Alright, so if you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it.
We're going to be in the book of Revelation, chapter 7.
Revelation chapter 7.
Alright, so Jordan was with you last week and I don't think he covered Revelation, did
he?
No.
Yeah, good, because I told him specifically, preach anything but Revelation.
It's good that he did.
But yeah, we're back in Revelation chapter 7, so if you'll just remember just to reorient
ourselves, we were coming out of this section about opening the sixth seal, and we're still
technically in that section.
We haven't gotten to the seventh seal yet, but as part of opening the sixth seal, that's
hard to say together.
John takes a moment to recount something else that he saw.
The Lord gives him a new aspect of this vision, and you'll remember that with the opening of
the sixth seal, there was all this destruction, right?
The sun's falling out of the sky, stars are falling, the whole world is darkened, and
people are running.
They realize that Jesus is real, that the Christians were right, and so they go running,
and you remember they're begging the mountains to fall on them and hide them from the face
of Jesus.
They don't even want to see Him.
They are literally more afraid of the wrath of God than they are of death, and you see
that it's falling on everybody, and there was that sevenfold description of humanity,
and it's like, okay, well no one's going to escape this.
And then remember we started chapter 7, and what was that beginning to tell us about?
Do you remember?
We are getting there, but not quite yet.
So chapter 7 started with God saying, oh wait, before all this takes place, we first have
to seal God's people.
And so we talked about the seal, and as many of you noted, that seal is the Holy Spirit,
and so God seals His people with the Holy Spirit, which is God's way of protecting His people
from the wrath to come.
And we said that we have great hope, and we have great comfort knowing that even though
the wrath of God is coming and will be poured out upon this earth, Christians will never
experience the wrath of God ever.
We will stand before God in judgment, but because of Jesus we will never experience
the wrath of God, and that's because He sealed us with His Holy Spirit, and that was in contrast
to the mark of the beast.
So all unbelievers are marked with a mark that is of the beast, meaning they belong to the
beast, because remember we said on the forehead, the mark of the beast on the forehead, Christians
are sealed with the Holy Spirit on the forehead, and we said that slaves used to be branded
on their forehead with the brand of their master to show to whom they belonged.
It was a sign of ownership.
And so the seal of the Holy Spirit is God's way of saying, these are my people, they belong
to me, and the mark of the beast is the devil's way of saying, well these are my people, and
they belong to me.
And so we're getting into that, we see that God has sealed all of His people so that they
would not experience His wrath when all this takes place, and then we get something really,
really fun that everybody skips over, right?
I mean, I figure we would get this through our minds in Genesis.
Do you all remember how many lists we had in Genesis and names and everything?
But it was fun, right?
There's always fun little tidbits.
One of my favorite sermons I ever got to preach was on the beginning chapter of Matthew, Matthew
chapter one, where it's just a long list of names, and what does everybody do when they
get there?
All right, names, next chapter, right?
Let's read about Joseph and Mary, but you go through those names and you're like, oh,
actually, there's a really cool structure here, and there's something really amazing
that's being communicated.
Well, that's what happens with lists, and specifically lists of names in the Bible.
You come to this, you don't want to just read over it, you need to pay attention because
there are some really interesting things about this list.
And so we're going to start in verse four, and we're going to read it.
And yes, we are going to talk about a bunch of names tonight, but don't let that scare
you away.
Don't doze off on me because there are some really interesting things here.
So Revelation chapter seven, beginning in verse four, 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 Rum and 12,000 from the tribe of Gad, 12,000 from the tribe of
Asher, 12,000 from the tribe of Neftali, 12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh, 12,000 from the
tribe of Zemian, 12,000 from the tribe of Levi, 12,000 from the tribe of Isekor, 12,000
from the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000 from the tribe of Joseph and 12,000 from the tribe
of Benjamin were sealed.
So, pretty interesting, right?
I mean, you all see it already, don't you?
You're like, oh yeah, this is interesting.
Let's talk about it.
Okay, some interesting things going on here.
First and foremost, I want you to notice that John hasn't seen anything yet, hasn't.
Did you notice what verse 4, going all the way back up to verse 4, notice what it says,
and I what?
And I heard.
Alright, that's going to be very, very important for later.
So if you have your Bible and you like to mark in your Bible like I do, circle that word, heard,
underline it, highlight it, do whatever you want to do, I heard the number of the sealed,
and what is he here?
