Revelation 14 // The 144,000 And The Lamb

we are in Revelation chapter 14 tonight revelation 14 revelation 14 and 15 are basically lead-ups to the the last set of judgments that the last series of seven judgments at the that the book of Revelation talks about with the bowl judgments and so Revelation chapter 14 let's pray before we get started Jesus we love you we thank you for your word we thank you for the the fact that you speak to us about the future you lay out things for us that are things to come and Lord it's in a lot of ways it's pretty cool to be able to go through the book of Revelation and see all the things that you have planned all the ways that you're going to be at work and at the beginning this chapter there's a really real encouragement on the fact that you have your hand on us you have your your you have your way with us basically we're indestructible until you want to take us home and it's just a good thing to know Lord and as we're going through and look at the looking at the hundred and forty-four thousand and the blessing that you put on these guys we just pray that you would just be speaking to our hearts and that the the time would be blessed because we're here with you and so we just give you the study pretty bless it now and you do this all in Jesus name Amen okay verse one Revelation chapter 14 since then I looked and behold a lamb standing out on Mount Zion and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand having his father's name written on their foreheads and I heard a voice from heaven like the voice of many waters and like the voice of loud thunder and I heard the sound of harpists playing their harps they sang as we're a new sound song before the throne before the four living creatures and the elders and no one could learn that song except 144,000 who were redeemed from the earth these are the ones who were not defiled with women for they are virgins these are the ones who follow the lamb wherever he goes these were redeemed from among men being first fruits to God and to the lamb and in their mouth was found no deceit for their without fault before the throne of God it's really interesting actually it's it's not just interesting I think it's an on purpose thing that this comes immediately after the mark of the beast last week we were talking about the mark of the beast and this way that the Antichrist is going to be manipulating the world into a situation almost compelling the world to worship Him and we read about that last week where he causes all both small and great rich and poor free and slave to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads there's gonna be a little bit more information about the mark of the beast as would go through this passage but what's interesting about the hundred and forty four thousand is that they're marked - in fact they're marked first before the market a beast ever comes up the 144,000 are marked by God turn back with me to Revelation chapter 7 revelation 7 it says in verse 1 after these things I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth holding the four winds of the earth that the wind should not blow on the earth on the sea or on any tree then 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 granted to harm the earth in the sea saying do not harm the earth the sea or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads and I heard the number of those who were sealed 144,000 of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed and then it goes through Analyst's the hundred and forty four thousand twelve thousand from each one of twelve tribes that are mentioned in this passage when you get and get over to chapter 14 verse one it says again I looked behold a lamb standing on Mount Zion and with him 144,000 having his father's name written on their foreheads and we know what the seal is we know what the mark is it's the name of the Father and again if you look back in in Revelation 13 and says verse 17 and that no one may buy or sell except the one who has the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name and usually we're concentrating on the number 666 that whole thing but it's talking about the name of the beast also and the the reason I'm showing you this is to let you let you see that when you're talking about the mark of the beast it's a copy of what God does with his people when when God marks a group of people he marks them with a mark of ownership and we've talked about that before there are seals in the Bible the Bible talks about us being sealed by the Holy Spirit but there are seals and then there are seals when you're when you're talking about the mark of the beast that's a seal also it's a mark of ownership on these people and the fact that they've tied themselves in with the Beast and they worshipped him on the other hand you have a mark that's given to the people of God in this case the 144,000 when you when you look at this issue of 144,000 it says that they're standing with the lamb on Mount Zion you guys know where Mount Zion is anybody know yeah it's in Jerusalem it's a specific hill in juris and so when when you see the temple complex that where the Dome of the rock is in Jerusalem just south of that down the ridge is what's called Mount Zion Mount Zion is the City of David that's originally what was what was called Mount Zion it was the location of the palace of David originally the city that David captured it was a Jebusite city remember the story of David he comes up against the Jebusite city and he said whoever goes in and opens the gates for me I'll make him the general and talks about climbing up a gutter and that's that's the I memorized it in King James again there is a spring at the bottom of what would be called Mount Zion or the City of David or you know the GEB you cite city of salem or jerusalem there is a spring down at the bottom in the valley and it's called the Gihon spring and you can get to it from the outside of the valley what they would do though is they would seal up the spring and it's a it's a rapidly flowing spring lots of water they would seal up this spring and then they dug a tunnel down from the the it's it's basically like there's this Ridge and down here at the bottom of the valley is a spring and the city's sitting up on top and so they dig this tunnel where you go walking down they get over to the top of the spring they dig a tunnel straight down so you can go down there and lower buckets into the spring and pull them up into the city and so you had a source of water for the for the city of Jerusalem even if you were under attack they would they would seal up the outside it's there's a cave that goes to the outside it's where the water would normally run they would seal up the outside so that enemies wouldn't know that it was there and that's the gutter that Joab crawled up he did some rock climbing to get into the city of Jerusalem he climbed up through this gutter or through this through this chasm that this this hole that they dug he climbed up through it went up and opened the gates and that's how David took the city of Jerusalem that area is called Mount Zion it's specific place in the Bible later on Mount Zion when you're going through the Old Testament it includes not only that area but it includes an area that's closer to the to the temple complex and finally as you're going through the Old Testament a lot of times the reference includes the temple complex itself and so Mount Zion is in Jerusalem that's that's where that's at and the points the point that's being made here is that when Jesus seals the 144,000 in Revelation chapter 7 towards the beginning of the Tribulation Period those people make it all the way through the Tribulation Period when you get to the end when it talks about a lamb standing on Mount Zion it's one of the things that's going to happen with Jesus in Zechariah chapter 14 it says that the coming of Christ specifically to Jerusalem he comes down and he lands on on the Mount of Olives and Zechariah 14 says that the Mount of Olives busts and two at that point there happens to be a fault right in that area - that's running east-west and so part of the part of the mountain moves to the north part of the mountain moves to the south it's straight across from the temple complex and the Bible says there's gonna be a valley that runs into the city and that the city of Jerusalem is going to be under siege at that point and all the people who are under siege in Jerusalem are gonna run out through the valley that Jesus makes at his second coming