Christmas in Revelation: Salvation Belongs to the Lamb

It's so great to be with you guys for Christmas Eve.

A lot of people are traveling in our church

because we have a very young church.

I think maybe 10 years or so,

more people will be traveling back here

because you guys will have maybe families and roots here.

But for now, a lot of people travel for Christmas.

Today is the last day of Advent,

and tomorrow is Christmas, as you know.

And Advent means arrival or coming.

It's a season in the church's calendar

where we remember the first coming of Jesus

to redeem his people

and also anticipate the second coming of Jesus

to consummate the kingdom of God

and bring his final judgment.

So it's appropriate that we're in Revelation 7 this morning.

We've been in the book of Revelation for the last couple months,

and this passage looks back at the redemption of Christ

that accomplishes the first coming,

but also looks ahead to the final judgment

and the vindication of God's people.

So if you have your Bibles,

please turn with me to Revelation 7.

If you don't have a Bible, please raise your hand.

We'd love to give you a copy that you could have

and you could use while you're here.

We pray for the reading and preaching of God's word.

Father, it's a privilege once again to stand in your presence,

to be able to worship you

as members of a local church together,

but also as members of the numberless strong

throughout the ages and all over the world

who belong to you and worship you.

Impress upon us this morning that great privilege

and remind us again of the great love that you showed us

in sending Jesus to die as the sacrificial lamb

so that we might be washed clean by his blood.

build us up as your people,

as your body, as your church,

we ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.

If you are able, please stand for the reading of God's word

from Revelation 7.

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

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,

saying,

Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees

until we have sealed the servants of our God

on their foreheads.

And I heard the number of the sealed,

144,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel.

12,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed.

12,000 from the tribe of Reuben.

12,000 from the tribe of Gad.

12,000 from the tribe of Asher.

12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali.

12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh.

12,000 from the tribe of Simeon.

12,000 from the tribe of Levi.

12,000 from the tribe of Issachar.

12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun.

12,000 from the tribe of Joseph.

12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed.

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, and crying out with a loud voice,

Salvation belongs 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 worshipped God, saying, Amen.

Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, Who are these?

These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.

They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

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 shelter them with His presence.

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more.

The sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat,

for the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd.

And He will guide them to springs of living water,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

This is God's holy and authoritative word.

You may be seated.

Last week, Revelation 6 ended with John's prophetic vision of God's end time judgment,

and that which began,

inhabitants of the earth, both the great and the small, the kings and the rulers,

all of them hiding from the Lord and His judgment,

because the great day of the wrath has come, of His wrath has come.

And they asked this haunting question at the end of that chapter.

Who can stand?

In the face of the wrath of God, who can stand?

When the holy, holy, holy God brings His judgment to bear upon a sinful world,

who can stand?

And that's a question that reverberates throughout the Old Testament.

Psalm 130, verse 3 asks,

Psalms 130:3

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities.

O Lord, who could stand?

Nahum chapter 1, verse 6 says,

Nahum 1:6

Who can stand before His indignation?

Who can endure the heat of His anger?

Sometimes people think that the second coming of Jesus will be similar to the Santa Claus coming to town.

He's making a list and checking it twice.

Gotta find out who's naughty and nice.

The nice ones will get prizes, and the naughty ones will get none.

The difference is that while it's possible to be nice enough to meet Santa's fictional standards,

it is not possible to meet God's real, perfect standards.

No creature, it says in Hebrews 4.13, is hidden from God's sight.

But all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

How would you like being utterly naked and exposed before the all-seeing eyes of God?

It's a terrifying prospect.

The things that you browse on the internet with the incognito window.

The things that you mutter under your breath when no one is listening.

The things that you do in secret when no one else is watching.

Even the hidden thoughts of your mind.

They're all out in the open to the all-seeing eyes of God.

That's why the psalmist despairs in Psalm 130, verse 3.

Psalms 130:3

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who can stand?

No one can stand.

But thankfully, it's followed by verse 4, which says,

But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared.

