Randall Caselman
Bella Vista Church of Christ
07/14/2019 P.M
Salvation Is Of God
Revelation chapter 7
Well...We’ve come to Revelation chapter seven…
• Come join me again in the Throne Room of God…
• We are seeing things from a Different Perspective… From Heaven’s perspective…
• We’re seeing things as they really are.
We can’t read this chapter without getting goose bumps… Without the sense of salvation…Without understanding that we are viewing the saved in heaven.
Those sealed by God… Secured… For an eternal existence in His presence.
This chapter gives us… Hope… Confidence… Security…
Come…Let’s see what we can learn…
First… Let’s talk about the number… A hundred forty-four thousand.
Remember the number twelve is the number of God’s people…
• Twelve tribes…
• Twelve Apostles…
Twelve-times-twelve-times-a-thousand…A thousand is the highest number in the Bible representing the sum total…Whatever that might be.
You recall… The angels were numbered in the thousands-and-thousands… Ten thousand times ten thousand… Myriads and Myriads…
We noted last week that this was not an exact number… But a representation of the whole… A massive crowd without number.
Now…Here in chapter seven the 144,000 represents those sealed by God for an eternal existence… With Him… In Heaven.
• They are those with white robes…
• With Palm branches in their hands…
Verse fourteen tells us that their victory is because they persevered through the great tribulation of life that their robes have been made white because they have been washed in the blood of the Lamb.
They are singing… Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.
As they do… Verse ten tells us that… All… All the thousands-and-thousands… Ten-thousand-times-ten-thousand… Myriads and Myriads…All the angels confirm their salvational statement with amen… Saying
• Praise and glory…
• Wisdom and honor…
• Power and strength
• To our God throughout eternity… Amen.
What we’re seeing here is the saved of all ages standing before the throne of God.
Here it is church… God will save all who He determines to save… A number beyond our comprehension… This number represents all the saved… None will be lost!...
• Those from the Patriarchal age…
• Those of Israel…
• The Gentiles who God had written His law in their hearts…
• And those in the Christian age.
Sometimes we see the saved as a small number… Not so!!!... Not as revealed here!
Listen church… We do not get to determine who IS in or who is out… Who is saved and who is not… That’s God’S call… God is God and He saves those whom He wishes to save…. And we don’t have to explain Him or question His decisions… Amen?
No place is it more evident than here in Revelation chapter seven that God is the one to decide.
Interesting enough… This massive number should not surprise us… Because as Bible students…We remember God promising Abraham that His descendents would be as numberless as the sands of the sea and the stars in the heavens.
And Paul indicates in Romans chapter four and Galatians three that our faith and baptism make us God’s Children… A part of Abraham’s seed and promise.
So…Don’t become stressed over the number of… The Sealed… The Saved… For us tonight… This scene and its number speak of our security.
Sometimes we argue and debate “once saved always saved”… And “once saved marginally saved”…Listen… Here is God’s statement concerning the security of faithful believers…In effect God is indicating that we are a lot more secure than most of us think… Amen?
The question that really counts is this… Are we… You and your preacher… Among this number?
Now… I want us to notice the instrument of our salvation…
Do you see it?... In verse fourteen!... 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
Who is the Lamb?... Who did John the Baptist say was the Lamb?... Jesus of course… Twice John said of Jesus… Behold the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world.
Later in the chapter… Verses 9 and 10 this group is described as being from.. Every nation… Every tribe… Language… and People.
Here it is church… Seven times in the book of Revelation… John tells us that the Blood of Christ is…
• Multi-natural-…
• Multi-cultural…
• Multi-ethnic…
• Multi-linguistic…
You see… From the cross… His blood flowed back toward… Adam… Abraham… Israel… The Gentiles of old… Saving those whom God chose to save… And it flows toward us till the end of time… Saving all who will step into its life-giving flow.
Listen…
• How does one step into the life-giving flow of His Blood?...
• How does one become washed in the Blood of the Lamb?…
• How does one become Abraham’s Seed?...
• How do we join this group of saved?...
I believe Paul tells us… Galatians 3.26 & 27… You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. Listen now… This is multi-natural… So… There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
I don’t know how much plainer God could have been on how we join this group of those sealed & secure in their salvation.
Let’s stop arguing about what it takes to be saved and just submit to God’s will of faith and the new birth.
This faith and obedience purifies us… Covers us with Robes of White… His blood makeS us holy ones!
Though your sins be as scarlet…
They shall be as white as snow…
Though they be red as crimson…
They shall be as wool.
There’s a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins…
And sinners plunged beneath that flood…
Lose all their guilty stains.
Interesting isn’t it that blood stains are so difficult to remove…Yet when we are washed in His blood… In the blood of the Lamb… Our robes are made white as snow… Made like wool.
Listen church… Salvation is of God… We can’t explain it… Don’t need to!!... Why are we trying?... Just accept and submit… Amen?
We are saved by Grace through faith….
Grace is God’s initiative on our behalf…
God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.
We emerge from this cleansing fountain… Forgiven… Spotless… Pure…Holy… Because we are now clothed… Not in our own filthy rag attempts at righteousness… But clothed in the righteousness of His Son.
God looks at us and He sees the righteousness of Jesus… That’s Grace!!
At this point… We need to relax knowing that we have been added to the number of the sealed for Salvation… And that if we persevere through life’s troubles…ThRough life’s tribulation… This salvation will be ours.
Church…
• If we are living faithful in His Kingdom…
• Living as His instrumentof righteousness…
• A living sacrifice…
• His ambassador…
• If we’re persevering.
We need to see ourselves in this sealed crowd.
