“These in White Robes—Who Are They?”
Revelation 7:9-17
Today I am continuing a four-week sermon series on the Book of Revelation.
Revelation is so named because that’s exactly what it is.
It’s a revelation which the Lord revealed to His apostle John.
It’s a letter of hope and encouragement for those who are being persecuted for their faith and for those who are wondering if good really will triumph over evil.
It was given to enable Christians to keep the faith in the midst of so much that was pushing back on that faith.
It introduces us to the new clarity, the new vision that Jesus’ Resurrection makes possible in our lives.
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Not long before He was murdered, Jesus was at the Temple when He cried, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”
In our Scripture passage for this morning, we get a picture of Christ gathering His chicks safely under His wings.
And it took His precious blood in order to bring it about.
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I have hurt my wife this week by not thinking about her feelings.
I’ve passed judgment on folks.
I’m sure that at least one point this week, but probably a couple of hundred times, I made a choice to do something or not to do something based solely on my own desires and interests with no regard for what God’s will might be or the needs of others.
I could go on and on, and this is just me this week.
These are just some of my shortcomings, my mistakes, my sins.
You all can come up with a similar list or something quite different.
In the meantime, all around us are other people making mistakes, poor choices, and doing things that harm others.
Every day people are abused, children are abandoned or neglected, and innocent people die in the crossfires of violent wars across the seas and in their own neighborhoods.
Then when you add those things on top of the suffering caused by illness and natural disasters, things can get pretty bad can’t they?
Suffering, whether self-imposed or otherwise, is a basic fact of human existence.
What are you going through this morning?
Is there pain in your heart that is nearly unmanageable?
Has someone hurt you deeply?
Are you suffering from an illness, a disease?
Do you have a daily battle with depression or anxiety, or both?
Are you so disgusted by the daily shootings in the news, the continuing occurrence of senseless acts of violence that you feel there is little if any, hope?
Do you feel like you’ll never make it?
Are you weeping over the state of our world?
Sin and the evidence of sin bring darkness, which is so thick that even a knife won’t cut through.
And if we try to ignore it, well, we aren’t really doing much to change it or make things better.
Victor Frankl wrote in his book: “There is nothing in the world that would so effectively help one to survive even in the worst conditions, as the knowledge that there is meaning in one’s life.”
In other words, we can be a part of the problem, or we can be a part of the solution.
In our Lesson from Revelation Chapter 7, John shares his vision of “a great multitude” of people “that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne [of God] and before the Lamb.”
John tells us that “they were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches,” which is a sign of victory.
“And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’”
“Then one of the elders asked me,” John continues, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?
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.’”
It is evident to John that the great tribulation coexists with the mission of the Church, an insight shared for much of Church history.
Augustine, for instance, argued that the millennium—the reign of Christ referred to in Revelation Chapter 20:4—and the tribulation are an actual ongoing experience of the Church.
Today, though, there are many different ways in which folks understand the tribulation.
One apocalyptic model that has become popular in recent years is pretribulation millennialism,” which is, for example, behind the popular Left Behind book series that came out some twenty or so years ago.
In that interpretation, the great tribulation and Christ’s reign are something that will take place only in the future.
Pretribulation millennialists agree on the basic outline of future events that at the end of our present age, human society will become worse and worse until the antichrist will get control, throwing the world into a reign of chaos and terror.
This is the “great tribulation” for those who hold this view.
At the end of the tribulation, the reign of the antichrist will be destroyed by the triumphant return of Christ.
After having bound Satan, Christ will establish His millennial kingdom, which will end after a thousand years with an easily subdued revolt by Satan.
The Resurrection of the Dead will follow this as will the creation of the new heaven and new earth.
While most pretribulation millennialists agree with this, they disagree on the exact timing of the Church’s rapture.
The rapture is the catching away of the Church to meet Christ in the air.
Pretribulationists believe that the Church will be raptured before the rise of the antichrist and before the beginning of the tribulation.
Again, this was not the thinking of Augustine and much of early Church history, but what is apparent from experience alone is that Christians in all times and places, along with non-Christians, face many troubles in this life.
And whatever the exact timeline, the great multitude that John sees standing before the throne and the Lamb, wearing white robes, is a vast international, multi-racial, multi-lingual throng of people so great in number that it would be impossible to count them.
Many have referred to this as the Church Triumphant or the Church in Heaven.
The people John sees wear white robes and carry palm branches.