If God should mark our iniquities, none of us could stand in the presence of God.

But it's because there is forgiveness in God through Jesus Christ that we can have hope.

That's the main point of this chapter in Revelation 7.

It answers that question posed at the end of Revelation 6.

Who can stand?

And it answers that by saying that we can stand before the throne of God and before the Lamb

because we have been sealed by God and because we have washed our robes in the blood of the Lamb.

This passage describes the people of God in glorious terms.

First, it tells us that we are sealed in verses 1 to 8

and that we are standing before God's presence in verses 9 to 14.

And finally, that we are sheltered and shepherded by God himself in verses 15 to 17.

We'll look at those things in turn.

First, the people of God are those who are sealed.

John begins in verse 1.

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.

So when you see words like after this in Revelation,

you shouldn't think time and like chronological sequence.

Rather, you should just think of it as different scenes and different visions

like you would see in a movie or in a book that you're reading,

which can jump from different time and place to give you different angles or perspectives on what's happening.

And so this is not chronologically after what happened in chapter 6.

There's a repetition of the number 4,

and the numbers are very significant in this book because they have symbolic import.

And the number 4 consistently represents universality.

And so four corners then are referenced to the entire earth.

It encompasses the north, the south, and the east, and the west.

All four directions of the compass.

And then the four angels then standing at the four corners of the earth

are those who have rule and superintendence over the earth.

And they are holding back the four winds of the earth so that they don't blow against and harm the earth

or the sea or the trees until the servants of God are sealed on their foreheads.

Later in Revelation chapter 8, we'll see the first two trumpets blown of judgments,

Revelation 8 · chapter mention

God's judgments, and they will affect precisely those things,

the earth, the trees, and the seas.

And so this angel is saying you need to hold back until the people of God have been sealed.

And that means the sealing here takes place before the judgments of God.

And that means this sealing also takes place before the judgments we read about in chapter 6

because these judgments are cyclical and not sequential.

The four angels who have control over the four winds of the earth

likely parallel the four horsemen of divine judgment we saw in chapter 6.

The four horsemen in Revelation 6 represent conquest, war, famine, and death.

And they're patterned after the four horsemen of the apocalypse we see in Zechariah 6, 1 to 8.

And interestingly enough, in that original context in Zechariah 6,

the four horsemen are described as going out to the four winds of heaven.

So four horsemen and four winds mentioned here in this chapter,

so they're parallel.

So likely the four angels here are parallel to the four horsemen we saw in chapter 6.

But before that, those judgments are unleashed.

The servants of God are sealed on their foreheads with the seal of the living God.

What is this seal?

A seal serves two primary purposes.

One is identity, and two is security.

It serves to identify something as one's own, to indicate possession and ownership.

When a king takes a document and then impresses his seal upon it,

it becomes a royal decree that carries his authority wherever it goes.

It belongs to him.

When we put our own signatures on a check or a contract,

we're taking ownership of that and saying,

that belongs to me.

I stand by this.

A seal also serves to secure something, to close it off,

like when we seal an envelope so that its contents do not fall out,

or when the bank seals off a vault to keep it safe from robbers.

So the seal of the living God in this passage serves both of these functions.

The idea of the seal on the forehead comes from Ezekiel 9,

where God commands an angel to put a mark on the foreheads of people

who have not participated in the idolatry of the Israelites.

And so they are sealed as God's own,

and they are protected when the angel of judgment passes through

and strikes down the idolatrous people.

This is in Ezekiel 9.

And Ezekiel 9 passage, in turn, is alluding back to Exodus 12,

during the Passover, when God's people are marked or sealed on their doorposts

with the blood of the lamb,

and the angel of death, again, passes over them,

and instead goes and strikes down the idolatrous Egyptians.

We're given more details about this seal later on in chapter 14, verse 1,

and chapter 22, verse 4,

where we're told that the 144,000 had the lamb's name

and his father's name written on their foreheads.

So God is putting his name upon his people,

indicating ownership and possession,

as it was a common practice back in the day in the ancient world

for slaves to be marked on their foreheads

to indicate to whom they belong.

