Well, we come this week to Revelation
chapter 7. Many years ago I heard our dear
brother Henry Mahan say how he loved to watch Kentucky University
basketball, but differently to the way most sports fans like
to. He didn't ever used to like watching it live. It was far
too stressful for him. A bit like how stressful it is
for Michael watching Chelsea these days. It was so stressful
for him. So what Henry used to do was,
he used to wait until he knew the results. And the results
where the University of Kentucky had won, he'd watch those matches
when they were played again on the television in the evening.
Because he always liked to know what the outcome was. Well, you
know, Revelation 7 is a little bit like that. It's a glimpse
of the end result for us before the live aspect of what is yet
to come is unfolded. Revelation, remember, it says
in verse 1 of chapter 1, is to show unto his servants things
which must shortly come to pass, and he signifies it by his angel. That means gives it in signs. gives it in signs and symbols.
It's a book of symbolism. This world, this world is Satan's
kingdom. And it's a kingdom of imitation,
of false, of fraudulent good. It's not really good. It tries
to give the impression of being good, where we're all so much
good friends together, and we've got this world of peace where
we all live in harmony with one another. And it's fraudulent,
because it's Satan's kingdom of imitation, false, fraudulent
good. But it shall be defeated. and
it shall be destroyed by Christ's kingdom. When Christ's kingdom
is established in absolute, eternal supremacy, it will be. Christ
the King is coming to defeat Satan's kingdom. That's why the
prayer, what we call the Lord's prayer, thy kingdom come, establish
your kingdom unrivaled. We sang in Messiah a couple of
weeks ago, Christine and I, the kingdoms of this world are become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign
forever and ever. That's it. This world is passing
away. The kingdom of God is coming.
Christ the King will come and defeat Satan's kingdom and reign
supreme, but this book tells us many alarming things must
happen affecting all humanity and we've seen some of them in
the news this weekend with those dreadful Islamic massacres in
Paris and we're prone to it wherever we live in this world. You know,
without wishing in any way to spread alarm, we have to admit
how vulnerable, how fragile we are and how we're so susceptible
to these things. Many alarming things must happen
affecting all humanity and the question is, who shall be able
to stand? Men's hearts failing them for
fear in these days of the perilous condition in which we live. as
all of these atrocities take place. Let me give you a recap
of the open seals that we saw in chapter six. In chapter four,
John gets a vision of a throne, and on it, a king, a sovereign
ruling God on the throne of his universe in all of his glory,
surrounded by those whom he has saved. And then at the start
of chapter five, he has a book, a seven sealed book in his hand. Who's going to unloose the seals?
Because the book is God's plan for establishing his unrivaled
kingdom. It's his plan, and for his plan
to be implemented, those seals must be unloosed. And nobody
is found worthy, and the elder says to John, don't weep, don't
weep, look at the lion. And he looks at the lion, and
he sees a lamb. Why? Because the lion is only
able to open the seals of the book and establish God's kingdom
and populate it with the citizens of that kingdom, Kingdoms have
citizens. Who are the citizens? Sinners!
How are sinners going to be citizens in the kingdom of God? They must
be justified. They must have their sin taken
away. The law concerning their sin must be satisfied. The citizens
must be justified. How can the lion justify the
citizens of the kingdom of God? Only in the capacity of a lamb,
a substitute. standing in the place of those
whose sins he forgives, his infinite precious blood being shed in
the place of their blood, which is the penalty for sin, to justify
its citizens. But the enmity continues all
through the time that we're living in, all through creation history.
Satan constantly has been aiming, right at the start with the fall
in the Garden of Eden, Satan constantly is aiming to establish
his kingdom as unrivaled, his kingdom of imitation peace and
imitation righteousness. And it began with Cain and Abel
just after they were sent out of the Garden of Eden. Cain and
Abel. Cain slew Abel. Why enmity? I will put enmity
between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.
Enmity. And it goes right the way on through the flood. And
then the kingdom raises its head at Babel with Nimrod and the
Tower of Babel trying to reach heaven without any Christ and
without any divine justice. This is the kingdom of Satan.
