A Multitude Sealed For The Lamb

Please stand for the reading of God's Word. The Old Testament reading today will be in Psalm 67, 1 through 7.

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.

Let the peoples praise you, O God, let all the peoples praise you. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth.

Let the peoples praise you, O God, let all the peoples praise you. The earth has yielded its increase,

God. Our God shall bless us. God shall bless us. Let all the ends of the earth fear him.

New Testament readings in 2nd Acts, 2nd chapter of Acts, starting in verse 5.

Now they were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.

And they were amazed and astonished, saying, Are these not these who speak in Galileans?

And how is it that we hear each of us in his own native language? Parsians, the

Medes, the Amalites, the residents of Macedonia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontius in Asia, Preget and Pamela, Egypt in the part of Libya, belonging to Cyrene, and the visitors from Rome, both

Jews and the Prostites, Cretes and the Arabians. We hear them speaking in their own tongues in the mighty works of God.

And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, What does this mean? But others mocking them said,

They are filled with new wine. But Peter standing with the eleven, lift up his voice and addressed them,

Men of Judea, all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words.

For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it was only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet

Joel. These last days it shall be, God declares, he will pour out his spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesize, and your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams, and even my male servants and female servants.

In those days I will pour my spirit, and they shall prophesize, and show wonders in the heavens above, and signs on the earth below, blood and fire, and vapor and smoke.

And the sun shall be turned to darkness, and moon to blood, before the days of the Lord comes, and the great magnificent day.

And it shall come to pass that everyone calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Be seated.

Well I'm excited to introduce Dale Keller to you. My wife and I have known the

Keller family for a few years now, and they've been a true blessing to us. I first knew about the

Keller family through my wife, who met Dale's wife, Linnea, through a

Facebook group, Reformed Pastors Wives, I think it's something like that.

So my wife was longing for greater fellowship with people, and so Linnea was an answer to prayer with that, in which they developed a really strong relationship.

But there came a time after a few months in which Linnea's husband wanted to talk with me, and I was under the impression that he was a youth pastor, and I have very bad connotations of youth pastors.

It's not all fair, I get that, but I figured he'd be a hipster, you know, wore skinny jeans, and all that kind of fun stuff, so I wasn't too thrilled about really talking to him.

But I tell you what, that first conversation was beautiful, it was awesome, we had a great relationship at the very get -go, and it's developed and blossomed.

I'm really thankful for Dale, and now he's looking to go to Iceland and receive funds for that, and so I'm looking forward to hearing the word that he has to declare to us, and to hear his own endeavors to get to Iceland, so he can proclaim the gospel to people who badly need it.

And so, let's welcome Dale. Good morning,

LaRue Baptist Church. It is a joy to be with you this morning, and to have the opportunity to preach

God's Word. I would invite you to turn in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 7. We will be looking at the whole chapter this morning, and as you're turning,

I want to ask a question. So, one of the things as a young man, when you meet the one, you see the girl, you're like, this is, she's the one,

I know it, there's no question, and you date, and you get engaged, and then there's that moment when you have to do probably the hardest thing.

It's not ask the girl, it's go ask dad. You've got to go ask dad for permission, and say,

I am a lowly servant, I am nothing. Your daughter is beautiful, she is wonderful, and I love her with all of my heart.

And now, will you be willing to allow me to marry your precious daughter? I'm thankful that my father -in -law is a gracious and a loving believer, follower of Christ, and he was more than happy to welcome me into their family.

But imagine with me for a moment, if you know anything about the history of missions, one of the most well -known missionaries was a man named

Adoniram Judson, born in the 1800s, and he and his family were bound for the nation of India.

They eventually went to Burma, which is now Myanmar, but they were first going to join William Carey in the nation of India, and to preach the gospel there.

Before he left for the mission field, he fell in love with a girl named Anne, and he had already gone through all the preparation to go out to the mission field, to get on a boat, to sell everything he owned, and go into a land he had never been to before, and he fell in love with this girl right in the nick of time.

He knew what the hardships were going to be, and so he went, and he wrote a letter to Anne's father.

Imagine if this was, if you're a dad in here, imagine if this is the letter you get from a young man asking to marry your daughter.

He says, I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring to see her no more in this world.

Whether you can consent to her departure to a heathen land, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life.

Whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, the fatal influence of the southern climate of India, to every kind of want and distress, to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death.

Can you consent to all this for the sake of him who has left his heavenly home, and died for her and for you, for the sake of perishing immortal souls, for the sake of Zion and the glory of God.

Can you consent to all of this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteousness brightened by the acclamations of praise, which shall resound to her savior, from heathens saved through her means, from eternal woe and despair.

I've got nothing on Adam Iron Judson, I just went to my father -in -law and said, I love her,

I got nothing to offer. But imagine receiving that letter from a man who's ready to set out to India.

And Anne's father basically said, I give you my consent, but I'm gonna leave it up to her.

She needs to be the final one to make the decision. And Anne prayed about it, and she consented as well to go with Adam Iron Judson and go to India.

And you talk about a family that had difficulties on the mission field. They had three pregnancies. The first one ended in a miscarriage as they were moving from India over to Burma.

Their second child, Roger, died at the age of eight months old. Their third child only lived six months, and Anne, a year later, died of smallpox.

Adam Iron Judson himself lost two wives and six of his 13 children on the mission field.

And that was just the things that they faced as a family, let alone the difficulties they faced in a foreign land, in a country, in a nation that they had no experience with.

And Anne said she died for the sake of him who left his heavenly home.

As we think about this, we wonder, you know, when the world looks at someone like this, a family like this, that throws everything away for the sake of reaching the lost, people who don't believe this message, of course they look at us and think those people are nuts, abandoning everything they know for the sake of the gospel.

Right, Paul says, foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews is

Christ crucified. And the world looks at us and they says those people are crazy. And yet Anne and Adam Iron were willing to give up everything.

And so as we consider the testimony of their lives, what was it that allowed them to persevere?

What was it that was so sure in their mind that they were willing to pursue that goal of seeing the

Burmese saved? What was it? How much faith, how much confidence did they have to have in their

Savior and his work to know that he would be worth it all? So as we come to Revelation here, chapter 7, this is the question that is being asked.

Is this all worth it? Of course we know the early church, they are experiencing significant persecution under the

Roman Empire. As Pastor Andrew was speaking today in Sunday school, there were heresies that started almost right off the bat.

There was turmoil, there was persecution, there were all of these different issues. And so if you'll look with me at just the ending of chapter 6, listen to what it says in verse 14.

It says, the sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb.

For the great day of their wrath has come and who can stand? Now if you've ever studied the book of Revelation, you know that there's very symbolic language all throughout it.

And one scholar has identified that there are almost 350 allusions to the

Old Testament. In fact, it's almost the majority of the book of Revelation that are just references and allusions back to the

Old Testament. So throughout this message this morning, I will be quoting the Old Testament extensively because that's what we have to do and look at it and be familiar with it.

And the book of Revelation as a whole, for many people, it's a book we don't really want to touch.

It's too confusing. The imagery is just bizarre. Seven -headed, ten -horned beasts, 666, you know, the

Antichrist. What are all these things? And so some people look at the book of Revelation and say, I want nothing to do with it.

And then other people love this book so much that they hold the book of Revelation in one hand and a daily newspaper in the other to say, okay, let's see,

I can figure this out, I got it. But when we think of the book of Revelation, it dawned on me that it's not called the book of concealment, right?

It's called revelation, things that are revealed, things that we are to understand and that God wants us to understand.

The very first verse in Revelation chapter 1, it says, So God gave us this book so that we can know what is going to happen, not so that we can read through it and come to the end and say,

I have no idea what I just read. This is something that we should be encouraged and comforted by. So as we move into our passage this morning, just a very quick outline of the first six chapters.

So chapter 1 of Revelation, John greets, he offers a greeting to the churches and then he immediately, he sees this vision of the

Son of Man. Of course, we know that's referenced from Daniel. The Son of Man seated at the right hand of the

Father. Chapter 2 and 3 of Revelation, John writes seven letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor.

He encourages some, he reprimands others, and those are also things that we as the body of Christ can learn from.

Immediately after that, chapter 4, John has a vision of the throne room of God where he sees elders, he sees four living creatures, he sees all these different things that are difficult to make sense of.

But as we move into our passage, we're going to see, we can understand what John is seeing here.

In chapter 5, John has a vision of the Lamb. Pastor Andrew referenced this as well this morning.

