Revelation 14, 1 through 5. And behold, I saw a lamb standing on Mount Zion and with him 144,000 having his name and his father's name written on their foreheads. And I heard a sound from the sky like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. And the sound that I heard was like harpists playing on their harps. And they sing a new song before the throne and before the four living beings and the elders. And no one was able to learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. These are the ones not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He may go. These were redeemed by Jesus from among men, firstfruits for God and for the Lamb. No lie was found in their mouth, for they are blameless." Amen. Father, we thank You for Your Word and we pray that You would stir up our hearts as we examine it. In Jesus' name, amen. Last week we looked at the identity of the 144,000. And I'll tell you, every time I read about these people, chapter 7, this chapter, my heart is stirred to want to be more dedicated to the Lord. In verses 1 through 5, we're going to look at 11 things about these men that made them incredible tools for missions. So we're going to break with our predisposition to have even numbers. Tens, twelves, it's going to be 11. Okay? Now you can think of these as 11 preconditions for the supernatural of angels, verses 6 through 7, working through their missions. Or 11 preconditions for Christ Himself blessing these missions in verses 14 through 16. And I've summarized each of those 11 preconditions in one word. And the first word is Christ. So these were his foot soldiers, and it was Christ who headed up the absolutely amazing missions push that happened after AD 70. Verse 1 says, and behold, I saw a lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000. So who's the first one there? It's the lamb. Lamb was the symbol of Jesus, the 144,000. were his army at his command, and so his exclusive role of Savior slash Lamb is tightly tied together with his exclusive role of authority or kingship. You cannot separate his priestly office from his kingly office. You cannot separate his role as Savior from his role as Lord, as many people in the carnal Christian movement tried to do. In other words, you can't be saved by the Lamb without following the Lamb, is the point. All by itself, I think that is a needed corrective to missions that promote easy believism and what missionaries have been used to calling rice Christians, at least in Asia they call them rice Christians. But another implication of this clause is that missions could not happen without Jesus. They are with Him, they have eyes for Him, verse 4 says, they follow the Lamb wherever He may go. And the heart of missions for these men, get this, the heart of missions for these men were not the needs that were around them, even though I'm sure they were burdened for those needs, they were quite aware of the incredible need that was around them. But they served those needs by serving Christ. The heart of missions was not the lost souls who were headed toward hell, though they no doubt were burdened for those lost souls. It was not a love for people, though I'm sure they had a love for the lost and they poured their heart out for the lost. The heart of missions is a passion for Christ. He must be the alpha and the omega of missions. He must be the central focus of missions. And I think too many missions, agencies have become very man-centered, and I think they've become man-centered because they have a man-centered semi-Pelagian gospel. Now, intellectually, we reject that, right? We're Calvinists, we believe in a God-centered gospel, but it's very easy for us to fall into exactly the same trap unwittingly and start serving the creation rather than Christ. I mean, it's easy for it to happen to me as a pastor. I can get so busy in seeking to do the work of serving Christ, that I lose sight of the Christ whom I am serving, and I get driven by the tyranny of the urgent, and I get problem focused. You start getting problem focused, it's going to suck the energy right out of you. It can happen to any of us. There are other ways in which sincere people can sideline Christ without intending to. For example, if you're trying to influence culture to do away with abortion, socialism, impurity, etc., you can very easily make your goal of success keep you from faithfulness to Christ. If a pragmatic method might be more successful in the short run, We might be tempted to achieve the goal, whether that goal is church growth or doing away with abortion, influencing politics, whatever, through a non-biblical man-centered method. And this, the church growth method has done this on a massive scale, making unbelieving seekers dictate everything that happens in a worship service. You go to the seeker-sensitive worship services out there, they are not Christ-centered. They are seeker-centered. Now they think they're serving Christ by being seeker-centered, but it's a very subtle twist that happens. I've seen the same thing in the pro-life movement. Most national groups have long ago abandoned Christ's goal of completely abolishing abortion, and they have made their goal to limit the number of abortions. In fact, some of the pro-life ministries in the states have been the chief opponents of a personhood amendment, which would define abortion as the killing of a person, right? And the reason they're opposed to it, and they pour money into opposing this kind of legislation, is they say the people aren't ready to call abortion murder. I'm thinking to myself, you know, what really matters is what Christ thinks about this. And if we're to be God-centered and pleasing to Christ, we need to be more concerned about His opinion