Well, turn back with me to Revelation
chapter 7. We looked at the first half of
it, the first eight verses last week. I want to look at the last
half this morning, but setting it in context first of all. Because
going from Revelation 6 and verse 12, down to the end of Revelation
7, we see three states. of man depicted. We see at the
end of chapter 6, this world, the kingdom of Satan, under divine
condemnation. Then in the start of chapter
7, we see God's people, His people whom He has redeemed from the
curse of the law in the blood of Christ, we see them sealed
in this world, remaining in this world, but sealed for his kingdom
forever. Whatever else might happen, they
are sealed, they are permanently marked, they're stamped with
his mark of ownership. And then finally, in the last
half of chapter 7, we see God's people in glory. All of the ones
that were in the world taken into glory. All that ever existed,
all that ever existed from Adam right down to every last one
of us today, are in one of these three states. You know, people
think, oh well you can have your religion if you want, if that
makes you feel better that's fine, but just leave us out of
it, the rest of us. No, everybody is involved in
this. Everybody. I mean it. You cannot
avoid this. It's relevant to all. Those in
the second state know that they will certainly move into the
third state. Those that are in the 144,000
sealed upon earth know for certain that they will move into that
third state of the people of God in sinless bliss in eternal
glory. Now, The question now is, which
group do you belong to? The people who in the end of
chapter 6 will be crying out for the mountains and the rocks
to fall on them and to hide them from the face of Him that sitteth
on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. Are you in that
group? or will you be in that second group that are sealed
in this world and you know you are going to eternal glory? Consider
just briefly with me these three states. The kingdom of the world,
the kingdom of this world, this world in which we live, which
grows worse day by day, perilous times in which we live in. The
kingdom of this world is Satan's kingdom since the fall in the
Garden of Eden, when Adam, knowing what he was doing, but for love
of his wife, ate the forbidden fruit. He disobeyed God, and
that meant that from then on, he'd handed over the kingdom
that God had given him authority over, he handed it over to Satan. And that kingdom, this world
in which we live, is Satan's kingdom since the fall. It started
with Satan questioning God's truth. He said to Eve, has God
said? She said, God said we can eat
this, that and the other, but not this tree. Has God said? Is that right? You see, He is
the Father of lies. Who said He is the Father of
lies? The Lord Jesus Christ said, He is the Father of lies. He
is the author of sin, of rebellion against God, the author of unbelief. His kingdom seeks world unity
in opposition to God. It's God's world, God's creation,
God created all things. But Satan, having snatched, having
usurped this kingdom via Adam's fall, he's seeking world unity
in opposition to God. He's aiming for a utopian peace. Oh, doesn't that sound nice?
Yes! He's aiming for everybody to be prosperous and happy, and
all brothers together in this world, but without the justice
of God. And you see, that cannot be,
because it's God's creation. It is God who spoke and it came
into being. It is God who is holy who upholds
all things by the word of His power. This world, this creation,
cannot continue indefinitely with sin in it, because sin is
the very affront to the nature and the being of God. It's impossible
to attain the objectives of Satan's kingdom. He tries, and he looks
like he's succeeding, but he cannot succeed in the end. He
is constantly at odds with God's kingdom. This world is constantly
at odds with God's kingdom. It's why in Genesis 3.15, right
at the start, God said that there would be enmity between the seed
of the woman, which is Christ and his people, and the seed
of serpent, which is this world in its unbelief. There would
be enmity. There would be conflict. There
would be tension and friction between those two worlds. They
will never get on. They will never be friends. The
kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan will never be reconciled. They will never be friends. You
cannot, by seeking to preach the gospel, make Satan's kingdom
into God's kingdom. It isn't going to happen. There's
only one thing that God has said he will do to Satan's kingdom,
and that is to destroy it in justice. So, Satan was seeking
to destroy God's Christ, the seed of the woman. Always, down
history, seeking to subsume the sons of God, as the early chapters
of Genesis call them, into worldly conformity against God. That's what he was seeking to
do. How did he do it? The daughters of men were beautiful.
