"9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; 10 and they cry out with a loud voice, saying,
“Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” 11 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 worshiped God, 12 saying,
"Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen."
Throughout the ages, Christians have prayed for the salvation of lost souls. We have continuously prayed for our families, our friends, our neighbors and co-workers to come to Christ. The lost then, has been a priority for every Christian. It's one thing to pray for family and friends, those for whom you have natural affections, but God wants us to pray for all people. Whether friend or foe; whether moral or immoral; whether you know them or not, we are to pray for the lost.
In Luke 23, as Jesus hung on the cross, just before He gave up His spirit, He took time to pray for those who were murdering Him. He prayed, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."
On the Day of Pentecost, God began to answer His prayer. The Apostle Peter preached Christ to the people at Jerusalem, and three thousand people repented and were baptized that day, and there have been countless multitudes that have been saved through the centuries ever since.
Let us pray
Heavenly Father,
Father, we thank You for Your Word. We come together today with thankful hearts. Yet, we confess we also come with conviction because we have failed to pray for a lost as we ought. Lord, we pray that You would fill our hearts with compassion and sympathy, with a consuming desire to pray that all men might be saved, leaving the results to Your sovereignty. Make it the cry of our hearts to pray for cities and states and nations, for leaders, for all of them to be saved. May the desires of our heart be to reach all men, whether friend or foe.
Our hearts grieve for the lost, we mourn for those souls who are trapped in false religion, for those who will spend forever suffering in torment away from Your presence. We ask You to strengthen us to faithfully take up the ministry of prayer for those without Christ continually. Let us be consumed with Christ and what He has accomplished in our lives. May we be a church that reflects the proper response to the ransoming work of Christ in our lives. Help us, O Lord, work in and through us this day.
In Christ's name we ask and pray
Amen
Today's Message: God’s Marvelous Mercy
As we work our way through this great passage of Scripture today, I believe that this passage has much to say to each of us. We were not only called to be saved, we are called to serve. If indeed God answers the prayer that we pray for someone’s salvation, and He does, then we must be faithfully committed to doing that.
I Samuel 12 says "Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you; but I will instruct you in the good and right way. Only fear the Lord and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you."
There is a day coming, a worldwide event, a sweeping revival, a harvest of souls that will that bring millions of souls into the Kingdom of God, like nothing this earth has ever before experienced in its history. As we return to our study of Revelation chapter 7, we come to a passage in which we see will God in His saving activity, as the world has never witnessed. And, He does it the worst time in human history, a day when sin runs rampant and unchecked. A day when the restraining influence of the Holy Spirit has been removed. It is a time of famine, earthquakes, pestilence and death reign. A time when Satan's power over the face of the earth is unleashed. Yet, in the midst of that time, God will be who He is, the Savior!
"After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying,
"Salvation 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 worshiped God, saying,
"Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen."
In our last message, we met the 144,000, who are from the twelve tribes of Israel, 12,000 from each tribe, who will be redeemed, who will be sealed and protected during the time of tribulation, and they will become the evangelists of the gospel that will crisscross the globe. Israel will hear the message of the saving gospel, and God's promise that "All Israel will be saved," will come to pass.In the Old Testament, back in Genesis chapter 12, we can see that promise of God to the nations of the world for the ultimate time of salvation. "Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."
And, in Psalm 67, "God be gracious to us and bless us, And cause His face to shine upon us— Selah.
That Your way may be known on the earth, Your salvation among all nations."
That Your way may be known on the earth, Your salvation among all nations."
Through Israel, God put His power on display in order that He might reach the nations of the world. God saved them as a means to reaching the nations of the world. God’s plan with Israel always was for them to reach the world. Israel was never called His people to be an end in themselves. And, when they were set aside His plan was through the church to reach the world, as made clear in the Great Commission.
Jesus said in Matthew 24, "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come."
God has promised salvation to the Gentile world, and it too will come to pass. In today's text, there is coming salvation to the Gentiles. Because we know that there will come a day when the redeemed will
worship Jesus for the great salvation He has accomplished for them, we must be motivated to remain focused and obedient to our calling in
proclaiming the Gospel to the lost.
In verse 9, we find "a multitude beyond counting, from every nation and all tribes and
peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb" and singing about
salvation. In the description, it’s pretty obvious who they are. Yet, you’d be amazed at how confused some commentators can get. Some believe it is the raptured church. Others have said it's the accumulation of all the martyrs through all the ages.
So, John begins by saying, "After these things I looked," which we've noted before that every time that phrase is used we have a new vision. So, what we have here, is a vision that is separate from the one in verses 1 to 8. The phrase, then, is used to separate a new vision, that is distinct from the previous one. John knows that the Apostle Paul has been has been evangelizing Asia Minor. He knows that Timothy, Titus and others have evangelized Gentiles. So, he knows the Gentiles are going to come to Christ. But what John sees here is way beyond what even he could have imagined.
