Dennis Tuuri

# Revelation 7: Good News for Palm Sunday (and Every Other Day!)

And the sermon title is good news for Palm Sunday and every other day. Please stand for the reading of chapter 7 of the book of Revelation. And bear with me if I stumble a bit. The Lord granted our prayers for my left eye, but then my right eye went goofy. So it is.

Okay. 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 worshiped God, saying, “Amen, the blessing and the glory and the wisdom and the thanksgiving and the honor and the power and the might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”

And then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “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 spread his tabernacle over them. 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, and he will guide them to springs of living water.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Let’s pray. Oh Lord God, we give you great thanks, Father, for the wonderful, comforting text we’ve just read. Bless us now with an understanding of this chapter to the end that we may be blessed with comfort and that we may recommit ourselves to be servants of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. May we acknowledge him alone as our Savior. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

Who wants to hear some good news today? Anybody want to hear good news? Yeah, people in my household want to hear good news because they hear a lot of bad news from me during the week when I watch the news. And lately, the bad news has been piling up like a tremendous mound. There’s tremendous good news in this text. I think I have to do a little explanation though as we get into the middle of this sermon on why I see these two groups as one. And I know that takes a lot of the outline, but it’s so that we can get to see the application of what we’ve read to our lives—to us who have come together today in the throne of heaven robed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ singing forth salvation to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And our little children even came with palms today imitating this great multitude. And I believe that multitude is a picture of the church on earth as well as the church in heaven. And we’ll get to that in a little bit.

I was led to this text when I was looking at 2 Chronicles 30 and Hezekiah’s celebration of the Passover. We mentioned the relationship of the Passover to the Feast of Booths, which Jeroboam in the north had moved a month later. And in any event, this text in Revelation chapter 7 among other things shows a conflation of Passover and the Feast of Booths. We have the obvious reference to the palm branches and God tabernacling in the midst of this great multitude. And yet the multitude is there in the presence of the Lamb having washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. And so we have Passover and Booths conflated as we do.

Really, in the events of Passion Week beginning with Palm Sunday there’s clearly reference there to the Feast of Booths and yet it’s really the Feast of Passover. What’s happening is that with the coming of Jesus Christ all the seasons, all the feasts are coalescing. There were one feast—the Lord’s day, the Sabbath in the first creation—and then with the fall of man and the coming of the Mosaic law we were filtered out into seven feasts to show what that one day would mean when Jesus came to fulfill it.

And so now with the coming of Christ, in the New Testament, the gospels and here in the book of Revelation, the feasts are being drawn back together into one feast. This is why while we see the church here as profitable for us in an instructional point of view, and that’s why we’re talking about Palm Sunday today, we never want to think of it as mandatory because we never want to get the sense that the church year should replace the church day, the Lord’s day. That is the unit of everything else. All the feasts come together in the Lord’s day. And so while church calendar and church year can be beneficial in various ways, it’s a little dangerous because we’re warned in the New Testament not to engage in these calendrical feasts of the Old Testament. Now, we have freedom to do church calendar, but we just want to keep it in its place. And the thing we’re supposed to do is celebrate the one day, the Lord’s day, because in that death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, all the feasts find their meaning and fulfillment.

Another interesting thing that I’m not going to talk about today, but just for your own thought: the feasts of the Old Testament—Booths and Passover being the preeminent spring Passover, Booths as fall harvest. Passover is connected to Feast of Unleavened Bread and Firstfruits, the beginning of the harvest, and Booths is the end of the harvest. And beyond the simple agricultural stuff, it’s talking about the ingathering of all the nations through the proclamation of the gospel—Feast of Booths.

But in any event, the agricultural cycle was the basis for the seven feasts in Leviticus 23. And it’s interesting to me that with the coming of the Son of God who brings knowledge to the world—he is the Word—the agricultural calendar is put on a back burner and instead we have this weekly celebration that goes right to the front. And what’s happened over the last 2,000 years since the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and him ushering in this tremendous change, this new creation, is a movement away from agriculture as the basis for economy. Very few people today are involved in agriculture. And so the world is moving, and that movement away from agriculture to other forms of commerce and knowledge of the world and industry, et cetera—I think this also can be seen in this conflation of Booths and Passover. And if that confuses you, just dump it now. Drop the thought. If you like it, write it down. I think it’s an interesting thought to think about. That’s how I was led to this text.

But I didn’t really realize that the only two places where the word translated “palm” here—palm branches—that the children or that the people rather have, the great multitude have, the only two places in the New Testament where that Greek word is found is here and in the account of Palm Sunday in John’s gospel, in John 12 verse 13.

And so this connects up the events in Revelation 7 to Palm Sunday. And so that’s another reason why I thought it would be appropriate and good to preach on it. John 12 says: “The next day a great multitude that had come to the feast when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem took branches of palm trees, went out to meet him, and cried out, ‘Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

That’s another connection between Palm Sunday and the events of Revelation 7. The great multitude in white robes with palm branches cry out salvation to our God. Well, that’s what Hosanna means. Hosanna means save. So salvation, save, is the message both of the crowds on Palm Sunday and of the great multitude in Revelation 7. So this text is an excellent text to talk about on Palm Sunday, and I think in light of the bad news of our country—the continuing bad news—the good news we find here is particularly relevant for us as well.

