We're going to continue in Revelation here today. Last week we worked our way through the end of chapter 6. If you remember this, chapter 6 is kind of the whole chapter is the opening of the seven seals, the beginning of the final judgments there, God's beginning to bring his wrath onto the earth here at the end. The end of chapter 6, we saw the sixth of the seven seals be broken. That's kind of where the chapter ends. It's after months, really, as we would go through and we talked about over the past few weeks, months of war and famine and disease that ultimately result in one quarter, it says, of the Earth's population being killed by the combination of the war, the famine, pestilence, disease, wild beasts. After that, there's With the breaking of the sixth seal, a great earthquake, massive natural disaster, so to speak, with earthquakes, volcanoes, the sky filling with ash, the shifting of the tectonic plates that will result in the moving even of mountains and islands, as it says there. in the text. And the chapter ends with those who are recognizing why all of these things are happening. In verse 16, chapter 6, verse 16, verse 15 and 16, it's those who are left, the kings of the earth, the great ones, the generals, the rich, the powerful, everyone slave and free. They begin to hide themselves in caves among the rocks of the mountains calling for the mountains and the rocks and the caves or the bunkers or whatever they have to shelter them from the wrath of the Lamb, from the pouring out of the wrath of God. It says in verse 16, hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. The last verse, verse 17, They say, great is the day of this wrath and it has come. And there's a question that's asked at the end of the chapter, who can stand? Who is it that can survive these things? We said last week that the answer to this kind of rhetorical question really is that nobody, nobody can stand. Right? I mean, there's nothing you can do in the face of the things that are happening here. The only hope are for those who would turn to the Lord in repentance, those who would seek the Lord's forgiveness, who would cry out to Him for mercy. But these guys aren't doing that, right? They're crying out, but they're not crying out to the Lord. They're crying out to the mountains, to the nature, like, protect us, stop this kind of thing. They're unwilling. And it's at this moment that the text of Revelation takes a pause before there's a breaking of the seventh seal. There's a whole chapter here that we'll look at today, chapter 7, which is between the breaking of the sixth seal and the opening of the seventh seal. There's kind of this interlude here which is kind of welcome. A welcome break from the wrath over the last couple of weeks as we've gone through chapter 6. Some of you have asked me these questions about what is it for the believers? What about the Christians during this time? It sounds like since we don't believe that the rapture happens before these events, then there would be a bunch of Christians on the earth. What of them? What's happening with them? And if this is going to be in my lifetime, which every generation of Christians has viewed this with, you know, maybe it could be us. We don't know, but we're supposed to be ready. We're supposed to have this kind of mindset. And so, if it's going to be us, how am I going to deal with this? This seems scary, frightening. Wars, famines, economic sanctions, persecutions, earthquakes, volcanoes, right? On and on it goes. What about us? Well, chapter 7 actually provides some insight into this question. We basically see in chapter 7 two groups that are described here. The first is those who will survive because God supernaturally preserves them. So, look in Revelation 7, starting in verse 1. It says, After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on 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. He called out with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm 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. There's some debate, of course, with everything in the book of Revelation, but the beginning of the chapter here, there's a transition that says something about after this. The question is, what is this after this supposed to signify to us? Is this suggesting that this is another separate vision from the one that John has been being shown in chapter 6, a different scene, an altogether unrelated section of something in the scripture, a different scene where there's five angels in charge of the wind and the weather and as if it were detached from the seal judgments in chapter six or others would say that this is kind of a chronological marker indicating that this is what happens after the sixth seal judgment. There's the breaking of the seals, the opening of these things, the earthquakes, all these things, people are running and hiding. And then after this, this scene. And I think that that's most likely what this is, that it is a change of scene, but it's also the connection we'll see with the great tribulation before we get to the end of the chapter. So I think that's what we're seeing here is the next thing. What