And then in Sodom, via Sodom and Gomorrah, there again, It's
Satan trying to establish his kingdom, how similar to today's
kingdoms it seems. And then through all of the worldly
empires, the Chaldean, the Babylonian Empire, and the Medo-Persian
Empire, and then the Greek Empire under Alexander the Great, and
then the Roman Empire, the great empires of this world, and then
they're all split up into the different fragments until we
get to today, with what people regard as our modern, tolerant
democracy. If only everybody would be tolerant.
If only there'd be no... Did you see, I mean, I'm quite
touched with the pathos of it, you know, the terrible shock
in Paris, but there's the guy with the piano, and he's playing,
and you hear what the song was he was playing, John Lennon,
Imagine. Imagine what? Imagine that Satan's
kingdom is established. Fundamentally, fundamentally,
imagine that Satan's kingdom is established. That's what that
song is about. That's what that song is. Don't worry, I hate
religion as much as anybody. I trust that what we're practicing
here is true religion, but the religion of the world I hate
as much as any of you do. No, in that sense, I wish there
were no religion of that sort. It's the biggest enemy of the
truth of the gospel of grace. But that song, imagine, is basically
the anthem of Satan's kingdom of this world. And he fights,
Satan fights, doesn't he? Have we not seen it? What does
Satan use to fight his kingdom? the weapons of this world. He's
used them in Paris. He uses the weapons of this world.
He uses war between nations, all of these things, and the
will of sinful man. But Christ's kingdom is not of
this world. He says, when he was taken, he
said, my kingdom is not of this world. When he was taken to be
crucified, my kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my
servants would fight, but they don't. The servants of Christ
do not take up the weapons of this world to fight. They don't.
They don't. It's false religion that takes
up the weapons of this world to fight. False religion. The
kingdom of Satan does. Christ's kingdom is not of this
world. So no physical weapons are used by his servants. 2 Corinthians
chapter 10, let me read this to you. For the weapons, says
Paul, the weapons of our warfare, the weapons of our Christian
warfare, of our gospel warfare, Listen, anybody that is listening
to this, you know, I know all of our, everything we post on
the internet gets scanned, I know all that, but listen, this is
what the word of God says. The weapons of our warfare are
not carnal. We don't use Kalashnikovs. We
don't use swords and machetes. Our weapons are mighty through
God, to the pulling down of strongholds. How? Casting down imaginations,
and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge
of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience
of Christ. The obedience of Christ. And
what a blessed, gentle master he is. What a blessed, gentle
master he is. No tyranny with him. But Christ
does, as we've seen in chapter six, he does send out four horses
to frustrate Satan's designs. The first one he sends out is
himself, the white horse. The gospel coming into this world,
the gospel coming into this world frustrates Satan's objectives. There are people in this world
who are the elect of God, called out of darkness into his marvelous
light. There are swathes of people who, though not amongst his believing
saved people, there are swathes of people who are undoubtedly
affected by the going forth of the white horse. There's the
red horse sent forth, and don't we see it? Have we not seen it?
Wars, there will always, Jesus said there will always be wars
and rumors of wars. Wouldn't you have thought that
2,000 years of evolutionary improvement, of the ascent of man, would have
caused us to think, well we don't need wars anymore, Do you think
we're any better today than we were 2,000 years ago when Jesus
said there will always be wars and rumors of wars? And surely
we would have eliminated poverty, surely we would have made poverty
history, surely we would have done that by now, wouldn't we?
We're so advanced, we've got such wonderful, surely we would
have made poverty history, wouldn't we? But the world is riven, torn
apart by socio-economic strife. From abject poverty, from living
from hand to mouth, a day's wages for a day's food, a day's wages
for a day's food, slave... How many people in our Western
world are in actual fact salary slaves? They're just wage slaves,
they just have to keep going, earning that same salary, hand
to mouth. And yet, There is absolutely
obscene opulence and riches beyond belief, socio-economic strife,
and of course the grey, pale, sickly green horse of death comes. And which of us isn't touched
so frequently? Which of us isn't touched by
it? And then we saw that the fifth seal was unloosed. And
that fifth seal showed the state of enmity between Satan's kingdom
and the kingdom of Christ. And the martyrs that were crying
out, their blood was crying out as Abel's blood cried out from
the ground to God. Crying out for justice. And that
prayer is answered. And the sixth seal is unloosed.