And they enticed the sons of God into intermarrying. And to
prevent his kingdom from being frustrated in its triumph, God
sent the flood of Noah's day. Why? To destroy that kingdom
of Satan as it was in those days. Sin was still there because Noah
was a sinner. and those that came after him,
the seven that were with him in the ark, were sinners. And
then soon we see Nimrod and Babel, and then God has to come and
confuse the languages. And then we see the empires of
the world against tiny little Israel, that one state when God
had called Abraham, and Israel came from Abraham, and tiny Israel
was the one mark of the kingdom of God on this earth. But Christ
came when the fullness of the time was come, Galatians 4 verse
4. God sent forth his Son made of
a woman, made under the law to redeem those who are under the
law. And thereby he accomplished redemption. And there he triumphed. In the
very moment that Satan was convinced that he had finally crushed and
destroyed the Christ of God, the seed of the woman, the promised
seed, and had the victory, in that very moment, he realizes
that he's been completely disarmed. Everything that he had in his
armory has been taken away from him. Because he can no longer,
he who is the accuser of the brethren, can no longer accuse
the brethren. Because there is nothing to say
that they are not justly qualified for heaven. Because if Christ
died for them, if Christ satisfied the justice of God on their behalf
with his shed blood, then They're his, forever, and justly, and
rightly so. Satan was defeated there at Calvary,
but he's furious. We'll read about this later when
we get to chapter 12. But he keeps pressing on with his objective
of persecuting the people of God, of keeping billions of people
in spiritual darkness, in a pointless existence. What do people all
around us seek? You know, we come across them
every day, our neighbors, colleagues at work, unbelieving family members,
what's their objective? To what is really, philosophers
who stop and think about this come to this conclusion, that
existence is pointless. What's the point of it? They're
seeking wealth, well okay, look at the very richest, when they've
sought as much wealth as they possibly can, and at the end
of their lives they end up miserable and dying with nothing. You see,
there are no pockets in a shroud, as they say, you cannot take
it with you. Or they're seeking health. They're seeking health
and freedom from all diseases. So they're constantly chasing
after every possible way of countering viruses and cancers and so on.
And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with seeking to
do good and to heal the sick. I'm not saying at all that. But
to think that that is your objective for living, so that you live
forever and ever without ever getting ill. And to be permanently
happy and to have non-stop good experiences until death eventually
catches up. That's it. Isn't it just vain?
The vain hopes to defeat death, to eliminate poverty, you know,
make poverty history, to end all war, to prevent all disasters. You know, I said it before, you
know, any big occasion, oh, let's go over to the Vatican where
the Pope's just given his Easter blessing or whatever. Oh, I wish
they'd all stop fighting one another. Oh, I wish God would
stop them from fighting one another. God is the one who sends the
red horse of war into this world to frustrate the hopes and aspirations
of Satan's kingdom. All this world's hopes are vested
in this world and its future, in its permanence, in the fact
that they think it's going to go on for so many years it might
as well go on forever. And in it they will conquer disease,
they will conquer, and they will just be so happy and blissfully
contented in their situation. But God's righteousness and justice
cannot permit this satanic kingdom to succeed. It must be defeated. Divine justice must be satisfied. How does God defeat it? I'll
just repeat it very briefly, but you must be reminded of the
context in which this is said. Chapter 6 is the six seals of
the seven-sealed book of Chapter 5. And the one qualified to open
the seals, to implement the plan of God's triumphant kingdom,
is the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he first of
all sends forth four horses to frustrate Satan's kingdom. Firstly,
the white horse of God's gospel of grace and righteousness and
salvation and redemption. He sends that into this world.
Wow, that goes completely against the aspirations of Satan's kingdom.
