The Sealed of God - Revelation 7 Part 1

Revelation 7 Part 1 The Sealed of God

Let’s just say that I told you that a storm was going to roll through our area in a few days and it will be the worst storm in history? Every tree will either be blown over or all the leaves will be stripped from it, there will be flooding and there will not be a single structure without damage in a 4 county area. What would be the first thing you would want to know? I’ll just tell you what that is instead of waiting for an answer. You would want to know that you and your family would be ok. That is really all you want to know. What we will see today in Revelation 7 is that John is preempting the question. He is giving us the answer before we even ask. We are not however talking about a storm that will come and go; we are talking about the judgment and wrath of God. Will you be ok, will I be ok, and who will be ok? Let’s pray.

Last week we looked at the opening of the first 6 of 7 seals. We talked about these not being successive events but a picture of life in this world that believers are living in. 1st Seal-Military conquest. 2nd Seal-warfare, rumors of war, murder, the total lack of peace. 3rd Seal-want in the face of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, injustice, hunger and deprivation. 4th Seal-Because of military conquest, murder, man’s inhumanity to man, hunger, and want people die and sometimes in great numbers. 5th Seal-There are believers who are martyred today and that will continue. 6th Seal-Natural disasters have and will occur and the people of the earth (the lost) will blame God and accuse Him of injustice. They will turn to anything other than to the Lamb in repentance. All of this has been happening between the times Jesus came to redeem His people and when He returns to judge the people in the earth, the lost. That was the message of Revelation 6 and it leads right into our passage this morning.

Before we read our passage let me go ahead and say this; we are going to read all of Revelation 7 but we are only going to make it through the first 8 verses. I guess you could call this part 1 of chapter 7; the sealing of God’s people. Revelation 7:1-17 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. 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, 3 saying, “Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.” 4 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:5of the tribe of Judah twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand were sealed; 6of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand were sealed; 7of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand were sealed; 8of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand were sealed. 9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying: “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and honor and power and might, Be to our God forever and ever. Amen.” 13 Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?” 14 And I said to him, “Sir, you know.” So he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them. 16 They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; 17 for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”[1]

All the trials and tribulations have been going on since Jesus first came but look at what John gets a look at in this passage. John sees four angels on the four corners of the earth holding back the winds of God’s judgment so that it does not destroy the earth. The reason I said that about the winds being representative of God’s final judgment is because of we read in Jeremiah 4:11-12 At that time it will be said To this people and to Jerusalem, “A dry wind of the desolate heights blows in the wilderness toward the daughter of My people not to fan or to cleanse—12A wind too strong for these will come for Me; Now I will also speak judgment against them.”[2] The people of John’s time would have understood the destructive nature of the wind just as people in Kansas and Texas know the destructive nature of a tornado. Now I don’t know if there are actually 4 angels holding back the final judgment of God but consider this for a moment. As much destruction as we have seen throughout history and we see today in wars, murders, riots, hunger, disease, natural disaster…how much worse would you think it to be if God’s grace and mercy were removed and His full wrath was on display? As we noted last week; it is God who sets the limits on war, destruction, illness…But one day He will remove His grace and mercy and His judgment will be released. Every moment on the earth is made to serve the redeeming purpose of God for mankind. But why is His final judgment not being released now or already? If God’s judgment is coming then why hold it back? The fifth angel in verse 2 has the answer for us: Because all of the ransomed of God through Christ has not yet been sealed. This angel appears and makes the announcement that God’s judgment cannot be released until all the servants of God have been sealed with God’s seal on his forehead. My opinion is that this is not a literal seal but a spiritual one and the fact that it is on the forehead gives the impression that it is obvious who is the sealed of God. Let me ask: What is God’s seal on His people? 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 21 Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, 22 who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.[3] Ephesians 1:13-14 13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.[4] I could go further but clearly the seal of God in the believer is the Holy Spirit who dwells in every believer. Back in 1982 someone poisoned some bottles of Tylenol. Since then almost any bottle of anything has a tamper proof seal on it. It prevents contamination and ruin. The Holy Spirit has been given as our seal which cannot be broken and nothing can spoil or ruin us. The seal of the Holy Spirit in us declares us to be God’s spiritually unalterable and spiritually indestructible possession and it will be and is evident in the lives of those who are His having His seal.

Believe it or not that was the easiest part of this passage. Next comes one of the most controversial sections of Revelation (as if all of it is not controversial). Let me read verse 4 to you again: 4 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: From there the angel goes on to declare 12,000 from 12 tribes of Israel would be sealed and gives a list of 12 tribes with 12,000 each which I’ll not be reading again. There are some strange things about this list though. First there is the omission of the tribes of Dan and Ephraim. There is also the inclusion of the tribe of Joseph which according to Exodus and the rest of the OT includes Manasseh and Ephraim but not a tribe of Joseph. Also in the OT lists Levi is not mentioned most of the time because they did not receive an inheritance of land because they received the priesthood. But they are mentioned here. Finally the order of the list is strange. In the OT lists Reuben, the first born is listed first but here it is Judah listed first. I read 7 different scholar’s commentaries, I don’t know how many articles, I read 3 sermons and watched a video or two and no one could really explain the oddities in the list. Dan possibly because of that tribe’s love of idolatry and some believe one of the beasts from Revelation 13 will come from that tribe. The order was somewhat explained by the fact that Christ came from the tribe of Judah. But those are the only explanations for the strangeness of this list and at this point I have no answers either. There you have it; I don’t know (do you have any idea how hard it is for me to say that?).