And what's that? It's this physical creation showing
signs, increasingly showing signs that there is a definite end
coming to this physical creation. It is coming, impending judgment. Those that have been the persecutors
of God's people in this world will be crying out for the rocks
and mountains to fall on them. Read the end of chapter 6. Worse
and worse is to be revealed. So Revelation chapter 7 gives
assurance of how God's people will survive it and what their
final state will be. Let's have a look at what we
read before, the sealing of the 144,000, which is in the first
part of chapter 7. The sealing of the 144,000. The sixth seal, at the end of
chapter 6, speaks of certain end and certain judgment, and
great awareness, rising awareness of its coming, but no repentance. And then at the start of chapter
7 we read these words, and after these things. So this is something
new, this isn't a continuation of the 6th seal. This is something
new, after these things. And what do we expect after the
6th seal? Anybody could answer that. What
do you expect after the 6th seal is open? You expect to see the
7th seal open. The 7th seal, don't you? And
is it going to happen? Well, when it does happen, and
when we get to it later on, we'll see that the seventh seal is
opened and there are seven trumpets. And they are blown in turn, and
we'll see what they mean later when we get to that. And then
the seventh one blows, and the seventh trumpet lets loose the
seven vials of the wrath of God. You see, it's speaking of increasing
judgments of God. They've been going on all the
time, but towards the end they get more and more intense. But
before the opening of the seventh seal in Revelation chapter 8,
Revelation 7 is given as a word of comfort. And also, let me
say this, not just a word of comfort to God's saints, but
a space for repentance. It's a reiteration of that idea
that today is the day of salvation. Today is the day to call upon
the name of the Lord while he may be heard, while he may be
found. For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall
be saved. That's what it is. It's a space
for repentance in this fallen world. Look at verses one to
three. After these things, I saw four
angels standing on the four corners of the earth." And people would
laugh at that and say, it's picturing the world as flat and square
with four corners. Surely it's stupid. How can anybody seriously believe
it? It's signified. It's symbolism. It's not meant
to be taken literally, it's symbolism. Four corners of the earth, holding
the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow
on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And I saw another
angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living
God. And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to
whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, hurt
not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed
the servants of our God in their foreheads. is the number of the
created world. Four, in biblical numeracy, these
are important things, I'm not talking about fictional rubbish,
dangerous fictional rubbish like da Vinci codes and all that sort
of nonsense. I'm talking about proper biblical
numerics. Four is the number of the created
world. That's why the four corners and
the four winds, the four winds of judgment that will hurt the
earth and the sea and the trees. The whole created world will
be hurt by these winds. But they're held back by Christ's
decree. How do I know it's Christ? Well,
I saw an angel ascending from the east. That must be Christ. That must be Christ. If you read
Isaiah 41 verse 2, we read of Christ as the righteous man from
the east. The righteous man from the east.
The angel ascending from the east. This is Christ coming with
his gospel of grace into this world. Having the seal of the
gospel of God. of the living God, crying, don't
hurt the earth yet, winds of judgment, don't hurt the earth
yet, until when? Until God's servants, verse three,
are sealed in their foreheads. We've got some people in this
world that is going to be hurt by the judgments of the seventh
seal, but don't do it yet, is what Christ says to the four
angels of judgment. Don't do it yet, because there
are people in this world who are going to have to be sealed
in their heads before the four winds can blow in their judgments.
They must be sealed there. Many, let me put it another way,
many there are in this world who now appear, as Ephesians
tells us, as children of wrath, dead in trespasses and sins,
they must be born again. They must be born again. Why
must they be born again? Because they must be born again.
