The 144,000 and the Multitude - Revelation 7
The 144 Thou, and the Multitude in Heaven Worship God!
Intro:
Point #1: The Four Angels at the Four Corners of the Earth are About to Be Unleashed for Judgement!
The question naturally arises—and indeed is asked in the closing verse of chapter 6—whether anyone will be spared the effects of these judgments when they fall. Thus before any wind of disaster can blow across the land, we see that God has identified his faithful ones and set them apart for a separate fate.
Jerusalem twice fell to invaders because of God’s judgment upon them: first, in 586 B.C., to the Babylonians; and second, in A.D. 70, to the Romans. Prior to the conquest in 586 B.C., God took care to identify His own and to separate them for safety during the holocaust. This fact was symbolically portrayed to Ezekiel in a vision of an angel marking God’s faithful with an ink mark on their foreheads. Following this marking, six angels with deadly weapons were dispatched against Jerusalem to slaughter its inhabitants (Ezekiel 9).
Here a similar vision is given to John prior to the second destruction of Jerusalem in his own day. This time, before the four winds (v. 1) are unleashed upon Israel, God’s servants are sealed on their foreheads for their preservation. The last words in chapter 6 were: “The great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (Compare the similar question and context of Mal. 3:2).
One distinctive of many dispensationalists is their unashamedly literal interpretation of the four winds, the four angels, and the four corners of the earth (v. 1), though Henry Morris points out that the latter expression is better translated “four quarters of the earth” (cf. 20:8). To those who take this literal approach, this passage offers evidence of the angels being in control of the natural elements (e.g., the winds). The mission of these four angels is “to prevent an outbreak of the fury of the elements. Very soon such an outbreak will occur … The purpose of the suspension is that a certain group may be sealed” (Ryrie).
Point #2: Many Jews Who Turn to Jesus and are Martyred During the Tribulation are Saved!
God always has had a remnant in Israel who are faithful despite widespread apostasy. God knows their number. He told Elijah of 7,000 who had not bowed the knee to Baal. Since Jesus came, the only Jews remaining faithful to the God of Israel were that remnant who recognized Jesus as the Messiah.
The normative view among evangelical preterists is that this 144,000 is a symbolic number representing the full number of Jewish Christians who escaped the doomed city before its destruction.
During the Great Tribulation, a godly remnant of 144,000 Jewish people will be sealed (v. 4) for protection from the later plagues (cf. 9:4).
That these are physical Israelites (not to be confused with the church, as in the historicist and spiritual approaches) is underscored by the division of the group into twelve tribes.
Point #3: There Are Two Ways to Get to Heaven, By Following Jesus and By Responding to God’s Creative Glory!
Having shown John the Jewish saints who would escape the Tribulation of a.d. 70, the Lord now shows him the great throng of Gentiles who will be saved as a result of God’s disowning His rebellious wife and children and seeking a new family (cf. Hos. 1:10; 2:23, and their applications in Rom. 9:24ff and 1 Pet. 2:9f). This is also spoken of in Isaiah 49:20–22. These ones come out (literally, “are coming out”) of the great tribulation (v. 14) in the sense that their inclusion in God’s kingdom resulted from that event, at which time Judaism came to a formal end and the universal gospel was proclaimed to all nations (cf. Matt. 22:7–9).
According to the dispensational view, in addition to the salvation of the Jewish remnant (the 144,000), an even greater number of Gentiles will be brought to Christ by their testimony during the Tribulation. The palm-bearing company is identified with that multitude of Gentiles who come to faith in Christ and often must endure martyrdom for the stand they take.
Not all futurists are dispensationalists, however, and some understand this palm-bearing company to be “the church after the tribulation is over, saved in the Kingdom of God, presumed martyred” (Ladd), and representing the “eternal blessedness of all believers when in the presence of God they realize the rewards of faithful endurance” (Mounce).