when he touches down and they're going to be delivered in Jesus is gonna take care of these armies that's the second coming remember in Acts chapter two or excuse me Acts chapter one when it talks about Jesus ascending where did Jesus ascend from Mount of Olives and the angel he takes off and he disappears into a cloud the glory of God he disappears into a cloud there's an angel that standing beside the disciples at that point and says why are you standing there looking up in the end of the heavens this same Jesus is gonna come in like manner and so the place that Jesus took off from is a place where Jesus is going to return - and that's where he first touches down so that's outside the city of Jerusalem after he takes the city he's got some other things there's some there's some cleanup we'll get into this as we're going through chapter 14 but after he takes care of the armies that he's going to destroy one of the things that happens is he goes into Jerusalem and he sits on the throne of his father David this is a Matthew chapter 25 and verse 1 Jesus was called the son of David Jesus is called the king of Israel Jesus is going to rule over Israel and he hasn't done it yet and so that happens after the second coming and so after the second coming Jesus comes to Mount Zion and they're at Mount Zion is 144,000 and this is the point that I'm making it's not a hundred and forty three thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine okay all of them arrived safely God gets him all the way through the tribulation they all arrived safely now that obviously this is a specific group of guys there's a lot of believers that are dying during that period in also in Revelation chapter 7 it talks about an innumerable group of people that are coming into heaven in the Bible says that they're coming out of the Great Tribulation and so there are people who are dying for their faith in Christ during the Tribulation Period but these guys God makes sure that he keeps them safe all the way through and so again Mount Zion was originally the city captured by David later on it became synonymous with the whole Ridge and later on it became a term for the city of Jerusalem again the point of the seal here that God puts on these guys is that it's a seal of protection it's a mark of ownership God writes his name on each one of these people he writes his name on their foreheads and I don't think it's something that you can see but God does that he marks each one of them as a mark of ownership I had toys when I was a kid I don't mean to compare us to twice but I had toys when I was a kid and all my toys that I really loved some of the toys I didn't I didn't care all that much about but if I really loved a toy I put my mark upon it I put my name on it right and you know later on when I got older when I would go to school I would go get a peachy folder my name went on the peachy folder gets remembered peachy folders yeah PJ how many of you don't remember peachy folders yeah that's because you're too young they were the coolest things I had I had all these pictures that I would draw on a peachy folder yeah guys remember on the peachy folder on the back side there's the the guys coming down in the ski lift I always had Godzilla coming up over the top over the top of the mountain you know in the in the back of that whole thing remember the basketball players always had a guy one of the basketball players always had a knife and it was sticking it has taken the knife in the chest to the other guy I'm kind of weird anyway peachie folders and so I write my name's on that my name on that my name's got written on my books everything that was important to me got my name on it later on when I was in construction got my tools you know after I lost a few I started carving SW in every tool that I owned because it was important to me it was worth something I didn't want somebody taken off with it and you get the point right these are these people are important to God he doesn't want anything happening to them and so you've put so he puts his name on them and you have exactly the same thing with us in Ephesians 1:13 it says in him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation in whom also having believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise and that's that that's that same term it's a it's a term that means a mark of ownership God puts his mark of ownership on you and it's it has behind it the idea that God sees you as his and he wants you for himself not for anybody else you don't get to be taken by anyone else seal is also a kind of a picture of the protection of God and again we see this in this passage here in John chapter 27 verse or John chapter 10 verse 27 through 30 it talks about that protection you're familiar with this passage but it says this my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand my father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand I am my father or one and so when he's talking about believers he talks about the again the fact of ownership it's my sheep Jesus says and there's some things in there that go along with us you know when you when you look at the language in the passage you guys know about tense right so is here in the present tense the past tense or the future tense my sheep hear my voice it's in the present tense past tense would be my sheep have heard or future tense would be my feet my sheep will hear it's the present tense my sheep hear my voice and I know them is that in the present past or future tense it's in the present tense and I know them and they follow me is follow present past or future and its present once again and I give them eternal life is that present past or future it's present and they shall never perish and that in Greek is never no never perish that's future tense in that passage here's there's a point that I'm making any any time that you see eternal life in the scripture any time that you see this relationship with God that's being spoken about here every time that you see it it's something that's happening in the present tense it's not something that happened when you were 12 it's not something that that happened and it just has an impact that goes on into the future it's always in the present tense so Jesus said this is is that present past or future its present this is eternal life that they may know me present past or future present that they may know me or may know you the only true God in Jesus Christ whom you have sent I miss quoted it but again it's in the present tense and what one of the things that's interesting is when you go through and look up the whole situation with eternal life it's always wrapped up in a present tense relationship with God is the point that I'm making and so when I have that present tense relationship with God I can know certain things and I know that what I have is eternal life eternal life is not found in a decree eternal life is found in a person and the person is Jesus himself and so that's why when you're going through the Bible the whole relationship with God thing is so important it's not about God you know doing some kind of legal thing with you where you got signed up and you're in and that's that's all there is to it whenever you're looking at the route the relationship that you have with God in the Bible he compares it to things that we can understand so it's a marriage so Jesus is my is well it's Jesus is my husband that's weird to think of but still you know I'm the Breyer I'm part of the Bride of Christ you're part of the Bride of Christ girls have an easier time with this but we're the Bride of Christ Jesus is the groom okay and so if you have a marriage you have two people who have an ongoing relationship with each other do they get mad at each other yes do they do they do they do they sometimes have problems with each other yes but there's an ongoing relationship and it keeps going have they made a commitment to each other yes is there a legal document yes but the legal document doesn't make the marriage the legal document is just a legal document document it's a sign of my commitment to that person the marriage itself is made from following through with the commitment for the rest of your life and God compares her relationship with him to a relationship that's like that son and son and father or daughter and father and so you again it's a relational type of thing you have you have you can have a situation where you are absent from your father and you still have the the name son and Jesus talked about this he talked remember