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A Blessed Interruption in a Tough Time
Revelation 7
Skip Heitzig

Revelation 7 (NKJV™)
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.
2 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 and the sea,
3 saying, "Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads."
4 And I heard the number of those who were sealed. One hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed:
5 of the tribe of Judah twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand were sealed;
6 of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand were sealed;
7 of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand were sealed;
8 of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand were sealed.
9 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,
10 and crying out with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!"
11 All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,
12 saying: "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and honor and power and might, Be to our God forever and ever. Amen."
13 Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, "Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?"
14 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.
15 "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.
16 "They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat;
17 "for the Lamb who is 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."

New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved.

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66 Revelation - History's Last Chapter - 1996

The book of Revelation exalts Jesus Christ as the soon-coming Lord over the earth. Skip Heitzig explains the amazing and mysterious prophecies that form God's final word to mankind.

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If you have ever traveled and you have noticed the distinct problem of communication even if you know the other language, you know that there's sometimes difficulty in translating figures of speech, idioms, from one language to another language. When Gerber baby food first started to market its baby food in Africa, it really didn't change anything or take that into consideration, it just put out the little bottles with the picture of the cute little baby on the outside. The problem that they were not aware of is that in Africa, since most people cannot read, that they simply put on the outside of the can or the package what is on the inside. So Gerber baby food with the cute little baby on the outside didn't go over very well in that country. When Coca-Cola first went to China and they marketed Coca-Cola and they chose a couple of characters that looked like the Coca-Cola sign but when literally translated the characters in Chinese meant Bite the Wax Tadpole. I don't know what that is exactly but that's what it meant. And so they changed their strategy to a set of characters that means, in Chinese, Happiness in the Mouth for Coca-Cola. Pepsi started marketing also in China and they took their slogan from America which said, Pepsi Brings You Back to Life, and they put it very literally but in Chinese it was translated, Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Grave. And then when Chevrolet made their Nova and they tried to sell it in Spanish-speaking countries, it didn't go over very well because no va means 'it doesn't go.' You get a new car; look at my car--it doesn't go! Well why did you buy it? Coors put their slogan, Turn it Loose, in Spanish where it was read, "Suffer from Diarrhea". I think they lost a lot on that one.

It is difficult to translate into any language some of the things that John saw in the book of Revelation. How do you describe them? I had somebody come up to me recently who said, I've always been scared to read the book of Revelation because the visions, the idioms, the figures of speech. I don't exactly know what they mean and I'm afraid to find out. How do you describe? Let's say John saw some great nuclear holocaust in the future. For him to describe that in terms that even his contemporaries could understand what he saw would be difficult. Perhaps that's what he meant in chapter 8 verse 10 when he said, "I saw a great star like a blazing torch fall from the sky." But there are more symbols in this book. There's seals that are opened, there are trumpets that are blasted, there are bowls of wrath that are poured out upon the earth, there are four riders, there are four living creatures with eyes all around and it's strange to translate that vision into what we can't understand. However, we do know so far that in the tribulation period, as we saw last week and the week before, that God will judge the earth through a series of climactic judgments that will affect virtually everyone on the earth. And now we come to chapter 7 which is sort of like a break in the action, a parenthesis. The action builds, the judgment builds, wave after wave is crashing upon the earth and it's like we see another wave coming in the horizon and it's peaking and it's just about to crash and it's going to destroy everything in its wake as we see in chapter 8. And just as that wave is at its height, the projector stops. And it's suspended in midair. The foam is stuck--it's not going any further. And somebody comes out and says, we have a special message that we'd like to bring you at this point. Now if you're in the audience you might go, oh, man! Or you might go, phew! I'm so glad there's a break here. I can't take any more of these judgments. Because they get very bad as we've already seen in chapter 6 and so we have, basically, a freeze frame.

Why? Because a question is asked in chapter 6 at the very end, verse 17: "For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?" You've seen what has come so far. You've seen the judgments fall upon the earth. Who could take that? Who will be able to stand during that horrible time? Chapter 7 answers that question. There will be two groups who will be able to stand. One group, 144,000 they're numbered of the tribes of Israel and a great multitude that no one could number. Two very different groups but they are able to stand during a very, very difficult time. When Habakkuk, the Old Testament prophet, saw what was coming on his nation he asked a question, God why would You let this happen? After he finally let it sink in, he said, ok, God, I know what You're gonna do. But please, in Your judgment, remember mercy. I know you need to judge but when You do, will You lace it with mercy? We see that God follows that pattern. He always laces His judgment with mercy and we see mercy extended to these two groups in the tribulation period.

