
the seal on the heads of the people of God is important. Because
God wants to surely identify His people. But what is that
seal? Well, how about a birth certificate?
There's a seal on the birth certificate of all my children. And without
that seal, guess what? It's not authentic. It's not
acceptable. Well, God places his seal of
grace on his people. We see in the illusion of the
Old Testament and we see the reality of the New Testament
showing that the sealing of God's people is done how? Through whom?
to the Spirit. The Spirit of God is that which
seals the people of God. These people have been sealed
by the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God is the seal of
grace. Their minds have become Christ's minds. Their affections
have become divine. Everything that we are, we love
glory, we love the Lord. He puts His law in our hearts
and causes us to walk in His statutes. He seals us by the
Spirit. And so in the sense here, the
people of God know Him and they are known by Him. He seals them. And that which is sealed on their
head is the things that they know, the things that they think,
the things that they believe. The seals on a hand will be the
things that they do, the things that they're known for. Jesus
says, they will know you by your fruit. Well friends, we can understand
that the seal of God on His people is always the Holy Spirit. In
Ephesians chapter 1, 13-14, listen to these texts. In Him you also,
when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation,
and believed in Him, you were sealed with the promised Holy
Spirit. who is the guarantee of our inheritance
until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory. And Paul does not even end there.
In chapter 4 of the same letter to the church of Ephesus, he
tells them very clearly, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God
by whom you were sealed for what? The day of redemption. So the
seal of God is the Spirit of God. It's not a physical seal. God doesn't need physical marks
on His people. The physical mark in Galatians
was rebuked and destroyed as a temporary expression of a permanent
covenant. What does that mean? Paul says,
don't be a fool, don't fall prey to feel like you have to have
a seal that was made by human hands, for God has got to circumcise
your heart. Are you not His? There's a lot
of people, as I mentioned Sunday, that have the regalia of Christianity,
but yet they do not have the heart of Christ. They put on
the helmet of salvation because it fits nice and tight, but it's
not their mind. What does it really mean here
in Revelation? That God has a claim on these people. God has a claim
on these people, and none of them will suffer judgment. They
will be saved because the judgment that is deserving of them has
been put on the lamb which was slain. In 2 Corinthians chapter
1 we see this in verse 21 and 22. Now it is God who makes us,
listen to this, this is so good. It is God who makes us, both
us and you, stand firm in Christ. You hear that? It is God who
makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us. He set His seal of ownership
on us and put His Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing
what is to come. Y'all, that's strong stuff. Don't
you think that these Christians here in this first century church
As the news of this letter reached their ears, and they heard about
the sealing of God upon their lives, that they began to weep
with joy that there was never going to be an opportunity for
them to die forever, but they would have eternal life in Christ
Jesus. This is the seal of God. There is never a fear of the
decrees of God as Jesus Christ the Lamb opens the seals of the
decrees of God. For in God's decrees, even when
calamity is sent by His sovereign hand, it is for the good and
the joy of His people who will always be vindicated. It's beautiful
stuff. Those suffering in this life
then, here, the original readers of this text, are guaranteed
life in Jesus Christ because God has sealed them. So that's
what the seal should represent here. Then the question begs
is, then who are they? I hear 144,000. Wow, that number
flies everywhere. And if we got through this chapter
17, we get back into the 144,000 again and they're doing something.
Jehovah's Witnesses claim that only 144,000 people will actually
be in heaven with Jesus Christ, and the rest of those who believe
will be on the earth. Those who are 144,000, according to the
Witnesses, are those who are the elders in the church. And
these who are elders in the church are the ones who are able to
take communion. I've talked with a lot of Jehovah's
Witnesses through the years, and I've asked them all, have
you ever seen anybody take the Lord's table at your, whatever
that, Kingdom Hall? And none of them have said, no,
no, we've never met an elder. And me and some buddies in Cali
thought, let's just go in there and eat that bread one day. Take
that wine. I mean, what would it do? You
get arrested for doing that in that state. But who are the sealed? We see verses 5 through 8. We
see this 12,000 from the tribe of Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher,
Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulon, Joseph, and
Benjamin. I find those interesting. But
here we see a representation of all the tribes of Israel who
were what? who were the sons of Jacob, who
is the son of Abraham, right? I missed one. Isaac, who is the
son of Abraham, who is the son of some ziggurat-loving, moon-worshipping pagan. He was a nobody. He said
nothing, God made him something. He was not a people, God made
him a people. And God promised something to Abram, didn't He?