is it? In the vision, there's four angels holding back the winds from blowing on the earth and the sea and against any tree. And they're holding back the wind as instructed by the fifth angel. What about the four winds? These are something that's associated a couple of places in the Old Testament with judgment. So, I have a couple of passages to look up and read. Somebody want to volunteer to look up Jeremiah 49, verse 36? The second one will be in Daniel 7. Jeremiah 49. You there, Chris? Yeah, 36. Jeremiah 49, 36. So this is a judgment specifically in the book of Isaiah against Elam, that how is this judgment going to come? Well, the breaking out of the four winds from the four quarters of heaven or the four corners of the globe from north, south, east and west, the four points on the compass. This fierce anger of the Lord, verse 37 says after this, will be poured out on these people as he sends the sword after them. sort of depicted as wind coming from all the different directions, the four winds. Daniel 7 says something similar. Paul, you want to read that, Daniel 7, 2 and 3? Daniel declared, I saw in my vision by night and behold the four winds of heaven were stirred up the great sea and four beasts came out of the sea different from So this is a vision of prophecy that Daniel's given about the coming of judgment again, the disaster. It begins with four winds, becomes four bees, he describes the bees, they're used in judgment. And so this is a couple of times in the Old Testament where these prophecies are speaking of the four winds, which now seems to be something that comes into Revelation chapter 7 that this is the preparation for the judgment of God that will begin again in chapter 8 with the breaking of the seventh seal which begins the seven trumpet judgments which if you look forward you'll see It involves all kinds of things like storms that come from the sky, fire and hail mixed with blood burning up a third of the trees. All these sort of things come through the trumpet judgments and it really is like the destruction of the earth, the further destruction of the earth even after the great earthquake. and all these things. There's something even more that's yet to come. And so, this is the unleashing of the wrath that's being held back. That's what we see in the scene for now, is that there's a fifth angel who comes from the east, from where the sun rises, right? This fifth angel, he comes and he's calling with a loud voice to the four angels who have authority over the four winds, telling them not to release the wind to harm the earth or the sea or the trees yet. It's the holding back of the judgments, as you said. There's a reason for this pause in the judgment. Do you see why? Revelation 7, verse 3. What's the judgment being held back for? Yeah, it's for the marking of the elect. It's for the sealing of those who are the servants of God. Don't release these winds, this judgment, until something else is done first. This angel comes, and verse 2 says that he comes from the east but has the seal of the living God in his hand and says, don't release the wind until I use this seal to seal up the servants of God. It's a sign, symbol, that the angel's gonna put on them to protect them from the wrath of God. You flip forward a few chapters into chapter 14, verse one, it says, I looked and behold on Mount Zion stood the Lamb and with Him 144,000. We'll see that that's here in chapter seven, who had His name and His Father's name written on their foreheads. Tells us what the seal is. Whatever the name of God is and the name of the Lamb, I don't know exactly if that's Yahweh and Yeshua or how that is exactly, but we're told that that's the symbol, the sign, the seal that's on their foreheads. This is in fact exactly the same kind of protection that God provided to the Israelites when they were enslaved in Egypt. Remember? There were the judgments that God was bringing against Egypt, the plagues, by the hand of Moses? What was the last one? The plague of the firstborn, right? That the angel of the Lord was going to come and kill all the firstborn in the land except for If you took and you sacrificed the lamb and took the blood of the lamb and painted the top of the door post and the side, the lintel and the side posts of the door, then when the angel of the Lord came in vengeance, he would observe the sign or seal on the door and he would pass over judgment of that house, right? This is where the Passover comes from. That's the sign. What was the purpose of that? Protection of the people of God from the wrath of God. It's the exact same thing that's being put together here in chapter 7. That these are the people of God and God wants to protect them from his own wrath. Except for this time it's not the blood of dead animals, but this is the seal of the living God. You've got to recognize that's something more powerful, right? There's a contrast set in the passage that this seal of the living God will mark them for protection. But who are they? Well, starting in verse 4 through verse 8, we're told who they are. I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel. 