Let's begin in verse one: "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 and 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. One hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed: of the tribe of Judah twelve thousand were sealed," and twelve thousand is given in Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. This first group is a numbered multitude, they are sealed, they are Jews. There are 144,000 of them. I found it sort of interesting that so many groups running around love to identify themselves as the 144,000. You ask them who are 144,000? We are. Example: the Jehovah Witnesses used to say they are the 144,000 chosen by God and they held that until their numbers exceeded 144,000. Then they said, well, the 144,000 up to this point are the ones that will be forever in heaven with Jesus, the rest of the faithful Jehovah Witnesses will inherit the earth as Jesus promised in Matthew 5. The Seventh-Day Adventists say, no, we are the 144,000, the faithful ones who will be taken into glory who have kept the Jewish Sabbath up until the return of the Lord. Herbert W. Armstrong and his worldwide Church of God said his group was the 144,000 and promised to send his faithful a telegram when it was time for them to escape out into the wilderness where a camp would be set up for them.

Whenever anyone says, I'm a member of the 144,000, I like to ask them a question. I say, which tribe are you from? If you're one of the members of the 144,000, since there are 12 tribes outlined, 12,000 from each tribe, which tribe are you from? You see, these are not Jehovah Witnesses, these are not Seventh-Day Adventists, they are not Armstrong-ites--they are Jewish people. And the Holy Spirit thought it important enough that we get that message and He said, of the tribes of Israel, and just so we wouldn't make a mistake, He numbered the tribes and said there are 12,000 from these tribes who will come. Let me say I don't want to be one of the 144,000. I'm not interested in being a part of that group. I rejoice for them, I'm glad they're gonna be there. But at this point the church is already removed from the earth. John, with the 24 elders, sees this scene from heaven. And unfortunately many people like to spiritualize Scripture, they take it out of context and they say, well, the church is Israel and Israel is the church and it's all one group. No it's not. There are two distinct groups. When God deals with the Jews it's different than when God deals with other people, with Gentiles. These are Messianic Jews. These are 144,000 Jews for Jesus during the great tribulation period. Question: why the Jews? The Jews have been chosen by God for some specific purposes. Now there are some people that don't like that. What do you mean, the chosen people? I gotta say that some of the Jews don't like that, as well, to know they're the chosen people because they look back on their history and they see all of the persecution, hatred, anti-Semitism, murder, destruction, that has happened to their people and it's like, in Fiddler on the Roof, Tahvia in looking back at all their history said, God why didn't You choose somebody else instead of us? But nonetheless, they are special and God has a special plan for them. You say well why are they so special? I'll tell you why. They gave us the Scripture. It came breathed by God through the Jewish nation. Virtually every other in the Scripture with just a couple exceptions was Jewish. They also preserved the Scripture, meticulously handed it down from father to son. The scribe would write every letter of the Hebrew alphabet with his pen letter by letter, page by page, train his son how to do it, and they did it for hundreds, thousands of years. Very accurately. I think probably the best example of this is the Dead Sea Scrolls. The greatest thing they found in the Dead Sea Scrolls is what they didn't find. Mistakes. They uncovered these scrolls that were written 200 BC and they compared them with what were the most ancient manuscripts about 900 AD. They found the scroll of Isaiah intact, they unrolled it and they took the oldest manuscript they had, separated by 1100 years, and they found them to be virtually identical--without mistakes. Showing the accuracy of the preservation of the text from generation to generation. Your Savior came through the Jewish nation. Paul reminds of us that, he said, He was of the tribe of Judah, born under a woman, born under the law. The first disciples were Jewish and they took the gospel of the Messiah to all of the nations of the earth at their time.