The scroll is presented and there is no one deemed worthy in all of heaven to open the scroll.

And then John hears, behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, for he is worthy to take the scroll and open its seals.

And there's rejoicing in heaven. And then John moves in chapter 6 and the

Lamb begins to open the seals. There's the four horsemen of the apocalypse, often what they're called.

There's an earthquake. There's the ending with the passage that we just read with chapter 6 concluding in the saints saying, for the great day of their wrath has come and who can stand.

This is in contrast again to the book of Daniel chapter 12 where Daniel, the

Old Testament prophet, has all these apocalyptic visions and then he asks the same question, like what is going on?

And Daniel ends, the book of Daniel ends with this, I heard but I did not understand.

And then I said, oh my Lord what shall be the outcome of these things? And God said, go your way

Daniel for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end. So Daniel ends with this scroll being sealed.

It's not yet for them to understand and yet here John sees the scroll being opened, the seals being broken.

And so we see this contrast between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant as we're able to understand these things.

So now we move into our passage this morning, chapter 7 of Revelation. Do not harm the earth and the sea or the trees until we have sealed the servants of our

God on their foreheads. And I heard the number of the sealed 144 ,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel.

12 ,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed, 12 ,000 from the tribe of Reuben, 12 ,000 from the tribe of Gad, 12 ,000 from the tribe of Asher, 12 ,000 from the tribe of Naphtali, 12 ,000 from the tribe of Manasseh, 12 ,000 from the tribe of Simeon, 12 ,000 from the tribe of Levi, 12 ,000 from the tribe of Issachar, 12 ,000 from the tribe of Zebulun, 12 ,000 from the tribe of Joseph, 12 ,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed.

After this I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the

Lamb clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our

God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped

God saying, amen, blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our

God forever and ever, amen. Then one of the elders addressed me saying, who are these clothed in white robes and from where have they come?

I said to him, sir, you know. And he said to me, these are the coming out of the great tribulation for they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the

Lamb. This is God's word for God's people. Let's pray together. Father, this is a glorious passage, a vision that we do not deserve to be able to see.

The fact that you've revealed this mystery to us as we look at the book of Revelation chapter 7 and we get a glimpse of the saints around the throne, the

Lamb who was slain being worshipped, the triune God in his glory.

Lord, we look forward to this day when we join those saints around the throne from every tribe, every tongue, every nation, every people and rejoice with them.

Lord, we ask that you would help us as we dig into this passage this morning.

Lord, anything that I say that might be an error, I ask that you would take it away before it's even uttered from my lips and may your word alone be proclaimed.

Lord, we thank you for this word and it's in your name we pray. Amen. So we're going back to the the beginning of the chapter, chapter 7.

John sees this vision of the four angels at the four corners holding back the four winds and all throughout the book of Revelation this number four is symbolically used to represent the fullness of creation.

We use a compass that has four directions, north, south, east, and west. Four winds.

John sees four living creatures, very bizarre imagery, but four living creatures that are surrounding the throne of God and this represents the fullness of creation.

And these four angels are holding back the winds and it's almost as though it's like the seams are ready to burst as this last seal is broken by the

Lamb. And it's like God says, wait, not yet. We must do one more thing.

I had this this thought when you think of Abraham getting ready to sacrifice Isaac in the

Old Testament and he has the knife raised up above his head ready to bring it down and to sacrifice his only son and God steps in and he says, wait, for now

I know that your faith in me is sure. He waits until this last moment and then

God intervenes and halts the judgment in a way of revealing his protection for his people.

And if you think about this idea of the people being sealed, right, God does not remove these 144 ,000 from what is about to take place.

Rather, he protects them in the midst of the tribulation. Think of Israel also in Exodus.

God did not take the people of Israel out of Egypt before the plagues came through and devastated the nation.

Rather, he gave them the means of protection, especially you think of the last plague, the plague of the firstborn son, and yet that blood of the

Lamb on the doorpost was what God provided for the Israelites as a means of protection.

The disciples in the first century, they were not removed from the persecution or tribulation of the

Roman Empire, but rather they were called to be faithful in the midst of their trials, in the midst of their difficult situations.

And here we see in this passage, God uses this imagery of the seal.

