Revelation chapter 7 follows Revelation chapter 6, and
then chapter 7 is followed by chapter 8.
I wouldn't normally open that way, except to
say this, that chapter 7 is different than
chapter 6 in the sense that there aren't
any more of the seals loosed in chapter
7.
As you move through chapter 6, you go
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, the seals are
loosed, right?
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Then chapter 7, there are no seals loosed,
then you get to chapter 8, and you
have the last seal loosed.
In between is chapter 7, so the question
comes, what's going on there in that flow?
Why is the flow broken?
There is a reason.
One of the things that I'd point out
here, and you can just make a note
of it, file it away somewhere, and it'll
help you basically make sense of Revelation, is
that the judgments of God come basically three
different ways.
There are seal judgments, there are trumpet judgments,
and there are bold judgments.
That's it.
Seal, trumpet, and bold judgments.
We are moving through the seals, we come
to chapter 7, and suddenly there is a
break.
And the reality is that there is a
break for a very powerful reason.
Look at the very end of Revelation 6,
verse 17, this might surprise you.
We read of those hiding in the caves
and praying to the rocks, and then they
say, for the great day of his wrath
has come.
Hides from the one who sits on the
throne and from the wrath of the Lamb
of God, for the great day of his
wrath has come.
And then this, this question goes forth, who
is able to stand against the outpouring of
his judgments and his wrath?
Well, if you wipe away the chapter heading
and move right on into chapter 7, what
you get is the answer to that question.
Who is going to be able to stand
against the outpouring of God's judgment on the
earth?
Considering everything that's come in the last six
seals, what's going to happen next and who
will be able to stand against it?
The answer is there are those who will
be able to stand against it.
And that will be the one hundred and
forty four thousand Israelite believers who are sealed
to survive the tribulation, sealed by God to
be able to survive the tribulation.
Look at Revelation seven, four, 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.
Who will be able to stand against these
judgments?
These one hundred and forty four thousand will,
because God will divinely seal them to protect
them.
But they're not the only ones that will
survive.
There is a multitude that will die during
this time and they will go straight to
heaven.
As they die for their faith in Jesus
Christ under persecution, we find them in Revelation
seven, verse nine.
Can you look there after these things?
I looked and behold, a great multitude, which
no one could number of all nations, tribes,
peoples, tongues standing.
Who will be able to stand against the
wrath of God?
Here is a multitude out of every nation,
people, tribe and tongue.
And they are standing.
Where are they standing?
In heaven.
So these are the other ones that will
stand, but they will stand because they will
be taken to heaven.
Before the throne and before the lamb, clothed
with white robes, palm branches in their hands.
Then one of the elders, verse 13, said
to me, answered saying to me, who are
these arrayed in white robes?
And where did they come from?
I said to him, sir, you know.
And he said to me, 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.
So chapter seven answers then the question from
the end of chapter six.
Do you see that further chapter seven and
chapter seven?
God effectively stops to give John as he's
writing this breathing room.
I mean, think of John.
This is all very real to him.
It's almost as if he's in the middle
of it, living it out.
It's being unfolded to him in this great
panorama.
So God stops to give him breathing room.
The first five seals brought great devastation.
The sixth seal brought fear in the midst
of global upheaval, earthquake, etc.
And the sun turned black, the moon to
blood with all the volcanic ash and explosion
and asteroids and everything else.
And so God effectively slows down to give
John intermission and to give us intermission because
we're studying it.
And so you have that intermission before the
seventh seal is loosed.
Because when the seventh seal is loosed, when
it's opened, there will then come out of
that in a telescoping way, the trumpet judgments.
Then when you get to the end of
the trumpet judgments in a telescoping way, outcome,
the bold judgments.
Telescoping out the three different kinds of judgments,
seals, trumpets and balls.
So here's an intermission before the seventh seal
is loosed and the great judgments begin to
come in the next chapter.
Now, look at Chapter seven, verse one, the
first three words after these things, after these
things.
That tells us exactly where we are.
And I say that because Chapter seven is
really, really up for grabs when it comes
to commentators.
In other words, there's all different kinds of
interpretations of what's what Chapter seven is about,
of who the hundred and forty four thousand
are and of when it actually occurs.