And so Paul sums this up, Romans chapter 9, he says this, "Theirs [that is, the Jews] is the adoption as sons, the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all praised forevermore." These are the Jews and God made some promises to them which He will fulfill during the tribulation period. By the way, let's talk about that period of time. It's the tribulation, we've told you about that, but it's a very special calendar event, you might say. You know God keeps a calendar. I'm not talking about the National Parks Calendar in His garage. He keeps time perfectly. He's right on time. And He gave to a guy named Daniel His timetable, which centered on the Jewish nation. He said, Daniel, there will come a time when your people will be able to go back to Jerusalem. And when they do, you can count a number of years and days from that event and at the end of that time the Messiah will come to your city. It's found in Daniel chapter 9. It's a beautiful promise, detailed promise, of the coming of the Messiah. It said there are 70 weeks that are determined for your holy people and when these 70 weeks are over with, this is what you can expect. He said, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Well history shows us that 69 periods of those 70 weeks have already been fulfilled. There was a commandment given in 445 BC, the Messiah did come exactly as predicted years later, and that fulfilled the 69 weeks. If you've come here for very long you're familiar with this material. If not, it's on tape. There is, however, a final period of time that has not been fulfilled. It's that last section of seven years, the last week of Daniel. That hasn't happened yet. You say well how do you know it hasn't happened? Because it says when the 70 weeks are done, everlasting righteousness will be brought in, and end of sin, reconciliation for iniquity, and the anointing of the Most Holy. Has that happened? And where was I? I haven't seen any of it. I still see sin proliferating. But there will come a time when that last seven year period, the tribulation will unfold and it centers on the Jews. He said 70 weeks are determined for your people and for the holy city of Jerusalem. God will begin His timetable again in the future. So until then we live in a parenthesis. God is going to fulfill His promises to the Jew, however.

Would you turn with me to Romans chapter 11 for a moment? As you're turning there, you should know that Romans 9, 10, and 11 have this as the theme. The theme: is God done with Israel? Paul's answer is no way, Jose. Chapter 9 speaks of God's election of the Jewish nation. Chapter 10, the rejection of the Jewish nation. Chapter 11, the restoration. In chapter 11 verse 11: "I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!" Speak down to verse 22: "Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these [the Jewish people], who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?"

You've been grafted as Gentiles into the olive tree through the Jewish nation. Scriptures were given to you, they were preserved, the Messiah of the Jews, you believe in Him, you're grafted in. They were taken out because they rejected their Messiah. "However, how much more will these who are natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree? For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in." Nationally, Israel has rejected their Messiah causing a national blindness over the Jew. Now there are exceptions to this. There's a remnant in every generation of Jewish people who receive Christ as their Messiah. Nationally they've rejected Jesus. Blindness has come upon them nationally. The focus of God's plan now is upon the church, the Gentiles. Romans 9, 10, and 11 indicate that there will be a shift of emphasis when? When the full number of Gentiles is come in. God knows how many Gentiles, people from every other tribe, nation, kindred, tongue, will be saved. At the last one, whatever that is, He will remove the church from off the earth. When the full number of Gentiles has come in, that point begins the tribulation period, the seventieth week of Daniel comes into play and God deals with the holy city and His people once again. He has a plan for the future.

By the way, let's say you're one of those holdouts. You're saying I don't want to receive Christ. And maybe, it could be we're waiting for you. You could be like the last number. Well do me a favor, surrender your life to Christ so we can get the show on the road. When that full number is brought in, then the work of God will begin, verse 26, "And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written, "The Deliverer will come out of Zion," we'll see this in Revelation chapter 14, "And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins." Ok back to Revelation. Let's look at the protection. The angels come to blow the winds of judgment upon the earth, another angel goes stop right there, time out, before we judge, we must seal 144,000 of them. Seal them on the forehead. It talks about the wind being held back and literally it means a strong grip, to prevent any other force from occurring. To me the wind is irritating. I don't like wind. I know some people that like it but I don't--it bugs me. I know it's necessary, it's part of the hydraulic cycle that brings rain upon the earth, the world would be a desert everywhere unless the ocean would bring moisture into the atmosphere, blow it inland and it would condense into clouds and rain. I remember when I first moved to this town and it was March. It was the first March I ever experienced and as you know, the Rocky Mountain States all have a lot of wind, right, during that time. But it was wind like every day! I thought judgment had come. It's like, God didn't hold back the wind--here it is! And I remember having a little calendar on my desk with little squares you know for each day of the month and so nothing really happened one day so I just wrote on it: wind. And then it blew the next day and I put: wind. And the third day: more wind. And the fourth day: crummy wind. At the end of the week, I just put: depression. I hated it so much. The wind is held back, but this isn't just blowing wind with dust, this is the wind of judgment. It's a metaphor throughout the Scripture of God's judgment. For instance in Jeremiah 49 God said, Against Elam I will bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven and scatter them toward the winds. And He uses that phrase over and over again. God's about to judge but before he does, verse three, they are to seal the servants of God on their foreheads.

