The 144,000 (Revelation 7)

The 144,000 as Israelites and End-Time Evangelists

This evening we're going to be looking at this mysterious group known as the 144 ,000. Now I'm just going to tell you who they are and what they're doing and do a quick review and then we'll go over it more closely.

Basically, the 144 ,000 are a chosen group of Israelites. Sometimes they're called the 144 ,000 Jews, but you know, Jews are from the tribe of Judah. They're from every tribe, but they are most certainly Israelites and they act essentially as evangelists during the great tribulation or during the seven year tribulation period.

They're the ones that go out throughout all the world and get people saved during the tribulation because nobody is saved at the beginning of the tribulation because we believe that the church has been raptured.

Revelation’s Built-In Outline and the Rapture Timing

Okay, so going back to chapter one of the book of Revelation, you remember the built-in outline in verse 19, John is instructed to write the things which he saw. That's chapter one. The things which were for that time, that's chapters two and three where the church is on earth and then starting in chapter four, the things which shall happen after this, that's future prophecy.

So chapter four, like I said, chapter three, the church is on earth. Chapter four, John is caught up to heaven and he sees the 24 elders, which is symbolic for the church. I said nearly all commentators agree with that.

So if the church is on earth in chapter three and then the church is seen in heaven in chapter four, we believe the rapture is somewhere around chapter four of Revelation. Chapter five, which we looked at last week, is making preparations for the tribulation.

Period.

Jesus takes the scroll. He's about to open the seals and every time he does open a seal, that is a judgment that happens on the earth. So starting in chapter six, the seven year tribulation has now begun and now we're at chapter seven.

Like I said, chapter seven is dealing with this mysterious group known as the 144 ,000. It's not really a mystery though to me or hopefully it's not a mystery to us who they.

Are.

It shouldn't be a mystery because you know, the Bible is very clear and spelling it out who they are. However, you know how things are. There's, you know why people are confused. You know why churches disagree with each other and all Christians have this view and this view is because there's people teaching things that are wrong.

So if the church has the truth and someone comes along and teaches something false and someone else teaches something false, then after that goes on for a period of time, people are like, we don't know what to believe because everyone's saying something different.

Well, if you just take the Bible at face value, it's really not that hard. So who are the 144 ,000? Well just skip down verse five of the tribe of Judah, 12 ,000 of the tribe of Reuben, 12 ,000 of Gad, 12 ,000.

I mean, what are these? These are the 12 tribes of Israel. So clearly they're Israelites. What are some of the other views out there before we read the text? Yes, Aaron.

Right.

Literal Israel vs. Jehovah’s Witness and Amillennial Views

So the, this is pretty well known that Jehovah's witnesses believe that the 144 ,000, now they're not the people that come knocking on your door. The people that knock on your door as Jehovah's witnesses, they would probably say, oh, I'm not, I'm not part of the 144 ,000.

That's like a, an elite group of Jehovah's witnesses. They say that only 144 ,000 people are allowed to go to heaven. Nobody else can go to heaven except this group. Everyone else gets to live on paradise earth, you know, if you're a good Jehovah's witness.

So that's just not in the text, but that's one view. Our amillennial reformed friends believe that this is symbolic. Many of them believe it's symbolic for just the whole of, you know, God's redeemed people as a whole, that they view it as symbolic.

But like I said, we, we need to take things literally. The Bible means what it says, says what it means. And that's the way we should read it from Genesis to revelation. Just take it for what it says.

Okay.

Let's with all that in mind, let's read verses one through eight and we'll cover the remaining verses a little later on. John writes 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, 144 ,000 of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed of the tribe of Judah, 12 ,000 were sealed of the tribe of Reuben, 12 ,000 were sealed of the tribe of Gad, 12 ,000 were sealed of the tribe of Asher, 12 ,000 were sealed of the tribe of Naphtali, 12 ,000 were sealed of the tribe of Manasseh, 12 ,000 were sealed of the tribe of Simeon, 12 ,000 were sealed of the tribe of Levi, 12 ,000 were sealed of the tribe of Issachar, 12 ,000 were sealed.