the whole story of the prodigal son so the prodigal son goes off and he gets everything that his father had for him takes an inheritance and he squanders it on partying and and sex and all kinds of stuff and he's separate from his father and people like to say you're once a son always a son absolutely once a son always a son but when he comes back to his father do you remember what the father said to him this was my son who was dead and now he's alive this is my son who was lost and now he's found and again the the the point that Jesus is making there is that you have a father-son relations but for it to be the right father-son relationship there has to be a relationship it has to be an ongoing type of thing otherwise you're lost and dead can have the name son but a son who's lost and dead that's not good that's not a place where you want to be and and it's like that with everything I read every single illustration sheep and shepherds you've heard me talk about sheep before you lead sheep you drive cattle right and so sheep will follow a shepherd in in our case a shepherdess my wife the sheep always follow her right and sheep will follow someone but they have a relationship with the shepherd and so in every instance you have this relational type of thing and when you have that relational type of thing going on you have a promise of the protection of God and again I'm not I'm not putting this in terms where it's like you got to be on top of it all the time because like I said there are times when my wife gets mad at me we're still married we're still in the same house we still love each other we still you know we still go on with our relationship I you know for the for the life of me I can't understand why she would ever get mad at me but she does and you know but it is it's an ongoing thing it's not until you break the relationship that you're not married anymore and so obviously you can tell where I'm going with this you don't want to get caught up in a situation where you take a doctrinal position where you can have no relationship with God at all and think that you're okay because you're not because salvation is found in Christ eternal life is found in Christ eternal life is not something that was given it's something that's being given in the present tense even in the one passage in the Bible where eternal life is connected with the with the past tense the eternal life is also connected with the fact that it's in the son you as the son has the life he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life and that's in first John chapter 5 but when you're in this relationship with the Lord you've got you've got a situation where you're in the hand of the Father you're in the hand of the son I don't know how you do that unless you're doing this and God's gotcha and that's the place where you want to be I'm not doing that to make you doubt your salvation or to freak you out or anything like that if you're if you're in love with Jesus and you're walking with him then you've got nothing to worry about and if you ever stop loving Jesus and you stop walking with him guess what you have things to worry about and it's really that simple as you go through the Bible and so we have the protection of God in John 10:27 3:30 in mark 16 17 through 18 it says this these signs will follow those who believe in my name they will cast out demons they will speak with new tongues they'll take up serpents and if they drink anything deadly it will by no means hurt them they will lay hands on the sick and they'll recover and what I want to focus in on it is the passage where it says they will take up serpents and if they drink anything deadly it will by no means hurt them that doesn't mean that we need to go out and get a you know a bucket full of rattlesnakes and pick them up and hold them but what it's talking about is the fact that as we're going through our life we come up against something deadly God's involved in this situation and until it's time to go home you are Superman nothing can hurt you until it's time to go home and so you have Paul the Apostle you remember that story he's on he's on the island after a shipwreck and the Apostle is going out gathering wood for a fire which is kind of cool I like that he didn't he didn't send off his minions to gather wood so he's gathering wood for a fire and when he goes to throw the wood in there's a viper and inside the pile of wood and it latches on to his onto his wrist and he shakes it off into the fire that's what I would do to get the thing off me and then everybody waited around for him to die because they knew that it was poisonous well it couldn't kill him it didn't kill him and the reason it didn't kill him is because he had an appointment with Caesar Nero in the not-too-distant future he was going to spend a couple of years in Rome and then he was going to before Caesar Nero the point is that God wasn't done with the guy yet after he added the appointment with Caesar Nero he probably got released but then he was captured again and he died in Nero's persecution and they cut his head off and so there was a period of time where Paul could not be killed a shipwreck couldn't get him a snake couldn't get him the Jews in Jerusalem couldn't get him he was protected through all of these things until he got the job done and then when the job was done God was like okay it's time to go cut time to come home and God allowed the execution of Paul the Apostle and so on the one hand I'm not indestructible if God's not in it with it's time for me to go home but until God's done with me you can't do anything to me you can't do anything to be indestructible again Superman I like Superman a lot I like the idea of being him I wish I could fly but that day's coming right then Philippians 1:6 talks about Jesus working in our hearts being confident of this very thing that he was began a good work in you will complete it in to the day of Jesus Christ and so when you're talking about God's seal and us the the seal of God is not a seal that holds you in or keeps you captive it's not like sealing up a cave or something it's a seal that's a mark of ownership and it implies the protection of God the fact that we're indestructible and the the fact that Jesus is at work in our hearts until the very end when you look at the character the next thing that you see in the passage here is the characteristics of the hundred and forty-four thousand well actually let's look at a couple other things he says I looked and behold the lamb standing on Mount Zion with him 144,000 having his father's name written on their foreheads so this is them in Jerusalem that's where Mount Zion is then he says I heard a voice from heaven and now we're hearing from heaven at the same time like the voice of many waters this is familiar we've had this throughout the book of Revelation and like the the voice of thunder and I heard the sound of harpists playing their harps and they sang as it were a new song before the throne that throne is in heaven before the four living creatures and the elders and no one could learn that song except a hundred and forty-four thousand who were redeemed from the earth and so now you have this this picture of these guys are standing in in Jerusalem the Lamb Jesus is standing beside them and it's like heavens opened and they're hearing a song and no one can learn this song except for the hundred and forty four thousand that is the definition of the second coming where heaven comes down to meet earth where Jesus comes down in Thrones himself on the throne of David and we have the kingdom of God on the earth we have a blending of heaven and earth during the thousand-year reign it's it's not like we're gonna have when we get to the end of the book of Revelation because at the end of the book of Revelation you have the old earth wiped out the old universe wiped out and God has made a new one and the City of God comes down out of heaven and lands on the earth and you literally have heaven and earth connected in that passage but as much as you can get it during the thousand-year reign of Christ you have this mixing of heaven and earth and it's just a very cool thing and so you you have this going on with a song so nobody can learn the song there's a song that nobody can learn except the 144,000 I don't know why I don't know if it's in a weird language that only they knew you know whatever is going on it's something that's just for them 144,000 redeemed from the earth and then it goes through and it begins talking about their