Revelation 7:9-17 // The Multitude

let's do Revelation chapter 7 and we're gonna finish it off tonight Revelation chapter 7 and let's pray before we start again Lord we thank you for your word thank you for the blessing you are to us and for the fact that you work in our lives Lord we love you so much and Lord like we were like we were talking about the sharing just excited to see you come this world's getting worse and worse and many in many ways it's getting more and more wicked Lord you've told us that until you come that we need to be about your business we need to be sharing the gospel sharing the truth of your love because there's a coming a point where you're going to stop all this and you're just going to say that's enough and as we're reading about that in Revelation Lord we just pray that you would give us an urgency and that you would give us a desire to see your face and have you come back Lord and God that you would bless us as we follow after you he asked us in Jesus name Amen okay Revelation chapter 7 we already dealt like really thoroughly with a 144,000 and so I'm not going to go into that a whole lot except to say that when you're looking at the hundred and forty-four thousand these guys seem to be a big deal in the Bible it's not explicitly stated but they seem to be a big deal and one of the things that you see in Revelation chapter 14 when you look at these guys this is a passage that talks about them at the end of the Tribulation Period verse 1 it says in in chapter 14 I looked and behold a lamb standing on Mount Zion and with him 144,000 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 harpist playing their harps they sing as it were a new song before the throne before the four living creatures and the elders and no one could learn that song except the hundred and forty-four thousand 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 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 and so when you when you go through and you look at these guys what you what you have is people who are thoroughly committed to following Jesus they are thoroughly committed to a pure lifestyle they are spoken as being redeemed from among men being again being the firstfruits to God and to the lamb so these people who are these are people who are saved by the blood of Jesus and finally they're their people in verse five who have a good witness there's no deceit found in their mouth and they're without fault before the throne of God so these guys are good witness and again that's a that's a great picture of what believers are supposed to be and because of the of the context in Revelation chapter 7 it looks like these hundred and forty-four thousand Jewish guys have something to do with the great multitude of Gentiles that come to the Lord in the second half of the chapter another thing that I want to reiterate as we're going through this is all the way through the book of Revelation you have this distinction between Jews and Gentiles that you don't have in the book of Acts in the book of Acts it'll talk about going to the Jews and and talk about Jewish believers who come into a relationship with Christ there's still a distinction in the sense that they're still talking about their national or their ethnic ID identity in the passages but when you're talking about the church in the New Testament it's Jews and Gentiles coming together as one group and when you get to the book of Revelation all of a sudden that that changes in radical ways and so this whole thing with the marking of the hundred and forty-four thousand Jews and again we talked about that last time so I'm not going to beat that up and then a transition from those guys to the Gentiles is striking as you go through Revelation again it looks like what we're what we are at is a point where God has kind of turned back the clock and so just like it was in the Old Testament you had you had a number of you had Jews getting saved and then you have Gentiles coming in is what you have in the Old Testament it looks like you go back to basically Old Testament economy as far as salvation goes and so in verse 9 it says after these things I looked and behold a great multitude which no one could number of all nations tribes peoples and tongues see the word for nations there it's ethnos and Greek it is the term for Gentiles and so commentators and I believe this to believe that what we're talking about is great multitude of Gentiles getting safe after these things I looked and behold a great multitude which no one could number of all nations tribes peoples and tongues standing before the throne and before the lamb clothed with white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice saying salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb all the Angels stood around the throne and obviously this is up in heaven all the Angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures and fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God saying amen blessing and glory and wisdom Thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever amen then one of the elders answered saying to me who are these arrayed in white robes and where did they come from and I said to him sir you know so he said to me these are the ones who come out of the Great Tribulation and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb therefore they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in his temple and he who sits on the throne will dwell among them they shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore the Sun shall not strike them nor any Heat for the Lamb who was in the midst of the throne will Shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes okay so let's let's get into this and look at this when you're when you're talking about the multitude of people who are getting who are standing before the throne here one of the first things that I want to point out is that this again is a parenthesis it's in between the sixth seal and the seventh seal and what's being spoken about in this passage is good things that are happening during the tribulation one of the things that people have a misconception about is that people aren't going to get saved during the tribulation in fact there's going to be such a revival taking place during the tribulation that so many people are getting saved that you can't even number them look at verse 9 again after these things I looked and behold a great multitude which no one could number of all the nations so there there is like literally in the passage an innumerable company of people that come into a relationship with God during the Tribulation Period and here's why that's happening what God's doing is he's wrapping things up and so in the in the position we're in now we're in a position where we are in the period where God is showing his grace to the world he's reaching the world through the church and whether you think the church is doing a good job or a bad job that's what God's doing right now and the Bible teaches that that's going to happen for a certain period of time and then then the last person is going to get saved and at that point that ushers in the coming of Jesus for the church that's called the rapture of the church it's also called the resurrection you read about it in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 and after that you have the seven-year tribulation period and that's that's what we're in when you're in the book of Revelation and during that seven year Tribulation Period a couple