This term Hosanna, salvation. Hosanna. The children cried earlier as they were coming in. And the great multitude cries out salvation. We are at a place in American history where our civil politics is beginning to look a lot like Rome. Not beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but beginning to look a lot like Rome. In the last election, one of the candidates, our present president, you know, spoke in front of Greek columns, you know, having this kind of connection back to Greek and Roman culture. And you know, the famous speech where now with the election of President Obama, the seas, the height of the seas would begin to come down. I mean, these are audacious things. The audacity of humanistic hope has been shoved in our face now for two or three years and it’s becoming quite unsettling. At least it is for me.

And what we had this last week was a speech from our president at a moment of national crisis over galloping debt. And you know, if you don’t want to hear about it, well, you’re going to have to for five minutes because that’s what I think I need to do. You know, the prophets of the Old Testament understood what was going on and they communicated that to the people of God. And you have to recognize that what we’re doing: we now have $14 trillion of national debt. I think that’s $50,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. Every one of your members of your family owes now a debt of $50,000 if we take the 14 trillion advertent. And it’s going to do nothing but go way up. And we have a serious plan based on certain philosophies put forth through Representative Ryan. And the president’s response to that was to invite him into the front row of a speech that then essentially called him someone who wanted to starve old people and leave children uneducated and sick.

The speech was sick. It was horrific. I think it was the worst speech because of the context, because of the crisis that we’re in with debt and because of the way it was delivered and because of the envy, you know, hatred—or not hatred, but the envy of people’s wealth—that he tried to put into it. The complete lies that were told in this speech and the kind of sloganeering that went on: “a trillion dollars of spending cuts through revision of the tax code.” So when you get to keep some of your money, that’s now a spending on the part of the federal government, and we’re going to cut that spending? And the spending was giving you your own money. It was really horrific.

And we’re—it was the beginning of the next 18 months of the election cycle, and what we’re going to hear for months is everything was President Bush’s fault, still, in spite of the tremendous debt that’s been rolled up. And what we’re not going to have apparently is a serious discussion of what we’re supposed to do as a nation now. How do we settle on how to take care of this incredibly growing debt—growing debt that’s going to potentially absolutely wreck the economy of the world and could leave, you know, more than just financial hardship for our families, but financial disaster. That’s the place we’re at. And the reason we’re there is because the federal government is insisting now that it is salvation.

The president can say that when we want to cut federal education spending, we want to leave children uneducated, only if he believes that the one entity that can bring education to children is the state. And the president can say that people that want to cut or change entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid want to starve people only if he believes or asserts that the civil state is the savior. It is the one that has to bring salvation in terms of healthcare. It is astonishing where we’re at. It’s not a small thing.

Now I said you want to hear good news today instead of afflicted you. But that’s the buildup for the tremendous news. And this isn’t new. Let me read you a quote here about the particular context of the church declaring that salvation belongs to God, ascribing to God and the Lamb. This is a quotation from David Chilton’s book: “What Rome claimed for the Caesars. Mark Anthony said of Julius Caesar that his only work was to save where anyone needed to be saved. And how Nero was on the throne. And now Nero was on the throne, whom Seneca speaking as Apollo had praised as the divine savior of the world. He is like me in my form and appearance in his poetry and singing and playing. And as the red of the morning drives away dark night, as neither haze nor mist endures before the sun’s rays, as everything becomes bright when my chariot appears, so it is when Nero ascends the throne. His golden locks, his fair countenance shine like the sun, and all breaks through the clouds. Strife, injustice, and envy collapse before him. He restores to the world the golden age.”

So this is the view of the Roman emperors. So you have this tremendous juxtaposition, this antithesis. Who’s the savior? Who’s going to bring blessing to the world? The civil government as epitomized by the emperor Nero. And in contrast to that, Palm Sunday is about the people of God singing in Revelation 7: salvation belongs to God and to his Son and to the Lamb on the throne. He’s the one who brings salvation, not a humanistic civil state, not democracy, but rather the Lord God himself. That’s the contrast that’s drawn. And the contrast is becoming powerful in the context of our nation. We have the one who brings truth and then we have the ones who bring falsehood.

President Obama was asked a couple of weeks ago about what he could do about the gas prices, and he said nothing. He could do nothing about them in the immediate, in the short term. Of course, that’s a lie. If the president said—and this is what did happen several years ago—if the president gets up and says, “Well, we’re going to loosen up leasing. We’re going to start offshore drilling in a big way. We’re going to go after shale oil. We’re going to do things and let production increase.” Now the oil prices would drop immediately. The oil prices are a condition of future expectations of the cost of oil. And when you promise, the leader of the free world promises that more production will happen, the oil prices have in the past and would today drop immediately, and the end result would be gas prices coming down.

