Meadowbrooke Church

Hebrews 2

Hebrews 1

Silence in the Presence of the Holy

“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” I first read those words more than twenty years ago in John Piper’s The Pleasures of God. Second only to the Bible, that book has had a profound impact on my life. I have owned several copies over the years; my first copy had to be replaced because I wore it out, and the copy on my shelf today is well marked. To give you a sense of why Piper’s book means so much to me, let me read something I underlined from his chapter, “The Pleasure of God in His Creation”: “What is the universe but the lavish demonstration of the incredible, incomparable, unimaginable exuberance and wisdom and power and greatness of God! What a God he must be!” 
In that book, Piper says this about prayer: “God is the kind of God who delights most deeply not in making demands but in meeting needs. Prayer is his delight because prayer shows the far reaches of our poverty and the full riches of his grace.” Then he gives an image for prayer that has stayed with me. He says, “Prayer is the walkie-talkie on the battlefield of the world.” It is not a domestic intercom to increase the comforts of the saints, but a wartime means of calling upon God for courage, protection, provision, reinforcements, and the advance of His Word. 
It is not that I didn’t believe Piper’s words then; it is that prayer was not part of the culture of my heart in the same way that it is now. My prayer is that what we learn from Revelation 8:1–5 will help us see prayer the way heaven sees it.
Last week, we saw that John heard the number of God’s sealed people—144,000 from the tribes of Israel—but when he looked, he saw a great multitude no one could number from every nation, tribe, people, and language. I do not believe these are two different peoples of God, but Jews and Gentiles gathered into one redeemed people through Israel’s Messiah, the Lamb who purchased people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.
We also saw that the list of the 144,000 has the feel of a military census, like Numbers 1, where Israel was counted by tribe according to the men able to go to war. But Revelation 7 begins with Judah, because from Judah came the Lion who is also the Lamb. In other words, Revelation 7 gives us a symbolic picture of the people of God gathered, sealed, and ordered around the conquering Lamb.
Whatever you believe about the 144,000, their commitment and loyalty to the Lamb is a picture of discipleship and abiding in Jesus. Revelation 14:4 says, “It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes.” They are not pictured as passive spectators. They are sealed saints who live with a wartime ethic.
Now, when we come to Revelation 8:1–5, there is a dramatic pause of silence. At the center of that silence stands an angel at the altar with a golden censer. Revelation has already linked incense with prayer. In Revelation 5:8, the elders held golden bowls full of incense, “which are the prayers of the saints.” In Revelation 6, the martyred saints cried out beneath the altar, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long?” Now, in Revelation 8, the prayers of all the saints rise before God with the smoke of the incense. Then the angel takes fire from the altar, fills the censer, and throws it to the earth. The prayers of the saints rise before the throne, and the fire of God’s judgment falls upon the earth.
 
The Silence Before the Throne of God
Notice what precedes the silence in heaven. Remember what I said previously: if the six seals describe what is happening on the world stage in God’s theater, then Revelation 7 shows us what is happening behind the curtain during the first six seals. Notice the language used in Revelation 7:15–17:
“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 thirst anymore;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.”
Remember whose vision this is. It is John’s vision. The John who wrote these words in our Bibles is the same John who heard Jesus say, “If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also” (John 12:26). To the hungry and thirsty, John heard Jesus say, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). Regarding our need for a shepherd, John heard Jesus say, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11).
What is my point? The language used to describe John’s vision of the multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language before the throne is the language of abiding brought to its final fulfillment. Revelation 7:15–17 shows us the completed experience of abiding in Christ and where it ultimately leads:
Those who abide in Jesus now, will dwell before God then.
Those who come to Jesus as the Bread of Life now, will hunger no more then.
Those who drink from Jesus as the fountain of living water now, will thirst no more then.
Those who follow Jesus as the Good Shepherd now, will be guided by the Lamb forever then.
To be a Christian is to be a person who abides in Jesus. Jesus never made this optional. If you are struggling to see the connection, let me share what Jesus said in John 15:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” (vv. 1–4)
Then Jesus said of all who abide in Him, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7).
The evidence that you are abiding in Jesus is that you desire to “follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (Rev. 14:4). And one of the evidences that you are following the Lamb is that you pray. Listen, abiding in Jesus and prayer are not separate. You cannot abide in Christ apart from a praying life. Prayer is the language of abiding. The sealed people of the Lamb are not passive spectators. They are not casual in their Christianity, and they are not content with merely warming chairs on Sunday morning. They are consecrated saints living with a wartime ethic, and one of the primary ways they wage war is by bringing their poverty, weakness, burdens, and cries before the throne of God.
So, against the backdrop of Revelation 7, where John hears the people of God numbered as 144,000 and then sees them as a great multitude before the throne, the Lamb opens the seventh seal. And when He does, heaven falls silent.
 
The Prayers Before the Throne of God
Remember what I have said about the book of Revelation: it is the crescendo of the whole counsel of God’s Word, packaged into twenty-two glorious chapters. The themes that run from Genesis 1:1 through Jude 25 converge in John’s apocalypse. Genesis begins, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Jude ends by praising the God who is able “to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” (Jude 24). Between Genesis and Jude, one of Scripture’s great themes is clear: the people of God live in the middle of a war.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones rightly said, “There is no grosser or greater misrepresentation of the Christian message than that which depicts it as offering us a life of ease with no battle and no struggle at all.... The first thing we must realize is that the Christian life is a warfare, that we are strangers in an alien land, that we are in the enemy’s territory.” The war is ongoing and unrelenting—but our strength to engage it does not come from within ourselves; it comes from the Lord. This is why Paul wrote, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). This is why Revelation does not picture the church as passengers on a cruise ship drifting comfortably through calm waters. No, we are at war, and the church is made up of sealed, redeemed people who follow the Lamb, resist the dragon, refuse Babylon, and find their source of power and strength before the throne of God through prayer.  
That is why Paul urges us to “put on the whole armor of God” so we may stand against the devil’s schemes (Eph. 6:11). Yet the armor of God is not secured by human effort, self-discipline, or religious activity. It is ours because we are in Christ. He is our truth. He is our righteousness. He is our peace. He is our salvation. He is the Word who gives us the sword of the Spirit. We put on the armor by abiding in Jesus, and we stand firm in it by praying “at all times in the Spirit” (Eph. 6:18).
Now, with the image of 144,000 sealed warriors of the Lamb, clothed in the armor of God and standing firm in prayer, we are ready to understand why Revelation 8:1–5 matters so much. Do not miss where the angel stands in verse 3. He stands at the altar “with a golden censer,” and he is given “much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne.” Remember, this is not the first time Revelation has connected incense with prayer. In Revelation 5:8, the elders held golden bowls full of incense, “which are the prayers of the saints.” Then, when the fifth seal was opened, John saw the souls of the martyrs beneath the altar crying out, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” (6:10). Here in Revelation 8, John sees these prayers—the prayers of all the saints—rising before God with the smoke of incense in the presence of God Almighty.
Notice that what rises before God is not only the prayers of the martyrs but “the prayers of all the saints.” Not only the prayers of pastors, but all the saints. Not only the prayers of the spiritually mature, but also the prayers of those who are struggling. The prayers of all the saints rise before God. Every person whose faith rests in Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, has access to the throne of God through the blood of Jesus. This means that even the weakest cry of the weakest saint, offered through Christ, is not ignored in heaven.
All of this takes place within the silence of heaven, but what John sees cannot be misunderstood: God hears the prayers of all who have been redeemed by the blood of His Son. At this moment, John watches the angel take the censer, fill it with fire from the altar, and cast it to the earth. Then “peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake” pierce the silence. These are the images and sounds of the perfect justice of a holy God. Heaven is silent, but God is not indifferent. His people cry out, and He answers in His time, in His way, and according to His holy character. Joel Beeke says of these verses, 
Prayer is powerful and effective in this world because God takes more notice of the prayers of His saints than He does the dictates or decrees of governments. When the prayers of the saints ascended to God in heaven, John writes that the earth was shaken with thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake as seven angels prepared to sound seven trumpets. God wants to impress upon us the effectiveness of prayer.... God is saying this: “By your prayers, I will overthrow governments. I will confound human plans; I will turn the world upside down, casting the wicked to the ground and delivering My ransomed people.”
That is why prayer is not a small thing. Prayer is one of the means by which God accomplishes His purposes in history. It is not that our prayers bend God to our will, but as we abide in Christ, we bend to His will. And this same God, who “does all that he pleases” (Ps. 115:3), is pleased to hear the prayers of His people. Proverbs 15:8 says, “the prayer of the upright is His delight” (BSB). 
 
Conclusion 
So, permit me to leave you with three questions: If prayer is the language of abiding, what does your prayer life say about your dependence on Jesus? If prayer is the walkie-talkie on the battlefield of the world, have you been using it—or have you been trying to fight in your own strength? If heaven receives the prayers of all the saints, can you really say that God has not heard you, or that your prayers do not matter to Him?
Listen to me: even the weakest saint, crying out in the name of Jesus, is heard before the throne of God. If you are a Christian, you have access to the throne of God through the Son of God because of the blood of the Lamb.
So pray. Pray when you feel weak. Pray when you are afraid. Pray when you do not know what to do. Pray for your family. Pray for this church. Pray for the lost. Pray for those suffering for the name of Christ. Pray for the kingdom to come and for the will of God to be done on earth as it is in heaven.
John Piper closes his chapter on prayer with a quote from Patrick Johnstone that I believe serves as an appropriate conclusion to this sermon:
“Let us mobilize prayer! We can tip the scales of history. Christians can be the controlling factor in the unfolding drama of today’s world—let us not allow ourselves to be chased around by the enemy, but let us go up at once and take the kingdoms of this world for Jesus (Numbers 13:30; Daniel 7:18)—He is delighted to give them to us (Daniel 7:22, 27; Luke 12:32). In practical terms, may these truths make our prayer lives as individuals, and in prayer meetings, outward-looking, Satan-shaking, captive-releasing, kingdom-taking, revival-giving, Christ-glorifying power channels for God!”
Prayer is not how we bend God to our will; prayer is how we abide in Christ, draw near to the Father, and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, join in the purposes of the sovereign God who hears the prayers of all His saints.
 