He said, you're going to have a son. And Isaac's name means laughter because
his old wife said, nah. And she laughed. It's a joke. It's not funny, Abram. God said,
you're going to have a son. His name shall be Isaac. He shall
have a son. His name is, what, Jacob. And he had a brother,
right? Esau. And Esau was the elder brother.
Esau was the son of promise. Esau was the one who had the
authority according to all law to inherit the right. But he
sold it for a sandwich. You know what I mean. For a meal.
For stew. Who eats stew? I wouldn't give
a good pair of shoes for stew. Anyway. And the scripture says
that Jacob I loved and Esau I hated. God purposed that Jacob would
be the father of many because He promised Abraham to be the
father of many nations. And out of those children come
the twelve tribes of Israel. Not even the children, some grandsons
in there. And so here we have this depiction of all these tribes
and they said they're sealed. But let me tell you three things
about this text in verses 5 through 8. It's amazing how little numbers
and headings in our Bible are destructive to our reading. If
you do not have one, I highly suggest you skip a couple of
months going out to eat and save $18. I mean, some of us could
do that in one meal at McDonald's. Don't go out to eat for a couple
of weeks. Save $18 and buy your household a Bible that doesn't
have any numbers in it. It's called a reading Bible.
And read the Bible. And you'll be amazed at how the
syntax of the English language actually works when you're not
constantly chopping it off. Oh, this is about 144,000. Alright,
next. Now this is about the multitude
from every nation. Next. Now this is... Listen,
it's the same sentence, y'all. Just because there's a period
doesn't mean it's a different sentence. If you go to Ephesians
chapter 1, the whole thing is two sentences long. The whole
first chapter of Ephesians is two. How many periods did you
find? A bunch of them. So listen, 12,000 from the tribe
of Judah were sealed. The tribe of Reuben, Gad, Asher,
Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulon, Joseph, 12,000
from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed. And after this I looked
and behold, what did he do to start with? He heard the number. He heard this being called out.
He heard. He heard. 12,000, 12,000, 12,000,
12,000, 12,000. Then he looked to see it. See, it says it right there in
English. Take your white out and bust out all these silly
little headings. They do not mean anything. He heard, and then after I heard
this, I looked and behold, A great multitude that no one could number,
from every nation, from all tribes, and peoples and languages standing
before the throne and before the Lamb. What is that? These
ones, who we see here, these 144,000
that He heard declared, the number, are the same ones who in verse
10, what do they do? And crying out with a loud voice,
salvation belongs to God who sits on the throne and to the
Lamb. All of these are the ones who are crying out, salvation
belongs to God and to the one who sits on the throne and to
the Lamb. These are the ones who cry. This
is a cry of those who belong to God the Father, who is their
finder, who is their keeper, who is their redeemer. I came
to seek and save the lost. All who come to Me, none will
come to Me except the Father give them to Me. All that the
Father gives Me come to Me and all that come to Me I will never
cast out. Beloved, we are in that number. We are in this number. I heard
and then I looked and I could not count 144,000. Why put it there then? What's it look like? How many
tribes were there? Twelve. How many apostles were
there? Twelve. Twelve is an important
number. Twelve is an important number when counting. So if there's
twelve, and then if there's another number of perfection, what is
it? Seven. What's another? A thousand. Three. But a thousand. A thousand is the number of perfection.
So what better exponentially expressive word or number to
use for perfection or completeness than 12,000? Think about it for
a second. This 144,000 people is a fixed number of completion,
not a literal number. We don't see that anywhere in
Scripture. A literal number of who will be saved has never been
expressed in Scripture. Verse 9 shows that this group
of sealed tribes were innumerable. After this is not next. After this I saw is not, and
then I saw this group, and then I saw that group, and then I
saw this group. It's this is what I saw next. This is what
we heard and this is explaining this. And this happens all throughout,
all up to these last six chapters. We've seen this very same language.