Everybody is so interested in 666. The mark of the beast! He's gonna put a mark on their forehead! And everybody misses the important mark which is here. The mark of the beast is simply a mimic, a copy, of this one. Satan never has had an original thought. He sees something God does and goes, I can do that. And so if there's a Christ, there's an Antichrist. If there's a true prophet, he'll produce a false prophet. If there's a true mark of God on foreheads, he'll produce a false one to lead the world astray. Now a seal was an imprint made by wax originally. If you owned something, you put a blob of wax on it, put your signet ring in it, and it would leave your seal. The seal meant you own it and it meant it was protected by your authority. So here are people sealed; they belong to God and they are protected by God during this time. In the Scripture, there are several examples of God putting a seal, so to speak, around groups of people, protecting them from a time of judgment. In the flood days God judged the world but He sealed, in an ark, protected, Noah and his family. When God judged Jericho and the walls were destroyed, Rahab the harlot put out a scarlet thread from her window and that was the seal that she belonged to God and lived the life of faith and she was preserved and her family. When God judged Sodom and Gomorrah, He first took Lot and his family out of the city. Later on when the time of Exodus came and the Jewish families were to put blood on the doorposts and lintels and that was the seal. God would pass over the house and would spare judgment upon that house. But the most noteworthy example of a seal, and I think Revelation 7 is a model of that, comes from the Old Testament in Ezekiel chapter 9. It's a wild text. Let me just share it with you. God is about to judge His own people. Jerusalem. And before He judges them He says, send a man through the city with an inkhorn and put a mark on the foreheads of My people who hate what's going on in their own country, who look around and see the corruption and they're moved by it, they're grieved by it. You mark them and when you start judging the nation of Israel, I'm gonna protect those who've had a soft heart and a heart of repentance and they'll be preserved from this time of judgment.

By the way, the mark in Ezekiel 9, in Hebrew, is the word tav, which was the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In the ancient Greek text, it was a cross--that's what it looked like. That was the mark that they were set on their heads at that time of judgment. It could be indicative of the protection of the cross in view for this 144,000 in the book of Revelation. Now why are they here? What is their purpose? We know their number, we know what tribe they're from, but why are they in the tribulation? Well I think that they're here to be witnesses. They're preserved by God, they're indestructible, so that they can be a witness to the world. You say well how did they get saved? I don't know exactly other than we've shared in the past the Scriptures will still be present all over the world, but also we're going to read about in Revelation 11, two strange guys called the two witnesses of God that are able to perform miracles during this time, miracles like Moses and Elijah, and it will have an effect on the Jewish people. And it seems that 144,000 of them, through this means or perhaps another means, say I believe in Jesus Christ. I'm turning my life over to Him. In turn, they become witnesses. Today if you were to go to Tel-Aviv, you would find that it's a very secular city. In fact, only 8% of the people in Tel-Aviv claim to be religious people. 26% say they're not religious at all. 13% say they go to synagogue maybe once in awhile, once a year. So for 144,000 Jews to not only become very religious but toward Jesus Christ, He was the Messiah and we turn our life over to Him, this is a time of His wrath, will be quite an incredible thing.

Also, I say that they're witnesses because of what Jesus said would happen during this time. In Matthew 24, He talks about the events of the tribulation, the judgments that come, but then He said this: And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world to a witness to all the nations and then the end shall come. Now think about that. I have heard that Scripture used by missionaries and prophecy students to us now saying, Jesus won't come back unless we tell all the world first. We're holding the coming of Christ back; we have to hasten the day of the Lord by telling everyone. Well I think we should be telling everyone but Jesus isn't going to be stopped from coming back because of that. Jesus said He would come, that's His Second Coming, after the rapture, not before the rapture. His Second Coming which we'll see in Revelation 19. The gospel will be preached in all the world by, I think, the 144,000 and you're going to read about an angel goes through heaven preaching the everlasting gospel to every creature on the earth. And many will respond to that. Then Jesus said the end would come. Now let's move down to another group, beginning in verse nine. This is an unnumbered multitude, more than 144,000. They are not sealed, they are standing and they are Gentiles, we're told that. Verse nine: "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 the elders, and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped 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."

