The 144000

It was his sin. Jacob met his uncle, but his uncle eventually no-longer liked him and tried to cheat him. But God spoke to Jacob in a dream and told him to go back to his own land. He left with his wives and children and all that he had. But an angry uncle came after him. If God had not helped him, Jacob might have met with disaster. But soon he with his family continued home.

He knew that he could never again run to his uncle for safety. So now, he had to face the music with his brother. But then everyone is frightened when they hear that Esau, his brother, was coming with men! No doubt they would all be killed! Jacob sent gifts ahead of him. He did everything he could think to try to ease his brother's anger against him. But Jacob knew that only God could soften Esau's heart. So, he decided to pray long with God. He moved his family and everything he owned across the river then he went back across the river to be with himself.

But something went wrong! Somebody found him and attacked him in the night:. At first Jacob thought it was a man that was attacking him. He didn't know it was an angel. However, once the angel touched his hip to put it out of joint, Jacob knew that it must be an angel. Since the day is dawning, we know that they were fighting all night.

He must have been tired yet he was not going to give up! But Jacob had power over the angel. This might sound like a strange thing to say. But it is true. He wept and made supplication. He literally begged for a blessing. Notice the last part of the sentence in Hosea It says that Jacob found him in Bethel, and there God also speaks with us!

So, Jesus also speaks to us through the example of Jacob. If we go through a Jacob experience, we can also find God and be at peace. The , will win their battle in a Jacob like fashion. They will also be crying and begging for God's blessing. They will be asking for the forgiveness of their sins and also they will be pleading to be saved from destruction since the wicked, who surrounds them, want to destroy them. Jesus tells us that God will speedily avenge His own elect people, those who cry out to Him day and night!

Jacob had power with God as a prince and he prevailed. Thus the , will also have power with God as princes and princesses and they will prevail. Jacob's struggle was a life-and-death struggle. He was willing to give up everything for that blessing. That is the key! How does the , learn to pray like this? The answer is this: It will come about by a hard experience. God will work with us and He will cause experiences to come our way to test us.

This means we must not think that when bad things start happening to you that God is against you. Actually, the direct opposite is true. God is allowing ferce trials to come your way to help you:. To be glad with exceeding joy when Christ's glory is revealed means we will be saved. That is the reason for the exceeding joy.

Thus the fiery trials will prepare the , for heaven. Jesus at times mentioned that His followers would face hard times and persecutions and that we should rejoice. It is the persecution and the bad things that happen to us that can cause us to draw close to God. That is what happened to Jacob. He knew that there was no one else he could turn turn to and so he held on to the Angel with all His might.

If we draw toward God when we are tested, we will gain the victory. However, if we give up, all will be lost! We are to rend our heart so that we may have this genuine faith that God wants to be in us. Just as Jacob, who realized that there was no one else to turn to, God's people will do the same at the end but before God's mercy ends.

They will realize by faith that God is gracious and merciful, that He is slow to anger, and He has great kindness. If we plead with Him, He will repent of His anger to us and save us. We are already familiar with the sealing of the , In Revelation 7 we find that it is imperative that the , must be sealed before the real trouble of the last days begins.

What about the 144,000 mentioned in Revelation 14?

Apparently there is a protection that is acquired through this sealing. It is interesting that the angels are having to wait for the , to get sealed. Apparently some of God's people are not yet ready and have not been sealed. But it does not seem likely that the reason why the , are not already sealed, when the four angels were first about to release the four winds of strife, is due to angels not getting the task done in time.

It seems more likely that there is something that God's people must do in order to be sealed. Because it takes trial and hardship for God's people to be prepared, it would make sense that this might take some time. Thus, some of the , are not ready when the winds are about to blow and so God mercifully has the angels wait until they are safely sealed.

We will see indications of this idea, as we study some of the parables of Christ. Many people, when they read Christ's parables, believe He is just giving simple parables to illustrate spiritual truths. But many of these parables actually describe things that will happen at the end of time. In addition, it is the , who will experience them. If it takes trial and persecution for the righteous to be prepared and sealed, we might expect that Jesus might talk about what is needful. We would expect that God would make sure that what they need to understand would be in the Bible.

Here is a parable that relates to people of all ages. But it especially relates to the , This parable or story shows how important heaven should be to us. We will see that it is everything to the , The Kingdom of heaven is like treasure that is hidden in the field, says Jesus. It is also like one who wants to buy an expensive pearl and he wants it so much that he sells all that he has to buy it. In spite of it being so important to our future, because let's face it, the time of end is soon to come upon us; When the end comes many will be destroyed:. It may be that to gain the Seal of God, God's people will really have to give their all to Him.

Otherwise they will not obtain it. Is that why the angels will have to wait on God's people to be sealed, because they had not given God everything in their life quite yet? To gain heaven, the , will have to give themselves to God fully. The majority of the world's people will choose to do anything but to give themselves to God.