Are you getting the idea that maybe he wants us to know that it's 12 ,000 sealed from each of the 12 tribes?

Yep.

Verse eight of the tribe of Zebulun, 12 ,000 were sealed of the tribe of Joseph, 12 ,000 were sealed and of the tribe of Benjamin, 12 ,000 were sealed. So 12 ,000 times 12 equals 144 ,000. So just reading this, John goes to great length and really this is a message from who?

It's not really John, is it? John's writing it down, but it's from who?

Jesus.

It's the revelation of Jesus Christ. So Jesus, we could say, goes to great length to stress the true identity of this group. He doesn't really have to go through every tribe and spell it out like this, right?

So the fact that he does, I think tells us something that these really are Israelites. This isn't symbolic. They really are from each of the 12 tribes, Marcus.

Did you notice that it starts with the tribe of Judah when Judah wasn't the first born? Most of the other lists of these 12 tribes start with the eldest.

And who is the eldest? Who knows?

Reuben.

Reuben, okay. So yeah, you would think it would start with Reuben and that's where commentators look at the list and it's different in the order. So okay, what do we make of that? And that's where you start getting into speculation.

But as far as who this is, that was my question.

Yeah.

You know, what does that mean?

Have you speculated on that?

I don't know. I don't have any theories. Do you have an idea?

Jacob put Reuben as not the firstborn anymore because he slept with his concubine.

That's true.

He literally took Reuben's birthright as the firstborn and gave it to Judah.

Okay, well there you go.

Although Joseph sort of got the, you know, he had the double portion since his tribe was split into two. So you might think Joseph would have been first, but Judah is the tribe that Jesus came from.

So I don't know.

But yeah, I mean, you can start speculating about the order and I think these are some good points.

But yeah.

Also, when Jacob blessed Joseph, he didn't give him the kingship, whereas he sent Judah.

The reign. Right.

Right.

Good.

And, but as far as the overall thrust of the passage, we're talking about who are they? That's what we need to know. They are, they're actually Israelites. Now I know this raises questions like, well, how, how would you determine if you're saying that this is a future event?

Let's say this happened 10 years from now, something like that. How, how would you even find 12 ,000 people from the tribe of Zebulun since the Jews are so like dispersed and intermingled? Well, yeah, I don't know how that would happen except that God knows how to do it.

So I don't know. There's a lot of things we can't answer about the book of Revelation. What I do know, they're Israelites. So the repetition would suggest a literal interpretation, just like when we get to chapter 20, do you remember something keeps getting repeated again and again and again and again in chapter 20 and that's that the millennium lasts for a thousand years and he keeps saying a thousand years because a thousand years could be symbolic.

It's like the God owns the cattle on a thousand Hills. Well, that, you know, you don't take that overly literal, but when it keeps getting repeated, that's, that's an indicator that it should be taken literally.

Okay.

So who are they? 144 ,000 Israelites.

Good.

The 144,000 in Revelation 14 and Their Mission During the Tribulation

And it says in verse three, well, actually let's go to chapter 14 because we want to learn as much as we can about this group. And the only other time they're mentioned are in chapter 14. So they're Israelites they're called servants.

So they're servants of God. They are sealed. So you know, don't harm the earth until they're sealed. So there had, this isn't really stated anywhere in the text, but there's a belief that this group of people, they never die.

They're sealed and they never taste death. That's not something we're certain about, but when we look at chapter 14, we see a few more things about this group. Look at verse three. It says they sang a new song before God and the angels and before the 24 elders and no one could learn that song except them.

Now why is this important? Well, the 144 ,000 are differentiated from the 24 elders. So the 24 elders is who? The church. The 144 ,000 are different than the 24 elders. So the 144 ,000, this is not the church because this is the other interpretation that, oh, this is just symbolic for the church.

No, the 24 elders is the church. The 144 ,000 learn a song that the church can't learn. So the text makes it clear that this is not the church. Okay, what else do we learn about them? Verse, let's see, I'm just going to read what, they're all men, okay?