than we are about public opinion. Let me give you another example. Was it a victory when Jay Sekulow of the ACLJ won a Supreme Court case that was referred from Texas up to the Supreme Court that had a statue that had a plaque with a ten commandments on it. His opponents were trying to get the plaque removed with the bogus argument that the Constitution prohibits religion from being expressed in the public sphere. So Sekalo argued successfully that because the plaque had been there for 40 years, it had acquired a secular symbolic value of secular law And therefore the plaque had a merely secular purpose, thus not violating the federal court standards. Now he celebrated that as a win, and I say no, that was not a win at all, because Christ and the purpose of his law was sidelined. I think it was an absolute disastrous loss for those who stand for liberty and Christian principles. Jesus must be the beginning and the end of all that we do, the foundation and the goal, the empowerment and the focus. Now even our motives, even our motives for missions needs to be Christ-centered or we can fold under the pressure. Hudson Taylor interviewed a group of men who was wanting to apply for his mission agency to go to China. And he asked each one, what is your motivation? Why do you want to go to a foreign country to be a missionary? And every one of those candidates on that day gave an earth-centered answer to that question. One pointed to inner compassion. Another pointed to the enormous need. Another pointed to lost souls who were heading toward hell. And Taylor looked at them thoughtfully for a moment and he said this, all of your motives are good, but I fear they will fail you in times of severe testing and tribulation, especially if you are confronted with the possibility of having to face death for your testimony. The only motive that will enable you to remain true is stated in 2 Corinthians 5.14. Christ's love constraining you will keep you faithful in every situation. You can think of it this way. When the people that you are compassionate for start abusing you and beating up on you, like we've been reading, Gary's been reading before every prayer time, when they start doing that, your compassion will disappear unless it is Christ's compassion being lived through you. When your burden for the lost disappears because people have been utterly indifferent to the message you've been preaching for 20 years, The only thing that will replace your lost burden is Christ's supernatural burden being connected with your heart. So what I'm saying here is that Christ needs to be within, above, before, behind. He needs to be the center focus of what we are doing if we're to be God-centered. Now the next word is submission. The 144,000 were submissive first and foremost to Christ. They are called his bond slaves in chapter seven. And he was such a glorious leader, a leader who was willing to lay down his life for those who followed him, that they gladly laid down their lives for Christ. Their submission was a glad submission. In fact, most commentators say that what this is symbolizing here, it's using old covenant imagery of Jesus being the commander, the 144,000 being soldiers in a holy war. Now, he uses the image of a lamb to make it very crystal clear this is a gospel war, okay, not a physical war that he's involved in. But one of the reasons that radical submission to Christ is an essential precondition to missions is that the difficulties of missions will test our loyalty over and over again. Who are we going to be most loyal to? It's also important because submission to Christ makes every other submission relative. A lot of people don't think about this, but it does. Think of the chain of command in the military. If the captain has specifically commanded a sergeant not to have his squad or his section do something, and the sergeant orders his section to do it anyway, that sergeant has lost authority to make that command. Why? Because he has stepped out from under the chain of command. Authority in leadership implies submission to leadership. Matthew 8 verse 9 indicates that you only have authority when you are under authority. And the more clear-sighted we are in our submission to Christ, the easier it will be to clarify how we should handle all other authority relationships. So, for example, when the rulers of Israel were united in saying to these men that they had to stop preaching Jesus, It would have been very easy to cave under the pressure if they were not clear that submission to Jesus mandates, doesn't just allow, it mandates disobedience to unsubmissive leaders. It mandates it. Such disobedience was actually true submission to the chain of command from God through the civil officers to them. These leaders of Israel had stepped outside the chain of command when they commanded evangelists to cease and desist from evangelism. But I've had Christians that just don't get this concept, and they have told me that Brother Andrew was in sin and in rebellion when he delivered Bibles to the Soviet Union countries. Remember back in the Iron Curtain days? He was a God smuggler. He would smuggle Bibles. It was really a dangerous calling. And so they held to a view of Romans 13 that required blind obedience to civil magistrates. And if civil magistrates made it illegal to have Bibles, well then Christians couldn't have Bibles. Such Christians think that they are in submission to Christ, but they've actually rebelled against Christ. So if this is Christ, and this is where they're supposed to be, They have rebelled against Christ by joining the civil magistrates and stepping out from under the chain of command. Can you see that? True submission must be understood in missions or you will not be