What is this seal? The seal that is placed on their foreheads. And we know, of course, there's another seal spoken of in the book of Revelation, the number of the beast, which is given to all of those who bow down and worship him.

And this is in contrast to that. Revelation 9 speaks again of this seal.

It says, they were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

So a few chapters on, it speaks of those who were not sealed by God as being ready to face his wrath.

If you're familiar also with modern -day Judaism, they have this idea of a phylactery, which is basically a little box that they bind on their forehead between their eyes and on their wrists, and it contains the summary of the law, the

Shema, which was the summary of the old covenant commandments, right?

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, the summary of Hebrew monotheism.

And so they have this in Hebrew and they bind it on their foreheads and on their arms. And yet this is similar to the imagery of the seal that is given to the people of God.

So as we consider, what is this seal that is given to these people? In Ephesians, Paul speaks of the

Holy Spirit as being the seal of our salvation. So we can see that all of those who are given the

Holy Spirit, everyone who is a believer in Christ, is sealed by God with the

Holy Spirit. Listen to Ephesians chapter 1, verse 13 and 14. It says, In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised

Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire the possession of it to the praise of his glory.

So this is not an idea of a literal like stamp on our forehead or something like that.

A seal is a promise of ownership, a promise of protection under the sovereign

God. When Christ's body was placed in the tomb, we read that the

Romans came and placed the Roman seal upon the stone. And this was this mark that if this thing is moved, whoever is found guilty of moving this stone is worthy of death.

So this is this imagery of this seal. And so we're reminded here it's a comfort to us and also a challenge.

Because God, similarly to the examples we looked at with the Old Testament, God does not remove us.

He does not promise in this life we will have no trouble. Jesus explicitly says the opposite.

He says, In this life you will have trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the world.

So this world, we all know this world continues to get crazier day by day.

You know, we live in a land where we still have freedoms, and yet we we see our freedoms being stripped away, slowly for sure.

But who knows how long it's going to be before us all gathering together would gather some pretty public scrutiny and possibly some punishment.

Our brothers and sisters around the world who have to meet together in secret, and yet they consider it their highest honor to be persecuted for the sake of Christ.

And so it's a challenge to us just to remember that when tribulation and trial comes,

God doesn't promise that he's going to take us out of it, but he calls us to be faithful in the midst of it.

John continues, and he hears the number of the sealed, 144 ,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel.

Now this number, 144 ,000, if you know anything about the book of Revelation, this is a number that people try to figure out what on earth this means.

The Jehovah's Witnesses, which is a cult, they consider 144 ,000 to be the exact number of witnesses that will be saved.

And that's it. 144 ,000. That's what they interpret that number to mean. And of course we know that that is not correct by any means.

John uses this idea similar to in chapter 5 where John hears, behold the lion of the tribe of Judah, and yet what he sees, a lamb who was slain.

What he hears with his ears and what he sees in reality change how he's understanding it.

And so here he hears the number 144 ,000 and just remember that for a moment as we move forward.

Oftentimes many people will consider this 144 ,000 to be a literal congregation of ethnic

Jews. Some people will say maybe this is a remnant from disbelieving Israel in the first century.

Some people will say this is a symbolic number representing the whole people of God. And so we look at this list and one of the reasons, and feel free to disagree, but I'm convinced that what this is, this represents the whole community of the people of God.

Now the number 12 we know as well represents God's people. In the Old Testament there were 12 tribes.

In the New Testament there were 12 disciples. In the book of Revelation there's this idea of 24, 24 elders seated around the throne.

Revelation 4, it says around the throne were 24 thrones and seated on them were the 24 elders clothed in white garments with golden crowns.

And then you fast forward to Revelation 21 where it's speaking of the New Jerusalem. And Revelation 21 says it had a great high wall with 12 gates and the gates 12 angels and on the gates the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed.

On the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three great three gates.

And the wall of the city had 12 foundations and on them were the 12 names of the 12 apostles of God.

So the New Jerusalem has 12 gates representing the 12 tribes and it has 12 walls representing the 12 disciples and the 12 apostles of the

Lamb. And so 12 and 12, we have a hundred and forty -four if you multiply those together.

So a hundred and forty -four thousand. We have the people of the Old Covenant, we have the people of the

New Covenant, and then we have this multiplication of a thousand. Now all throughout

Scripture as well the number one thousand is used to mean a vast number.