to see the kingdom of God, to enter in, to be citizens of the
kingdom of God. They must hear the gospel. They
must willingly believe it. These people must willingly believe
it. What's this thing about the seal,
the seal? Well, the word seal here means
a mark impressed. You know, the king would put
his seal on a blob of sealing wax. They would weld the parchment
together with a blob of hot wax, and the king with his ring, who
only, he had that ring, would stamp his seal onto the sealing
wax. And anybody receiving that letter
would know, ah, it's from the king, because nobody else has
got that. This is his mark. It's a mark impressed in an obvious,
prominent place on their foreheads. It always reminds me of when
Stephen was little, when he was like Isaac's age, and Christine
will remember that I was playing with him. and in his box of toys,
and I was acting the fool. And we had one of those, we had
one of those little kind of, where you shot out of a gun,
and a thing stuck on a door, or it stuck on a wall, you know,
with a rubber suction pad. And I stuck it on my forehead,
and I'm crawling around the floor on all fours, and he's laughing
his head off, just like Isaac does now, he's laughing his head
off at me with this thing on my forehead. And it got to the
time, right, let's stop now. And I pulled this thing off my
head. Well, of course, it burst all the blood vessels. So for
about two weeks, I was wandering around with a great big circular
red mark on my forehead. And everybody, everybody at the
church we went to at the time, they were in stitches. They thought
I had the mark of the beast on my forehead. But no, to be serious
about this, The seal of God is a hallmark of authenticity. It's a hallmark of ownership.
It's a security marking. You know like now, you might
still do it, but you know you get those pens and you write
on your property and you can't see it in daylight, but if you
shine an ultraviolet light on it, your postcode and your address
and your contact details come up. And whoever's stolen your
goods, they can't rub it off and they can't wash it out. It's
like that kind of thing. It's a seal. It shows who it
belongs to. On the eve of the seventh seal
of great tribulation being loosed on the earth, the seal is stamped
on God's servants. What does it signify? Let me
read you some scriptures. Listen to these. Don't turn them
up. 2 Corinthians 1, 21 and 22. Now, and I'm missing out various
words, but it's not altering the sense. Now, God hath sealed
us. and given us the earnest of the
Spirit in our hearts. God has sealed us! Is that not
what this is saying? Revelation 7? Ephesians 1, 13. Christ, in whom ye also trusted,
after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel, the gospel
of your salvation, in whom also, after that ye believed, listen,
ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. Ephesians
4 verse 30, And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye
are sealed unto the day of redemption. The day of redemption, the day
when we're taken into eternal glory, free of sin. What's he
talking about? What is this sealing? It's conversion. It's conversion to Christ. It's
belief of the gospel of His grace. It's the Holy Spirit coming and
changing the subjects of Satan's kingdom, the citizens of Satan's
kingdom, into the citizens of Christ's kingdom. If you want
a really good picture of it, read Bunyan's Holy War. It's
such a good picture of it in allegorical language. It's regeneration. The Spirit coming and sealing
is a regenerative thing. He comes. He gives repentance
where there was none before. He calls, you know, a sinner
is a sacred thing, the Holy Ghost has made him so. He's sealed
by the Holy Ghost. Repentance, faith, justification,
sanctification. All of those things, to the extent
that the one who is thus sealed confesses their faith. They're
believers who bear the mark of the Holy Spirit. They bear the
mark. Not a literal red blob on your
forehead, but they bear the mark of the Holy Spirit. It's an indelible
seal. It's a mark of permanent ownership.
You can't rub it out. It's a sign of what the five
points of Calvinism calls, the final one, P of tulip, the perseverance
of the saints. That's what it is. In any period
of creation history, this isn't just an end thing, In any period
of creation history, but especially as the end approaches, God has
his people in this world who are all sealed with the Holy
Spirit's stamp. And however bad, however alarming
the judgments will be, you know we have to go through them, however
much they will affect God's saints physically, you know the four
horses, the three of war and of socio-economic strife and
of death, they affect God's people just like they affect the rest
of the world. They will affect us. Who knows? There might have
been a believer that was among that hundred and what was it?