able to untangle numerous ethical dilemmas. So when William Carey was told by a church leader that he must not go to missions and that God would handle missions on his own without his help, thank you, his submission to Christ precluded submission to that unlawful order. when local governments prohibited, commanded William Carey to stop preaching in India, his submission to Christ precluded submission to their unlawful order. When a wife is asked to submit to a sin, to commit a sin by her husband, her submission to Christ precludes submission to his unlawful order. If you read the history of missions, you will see very faulty views of authority and submission that have messed up missions in many different ways. And these 144,000, I believe, had true authority. because they submitted to authority. And the authority of Christ helped to define and clarify how far they would submit to any human authority. Now the Jewish leaders, you read the literature, the Jewish leaders called them lawless because they wouldn't stop missions. You're just lawless. Now they were the true lawful, submissive ones by disobeying the leaders and standing in the chain of command. Now this is tightly connected to the next point, calling. Without a strong sense of God's call upon our lives, it is very, very easy to quit, to give up when the going gets tough. Although the names of the Father and the Son written on their foreheads shows God's ownership of them, It was ownership for a purpose. They were called to a very specific calling. And so this also symbolizes God's call upon their lives. These men were His ambassadors, His representatives. The reason for missions is not man's call, it is God's call. Now certainly, Men, you know, a multitude of witnesses are going to confirm God's call, but it's God's call, not man's call. Man's call could be very fickle, but Romans says God's call is not. Romans 11 verse 29, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Now let me just apply this so you can see why this is significant. Too many pastors sense the calling of their congregation much more strongly than the calling of God, and consequently they dare not preach on anything that might offend their members. Why? Because they're beholden to their members. They feel called by their members. They feel under the authority of their members. I've asked pastors in Omaha if they have preached on XYZ topics, And several times pastors have said something to the effect, oh I wouldn't dare preach on that or I'd lose my job. Or I wouldn't dare preach on that or our offerings would dry up and we are really tight financially. So what's going on there is that their preaching is dictated by man's call, not God's call. And I would consider such pastors to be disobedient to God's call in their lives, what Christ rebuked as being hirelings. A hireling is a person, he's just there for the job. He's there, he's on hire, he's not there as a representative of God. But a strong sense of God's calling also helps us to keep on keeping on when everyone misrepresents us and slanders us. And that's what happened in the first century to these Christians. The leaders of Israel claimed to be the true ambassadors of God and they called Christ and Christians Satan's servants. They were quite explicit on that. Let me give you, and I'll give more footnotes on the web, but let me give you a sample quote of what Yohanan and other rabbinic authorities believed. I'm quoting from the Talmud, it says, on the eve of Passover, Jesus the Nazarene was hanged and a herald went forth before him, 40 days heralding, Jesus the Nazarene is going forth to be stoned because he practiced sorcery and instigated and seduced Israel to idolatry. By calling Jesus a sorcerer and an idolater, they were trying to intimidate people, hey, this man is worthy of death, you're worthy of death if you follow him, as well as to embarrass Christians. And this has been an intimidation tactic that Satan has used all down through history. Even unbelievers know which scriptures to use to try to intimidate you. Judge not that you be not judged, you know. The implication is they've got more of Christ's heart than you do. You're so judgmental, little realizing they've yanked that out of context, and they're hypocrites for judging you for judging. But anyway, how many missionaries give up on missions when the going gets tough? It is a strong sense of calling that takes us through. And I want to give you a down-to-earth example. Ted Engstrom wrote about a Christian businessman from America who had been traveling to various foreign mission fields, and he was just trying to document the work that was going on. And one day he found himself outside a leprosarium in northern India, and he was watching this beautiful young nurse ministering to a filthy, wretched, pus-and-sore-filled leprous beggar. And the sight of such beauty ministering to such ugliness was so incongruous to him, he didn't quite know what to do or say. And you know what lepers look like, right? They have absolutely zero feeling, and so they can get an injury and not even know they're injured. Or they can have some kind of disease set in, they don't have the pain to know what needs to be treated, and so they will have sometimes their... parts of their faces eaten away, cavities in their body with smelly pus and all of that. Well, he was so nauseated by the smell and the filth that she was kindly washing away without any noticeable revulsion. And the businessman had a camera. He was supposed to be documenting. He was so transfixed by what he saw, he couldn't even take any pictures. Instead, he told the young nurse, young lady, I would not do that for a million dollars. She quickly turned to him, said, sir, neither would