I want to show you when it actually
occurs right from the Bible.
It actually occurs immediately following the sixth seal
and its specific judgments that actually occurs right
where we find it.
That is important because many interpretate interpreters will
put it way back at the beginning of
the tribulation, like three and a half years
before.
We're now three and a half years into
it.
We're down to the last three and a
half years of man on Earth.
And what happens here happens exactly at that
time period.
Let me show you when you read after
these things.
The Greek is metatow toe, metatow toe, singular.
After these things, pointing directly back to the
events of the sixth seal as a single
entity.
The difference being singular and plural is found
if you go back to Revelation for one,
go to Revelation for one and look at
what the phrase is that you find there.
Taking the time to do this because if
you want to interpret Revelation rightly, you have
to be tidy every step of the way.
Sanitary, clean, tight every step of the way.
Revelation for one after these things, I looked
and behold, a door standing open in heaven.
And the first voice which I heard was
like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, come
up here and I will show you things
which must take place after this.
That's the rapture rapture of the church.
After these things come up either.
Now that phrase looks the same in your
English Bible, doesn't it?
However, there's a subtle difference in the Greek.
The Greek is metatow top metatow touch plural.
After these things, the entire church age, the
rapture takes place.
So that's stretching across a huge span of
time.
When you come to chapter seven, verse one,
you read after these things.
It's metatow toe singular right after the sixth
seal.
That is critical to understanding then who the
one hundred and forty four thousand are.
They are, in fact, what the Bible says
they are right here.
And I am sparing you all kinds of
explanation that surrounds that.
But all of that is to say chapter
seven belongs right where it is.
And the judgment of the seventh seal comes
on man when you get to chapter eight
with such fury, with such force that it's
the hand of God himself, as opposed to
just the elements sort of gone wild in
chapter six.
And the only way these one hundred and
forty four thousand can survive what's coming next
is to be secured by God with a
divine seal.
They have naturally survived the Holocaust so far
that's come on the earth, but they cannot
go any farther without a divine preservation seal.
If they're to make it alive through the
last three and a half years and into
the thousand year reign of Christ on earth,
the millennium.
And they are going to make it alive
through this great tribulation.
And they will be alive as mortals when
the thousand year reign of Christ begins.
So here they are in front of us.
Chapter seven follows in time right on the
heels of the sixth seal open.
Chapter seven shows us one other thing that's
very important to me, and that is this.
As God is pouring out his judgment on
the Christ, rejecting humanity on earth.
He also pours out his mercy, obviously, on
the one hundred and forty four thousand Israelites,
so that in this chapter, God remembers his
mercy in the midst of his wrath.
God remembers his mercy in the midst of
his wrath.
It reveals a rescuing God at work in
the midst of his judgment.
And that isn't random, that statement.
I actually got it from Habakkuk chapter three,
verse two.
Habakkuk chapter three, verse two.
Listen to it.
Oh, Lord.
And remember where we are.
We're in the midst of the seven years,
right?
The last three and a half years.
Habakkuk three, two.
Oh, Lord, I have heard your speech and
was afraid.
Oh, Lord, revive your work in the midst
of the years.
In the midst of the years, make it
known in wrath.
Remember your mercy.
So as all these Christ rejecters hiding in
the caves, praying to the rocks for them
to fall on them and kill them so
they can escape from the wrath of the
lamb, as they are all like this on
the earth and the wrath is falling.
He's going to remember his mercy and he's
going to be saving multitudes of people.
We read it already.
A multitude that cannot be numbered.
So we find a God who in the
midst of his wrath remembers his mercy.
I like that because this is the revelation
of God and Jesus Christ here.
And it should open our eyes to see
in a way we have never seen before
the mercy of God.
John Blanchard put it this way.
He said we are saved not by merit,
but by mercy.
Thomas Brooks, the old Puritan, said God's mercies
are above all his works and above our
works, too.
I like that.
Matthew Henry said God's reasons for mercy are
all drawn from himself, not from anything in
us.
Ralph Benning put it so well when he
said, take notice not only of the mercies
of God, but of the God behind the
mercies.
Oh, I love that.
This is our God here.
He's a merciful God.
And the Bible says the judgment is his
strange work.