of things are taking place God is dealing with the Jewish nation and he's bringing them back into a relationship with him it is the major purpose for the Tribulation Period would get this from the Book of Daniel in Daniel chapter 9 and in that passage what Gabriel does is he outlines the history of the nation of Israel in a series of sevens sevens of years and he said he basically says you've got 483 years from the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem the walls are gonna be built the streets gonna be built in troubled sort of troublesome time times 483 years of that period he talked about seventy sevens it's 69 of the seven year periods 483 years for 483 years this is going to be going on God's going to be working in in in Israel until he brings the Messiah and when the Messiah comes there are going to be things that take place messiahs Jesus and so literally in the Old Testament you have a prophecy to the day of when Jesus is coming to the city of Jerusalem riding on a donkey that's when that's fulfilled to the day just a really cool prophecy and then it says that three things are gonna take place one of the things that's gonna take places that Jesus is gonna be killed and obviously that happened after he wrote into Jerusalem on a donkey happen four days later the second thing that it says is going to happen is that the city's going to be destroyed again so they say the that's a prophecy that the city of Jerusalem while Daniels in over in Babylon under the Persians under Persian rule it's a prophet the the city of Jerusalem has been destroyed everything's flattened the walls are knocked down right and it's a prophecy that not only is the city going to be rebuilt it's going to be rebuilt and then it's going to be destroyed again not as only as a temple going to be rebuilt it's going to be rebuilt and then it's going to be destroyed again and so in that prophecy that that Gabriel gives to Daniel he says messiahs gonna be cut off but not for himself and so he's going to die that's what cut off means he's gonna die but he's not gonna be dying for himself who Jesus died for yeah all of us and all of those people at that time - so four days later that's gonna happen and then he says the city will is going to be destroyed well that didn't happen four days later that didn't happen within seven years of the time of the coming of Jesus that happened thirty two years later or actually 38 years later excuse me happened 38 years later and so that's not within the scope of the last seven-year period and so you're already outside of that seven-year period and so what you're in is a parenthesis at that point 483 years for for Israel coming up to the country coming of Messiah and then two things are happening besides being cut off that's within seven years of the 483 which would fulfill that whole thing I'm you know I I know I'm going on but that's within the seven years but the destruction of Jerusalem is not it's not within the seven years it's 38 years later and then it talks about the fact that there is going to be a diaspora there's going to be a dispersion of the Jews and that they're going to be under persecution well that one that puppy had took place for well over 1,800 years almost 1,900 years until the Jewish returned to Israel and so you have a pause in the history of Israel goes 483 years Messiah comes they reject him as Messiah there is a pause on Israel that lasts for for better than 1,800 years and then there is a restart for the last seven years and you have that all in that prophecy in Daniel this is the restart this is where God is working with the Jewish nation turning them around bringing them back so that he can fulfill every promise that he made these people in the Old Testament the vast majority of prophecies in the Old Testament have to do with the second coming of Christ and him coming and setting up a kingdom and fulfilling the promises that he made to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob and to Moses and to David and all of those guys about what he was going to do with the nation of Israel and you are not the nation of Israel you are the church even if you're Jewish at this point you're your Christian you're not the nation of Israel you are the church and so God's gonna fulfill all his promises so you're going through the Old Testament you're reading in the Book of Isaiah and you're reading about the wolf and the lamb lying down and a lion eating straw like an ox those are all kingdom promises you're reading about everybody having his own fig tree and everybody has having his own vineyard and they're not gonna they're not going to learn war anymore they're gonna beat their swords into plowshares all of those verses about the the kingdom of God is not about heaven it's not about heaven it's about the earth and it's about the promises that God made to them it's it's like radically specific if you went through the Book of Ezekiel with us it talks about the government during the time of the one millennium talks about who's in charge talks about the rebuilding of the temple by the Messiah it talks about the sacrifices that take place sacrifices coming back when Jesus comes and so you you have all these things in the Old Testament that have never been fulfilled most of the prophecies have to do with the second coming of Christ and so all of those things are going to be fulfilled just like the prophecies about the first coming of Christ so when you look in the Old Testament you read about the first coming of Christ it talks about where he's gonna minister were the where the vast majority of his ministry is going to be it's in it's in Isaiah chapter 9 and it's up in the area of Galilee that's exactly what happened the vast majority of Jesus's ministry was up in Galilee when you when you look in the Old Testament and you look at what it has to say about where he's gonna be born where was Jesus born do we know where was Jesus born Bethlehem and it is specifically stated in the Old Testament that he's gonna be born in Bethlehem we already talked about Jesus riding into town on a donkey what was the town he's gonna ride into Jerusalem he's riding in Jerusalem on the back of a donkey and it specifically stated in the Old Testament you can go through prophecy after prophecy after prophecy and it's not some vague thing and it's not some ghosty thing specifically stated what's going to take place and it happened just as the old testament says specifically happened just as the old testament says and so when you're looking at all the prophecies of the first coming of Christ they're literal and there they are fulfilled literally and so if that's the case with the prophecies about the first coming guess what I think about the prophecies about the second coming literal they're going to be fulfilled literally God's going to keep his promises to these people and that again is what the book of Revelation is about he's reaching out to the people of Israel at the same time he's got a bunch of people who are on this planet the vast majority of which are not Jewish and he's wrapping things up and so what we what we have right now is a situation where the world in general the culture in general is doing a slow fade people are turning away from God and this could go on for decades this could go on for 100 of years this could go on for another thousand years with all the pain in the and the turmoil and the and and just the hassle that's involved with it but God's going to cut short and I'm quoting from a