I. She would do it for Christ, but she would not do it for a million dollars. Her strong sense of call to serve Christ enabled her to get past the distastefulness of her task. Ruth Bell Graham told a similar story in her book, It's My Turn, and at the time she was just a missionary kid, but she was just blown away by this one missionary. who turned down the offer for an incredibly lucrative job. An oil company had set up a new office in China and needed a young man to run the operation, and they wanted somebody who was young, who was a university graduate, proven leader, and spoke fluent Chinese, and they had been sending their scouts everywhere, and they found this guy and said, he's just absolutely, perfectly qualified for this. So they sent an agent to him, and they found out what he was being paid. It was not very much. Mission agencies, as many times, do not pay people much. So they offered him a job that was 10 times more than what he was being paid. He turned it down. They offered him more. He turned it down again. And the agent finally said to him, so what will you take? He said, it's not a question of salary. The salary is tremendous. The trouble is with the job. The job is too little. I feel that God has called me to preach the gospel of Christ. I would be a fool to quit preaching in order to sell oil. You see, a strong sense of God's call upon his life enabled him to avoid temptation, but also enabled him to persevere through a very, very difficult task. The next word might surprise you. It's the word worship. Verses 2 through 3 describe the worship of heaven and earth. And the worship is not man seeking heaven to respond to what they're doing, you know, in a nice setting down here. No, it's heaven that initiates. It too is God-centered. Verse 2 says, And I heard a sound from the sky, literally from heaven, like the sound of many waters, and like the sound of loud thunder. And the sound that I heard was like harpists playing on their harps. Heaven really knows how to worship and I think the reason they know how to worship is they're not weighed down like we are with our flesh and our earthly concerns and all of the cares and distractions. In heaven it sees Christ for who He is and it cannot help but worship. In heaven, worship is as natural as breathing. So heaven initiates, and this causes the hearts of the 144,000 on earth to worship despite their sorrows and difficulties. Verse 3 says, and they sing a new song before the throne and before the four living beings and the elders. And again, I want you to notice, this is not man-centered. This is not seeker-sensitive. This is what Hebrews 12 is talking about when it says that you, when you gather on Sunday mornings, are worshiping before the throne of grace. You're being caught up into that crowd in heaven of angels and elders and the church of the firstborn, and it's only when worship reaches heaven and focuses upon God that it has any power about it whatsoever. Now the fact that the 144,000 were even worshipping is an amazing thing when you think about it because they had just gone through enormous persecution which God Himself allowed. I mean, God tells them this is what you're going to be going through. He had already done that in Matthew. the Gospel of Matthew. They had lost two-thirds of the Jewish church and far more of the Gentile church and yet they worshipped. No doubt most of these people had friends and relatives who had been killed. and yet they worshiped, despite the fact that God allowed it. They had just gone through what the Bible describes as the greatest tribulation this world would ever have seen. So how were they able to worship, respond to heaven's worship with their own joyful worship? When bad things happen to you, I think it's very easy to find the joy leaking out. to start getting negative and eventually to lose our fire for Christ. Robertson McWilkin gave this as his testimony. He said, Life was heavy on me. My dearest friend and intimate companion, my delightful wife Muriel, was slipping away, one painful loss at a time, as Alzheimer's disease ravaged her brain. Just as the full impact of what was happening to us hit home, the life of Bob, our eldest son, was snuffed out in a diving accident. Two years later, to care for Muriel, I left my life work at its peak. I was numb. Not bitter, let alone angry. Why should I be? That's the way life is. Life in a broken world. But the passion in my love for God had evaporated, leaving a residue of resignation where once had been vibrant faith. I knew I was in deep trouble, and I did the only thing I knew to do. I went away to a mountain hideaway for prayer and fasting. It took about 24 hours to shake free of preoccupation with my own wounds and to focus on the excellencies of God. As I did, slowly love began to rekindle and with love came joy. I wrote God a love letter naming 41 of his marvelous gifts to me, spotlighting 11 of his grandest acts of history and exalting in 10 of his characteristics that exceed my imagination. Surely he enjoyed my gratitude, who doesn't appreciate gratitude, but I discovered something else. Something happened to me. I call it the reflex action of thanksgiving. My love flamed up from the dying embers and my spirit soared. I discovered that ingratitude impoverishes, but that a heavy heart lifts on the wings of praise. Before the 144,000 could be equipped and ready to engage in their difficult call to missions, they had to first be captured by God's love and respond to this ocean of love by swimming in it and rejoicing in it and being transformed by it. John Piper spoke to this issue in his very last sermon. Before he retired, he defined missions as seeking the worship of the nations to rise to God, but he said before