He doesn't like it, but he's holy, so
he must judge sin.
All of that then is to say this,
that everything in the passage before us occurs
because of the mercy of God.
Let's read it.
Verse one down to verse eight.
After these things, I saw four angels standing
at the four corners of the earth, holding
the four winds of the earth.
For what?
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 and 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.
The tribe of Reuven, twelve thousand.
The tribe of Gad, twelve thousand.
Asher, twelve thousand.
Naphtali, twelve thousand.
Manasseh, twelve thousand.
Simeon, twelve thousand.
Levi, twelve thousand.
Issachar, twelve thousand.
Zebulun, Joseph and Benjamin, all twelve thousand.
Now, here is a very interesting passage.
And tragically, too often misinterpreted.
All too often, the one hundred and forty
four thousand is interpreted to be the church.
And that is usually by amillennialists, those that
teach there is no thousand year reign of
Christ on earth.
They do that to fit their whole theology.
So once you have no millennium in your
theology, then you're stuck facing this hundred and
forty four thousand that are sealed to survive.
What are you going to do with them?
You have to redefine them.
So you make them the church.
The thing is, there is nothing in the
passage whatsoever to say that this is anything
other than who it says that it is.
And we're going to see in the book
of Revelation in crystal clear terms, the one
thousand year reign of Christ.
Be very careful of following a theological grid
given to you by men.
That's very logical and leads to logical conclusions.
Because sometimes man's logical conclusions that he makes
in his theology.
Lead him to unbiblical conclusions.
Here is the one hundred and forty four
thousand.
Now, in this passage with the angels and
these people, there's three things I want to
draw out.
First of all, the judgment that is happening
is suddenly restrained.
It's going to get worse, but it's restrained.
Judgment restrained, obviously.
These saints sealed and then these Israelites that
are the saints are identified.
Three things.
Let's talk about the judgment restrained.
Has to do with these angels.
Revelation seven 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.
Here are four angels.
You know, remember at the beginning of Revelation.
There is a promise to every person who
reads it.
I have found that one of the blessings
of reading Revelation is what I would call
angelology.
Learning about angels.
You know, the Bible from Genesis to Revelation
is progressive revelation.
It's progressive.
It telescopes out from Genesis all the way
to Revelation.
It just opens wide.
And when you get to Revelation, it really
opens wide.
So that here you would do well just
to trace in Revelation the very remarkable, often
wholly unexpected and previously unrevealed activity of angels.
It's all here.
Things we never saw before.
They aren't revealed anywhere else in the Bible.
And we have that case here.
Four angels.
We are told they are at the four
corners of the earth.
Four corners of the earth.
Now, over the years, there have been many
critics of this who have scoffed at this,
saying this is basically pre-scientific thought.
This dates back to when men thought the
earth was flat.
And this then pictures a flat square.
So here we are.
It's off.
So it obviously can't be the four corners
of the earth.
What else is it?
And away they go into some wild interpretation.
But it says the four corners of the
earth.
And at the four corners of the earth,
they're holding the four winds.
That's the key right there.
They're holding the four winds.
See, what they are doing is they are
at the four points of the compass.
North, south, east, west.
Four corners of the earth.
That's what it is.
That's where the winds originate.
We have north winds.
We have south winds.
We have east winds.
And we have west winds.
So here the angels, what they are doing,
holding the four winds, it says, is they
are basically turning off the essential engine of
the earth's atmosphere.
Listen to the words of Henry Morris in
his commentary.
He says there will be at this time
then no wind, imagine, on earth.
There will be no wind.
There will be no breeze.
No waves breaking on the shore.
No movement of clouds in the sky.
Everything will be deathly still.
That is an incredible display of power, since
the circulation of the atmosphere is a mighty
engine driven by energy from the sun and
from the earth's rotation.
The tremendous powers involved in this operation become
especially obvious when they are displayed in the
form of great hurricanes, blizzards, and tornadoes.
That's what's coming.
These winds of the earth make life possible
on earth through the hydrologic cycle transporting waters
inland from the ocean with which to water
the earth.
Yet angels, he says, only four of them
had turned off this gigantic engine.
Amazing, huh?
Only four angels.
These are powerful angels.
Powerful angels.
