"Washed in the Blood of the Lamb" Sermon: Revelation 7:1-17

“Washed in the Blood of the Lamb”
[Revelation 7:1-17]
November 1, 2009 Second Reformed Church

Today is All Saints’ Day. And some may wonder why a Protestant church like ours would recognize the day – some of my colleagues gently tease me about it. All Saints’ Day or Hallowmas or All-Hallows (last night was All Hallows Eve, or Halloween) was instituted by Pope Boniface IV in 609 A.D. as a mass to be held every May 13th to “commemorate all those martyrs, known and unknown, who enjoy the beatific vision of God” (J. C. J. Metford, The Christian Year, 115).

For reasons that have been lost to history, Pope Gregory III changed the date to November 1st in 789 A.D. And in the Saram Missal, it was explained that on this day we give thanks to God for the merits of the saints which are applied to us and for multiplying our intercessors before God (116).

Now, we don’t believe that: Jesus Christ is the Only Intercessor between humans and God, and only Jesus’ Merits are applied to us, not the saints. We don’t worship the saints. We don’t worship the deceased. We don’t believe that any of the deceased can contribute to our salvation. Salvation is of Jesus and Jesus Alone.

So, why bother with All Saints’ Day? We do have a time to remember those who have died during the past year, but we do so not merely to remember them or thinking that in some way they can do anything for us. No, we remember those who have died because their deaths remind us that we, too, will die, and there is a life after this life – and only two places a person will spend it. For those who believe in Jesus Alone for salvation – we will spend eternity in the Presence of our God and Savior. Those who do not believe in Him will spend eternity in Hell receiving His Wrath.

This morning we turn to the seventh chapter of the book of Revelation to consider what we are told about the life after this life for all those saints who do believe in Jesus Alone for salvation. We are going to consider what this chapter tells us about the glimpse we are given of what you and I and all those who believe in Jesus Alone for Salvation will experience in the Kingdom.

Now, we are looking at the book of Revelation, and we need to keep a few things in mind as we do so:

First, the book of Revelation is written in symbolic language – it is written in a code – it is not meant to be taken word-for-word literally. For example, in verse nine, Jesus is called the Lamb. Jesus has not turned into a four-legged farm animal with curly fur. It is an image – a symbol – that has to be interpreted.

Second, whereas we struggle with interpreting some parts of this book, the original audience of this book would have understood it. John wrote the book of Revelation in this style to keep non-Christians from understanding, but the Christians of his day were suppose to understand it, and they would have. Our problem is that we do not live in the same context they did, so it takes more work for us to understand what John is saying.

Third, besides the difficulty of understanding what John means, many Christians stay away from the book of Revelation because they believe is it a terrifying work – like a Stephen King novel. But that was not John’s intent – as one reads over the whole book, it becomes obvious that John’s intent is to comfort the Church – to show them that the Promise of God is that even though things will get bad – there will be persecution – Jesus has already won. Jesus is already victorious. Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords from before time and forever and ever. So, John wants Christians to take comfort and not to be terrorized. Jesus is the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against His Church, because we belong to Jesus.

And fourthly, in the time that we have left to look at this chapter, I am not going to try to decode it all – much less the entire book of Revelation. Let us look to this chapter to learn a few doctrines – teachings – that we find in the light of All Saints’ Day.

Chapter seven has John seeing four angels at the four corners of the earth holding back the wind, so the wind would not blow on the earth – they are disrupting the patterns of nature – ready to harm the earth and the sea – to punish the creation to punish humanity. And God sends another angel who calls out in a loud voice, holding the Seal of the Living God – so they know he is a legitimate representative coming to them with instructions from God – saying, “Don’t harm the creation until all of the servants of God have been sealed on their foreheads.”

Now, if you’re like me, you’re picturing movies like “The Omen” where the little kid has a birthmark of “666" under his hairline or behind his ear – which is not on the forehead, brothers and sisters!

Symbols, brothers and sisters! I have never seen a Christian with a “bought by God” symbol of any kind on his or her forehead. Don’t be confused by Hollywood and fanciful teachers. Symbols!

What is John telling his readers? God will not allow any of the elect to be lost. Every single person that God has chosen for salvation will be saved. Neither human, nor demon can keep God from receiving every one He has chosen for Himself into the Kingdom. Remember Jesus’ prayer: “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know the truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (John 17:612, ESV).

John is telling the first century Christians that though the Romans slaughter them – which is what was happening – though the world and the demons come against them – God will not allow any of His elect to be lost. Everyone whom God intends to save and bring into His Kingdom will be saved and brought into the Kingdom. No matter what happens today or tomorrow or in the days to come, everyone that the Almighty, All-Knowing God intends to come to faith in Jesus Alone will be saved. Take comfort – none will be lost You will not be lost if you believe in Jesus Alone.

John goes on to describe 144,000 being sealed – saved. The Jehovah’s Witnesses take this absolutely literally and say, “Well, yes, there will only be 144,000 people in the Kingdom.” Without going into a lesson in numerology – the numbers three, four, twelve, and ten – which are found in 144,000 are symbolic and, together, the 144,000 means that the complete, full, perfect number will be sealed – not one will be lost – all of those intended will be sealed and saved.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses explain that they are the 144,000 who will be sealed and saved. But verses five through eight say that the 144,000 are 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel – John is talking about the Jews that will come to faith in Jesus Alone. (Perhaps we might ask the Jehovah’s Witnesses we know if they were born Jews...)