For all intents and purposes, the Gentile churches that we know of in Asia Minor, have ceased to exist, there is nothing left of the testimony. In other words, they were small, troubled, and persecuted. This is different, what John sees here, is a massive Gentile multitude singing, "Salvation to our God." I imagine that because he wrote down the letters to the seven churches, of which five of them were in sin, and were even told that they were going to pass out of existence if they didn't straighten up and only two of those churches were faithful; he likely had pictured the worst-case scenario. Yet Christianity, for which he is now suffering exile on the island of Patmos, has apparently flourished and he now sees countless number of multitudes of Gentiles in this vision. That had to be shocking.
While the church may not succeed in reaching every nation, but the tribulation saints will with the help of the two witnesses. Then the 144,000 who are sealed and protected, doing the same thing. The persecuted believers, who are calling people to come to Christ, for whom they are willing to die. Then, there's the angel flying through the heavens, preaching the everlasting gospel. I believe it will be a miraculous ministry. The greatest revival the world will ever experience will come when the price is the highest it’s ever been.
At the end of verse 9, John describes them as being "clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands." White in the Greek is the word leukas, it means a brilliant, shining light kind of white.So, they have robes that are dazzling and brilliant white.
Now, to be clear, we know they don’t have actual bodies at this time, because Revelation chapter 20 it says "I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And
I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony
of Jesus and because of the Word of God, and those who had not
worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark up on
their forehead and upon their hand; and they came to life and reigned
with Christ for a thousand years."
Then, in verse 5, "The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection." So, here they are souls, still waiting for their bodies to come to life. So, in the vision, their souls. The white robe is symbolic of their righteousness, their exaltation, and their victory. And, because souls are invisible, if you didn’t put a robe on a soul, John couldn’t have seen them. So, it’s symbolic.
The next thing John notices is "and palm branches were in their hands." In ancient times, palm trees very familiar, especially at a time of joy or a time of triumph. Also, because it had so many uses. I won't belabor that, but you can look it up. During the Fest of Tabernacles, they would reconstruct the booths to remember their time in the wilderness and use palm branches for the roofs. So, they were very useful because of all that they provided. So here, we see the celebration not only represented by righteousness of the white robes but by the palm branches in their hand. You will remember, they were waved like flags for the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. Palm Sunday the people were waving palms in their hands.
It's worth mentioning, that because these souls were standing before the throne and before the Lamb, we know they’re in heaven and not on earth, as some have suggested. I believe that's obvious here from the text. Many of them had been killed because of the testimony of Jesus and because of the Word of God, and because they didn’t worship the beast, we'll see that when we get to chapter 20. And, others had probably died in the holocausts that are taking place in the world, as the judgments of the first six seals hit. Victorious, they are now in the presence of God at His very throne.
In verse 10, he says "and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." It's interesting to note two words here, "our God," in the world today, we see nation after nation rejecting Christ, the US and Canada are indifferent to religion, fewer and fewer churches are having an impact. Latin America is trapped in an unbiblical and non-saving, corrupt Catholic system. In Asia, Africa and India, and the Middle East, there are all kinds of false religious systems all over the world.
It's easy to become discouraged. Now, we see that masses of people from all around the globe are saying, "Salvation to our God." The One true, Living God has become their God. That's really encouraging, to know they’ve had a change of heart! It is in victory that the faithful finally arrived in the presence of God and of the Lamb. It is a privilege afforded to none but His own. They turn to the gospel under the judgments that are falling. It's worth mentioning that, "Salvation to our God," simply means that we give Him the credit for our salvation. It must be wonderful when you know what a wretched, vile, rotten,
undeserving sinner you are, and only by God’s grace are you there. By the way, that's why all of the worship of heaven is to be focused on God and the Redeemer. Heaven is all about Thanksgiving.
In fact, their worship elicits the worship of the angels. Look at verse 11, which says "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 worshiped God." "And all the angels," that's the word "pantes," its a straightforward intensive. It’s emphatic. They all join in praise, all the creatures God designed to praise Him are stimulated in praise. As we've stated before, angels can't experience salvation, but they’re fascinated by it. And, they love to praise God for it. The fallen angels are damned and cannot be saved.
Those who didn't fall, not need to be saved.
In I Peter 1, Peter wrote "It was revealed to
them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things
which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look."
Then, in verse 12, all the angels were standing around the throne saying, "Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen."
So what we see here, is an innumerable massive crowd coming into the presence of God, wearing robes of righteousness, triumphant, celebrating and worshiping God with such worship for salvation that it elicits the praise of myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands of angels. These wretched sinners who had literally turned their backs on God, who had rejected Christ, in God’s marvelous mercy, in the midst of all hell breaking loose, remembers mercy, reaches out and gathers them to Himself. And, He takes them right to the throne. That's an amazing picture of grace and mercy!
In Closing..
I know that many Christians thought when Joe Biden was elected, that was going to be the end of the Christian faith.In fact, there's still tremendous despair. Some of feel like Elijah, "only I am left." I want to reassure you, that the day is coming when by God’s grace and His mercy the gospel will triumph across the world. It's wonderful to know, that though we struggle in this life, we're not on the losing end of this! God's promise of salvation to the nations of the earth will indeed come to pass.
God’s incredible saving power is yet to be put on display before the world, and it will be even greater than the day of Pentecost. God our Savior, He is a saving God.
May it be so..
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
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