12,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed, 12,000 from the tribe of Reuben, 12,000 from the tribe of Gad, 12,000 from the tribe of Asher, 12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali, 12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh, 12,000 from the tribe of Simeon, 12,000 from the tribe of Levi, 12,000 from the tribe of Issachar, 12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000 from the tribe of Joseph, and 12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed. This is another place in the book of Revelation where the numbers and the details are very specific. You see that? This is, in my opinion, too specific. to just be representative of a large number of random people who make up the church. There are lots of interpretations. We've said this throughout our study of the book of Revelation. And I can only be so dogmatic about the way that I would view these things as being literal and just what the words on the page are written are the words that are meant. But this is specific. in verse 4, that they're from the tribes of the sons of Israel. And not just that statement, but the names of the tribes are mentioned by name. There's a couple missing. Dan is missing and the half-tribe of Ephraim is missing. We don't know why that is. Some suggest it's the historic tendency towards idolatry in those tribes, but we're not really told. But what we do see here is something that's, I think, too specific. Those who would look at Revelation as a largely symbolic book full of timeless principles that apply to Christians of all ages, look at this as God's protection over those who are His. That broadly the church and all those in the church, not 144,000 only, but all of everybody through all time periods. And so all of the numbers are for the effect of just meaning it's a lot. which in my opinion makes them meaningless. But it's an awful lot of verses to spend providing numbers that are essentially meaningless if that's my interpretation. But the other problem is that this is very specific to Israel. It's not. There's no other place in the New Testament where we could borrow any similar language to indicate that the Israel, the tribes of the sons of Israel is anything like the church. So just to say that, I think that this is how I read this and see it as a predominantly literal future, literal 144,000. God can count that high. It's not really a problem for him. all the records of all the tribes and who's from what tribe, all were destroyed in the temple in 70 AD. Those records really don't exist. None of the modern day Hebrews and Jewish people really can know what tribe their ancestors were from. But God knows. This isn't a problem. It's God who's doing the sealing by the angel and God knows all of these things. And so we just see this here in this way. that this is for this purpose. Now, what are they sealed for? Not just for protection. Many would tell us to turn to Revelation 14, flip a couple pages over. and see this here, I mentioned Revelation 14, chapter 14, verse 1, that here is the 144,000 and the seal is the name of the Father written on their foreheads, the name of the Lamb and the name of the Father written on their foreheads. But the next couple of verses kind of continue here and say, I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. The voice I heard was like the sound of a harpist playing on their harps. They were singing a new song. before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders, no one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. Now here, verse four, it says, it is these, these 144,000 who have not defiled themselves with women for they are virgins. It is these who follow the lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as first fruits for God and the lamb and in their mouth, no lie was found for they are blameless. Now, I agree with those who would look at this and say, in these few verses, the first five of chapter 14, you have the same exact number, 144,000, indicating that it's probably an exact number and not just some random meaningless number. But what about them is this, that they are devoted to the Lord. They are those who have set themselves apart for the Lord, right? They've been redeemed as the first fruits of God in the land. They're clearly saved people. They're redeemed by Christ in some way or another. And in their mouth was no lie, for they're blameless. They're blameless virgins, undefiled, But this idea of them having no lie in their mouth seems to tell us something, I think, that these are those who will be employed in the end as really a massive missionary organization, 144,000 of devoted evangelists. It suggests that this will be a time when these guys will be the greatest, most effective evangelistic effort in history, employed by the Lamb to preach to whoever's left. being honest about what's coming as the judgments continue to roll. Those judgments won't be on them. They'll be protected. Why? Because they're sealed by the seal of the living God. These are not those who will populate the Millennial Kingdom, just to answer that question. That's a different group. These guys are redeemed before the