Hundred and twenty eight, hundred and twenty nine shot it. There might
well have been a believer amongst them. We don't know. We're all
prone to it. But those who are sealed with
the conversion stamp The regenerating stamp of the Holy Spirit. Those
will be spiritually immune. They may not be physically immune,
but they will be spiritually immune from any harm. Listen
to what Jesus said in John chapter 10, verse 27. My sheep hear my voice, and I
know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me,
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
my Father's hand. I and my Father are one." Is
that not utterly confident? Believer, if you're one of the
sealed ones of the Holy Spirit in this world, sealed with his
salvation, be comforted. Don't be alarmed You're maybe
not physically immune from the effects of the seventh seal judgments
or any of the others, but be comforted, be not alarmed, you
are spiritually immune from anything they can throw at you. But where
does this figure 144,000 come from? What's that all about? There's all sorts of ridiculous
nonsense spoken about this. The Jehovah's Witnesses, well
I don't know what they currently say but the last time I took
any notice of what they said, they were saying that the 144,000
was a set of literal super Jehovah's Witnesses and that nobody else
can become one because they're already there. The 144,000 are
there and so if there was 144,001, well you can't get there because there's already 144,000.
So everybody else that's a good Jehovah's Witness that's
going to live in a restored earth, they're not amongst that 144,000.
Others say the 144,000 represents the Jews, and only the Jews,
saved by national privilege, the privilege of being Jews.
But I thought there was only one way of salvation, for there
is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must
be saved. And that's the name of Jesus
Christ, that's what Peter said. None other name. Only one way,
and that is in the gospel and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
No, if you read, and we haven't got time now to do it, but if
you read Romans chapters 9 to 11, if you read Galatians chapters
3 and 4, if you read Galatians chapter 6 and verse 16, it all
makes it abundantly clear that the Israel of God, God's true
Israel, is His elect from Jew and Gentile without national
barriers. The children of Abraham, according
to this way, according to God's way, according to God's Israel,
the children of Abraham are not those who have the genetic descent
from Abraham, they are those that have the same faith as Abraham. Jews and Gentiles are the Israel
of God. And in every period of time,
God has his 144,000 in the world, that the Holy Spirit seals against
its tribulation, spiritually. And it's a symbolic number. Of
course it's symbolic. It's not literal. Of course not.
It's symbolic. It's like Elijah's 7,000. I'm
sure that 7,000 was not a literal 7,000. It's a symbolic number. God's
perfect completeness. And the tribes, when we read
it before, you know, you think, oh those are the tribes of Israel.
Look a bit more closely, it's not consistent. It's inconsistent. Levi wasn't a tribe with an inheritance. Joseph didn't have a tribe. Oh,
you say, well, that's Manasseh and, no, Manasseh's already in
there, but Ephraim isn't in there. You see, it's not, but it's symbolical
of the people of God. It's symbolical of the tribes
of Israel. Think about numbers just for
a moment. I don't want to lose you at this point, but, you know,
we keep reading about 12, don't we? There were 12 patriarchs.
There were 12 tribes of Israel. There were 12 apostles. 12, yeah? Yeah? 12. How can you get 12? I should
be asking Timmy this, shouldn't I? Because he knows all this
sort of thing. 12 isn't made up. Timmy, how is 12 made up
of the number 3 and the number 4? three times, I'll tell you, I'll
tell you, because people will be listening and waiting for
the answer. Three times four. Three is the number of God. God is a triune God. Three is
the number of God. Four is the number of creation.