passage in the Bible his work on the earth he's going to cut it short because he's really not interested in going on and on with this whole thing and so this cutting short at the at the very same time that he's reaching out to the Jewish nation he's going to use that retur reach out to the Gentiles so lots of Gentiles are going to be getting saved and so it's not a not the kind of situation where once Jesus comes and takes us out of here he's just done with everybody you know on the contrary what's going to happen is Jesus is going to be reaching out to these people and more radical ways and in more pointed ways than anything that's going on now you know there are vast numbers of people who do lip service to God at this point and they don't have a real relationship with him they may even know some things about the Bible can you imagine getting left behind and then you start seeing everything that the Bible talks about as far as the tribulation period goes you see this guy rise up the Antichrist you see that's destruction of the people who attack the the nation of Israel you start seeing the different plagues that that are spoken about a quarter of the Earth's population is is killed in warfare you see these things and you have any kind of inkling about what the Bible has to say people they're going to be a whole group of people that take that very seriously and realize we are in the last times and on top of that you are going to have the witness of most likely the 144,000 a little bit later on we're gonna be talking about the two witnesses who oppose the Antichrist to his face they oppose the Antichrist to his face and they're doing miracles like Elijah did in the Old Testament they're doing miracles like Moses did in the Old Testament and it's on CNN well it might not be on CNN they might not cover it but whoever whoever's left over at some of the other stations might cover it in any case so you're going to see it on TV and people are going to be going whoa it's in the Bible then they're gonna have they're gonna have friends who've left them with Bibles and in the in the front of their Bible they say if I do something you know they're gonna write down in their in their Bibles if I disappear go to these passages right here and they're gonna be you know John 3 and actually in my in my library in my library I have a bunch of books that are Christian books they're commentaries and that kind of stuff and I have other books that are cult books and if I've got a book that some messed up book usually in fact I need to go through my library make sure because somebody gave me some more books but usually what I'll do is in the front I'll put a little skull and crossbones on it I take this stuff seriously well skull and crossbones on it and underneath I put poison you know so people know that in my library even though I've got books from other cults and and that kind of stuff they are not books that I endorse and then all the other ones are cool so if you're listening to this Bible study on a podcast or on a broadcast and you're in the middle of the tribulation and you want to know which books to check out number one your Bible number two if you go in my library just look for books without poison in it and you'll be okay yeah that kind of thing better yet don't get left behind and give your life to Christ in any case what God's doing is he's bringing people in and so tons of people get saved so it's not just all judgment and frankly the judgments that are involved in in that period of time are specifically designed to get people to make a choice and so we have that choice right now is you're either for him or against him jesus said you're either for me or against me you either gather with me or you scatter people and it's one or the other and he never he never left it in a situation where people could claim to be neutral you're not neutral you know I was talking about this this morning the Bible compares marriage to our relationship with Christ and whenever I'm doing a wedding one of the things that I do is I that out because I'm gonna share the gospel with people even at weddings and one of the cool things about a wedding is you know that the two people who are standing up front have a different relationship than everybody else in the audience they are the ones who are getting married they are the ones who are committed to each other and that commitment is not something that they got into by osmosis or something it wasn't it wasn't something that just kind of happened there were decisions that were made and so normally what happens is the guy asked the girl to marry him and I've had a couple situations where the girl said what's up you're gonna marry me or not you know and that kind of thing but the guy asked the girl to marry him and she has to make a choice and she can say yes I'll marry you I love you I want to be with you or can she can say no I don't want to marry you what's wrong with you just take me to dinner or she can say she can say maybe maybe I'll marry you which to a guy asking a girl if she wants to marry him is a no that's what it is if I if before I was married I went to my wife and said Bobby will you marry me and she said maybe you know how I'd take that I go she doesn't love me and she doesn't want me and so I guess the answer is no that's how I would take that if I was really needy I'd go well please maybe over time you love me you know and that kind of thing but I'm kind of not like that and so I would just take that as a no guess what Jesus is like me in that area he's not needy he loves you he wants you he wants you to be with him his his commitment towards you is not ambiguous but if you don't want him he's okay with that yeah he's not okay with it but he'll let that be do you don't want him and so that's why he says you're either for me or you're against me there's not an in-between there's not a maybe with Jesus and so it's a great picture in any case what's happening during the time of the tribulation period is God's going make a choice you're gonna make a choice I'm making you make a choice you're either going to be for me or you're going to be against me and you're either going to be with me or you're going to be fighting against me and that's what you see all the way through the book the rest the book of Revelation you have a huge group of people who go okay we're for you you know and God brings in a huge harvest but then on the other hand you have a group of people who are called those who dwell on the earth it's the title that's given to them those who dwell on the earth and it's not that these people aren't dwelling on the earth it's just so the earth isn't their home they're people who are linked with heaven but those who dwell on the earth rebel against God they fight against him and they refuse to come and so again what God's doing is lining people up and saying make a choice you need to make a choice so the people who make a choice are a great multitude that no one can number it's the it's going to be the greatest influx of believers that the world has ever seen and it's it's just again gonna be a cool thing when it describes these guys it says from all nations tribes peoples and tongues I want you to notice it doesn't say races once again doesn't say races the Bible talks about families again not races standing before the throne and before the lamb clothed with white robes what do what does white represent about righteousness purity and so these people are people who've been made righteous and