Lord returns. They're sealed as servants before the end of the Great Tribulation. So these will be those who will be raptured at the end, along with any who are saved by their preaching. But I do think that these guys are the fulfillment of Romans chapter 11. So somebody want to read in Romans chapter 11 a couple verses, please? Virginia, thanks. It's verse 25, 26, and 27. So Romans 11, 25. I do not want you to be unaware of his missing brothers. A partial pardoning has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way, all Israel will be saved, as it is written. The deliverer has come from beyond. He will banish ungodliness from Jacob's. So those few verses indicate this, that for now, there's a time that we live in where there's a partial hardening that's come upon Israel. There's a continued rejection in large scale, not individual by individual, but large scale rejection within the people of Israel, the Hebrews, the Jews, a rejection of Jesus as the Christ, as the Messiah. That's a partial hardening that's come upon them. Until the full measure of the Gentiles comes in, There's a Gentile evangelism that's supposed to be going on in our day, the fulfillment of the Great Commission to all the nations outside, not just in Israel but outside. It's not that we don't preach to Jews in our day or that they can't be saved, that's not true, but largely they're going to be rejecters as they continue to be. After the Gentiles have all come in, all Israel will be saved as it is written. The Deliverer will come from Zion and He'll banish ungodliness from Jacob. There will be those from the sons of Israel, the sons of Jacob, from the tribes, evidently 144,000, 12,000 from each, who will be undefiled. They'll be set apart. purified when the Lord comes and takes away their sin, and particularly their sin of rejection. I think that that's what happens here that we're seeing in Revelation chapter 7. There's a widespread conversion of ethnic Jews whom the Lord knows are from certain tribes. And they come as the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. So where are all the Gentiles? How come don't the Gentiles get sealed? Well, that's what the rest of the book is about, the rest of the chapter, chapter 7 is about. Not just the Gentiles, others, but we see the Gentiles appear here when we start looking in Revelation 7, verse 9. This is the second group of believers described in Revelation 7. After I looked, verse 9 says, and behold, a multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb." People from all the different languages and tribes and stuff. It doesn't exclude Hebrews or Jewish people, but it certainly includes the vast majority of all of the Gentile nations and peoples and languages. Before we push on with that, I should have asked this before. Questions about the 144 that I can answer with I don't know? Byron? With 144,000, this is the same passage that some of the Mormons get into saying that there's some kind of selected ones from the lost tribes here in North America, but they're all kind of strange. Are those the only people who guarantee heaven and all that? I don't remember if there's something about that. What's that? Jehovah's Witnesses. that there's the select secret and that it's somehow equivalent to these things, but they're not literalists about this either. To your point, it is interesting that the first part of the chapter gives us specific numbers and the second part of the chapter says there's multitudes who can't be numbered, so it's not like the writer of that John and the inspiration to John can't count. But yeah, I have trouble with that, but I try not to mock the numbers thing too much. The main argument usually comes from something to the extent of, well, we don't have records anymore, so how are we able to separate? There's nothing here about the people separating themselves by bloodlines. This is about the angel separating them by bloodlines, which the Lord would clearly know. The one who knit us together in our mother's womb might know who our ancestors were. Any other thoughts or questions there? Because this multitude here that I just read about in verse 9 appears to be martyrs. This is very similar if we look back in chapter 6 at the fifth seal being broken. Chapter 6 verse 9, right? There were all these souls under the altar who had been slain for the Word of God. They're martyrs. They're those who had been killed for their testimony. These are, I think, the same people, just now they're not under the altar. Now they're assembled before the throne of God. Remember with the fourth seal, a quarter of the earth's population died? War, famine, pestilence, wild beasts. I told you last week or two weeks ago that I think the majority of that quarter of the earth's population who die in that way are believers. And it's because the war is specifically organized as a persecution against them. It's a type of a genocide attempt, led by the Antichrist, this dominant world power, who hates the Lord Jesus, and therefore hates his people. And we'll see in chapter 13, when we get there, that he's allowed to make war on all the saints. And then later in that same