And so this is confirmed by the fact that these people,

the 144,000 are called the servants of God in verse 3.

So there's, as God's servants,

they're being marked out on their foreheads as belonging to him

with the name of God and the name of the lamb.

They're the ones who have been purchased or redeemed by God.

This is later imitated by Satan and his beast.

In Revelation 13, 17,

the beast also puts his own mark on his followers,

the idolaters.

And that mark is called the name of the beast

or the number of its name.

And so it's a counterfeit seal that the devil uses.

So everyone who belongs to Jesus,

the lamb of God,

has his name on his forehead,

and everyone else has the name of the beast on their forehead.

There is no middle ground.

There's no one in Revelation

that has no seal of any kind on their foreheads.

As Jesus said in Matthew 12, 30,

whoever is not with me is against me,

and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

If you abstain from making a decision,

if you withhold judgment,

that means you are not following Jesus Christ

as your Lord and Savior.

And that is a decision you have made

and a choice that you have made.

And there is no neutral ground in this cosmic battle

between the lamb and the dragon.

Whose side are you on?

If you have repented of your sins

and trust in Jesus for salvation,

if you have pledged your allegiance to Jesus,

then you have been sealed

with the name of God on your forehead.

It's not a literal mark.

As you can see,

I don't have a mark on my forehead.

Neither do you.

And Christians don't have physical marks.

Rather, this is a spiritual seal.

And other parts of scripture confirm that.

Ephesians 1, 13 to 14 says this,

when we heard the word of truth,

the gospel of our salvation,

and believed in Jesus,

we were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,

who is the guarantee of our inheritance

until God redeems his possession.

The Holy Spirit is the seal of God upon our souls

that bears witness to our spirit

that we are children of God,

that we belong to him.

I like to tell the story when I speak of this.

In Toy Story 3,

when 17-year-old Andy is about to leave for college,

he puts his toys in a trash bag

in hopes that he will,

he's planning to bring it up to the attic

so that he can keep it in storage

and get back to it until it finds a better home

or whatnot.

But because it's in a trash bag,

his mom thinks that it's trash

that he forgot to take out,

and so she grabs it

and then throws it out

and puts it in a garbage pickup truck.

And the toys are dejected

because they think that Andy threw them out.

They're like,

Andy doesn't want us anymore.

He's too old.

And so they escape,

seeking,

trying to find a new home

where they can be loved by other children.

And they don't know

that they weren't meant to be thrown out,

and only toy that knows this is Woody,

who was left out of the trash bag,

and Woody saw everything that happened.

And so Woody tracks these toys down,

and these toys are despondent.

They don't want to go back to Andy.

They're like,

Andy doesn't want us.

And at that point,

Woody tells them,

hey, look under your bus.

Look, Jesse, you too.

Whose name is written there?

He's trying to remind the other toys.

You're not a castaway toy.

You're not a piece of trash.

You have an owner

who cherishes you and loves you

and owns you and wants you.

We have to go back to him.

That's what the Holy Spirit does for us.

When we believe in the goodness of Jesus Christ,

God seals us with his spirit,

and his spirit declares to our spirit,

mine, my child, my son, and my daughter.

Fear not, for I have redeemed you.

I have called you by name,

and you are mine.

Fear not, for I am with you,

everyone who is called by my name.

And that seal of God is unbreakable.

It's unerasable.

It's uncancellable.

That's why the Holy Spirit is called our guarantee.

That's in the passage I cited earlier,

Ephesians 1.

That word guarantee literally means down payment.

It refers to a deposit that you make,

a down payment that you pay

to get legal claim over something,

and to guarantee that the rest of the payment is coming.

So the fact that we have the Holy Spirit now

guarantees that the rest of our heavenly inheritance

is surely coming.

Amen.

In this way, the Holy Spirit not only identifies us

as God's own,

he also secures us with himself as a divine seal.