Three times, three has a kind of a leverage effect on the number
four, it multiplies, and it gives you twelve. When God works on
this creation, sinners in this creation, by his grace, we end
up with twelve. We end up with his people in
this world. We end up with that number twelve. When Christ, represented
by the number three, the number of God, is united with his people,
represented by the number four, we get the number three and four
is? Seven. Three and four, three and four
is seven. Seven is the number of perfection. When Christ is
united with his people in a marriage union, we get the number of perfection,
which is seven. And a thousand is ten times ten
times ten. Four square, like the holy of
holies. Let me just read from the end of Revelation, chapter
21, verses 10 to 17. Just let me read you this, and
he carried me away, we're now in the new Jerusalem and everything
that we've got to go through has been accomplished, and he
carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain,
and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending
out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, and her light
was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear
as crystal. and had a wall, great and high,
and had twelve gates, and the names written thereon, which
are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. On
the east, three gates. On the north, three gates. On
the south, three gates. On the west, three gates. Three
fours are twelve. Three fours are twelve. And the
wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the
twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he that talked with me had
a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof,
and the wall thereof. And the city lieth foursquare,
and the length is as large as the breadth. And he measured
the city with the reed twelve thousand furlongs. The length
and breadth and the height of it are equal. And he measured the wall thereof,
144 cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of
an angel. Do you see how the symbolism
there, again, for the new Jerusalem, for the new heaven, it's all
in there, that symbolism. This is symbolic of the people
of God in glory. Twelve also indicates the number
of God's people on earth in any time. The twelve patriarchs,
the twelve apostles, the twelve tribes. But what did we see in
Revelation chapter four when we saw the throne? How many elders
were around the throne in heaven? Answer? Twenty-four. 12 on earth,
Old Testament, 12 on earth, New Testament Apostles, in heaven
we see 24. The number 12 is of the people of God on earth. The
ones sealed are those on earth who are, who are the ones that
get sealed? Well when Paul went on his missionary
journey in Acts 13-48, he's preaching and a lot of Gentiles are hearing
him and believing and it says, as many as were ordained to eternal
life believed. These are the ones who are sealed
by the Holy Spirit coming. The angel ascends from the east,
the white horse rides forth with his gospel of grace, the Holy
Spirit comes and his servants in the earth are sealed, 144,000,
in preparation for tribulation, which will be loosed by the seventh
seal. It's already loosed, it's going
on, but the picture is it gets worse and worse as the end comes.
Initially, in the flesh, every one of them is dead in trespasses
and sins, a child of wrath even as others, but him, you who were
dead in trespasses and sins, he has quickened, he has made
alive by his Holy Spirit and converted them to Christ and
stamped them with God's seal of ownership. Oh yes, we'll feel
the winds of judgment, but spiritually the people of God are immune
from its effect. That's what that first half of
that chapter is telling us, but then we see verse 9, after this
I beheld and low, a great multitude. There was 144,000. They're the
ones that are on it. I'm not going to argue with anybody
that says the 144,000 is the elect of God in all ages, but
I think the picture is more consistent like this. But in verse 9, I
beheld a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations
and kindreds and people and tongues, standing before the throne and
before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their
hands. After this, This is a new vision
again, after this, after that first vision of the 144,000 sealed,
here's a new vision, a different vision, and it's of a multitude
which no man can number. And when God speaks to Abraham
thousands of years ago and tells him about the children of faith,
the children of promise, he says, your seed will be like the stars
of the sky or the sand on the seashore. What does he mean?
Literally exactly the same number? Now let me tell you an interesting
thing. You know as we get cleverer and cleverer and smarter and
smarter with technology and the things that we can do now are
just Even in my lifetime, you just wouldn't, those of you that
were alive in the 1950s, think back. Could you envisage, could
anybody envisage the technology that we have now? Even the most
bizarre science fiction could not predict the technology that
we have now and the knowledge and where we've been. We've just
flown a spacecraft via the planet Pluto or whatever they call it,
maybe not a planet these days, but it used to be a planet. and
sent pictures back to the earth. Now is that not a phenomenal
achievement? But do you know something? we're
still no nearer knowing how many stars there are in the sky. Because
the deeper we look into space, the more we discover. We know
more that we don't know now than we ever thought we did when we
couldn't see very far. And the further and further we
see, the more we see that there is that we cannot count. So it's
not that there's exactly the same number, but just as even
to this fantastically technologically advanced day, it is impossible
to count the stars, so it's impossible to number the elect of God from
all ages, put together in heaven. Just as when you go to the beach,
it's nice building sandcastles, but do you know, is there anybody
who knows how many grains of sand there are in the world on
the seashore? Not a solitary one. Nobody today
is any the wiser as to how many grains of sand there are. Why
would there be? How could there possibly be?
You know, however advanced we are. And that's what he's picturing,
is a multitude that no man can number. Oh, don't we seem small
gathered here? Don't we seem small, the people
that we know? We're just God's 144,000 here,
or his 7,000 in the picture in Elijah. But you put them all together
in heaven, and John sees a multitude that no man can number. From
all nations, what's that telling us? What does that remind you
of? John 3.16, For God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life. What? God loved everybody that
ever lived in the world? That's not what it's saying.