What's the number?
144,000.
So John's standing there and he's God saying, I have a sealed people, here's the number of the sealed,
John 144,000.
That's what he hears, alright?
Make a note of that.
So he hears that there's a sealed people, it's the number 144,000, and there's a lot of debate about this.
I know that's surprising to you because everybody agrees on everything in Revelation, right?
So there's a lot of debate about who the 144,000 actually are.
One view would say, well, the 144,000 is the 144,000 are sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel,
so one view says that the 144,000 refer to only ethnic Jews, people who are ethnically Jewish,
and that makes sense, right? 144,000 of the tribes of Israel makes sense.
Along with this view, they'll say not only is it actually ethnically Jewish people,
but specifically it is literally 144,000.
Not 139,999, not 1399, or 100,300, whatever it is.
100,000, 39, whatever, blah, blah, blah.
It's exactly 144,000.
Now that does seem a little odd or peculiar, does it not?
I mean, even if you read the book of Numbers, it's often very even, specific Numbers,
it's very nice Numbers, they typically end in a zero or a five, just, you know, nice, neat Numbers.
Maybe it's fat, nice, and neat, maybe it's not.
You know, oftentimes they would just put a number out there to kind of round up and things like that.
144,000 Jewish people, according to this view, those are all the Jews who are going to be saved.
A grand scheme of things, considering how long the world has existed at this point,
and considering that the faith literally started with Judaism, doesn't this seem a little low?
I mean, go back all the way to like Abraham or something, right?
You know, he'd be considered part of Israel.
He was the father of Jacob.
And so, or, well, Isaac was the father of Jacob, but Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, he's the patriarch.
So everybody attributes him father of Israel, right?
Think back all the way to the time of Abraham till today.
How long has that been?
Thousands upon thousands of years, right?
And you're telling me within that span of time, only 144,000 ethnically Jewish people are going to be saved.
And that's just where we're at now.
Who knows when Jesus is coming back?
We don't know.
Could be any time.
This world might exist for another couple thousand of years, and then that makes this number even more seemingly improbable to think about, right?
Let's say the world continues to exist for another 5,000 years after us, and however long it's existed before us.
Who knows the number of that year's scientists?
They'll say billions upon billions.
They're just guessing.
They have no idea.
Okay?
Could be thousands upon thousands.
Whatever the case may be.
You consider the whole span of humanity, and you're telling me that only 144,000 ethnically Jewish people will ever be saved.
Can we just be honest with each other and say that seems a little low?
It seems a little low, right?
But that's what this view says.
But what's interesting to me about this, that number, is, I don't know if you remember this, but all throughout Revelation, so Revelation, it's apocalyptic literature, right?
That's the genre.
We have to keep coming back to that time and time again, because you have to interpret something according to its genre.
And Revelation is apocalyptic literature.
Well, apocalyptic literature often uses numbers symbolically.
Does it not?
You've already seen this in the book of Revelation.
You remember in the very first chapter, when Jesus talked about the seven spirits of God, that's one we keep coming back to time and time again, the seven spirits of God.
Well, up to this point, you've read the whole Bible, and you go, well, hold on a second.
There's only one spirit of God.
Now I'm being told there's seven spirits of God.
And we said seven is the number of what?
Perfection.
It's the number of perfection, of fullness, completeness.
And so that's the apocalyptic way of referring to the fullness of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
It was John saying, hey, listen, the seven spirits of God are with you.
It's John saying, hey, the fullness of the presence of the Holy Spirit is with you in your midst.
So you have the great comfort of knowing that God is with you even in the midst of your persecution and your troubles.
We also saw it with the 24 elders.
Now, there might actually be literally 24 elders, but what was symbolic about that is,
24 divided by 2 is 12.
So you have two groups of 12, 12 and 12.
Why would that be significant?
Yeah, the tribes of Israel in the Old Covenant and the 12 apostles of Jesus in the New Covenant.
And so we said that the 24 elders are a representative body of God's covenant people.
Well, here's the interesting thing about 144,000.
Down there.
I have it written.
I forgot that I put it there.
You know how you get 144,000?
You take 12 times 12 times 1,000 and then you get 144,000.
Now, that would seem odd to me if that's not symbolic.
Right?
If you have a number 144,000 and you can break it down to literally be 12, 12 tribes of Israel,
12 apostles of Jesus and 1,000, which we've already talked about in a previous,
we've been in Revelation all year, so I don't know what number it is, but it's up there.