But in the same way that the seal is not a physical seal,

but a spiritual seal,

the protection, the security that the seal brings

is not a physical one, but a spiritual one.

We know this because in Revelation 6,

we saw that many Christians are ordained to be killed

on earth by the enemies of God to die as martyrs.

We know this because later in Revelation 13, 7,

Satan's beast is allowed to make war on the saints

and to conquer them.

That means Christians die while we bear witness to Jesus.

That means Christians get killed because we say,

no, I will not take on the mark of the beast

because I am sealed with the mark of the living God.

So we are not given physical protection,

but he does promise here invincible spiritual protection.

That God will, by his power, protect and preserve us

in saving faith until the end.

This is a very important doctrine

that I think many of us need to be reminded of.

The scripture does teach, on the one hand,

the perseverance of the saints,

which is an important and biblical doctrine

that emphasizes the need for God's people

to persevere and endure in faith and obedience

till the end.

All those of us who truly belong to God

will persevere till the end,

but it requires hard work and requires effort.

And we're reminded over and over again

throughout Revelation 2 and 3

that we have to conquer by faithfully following Jesus

and living in patient endurance

and through suffering and tribulations,

and then we must hold fast to Christ's name

and not deny him his faith.

And we have to be faithful even unto death.

Yes, we have to persevere on the one hand.

But on the other hand,

scripture also teaches us of the preservation of the saints,

which emphasizes that God will preserve his own people

with his power until the end.

In Romans 8, 29 to 30,

we see a glorious chain of salvation.

Those whom God foreknew,

he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

You know that he might be the firstborn,

he might be firstborn among the many brothers.

And those whom he predestined,

he also called,

and those whom he called,

he also justified,

and those whom he justified,

he also glorified.

From electing for knowledge to predestination,

from predestination to effectual calling,

from calling to justification,

and justification to glorification,

there is no broken link

in that glorious chain of God's salvation.

Salvation belongs to the Lord

from the beginning to the end.

Jesus says of all those whom he saves

in John 6, 37 to 39,

all that the Father gives me

will come to me,

and whoever comes to me

I will never cast out.

For I have come down from heaven

not to do my own will,

but the will of him who sent me,

and this is the will of him who sent me,

that I should lose nothing,

no one of all that he has given me,

but raise them up on the last day.

Note the unbroken sequence of events once again.

God the Father gives to the Son,

and all that God the Father gives to the Son

come to the Son without fail,

and all those who come to the Son without fail

will be preserved without fail

till the resurrection,

because Jesus loses none,

nothing of those who have been given to him.

That's why he says in John 10, 28,

I give them eternal life,

and they will never perish,

and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

Who dares,

who dares to try to pry open

the mighty hand

of the conquering line of Judah,

in which the saints of God securely rest?

The New Testament epistles

are filled with assurances like this,

that God will sustain us till the end.

He will keep us till the end.

He will guard us through faith until the end.

He will keep us from the tribulation

that we face in this world.

I'm going to have to digress for a little bit,

and this part might be a little bit

harder to follow,

so I ask you to focus with me,

because it's just in the text,

I have to explain it,

because I've been taking for granted

up to this point

that the 144,000 represent all of God's people,

but that's a debated point,

so I'm going to prove that to you

over the next few minutes.

So for example,

Jehovah's Witnesses say

that there's a literal 144,000

of special anointed class of believers

who will reign with Christ

in his heavenly kingdom,

while the rest of the believers

will just get to be a part

of the restored paradise on earth.

Mormons contend

that the 144,000 sealed believers

refer only to the Mormon high priests,

and not to all believers,

but all of these misrepresent the truth,

and these are one of the many reasons

why they're not considered

to be in the mainstream of Christianity,

that are considered cults or outliers.

It's because all of these misrepresent the truth.

The 144,000 are not some special class

of elite Christians.

How do we know this?

They're called servants of God,

in verse three.

That expression occurs many times

throughout the book of Revelation,

and it never exclusively refers

to an elite group of Christians.

Rather, it says in Revelation 11, 18,

and 19, 5,

it defines the servants of God

as all those who fear God's name,

both small and great.