chapter, not just literal physical war, but also to impose economic sanctions against them so that it's harder and harder to live. Who are those who can't buy and sell during this period who would starve to death? Mostly believers. Will there be others who die? Of course there will be, right? But I think the majority are believers and they show up right here in Revelation 7 verse 9. A multitude too great to count. Virginia? I think a fourth of the earth and I think it'll be most of the believers. Well, evidently 144,000. Yeah, I think that's where we see the two groups. I think that God seals these 144,000 because then there are these witnesses, these evangelists, these people speaking the truth who are solely devoted to the Lord. They're not married or anything else. They don't have any separation. They don't have any divisions of their attention. They're solely dedicated to the Lord. And God is gonna seal them to maintain them so they don't receive his judgment. I think that that's a big part of it. We'll see there's two specific witnesses when we get to chapter 11 who are well-known. I don't think they're among the 144,000, but who are well-known during that period too. And so this is the answer to the question, what's going on with the believers during this time period? Some of them, and I think they're all evidently ethnic Jewish guys, 144,000, will be sealed by the Lord for protection against all of these things. Where are the rest? They've already been killed, which we'll see in the rest of the chapter. It's actually quite a blessing. Hopefully you see it that way. I'll give you the warning that that's the way that it's presented here. Frank? I guess. So why is there a distinction now? Oh, the Lord wants there to be. It's a good question, and this is one of the objections of those who would disagree with my interpretation altogether. Those who would take this all to be much more symbolic is there is no longer Israel. There is no distinction. Right? All are the same. Everybody's in Christ and there's not Jew or Greek. But at the same time, I think that there's the reality Because I become a Christian, it doesn't erase my ethnic heritage. I am that as a Christian. Christian is supposed to dominate. It's not supposed to be the tribalism of I'm this ethnicity and you're that. I hate you and that's more important than us being brothers in Christ. That's not how it's supposed to be. But I think that there's a tension that's left in the scripture here about there's not supposed to be that separation from our perspective. We are not supposed to divide in those ways. But from God's perspective, He's already disclosed in Romans chapter 11 that there will be a great coming in, a regrafting of those of Israel. And he, in that chapter, he, Paul doesn't present that in a way that it's, they become part of the church. He presents it that after the Gentiles come in, then these guys who are Jewish come in at the end. And I think that's what Revelation is also describing. And so I think that there's a, just a plain reading of the text. How do they work together? I'm not completely sure, but I could see how that could be. So far as we're concerned in the church, we're not supposed to have favorites or distinctions. It's not supposed to be my tribe versus your tribe. We're all of Christ. But in the end, the Lord evidently has some sort of purpose in maintaining His own record keeping and Him sorting things out in this way in the end. I don't know why. Other than I think that there's a whole bunch of unfulfilled promises to the nation of Israel about all of Israel being saved and things like that that he has yet to fulfill. And I don't think those are fulfilled in the church. I think that's conflating two different things that the Scripture keeps separate. Does that make sense, Samantha? So, I'm just like not very quick at math, but I know that you'll summarize it, but literally, Speaking then, taking, if I understand you and follow you right, taking the number of people on the earth now, 8 billion, or something like that. 8 billion, let's say. Then, at this point, a quarter of them have been killed. 2 billion are dead. So we have 6 billion. 6 billion left. And then, now, this 144 are the majority of the believers left on the earth? There are some of the believers left on the earth. I tend to think that they might either be a majority or perhaps all at some point. So say all, divided by six continents that are livable, like outside of Antarctica, there's no inhabitants there. Is that seven? Six continents we'll say without Antarctica, yeah. You're going to make me get my calculator. Go ahead. If you kind of average that out, there's how many? 24,000 evangelists on each continent, ish. Two. Probably less on Australia, probably more in Asia, probably. But as we would take the averages. Yeah, only because of what it says here, that they're bloodline ethnic Jews. So yeah, I just, yes. Which is interesting. 24,000 to one billion? 