Now of course we live in a world where we have close to eight billion people on the planet. We have a government that spends trillions of dollars, so this idea of a thousand isn't exactly something that's big for us.

But in the time of the writing of Revelation, a thousand was used to represent a large congregation.

And so a hundred and forty -four thousand. A vast, vast community of the wholeness of the people of God.

Now why couldn't this list be representing ethnic Israel? As we look through this list, well the first reason that we see is that if this represents literal ethnic

Israel, this is the only place in the entire book of Revelation where any distinction is made between Jew and Gentile.

But it goes even further. So if you look at this list, if this is a list of the twelve sons of Israel, well we have

Manasseh in this list. We know Manasseh was not one of the sons of Israel. Manasseh was one of the sons of Joseph, who was adopted by Jacob.

So Manasseh is not a son of Israel, and yet Dan, who was one of the sons of Israel, is missing from this list.

So it doesn't make sense for this to be a literal list of the twelve sons of Israel.

Or could it be the twelve tribes of Israel? That was a different. But if you look at this list, twelve tribes, well

Joseph is listed here, and there was no tribe of Joseph. And Dan is again missing, as well as the tribe of Ephraim, who was the other adopted son of Joseph.

So it cannot be either the sons of Israel, or it cannot be the tribes of Israel.

And so some will postulate maybe this is speaking of the land divisions of the nation of Israel. Well again, we have the issue.

There's Joseph on here. Joseph did not have land divisions, as well as the name of Levi.

And of course we know Levi did not have any land either, as they were the priests amongst the people of God. And again, we have the issue.

There's no Dan, and there's no Ephraim. So there's no way to make sense of this list that appears nowhere else throughout all of Scripture in this specific naming and order.

But if we look at the names, and what they represent, I believe it becomes clear what is being said here.

What name is listed first? It's Judah. And of course we know our

Savior came from the tribe of Judah. Paul speaks of Christ as the firstfruits among many brethren.

And so Judah is listed first as the tribe from which our Messiah came. And then

Reuben, who was the firstborn son, is listed second as a reminder to us that he lost his status as the firstborn son.

Look at the next three names. Gad, Asher, and Naphtali. These are the three sons of the concubines, right?

These are the rejected sons, the sons that were not even the sons of Rachel or Leah.

These are the sons of the concubines. And next we have Manasseh in this list. Manasseh was

Joseph's son through an Egyptian woman. So Manasseh's a half -Gentile.

Then we have Simeon, Levi, Issachar, and Zebulun, who were the sons of Leah, who was the unloved wife of Jacob.

And then finally we have Joseph and Benjamin, the two favored sons of Rachel.

So this list, we see Christ first, the lion of the tribe of Judah.

We see the rejected sons, the sons who were from the concubines, the sons who were from the unloved wife, the son of the

Egyptian woman. And then lastly we have the sons of the loved wife,

Rachel. And we have two tribes specifically that are missing, right?

We have the the tribe of Dan. Dan is nowhere on this list. Dan, all throughout the

Old Testament, was the tribe most notorious for leading Israel into idolatry. So Dan is missing from this list as a reminder that idolatry is not present within the people of God.

And then Ephraim is also missing from this list.

Ephraim, throughout the Old Testament as well, especially in the book of Hosea, Ephraim is basically used to represent all of the northern kingdom as a whole.

Listen to Hosea 5 .9, Ephraim shall become a desolation in the day of punishment.

Among the tribes of Israel I make known what is sure, for Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, because he was determined to go after filth.

So the two tribes most notorious for idolatry and for pursuing other gods, they are nowhere listed in these 144 ,000.

So when we consider who are these people, who is this congregation of 144 ,000?

This is the New Covenant and the Old Covenant people united through the blood of the

Lamb. And the fact that it's a multiple of a thousand, it is this vast congregation, the vast number of gods elect who are sealed by the

Holy Spirit through the blood of the Lamb. And of course we know this idea of salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, right, the unfolding story of redemption.

And though the Old Covenant community only saw it in shadows, and we look back on what

Christ fulfilled for us, right, now we see exactly what took place. And yet both the

Old Covenant and the New Covenant community of God were saved through Christ alone, through the same means.