And they're holding it back because when they
let go, the seventh seal will be loosed
and the worst judgments we have seen so
far are going to come forth.
They're basically holding back these destructive forces of
the winds that God is going to unleash
on the earth.
Will you notice in passing the reality of
God's involvement with creation?
There are so many today that are critical
of the idea that God has any real
practical involvement with creation, with the universe, and
yet we see his angels right here holding
back the wind.
God is deeply involved, deeply involved.
Holding the four winds of the four corners
of the earth.
Then we have not only four angels, but
a fifth comes, a fifth angel.
And he comes ascending from the east, verse
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.
And this is what he said.
We do not harm the earth, the sea
or the trees.
So we have sealed the servants of our
God on their foreheads.
Now, this amazing angel that comes with the
seal of the living God.
Some have identified this angel as Jesus Christ.
And believe me, you read the commentaries, you'll
get all kinds of interpretations.
Some have identified this as Jesus Christ.
Then I saw another angel from the east.
The problem with that is that it's highly
unlikely this is Jesus Christ, because when you
read in your Bible, look at verse 2.
Then I saw another angel, another.
The Greek word is Allah's.
It means another of exactly the same kind
in numeric order.
Another of exactly the same kind of numeric
order.
In other words, another angel, just like the
four we've seen already.
That's what the Greek language says.
So the Greek is saying it's it's another
angel, just like the ones we've already seen.
It is not Jesus Christ.
We know that from the Greek.
And we also know it from the angel.
Look at Revelation seven, three.
The angel uses the pronoun we saying, do
not harm the earth, the sea or the
trees.
So we have sealed the servants of our
God in their foreheads.
So the fifth angel is surprise, surprise, an
angel.
And here we are understanding Revelation.
But he comes from the east.
I like that a lot.
This is so encouraging in this.
Imagine, John, he's on Patmos.
God gives him intermission from all the Holocaust
of the judgments to this vision.
And this fifth angel comes out of the
east.
Would that be encouraging to John?
Oh, my.
Yes.
Want to know why?
Because it recalls that paradise was set up
in the east in Genesis chapter two, verse
eight.
The glory of God in the Bible comes
to the temple from the east and Ezekiel
forty three two.
And this is the direction.
Also, do you remember in the Bible?
This was the area from whence came the
Magi at the birth of Jesus Christ, signifying
from where the Messiah would come from.
Jesus is called the day spring and Luke
chapter one and the morning star in Revelation
22, which signals the arrival of daylight to
the rising of the sun in the east.
Israel, so prominent in the first part of
the chapter, will experience salvation through the sun
rising of Christ.
And this is the reason the east suggests
a message of cheer and encouragement.
But the significance of the east is not
limited to just cheer and encouragement.
The east is the direction of Palestine, and
it is appropriate because in this section, the
twelve tribes of Israel are the ones sealed.
Now, mark this.
As John is on Patmos, the the east
would point straight to Jerusalem, straight to Jerusalem.
And the significance is that that is where
the salvation comes from for the whole world.
And that is where the preservation comes in
salvation for the whole of the one hundred
and forty four thousand.
So the east is significant and very encouraging.
And he comes bringing the seal of God,
this angel telling them to restrain their judgment
of God until the saints are sealed.
So the judgment is restrained.
Now, the second thing is the saints then
are sealed.
Here is the secret of how these individuals
are going to survive.
It is the seal of the living God
upon their foreheads.
Very interesting.
In the book of Revelation and during this
time, there will be on the earth.
Ruling and reigning and calling himself God, the
Antichrist, he has a seal, doesn't he?
He has a mark.
Well, the Antichrist is always copycat, always.
Here's the real thing.
Verse two, I saw another angel ascending from
the east, having the seal of the living
God.
And he cried with a loud voice to
the other four angels, to whom it was
granted to harm the earth and the sea,
told them not to harm it until they
had sealed the servant.
And a number of them in verse four
is one hundred and forty four thousand of
all the tribes of the children of Israel.
This is God's seal, as opposed to the
Antichrist seal, which we call the mark.
This is the living God, as opposed to
the false.
God, Antichrist, this is the real, true and
living God.
His mark will preserve these people.
