Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to our program. I'm glad
you could join us. And if you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles today, I'm going to be preaching from the book
of Revelation. I know a lot of people are interested in Revelation
and what it says and the message of it. And of course, the book
of Revelation is like every other book of the Bible in one way.
It's a book of Christ and the purpose of God to glorify himself
in the salvation of his people through Christ. And it does speak
of future things. It also speaks of present things.
But today, what I wanna talk to you about from Revelation
7, and the main text is verse three, but we'll read some others
around it, is the sealed servants of God. The sealed servants of
God. Now, who are the sealed servants
of God? And to make a long story short,
so to speak, just to give you an idea of where I'm going with
this, the sealed servants of God are those who have been brought
by God to faith in Christ and repentance of dead works, and
who by the power of God persevere unto the end, because they're
preserved by God. That's the sealed servants of
God. If you're a true believer, if
I'm a true believer, having been chosen of God before the foundation
of the world, having been justified in his sight through the blood
and the righteousness of Christ, having been redeemed by his blood
on the cross, and having been regenerated, born again by the
Holy Spirit, brought to faith in Christ, then I'm a sealed
servant of God. And so let's look at Revelation
7 to see what we can learn from God's word. And it says, and
after these things, now this, you know, the book of Revelation
continues on through in chronological order concerning the seven different
things that God, time periods and things that God will do during
the last days. And the last days, you know,
somebody said to me one time, said, well, we're living in the
last days. Well, yes. But the Apostle John, the Apostle
Paul, they were living in the last days too. Because the last
days refers to the time period of the New Covenant, the New
Testament. Ranging from the death of Christ, and his resurrection,
and ascension unto the Father, all the way to his second coming. And so the book of Revelation
is divided into segments, all which indicate what's taking
place during that time. And so he says in verse one,
and after these things I saw four angels standing on the four
corners of the earth. These angels are representatives,
messengers of God, and the four corners of the earth, that's
symbolic language covering the whole earth, And he says, holding
the four winds of the earth. Now the winds there we're gonna
see has to do with the wrath of God upon this earth. This
world is under the sentence of God's wrath. Now God's people
who are in this world, his sealed servants, they're not under his
wrath, they're vessels of mercy. And they've never been under
his wrath. Sometimes they are chastised. But that's not wrath,
that's love, the scripture tells us. But the earth is cursed. The earth is under the sentence
of God's wrath, and this earth is headed for destruction, and
it's gonna take place when Christ comes again. But he says here,
he says, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should
not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree, In
other words, this wrath is being held back by God through these
four messengers, symbolically, but it's literally being held
back because there's a particular time that God has appointed for
this wrath to come about, and he says in verse two, look at
this. And I saw another angel ascending from the east. Now
in the Bible, the east, when the sun rises in the east, That
is a symbol of something good coming. Christ, the son of righteousness,
the scripture tells it, rises in the east. And so that's symbolic
of something good. And he says, I saw another angel,
another messenger, ascending from the east, having the seal
of the living God. Now what is this seal? All right,
let's read on. And he cried with a loud voice
to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and
the sea. That is, they were agents of
God's wrath. And he says, saying, verse three,
hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, until we
have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. Now what
is all that talking about? Well, it says this. God has appointed
a time that Christ would come the second time, His return,
His second coming. And up until that time, God is
not going to pour His wrath in complete destruction on this
world. That's coming, but until Christ
comes again, until God's appointed time, God is holding back the
full measure of His wrath. We see manifestations of that
wrath in all kinds of things, you know, destruction and disease
and pestilence, all that. Book of Revelation talks about
that. But the fullness of God's wrath that will burn this world
up wherein God will create a new heavens and a new earth wherein
dwelleth righteousness. The fullness of that wrath is
being held back by God until every last one of his chosen
people are brought to faith in Christ and repentance of dead
works, they're sealed in their foreheads. In other words, it's
kind of like what 2 Peter chapter three says. In verse nine, you
know, where he's talking about how some scoffers, they deny
that Christ is coming again, that God's gonna destroy this
world. And he says, and their reasoning goes something like
this. Well, the world has always been like it always was. Well,
that's a lie. They forgot that God did destroy
the world by a flood. He did. That's a literal fact,
that's historical. And that's the story of Noah
back in Genesis 6, 7, and 8, and 9. Noah and the ark, you
know that. So the earth doesn't remain as
it always was. Adam fell in the garden. The
earth was created in goodness without sin, but Adam fell. And
then later on, the flood of Noah came. So it hasn't just continued
on. I know it's been a long time
since Noah's flood till now, but it's still, the fact is it
doesn't remain the same. And then secondly, he tells them
in second Peter, he says, God doesn't measure time like we
do. He says, to God, a thousand years is a day, and a day is
a thousand years. Thousand. Now we're gonna see
this in just a moment. Thousand is what we call a Hebrew
idiom. In other words, it's a word that
symbolically stands for a non-specific span of time that only God knows. And I often try to give you an
illustration of today. It's like when a man loves a
woman or a woman loves a man, and he might say, I'll love you
for 1,000 years. And what he means by that is
forever and ever and ever. Or she'd look at him and say,
well, why not 1,001? See, we use that poetically.