Instead, apparently, I hear this morning, uncontested by the liberal and the Democrat or the Republican—I was listening to that—apparently the budget bill that was agreed to a week ago had a 5 cent a gallon gas tax in it. Now, I haven’t verified that independently, but on a talk show where both liberal and conservative were there, they both seem to acknowledge that was the case. A 5 cent a gallon gas tax in the midst of gas doing what it’s doing, cutting into your ability, you know, to provide for your family. Those are the times we live in.

And what we say in response to those times is: no, salvation doesn’t belong to the civil state. And the reason why we have tremendous debt and the reason why the country is in such chaos now and into increasing difficulties is because it can never belong to the civil state. You can never fulfill what God says is his purpose. He will not let it happen. He will not let it happen.

So there’s plenty of bad news in the world. And I am afraid I have to tell you that it’s going to get a lot worse. It’s going to be a year and a half of, you know, complete partisanship and probably no one acting like adults. And the end result of that will be increased deficits and increased economic difficult times. So there’s a problem with it. But there’s tremendous good news and comfort for us in the text today.

But first, as I said, I want to talk about how the two sections we just read—the sealing of the 144,000 on the one hand and the great multitude on the other hand—that these two groups are, I think, a picture of the same group. And it’s important because here’s the problem with the great multitude being a source of comfort to us. I know people that the second half of Revelation 7 is a cause of great concern to them, not great comfort.

Because they think, well, it’s the eternal state. It’s what’s going to happen in heaven. And it’s this picture of what heaven is. And in heaven, I’m part of an unnamed multitude. I’m just part of a great mass. I’m always around the throne of God. And I love Jesus Christ. But I cannot imagine day and night eternally sitting around a throne doing nothing but praising Christ. And it frightens people. They don’t understand it.

And I think it frightens them because that is not what the text says. The text, I don’t think, is about necessarily the eternal state, and if it was, it’s only a snapshot of among other snapshots of what we’re going to do in eternity. And on the contrary side, this text is very rarely used to bring you comfort today. And I think that its whole purpose is to bring us comfort. And so I want to show us that.

But first, I want to talk about the basic unity then of the 144,000 and the great multitude.

There are lots of different interpretations of the book of Revelation, but the two major interpretations of this text that you’ll hear in Reformed circles at least amongst people that we know are listed on your outline. The first is Jewish and Gentile martyrs. This is the position of James B. Jordan. This is actually, I think, the position of RCC Sunday school curriculum: that what we have here in the 144,000 are Jewish martyrs who were killed prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. And so these are Jewish martyrs. And what we have in the second half—the unnamed host from all kinds of tribes and nations—these are Gentile converts. And these are the Gentile converts who are killed primarily by Rome leading up to, again, AD 70.

And so these are Jewish and Gentile martyrs. This view that all these things happened prior to AD 70 is what unites this, and then the two distinguishing groups of Jew and Gentile. That’s one position, and it’s got a lot of good things to recommend it.

The second position is that what we have is a picture of the church militant on earth—the 144,000—and the church triumphant in heaven, the great multitude. So they’re sealed to protect them during the judgment. So it seems like they’re still here, and the great multitude are in the throne room. And so it seems like that’s the church triumphant in heaven.

And I think in both of these cases there’s elements that are true to that, right? I mean, there were Jewish and Gentile converts martyred leading up to AD 70. And there is certainly a church militant on earth and a church triumphant in heaven.

But I don’t think that the firm lines that these two positions draw between the two groups is really justified. And I want to say why I don’t think it justified. I have several reasons listed on your handout. And again, this is important because it really determines how we look at the great multitude and the sorts of comfort—I guess we could say comfort because of what’s happening off in the future—or comfort now that we receive from Revelation 7, from Revelation 7’s depiction of Palm Sunday.

We could say so. First of all, hearing and seeing. And this is the strongest piece of evidence. Turn your Bibles to Revelation 1 verse 10. Turn there please.

Now you just heard me telling you something. You had an auditory command and then you have now sight that you’re looking at. And that’s kind of what happens here.

Revelation 1:10—”I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day and I heard behind me a loud voice as of a trumpet saying, ‘I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. Write what you see right in a book and send it to the seven churches.’”

Okay, so this is Jesus. So he hears a voice, and then verse 12: “Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me.”

Okay, so what happens is in Revelation 1: he hears something and then he sees the same thing. He’s seeing what he heard, right? But he hears it first and then he sees it. Now, it looks differently than how he heard it, but it’s the same thing. It’s Jesus Christ. Okay?

Now, turn to Revelation 5 and look at verse 5.

And here again, he hears something and then he sees something and they’re the same thing.

Revelation 5:5—”And one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose the seven seals.’”

By the way, Revelation 7 is at the end of the sixth seal, prior to the seventh seal. It’s kind of an intermission between those seals. So this is the beginning of the opening of the seals.

And so he hears that there’s a lion. And then in verse 6: “And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures and in the midst of the elders stood a Lamb as though he had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the world.”