Now, this whole idea of coming to mark
these individuals, to preserve them in the midst
of the judgment, to keep them alive is
not new.
Hold your place in Revelation and turn to
Ezekiel.
Ezekiel chapter nine, Ezekiel nine, three.
One of the great things about the book
of Revelation is that it ties in all
of the teaching of the whole Bible.
It's all there.
And this whole thing of the seal on
the forehead is not new.
Turn to Ezekiel nine, three.
Now, the glory of God of Israel had
gone up from the cherub where it had
been to the threshold of the temple.
And he called to the man clothed with
linen.
Seems to be an angel who had the
writer's inkhorn at his side.
And the Lord said to him, go through
the midst of the city, through the midst
of Jerusalem and put a.
Watch this, a mark on the foreheads of
the men who sigh and cry over all
the abominations that are done within it.
And to the others, he said, in my
hearing, go after him to the city and
kill.
This is judgment.
Do not let your eyes spare nor have
any pity.
This is a judging angel, kind of like
in the exodus, the night of the exodus,
the death angel.
Verse six, literally, utterly slay old and young
maidens and little children and women do not
come near anyone.
However, on whom is the mark and begin
at my sanctuary.
So they began with the elders who were
before the temple.
So here is a preserving mark.
And that is what you have on the
servants in Revelation seven.
The same thing.
It's not new.
God has done it before.
Now, back to Revelation seven, three, these servants.
Do you notice it says in Revelation seven,
three, the seal sealed until you have sealed
the servants of our God could be translated
bond slaves.
What that tells me is something very interesting.
It tells me that these hundred and forty
four thousand are going to be able to
understand the things we're reading right now.
And it's going to be so critical to
them.
They will hold in their hands copies of
the Bible.
They've already come to Christ.
They've been Christians for a while.
Now they're going to be sealed to preserve
them to to answer the calling God has
for them.
They will understand what we understand.
So where did you get that?
It's very simple.
Hold your place and look at Revelation one
one.
Revelation one one.
Do you recall who the book is addressed
to?
Revelation one one, the revelation of Jesus Christ,
which God gave him to show his.
What's it say?
Sermons, bond servants.
That's why the book was written.
You see, we get to study it now.
It encourages us.
It enhances and expands our theology.
These people will live by it then literally.
And so they will understand these things.
And believe me, they will interpret them rightly.
And at that time, they're not going to
be saying, oh, this is the church.
Sorry, they're going to be clinging to that
for their very lives and standing upon it.
And when they are marked by the angel
and sealed, they're going to encourage each other,
going, look, it's all here.
It was all foretold.
That is so tremendous to me.
So the judgments are restrained for a while
and the saints are sealed.
They might survive through this Holocaust of judgment.
Not only that, you have the you have
to remember, you have the Antichrist persecuting any
that believes it's going to be a very
hard time to stay alive on Earth.
It's going to be so hard to stay
alive.
Let me just assert this to you before
we go any farther.
Not one, not one unbeliever, not one is
going to make it through the next three
and a half years here up to the
coming of Jesus Christ alive.
Not one.
And yet one hundred and forty four thousand
will make it through alive and some other
believers among the nation of Israel and some
other Gentile believers.
But not one unbeliever will make it through
this alive to the second coming of Christ
and on into the millennial reign.
Not one judgments of the Lord are sure.
So tuck that away.
The judgments are restrained.
The saints are sealed.
Now the Israelites are identified.
Let's look at them.
These numbers should be taken literally.
Revelation seven four.
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.
We are told then that there are in
the following verses, there are twelve thousand from
each tribe.
What do you think?
Twelve thousand really means twelve thousand.
Twelve thousand.
You know, back in First Kings 19 and
it's echoed in Romans 11.
Elijah, the prophet, goes before the Lord.
He's discouraged.
He's moaning and he says, Lord, I did
my job.
We killed the prophets of Baal and now
they're persecuting me.
And I alone am left as the one
that does not bow the knee to Baal.
And God says, get up.
I got seven thousand more like you.
Seven thousand more like to get off it.
So that's a lot.
But that is to say that in that
day, God had reserved for himself seven thousand.
That number is specific and real.
And so just as we take God's word
for the past and those seven thousand, we
take his word for the future.