24,000. No, no, they're not going to be about fighting it out. Yeah. I mean, what is that? They are fighting it out. Yeah, they are fighting it out. Just to kind of get a grasp of it. Because you can say a number, but it's just better for me to visualize it. Yeah, and that's only one evangelist for every 41,666.67 people. But I mean, think about this in terms of where we live now and how things operate now. We know some evangelists who are dedicated, who are traveling, street preacher, campus ministers type guys and stuff like that. I don't know 24,000 on the continent of North America compared with what we have now. That's a lot. I know 24. I don't know 24,000. So, I think that's a lot. On top of it, at the same time, we'll see in chapter 11 that there's two witnesses who have the world's attention somehow. Media, I think, blows this up to where that's even a bigger deal. But it's good questions. I mean, trying to sort through it. If this is the thing, how would that work? That's not a dominant number, That's not an insignificant number, I don't think, when you spread them out and figure out. It's a couple thousand per country. That's far more than I know of in the US as it sits now. You want to be one, Phil? Yeah, that'd be great. There's another assumption being made here, and that's the $8 billion is where we're working from. Because the way things are going, with just birth rates and abortion and all those kind of things going on is one example. Also, people wanting to get rid of the population. We don't know that we're going to be starting this thing with a barrier. Yeah, it could be starting with less if various factors about population declines are true. If models for places like India and a lot of Africa continue to dominate, those models are population explosion models. And so it could be a whole lot less or it could be a whole lot more. And if it's 1,000 years from now yet into the future, who knows? I'm just trying to, like Samantha said, trying to wrap my head around how would this even look? What would this even be like? And it's pretty tough to see in many ways. So the unbelievableness of it all is not insignificant. I was going to say that even with only 144,000 people witnessing, we live in a digital age where one person can easily reach hundreds of thousands or millions online. And it seems like there's the two witnesses who are, the whole world is watching them. It seems like there is still some type of internet or some way for their message to get to the whole world. I think so. And so if there's like 144,000 people who are doing that online or in person or whatever, that's a lot of the message that gets out. It's not insignificant in comparison. Right. Yeah. So it could be. So Ivan? I think, too, like with Samantha having a facial thing helps me, too. But then I think I forget, like when Jesus was walking on earth, you know, I mean when the apostles were preaching, you know, 5,000 in one day got saved. Right. And it really only started with 12. Right. Right. With 12 guys, right. And I think we're looking at everything the way the world is now, and everybody hates the gospel. Nobody wants to hear it. And that's probably going to be true then. But that's what we're used to. When we think we forget about the power of God, and like when he wants to move, he can move and save 5,000 people in a day if he wants to. Right, right. So like, not that we're not thinking God has that power. We're just so used to what we see nowadays that we don't see God working like that. Right. This is like the start of the end. So he's probably going to be working more. So for people to get saved 5,000 at a time might be nothing. Right. It might be nothing. That could be true. Yeah, there's not full, complete information here. But this is working with the text and what we have, right? And so we could see how that might be. Yeah, good points. Is there information about how many will be sent? These guys might literally be just preaching to the guys hiding in the caves, praying to the caves to fall on them and hide them from the Lord, and they're standing outside the cave trying to witness to people who are doing nothing but reject them. It could be that or it could be this other thing. We generally would want to say that the Lord dominates in grace and mercy. He's abundant in those things, but at this time it's an unleashing of unrestrained wrath and kind of a final decimation of the planet. And so, how many are getting saved? Hard to say. Some, I think. Well, I mean, I think that verse 9 is talking about a separate group of people that are already kind of... No, I think these guys are already standing before the throne as these guys are being sealed. This is a simultaneous kind of circumstance. And so I think verse nine begins to tell us about everybody else. Relative to that question that I said, that I've been being asked, this is scary, this is frightening, I don't wanna go through this. If this is gonna be in our lifetime, how is this gonna affect me? What am I gonna do? Well, you're probably gonna die. But it's going to be before the Lord's wrath begins to be directly poured out with the trumpet judgments. That's what I think is depicted here. The seal judgments, what we've gone through the last couple of weeks, we've said this before, these are God largely using normal means that