So he hears that the Lion has prevailed to open the seals and he sees then not a lion but a Lamb. But it’s Jesus, right? Jesus is a Lion. Jesus is a Lamb. Either one they’re images that stress the same thing but are stressing different things, right? So the Lion stresses the kingship of Jesus, Lion of the tribe of Judah, him being a Lamb stresses his death for sinners, the Passover Lamb again. And those two things together make him give, have the ability to open the seals of history, the book that has recorded history that’ll record primarily the events leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

The one who can open that book is the one who is both Lion and Lamb. But the point is: just as in Revelation 1, he hears something and then he sees something and they’re the same thing. Now, we won’t take the time, but in Revelation 6, as the seals are open, the same thing happens.

Verse 1, for instance: “Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a voice like thunder, ‘Come and see.’” And I looked, and behold, a white horse.

So he hears the beginning of the opening of the first seal and then he sees the opening of the first seal, what it means, the coming of the white horse. And throughout the six seals that lead up to chapter 7, the same thing happens. He hears this and then he sees this. Okay, so what do we have in Revelation 7?

Well, in terms of this, in verse 4, we see: “I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000.”

And then we have the detail. So he begins by—this thing happens: well, the judgment won’t come until the people are sealed—and then he hears these 144,000, 12,000 from 12 tribes. He hears about them, and then in verse 9: “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number.”

So this device used in Revelation—to hear something and then see it—and for it to be the same thing, I think leads us in the direction that these two groups are very closely connected at least and maybe these are just images first heard and then seen of the same group. Okay?

So that’s the first line of evidence: this hearing and seeing seems to point us in a direction that the 144,000 that he hears are the same as the great multitude that he sees.

Secondly, these things are answers to a question. The 144,000 and the great multitude. In chapter 6, just before this, a description has happened that in the sixth seal, there’s going to be judgment that goes out. In verse 17, we read: “For the great day of their wrath, the great day of God’s wrath against the kings of the earth has come. Who can stand it?”

So, who can stand the wrath of God against the kings of the earth? And the answer to that is the body of Christ—and the body of Christ are those who are sealed and those who have the blessings, the comfort, the tears dried, the guarantee of provision and protection that’s given to the great multitude. There’s one question and these two groups seem to be the answer to that question.

Now, they could be two separate kind of groups that are going to be able to stand, but it seems like they’re the one group that can stand.

And so third: the New Jerusalem. When we get, when we go later to a description of the New Jerusalem, its dimensions are given in twelves. But the New Jerusalem contains the wealth of the Gentiles. So the New Jerusalem, the city of the New Jerusalem, has both the 12,000, the 144,000 kind of motif going on and it has the wealth of the Gentiles in the context of it. You know, it has the 12 gates which are the 12 tribes and the 12 apostles. And so it’s a connection, it’s a coming together of Jew and Gentile in one body in New Jerusalem. And I think that points us in this same direction that these two snapshots of the church are really of one church, not two separate churches or two separate and hard and fast divisions within the church.

Fourth, there are some bookends here and this is kind of big structure sort of stuff. But in verse 3, we read: “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the servants of our God on their forehead.”

So the ones who are sealed are designated specifically as servants of our God. Now if you drop down on your outline—the only kayastic structure I’m going to ask you to look at today, and I think it’s pretty straightforward, it’s hard not to see at least the bulk of this—if you look on your outline at verse 13b. So we’re on the outline of the second section, and we’re dealing with the bookend part number four on your outline.

Everybody there? Yes. Okay.

So, you see I’ve taken this text that describes the people here. There’s a question: “Who are those clothed in white robes? And from where have they come?” So this is the angel asking John this question. And I’ve broken it up into several different parts. And then John says to him, “Sir, you know,” and he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.”

Now, that was the last thing he asked—”from where have they come?”—but that’s the first thing he answers. That’s why it’s kayastic. Okay. So the last part of the question was “where have they come from?” and the answer is “these are those coming out of the great tribulation.”

By the way, some translations say “these are those who have come out of the great tribulation.” That’s not right. In the Greek, the correct way is to translate it as an ongoing activity: “these are those coming out of the great tribulation,” which I think is another argument that this is not about the martyrs just leading up to AD 70 but about every Christian.

The great tribulation isn’t necessarily that tribulation that happens before AD 70. The great tribulation has to do with the idea that once the church age has started, the entire church age is marked by tribulation and sufferings. We could go through that. When I gave a sermon a few weeks ago in Suffering, verses over and over and over, where Jesus tells his disciples that, you know, just as I’ve suffered, as I’ve had persecution and tribulation, so will you.

And so the tribulation that they’re coming out of is the ongoing tribulation of Christians living in the context of non-Christians that’ll be throughout history. We have Christians today in different parts of the world even being martyred for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ, his name. And we certainly have Christians increasingly being persecuted or made fun of in this country as part of this ongoing great tribulation that occurs with the coming of the church age.