We, you know, one of our first sermons on Revelation, we said that 1,000 in the Bible
is a way of referring to a long period of time or to a large group of things or people, right?
So one day for us is like how many years for the Lord?
A thousand.
And a thousand years for us is like one day for the Lord.
It's saying there's the completeness of time and it equals this.
Or God owns the cattle on a thousand hills.
You remember that?
Is it saying that after a thousand, when you get to 1,001, those aren't gods anymore.
Those belong to man.
No, it's the Bible saying it's a large number to encompass a whole of something, right?
Which is one reason why I don't believe that the thousand year reign of Christ is a literal thousand years,
but it's representative of a whole of something.
We'll get there when we get to Revelation chapter 19, 20.
Next year, thank you, Brian.
Yeah, so it'll be a while.
But yeah, so anyways, a thousand in the Bible is used that way.
I mean, if you were going to ask me, hey pastor, how many unbelievers do you think there are in South Carolina?
I'd say in South Carolina alone, there are probably thousands upon thousands.
I don't know the actual number, but I say a thousand upon thousands to represent the whole big body.
And so when you put that together, 12, 12 tribes of Israel, 12, 12 apostles of Jesus, a thousand,
it really symbolically is saying that this refers to all of God's people spanning both covenants.
All old covenant believers, all new covenant believers, they are one body in Christ,
and that's where you get the thousand that comes into it.
This is the fullness.
This is the complete of God's people.
All of God's people are here represented in this body.
Look at John here, he hears 144,000.
Now, if you aren't sold on me thinking that this number is symbolic yet,
even though I do feel like I've given pretty good reason, let's go even further.
And this is when we get into the fun stuff with this list, okay?
Because when you look at this list, there are all sorts of oddities with this list
that make us think that this list is not meant to be interpreted literally,
that the list itself lends itself to a symbolic interpretation.
This list is unique among all the list of names in the Bible,
specifically the list of the 12 tribes of Israel, this list out of all the times.
Think about how many times the 12 tribes are listed in the Bible.
This one stands apart from them all and is unique.
First and foremost, here's your number one indicator that this list should be interpreted symbolically.
Who's listed first?
Judah.
Now, I put this number here because even though he's listed first, Judah was born fourth.
So if you're listing the tribes of Israel, you don't start with the fourth born,
you start with the first born, but he's listed second.
Now, it makes sense that Judah is listed first, right?
He's the tribe from which Jesus came.
Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah,
and so it does make sense in one sense to put Judah first.
So you have the fourth born listed first,
then you have the first born listed second.
You might be saying, okay, well, we're just going to move Judah up
and then we're going to start the list over, right?
In knees, He's our first-born.
Applause.
We bring that up and then we get to look at these are some of the facts
in 8th, why else is it absolutely crazy that these two are listed here? I'll give you a
Bible if you get this. I'm not sure, but that's not what I'm going for. You know what? It
might be right. I don't... You get a Bible. Well, I've already given you a Bible. It's
going to be an ESV. Good job, mom. Yes. Interesting. These two are children of the concubine, not
the wife. You remember that you had Leah and Rachel. Leah, she was the wild cow. You all
remember that? Rachel was the beautiful you, the little sheep, but Leah was the wild cow.
Jacob, he did not love her. He loved Rachel, but Rachel couldn't really bear children.
Leah bore the first four, and so Rachel got jealous, and so what did she do? She went
and got a maid servant and said, okay, I need you to bear a child for me. It was one of
the concubines of Jacob, and the children of the concubine are listed before the children
of either of the wives. You don't do that. I know you're not as shocked as I want you
to be, but you don't do that kind of thing, and it would never be done. It hasn't been
done in the Bible. Not only that, Naftali. Anybody remember whose son? No? Another concubine.
Another concubine. So you have the children of concubines listed before you have the children
of the actual wives listed. Now, again, if you're thinking, well, that's not too crazy,
but we should expect right after Naftali, there should be the tribe of Dan listed somewhere.
You remember he was one of the 12 tribes of Israel, right? I don't know if you've read
my list here. Anybody see Dan? Where's Dan? If you're going to say that this is 144,000
from the 12 tribes of Israel, don't you think you should have all 12 tribes up there? But
we don't have Dan. Anybody know why? The Lord will tell us in glory. Okay? We don't know.