Now as I said when we started there's a lot of presuppositional
things that had not ever been taught until really the 1930s
in this country. Had never been heard of until
the 1870s about this 144,000. Nobody in ever history thought
that it was an actual number of counted Jews that would be
saved in the end of time. That's a very weak number. God
did a very poor job of saving Jews. I would suggest to you
friends that there are way more many Jews that have been saved
in life than 144,000. Paul probably preached to that
many his first month out. You see what I mean? And who
were Jews anyway? They never had a nation. They
never had a government. They never kept any land. They
were always in slavery. I'll give you this land if you
follow me." They couldn't, they wouldn't, they didn't, and he
put them in slavery. I'll let you back out, rebuild
your temple, take it away again. Even though they had a temple
during this time, I don't believe there was a temple at the time
this was written. This was in the 90s, and I firmly stand on that. There was no temple now for the
Jews. They were not a people again.
They had no nation, they had no government, they had nothing.
Why? Cause. That was not God's intention.
Just like us as Americans, it's not God's intention for us to
be good Americans who are Christians. Our kingdom is not of this world,
and as we exercise our rights as citizens of this country,
we do so very loosely. It's not ultimate, it doesn't
matter, because there's no such thing as God's nation called
America. Of course it's God's nation,
so is Syria, so is Afghanistan, so is China, so is whatever. Russia! Oh my gosh! They all
belong to God, for He created them that He might destroy them.
Friends, listen. The sealed here in this text,
as we see, are one group of people. Ephesians 2 declares that apostasy. To think that Jews are going
to be saved separate from Gentiles. Salvation is of the Jews. Beloved,
we're saved just as the Jews are. How? Through Christ. Paul says in Ephesians 2, there
is no longer two men, two people, but one man that we've been grafted
in. There's a blessedness there that we see in John chapter 4
where this very, very mixed up Samaritan who was worshiping
in a replica of Solomon's temple over in Mount Gerizim, we worship
over there the same way you worship over here, so we're doing the
same stuff. And Jesus says, the Jews are
wrong, you're wrong. You're wrong, you're all wrong.
You think this is going to put you in right standing with God?
You think Abraham and Jacob, you think these guys, because
you have a lineage there, is going to put you in right standing
with God? Who can stand? Jesus is showing her. You can't
stand up. before God and say Jacob gave
you the well that you drank from? You can't stand up before God
and say that there's hope for you because you come from the
light lineage, that you have some mixed-bred Hebrew in you.
You can't stand before God and say you've worshipped in the
right church, or done the right stuff, or sacrificed the right
way, or prayed the right words. You can't stand before God. This
doesn't happen before the Father. Because the time has come, and
it is now, where true worshipers will not worship this way, but
they will worship in spirit and in truth. And at that moment,
she is born again. Because all the hope and everything
that she had hoped for, even in her flesh, just went away. And she cries this little cry,
I guess Messiah will teach us all things. What is that a statement?
That's a confession that came from her heart. That the only
hope she has is that the Messiah would take her to the place where
she would worship in spirit and worship in truth. That Messiah
would have to teach her how to stand before God and not be condemned.
That Messiah and Jesus says the words that are miraculously beautiful
to my ears because He says them to me and He says them to you.
The one of whom you speak, I am. And she goes back and she says,
behold, I met a man that told me everything I've ever done.
He didn't tell her anything but that she was living with a man
who wasn't her husband. And that her religion was false. Just
by inquisition. But the Holy Spirit of God came
upon her and she became the sealed. Those who rejected Jesus in Jerusalem
at the temple, when He actually fulfills the prophecy that He
would have zeal for His Father's house. And they reject him. How dare you say you could rebuild
this magnificent expression of love to God in three days? It took us 48 years to build
this. And then he goes to Sychar. A
people that the Jews, if they saw coming, would go the wrong
way and be late. Before they'd walk down the same
side of the street as him. And he saves them. Salvation belongs to God. This
sealed group is now one body. They are complete. One body.
One Lord. One faith. One baptism. Determined
and set by the Lord. And their number is uncountable. Their number is many. A multitude. After this I looked. No one could count. What are
they doing? We saw it over in chapter 4 and 5, didn't we? They're
worshipping. Right now in heaven, they're worshipping. Right now
in heaven, people are worshipping the Lamb. Right now, even in
their spiritual bodies, as we see there, the martyrs who have
yet to be resurrected, the judgment day that has yet to come, they're
worshipping in some abled way. Their consciousness is worshipping,
and they're worshipping the King of Kings. And there is peace
in heaven, and there is chaos on our friends. If there's not
chaos in your eyes, just go home and watch the news tonight. Watch
social media as Christians will divide over politicians. Church discipline, if it were
practiced, we would clean the house in our nation if pastors
paid attention to their church members' Facebook pages. Clean
house. I mean, because you know when
you call them out on it, they'd thumb their nose at you and walk
out. It's none of your business. Praise God for His grace upon
us, y'all. We don't have a people who...