Well, the Bible uses that symbolically, 1,000. It's not a literal 1,000
years, for example, or a literal 1,000 people. but it's a number
that only God knows. And here he calls it a multitude
which no man could number. And Peter says that God doesn't
measure time like we do. We look at 1,000 years, what,
man, that's a long time, that's a millennium. But to God, it's
a day. A day's 24 hours to us. They pass, and as you get older,
they seem to pass so much quicker. But that's the issue. And so
he says here that God has a day appointed. But Peter said in
2 Peter 3 and 9, he says, for God is not slack concerning his
promise, his promise to save his people and destroy this world
and take them into his glory. As some men count slackness,
but is not willing that any should perish. Now the any there is
not talking about all without exception. It's talking about
us-ward. He's long-suffering to us-ward. That's God's people. That's the
sealed servants. That all should come to repentance. And when they, one of the evidences
that you've been sealed, all right, the sealed servants of
God in their foreheads, one of the evidences that you've been
sealed is you believe in Christ and you've repented. of dead
works and idolatry. Now he says he's going to seal
the servants of God in their foreheads. The forehead is the
mind. A lot of the symbolism of Revelation
can be determined from the Old Testament. The forehead in the
Old Testament was a symbol of the mind. The high priest of
Israel had holiness under the Lord on his headpiece over his
forehead. And that means when he did his
work, especially on the day of atonement, that he was to have
on his mind that I've got to revere God. This is about God
and his glory and his honor. That's what he's talking. We're
here to worship God. When you go to a church service,
that's what ought to be on your mind. We're here to worship God.
We're here to lift up Christ. We're not here to brag on men
and to applaud men and to make men and women feel good. I hope
preaching the gospel makes you feel good. But people want to
hear things that aren't true. Bible calls that itching ears.
They want to hear things that are, they don't want to hear
the hard things of scripture and even things that turn them
off. They want some preacher to scratch that itch by telling
them lies, making them feel good about themselves. But the forehead
here is the mind. And they're sealed in their minds
by the Holy Spirit. Now this sealing is a stamp of
identification. And the Bible speaks of it in
the preaching of the gospel over in the book of Ephesians. Let
me just read this to you. Ephesians chapter one, where
he's talking about the work of the Father, the work of the Son,
the work of the Holy Spirit. And down here in verse 13, this
is Ephesians 1 verse 13. He speaks of Christ in whom you
also trusted after that you heard the word of truth, that is the
gospel of your salvation. If you heard it, that means the
Holy Spirit has given you ears to hear, eyes to see. You see,
man by nature will not hear it. They will not believe it. You
can hear what I'm saying, but if you remain in spiritual death,
Dead and trespassing sin, you won't hear it to believe it,
you won't obey it, you won't love it, you won't embrace it.
That's why we must be born again. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them. They're
spiritually understood. And the natural man refers to
us as we are naturally born in this world into sin and death.
That's why we must be born again. So he says, in whom you also
trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel
of your salvation, in whom also after that you believed, you
were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. Now have the Holy
Spirit stamp you, seal you, identify you by bringing you to faith
in Christ, repentance of dead works, and perseverance by the
power of God. Now go back to Revelation 7.
Let's read some more scripture here. Now he says in verse three,
saying, hurt not the earth, Neither the sea, nor the trees, till
we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads, till
they've all come to repentance, as Peter says, till they've all
been sealed by the Holy Spirit, believing the gospel of their
salvation, looking to Christ, resting in Christ, pleading his
righteousness, imputed to me, accounted to me as my only ground
of salvation. That's what this sealing is.