This is a glorious understanding when we look at this passage. Let's continue forward, because again, as I mentioned before,

John uses this imagery of what he hears and what he sees not being equivalent to one another.

So he just heard the number 144 ,000 of the sons of Israel, and yet look again at verse 9.

So he hears the number 144 ,000. Verse 9, it says, After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, all tribes, peoples, and languages, standing before the throne and before the

Lamb. So he sees 144 ,000, or he hears 144 ,000, and yet what he sees is greater than he ever could possibly have imagined.

From every corner of the globe, every nation under heaven, they are there standing before the throne.

I love this word, behold. I did a little word study on this as I was preparing for this sermon, and all throughout the

New Testament, this word behold is basically like, look at this! Can you believe it?

Behold. John is awestruck by what he thought he was going to see, and what he actually saw.

In verse 9, this is an indication that the great commission which Christ gave to his disciples in Matthew 28, it is certainly going to be fulfilled and be completed.

Christ has his sheep, and not a single one of them, throughout all of history, from every tribe, every corner of the globe, not a single one of his sheep will be lost.

Of course, we know the glorious passage in John chapter 6. Jesus says, For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who sent me.

And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but I will raise it up on the last day.

And for this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks upon the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

So this 144 ,000, this is the church in the midst of tribulation, in the midst of persecution.

Theologians like to use the word, or the phrase, the church militant, as they are fighting for the kingdom of God, and they are persevering in the midst of tribulation.

And then John sees here what is often called the church triumphant, as they're gathered around the throne of the victorious

Lord. So again, as we looked, chapter 6 ended with this question, who can stand?

Who can stand before the wrath of the Lamb? And here we see the answer in verse 9 and 10.

For they are standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice.

White robes, this image of purity, holding out palm branches.

We celebrate Palm Sunday, right? Christ riding in victorious. They're crying out in thankful praise to the

Lamb. And the entirety here, this glorious image, the entirety of God's covenant people from Adam until the final day,

God's covenant people sealed through the blood of Christ, are here praising the

Lamb. They're with the 24 elders, they're with the four living creatures, and they are rejoicing in the salvation that they have been given through Christ and Christ alone.

And they fall before God on their faces, and they often offer this seven -fold worship to God.

Seven, which is used as the number of completion. God's number, his creation created in seven days.

This number of perfect completion. They offer seven -fold worship to God. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our

God forever and ever. So when we face trials, we face tribulation, as we are a part right now of the church triumph, or the church militant, as we battle against not flesh and blood, right, but against principalities and powers.

And yet we look forward to that day when we join the saints around the throne. We are given a faith that perseveres and that we have a

God who preserves us in the midst of trial and tribulation. Until that day when he ushers us in and we are able to gather around the throne of God with all of the elect from all time and join in this seven -fold worship of God.

Verse 13, one of the elders addresses John and he asks, who are these clothed in white robes?

He asks John basically to answer the question that has just been asked, who can stand under the wrath of the Lamb? And John, as he understands and recognizes of this vision that he is seeing, he explains that these are those who have been washed white in the blood of the

Lamb. He says, these are the ones coming out of the

Great Tribulation, for they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. And oftentimes when we think of the

Great Tribulation, people will think of this as some great event that is going to take place in the future, but when you look at the whole history of the people of God, we have been in Great Tribulation since the birth of the church.

Revelation 1 verse 9, the first chapter, John says, I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus.

So he calls himself our brother in both the tribulation and in the kingdom.

We see this tension between tribulation and persecution growing and at the same time the kingdom of God is expanding to every corner of the globe.

And so it's as though these are meant to grow together. The kingdom is meant to expand as this at the same time as tribulation is growing and persecution is being faced by the church.

There's, of course, a famous saying, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

It is in trial and tribulation where we most often take our faith seriously.

It's in the midst of persecution when those whom God has truly saved are made evident and they persevere through the blood of Christ.

So while we remain a member, we are all members here as we gather together in local congregations, but yet we are a part of the universal church, the church militant here on earth looking forward to that day when we join the church triumphant around the throne.

This is the crux of the gospel. Who can stand under the wrath of the

Lamb, even that language, the wrath of the Lamb? It's interesting.

We can think of the wrath of the Lion of Judah, that makes sense, but the wrath of the

Lamb. And Paul says in one of his letters that it was given to Christ by the

Father to be the judge. It says the Father judges no one, but the Son is given the authority to judge.