But in any event, he identifies them. He answers the last part of his question first: “These are the ones who are coming out of the great tribulation.” Then he asks the middle question, which was his description that they were clothed in white robes. And he says: “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

Now, this doesn’t mean they’ve died. There’s nothing in here that says they’re dead. You and I have white robes as we come into the worship of God. We’ve washed our robes in the blood of the Lamb. We’ve, you know, the blood of the Lamb is what we plead before God. We’ve accepted the efficacious power. We’ve been washed, right? I mean, we could go to lots of verses that talk about how every Christian has been washed in the blood of the Lamb. Our sins have been washed away. We’ve been purged. We’ve been purified. We’ve been cleansed. And we have a righteousness before God that’s not ours, what belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet also has our own deeds, the righteousness of the saints, the whiteness of the robes.

So, you know, but the thing I’m trying to get you to see is there’s a structure here. He says, “Who are they who have white robes? Where have they come from?” Well, John says, “I don’t know, you know.” And he says, “Well, these are the ones that came out of the tribulation. These are the ones whose white robes have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. That’s how they got white.” And that leaves this last description in verse 15: “Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple.”

That’s the culmination of his answer. And I think that matches up with the original question. Who are they? The central identity of these people, the great multitude, are those who serve God. They’re servants of God. Just as the essential identity of the ones that were sealed—given before their sealing, this is sort of given after the vision is seen—but with the 144,000, the ones that are sealed are the servants of God. So both groups are identified as the servants of God.

And I think this, you know, it’s not conclusive. I mean, sure, the Jewish martyrs were servants and the Gentile martyrs were servants, too. But I think that, you know, all this evidence piling up, I think God wants us at least to see by way of application the unity of these two groups as a description of the church of Jesus Christ.

Fifth: hot wind. Don’t know this for sure, but they’re sealed. The 144,000 are sealed so that before the wind of God blows on earth and sea and trees. And David Chilton in his commentary thinks this is the hot eastern wind that would come and just, you know, devastate things. And I’ve given you a reference there in Hosea 13:15 and 16 that talks about that kind of wind where the wind of God comes and everything dries up immediately. And also later in the book of Revelation, in the fourth bowl, the heat of the sun scorches the ones who are judged by it. And so it seems like the sealing of the 144,000 is to protect them from that heat, the wind being the hot wind. And certainly with the great multitude, one of the great blessings is they’ll have protection from the sun and they won’t be scorched by its heat.

So it seems like that connects the two groups as well. The 144,000 are protected from the hot wind and the great multitude are protected from the scorching heat. So a connection between the two of them.

And then finally, Isaiah 4. Listen now. Isaiah 4:4-6 says this:

“When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst by the Spirit of judgment and by the Spirit of burning, then the Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion and above her assemblies a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night. For over all the glory there will be a covering, and there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge and for a shelter from the storm and rain.”

Now, this is the same thing that’s applied. This is the vision that’s given of the protection of the great multitude, right? The sun doesn’t reach them. God is a tabernacle over them. He’s a covering or a canopy to them. And in Isaiah chapter 4, it indicates this happens after the fall of Jerusalem. So this would be a text that at least has application throughout church history, not just for those that were martyred prior to the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.

Now, if this is true, there’s still diversity, right? I mean, if the two things are two pictures of the same thing—Jesus is a Lion, Jesus is a Lamb—it’s talking about different aspects of it. And I think here’s an aspect, for instance, where the two things complement one another. People are afraid of being part of a great unnumbered host having no personal identity because they look at the last half of Revelation 7 as the eternal state and don’t see the connection to the first half.

What do we have in the first half? We have specific numbers. In fact, we have specific names of tribes. You know, we don’t like those long lists of genealogies in the Bible. You know, we don’t like to read about them and stuff, and there’s another list. But, you know, here, think of it. Does God care about you just as part of the great multitude or does he care about you personally, and you’re part of the numbering of the saints on the roll?

And the answer is he cares about you both ways. And it’s important for you to get comfort to recognize your comfort isn’t just as being part of a great unnumbered host standing around the throne anonymously. You have identity. And one aspect of the first picture vision that he hears is that individuality that you have, being part of a specific numbered group. Just as in the second half, you have a place in the unnumbered group as well.

What do we have? We’ve got people who are sealed with authority. They’re a mighty army. Thousands, 12 by 12 by a thousand, right? And the thousand number—how did they array themselves in military warfare? They’d get ready to march by thousands. And so the 144,000: what that’s telling us is we’re part of a mighty army of God. We’re ready for combat. We’re sealed not just protected. Yes, we’re protected, but we’re sealed by giving the signate. So one translator says “sealed with the signate,” because the seal, the angel has that seal with him, right? And the seal is the authority. It’s like a signet ring. Think of it that way. It’s placed on the forehead of course, but it’s like the authority of God to empower you.

So the first image of who you are is you’re part of a mighty army of God given power and authority to protect you from the forces around you where God is judging the ungodly and to be part of the processing of that warfare against the ungodly.

Now the second image is worship. So you’re a militaristic host, right? And you’re a worshiping host, and those things are combined. So there’s different aspects of this. You’re a completion of Israel and yet you’re really the saving of the whole world pictured in the great multitude.

All right. So that’s where I think the two images are combined. And I think that if you look at the last half of chapter 7 and take away the preconceived notions that this really has nothing to do with you because it was Gentile converts prior to AD 70 or it has nothing to do with you yet because it only has to do with the church triumphant in heaven, and look at it, and what it’s saying about us today—okay, this is us today.

