Rev No.11 Another glimpse of Heaven

Now let's turn to the Word of God. We're reading from Revelation, the book of Revelation chapter 7. After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God.

He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea, do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God. Then I heard the number of those who were sealed, 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel. From the tribe of Judah, 12,000 were sealed.

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, 12,000. After this, I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count.

From every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands and they cried out in a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. All the angels were standing round the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures.

They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshipped God saying, amen, praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever, amen. Then one of the elders asked me, these in white robes, who are they and where did they come from? I answered, sir, you know. And he said, these are they who have come 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 tent over them.

Never again will they hunger, never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd.

He will lead them to springs of living water and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. May the Lord help us to a deeper understanding of his word. We're going to be considering once again one of the happiest themes in the whole of the Bible for we're going to be speaking about heaven and in one sense one of the most helpful things that you can do in this study is to keep your eyes open on your copy of the scripture or to look on somebody else's copy if you've not got your own.

And let's consider afresh something of the teachings of the Bible in regard to our ultimate destination as the children of God. We need to think about heaven. I often say that from this pulpit and I do not apologize for the repetition.

We're a heaven-bound people. I think it was John Calvin who said that, I pity the man who never thinks about heaven. And this whole idea of being so heavenly minded that you have no earthly use is an absurdity.

The most heavenly minded people on the planet have been the people who've done the most constructive things. Shaftesbury was heavenly minded. Wilberforce was heavenly minded.

Yet these two great men were able to transform society in our own country and I could give you many other examples of this. Take this man Samuel Rutherford to whom I refer from time to time especially as we sing the hymn that's dedicated to him. He was a man who ministered for the Lord on the Solway up there in Scotland.

He had great problems with the throne with the politicians in those days and on one occasion having thrown him before into jail they summoned him to come before the king. But he had a greater summons. He was summoned into the presence of the Lord Jesus and before he left he was able to say that he'd wrestled on towards heaven.

They've summoned me to appear before these earthly monarchs but I've been summoned to appear before the Lord of the universe. It was said of George Whitfield that great revivalist of yesteryear that when it came to the point of him dying and he died as a result of asthma when it came to the point of his premature death all he had to do was to die. You say it's a morose subject? Not a bit.

I tell you it's only a depressing subject if you know nothing of Christianity. It's only the kingly amuses of this world who have to summon the psychiatrists and ask them to help cope with advancing years. Those whose minds are garnished with Scripture, those who have their sights set on the Lord Jesus can look at every day that passes as being one day less before they're in his immediate presence.

Well then let's have a look at heaven. Some people ask me and with every justification, at least it's not justified that they ask me, but the question itself is justified. They need to put it to the Bible.

What's it like in heaven? You know my dear one who walked with me for many a year has now gone on. Where are they? What's he doing? What's she doing? Well it seems to me that you get some sort of an insight into the experiences of people who've died, who've gone to be with the Lord in the final few verses of this seventh chapter. So let's be Chinese in our approach to homiletics this morning.

Let's start at the end and then we'll come back to the beginning of the chapter. It seems to me that here at the end of this great chapter in which John is telling you more about what he's experienced in the fourth when he says, I saw heaven opened, it seems to me that he's telling us a little of the situation that people are enjoying, people who've died in faith at this very moment. They are first of all in the immediate presence of God, verse 15, therefore they are before the throne of God.

And I can think of nothing more wonderful than being in the immediate presence of God. Says the psalmist, in a verse that I used to repeat here in the tab pulpit almost every Sunday in my earlier years, at least in the morning, one thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. When thou said, seeking my face, my heart cried unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek.

Well, there is the fulfillment of that goal. They are in the presence of the Lord. What is more, they are knowing not only His presence but His protection.

He who sits on the throne will spread His tent over them. Did you see those Kurdish refugees, those of you who watched the late news last evening? They were huddled together under inadequate tenting. For some of them it was just a primitive canopy made out of some plastic, but nonetheless there was a degree of warmth.

Now heighten that to the infinite and think of all the comfort and the security that the Bedouin have under their tents. For this is the language of the Psalmist when he talks about the redeemed. They come under the covering of the Lord, God of Israel, and this is the experience of those who've gone on to be with the Lord, they're under His protection.