You must read Scripture in the context of Scripture. God so
loved a world of people without distinction. Not just Jews. Not
just those in Israel. God so loved a world of people
without distinction, who he sealed with his mark of his Spirit's
sovereign grace. Not just Jews. And he gives every
one of them. Verse 14, look down there. Who
are they? Sir, thou knowest. He said to
me, these are they which came out of great tribulation and
have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the
lamb. They've got white robes on. They've washed their robes.
Does that mean that they've saved themselves by washing their robes
in the blood of the lamb? Come on everybody, the door is
open. If you want to, you can come
and wash your robes. No, he's made them willing in the day
of his power to trust Christ. And being made willing by his
spirit and the sealing and the quickening that comes, then They
come and willingly wash their garments in the blood of Christ,
because in His blood, and in His blood alone, is cleansing
from sin. It's in His blood that is the
cleansing that makes whiter than snow. And they grasp it as theirs
and belonging to them. And palm branches? The palm branches
that they have in their hands speaks of the Old Testament Feast
of Tabernacles. That Old Testament Feast of Tabernacles
was when they lived in booths. It's the Feast of Booths or the
Feast of Tents. And they had palm branches in
their hands. And do you know what they were commemorating?
We used to be in the wilderness, wandering in Sinai, but now we've
been brought into the land of His promise. And they're rejoicing
that they're in the land of His promise. It's the Feast of Tamanakles. We're living in booths to remind
us we've been brought out of that situation and the palm branches
are all part of the ceremony. What does John see? He sees all
of God's people brought out of this wilderness world and settled
in that kingdom of glory, in that heavenly kingdom of glory,
rejoicing in the fact the multitude is past the wilderness of life
in this world, of its sin, of its imperfection, and it's now
in heaven's bliss. So this is all the 144,000 of
God's people in any one period of the world. They're all sealed
in this wilderness world, they're all experiencing the degrees
of its great tribulation as God's judgments proceed, and here they
are all assembled together in heaven. The sum The church on
earth is known as the church militant, still here in this
warfare, still here in this battle, still here in this wilderness
world, but you add all of the church militant down all the
ages together, and you see the church triumphant in heaven.
And their song? is a song of praise. Verses 10
to 12. They cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our
God which sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb. Praise to
God for salvation accomplished. Praise, somebody said, it's just
like Adam, when in the Garden of Eden before the fall, when
he saw the finished works of God's creation, and he would
have stood there and said, creation to our God. This is all accomplished
by God's doing. Salvation is all accomplished
by God's doing, from beginning to end. Saving the multitude
of sinners, clothing them in white, sealing them for glory. and in doing it he has remained
utterly just through his son. So he's a just God and a saviour.
And they sing, how is this accomplished? How is it that we have citizens
who were sinners and nothing that defiles shall enter in and
yet there they are. It's all through what he has
accomplished in his saving work. And the angels They show forth
sevenfold praise. The angels who love desire to
look into these things. The angels fall on their faces
in worship saying, and it's sevenfold, they say, blessing and glory
and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, seven,
be unto our God forever and ever. What's the conclusion then of
this chapter? The conclusion of this chapter,
you see that we see them there, they're hungering no more, they're
thirsting no more, The lamb which is in the midst of the throne
shall feed them and lead them into living fountains of water
and just like it says in Revelation 21, God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes. Here they are in glory. What's
the conclusion of it? The seventh seal when it's opened
in chapter eight will initiate seven trumpets of judgment. And
the seventh trumpet will release seven vials of wrath. It has
always been so, and it's going to get worse. It will affect
all, including God's people, including God's servants, physically,
naturally. but they, his servants, are sealed
for heaven. Believer, if you're trusting
Christ, set your eyes, set your thoughts, set your affections
on these things. Be comforted. Pray, as Jesus
taught his disciples, thy kingdom come. Oh, that he would bring
that kingdom about, that kingdom of bliss, of perfection, of sinlessness. Unbeliever, unbeliever, as John
the Baptist said to the Pharisees, you know it's coming, The word
of God never lies. Flee from the wrath that is to
come. Where to? Flee to Christ. He
said, come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest. He that comes to me I will in
no wise cast out.