characteristics it says these are the ones who were not defiled with women for they're virgins these are the ones who follow the lamb wherever he goes these were redeemed from among men being first fruits to God and to the lamb and in their mouth was found no deceit for they are without fault before the throne of God let's let's go through and talk about that first off talking about being redeemed the when when you're when you're talking about the word Redemption again Redemption is a picture of being bought and it's the idea being bought out of slavery turn over the first Corinthians 6:15 first Corinthians 6:15 and says do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot certainly not or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her for the two he says shall become one flesh but he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him flee sexual immorality every sin that a man does is outside the body but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have from God and you are not your own for you were bought at a price therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are gods and so that same picture of redemption that same picture of being bought that's used in the context of the hundred and forty four thousand is the same picture that God uses with us I'm not my own anymore it's not my body you hear that that phrase all the time well it's my body I can do what I want with it no it's not as soon as you become a believer it's not yours anymore now it's jesus' body and what you're supposed to be doing is glorifying christ through the things that you do with your body and god makes this like a really practical thing when you're when you're in romans chapter 6 it talks about the fact that we don't yield our members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin but we yield them as instruments of righteousness to God and when he's talking about members he's talking about these he's talking about your body parts and so my members have to do with my hands it has to do with my feet has to do with my you know all your parts has to do with your tongue has to do with your ears has to do with your eyes all your parts and in 1st Corinthians 6 he's talking about specific parts obviously all of those are to be given over to the Lord they're there to be used in a way that's glorifying to God and when you sin what you're doing is you're yielding your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin and so Paul gives you a really simple way of getting out of sin I like this a lot because it makes me think about things I told the story before of a of a girl who came in for counseling and she'd fallen in in in a situation with a guy and she came in and she she was talking to me and she's basically I like I'm just sick of this I'm sick of always falling to this and I went through and I talked to her a little bit about what had happened with her and she said I don't know Steve I'd you know I just found myself at his apartment and then you know one thing led to another and there I was and I'm feeling filthy after the fact and all this stuff and I go what do you mean you found yourself at his apartment and she goes I don't know I just you know I don't know was just there and I go did did you plan on going there and she goes what do you mean I go well did you have to drive over there did you just appear in the middle of the apartment what happened here there she goes no well I drove I go before you drove did you take a shower yeah did you put on makeup yeah did you put on certain clothing yeah and I didn't get into the details and stuff because you can make the point without getting into the details I go did you know what was going to happen before you got there and she goes well yeah I guess I did I go you planned it what you did when you were when you were taking your shower whereas you were yielding your members as instruments of unrighteousness what you did when you were putting on your makeup was you were yielding your members as instruments of unrighteousness what you did when you put on your clothing was you were putting on certain types of clothing that would be enticing and you were yielding your members as instruments of unrighteousness what you did when you walk towards your front door was you you were using your members your feet as instruments of unrighteousness what you did when you grabbed the handle of the door and you turned it you knew where you were going you yielded your hand as an instrument of unrighteousness when you went to your car same thing you opened up your car door and I go at any time during that whole process was God speaking to you and she goes yeah he was was he warning you yes it was you know were you thinking you shouldn't I go and she goes yeah I was and you see what I mean and that sounds like really condemning but what's cool about it is I know that when I'm when I'm walking into sin I don't it doesn't just happen to me it's something that I'm in on I'm planning and I'm having to take body parts whether it's my tongue whether it's my ears whether it's my eyes whether it's my hands I'm having to take body parts and actually do things with them that are that make them instruments of unrighteousness and in every instance in that situation the Holy Spirit is speaking to me going Steve no don't turn that on don't go that way don't say that don't listen to that don't look at that see what I mean and it's actually a very cool thing and so whenever that's going on I keep that it's conscious with me when I when I see you know not necessarily right at first I'm like anybody else you know it's like I find myself going in a certain direction and then pretty soon I'm like whoa what's going on here and then I started having these choices what am I gonna look at what am I gonna listen to what am I gonna say what am I gonna do all these things and my hands are either going to be glorifying God or not my mouth is going to be either glorifying God or not my ears are gonna be glorifying God or not and it's a very cool thing because the Holy Spirit just speaks to me here oh oh and clearly and those times going look at what you just did you need to stop it now very cool thing nobody just gets a bottle of booze doesn't appear on your table you don't walk in the room and go oh it's a bottle of booze I think I'll get drunk now doesn't just happen you have to go put someplace to get the booze nobody you know all of a sudden just has drugs laying around and you're you have to take the drugs see what I mean you could do this with anything and so when I when I'm talking to people who are who are caught up and those kinds of lifestyles I go how'd you get the booze well I went to the store and so once again you knew what you were doing you got up you have money in your pocket you decide you're gonna take a vacation from righteousness because that's what people do I've been good this is hard it's time for me to take a vacation because I have such a hard life and so you you you pack it up you go to the front door you get in your car you go down to the liquor store you buy whatever you're gonna buy you turn around you go back and in every instance what you're doing is you using your members as instruments of unrighteousness you know same thing with drugs you have to know where to go to get them you have to know where to go to get them you have to know people to get these things and that's that's how again people get into those kind of situations it doesn't just happen to you and struggle instruments of righteousness isn't that cool I again I just like that a lot so my body's not mine my body is the Lord's my hands my feet my mouth my ears all those things need to be used as instruments of righteousness and when I'm you know what I'm talking about your mouth you know the Bible has a lot but a lot to say about people who slander people about people who trash people behind their backs and you're using your tongue as an instrument of unrighteousness there there are certain sins that Christians look at they go oh that's wicked oh that's evil and there are other sins that are just kind of just kind of by the by you know it's like oh yeah I was talking about this guy you know the other day where somebody said this and such did you hear what's happening with so-and-so and all of a sudden something wicked comes out of your mouth instrument of unrighteousness and we could go on to to all kinds of other things I think that the things that you're doing with your hands the things that you're doing with your feet the things that you're