So it's not an elite group of people.

It includes the small and great.

And some Christians also argue

that 144,000 represent either a literal

or figurative number of ethnic Jews

who are a physical descendants of Jacob.

They think this because it says in verse four

that the 144,000 are sealed

from every tribe of the sons of Israel,

which is a reasonable inference.

But I still don't think it's a reference

to ethnic Jews or to the nation of Israel

for several reasons.

Reason number one is that already twice

in this book,

in chapter two, verse nine,

in chapter three, verse seven,

Jesus has denounced those

who say that they are Jews,

but are not,

but are a synagogue of Satan.

So we have been told in Revelation

that it's not Jews

who are ethnically Jews

who are true Jews,

but those who have faith in Jesus

who are the true Jews.

As Paul says in Romans 2, 27, 28,

no one is a Jew

who is merely one outwardly,

nor is circumcision outward and physical,

but a Jew is one inwardly,

and circumcision is a matter of the heart

by the spirit and not by the letter.

That's why throughout the New Testament,

James 1, 1, Galatians 6, 16,

the Christians, all Christians,

Jews and Gentiles,

are called the new Israel of God.

Reason number two

is that the tribal list here

in verses five to eight

is not a typical list

that you expect

of the 12 tribes of Israel.

One odd thing is that

the tribe of Judah is listed first,

and usually if you look

at the genealogical lists

of the sons of Israel,

Judah is not listed first

for the simple reason

that Judah was not the firstborn.

But here, Judah is placed at the head

because from Judah came,

the tribe of Judah came,

the lion of Judah,

lion from the tribe of Judah,

the conquering lion,

Jesus Christ,

who is the messianic king.

And moreover,

if it's meant to represent

ethnic Israel,

it's curious that it omits

tribes of Dan and Ephraim,

which is usually not the case

in these lists.

Usually in the lists

of the tribes,

12 tribes,

Levi and Joseph

are the two tribes

that are omitted.

Levi is omitted

because that's the priestly tribe,

and they don't get an inheritance

along with the other tribes

of Israel

because their inheritance

is God himself.

And Joseph is omitted

because at the end of his life,

Jacob adopted Joseph's two sons,

Manasseh and Ephraim,

as his own sons

in Genesis 48, verse five.

And so Joseph gets taken out

and those Joseph's two sons

get added is usually

how the list is comprised.

But this list instead

includes Manasseh

and includes Joseph

and includes Levi,

but it omits Dan and Ephraim.

And that's once again

for spiritual reasons.

In Judges 18 and 1 Kings 12,

we see that the tribe of Dan

becomes the center of idol worship

among the Israelites.

And then in Hosea 4.17

and Hosea 5.9,

God says that Ephraim

is joined to idols

and that for that reason,

Ephraim shall become

a desolation in the day

of punishment.

And so in light

of the recurring polemic

against idolatry

throughout Revelation,

this list is not making

a physical point,

a genealogical point.

It's making a spiritual

and theological point

that this is the purified group

of all of God's people,

the new Israel,

the true worshipers of God.

And the final reason

why I think this is referring

to all of God's people

is that we see

a surprising juxtaposition

between the depiction

of Jesus as a lion

of the tribe of Judah

and the slain lamb of God

we saw in chapter 5,

5 to 6, right?

It said,

John heard that there's a lion

of the tribe of Judah

who has conquered,

but then when he turned

to look and behold

this lion that he has heard about,

he saw the slain lamb of God.

So John uses this pattern

where what John hears

is then interpreted

and its understanding

of what he heard

is deepened by the vision

that he sees subsequently.

And so that surprising

juxtaposition is here

replicated almost exactly

because John heard

in verse 4 to 5

the number of the seal,

144,000 seal from every tribe

of the sons of Israel

starting with the 12,000

from the tribe of Judah

like the lion of Judah

that he heard.

But then he looks

and beholds in a vision

that the 144,000,

this is actually a great multitude

that no one could number

from every nation

and from all tribes

and peoples and languages

standing before the throne

and before the lamb.