the Bible talks about the fact that white Rome robes are the righteousness of the saints later on in Revelation 19 and then it says with palm branches in their hands and we're not used to palm branches so much but palm branches represent victory in New Testament times so you were waving palm branches you're signaling victory and so these people are standing before the throne of God in purity in righteousness God having made them righteous and they're there considering themselves to be victors and guess what they're all dead they've all died and yet they consider themselves to be victors most likely a lot of them died in the persecutions that take place so when we talked about the fifth seal in the last chapter it talks about those who are heaven wondering when God is going to accuse people who had killed them it says but in any case it says there they have palm branches in their hands and in verse 10 it says and crying out with a loud voice saying salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb very important when you're talking about salvation in the Bible salvation is not something that belongs to me salvation is something that belongs to God salvation is something that belongs to the lamb I'm not the one I'm not the author of salvation in my life and so the Bible talks about we're saved by grace and you guys know what grace means what's it mean unmerited favor it's the idea of getting good things that you don't deserve you're saved by grace through faith and the salvation that you get is not of yourselves I'm quoting from Ephesians chapter 2 8 through 10 the salvation that you get is not of yourselves it is the gift of God Paul in another place says what do you have that wasn't given to you and if it was given to you what are you boasting about and so when you're talking about salvation it's something that's absolutely given to us it's a free gift that's given to anyone who will accept it it's something that comes from God it belongs to him and he gives it to us it's something that belongs to the lamb and it's something that is his alone and he gives it to us so it's a gift the comment that comes from God and that ties in with the righteousness the robes that are there the righteousness that we have as believers is something that comes from Jesus and so you guys know this about about the gospel the Bible says that Jesus became sin for us the guy who knew no sin became sin for us so that we could become the righteousness of God in him so when Jesus goes to the cross what God is doing what the father is doing his teat is treating Jesus as if he is a sinner he's treating Jesus as if he's me so that he can treat me as if I'm Jesus and that's the basis of our salvation that's where it comes from so it's not all the good works and all that's that stuff the pilot of the pass in Ephesians 2 8 through 10 goes on and says it's not of works lest anyone should boast if it was all about works if it was all about how great I am and how much I deserve heaven then all you would have up in heaven is a bunch of showboats santé standing around boasting about how great they are guys in white robes who are going hey look at my white robe look at what I got right here you know and they be doing that stuff and you know spike in the ball and doing whatever else they're you know they're they're gonna do to proclaim loudly who they are and what they are but when you see what you have in the in heaven in the book of Revelation all the rewards crowns are coming off their heads being tossed at the feet of Jesus because everybody knows how they got there everybody knows how the changes happen and they happen because of what Jesus did for him verse 11 it says all the Angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures and fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God saying amen blessing and glory and wisdom Thanksgiving and honour and power might be to our God forever and ever amen and so what you have is you have a response you have a responsive song basically a responsive shout that takes place because these guys the the Gentiles are standing before the Lord crying out salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb and the elders and the angels are crying out amen blessing and glory and wisdom Thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever and so there's a response that takes place there and so all the Angels let's Center in on them right now recognize that this is a miracle that takes place did you know that the Bible talks about the fact that the church is a school for angels that God is showing his wisdom through the church there's a couple of different places that talk about this one is in Ephesians in the book of Ephesians in chapter 2 and another place is in Peter in Chapter 1 and in both places it talks about the the fact that angels won't want to look into the things of salvation and I seriously think it has to do with how were created and God does with us because you know how we started out according to the Bible you have all the animals that are created basically ex nihilo you know the idea of God just makes animals and they they just appear but when you're talking about mankind the way that mankind was created was God took dirt he took clay he formed it into a man he breathed the breath of life on it and you get at him and so it's like literally in the Bible a creation from the clay from the dirt you're made of dirt is how God started this whole thing and then that's the man and the woman is once removed from that because she's made from the side of man from you know the Bible talks about a rib it's literally the idea of something taking something from the side of mankind of the man specifically and so that's how the woman is created but ultimately we all come from dirt and then God you know looks at the angel angels are created out of nothing just like the earth was and just like it looks like the animals were you know they're they're created just by the creative act of God and angels the Bible says are higher than mankind man's made lower than the Angels that's out of Psalms it's also out of the book of Hebrews in Chapter two so man's made lower than the Angels and you got this interesting situation where angels are sitting here looking at us and they've seen the whole history of mankind they've seen us made out of dirt they've seen God breathed life into the dirt they've seen what God you know what happened with the dirt the dirt falls and basically obeys Satan instead of God you see what takes place over time as the people the dirt begins following after God and you have cool guys like Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob you know not at first but later on then you have Moses and David and Elijah and all those guys and you get to New Testament times and if you have Peter and James and Paul and and all those guys all the people who have come to him all the people who have come to the Lord down through the ages and what God does is he takes us and he changes us and he shapes us into something that looks like Jesus then he takes us home in the Bible says that he glorifies us not only in heaven but on the earth - you know what glorify means in Greek it means to speak well of and so when when the Bible talks about glorifying us it's the idea that God looks at us and he speaks well of us it's not always talking about making you shiny or making you awesome or something it's the idea that literally in Greek means it's the idea of speaking well of saying good things about