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Please turn with me in your Bibles
to the book of Revelation, chapter seven. Book of Revelation, chapter seven,
beginning in verse one. And after these things, I saw
four angels standing on the 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. Do we have sealed the servants
of our God in their foreheads? And I heard the number of them
which were sealed. And there were sealed and hundred
and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children
of Israel. Of the tribe of Judah were sealed,
twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed,
twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed,
twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Aser were sealed,
twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nephilim were
sealed 12,000. Of the tribe of Manassas were
sealed 12,000. Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed
12,000. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed
12,000. Of the tribe of Issachar were
sealed 12,000. Of the tribe of Zebulun were
sealed 12,000. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed
12,000. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed 12,000. With the
breaking of the sixth seal, we had introduced the greatness
of the Constantinian settlement. Christ, through the Constantinian
Revolution, made himself powerfully evident in history, judging his
enemies and breaking the power of paganism in the West. From
that day to the present, the persecuting power of the Roman
Empire, those persecuting powers were, as it were, drawn down
from the very heavens, the seat of power. And in the midst of
this, God wrought for his people a deliverance They were saved
from persecution. They had the liberty now to worship
freely and in public. Indeed, they were favored under
Constantine. And in less than 100 years, they
go from being favored in the empire to exclusively established
by the empire. And all of this was good in the
eyes of God's people. And as we had an opportunity
to observe, it was like the very appearing and return of the Lord
Jesus Christ, a type and an image of the end of time when God will
judge his enemies and deliver his people. When we make the
turn to chapter seven, we are surprised by what we find. Four
angels commissioned to do hurt to the empire. And now, as we
make our way to verse four, we see the reason for this. The visible church suddenly grew
very large, but the election of grace was comparatively small. And in this we have the seeds
of the coming apostasy. In some ways, chapter seven is
very important for everything that will follow. If we will
understand the rise of the beast and the man of sin, We have to
understand first that at this period in history, the visible
church came to be thickly sewn with tears. And at this point,
the Christian religion begins to be corrupted greatly and rapidly. Look with me at verse four. And
I heard the number of them which were sealed. So John, here's
something further. He hears the number or the reckoning
of those that had received the seal. If you remember our considerations
of Ezekiel chapter 9, you'll remember that the one who was
dressed as a priest bearing the ink horn, the Lord Jesus Christ
did bring back to the father a report. of those that had been
sealed. There, if memory serves, we don't
receive any enumeration, but here we do. A report is given,
and he hears the number. John hears the number that were
sealed. And there were sealed 140,000 and 4,000 of all the
tribes of the children of Israel. So the total was 144,000, 12,000, from each of the 12 tribes. We ought not to be surprised
to find the number 12 associated with the church, and we'll do
this more in some future sermons. Chapter 21 and the vision of
the New Jerusalem is certainly full of this sort of thing. Of
old, the church was divided up into its 12 tribes with its 12
patriarchs under the new. the church was reformed by the
work of the 12 apostles and so it's altogether fitting here
that we have the visible church represented as the 12 tribes
and in the midst of those 12 tribes was the invisible church
reckoned as 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes and perhaps
the 12 indicates these to be truly apostolical men, those
who embrace the apostolic teaching we should be very clear, there's
a common exegetical mistake that is made here as if each one of
the tribes was 12,000 and when you put all the tribes together
there was 144,000 but you have to understand that the tribes
are contemplated as being much larger and 12,000 is being selected
out of the midst of them So we're not told how large each one of
these tribes, only that it's larger than the 12. And 12,000
is being selected out of the midst of each of them. Careful
attendance to the grammar makes that very plain. 144,000 of, the preposition there
is ek, out of. So there's a larger body and
a group is being selected out of the midst of those. The result of all of this is
plain. that Israel, the visible church,
the number of those that were professing the true religion
and their children had swollen greatly during this era. It had
swollen so quickly that it must have boggled the minds of the
Christians at this period. You remember up to this point,
they had been a persecuted group. Indeed, under Diocletian, if
you'll remember, public worship had become impossible. at least as far as being visible
to the Roman world they would worship together to be sure but
they had to do it in secret places the famous era of the catacombs
so now suddenly from being a persecuted minority now everybody wants
to join and masses are flooding into the visible church and yet
the true Israel of God, the invisible church, the elect, the number
of those who truly believed was comparatively small. And we see here an application
of what Paul said, they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. In other words, there is a visible
Israel, and there is within her, her hidden spiritual life the
hidden spiritual life of the elect I wonder here and I just
offer this for your consideration I do wonder if there is a proportion
being evoked if we consider Israel in its wilderness state a population
of 2 or 3 million 144,000 out of those would be about one in 13 or 14. Not very many, but I suspect
if a proportion is being evoked here, then it would be Israel
settled under its monarchy, settled under David, settled under her
king. There we do learn from chronicles
in the census that the population was probably about seven million,
which would make 144,000, about one in 50. one in 50. And I do think that
there's much to contend this to commend this idea that a proportion
is being intended here now, because the church is now for the first
time, since its expansion into Gentile territory has been settled
under a Christian king, one who was professing the true religion.