So what he hears

is the 12 tribes of Israel.

What he sees

is the innumerable throng

from all nations

and tribes

and peoples and tongues.

And so again,

it's what he hears

is interpreted

by what he sees.

So then the 144,000

sealed from every tribe

of the sons of Israel

is a symbolic representation

of all of God's people

from all nations,

Jews and Gentiles

throughout all human history.

The number itself

is symbolic.

The number 12

often represents in the Bible

the people of God

because of the 12 tribes

of Israel

and the 12 apostles

of Christ

who are the foundation

of the church.

Number 1,000

is a figurative number

that represents a multitude.

So when you multiply 12

by 1,000

you get 12,000

and that's the number

of each of the sealed people

from each tribe.

And when you add that up

you get 144,000.

Likewise,

in Revelation 21

we see the New Jerusalem

which is a reference

to the church,

the bride of the Lamb.

and that New Jerusalem

has 12 gates

which have the names

of the 12 tribes of Israel

inscribed on them

and then its foundation

has the names

of the 12 apostles

of Jesus Christ

inscribed on them.

And so then

you multiply 12 times 12

and get 144.

You guys all know this.

And you get 1,000.

Multiply it by 1,000

you get this number.

So while the number

is symbolic,

the specific number

still shows us

that all of God's

sealed people

are numbered.

As we saw

in Revelation 6,

God has a specific

number of people

who will bear witness

to the name of Jesus

and will be martyred.

And until that number

is completed

and filled,

the full final judgment

and vindication

of God's people

will not come.

And so God has a number

and this should encourage us

not only that we are

numbered among them

but also to go and find

the rest of the number

among all the nations

because there's some people

from every tribe

and every nation

that will come

to know Jesus Christ

as their Lord and Savior.

It's kind of like,

I know it's Christmas,

not Easter,

but imagine an Easter egg hunt

and I usually hide the eggs,

let's say for my kids

and the kids come back,

hey, are there any eggs left?

And if I know exactly

how many eggs I hid,

then I can tell them,

yeah, keep looking

because there's still eggs left.

If they don't know,

then they'll stop,

they'll get discouraged,

oh, maybe there's nothing left, right?

In the same way,

when God tells us

that there's a number,

144,000,

a numberless multitude

among all tribes

and peoples and nations

and tongues

who are to come to know Jesus

and be saved,

that should propel us to go,

say, because we have faith

and confidence

that by God's will,

they will come to know Jesus.

So the saints of God

are sealed,

but we also see

in verses 9 to 14

that they are standing

and that's significant

because of what I mentioned

at the beginning

of the message,

the chapter 6

ended with that despairing question,

who can stand?

And here's the answer,

verse 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.

Once the last of those

who have been sealed

come through

the great tribulation,

they will be

this innumerable multitude,

which is a fulfillment

of the promise

that God had given

to Abraham

to multiply his offspring

and through his offspring

all nations

will be blessed

and that's happened

through Jesus,

the promised messianic

offspring from Abraham.

This great multitude

from every nation

is standing before the throne

and before the Lamb

and that parallels

the description

of the slain Lamb of God

who was described

as standing

in chapter 5,

verse 6.

So in the same way

that Jesus,

the Lamb of God,

conquers sin

by being slain

for our sins

on the cross

and then being raised

from the dead.

His people follow

in His footsteps

and they bear

suffering witness

to Jesus

and are faithful

even unto death

and it's through that

they conquer

and come out

through the great tribulation

and can stand

before the presence

of God.

All of Christian life

is full of tribulation

and affliction

and we see that

all throughout the Bible.

However,

the expression

great tribulation

occurs only

here in Revelation

in the New Testament

and in Matthew 24, 21

which also speaks

of the end times,

the final end.

And so we are,

while we are all

in the midst

of tribulation

as Christians,

there will be

an intensified,

severe tribulation

that the Bible calls

the great tribulation

near the end

of human history

and that's an allusion

to Daniel 12,

Daniel 12:1

verse 1.