I mean, we got sin, y'all. But we're not dividing over this
stuff. There's people not speaking up here at this church. People
have left that church up there just in the last few months because
of conversations around Bible studies about politicians. Lord
have mercy. I'm not saying they're lost,
but they sure are making a mess of it. This great multitude, this eleven
and twelve, verses eleven and twelve, the crowd, verse ten,
salvation belongs to the Lord, to our God who sits on the throne
and to the Lamb. And the angels were standing around the throne
and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they
fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped, saying,
Amen, blessed in glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and
power and might be to our God forever and ever and ever. Amen.
This recap of what we saw in chapters 4 and 5 is worship in
heaven. This is all happening now and
forever. And especially when we get to
heaven, we will rejoice in this way. I do not like the hymn because
of the meter and the fact that it's probably Fanny Crosby, and
I don't know why. I feel like I should juggle when
I hear some of those, you know, that 6'8 meter. It's just a personal
issue. But there's a hymn, and I'm not
even saying it's hers, but when we all get to heaven, What a
day of rejoicing that will be when we all see Jesus. What does
it say? Sing and shout the victory. I
mean, it's hokey, but it's true. It's true. Yeah, it's hokey.
I mean, you know, it's a good truth. It's good. It's what we're
looking for. We are victorious when we're
in Christ. No matter how bad things are here, no matter how
much persecution comes upon our life, no matter if those, like
our brothers and sisters who are dying this very day in other
parts of the world because they will not renounce the glory of
God and renounce Jesus Christ the Son, their lives are taken
from them. They are going to take their
last breath here in pain and sing that song in glory. That's
the hope that comes from reading this text. What about all the
other stuff that we've heard? I don't know and nobody does,
so stop teaching it as though we do. We don't know, but we
do know that that's a complete number and it's a complete people
and everybody who will be saved is counted in that number because
it's innumerable from every tongue and every tribe and every nation.
And we don't need to start sitting there thinking about how we ought
to get 444,000 Israelites to come to faith. Let's just preach
the gospel to all nations, like we're told to do in Matthew 28,
and then the Lord will bring in all of His people, and as
soon as we're all in, He's coming back. All the people of the world.
When we see Jesus in John 3, For God loved the world in this
way that He gave the only Son that He had, that whoever is
the believing ones in Him would have eternal life and not perish.
That's an exact translation of that text. Most of us know it
as for God so loved the world. Some people think that means
God loved the world so much. That's not what English says.
God so loved. I so slapped the microphone.
How did He slap it? Like so. Do it again. How was it? Like so. How did
God love the world? Like so, He gave His Son. This
is God's love for the world. Who is the world? All those for
whom Christ died, of every nation, of every tribe, of every tongue,
of every language standing before the Lamb. Who are those people?
Let's keep preaching and see. See, that's the Calvinist dilemma,
isn't it? The chosen, frozen, love to sit in their holy circles
and study theology. and just wait for God and His
sovereignty to just hurl them through the door. We got some
more elect coming. There they are! Get a band-aid
for that. They hit the wall too hard. Come on, sit down. They're
not coming in here until we go out there. They won't. They can't. God said that it
will not happen. The only way someone hears and
believes is if we, in our sovereign election, philosophy, theology,
standard, dogma, whatever you want to call it, which I believe
is the correct thing to think, if we don't go out and preach
the gospel to every living human being, we don't believe in sovereignty. The problem is we've lived in
a day and age when decisionism has drained And the Gospel is
no longer, you're a sinner, you deserve death, God is righteous,
He's going to condemn you, has condemned you, but in His mercy
He's given Jesus Christ the Son to be condemned in your stay.
Will you believe in Christ this day for salvation? See, that's
the Gospel. You were not destined unto wrath,
but to receive eternal life through Jesus Christ the Lord. That's
the Gospel. We've turned it into our code.