I mean, the Bible doesn't say, hey, here's why Dan's not listed. Most people believe
it's because Dan was always a wayward tribe. Dan was given to idolatry, and it became a
center of idolatry in the land of Israel for a time, and they were pretty much always like
a wayward tribe even from the start. And so most people would say, yeah, they were not,
yeah, all sorts of bad stuff with Dan. And so most people say, well, the reason Dan's
not listed is because it's always been a wayward tribe. So out with Dan, and in we get Manasseh.
Why do I have a question mark there, folks? Yeah, that's part of it. Why don't I have
a number? That's not one of the children. Manasseh was one of the grandchildren. Right?
So this was one of Joseph's two sons. Remember he had the two sons? He had Manasseh and Ephraim.
So maybe you're thinking, okay, well, out with Dan and with Manasseh. But no. Why is
it even crazier that Manasseh's listed? Let's go back to our Genesis study on this. Who
can remember? Remember Joseph brings his two boys in as Jacob is nearing death, and Jacob's
going to bless his children? Actually, Jacob did more than that. He adopted Manasseh and
Ephraim as his own, and they were basically going to take the place of Reuben and Simeon,
but they're still here. And they were supposed to be counted among the 12 tribes of Israel,
but Jacob was going to pass on the blessing and bless one of the boys specifically. And
so Joseph goes, all right, well, here's Manasseh. He's the oldest. Go ahead. And so Jacob lifts
out his arms, and the last second you remember what he did? Crossed. The crossed arms of
blessing. I think that was the title of that sermon. So you all can go and rewatch that.
And he crosses them and he ends up blessing Ephraim. And Joseph like grabs his dad's hands.
He goes, oh, dad, you're old. You're supposed to be like this, you know, like Manasseh is
the oldest. You should bless him. And Jacob goes, no, this is how it's going to be. I'm
going to bless Ephraim. And my blessing will be upon him, not on Manasseh, which is a theme
throughout Genesis where the younger one is blessed rather than the older. And so here
you have not a child of Jacob, not one of the tribes of Israel, and not even the one who
received the blessing. And yet he's here. And then the list kind of makes sense after
this, right? Anybody know why the list makes sense after this? Yes, pretty much in order,
right? You have, but even then it's still kind of interesting because you have Simeon
and Levi. Those were the other two sons of Leah. And then you have the sons, well actually
Simeon and Levi, Ezekar and Zebulon, the sons of Leah. And then you have the sons of
Rachel. Interesting thing there. I mean, you can say it's in order, but also Jacob loved
Rachel and he didn't love Leah. So you would expect those things to be a little reversed.
But then the other oddity about this list, if there's not enough already, anybody know
why number eight is interesting? Yeah, Levi, if you read the twelve tribes and like the
places where they're listed, Levi's almost never mentioned because Levi didn't receive
any land. That tribe in particular didn't receive any of the land. They were to be dependent
on other people and go into the towns and they'd have their own little center and stuff
like that. But they didn't receive any land. And yet here they are in the list. Now you
begin to look at all these oddities and you go, how can we interpret this literally? And
we're talking about 144,000 sealed from the twelve tribes of Israel. We don't even have
the twelve tribes of Israel here. And it's put in such a wonky order with things all
messed up and everything. You go, well, this is not like any list I've ever seen. And so
it's interesting. You look at all these oddities and you realize that they are pointing us
towards a symbolic interpretation. I mean you go back even to the first one. Judah, the
tribe of Judah, Jesus, the lion of the tribe of Judah. And what's interesting is basically
everybody's going to follow this, right? You list Judah first, everybody follows. Well,
the Bible says that we are in Christ. And so if you are in Christ, you are part of his
family. And so you are essentially, you're grafted into this. So it doesn't matter where
you find yourself anywhere else. What matters is that you're in Jesus. And if you're in
Jesus, you're included in this because of your faith in Christ. And so it makes sense
that you have the promise being the first one listed. And you could say some things
about a couple other interesting tidbits about this list. But all of this to say that the
list itself is pointing us towards this symbolic interpretation of the 144,000 being representative
of all of God's people spanning both covenants. Old covenant, new covenant. It consists of
all of God's people here. Okay? Now maybe you say, okay, pastor, I heard you on the
12 times 12 times 1,000. I see that your list is far more interesting than I thought it
was going to be. Props to you. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's a really cool list.