Psalm 91 will give you more information. What's more, they know His provision. Never again will they hunger, never again will they thirst.

The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. The extremes of human need, famine, drought, the bruising heat of the Middle Eastern sun when there's no cover, none of this, none of the unpleasantnesses with which you can associate Middle Eastern life or life in the West or life in the Far East, none of that is known in heaven. They know His presence.

They know His provision. They know His protection. And what's more, they know His consolation.

The latter part of verse 17, God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. The things that cause heartache here on this earth, from those things they are divorced. Blessed are they that rest in the Lord, that die in the Lord, for they rest from their labors.

They know the consolation and the comfort and the provision of being in the immediate presence of God. No need for you to mourn for your loved ones in the sense of some hopeless dirge. They don't need your prayers.

You need theirs. You need the prayers of the saints. But as for them, well, they're beyond the need for intercession.

They are with the Lord. And to that great destination, you and I are bound. And the man who has his eye on heaven and the eternal future that there is, is the man, the woman who's equipped to cope with the changes and the difficulties and the problems of life here on this earth.

There's nothing like a glimpse of heaven to let your tragic grip on the things of earth which are passing away be slackened and ultimately released. Are you hearing me? You older people, you younger people, you who are having problems back home, some of you with difficulties of unemployment and all the horrors that that bring. I'm not in any way belittling these problems and saying they don't exist.

What I am saying is get your problems into perspective. You're a heaven-bound people. The future is with the children of God.

That's what this great chapter is saying. As John compliments that earlier verse, I saw heaven opened. Now, why is heaven such a marvelous place? Why is our destiny so fixed and so wonderful? Well, the 17th verse of this chapter will tell you, as indeed you will find the underlining made in the previous chapters, it all has to do with the lamb.

Verse 17, for the lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd. The reference is to our Lord Jesus. Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

He is born as a lamb, slain before the foundation of the world. The only hope that I have in time, the only hope that we have for eternity is centered in our Lord Jesus, and the metaphor describing him is that of the lamb and his central underthrone. The highest place that heaven affords is his by sovereign right.

There's a man in the glory who intercedes on your behalf and mine, the lamb. But here is the incredible thing. This is where your logic runs out at the human level in terms of understanding the statement, for the lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd whenever was a lamb a shepherd, whenever was the priest the sacrificial victim.

For you see, this is the paradox of Christianity. He is the shepherd, he's the sovereign. He is a lamb because he's a sacrifice.

He is the Son of God, the second person of the ever-blessed Trinity. He's also the Son of Man. He represents you and me.

The shepherd and the lamb, no contradiction. They converge, the two types in his person, in his ministry. The lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd.

He will lead them to springs of water. He is the one who on earth said, I am the bread of life. He is the one who says, come to me and drink of me and you will never thirst again.

Here is this lamb shepherd who's constantly ministering to the needs of the redeemed community. Now if you've understood this, you'll understand the Hindu philosopher whose words I quoted either this week or in last week's notes and news. When listening to a great missionary E. Stanley Jones in India said, either we need to take no notice of what this man has been telling us or else in the light of what he has been saying, nothing else matters.

Now there's a distinction. Either what I am saying is of the greatest significance and you should run with it and nothing else matters or else you reject all that I am saying and you go back to a secularist sort of life with no fixed eternal destination in heaven. In effect, that is the challenge of the Christian gospel.

We're heaven-bound people and if by definition heaven goes on and on and on, it is limitless and our time on this earth at the most will be 70, 80, 90 years, perhaps less for some of us, perhaps a few years more for some of us. But nonetheless it's small by comparison with all that lies beyond. Therefore, if my enjoyment of what lies beyond is dependent on how I act now, how much my lifestyle now will be conditioned by my hopes for the future.

You see the point? Be a man, be a woman, think these things through. It's the most important question I say that you can ever be challenged with. What is your destiny? Is your destiny heaven? Well, if your destiny is heaven, then watch how you live on the earth.

For the Lamb on the throne, the Shepherd God who came for your redemption wants you to live such a life that so pleases Him that in the moment that He sends a chariot to carry you from this earth into the next, there'll be no fear. You'll just want to go. My predecessor in this pulpit, Reverend Eric Land, I shall never forget my last words with him.