And the twelve thousand here from each tribe.
Now, when you look at verse four and
you read, 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.
You have to realize this is staggering.
You have to realize that here are the
merciful elective purposes of God.
There is no other way to account for
this number.
In other words, God has determined really an
eternity past that there's going to be one
hundred and forty four thousand exactly to go
forth from among the nation as evangelists, as
missionaries.
They will no doubt account for the multitude
that no man can number in heaven.
That we read at the beginning of the
message that die for their faith.
They're martyred and they go to heaven.
They will no doubt be very active in
leading them to Christ.
And their ministry will be at the same
time as the great two witnesses that will
study in chapter 11.
So you have to realize I love this.
I love seeing God in control.
You have to realize that there is no
way humanly possible that man could be active
and serve the Lord and go out and
lead to Christ.
One hundred and forty four thousand Israelites and
have them become 100 percent committed to the
call of God in Christ to be evangelistic
missionaries.
That's impossible.
It's humanly impossible.
So God steps in and he guarantees that
it will happen and he will make it
happen.
The elective purposes of God in the Bible
are amazing to behold because it shows you
all the way right down here to the
very end who is in control of salvation.
It's so lovely.
And so you see God merciful in his
elective purpose right here, guaranteeing this number.
There's no other way it could happen.
And then the names of the tribes are
listed.
Now, the names of the tribes are listed
all through the Old Testament.
And you must know this.
They are never in the same order and
they always serve a given purpose.
And here, as you study these names, if
you're familiar with the names of the tribes,
you're going to notice something peculiar.
That is that there's a couple of tribes
missing.
For one thing, I notice immediately Dan is
missing.
That's important to me.
I want to know where Dan is.
Well, if I study my Bible and research
it, I'll find out Dan was so idolatrous.
I don't want to say this publicly.
My name is Dan.
Dan was so idolatrous that Dan is out
and Levi's in.
See, in the list of the 12 tribes,
that's the way God portioned out the land.
The Levites didn't have any land portioned out
to them.
So you don't see them in the list
of the tribes.
But here Dan is out and Levi's in
because Dan was so idolatrous.
Then you move through the list.
You see Levi in verse seven and you
see in verse eight says the tribe of
Zebulun.
And then it says the tribe of Joseph.
Now, that's very interesting.
That tells me then, since Manasseh is up
in verse six, that Manasseh is one of
the sons of Joseph.
Where's Ephraim?
Ephraim's out, Joseph's in.
Why?
Because Ephraim was so sinful, God said he
would cut them off.
In the Old Testament.
And yet, if you read Ezekiel 48, which
speaks of the millennial reign of Christ, the
thousand year reign of Christ, which will follow
this three and a half year period.
You will find listed there Ephraim and Dan
back in, in the millennial reign of Christ
because of grace.
Because of grace.
God will fulfill his promises to the nation
Israel, every single one of them.
And that is why you must see this
as literal.
These are real people from the tribes of
Israel.
Now you say, well, wait, how, how will
they know?
The tribes have been scattered.
What about the ten lost tribes?
And what I heard they were in Great
Britain.
How will they know?
Depends on where you've been, what you've been
taught.
How will they know?
Listen, they don't know.
But guess who knows?
God.
God knows.
Very easy for him to call them by
his spirit.
And when they all respond and you count
them up, there'll be 144,000.
God has preserved the tribes and he knows
where they are.
Now.
You have to ask yourself.
Why?
God is going to such an extent to
protect these 144,000 Israelite evangelists.
Because he intends.
He's guarding his promises.
He intends to fulfill all the promises he
made to Israel.
And that is what he's going to do.
That's what the 1000 year reign of Christ
on a restored earth is all about.
It's to fulfill his promises to the nation
of Israel.
Do you remember when the disciples were with
Jesus?
Before he went back into heaven.
And they said, will you at this time
restore the kingdom?
And he basically at one point he was
going up to Jerusalem.
He was going to die.
And he basically said, no, I'm going to
die instead.
Oh.
Well, what about all the promises then?
Of the kingdom.
When we will rule and reign with you.
That's a thousand years.
You read of later here in the book
of Revelation.
So God is going to fulfill all of
his promises.