people die of today. They died of this 2,000 years ago. Wars, famines, pestilence, disease, wild beasts, I keep saying it, think rats and the black plague, right? All of these things, this is nothing new. Just the scale gets grander. Why? I think that this tells us that one of the reasons why is because God is using those means to remove the believers from the earth before he directly starts pouring out wrath with the trumpet judgments that we'll start seeing in chapter eight. And so there's a huge multitude No one can number from every nation. They're standing before the throne. They're crying out in a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. And verse 11 continues, all the angels are standing around the throne, around the elders and the four living creatures and they all fall on their faces before the throne of God and worship Him, saying, Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen. It's just like the scenes that we've seen in chapter 4 and 5. Before the throne of God, around the throne of God, who's there? 24 elders, 4 living creatures, a myriad of angels, myriads of myriads of angels. They're all worshiping God. Now who joins them? A multitude of martyred saints. So many that you can't number, but some from every tribe and language and people. These are all of those who have been saved. And who are they exactly? Well, that's what the question in verse 13 is. One of the elders, it says, addressed me, this is John speaking in the first person, then one of the elders addressed me saying, who are these clothed in white robes and from where have they come? And John answers, he says in verse 14, 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. Who are these guys? Where did they come from? Why are they here? This great multitude that nobody can number. The elder specifically says they've come out of the Great Tribulation. You know who predicted the Great Tribulation? In Matthew chapter 24? Jesus. That's right. That's right. This is terminology that is Jesus' terminology. Where do you suppose that the elder got it from? Depending on who this elder is, maybe he was there that night on the Mount of Olives before Jesus was arrested when he was giving the discourse in Matthew 24 and told them about the coming great tribulation. Matthew 24-21. Somebody want to read there? Just so we can see it. We've got to see it. Matthew 24, 21. 21 and 22, please. Thanks. Yeah, verses 21 and 22. but for the sake of the elect who have made me short." Yeah. Verse 21, the NIV says, there will be a great distress, great tribulation, a time of great tribulation, great distress. I don't know how the NIV translates it back in Chapter 7 about what the angel says. This is what Jesus is talking about. All these things are going on, the world's going to come to an end, all this judgment of God, and there's a great tribulation, like has never been seen from the beginning of the world until now. In those days, if those days had not been cut short, no human being would say, for the sake of the elect, those days are cut short. How are these days cut short if these guys are all the elect who are now dead and in heaven? How are the days cut short? There's two ways you can cut the days short. You can either stop the judgment, or you can take them out of the judgment by letting them die, which is evidently what the Lord has done, because now they're all gathered up in heaven. These days are cut short in this way. Now, let me say it this way. I keep saying it, they die, they die. They go to be with the Lord. How does that sound? Does that sound preferable to the Great Tribulation to anybody? I mean, this is what's presented here. Who are they? They're the ones who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. Strange thought, isn't it? You get pearly white robes from washing them in blood? Well, if it's the blood of the Lamb, you do. Right? Those white robes indicate the purity and holiness that can only be the believers when they're made holy by their souls being cleansed by the blood of the Lamb. It's only because of this that they're acceptable in the presence of our Holy God. And now they're fit for service to the Almighty, which is the rest of the chapter. The last two verses, three verses, starting in Revelation 7, verse 15, "...therefore they are before the throne of God, serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will shelter them in His presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more. The sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat." These are, while everything's going from bad to worse on the earth, they've been removed from that. They're protected from all of that, but how are they protected? They're protected by God sheltering them with his presence. Some say that the word they're sheltering them is he tabernacles them. He covers them over. He provides the tent so that they're protected from all of these things. They're sheltered because they'll be with Him in His presence, right? And they'll be privileged to serve Him day and night. They won't have any needs, no hunger, no thirst. The sun won't burn them. It's just only a foretaste of the new heaven