There shall be

a time of trouble

such as never has been

since there was a nation

till that time.

But at that time

your people

shall be delivered.

Everyone whose name

shall be found

written in the book.

Even through

that great tribulation,

those who have

the seal of the living God

upon their foreheads

will be delivered.

Those are the ones

who conquer

by the blood of the Lamb

and the word

of their testimony.

So this is the answer

to that question.

Who can stand?

They can stand.

And that's why

they're clothed

in white robes

with palm branches

in their hands.

Palm branches

are a symbol of victory.

But even more significantly

for this context,

in Leviticus 23, 40,

God commanded Israelites

to celebrate

the Feast of Tabernacles

or the Feast of Boots

or Feast of Tents

known by many names

with palm branches.

They were to collect

palm branches

and use it to build

these makeshift tents

and dwell in them

for like six,

seven days

to commemorate

this time

that they were

in the wilderness

where they dwelled

in tents

as they were journeying

to the promised land

and they dwelled

in tents

and God himself

dwelled in a tent

called the Tabernacle

and dwelled among them,

among his people.

So it's celebrating that

and palm branches

are reminiscent

of that.

And this multitude

now gets not merely

a temporary dwelling

with God,

they get a permanent

and eternal dwelling

with God.

And how did that

come about?

Where did this multitude

get their white robes

of purity

and righteousness?

How were they

made worthy

to stand before

the throne of God?

God,

verse 14,

tells us,

they have washed

their robes

and made them white

in the blood

of the Lamb.

This is the only way

to get our robes

clean,

made white.

Isaiah 64, 6

accurately describes

the condition

of all sinners

apart from Christ.

It says that

we have all become

like one who is unclean

and all our righteous deeds

are like a polluted

garment.

This is not talking

about the righteous deeds

of the saints,

righteous deeds

of those who have

given their lives

to Christ.

It's talking about

the so-called

righteous deeds

or the grandstanding

and the virtue signaling

of people who have

rejected Christ

as their Savior.

Isaiah says

even their righteous deeds

are like a polluted garment.

This is why sinners

cannot save themselves.

They can never hope

to make their robes

white

by their own

good deeds.

I once saw

a moving photograph

of women

in India

washing clothes

manually

in the polluted water

of the Yamuna River.

That water is brown

in the picture.

It's brown

and it's murky

because it's

wastewater.

Urine

and feces

invested water

from the city

of Delhi.

The wastewater

from the city

of Delhi

gets directly

deposited

into the Yamuna.

And not only that,

in the picture

you see

the water

is covered

with floating

trash

all over.

This whole surface

is covered.

And yet,

there are these women

who have

their washing boards

and they're

washing their clothes

in that filthy river

because they don't

have any place

else to wash them.

Can you imagine

the stench,

the stains

on those clothes

as you're trying

to wash it clean?

That is the sad

spiritual reality

of all sinners

who seek

to justify themselves

before God.

trying to

cleanse

ourselves,

wash ourselves

but our robes

are filthy,

polluted garments.

You can't ever

get that thing

clean.

That's why

God had to

send his only son.

And that's

what Christmas

is all about.

John 1.14

says that

Jesus,

the word of God

became flesh

and dwelt

among us.

Translated more

literally,

that word dwelt

means he pitched

a tent

among us.

He pitched

a tabernacle.

He tabernacled

among us.

Remember I mentioned

the palm branches

are connected to

the feast

of tabernacles

because God

knew that

sinners like us

could never

on our own

make our way

to God

and stand

with our heads

held high

before the throne

of God

because he knew

we could never

do that.

God sent

his only son

down to us

to pitch

his tent

among us.

The infinite

son of God

confined

in space-time.

The one

by whom

the whole world

was created

becoming one

of the creatures.

The author

of history

enters the book

of history.

The king

and ruler

takes the form

of a servant

and he comes

not to be

served

but to serve

and to give

his life

as a ransom

for many.

Jesus died

on the cross

where we should

have died

in our place

as a substitutionary

lamb.