In other words, why are you asking me? I don't know--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 is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

Great portion of Scripture. A multitude unable to be numbered. They are standing before the throne. Therefore they are not the church. They're not the church proper like we are today who will be taken up in the rapture. They're not the church because the church, represented by the 24 elders, is seated. Secondly, John didn't know who they were. He knew who the 24 elders were, he would've recognized Old Testament saints, but he didn't know who these people were. The angel said, who are these guys? I don't know; you tell me. Ok, I'll tell you who they are. They are the people who come out of the great tribulation period. They are saved by faith in Jesus Christ, they trust, they love Jesus Christ, they have suffered immensely during this time, it's a huge number of people, probably saved by the preaching of the 144,000. You know in every age God has a remnant. God always has His people. Sometimes we don't think so, sometimes we get in an Elijah complex. Remember Elijah said, God, I'm the only faithful guy in Israel. God said, no you're not. I've got 7,000 just like you. God always has a witness. But to demonstrate the problem on the earth when the church is removed before the time of judgment, let's take the population of the earth and reduce it to 1,000 people for just a moment, for the sake of analogy. If there are 1,000 people on the earth, 329 would be Christian or would call themselves Christian, they would be in that camp, Christendom. 178 would be Muslims. 167 would be classified as non-religious. There would be 132 Hindus, 60 Buddhists, 45 atheists, and 3 Jews. The other 86 would be divided among other religions. If Christians are removed, 144,000, those three left, like the three Hebrew children, so to speak, will become filled with the Holy Spirit, share the gospel as great evangelists, I believe, because the focus of the world will be on the nation of Israel. It always is. Read your newspaper this week. It's funny that one little tunnel in Israel has gotten such national attention. The eyes of the world are always on the Middle East and they will be more in the time of the future because God promised at the end God will make Jerusalem a stumbling cup, a cup of trembling and a stone of offense, to the whole world. Everybody's going to be mad at Israel, policies turned against Israel, and the eyes will be on that nation. But if 144,000 emerge with a new message of their Messiah, it can be very, very powerful--a great opportunity.

We notice here that this group is accepted by God. They are standing before the throne, we read, with white robes. That symbolizes victory. They're standing victoriously, palm branches in their hands, they're accepted by God, so to speak. Now here's a group of people that were rejected on the earth, they suffered hunger, they suffered thirst, they'd been persecuted, they stood for a message that was unpopular during the time when the Antichrist lied to people, they didn't buy into the lie, they were rejected on earth, they're accepted now in heaven. Now that should be a reminder to us. You might be going through a time of peer pressure right now. Your friends want you to conform; they want you to take those drugs or they want you to run with that group or they want you to quit being a geek and carry your Bible around, be like us! And you feel the pressure. And you think, man, I've gotta live around these people all the time. I've got to stand with these people. There will come a time when you'll stand before God and all those memories will fade away. And their sentiments and their pressure will be so unimportant and so we need to live for the future, not just for what our friends or people are telling us to do now. That's why Jesus said, do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. These people stand up for the truth instead of finding safety in numbers. You know, if you want to find safety numbers you'll never show the gospel now because the world doesn't want to hear it. I heard of a guy in Utah who had lost so much business in his store he bought a bunch of old jalopies and parked them out in front so it looked like he had a full parking lot. And the business went up because people thought, if that many people are there, it's gotta be good. The whole world, the Bible says, will fall into the lie of the Antichrist. But there will be a great multitude in every single nation who will be overcomers and, through it all, they'll stand before God.

In heaven, we notice, they're joyful, verse ten: "And crying out with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" Their worship was filled with intensity. "And all the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God." In other words, the joyful praise of this saved multitude inspires the worship of the angels, the elders, every creature in heaven. You know the Bible tells us that if one sinner comes to Jesus Christ in repentance that all the angels in heaven rejoice? That's if one comes. Imagine their anthem when this group of saints come marching in. This multitude that no one can number, man, they're just waiting to worship! And as one group worships, they follow suit.