But what a striking thing. What a proportion. between true
believers and false professors. Can you imagine one true believer
for every 49 tares? It's staggering to think about.
In a congregation of our size, if you think about it, there
would probably be one. Maybe two. And that is an amazing
thing to think about. You remember that the Lord Jesus
Christ taught that many are called, but few are chosen. In this era,
many have been called by the gospel. They had heard the sound
and they came into the church. But we find that the election
of grace was comparatively small. As we have been following along
in the history, we ought not to be surprised by any of this.
or that this history would be figured to us in this way. With
the Constantinian revolution and settlement, the Roman masses
began to petition for inclusion in the visible church. Under
Constantine I, under Constantine the Great, Christians constituted
the chief constituency of the empire. They were favored above
all others. some 50 years later under Theodosius
I pagan worship would be made illegal altogether this is where
the word pagan comes from they were driven out into the villages
they were the pagane or village dwellers they could no longer
abide in the big cities under the watchful eye of the king
and by the time of Theodosius II so this is about a hundred
years after Constantine Christians are the only constituency in
the Empire. In 423 there was a law passed
that stated and took for granted that there were no more pagans
in the Empire. Probably overbold, but they had
been so pressed out into the fringes that you could scarcely
find one who would admit to such a thing. So at this time the
Roman world became roughly equivalent to the visible church, the 12
tribes. And if you consider our immediate
context in the scripture, we do find illusions to this reality. You remember the angels were
commissioned to hurt the earth, the sea, the trees, all ways
of referring to the Roman world or landscape. But then more specifically
we learned in these past few verses that the angels were not
to hurt those that had been sealed. Which means the hurt that's going
to be done is to the Roman world more broadly, excluding those
that had been sealed. But all the Israel, all considered
as the twelve tribes, all is considered the visible church.
We wouldn't say that there was an exact correspondence between
the Roman world and the visible church. But at this point, very
much like in ancient Israel, they were, for the most part,
overlapping. Because there were great temporal
advantages to joining. And that tempted a great many
to come in. Now, when we come to the next
chapter, we'll see this highlighted. When that herd actually begins
to be done, we'll find that characterizes being done to those that inhabit
the earth, which is the unsealed of the twelve tribes.
And that's why I say the twelve tribes are roughly synonymous
here with the Roman world. The language of Israel at this
time also began to be applied to the church and there was a
subtle and hurtful shift in theology I can't do all of this, I wanted
to list out some samples for you but there was so much and the literature is so extensive
that it in some ways defied easy summary at least by way of sample,
I'll just summarize it for you if you read the last two books
or so of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History something that will impress
you is that he is taking the promises even the temporal promises
that have been given to Israel of old and he was applying them
to the Visible Church and the Roman Empire even the temporal
promises There are many texts about Israel's final glory, and
he said these things are fulfilled in our day, in our midst. As I said, particularly if you
just want a little bit of reading, Church History, Book 10, Section
4 is full of it, and Book 10 altogether is not very long.