missionaries could do that, they too must know how to worship. He said, seeking the worship of the nations is fueled by the joy of our own worship. You can't commend what you don't cherish. You can't proclaim what you don't prize. Worship is the fuel and the goal of missions. What a wonderful statement. Worship is the fuel and the goal of missions. What did David do when he got burned out and tempted to get cynical? He worshipped. He worshipped even though he didn't feel like worship. What he was doing is he was fighting for the joy that was his heritage. And in psalm after psalm you find this mighty man of God washing away the cynicism and the hurt and the despair and the sorrow as he began to contemplate the wonders and the awesomeness of the grand God that we have. It is impossible to be caught up to Zion in true spirit-led worship and not be strengthened for your task on earth. Now, until you've experienced it at least once, what I'm saying may seem trite and may seem theoretical, but it is not. Hebrews 4.16 commands us, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace. Okay, same thing. That's where they're at. That's the throne of heaven, right? Let us come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Worship helps us in time of need. It is absolutely essential that missionaries learn to bathe in the splendor and the perfections of God as they worship in public and private devotions. Now that in turn gives joy and verse 3 begins with a joyful response of these 144,000. and they sing a new song before the throne and before the four living beings and the elders. Now anytime that the phrase new song is used in the Old Testament, you can check it out in a concordance, anytime it's used, it is a response of joyful worship to something that God has just recently done for them. It is a new and a fresh appreciation for his character and for his work. Now, we're headed in heaven to endless joy and endless love, but God expects us to experience some of that right now here on earth. On joy, John Piper writes, the goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. The Lord reigns. Let the earth rejoice. Let the many coastlands be glad. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy. And then he comments, Missions begins and ends in worship. And joy strengthens us when we're tired, we're exhausted, we're frustrated with what's going on. Joy can strengthen us when life gets tough. Nehemiah 8 verse 10 says, do not sorrow. So he's saying, this is an act of the will. You're gonna have to fight for this, but he says, do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. Joy does indeed give us energy and strength. So the question is, why do we lose joy? All of us have joy sapped out of our lives. Billy Sunday once said, if you have no joy in your religion, there's a leak in your Christianity somewhere. And leaks can occur anywhere in the bucket of our life. We can leak out joy by shifting our focus from Christ to our problems. That's point number one. We can leak out our joy when we feel the tug of war of conflicting loyalties. But hey, if you've already settled point two in who your submission is primarily to, your joy will not leak. Our joy can leak out when we start doubting our calling and wishing for something else, point number three. It can leak out on any of these points. All of these points really mesh together. Now, the next word is guidance. Or I could just as easily have used the word communion. They're very tightly linked. This guidance or communion can be seen, if you look in the dictionaries in the backness of the freshness, the newness of the new song, but it especially can be seen in the fact that no one but them was able to learn this new song. They had a connection with heaven that others did not have. Now, this is not prophetic inspiration. That ceased in 8070. This was, in effect, a secret experience between them and God. And commentators point out that this is very, very similar to Revelation 2 verse 17 where overcomers, you'll remember, were promised that they would be able to eat the hidden manna, which is symbolic of incredible intimacy. They were given a white stone which is an incredible invitation, and they were given a new name written on that stone, which no one knows except for the one who receives it, which is incredible relationship. So it's a metaphor of closeness to God, communion with God, God's hand guiding us. John 10 verse 27 says, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. Psalm 25 verse 14 says, The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and He will show them His covenants. We're not talking about inerrant prophecy. We're talking about normal guidance. Does this kind of guidance continue to happen? And I say yes, it does. He does it in our lives all of the time. Now, nothing but the Bible is infallible, but missionaries often sense the Lord's specific guidance leading them to specific people. Let me read you a recent account that Michael Elliott forwarded to us elders this week. It's from a reformed minister here in the USA by the name of Norm Wakefield. A little bit longer to read, but I think you'll appreciate where I'm going with this. He said, as soon as I lifted the 40-pound bag with my left arm and slung it into the trunk, I knew I'd made a mistake. I heard sounds from my shoulder and felt a pain shoot from my shoulder to my neck. I should have used two hands. I've done this before when lifting luggage, and I should have known better. I thought I had pulled my neck out of line, so I immediately called my chiropractor to see if I could stop in for an adjustment before we boarded the plane for 24 hours of traveling to Australia. Thankfully, they could work me in as a last appointment of the