The reason their clothes are white is not because they have lived perfect, sinless lives but because of the blood of the Lamb.
This is a picture that is present all through the Bible of those who have stained their garments with sin and who have been cleansed by the grace of God.
It’s important to remember that the love of God not only forgives people for their sins but makes them clean through the blood of Jesus.
Now, to many of us in the 21st Century, blood means death.
But to the Jews, blood stood for life.
This is why Orthodox Jews never would—and still won’t—eat anything which still has blood in it.
The blood is the life, and the life belongs to God, and the blood must always be sacrificed to Him.
And this makes sense when we think of the fact that when a person’s blood flows out of them, so does life.
And so, the blood of Jesus Christ means not only His death but His life and death.
According to Hebrews 9:14, Jesus’ blood cleanses our conscience from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God!
And that is what those in white robes are doing.
They are doing it in heaven and they also did it on earth.
And again, the number of them is so great that it can’t be counted.
This fulfills God’s promise to Father Abraham that his descendants will one day be like the number of stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore.
And, if we are followers of Jesus Christ, we are part of this great multitude.
And who could ask for anything more?
Within Revelation Chapter 7 is the promise that the day will come when all the followers of Christ down through every generation will become one flock.
“And he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat down upon them, nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’”
I want to be a part of that.
How about you?
In the meantime, we live in this world.
And we suffer difficulties just as everyone does, but we live with hope because God is the Great Savior, the Great Deliverer of His people.
And the deliverance He gives us is not the deliverance of escape but the deliverance of victory.
It’s not a deliverance that saves us from trouble but one which brings us triumphantly through trouble.
It doesn’t make life easy, but it makes life great!
For in Christ we can, as Paul says, do all things…
… “whether” we are “well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”
We “can do all things through him who gives us strength.”
While on this earth, there can be no doubt that pain and suffering will be a part of any Christian’s life.
If this wasn’t the case; it would mean our hearts were so hardened to the pain of this world that it would be impossible to actually be following Christ.
And that is because following Jesus Christ and learning to love other people—all people go hand in hand.
The multitude in heaven come from every background, every nation, every culture and the love of Christ flows through all and to all.
You know, this vision from Revelation is a vision of victory, but this victory is so different from the visions of victory offered to us by our culture, our world.
The world tells us that the one with the most toys wins.
The one with the most power wins.
The bully gets the prize.
But that is wrong.
The ones who learn how much God loves them through the precious shed blood of His Son, those who experience this love learn that loving God and loving other people in tangible ways is what this life is about.
The multitude in Revelation Chapter 7 is a testament to that.
The word salvation literally means rescue.
Have you allowed God to rescue you from slavery to sin, selfishness and death, from the ways of this world and into the way of the agape, self-giving love of God?
A New Commandment Jesus gave us before He was crucified is to love each other, just as Jesus has loved us.
Jesus loves us with His whole life, His whole self.
That is how we are to love others.
It’s a high calling, and I am not very good at it, but, again…
…it is what makes life great!
Jesus gave His blood—His very life for you and for me.
Have you washed your robe and made it white in the “blood of the Lamb”?
Have you experienced the love of God?
Have you put God’s love into action, loving and serving others?
With Jesus, even the worst of circumstances can become the best.
Good triumphs over evil.
Love defeats bigotry, tribalism, and hate.
We will one day be one flock under the wings of God with people from every nation, every color, language, and socio-economic group.
Imagine running into someone in heaven whom you once gave food to on earth in this life…
…or clothing…
…or money…
…or time…
…Jesus did say, “Whatever you have done for someone else, you have done it for me.”
On this earth--right now, is when we are to begin to live as those who are already in heaven—even though in this world we will have trouble.
And eventually, everything will be made right when Christ returns and there is a new heaven and a new earth—this is something we will be talking about next Sunday!
So, the big question we all must answer is: Will we continue in our misguided ways, or will we join the saints of Christ?
Will we be among that crowd in the throne room?
Will we be part of God’s rescue effort?
Will we allow the love of Christ to flow from us and out into a world that is so lost, so dark, so insanely broken?
There is great meaning to our lives after-all.
And that is because Christ has won the victory and Jesus is with us at all times and loves us more than we can imagine.
Knowing this transforms us, our struggles, what we do with our time, material possessions, and how we treat those with whom we come in contact.
How can we not cry out with the great multitude: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb…praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!”