Skip down to verse 16: "They shall neither hunger anymore," why is that significant? Because anyone who refuses to take the mark that the Antichrist gives will not be able to buy or sell, thus he won't be able to get food--he'll be very hungry. But now that hunger is over. "He shall not thirst anymore," why is that significant? In chapter 8, the water sources are corrupted and there's a great thirst on earth during that time. "The sun shall not strike them, nor any heat," that's significant also because the judgment causes a great scorching. Perhaps the ozone really will get depleted during that time and men will be scorched on the earth. "For the Lamb," verse 17, "who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them," I love that. We say the Lord is my Shepherd. Here, the Lamb is my Shepherd. One and the same. "And shall lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." Think of that day! In ancient times, they had little glass bottles called Lachrymatories where tears of mourners were collected and placed in the graves, in the tombs, of departed loved ones. Tears in a bottle. David, thinking of this, said in Psalm 56, "Put my tears into Your bottle; are they not in Your book," in other words, God knows every detail of my life and God cares about every tear that I shed. And here we see that one day the tears will be wiped away. You know, human hands cannot wipe away a tear for good. Oh, mom might wipe a tear away but another tear will come when she's not there to wipe it away. Only God's handkerchief can remove tears of rejection, of persecution, of depression. Once and for all. People say, when I get to heaven it's going to be sad because so-and-so may not be there... listen. The tears will be removed.

A dear saint lay dying, a godly elderly woman, she was on her deathbed. Her husband was there holding her hand. They were having a few conversations before her last breath. Their eyes met at one point and this huge tear rolled down her wrinkly face and her husband looked and said, "Thank God that's the last one." It will be a time when all those tears are wiped away. As this group stands before God. Verse 15, they are rewarded: "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." We see them in the presence of God, serving God. And I contend that's part of the reward for the future. You say work is a reward? Remember Jesus said that He would say to some, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful in the little things. Now I will make you ruler over many things." We'll have new bodies in heaven. We'll be able to serve Him perfectly. We're not going to get tired--they do it day and night. They get to serve Him perfectly. Here we notice they're serving in the temple. This must be the millennium. For in eternity it says there is no temple and there is no day or night. But there will be a thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ on the earth where there will be a temple in Jerusalem, there will be day and night, and these Gentile believers will be serving day and night in that millennial temple of the future.

I want to close this out by looking at two verses. Verse 14 says, "These are the ones who came out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Have you ever gotten blood on a white shirt? Did it make it clean? Or did it become a stain that you couldn't get out? Here, the blood is the detergent. He's not speaking about your clothes; he's speaking about spiritual things. They're in white garments. Their lives have been made pure by the blood of Jesus Christ and that's the message of the gospel. Every other message on earth might make you feel good, but only the gospel of Jesus Christ, by faith in Him, can remove the stain of sin. You say well that's fine for you western people in America, but you know there are a lot of other people on earth that believe differently. Well would you go back with me to verse 9 and see who this message is for? He saw "a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb". The gospel's for everybody. Every nation. It's going out today in many, many nations across this earth. One day it will go out so powerfully that a multitude no one could number, even though they're persecuted, killed, they suffer, hunger, thirst, scorching heat. There will come a time when their tears are wiped away as well. Let me close with this little story about a man who fell into a pit. He couldn't get himself out. A subjective person came along and said, I feel for you down there. An objective person came along and said, it's logical that someone would fall down there. A Christian Scientist came along and said, you only think that you're in that pit. A Pharisee said, only bad people fall into pits. A mathematician calculated how he fell into the pit. A news reporter wanted the exclusive story on his pit. A legalistic Christian said, you deserve that pit. Confucius said, if you would've listened to me, you wouldn't be in that pit. Buddha said, your pit is only a state of mind. A realist said, that is a pit. A scientist calculated the pressure necessary in pounds per square inch to get him out of the pit. A geologist told him to appreciate the rock strata in the pit. An evolutionist said, you are a rejected mutant destined to be removed from the evolutionary cycle. In other words, he's gonna die in that pit so that he cannot produce any pit falling offspring. The county inspector asked if he had a permit to dig the pit. A professor gave him a lecture on the elementary principals of the pit. An evasive person came along and avoided the subject of the pit altogether. A self-pitying person said, you haven't seen anything until you've seen my pit. A charismatic from the faith movement said, just confess it and you'll not be in that pit any longer. An optimist said, things could be worse. A pessimist said, things will get worse. But Jesus, seeing the man, took him by the hand and lifted him out of the pit. So many different philosophies. There's only one Savior who saves Jew, Gentile, in this age of grace and in the time to come. Great revival will happen. Who will be able to stand? Two groups will. But you can stand today. You can stand in an age of grace when it's a lot easier to stand than it will be in that day. As we said last week, many will come and say, oh I'll wait till the tribulation. I'll have my fun now, when you got raptured, I'll get serious. How can you die for Jesus then if you can't live for Him now? And He will give you life if you turn your life to Him.