The Safety of the Lamb

We now come to the passage in the Bible that some of you have heard so much about. For some of you, you are already familiar with the story of how God miraculously healed me, so I will not spend much time retelling it. However, there is something I have not talked much about, and it has to do with my response to this passage in Revelation 7:9-17.
When I was serving as the senior pastor at Northwest Baptist Church, the pressure of ministry began to affect me in ways I did not expect. The church was in a difficult season, and I was carrying a lot. Anxiety began to take a toll on my health. Because of my family history, my doctor sent me to a cardiologist, who ordered a CT scan in 2007. The results were sobering. The scan showed seven areas of calcified plaque in my left coronary artery, and my calcium score was higher than ninety percent of men my age. I was only thirty-two years old, and because my dad died when he was forty-seven, you can imagine where my mind went. Suddenly, I was scheduled for a cardiac catheterization, wondering whether I was going to die young like my father.
That Friday morning, before a Converge Rocky Mountain regional gathering, I prayed a simple prayer: “Lord, would You encourage me from Your Word?” Then I opened my Bible, and it opened to Revelation 7:9–12. I read about the great multitude no one could number, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and the Lamb, crying out, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” Honestly, nothing happened. I read it, closed my Bible, and went on with my day. I believed Revelation was the Word of God, but I had mostly learned to read it as a book about future events, so I did not yet grasp the pastoral comfort God had placed in this vision.
The next morning, as we sang “How Great Is Our God,” the imagery of Revelation 7 rushed back to me. It was as though the Lord gently pressed a question into my heart: “Keith, do you understand what awaits you if you die?” That was the question I had missed. I had read Revelation 7 as a future scene, but I had not yet learned to receive it as comfort for the present. In that moment, the fear began to lift—not because I knew what would happen during the catheterization, but because the Lord reminded me of where I was going if I belonged to the Lamb. If I lived, I belonged to Christ. If I died, I would be with Christ. Either way, my future was secure.
The following week, during the cardiac catheterization, the cardiologist paused and said, “Keith, there’s nothing there.” The plaque that had appeared on the CT scan was gone. I cannot explain it medically, but I believe God, in His mercy, protected me. Yet the gift God gave me in that season was not only more years. He also began to open my eyes to this book’s purpose. Revelation is not merely a book for charting future events. It is given to strengthen the church by showing us Jesus Christ. It is for suffering, anxious, grieving, persecuted, and weary saints who need to be reminded that the Lamb is on the throne.
Revelation 7:9–17 shows us where every person who belongs to the Lamb is headed. The people of the Lamb will stand before the throne. They will be clothed in white. They will worship. They will be sheltered by God. They will hunger no more. They will thirst no more. The Lamb will be their Shepherd. God Himself will wipe away every tear from their eyes. What I did not understand then is that this passage not only gives us a glimpse of heaven; it also comforts every Christian from every generation. This passage is for me, and it is for you.
 
God is the Keeper of Salvation (vv. 9-12)
As we saw last week, John hears the number of God’s sealed people described as 144,000 from the tribes of Israel (Rev. 7:4–8), but when he looks, he sees a great multitude no one can number from every nation, tribe, people, and language (v. 9). These are not two separate peoples of God; they are Jews and Gentiles gathered into one redeemed people through Israel’s Messiah. The promise God gave to Abraham—that “all the families of the earth” would be blessed through him (Gen. 12:3)—has come to full bloom through Christ, the Lamb who purchased people for God “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9–10). Now, in Revelation 7, that redeemed people stands before the throne and the Lamb, where no one in Revelation 6 could stand (Rev. 6:17; 7:9).
After God mercifully spared me and the doctors found my left coronary artery clear, one of the first people I told was Ed Hardesty. He said, “Remember, son, just as quickly as God removed that plaque from your arteries, He can put it right back again.” That was a word I needed to hear. God had not healed me so that I could go on living as though my life belonged to me. He had healed me for a purpose, and that purpose is centered around His mission. 
But there was another lesson for me right there in Revelation 7. Why does John first hear the people of God described as 144,000 sons of Israel before he sees them as a multitude from the nations? The list has the feel of a census, and more specifically, a military census. In Numbers 1, Israel was counted by tribe according to the number of men able to go to war (Num. 1:2–3), and that census begins with Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn. But Revelation 7 begins with Judah, because from Judah came the Lion who is also the Lamb (Rev. 5:5). In other words, Revelation is not merely giving us a headcount of redeemed Jewish men; it is giving us a Christ-centered picture of the people of God gathered and ordered around the conquering Lamb.
Scripture also connects wartime readiness with consecration. When David and his men needed bread, Ahimelech asked whether the young men had kept themselves from women, and David answered that they had, because they were on a holy mission (1 Sam. 21:4–5). Later, when David tried to cover up his sin with Bathsheba, Uriah refused to go home to his wife while Israel’s army was in the field. He said, “The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths… Shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife?” (2 Sam. 11:11). Uriah understood something David had forgotten: a soldier at war does not live as though the war does not exist.
That background also helps us when we come to Revelation 14, where the 144,000 are described in the ESV and NIV as those “who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins” (Rev. 14:4). That wording can be misleading if we assume John is referring only to literal unmarried men. The Greek word translated “virgins” is parthenoi, from parthenos, which can refer to virginity but can also carry the idea of chastity or purity. This is why the NASB2020 translates Revelation 14:4, “These are the ones who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are celibate.”
The point is not that only unmarried men belong to the Lamb, or that these men are a specific group of virgin men who will be saved in the future. The point is symbolic. Revelation portrays the 144,000 as a consecrated people whose allegiance to the Lamb is marked by purity, devotion, and wartime faithfulness. They have not given themselves over to spiritual adultery with Babylon; they belong wholly to the Lamb.
This is what I missed for so many years. The census of the 144,000 sons of Israel represents the great multitude redeemed from the nations, and their devotion to the Lamb includes a wartime ethic. Paul says, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil,” because “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood” (Eph. 6:11–12). This ethic runs throughout Revelation. Jesus told the church in Smyrna, “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (2:10). The martyrs under the altar had been slain “for the word of God and for the witness they had borne” (6:9). Revelation 12 says the people of God conquered the dragon “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony,” because “they loved not their lives even unto death” (12:11). Revelation 14 describes the 144,000 as those who “follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (14:4). Revelation 18 calls God’s people to “come out of her... lest you take part in her sins” (18:4).
How is the Christian able to remain faithful with a wartime ethic? They are able to resist because they have the seal of God upon them. It is the One on the throne who is keeping those who belong to Him (John 10:27-30), and it is He who promises to complete the work He is doing in and through them, for Paul wrote of this very thing: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). Listen, salvation in the Bible is not only the forgiveness of sins and pardon from the wrath of God; it also includes the promise that those sealed by the Spirit belong to God and will be kept until the day of redemption (Eph. 1:13-14; 1 Pet. 1:5).  This is why the redeemed multitude of both Jews and Gentiles from the nations cry out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev. 7:10).  And this is why all the angels around the throne and the four living creatures fall on their faces in worship of God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen” (v. 12). 
 
Salvation is for the Christian to Experience (vv. 13-17)
Now, the other thing I did not recognize in 2007 but discovered while tracing the parallels in Revelation has been right in front of me all these years—and I missed it. For years, I assumed the great multitude in Revelation 7 described only the martyred saints from the fifth seal, those who were slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne (Rev. 6:9). But one of the elders asked John, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” (v. 13). That question is our first clue to the identity of this great multitude.
When was the last time in Revelation that one of the elders spoke directly to John? It was two chapters earlier, when John wept because no one was found worthy to open the scroll. Then one of the elders said to him, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered” (5:5). But when John looked, he did not see a conquering lion in the way we might expect; he saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain. Then the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders sang a new song explaining how the Lamb conquered: “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth” (5:9–10).
That matters because the elder in Revelation 7 is helping John see the result of the Lamb’s victory. The great multitude standing before the throne is not limited to the martyrs from the fifth seal, though they are certainly included. This multitude is the people Jesus ransomed by His blood—the redeemed from every tribe, language, people, and nation across every generation, kept by God until the Day of the Lord.
John knows that the elder already knows the answer, so he says, “Sir, you know.” Then the elder answers his own question: “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (v. 14). The second clue to the identity of this multitude is what made their robes white: the blood of the Lamb.
Blood does not normally make things clean; it stains. But Revelation shows us what the blood of Jesus does for sinners. Isaiah said, “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isa. 1:18). John writes, “the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Revelation has already told us that Jesus “loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood” (1:5). So when Revelation 7 says their robes have been made white in the blood of the Lamb, it speaks of salvation. They are clean before God because the Lamb was slain for them, and that salvation is received by faith in Him.
There is a third clue about who these redeemed people are, found in verse 15: they are “before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple.” This is priestly language. In the Old Testament, Israel was called to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). Now, through the blood of the Lamb, that calling is fulfilled in the redeemed people of Jesus Christ. Revelation 5 has already told us that the Lamb ransomed people for God from every tribe, language, people, and nation, and made them “a kingdom and priests to our God” (Rev. 5:9–10). So the multitude in Revelation 7 is not a separate group from those introduced in Revelation 5. They are the priestly people of God, standing before His throne, serving Him in His temple, and wholly belonging to the Lamb. 
One other thing needs to be pointed out here. Revelation 7 does not say these Christians are only those who were slain for their faith, as we saw in the fifth seal (Rev. 6:9), nor does it identify them specifically as those who were beheaded, as we will see later in Revelation 20:4. Instead, they are identified as those “coming out of the great tribulation” (v. 14). We will have more time later in Revelation to unpack the repeated time markers John uses—three and a half years, 1,260 days, and forty-two months—but for now, it is enough to say that Revelation presents the church as living in tribulation now, while also pointing to an intensified expression of that tribulation before the return of Christ.
So when the elder speaks of “the great tribulation,” I understand him to be describing the full reality of the church’s suffering in this age, including its intensified expression before Jesus comes again. The encouragement of Revelation 7 is not that the people of the Lamb avoid tribulation, but that they come out of it. They are brought safely through it, washed by the blood of the Lamb, and gathered before the throne of God. 
Notice how the elder describes those who are brought safely through the tribulation: “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (v. 14). He portrays their cleansing as a completed action. In other words, nothing you can ever do can add to or take away from the salvation Jesus purchased for you through the shedding of His blood.
Jesus could not have been clearer: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36). You are saved by the blood of Christ and by Him alone. Belief results in salvation, but do not misunderstand: true belief in the Son also leads to obedience.
While it is true that we will still sin, the evidence that you believe and have been saved by the blood of the Lamb is that you run to Him out of hatred for your sin and love for the One who saved your soul. This is the point John makes in his epistle: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin… If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:7–9). This is why the multitude cries out with a loud voice, and why one day we will join them: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev. 7:10).
And what is this salvation that awaits all the redeemed of the Lord? It is salvation, full and complete—when sin and death are no more, when sighing and sorrow flee away, when what is mortal is swallowed up by life, and when God wipes away every tear from the eyes of those covered by the blood of the Lamb. On that day, we will experience the promise of Revelation 7:16–17: “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; 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.”
What guarantee do you have that you will come out of the tribulation? What assurance do you have that when you stand before Jesus, you will not hear those terrible words, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (Matt. 7:23)? Revelation gives us the answer at the very center of the book: “And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death” (12:11). The assurance of the Christian is not that we were strong enough to hold on to Jesus, but that the blood of the Lamb was strong enough to cleanse us, the testimony of Jesus was strong enough to keep us, and the grace of God was strong enough to make us faithful even unto death.