Julian the Apostate, about 20 years after summarizes much of
what he had seen in Christianity and remember he is called the
apostate because he began as a Christian was well acquainted
with Christianity and yet fell away from the faith he said they,
that is the Christians differ from the Jews of the present
time and say that they that is the Christians corporately and
nationally considered are the true Israelites this is the way
that they referred to themselves during this time and Eusebius
really captures that remember we've used him much as an exemplary
man of the times because he does much to capture for us the spirit
of the times and common Christian belief and even language the
way that they referred to themselves and thought about themselves
but remember there was in this, I don't have any problem with
them calling themselves Israel and so on But if you remember
the eschatology of the fathers, which we did in some detail,
if you remember the chronology in which they were largely agreed,
they believed that pagan Rome would persecute. But that pagan
Rome itself was hindering the appearance of Antichrist. In other words, the Roman Emperor
himself was that hindrance, that let, that Paul talks about in
1 Thessalonians 2, that hindered the appearance of Antichrist. But they expected that soon,
you remember Cyprian thought it was imminent, very soon, in
the 250s and 60s, the Roman Empire would be broken up And when it
was broken up, the man of sin would arise in a reconstituted
empire, and then he would unleash the worst persecution. And then
the end would come. But you remember, that's important.
The expectation of the visible church before this was we will
be relieved and the Roman Empire will be broken up. But then Antichrist
will appear and the persecution will be worse than ever. That
was their belief. But all of that is now set to
the side and forgotten. Now, the visible church inherits
Israel's temporal glory rather than anti-Christian persecution. And you might say that the visible
church inherits Israel's temporal glory rather than the emphasis
of the preceding age, which was that the invisible church inherits
glory as it passes through the martyr's fire and shedding her
own blood so there was a great shifting here in theology it
can seem subtle but it's a complete difference with respect to expectation
what's going to happen here in the future also quite noteworthy
is that Eusebius did live long enough to be very disappointed
and he wrote much of the hypocritical joining of the church he expected
that there would be great spiritual changes in the empire as men
and women whole families came flocking into the visible church
and yet that spiritual change did not happen and so after the
language of glory you start to hear from the fathers of the
church during this a growing complaint The visible church
is full and has spread large, and yet the spiritual changes
are meager and small. I did lift a sample of this for
you from Eusebius's Life of Constantine, which he wrote after Constantine's
death. Book four, section 54. Here he's
describing Constantine and then contrasting him with what he
saw in the population, says in like manner, his mental qualities
reached the highest point of human perfection. Indeed, he
was distinguished by every excellence of character, but especially
by benevolence. A virtue, however, which subjected
him to censure for many in consequence of the baseness of wicked men
who ascribe their own crimes to the emperor's forbearance.
In truth, I can myself bear testimony to the grievous evils which prevailed
during these times. I mean the violence of rapacious
and unprincipled men who preyed on all classes of society alike
and the scandalous hypocrisy of those who crept into the church
and assumed the name and character of Christians. His own benevolence
and goodness of heart The genuineness of his own faith and his truthfulness
of character induced the Emperor to credit the profession of these
reputed Christians, who craftily preserved the semblance of sincere
affection for his person. The confidence he reposed on
such men sometimes forced him into conduct unworthy of himself,
of which envy took advantage to cloud in this respect the
luster of his character. This is largely an apology for
Constantine's character and conduct, but you see in the midst of it,
there's a recognition that there were flocks of men coming in
to the Christian church that were not the lambs of God, but
rather ravenous wolves. And we could continue this. It
wasn't just Eusebius, but other fathers from the period, Cyril,
Gregory Nazianzen and later church historians write about this as
the period so this is not some obscure fact but some of you
might know the name of Mosheim a famous church history, Neander,
Geisler large church histories, great experts in the field and
they say that this indeed was the time if I make this a little
bit more concrete it will probably become plain for all of you you
remember it was about this time also that the Aryans almost took
over the church altogether and it was very difficult to find
orthodox believers Constantine Waffled, some of his successors
were out and out Aryans and it became a great threat to the
church or you might say that the visible church was full of
Aryans Athanasius says this and I had to list this out because
the language is so striking The error is recognized in its true
character and indignantly rejected by those who bear the sign on
their forehead." Isn't that something which is the very language of
our text used by Athanasius in his first oration against the
Arians? The error is recognized in its
true character and indignantly rejected by those who bear the