He doesn't want that white horse galloping around, does he? He
hates that white horse. He does everything he can to
stop it. And then he sends the red horse of war. Oh, surely
God wouldn't do a thing like that to frustrate Satan's kingdom. He would, and he does, and he
has. And then he sends forth the black horse of not universal
prosperity and happiness, but immense differences, huge polarization
of wealth and poverty, a hand-to-mouth existence, but don't touch the
oil and the wine of the rich. Oh no. So God frustrates that
aspiration of Satan's kingdom. And then, oh, we're all going
to live forever. And he sends forth the pale horse, the sickly,
pale, grey, green horse of death. And a quarter of mankind is taken
away in death. And that's symbolical of how,
it doesn't matter how prosperous and good we get, we cannot defeat
death. This is God frustrating Satan's
kingdom. And then the fifth seal is his
justice crying out for justice to fall on the sin that has been
committed, especially the sin against the people of God. How
long, O Lord, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them
that dwell on the earth? There has been great persecution
of the people of God, the church of God, the cause of God, even
to the point of martyrdom. And you see it down periods of
history and even in our day. And that justice of God which
has been offended by this kingdom of Satan, is crying out for vengeance. It's crying out to have the injustice
put right. And that is calling for the end
of this world. And then finally, the sixth seal,
that God says, yes, this physical world, this physical creation
is coming to end. Why? Because he's going to make
all things new. And there's going to be a new
creation, a new heavens and a new earth come down out of heaven,
Revelation 21. So, in verses 14 to 17 of chapter 6, look,
we read, And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled
together, and every mountain and island were moved out of
their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men,
and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men,
and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the
dens and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains
and rocks, Fall on us! and hide us from the face of
him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.
For that great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able
to stand? This is the world in general,
the billions that we see. You know, have you ever thought,
have you thought recently, in 1950, the population of this
world was two and a half billion people. Today, it's nearly 8
billion people. That's in my lifetime. The population
of this world has more than trebled. That is a staggering statistic. It is, you know, they say everything
goes on as it always did. No, it doesn't. If nothing else
has changed, there are three and a half people for every one
that there was when I was born. That's how drastic it is. and
they're in anguish, the majority, the overwhelming majority, pleading
for death. Because why? Because every hope
they ever had of Satan's kingdom, of its utopian bliss and happiness,
of living forever without disease, of there being peace, every hope
that they had is destroyed before their eyes. That is this present
world, and its destiny, outside of God and His Christ. Is that
your destiny? Are you part of that world of
Satan, that kingdom of Satan? Do you not see the imperative,
as John the Baptist said to the Pharisees, trusting in their
false religion, as he said to them, what caused you to flee
from the wrath to come? Don't you see your imperative
to flee from the wrath to come, to seek the salvation of God,
to call upon the Lord's name. What is it to call upon the Lord's
name? It's to know your peril as a sinner under the just condemnation
of God and to cry out, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. Lord, save me from my sins. Lord, save me from that destiny
where I'm crying for the rocks and the mountains to fall upon
me. Save me and give me that hope in my heart. And then we
see God's sealed ones in the world and again we looked at
this last week but I'll look just very briefly again just
to remind you. 144,000 which 12 times 12 times 10 times 10
times 10 that's 144,000 and we saw how 12 is 3 times 4 that
is the number of God 3 working on 4, the number of creation, to produce
the people of God in this world, 12, 12 apostles, 12 patriarchs. And then we see 3 plus 4, God
in union with his creation, making 7. God's number of perfection. God and creation in union. God working on creation to produce
12, His people in this world. In every generation of time,
God has His people in this world, separate from the world of Satan.
These are the redeemed of God. These are the ones bought, purchased. Redeemed, that's what redeemed
means, purchased. by God. How do I know that? Paul
said it to the elders on the beach at Miletus in Acts chapter
20 verse 28. The elders of Ephesus, he said
to them, speaking about the church, he said, look after the church
of God, feed the church of God with the word of God. He said,
the church of God which he, God, has purchased with his, God's,
own blood. God has purchased the church.
How did he purchase it? With his own blood. How did he
do that? God became man. A real man, with real blood.
So you are not redeemed with silver and gold and corruptible
things like that, but with the blood of a lamb, the blood of
Christ, a precious lamb, without blemish or without spot. Sinners
deserving of eternal condemnation, deserving of the justice of God
to fall in eternal separation from God who cannot abide sin
and cannot look upon iniquity. Those sinners, this multitude
that were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world,
made the righteousness of God in Him who was made sin for them.
Children of wrath, called by grace to repentance of faith.