They will be destroyed in the fire and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth! In Matthew 22, Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is like a king who's son was getting married. So, the king asked a lot of people to come to the wedding. However they would not come. So the King had other servants go out and ask these same people to come. But they all had various excuses. Then the king got angry and actually killed those people with his army. Those who were originally invited were not worthy, said the king. So the king sent his servants out into the highways to urge others to come.

Let's see what the king found when he came to see them:. This story is not just a story but it is a prophetic story. It is a serious story because God has sent His Son that they may be saved and that they can come to the marriage feast. A large class will be destroyed just as the story depicts.

We also see that it is not enough to just come to the wedding. The right clothing must be worn. As it was important to this king that everyone must have on the right wedding garment; Well, it is extremely important to the King of Heaven that we also come with the right wedding garment as well! Why is this wedding garment so important? Well, do you realize that Jesus is going to be married to His church? Those who come to the marriage feast will be spotless. So, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb!

His saints, the , will be righteous because their wedding garment also represent their righteous character which is pure and spotless. This means the , will be like Christ because they will have His righteousness. It is not our righteousness but through the faith of Christ the , will have the righteousness of Christ. It is of God! The wicked will have their own wicked character. So they will be destroyed when wickedness is destroyed.

Since we receive the righteousness of Christ, it is easy to see that this marriage actually represents the union of humanity with divinity. The Parable of the ten virgins adds to our understanding of having the righteousness of Christ, of having the right wedding garment. The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps with them to meet the bridegroom:.

Five of these virgins were wise but five were foolish. The foolish took no oil which represents the Holy Spirit. They took no or little part in their devotions and prayer.

1. Who Are the 144,000 of Revelation 7 and 14??
2. .
3. SETI: Astronomy as a Contact Sport: A Conversation with Jill Tarter!
4. Ready to Rumble;
5. .
6. For the Record III: Still More Encouraging Words for Ordinary Catholics;
7. .

They had not continued their watch to look for the bridegroom's arrival, who is Christ. So they were not gaining any strength from the Holy Spirit for the time ahead. Even though all ten were sleeping, five of them were prepared because they had continued to watch through prayer and through their study of the Bible. But something strange has happened. It is now past time when no man can buy salvation at any price. When the foolish now try to gain salvation, the door is shut! When the Lord says: This is a clue that Jesus is speaking of one who has not prayed and studied for themselves so that God would know that person in a spiritual way.

The , will have struggled with God in prayer. This means they have gone to the throne of grace that their sins could be forgiven by Jesus our High Priest and that they would be victorious. The , will be spending long hours to God in prayer. But the troubled events of the last days will be held back until the , will be ready. The oil that the five virgins carried represents the work of the Holy Spirit in changing the lives of Christ's followers. They take on the righteousness of Christ which means they would have on the wedding garments of righteousness.

There is one atribute which the , will have that will especially distinguish them from the rest of the world:. In the past God was looking for those who were sighing and crying over the sins of Jerusalem.

In many ways, the time of the end will be much like the time when Ezekiel was alive. The , will be sighing and crying over all the sins that are being done. It seems that as they have become more like Christ, that evil will be more hateful to them. So they will be giving reproofs and warnings to the wicked and they will weep over them. So, it looks like the , will become more like prophets. However, much like the prophet Jeremiah, they will be powerless to stop all the iniquity that surrounds them and they will be filled with grief and alarm because they will know where these people are headed.

They are headed for destruction, and that is why the , will cry over them.

• Routledge Handbook on the European Union and International Institutions: Performance, Policy, Power (Routledge Handbooks);
• Revelation 7 NIV - , Sealed - After this I saw four - Bible Gateway.
• Missionary Work at Red Wing, 1849 to 1852 (1905) [Revised Illustrated Edition]!
• Who Are the , of Revelation 7 and 14? : Christian Courier;
• .

With tears they will warn the wicked just like the prophets before them. But the wicked will only mock them. We have seen that Jesus has told us in more than a few places that God's people, the , of the last generation, will have some preparing to do. It is true that they will be given Christ's righteousness, but in order to receive that righteousness, they will have to respond to God in a certain way.

God wants us to do His good pleasure. But not only does God want that, but He also wants us to will ourselves to do those good works. God wants us to do His good pleasure because that is what we want to do. This is what this text is saying, that God is working to get us to the place where we will both will and to do His good pleasure. In order to will and to do His good pleasure, we are to present our bodies a living sacrifice which is acceptable to God. This is our reasonable service to God. We are not to be conformed to this world but we are to be transformed, so that we can prove the perfect will of God.