They're virgins, right? Here's what gotquestions .org says about them. How one answers the question, who are the 144 ,000 depends on which interpretive approach one takes to the book of Revelation. The futurist approach, which we consider the best, and hey, what a coincidence, we do too.

So we're on the same page as, that's why I like them so much because they got it right. So we hold to the futurist view of Revelation. It interprets the 144 ,000 literally. When taken at face value, Revelation 7, 4 seems to speak of 144 ,000 actual people living during the end times tribulation.

Nothing in the passage leads to interpreting the group as anything but a literal number of Jews, 12 ,000 from every tribe, okay? These 144 ,000 they say are Jews, they're sealed, which means they have special, the special protection of God.

They are kept safe from the divine judgments and from the wrath of the antichrist. They can freely perform their mission during the tribulation. It has been previously prophesied that Israel would repent and turn back to God according to Zechariah 12, 10, Romans 11, 25 through 27.

And the 144 ,000 Jews seem to be sort of a first fruits, and that's based on Revelation 14, 4. Do you see that they're called the first fruits? What does that mean? They're the first fruits of those, what does it say?

What does that verse say? Who wants to read it? Revelation 14, 4.

Go ahead.

Okay, so they're the first fruits of those redeemed from the earth.

So they're the first people to get saved during the tribulation. That's just another way of saying that. So their mission, final, just to wrap up this paragraph from Got Questions, it says, their mission seems to be to evangelize the post-rapture world and proclaim the gospel during the tribulation period.

As a result of their ministry, millions, that is a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people, and language will come to faith in Christ. Okay, you had a hand up. Did you have something?

There was a couple of questions about that section. One is, I know in the Old Testament, the firstborn was a first fruit to God, like a tithe. And they had to pay money to redeem him. And so I wonder, are they the tithe of all of the people that are going to be saved?

That was just a wondering. The question is, and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless. And because they've been made blameless? Or were they the Israelis without sin at that time?

Yeah, well, when it says they're blameless, I mean, you shouldn't understand that as some sort of sinless perfection doctrine. When you look at 1 Timothy 3 and the qualifications for a pastor, one of the qualifications is he is to be blameless.

In his speech.

Well, I mean, it says blameless, but you wouldn't understand that to mean he has to be perfect.

Right?

So I would not understand that they're sinless. There's just no, there's nothing where you can accuse them. There's nothing obvious like that.

You could use the verse, there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ. If there's no condemnation, that seems similar to being blameless.

Okay.

You would basically say this is not the same blameless that we say in Isaiah 53, where there was no deceit found in him and he was blameless.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

I mean, Jesus was completely without sin. I would not see the 144 ,000 as being that.

No.

Okay.

So what it looks like is the Lord saves them first. Remember the rapture happens around chapter four, chapter six, the tribulation begins. As of this moment, there's nobody on earth who's saved. And then we read at the end of revelation seven, there's a great multitude saved that no one can count the number so high.

So how do you go from zero people being saved on the earth to a great multitude? No one can number. Well, basically God redeems this group of 144 ,000 and they serve as something like God's salvation army and they convert the masses to Christ during the tribulation.

So there's going to be an end times revival. It looks like that maybe the world has never seen before. So I just want you to imagine this, take the most effective evangelist of the last 50 years, a hundred years.

Let's say there's a man, he's a missionary evangelist. And over the course of his ministry, he got, he led 5 ,000 people to Christ. Well, if you just take that and multiply it by 144 ,000, because these people are effective evangelists, uh, 5 ,000 times 144 ,000, that's 720 million people saved.

Now I'm not saying that's the number of people that get saved during the tribulation, but from what I gather, there's going to be some mass revival like that going on.

Okay.

So verse 14, yeah. Uh, or verse five of chapter 14 in their mouth was no deceit. Again, I don't think this is some sort of sinless perfection. They're just sold out for Jesus. Full-time ministry lead a greatest revival the earth has ever seen.

Perhaps.