We grow as others, children of wrath. We look like the rest
of this world, those that are in the end of chapter 6, crying
for the rocks and mountains to fall on them at the end. And
yet there are some who are called because they are saved by Christ,
chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, loved with everlasting
love, betrothed to God's Son to be His bride. When the marriage
supper of the Lamb comes, that's who they will be. They will be
there with Him in that marriage supper, kept in this world for
a while, but as Christ prayed for them in John 17, kept from
the evil. until taken to God's eternal
kingdom, either by death or by Christ's return to gather them.
Citizens of God's kingdom, living for a while in flesh, just like
agents of the kingdom of God, but in enemy territory, operating
in enemy territory, until called home to that eternal kingdom.
and whilst here sealed in their foreheads, sealed, indelibly
stamped with the mark of God's ownership. You are bought with
a price, said Paul, you are not your own, you are bought with
a price. You know as a farmer brands his cattle and marks his
sheep, these are mine, he marks his people, sealed, sealed, every
last one, chosen before time, must be, as the Scripture tells
us, Colossians 1.13, every one of them must be in time, at an
appropriate time, according to the Spirit of God, delivered
from the power of darkness, the power of the darkness of the
kingdom of Satan, and translated into the kingdom of His dear
Son. It's what Jesus prayed in John 17. In John 17 he prayed
for his people. In verse 14 he said, I have given
them my people, the ones you gave me before the foundation
of the world, I have given them thy word and the world has hated
them. Because the world is of a different
philosophy, of a different paradigm of life. The world belongs to
Satan and his his aspirations, and his hopes, and his intentions,
and not the things of God. He said, they're not of the world,
even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou should take
them, his people, out of the world, but that you should keep
them from the evil. They are not of the world, even
as I am not of the world. There is a people, this 144,000
in every age of time, in this world, who are the people of
God, who are kept kept by him, kept separate from the kingdom
of Satan, brought out of Satan's kingdom into God's kingdom. And
the final judgment cannot fall until they are all confirmed
in God's kingdom. That's the call to the angels
in chapter 2 from Christ, who is the man from the east. He
says in verse 3, saying, Hurt not the earth. Don't let the
judgment fall. Don't hurt the sea, don't hurt the trees, till
we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. Every
last one. of that great multitude must
be sealed, must be shown to be the people of the living God.
And even though trouble will come, and we live in a world
where there is trouble, and Jesus didn't pray that we be kept from
the trouble, he said keep them from the evil, from the evil
of Satan's kingdom. But we will be subject to the
trouble of this world, just as God's people have been subject
to the going forth of the horse of war, and of the horse of scarcity
and poverty, and of the horse of death, all subject to these
things, affected by those seals just as everybody else is, but
spiritually immune from harm. And so, after that long introduction,
let's come to verse 9. The innumerable multitude in
glory, because That's the state of people on earth, either that
state in the kingdom of Satan or the ones that are sealed in
this earth. But when we get to verse nine,
after this, I beheld, and lo, 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 hand. It's a vision of salvation accomplished. It's a vision again of the kingdom
of God, triumphant, as we saw in chapter four. That was, you
know, come up here and have a look in heaven, John. You've seen
the situation in the world of the Lord Jesus Christ walking
among his seven candlesticks, the churches in the world, and
a door was opened in heaven. Come up here, John, and have
a look, and he sees the kingdom of God, triumphant. There is
no sin there. God has triumphed. There's a
vision of salvation accomplished. And he sees there, A multitude
which no man can number. If you go right the way back
to Genesis 22, and if I can find which verse it is, that I should
have written down, but not the one I have written down. Where
is it? Verse 17, that in blessing, this
is God speaking to Abraham, I will bless thee. And in multiplying,
I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven and as the
sand which is upon the seashore. And thy seed shall possess the
gate of his enemies. And in thy seed shall all the
nations of the earth be blessed because thou has obeyed my voice.
That's when Abraham took Isaac to sacrifice him as God had called
him to do. And God says, because of what
he'd seen, In him, there would be a line coming from him, and
we know from Galatians, that all who had the faith of Abraham
are the children of Abraham. So if you believe what Abraham
believed, you're one of the children of Abraham. You're amongst this
number, this seed of Abraham. He says, I will multiply thy
seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon
the seashore. What is true about the stars
of heaven and the sand on the seashore, even in this day of
technological advancement? What is true about it? Answer,
you cannot count it. It's impossible to count it.