The People of the Lamb

In the 1870s, Charles Taze Russell began leading Bible classes in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with a small group that came to be known as Bible Students. In 1879, he began publishing a Bible journal later known as The Watch Tower. Then, in 1884, he incorporated what became the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Through Russell’s publishing work, the movement spread beyond Pennsylvania and eventually laid the foundation for what later became Jehovah’s Witnesses under Joseph Rutherford.
Russell rejected several historic Christian doctrines, including eternal conscious punishment in hell and, most seriously, the doctrine of the Trinity. After Russell died in 1916, Rutherford became president of the Watch Tower Society in 1917. Under his leadership, the movement became more centralized and aggressive in its evangelism, and in 1931 the name Jehovah’s Witnesses was adopted.
The Watch Tower Society is not merely another Christian denomination. It is a cult that rejects essential doctrines of the Christian faith, including the Trinity and the full deity of Jesus Christ. To be clear, misunderstanding Revelation 7 or using poor hermeneutical principles does not automatically mean someone will develop a cult or reject the core tenets of the Christian faith as Russell, Rutherford, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses have done. Many faithful Christians have differed over the meaning of the 144,000. But the Watch Tower Society shows us why careful interpretation matters. When Scripture is mishandled repeatedly and forced into a system, the results can be spiritually dangerous.
Revelation 7 is one of the passages central to their teaching. Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that the 144,000 in Revelation 7 and 14 are a literal number of anointed Christians who will be resurrected to heavenly life to reign with Christ as kings and priests. They also teach that the great multitude in Revelation 7:9–12 is a separate group with an earthly hope—those who survive Armageddon and live on a restored earth.
I mention this because Revelation 7 shows us why context matters. When this chapter is separated from the question at the end of Revelation 6, it can be made to say things John is not saying. John is not trying to create two separate classes of God’s people. He is answering the question, “Who can stand?” So as we come to this passage, we need to pay careful attention to what John hears and sees, allowing Scripture itself to serve as our primary commentary before we look to any system to determine the meaning of the text.
 
The People of the Lamb are Sealed by God (vv. 1-8)
At the end of Revelation 6, with the opening of the sixth seal and the first description of the Day of the Lord, we are left with one of the book’s most haunting questions: “for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Rev. 6:17). The kings of the earth cannot stand. The powerful cannot stand. The wealthy cannot stand. The strong cannot stand. Neither slave nor free can stand, as all hide among the rocks and mountains, begging creation to conceal them from the face of Him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. So who can stand? Revelation 7 gives the answer.
Before the seventh seal is opened, John is shown another vision, but do not think of this vision as occurring strictly after the sixth seal and before the opening of the seventh. Instead, if the seals were acts in a theatrical production, what happens in Revelation 7 shows us what is happening behind the curtain sometime during the sixth seal and before the seventh. Throughout Revelation, the visions often pause, circle back, or open a new window to help us understand more clearly what God is doing. In this case, Revelation 7 functions as an interlude between the sixth and seventh seals, answering the question raised at the end of chapter 6.
John then sees four angels who are “standing at the four corners of the earth,” each holding “back the four winds of the earth” (v. 1). We are told they do this so that no wind blows on the earth, sea, or any tree. What John sees is not four angels manipulating the weather. Likewise, the four corners of the earth is not a description of the earth’s shape or design. As you are aware, the number four often points to the created order in Scripture. What you may not be aware of is that the four winds frequently symbolize judgment. Because Revelation is a picture book rather than a puzzle book, the image John sees is one of restraint. The message conveyed is that judgment is being held back.
Listen, every day before the final Day is a day of mercy, a day of restraint, and a day for the Lamb to gather His people. What is being shown and communicated to us in these verses is that we are living in a time of divine restraint as we move closer to the Day of the Lord. The world is not free from judgment, but the final winds of judgment have not yet been unleashed.
What judgment is being held back? The judgment described in the sixth seal. As to why it is being held back, we do not have to wait long for an answer, because in the very next verse we are told that a fifth angel, ascending from the rising of the sun, declares with a loud voice: “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads” (v. 3).
Do you now see why context is so important? The angel’s declaration answers the question, “Who can stand?” Those who can stand are those who belong to God. Before judgment is unleashed, God marks His people as His own. The earth, sea, and trees are not harmed until the servants of God are sealed. This does not mean God’s people will avoid all suffering, for we have already seen in the fifth seal the souls under the altar crying out in a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long...” (Rev. 6:10). What it does mean is that the coming judgment will not sweep God’s people away under His wrath, for He knows who belongs to Him.
The four winds of God’s judgment do not descend upon the earth in blind rage. When God executes justice, His wrath is holy, measured, and righteous. He does not fly off the handle. Before the wrath of the Lamb is poured out, the people of the Lamb are sealed by the God who embraces them as His children. This distinction is not new in Scripture. In Exodus 12, God distinguished His people from Egypt by the blood of the lamb. A stronger parallel appears in Ezekiel 9, where God marked those who grieved over Jerusalem’s sin before judgment fell on the nation. In both cases, God identified those who belonged to Him before judgment fell on the wicked.
This is what is happening in Revelation 7. The seal on the foreheads of God’s servants is not a literal, physical mark. It signifies that they belong to the living God. This language appears throughout the New Testament. Paul wrote in Ephesians 1 that those who believe in Christ are “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (Eph. 1:13). This sealing is possible because of the blood Jesus shed on the cross as the Lamb of God, and it is received by faith (Eph. 2:1–9). The seal is God’s mark of ownership, assurance, and future inheritance. It is not first a statement about the strength of our faith in Him, but about the certainty of God’s possession. He promises never to let His redeemed go (John 10:27–30). Those who belong to the Lamb are not hidden from God, forgotten by God, or abandoned in the day of trouble. They belong to God.
This all seems clear enough, but the passage can become confusing when it says that those who are sealed are also numbered. Verse 4 says, “And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel” (v. 4). Here, we must not only pay careful attention to the context of Revelation 7 but also do what Revelation has already taught us to do: pay attention to what John hears and what John sees. 
What John hears is “the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel” (v. 4). Many have understood this as a literal number of ethnic Israelites, primarily because John goes on to name the tribes in a specific order. Some believe the 144,000 are a specific group of ethnic Jewish Christians who come to faith in Jesus during a future seven-year tribulation and serve as evangelists after the rapture. I understand why many read it that way, but there are some problems with that interpretation. First, Revelation 7 functions as an interlude—a symbolic pause within the vision—rather than a chronological sequence following the great Day of the Lord described in 6:12–17. Second, Revelation often follows a pattern in which what John sees clarifies what he first hears. So before we assume the 144,000 is a literal headcount, we need to pay attention to how numbers and images function in this book.
Listen, the number twelve is associated with the people of God—the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The number one thousand signifies immensity, fullness, and completeness. This is why the psalmist describes God’s ownership by saying, “For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills” (Ps. 50:10). It is not that God only owns the cattle on one thousand hills and not hill number one thousand and one. The point is fullness. Everything belongs to Him. Likewise, when Moses speaks of God’s covenant faithfulness, he says, “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations...” (Deut. 7:9). So, what do you get when you take the twelve tribes of Israel, multiply them by the twelve apostles of the Lamb, and then multiply that by the fullness of the covenant-keeping faithfulness of God (12x12x1000)? You get 144,000. In other words, this is not about limiting the people of God. It is about showing us that every one of God’s people is known by God, sealed by God, and secure in God through the blood of the Lamb.
This is also why the tribes John lists begin with Judah. Reuben was the firstborn, but Judah is listed first because the Lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered. The people of God are numbered, sealed, and secure because they belong to the Lamb who came from Judah. Even the list itself urges us to read carefully. John is not simply giving us a standard tribal roll call; he is showing us the complete people of God through the imagery of Israel’s tribes.
 
The People of the Lamb are Gathered by God (vv. 9-12)
Now, if you miss what I am about to say next, you will miss the point of Revelation. John hears the number of the sealed people of God described as 144,000 from the tribes of Israel, but when he looks, he sees “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (v. 9). John hears of 144,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel, but when he looks, he sees a great multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language. What John sees is not a different people from the 144,000; it is the reality of God’s promise to Adam and Eve, to Noah, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to David, and to Mary. What John sees is the promise of God to every generation of His people coming into full bloom. The Lamb who was slain has purchased people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, just as Revelation 5 declared.
This should not surprise us, because the salvation of the nations was never God’s contingency plan. It was His purpose from the beginning. When God called Abraham, He promised that “all the families of the earth” would be blessed through him (Gen. 12:1–3). That blessing comes through Abraham’s Seed, who is Christ (Gal. 3:26–29). So Revelation 7 does not show us Israel’s replacement but the fulfillment of God’s promise through Israel’s Messiah, gathering Jews and Gentiles into one redeemed people before the throne.
This is also where Revelation 5 helps us understand Revelation 7. In Revelation 5, the elders sing that the Lamb purchased people for God by His blood “from every tribe and language and people and nation” and made them “a kingdom and priests to our God” (Rev. 5:9–10). In Revelation 7, John sees that kingdom of priests standing before the throne and the Lamb. What was promised in Genesis is now seen in glory: “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Rev. 7:9).
So when John sees the nations gathered before the Lamb, he sees Israel’s hope fulfilled and expanded through Israel’s Messiah. The Lamb has gathered a people from the nations, and now they stand where no one in Revelation 6 could: before the throne and before the Lamb.
 
Conclusion
I want to leave you with the three A’s of Revelation 7, and here is why: eschatology does little good in the Christian life unless it affects your ethics. We are called to live each day in light of the Day that is coming. So, here are the three A’s:
Assurance
If you believe in Jesus Christ, confess Him as Lord, and desire to follow and obey Him, then you are sealed by God. Here is what the Bible says: “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Rom. 10:9–10). If this is true of you, then you are sealed by God, and if you are sealed by God, then 1 John 3:1 is for you: “Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1, BSB). If you belong to the Lamb, then you are known by God, sealed by God, and secure in God.
Allegiance
If you call yourself a Christian, does your life show that you belong to the Lamb? If you are a Christian, your identity is now in and with the Lamb of God. To belong to Jesus means that you are not an acquaintance of Jesus, but an apprentice of Jesus. Jesus said to all who would seek to follow Him: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26–27). The seal is not merely about future security; it is about present identity. If you belong to the Lamb, your loyalty cannot ultimately belong to Babylon, comfort, approval, politics, money, or self-preservation.
Action
We have been saved and sealed, and now we are sent to join the mission of the Lamb as He gathers people “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Rev. 7:9). The question is: Are we living on mission with the Lamb? We were purchased by the blood of the Lamb not to be passive about the nations, our neighbors, or the lost. Jesus did not suggest that we engage His mission; He commanded us to do so: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:19–20).
Today is a day of mercy. Today is a day of restraint. Today is a day for the Lamb to gather His people. Today is the day of salvation! We are living in a time of divine restraint as we move closer to the Day of the Lord. So live in the confidence of your salvation, make sure your allegiance to the Lamb is clear, and commit your heart to action by dedicating your life to His mission.

Who Can Stand?