As we are told

in Revelation 1-5

Jesus loves us

and has freed us

from our sins

by his blood.

We can never

make our robes

white

by doing our best

to do good deeds

and be good people.

It's never enough

but the blood

of Jesus

God's son

cleanses us

from all sin.

This is why

the multitude

cry out

with a loud voice

in verse 10

salvation belongs

to our God

who sits on the throne

and to the lamb

and then in verses

11-12

the angels

who are standing

around the throne

join in their chorus

they fall on their faces

before the throne

and worship God

and then they say

amen

blessing

and glory

and wisdom

and thanksgiving

and honor

and power

and might

be to our God

forever and ever

amen

that's an expression

of affirmation

and acclamation

indeed it is so

yes

it is true

salvation belongs

to our God

amen

blessing

and glory

and wisdom

and thanksgiving

and honor

and power

and might belong

to our God

amen

all of heaven

sings worship

our God

is so unlike

the so called gods

of paganism

who quarantined

the rabble

far away

from their lofty dwelling

up in the mountain

Jesus has been among us

as one of us

so that he sympathizes

with us

with our weaknesses

with our failures

with our frailties

with our tribulations

because Jesus

pitched his tent

among us

and died

for us

and that's why

he's the only one

who can bring us

to God's heavenly temple

and so we see

in verses 15

to 17

our ultimate reward

we're being sheltered

and shepherded

by God

it says in verse 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 shelter them

with his presence

it's because our robes

have been washed white

in the blood of the lamb

that we can now stand

before the throne of God

and serve him

in his temple

but this is no literal temple

because we are told

later in Revelation 21-22

that the temple

is the Lord God

the Almighty

and the lamb

so this image

of us serving God

as priests

in his temple

is actually a picture

of our ultimate dwelling

with God

and our intimate

union

with God

so it says

that he who sits

on the throne

will shelter them

with his presence

and that word shelter

is just a different

translation

of the same Greek word

that was used

in John 1-14

to say that Jesus

pitched his tent

among us

he tabernacled

among us

Jesus pitched his tent

among us

and died for us

and was raised

from the dead

so that God

will ultimately

forevermore

pitch his tent

over us

with his

very presence

I look forward

to that

we're not going

to be aliens

forever

living in this world

whose values

and priorities

we don't recognize

having to tolerate

a world

where Christ

is not honored

not worshipped

we will not always

live as aliens

one day we'll be

in our father's country

and we'll be citizens

we're not always

going to be

pilgrims

we're pilgrims

now

we're journeying

through the wilderness

in temporary

dwelling places

longing

for our home

but one day

we will be home

God

is our home

his shelter

over us

his presence

our temple

and we'll also

be shepherded

by our Lord

Jesus Christ

the slain Lamb

of God

who is also

the good shepherd

it says in

verse 16 to 17

they shall hunger

no more

neither thirst

anymore

the sun shall not

strike them

nor any scorching

heat

for the Lamb

in the midst

of the throne

will be

their shepherd

he will guide them

to springs

of living water

and God

will wipe away

every tear

from their eyes

it's a fulfillment

of Isaiah 49

9 to 10

Isaiah 25

8

have you known

hunger in this life

have you known

thirst

in this life

have you been

beat down

by the scorching

heat

of life

have you known

tears

have you known

loss

have you known

suffering

have you known

persecution

all of these things

will be no more

Jesus our shepherd

will take us

to green pastures

make us lie down

beside still waters

he will wipe away

our tears

with his own hands

and death

shall be no more

neither shall

that be mourning

nor crying

nor pain

anymore

for the former

things

have passed away

Lord

Heavenly Father

we long

for that day

help us

not to lose sight

of our home

your shelter

Father

our good shepherd

who awaits us

in our eternal

dwellings

help us not

to lose sight

of that Father

so that

every day

we live here

and every day

we have tribulation

in this sinful world

that we

that we would

always have hope

thank you for that

hope Lord

in Jesus name

we pray

Amen