All right, let's go back to chapter seven. And this is something that we need to remember in the book of revelation. I know in the minds of many people, revelation is all doom and gloom, right? It's just the seal judgments, the trumpet judgments, and it gets worse and worse.

And then the bowl judgments and it's the, this horrific time upon the earth, right? The day of the Lord is said to be a day of darkness. And we think of the events of revelation as just being bad upon bad and more bad.

But let's not forget. There's all these wonderful things going on during the earth at this time as well. And that's due to this group. And then we're going to talk about the two witnesses, which, um, they, they have a similar ministry, but we'll get to that later on.

So there's a lot of good things going on in the book of revelation, a lot of darkness. That's true. We can't avoid that, but there's a lot of bright spots. And that's what I like about these chapters.

Revelation as a Parenthetical Chapter and the Hope of the Blessed Hope

So chapter seven, uh, also chapter 12, beginning of chapter 14, there there's a name for these chapters. Anyone know what it is? Begins with a P chapter seven is known as a parenthetical chapter. What does that mean?

You know what that means? So a parenthetical chapter, basically think of rebel. It's outside the overall timeline of the book. So revelation is basically in chronological order. You know, as you read chapter to chapter, the tribulation is going on.

It's got chronological order, but a parenthetical chapter either goes back in time or jumps ahead and kind of fills in the details and fills in the gap. So there's all these judgments and bad things happening, but chapter seven is like a break.

Let me tell you about all the good things that are going on. So, you know, thank God for the parenthetical chapter. Name some other good things that happened during the tribulation. Can you name any good things?

The heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. The earth and all the works that are therein shall be burned up. Nothing good there. But in that passage, that's talking about the day of the Lord.

Just two verses before that, it says, I don't want you to be ignorant, brethren, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years.

Hmm.

The day of the Lord. Yeah, that's most say Jimmy DeYoung.

Yeah.

Not the least of which says is the tribulation period.

Yeah.

One day, the day of the Lord is as a thousand years. And then, of course, after the tribulation is the thousand year millennium. Just thought it was interesting.

Yes.

So as a believer, are you looking for when you think of the return of Jesus? Does that scare you or does that give you hope?

It should be.

It's the blessed hope.

Right.

So when I think of the end times, the return of Jesus, like this is what we're looking forward to. But at the same time, depending on who you're talking to. Now, I realize unbelievers don't believe this stuff.

They don't think it's actually going to happen. But from their point of view, reading this, do they want this to take place? So it kind of depends which side you're looking at it from. So as a believer, we yeah, we look forward to it.

But an unbeliever. Yeah, this is this is God's judgment pouring out his wrath upon the world. But there's good things that happen at the beginning. The church is raptured. Even those who are here and are saved.

Many of them are sealed and protected. Yes, a lot of people die. But at the end, Jesus comes back and defeats all of his enemies. And then there's the kingdom and then the new heaven and newer. So there's plenty of good things in the book of Revelation.

If for no other reason, we know how the book ends. God wins. Satan's defeated, cast into the lake of fire.

And.

Paradise Earth is restored. So there's many reasons why you should get excited and be optimistic when you think of Revelation and its events.

All right.

Four Corners of the Earth, the Seal of God, and the Tribe of Dan

Now, let's just go through these verses quick. We have 15 minutes. So we just kind of want to figure out what's being said here. Chapter seven, verse one says, after these things, I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth.

So. Is this a literal a literal statement? I mean, are there actually four corners of the earth? I mean, I think the flat earthers would say, yes, there are four corners. But we don't believe in a flat earth here at least I don't.

I don't know if you do. But I always say that because if you spend any time on the Internet, there's a lot of people who believe in a flat earth. But with all the craziness in the world today, that's the least of my concerns.

So if you want to believe that, that's up to you. But the four corners. I mean, what is he saying? Like you think of the compass, right?

There's north, east, south, west, east and west are a little hard to pick apart.

Right.

It's it's saying that the the four quadrants, the whole earth.

Right.