During the week leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion, He was asked by His disciples, “What will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matt. 24:3). As you are already aware, Jesus warned that before His coming there would be false christs claiming to be Him, wars and rumors of wars, nations rising against nations, kingdoms rising against kingdoms, famines, and earthquakes in various places. Jesus said these things would be “the beginning of birth pains” leading up to the end (Matt. 24:1–8).
After describing the abomination of desolation, which I believe was fulfilled in connection with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, Jesus then looked beyond those days to the Day of His coming:
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” (Matt. 24:29-31)
What Jesus describes in Matthew 24 is the same basic pattern Revelation shows us through the seals, trumpets, and bowls. These judgment cycles are not three unrelated timelines. They recapitulate the same period from different angles, each cycle intensifying until we arrive at what Scripture calls “the Day of the Lord.”
The Day of the Lord is the day when God steps into history to judge the wicked, vindicate His people, and reveal that every kingdom of the world belongs to Him. This phrase appears throughout the Bible, and one of the clearest Old Testament passages behind Revelation 6 is Isaiah 2:10–19, where the proud hide in the rocks from the terror of the Lord when He rises to shake the earth:
Go into the rocks and hide in the dust from the terror of the LORD and the splendor of His majesty. The proud look of man will be humbled, and the loftiness of men brought low; the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. For the Day of the LORD of Hosts will come against all the proud and lofty, against all that is exalted— it will be humbled....
So the pride of man will be brought low, and the loftiness of men will be humbled; the LORD alone will be exalted in that day, and the idols will vanish completely. Men will flee to caves in the rocks and holes in the ground, away from the terror of the LORD and from the splendor of His majesty, when He rises to shake the earth.
That is exactly the kind of imagery John sees when the Lamb opens the sixth seal. The proud are humbled. The mighty are terrified. The earth is shaken. Every false refuge collapses. And the question at the end of Revelation 6 is not, “How powerful are the kings of the earth?” or “How secure are the kingdoms of this world?” The question is: “Who is able to stand?”
Before each major judgment cycle in Revelation, John is shown a heavenly throne-room scene marked by storm imagery. And just as birth pains grow stronger as the birth draws near, the storm imagery intensifies as Revelation moves toward the final judgment. You can see this intensification in the way Revelation describes the storm coming from the throne:
 
Revelation 4:5
Revelation 8:5
Revelation 11:19
Revelation 16:18, 21
Out from the throne came flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder. And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God;
 
Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar, and hurled it to the earth; and there were peals of thunder and sounds, and flashes of lightning and an earthquake.
 
And the temple of God which is in heaven was opened; and the ark of His covenant appeared in His temple, and there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder, and an earthquake, and a great hailstorm.
 
And there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder; and there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since mankind came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty.... 21 And huge hailstones, weighing about a talent each, came down from heaven upon people; and people blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, because the hailstone plague was extremely severe.
 
We will look at each of these passages as we encounter them throughout this series. For now, all I want you to see is that each cycle of judgment describes a series of judgments that intensify the closer we come to what the Bible calls the Day of the Lord. History is not spinning out of control. There are no rogue molecules. Kings and rulers may strive after whatever they desire, but at the end of the day, Proverbs 21:1 is still true: “The king’s heart is a waterway in the hand of the LORD; He directs it where He pleases” (BSB). The same kings and rulers who seem so powerful now will one day cry out for the mountains and rocks to hide them from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb (Rev. 6:15–16).
Listen to me. Last week, when we looked at the opening of the fifth seal, we saw those who had been slain because of the word of God and because of the testimony they had maintained. They cried out, “How long, O Lord?” But they were not questioning God’s character. Their question was not about if God would judge, but when He would judge. And when the sixth seal is opened, John sees the answer.
Jesus breaks the sixth seal, as He has with the previous five, serving as another reminder that all that has happened and will happen is under His sovereign will. Jesus’ second coming will be cosmic, comprehensive, and conclusive.
 
The Day of the Lord will be Cosmic (vv. 12-14)
When the Lamb opens the sixth seal, creation shakes. John sees a great earthquake, the sun blackened, the moon turning like blood, the stars falling to the earth, the sky rolling up like a scroll, and every mountain and island moved from its place. If we count the mountains and islands separately, John gives us a sevenfold picture of cosmic upheaval: earthquake, sun, moon, stars, sky, mountains, and islands. In a book where the number seven repeatedly signifies fullness, the point is clear: nothing in the cosmos will remain unmoved on the Day of the Lord.
John is not giving us a scientific report of future astronomical events. He is using apocalyptic language to describe the severity of the judgment that will come when Jesus returns, especially the wrath that cities, nations, and empires will face when the true King of kings and Lord of lords comes to claim what belongs to Him. When Babylon fell, Isaiah spoke of the stars of heaven not giving their light, the sun being darkened, the moon not shining, the heavens trembling, and the earth being shaken out of its place (Isa. 13:9–13). When Egypt was judged, Ezekiel spoke of the heavens being covered, the stars being darkened, the sun being covered with a cloud, and the moon not giving its light (Ezek. 32:7–8). This does not mean there will be no supernatural, cataclysmic events that affect the cosmos at Jesus’ coming. It simply means John’s main point is not to satisfy our curiosity about the mechanics of the end, but to show us the severity of the judgment.
John joins Isaiah and Jesus in using apocalyptic language to describe what is coming, but his words point to more than mere symbolism. The language used to describe the judgment of Egypt, Babylon, Jerusalem, and Rome pointed to very real and very severe judgments in history. But what John describes in the sixth seal points beyond those temporal judgments to the great and final Day of the Lord, when God will judge the wicked, vindicate His people, and reveal that every kingdom of the world belongs to Him.
On the Day of the Lord, the world mankind trusted in, built upon, exploited, and worshiped will not shelter him from the One who made it all. Richard Phillips is right to describe verses 12–14 as a kind of “de-creation.”[1] The old world, corrupted by Adam’s sin and condemned for rejecting God’s Son, will be shaken so that the new creation promised by God may come. John sees that everything that once seemed fixed, permanent, immutable, and dependable is shaken before the presence of God. When the Lamb breaks the sixth seal, creation comes undone.
 
The Day of the Lord will be Comprehensive (vv. 15-16)
If verses 12–14 give us a sevenfold picture of creation being shaken, verses 15–16 give us a sevenfold picture of humanity being exposed. The point is unmistakable: from kings to slaves, from the powerful to the powerless, from the highest throne to the lowest status in life, no one is exempt. The Day of the Lord will be comprehensive.
Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”
All classes of society are mentioned in these verses. All are judged not by their status in the world but by their standing before the One on the throne and by whether they have been covered by the blood of the Lamb. Salvation cannot be found in wealth. It does not come from what one has accomplished in life. Nor is salvation automatically given to the poor, the slave, or the homeless simply because they had little or nothing on earth. The problem of mankind is a problem of the soul and the heart. All are born in sin, all are in rebellion, all are unrighteous, all are spiritually dead, and all enter this world as children of wrath.
What we discover in each cycle of judgment is the hardening of the human heart. As the seals are broken, a fourth of the earth is given over to death, yet mankind does not run to the Lamb for salvation but hides from Him (Rev. 6:16). As the trumpets sound, judgment intensifies to one-third, yet mankind does not heed the warning but continues in idolatry, murder, sorcery, sexual immorality, and theft (Rev. 9:20–21). As the bowls of wrath are poured out, judgment comes in full measure, yet mankind does not repent but blasphemes the God who judges them (Rev. 16:11, 21). With each cycle of judgment leading up to the Day of the Lord, the human heart is increasingly hardened against God: they hide, refuse to repent, and blaspheme.
Now, this matters because Revelation 6 does not say mankind hides only from Him who sits on the throne, but also “from the wrath of the Lamb.” Therefore, do not make the mistake of thinking of the Father as angry and the Son as merciful, as though the mercy of Christ stands against the wrath of the Father. As John Piper points out, “It would be a distortion if we thought of God pouring out wrath and his Son mercifully keeping us from the Father’s wrath. It would be a serious mistake to put the mercy of the Son against the wrath of the Father in this way—as if God were the just punisher and Christ the merciful rescuer.”[2]
This is the human condition, is it not? After Adam and Eve sinned, they fled the presence of God and hid themselves among the trees of the garden (Gen. 3:8). What the sixth seal reveals at the end is what H. B. Swete observed: “What sinners dread most is not death, but the revealed Presence of God.”[3]
The same Jesus who was slain to save sinners will come in wrath against those who reject His mercy. The Lamb who opens the seals is the Lamb from whom the kings of the earth beg to be hidden. For this reason, Revelation begins with these words: “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him” (Rev. 1:7).
 
The Day of the Lord will be Conclusive (v. 17)
Christians have discussed the second coming of Christ ever since the apostles heard it from Jesus’ own lips. The apostles and the first-century church expected the Day of the Lord to be imminent. Every generation of believers lived with the expectation of the imminent return of Jesus. Yet even in Peter’s day, some mocked the promise of His coming, assuming that because judgment had not yet come, it never would. But Peter reminds us that God has judged the world before, and by that same word, the present heavens and earth are being kept for the day of judgment:
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. (2 Pet. 3:8–10)
Here is what we know: Jesus is coming back. He is coming suddenly. He is coming in a way that will surprise the world. And my fear is that when He comes, He will surprise many who call themselves Christian.
The sixth seal ends with a very important question, perhaps the most important question you can ask yourself: “Who can stand?” When Jesus comes and the “Day of the Lord” becomes the experience and reality of our world.  When the prophetic word that the Day is coming becomes a part of human history, there will be no escaping it. The answer to “Who can stand?” is simple: No one will be able to stand. Not kings. Not generals. Not the rich. Not the powerful. Not the slave. Not the free. Not the religious. Not the moral. Not the successful. Not the suffering. Not the person who had everything in this life, and not the person who had nothing.
The question is not whether Jesus is coming. He is. The question is not whether the Day of the Lord will come. It will. The question before each of us this morning is this: “When that day comes, will you be able to stand?” When Jesus comes, will He recognize you as belonging to Him? What will you hear from His lips on that Day? Jesus spoke of a time that is coming:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matt. 7:21-23)
Revelation 7 answers the question, “Who can stand?” Only those sealed by God will be able to stand. Only those washed in the blood of the Lamb will be able to stand. But today is the day of salvation! Today there is no need to hide. The gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to something far better: Do not hide from the Lamb. Run to the Lamb for salvation. The only safe place from the wrath of the Lamb is in the mercy of the Lamb.
So, the question is not whether Jesus is coming. He is. The question is not whether the Day of the Lord will come. It will. The question is this: when that day comes, will you be able to stand?
[1] Richard D. Phillips, Revelation, ed. Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2017), 230–233.
       [2] John Piper, Come, Lord Jesus: Meditations on the Second Coming of Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023), 109.
       [3] Henry Barclay Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes and Indices, 3rd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1911; repr., Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1977), 94–95.

How Long, O Lord?