He's a remarkable man in many ways. He had a facial characteristic very much like Campbell Morgan. And he looked like Morgan as he was on what turned out to be his deathbed.

And I went to see him and I said, you're all right, Mr. Land. And he said, I'm all right, boy. And I committed him to the Lord.

And I shall not forget, it's sort of photographed in my mind, his silhouette as I backed away from the ward and saw him once more through the glass as he just saluted me, smiled, and then with hours was in the presence of God. How do you approach death will very much condition the way that you live your life. Says Charles Spurgeon, there is a crown in heaven which nobody's head but yours can ever wear.

There is a seat in which none but you can sit. There is a harp which will be silent till your fingers strike its strings. There is a robe made for you which no one else can wear.

They are waiting for you in heaven. Our Lord Jesus said in the high priestly prayer, speaking of those that the Father had given to him, thine they were and thou gavest them to me. The end of the prayer, he says, Father, I want, I want that those whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, the glory I had with you before the foundations of the world.

Father, I want. As far as I know, that's the only time in Scripture when Jesus uses that language, I want. And it's not just an ordinary desire that doesn't really matter whether it's fulfilled or not.

It is one of the deepest, most shocking words in the Greek language, the sort of word which would be used in the rightful context in the relationship between a lover and the loved one. It's sexual in some of the way that it is to be understood. Father, the deepest desire of my heart is that they may be where I am.

Heaven for the Lamb would not be heaven if you who were given him by the Father were not to find your final resting place there. That should help anyone who's suffering from low esteem. Well, you say this is all very nice, it's all very pleasant, but when you last took us into this book of Revelation in the sixth chapter, you had us frightened to death.

I mean, here is this Lamb who releases certain seals from a parchment, and as a result various waves of destruction and punishment fall upon the earth. And you brought us to that frightening expression in the penultimate verse of the sixth chapter, the sixteenth verse. The wrath of the Lamb for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand? And we had this terrible picture of the rulers of the world, the rich and the mighty, and the non-influential going to the mountains and pleading for the rocks to fall on them.

How do you balance this with what happens in the seventh chapter? Well, we do this quite simply by reminding you that when the Lord God tells us in His gospel that the Lord Christ came into the world for sinners, He never passed absolution, forgiveness of sin upon the total ranks of humanity. In other words, there are the saved and there are the damned, the Christ-accepters and the Christ-rejecters. The Lamb who died on the cross did so for your sins, but there are judicial rights involved in the ministry of Jesus, and in one sense you either know Him as your Savior, or hear me, you know Him as your Judge.

The wrath of the Lamb. When our Lord turns His holy eyes on those who find themselves fleetingly in His presence, who have sins that are unforgiven, there will be such a discomfiture on their part, they would gladly go into hell rather than to stay in His presence. Our God is a consuming fire.

It is an awful presence in which to find yourself if you have not been washed in the blood of Calvary's cross. If you have not been fitted for the eternity that is beyond, then I tell you in the presence of Christ, you would opt for hell rather than be discomfited as a result of the feelings of your utter unworthiness and inadequacy. Now, when you're dealing with the book of Revelation, I have to remind you that we are dealing with a book that is not necessarily in chronological order.

In other words, it doesn't necessarily follow a sequence. And so, in the first verse of the seventh chapter, here is John being given another glimpse of what is to happen. In the last verse of the sixth chapter, the judgments have come on the earth.

In the first verse of the seventh chapter, those judgments are yet to be. And so, we get this picture of four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. This is before this day of final judgment.

This is before the day of consummation. And the angels hold in check all these terrible disasters that are going to come upon the earth as God wreaks judgment and vengeance and ultimately renews the earth and the universe. So, John takes us back in time, so to speak, from the sixth chapter.

And in the second verse, we read these very wonderful words, Then I saw another angel coming up from the east having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea, Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God. I'll explain my comment in a moment.

The most important thing for you to know in your life this side of eternity is the seal of God upon you. When our Lord Jesus is entombed, Pontius Pilate ensures that the seal of Tiberius Caesar is placed on the tomb, the seal representing possession, ownership, authority. When you respond to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul will tell you in Ephesians 1 and Ephesians 4, he seals you with his Holy Spirit.