I was raised that the Gospel was an ABC. Ask, believe, confess. or a checkbox on a card. If you
want to go to heaven, check A. What does that do? That was a
method we used when we had thousands of people. You don't want to
sit there while thousands of people came up and it's time
to go to lunch. I'm not kidding. If you got saved today, if you
want to be saved, check A. We'll call you tomorrow. Check
A. You know? That's what it's boiled
down to now. If you aren't saved today and
you want the free gift of eternal life that comes through Jesus
Christ on your way out, come down here and pick up a gift
bag inside, it's a $25 gift card, and the answer to that question,
how you can have eternal life. I can show it to you. People,
I know, I swear. It makes me sick. That's not the gospel. But that's what it's been boiled
down to. So when we start to see that the good news is actually
something that God does, we're so scared to even tell anybody
anything, because we don't want to mess it up, we say nothing. The way these people are standing
before the throne is because somebody went to them, according
to Romans 10, and preached, and shared, and read the Word. And
when they spit in our face, and they kick us out, or they hurt
us, or they deny us, or they don't ask us over for barbecue
anymore, you know what? That's not our problem. We didn't
do a bad job. They refuse to believe. And if
they keep it up, God will seal them for destruction. If we keep it up, But listen,
if we preach, God will save. It's not on us to save, it's
us to save. This complement of this 144,000,
it mimics the census that we see in numbers. This counting. It mimics this. This 12,000 here,
12,000. God counted His people then,
and oh beloved, God has counted His people now. All of them in Christ. All of
them by grace. And there is no other covenant
through which we can find salvation but Christ alone. Solus Christus. This is a pillar of evangelical
Protestant life. We believe that salvation comes
only through Jesus Christ. And if there is any other, Paul
says to the Galatians, it is no gospel. Because it does not
say. The promise of Abraham, I believe,
is fulfilled in this 144,000 picture. You will be the Father of many
nations. And the fullness of all of your children, all of
your grandchildren have come. Look, Abraham, you are the Father
of many nations. Look at your children. Look at
your spiritual prodigy. Look at what I have done for
you. This is a fulfillment of the promise of God. Many nations. The promise of Christ is the
Chosen One. Christ is the Son of Promise. And in Christ all peoples have
been purchased. The Gospel has gone wide to the
world. It's something else we need to understand as we see
this. The Gospel which is what? Salvation is of the Jews. Then
this Gospel, this Good News went out from what? Jerusalem. all
out to the outskirts of Judea, and to all of the places, to
Samaria, and then to the world. This gospel has reached the world.
The covenant of God through Jesus Christ has done exactly what
God has promised that it would do. For God loved the world,
so He gave His Son. And the news of His Son has reached
the world, and the world has been saved. Here it is. I didn't
say everyone in the world. I just said the world. Even the
tiny, martyred, teensy, little, insignificant church that existed
during this time, that everyone scoffed when it died, and everyone
scoffed when they went to prison, and everyone scoffed and mocked
when they did not have the power to stand against the sword. As
we see ourselves in heaven, we're large and victorious. We're large,
we're victorious, and nothing's going to change that. Christ
has secured a people. In the same way Christ was glorified,
the church is also glorified. Christ, who is the glory of all
things, the king of all the cosmos, the God of all creation, became
nothing. And suffered. And now the church,
who suffers as her head suffers, becomes nothing and is hated
by men, but then one day will stand victorious and glorious.
Friends, do you understand what a picture that is? We like movies of vindication. We like stories of retribution. Do we not? I mean, let's just
be honest. The Punisher, greatest superhero ever lived. I might
not even should say that. Take it as a grain of salt. But,
I mean, bad guys getting away with it, nobody can stop them.
Boom! Somebody comes in and goes, I stopped it. I stopped it. People come to the place and
start getting tortured and, you know, people sold into slavery
and hated and hanged. Where is justice? Where is justice? Justice never comes. But the
justice of God comes. Not only does the justice of
God come through Jesus Christ, then also the picture of vengeance
comes through Jesus Christ. And those who suffered by the
hands of evil are now vindicated, just as Jesus was vindicated.
Y'all hear that? Verse 13 and 14, and then we're
finished. The elders addressed me. One of the elders addressed
me saying, who are these? Who are these? Clothed in white
robes. And from where have they come?
