Some of you might be pretty good in math, but in heaven one day there will be a multitude of people that no one can number, from all nations, tribes, peoples and languages. These will be those that come out of the great Tribulation Period, that even John can't count them. They are all giving glory to the Lamb, standing before His throne, dressed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. What this means is that people from all different kinds of religions will hear the gospel during the Tribulation and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. That means Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, Jews, New Agers, and every other group under the sun will respond to the gospel and be saved. They will make it into heaven because they have been born again.
You can only get to heaven by being born again in John 3 and these people have put their faith in Jesus to save them. They will wake up to the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord. Only one religion is the right one and that is faith in Jesus Christ. There will be a mass of people enter into heaven, declared righteous by the blood of the Lamb.
Revelation 7:9-10a ~ "After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:"
Remember these are the converts that are in heaven that have come from the Tribulation Period thanks to the efforts of the 144,000 evangelists. We will never get the whites and blacks together in peace, the Asians and the Hispanics together in peace, it will never happen no matter what kind of program we implement. There is only one way to crush racial division and ethnic divides. Jesus Christ is the only way. If you understand the gospel you know that Jesus died for all. There is no race that is greater than another one. Racial division is a form of satanic thinking, a form of evil and hatred, because those are not present in the life of a believer in Jesus Christ. Racism is satanic to its core.
The apostle Paul spoke to churches that were converted Jews and Gentiles, there were no churches that were exclusively Gentile, unlike some churches in the world today. That is wrong. It is an affront to Christ and an insult to the gospel when you have that kind of division on a church. If you are a born again Jew or a born again Gentile, why are you divided? Isn't that what the Book of Galatians was, to stop it because it's immature? That's carnal, that's division and it's wrong. There is no one better than anyone else in this world. Aren't we one in Jesus?
We will see that the Apostle John does not recognize who any of these people are. They are not from the church age. He doesn't know who they are. They are believers who have come out of great Tribulation. They are not part of the church, they are the Tribulation Saints. We know that there are the Old Testament Saints, there are the Church Age Saints and there are the Tribulation Saints. There are three groups throughout all of history. The Old Testament saints ended with John the Baptist, whom we often attribute with the Church Age saints. He was the last Old Testament prophet. John was of the old economy of God ushering in the Church Age. Is John in heaven or Daniel? Yes!
The Church Age saints are those from the moment the church was born until the rapture. That is called the Bride of Christ. Saints. The church. Once the rapture happens until the Second Coming of Christ, during the 7-year Tribulation Period, there are the Tribulation saints. These three are distinguished in Scripture that we will see as we continue in our study.
What a perfect ending to it all when we know our destination is heaven and it is God who saves. How do we know?
Revelation 7:10 ~ "And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb."
Who are they? John asks the question.
Revelation 7:14 ~ "I answered, "Sir, you know." And he said, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
Salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb. Why does it say, "And?" Even though God the Father sits on the throne, there is no salvation outside of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
So how does a man get to heaven?
By bowing his knee or heart so to speak, and accepting Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb. God sent forth His Son to be the sacrifice for our sins. Remember Jesus loves us. He willingly died for us.
Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no one comes to the Father, but through Me." ~ John 14:6. Nobody gets to the Father but through Jesus, the Son. It doesn't matter what you believe, there is no other way, but through Jesus. If you don't like it, take it up with God, He wrote the Bible and created you.
1 John 5:11-13 ~ "And that is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life."
Acts 4:10-12 ~ "Then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is "the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone." Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
Philippians 2:9-11 ~ "Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth an under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
John 3:35-36 ~ "The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."
What a perfect ending when It's God who is.
Revelation 7:11-12 ~ "All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: "Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!"
We already know who the elder and four living creatures are through our previous studies. They worshiped. Everyone who is saved worships! Angels are worshiping, four living creatures are worshiping, Christians are worshiping. It is the one thing we get to do here that we get to do there! Worship.
How do we worship? Singing is one form of worship. When we mean what we sing!
All the inhabitants of heaven are servants of God. Service is the heart of the matter. There is enthusiasm when they worship God. We should all be drunk with the Holy Spirit in our lives. We should be worshiping God because of all He has done for us. When life ends here, it doesn't end for us. He forgives us from all our sins, that should be a reason to worship. We are saved. We should worship God because of His goodness and His ability to promise. There are no promises He denies from us. All God asks from us, is just to walk with Him today. He is the God of ever lasting life. Until we come to see God face to face, we need to ask for God to guide and lead us in the will He has for us.
We will be surprised by those who will be in heaven and then again those who are not. There will be one giant victory celebration in heaven that we will all be a part of because we are believers in Jesus Christ and are born again! It only takes a nano second to accept Jesus into your life. It's just a change of heart.
Do you want that assurance that when you die, you will go to heaven today? It doesn't matter what you have done up to this point, you can have that eternal assurance today. Simply change what you believe in your heart and say this simple prayer:
Jesus, I see You as my Lord and Savior. That You are the Lamb of God who takes away my sins, and I'm asking You right now to forgive me. Make me Your own child. Thank You for dying for me and rising from the dead. I know place my life and my future in Your hands.
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