My friend Shana Reif suffered from Cystic Fibrosis, a genetic disease that primarily affects the lungs and other organs. It causes thick, sticky mucus to build up in the airways, leading to repeated infections, inflammation, and progressive lung damage. In many cases, the disease can advance until the lungs can no longer do what God created them to do—bring oxygen into the body and sustain life.
Cystic Fibrosis is a horrible and incurable disease, and it was the disease Shana endured all her life. When she was born, her parents were told she would not live much past her twentieth birthday. But Shana lived to be thirty-two.
I came to know Shana in high school, not long after I became a follower of Jesus. After high school, we became very close friends. She edited my Bible college papers, and I visited her often during her many hospital stays. I also visited her at home as she recovered from the latest infection. By 2003, her lungs had been so damaged by chronic infections that she was placed on the waiting list for new lungs. She received a double lung transplant in 2004, but even then, her suffering did not fully end. Her body remained fragile. Her fight continued.
But Shana loved Jesus. Though she struggled deeply with her disease, she held onto the hope of the gospel. One of the last emails I received from her was signed with words from her favorite hymn: “Great is Thy faithfulness.” In 2007, Shana died from complications after a procedure to reopen a constricted airway.
When someone you love suffers like that, the question “How long?” is not theoretical. How long will disease ravage bodies? How long will death take those we love? How long will God’s people suffer in a world still broken by sin? How long before Christ makes all things new?
Revelation 6:9–11 brings us to that question. But here, the cry comes specifically from those who have been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they maintained.
 
The Martyrs: The Cost of Their Witness (v. 9)
There are three cycles of judgment in Revelation: the seals, the trumpets, and the bowls. These cycles do not unfold in strict linear succession—seals, then trumpets, then bowls—but recapitulate the same period of history with increasing intensity, like birth pains. For our purposes, I simply want you to notice one pattern that helps us understand what is happening in this passage.
In each cycle—the seals, trumpets, and bowls—the first four judgments affect the world in broad, visible ways, but the fifth shifts the focus. The fifth seal shows the saints crying out for justice (Rev. 6:9–11). The fifth trumpet shows judgment beginning to fall on the enemies of God—those who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads (Rev. 9:1–12; especially 9:4). The fifth bowl shows judgment reaching the very throne of the beast, whose kingdom wages war against all who refuse to worship him (Rev. 16:10–11; cf. Rev. 13:7–8, 15). This is why the first four seals show us the horsemen riding across the earth. But when the fifth seal is opened, the focus shifts from what is happening on earth to what heaven sees when God’s people suffer because of the word of God and the testimony they maintain.
These martyrs are not beneath the altar because they were victims of history. They are there because they belonged to the Lamb and remained faithful to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. Their witness cost them their lives. John is showing us what Jesus had already told His disciples: “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matt. 16:24; NASB). The fifth seal reminds us that following Jesus is not merely a call to believe certain truths about Him; it is a call to bear faithful witness to those truths, even when obedience is costly.
Polycarp is said to have been a disciple of the apostle John and later became the bishop of Smyrna. Smyrna, you may remember, was one of the seven churches Jesus addressed in Revelation. Jesus told that suffering church, “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev. 2:10). Years later, Polycarp was arrested and ordered to deny Christ. When pressed to renounce Jesus, he replied, “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?” Polycarp’s witness cost him his life, but heaven did not see his death as Rome did. Rome saw a criminal to be silenced. Heaven saw a faithful witness beneath the altar.
And we do not have to go back to Polycarp to see this kind of witness. You may remember the twenty-one Coptic Christians who were taken by ISIS in Libya and led onto a beach in orange jumpsuits. They were ordinary men who refused to renounce their faith in Jesus. Their blood was shed on earth, but Revelation 6 reminds us that heaven did not miss a drop. The world saw men being led to execution. Heaven saw faithful witnesses beneath the altar.
Since 2015, conservative estimates suggest that more than 50,000 Christians have been killed for faith-related reasons around the world. According to Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List, North Korea remains the most dangerous country in the world to be a Christian, while Nigeria is the deadliest, accounting for 3,490 of the 4,849 Christians killed for their faith during the latest reporting period.
The seals describe the birth pains that mark this present age. The first four seals show us a world marked by conquest, war, famine, and death. But when the fifth seal is opened, we are shown what heaven sees when God’s people suffer because of the word of God and the testimony they maintain.
 
The Altar: The Cry Before God (v. 10)
Notice that John not only tells us that these faithful Christ-followers suffered and died for their faith, but also tells us where he saw these Christians. They are “under the altar.” This is a crucial detail that you can only understand if you know something about the Old Testament tabernacle that God told Moses to build. Scripture tells us that the earthly tabernacle was a copy and shadow of the one in heaven (Heb. 8:4-5; Exod. 25-31; 35-40). So when John sees an altar in heaven, he is not seeing something new, but the heavenly reality to which Israel’s worship had always pointed.
Within the tabernacle, there were two primary altars. The bronze altar stood in the courtyard, where sacrifices were offered. The altar of incense stood near the Most Holy Place, close to the ark of the covenant, which represented the throne of God. Both altars help us understand what John sees. The blood of the sacrifice was poured at the altar’s base, and the incense rising before the Lord symbolized the prayers of God’s people ascending into His presence. So when John sees the souls of the martyrs beneath the altar, he sees their lives as precious before God and their prayers as heard before His throne.
In the earthly tabernacle, a veil stood between the priests and God's immediate presence. But in heaven, no curtain hides His throne from His redeemed people. The martyrs are not far from God. They are beneath the altar, before the throne, and in the presence of the Lord God Almighty.
Now, picture what is happening before John’s eyes. Those who suffered the ultimate cost for following Jesus are not behind the altar, nor are they on top of the altar. These saints are under the altar, which tells us that they are closest to the throne. Also, the martyrs are not passive, but are actively pleading for vindication in God’s heavenly court. There is no magical language here, for their cries are raw and honest. There is no anger hurled before God,  but cries of vindication in light of their understanding of who God is! 
Notice what these dear saints include in their prayer: “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true...” Now let’s stop there for a moment. The ESV translates the word well as “Sovereign Lord.” The Greek word used here is not the most common term for Lord, kyrios, but despotēs, and this is the only time it appears in the entire book of Revelation. The word these martyred saints use conveys absolute ownership, supreme authority, and sovereign mastery. We get our English word despot from this word, but while despot usually carries a negative meaning in English, that is not the case when despotēs is used of God in the New Testament. When used of God, it emphasizes His complete authority over creation, His servants, history, judgment, and justice.
This matters because these Christians are not merely crying out to God as sufferers, asking whether He cares. They are crying out to the One they know to be the Sovereign Master over all things. They are appealing to the One who has the authority to judge, avenge, vindicate, and bring history to its appointed end. They are not crying out in doubt. They are crying out in faith. They know He is able. They know He is holy. They know He is true. And they know that the Sovereign Lord will do what is right.
Notice what the saints attribute to God next.  Not only is He the Sovereign Master, but He is holy. These saints who have suffered much understand that their God is utterly set apart from all evil, corruption, compromise, and injustice. He is not like the kingdoms and the kings of this world. He is not indifferent to injustice and the bloodshed at the hands of the wicked. He is not morally conflicted. He is pure in all His judgments, righteous in all His ways, and completely opposed to everything wicked. He is holy and these saints know it! 
God is not only holy; He is also true. When these saints plead their case before the throne of God, they do so knowing that He is faithful to all He has promised. He does not forget. He does not make empty threats or hollow promises. What He has spoken, He will do (Num. 23:19; Josh. 21:45; Isa. 55:10–11; Titus 1:2; Heb. 10:23). So when these martyrs cry, “How long?” they are not questioning God’s goodness, nor are they doubting that He will keep His word. They are asking when the God who is holy and true will act in perfect faithfulness to His word and to those He has promised never to forsake (Deut. 31:6; Heb. 13:5; Rev).
The breaking of the fifth seal and the prayer of these suffering saints teach us an important truth about how we can and should pray. They pray from their understanding of who God truly is. This is the kind of thing we read about in Daniel 11:32: “...the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.” These saints know their God, and so they cry out, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”
This prayer is not a contradiction of Jesus’ command to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matt. 5:44). It is a plea to the holy and true God to judge evil, vindicate His people, and set the world right. Their cry is rooted in the justice of God, knowing that His Word teaches that vengeance belongs to Him and not to His people (Deut. 32:35; Rom. 12:19). The martyrs beneath the altar are asking God to do what only God has the right and authority to do.
 
The Throne: The Completion of God’s Purpose (v. 11)
Now, notice what happens next. God responds, meaning He heard their prayer. But He does not respond as we might initially expect. The God who is sovereign, holy, and true responds by giving these Christians white robes as a sign of honor, purity, and vindication. These robes signify the righteousness that is theirs because of Jesus. When we see this great multitude again in Revelation 7, we are told, “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:14). These martyred saints represent every faithful witness who has been slain for the word of God and the testimony they upheld—from the earliest martyrs of the church to our brothers and sisters suffering for Christ today. They are not treated as victims of random violence but as saints who belong to Christ and whose witness is precious before God.
God responds by giving them white robes and telling them to do the thing we all hate: wait. Verse 11 says they were told to “rest a little longer.” That word, rest, matters. God is not dismissing their cry. He is not ignoring their suffering. He is calling them to rest in His presence, assured that perfect justice will come in His appointed time and in His sovereign way. Why must they wait? Because other Christians will suffer as they did, and they must wait until their number is complete. This means God’s justice is not delayed because He is indifferent. It is delayed because His purpose is not yet complete. There are still more witnesses to be gathered, more saints to be strengthened, and more glory to be given to Christ through the faithful endurance of His people. 
God’s answer to their prayer was to wait a little while longer. 
 
Conclusion
My friend Shana frequently asked the same question you may have asked more than you can count: “How long O Sovereign Lord, holy and true...” It is the plea of the suffering. Shana was not a martyr, she was not killed by persecutors because of the word of God. She died on the operating table due to complications at the hands of surgeons who were trying to ease her suffering. Let me tell you what Shana did know. She knew what it meant to suffer in a world that is still waiting for Christ to make all things new. She knew what it meant to groan. She knew what it meant to wait. She knew what it meant to hope. I know that God used her life to encourage and strengthen the faith of others. 
Revelation 6:9-11 teaches us that we need not pretend the pain we experience is small. We need not pretend injustice does not matter. We need not pretend that death is natural. We can cry “How long” and do so in faith, not despair. We can cry it to the Sovereign Lord, who is holy and true.
The Lamb who opens the fifth seal, is the Lamb who sees the suffering of His people. He honors the witness of His redeemed. He gives those who follow Him rest. The Lamb who died for you, is the Lord who will bring His purpose to completion for His glory and for your good!
So, my dear brothers and sisters, we wait. But we do not wait as people forgotten by the One who sits upon the throne. We wait as those who belong to the Lamb. We wait as those whose lives are precious before the One on the throne. And we wait with confidence that the One who is sovereign, holy, and true will do exactly what He has promised. We can trust Him to do what is good and right because that is who He is.  

