Introduction

Listen to this excerpt from the Holman Christian Commentary.

John Bunyan in the Christian classic, Pilgrim’s Progress, has written a parable of faithfulness:

First they scourged him [a character named Faithful], then they buffeted him, then they lanced his flesh with knives; after that they stoned him with stones, then pricked him with their swords, and last of all, they burned him to ashes at the stake. Thus came Faithful to his end.

Now, I saw that there stood behind the multitude [of evil men] a chariot and a couple of horses waiting for Faithful, who (so soon as us adversaries had dispatched him) was taken up into it, and straightway was carried up through the clouds with sound of trumpet the nearest way to the Celestial Gate.

—John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress

The martyrdom of Faithful stands out as an exciting episode in Bunyan’s famous story. Is Faithful a heretic, as the jury finds, or is he a true disciple of Christ? It all depends on your perspective. Are the martyrs of Revelation to be pitied or to be praised? It all depends on your perspective, but the best answer is, both.

Have you noticed how looking at persons or things from a different vantage point changes what they appear to be? It all depends on your perspective. The city I live in, Memphis, illustrates this perfectly. A visitor arriving from the west is struck with the sight of a glittering metropolis—skyscrapers, magnificent Mississippi River bridge—that rises suddenly to view from the river valley. The same visitor arriving from the east is welcomed by sprawling suburbs—shopping mall, well-groomed subdivisions—that merge from rolling farmland and continue for miles. So which is it, glittering metropolis or sprawling suburbs? It all depends on your perspective, but the best answer is, both.

This chapter in Revelation is similar to that. John describes a limited earthly group and an unlimited heavenly group. They seem to be quite different, but in reality they are the same people, just viewed from different locations in space and time.

Kendell H. Easley, Revelation, vol. 12, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1998), 123.

After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, restraining the four winds of the earth so that no wind could blow on the earth or on the sea or on any tree. 2 Then I saw another angel, who had the seal of the living God rise up from the east. He cried out in a loud voice to the four angels who were empowered to harm the earth and the sea: 3 “Don’t harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we seal the slaves of our God on their foreheads.” 4 And I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 sealed from every tribe of the Israelites: 5 12,000 sealed from the tribe of Judah, 12,000 from the tribe of Reuben, 12,000 from the tribe of Gad, 6 12,000 from the tribe of Asher, 12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali, 12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh, 7 12,000 from the tribe of Simeon, 12,000 from the tribe of Levi, 12,000 from the tribe of Issachar, 8 12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000 from the tribe of Joseph, 12,000 sealed from the tribe of Benjamin. 9 After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were robed in white with palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice: Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb! 11 All the angels stood around the throne, the elders, and the four living creatures, and they fell facedown before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying: Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen. 13 Then one of the elders asked me, “Who are these people robed in white, and where did they come from?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” Then he told me: These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 For this reason they are before the throne of God, and they serve Him day and night in His sanctuary. The One seated on the throne will shelter them: 16 They will no longer hunger; they will no longer thirst; the sun will no longer strike them, nor will any heat. 17 For the Lamb who is at the center of the throne will shepherd them; He will guide them to springs of living waters, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

This passage serves as an interlude between the sixth and seventh seals being broken. We read about the first six seals being opened by the Lamb last week and now John sees two visions of the situation of God's people first on earth and then a celebration in heaven. In the first vision he sees the 144,000 witnesses being sealed and protected for the work they will do during tribulation. And the second is these same people celebrating God's faithfulness in heaven by giving them victorious endurance.

Chapter six ended with the question; "Who can withstand the wrath of God and the Lamb (Revelation 6:17). Concerning the people who live on the earth, there is no one who can withstand His wrath, but John's vision offers a more hopeful answer. God's witnesses during this time will be able to endure because they have God's protective seal on them. So the first part of this passage (Revelation 7:1-8) depicts God's people being sealed by Him before He pours out His righteous judgements. But understand, they are sealed from God's wrath but not from the beast and his followers.

My friends, doesn’t it feel like just when our life is going along perfectly the enemy launches another attack. We may not like it but the reality is that all Christians are engaged in a spiritual war (Ephesians 6:10-20). Of course these attacks don’t come constantly, although some of us may think so. There are times of calm, but the truth is that Christians will always be in a spiritual struggle on this side of eternity. That is why Christians must recognize they are in a spiritual war and learn to stand strong in Christ while resisting these attacks.

We do this by arming ourselves with the Gospel of peace and the Word of God. We can only have victory over Satan through our reliance upon what Christ has done on the cross. This is what it means to fight like our Lord. But some of us give Satan more credit than he deserves. This causes us to become consumed with fighting evil and can lead to an overly infatuated focus on evil.

But God's Holy Spirit lives inside every true believer. We too are sealed by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13). This means that even on the days we don’t feel like it and on days when it seems that the doubts and fears just will not leave us, we are still His. God has given us His Holy Spirit to "seal" us or protect us from His coming wrath (2 Corinthians 1:21-22) (Ephesians 1:13) (Ephesians 4:30). We can be sure that because of this God has guaranteed that He will finish His plan of redemption (2 Corinthians 5:5) (Ephesians 1:14).