doing with your tongue things that you're doing with your eyes and your ears are things that again need to be glorifying to God and if you keep that in mind it'll keep you out of a whole lot of problems give the Holy Spirit a lot of opportunity to be speaking to your heart if you're just conscious of that and so again you have that cod talks about them Revelation 14 again as being undefiled it says these are the ones who were not defiled with women undefiled the idea of being pure and probably it has to do with purity because of the time there's a passage in Jeremiah 16 one through four over UT I think it's up on the screen it says this the word Lord also came to me saying you shall not take a wife talking to Jeremiah nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place for thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place and concerning their mothers who bore them and their fathers who begot them in this land they shall die gruesome deaths they shall not be lamented nor shall they be buried but they shall be like refuse on the face of the earth they shall be consumed by the sword and by famine and their corpses shall be meat for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth it's at the end of God's judgment on the people of Judah but God tells Jeremiah I don't want you to take a wife I don't want you to have children at this point and the reason again is because it's gonna be so awful well we're living well we're not living but we're looking at people who are living during the most awful period of time in history and so this may be the reason that God talks to them about the or that that they are virgins they keep their themselves from wives from from women in this instance and obviously it's a reference to sexual sin to Romans chapter 12 and verse 1 talks about the fact that our bodies are to be a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God which is a reasonable service NIV says a reasonable service of worship and again that whole idea of my body's knife not mine it's the Lord's and so I'm supposed to be using it in that way then it talks about them being people who are following the lamb following the lamb there's a passage in Matthew 10 38 that says he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me I'm supposed to be following Jesus and obviously the lamb is what's being spoken about in that passage turn over to Luke chapter 9 Luke chapter number turning in verse 57 it says now it happened as the journey on the road that someone said to him Lord I'll follow you wherever you go and Jesus said to him foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head then he said to another follow me but he said Lord let me first go and bury my father jesus said to him let the dead bury their own dead but you go and preach the kingdom of God and another also said Lord I will follow you but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house but jesus said to him no one having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God and and without getting into the history and and the cultural issues that are here the point that Jesus is making with these people is that you follow me and your not cannot guaranteed comfort I don't have a place to lay my head you follow me I'm not guaranteed guaranteeing you that everything's gonna go fine in your life and everything's gonna be wonderful you need to understand that the second guy he says follow me and he says Lord me let me first go and bury my father and he says let the dairy but dead bury their own dead and what he's saying to him in this instance without getting into the cultural stuff is that there's no excuse for not following me I'm I'm number one and if you're going to follow me I need to be number one and the last guy says another said Lord I will follow you but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house and then Jesus says no one having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God you're gonna follow me there's no looking back and so if I'm gonna follow Jesus I need to follow him just because he's Jesus not because I'm gonna be comfortable if I'm gonna follow Jesus I need I need to understand that there's no looking back if I'm going to follow Jesus I need to I need to understand that he's got to be number one in my life and no one else now the cultural stuff is this when he says I want to go bury my father what he's saying is I can't even till my father dies he's not saying my father is dead and Here I am because that's not what would be going on so basically saying you know my father's getting older as soon as my father dies then I'll come and follow you that's what a lot of people say I'll follow Jesus when I get older I've got some other things that I've got to do up until this point got some responsibilities got some things that I want to see done in my life that kind of thing I'm going to I'm gonna have all kinds of fun my wife actually said this to my father-in-law right before she got saved you guys have had all your fun you guys have been doing all this stuff I'm gonna go out and have all my fun and then after I'm all done then I'll follow Jesus like you do and what was it a couple weeks later you got saved yeah I can't believe Bobby said that well yeah she can she can get kind of rowdy and so that's the that again is the deal with that let the dead bury their own dead you know you don't need to be wait until your father dies and the last guy Lorna will follow you let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house that is data that is not something that's absolutely cultural in the sense that he's trying to delay something but again the point that Jesus is making here is you need to not look back you need to you need to be somebody who's willing to go and to go now and not look back and apparently that was the issue with the guy when Jesus talks to people about the things that are in their heart he doesn't always explain everything and so when he's talking to this guy the guy goes it says I need to go say goodbye to my parents and then I'll come and follow you Jesus is dealing with something that's going on inside the the guy's heart my favorite illustration of this is Nicodemus Nicodemus is a guy who's rich powerful and you know he's politically powerful and he's a religious guy he's a leader of the Sanhedrin and he comes to Jesus by night because he's he's afraid of his friends knowing that he's going to go talk to Jesus that's why he's coming by night when he comes to Jesus he's got a feel that he gives him Lord we know that you're somebody somebody who's come from heaven because nobody could do the works that you're doing unless God was with him and Jesus says a main a main or truly truly assuredly assuredly you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven unless you're born again that's what he says to the guy he ignores everything that he says and just goes to the heart of the matter Nicodemus doesn't know what if he's going to heaven and he wants to know and Jesus says you're not going unless you're born again and that's what he that's what he talks to him about and so that's what's going on with this guy what the guy is doing is using something that looks like a reasonable request and what Jesus is doing is dealing with the issue the the fact that his heart is speaking about a different thing than just saying goodbye to mommy and daddy and so we need to be again we need to be following him and again Jesus said he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me and so they follow the lamb they're worthy they've been following the lamb through the whole Tribulation Period they haven't slacked off they haven't cut back they've been faithful to the Lord the fourth thing that you see in the passage is that they have no deceit these are the ones who are not defiled with women for they are virgins these are the ones who follow the lamb wherever he goes these were redeemed from among men being the firstfruits to God and the lamb we already dealt with that and in their mouth was found no deceit the word for deceit there is dulles in greek it means an insidious artifice it's the idea of fraud there's no fraud in these guys lives what you see is what you get when you see is the reality that's there 1st Peter 3:10 says for he who would love life and see good days let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit we actually used this verse this morning there's another passage in John 147 talking about Nathanael and Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him