As much as you count and as deep as you look, you never ever get
close to numbering them. And John says, I beheld a multitude,
a great multitude, which no man could number. Where did they
come from? Not Jews. of all nations and kindreds and
people and tongues. All of them stood before the
throne and before the Lamb. All of them clothed in their
white robes. All of them with palms in their
hands. So not just Jews, not national
Israel, but every tribe. Should I show you that in the
Old Testament? I was reminded of this the other day listening
to our brother preaching. Isaiah chapter 19 and verse 25,
right? You know, all the way down in
Satan's plan, Egypt and Assyria were the enemies of the people
of God. They were, in Old Testament times, they
were Satan's attempts to produce a utopian worldwide empire. You know, globalism is the plan
of Satan's kingdom. Globalism is the plan of Satan's
kingdom. Don't be under any delusion about
what we see going on in the world today with all these bodies trying
to make us all one great big global government. No. But look,
these were always the enemies of Israel, always trying to crush
and destroy them. In Egypt they made them slaves
in bondage until God took them out of there. Assyria came to
completely crush them in the days of Hezekiah. But look, In
that day shall Israel be a third with Egypt and with Assyria,
even a blessing in the midst of the land, verse 25, whom the
Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, look what God says about Egypt
and Assyria, blessed be Egypt, my people, and Assyria, the work
of mine hands. And Israel, mine inheritance,
of every tribe and tongue and kindred, all around the throne,
even God's natural enemies, made his people. This is the gospel
for Gentiles too, in the Old Testament, isn't it? Again and
again we read about the people that walked in darkness. The
Gentiles shall seek to the gospel of God, it says. In verse 9,
we read of them this multitude that no man can number, clothed
in white robes. And in verse 14, towards the
end, the second half of verse 14, they've washed their robes
and made them white in the Lamb's blood. They're sinless. This
is the state of the people of God in eternal glory. They're
cleansed from all sin, because as John, the same apostle writing
this revelation, writes in his first epistle, chapter 1 and
verse 7, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from
all sin. How are you going to be cleansed
from the sin that would condemn you for eternity? The blood of
Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. It qualifies the people
of God for entrance into God's kingdom because if it doesn't,
you know what it says in Revelation 21 verse 27, there shall in no
wise enter into it anything that defileth. You can't go in there
with your sin. Neither whatsoever worketh abomination
or maketh a lie But they which are written in the Lamb's book
of life, they're the ones who get in there because He, by His
blood, has redeemed them from the curse of the law. Look what
it says in verse 14, they have washed their robes and made them
white in the blood of the Lamb. Did they the people of God, this
multitude in heaven, of which if you trust Christ, you are
a member. You are there if you trust Christ. Did they of their
own volition, of their own choice, wash their robes? And thereby
did they contribute to their own salvation by doing their
bit? God had done so much so far,
but it needed them to do their bit and to pick up their clothes
and wash them in the blood. No, no, no. This washing is spiritually
seeing themselves washed clean. How do they see themselves washed
clean from all sin? How do they see themselves washed
clean? By faith. How come they get faith? You
are saved by grace, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it
is the gift of God. God gives them sight of the soul
to see themselves washed clean, and thereby their robes are washed
white in the blood of the Lamb. They see that they're washed
from their sins in the redemption accomplished by the Lamb's blood.