And the message to the angels, they're holding back the four winds that the wind wouldn't blow. In other words, don't don't start the judgment until the hundred and forty four thousand are sealed. Because if they're not sealed and the judgment comes, what's going to happen?

Then they might get harmed. They might die. But if you seal them, then they're kept safe. So we know something about the seal keeps them safe. There's another seal or mark, another seal that goes on the forehead.

Right.

In Revelation, that's that's the mark of the beast. So there's going to be a contrast there. The seal, whatever it is, we don't know. I think there is this contrast with the mark of the beast. We'll talk about that when we get to Chapter 13.

All sorts of different theories. Is it a tattoo? Is it a barcode? Is it this or that? And, you know, we just don't we just don't know. But if somebody takes the mark of the beast, what does that mean?

They belong to who? It's like a stamp of ownership. So if you take the mark of the beast, you belong to Satan. If you have the seal of God, you belong to God. So that's what that's about. Let's see. We get this list of the twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes.

And you guys noticed right away the order because Judah is not the firstborn. But there's something else about the list of tribes. There's actually one tribe missing.

Yeah.

The tribe of Dan is not included. Do we know why? It's believed that because the tribe of Dan was so overtaken in idolatry, that this is their punishment and they miss out on this blessing. Although if you look at passages in the Old Testament about the millennium, it looks like the tribe of Dan is restored then.

But it's missing here. But there's still twelve tribes. So how do you if one tribe is missing, how do you still get the number twelve?

Yeah.

Joseph is split into two, right? So you have Joseph who is split into Ephraim and Manasseh. But here it just lists Joseph and Manasseh.

Okay.

Dispensationalism, Covenant Theology, and God’s Future for Israel

Now, I don't know if I've brought this up or not. But I keep telling you, yes, we need to take it literally. And these are literal Israelites. So I'll bring it up now just in case I haven't said anything, in case you hear it from someone else.

The viewpoint that we hold to, I think I mentioned pre-trib, pre-mill. But there's another term for this view. And it begins with a D. Who knows what it is?

A dispensation.

Yeah.

This would be considered a dispensational understanding of the book of Revelation. And I realize when you start using terms like dispensationalism, any type of ism, like Calvinism, Arminianism, dispensationalism, I know you start to lose people when you use terms like that.

They think, well, it's theology or I don't care about that. But it's helpful to know some basic terminology. So why is this important? Because just about any church out there would fall into one of two camps.

So a church is either going to be dispensational in their understanding of Revelation, where you take it literally, or they're going to fall into the other category of covenant theology, or sometimes it's called replacement theology.

So you're either taking it literally or it's an allegorical approach. If it's literal, it's actually 144 ,000 people. They're actually Israelites. If it's an allegory, yeah, it's just it's all of God's people, or it's who, you know, we don't know what it is.

And I really don't say this to, you know, put anyone down. But the covenant theology crowd, they don't really preach and teach from Revelation very much. It's just been my experience that they kind of ignore the book.

The message is God wins and Jesus is coming back. Praise the Lord. But they don't really know or they don't really talk about it much. It's just been my experience. So let me just use or get a definition for this term dispensationalism.

It means that God works in different ways at different times with different people groups.

Okay.

A dispensation is a period of time where there is a particular set of rules, if you will. For example, the old covenant was a period of time where God was working with a specific group of people. And who was it?

The children of Israel. And they had a set of rules or laws. And it's known as the law of Moses. So it's 1500 years. God was working with them. The old covenant, that dispensation, that time period came to an end.

And now we're living under the new covenant where God is dealing with a different people group. What group is he dealing with now? The church, which is made up of people from every nation, tribe and tongue.

So once revelation begins, God, once the church is raptured, God now turns back to working with his people, the children of Israel. Because if you read from Revelation chapter four onward, there's nothing about the church.

There's nothing about Christians. There is something about the Jews or the children of Israel.

Okay.

So churches in heaven. God is now dealing with the nation of Israel. So this is called dispensationalism. Now, at the same time, those of you who know the term and some of the teachings of, I don't agree with everything that's called dispensationalism.