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

We all wear glasses in this room. I am not referring to your contacts or the physical glasses your eye doctor prescribed. I am referring to your worldview—the lenses through which you interpret everything you see: God, yourself, others, suffering, evil, history, the purpose of life, and the future.
In our world today, people use a wide range of worldviews to make sense of reality. Theism holds that a personal God created and rules the world. Naturalism holds that the physical universe is all that exists. Pantheism identifies God with the world or sees God as present in everything. Postmodernism treats truth as personal, socially constructed, or tied to power. Nihilism holds that life has no ultimate meaning, purpose, or moral order.
Most people do not wear only one pair of glasses. They switch lenses depending on what suits them—a little theism for comfort, a little secularism for control, a little skepticism against authority, and a little self-rule for freedom. It may feel meaningful in the moment, but it cannot finally correct the vision problem. It still leaves reality blurred.
One of the clearest symbols of modern humanity’s hope was the World Trade Center. It took twelve years, from the earliest design stages in 1961 to the ribbon-cutting in 1973, to complete the Twin Towers, at a cost of about $900 million. The chief architect, Minoru Yamasaki, said the World Trade Center should become “a living representation of man’s belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his belief in the cooperation of men, and through this cooperation his ability to find greatness.”
That is a remarkable statement. The towers were meant to say something about us: our greatness, dignity, cooperation, and our ability to build a better world. Yet on September 11, 2001, it took less than two hours for those towers to fall, and nearly 3,000 lives were lost.
Brothers and sisters, that is not merely a tragedy in American history. It is a parable of the world we inhabit. We live in a world of conflict, bloodshed, injustice, suffering, and death. We build towers and call them peace. We create systems and call them progress. We trust power, wealth, cooperation, technology, politics, and human greatness to bring stability. Yet again and again, the world proves unable to save itself. 
What we need is a biblical worldview—a way of seeing the world through the lens of God’s Word. Revelation pulls back the curtain on human history—past, present, and future—so we can see things as they really are. In Revelation 6:1–8, that curtain is drawn back on the world we know all too well: a world marked by conquest, war, famine, injustice, suffering, and death. Yet Revelation does not show us these things to make us despair. It shows us these things so we will see that the horsemen are permitted to ride only because the Lamb has the authority to open the seals.
Before we go any further in this sermon, do not miss who opens each seal. It is not the horsemen. It is not the devil. It is not the antichrist. It is not kings, nations, armies, or empires. The Lamb alone has the authority to open the seals and to allow the horsemen to ride.
As the Lamb opens the first four seals, do not think of the horsemen as strange figures waiting to be released in the distant future. Instead, think of them as the symbolic unveiling of the very world Jesus told us to expect—a world marked by conquest, violence, exploitation, and death. Yet Revelation 6 shows us something the evening news never can: the horsemen ride only because the Lamb opens the seals, and He alone is worthy to do so.
 
The Horsemen and the World Jesus Told Us to Expect 
We are now entering a section of Revelation that may challenge how many of us have been taught to think about the end times. For many Christians, passages such as Revelation 6 and Matthew 24 have been interpreted almost entirely as future events, often within a framework known as the seven-year tribulation. Many have also been taught that the church will be removed from the earth before that tribulation begins.
I realize that, for some of you, that may be the only framework for understanding the end times you have ever known. Faithful Christians have held different views on these matters, so my goal is not to mock what you have been taught or force you into a different system. My goal is simply to ask you to do what the Bereans did—to search the Scriptures and see whether these things are so (see Acts 17:10-11).
What I want to show you is that Revelation 6 and Matthew 24 are not describing realities completely disconnected from the church’s present life. Jesus Himself told His disciples what this present age would look like:
And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.” (Matt. 24:4-8)
Revelation 6 is not describing a strange world the church has never seen. It pulls back the curtain on the age Jesus described—a world marked by conquest, violence, exploitation, suffering, and death. The four horsemen symbolize realities that have marked human history since Christ’s ascension and will end when He returns.
Yet Jesus’ words also keep us from hopeless despair. These things are not the end. They are birth pains. And as painful as birth pains are, they remind us that something is coming: the kingdom of Christ in all its fullness. Until that day, the horsemen ride. Like birth pains, the realities they represent continue throughout this age and increase in frequency and intensity as history moves toward the return of Christ and the birth of the new creation. But understand this: they do not roam at their own leisure. The Lamb reigns, and He alone has the authority to open the seals.
So when the Lamb opens the seals and the four horsemen are revealed, we are shown the world Jesus told us to expect. But we are also shown what the world cannot see: conquest, violence, exploitation, and death are not rogue realities, nor do they unfold outside His sovereign will and authority.
 
The White Horse: The Lust for Conquest (vv. 1-2)
There is some debate about what the rider on the white horse represents, largely because certain features seem to mirror the way Jesus appears in Revelation 19:11–16, particularly the white horse He rides and the crown He wears. Others believe the rider represents a false Christ or even the antichrist because he seems to mimic Jesus’ appearance. The problem with these views is twofold: first, Jesus is the One who opens each of the seals; and second, the remaining horsemen clearly represent forces of destruction rather than specific individuals.
There are other suggestions, but the context of Revelation 6 suggests that the rider on the white horse belongs with the other three horsemen: war, famine, and death. Together, they represent the destructive realities that mark this present age. This connection may be reinforced by the first living creature who announces this horse and rider.
Notice that the first living creature has the face of a lion, representing strength, majesty, and power among the wild creatures. It is this creature that introduces the rider on the white horse. If there is a symbolic connection between the creature who speaks and the horseman who appears, then the first horseman fittingly represents conquest—the lust of kings, nations, empires, and rulers to expand their power, secure their kingdoms, and impose their will on others.
Unlike the kingdom Jesus will bring, this rider represents fallen humanity grasping for dominion apart from God. This horse and its rider promise peace but never deliver it. Their creed is simple: “If we can gain enough territory, enough power, enough influence, enough control, then we can secure the future.” But Revelation shows us the truth: conquest does not lead to peace. It prepares the way for the red horse.
 
The Red Horse: The Vandalism of Peace (vv. 3-4)
The Lamb then opens the second seal. In response, the heavenly creature with the face of an ox, representing domesticated strength, service, and labor—the kind of creature people use to bring forth life from the earth—says, “Come!” Then the red horse appears, and its rider is permitted to take peace from the earth so that people may slay one another.
If the white horse represents the lust for conquest, the red horse reveals what that lust produces. The world promises peace through power, but Revelation shows that power seized apart from God does not preserve peace; it vandalizes it. When God gives sinners over to themselves, the restraints that hold back violence are removed, and the human heart is exposed as it is and what it is capable of. This is why the rider is given a great sword, symbolizing violence, bloodshed, and the destructive force of war.
From the first murder in Genesis 4 to the wars and rumors of wars Jesus said would mark this age like birth pains in Matthew 24, human history has been stained with the blood of those created in God’s image. Nations rise against nations. Kingdoms seek to outdo kingdoms. Brother turns against brother. Neighbor turns against neighbor. When sin-cursed humanity seeks dominion apart from God, even in the name of peace, peace is among the first casualties.
Make no mistake: the rider on the red horse is not rogue. He is only “permitted” to take peace from the earth because the Lamb has authority to break the second seal. He does not seize the sword; he is “given” a great sword. The breaking of the second seal shows that even the violence of this age is not outside the sovereign hand of the Lamb. While the serpent of old was “a murderer from the beginning” and is “the father of lies” (John 8:44), Humanity’s propensity toward violence is the result of its fallen nature; it is mankind that robs the earth of the shalom it was created to experience. Yet even this violence remains under the authority of the Lamb.
 
The Black Horse: Exploitation of Need (vv. 5-6)
The Lamb opens the third seal, and the living creature with the face of a man says, “Come!” The irony is that while man symbolizes wisdom, reason, and the stewardship God entrusted to humanity, the black horse and its rider represent the exploitation of creation’s needs by mankind. The rider is seen holding a pair of scales, and a voice is heard saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine.”
The scales symbolize measurement, rationing, and scarcity. In John’s day, a denarius was a day’s wage, so the announced prices of wheat and barley reveal a world where food is available yet barely affordable. A person could work all day and still barely survive. Meanwhile, the command not to harm the oil and wine suggests that while daily bread becomes burdensome for the poor, others’ comforts and luxuries remain protected. Human need becomes an opportunity for human greed. The black horse reveals that much of the world’s suffering stems from the corruption of human stewardship.
Humanity was created in God’s image to cultivate the earth, care for one another, and administer justice for the good of mankind and the rest of creation. But when people seek dominion apart from God, the needs of the earth and those who live on it are twisted into opportunities for profit. When mankind is given over to itself, human beings exploit one another and anything else in creation that offers an opportunity to get ahead of their neighbor. Yet even here, the rider is not sovereign and does not ride beyond the authority of the Lamb.
 
The Pale Horse: The Dominion of Death (vv. 7-8)
The Lamb opens the fourth seal, and the creature with the face of an eagle says, “Come!” Consider what an eagle represents: swiftness, height, watchfulness, and the realm just above the earth. When John hears this single word, he sees a pale horse, and its rider is named Death, with Hades following him. While the eagle soars over the earth, the pale horse gathers what man’s lust for conquest, readiness to kill, and greed produce—namely, death.
The horse’s color is disturbing. The Greek word translated “pale” (chlōros) denotes a greenish hue, suggesting the sickly color of decay, disease, and death. There is little left to the imagination with the name given to this rider. He is Death, and Hades follows behind him like a grave, collecting what death has taken.
This is the world east of Eden, where sin has brought decay to everything God created good. Death follows kings and nations. Death follows war. Death follows hunger, poverty, disease, and the neglect of creation. Death is the final enemy, and no human kingdom, political system, technological advancement, or amount of wealth or power can ultimately escape it.
But while the pale horse and its rider may terrify us, they are not sovereign. The Lamb is the One who breaks the seal. Death rides, yet the Lamb reigns. And all who belong to the Lamb are assured that in a world where the four horsemen are permitted to ride for a time, the One who opens the seals also says to His people: “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Rev. 1:17–18).
 
Conclusion
What the apostle John and the seven churches likely found most reassuring in the vision of the four horsemen is the reminder that it is the Lamb—Christ Himself—who breaks each seal and permits the horsemen to ride. The power wielded by rulers and nations is granted by the One who sits sovereignly on the throne. Revelation 6:1–8 is given so that we might see the world as it really is and see the Lamb as He truly is.
The horsemen do not ride because chaos reigns. They ride because the Lamb opens the seals. And when the four living creatures cry, “Come!” their summons echoes the prayer Jesus taught us to pray: “Your kingdom come, your will be done...” (Matt. 6:10). The Lamb gives mankind over to its wickedness, not because evil is sovereign, but because He is accomplishing His sovereign purposes until His rule and reign are fully manifested on earth as it is in heaven. The four horsemen reveal to those who belong to the Lamb that God’s kingdom is indeed coming.
God’s kingdom comes not only through salvation, but also through judgment upon everything that ruins His creation.