And this, we're going to have to pick up some in weeks to come
as it starts to explain it a little bit more. And I said to him, sir, you know,
and he said to me, these are the ones coming out of the Great
Tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb. Verse 15 and 14, Therefore they
are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in
His temple. And He who sits on the throne will shelter them
with His presence. They shall hunger no more, neither
thirst any more. The sun shall not strike them,
nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of
the throne will be their shepherd, and He will guide them to springs
of living water. And God will wipe every tear
from their eyes. Now let's explain all that. Six
minutes. Who are these people? They are
the redeemed of God. We saw in chapter 4 and 5, even
chapter 5, that there are those martyrs who have been given white
robes. What is the white robe indicative of? It is an indicator
of victory, number one, and an indicator of righteousness, number
two. These are the victorious ones. Secondly, they've come
through war. They were not raptured out of
it as we see there in verse 14. Sir, you know, these are the
ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed
their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. I love
that imagery. Blood is red, beloved, but they're white in the blood
of Christ the Lamb. They're righteous. They're victorious.
These have come through war. They won. Christ won. They won. How'd they get there? They died. They died, but they won. Who
are they? All who have died. All who have
suffered. All who have been martyred. All.
When? We don't know. The Bible doesn't
teach it. But friends, some of us could be counted in that number.
Some of us could be counted. Who are they? All the multitude
of heaven is who He's pointing to. So all of us are clothed
in white. All of us are victorious. All
of us have cleansed our robes in the blood of the Lamb. All
of us are the ones who have come out of the Great Tribulation. The righteous who are righteous
by the blood of the Lamb is the work of Christ. It is not their
work. It is not the work of their doing.
It is not their endurance of their own power. It is the work
of Christ that kept them safe. It is the work of Christ that
kept them from giving up. It is the work of Christ and
His righteousness that sealed them for the day of redemption
and that held them in the times of tribulation. But who are they specifically?
There's only two things we can tell from the text of Revelation
about the specifics of these people. And here they are. Number one, they are a diverse
people. They're diverse people. There's
Egyptians and Assyrians and all sorts of different peoples from
all different times. There's people in this number who don't
even exist as nations anymore, who don't even exist as ethnos
anymore. There are people in this number from everywhere. Every instrument, every option,
every opportunity of a people, there is a diverse
people here. We are diverse in heaven. Now I have a little pet peeve
that I don't have time to, but let me plug it and maybe we'll
talk about it maybe on a Q&A one night. I think that this
and Ephesians 2 and other places is one of the main reasons that
we need to be very careful about ethnocentric ministry What does
that mean? White people church, black people
church, Hispanic church? I'm not talking about tongue
or language. I'm talking about style and what
people like. Well, you know, this group of
people, they like to sing this way, like you mentioned earlier. Or
this group of people like to sing this way. Or this group
of people like to preach this way. Friends, why is that a dividing
line here? What is the purpose of being
divided over these things? We're a diverse people, but the
second thing that we're, even though we're diverse, what do
we see there? We're unified in everything. We're unified in
victory, we're unified in righteousness, and we're unified in worship.
There's not an African tribe singing African music. An English
tribe singing English music. Boring music. A Chinese tribe singing stuff
we can't understand. There's not an Indian tribe beating
on war drums. You see how that works? Well,
that's a little off. No, it's not. It's exactly how
churches are divided today. In this very city. I was taught
by a pastor one time that the reason churches are divided is
because people and their cultures need to worship in their cultural
style. To which I like to choke on my
tongue. We're unified at heart, mind and soul. Our song is the
same. What is the song? They sing the song. Worthy, worthy,
worthy, worthy, worthy. They serve Him day and night.
He is their shelter. So we need to understand that
there's a lot to be learned and applied. Now why would that be
important to the original hearers here? Because they were in the
midst of a world that hated them already. Think about it. Jewish people were in the midst
of a society that hated them already. Everybody hated the
Jews. Why? Because they were privileged.
They walked around for thousands of years going, we've got the
oracles of God. Our God created you and your
gods. I mean, come on, that takes people
off. You call people's baby ugly, they don't like you anymore.
And that's what the Bible does. It calls our idols ugly. It calls
them what they are. And then we're hated. But yet
we had a bunch of Gentile Christians. We had a bunch of other peoples
who came to Christ. What are we to do? You know what? You're just like they are, John
is saying, Jesus is saying. You're just like they are. You
are one with them. Don't think you're alone in this. It's not just you. John clearly
showed us the words of Jesus to Nicodemus, who thought, surely
this is the Jewish Messiah through which we shall be saved. And
Jesus said, God does not just love you, Nicodemus. God loves
all people. We have to ask the question then,
what is this great tribulation? And we're going to talk about
it more in detail later. Let me give you some thoughts.
as we see it. There are only two places in
the text of Scripture that we see it, in Revelation and in
Matthew 24. Daniel chapter 12? Is it 9? It
might be 9. I know the language here is like
Daniel chapter 12. where we start to see this tribulation, this
suffering, this language that we find here and in Matthew 24
as a reference. But if you go to chapter 2 of
Revelation where we've already been, and you look at verse 22
when Jesus is talking to the church of Thyatira, I believe.