Preaching on the letters to the churches earlier on in Revelation, I think it was Tim Saunders who made reference to the name that is given to members of the body of Christ who have thereby committed their lives to the Lord Jesus. A new name is placed upon them. And when you become a Christian, that's exactly what happens.

The Apostle Paul will tell you in 2 Timothy 2 and verse 19 that the Lord knows who are his. In fact, that scripture is so important, let's turn to it because I think you'll even find the language of sealing there. 2 Timothy 2 and verse 14 or verse 19.

Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription, the Lord knows those who are his and everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness. The Lord God is fully aware of all those who have committed their trust to him. They're sealed by his Spirit.

They are given a new name. Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God. Then we get a description of all those who will be saved.

The description is given in symbolic fashion as we would anticipate. We're told that there are 144,000. It's most important that you follow this and I'll try and make it as simple as possible because the Jehovah's Witnesses have got themselves into such trouble and so have some lesser commentators on the Bible who actually profess an orthodox Christianity.

144,000 is made up in a sort of diagrammatic fashion, so to speak, from the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th verses by computing all the tribes of Israel. But this is symbolic language. The tribe of Dan is missing, Joseph is included, and Manasseh is also included, and there are a number of things that you wouldn't expect if you were going to take this literalistically.

So here is, if you like, the picture of the people of God with an Old Testament orientation. The number twelve brings to mind the twelve sons of Jacob, not so? I took you to Revelation and the penultimate chapter some while ago when we were referring to the fact that in the New Jerusalem there is represented the twelve tribes of Israel, verse 12 of chapter 21. And when you think in terms of the church of the New Testament era, you think of the foundations of the twelve apostles.

So if you were to multiply twelve by twelve, you get 144. If you were to take a perfect number, you could perhaps opt for one thousand, which is ten times ten times ten, the perfect cube. And heaven is described in Revelation 21 symbolically as a perfect cube.

So you put those three items together and you begin to understand the interpretation of this symbolism, of this diagram, if you please. Here is the Old Testament. Here is the New Testament churches of God joined together, converging together.

Here it is taken to the perfection of all the people of God who shall be saved throughout all the dispensations, and we get this grand symbolic number of 144,000. All these are the sealed people. If you were to go to Revelation chapter 14, further reference is made to them.

In the first verse, then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him 144,000 who had His name and His Father's name written on their foreheads. Drop down to verse four, the latter part. They were purchased from among men and offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb.

They have the name of the Lamb and the name of the Lord God on their foreheads. They're sealed, the sealed community of the redeemed. Old Testament, New Testament.

All right, stay with the thought, but the picture will change slightly. Verse nine, after this I looked. Here is a refocusing of the same thing, only it's got a different, not connotation in terms of meaning, but a different picture in the way that it presents itself to John as he looks upon this group from the human point of view.

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language. Interesting the fourfold use of words to describe their nation, tribe, people, language. We're so used to the number four, the four corners of the earth, the four corners of the world.

Here are people brought from all over the world, and they're standing before the throne, and they're in front of the Lamb, and they are comfortable there. Did you hear that? You see in the sixth chapter you've got these generals and these princes and these kings, and they're crying till the rocks fall down on us. They want to escape the wrath of the Lamb.

But here are people, an innumerable number of people. The language is almost a language that God used when He said to Abraham, I will give you an innumerable seed, so beyond computing that if you could get the number of the stars in the sky and the number of the grains of sand on the seashore, an utter impossibility, then you will be able to understand the vastness of all that I will achieve through you and all who exercise faith in Me as you have done. And they stand before the Lamb, and they're comfortable.

There is no greater blessing both sides of eternity than to be comfortable in the presence of this God, than to be sealed, than to have upon you the name of the Lord Jesus and the efficacy of His blood applied. Are you hearing me? Either what I am saying is the most important thing you have ever heard, or you can dismiss this as a load of foolery. But if you were judged to be the former, your life is bound to be different.

As a result, these people, they wear the white robes of their righteousness, their whole palm branches the Hebrew way of expressing praise and adoration to the Father, and they cry out in a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. The great congregation, His praisers shall sing, ascribing salvation to Jesus our King. But He's not just the King of kings as far as man is concerned.