you that's what happens when we glorify God or not we're not making him any more powerful and we're not making him any more awesome we're just speaking well of him when we glorify God we're not adding to his nature and in the same way it can reverse that on some levels and you have the same thing with us and so when God looks at you when God looks at me he sees what he's doing in us and he glorifies us he speaks well of us because He loves you and then finally he's gonna take you home to heaven and he's gonna glorify you in the sense that most of us think about when we think about that and we're gonna be made like Jesus like Jesus when he came out of the grave we're gonna have that kind of power and at that point we're gonna be above the Angels and so you have this interesting thing with angels where they're sitting there watching the whole the whole panoply of the history of mankind and God starts off with dirt breathing on the dirt takes the dirt written raises it up puts it in a perfect position that dirt falls and then the dirt begins rising up in God and his work throughout history is taking people from this from this group of people that he's created and he's taking them and he's making them awesome here on the earth and then he's taken him home to heaven and he's making them higher than the Angels these guys who are standing before God at this point are higher than the angels who are responding to them in praise and what they say about God is blessing and glory and wisdom Thanksgiving an honor and power and might be to our God forever never they're blown away by what God has done and so God takes dirt and makes it higher than the Angels and then we rule and reign with Christ the Bible says forever and so very cool thing and angels are seeing that it says verse 13 then one of the elders answered saying to me who are these arrayed in white robes and where did they come from so who is the elder talking to in this passage who's right in the book it's John right so the elder is talking to John this has this has implications throughout the book of Revelation actually earlier when we were into this John doesn't know this guy right he doesn't say and Peter said to me the the resurrected Peter he doesn't say Bartholomew said to me he doesn't say Nathaniel said to me it says one of the elders says to me and so that's interesting and we talked about that before because it talks about the 24 elders and some people have said that maybe the 24 elders are 24 you know like that like the the from the 12 tribes of Israel maybe it's Reuben and GAD and all those guys on one side that 12 and the other 12 being 12 guys who are the 12 apostles and there's a you know it's problematic in the sense that if it's the 12 apostles John's one of them and John's right in the book and so John seeing John it would be really weird if John was talking to John you know and the elder comes up and comes over to him and it's John in any case he's just he's an elder it says here and so that's a evidence that we're not just talking about the 12 apostles or we're talking about the 12 tribes of Israel back in chapter 4 so then one of the elders answered saying to me who are these array arrayed in white robes and where did they come from and I said to him sir they are the church these are all the people who've given their lives to Jesus Christ they are the Bride of Christ and he doesn't say that what he says is sir you know in other words I have no clue but you do and what John is doing is he's actually quoting from Ezekiel Ezekiel had the same situations where somebody would ask him a question do I have no idea but I know that you know and so why don't you inform me I said to him sir you know so he said to me these are the ones who come out of the Great Tribulation and wash their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb and again the question here is why doesn't John know who these guys are and it's another in one of those indications that we have something going on here in Revelation 7 that's different than what goes on in the book of Acts you have something going on here in Revelation 7 that's different than what what what goes on throughout the rest of the church age that John was alive he's it's we're getting close to 100 AD when he's writing this something different is going on because he doesn't know who this group of people is and he doesn't know where they're from and so the elder tells him these are the ones who come out of the Great Tribulation the word come out in that passage is present middle I'm present middle or passive participle so this is your greek lesson it literally means still arriving from they are coming out of the Great Tribulation so they have come out and they continue to come out of the Great Tribulation in other words this is a process what's happening is these people are dying they're dying during the Tribulation Period and as they die they enter into heaven and they stand before the Lord the reason I'm telling you that is because there are different doctrinal positions as far as when Jesus comes back and one of them is what's called the pre-wrath position and what they'd like to do in the pre-wrath position it's the the idea it's kind of like you you have pre-tribulation rapture which is what I what I believe in that's what calvary chapel teaches and i don't see a way out of that it's it's some you know this is this is like salvation to me there there are things about salvation that i don't see way out of and it's the same thing with a pre-tribulational rapture of the church when you when you start putting everything together you don't really have any other options okay and so I'm waiting for the coming of Jesus because Jesus said I'm coming and you need to be waiting for it and if Jesus was coming after a seven-year tribulation I would have at least seven years no matter where I am in church history I would have at least seven years and so there's no waiting for the coming of Jesus I would be waiting for the coming of the Antichrist okay and so it's one of those things when you go through the book of Revelation you don't see a resurrection with the with the translation of living believers and that's what the rapture is where we're standing here and all of a sudden we're not standing here anymore we're translated from this place and we're taken up into heaven and you see people rise from the dead but you don't see anybody anybody raptured or translated like the like the Bible talks about and so you have that have that whole thing but what the the different positions are pre-trib mid-trib the idea that in the middle of the tribulation that the rapture takes place and you have to go through three-and-a-half years of tribulation period and then the rapture comes or post-trib you have to go through all the way through the tribulation and then the rapture comes and then a more modern one I kind of you know I kind of think that these guys just wanted to write a book and sell it yeah well when I first read it I was like I think you're just trying to sell books but anyway it's the pre-wrath position and the pre-wrath position is the idea that the church remains on the earth for some period and it's it's vague of the tribulation period and after the wrath or when the wrath of God comes the church doesn't go through the wrath of God but it goes through the first part and so it they use this right here as the pre-wrath rapture that all these people standing before the Lord have been raptured here's the problem with that the