Additional Messages in this Series

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6/9/1996
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Good News from a Bad Place
Revelation 1:1-8
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6/16/1996
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Catapulted into the Future
Revelation 1:9-20
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6/23/1996
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When Love Grows Cold
Revelation 2:1-7
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6/30/1996
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Postcard to Those in Pain
Revelation 2:8-11
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7/7/1996
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The Curse of Compromise
Revelation 2:12-17
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7/14/1996
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Corruption without Discernment
Revelation 2:18-29
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7/21/1996
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Church of the Living Dead
Revelation 3:1-6
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7/28/1996
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Body Building - God's Way
Revelation 3:7-13
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The human body has become the obsession of our modern culture. Much like the ancient Greeks, people are madly trying to fit the contemporary ideal of what is an acceptable shape and size. The church is metaphorically called the "Body of Christ" and His desire is to see it built up spiritually. The church of Philadelphia is a good model of a healthy, faithful church. Their example provides for us a template to follow in building up the Body - God's Way!
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8/19/1996
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Taking Your Spiritual Temperature
Revelation 3:14-22
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Ever since we were kids our moms stuck thermometers in our mouths whenever she suspected that we were sick. If our body temperature of 98.6 had climbed up just a few notches, it was always a good indication that an unhealthy condition was present. There is also a spiritual temperature that reveals the condition of our souls, and when the thermometer reads Lukewarm it indicates that something is wrong; it indicates the presence of danger. Let's see how Jesus, the Great Physician, treats his patient with this malady.
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8/25/1996
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Peeking into the Portals of Heaven
Revelation 4
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9/1/1996
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History's Greatest Real Estate Deal
Revelation 5:1-7
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9/8/1996
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Worship His Majesty - Part 1
Revelation 5:8-10
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In heaven there won’t be just three services in the morning and one at night with a midweek tacked on. There will be no need to be sensitive to time so we can go to lunch. Words will not have to be printed nor projected. Worship leaders will have no need prompting people to sing. It will be an all-consuming experience that will involve our total cooperation and enthusiasm.
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9/15/1996
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Worship His Majesty - Part 2
Revelation 5:11-14
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9/29/1996
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Four Riders with Bad News
Revelation 6:1-8
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10/6/1996
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The Cries of Heaven and Earth
Revelation 6:9-17
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10/20/1996
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Trumpets of Doom
Revelation 8
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10/27/1996
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When All Hell Breaks Loose
Revelation 9:1-12
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11/3/1996
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Angels of Mass Destruction
Revelation 9:13-21
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11/10/1996
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A Big Angel with a Little Book
Revelation 10
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11/17/1996
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Two Powerful Preachers
Revelation 11:1-14
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11/24/1996
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Light at the End of the Tunnel
Revelation 11:15-19
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12/1/1996
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The Panorama of Spiritual Warfare - Part 1
Revelation 12:1-6
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12/8/1996
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The Panorama of Spiritual Warfare - Part 2
Revelation 12:7-17
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There aren't many people who like to fight. Confrontation is something most would like to avoid. But in the spiritual realm it's unavoidable. The question isn't, "Will I engage in spiritual warfare?" Rather, the question is, "How well will I fight?" As we saw last week, the war in the heavens makes its way to the theater of the earth. Let's see what else it entails.
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12/15/1996
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The Coming Global Leader
Revelation 13:1-10
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12/22/1996
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Evil's Right-Hand-Man
Revelation 13:11-18
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12/29/1996
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The Lamb Who Shepherds His People
Revelation 14:1-5
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After all that john has seen in his apocalyptic vision, seeing the docility of a lamb standing with his overcoming sheep is a welcomed sight. Although the dragon pursues god's people relentlessly, although the beasts are bent on ruling the earth, the ultimate winner will be the lamb and his followers.
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1/5/1997
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Angels Set The Record Straight
Revelation 14:6-13
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1/12/1997