And that is why he's going to such
an extent.
To protect these Israelites that believe on Christ
so they can evangelize their nation.
And thus the words of Paul in Romans
11 are fulfilled when he says.
He starts to praise God.
He's been mourning over his people, the Israelites,
that they didn't receive Christ as their Messiah.
And he says, so then all Israel will
be saved.
And it speaks of that time when these
people will evangelize the Israelites and they will
come to Christ.
And then the earth will be restored.
Christ will reign for a thousand years.
The wonderful thing is, and we'll study that
more as we go through Revelation.
Is that we're going to come back with
Jesus Christ.
He will judge what he calls the sheep
and the goats.
That's believers and unbelievers.
None of the goats will go into the
kingdom.
There will not be one unbeliever left alive,
surviving God's wrath to go into the thousand
year reign of Christ.
Let me give you a scripture to back
that up.
In second Thessalonians 2, 11.
Paul writes and he says, for this reason,
God will send them strong delusion.
They should believe the lie.
Here it is that they all may be
condemned.
All of them who did not believe in
the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
So those who missed the rapture.
Then failed to come to Christ.
Are not going to make it out alive.
That's pretty scary, isn't it?
Pretty scary.
So the day of the Lord will eventually
destroy all Christ rejecting ungodly mortals.
And when God is all done working his
work.
So many will have come to Christ because
he preserved the one hundred and forty four
thousand and has two witnesses.
And the Bible is full of examples of
how God does this.
When God destroyed the world in the flood,
he preserved to Noah and his family.
When God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, he preserved
Lot and his daughters.
When God destroyed Jericho, he preserved Rahab and
her household.
Rahab and her household.
When he destroyed Egypt, he preserved Israel.
When he destroys the Christ rejecters on the
earth, he will preserve these one hundred and
forty four thousand Billy grams.
And they will go on in to populate
the kingdom.
Follow this thought right now in the world.
There are probably realistically around 60,000 missionaries
in the field.
What is going to happen when one hundred
and forty four converted Jews are preaching Christ
in the midst of this kind of Holocaust?
What's going to happen is an innumerable number
are going to be saved.
There will be.
In other words, one of the greatest revivals
in the history of the world will take
place during the outpouring of God's wrath.
Don't you love it?
Our God is an awesome and merciful God.
And the Bible is so clear on these
issues.
Can you finish with me by turning to
Zachariah 12?
Zachariah 12.
You study revelation, you learn the Old Testament.
Zachariah 12.
God foretells the day, the time of this
reign of Christ, when Israel will come to
believe on him.
These last few years here on earth.
Zachariah 12 10 will happen because of the
work of his spirit.
His grace.
Zachariah 12 10.
I will pour on the house of David
and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit
of grace and supplication.
And then they will look on me whom
they pierced.
Yes, they will mourn for him as one
mourns his only son and grieve for him
as one grieves for his firstborn.
In that day, a fountain shall be open
for the house of David, for the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, for sin and uncleanness.
In that day, it shall come to pass
in all the land, says the Lord.
Verse eight, that two thirds in it shall
be cut off and die, but one third
shall be left in it.
I will bring the one third through the
fire and refine them as silver is refined.
Test them as gold is tested.
They will call on my name and I
will answer them and I will say this
is my people.
And each one will say the Lord is
my.
Oh, God is so good.
God is so good.
He is going to save so many more
than we ever dreamed he would or could.
And I thank God they will be saved,
just as he said.
And I think the Lord that I'm saved
now.
And I'm going to continue to seek him
until he raptures me off this earth with
his church into heaven.
Or until I die and go into his
presence.
And then I'm coming back with Jesus.
And with all of you, we get to
rule and reign with him on earth for
a thousand years.
And then he's going to make a new
heaven and a new earth where there's no
sin and where in dwells righteousness forever.
What a great hope we have as the
people of God.
And it's all written down in advance for
us so that our hope is fixed and
real.
Father, thank you for writing it all down
for us.
Thank you, Lord, for all the details.
Thank you, Lord, for opening our minds and
our hearts to just how big and wonderful
you really are.
We pray you work your saving work in
every heart.
And that you protect us and fill us
and use us until our time is done.
And we come home to be with you.
And we ask these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.