rapture in the Bible cut is called the blessed to help the rapture in the Bible is something that Jesus spoke about over and over again something that Paul spoke about over and over again as something that we need to be looking forward to and paying it - and so if the rapture was in the book of Revelation it would be pointed out it wouldn't be vague and you wouldn't have to tell me about it it would be pointed out and so you would have the same kind of language that you have in the other passages in the Bible that deal with the rapture it's one of the things that cemented my thinking on this whole thing you don't have a rapture of living Saints at the second coming you don't have a rapture of living Saints during the midpoint of the tribulation they put those guys put it at the death and resurrection of the two witnesses there is no mention of living people being taken into heaven and you don't have a rapture here either you have people who are dying and they're in the process of it it's not something that happens suddenly with the whole group of people it says they're still arriving from they're coming out it's like they've they've been coming and they continue to come out is how the Greek reads and so again there is there is no rapture in this passage it's just people dying and one of the one of the awful things about the Tribulation Period is you know the good thing is lots of people get saved the awful thing is that when they get saved many of them are going to be dying for their faith or they're going to be dying it looks like from some of the plagues here's another thing that you have in this verse 14 these are the ones who come out of the Great Tribulation literal in Greek they come out of the tribulation the great one and that is a term that Jesus specifically used for the last three and a half years of what we call the Tribulation Period Jesus talked about signs leading up to the radical judgments of God and then after that he says then there will be Great Tribulation that's where the term comes from and so these guys by definition are coming out of not only the first half of the tribulation they're coming out of the second half - otherwise they wouldn't be coming out of the Great Tribulation all that okay and so these are the ones who come out of the tribulation the great one in Greek and they wash their robes and made them white you the blood of the lamb and again that's telling you how salvation comes it doesn't come from me being perfect from being beat me being nice for me being better than most people it comes from washing my robes in the blood of the Lamb I need to I need to be forgiven I don't need to be good I need to be forgiven and then what God does is he makes you good and again that's the picture there he says therefore they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in his temple and Hugh sits on the throne will dwell among them this is this is a cool thing too because you got to think about where again where these people are coming from if they're coming out of the Great Tribulation they're coming out of the second half the Tribulation Period you know the first half is kind of a kind of a precursor there's Wars they're wars that are taking place the Antichrist is on the rise but in at the end of the warfare it looks like what he does is he consolidates his kingdom he brings peace to the world and then he just stomps on it and decides that he's God and then everybody's gonna worship Him as God and if they don't worship Him as God then he's going to kill them take a mark in your right hand or your forehead or I will kill you is essentially what he does you will worship me or I will kill you and a lot of the judgments that we're going to see in chapter eight and and further on look like they're judgments that take place after that consolidation they're there in the last half of the Tribulation Period and so these guys are coming through awful awful things so you know we've talked about this before a third of the green trees is burned up all the green grasses burned up you you have you have judgments on the ocean where a third of life in the ocean dies there has to has to be tsunamis that come from that judgment that's mentioned then there's spiritual judgments that are just wicked evil things are taking place and just awful periods of time that are connected with specifically what Jesus called the Great Tribulation these guys are coming out of it and they're coming out of it they've died they're standing before the Lord and makes up for it that's that's what's being spoken about in verse 15 therefore they come out of the Great Tribulation therefore there before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in his temple and he who sits on the throne will dwell among them and so what God does is he is he's making these things right for these people they've had an awful time and God reaches out to him and so we see a number of passages and again a lot of these passages are in the book of Revelation where even in this passage it has talked about wiping away the tears from their eyes there's not later on it says there's not gonna be any more sickness there's no more sorrow there's no more death there's no more pain and what God does is he takes everything that people have gone through and these people have gone through a lot he takes everything that they've gone through and he makes it right for them and he makes it right himself he doesn't send a Lackey to do it he makes it right himself you you come here and you be by me you're gonna dwell with me and so if he's doing it with those people guess what it's gonna be doing it with you too and so there are things you've gone through things that are hard things that you don't understand things that that that a lot of us would buckle under and you went through those things and God saw it all and he is not somebody who's going to let it go he's not he doesn't let it go here he takes care of things you know one of the one of the things that I realize not too long after I became a Christian is that I need to stop defending myself a lot of the the problems that I had before I was a Christian came from the fact that nobody else is going to stand up for me at so I'm gonna stand up for myself and I'm gonna defend myself and after I became a Christian one of the things that God made radically clear to me is that you don't have to do anything Steve to defend yourself you don't you don't have to come out politically and clear your name you don't have to do those things and you know I don't have a problem with with with with doing that stuff but it's like I don't put a whole lot of effort into letting everybody know how awesome I am and how nice I am and how wonderful I am and how everybody tells lies about me I don't do that I never have not since I not since I was a young Christian there was a period of time where where I was struggling with that kind of thing what happens when people are mean to you as a Christian what are you supposed to do and you know what you're supposed to do back it off step back let Jesus take care of it and he always does it he always does it and he takes care of it right well sometimes he's taking care you know there been some people and in my life and I'm you know there have been some people in my life who have done some awful things to me and God hammered him to the point where I'm like scared in situations I've seen some of the stuff that ends up happening with them and it's like whoa God that is like pretty intense you know it's