instead of him behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no deceit how would you like Jesus to say that about you he sees you for the first time and he goes Steve whinnery a man in in whom there is no deceit he's just real he's a real deal that's what you want Jesus to say about you that you're the real deal that everything that people see in you is what what the is is just the reality you're not playing games you're not trying to fake anybody out you're not trying to pretend to be something that you're not you just who you are and you're an actual follower follower of the Lord I'm getting more and more rowdy as I get older and in a sense of who walks with God and who doesn't you know I think it's I think that we're in times where it needs to be real you guys because the the stuff that we see in the book of Revelation admittedly were not in the tribulation period but it's coming and things are gonna get harder and harder as time goes on you look at the at the political situation right now there's half the people in this country that are aligned with a party that hates Christians they mock us continually unless they decide that you know something comes up in the news where they can act like they're more holy than believers and so you know one of the things that's just happened in the news is the whole thing with Christianity today and the back-and-forth between Franklin Graham and the editor that that you know wrote this stuff about Trump and and that kind of stuff making trying to make a political statement those kinds of things and you know Christians this is what this is what I grew up with and and if if they're if there's anything that I would like to pass on to you as a pastor and as a teacher it's this when I got saved it's a bunch of people who just love Jesus they won't they weren't smart they they weren't radically biblically literate in the sense that you know they just came into a relationship with God and they were just in love with the Lord they became radically literate as time goes on because they're constantly in the Bible but that's not what made them different what made them different was there was a reality to their relationship with God they were in love with Jesus they wanted to follow Jesus it was a pure thing there was purity there and so you know I I'd been around people who were Christians in the innocence that they grew up in church and that kind of stuff and this is back during the 70's and so there you know there were a lot of mainline denominations that were still hanging onto doctrinal truth and and that kind of thing but there was a coldness about the church there was a coldness about Christians it was just kind of a thing that you did it was kind of a thing that you were it was you know you just you just kind of you just kind of lived there and it was a cultural thing it's cultural Christianity and then you run into these people who are just nothing but Jesus freaks and they were they were just nothing but Jesus freaks they were in love with Jesus they were gonna follow Jesus they did you know they they tried to do their best for the Lord that that kind of thing and you could see a purity that was there no deceit there was no guile there was a reality to them and they weren't perfect they did all kinds of dumb things but at least you know they were doing something for Jesus they even if it was dumb and so you know the the again there's just there's just a purity there and that's what that's what God calls us to he calls us to be pure he calls us to be you know just just what we are just what we are not trying to fake it not trying to mess around and that kind of thing you know God doesn't want you to be a lousy imitation of somebody else he wants to take the person that you are in all your glory everything everything that you are and he wants to take it and he wants to he wants to infuse it with His Holiness his separateness and make you somebody that's useful for the kingdom of God and so you you know you know good illustrations are Peter and John in the Bible so Peter is he's a fisherman and Peter was Peter was a guy who's just all in no matter what he's doing he's all in and so you know there's a there's a point where the Peter is in the room with Jesus and the other disciples he watches Jesus go around and washing the feet of the other disciples Jesus comes to him kind of tells you where he's at in the in the order of things he's somewhere at the end Jesus comes to him and goes to wash his feet and he goes well you're not washing my feet and he figures he it looks like he figures it's a test all these other guys have had the Lord or he'd come and wash their feet and they sat there and they let him do it as if Jesus is a servant and Jesus comes up to Peter and he goes Peters like you're not doing that with me you're not gonna you're not gonna be washing my feet and it's good attitude except for Jesus says if I don't wash your feet you have no part with me and then guys remember what Peter said he's not just my feet you can wash everything and again you know he's just a guy who's all in it's like whatever you want to do I'm in on this stuff even when even when he was iffy the first time actually it wasn't the first time that he met Jesus but the first time that he got serious about following Jesus Jesus came up to him and said Peter let's you know I need to use your boat can you push out from the shore and so he gets in his boat and he begins preaching he he does a teaching and then afterwards she goes let's go fishing what you throw your nets in and Peter says Lord I've been at this all night I'm paraphrasing but I've been at this all night and there's no fish in this lake this is what I say when I go fishing there's no fish and it's like because he'll never catch anything and so he basically says we've been fishing all night we've caught nothing but he says nevertheless at your command and he uses a term master in the passage nevertheless at your command I'll throw I'll cast the net head and you guys know the story he pulls the net up the net starts breaking he's yelling for James and John come over here my nets are breaking look at all the fish you know that kind of thing and he hits his knees after the fish are brought in and he says Lord depart from me I'm a sinful man and when he uses a term master in the passage it literally means captain of this boat and it's like you're a carpenter I'm a fisherman nevertheless I'm making you captain of this boat yes I'll throw the net in and again just a guy who's genuine just the guy who's all and he just he's just there he's out there he you know even when he blows it you know we could go through example after example John and James they're hilarious too so they're going through some area this one time the city didn't want Jesus coming in apparently they sent messengers out saying you know you guys get out of here we don't we don't want your preaching around here or whatever James and John they're brothers Jesus calls them the sons of thunder whenever I think of the James and John I think of bikers yeah God guys with leather jackets on sons of thunder across the back and what they do is they turn to Jesus and they go should we call down fire from heaven and then they give you gives Jesus the biblical backup like Elijah did Jesus always needs biblical backup you know it's so they go like Elijah did and Jesus cuz you don't know what spirit you're of so that a man didn't come to destroy people he came to seek and save that which is lost no I don't want you to burn them to death James and John so this is how they start out apostles actually that Jesus picked so this is the these are guys that Jesus picked and they want to burn a whole town down and by the by the time that you get to the end in first John you read first John it's an epistle of love and John's you know talking about love left and right but he still got some edginess to him you know actually let me let me read this to you they I like this first John let's see where do I want to read at the end of chapter one he says well I actually beginning in a middle of chapter when he says this is message which we've heard from him and declare to you that God is light in him there's no darkness of all if we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness we lie and do not practice the truth so you say you have fellowship with Jesus you're walking in darkness John goes liar cause them liars right but if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with God with one another