We are gathered together, as I said, today, and think of it that way. Let’s reread it. “Behold, a great multitude that no one could number, people all over the world from every nation and tribe and peoples and languages standing before the throne.”

We come into the presence of God in a special way in Lord’s day worship. We stand before the throne and before the Lamb, the Lamb at the communion table, clothed in white robes. We’re here because of the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, with palm branches in their hands, signs of victors, right? And we’re taking our place in the victory of God. We’re part of, we’re those trees that the text talks about. We’re palm trees, trees that have to do with rule. And we cry out with a loud voice every Lord’s day: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.”

We ascribe salvation to him and to him alone in worship.

This is what we do. This is who we are. The angels join into this. They sing their praise. And then we see that we are the ones who have our robes washed. We’ve, we’re coming out of—we came out of great tribulation this morning at 11:00. We moved away from our normal callings in the world where there is sufferings and trials and tribulations and difficulties that we face. I know you and I know the great difficulties you’ve faced in the last few weeks. Some of you, many of you, great difficulties. These are those who are coming out. That’s us. We’re coming out of the great tribulation. We’re moving forward, but we move in the context of tribulation. We’ve washed our robes. They’ve become white from the blood of the Lamb. We’re those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that we can’t save ourselves. Only Jesus can wash us from our sins. And we’re before the throne of God, and we serve him day and night in the temple.

Well, you know, there’s a sense in which this is true, right? Where is our citizenship? Our citizenship is in heaven. We’re servants of God day and night, and his temple has come to fill the earth. And what we do formally here in Lord’s day worship helps us to understand: this is our identity, serving God day and night, and his temple now is filling the earth. And so we move from worship into the week.

And then that sets us up for these great blessings that are pictured. “He who sits on the throne will spread his tabernacle over us. He’s done that. We’ll hunger no more, nor thirst anymore. The sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. The Lamb is in the midst of them. Jesus is in the midst of the church. Lo, what does he say at the end of the great commission? ‘Lo, I am with you always.’ The Lamb is in the midst of them by the Spirit. He’s in the midst of the throne. He’ll be their shepherd. He will guide them to springs of living water.”

That’s what God is doing. The Lord is my shepherd. I’m not wanting because he is my shepherd. He is taking me to where I need to be. He causes me to lie down. He takes me to green pastures. He feeds me. He provides for everything that I need. Remember what we said last two weeks ago? Blessing, only blessing and glory, blessing and honor will pursue us forever. It runs after us. The blessings of God because the Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ, is moving us in every part of our lives, guiding us to springs of living water.

And God will thus wipe away all of our tears.

So I think that this picture is given to us of the church here now. Yes, as well as certainly the martyrs were brought into the heavenly host. Certainly we will after we die be part of a great multitude worshiping on the throne of God. But that isn’t postponed till later, I don’t think. And neither are those tremendous blessings, the good news that are given to us. We’re sealed. We’re the ones who are given authority. We’re the ones who are assured because the great host is a great host that fills all the earth of the victory of God. We are told in these two images of who rules the world, of who are the ones wearing the signets, the seals of Almighty God. We’re told who the people are who will sustain the fight, who will win the fight.

You want to know who’s going to win the future? It’s the Lord Jesus Christ. And he does it through his church. You don’t have to worry about whether that’s going to happen or not. God assures you of that in Revelation 7. You’re sealed. You’re the numbered people. You know, in Ezekiel, the ones that were sealed—God’s judgment was going to come against the city. And an angel comes and he marks on the forehead of the people in Ezekiel 9, the ones who are his, a Greek or Hebrew letter that looks like a cross. Interestingly enough, it looks like a cross. And so then when the judgments come against Jerusalem, those people that are sealed are spared the judgments.

So the sealing is a sign of authority and strength from God, but it’s also a sign that God’s judgment will surely come against all false pretenders to the throne and to salvation apart from Jesus Christ. The sealing is an indication that God has now established his church with authority, and he’s also made a delineation between the two kinds of people so that his judgments come in particular times in history. His judgments come against all those who oppose the Lord Jesus Christ and who oppose the church. We’re never losing. It looks like we’re losing. It looks like we’re becoming a minority. It looks like things are going bad.

But God tells us with great assurance in Revelation 7 that yes, there’s judgment. What did you expect as a country began to move away from faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Did you think nothing was going to happen? Of course there’s judgment. Of course there’s fighting in the streets. Of course there’s stupid people yelling and shouting and chanting, you know, for their rights and for their state benefits and for their collective bargaining stuff. You know, of course that kind of stuff is going to go on. Of course, you’re going to hear a year and a half of two different parties, neither one of which is particularly humble before the Lord Jesus Christ, bring out visions of what they want for the future, how they’re going to save the world. Of course, you’re going to see that God’s judgments fill the earth.