day. After being adjusted and while I was going through some muscle therapy, I prayed and asked my Father in heaven what this was all about. Why did I do such a stupid thing? What was his purpose behind this injury prior to such an important ministry trip? How could I make much of Jesus in this situation? As I listened to the Lord and watched Amanda, the aide who was helping patients in the therapy room, the thought came to me that God loved her and wanted her to know it. I knew that Amanda was not a believer in Christ, that she was leaving the chiropractic office within a week or so. My wife had discovered that information about her earlier in the day when Amanda had helped her. But the thought came to ask her if she knew what her name meant. We have a daughter, Amanda, so I knew the meaning of her name. When asked, she replied joyfully, worthy to be loved. I commented, that she had a wonderfully meaningful name. Strangely, she became quite transparent. She volunteered, she went to college. She wanted to go by her first name instead of Amanda to signal a new start in her life. She said things didn't change in her life when she was there. So once she graduated, she decided to revert to being called Amanda. As she finished taking off the therapy tabs, I told her that while I was sitting there, I had been praying for her. and thinking about her with God, it startled her and interested her. I continued, I think God wants you to know that he loves you and wants to make his presence known to you today. At that, she was speechless. I don't know what's going on in your life, but perhaps knowing that God is thinking about you will be encouraging to you. May I pray for you briefly, I asked. I reached out my hand and she gripped mine firmly as I prayed. As I paused to listen about how to pray, I became aware of God's love and compassion for her. It welled up in my heart and brought tears to my eyes as I thought of his love for her. Father, I want to thank you for working circumstances in my life today. that brought me back to this office to meet and pray with Amanda. Thank you for her care for me. She needs to know of your love for her in Christ Jesus today. So would you make your presence and your love known to her? Pour out Your love in her heart and encourage her by Your presence. Amen." When I looked up at Amanda, she too was in tears. As we both wiped the tears from our eyes, I think we were both aware of God's presence. There were not words to describe what happened in that moment. All I knew was that Jesus desired to express His love to Amanda, and I had the privilege of being His channel of love to her. I don't know if I'll ever know what happened in her heart because she will no longer be working in that office once I return. However, that isn't what matters. The important thing was that the Spirit of God was expressing the love of Jesus in and through me to Amanda. God used the occasion of an injury, even one that could have been prevented had I been more thoughtful, to move us into the space where His presence and love could be manifested to both of us. What a privilege to be moved by His Spirit to make much of Jesus in a God-orchestrated circumstance. This is what I call a Jesus story. Things like this don't happen naturally. They are supernatural works of God in our lives. Ephesians 2.10 comes to mind. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. This is one of those works that God prepared for me to walk in for His glory. God wants to share His love through His children. He uses all the circumstances in our lives to bring this to pass. I'm telling you this Jesus story to encourage you that God also may want to share His love through you. I've discovered that in any circumstance, if I ask, how can I make much of Jesus Christ in this situation, my Father in heaven will reveal a way to do that. It's a work God has prepared beforehand for me. that wouldn't have been revealed had those circumstances not occurred, or had I not asked for help to make much of Jesus. I want to encourage you, if you're a Christ follower, to be intentional about living to express His love with Him each day. You'll find that such intentional obedience to Jesus' command to love as you have been loved will result in a fullness of joy and much glory to God in your life. May God make you aware of opportunities in life to share His love through Jesus Christ. Okay, that was kind of a sermon within a sermon. But I read it because I think you can see all of the points that we're talking about in that story. If Jesus is the alpha and the omega of our ministry, point number one. If we're submissive to him and sensitive to listening to his leading, point two. If we sense God's call to ministry upon our lives, point three. If we've learned to worship and bask in his love, point four. We have his joy, point five. We sense his guidance, point six. How can we do anything but overflow with the living waters that flow from His throne? These points are not theoretical. They are preconditions to supernatural missions. Now let's just learn a few more facts about these Jewish missionaries. Verse 3 says that they had been redeemed from the earth and verse 4 says these were redeemed by Jesus from among men. Now both the Greek and the English indicate that this is limited atonement or what many of us prefer to call particular atonement, particular redemption. One of the five points of Calvinism. Now the word for redeemed itself means to buy a slave out of the marketplace. So the ones who are not redeemed, they remain the property of Satan. The ones who are redeemed, they are the property of Christ. And that's what we mean by limited tomah. Who do you intend to buy out of the marketplace? Well, it's the ones that