God Seals and Protects His People - Revelation 7:1-3

We're in Revelation chapter 6, moving into chapter 7.

Revelation 6 · chapter mention

And who can tell me what we just got done covering the past few weeks?

The Seals.

Alright, so we've been in the six seals and we said that the sixth seal marks the what?

Yes.

So the sixth of anything, whether it's a seal, a trumpet, or a bowl, it marks the end of human

history.

There we go.

Just how to make sure I was on.

Alright, so the sixth seal, it marks the end.

And if you just go back to that last section there, specifically chapter 6, looking at

verse 15 onward, notice when it says that the kings of the earth and the great ones,

and the generals, and the rich, and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, they hid themselves

in the caves.

And among the rocks of the mountain, calling to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and

hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb,

for the great day of their wrath has come and who can stand.

Alright, so we read that section and we talked about how when the end comes, you see this

sevenfold depiction of humanity, meaning God's judgment is all-encompassing, there is no

escaping it.

It is going to fall on the entire world and you see these people who realize the wrath

of God has come and what do they do?

They hide themselves, yeah, right, they hide themselves, they call to the mountains, they

say, fall on us, remember we were saying that they are more terrified of the wrath of God

than they are of death itself.

And so you're reading this section and it seems like every single person on earth without

exception is going to suffer the wrath of God, they're going to have to endure the judgment

of God, that's exactly how it seems, right?

It seems like no one's going to escape it, but then there's this little bracket here

as you start chapter seven in verses one through three, this is what we read.

After this, I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back

the four winds of the earth that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree.

Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, so ascending from the rising

of the sun, where is that?

The east, right?

Anything significant about east in the Bible?

It depends on which direction you're going, right?

So remember we've talked about this ton in here and on the podcast as well.

Yeah, so if you go all the way back to Genesis, anytime people are moving to the east, they're

moving away from God, away from His presence, away from His blessing.

Remember when He put a cherubim in the garden after He kicked out of him an evel, the entrance

was to the east, right?

And then you see when Lot is choosing His land in Genesis, He moves to the east, to

Sodom and Gomorrah.

And then you track all that all throughout the Bible and people are just constantly

moving to the east, away from God, away from His presence, and then that's fulfilled.

Anybody remember how it's fulfilled?

This really cool hot pays off.

So the whole Bible, the Old Testament starts with people going to the east, away from the

presence of God.

How does the New Testament start?

Yeah, you have wise men coming from the east to the presence of God, where they are going

to be there for the birth of Jesus.

And then when Jesus, in his last week on earth, is entering into Jerusalem, he enters from

which direction?

From the east.

Yeah, so bringing that full circle.

He's bringing people back to God.

So east is very significant in the Bible.

Right, so you see this angel ascending from the rising of the sun from the east 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 the

earth and sea, saying, do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed

the servants of our God on their foreheads.

All right, so you have here a picture of God's judgment being poured out in these seals, right?

The winds are a picture of His wrath and His judgment.

And here we see four angels who are holding back the four winds of judgment temporarily.

And so you see that this angel says, hey, don't don't harm the earth.

Don't do anything until we have done something.

What needs to happen?

Yeah, seal his people.

Right, so in the midst of the sixth seal and in the midst of the seven seals in general,

you have another sealing that needs to be done.

None of this judgment, none of this wrath can be poured out upon the earth until God has

sealed his people.

So notice this, the events that we're reading about here, specifically when you begin to

look at the seven seals all throughout chapter six, again, people like to read these chronologically.

But notice how as you start chapter seven is saying, hold on, before any of that happens,

something else has to happen.

So again, this is why you can't just read Revelation chronologically and act like it

moves in a nice, neat little timeline, because that's not what happens.

The Bible is saying here, all right, here are the six seals that need to happen before

the final judgment.

And then you get to chapter seven and it's saying, oh, and by the way, before the six

seals can even be opened and all this stuff take place, we have to seal the people of

God.

Before judgments poured out, God sends his angel to intervene and place his seal upon

his people.

All right, so we need to be sealed and you have an angel who comes down who's going to

seal.

Another question, what does that mean?

What does that mean?

What does it mean for God to seal his people?

Okay, protect.

So all of God's people, they will receive the seal, yes?

This is an easy, easy question, yeah.

Okay, sealed is finished, but let's answer the easy question first.