like or you know are you that far along with these guys and and and that kind of thing and God always he can always take care of those things and so the point that I'm making is that God doesn't just leave it tell heaven to take care of problems in your life he does it on earth too here's the problem with God doing on earth he takes away too much time you know it's like somebody does something to me I want the next day God I want you to nail these guys and take them out you know or do whatever actually I'll pray that way and then later on I'm like oh okay calm down just just calm down more because it can it can just get really intense you know there have been well anyway it can get really intense and so but God doesn't do it you know in the in the timeframe that I want and so sometimes he takes so he takes a long time to do things there have been times where people have done things to me and it doesn't like anything ever looked like anything's ever happened to them and in fact they just go on with life and it seems like everything's cool and if you're in a situation like that read Psalm 73 because in Psalm 73 what God talks about is the wicked the rich wicked and it looks like there is no judgment of God that touches these people and the psalmist is bummed out about the whole thing and he goes before the Lord and he finds out what God has has planned for these people and he goes god you've set them in Slippery places and frankly the guy's frightened for what's going to take place in with these people you know when I when I look at how God deals with people on the earth you know when he's dealing in judgment and I think that God still deals in judgment actually when I when I look at situations some of the most wicked people that I've seen that have done things to other people get away with it and it looks like God does nothing with him but then there are other people that God enters in and he judges them in one way or another and you know what I think God's doing I think the ones he's judging have an opportunity to come I think the the reason that he's judging them is because what he's doing is he's disciplining them because there's something left to discipline theirs there there may be an ability for these people to turn around and come back to them that's what I think takes place with that the people who never get anything as far as judgment here on the earth um I think that what God's doing with them is he's just giving them in their life and then it's over and it looks to me like there's no possibility of redemption with people who are like that that's what Psalm 73 is about and so when you're looking around at people and you go god this person did this thing to me that rotten why aren't you doing anything with them and it looks like they're just going on through life and everything's fine number one you can know that not everything's fine because if they ever had a relationship with Christ then the Holy Spirit is convicting them of those things and so you don't know what's going on behind the scenes but even worse than that even more intense than that if God's allowing them to go on in their life and there is never a turning there is never a reckoning there is never a discipline that's taken place in their life that's an indication to me that they're never turning around and that God's giving them the you know if you have if you have a kid and you know in essence God's looking at the whole human race as his you have a kid who just is not going to turn who's never going to do the right thing they're always going to be involved in drugs they're always going to be involved in a lousy lifestyle and you can't seem to do anything you know what parents do that situation what they do is they they just try to give their kid the best life that they can because it frankly they've given up and they don't see any other options with that and that's what parents do here on the earth god forbid that God does that with you because when a parent does that on the earth they're frustrated and they're having a hard time and they just don't know what else to do and they don't see the future and they don't see any hope when God does it was somebody he knows the future and he knows that there's hope or not and so if God's backed off from some people and you know somebody in a situation like that it's gonna be awful for them you need to have mercy on people who've done rotten things to you even when God isn't coming in and dealing with those guys because ultimately it's going to take place they're gonna be standing before the throne of God so you get what I mean so when I see people who get judged by God I'm kind of like oh there must be something left when I see people who don't get judged by God I'm like oh that's frightening because maybe there's nothing left and you know again those are people that need to be prayed for that's why Jesus talks about praying for your enemies and stuff but the point is that you don't have to defend yourself God's going to take care of it and God's ultimately gonna take care of it when people stand before the throne at the end of this whole book Jesus comes back and he takes care of it all the people all the people who've done things to these people all the people who have killed these people all the people who are responsible for these people who are followers of the Lamb followers of God sons and daughters of God all these people who have done these things to these people get a judgment that comes straight from the mouth of Jesus and it's in Revelation 19 they get dealt with and then ultimately in the final judgment they get dealt with so you don't have to defend yourself Jesus will do it for you that's a cool thing so it goes on and says again therefore they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in his temple and Hugh sits on the throne will dwell among them and then look at verse 16 it says they shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore okay so is that just a general thing because I'm hungry right now right and I'm not hungry in the sense that I'm starving because I had lunch I went out to brew cheese and I had an Italian you know and I had some french fries and I had a diet coke not that that would help but I had all that right and so I'm not hungry hungry but I am hungry and so when I get home I'm probably gonna be you know rifling through the cupboards I didn't yeah I don't eat before a Bible study because I'll just burp in the microphone and so I'm hungry right now and so is that the kind of hunger that he's talking about and then there's thirst and so I'm kind of thirsty right now I could go for a coke I could go for a glass of water you know Zach go get me a glass of water I'm just joking yeah you jump up like you're gonna do it you weren't even gonna get me a glass yeah you faked and so I'm kind of thirsty right now is that the kind of hunger and thirst that he's talking about and I would submit to you that it's probably not its it may literally be talking about the the manner of these peoples death because the whole point in in the previous part of this passage is that they've gone through a hard time in God's making it up for making it up to him and so they're not gonna be hungry anymore which looks like they were hungry they're not going to be thirsting anymore which looks like they were thirsty like really thirsty I used to work in construction I haven't been really thirsty since I stopped working in construction when you're working in construction a lot of times