See, that's when these little headings are helpful. He says,
I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her
sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her into
a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her, I will throw
into the great tribulation. Who is he talking to? Christians
in Thyatira who were allowing sin in their lives. He told them
if they did not repent, He would throw them into the great tribulation.
Them, equally, right then. When was it? In their lifetime.
So we know that just from the context of Scripture. In Matthew
24, that's a whole other conversation, a whole other sermon series,
but we will touch on it in weeks to come. Peter teaches, though,
about tribulation, does he not? Peter teaches about tribulation
that will be what? Continual. for a little while. Paul talks
about tribulation in 2 Corinthians 4, that it's going to be light
and momentary. The same word there. Tribulation.
What are we seeing? We're seeing a continual experience
of trials and tribulations. Will there be a final great tribulation? Who knows? What was John's readers thinking
about? The trials and tribulations they were in right then. What
are we thinking about? The trials and tribulations we're
in right now. Why not the latter one? Why not the last one? Because
that's a sin. It's a sin to consider a tribulation
years from now. Jesus says, do not worry about
tomorrow. Do not look for signs. So here He comes. Friends, we've
got things to do, we've got things to be. partaking of and preaching
and teaching and living. We have a mission today, not
tomorrow. Today. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow
may never come. Right now is the day of salvation.
Today is when we are supposed to be active. Today is when we
are supposed to be sober minded and ready for action. I mean,
that's one of the problems the Thessalonians had. They thought
they missed the resurrection. They were like, now what? Just
sit around here and just die. Peter teaches that The church
will suffer tribulation continually until the day of judgment. Paul
says to the Colossians church he's going to fill up what is
lacking in the tribulation of Christ and the suffering of Christ.
So the church is to continually always be filling up and be filled
with suffering so that in the absence of the suffering of Christ
we actually display it in many ways. How? Through trials and
tribulation. This tribulation is the historic
suffering of the people of God, whose readers of this letter
rejoice knowing that the suffering that they see is not worthless,
but good. When will the suffering end?
What do we learn in chapter 6? When will it end? The day of
judgment. When Christ comes back, suffering
ends. It's over. But not until then. Now, there may be seasons. We
don't know what the Lord's going to do. There have been many seasons
where in many places around the world, even in America today,
persecution as a whole is not as tenacious as it could be or
will be one day. How bad will the earth get? Well,
I'm not a post-millennialist. I believe that it's going to
get real bad. And I believe that right now, when we're in a position
of intolerance, Where we have sexual abhorrence on many different
scales, gender issues that are accepted as normative, and anybody
who disagrees with that is now what? Hater. I saw a shirt the
other day, haters be hatin'. Friends, we're looked at as haters
today. Why? Because we stand for what is
righteous. And it's not like we're going around like spiritual
police going, center, center, center, like Westboro Baptist
Church, center, center. I mean, if we're going to do that, just
go to the mirror and go, center, and get it over with. We're all
sinners. But we who are in Christ have
become saints because God has purchased us. Though we still
have sin, these things are written, beloved, that you may not sin.
But if you do sin, you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous, who is our propitiation, and not ours
alone, but the propitiation, what? For the world. And there
we are together, propitiated by Jesus Christ who satisfied
the judgment of God. And Jesus Christ suffered tribulation,
so therefore we shall suffer tribulation. And it's meaningful,
it's worthwhile, it is good. What's to come? We don't know.
We don't know. The only thing I can say to the
end of all of this is, Amen. Amen. Bring it. Bring the trial,
bring the pain, bring the death, bring the victory, because it's
already won. bring the victory. And so when we continue to read
this letter, we see what that victory looks like. We are sheltered
with the presence of God and the shadow of the wings of God. We will never hunger, nor thirst,
nor be scorched by the sun, for the Lamb in the midst of the
throne will be our shepherd and He will guide us to springs of
living water and God will wipe away every tear from our eye. Goodness, I'm getting stifled
here. What a beautiful, what in the world? I'm good. What a beautiful picture. What a beautiful picture. That's
crazy. Something just took my voice
away. What is it that we cry over?