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It's Harvest Time!
Revelation 14:14-20
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One of the most common ways to make a living in ancient times was to "work the land." The early rains of October/November and the soft latter rains produced the wheat and barley harvest later on. Also, when vintage season began, almost the whole village could be found in the fields harvesting the crop. Such images would also provide a poignant way of depicting the final judgment of the earth, as in this section.
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1/17/1997
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Getting Ready for the Grand Finale
Revelation 15:1-8
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1/26/1997
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What's in the Bowl? - Part 1
Revelation 16:1-11
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We now come to the "seven last plagues" of God in the Great Tribulation that is coming upon planet earth. These judgments come in the form of "bowls" being poured out swiftly and completely-the judgment will be swift and thorough. Yet through all the mercy as Well as wrath of this awesome era, people will persist in having a hardened heart. Open your heart 'right now to these truths.
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2/2/1997
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What's in the Bowl? - Part 2
Revelation 16:12-21
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What will the end of the world be like? What are the final events just before Jesus returns and takes over to set up His millennial reign? That's what this section tells us. There will be increased warfare activity in the Middle East, massive deception, and unheard of destructive cataclysms on earth. In the midst of foretelling these events, Jesus has a word of encouragement.
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2/9/1997
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The Coming World Religion
Revelation 17
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It was Karl Marx who stated, no doubt cynically, that religion was the opiate of the masses. The fact is, he was right-it is! People are driven to worship something or someone. This desire will be exploited to the hilt in the Tribulation period and will be under the umbrella of the world dictator-the Antichrist. What are its roots and how does it end?
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2/16/1997
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Get out of Babylon!
Revelation 18
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Someone once said, "Money can't buy you friends but your enemies treat you a little better." Though meant to be tongue-in­cheek, that won't happen when the entire world economy collapses. God's shakedown of the earth will include everything that the Antichrist's kingdom will embody, from the sacred to the secular.
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3/2/1997
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Marriage Made in Heaven
Revelation 19:1-10
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3/9/1997
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The Return of Jesus Christ - Part 1
Revelation 19
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Even in the dome of our capitol in Washington there is an inscription which seems to point to the return of Jesus Christ. It says: "One far-off divine event toward which the whole creation moves." It is that event which we will be studying in the next two weeks. This is what all Christians of all ages have looked forward to - His return and reign of His creation.
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3/16/1997
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The Return of Jesus Christ - Part 2
Revelation 19
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Even in the dome of the capitol in Washington there is an inscription which seems to point to the return of Jesus Christ. It says: "one far-off divine event toward which the whole creation moves." it is that event, that Christians of all ages have looked forward to-his return and reign of his creation. We will conclude our study of the return of Jesus Christ, today.
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4/6/1997
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Paradise Regained
Revelation 20:1-3
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4/13/1997
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The Devil's Last Stand
Revelation 20:1-10
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A typical question is, "Will evil ever get its reward?" What ever happened to ethics and justice? Well, we see here that God will not turn His back on this issue. He will deal with the source of all evil (the devil himself) and then judge those who revel in it. This section gives tremendous hope to anyone concerned about injustice in our world.
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4/20/1997
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Life, Death, and Resurrection
Revelation 20:5-6; 20:11-15
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5/4/1997
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All Things New - Part 1
Revelation 21:1-3
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5/11/1997
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All Things New - Part 2
Revelation 21:4-8
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"It's like nothing you've ever seen or experienced before." That's how John describes the emotional experience of heaven. So that we can relate, he tells us that all of the pain, sorrow, and moaning we've endured here won't be there. By the way, only those who want to go there will go there. Heaven is not a destination by default, reservations are made here and now!
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5/18/1997
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The City of the Future
Revelation 21:9-22:5
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There is no architect or builder like God himself. Even the patriarch Abraham "was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God." (Heb. 11:10) he didn't find it in his lifetime. "You won't find you're "happily ever after" here either, but the New Jerusalem will be God's answer for man's longing to live in a perpetually peaceful stare.
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5/25/1997
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He's Coming - Now What!?
Revelation 22:6-21
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There are 43 additional messages in this series.
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