And what's this about palms in their hands at the end of verse
9? The palms recall the Feast of Tabernacles, and that recalls
the release from the bondage, the slavery of Egypt. And that
reminds us that we're called out of this dark world into the
marvellous light of God. We're released from this world
and the bondage of the mind that goes with this world and this
kingdom of Satan. Released and freed and brought
into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. The glorious... Romans 8 talks about even this
creation longing, yearning to come into the glorious liberty
of the sons of God. Rescued from the capture that's
been made by Satan. And what do they sing? Let's
look at the song that they sing before we get to the end. Verse
10, They 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 worshipped God, saying, Amen. Blessing, and glory, and wisdom,
and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might be unto
our God forever and ever. Amen. They sing a song. You know,
there's something about music in the creation of God. You know
that we love to sing. Whether we do it well or not
is another matter, but we love to sing. And a song is a perfect
and harmonious expression. And this song is from sinless,
pure hearts of praise and thanks to God. You see, the song of
eternity ascribes all worth, all honour, all worship to the
author and finisher of our faith, of our salvation. That's what
Hebrews 12, 2 says about Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith. It describes, it doesn't say, oh, weren't we good rescuing
ourselves when the offer was made to us? No, it doesn't say
that. It describes all glory to God for saving us, for picking
us up, for bringing us up out of that miry pit of sin and setting
our feet upon the rock which is Christ. And it's echoed by
angels, the angels who never fell, all unified in heavenly
bliss. Here is sin defeated. Here is
justice satisfied. Here is heavenly perfection attained. And the difference between this
paradise of God, with the multitude that no man can number there,
and that which existed in the Garden of Eden before Adam fell,
is that there is no possibility of a second fall. They're confirmed
forever and ever. Eternal life forever. And everything
Satan's kingdom strove for without divine righteousness and justice,
because it had to fail because God's kingdom God cannot allow
a kingdom to succeed without his righteousness and justice.
Everything that Satan's kingdom strove for, but failed to achieve,
is achieved in God's heaven, in God's eternity, in this innumerable
multitude here. Whence came they, one of the
elders, answered, verse 13, saying to John, what are these? Who
are these, arrayed in white robes? Where did they come from? And
he says, you know, you know, sir, you know, you tell me. And
he says, these are they which came out of great tribulation
and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood
of the lamb. Therefore, are they before the
throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple. And
he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them and they
shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore. Neither shall
the sun light on them nor any heat, for the Lamb which is in
the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall lead them
into living fountains of waters. And God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes. Nothing is able to pluck them
from the Father's hand. Jesus said that in John 10.29.
Therefore, they are permanently in God's temple. Permanently
in the temple of God. Look again at Revelation 21 and
verse 22. I saw no temple therein. Why? Why did John in this New Jerusalem
see no temple there? For the Lord God Almighty and
the Lamb are the temple of it. It's a permanent existence in
the presence of God. In this world, Jerusalem was
the temple. Then it became the church and
believers in the age in which we live. This is the temple.
Paul says, know you not that you are the temple of God? This
is where God dwells amongst his people, albeit marred by sin,
but then uninterrupted. It's virtually impossible for
us to imagine from where we are now, isn't it? Even John the
Apostle in his first epistle, chapter three, verse two, says
this, Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not
yet appear what we shall be. We don't know what it's going
to be like from here, where we are, still living with sin, that
struggle, the sin against the flesh, the spirit against the
flesh. But we know that when He shall
appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
Before God's throne, serving Him, dwelling among them, all
constraint of sin gone. That's the picture here. Verse
16, they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither
shall the sun light on them nor any heat. Every need, and there
are no sinful needs there, there are no sinful desires there,
but every need is met out of God's bounty. That's the picture. Every need met out of God's bounty. fed and watered by the Lamb of
God eternally with everything that they need, all effects of
sin wiped away by God Himself, and God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes. I am sure that when we are there,
We will not remember our sins because how could that mar that
blissful, sinless existence? But somehow I am sure that the
people of God there will be conscious of the depths from which they
were recovered in this life by God's grace. This is the triumph
of God's kingdom. Do you see what a contrast to
that at the end of chapter 6? Are you numbered with this innumerable
multitude? Are you? It's only if God has
shown you that Christ paid your sin debt. Has God shown you that
Christ has paid your sin debt? Has he brought you to repent
for your sins and to trust in Christ, to have faith? I put
in the bulletin a little article that I saw written by Henry Mahan,
Repentance and Faith. Read it, it's so good. If he
has saved you from your sins by his death on Calvary, then
he will show you and you will believe him. That's what happened
to the Thessalonians. Paul knew that they were amongst
that people of God by sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth. Oh, that God would show it to you. Amen.