And so Christ is the one. He's the Lamb who is going to pour out his wrath.

But the crux of the gospel is this, that if you trust in Christ, the wrath of the

Lamb does not stand for you anymore because Christ took upon himself the wrath of God.

He took upon himself the punishment for our own sins. And so this great and glorious news is that if you are thinking or believing that you somehow have to get yourself cleaned up before you can fall on your face before God, that is not what

Scripture says. We come as filthy beggars. We come as poor and broken vessels.

And we say, nothing in my hands I bring only to the cross I cling.

There's nothing, nothing that we can bring before God. It is solely by Christ's grace and his shed blood on our behalf that we are saved.

And so if you're sitting in here today and you are still trusting in your own good works and you're still relying upon your own righteousness to stand before God on the day of judgment, this passage is a reminder to us that no one can stand before God except those who have been sealed by his

Holy Spirit. And of course there's again there's nothing that you have to do to receive this gift other than faith, faith in Christ.

For you repent of your sins, you believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.

That is the good news. And so we as the people of God, three ways that we can look at this passage and be just encouraged as we persevere in this world of trial.

First we're comforted in our security. We are comforted by the fact that it's nothing of ourselves that we do that can help us persevere through trial and tribulation.

We're comforted in our security that Christ is the one holding us fast. That the

Holy Spirit is the one that has sealed us so that we will not face the judgment and the wrath of God.

We're comforted by the fact that we cannot lose that salvation. Christ has bought us, we are his sheep, and there's nothing we can do.

We can't jump out of the grace of God, we can't be pushed out of the grace of God, we can't sin so much that the grace of God will not cover us.

So we have comfort in our security. Secondly we have courage in our trials. We have courage to know that in the midst of trial and tribulation there's nothing that could separate us from the love of God.

Because if our security is in the Lamb, then what is stopping us? What could possibly stop us or get in the way of us proclaiming the gospel to our neighbors and to the nations?

And finally we have full confidence in our witness. So we have comfort, we have courage, and we have confidence.

Again, knowing that Christ has his sheep, that the Word of God will not return void, the

Spirit blows wherever it wishes, and that God has his people.

People from every tribe and every tongue and every nation, from the Old Covenant, from the

New Covenant, from every corner of the globe, people from every walk of life. And it's, of course, it's sad to see nowadays we're so, so divided.

And people put every identity that they can muster before their identity in Christ.

This is a challenge to us too as the church, right? Ethnicity, language, economic status, gender, background, right?

All of these things we like to lift up as things that separate us, and yet the one thing that unites us, the most important thing, is the blood of Christ.

And so we are confident in our witness. And again, of course, I want to close by returning to the story of Adoniram Judson, right?

What was it that gave him and Anne such courage? And it was knowing that God would surely work a mighty work among the people of Burma.

It took nine years for Adoniram Judson, nine years of labor before he saw the first convert in the land of Burma.

How many times must he have wanted to just say, forget it. Clearly I did something wrong.

Clearly God did not mean for us to be here. How many times must he have had those doubts raise up in his mind, and yet he said,

God clearly has me here for a reason. In fact, it's interesting now because one of the very popular names amongst the

Burmese people is the name Adoniram. This testimony and this witness to a man who was willing to give it all up in order to come and to proclaim the gospel.

So people, beloved, can we be comforted by this, right? This passage is a glorious reminder for us, and I hope it gives us comfort and courage and confidence as we set forth, as we go about our daily lives to proclaim the gospel to all who we come into contact with.

Let's pray together. Lord, this is a glorious passage.

It's a reminder to us that you have your sheep. Your sheep will not be lost, and while we do not know who your people are, you commissioned us through your

Son to take the gospel to the nations and to our neighbors. Or may we be bold in our witness, knowing that there is nothing that can stand against you.

The gates of hell cannot prevail against the church, and the gospel, the good news of salvation, is the power of God which transforms lives and hearts.

Father, give us boldness in our witness. Give us comfort, knowing that we are are secure in you, that you have sealed us with the

Holy Spirit, and you count us among your people. Lord, help us to be a people that puts you on display in both word and deed.

And may we always strive and look forward to that day when we gather again before your throne and offer this worship to you.

And we say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.