But as surely as you see it, you know that you’ve been sealed on your forehead. You’ve been baptized. You know, sometimes I tend to do this. It’s not arbitrary, but the early church identified baptism with the marking of the cross on the forehead of the one because of Ezekiel 9, because of Revelation 7, because of the sealing on the foreheads where the water goes. You’ve been baptized. You don’t have to worry about who’s winning and who’s losing. The church of Jesus Christ wins. And it wins in history.

And the very things that causes doubt and fear and have consternation are actually evidences to us that yes, the judgment’s happening. And God will distinguish between the baptized and those who refuse the gracious waters of baptism. And he will bring judgments. He always has. And the ones—the last man standing is the Lord Jesus Christ and those who are with him. Historically, throughout history, this is the case.

So we’re sealed and we’re blessed in that with authority and protection. We’re given assurance of the nature of the true kings of the earth. In other words, is what I how I put it on the outline: we’re given assurance of the true kings on the earth. Yes, we’ve got men that stand before Greek columns and say that, you know, the Democratic Party can now lower the sea waters and stuff. I mean, it’s ridiculous. It’s laughable, the things that are going on at this point in our country’s history. But that’s okay, you know. Don’t worry. Don’t worry about that. Recognize they’re false pretenders to the throne, but you are the true kings of the earth. And throughout Revelation, the church is referred to that way over and over again. You are the kings of the earth. You are the ones who reign in the context of the world.

Benjamin Warfield said this: “You must not fancy then that God sits helplessly by while the world which he has created for himself hurdles hopelessly to destruction, and he is able only to snatch with difficulty here and there a brand from the universal burning. The world does not govern him in a single one of its acts.”

Right? You know, by the way, this chapter begins with God governing the winds through his angels, the very physical elements of the world, right? He’s in control of everything. So, you know, he goes on to say, “The world then does not govern him in a single one of his acts. He governs it and leads it steadily onward to the end which from the beginning, ever before a beam of it had been laid, he had determined for it, for the world. In other words, through all the years, one increasing purpose runs. One increasing purpose. The kingdoms of the earth become ever more and more the kingdoms of our God and of his church and his Christ. The process may be slow. The progress may appear to our impatient eyes to lag. But it is God who is building, and under his hands the structure rises as steadily as it does slowly, and in due time the capstone shall be set into its place, and to our astonished eyes shall be revealed nothing less than a saved world.”

I think that’s right. And I think that’s exactly what Revelation 7 is assuring us of with the sealing. We’re given these great promises, great good news. We’re given good news of provision. They’ll neither hunger nor thirst. Now, ultimately, of course, this is a spiritual reality. What does it say in the Beatitudes? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they shall be satisfied.” He’s not saying you can always get a Twinkie when you want one. But he’s saying if you have the proper hungering and thirsting, God will provide all your needs. Now, even in terms of physical sustenance, you know what do we see? We see the church able—and has done this for thou, 2,000 years now—provided for the physical needs of those of the household of faith. Don’t worry about starving to death. It doesn’t happen in the context of a church that is healthy and thriving.

And don’t worry about, you know, and do worry if that’s the only hunger and thirsting you have. Hunger and thirst after righteousness. And God says this is the increasing reality of the world. Protection from the hot sun and from the scorching heat. God promises us protection.

And finally, he promises us comfort. Let me close with this. Isaiah 49:8-13 is a parallel text. He says at the end of this text, “God will wipe away every tear from the eyes.”

Now, let me read Isaiah 49 as a parallel text to this and bring in the idea of comfort.

“Thus says the Lord, ‘In an acceptable time I have heard you and in the day of salvation I have helped you. I will preserve you and give you as a covenant to the people to restore the earth to cause them to inherit the desolate heritage. This is what Revelation 7 says as well. That you may say, “To the prisoners, go forth; to those who are in darkness, show yourselves.” They shall feed among the roads, rather. And their pastures shall be on all desolate heights. They shall neither hunger nor thirst. Neither heat nor sun shall strike them. For he who has mercy on them will lead them. Even by the springs of water he will guide them. I will make each of my mountains a road and my highways shall be elevated. Surely these shall come from afar. Look, those from the north and the west and those from the land of Sinim. And sing. That’s China. Sing, O heavens, be joyful, O earth, and break forth in singing, O mountains. For the Lord has comforted his people and will have mercy on his afflicted.’”

He has comfort. It ends with: “He has comforted his people. He’ll have mercy on the afflicted.”

And how does it end in Revelation 7? “He will wipe away every tear.”

Now, I think Eric Clapton’s right—I’m sure there’ll be no more tears in heaven. I think that the primary reference to him wiping every tear is not in the afterlife. I think it’s now. I think it’s talking about the reality of the church age and what God is doing now. And I know that you, me, many people have shed tears in this congregation over the last month or two—shed tears over lost loved ones that we love and miss. Shed tears over fear of the very ones that we should be looking to for protection and love from. Shed tears over broken relationships that just can’t seem to get fixed no matter how much we try. People have shed tears over the inability to get vocational satisfaction, to get work that endures. And you get to the point where you know you’re about broken and the Lord gives you some blessing. And then it seems to go away again. And tears are shed. Tears are shed over miscarriages in this church over the last few months, right?