All of God's people will be sealed, yes?

Yes, yeah, obviously, right, yeah, good.

So all of God's people will be sealed.

Will people who are not God's people, will unbelievers, will they be sealed?

Brian, be a legend of the night, my man.

All right.

Yeah, so anyone who's not a believer, they aren't sealed with the seal of God, but they

receive a mark.

What is that?

Yeah, mark of the beast, right?

What is that?

Yeah, okay, yeah, that's right.

They actually do stand in contrast to each other, right?

So it's not like it's a coincidence that you have all of God's people being sealed and

then everyone else being sealed or marked in another way.

The two are supposed to stand in contrast to each other.

And it's interesting, where are both of these things, the seal and the mark, where are they

placed?

Yeah, right on the forehead.

Now here's my question, Brian, let's see if you can really take home that title, The

Elogen of the Night.

Why the forehead?

Visible.

Visible, okay, interesting.

Okay, let's do this, two questions.

Number one, is this literal?

Will there literally be a mark on the forehead or a seal of some sort on the forehead that

is visible to everybody?

So number one, is it literal?

Okay, Brian says yes.

I like a man who puts his foot down.

There we go, I like it.

Confidence.

Anybody want to go against our resident theologian?

Well, hey, there's a first for everything, brother, it's bound to happen.

Joseph's not here, he can't get it every Wednesday.

We have one yes, it is literal.

Anybody want to say no, it's not literal.

Maybe it's metaphorical, maybe it's symbolic.

Everybody's going to agree with Brian?

We'll get to this, hold on a second, let's just, okay.

Stop reading my notes and let's just go through this, all right.

All right, so let me ask you a question.

Maybe it's literal, maybe it's visible.

If it's not, though, what's the significance of the forehead?

Plain sight, okay.

Anybody else know anything about ancient days, things like that?

Okay, yeah.

So one of the places where they would anoint people with oil would be on the forehead.

Interesting thing about during this time period, first century and a little bit onward and

even before then is that in those days, slave owners, when they had a slave, they would mark

their slave, brand them, and they would typically do it on the forehead.

I thought you'd get that, I thought he was joking at first because he, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, so it was, yeah, definitely that's one of the things they did, but yeah, but

also one of the main places that they would brand them so that everybody would know what

who they belong to, right.

Yeah, there we go, now it's starting to make sense, right?

So maybe it's not literal, but it's metaphorical that all of God's people are going to be known

and people are going to know to whom they belong, God.

And everyone who's not part of God's people, all the unbelievers, they too will be known

and it will be evident to all in the world to whom they belong.

So the mark or the seal on the forehead is just another way of saying it's going to be

evident to whom these people belong.

They have a master and their master is either going to be Jesus or it's going to be the

beast.

And so any idea what the seal is, let's go with Michael now, we're going to take the

title, pass the bell over to Michael, Mr. Read My Notes before, hey, let's go Michael,

go ahead.

Okay, believers, Michael says the seal that's being referred to here, Holy Spirit.

We care to agree or disagree.

Is it true that believers are sealed with the Holy Spirit?

Yes.

Is that what this is referring to?

Yeah, I think so.

All right, yeah, that's right.

So Ephesians 1.13, the Bible says, in him you also, when you heard the word of truth,

the gospel of your salvation and believed in him were sealed with a promised Holy Spirit.

And 2 Corinthians 1.21-22 says, and it is God who establishes us with you in Christ

and has anointed us and who has also put his seal on us and given us his spirit in our

hearts as a guarantee.

And so the Holy Spirit being the seal makes sense here, right?

If you're going to seal believers, the only seal that we hear about in the New Testament

is the Holy Spirit, which actually says a lot about baptism and New Covenant and the

sign of the Covenant, things like that.

We're not going to get into tonight.

We could.

We could have a baptism debate, but we're not going to do that.

Okay?

We're not going to do that.

So if the seal shows ownership and we belong to the Holy Spirit, the seal shows ownership

and who we belong to, the Holy Spirit makes the most sense of the seal because who is

it who produces fruit in our lives?

The Holy Spirit.

You read in the Bible and you read about the fruit of the what?

The fruit of the Spirit.

And when people see these fruit in our lives, what do they know about us?

We're Christians and we belong to God.