Now there are two more questions this part of the passage brings to us. Is the number literal or figurative and who are the 144,000 sealed? Let’s tackle the number first. 144,000 is 122 x 103. Folks who are into numbers in the Bible say that 12 is the number of completion and 10 is the perfect number. I don’t hold much to numerology but if that is the case then the number 144,000 could represent the perfectly complete compliment of the people of God, “all of the servants of God”. I will tell you that I am in that stream of thought. Most of the time when 1000 or more is used it is representative of a vast number. When the psalmist said that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills he is not saying that hill 1001 has someone else’s cattle. It is proclaiming that God owns all the creatures of the field and all the cattle on all the hills. This 144,000 who are to be sealed before the final judgment of God is to be released on the earth is inclusive not restrictive. I believe that the number 144,000 represents not just 144,000 but the complete number of those to be sealed before the full judgment of God is released. The present sealing of God’s servants protects them from yet-to-be-seen final judgments. This supports the view of chapter 6 that none of the events described there (conquest, warfare, famine, death, nature in upheaval) are in fact final end-time judgments. Land and sea will be harmed by God’s judgment winds, but the sealed servants will not be so harmed, implying that humans not sealed with God’s mark will be hurt by the divine judgments. This is consistent with the teaching of Scripture as a whole: God’s people go through the trials caused by “the world, the flesh, and the devil” (thus there are many martyrs), but they are spared the experience of God’s wrath because of Christ.[5] This is seen very clearly in Exodus when the children of Israel were in Egypt during the plagues, some of the plagues affected them but none of them to the point of death. When God’s wrath on the people of Egypt and her gods became experiences leading to death it did not affect the people of Israel. And when His final wrath was poured out on the first born of Egypt God provided a covering, the blood of a lamb over the door and on the doorposts. Israel experienced the trials but not the wrath of God. The sealed of God will experience trials between the times Jesus came to redeem His people and when He returns to judge the people of the earth in final judgment but the sealed will not experience His wrath.

But who are all of those (144,000) sealed by God? Let’s read verses 3-4 because I think we find our answer in verse 3: 3 saying, “Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.” 4 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:The precise number of 144,000 representing “all” gives the impression that God knows and has determined the exact number of those sealed. Since the number is representative of all those sealed and God knows the exact number (and the exact individuals for that matter) then we need to determine who the “all” consists of. Some believe that this is all of the Jews and only the Jews that will be saved in the last generation before the final judgment of God is released; and it could be. But let me tell you why I don’t think so. In verse 3 the fifth angel made the statement that the servants of God would be sealed. If this is only the Jews then there would be no Gentiles sealed in that last generation. We also see in verse 9 that there are those standing before the throne and the Lamb that are from all nations, tribes, peoples and tongues and in verse 14 we see that this multitude that cannot be counted are those who come out of the great tribulation. That is why I do not believe that these are strictly ethnic Jews. So then who are they? They are the servants of our God according to the angel. And who is the servant of God other than the Israel of God which is the church, the redeemed of God through Christ. Romans 2:28-29 28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; 29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.[6] The church is as Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9-10 9 … a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.[7] The servants of God who are sealed before the final winds of God’s judgment is unleashed are the redeemed of God, the church.

What have we seen this morning? God is restraining His final judgment on the earth until all the servants of God in the last generation before Christ comes to judge the earth have been sealed. The four angels are “holding back the winds of God’s judgment”. Before God’s wrath is unleashed the exact number of His elect will be sealed. The seal will declare them to be the unalterable, indestructible people of God, His own special people. They will experience trials and tribulations just like the Children of Israel in Egypt but they will not experience the wrath of God.

The hard part of preaching through Revelation is that first, there are things I have to say “I don’t know” about. But there is also the possibility that I could be wrong. If I am wrong, I am honestly wrong, it is not from a lack of seeking to understand. In other words I could be wrong about the number 144,000 being representative of the whole and complete number of those who are redeemed. And I could be wrong about who the 144,000 represent. But there are some things that I know I am not wrong about. First: God’s judgment is sure. We have not experienced His final judgment but it is coming. Every moment on earth is made to serve the redeeming purpose of God for mankind. Second: You are not just a number to God. He knows who are His and He knows them intimately. 2 Timothy 2:19 Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: “The Lord knows those who are His,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”[8] Third: Those who are His are sealed and are the unalterable, indestructible, uncontaminated people of God. As the author of Hebrew put it “we are saved to the uttermost”. Fourth: Those who are the sealed of God are changed and it is obvious to the world. Finally fifth: God’s servants will experience trial and tribulations that come with a fallen world experiencing the judgment of God but they will not experience the wrath of God.

We may or may not be the last generation before God’s final judgment on the people of the world. So our responsibility as the sealed servants of God is to proclaim His grace and mercy that will deliver those who believe from the judgment and final wrath to come. Let’s pray.

[1] The New King James Version. (1982). (Re 7:1–17). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

[2] The New King James Version. (1982). (Je 4:11–12). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

[3] The New King James Version. (1982). (2 Co 1:21–22). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

[4] The New King James Version. (1982). (Eph 1:13–14). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

[5] Easley, K. H. (1998). Revelation (Vol. 12, p. 125). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

[6] The New King James Version. (1982). (Ro 2:28–29). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

[7] The New King James Version. (1982). (1 Pe 2:9–10). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

[8] The New King James Version. (1982). (2 Ti 2:19). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.