That's how you identify the people of God. That's the stamp. That's
what's on their minds and that's what they express in their evangelism,
in their witnessing. The Bible says over in Matthew
5 verse 16, let your light so shine before men that they may
see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
The light there is the gospel. It's the profession of a believing
sinner that Christ is my only hope. He's my wisdom. He's my righteousness. He's my
sanctification. He's my redemption. I have nothing
else to recommend me unto God but Jesus Christ crucified and
risen from the dead. That's what that is. That's the
light. It's a light that shows that
only Christ's blood can wash away my sins. What can wash away
my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Nothing else. If you think anything else can
wash him away, you haven't been sealed yet in your forehead,
in your heart. You can say it that way. What
can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
I have no, listen, I have no righteousness before God. Even
in my efforts to be a good person, I have no righteousness to earn
God's favor, but Christ's righteousness imputed to me. That's the seal. That's the stamp. That's the
identification, you see. And that is so sealed in the
minds and hearts of God's people that there's three things we
can say about it. Listen to this, you cannot deny it. If you've
been sealed now, this is the sealing of God's servants, sealed
in their foreheads. If you've been sealed by the
Holy Spirit, as Christ sends his spirit to convince the world,
his people out of the world of sin, of righteousness, of judgment,
if you've been sealed, by the Spirit, if it's written on your
heart, if you've been born again by the Spirit, you cannot deny
it. Secondly, you cannot ignore it. You can't do that. You can't
walk away from it and just act like, well, I didn't hear it. You know, I've had people say,
well, I believe it, but I'm going to a church where they don't
preach it, and I'm just gonna ignore it. You can't do that
if you've been sealed. And then thirdly, You cannot
leave it. That's what first John two and
three is about. You can't leave it because number
one, Christ will not let you go. That's what he said in John
10 about his sheep. They hear his voice. They know
him and he knows them and they follow him and no one, nothing
can pluck them out of my father's hand. Paul said, I know whom
I have believed and I know that he's able to keep that which
I've committed unto him against that day. And what have I committed
unto him? My whole salvation. He said,
Christ is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto
the Father by him. So you cannot leave it. He won't
let you go. But secondly, you cannot leave
it because you've been sealed. You've been born again by the
Holy Spirit. And that's what he says in 1
John 3, he that is righteous, he that doeth righteousness,
that is, clings to Christ, cannot forsake Christ totally. Oh, he
may fall a little bit, he may get off the track a little bit,
but God's not gonna let him go, he's gonna bring him back, and
he will not apostatize, he will not totally forsake Christ, because
he's been born of God, he's been sealed by the Holy Spirit in
his forehead, in his mind, his affections, his will, his heart.
Now look at verse four of Revelation 7. He says, and I heard the number
of them which were sealed. Now how many are going to be
sealed? He says, there were sealed 144,000 of all the tribes of
the children of Israel. Well, isn't that interesting?
Now, some people take that to be literally the national ethnic
Israelites, that sometime in the future, there's gonna be
a literal 144,000 of them saved, and they'll go out through the
world and preach the gospel. Well, listen, I'll be the first
in line to pray for the salvation of any ethnic Israelite, any
Jew. The Israelites, the Jews, they
don't believe, on the whole, now there are some who believe,
but on the whole, they don't believe that the Messiah has
come yet. They don't believe in Christ. I pray for their salvation. The apostle Paul in his day,
he prayed for their salvation. But I don't believe this is talking
about national ethnic Israel. I believe it's talking about
spiritual Israel, those that have been sealed, Jew and Gentile.
The Bible teaches that those who believe in Christ, whether
they be ethnically, physically Jews, or ethnically, physically
Gentiles, they are spiritual Jews. Romans 2, 28 and 29 says
that he's not a Jew, which is one outwardly. Circumcision is
not that which is of the flesh, but that which is of the heart.
He is a Jew which is one inwardly. He's been circumcised in the
heart. Now, what is that circumcision of the heart? Well, it's the
cutting away of the filth of the flesh spiritually from the
heart, which means faith in Christ and repentance of dead works.