And so this is the Bible's way of saying it is going to be evident to everyone who my

people are because they will have my seal upon them.

The seal is the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is the one who produces fruit and makes it

evident.

So this is what this seal is and it's the most definitive way to know someone's truly

a Christian, isn't it?

Because I mean what are other ways people try to stake their claim on their faith?

Or what are some things that people look to for assurance that, yes, I'm a Christian?

For many people it's their baptism, right?

They look back on the baptism and made a decision, built out a card.

For many people it's their church attendance, hey, I was here on a Sunday morning and a

Wednesday, came on a Sunday evening.

You know, I did all these things.

For some people it's their knowledge of Scripture and how many Bible verses they can quote and

all these type of things.

But in the Bible, the clearest evidence that you are a Christian is that you have been

indwelt by the Holy Spirit, that God has placed his seal upon you.

And so that's what's happening here.

God is literally delaying his judgment upon the earth and delaying pouring out the judgment

on the earth.

He's delaying opening the seals until he has actually sealed his people.

And the Holy Spirit is going to serve as a protector and a shield of God's people.

So when you read about the events in the sixth seal that's opened and you see this hellfire

and brimstone and you see the sun is dark and stars are falling and people are running

and they're scared of the wrath of the Lamb, God's people don't have to be afraid in that

time.

That if that sixth seal was opened today and all of those events started happening, you

walk outside and you see that the sun has been darkened and you see stars are falling

and if it's literal and you see all this chaos and destruction and you see mountains start

crumbling and people are running and shouting and it's a terrifying scene but the comfort

for God's people is you don't have to be terrified because you've been sealed by God

himself.

You have a protector, a shield and because you have been sealed with the Holy Spirit,

you're never going to experience God's wrath.

And that's comforting, is it not?

Because when you read the Bible and you see that God is literally storing up his wrath

for the day of judgment and you read in Romans chapter 2 where it talks about how when God

Romans 2 · chapter mention

is even kind to people and he shows forbearance with people and he shows patience with people

who are living in sin, they take his kindness for granted and Paul literally says to them,

do you not know that you're storing up wrath for yourself on the day of judgment?

So think about your life right now, think about every time you sin and how that's just

adding another block of judgment into God's sack that he's eventually just going to pour

out on the whole world and you're thinking if that's true and I really am storing up

judgment for myself and wrath for myself, that's terrifying.

The best news you can hear is that all the wrath that you deserve has already been poured

out on Christ in your place.

If you are a believer in Jesus, you will never, ever experience the wrath of God.

And for anyone who's a great sinner like I've been, that's good news.

Amen.

I mean, that is good news.

When you know that no matter how bad I've been, no matter how sinful I've been, no

matter how many times I've messed up, if I have truly put all of my hope and trust in

Jesus, I'll never experience that wrath because he experienced it for me.

So literally this is the confidence and the hope that believers can have even if the whole

world is disintegrating.

Even if the whole world is literally coming apart at the seams and falling apart, the

believer can just walk through that chaos with confidence knowing God's going to protect

his people.

That if this is happening, it means the Lamb is about to return and he is going to call

us up to meet him in the sky and we're going to get to escort him back to earth and he

is going to come back as a king re-entering his kingdom and it's going to be beautiful.

That's all because we've been sealed by the Holy Spirit.

Now that doesn't mean, as you know, it doesn't mean that Christians are never going to experience

hardship or persecution, right?

This is saying that we're safe from God's wrath.

It is not saying that we are safe from persecution in this world.

It is not saying that God is going to make sure you have a nice, happy, easy life.

Read the Bible.

That doesn't happen for a lot of Christians.

Every church history, that doesn't happen for a lot of Christians.

This is not saying God is going to protect you because you know that's what some people

do with these verses, right?

The prosperity preachers, they love to get up here and they say, okay, God's people

have been sealed by the Holy Spirit so therefore God's never going to let anything happen to

you.

The reason you're sick, the reason I'm sick right now, I just don't have enough faith.

I need to just have more faith and pray it out.

I need to give a donation to a church and then God's going to multiply that blessing because

I sowed that seed of faith because God has sealed his people and he doesn't want anything

bad to happen to you.

That is garbage.

That's heretical garbage.

You mean to tell me that as Peter was walking to a cross where he was going to be crucified,

that Paul could have come up beside him and said, brother, if only you had more faith.

