The Promise and the Blessing
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God is a God of promise and He keeps His promise.
In Holy Scriptures, God wrapped His promise around a people, Israel but He fulfilled His promise with a blessing to all nations.
The Promise to Israel represents a blessing to the nations.
In the Book of Revelation, John would always see God’s special dispensation to the Jews, then he would look up and see the greater promise to the Gentiles.
2 Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, 3 saying, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.” 4 And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel: 5 12,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed, 12,000 from the tribe of Reuben, 12,000 from the tribe of Gad, 6 12,000 from the tribe of Asher, 12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali, 12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh, 7 12,000 from the tribe of Simeon, 12,000 from the tribe of Levi, 12,000 from the tribe of Issachar, 8 12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000 from the tribe of Joseph, 12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed.
Then listen to this key phrase… “after this I looked.”
9 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, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
In chapter 7 of the book we see that there were 144,000 servants of God who were sealed or preserved from the coming judgement, people speculate on who the 144,000 are..
Jews that will be preserved to preach to the Jews in the Great Tribulation
Representative group of all that are going to be saved,
The 144,000 reminds us of Israel being God’s people of promise but the ultimate fulfillment of the promise is that all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
Remember the Abrahamic covenant?
Many take Genesis 17:5 as the Abrahamic covenant, where God promised changed Abram’s name to Abraham because he will become the father of many nations and that kings will descend from him.
But the covenant that God gave Abraham as a result of his faith and obedience is the promise he gave to him on Mount Moriah, when he was willing to sacrifice his own son Isaac:
18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”
All nations of the earth will be blessed.
So in Revelation 7, the 144,000 redeemed of Israel points to the general multitudes that will be saved.
Every Nation, all Tribes and Peoples and Languages
The Promise to Israel represents a blessing to the nations
We also see this in chapter 5 of Revelation...
4 and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. 5 And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”
Jesus was referred the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the root of David (pertaining to Israel and God’s promise) which pertains to His being the Messiah of Israel, but what happens afterwards...
6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.
John saw a Lamb standing..
Of course Jesus is the Lamb of God Who takes away the Sins of just Israel? The world.
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
The Promise to Israel represents a blessing to the nations
The promise of God always points to a greater blessing!
In my last exhortation I took from Isaiah...
6 he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
The fact is the greatest blessing of salvation is that all people groups will be represented in this Great Multitude from every nation, tribes and peoples and languages.
Now, how do we see this reality?
We can look at this as? Our response can be...
1. Self-serving or Self-projecting.
Will I be among the multitudes? Or self-projecting, I see myself as among the ones representing my people group.
2. Nationalistic.
We have to preserve our identity because the Bible says our nation and our language will be among those who will be in heaven. This is absurd but this is why some Christians make it their mission to just minister to their own people group and not reach out outside their people or culture.
What they do not understand is that although the origins of these people were mentioned, they will be worshipping under one banner and one citizenship. In fact they will be singing one song in one language.
9 “For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord.
A reversal of the tower of Babel!
3. Missional.
This point of view does not look at the great multitude from a purely personal or nationalistic but from a missional one.
There are still around 500 people groups that remain to be unreached.
The good news is: They will be part of that Great Multitude of the redeemed someday. Since the word said the great multitude will come from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.
The challenge is: Who is reaching them for Christ?
This is the mission of the Global Church.
And we live in exciting times, through the Coronavirus Pandemic, God is unsettling the church out of its comfort zone.
Like He allowed through the persecution in Jerusalem that took the Gospel to Judea and Samaria.
Like he allowed through the Macedonian call in Acts 16, which took the Gospel to other parts of Asia and introduced it to Europe.
He is using this pandemic to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Let us pray that once the restrictions for travel is lifted that many will brave the new frontiers and claim what remains of these nations, tribes and peoples.
14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.