Now… What I want to do for a few minutes is
to examine some Biblical Words used to describe our salvation…
And the part that the Blood of Jesus plays in that salvation…
The first is redemption…
Redemption has three elements…
• There must be something… (A Person)… That’s been lost and needs to be… Redeemed… Bought back… Repurchased.
• There will be a price that must be paid to buy back this… Something… This person…
• There must be someone who is willing and able to serve as the redeemer… To buy back that which was lost… Able to pay the redemptive price.
Listen… We are the lost… The price for our forgiveness is blood…
• The Hebrews Writer tells us without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness… No redemption…
• The price of the blood from bulls and goats offered in sacrifice was insufficient to forgive our sins… Such sacrifices could only serve to move one’s sins forward until a more excellent sacrifice could be made.
That… Sufficient… More excellent… Sacrifice was the blood of Christ…He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood having obtained our eternal redemption.
Some redemption narratives in Scripture include…
God delivering Israel out of Egyptian Bondage… They were lost in Egypt.
They needed deliverance…
God was able…
He told Moses the price would be mighty acts of Judgment upon the Egyptians… We see them in the plagues and the drownings in the Red Sea.
We hear God saying such things as…
• I will bring you out of Egypt… From under the burden of the Egyptians…
• I will deliver you from slavery…
• I will redeem you…
• You will be My people…
• I will bring you into the Promise Land.
God is keeping His promise to Abraham… Isaac… Jacob… He’s redeeming His people.
Another example of redemption is the narrative of Hosea and Gomer…
God commanded Hosea to go marry a prostitute named Gomer… And to remain faithful to her regardless of how adulterous she became.
Sure enough Gomer ran off with another man… Ended up in slavery.
God asked Hosea to go… Buy her back… Redeem her… From slavery’s auction block.
Of course this was really the story of God and Israel…Regardless of how unfaithful Israel was to God… He kept redeeming them.
It is the story of you and your preacher.
God Redeems us to the point that we are seen sealed in this salvation crowd of our text.
Our Christian verse is found in Romans 3.24 & 25… We are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.
Listen… We are the lost… God is the redeemer… The price was nothing less than His Son’s blood shed on the cross… Amen?
Our second word is Justification…
Justification means that we are made right and acceptable to God.
Consider a man standing before the Judge… He’s guilty… Knows he’s guilty…And the penalty for his crime is death.
As the Judge turns to the defendant and asks… How do you plead?…He stands there in… Mute Silence… Terror… Unable to say anything that would save him… Except to beg for mercy and grace.
The Bible paints such a picture of us here this evening… We are the Guilty!!...
Eternal death… Eternal separation from God… Hell… Is our penalty.
The Book of Romans tells us that… We all have sinned… That there is none righteous… No not one… And that the penalty… The wages of sin is death.
Romans 4.25 and 5.9 are verses that allow us to stand among the saved… Jesus was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. So… Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him!
1 Corinthians six lists a bunch of ugly sins… And then says… Some of you were guilty of them… But you were washed… You were sanctified… You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Justification is forgiving our sins… Sanctifying us… Just-as-if-it-never-happened!
This brings us to… Sanctification.
Sanctification is an ongoing process that allows us to stand before God… Cleansed… Made Holy… Purified… By the blood of the Lamb.
I believe sanctification is the process of our becoming…
• More and more and more holy…
• More and more and more of what God wants us to be.
• More and more and more like Jesus.
Listen to verses 3 & 7 from First Thessalonians chapter 4… It is God’s will that you should be sanctified… That you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable… For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.
Romans chapter 6 tells us that our sanctification started with our baptism into the death of Jesus…
• Where we crucified the old man of sin…
• Buried him in baptism…
• Were raised to live a new person…
• To live a new life… A different life.
But here it is church… We will sin again… How can we be continually…Cleansed… Sanctified… Made Holy… Purified… So that we are wearing White Robes?...
I believe John has the answer… If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness… If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and… Listen now… And the blood of Jesus, his Son, continues to… purify…cleanse… Santify… Us from all sin.
Praise God tonight… That sanctification is not a one-time event… But an ongoing process… A moment-by-moment cleansing…Amen?
We can’t leave this part of our study without mentioning adoption
Jesus came bringing the Fatherhood of God… He said God is My Father… Your Father… He taught us to pray… Our Father who is in Heaven.
Think of it… The Creator… Provider… Protector… Sustainer of the universe is our Father and is and will treat us as sons… Catch a glimpse of what this means with these verses…
Romans 8.15-16 & 29-30… For we did not receive a spirit that makes us a slave again to fear, but we received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory…For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son… And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
Ephesians 1.5… He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.
Here it is church… God’s children… His sons and daughters… Will walk with Him in White… Amen?
Well…Two more things we must mention in this chapter
that have to do with our eternal salvation…
One… What will we be doing in Heaven… Worshiping god.
At least that’s what the spirit world and the saved were doing in this Throne Scene.
I have no idea of what that may look like day-in-day-out… But I know this… Romans chapter twelve opens by indicating that our daily walk and work is considered worship… I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship.
Whatever Heaven will be… Our entire lifestyle will be one of worship to God and the Lamb.
Two… We understand that we’ll be living in God’s Tent.
God will be our eternal sustainer and protector…
Those before the throne of God will 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 centre 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.
Wow… I want to enjoy god’s salvation… don’t you?
What is it that we must do tonight to guarantee us… a place in this Throne Room… among this numberless crowd of the saved?
Do we need to become His child by faith and baptism?
Perhaps we just need to persevere… We must continue to work on our ongoing sanctification… By walking in the light of His truth?
Here it is church… The angels are holding back the coming judgment… God is giving us one more opportunity tonight… Right now!!… Hoping that we will respond to His invitation.
Do we really want to challenge God tonight by refusing Him again?...Really??
God’s invitation is open to each of us… As we stand and sing.