if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us again liar if we say verse 10 that we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us if you look down in chapter 2 in verse 3 it says Biden now by this we know that we know if we keep his Commandments he who says I know him and does not keep his Commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him but whoever keeps his word truly the love of God is perfected in him by this we know that we are in him he who says that he abides in him on himself us to walk just as he is as he walked and the rest of first John he's going to be talking about the love of God but he doesn't have a problem calling people liars you say that you're this and you're not this and you're doing this and you're not doing that and that kind of stuff you're a liar and so what God's done is he's taken the son of thunder leather jacket and all and he's toned him down in certain areas made him the apostle of love but you still see the edge to the guy and it's just a cool thing it's very cool thing see and and you see exactly the same thing with Peters so what I'm saying is that when God comes in into your life what he does is he takes you in he takes all of you and he he takes the the aspects of your personality the aspects of your heart the the way that you act as far as being a man or being a woman all of those things your emotional makeup all of those things and he sanctifies it sets it apart for his use and we don't become cookie cutter copies of each other that is not what happens there's no deceit everything's still real and that's what God wants to do with me that's what God wants to do with you then back in chapter 14 it says these were redeemed from among men being first fruits to God and to the lamb first fruits you know the the Bible talks about first fruits and first fruits is always about the best if I'm gonna if I'm gonna bring an offering to the Lord if I'm gonna bring a sacrifice to the Lord I bring the best of what I have firstfruits is the first portion God gets his portion before anybody else gets their portion and so when we when we talk about tithing for exam the whole idea of giving 1/10 to God is the idea that it's all his and he gets his portion first before I take care of anything else that's what that's what a tithe is about and you have to have the same thing in other issues and this there's a there's a couple of passages in Romans chapter 11 dealing with a with the people of Israel and the fact that they're going to be firstfruits to god 11:15 through 16 it talks about the Jewish nation it says this for if they're being castaways the reconciling of the word world what will their acceptance be but life from the dead for if the first fruit is holy the lump is also holy and if the root is holy so are the branches and then if you if you're there with me in verses 25 through 27 it says I do not desire brethren that you should be ignorant in this mystery lest you should be wise in your own opinions that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in and so all Israel will be saved as it is written the deliverer will come out of Zion and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob for this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins reason I took you to that passage is because the 144,000 are probably instrumental in bringing the Jewish nation back into a relationship with God one of the points of the book of Revelation is that God's got this group of people who have turned away from him for thousands of years denied Jesus as Messiah and in the last 7 year period that we have going on here before the coming of Christ God is going to focus like a laser on these people and he's going to be turning them around and so we read about the two witnesses those are most likely one is for almost for sure Elijah the other one is probably Moses from the law and from the prophets Moses and Elijah and he uses those people to turn the hearts of of Israel back towards the Lord and actually back towards their family it's the last prophecy made in the Old Testament about the coming of Elijah and so he uses those guys who uses the 140 four thousand it looks like he uses them to preach the gospel 144,000 are connected in Revelation seven with the multitude of people who come into a relationship with God and are seen entering heaven after their persecution on the earth it looks like these guys have something to do with that I've heard you know people talk about you know the hundred and forty-four thousand being evangelist 144,000 Billy Graham's running around on the earth in the last days turning people to the Lord and specifically their own people these are Jews these are people these are guys who come from the Jewish nation it's not a figurative number when you go through Revelation chapter 7 it talks about how many guys from each one of the tribes come and some of the tribes are left out there are tribes that are not connected with 144,000 it's letting you know that it's not just a symbolic number there's specific groups of people that God's gonna be using in this whole thing and it looks like that's that's what's going on so these are firstfruits of the Jewish nation these are the first ones that are being given over to the Lord and then there's going to be a bigger harvest that comes most likely again from these guys ministry there's a passage in Zechariah it's one of the last books in the Old Testament Zechariah chapter 13 verses 8 and 9 let me let me read this to you it shall come to pass in all the land says the Lord that two thirds in it shall be cut off and die but one third shall be left in it I will bring the one-third through the fire we'll refine them as silver is refined and test them as gold is tested they will call on my name and I will answer them I will say this is my people and each one will say the Lord is my god it's talking about the return of the people of Israel during the Tribulation Period very next chapter is about the second coming of Christ and so God is using the tribulation period to refine the people of Israel and the 144,000 it looks like again are the firstfruits and they're used in this in this context and so again you have that then you have the announcements of three angels he says then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth to every nation tribe tongue and people saying with a loud voice fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come and worship Him who made heaven and earth the sea and springs of water and another angel followed saying Babylon is fallen is fallen that great city because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication then a third angel followed them saying with a loud voice if anyone worships the Beast and His image and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand he himself shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God which was poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the Holy Angels and in the presence of the Lamb and the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever and they have no rest day or night who worship the Beast and His image and whoever receives the mark of his name and of proclaimation longest proclamation is a proclamation of judgment on people who take the mark of the beast and obviously what God's doing is he's warning them away from this okay so real quick in the last couple of minutes that I've got here I'm not gonna I'm not gonna deal with all of the stuff that's in here but real quick I want to just deal with the with the issue of angels flying through the heavens remember when we were back in Revelation chapter chapter 9 and you hold had this whole thing with a fallen angel coming down opening the pit and out comes these locusts like scorpion like things and we were talking about the demonic right and one of one of the things that you have when you're going through the through the book of Revelation is this whole mixture of the spiritual with the material and basically all the stops are being pulled out you got this is the last seven years and many of these things are happening put most likely in the last three and a half year of that time period it's when the when the Antichrist does the mark of the beast and he does the abomination of desolation that things begin breaking loose and it looks like what God does is he just kind of opens the veil on people and so God goes you like demons you want to worship demons here are some demons and out they come and people actually see these things and are tormented by them and I know that