Tears are shed over the horrific situation the country is in. And when we think about our grandkids, as us older ones do, you know, it’s enough to bring a man to tears seeing the kind of civil leaders that we have now been given. And I don’t like to, you know, criticize President Obama from this pulpit, but I see no other thing to do at this point. It is a shame. It’s a disgrace. It’s enough to bring tears to your eyes. And particularly in the context of the great difficulties we have with tremendous debt, both personal and mostly national, it’s enough to make you weep over your grandchildren’s ability to care for themselves and to provide families and stuff.

And God says he’ll wipe away those tears. God says that he’s in the process of comforting you. This act says tears will be shed. All right? It doesn’t say the Lord will stop all tears from ever flowing. It says tears will be shed. Difficulties are real. Deaths are to be mourned. A continuing death of freedom and economic prosperity is to be mourned. Broken relationships are to be mourned. Tears are real and should be flowing.

But at the same time, the Lord God brings comfort to you in the context of those difficulties by assuring you that he is in the process of writing every wrong, of providing for a world that the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ will cover it like the waters cover the ocean, in which the untold masses from every tribe and people and tongue and nation will increasingly be part of the great throng who worship him in the Lord’s day and who are, his servants rather, during the week.

God says he’ll wipe away tears. God wiped away tears. There were tears in Japan, right? Real tears. Millions of tears shed. And God is wiping them away through groups like the small efforts of our church, but significant for our size—$4,700 raised to send over to Japan to help that nation. Billions of dollars. Incredible numbers of man hours. The Lord God, and many of them motivated by this Christian impulse to bring comfort where affliction exists. The Lord God is wiping away tears in Japan. And he would tell you today, he’s wiping away your tears. And whatever it is that you struggle with—relationships, vocation, money, whatever it is, death—he’s wiping away your tears. We’re part of that process as we are in Japan. We’re to be those who meet together in parish meetings this afternoon and who bring to pass what the text tells us here, the great comfort of wiping away tears.

We’re supposed to wipe each other’s tears away, not by saying, “Don’t cry,” but by saying, “I know it’s difficult. I know it’s trouble. I know it’s affliction.” But the Lord God is using his people to speak comfort and to wipe away the tears of his people. Revelation 7’s a tremendous picture of blessing—you know, worldwide proclamation of the gospel and all these blessings given to us, and the very culmination of those blessings is the ongoing ministry of God through his Holy Spirit and through his people to wipe away tears in affliction.

Now I have to say though, that going back to an original part I made earlier, the ones whose tears are wiped away, I think, are both the 144,000 and the great multitude. And what was the designation of both? Servants. The only ones that get sealed are the servants of God. And when the angel asks John to tell him, “Who are these?” and John at the very center confesses his ignorance, isn’t that a great place for us to be? Tell us, Lord God, who they are. And if my structure is right, the culmination, the identity of who they are, is those who serve God night and day. That’s who we are. The servants of God who use their lives to serve him night and day. Those are the ones whose tears are wiped away. And if your tears aren’t being wiped away, I think it’s good to ask yourself: Am I a servant of the great Servant, the Lord Jesus Christ?

Children, listen to me. I know it’s been a long sermon. Listen right now. Serve your father. Serve your mother. Don’t, you know, make them have to ask you to do things. Ask them what you can do. Be a servant. Parents, serve your children. May each of us serve each other in our parish meetings this evening, this afternoon. We are supposed to be servants of God. The great comfort, the wonderful good news in light of all the bad news that’s going on in our world, the wonderful good news is given only to those two groups who are really one—to people who are servants of God. Not just on the Lord’s day, 24 hours a day, day and night, they serve the Lord God. Are you a servant of Christ? If you are, then be assured that he speaks words of tremendous comfort to you today. And you’re surrounded here by the body of Christ whose goal today is to give you comfort, to wipe away tears, to assure you of the gospel blessings of the Savior as you are servants of his.

You know, there’s a difference between John 12 and its account of Palm Sunday and Revelation 7. In John 12, they had leaves, but we know those adults would be the same ones, pretty much the same ones who later that week would be saying, “Crucify, crucify.” You know, Jesus that last week, he sees that fig tree, it’s got leaves, no fruit. He curses it. So, in John 12, we have people with palm branches, leaves, but no fruit, and the city is destroyed. Revelation 7, we’re those by the grace of God who have palm leaves today. But we’ve got fruit. We’re committed servants of Jesus Christ every day this week, 24 hours a day. And that service is seen and demonstrated in the various relationships that we have. And God says to such a people, Palm Sunday is tremendous gospel to you because what we looked forward to in commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is nothing short of the great gospel of comfort, provision, protection, and empowerment of his people that Revelation 7 gives us.

Let’s pray. Father, we bless your holy name. We thank you for the tremendous comfort that’s given to us in this text. May we indeed today be those who seek to comfort one another, to wipe away tears, to encourage each other with the gospel of our Savior even in the midst and particularly in the midst of difficult times. And may we recommit ourselves now as we come forward with our tithes and offerings to be your servants 24/7. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.