We’re nearing the end of our sermon series on
the book of Revelation. As we’ve gone through Revelation, we’ve talked
about some terrible things. A third or the earth being burned. Seas
turning to blood. Stars going dark. Locusts stinging like
scorpions. People being in such pain and misery that they want to die,
but they cannot die. People refusing to repent of their sins. People
worshiping demons. People being under attack by Satan, and following
Satan. These, frankly, are some depressing sections to read and to study.
There’s a lot of bad stuff happening.
But the good news is that there are people who will triumph
over that. There are some who will stay faithful until the end.
Today, as we look at Chapter Seven of Revelation, we hear about some of
the people who are saved.
We start with the one hundred forty-four thousand. We
get that number, one hundred forty-four thousand, because there are twelve
thousand from each of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Why these twelves? Well, it’s thought to be symbolic.
As we’ve talked before, three is considered a divine number--God is a
trinity, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the three in one. Four, is
considered an earth number. We talk about the “four corners of the
earth”. Four directions--north, east, west, and south. And so, if
you multiply three by four, you get twelve, representing God ruling over the earth.
These are considered to be the martyrs, the people who were
killed because they had stayed faithful to God. You might remember that
we referenced them when we talked about the opening of the first six seals.
We were told that, at the opening of the fifth seal, they asked, “How
long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the
earth and avenge our blood?” That’s when each of them was given a white
robe and was told to wait.
But we learn about others who are saved, too. In
verse nine of chapter seven, we’re told that there 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.” John is told who they are.
They 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.”
They have come out of the great tribulation. Not that
they did not have to go through it. It
sounds like they did. But they went through it and did not turn away from
God. As we read last week, they kept God’s commands and held fast their
testimony about Jesus. In other words, they triumphed over the
tribulation. Their faith resulted in the forgiveness of their sins--that’s
what it means that they have washed their robes and made them white in the
blood of the Lamb.
Now, these are not the only
people who are saved. We’ll talk about that more next week. But for
now let’s look at what we’re told happens to those who triumph over the
tribulation. They “are before the throne of God and serve him day and
night in his temple”. What do they do? How do they serve God?
We don’t know that. The worship of God is almost certainly involved
in that service, because we read earlier in this sermon series about how even
the highest elders and kings worship God in heaven. But exactly what they
do, we don’t know.
But then we’re given a
description of what life will be like in heaven. And I don’t think this
just applies to the people who are part of that multitude, everyone who comes
out of the great tribulation. I think it applies to everyone who goes to
heaven. Here’s what we’re told:
Never again will they hunger, never again will
they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them, nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb at the center before 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.
Think about how awesome that is. In heaven, if people
have physical needs, they will all be met. No one in heaven will ever
lack for anything. Jesus Christ will lead us to living water. There
will be no more sadness. God will wipe every tear from every eye in
heaven.
We’ve talked before about how
one of the things that makes death hard for us is that we don’t really
understand much about heaven. It’s one of the things that can make us
fear death--the fact that there’s so much we don’t understand about what
happens. We cannot picture heaven. We cannot visualize it. We
don’t know what heaven looks like or what we’ll look like. We don’t know
what we’ll do or how we’ll do it. We have all these questions that we
simply cannot answer while we’re alive and on earth.
Now, it’s understandable why we
wonder about all those things. But there have to be reasons why God
chooses not to give us the answers to our questions, and I think one of those
reasons is that God is trying to tell us that those things we wonder about are
not important. They may seem important to us right now, but ultimately
they’re not.
But let’s break down what God
does tell us. First, we will never hunger and we will never thirst.
All of our physical needs will be met.
Now, the Bible does not say
this, but I think one of the things that will become clear to us in heaven is
the difference between our needs and our wants. Think about it. How
many things do you have in your life that you don’t really need? Almost
all of us have some. In fact, if we’re really strict about making that
distinction, most of us have a lot of them. There are a lot of things
that each of us have that, if we came right down to it, we don’t really need.
We could survive without them.
Now, don’t misunderstand.
I’m not saying that having those things is sinful. These are things
that make our lives easier. They’re things that make our lives more
enjoyable. Sometimes, they’re things that make our future more secure.
There’s nothing wrong with that, at least as long as we don’t go
overboard with these things and make them more important than they should be.
But the thing is, in heaven, we
won’t need all those extra things. We won’t be looking for something to
make our lives easier, because life in heaven won’t be hard. That’s what
it means when it says, “The sun will not beat down on them, nor any scorching
heat.” We won’t need things to make our future more secure, because our
future will already be secure. Jesus Christ, the Lamb, is going to lead
us to springs of living water. All these extra things, all these things
that we think we need while we’re here on earth, we won’t need any more.
We’ll have all the things we truly need, and we won’t care about having
anything else.
But the biggest one for me is
this: “God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”
Look at all the sadness there
is in the world. There’s an awful lot of it, when you think about it.
And in fact, we don’t have to look around the world to see sadness.
We see it all around us, right where we are. I did three funerals
this past week. I’ll do two more this
week. Since I moved here, I’ve done over a hundred of them. Every
week in the local paper we see three or four obituaries. That’s a lot of
people who are grieving, right here in our own community.
And of course, death is only
one of many, many things that causes sadness. It can come from all sorts
of things. A serious illness, either our own or that of a loved one.
The ending of a relationship, for whatever reason. A job that does
not bring satisfaction. Loneliness--that can be a huge cause of sadness.
The list could go on and on and on. It’s more sometimes and less
sometimes, but I suspect that each and every one of us has some sadness in our
lives.
But that won’t be the case in
heaven. There will be no sadness in heaven. God will wipe away all
our tears. Think of a life with no sadness in it. Can you?
Can you even imagine that? It’s about the most awesome thing I can
think of. And that’s how it’s going to be in heaven. That alone is
going to make heaven incredible.
God, through the apostle John,
tells us the things we need to know about heaven. We’ll have everything
we need. We’ll serve God and worship God.
Our lives won’t be hard. We won’t need to worry about our future.
And all of our sadness will be gone.
Now, knowing that, we probably
still have questions. Human beings are naturally curious. God made
us that way. No matter how much we know, we always want to know more.
That’s one of the things that makes faith hard, you know--we always want
to know more, but sometimes we just cannot know more. And when it comes
to heaven, there’s no way we can no more. We just have to accept what we
do know and take the rest on faith.
But while we’d like to know
more, I hope that what we do know, the things God has told us, will help us not
fear death. I hope those things will help us accept death as a part of
life. I hope they’ll make us realize that death, when it comes, is simply
the next step along our path. And for Christians, that path leads us to
eternal life. A life where we have everything we need, and we having
nothing but peace and joy and love in the presence of the all-loving God.
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