You know God wouldn't let this happen to you if you had more faith?

As Paul was about to be beheaded by Nero, you think any one of the other Christians would

have just been standing on the sidelines saying, Paul, why don't you have more faith?

Don't you know this wouldn't be happening if you had more faith?

I mean, think about who was literally writing these words.

It was John.

They boiled him alive.

He still didn't die, but they boiled him alive.

Do you think he was thinking himself in that moment, man?

I know God sealed me with his spirit, but if only I had more faith, this wouldn't be happening.

No, it's obviously not true.

Yeah, all of them except for John died a martyr's death.

He didn't end pretty for any of the disciples and literally pretty much any other major

Christian throughout all of church history.

The whole point is this.

The comfort that God has given us here is that we will never have to endure his wrath.

We will never have to endure hell.

We will never have to endure that eternal death and that separation from the presence

of God's blessing and his love, but it's not saying that your life is going to be easy

if you're a Christian.

It's not saying that God's going to keep all the bad stuff from happening.

I mean, if that were true, both my grandparents wouldn't be slowly dying of cancer right now.

Okay?

We live in a fallen world.

Bad stuff's going to happen.

This world is riddled with sin and what we need is for Jesus to return and make all things

right, which is why the whole book of Revelation literally ends.

Come Lord Jesus, come quickly.

That is the prayer of the Christian God.

We see how messed up this world is.

We see how sin is destroying humanity and morals and everything else.

Come fix it.

Bring it to a right place and do it quickly.

And so yes, as a Christian, you're going to end your hardships.

You're going to end your persecution.

It could be like me and get sick every other week, which is super fun.

I didn't sign up for that.

I don't remember being this sick before I was a Christian.

Bad stuff is going to happen, but the good news is when that day comes and we do have

to stand at the judgment throne because, listen, I'm saying that you're safe from the wrath

of God.

That doesn't mean you're not going to have to stand before the judgment of God.

Every person who's ever lived and will ever live will have to do that.

But it means the great hope that you have is that as you walk to that judgment, you have

confidence.

You have assurance.

Other people, they'll walk up to the throne of God, they'll be shaking, so scared they

can't even move probably.

I mean, angels might have to drag them there.

Terrified, because they know that they didn't believe the gospel.

They rejected Jesus.

They realized that God actually is real.

They know what's coming next and they're terrified.

But as the Christian approaches the throne of God, the Bible tells us in Hebrews that

we can do so boldly and with confidence.

It's not because as we're walking, we're thinking, man, I'm glad that I lived a good

life.

I'm glad that I didn't do that sin stuff that all these other people struggle with.

I'm glad that I made sure to go to church and do this.

I'm glad that I cleaned up my behavior and I only listened to his radio.

The only thing we're going to be thinking about in that moment as we walk to the throne

of God is thank you, Lord, that I know Jesus.

Thank you, God, that I trusted that when Jesus died in my place, His sacrifice was sufficient

to pay the penalty for my sins.

So I know there's no more wrath there.

I know there's nothing waiting for me there, but God's love and approval and acceptance,

again, not because I've lived a great life, but because Jesus died for me and I have

trusted in Him.

So that's the hope that we have here.

God will protect His people.

So even when you read the end of Revelation 6 and you see all this world falling apart

and it's terrifying and it's a brutal scene and it looks like no one's going to escape,

it reminds us as we go into chapter 7 and see just those first three verses, it reminds

us that Christians have hope and Christians have confidence because we have been sealed

with God's own Holy Spirit.

So that's as far as we're going to get tonight.

And in two weeks, we're going to get to one of my favorite sections in all of Revelation,

the seven seals.

Y'all know I have a big thing about lists in the Bible and genealogies and things like

that and things that we just read over, right?

Don't lie to me, you're open up to Revelation 7.

Now look at that list.

You look at that, if you're reading the Bible, what do you do, folks?

You just skip right over.

You're like a bunch of numbers, bunch of names, right?

This list is amazing, okay?

We are literally the next time I'm here in two weeks, we are going to spend the entire

time just looking at that list and I want to show you how amazing it is and why you

shouldn't skip over it.

So I know you might be thinking, oh, I don't want to hear a bunch of names and numbers,

but come anyways, okay?

Because it's really awesome.

I promise you that, all right?

Michael.