All Saints
Rev
7:9-17
11/1/26
I don’t think the Book of Revelation is all that helpful. I really
don’t. Now before you go home today and call President Curtis to raise concerns
about your pastor’s view of Scripture, I should probably qualify that
statement. To be more specific, I don’t think that most of the details about
the future that book provides are helpful. They just don’t give us much useful
information.
The Book of Revelation is something that fascinates people. It does
because it talks about the end times. It does because of the fantastic and
mysterious nature of the imagery that is present. It always has. But in the
nineteenth century John Nelson Darby invented the view of dispensational
millennialism. Much of the framework for Darby’s bizarre idea that the
dispensation of Church is really just a kind of placeholder until God raptures
away Christians and then gets back to his real work with Israel comes from
Revelation.
Darby’s views were included in the 1909 Scofield Reference Bible in
1909, and they went on to have a huge impact. The Book of Revelation has been
front and center in the thought of American Evangelical Christianity ever
since. There is intense interest in the various details of Revelation and how
they relate to events occurring in the world. The creation of the modern nation
of Israel in 1948 kicked this into overdrive. With each new round of Middle
East wars and troubles people have continued to look to Revelation as they try
to use the book as kind of roadmap to understand what God is doing.
But even if we set aside the nonsense of Darby and his views, I
still don’t think the Book of Revelation is all that helpful. And what I mean
is this. Clearly, Revelation is telling us about the events of end times. In
fact, it repeats this three times in cycles of the seven seals, seven trumpets,
and seven bowls.
But if you want to learn any specific details about what is going
to happen, you are out of luck. You get nothing more than vague generalities
presented in evocative imagery. I can save you the trouble trying to study all
of the details by summing it all up in one sentence: The end will get really
bad, but then the Lord Jesus and his saints win. That’s it. That’s all you are
going to learn.
I don’t think Revelation is all that helpful in the specific
information it provides about the end times. However, I do think it is
incredibly helpful in providing comfort in the way it describes God’s salvation
and the future of his people. And it is this aspect that stands out today in
our first reading for the Feast of All Saints.
In chapter three John hears a voice speaking like a trumpet which
says, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” The
apostle reports that at once he was in the Spirit, and found himself in the
presence of God on the throne in heaven. God is surrounded by the four living
creatures, the cherubim, who never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord
God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” He is also surrounded by the
twenty four elders who fall down before God and worship him.
In chapter five John sees that God has a scroll that has been
sealed with seven seals. The scroll contains the information about what will
happen in the future. However, it appears that there is no one worthy to open
the seals, and so John begins to weep loudly.
But then one of the elders says to John, “Weep no more; behold, the
Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can
open the scroll and its seven seals.” The Johns sees a Lamb standing – a Lamb
that looks as if it has been slain. He takes the scroll and all fall down
before him as they say, “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.”
John sees Jesus Christ, the risen and exalted Lord. He hears in
heaven what Christ has done for you. The Lord Jesus ransomed you by his blood
that he shed on the cross. He freed you from sin and won forgiveness so that
you can be holy before God.
And note that John sees a Lamb that looks as if it has been
slain. Christ was crucified for your sin. His dead body was placed in the
tomb. But on Easter God raised him from the dead. John sees the risen Lord,
exalted and reigning in heaven. He is the One who gives life. During his
ministry Jesus said to Martha at Lazarus’ grave, “I am the resurrection and the
life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone
who lives and believes in me shall never die.”
Christ was very clear in saying that those who die will live. He
will raise them from the dead in a bodily resurrection. He said, “For this is
the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes him in
should have eternal life, and I will raise him upon on the last day.”
But he also told her that “everyone who lives and believes in me
shall never die.” He describes a life that does not end when death occurs. Yes,
the body is dead and is buried in the ground. Human life as the unity of body
and soul – the life for which God created Adam and Eve – ends. But this is not
the end of our personal existence with God – our soul as Scripture calls it.
Christ says that our life will continue after death.
Now we need to understand that this life of the saints who die
before Christ returns is not a major focus of the Scriptures. It’s just
not. Instead, again and again God’s Word points us toward the return of Christ
on the Last Day when he will raise up our bodies. This is the true goal of the
Christian faith – the goal as Scripture defines it. Jesus told us to be
watching and ready for this. He said,
“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Our living hope
is that the risen Lord will return in glory to give us a share in his resurrection.