sign on their forehead. And at this time, as I said,
the empire was full of Aryans, which is nothing other than to
say that the empire and the church was full of false professors
who knew not God and knew not Jesus Christ. So in sum, the
new Israel had swelled large, but the true Israelites were
exceeding few. Many were indeed called, but
very few were chosen. I wanted to take away from this
a single doctrine, but also a handful of uses from the doctrine. From
time to time, the visible church is thickly sewn with tears. This is a reality with which
we must be prepared to grapple. You remember, if we can back
up with some of our more general theology, the invisible church
is the sum total of the the sum total of all of those who have,
are, or will believe in the Lord Jesus Christ in all places and
in all ages and this invisible church becomes visible by its
profession in the world but of course it's not just true and
sincere believers that are going to profess but false professors
will mix themselves in with the true professors because men will
join the church for all sorts of reasons that don't have anything
to do with Jesus Christ as it was in this time remember by
the time of Theodosius II if you wanted to hold any public
position you had to be a professing Christian if you wanted to be
comfortable at all in the empire you had to be a professing Christian
and so people had great temporal advantages to making that profession
and joining the visible church and this is not just true in
that day but there remain motives for joining the church that don't
have anything to do with love for and faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ I say that this seems to be a very useful doctrine
you'll have to judge for yourself but it seems to me that in our
day and age the visible church is thickly sewn with tears I
don't know how else to interpret the evidence. I looked at some
recent polling numbers. Do you know that 80% of the population
of the United States of America, 80% of the people consider themselves
to be Christians of one form, shape or variety. 80% and a lot
of those think themselves to be evangelical Christians. And
yet our culture is not changed. And when you look at statistics
for things like crime and divorce and whatnot inside and outside
of the visible church, the statistics are not all that different. And
it does appear that the visible church, at least in our country,
is thickly sewn with tears. Now for you system, we will do
these briefly, but I hope that you'll lay them up in your heart.
Think about these things. First of all, for self-examination,
why are you here? Why am I here? Am I here because
I'm the pastor and I'm expected to show up? You wouldn't have
anything to do if I didn't show up? There wouldn't be any sermon
to listen to? Is that why I come? Or do I come for something else
and for some other reason? I would hope that my motives
are somewhat more than simply having a job for myself and an
income to be earned and those sorts of things but why are you
here? are you here simply because mommy
and daddy require it of you? or you wouldn't want the rest
to think ill of you for not being present and so on? why do you
come to the visible church? do you come because you have
a faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know that there is no
other name given among men by which you must be saved. Have you become convinced of
that? And so you come. Do you find in your heart a love
for this precious Savior who so loved you and gave himself
up for you? Is this why you come? Then very
good. But there can be all sorts of
other things. all sorts of other pressures whether it be I come
from a Christian family I have a Christian spouse I want to
wear a good Christian and religious face and so on and the church
has always been filled with such although as we've already seen
in the apocalypse when persecution comes it does tend to prune away
the dead branches But right now we live during a time of great
comfort. There is no great disadvantage
to naming the name of Christ. And parts of our culture in various
places still very much expect it. And so there will be pressure
to blend in. But there's no good reason for
coming unless that faith be sincere and that love be true. I do hope that you'll look deeply
into your hearts and ask yourself, what do I find here? Am I trusted
in the Savior and in Him alone for the forgiveness of sins,
a perfect righteousness and the glory hereafter? Do I find in
my heart a bright and burning love for the precious Redeemer? Second, if we consider this reality,
we will have an expectation of discipline. in the church. I'm
afraid probably that we still think of discipline as an unusual
occurrence in the church, as if some strange thing has befallen
us when it happens. But discipline is to be thought
of as a regular part of the healthy life of the visible church, a
regular part of the healthy life. The temptation is always when
a disciplinary situation comes And it becomes a mess, as it
always does. Then we begin to wonder, is there
something wrong with us? Because these matters have befallen
us. It's possible, but not necessarily. And we should expect discipline. Believers need discipline. I
do remember reading J. Adams some years ago. I found
it very helpful. He said, because churches fear
discipline, and what happens, the mess that it causes when
it happens they will set the bar of membership in the churches
very high so that if you can jump over that bar you probably
will not be a problem for us later on but if we simply observe
the Lord's requirements for admission into the visible church a credible
profession of faith which is a relatively low bar Then when
people come in, there's an expectation that everybody is going to need