The Crescendo of Heaven

About the same time the book of Revelation was written, a Jewish historian named Josephus, who was not a Christian, wrote about Jesus. Though the wording of the full passage has been debated, the basic testimony is striking: Jesus was known as a wise man, a worker of remarkable deeds, a teacher, one who gained followers, was crucified under Pilate, and whose followers did not disappear:
“Around this time there lived Jesus, a wise man—if it is right to call him merely a man. He performed remarkable works and was a teacher of people who gladly received the truth. He attracted many Jews and many Gentiles. He was the Christ. When Pilate, at the urging of our leading men, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him from the beginning did not abandon him. For he appeared to them alive again on the third day, just as the divine prophets had foretold this and many other wonderful things about him. And the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not disappeared to this day.”
It is possible to know many true things about Jesus and still miss the weight of His worth. Josephus could describe Him as a wise man, a worker of remarkable deeds, a teacher, and one condemned to the cross. But Revelation 5 pulls back the curtain of heaven and shows us what all creation will one day confess: Jesus is not merely remarkable. He is worthy.
The following is a list of twelve windows into the glory of the Lamb and why it is that He is worthy. 
Jesus is worthy because He is Judah’s Lion (v. 5)
Judah was a deeply flawed man who sold his younger brother Joseph into slavery, deceived his father, abandoned his daughter-in-law, and hid behind hypocrisy. But God changed Judah’s heart, and by Genesis 44, Judah was willing to sacrifice himself to save Benjamin, the youngest son who was dearly loved by their father. Later, Jacob blessed Judah with a promise that the promised serpent-stomping King would come through him: “Judah is a lion’s cub... The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to Him; and to Him shall be the obedience of the peoples” (Gen. 49:9–10). That promise finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Jesus is more than Judah’s descendant; He is Judah’s promised Lion—the true and better Judah who offered Himself as the sinless Substitute for His people. He is the One to whom the scepter belongs, the One before whom the obedience of the peoples will one day be gathered. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and He has conquered sin, death, and the dragon.
Jesus is worthy because He is God’s Lamb (v. 6)
We cannot have the Lion as our friend unless we first have Him as our Lamb, for Scripture declares, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb. 9:22; see Lev. 17:11). This theme runs throughout the Bible. In Genesis 22, Isaac carried the wood for the sacrifice and asked, “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham answered, “God will provide for Himself a lamb” (Gen. 22:7–8). In Exodus 12, Israel was sheltered from wrath by the blood of the spotless lamb, and in Isaiah 53, the suffering Servant is portrayed as the Lamb pierced, crushed, and slaughtered for the iniquities of guilty sinners. So when John the Baptist cried out, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), he summed up the promises and the point of the Old Testament. Jesus is the Lamb God provided, the Passover Lamb whose blood shelters His people from judgment, the sacrificial Lamb whose blood makes atonement, and the suffering Lamb who bears our sins. Apart from the blood of the Lamb, the Lion is not our comfort but our Judge. But for those covered by His blood, there is no condemnation. Those of us who have the Lamb know that the Lion is not against us but for us. 
Jesus is worthy because He can take the scroll (v. 7)
He alone has the right to receive and enact God’s plan to judge evil, redeem His people, and restore creation. The scroll contains the sovereign plan of the Lord God Almighty—the One who says in Isaiah 46: “I am God, and there is no other… declaring the end from the beginning… saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose’” (Isa. 46:9–10). The scroll is in the right hand of this God, and when no one in heaven, on earth, or under the earth was found worthy to open it or even look into it, John wept bitterly. If the scroll remains sealed, God’s promises remain unfulfilled, sin and death are not finally defeated, the saints are not vindicated, and creation is not restored.
But the Lion who is the Lamb came forth because He alone is worthy to open the scroll. He took it from the right hand of the Father. This was not theft but triumph. This was not presumption but due to the worthiness of the Preeminent Lamb. Jesus alone has the right to open the scroll because He alone has conquered by His blood. The destiny of creation is in the nail-scarred hand of the Lamb who is the Kinsman-Redeemer.
Jesus is worthy because He is the unconquerable King (v. 6)
When John turns to see the Lion worthy to open the scroll, he sees “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.” The One who knew no sin and became sin for us bears every scar from the cross as a reminder that His sacrifice was once for all: “the righteous for the unrighteous” (1 Pet. 3:18)! The Lamb stands because death could not keep Him. The Lamb stands because the grave could not hold Him! The Lamb stands even though He was rejected by men, condemned by rulers, mocked by the religious leaders, and nailed to the cross... He stands at the center of heaven’s throne room, victorious. His wounds testify to His triumph. The Lamb who was slain is worthy because He is the King who cannot be conquered.
Jesus is worthy because He is the Omniscient King (v. 6)
The unconquerable King is seen with seven horns and seven eyes. As you may recall, in Scripture, horns symbolize strength, power, and sovereign authority, while eyes symbolize sight, wisdom, and knowledge. The number seven points to fullness and perfection, which means the Lamb who was slain is not weak but all-powerful, not limited but limitless, not unaware but all-seeing. He shares the wisdom and sovereignty of the Ancient of Days. Nothing escapes His sight. No enemy can hide from Him. No suffering saint is forgotten by Him. No act of faithfulness goes unnoticed by Him. The Lion, who is the Lamb, sees all and reigns over all by the fullness of the Spirit sent into all the earth. Jesus is worthy because He is the King whose reign is as extensive as His holiness, goodness, justice, love, grace, and mercy.
Jesus is worthy because He is creation’s Lord (vv. 7-8)
The living creatures and elders fall before Him because the Lamb is creation’s Lord through Whom all of creation exists. The four living creatures represent the created order, and the twenty-four elders represent the redeemed people of God. The worship that belongs to the Lord God Almighty is directed to Jesus not only because of what He has done, but also because of who He is. All things were created through Him and for Him (Col. 1:16), and now all creation bows before Him as One who is equal with the Father. The Lamb who was slain is worthy because He is the Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, and rightful Lord over all things.
Jesus is worthy because He was slain as the sinner’s ransom (v. 9)
The blood of the Lamb is the price of our redemption. The new song of heaven celebrates this: “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation...” The Lion of Judah is the willing Lamb who stands before those He came to save; He is the Kinsman-Redeemer that creation needs. The price was not the religious deeds of fallible man, but the life of the second Adam, who lived the life we could not live and died the death we deserved. We were once enslaved by sin and stood condemned before God as guilty sinners, but Jesus gave His life to ransom us and set us free for God.  Jesus is worthy because He was slain in our place, bore the judgment we deserved, paid the debt we could not pay, and purchased us by His precious blood.
Jesus is worthy because He redeemed a people for mission (vv. 9-10)
Jesus did not ransom, redeem, and save sinners from condemnation merely so they could occupy space in His kingdom; He redeemed them for His kingdom purposes. We are not only forgiven of our sins; we are restored to the purpose for which humanity exists. Jesus saved us to send us into the world as His ambassadors and the Father’s priests. We are priests before God, and we live under the reign of Christ as citizens of His kingdom. This is why Peter says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9). Jesus is worthy not only because He rescued us from the wrath of God we deserved, but also because He restored us to what we were created to be.
Jesus is worthy because He is the song of the angels (vv. 11-12)
After the song of the four living creatures and the new song of the twenty-four elders, John turns his attention to what he hears around the throne. What he hears is an innumerable host of angels resounding with praise: 
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, 
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might 
and honor and glory and blessing!” 
The angels erupt in praise after those who represent redeemed humanity conclude theirs. Why? Because the second person of the Trinity took upon Himself human flesh, was born of a virgin, and came to redeem a lost, rebellious, and cursed race (Phil. 2:1-11). This is something angels find baffling, for Peter tells us that our salvation is something “angels long to look” into (1 Pet. 1:12). What the angels offer in worship is a sevenfold declaration of what belongs only to Yahweh. To give this kind of worship to anyone else would not merely be inappropriate; it would be idolatrous. You cannot see it clearly in English, but in the Greek there is one definite article governing the entire sevenfold list attributed to the Lamb. The point is simple: Jesus is worthy to receive the power, the wealth, the wisdom, the might, the honor, the glory, and the blessing that belong to the One true God. In his commentary on Revelation, Richard Phillips captures the wonder of this angelic worship well:
Like that of the glorified church, the angels’ worship responds to Christ’s atoning death on the cross. Their testimony therefore shows that what once seemed like defeat for Jesus has been revealed as total victory. The cross was seen as weakness but was actually power; the cross displayed poverty but gained true riches; the cross was foolishness to the world but wisdom from God; the cross represented shame but earned the highest honor for Christ; the cross was a place of deep disgrace, yet revealed the very glory of God’s grace; and the cross stood for the curse of sin but achieved eternal blessing for those on whose behalf Jesus died.
The One who was slain is now declared worthy by countless heavenly beings. Jesus is worthy because all of heaven knows what earth so often forgets: the Lamb who was slain is worthy of the glory that belongs to God alone—because He is God. 
Jesus is worthy because He is creation’s celebration (v. 13)
The worship does not end with the millions of angels, the twenty-four elders, or the four living creatures. John hears more. He hears every creature “in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them,” declaring in worship: “To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” What John witnesses is not universal admiration, but the worship of every creature directed to God and to the Lamb.
The One who was rejected and despised by men is celebrated by creation. The One who was crucified and crushed outside the city is praised throughout the universe. Jesus is worthy because He is the Lamb before whom every creature will one day bow in worship.
Jesus is worthy because He deserves everything (vv. 12-13)
Jesus is worthy to receive the power, wealth, wisdom, might, honor, glory, and blessing that belong to the Lord God Almighty. Every creature appropriately joins the heavenly worship by declaring, “To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” Heaven holds nothing back, and creation attributes to the Lamb what rightfully belongs to Yahweh alone.
All power belongs to Him because He reigns. All wealth belongs to Him because all things are His. All wisdom belongs to Him because His ways are perfect. All might belongs to Him because He has conquered. All honor belongs to Him because He is exalted. All glory belongs to Him because He is God. All blessing belongs to Him because all praise is His due. Jesus is worthy because He embodies, in infinite measure, all that is good, glorious, powerful, beautiful, and praiseworthy.
Jesus is worthy because He is the Amen of the Father (vv. 13-14)
Jesus did not need to earn the praise He receives from the four living creatures, the twenty-four elders, the angels, and all creation; He is worthy because of who He is. In the same way the Father is unchanging, Jesus is unchanging, for Scripture testifies, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). In response to the worship and praise Jesus receives as the One worthy to take and open the scroll, the four living creatures respond, “Amen!”—a word that means, “Truly,” “Let it be so,” “This is true.” But do not misunderstand what they are doing. They are not only saying “Amen” to Jesus as the One who is worthy; they are saying “Amen” because He Himself is the Amen of God the Father. Jesus is the faithful and true witness, the One in whom every promise of God finds its fulfillment. As Paul writes, “For all the promises of God find their Yes in Him. That is why it is through Him that we utter our Amen to God for His glory” (2 Cor. 1:20).
Revelation 5 begins with the question, “Who is worthy?” But after the Lion who is the Lamb takes the scroll, it ends with heaven, earth, and every creature confessing through worship that He alone is worthy. There is nothing left to say but “Amen,” and nothing left to do but fall down and worship.
Conclusion
Jesus is worthy before the angels sing that He is.Jesus is worthy before creation celebrates that He is.Jesus is worthy before the elders fall down because of who He is.Jesus is worthy before you and I respond to all that He is! 
Jesus is worthy.
Our worship does not make Him worthy.Our worship simply agrees with what is already true.
The question is not whether Jesus is worthy—heaven has already declared it, and creation will one day echo that truth. There will come a time when every knee will bow, every tongue will confess, and all creation will acknowledge what has always been true (Isa. 45:23; Phil. 2:9-10): the Lamb who was slain is worthy.
The question I leave with you today is whether your heart, your obedience, your faith, your suffering, your worship, and every other part of your life will respond with “Amen” to the Lamb who is worthy. So, do not wait until every creature sings to join the song of heaven. Sing now. Trust Him now. Follow Him now and may Psalm 119:37 be your heart’s cry: “Turn my eyes away from worthless things; revive me with Your word” (Ps. 119:37; BSB).