the Father has given to Him. Not everybody, the ones that the Father has given. And there's a preposition in both verses that doubly emphasizes that not all were redeemed. It's the word out of. In verse 3, they were redeemed out of the land of Israel. And in verse 4, it literally says they were redeemed out of mankind. Well, that implies the rest of mankind is not redeemed. Now how is this a huge help to missions? In three ways. First, missionaries who don't doubt God's love for them are much more stable. And as many theologians have pointed out, particular redemption is always tightly connected with particular love. It's not a very comforting thing if a wife wants to know if her husband loves her and he says, oh yeah, I love you. I love you the same way I love all of the women in the church. Yeah, that's not going to be a particular comfort to that wife. And in Ephesians 5, when discussing the particular redemption of the church by Jesus, he ties it very tightly to the particular love that he has for his bride and each one in that bride. It's a husband's love for the bride. So it's not very comforting to think, I'm loved with exactly the same love that everybody that's burning in hell right now is loved by God. No, but when you realize that those whom God loved, He redeemed, and those who are redeemed will be saved and will spend eternity with Him and not one will be lost, that is comforting indeed. It gives great security and the stability that this doctrine gave to the missionaries who were sent out from Calvin's Geneva to France and to many other countries was incredible. The security that this gave to the missionaries, Calvinistic missionaries in the 1800s was tremendous. But a second way this helps missions is that it gives confidence that your preaching is guaranteed to reach the elect. If you're a missionary, it gives you confidence God will apply His redemption through the preaching of the Word. It'll happen, it's not maybe. God saves all those for whom Christ died, and he does so by the preaching and the sharing of the gospel. So it gives security and confidence in our preaching. Now, I remember when I was, oh, my early 20s, I was going to Bible school, and I was very zealous for the Lord, and I would go doing street evangelism. I called it kamikaze evangelism. It really wasn't, because you're not going to die. But it was pretty scary, you know, just collar cuffing people and preaching the gospel to them. And I would get very excited when somebody would come to Christ, and it was almost a sense, another notch in my slingshot, you know? And then when they wouldn't come to Christ, I kept thinking, what did I say wrong? If only I had worded myself differently. Maybe they would have come to Christ. Now it's my fault that they're headed toward hell. I had great anxiety because I had a man-centered gospel. It was a man-centered approach to missions. Calvinism gives a God-centered approach that ignites real confidence that conversions of the elect will happen by his providence. Third way it helps missions is that the confidence of the missionary rubs off in confidence on his disciples. They don't tend to doubt their salvation as easily. Jesus said, all that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out. John 6, 37. Now the next word is purity. Verse 4 says, these are the ones not defiled with women. In other words, they've kept themselves pure from fornication. It should be encouraging to young men that this struggle against lust is possible to win. Okay? These were not theoretical people. These were not one in a million people. You got 144,000 young men who have kept themselves from being defiled by women. If they were in modern society, you'd say they weren't involved in pornography and all of the different sexual things that our culture is involved in. They were able to do it. So this is a huge group that indicate, they're a testimony that we do not need to be slaves to lust. We can remain undefiled. What's true of the young men can be equally true of young women. You can have victory in Christ Jesus. Now the reason I say this is a precondition to success in missions is that lack of purity removes all confidence. And it removes all confidence because the Holy Spirit is grieved. First John 2.19 says, we have assurance before God when we keep ourselves pure. And then in verse 21 it says, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. So confidence in missions comes from holy living. But secondly, transformation of lives with the resulting purity of living is one of the outcomes of genuine salvation. Carnal Christianity should be an anomaly. The angel told Joseph, and she shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Too many missionaries preach easy decisionalism, where basically they're giving you a ticket to heaven. If you just say the words, pray the prayer after me, then you'll go to heaven, and they can just live like the devil after that. They don't need to worry about their lifestyle. In contrast, Titus 2, 11 through 15, tells us that the grace of God that brings salvation teaches us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age. So that's what salvation grace teaches us, teaches us holiness. In other words, you cannot separate sanctification from justification. All those truly justified will begin to be sanctified, and any missions worthy of the name will produce holy disciples. The next word is consecration. Dedication and missions comes from giving all to Christ. Now, with a rich young ruler, Christ told him he needed to give away everything that he had. Sell it and give it to the poor. Now that's not a paradigm for everybody, but it was certainly something he had to do because that was an idol that kept him from Christ. And