However, today – the Feast of All Saints – we do pause to consider
those who have died in Christ, and how their life continues with the Lord. We
remember Marie Walker, Wanda Cohoon, and Aleda Doelitzsch who were with us last
year on All Saints Day, but have now died in Christ. The Scriptures speak about
the life of those who are with the Lord very infrequently. But when it does,
such as in our text from Revelation chapter seven, it’s really good. It
provides great comfort.
In the previous chapter Christ begins to open the seals. The first
four release the so-called four horsemen of the apocalypse that represent war,
sword, famine and plague. As I said earlier, that’s not exactly super helpful
in trying to understand exactly what is going to happen.
Next he opens the fifth seal, and John sees under the altar the
souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they
had borne. The martyrs 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?”
John reports: “Then
they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the
number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were
to be killed as they themselves had been.” The white robe represents the
holiness won by Christ and the salvation and victory that go with it.
The response given to the martyrs indicates that suffering for
Christ is part of God’s plan. Paul told the Philippians, “For it has been
granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him
but also suffer for his sake.” Christians share in Christ’s sufferings. Our
lives too are conformed to the cross. But because of Jesus’ resurrection we
know that this leads to glory. In fact, these words teach us that the killing
of Christians such is now occurring in Nigeria doesn’t hinder the last day.
Instead, it bears witness to the fact it is approaching because God has fixed
the number of martyrs. Everything is occurring according to God’s ordering and
plan.
The opening of the sixth seal brings signs of cosmic distress:
there is a great earthquake and the sun becomes black; the stars fall from the
sky, and the sky vanishes like a scroll. In this scene of end time judgment the
kings and great call out to the mountains, “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?”
It is a frightening scene of judgment, but as it happens several
times in Revelation this is not followed immediately by the seventh item.
Instead, there is a pause and John sees something that is comforting and
encouraging. First he hears about the 144,000 who have been sealed from every
tribe of Israel. This number is most likely formed by the number of tribes of
Israel times the number of apostles, times one thousand. The number is symbolic
of the fullness of Christians who are protected by God in the midst of the end
time tribulations. This says that God will preserve is Church.
Then John says “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude
that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and
languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white
robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “‘Salvation
belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’”
John sees those who have died in the great tribulation. They have
died, but they are clothed in white robes and carry palm branches which were a
symbol of victory. One of the elders who was there asked John “Who are these,
clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” John replied that the elder
knew. So he answered, “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.”
What the elder explains about saints in our text is true of those
Christians we know who have died in Christ. They washed their robes and made
them white in the blood of the Lamb through faith in Jesus Christ. They were baptized into his death, and in the
water of baptism God washed away all of their sins.
And because of this, what John hears next is true for them as well.
The elder said, “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.”
Because they were baptized Christians who continued to live by
faith in Jesus Christ, the saints who have died are now with the Lord. Paul
told the Philippians, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is
far better.” We give thanks they are with the Christ and no longer have any
tears. They have been delivered from this fallen world and from the struggle against
the old Adam.
I mentioned earlier that when John saw God on the throne he heard
the four living creatures say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who
was and is and is to come!” He heard the first words of the Sanctus – the words
that Isaiah heard the seraphim speaking when he saw Yahweh on the throne.
In a few moments you will take up those words. You will sing them
in response to the Proper Preface which ends by saying, “Therefore with angels
and archangels and all the company of heaven we laud and magnify your glorious
name every more praising you and saying….” This is a reminder that in the
Divine Service we experience heaven on earth. We gather with the angels of
heaven – that’s why we have pictures of Gabriel and Michael at each end of the
chancel opposite the altar. We are united with the saints who are with the Lord
because all gather around the risen and exalted Lord who is present in his true
body and blood.
We still know hunger, thirst, scorching heat and tears. But we live
in the knowledge that those who have died in Christ do not. We have comfort in
the assurance that if we die before Christ returns, the Lamb in the midst of
the throne will be our shepherd. He will guide us to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.