discipline to some degree. Most of us suffice with those
gentle means. We hear the word preached. Perhaps every once in a while
we have an admonition. No big formal process. None of
those sorts of things. But that's part of the disciplinary
function of the church. That's its largest part. And
we certainly all need that. But even true believers from
time to time will need those heavier measures. When we consider
that the visible church is also thickly sewn with tears, when
they discover themselves, when they reveal their true character,
there is going to be discipline. And so if we believe the doctrine
we need to be prepared for this there will be time to time when
tears reveal themselves and then they will need to be disciplined
and that discipline might very well terminate in that greater
excommunication where basically the church declares because of
the sin and the impenitence it seems to us that you are no believer
at all you profess the faith but the profession is not credible
because the life is not answerable Third, I hope that this realization
will stimulate us to watchfulness. Even with other believers, knowing
that in this life we all yet remain sinners, we must be careful
of the leavening influence of the sins of even the children
of God around us. It's not an easy thing. We tell
our children in the families, as you look at your parents,
emulate their virtues and don't copy their vices or their sins,
but advance. Do the things that they do well,
forbear doing the things that they do ill, and that's a very
difficult thing to do. We have a similar dynamic, one
with another, and that requires watchfulness, consideration,
thoughtfulness, we don't simply want to imitate one another's
sins to our own hurt if we'd really be profitable
we must not only protect ourselves from leavening influence but
also help our brother when we detect those sins but we can't
simply say because we all dwell together in the in the visible
church I can sort of turn my discerning faculty off
when it comes to behavior. We need to stay acute and lively,
having our senses exercised to differentiate between good and
evil, as the apostle says. How much more so when we recognize
that there are going to be tears in the visible church, and they
certainly will leaven the whole lump if they can. And so we must
be watchful at all times. I'm not saying this. I hope it
won't make you suspicious of one another. You have known one
another long enough probably to know strengths and weaknesses
and so on. Emulate the strengths, forbear
the weaknesses, and try to help one another in the faith. If
things are working rightly, we help one another go forward rather
than dragging one another backwards. And finally, a fourth application. I hope that all of this will
protect you from disillusionment. So that you might have right
expectations concerning the visible church. I don't know if you can
remember back to our sermons in Revelation chapter two, but
you remember when the Ephesian angel is commended for being
faithful and disciplined and we read that and wow, a beautiful
commendation from the Lord, and we'd like to have something like
that. But you can be sure that on the
horizontal, rather than seeming like some glowing and wonderful thing,
it probably just seemed like a mess and a disaster and a very
difficult work. In the eyes of the Lord, a wonderful
thing. In the eyes of everybody that
was watching it, probably thinking to themselves, what a mess We
need to be careful that our expectations with respect to the visible church
are not naive or we will be very disappointed. People can come
into the into the visible church and expect that they're going
to, you know, walk into a hall of saints
with halos on their heads or something like that, rather than
thinking of the visible church as a hospital for broken sinners. But the expectation is very different.
The one is naive and will lead to disappointment. And the Lord
would warn us about these things beforehand. But the other will
put you on the right path. You'll know what to expect in
the visible church. And I would protect you if I
can from any hurtful surprise that might lead to a temptation
to doubt. The Lord has not told us to expect
the glorified church in this earth. Consider the condition
of the apostolic churches, and it will disabuse you of that
notion forever. Consider that both the Corinthians
and the Galatians were trying to cast off the apostle Paul,
the apostle who had been involved in their own conversion. So would
you be surprised when you find a congregation trying to cast
off their pastor who is somewhat less than that to them? We ought
not to be surprised by any of these things. and the apostolic
epistles are largely records of the ills of the churches planted
by the apostles themselves and difficulties that they found
difficult to rectify in the people. It was hard work and a lot of
it was quite messy. You might think of others, diatrophies,
who love to have the preeminence Cast off the authority of the
Apostle John and you can go you can go on and on the situation
is always difficult but remember the greatness of the of the visible
church is that That hidden spiritual life is nestled in her bosom
the election of grace is in the midst of her and The ordinances
are administrated by her, which are called means of grace. And
Christ has promised to meet with his people in this place. A good
and precious thing to be sure. Let us pray together.
The Calling of Many, the Choosing of Few
Series Revelation
| Sermon ID | 226131258400 |
| Duration | 38:35 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Language | English |
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