There was a question in the first century about whether God had abandoned the biological Jews – and the resounding answer across the New Testament – what John is saying here is, “No God has not abandoned the Jews. The full, complete number of Jews that God always intended to come to faith in Jesus will come to faith in Him Alone and be sealed and received into the Kingdom.”

John tells his original audience, and us, there are elect from all of the tribes of Israel. God is not done with the biological Jews. All that God intended will come to faith in Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, and Him Alone – the Only Savior.

But just as there was controversy about whether God had abandoned the biological Jews, there was a question concerning whether Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, was also for the Gentiles – the non-Jews. Did Jesus come just for the Jews? And, again, John says, “No!” Verse nine: “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 the Lamb.”

Jesus is the One and Only Savior of the Jews and the non-Jews, every nation, every people, every tribe, every language. As Paul wrote, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16, ESV). It doesn’t matter who you are or what your heritage is or what you have done or how you were brought up – everyone who believes in Jesus Alone for salvation is sealed and saved and brought into the Kingdom of God – surely and eternally – without any chance of being lost.

Be comforted! If you believe in Jesus Alone – that He has paid the debt for your sins and credited you with His Holy Life – you are His forever and ever and no human or demon can ever change that – not even you. If you truly believe, it is because God planned from all of eternity to save you and make you His own. Be assured!

And then what?

John saw a great multitude dressed in white robes worshiping before the throne and the Lamb – Jesus – with palm branches in their hands, crying out, “‘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! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.’”

That is the picture we see of life in the Kingdom – worship. The primary thing that those who have died in Christ are engaged in and the primary thing that everyone of us who dies in Christ until He returns will be doing in the Kingdom is worshiping Him. The life after this life, for believers, is a life of eternal worship of our God and Savior.

Don’t worry – there won’t be any boring preachers, sinful preachers, who make mistakes in their preaching. There won’t be any bad hymns or bad music. You and I and all those who believe will be before the Face of God, in eternal worship, before the One Who is Utter Truth, Complete Beauty, Perfect Wisdom, Perfect Harmony. It will be a far more glorious worship that we can every imagine or experience here on earth.

But one of the elders turned to John and asked him if he knew who the group was that was wearing the white robes, and John admitted that he did not know and asked the elder to tell him. These, the elder explained, are the ones who came out of the great tribulation. What kind of things did they experience? This and more, as the writer of Hebrews tells us, “Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might again rise to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even in chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in the skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated – of whom the world was not worthy – wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth” (Hebrews 11:35b-38, ESV).

Some people who follow Jesus – some people who believe in Him Alone for salvation – will suffer horribly – even be put to death. Are you willing to be one of them? We would all like to die a quick and painless death – or even to be alive when Jesus returns and be taken straight into the Kingdom. But are you willing, for the Sake of Jesus, to suffer and die horribly? It’s something to consider. In America – for now – it is unlikely that we will suffer like that. We may some day. Christians around the world suffer horribly and are put to death for their faith in the most inhuman ways today.

Here is what one of them wrote – who suffered horribly in his life – and eventually was put to death by being decapitated: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18, ESV). I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us! As horrible as things might get on this earth – if we keep our eyes on Jesus – if we look at this life through His Promises and what we know will come – whatever we suffer for Him – is not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us!

“Well, you don’t know how much I have suffered,” you may say. And you’re right. None of us know how much any other person has really suffered. But take this word from Paul as a promise – the worst that you ever suffer for Jesus is not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us That is how great life in the Kingdom is. That is what those who have died in the faith are already beginning to experience.

Why? John tells us, because they have been washed in the Blood of the Lamb. Again, that does not mean that these people were literally washed in lamb’s blood – or in the physical blood of Jesus. What it tells us is that in dying – in shedding His Blood – as the Final and Eternal Sacrifice – Jesus has merited salvation for everyone who will believe in Him. Jesus has done all the work.

In his first letter, John wrote, “If we walk in the light, as [God] is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (I John 1:7, ESV).

“Therefore, they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither shall they thirst any more; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

On that final day, when Jesus returns, all the world – those who have believed and those who have not – will see the promises of Jesus come to pass. For those who have believed – for those who have gone before us and for we who have yet to die in the flesh, listen to these words of John, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall their be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:1-4, ESV).

On this All Saints’ Day, let us be comforted and assured, remembering those who have died in Christ and considering for ourselves our future in Christ, believing what He has told us: all those God has purposed to save will be saved. God is still saving some from the biological Jews – through Jesus Alone. And He is also saving some from every type of person that ever was – through Jesus Alone.

And on that final day, because Jesus came to earth to live, suffer, die, rise, and ascend, all who believe in Him Alone are forgiven for their sins, credited with His Righteousness – destined to spend eternity in His Kingdom, in Glory – worshiping forever and ever – safe, secure, guided, at peace, without pain or sorrow.

For those of us who yet live, let us look forward to that day of being united with all of the saints in the Kingdom, and let us not forget that Jesus is with us right now, as He promised: “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20b, ESV). And He meets us spiritually, unites us with Him, strengthens us and empowers us by His Grace to do His Will, through the reading and preaching of His Word, and also through the sacraments. As we soon receive the bread and the cup, Jesus, Himself, the Very One Who has saved everyone who will believe, will meet with you and minister to you, for His Sake and to His Glory. Hallelujah!

Let us pray:
Savior God, it is almost too much to believe that You would choose to save a people for Yourself, but that is Your Promise, and You cannot lie. So we rejoice that those who have died in the faith are with You right now, and the day will come when we will join them and You in joy and worship. Be with us now. Minister Your Grace to us through the bread and the cup. And lead us on in assurance and hope. For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.