So that's kind of the good thing about the term is you can communicate a lot of information just by using one word. The downside is that one word can carry a lot of baggage. So I don't necessarily buy into everything that's called dispensationalism.

But I would say this. Just a few well-known pastors and teachers who hold to this view of revelation that are dispensational would include Charles Stanley, David Jeremiah, and John MacArthur, to name a few.

Also, Calvary Chapel and all the Calvary Chapel pastors. This viewpoint is, it was the dominant view in America for the past and still is the dominant view in the United States. And it has been for the past 150 years.

Now, does that prove that it's true? No, not necessarily, but I am convinced this is the correct way to interpret the Bible. Any questions on that? I don't mean to drop a theology lesson on you on a Wednesday night, but it's good to learn, isn't it?

We want to learn terms and everything. Who's never heard of dispensationalism?

Okay.

So that's kind of dispensationalism in a nutshell. The key is a future for Israel. That's the real issue. If you talk to a Christian and they don't think there's any future for Israel, like stuff that happens in the Middle East, like who cares, they're just a bunch of imposters, or they're not even really Jews, or it makes no difference what happens to the nation of Israel.

That's more the covenant theology crowd. Now, we don't want to open the newspaper and think every event in the Middle East is like, the second coming is going to happen tomorrow because, you know, this war broke out.

But we do tend to care about events in the Middle East, because one of these days it's actually going to be the big one.

Yes.

Do you want questions?

Form your comment like a question.

May I make a comment?

Okay, go ahead.

This is even further out. This is a Fifieldianism.

All right.

And it has to do with the confusion that we have about the importance of marriage. And I thought that this was a McConchianism from my former pastor, but when I talked to him about it, he said, no, that's all yours.

Is that this marriage that God has with the nation Israel, a marriage-like relationship. God and Israel, only they're separated. They're estranged. And so in the meantime, he sent his son to have a marriage-like relationship with us.

We are the bride of Christ. And so, you know, in the end, God will be reconciled with Israel as a nation. But let's not forget that there are thousands and thousands of Messianic Jews in Israel today.

Please pray for them, especially the ones that are my friends.

In Romans chapter 11, the reason why we believe there's a future for Israel is because Paul talks about the olive tree. And the natural branches are the children of Israel. And he talks about them being broken off.

And then the Gentiles, so that would be us, you know, the church. Yeah, but we are grafted in. We shouldn't boast against the branches. But we are grafted in. But then he talks about how they will be.

It seems pretty clear to me that the natural branches are going to be grafted in again. And in Romans 11, he talks about after the times of the Gentiles has come to an end, then all Israel will be saved.

So the idea is once the church age comes to an end, yeah, God returns to working with Israel. And at the end of the tribulation period, when Jesus comes back, the Lord will return. Romans 11 talks about this as well.

And all Israel will be saved. So we believe in a future for Israel. That's very important because Paul says the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. God isn't going to go back on his promises.

The Great Multitude in White Robes and Salvation from the Tribulation

All right.

Let's read verses 9 through 17 just to finish the chapter. It says, And all the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures 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.

And one of the elders answered, saying to me, Who are these arrayed in white robes and where did they come from? So John sees this vision in heaven. All of a sudden there's a multitude in white robes.

And who are these people? Where did they come from? Or that's the question. Who are these arrayed of white robes? And I said to him, sir, you know, like, I don't know where they are. You tell me. 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 land.

You know, I was just listening to a podcast this past week, and it was someone from a different denomination, different faith tradition. And we said, well, we don't believe in any type of great tribulation.

And I just wonder what you do with a verse like this. These are the ones who come out of what? The great tribulation. And, of course, Jesus talked about the great tribulation in Matthew 24. I guess they believe it already happened in 70 A .D.

I mean, it just doesn't hold up. But he says they have 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. And 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 them to living fountains of waters.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. So this group that John sees in heaven, they are from every nation on earth. And they came out of this time period of the tribulation. Some believe these are the martyrs who died during the tribulation.