Other than choking. I'll be alright. I'm okay. Other
than choking, there are many things that bring us tears. physical
pains, problems. Friends, sometimes our very faith,
there it is, sometimes our very faith brings us to tears. The
lack of it. The battle in it. The fight.
Aren't you tired of the fight? Aren't you tired? We're fighting
to follow Christ and trust in Him, and all of a sudden the
world comes against us, and our neighbor comes against us, and
the government comes against us. Friends, it's happening.
It's going to happen. It's a promise. We have been for too long as
a Christian nation, as a Christian people in this nation, we have
been too long pacified. And for our joy, God may very
well bring persecution to an exponential reality for us. It
may very well be that we go to jail because we did not bow to
the idols of our government. We think we're protected because
we have a Constitution that affords us unalienable rights. But just like that document was
created, it can so be burned. And if it happens, it is by the
will of God. I'm going to vote like crazy that it doesn't. But
when that time is over, we take what comes. Why? Because we have
a bigger, better mission than that. We have a greater reward,
as the writer of Hebrews says, that we gladly accept the plundering
of our property. Really? I mean, that storm blew
my roof off. I was like, oh, blew my fence
over. Not my fence. It's a roof and
a fence. We gladly, what would it be if
somebody came with a court order and took it because we prayed
in public? We gladly accept the plenty of
our property because we know we have what? A better reward. What's a better reward than the
wealth of the world, and the mansions, and the fences, and
the cars, and anything? But what is it specifically talking
about? An eternal one. It's all trash anyway, according
to John. Jesus himself, actually. What good does it do a man to
gain the whole world, but to lose his soul? What good is it
if we love the world and everything in it? John says that the love
of the Father is not in us. When we fight that, and it's
a battle, y'all. When we fight that battle, and we're fighting
and we're fighting the battle of the mind, as we see in Romans
12. And in Romans chapter 6 and 7, we fight the battle and take
up a cross and just stand resolved to be at peace. The world comes
against us, the enemy comes against us, and he does so by the will
of God. And we are stronger because of it. And we're victorious. And we look stupid in the eyes
of unbelievers. You know, I'd rather be ugly,
crippled, broke, homeless, and hated than stupid. That was one of those things
that growing up, if people called me stupid, I became enraged. I don't want to be stupid. I'd
rather be anything but stupid. But friends, we look stupid to
the world. We believe in this invisible God who became a man,
died on the cross and raised from life 2,000 plus years ago.
And we believe He's coming back for us and He's preparing us
for victory and we're going to sing and worship and enjoy it. That's
what's really stupid to most people. We're going to enjoy
that. Most people are looking at their
watch during church going, we just got started, will we get going?
We're just going to enjoy it. And I pray that the continual
reading of this letter, notice we can't exposit, we can't go
through every detail, we can't go through all the different
five views of everything that everybody knows about the 144
or this or the Tribulation. We just can't do it. We just
got to read it. I want us to learn to read it
as it can be applied. And then you want to make your
lifelong journey of all that other stuff, more power to you.
Because I want you to see the blessing that comes from reading
and understanding the common text of John's Apocalypse. And we'll stop there and pick
up next week. Let's pray. that we roll through this text
tonight. We praise You, Father, for allowing us to grasp things
and to be learners, even though we may have known all of this
stuff for years, or we may have a good understanding of all the
positions of end times. Lord, it is good that sometimes
we can learn new things, and we praise You for that, Lord.
Most importantly, we praise You for the simplicity of this writing,
even though it is mysterious. There is a simplistic application
that's not so far from the text. Lord, help us to live in that
realm instead of the realm of years from now. Though those
things may be true, Father, we don't know. And they're interesting
to debate and to ponder. Lord, as we teach your word,
let us understand it as it was intended to be understood. Father,
help us to give people hope in the midst of dark days. Tomorrow
morning, half this nation is going to be distraught. And they're
going to be fearful. Let our tongues be seasoned with
salt and not talk about the trash of politics, but Lord, talk about
the treasure of our Savior. The treasure of the perseverance
of the saints. The treasure of the kingdom of
heaven. The treasure of our ability to be resolved at peace that
surpasses the logic of the world. And as we leave this place tonight,
God, we love You. We thank You, Lord, that we can love You because
You love us now. And You've loved us before time
began. And we pray these things in Jesus'
name. Amen.