We are looking at Revelation 7. We already saw in Revelation 6 the first six judgments known as the Seven Seal Judgments. The seventh seal is coming, but it does not come until Revelation 8. Revelation 7 is an interlude. It does not progress chronologically. We saw in Revelation 6 the scenes on earth. We see the judgments that are coming on the earth. Revelation 7 takes us to heaven, and we see what’s going on in heaven at the very time that the seals are being broken on earth. However, we won’t get to the seventh seal until Revelation 8.
Let’s take a look at some of the events going on in here. In Revelation 7:1 it says, “After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, so that no wind would blow on the earth or on the sea or on any tree. Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God; and he cried out with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea, saying, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the bond-servants of our God on their foreheads.” This angel is instructing this other angel that the seventh seal should not yet be opened, but instead hold back because something must be done before we open that seventh seal. By the way, the seventh seal will open the other judgments that are found in the book of Revelation that take us all the way up to Revelation 19. So, there is a lot of content in that final seal. So, before he breaks that seal and we see what that content is, he tells these angels to hold back.
Then in Revelation 7:4, he said, “And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred and forty-four thousand sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel,” and then he goes on to tick off 12,000 from each of the tribes, and that takes us all the way through Revelation 7:8. What that tells us is that God has not forgotten Israel. In many ways, the book of Revelation is focused on Israel. It talks in the Old Testament about the troubles of Jacob, and this is that time. This is a time prophesied as part of the day of the Lord in much of the Old Testament and in several of the prophetic books in particular. So, Israel is still in focus. God has a plan for Israel, so much so, that He identifies 12,000 Jewish people from each of the tribes as He mentions here 144,000. So, we know that these 144,000 are sealed in such a way that no harm can come to them until God allows for that. Of course, probably more people know about the 144,000 people from the Jehovah’s Witnesses who claim that they are the 144,000. Of course, nothing in Scripture teaches any such things. These are not Jehovah’s Witnesses or even Gentiles. These are Jewish people that the Lord is protecting from the harm that is going to befall coming with the next seal in Revelation 8.
In Revelation 7:9 it says, “After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands.” So, now we move on to know that not only are Jews being protected from the judgments to come and from the power of the antichrist, but so are the Gentiles. It is a great multitude of people from every tribe, every tongue, every ethnicity, and the Lord is protecting them. These are going to be people that are followers of the Lord. These are not random Gentiles. These are people who have followed Jesus Christ during the time of the Tribulation . . .