there are people who spiritual eyes this kind of stuff but one of the mistakes that I've made in in my ministry especially with teaching is the idea of going through and just dismissing what the passage actually says and trying to make it say something else I kind of think that there's going to be an angel going through heaven proclaiming the gospel I think that what God's doing is he's he's opening up the heavens so that people know that there is a God that he is really there and that they need to turn I think when the mark of the beast is is coming along that God gives everybody fair warning and he doesn't make it something that's ambiguous he makes it a straight issue and there's supernatural things going on in the heavens have you noticed that there are supernatural things going on in the heavens you guys been watching the UFO stuff so you know back in what was it 2004 whatever they had this whole thing with a Nimitz carrier group and they had Tomcat pilots following the tick-tack that's what they called it the tic-tac and it's going through the sky and it's doing aerial maneuvering that you can't do in an atmosphere there are no sonic booms there they're the way that the thing is moving it's not moving according to normal physics it went underwater and was going at hundreds of knots underwater they tracked this thing and so it's flying through the air it's going underwater there's you know there were multiple appearances of this thing they didn't they weren't able to track it on radar they were actually tracking it with infrared and so all these weird things are going on and one of the things that you see when you're when you have actual UFO stuff that's real okay sometimes it's just nothing but a hoax and so there have been guys who've taken like there was a there was a UFO hoax back in North Carolina and not too long ago where a guy a guy a bunch of guys took a couple of meteorological balloons people Bigelow balloons filled him up with helium and tied a flare to him and sent them up into the sky well you know it's like huge UFO issue everybody's blown away by this whole thing because it just looks weird in the sky they ended up getting caught and they got fined I don't know why you would get a fine for that you know maybe they did it near an airport or something in any case they got they got fine for this stuff and so you have situations that come up like that but then you have other things that are just weird they've seen UFOs going they've tracked them again they've tracked UFOs going faster than the speed of faster than the speed of sound sometimes up to 20,000 miles per hour in the atmosphere so the the speed of sound is right around 700 miles an hour and so when you get to that speed the air piles up and you get what's called a sonic boom some of you have never heard a sonic boom well I you know I was a little kid back in the 60s we had an it we had a sack Air Force Base near us and those guys were always flying around and they were always busting the sound barrier and you're all the windows in your house would rattle when these guys you know went through the sound barrier and so sonic booms are loud and they have to happen you pile up air that's what happens unless you have something you know they're they're trying to make ships that can go faster that's then sound they still get a sonic boom but it's not as loud that's one of the things that they're trying to do right now NASA is and so that's interesting stuff but these these things are not shaped like that and so they're going better than 20,000 miles an hour most often upwards of 10,000 thousand miles an hour they're doing right angle turns you can't do that and survive nothing physical can do that and survive and so that brings up the non-physical a lot of UFO researchers are now thinking that UFOs are not alien spacecraft they think that they're interdimensional this is the terms that they use these are interdimensional craft they're not coming from far far away they're coming from another dimension I kind of agree with that there is another dimension when you go through the Book of Ezekiel the Book of Ezekiel and describing the throne of God that Ezekiel saw he describes issues where there are wheels within wheels and they're going through the air and they're flying quickly right angle terms that kind of stuff and what Ezekiel says they are as angels calls them angels and so there's all this you know all this stuff that's starting to come out and it's getting more and more intense and you see these manifestations that are taking place and I think that you know if it's not something that you can attribute to new flight characteristics of weapons that the military is coming up with you know you had the same kind of thing going on when they were we're doing the new what do you call them I can't you know the f32 and all these things the the flight characteristics that keep them from being able to be seen on radar he's had some of the Bombers that have weird shapes and you know triangle shapes that kind of stuff and when those were coming out people were thinking that they were seeing UFOs and stuff and it was just you know it was just American military stuff that the stuff that we're talking about right now doesn't look like it's that it looks like it's something weird and again the UFO guys are talking about interdimensional type stuff when people run into these things the the people or the the aliens so to speak they act just like demons they do the same stuff that demon demon encounters are written about from the Middle Ages they do exactly the same thing and so I used to be into this stuff of course I'm into everything I used to be I used to be into this stuff and all the major researchers from the 60s and the 70s would tell people you need to not get into this this stuff starts getting scary and I'm paraphrasing them but they think that it's a spiritual issue and there are unbelievers saying this stuff and I believe that that's probably what's going on and so what God does is he takes away the veil and you get angels they see angels that's what I think is actually going on there I don't think it's a satellite I don't think it's the CBN satellite you know I kind of think back into the back in the 80s I was a Jim Baker or whatever they said that they put up a satellite and that's this that's the angel in Revelation preaching the gospel and I don't think it's that I think I think it's something that's way more radical and so as the tribulation goes on God turns up the heat on people he lets them know exactly what's happening and I think that's what's going on with these guys and we'll pick that up next week and and talk some more about it so good stuff huh 144,000 those characteristics they may be ours two people who've been redeemed people who follow the lamb people who are undefiled people who have no deceit people who are given over to the Lord his firstfruits I'm his and that's that's a good thing to be let's pray bless you lord thank you so much for the encouragement that we find in your word Lord most of the book of Revelation is just really kind of scary and many times just a bummer that the world has to get to this place before everything can turn around but there are highlights and these guys are highlights men who follow you men who are faithful men who are unafraid men who live for you men who are for real men who walk with you and the Lord that's what we want to be men and women who walk with you we love you Lord we just want to give you the rest of our evening in our fellowship go before us as we go home and we pray that our lives would be blessed because of the time that we spend with you here but even more Lord the time that we spend alone with you reading our Bibles and just talking with you Lord we want to have fellowship with you so just give our hearts to you pray that you bless us as we go our way and ask that you do this all in Jesus name Amen god bless you guys

Channel: Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities

Views: 12,682

Rating: 4.825397 out of 5

Keywords: The End of the World in the bible, Truth, Jesus' Return, The rapture, the second coming, The book of Revelation, The Revelation Of Jesus Christ, The last book in the bible, The Bible, Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities, Steve Whinery, Gosphel, God, Biblical Prophecy, The End Times, End Of The World, The Millennial Kingdom, Revelation's meaning, Jesus

Id: qlqcMkuyKHU

Length: 73min 34sec (4414 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 11 2020