and the new earth in Revelation 21 and 22, which has much of the same description. There are these promises made in places like Ezekiel 37, 27. I'm just going to grab this real quick. Ezekiel 37, verse 27. The promise of God is, My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people. It's mentioned this way in Leviticus 26 and Zechariah chapter 2. We'll try to find Zechariah 2. Zechariah 2, 10, and 11 is, Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I am come, and I dwell in your midst, declares the Lord. And many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people, and I will dwell in your midst. And you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. And this is finally and fully fulfilled in the new heavens and the new earth, but it's partially fulfilled here in these martyrs, these guys who have died in the great tribulation. They're now being protected by God. This is really the truest blessing that's realized for them at that moment, is they're in the presence of God. This is the answer to the question, what about all those believers? I'm scared. Well, if you can manage to not be scared of death now, because you know the Lord, who you will see on the other side, then your method of death shouldn't really scare you all that much more. That's the hope of the believer. We're supposed to look at things that way, is that we have a hope on the other side. Verse 17 ends the chapter and says, "...the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd. He'll guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." The Lamb, interestingly enough, becomes the shepherd, the one who leads us to springs of living water. There's a couple of times that Jesus mentioned the springs of living water, The one time was in John chapter 7, where he indicated that the living water was something that would overflow from your heart as you have the Holy Spirit. But this is not that reference. This is not about receiving the Holy Spirit. These guys are already in heaven, in the presence of God. It's not that they need the Holy Spirit inside them. This time, the living water mentioned here in Revelation 7 is the same water that he promised to the woman at the well in Samaria. In John 4, verse 13, Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life. That's the picture. They are with the Lord who is giving them at this time eternal life. And all the horrors that these martyrs witnessed or experienced in the Great Tribulation, what's the first of the eternal life comforts that they get? according to the end of verse 17. God will wipe away every tear from their eye. Having come out of the great tribulation, there's plenty of reason for crying. Plenty of reason. But now there's no more reason. because they have this gift of eternal life given to them by God. God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. All their sadness and fear will all be driven away as those saints receive the reward for their faith. That's the answer to the question. What about, I'm afraid, I'm scared, I don't want to do it, it'll be sad. What's going to happen? God will help you to endure until you have to endure no more, and then he'll bring you to be with him where he'll wipe away every tear from your eye. That is the comfort that we're given by chapter 7 about what about the believers in the midst of all of this stuff. And so the good news is that no matter how you interpret these things, that's still a blessed truth, isn't it? That God is the God of all comfort. And so we'll just leave it with that timeless truth at the end. So other thoughts and questions? We kind of went a little bit long, but we started a little bit late. A whole chapter, isn't that good? It all goes together. It's kind of needed to be that way. So Lord, I thank you this morning for giving us this place to meet, for getting us in here and getting things set up so we could have our class and the rest of our morning together. Lord, I thank you for. providing these things for us. More important than that, Lord, I thank you for providing for our salvation, that everything in this chapter that we've just covered here in Revelation 7 is so true for us that one day we'll be with you. We may not be martyred out of the great tribulation, but this is true, true promises for all of us, that we will have holy perfection having been washed in the blood of the Lamb, that we will come that day recognizing and singing along with this crowd at one time that salvation belongs to our God. Lord, I thank you that you give us the promise of one day, no matter what it is, how our lives go or how they end, one day you'll be there for us to wipe away every tear from our eyes. Not that that makes you our servant, but it makes you a blessed one who cares for our souls. And I just praise you and thank you for all of that. I thank you for the opportunity to look at these things together. I pray, Lord, that we would, like this great assembly in heaven today, join our voices in worship. And we have the opportunity here to sing. Pray that we would, with our hearts and minds, sing to you, and that you would be glorified in our mourning here in Jesus' name. Amen.