God's End-Time Message Series

May 25, 2024

We have spent a bit of time over past 2 weeks exploring Satan’s activities and rightly so. It is important for us to understand that He is real. He is active. He is out to destroy us if he can.

While Satan has been rampaging around the world “seeking whom he may destroy,” (1 Peter 5:8) God has been working too. He does so through those who have remained faithful to him. He has given them the responsibility to get the message out: God loves you. He died to save you. Please choose him before it is too late.

Why is this message so important? Because, in order for there to be true peace in the universe, SIN. HAS. TO. GO (including yours and mine). As long as Satan/sin exists there will continue to be death and war and heartache and pain. Sin must be destroyed and the instigator of sin along with it. However – and please get this – anyone else who is destroyed, perishes because they choose that ending rather than accept the ending Jesus offers. So, God’s people must get the word out ----

John’s gaze returns to heaven where he sees Jesus (the Lamb) standing on Mount Zion, surrounded by the 144,000, “who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.”

In the Old Testament, Mount Zion stood as the center of God’s rule on earth where his people were safe from their enemies:

Psalm 48:1-3 - Great is the LORD, and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, his holy mountain. It is beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the whole earth. Like the utmost heights of Zaphon is Mount Zion, the city of the Great King. God is in her citadels; he has shown himself to be her fortress.

Psalm 125:1-2 - Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds his people both now and forevermore.

Isaiah 4:5-6 - Then the LORD will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over all the glory will be a canopy. It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain.

The 2nd thing to note is that the victorious 144,000 are not actually in heaven. They are represented as being there because, while they remain on earth, their home country is Heaven and their hearts are there.

They have both the Lamb’s name and his Father’s name on their foreheads. They have been transformed in thought and character and are a true representation of the One they love.

Revelation 14:3 - And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth.

What is this song that no one else can learn?

It is a song of deliverance and victory, much like the song Moses and the Israelites sang on the shore of the Red Sea:

Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to Yahweh, and they said,

“Let me sing to Yahweh because he is highly exalted;

the horse and its rider he hurled into the sea.

Yah is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation;

this is my God, and I will praise him—the God of my father—and I will exalt him.

Yahweh is a man of war; Yahweh is his name.

The chariots of Pharaoh and his army he cast into the sea,

and his choice adjutants were sunk in the ?Red Sea?.

The deep waters covered them;

they went down into the depths like a stone.

Yahweh, your right hand is glorious in power;

Yahweh, your right hand destroyed the enemy.

And in the greatness of your majesty you overthrew those standing up to you;

you released your fierce anger, and it consumed them like stubble.

And by the breath of your nostrils waters were piled up;

waves stood like a heap;

deep waters in the middle of the sea congealed.

The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide plunder,

my desire will be full of them, I will draw my sword, my hand will destroy them.’

You blew with your breath; the sea covered them;

they dropped like lead in the mighty waters.

Who is like you among the gods, Yahweh?

Who is like you—glorious in holiness, awesome in praiseworthy actions, doing wonders?

You stretched out your right hand;

the earth swallowed them.

In your loyal love you led the people whom you redeemed;