The ten virgins, the wedding garment, the pearl of great price, and the fact that the angels are having to wait to seal all of God's people, the last generation just before the time of trouble; All of these parables indicate that the , of the last generation will have a special work to do so that they can be sealed. Because of this, they will also have a special relation to God and His Son Jesus. The , will present themselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. This will be their reasonable service to God.

Their minds will be transformed and renewed so that they can do what is good and acceptable, the perfect will of God because they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. We also saw that we should not think it strange to have fiery trials in our lives because of our connection with Christ.

This fire will test each one of us but it will result in genuine faith if we stay faithful. All of this speaks of the same kind of experience that Jacob had and it is why the whole experience of the ,, at the end is named: The Time of Jacob's Trouble. In this experience, they will wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb. The , and the Seal of God. What does the Bible tell about God's people at the End of Time? See how Job's experience explains what the , will experience and how Satan will try to trick and force his way. Click on the link to the Left A new window will appear. This issue could play a rather large and central role in the way Satan attacks the , in the last days?

To learn more about the Mark of the Beast and how the Sabbath relates. I have been studying the information from your website, particularly about the , elect. What I am curious about is, are the , representative of all people who are saved throughout history, or is that number only referencing the amount who are alive at the end? I am understandably concerned about this. Yes, I believe that the , are those who will be living when Jesus comes.

It does not include nor represents all the righteous people who are saved throughout history. I believe it is the specific number of the righteous who are still alive when Jesus comes. Let's look at a little evidence. We see that there will be two groups of righteous people when Jesus comes. Those who were dead are the first group.

Why is the , Righteous?

They are risen from the dead when Jesus comes. The other group which are alive and remain until Jesus comes, This is the ,! So, when Jesus comes, He will descend from heaven with a shout and the dead in Christ will rise first. So all the people who are God's righteous people will rise again at the second coming. Then all the people which are yet alive on the earth and remain; This is the ,, which are the people that are righteous, who are alive when Jesus comes.

Now in in the next Scripture we see that those who are God's servants, the righteous, who are yet living, they will be sealed with the seal of the living God. The dangers of the last days is just about to come upon the earth, but there is an urgent cry. The angels must hold back the winds of the earth. The , must be sealed before all the winds of the earth is allowed to happen.

They must be fully sealed to that they can be fully protected. The , do not die, but they are redeemed from the earth: And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand , having his Father's name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins.

These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile: They shall hunger, and thirst and more but they will be victorious having come out of great tribulation. They have washed their robes making them white with the blood of the lamb. So, the , only references the people who are alive at the end.

Who are the 144,000?

I personally believe that there will also be many martyrs at the end as well. How does their experience get them ready for What they will Face? But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving without natural affection , unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of those that are good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power.

And from such people turn away! He answered and said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. And many such things you do. But your iniquities have separated you from your God ; And your sins have hidden His face from you , So that He will not hear.

One who turns away his ear from hearing the law , Even his prayer is an abomination. If I regard iniquity in my heart , The Lord will not hear us. Judgement and The Seal of God Toward the end of the world, the wicked will have fully joined up with Satan. So, the Lord will have a controversy with all the nations on earth and He will judge all people: A noise shall come to the ends of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with the nations ; He will enter into judgment with all flesh.

He will give those who are wicked to the sword, says the LORD. For behold, the LORD comes out of His place To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity ; The earth will also disclose her blood, And will no more cover her slain. They shall not be lamented, or gathered, or buried; they shall become refuse on the ground.

But the , will not receive death: One hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed: And He cried in my ears with a loud voice, saying, Let the overseers of the city draw near, even each with his destroying weapon in his hand. And behold, six men came from the way of the Upper Gate which faces north, and each had his battle-ax in his hand. And one man among them was clothed with linen, and a writer's inkhorn by his side. And they went in and stood beside the bronze altar. And He called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer's inkhorn at his side; and the LORD said to him, "Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it.

To the others He said in my hearing, " Go after him through the city and kill; do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity. The other point is that God will slay the wicked and He will not have any pity toward them So it was, that while they were killing them, I was left alone; and I fell on my face and cried out , and said, " Ah, Lord GOD! Will You destroy all the remnant of Israel in pouring out Your fury on Jerusalem? You can cancel anytime during the trial period.

To subscribe at our regular subscription rate, click the button below. To manage your subscription, visit your Bible Gateway account settings. Upgrade, and get the most out of your new account. Try it free for 30 days. Revelation 6 Revelation 8. Enrich your faith and grow in spiritual maturity with the incredible Bible study and devotional books listed below.

Try it for 30 days FREE.

BibleGateway

Cancel at any time. You must be logged in to view your newly purchased content. Please log in below or if you don't have an account, creating one is easy and only takes a few moments. After you log in your content will be available in your library. More on the NIV.



• .
• Wisdom for Living - Volume 1.
• The 144,000 in Revelation 7.

Print Twitter Facebook Email.