The Lion and the Lamb

“The cannibals! You will be eaten by cannibals!” That was the warning John G. Paton received when he announced his call to take the gospel to the New Hebrides. An older man in his church—known simply as Mr. Dickson—tried to dissuade him. From a human standpoint, the concern was understandable. Paton’s ministry in Glasgow was thriving. Hundreds gathered each week, lives were being changed, and the work was fruitful. Why would anyone leave such a place?
The New Hebrides were known as one of the most dangerous mission fields in the world. Just nineteen years earlier, in 1839, missionaries John Williams and James Harris had landed there and were killed within hours. Their deaths were still fresh in the minds of many, and the opposition Paton faced came not from enemies of the gospel, but from concerned Christian friends. Reflecting on this moment, Paton later wrote, “The opposition was so strong from nearly all… that I was sorely tempted to question whether I was carrying out the Divine will… This also caused me much anxiety, and drove me close to God in prayer.”
 
Paton replied to Dickson’s warning: “Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.”
The danger was real, the opposition was understandable, and the cost was high—but Paton was convinced that Christ was worthy, even there.
When Paton arrived in the New Hebrides in 1858, the cost became immediate. Within weeks of landing on the island of Tanna, his wife, Mary, and their newborn son both died of fever. Paton buried them with his own hands and even slept on their grave to protect it. It would have been understandable for him to leave. Yet he did not abandon his calling. For over forty years, he labored among those islands, convinced that Christ was worthy and that even the hardest soil was not beyond the reach of God’s saving power.
Paton’s story did not end with his life. It helped fuel a missionary movement. The gospel did not stop in the New Hebrides; it continued to spread across the Pacific, eventually reaching places like Papua New Guinea, where the cost remained high and the danger real. Even today, the fruit of that gospel work remains.
Why would a man risk everything for such a mission?
Paton went because he believed Christ was worthy of whatever sacrifice it would cost to bring the gospel to those who had never heard—even at the risk of his own life.
Revelation 5:6–10 shows us why.
 
The Lion is a Lamb (v. 6)
Remember what the scroll represents. In Revelation 5:1–4, John’s attention turns to a scroll in the right hand of God—a scroll that contains His sovereign plan to judge evil, redeem His people, and restore all creation from the curse of sin. It is held securely by the One who rules history with perfect authority. Within it lies the full scope of redemptive history: God’s judgments, the vindication of suffering saints, the defeat of sin and death, and the final restoration of all things—including the new heaven and new earth. It holds both justice and hope—the outpouring of God’s wrath on evil and the fulfillment of His promises to save, dwell with, and rejoice over His people forever.
But as a mighty angel asks, “Who is worthy to open the scroll?”, a crisis unfolds. No one in heaven, on earth, or under the earth is found worthy, and John begins to weep. And rightly so—because if the scroll remains sealed, God’s promises go unfulfilled, sin goes undefeated, and redemption never reaches its goal. At that moment, everything hangs in the balance.
Then a voice breaks the silence: “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered” (v. 5). The answer is not found in human strength or angelic power, but in a person—the promised King, the fulfillment of every promise of God, the One who alone has the right to redeem.
And it is this Lion—this conquering King—that John turns to see.
Yet when he turns, he is confronted with something utterly unexpected. Between the throne and the four living creatures stands a Lamb as though it had been slain. The promised Lion reveals Himself as the sacrificial Lamb of God. Victory has not come through crushing God’s enemies but through the crushing of the Son of God, who willingly and obediently went to the cross “like a lamb that is led to the slaughter” (Isa. 53:7), bearing the iniquities of sinners.
What John sees is not a contradiction but the key to everything. The Lion has conquered—but He has conquered as a Lamb. He stands triumphant, bearing the marks of the cross. John understood what this meant, and we must understand it as well: the One who is worthy is the One who has given Himself for you.
However, John not only sees a Lamb—he sees a Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes. In Scripture, horns symbolize power and kingship, and seven signifies divine completeness. This Lamb possesses perfect, sovereign authority. His seven eyes represent complete divine wisdom and perception, corresponding to the sevenfold Spirit of God sent out into all the earth. Nothing escapes His sight, and no judgment exceeds His wisdom.
These are not random details—they are a testimony. The One who stands at the center of the throne is not merely a symbol of sacrifice but the One of whom Jeremiah spoke: “Yahweh our Righteousness” (Jer. 23:6). He is the Lion of Judah, the Lamb who was slain, and the sovereign Lord over all.
Yet this is not all that John sees and experiences. The Lion who is a Lamb is also the Redeemer. 
 
The Lamb is the Redeemer (vv. 7-8)
This Lamb is worthy not only because of who He is but also because of what He has done. The Lamb is the Redeemer. In the Old Testament, a kinsman-redeemer was a family member who could step in when everything had been lost. But not just anyone could serve as a redeemer—he had to be a close relative by blood, possess the resources necessary to redeem, and be willing to do so. That is why Boaz could redeem Ruth, yet Boaz was only a shadow of a greater Redeemer to come. Naomi had lost everything—her husband, her sons, and her security. The land that belonged to her family was in danger of being lost forever. But Boaz, as a relative, stepped in. He had the means and was willing. By marrying Ruth, he redeemed the land, restored the family, and provided an heir. What was lost was restored, and what was empty was made full.
 
But what humanity needed most was not merely the restoration of what was lost—we needed the reversal of the curse, reconciliation with the God we sinned against, and the renewal of all things. When Adam sinned, all was ruined—sin entered the world, death followed, and creation fell under the curse of his rebellion. What was needed was a true and better Redeemer—one who could stand in the place of fallen humanity and restore what had been lost.
This is what makes Jesus worthy to open the scroll. He became one of us so that He could be the Kinsman-Redeemer we need. He has the power to redeem because He is fully God. His willingness to redeem was demonstrated in that He embraced the cross, bearing our sin and becoming our curse. That is why, in Revelation 5, He steps forward and takes the scroll—because He alone meets every requirement. He alone is the Kinsman-Redeemer.
Through His incarnation, Jesus shares in our humanity. Through His divine Sonship, He possesses infinite authority as One equal with the Father. Through His willing sacrifice, He demonstrates beyond question His desire to redeem. The wounds of the Lamb are the proof of His willingness—and the scroll in His hand is the declaration of His worthiness.
Now, do not miss what happens in verse 8! Upon taking the scroll, the four living creatures—whose appearance represents the created order—fall before the Lamb in worship. The same creatures who, in the previous chapter, declared of the One on the throne, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come” (4:8) now fall before the Lamb to worship Him!
And if that were not enough, the twenty-four elders—representing the people of God in both the Old and New Testaments—also fall before the Lamb in worship. How do we know they worship Him? Because they serve Him—offering songs to Him and presenting the prayers of His people before Him. They fall before the Lamb because He is the One who stands as our High Priest. For all of Scripture testifies,
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Heb. 4:14-16)
Do not miss the significance of this moment. In Exodus 20, God commands: “You shall not make for yourself an idol… You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God…” (Exod. 20:4–5; BSB). Worship belongs to God alone. All of Scripture is clear—no created thing is worthy of worship.
Yet in Revelation 5, all creation—represented by the living creatures—falls before the Lamb. The elders fall before the Lamb. Heaven itself erupts in worship directed to the Lamb. What does this mean? It means the Lamb is not merely part of creation—He is the reason creation exists. The Lamb whom heaven worships is the One Scripture testifies to: “For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him” (Col. 1:16).
The Lamb is not a created being—He is the Creator. And the worship given to Him is the worship that belongs to God alone!
 
The Redeemer is Worthy (vv. 9-10)
The moment the Lamb takes the scroll, heaven erupts in worship. Instantly, the four living creatures fall down in awe before the Lamb. The twenty-four elders—who had already surrendered their crowns before the throne—now bow in reverence, presenting the prayers of the saints as a fragrant offering to the Lamb. A new song breaks forth—not a song of anticipation, but of accomplishment:
“Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” (vv. 9-10) 
This is not a song of anticipation, but one of accomplishment! The Lamb is worthy because He was slain so that a people undeserving of the mercy of God could be ransomed for God. The Berean Standard Bible translates this verse this way: “Worthy are You to take the scroll and open its seals, because You were slain, and by Your blood You purchased for God those from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.”  The Lamb is worthy because He alone can restore to redeemed humanity all that was lost through Adam, serving as the true and greater Adam who brings full restoration and hope to those He has saved.
Dear brothers and sisters, our worthy Redeemer did not stop there. Sinners are not merely rescued—they are restored. We are not only forgiven—we are brought near. You are not only saved—you are given purpose, identity, and a future. All who are redeemed by the Lamb have been made “a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”
In this moment, all of heaven is united in awe. The question that brought John to tears finds its answer—not in an explanation, but in the person of Jesus. The scroll will be opened, history will unfold as God intends, and redemption will reach its glorious fulfillment. Jesus Christ—the Lion of Judah and the slain Lamb—is worthy to redeem, restore, and reign forever.
The question of heaven was asked: “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?”And the answer is clear: 
Jesus is worthy because He was slain.
Jesus is worthy because He has redeemed.
Jesus is worthy because He reigns.
So how do you turn your eyes from worthless things (Ps. 119:37)? You turn from what is worthless to the One who is worthy—not only of the worship of heaven, but of all of you. He is worthy of your attention. He is worthy of your obedience. He is worthy of your trust.
Some of you are clinging to things that cannot save, cannot redeem, and will not last. But there is One who was slain, who has redeemed, and who now reigns. He alone is worthy. So turn to Him. Trust Him. Worship Him. Follow Him.
One day every knee will bow before Him—so bow before Him now, while you still have time. Today is the day of salvation.