I didn't write it. I didn't. It's not me, but I do think it's very interesting. But
maybe you're not convinced yet. So let me show you the other really cool thing about
this chapter. We've got time for this. It's fine. All right. So my favorite clue comes
next. Look at verses nine through 10. This is like the biggest clue that this list is
representing all of God's people. Okay? After this, I looked and behold, a great multitude
that no one can number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages
standing before the throne and before the lamb clothed in white robes and palm branches
in their hands and crying out the loud voice. Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the
throne into the lamb. Now, do you see the clue there? Because here's what I'll tell
you. That first interpretation I told you about where people would look at this list
and they would say it literally refers to exactly 144,000 Jewish people who will be
saved. They also say, but then John sees a second group and it's this other group that
he sees. So first, first he gets this group and then he moves on to the Gentiles, right?
Do you see a huge clue there? I'll give you a hint. It's already happened in chapter
5. It's a repeat. Something really cool happened in chapter 5. Alright? So remember, there's
this scroll that's brought out in heaven and no one is found who is worthy to open it.
And so what does John start doing? He starts crying and weeping because he says no one's
worthy to open it, but then one of the elders comes to him and he says, hey, don't cry and
the elder does what? He tells him something. He says, don't cry because the lion of the
tribe of Judah is going to come and open this scroll and break open its seals. So that's
what he hears. He hears about a lion, but then do you remember what happens? He turns
in looks and what does he see? A lamb, standing as though it had been slain. So he hears about
a lion, but he sees a lamb. Were those two different references there? No. It was two
descriptions of the same person, right? He hears it described as a lion, but he turns
and he sees a lamb. Those are both describing Jesus, not two different entities or beings
or anything like that. Well, notice how that exact same thing happens here. That's why
I had you underline, circle the word heard because notice how it starts verse 9 and I
looked. Verse 4, I heard about a number, 144,000. And so that's what he has in his mind. I am
hearing about 144,000 sealed people, but then he turns and he looks and what does he see?
An innumerable multitude. Far more than 144,000. We know that because he says the number so
big no person can count it. Now are these two separate groups? No. He hears the number,
144,000. He looks and he sees a multitude that no one can count. People from every tribe,
nation, and tongue, and language. And so it's just two different descriptions of the same
people just like with the lion and the lamb. He hears 144,000, but he sees this innumerable
multitude. If you want something that will really trip you out, he is seeing all of God's
people here. An innumerable multitude. All of those who would be redeemed. He is seeing
a vision of those people. Are you redeemed? Do you think John saw you in his vision? Let
that trip you out for a little bit. God gave him a vision of everyone who would ever be
saved. Here are my people sealed forever. You're part of it. It's just amazing to think
about that. I mean there's not a point there. It just blew my mind when I thought about
it. So what this is saying is that this is the Bible's way of saying the 144,000, it
is symbolic. It's symbolic of all of God's people spanning both covenants, old and new.
And when you look at them, they're not 144,000 in number, they are an innumerable multitude.
And so here's my final question because we have to wrap up. If this is true and it is
a symbolic interpretation, then why would it specifically say the 12 tribes of Israel?
There's a big hold up for us, right? If we are going to interpret this symbolically,
we have to get around that phrase because the Bible specifically included the phrase,
what is the 12 tribes of Israel? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. You're on the right track.
Yeah, absolutely. So part of the reason that a lot of people think Manasseh's included
is another symbolic way of saying those who were not originally part of God's people have been
grafted in and actually where we're going with this because you have to remember that when we
are reading the Bible, we have to use the Bible to interpret the Bible, scripture interprets scripture.
And so you look at the Bible and you say, well, who is Israel? Right? And you have to ask this
question, who are the true Israelites? Who is truly Israel? And you read the Bible in the New
Testament makes clear that Jesus is the true Israel of God. Everywhere that Israel failed,
everything that Israel was supposed to do, Jesus succeeded and he did. I mean, go back to read the
first four chapters of Matthew and just watch how Jesus is literally reliving Israel's history. I mean,
it's in one of my podcasts. You can go listen to that. I don't have time to go through it now.
But first four chapters of Matthew, very clear. Jesus is reliving Israel's history, proving he's
the true Israel of God. And if you are in Christ, you're part of that. Romans chapter 11 literally
teaches us that God's people were this vine, right? And who did the vine originally consist of?