to have all of that wealth and lose Christ in hell, now that's not worthy. Christ says you need to destroy that idol. Here, it had nothing to do with salvation. with these men, they were soon to be martyrs, so Christ asked them to remain single. But that's not a paradigm for all. The normal paradigm is for us to get married. Christ called them to singleness only because He called them to true kamikaze evangelism. Verse 4 says, for they are virgins. They weren't married. unlike a lot of commentaries who say, that must just be symbolic of something else. No, they were not married. They were virgins. And it enabled them to be devoted to one cause until they died a martyr's death. God commands most men and women to get married. But if you are an exception, and God's given you the gift of celibacy, you should really ask God, OK, Lord, why did you give me this gift? In what ways can I serve you with this gift? I want to be sold out to you in whatever state you call me to. Now the things that he calls you to sacrifice may not be the same as what he had the hundred and forty four thousand Sacrifice and actually he may not even call you to sacrifice anything if you're already sold out to him He may be keep adding to your life But I would encourage you every day of your life to self-consciously Consecrate yourself to him tell the Lord that he can have your rights and You know, Lord if you want my rights to be stepped on by my spouse or be stepped on by somebody else, I give you my rights. They're yours. You can protect them far better than I can. I give you my rights. I give you my health, my possessions, my family, my house, everything. I love the prayer of the early church father Ignatius. He prayed, take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory. You know, when I first prayed that, I thought, I can't pray that. If I get senile, oh, that would be disaster. And finally the Lord said, no, you got to pray that. And when I said, okay, Lord, I give you my memory. And, you know, I'm just, whatever memory the Lord wants me to have, I'm going to use it to his glory. So I said, Lord, it's Yours. You can have my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. You have given all to me. To You, O Lord, I return it. All is Yours. Dispose of it wholly according to Your will. Give me Your love and Your grace, for this is sufficient for me. That was the end of his prayer. So tell God you want to be sold out to Him. And the fact of the matter is you can be just as sold out to God as a married person as you can as these single men were. It's a heart issue. But it should be obvious why consecration is needed for the sacrifices of missions. The next word is eschatology. Now, that's a big word. It simply means God's promises for the future. And I get that word from first fruits. In verse 4, he calls them the first fruits for God and for the land. Now, in a previous study, we saw that in the various harvests, the first fruits was the small basket that was offered up to the Lord as a thank offering for the full harvest that would come later on in the season. Okay, so if the 144,000 were the small first fruits of Israel's salvation, the full harvest would be magnificently larger. And it gives faith and hope in the future. And I talked about that, I think, adequately last week. But here's the point. Missions without faith and hope is weak. And the only way you can have a full faith and hope in the future is if you understand God's promises for the future. This is why I say that missionaries must, must, must study eschatology. My support mission organization, Biblical Blueprints, we promote post-millennial eschatology. It gives a faith to expect great things from God and to attempt great things from God. You can only have faith to believe great things of God if you know God has promised great things for the future. So eschatology is not an unimportant study. It generates faith and hope that sustain missionaries like David Livingston and William Carey and many other great post-millennial missionaries of the 1800s. It's an important precondition to the kind of robust missions that these men engaged in. Now the last word is integrity. And verse 5 says, no lie was found in their mouth for they are blameless. Hypocrites are liars. Now they may be speaking the truth, but their mouth is not consistent with their life. They preach one thing, they live something completely different, and hypocrisy will drive people away from the gospel message. But when you have missionaries with these 11 characteristics, they will be so different from the world that they're gonna be attracted to ask questions. And Jesus in Romans chapter, Paul in Romans chapter 11 said he wants it to be that way. He wants the pagans to be jealous of the gospel. He uses that word jealous, indicating that the unbelieving Jews are to be jealous by what's given to the Gentiles, and the unbelieving Jews should be jealous by the gospel that is transforming the lives of the Gentiles. In fact, statistics show that a majority of people come to Christ by seeing firsthand the transformation of life that has happened to a relative, a friend, or an associate. The smallest figure I've seen is 75% on surveys but many of them are up over 90% of people say, well I went to a crusade but I went there because I saw my brother, I saw a friend who got saved and their whole life changed before my eyes. They credit it And so it's hard to deny the power of the gospel when you see numerous people completely changed by it. So those are the 11 preconditions to solid missions. And even though you may not be called as a missionary, you can still aspire to have more and more of the reality of those 11 words characterize you. May it be so, Lord Jesus. Amen.