you're in the middle of the day you're not gonna stop for things sometimes you run out of water and you don't want to you don't want to stop work and go down to you know to the gas station or the local 7-eleven or whatever and and get something you just have to get through work and there have been times when I came home from work and I'm just absolutely parched because I'm working out in the Sun and I'm really really thirsty that's in a day you know the Bible talks about the fact that there's going to be hunger that takes place and we already read about it in the third seal because of the destruction that comes with the warfare that's that's involved there it talks about people dying of hunger that there's a famine that takes place and so you're talking about real hunger in the Bible that's the third seal and when it talks about thirst we're gonna get to this in the next chapter in the third trumpet and and also later on in the third Bowl it talks about a third of the freshwater is polluted you pollute a third of the freshwater on this planet you're going to have a problem with the population they're not going to have anything to drink and so you're going to have people literally dying of thirst and then later on it talks about all the freshwater is destroyed and so awful judgment it's awful when you're radically thirsty and you know you can go with hunger for a period of time it's anywhere from about 50 60 days to 70 or 80 depending on how big you are around the middle okay but you can go for a long time without eating before you start starving to death but thirst it's about six days and you die and so it looks like they were really hungry and they were really thirsty and there's a good possibility that maybe they died from the hunger and thirst would which would let you know that there's a possibility that some of these guys died because of the third seal judgment some of these guys died because of the third trumpet judgment some of these guys died because of the third ball judgment and then it goes on and says and the Sun shall not strike them nor any Heat and so are their judgments on the Sun in the book of Revelation and yeah there are it's in the first ball fourth ball judgment the Sun burns people and so it looks like that maybe something that's taken place and those all those things take place during the Great Tribulation those those are things that take place specifically during the last half of the tribulation right before the coming of Christ and so again it looks like what God's doing is making up for those things you're never gonna hunger again you're never gonna thirst again the sun's never gonna strike you again you're never going to have any of those things for the lamb it says verse 17 who's in the midst of the throne will Shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes let's wrap it up with this Jesus you know who the good shepherd is yeah it's Jesus it's not me Bible says I'm an under shepherd the good shepherd Jesus is the Good Shepherd he's the one who goes after the Sheep you know there are people who come here they give their lives to Christ and I don't know them I see them they raise their hands they stand up there pray they give their lives to Jesus and some of them continue on and some of them walk away and I don't know them I have no way of reaching out to them I don't I don't know who they are people in our church some of them know them and so they'll do some of the reaching out but ultimately Jesus is the one who knows everyone and he doesn't just let people go because he loves them and he's a good shepherd and he's you know when they stand before him he's going to Shepherd his people lead them to fountains of living waters and so not just regular water or well water or cistern water fountains of living waters and then it says and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes there's a passage in Psalms that talks about the fact that God collects your tears in a bottle and that comes from from a Jewish practice where people would mourn and when they would mourn over a dead family member somebody who died they would take and collect their tears and they would put them in a bottle and they put them up on a mantel someplace and you know it's a little bit demonstrative for me you know I don't I don't know that I would ever do anything like that but it's a symbol of how much I love this person and so they collect their tears and put it in a bottle and when the psalmist says that talks about God collecting my tears and putting them in a bottle it's the idea that I don't have to collect my tears of mourning that God sees them all he sees everything that I've gone through and so I don't have to put him in a bottle and show how much hardship I've gone through or how sad I am that kind of thing because God sees everything and he collects it then collects those things himself and then he takes and he wipes those things away he sees I just like that about the Lord he sees everything he's every time you've cried every time you've mourned sees every time that you've had a hard time he sees what you're doing in the shower guys guys usually cry in the shower right he sees what you're doing in the shower he sees it all and he's going to make it right and when we get in when we get to heaven we're gonna look back on what we went through and you know compared to what these guys go through I'm having a pretty good time right but he's gonna look we're gonna be looking back on everything that we've gone through and it is going to be something that's hard to remember because of the glory that is all around us that's what heaven is about gonna be standing with Jesus it's gonna be a cool cool time so let's pray get you out of here thanks Lord again for your word thank you God that you're faithful and I don't know when I'm when I'm going through this passage it's just striking how faithful you are literally you could come and you could you could take us out of here and you could leave the rest of the world to judgment and you could do it righteously in fact you you don't even have to take us out of here you could just judge the whole world and wipe it out and you would be absolutely righteous for doing so but God you seek out of people you bring them into a relationship with you and you make them like you and even people who have rejected you you still reach out to them you give them chance after chance opportunity after opportunity and again we we talked about the fact that this is this is going to be the greatest influx of believers the greatest crusade that's ever happened with so many people coming into the kingdom of God into a relationship with you and they're all people who have been left behind there are all people who on some level or another have rejected your kindness have rejected your love and you still reach out to them god you were awesome in mercy you were awesome in grace and we all know that right well we know exactly who we are and what you've done in bringing us to you you are good Lord and we thank you for your goodness just pray that you'd help us to walk in that and walk in your love help us to trust in you and to be the witnesses that you've called us to be bless these people and go with them now in Jesus name Amen god bless you

Channel: Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities

Views: 9,547

Rating: 4.8381505 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: JRG4dI_zJEk

Length: 62min 29sec (3749 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 12 2019