Israel, ethnic Jews, but they failed. And so what did God do? He took a wild olive branch,
the Gentiles, us and he grafted us in to that true vine. And so we became part of the true
Israel through the work of Christ. But then not only that, Paul explains in Galatians 3.7,
and so he says, Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.
So the Israelites, they would constantly say that they're the sons of Abraham. We have Abraham as
our father. Remember the Pharisees used to say that to Jesus all the time. Well, Abraham's our
father. And he said, actually, your father's the devil. That's a whole other sermon here. But
anyways, the Bible says actually the only true children of Abraham are those who are of faith.
Not only that, but this is what the Bible says in Romans 2, 28 to 29. For 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, not by the letter. His praise is not
from man, but from God. And so that's Paul saying that that true Jews, true Israelites are those
who have had their hearts circumcised by the spirit, which is what happens to us at conversion.
If you have received the Holy Spirit through repentance and faith in Christ, had your heart
circumcised, you are a true Jew in the eyes of God. It is a matter of inwardly being considered
Jew in God's eyes, not outwardly adhering to rituals and things like that. And then maybe the
clearest is Romans 9, 6 to 8. The Bible says, but it's not as though the word of God has failed.
For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. In other words, just because you are
ethnically Jewish does not mean that you're part of the true Israel. Not everyone who's
descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his
offspring. But through Isaac, shall your offspring be named? This means that it is not the children
of flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as the offspring.
And so notice what Paul is saying there. He's saying that just because someone is ethnically
Jewish and they can trace their whole lineage and it's always been Jewish and they follow all the
customs and everything, Paul says, listen, that could be true of you, but that does not make you
part of true Israel. If you are part of true Israel, it means that you are a child of promise,
which means that you have repented of your sins, you've trusted in Christ, and now the Bible says
all the promises of God find their yes and amen in Jesus. And all the promises of word to Abraham
are fulfilled in Christ and given to Christ's people through faith in him. Therefore, Christians
are the children of promise. Therefore, Christians are the true sons of Abraham, and therefore,
Christians are part of the true Israel of God because of Jesus. And so when the Bible says,
from the 12 tribes of Israel, you have to interpret that in light of other scripture,
which is made clear to be part of the true Israel, you have to be in Christ. And if you're not in
Christ, you are not part of the true Israel. Yes, Doug? Not exactly there, yeah. He hears the number
and that's what he hears. He hears the number and he hears the list, but there wasn't really
anything set about legalism at that point. But it is continuing that theme, and you find it in
all of John's writings. It's continuing that theme that adherents, at this time people thought,
the Jewish people thought that the Jews were better than everybody else. They were favored in
God's eyes and you had to become Jewish. And that's why you see Paul encountered this a lot,
where people were saying, hey, it's fine for you to believe in Jesus, but just make sure you're
still doing circumstances and all this. And John throughout all of his writings keeps on saying,
actually, God loves the Gentiles. And he is here to be the Messiah of people from all nations and
all tongues and all peoples. And so he hears the number 144,000, but he turns and he looks and
what he actually sees is this innumerable multitude that have been redeemed by Christ.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that's a better analogy is people had this idea of what the Messiah would
be. And you see this with Jesus' disciples, they're like, all right, you're going to deliver us from
Rome. We want a king. Time to rise up, get yourself a sword. And Jesus is actually like,
actually, I came to die. I'm a suffering servant who's come to lay down my life. And they're like,
well, that's not what we expect. He's like, well, that's what we're getting. So that's more along
the lines. But all that to say is this is a really interesting list. And this 144,000 is really
interesting because on the surface, you want to just read it and make it literal and think that it
just applies to the Jews. But there's actually something interesting going on here that has
already occurred in Revelation 5, which is he hears one thing and he gets a picture in his mind,
and then he turns and he sees the reality and his mind is blown, which is what God does all the
time with us, right? We have all these expectations, things we think about God, and then he blows our
expectations out of the water. I mean, he just blows our mind constantly. And so this is actually a
reference to the redeemed of the Lord, all those who have repented of their sins and trusted in
Christ for salvation. And they are included in this multitude where they will be in the presence
of God forever. And we're actually going to recover some of Revelation 7 next week. But that's as
far as we'll get tonight. And I know I went over, but I apologize. I wasn't here last week. So you'll
forgive me. Alright, Michael, hit us with a word of wisdom before we close.