He's the King of kings. He's the Lord of the lords in terms of the earth and the universe and the heavens and indeed the territory below the earth that the Bible refers to in terms of the damned. And you find that all but the latter agree with these great people, these numbers symbolically 144,000, this innumerable company of people who bring their praise and adoration to the Lord.

All the angels stand round the throne, the elders, the four living creatures representing the created universe. They fall down on their faces before the throne and worship God saying, Amen, praise, glory, wisdom, thanks, honor, power, strength, be to our God forever and ever. And that's the reason why the universes were made.

That's the reason for the existence of the seraphim and the cherubim and all the angelic hosts. That's the reason for animal life. That's the reason why you and I were born in the image of God, fractured but nonetheless with such remaining that you know that you are unique on this earth.

We were born to glorify God, to enjoy him forever. Therefore with the angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven we lord and magnify thy glorious name evermore praising thee and saying holy, holy, holy Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory. Glory be to thee, O Lord most high.

Amen. The Anglican communion service. And now you get what's almost humorous.

A touching piece of 20th century journalism. Then one of the elders, verse 13, asked me, these in white robes, who are they? By putting a question to a politician and not getting an answer but getting another question or here more politely the indication, well, you know more than I know, so you tell me. These in white robes, who are they and where did they come from? Who are these multitudinous people? Who is this group of 144,000 symbolically so described? Sir, you know.

And so he gives the information that John is beginning to comprehend for himself. These are they who come out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.

Philip Hughes says that that come is a timeless present. These are they who come out of the great tribulation. The church has always known tribulation.

The early apostles, they were done to death in a damnable fashion. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, Blondina and little slave girl in the third century. Do you ever read about these things? Do you ever read the history of the church? Do you know what they did to people in Lewes not that many years ago? Do you know how they drowned the early Baptists in our own country in the River Thames? Do you know anything about the martyrs of the church? Do you know anything about church history at all? Do you know what they did to Christian people in Korea? Do you know that there have been more martyrs for Christ this century than in all the other centuries put together? These are they who have come out of the great tribulation.

Brothers and sisters, we have a pedigree, we have an ancestry in the Christian church in its history which is really quite remarkable. Others were tortured and refused to be released. Some faced jeers and flogging while still others were chained and put in prison.

They were stoned, they were sown in two, they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted, and ill-treated. The world was not worthy of them.

This has always been the way the world has brutalized the children of God. I don't exaggerate. The only reason why some of you are questioning these things is you've never read history.

If you could give me one request as a pastor of this church, I would ask you for one hour per week that you read the history of the great problems that Christian people have been through. We have it easy in this country, generally speaking, perhaps not for all of you, but with the majority of us. Well, who are these people? These are they who have been coming from the tribulation that they have known on this earth.

These are men and women who wear white robes. These are people who have known the efficacy of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ applied to their account. They have been made white in the blood of the Lamb.

Therefore, we're back to our starting point. They are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple. They know His presence.

They know His protection. They know His provision. They know His consolation.

Are you sealed? Do you know what it is to be washed in the blood of the Lamb? Do you understand the implications of that great text of Scripture when it's said of the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ and those who have benefited therefrom in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of John and the twenty-fourth verse, I tell you the truth, whoever hears my words and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned. He has crossed over from death to life. Have you done that? You've crossed over on the intersection, the motorway intersection of God's road through this life.

You're no longer with the mainstream of traffic, the rubbers hit the road, and you're being guided by the Lord God Himself. Do you realize that you're not here forever, that you're sealed, you're washed, you're sanctified, you're amongst the 144,000 from the heavenly point of view, from the human, you're amongst that innumerable company of people for whom Jesus died. The future is yours because the future is God's and God has committed the future and all the glories of the ages yet to be to the Lamb who sits upon the throne.

So I ask you again, is the Lamb your Savior or do you reject what I'm saying as being mere foolishness? The choice is yours, but can you make greater sense out of the phenomenon of life as you understand it than the way that it's being revealed in this final book of the Bible where a man says, I saw heaven opened and the Lamb was sitting.