It's the new birth. It's the sealing of the servants
of God. And so I can tell you, I am a
spiritual Jew. I don't have any ethnic Jewish
blood in me, but I'm a spiritual Jew. Now again, I pray for the
salvation of Israel, national Israel. I pray for the salvation
of America. I pray for the salvation of the
Arabs, of the Russians, of the Chinese. I pray for, if God would
save them, they wouldn't be our enemies. You understand that? But I don't believe that's what
this is talking about in a literal way. It's symbolic. And you say,
well, what about the 144,000? Well, the numbers in the book
of Revelation are not literal, they're symbolic. Now, there
are people who'll tell you, well, now this number, they'll go through
the book of Revelation, and they'll say, well, now this number is
literal, and this number is symbolic. Well, what rule of scriptural
interpretation do they use to know the difference? They don't
have any. It's just what they've been taught from youth up. But
144,000, that's multiples of 12. And the number 12 in scripture
is a symbol of God's government over his church. And it's symbolized
in the Old Testament. There were 12 patriarchs. And
then in the New Testament, there were 12 apostles. And these were
pillars of the church. and they preach the gospel. And
that's what the 144,000 is. So what you have here is 12 times
12, all right, that's the church, and 1,000, which is a number,
the Hebrew idiom, a number that only God knows. It's a way of
expressing a number that we don't know. And then he goes forth
and he mentions the 12 tribes of Israel from verses five to
verse eight, talking about the 12 sons of Jacob. And they are
symbolic of the church. It's a complete church. There's
nobody missing. There'll be no vacancies in heaven.
There'll be no empty seats. And H1, he talks about, they
were 12,000. And it goes up, 144,000. And these were the sons
of Jacob, the sons of Israel. Over in Malachi chapter three
and verse six, the Bible says, the word of God says, I am the
Lord, I change not, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. And who are the sons of Jacob
there? They're all of God's people.
Spiritual Israel, Jew and Gentile. I know some people don't wanna
hear that, but that's okay. But here, look at verse nine
of Revelation seven. He says, and this I beheld, And
lo, a great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations,
and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne,
and before the Lamb, before Christ, clothed with white robes, and
palms in their hands. And, verse 10, cried with a loud
voice, salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne,
and unto the Lamb. Now those are the ones who have
been sealed in their foreheads. The sealing of God's servants.
What do they do? They're clothed in white robes.
What do you suppose that is? That's the robes of salvation.
The robe of righteousness, first, which God has imputed to us,
the merits of Christ's obedience unto death. The garments of salvation,
the garments of his grace that are cleansed by the blood of
Christ and presented to God. and they have palms in their
hands. What does that mean? That means praise and worship. The people of God who have been
sealed in their foreheads, who believe in Christ and rest in
Christ, they worship God in spirit and in truth. Philippians chapter
three and verse three says, we are the circumcision. Now who's
he talking about there? He's talking about those who
have been circumcised in heart and ears, Jew and Gentile. We are the circumcision. In the
Philippian church, there were both Jewish believers and Gentile
believers, and Paul says in Philippians 3, 3, we are the circumcision. We're spiritually circumcised.
We're spiritual Jews, which worship God in spirit. That is, as guided
by the Holy Spirit and from the heart that God has given us. We rejoice in Christ Jesus, which
means we boast in him. We brag on Christ, we have confidence
in Him, and have no confidence in the flesh. Those are the ones
that have been sealed in their foreheads. And it's a multitude
which no man can number. It's not just 144,000, that's
symbolic. But it's a multitude which no
man can number. How many are there? I don't know.
Only God knows. I've heard preachers say, well,
there'll be more in heaven than in hell. I don't think the Bible
teaches that, but I don't know. I've heard people say that, well,
it's the number of the sands of the sea. You know, anytime
that term is used, especially back in the book of Isaiah, it's
talking about unbelievers. When Isaiah said, and Paul quotes
it in Romans chapter 9 and 10, he said, though Israel be as
the sands of the sea, there's a remnant, just a small portion
that's going to be saved. A remnant according to the election
of grace. God chose a people, Jew and Gentile. and he chose them in grace. He
didn't look down through a telescope of time and foresee what they
would do. Man by nature will not believe
in and choose Christ. That's what the Bible says about
us. We're totally depraved. That's what that means. That
means we don't have the desire. We want salvation, but we don't
want it God's way. We want it our way. See, God's
way doesn't leave us any room to glory, to boast. God's way,
Our way gives us room to glory and boast. But those who've been
sealed in their foreheads, they praise God. They worship Christ. They rest in Him. And they repent
and turn away from everything that the world holds dear in
their natural religion that they think would recommend them unto
God. That's the sealed servants of God. It's a multitude which
no man can number. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
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today and may the Lord be with you.