SIGNED, SEALED and DELIVERED
Text: Revelation 7:9-17
9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. 10 They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 singing,
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have 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 worship him day and night within his temple,
and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.
16 They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat;
17 for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (NRSV).
The census taker knocked on the door of a backwood shack. An old timer came out, asking what he wanted.
“The President has sent us across the country to find out how many people live in the United States”, the man replied.
“I’m sorry you came all the way out here to ask me,” said the man, “’cause I ain’t got the faintest idea.” https://www.proclaimsermons.com/shorts.asp One thing I can promise you is that they don’t take a census in heaven. They don’t need to. If your name is in the lamb’s book of life, then one day you’ll be there. None of us will go to heaven’s pearly gates and golden streets until we have completed the work that God gave us to do. God signs us, seals us and delivers us.
NUMBER OF THE SEALED
How many people will be in heaven? Will it be more than 144,000 like it says in Revelation 7:4 and 14:1? Will it be 12000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel like it mentions in Revelations 7:5 – 8? Has that thought ever crossed your mind? I remember talking to a fellow camp worker at a YMCA summer camp who had questions about that. We both thought that the number had to be symbolic!
Can we imagine the limits of God’s grace? We know that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to die on the cross as the sacrificial lamb of God who takes away the sin of the whole world (John 3:16 and 1:29). The blood of the Lamb---the pure unblemished Lamb---Jesus Christ our Lord can make us clean! Have you been washed by the blood of the Lamb Jesus Christ? Isaiah _1:18 “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. Obviously, “the reasoning” part of this scripture is about making our peace with God who wants to cleanse us through His Son! Once we are baptized in in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we are sealed by His Holy Spirit!
Why would God care? God cares because God wants us to be among the number having been sealed by His Spirit because we were baptized and washed clean by the blood of the Lamb of God! God care because God does not want us to spend eternity without Him!
THE SIGNED
Have you ever wanted the autograph of a celebrity? How long would you be willing to wait in line to get the autograph? Why is it that people more would spend time in waiting in line to get the autograph from someone they admire versus trusting Jesus as Lord and Savior? We might admire them as heroes because of their achievements, but they can never be a shepherd who can restore our souls!
Don’t we need a Savior? Who can restore our souls when we are vulnerable and stray like lost sheep? Jesus told stories about sheep, lost sheep and the role of the shepherd. “The Good Shepherd seeks each one lest he become the property of the Evil One. “Simon, Simon,: said Jesus to Peter, “Satan hath claimed you back for himself.” It is the same idea. Unless the Good Shepherd restored our souls, we should be lost indeed.” (Leslie D. Weatherhead. Over His Own Signature. Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1955, p. 39). Satan’s only interest is to kill, steal and destroy but Jesus comes to give us life abundant (John 10:10)---life that satisfies on this side of Heaven until complete what God sent us to do when God calls us home and Jesus takes us to our place that He prepares for us in heaven (John 14:2- 4).
Listen to what Jesus says on this side of heaven about His flock. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. (John 10:28 – 29 ESV).
Did Jesus write His Name on us? Yes indeed! Jesus wrote His Name on us because if we believe in Him, we belong to Him (see Revelation 2:17, 3:12, 14:1, 19:12, 21:2 & 10, 22:4). There are seven references in Revelation that Jesus Has written on us. Remember seven in the Bible is the number of completion and perfection!
What does Jesus say on the glory side of Heaven? For those who are faithful and victorious Jesus said He would write His own name on us “For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (Revelation 7:17 KJV).
THE DELIVERED
Even though we have been delivered, are there times when we may feel incomplete? Do we feel that way when we lose a loved one? All of us would agree. We grieve when we lose a loved one but if they were a believer, we still have hope. As believers we don’t grieve as those who have no hope because we know that Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead and He also resurrects those who have finished their race here on earth!
Does God ever leave anything incomplete? No! God is the giver of every good and perfect gift. God helps us here and now in the church militant and the church triumphant!
In the churches in Scandinavia, it is an old custom that the communion rail around the altar is formed in the shape of a half-circle. The half-circle stops at the back of the chancel. Beyond the chancel, on the other side of the wall, would lie the churchyard, the cemetery, where the members of that parish would be buried. And that is the reason why the communion rail is only a half-circle. The great Swedish churchman Bo Giertz explains:
“Where the circle ends at the chancel wall, the fellowship still continues; in the churchyard is the resting place of the dead, the Lord’s faithful, who now are partakers of the great banquet in heaven. They are with us as a great cloud of witnesses, they continue the small circle of people around the altar in my parish church, a circle that widens and is extended both back in time through the centuries and forward into the eternal world. It is a table fellowship without end. Shoulder by shoulder are they with us: our own faithful ancestors who once received the sacrament here at this altar, saints and martyrs elsewhere through the ages, and finally the Lord Himself and His apostles in the glorious kingdom in heaven above where the circle comes to its conclusion. This is ‘communio sanctorum,’ the communion of saints in Christ’s kingdom of grace. Celebrating the Lord’s Supper with my brothers and sisters in Christ, I am connected with the saints who sit at the Lord’s Table in the heavenly kingdom. I am counted as one of God’s holy people.” https://www.proclaimsermons.com/viewSermon.asp?sermID=3653&title=All%20Saints%26rsquo%3B%20Day
Are you signed Jesus, sealed by His Spirit and delivered by God?
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
